Vanity Fair - Page 245/573

This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations of the night

previous, and surveyed her position. Should the worst befall, all

things considered, she was pretty well to do. There were her own

trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those which her husband had left

behind. Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married, has already

been described and lauded. Besides these, and the little mare, the

General, her slave and worshipper, had made her many very handsome

presents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a

bankrupt French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the

jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and

wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called watches, her

apartments were alive with their clicking. For, happening to mention

one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to her, was of English

workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her a

little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set with

turquoises, and another signed Brequet, which was covered with pearls,

and yet scarcely bigger than a half-crown. General Tufto had bought

one, and Captain Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs.

Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, she might have had

one for the asking, and the Honourable Mrs. Tufto in England had an old

instrument of her mother's that might have served for the plate-warming

pan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. Howell and James were to

publish a list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which they sell,

how surprised would some families be: and if all these ornaments went

to gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of

jewellery there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity

Fair!

Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca found, not

without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should

circumstances occur, she might reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at

the very least, to begin the world with; and she passed the morning

disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her properties in the

most agreeable manner. Among the notes in Rawdon's pocket-book was a

draft for twenty pounds on Osborne's banker. This made her think about

Mrs. Osborne. "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said, "and pay

a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this is a novel without a

hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man in the British

army which has marched away, not the great Duke himself, could be more

cool or collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the

indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.

And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left

behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have

therefore a right to know. This was our friend the ex-collector of

Boggley Wollah, whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the

sounding of the bugles in the early morning. Being a great sleeper,

and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed on until his

usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums,

bugles, and bagpipes in the British army, but for an interruption,

which did not come from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with

him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs or with

grief at parting with his wife, to think of taking leave of his

slumbering brother-in-law--it was not George, we say, who interposed

between Jos Sedley and sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused

him up, insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.