"Vanity Fair" was published in 1848, and at once placed its
author in the front rank of novelists. It was followed by
"Pendennis" in 1850, "Esmond" in 1852, "The Newcomes" in 1855,
and "The Virginians" in 1859. Some critics profess to see
manifested in "Vanity Fair" a certain sharpness and sarcasm in
Thackeray's character which does not appear in his later
works, but however much the author may have mellowed in his
later novels, "Vanity Fair" continues to be his acknowledged
masterpiece, and of all the characters he drew, Becky Sharp is
the best known.
_I.--Miss Sharp Opens Her Campaign_
One sunshiny morning in June there drove up to the great iron gate of
Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large
family coach with two fat horses in blazing harness.
"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. The day of
departure had come, and Miss Amelia Sedley, an amiable young lady, was
glad to go home, and yet woefully sad at leaving school. Miss Rebecca
Sharp, whose father had been an artist, accompanied Amelia, to pass a
week with her friend in Russell Square before she entered upon her
duties as governess in Sir Pitt Crawley's family.
Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it was quite
a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not
quite a new one for Rebecca, who, before she came to the Mall, as a
governess-pupil, had turned many a dun away from her father's door. She
had never been a girl, she said: she had been a woman since she was
eight years old.
At Russell Square Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which
Joseph Sedley of the East India Company's Civil Service had brought home
to his sister, said with perfect truth that it must be delightful to
have a brother, and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for
being alone in the world. A series of queries, addressed to her friend,
brought Rebecca, who was but nineteen, to the following conclusion:--"As
Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I
have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." I
don't think we have any right to blame her, if Rebecca did not set her
heart upon the conquest of this beau, for she had no kind parents to
arrange these delicate matters for her.
But Mr. Joseph Sedley, greedy, vain, and cowardly, would not be brought
up to the sticking point. Young George Osborne, Captain of the --th, old
Sedley's godson, and the accepted lover of Amelia, thought Joseph was a
milksop. He turned over in his mind, as the Sedleys did, the possibility
of marriage between Joseph and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased
that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, was going to
marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody--a little upstart
governess. "Hang it, the family's low enough already without _her_,"
Osborne said to his friend Captain Dobbin. "A governess is all very
well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal
man; but I've proper pride, and know my own station: let her know hers.
And I'll take down that hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made
a greater fool than he is. That's why I told him to look out, lest she
brought an action against him."
Joseph Sedley fled to Cheltenham, and Rebecca said in her heart, "It was
George Osborne who prevented my marriage." And she loved George Osborne
accordingly.
Miss Amelia would have been delighted that Joseph should carry back a
wife to India. Old Mr. Sedley was neutral. "Let Joseph marry whom he
likes," he said to his wife. "It's no affair of mine. This girl has no
fortune; no more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever,
and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black
Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren. As I am perfectly
sure that if you and I and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would
say 'Good Gad!' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not going
to make myself anxious about him. Let him marry whom he likes. It's no
affair of mine."
If he had had the courage, Joseph Sedley's bachelorhood would have been
at an end. He did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was
in love with Miss Sharp; the passion of love never interfered with the
appetite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph Sedley; but he thought to himself
how delightful it would be to hear such songs as Miss Sharp could sing
in India--what a _distinguée_ girl she was--how she could speak French
better than the governor-general's lady herself--and what a sensation
she would make at the Calcutta balls. "It's evident the poor devil's in
love with me" thought he. "She is just as rich as most of the girls who
come out to India. I might go further and fare worse, egad!"
Then came an evening at Vauxhall, on which occasion Dobbin, George
Osborne, and Joseph Sedley escorted Amelia and Rebecca, and the Indian
civilian got hopelessly tipsy on a bowl of rack punch. The next morning,
which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune, found Sedley
groaning in agonies, soothing the fever of his previous night's potation
with small beer--for soda water was not invented yet. George Osborne,
calling upon him, so frightened the unhappy Joseph with stories of his
overnight performance, that instead of proposing marriage Joseph Sedley
hastened away to Cheltenham that day, sending a note to Amelia praying
her to excuse him to Miss Sharp for his conduct.
It was now clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia, that
Rebecca should take her departure, and accordingly she set out for the
residence of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, of Queen's Crawley, Hants. Sir
Pitt had two sons by his first wife, Pitt and Rawdon; and by his second
wife, two daughters,--for whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now
engaged as governess. It will be seen that the young lady was come into
a family of very genteel connections, and was about to move in a much
more distinguished circle than the one she had just quitted in Russell
Square.
_II.--Two Marriages_
Before Rebecca had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite won the
Baronet's confidence. She was almost mistress of the house when Mr.
Crawley was absent, but conducted herself in her new and exalted
situation with such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the
authorities of the kitchen and stable.
The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley hated each other
cordially, and Rawdon Crawley, who was in the heavy dragoons, seldom
came to the place except when Miss Crawley paid her annual visit. The
great good quality of this old lady was that she possessed seventy
thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon.
Both Miss Crawley and Rawdon were charmed with Rebecca, and on Lady
Crawley's death Sir Pitt said to his children's governess, "I can't get
on without you. Come and be my wife. You're as good a lady as ever I
see. Say yes, Becky. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you happy, see
if I don't."
Rebecca started back a picture of consternation, "O Sir Pitt!" she
said--"O sir--I--I'm married already!"
* * * * *
"Suppose the old lady doesn't come round, eh, Becky?" Rawdon said to his
little wife, as they sat together in their snug Brompton lodgings, a few
weeks later.
"_I'll_ make your fortune," she said.
But old Miss Crawley did not come round, and Captain Rawdon Crawley and
Rebecca went to Brussels in June 1815 with the flower of the British
Army.
Another young married couple also went to Brussels at that time, Captain
George Osborne and Amelia his wife.
The landing of Napoleon at Cannes in March, 1815, brought, amongst other
things, ruin to the worthy old stockbroker John Sedley, and the most
determined and obstinate of his creditors was his old friend and
neighbour John Osborne--whom he had set up in life, and whose son was to
marry his daughter, and who consequently had the intolerable sense of
former benefit to goad and irritate him.
Joseph Sedley acted as a man of his disposition would; when the
announcement of the family misfortune reached him. He did not come to
London, but he wrote to his mother to draw upon his agents for whatever
money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old parents had no
present poverty to fear. This done, Joseph went on at his boarding-house
at Cheltenham pretty much as before.
Amelia took the news very pale and calmly. A brutal letter from John
Osborne told her in a few curt lines that all engagements between the
families were at an end, and old Joseph Sedley spoke with almost equal
bitterness. No power on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his
daughter to the son of such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish
George from her mind.
It was Captain William Dobbin, who, having made up his mind that Miss
Sedley would die of the disappointment, found himself the great promoter
of the match between George Osborne and Amelia.
To old Sedley's refusal Dobbin answered finally, "If you don't give your
daughter your consent it will be her duty to marry without it. What
better answer can there be to Osborne's attacks on you, than that his
son claims to enter your family and marry your daughter?"
George Osborne parted in anger from his father.
"I ain't going to have any of this damn sentimental nonsense here, sir,"
old Osborne cried out at the end of the interview. "There shall be no
beggar-marriages in my family." He pulled frantically at the cord to
summon the butler and, almost black in the face, ordered that
functionary to call a coach for Captain Osborne.
George told Dobbin what had passed between his father and himself.
"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said, with an oath. "I love her more
every day, Dobbin."
So on a gusty, raw day at the aid of April Captain Osborne and Captain
Dobbin drove down to a certain chapel near the Fulham Road.
"Here you are," said Joseph Sedley, coming forward. "What a day, eh?
You're five minutes late, George, my boy. Come along; my mother and Emmy
are in the vestry."
There was nobody in the church besides the officiating persons and a
small marriage party and their attendants. Old Sedley would not be
present. Joseph acted for his father giving away the bride, whilst
Captain Dobbin stepped up as groomsman to his friend George.
"God bless you, old Dobbin," George said, grasping him by the hand, when
they went into the vestry and signed the register. William replied only
by nodding his head; his heart was too full to say much.
Ten days after the above ceremony Dobbin came down to Brighton, where
not only Captain Osborne and Amelia, but also the Rawdon Crawleys were
enjoying themselves, with news. He had seen old Osborne, and tried to
reconcile him to his son's marriage, with the result that he left the
implacable old man in a fit. He had also learnt from his old Colonel
that in a day or two the army would get its marching orders, for
Belgium.
"It's my opinion, George," he said, "that the French Emperor will be
upon us before three weeks are over. But you need not say that to Mrs.
Osborne, you know, and Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of
fashion."
Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion of her
husband's friend, Captain Dobbin. He was very plain and homely-looking,
and exceedingly awkward and ungainly. Not knowing him intimately as yet,
she made light of honest William; and he knew her opinions of him quite
well, and acquiesced in them very humbly. A time came when she knew him
better, and changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant as
yet.
As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours in the ladies'
company before she understood his secret perfectly. She did not like
him, and feared him privately. He was so honest, that her arts did not
affect him, and he shrank from her with instinctive repugnance.
On May 8 George Osborne received a letter from his father's lawyer,
informing him that "in consequence of the marriage which he had been
pleased to contract Mr. Osborne ceases to consider him henceforth as a
member of his family. This determination is final and irrevocable."
Within a week of this epistle George Osborne and his wife, Dobbin,
Joseph Sedley, and the Rawdon Crawleys, were on their way to Brussels.
_III.--After Waterloo_
About three weeks after the 18th of June, Alderman Sir William Dobbin
called at Mr. Osborne's house in Russell Square, and insisted upon
seeing that gentleman. "My son," the Alderman said, with some
hesitation, "dispatched me a letter by an officer of the --th, who
arrived in town to-day. My son's letter contains one for you, Osborne."
The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting. He had written
it before daybreak on the 16th of June, just before he took leave of
Amelia. The very seal that sealed it had been robbed from George's dead
body on the field of battle. The father knew nothing of this, but sat
and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy.
The poor boy's letter did not say much. He had been too proud to
acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt. He only said that on
the eve of a great battle he wished to bid his father farewell, and
solemnly to implore his good offices for the wife--it might be for the
child--whom he had left behind. His English habit, pride, awkwardness,
perhaps, had prevented him from saying more. His father could not see
the kiss George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr.
Osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked
affection and revenge. His son was still beloved and unforgiven.
Two months afterwards an elaborate funeral monument to the memory of
Captain George Osborne appeared on the wall of the church which Mr.
Osborne attended, and in the autumn the old man went to Belgium.
George's widow was still in Brussels, and very many of the brave --th,
recovering of their wounds. The city was a vast military hospital for
months after the great battle.
Mr. Osborne made the journey of Waterloo and Quarter Bras soon after his
arrival, and his carriage, nearing the gates of the city at sunset, met
another open barouche by the side of which an officer was riding.
Osborne gave a start back, but Amelia, for it was she, though she stared
blank in his face did not know him. Her face was white and thin; her
eyes were fixed, and looked nowhere. Osborne saw who it was and hated
her--he did not know how much until he saw her there. Her carriage
passed on; a minute afterwards a horse came clattering over the pavement
behind Osborne's carriage, and Major Dobbin rode up.
"Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, while the other shouted to his
servant to drive on. "I will see you, sir; I have a message for you."
"From that woman?" said Osborne fiercely.
"No, from your son." At which Osborne fell back into his carriage and
Dobbin followed him to his hotel and up to his apartments.
"Make it short, sir," said Osborne, with an oath.
"I'm here as your son's closest friend," said the Major, "and the
executor of his will. Are you aware how small his means were, and of the
straitened circumstances of his widow? Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's
condition? Her life and her reason almost have been shaken by the blow
which has fallen on her. She will be a mother soon. Will you visit the
parent's offence upon the child's head? Or will you forgive the child
for poor George's sake?"
Osborne broke into a rhapsody of self praise and imprecations. No father
in all England could have behaved more generously to a son who had
rebelled against him, and had died without even confessing he was wrong.
As for himself, he had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to
recognise her as his son's wife. "And that's what I will stick to till
the last day of my life," he concluded, with an oath.
There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow must live on her
slender pittance, or on such aid as Joseph could give her.
For six years Amelia did live on this pittance in shabby genteel poverty
with her boy and her parents in Fulham. Dobbin and Joseph Sedley were in
India now, and old Sedley, always speculating in bootless schemes, once
more brought ruin on his family.
Mr. Osborne had seen his grandson, and had formally offered to take the
boy and make him heir to the fortune intended for his father. He would
make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, such as to assure her a decent
competency. But it must be understood that the child would live entirely
with his grandfather in Russell Square, and that he would be
occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence.
At first Amelia rejected the offer with indignation. It was only on the
knowledge that her father, in his speculations, had made away with the
annuity from Joseph that poverty and misery made her capitulate. Her
own, pittance would barely enable her to support her parents, and would
not suffice for her son.
"What! Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said when with a
tremulous, eager voice, Miss Osborne, the only unmarried daughter, read
him Amelia's letter.
"Regular starve out, hey? ha, ha! I knew she would." He tried to keep
his dignity, as he chuckled and swore to himself behind his paper.
"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready. And you had better
send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said before he went out. "She
shan't want for nothing. Send her a hundred pound. But she don't come in
here, mind. No, not for all the money in London."
A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is
consummated. The child is sacrificed and offered up to fate, and the
widow is quite alone.
It was about this time when the Rawdon Crawleys, after contriving to
live well on nothing a year, for a considerable period, came to smash.
Rawdon retired to the Governorship of Coventry Island, a post procured
for him by the influence of that great nobleman the Marquis of Steyne,
and who cared what became of Becky? It was said she went to Naples.
Rawdon certainly declined to be reconciled to her, because of the money
she had received from Lord Steyne and which she had concealed from her
husband. "If she's not guilty, she's as bad as guilty; and I'll never
see her again--never," he said.
_IV.--Colonel Dobbin Leaves the Army_
Good fortune began to smile upon Amelia when Joseph Sedley, once more
came back to England, a rich man, and with him Major Dobbin. But the
round of decorous pleasure in which the Sedley family now indulged was
soon broken by Mrs. Sedley's death, and old Sedley was not long in
following his wife whither she had preceded him.
A change was coming over old Osborne's mind. He found that Major Dobbin
was a distinguished officer, and one day looking into his grandson's
accounts he learnt that it was out of William Dobbin's own pocket the
fund had been supplied upon which the poor widow and the child had
subsisted.
Then the pair shook hands, and after that the Major would often come and
dine at the gloomy old house in Russell Square. He tried to soften the
old man and reconcile him towards his son's memory, and more than once
Mr. Osborne asked him about Mrs. George Osborne. A reconciliation was
announced as speedy and inevitable, when one morning old Osborne was
found lying at the foot of his dressing-table in a fit. He never could
speak again and in four days he died.
When the will was opened, it was seen that half the property was left to
his grandson, George, and the remainder to two married daughters. An
annuity of £500 was left to "the widow of my beloved son, George
Osborne," who was to resume the guardianship of the boy, and "Major
William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was appointed executor.
That summer Major Dobbin and Joseph Sedley escorted the widow and her
boy to the Continent and at Pumpernickel, in a happy valley in Germany,
Joseph renewed acquaintance with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, and after a long
and confidential talk was convinced that Becky was the most virtuous as
she was one of the most fascinating of women. Amelia was won over at the
tale of Becky's sufferings, but Major Dobbin was obdurate. Amelia
declined to give up Becky, and Major Dobbin said "good-bye."
Amelia didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him, and his
departure left her broken and cast down. Becky bore Dobbin no rancour
for the part he had taken against her. It was an open move; she was in
the game and played fairly. She even admired him, and now that she was
in comfortable quarters, made no scruple of declaring her admiration for
the high-minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had behaved most
cruelly regarding him.
From Pumpernickel Joseph and Amelia were persuaded to go to Ostend, and
here, while Becky was cut by scores of people, two ruffians, Major Loder
and Captain Rook, easily got an introduction to Mr. Joseph Sedley's
hospitable board.
Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of these men remain
alone with Amelia.
"Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky that same night; "you must go away
from here. You are no more fit to live in the world than a baby in arms.
You must marry or you and your precious boy will go to ruin. You must
have a husband, you fool; and one of the best gentlemen I ever saw has
offered you an hundred times, and you have ejected him, you silly,
heartless, ungrateful little creature!"
"I--I wrote to him this morning," Emmy said, blushing exceedingly.
Only George and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony. Colonel
Dobbin quitted the service immediately after his marriage, and rented a
pretty little place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley.
His excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died of yellow fever at Coventry
Island, six weeks before the death of his brother Sir Pitt, who had
succeeded to the title.
Rebecca, Lady Crawley (so she called herself, though she never was
_Lady_ Crawley) has a liberal allowance, and chiefly hangs about Bath
and Cheltenham, where a very strong party of excellent people consider
her a most injured woman.
Ah! _Vanitas Vanitatum_! which of us is happy in this world?
* * * * *