Vanity Fair - Page 368/573

Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package of letters,

the Major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully at Lady O'Dowd's

house, where Glorvina thought that he listened with rather more

attention than usual to the Meeting of the Wathers, the Minsthrel Boy,

and one or two other specimens of song with which she favoured him (the

truth is, he was no more listening to Glorvina than to the howling of

the jackals in the moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as

usual), and having played his game at chess with her (cribbage with the

surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite evening pastime), Major Dobbin took

leave of the Colonel's family at his usual hour and retired to his own

house.

There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him. He took

it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it, and prepared

himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with that crabbed-handed

absent relative. . . . It may have been an hour after the Major's

departure from the Colonel's house--Sir Michael was sleeping the sleep

of the just; Glorvina had arranged her black ringlets in the

innumerable little bits of paper, in which it was her habit to confine

them; Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on

the ground-floor, and had tucked her musquito curtains round her fair

form, when the guard at the gates of the Commanding-Officer's compound

beheld Major Dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a

swift step and a very agitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel

and went up to the windows of the Colonel's bedchamber.

"O'Dowd--Colonel!" said Dobbin and kept up a great shouting.

"Heavens, Meejor!" said Glorvina of the curl-papers, putting out her

head too, from her window.

"What is it, Dob, me boy?" said the Colonel, expecting there was a fire

in the station, or that the route had come from headquarters.

"I--I must have leave of absence. I must go to England--on the most

urgent private affairs," Dobbin said.

"Good heavens, what has happened!" thought Glorvina, trembling with all

the papillotes.

"I want to be off--now--to-night," Dobbin continued; and the Colonel

getting up, came out to parley with him.

In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the Major had just

come upon a paragraph, to the following effect:--"I drove yesterday to

see your old ACQUAINTANCE, Mrs. Osborne. The wretched place they live

at, since they were bankrupts, you know--Mr. S., to judge from a BRASS

PLATE on the door of his hut (it is little better) is a coal-merchant.

The little boy, your godson, is certainly a fine child, though forward,

and inclined to be saucy and self-willed. But we have taken notice of

him as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt, Miss O., who

was rather pleased with him. Perhaps his grandpapa, not the bankrupt

one, who is almost doting, but Mr. Osborne, of Russell Square, may be

induced to relent towards the child of your friend, HIS ERRING AND

SELF-WILLED SON. And Amelia will not be ill-disposed to give him up.

The widow is CONSOLED, and is about to marry a reverend gentleman, the

Rev. Mr. Binny, one of the curates of Brompton. A poor match. But

Mrs. O. is getting old, and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair--she

was in very good spirits: and your little godson overate himself at

our house. Mamma sends her love with that of your affectionate, Ann

Dobbin."