Vanity Fair - Page 141/573

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to

be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are

altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they

exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the real state of affairs;

say that things are flourishing when they are hopeless, keep a smiling

face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of bankruptcy--are ready to

lay hold of any pretext for delay or of any money, so as to stave off

the inevitable ruin a few days longer. "Down with such dishonesty,"

says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking enemy. "You

fool, why do you catch at a straw?" calm good sense says to the man

that is drowning. "You villain, why do you shrink from plunging into

the irretrievable Gazette?" says prosperity to the poor devil battling

in that black gulf. Who has not remarked the readiness with which the

closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other

of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it.

Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue.

Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former benefits to goad and

irritate him: these are always a cause of hostility aggravated.

Finally, he had to break off the match between Sedley's daughter and

his son; and as it had gone very far indeed, and as the poor girl's

happiness and perhaps character were compromised, it was necessary to

show the strongest reasons for the rupture, and for John Osborne to

prove John Sedley to be a very bad character indeed.

At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself with a

savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which almost succeeded in breaking

the heart of that ruined bankrupt man. On George's intercourse with

Amelia he put an instant veto--menacing the youth with maledictions if

he broke his commands, and vilipending the poor innocent girl as the

basest and most artful of vixens. One of the great conditions of anger

and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated

object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.

When the great crash came--the announcement of ruin, and the departure

from Russell Square, and the declaration that all was over between her

and George--all over between her and love, her and happiness, her and

faith in the world--a brutal letter from John Osborne told her in a few

curt lines that her father's conduct had been of such a nature that all

engagements between the families were at an end--when the final award

came, it did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother rather

expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely prostrate in the ruins

of his own affairs and shattered honour). Amelia took the news very

palely and calmly. It was only the confirmation of the dark presages

which had long gone before. It was the mere reading of the

sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the crime of

loving wrongly, too violently, against reason. She told no more of her

thoughts now than she had before. She seemed scarcely more unhappy now

when convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but dared

not confess that it was gone. So she changed from the large house to

the small one without any mark or difference; remained in her little

room for the most part; pined silently; and died away day by day. I do

not mean to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I do

not think your heart would break in this way. You are a strong-minded

young woman with proper principles. I do not venture to say that mine

would; it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there

are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and

tender.