CHAPTER LXV

Full of Business and Pleasure

The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had himself arrayed

with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary to

say a word to any member of his family regarding the occurrences of the

previous night, or asking for their company in his walk, he sallied

forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making inquiries at the

door of the Elephant Hotel. In consequence of the fetes the house was

full of company, the tables in the street were already surrounded by

persons smoking and drinking the national small-beer, the public rooms

were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos having, in his pompous way, and

with his clumsy German, made inquiries for the person of whom he was in

search, was directed to the very top of the house, above the

first-floor rooms where some travelling pedlars had lived, and were

exhibiting their jewellery and brocades; above the second-floor

apartments occupied by the etat major of the gambling firm; above the

third-floor rooms, tenanted by the band of renowned Bohemian vaulters

and tumblers; and so on to the little cabins of the roof, where, among

students, bagmen, small tradesmen, and country-folks come in for the

festival, Becky had found a little nest--as dirty a little refuge as

ever beauty lay hid in.

Becky liked the life. She was at home with everybody in the place,

pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. She was of a wild, roving

nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by

taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she would talk to his

courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the stir, the drink, the

smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the solemn, braggart ways of

the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the gambling-table officials,

the songs and swagger of the students, and the general buzz and hum of

the place had pleased and tickled the little woman, even when her luck

was down and she had not wherewithal to pay her bill. How pleasant was

all the bustle to her now that her purse was full of the money which

little Georgy had won for her the night before!

As Jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs, and was

speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his face and

then to look for No. 92, the room where he was directed to seek for the

person he wanted, the door of the opposite chamber, No. 90, was open,

and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schlafrock, was lying on the

bed smoking a long pipe; whilst another student in long yellow hair and

a braided coat, exceeding smart and dirty too, was actually on his

knees at No. 92, bawling through the keyhole supplications to the

person within.

"Go away," said a well-known voice, which made Jos thrill, "I expect

somebody; I expect my grandpapa. He mustn't see you there."

"Angel Englanderinn!" bellowed the kneeling student with the whity-brown

ringlets and the large finger-ring, "do take compassion upon us.

Make an appointment. Dine with me and Fritz at the inn in the park. We

will have roast pheasants and porter, plum-pudding and French wine. We

shall die if you don't."

"That we will," said the young nobleman on the bed; and this colloquy

Jos overheard, though he did not comprehend it, for the reason that he

had never studied the language in which it was carried on.

"Newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait," Jos said in his grandest

manner, when he was able to speak.

"Quater fang tooce!" said the student, starting up, and he bounced into

his own room, where he locked the door, and where Jos heard him

laughing with his comrade on the bed.

The gentleman from Bengal was standing, disconcerted by this incident,

when the door of the 92 opened of itself and Becky's little head peeped

out full of archness and mischief. She lighted on Jos. "It's you,"

she said, coming out. "How I have been waiting for you! Stop! not

yet--in one minute you shall come in." In that instant she put a

rouge-pot, a brandy bottle, and a plate of broken meat into the bed,

gave one smooth to her hair, and finally let in her visitor.

She had, by way of morning robe, a pink domino, a trifle faded and

soiled, and marked here and there with pomaturn; but her arms shone out

from the loose sleeves of the dress very white and fair, and it was

tied round her little waist so as not ill to set off the trim little

figure of the wearer. She led Jos by the hand into her garret. "Come

in," she said. "Come and talk to me. Sit yonder on the chair"; and

she gave the civilian's hand a little squeeze and laughingly placed him

upon it. As for herself, she placed herself on the bed--not on the

bottle and plate, you may be sure--on which Jos might have reposed, had

he chosen that seat; and so there she sat and talked with her old

admirer. "How little years have changed you," she said with a look of

tender interest. "I should have known you anywhere. What a comfort it

is amongst strangers to see once more the frank honest face of an old

friend!"

The frank honest face, to tell the truth, at this moment bore any

expression but one of openness and honesty: it was, on the contrary,

much perturbed and puzzled in look. Jos was surveying the queer little

apartment in which he found his old flame. One of her gowns hung over

the bed, another depending from a hook of the door; her bonnet obscured

half the looking-glass, on which, too, lay the prettiest little pair of

bronze boots; a French novel was on the table by the bedside, with a

candle, not of wax. Becky thought of popping that into the bed too,

but she only put in the little paper night-cap with which she had put

the candle out on going to sleep.

"I should have known you anywhere," she continued; "a woman never

forgets some things. And you were the first man I ever--I ever saw."

"Was I really?" said Jos. "God bless my soul, you--you don't say so."

"When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely more than a

child," Becky said. "How is that, dear love? Oh, her husband was a sad

wicked man, and of course it was of me that the poor dear was jealous.

As if I cared about him, heigho! when there was somebody--but

no--don't let us talk of old times"; and she passed her handkerchief

with the tattered lace across her eyelids.

"Is not this a strange place," she continued, "for a woman, who has

lived in a very different world too, to be found in? I have had so many

griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley; I have been made to suffer so cruelly

that I am almost made mad sometimes. I can't stay still in any place,

but wander about always restless and unhappy. All my friends have been

false to me--all. There is no such thing as an honest man in the

world. I was the truest wife that ever lived, though I married my

husband out of pique, because somebody else--but never mind that. I

was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted me. I was the fondest

mother. I had but one child, one darling, one hope, one joy, which I

held to my heart with a mother's affection, which was my life, my

prayer, my--my blessing; and they--they tore it from me--tore it from

me"; and she put her hand to her heart with a passionate gesture of

despair, burying her face for a moment on the bed.

The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which held the

cold sausage. Both were moved, no doubt, by the exhibition of so much

grief. Max and Fritz were at the door, listening with wonder to Mrs.

Becky's sobs and cries. Jos, too, was a good deal frightened and

affected at seeing his old flame in this condition. And she began,

forthwith, to tell her story--a tale so neat, simple, and artless that

it was quite evident from hearing her that if ever there was a

white-robed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to the infernal

machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that spotless

being--that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the bed before

Jos--on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.

They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there, in the

course of which Jos Sedley was somehow made aware (but in a manner that

did not in the least scare or offend him) that Becky's heart had first

learned to beat at his enchanting presence; that George Osborne had

certainly paid an unjustifiable court to HER, which might account for

Amelia's jealousy and their little rupture; but that Becky never gave

the least encouragement to the unfortunate officer, and that she had

never ceased to think about Jos from the very first day she had seen

him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman were

paramount--duties which she had always preserved, and would, to her

dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate in which Colonel

Crawley was living should release her from a yoke which his cruelty had

rendered odious to her.

Jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous, as she was one

of the most fascinating of women, and revolving in his mind all sorts

of benevolent schemes for her welfare. Her persecutions ought to be

ended: she ought to return to the society of which she was an ornament.

He would see what ought to be done. She must quit that place and take

a quiet lodging. Amelia must come and see her and befriend her. He

would go and settle about it, and consult with the Major. She wept

tears of heart-felt gratitude as she parted from him, and pressed his

hand as the gallant stout gentleman stooped down to kiss hers.

So Becky bowed Jos out of her little garret with as much grace as if it

was a palace of which she did the honours; and that heavy gentleman

having disappeared down the stairs, Max and Fritz came out of their

hole, pipe in mouth, and she amused herself by mimicking Jos to them as

she munched her cold bread and sausage and took draughts of her

favourite brandy-and-water.

Jos walked over to Dobbin's lodgings with great solemnity and there

imparted to him the affecting history with which he had just been made

acquainted, without, however, mentioning the play business of the night

before. And the two gentlemen were laying their heads together and

consulting as to the best means of being useful to Mrs. Becky, while

she was finishing her interrupted dejeuner a la fourchette.

How was it that she had come to that little town? How was it that she

had no friends and was wandering about alone? Little boys at school are

taught in their earliest Latin book that the path of Avernus is very

easy of descent. Let us skip over the interval in the history of her

downward progress. She was not worse now than she had been in the days

of her prosperity--only a little down on her luck.

As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and foolish

disposition that when she heard of anybody unhappy, her heart

straightway melted towards the sufferer; and as she had never thought

or done anything mortally guilty herself, she had not that abhorrence

for wickedness which distinguishes moralists much more knowing. If she

spoiled everybody who came near her with kindness and compliments--if

she begged pardon of all her servants for troubling them to answer the

bell--if she apologized to a shopboy who showed her a piece of silk, or

made a curtsey to a street-sweeper with a complimentary remark upon

the elegant state of his crossing--and she was almost capable of every

one of these follies--the notion that an old acquaintance was

miserable was sure to soften her heart; nor would she hear of anybody's

being deservedly unhappy. A world under such legislation as hers would

not be a very orderly place of abode; but there are not many women, at

least not of the rulers, who are of her sort. This lady, I believe,

would have abolished all gaols, punishments, handcuffs, whippings,

poverty, sickness, hunger, in the world, and was such a mean-spirited

creature that--we are obliged to confess it--she could even forget a

mortal injury.

When the Major heard from Jos of the sentimental adventure which had

just befallen the latter, he was not, it must be owned, nearly as much

interested as the gentleman from Bengal. On the contrary, his

excitement was quite the reverse from a pleasurable one; he made use of

a brief but improper expression regarding a poor woman in distress,

saying, in fact, "The little minx, has she come to light again?" He

never had had the slightest liking for her, but had heartily mistrusted

her from the very first moment when her green eyes had looked at, and

turned away from, his own.

"That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes," the Major said

disrespectfully. "Who knows what sort of life she has been leading?

And what business has she here abroad and alone? Don't tell me about

persecutors and enemies; an honest woman always has friends and never

is separated from her family. Why has she left her husband? He may

have been disreputable and wicked, as you say. He always was. I

remember the confounded blackleg and the way in which he used to cheat

and hoodwink poor George. Wasn't there a scandal about their

separation? I think I heard something," cried out Major Dobbin, who did

not care much about gossip, and whom Jos tried in vain to convince that

Mrs. Becky was in all respects a most injured and virtuous female.

"Well, well; let's ask Mrs. George," said that arch-diplomatist of a

Major. "Only let us go and consult her. I suppose you will allow that

she is a good judge at any rate, and knows what is right in such

matters."

"Hm! Emmy is very well," said Jos, who did not happen to be in love

with his sister.

"Very well? By Gad, sir, she's the finest lady I ever met in my life,"

bounced out the Major. "I say at once, let us go and ask her if this

woman ought to be visited or not--I will be content with her verdict."

Now this odious, artful rogue of a Major was thinking in his own mind

that he was sure of his case. Emmy, he remembered, was at one time

cruelly and deservedly jealous of Rebecca, never mentioned her name but

with a shrinking and terror--a jealous woman never forgives, thought

Dobbin: and so the pair went across the street to Mrs. George's house,

where she was contentedly warbling at a music lesson with Madame

Strumpff.

When that lady took her leave, Jos opened the business with his usual

pomp of words. "Amelia, my dear," said he, "I have just had the most

extraordinary--yes--God bless my soul! the most extraordinary

adventure--an old friend--yes, a most interesting old friend of yours,

and I may say in old times, has just arrived here, and I should like

you to see her."

"Her!" said Amelia, "who is it? Major Dobbin, if you please not to

break my scissors." The Major was twirling them round by the little

chain from which they sometimes hung to their lady's waist, and was

thereby endangering his own eye.

"It is a woman whom I dislike very much," said the Major, doggedly, "and

whom you have no cause to love."

"It is Rebecca, I'm sure it is Rebecca," Amelia said, blushing and

being very much agitated.

"You are right; you always are," Dobbin answered. Brussels, Waterloo,

old, old times, griefs, pangs, remembrances, rushed back into Amelia's

gentle heart and caused a cruel agitation there.

"Don't let me see her," Emmy continued. "I couldn't see her."

"I told you so," Dobbin said to Jos.

"She is very unhappy, and--and that sort of thing," Jos urged. "She is

very poor and unprotected, and has been ill--exceedingly ill--and that

scoundrel of a husband has deserted her."

"Ah!" said Amelia.

"She hasn't a friend in the world," Jos went on, not undexterously,

"and she said she thought she might trust in you. She's so miserable,

Emmy. She has been almost mad with grief. Her story quite affected

me--'pon my word and honour, it did--never was such a cruel persecution

borne so angelically, I may say. Her family has been most cruel to

her."

"Poor creature!" Amelia said.

"And if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she'll die," Jos

proceeded in a low tremulous voice. "God bless my soul! do you know

that she tried to kill herself? She carries laudanum with her--I saw

the bottle in her room--such a miserable little room--at a third-rate

house, the Elephant, up in the roof at the top of all. I went there."

This did not seem to affect Emmy. She even smiled a little. Perhaps

she figured Jos to herself panting up the stair.

"She's beside herself with grief," he resumed. "The agonies that woman

has endured are quite frightful to hear of. She had a little boy, of

the same age as Georgy."

"Yes, yes, I think I remember," Emmy remarked. "Well?"

"The most beautiful child ever seen," Jos said, who was very fat, and

easily moved, and had been touched by the story Becky told; "a perfect

angel, who adored his mother. The ruffians tore him shrieking out of

her arms, and have never allowed him to see her."

"Dear Joseph," Emmy cried out, starting up at once, "let us go and see

her this minute." And she ran into her adjoining bedchamber, tied on

her bonnet in a flutter, came out with her shawl on her arm, and

ordered Dobbin to follow.

He went and put her shawl--it was a white cashmere, consigned to her by

the Major himself from India--over her shoulders. He saw there was

nothing for it but to obey, and she put her hand into his arm, and they

went away.

"It is number 92, up four pair of stairs," Jos said, perhaps not very

willing to ascend the steps again; but he placed himself in the window

of his drawing-room, which commands the place on which the Elephant

stands, and saw the pair marching through the market.

It was as well that Becky saw them too from her garret, for she and the

two students were chattering and laughing there; they had been joking

about the appearance of Becky's grandpapa--whose arrival and departure

they had witnessed--but she had time to dismiss them, and have her

little room clear before the landlord of the Elephant, who knew that

Mrs. Osborne was a great favourite at the Serene Court, and respected

her accordingly, led the way up the stairs to the roof story,

encouraging Miladi and the Herr Major as they achieved the ascent.

"Gracious lady, gracious lady!" said the landlord, knocking at Becky's

door; he had called her Madame the day before, and was by no means

courteous to her.

"Who is it?" Becky said, putting out her head, and she gave a little

scream. There stood Emmy in a tremble, and Dobbin, the tall Major,

with his cane.

He stood still watching, and very much interested at the scene; but

Emmy sprang forward with open arms towards Rebecca, and forgave her at

that moment, and embraced her and kissed her with all her heart. Ah,

poor wretch, when was your lip pressed before by such pure kisses?