Vanity Fair (illustrated)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  “Les moustaches,” gasped Joe; “les moustaches — coupy, rasy, vite!” — his French was of this sort — voluble, as we have said, but not remarkable for grammar.

  Mr. Jos shaves off his mustachios

  Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor, and heard with inexpressible delight his master’s orders that he should fetch a hat and a plain coat. “Ne porty ploo — habit militair — bonn — bonny a voo, prenny dehors” — were Jos’s words — the coat and cap were at last his property.

  This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat and waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth, and a plain beaver. If he could have got a shovel hat he would have worn it. As it was, you would have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson of the Church of England.

  “Venny maintenong,” he continued, “sweevy — ally — party — dong la roo.” And so having said, he plunged swiftly down the stairs of the house, and passed into the street.

  Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only man of his regiment or of the allied army, almost, who had escaped being cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared that his statement was incorrect, and that a good number more of the supposed victims had survived the massacre. Many scores of Regulus’s comrades had found their way back to Brussels, and all agreeing that they had run away — filled the whole town with an idea of the defeat of the allies. The arrival of the French was expected hourly; the panic continued, and preparations for flight went on everywhere. No horses! thought Jos, in terror. He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers returned everywhere. Should he take the journey on foot? Even fear could not render that ponderous body so active.

  Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels face the Parc, and Jos wandered irresolutely about in this quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by fear and curiosity. Some families he saw more happy than himself, having discovered a team of horses, and rattling through the streets in retreat; others again there were whose case was like his own, and who could not for any bribes or entreaties procure the necessary means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power which kept Jos stationary.

  Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings with the ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs when they met by chance; and in all places where the latter’s name was mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour. The Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto with the aide-de-camp’s wife. The Lady Blanche avoided her as if she had been an infectious disease. Only the Earl himself kept up a sly occasional acquaintance with her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies.

  Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies. If became known in the hotel that Captain Crawley’s horses had been left behind, and when the panic began, Lady Bareacres condescended to send her maid to the Captain’s wife with her Ladyship’s compliments, and a desire to know the price of Mrs. Crawley’s horses. Mrs. Crawley returned a note with her compliments, and an intimation that it was not her custom to transact bargains with ladies’ maids.

  This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky’s apartment; but he could get no more success than the first ambassador. “Send a lady’s maid to ME!” Mrs. Crawley cried in great anger; “why didn’t my Lady Bareacres tell me to go and saddle the horses! Is it her Ladyship that wants to escape, or her Ladyship’s femme de chambre?” And this was all the answer that the Earl bore back to his Countess.

  What will not necessity do? The Countess herself actually came to wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure of her second envoy. She entreated her to name her own price; she even offered to invite Becky to Bareacres House, if the latter would but give her the means of returning to that residence. Mrs. Crawley sneered at her.

  “I don’t want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery,” she said; “you will never get back though most probably — at least not you and your diamonds together. The French will have those They will be here in two hours, and I shall be half way to Ghent by that time. I would not sell you my horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that your Ladyship wore at the ball.” Lady Bareacres trembled with rage and terror. The diamonds were sewed into her habit, and secreted in my Lord’s padding and boots. “Woman, the diamonds are at the banker’s, and I WILL have the horses,” she said. Rebecca laughed in her face. The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her carriage; her maid, her courier, and her husband were sent once more through the town, each to look for cattle; and woe betide those who came last! Her Ladyship was resolved on departing the very instant the horses arrived from any quarter — with her husband or without him.

  Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in the horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and bewailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the Countess’s perplexities. “Not to be able to get horses!” she said, “and to have all those diamonds sewed into the carriage cushions! What a prize it will be for the French when they come! — the carriage and the diamonds, I mean; not the lady!” She gave this information to the landlord, to the servants, to the guests, and the innumerable stragglers about the courtyard. Lady Bareacres could have shot her from the carriage window.

  It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that Rebecca caught sight of Jos, who made towards her directly he perceived her.

  That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well enough. He too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out for the means of escape. “HE shall buy my horses,” thought Rebecca, “and I’ll ride the mare.”

  Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the hundredth time during the past hour, “Did she know where horses were to be had?”

  “What, YOU fly?” said Rebecca, with a laugh. “I thought you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr. Sedley.”

  “I — I’m not a military man,” gasped he.

  “And Amelia? — Who is to protect that poor little sister of yours?” asked Rebecca. “You surely would not desert her?”

  “What good can I do her, suppose — suppose the enemy arrive?” Jos answered. “They’ll spare the women; but my man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no quarter to the men — the dastardly cowards.”

  “Horrid!” cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity.

  “Besides, I don’t want to desert her,” cried the brother. “She SHAN’T be deserted. There is a seat for her in my carriage, and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will come; and if we can get horses — ” sighed he —

  “I have two to sell,” the lady said. Jos could have flung himself into her arms at the news. “Get the carriage, Isidor,” he cried; “we’ve found them — we have found them.”

  My horses never were in harness,” added the lady. “Bullfinch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put him in the traces.”

  “But he is quiet to ride?” asked the civilian.

  “As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare,” answered Rebecca.

  “Do you think he is up to my weight?” Jos said. He was already on his back, in imagination, without ever so much as a thought for poor Amelia. What person who loved a horse-speculation could resist such a temptation?

  In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither he followed her quite breathless to conclude the bargain. Jos seldom spent a half-hour in his life which cost him so much money. Rebecca, measuring the value of the goods which she had for sale by Jos’s eagerness to purchase, as well as by the scarcity of the article, put upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even the civilian draw back. “She would sell both or neither,” she said, resolutely. Rawdon had ordered her not to part with them for a price less than that which s
he specified. Lord Bareacres below would give her the same money — and with all her love and regard for the Sedley family, her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor people must live — nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but more firm about the matter of business.

  Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him. The sum he had to give her was so large that he was obliged to ask for time; so large as to be a little fortune to Rebecca, who rapidly calculated that with this sum, and the sale of the residue of Rawdon’s effects, and her pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be absolutely independent of the world, and might look her weeds steadily in the face.

  Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought about flying. But her reason gave her better counsel. “Suppose the French do come,” thought Becky, “what can they do to a poor officer’s widow? Bah! the times of sacks and sieges are over. We shall be let to go home quietly, or I may live pleasantly abroad with a snug little income.”

  Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to inspect the newly purchased cattle. Jos bade his man saddle the horses at once. He would ride away that very night, that very hour. And he left the valet busy in getting the horses ready, and went homewards himself to prepare for his departure. It must be secret. He would go to his chamber by the back entrance. He did not care to face Mrs. O’Dowd and Amelia, and own to them that he was about to run.

  By the time Jos’s bargain with Rebecca was completed, and his horses had been visited and examined, it was almost morning once more. But though midnight was long passed, there was no rest for the city; the people were up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still about the doors, and the streets were busy. Rumours of various natures went still from mouth to mouth: one report averred that the Prussians had been utterly defeated; another that it was the English who had been attacked and conquered: a third that the latter had held their ground. This last rumour gradually got strength. No Frenchmen had made their appearance. Stragglers had come in from the army bringing reports more and more favourable: at last an aide-de-camp actually reached Brussels with despatches for the Commandant of the place, who placarded presently through the town an official announcement of the success of the allies at Quatre Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney after a six hours’ battle. The aide-de-camp must have arrived sometime while Jos and Rebecca were making their bargain together, or the latter was inspecting his purchase. When he reached his own hotel, he found a score of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing of the news; there was no doubt as to its truth. And he went up to communicate it to the ladies under his charge. He did not think it was necessary to tell them how he had intended to take leave of them, how he had bought horses, and what a price he had paid for them.

  But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who had only thought for the safety of those they loved. Amelia, at the news of the victory, became still more agitated even than before. She was for going that moment to the army. She besought her brother with tears to conduct her thither. Her doubts and terrors reached their paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for many hours had been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither and thither in hysteric insanity — a piteous sight. No man writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave — no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless victim of the war. Jos could not bear the sight of her pain. He left his sister in the charge of her stouter female companion, and descended once more to the threshold of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, and talked, and waited for more news.

  It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh news began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had been actors in the scene. Wagons and long country carts laden with wounded came rolling into the town; ghastly groans came from within them, and haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw. Jos Sedley was looking at one of these carriages with a painful curiosity — the moans of the people within were frightful — the wearied horses could hardly pull the cart. “Stop! stop!” a feeble voice cried from the straw, and the carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley’s hotel.

  “It is George, I know it is!” cried Amelia, rushing in a moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing hair. It was not George, however, but it was the next best thing: it was news of him.

  It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of Brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing the colours of the regiment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the field. A French lancer had speared the young ensign in the leg, who fell, still bravely holding to his flag. At the conclusion of the engagement, a place had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and he had been brought back to Brussels.

  “Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!” cried the boy, faintly, and Jos came up almost frightened at the appeal. He had not at first distinguished who it was that called him.

  Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. “I’m to be taken in here,” he said. “Osborne — and — and Dobbin said I was; and you are to give the man two napoleons: my mother will pay you.” This young fellow’s thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in the cart, had been wandering to his father’s parsonage which he had quitted only a few months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his pain in that delirium.

  The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the inmates of the cart were taken in and placed on various couches. The young ensign was conveyed upstairs to Osborne’s quarters. Amelia and the Major’s wife had rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him from the balcony. You may fancy the feelings of these women when they were told that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe; in what mute rapture Amelia fell on her good friend’s neck, and embraced her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her husband.

  Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by any physician than that which chance put in her way. She and Mrs. O’Dowd watched incessantly by the wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in the duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood over her personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her own fears and forebodings after her wont. The young patient told in his simple fashion the events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the gallant -th. They had suffered severely. They had lost very many officers and men. The Major’s horse had been shot under him as the regiment charged, and they all thought that O’Dowd was gone, and that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their return from the charge to their old ground, the Major was discovered seated on Pyramus’s carcase, refreshing himself from a case-bottle. It was Captain Osborne that cut down the French lancer who had speared the ensign. Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O’Dowd stopped the young ensign in this story. And it was Captain Dobbin who at the end of the day, though wounded himself, took up the lad in his arms and carried him to the surgeon, and thence to the cart which was to bring him back to Brussels. And it was he who promised the driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley’s hotel in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the action was over, and that her husband was unhurt and well.

  “Indeed, but he has a good heart that William Dobbin,” Mrs. O’Dowd said, “though he is always laughing at me.”

  Young Stubble vowed there was not such another officer in the army, and never ceased his praises of the senior captain, his modesty, his kindness, and his admirable coolness in the field. To these parts of the conversation, Amelia lent a very distracted attention: it was only when George was spoken of that she listened, and when he was not mentioned, she thought about him.

  In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful escapes of the day before, her second day passed away not too slowly with Amelia. There was only one man in the army for her: and as long as he was well, it must be owned that its movements interested her little. All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell
very vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that timorous gentleman, and many other people then in Brussels, every disquiet. The French had been repulsed certainly, but it was after a severe and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the French army. The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny, where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was now free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. The Duke of Wellington was retreating upon the capital, and a great battle must be fought under its walls probably, of which the chances were more than doubtful. The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand British troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were raw militia, the Belgians disaffected, and with this handful his Grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into Belgium under Napoleon. Under Napoleon! What warrior was there, however famous and skilful, that could fight at odds with him?

  Jos thought of all these things, and trembled. So did all the rest of Brussels — where people felt that the fight of the day before was but the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent. One of the armies opposed to the Emperor was scattered to the winds already. The few English that could be brought to resist him would perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over their bodies into the city. Woe be to those whom he found there! Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated secretly, apartments were got ready, and tricoloured banners and triumphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of His Majesty the Emperor and King.

  The emigration still continued, and wherever families could find means of departure, they fled. When Jos, on the afternoon of the 17th of June, went to Rebecca’s hotel, he found that the great Bareacres’ carriage had at length rolled away from the porte-cochere. The Earl had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of Mrs. Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent. Louis the Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city, too. It seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of worrying into motion that unwieldy exile.