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.