Vanity Fair - Page 389/573

At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in

difficulties tell. One day, her own money having been received, and

Amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the moneys

expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of her

dividend, having contracted engagements for a new suit for Georgy.

Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid, that the house

was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to have seen before, her mother

said, but she cared for nothing or nobody except Georgy. At this she

passed all her money across the table, without a word, to her mother,

and returned to her room to cry her eyes out. She had a great access of

sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and countermand the

clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set her heart for

Christmas Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged in

many conversations with a small milliner, her friend.

Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who made a loud

outcry. Everybody had new clothes at Christmas. The others would

laugh at him. He would have new clothes. She had promised them to

him. The poor widow had only kisses to give him. She darned the old

suit in tears. She cast about among her little ornaments to see if she

could sell anything to procure the desired novelties. There was her

India shawl that Dobbin had sent her. She remembered in former days

going with her mother to a fine India shop on Ludgate Hill, where the

ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these articles. Her

cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with pleasure as she thought of this

resource, and she kissed away George to school in the morning, smiling

brightly after him. The boy felt that there was good news in her look.

Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts of the

good Major), she hid them under her cloak and walked flushed and eager

all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall and

running over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she hurried by

him and looked after her rosy pretty face. She calculated how she

should spend the proceeds of her shawl--how, besides the clothes, she

would buy the books that he longed for, and pay his half-year's

schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of that

old great-coat which he wore. She was not mistaken as to the value of

the Major's gift. It was a very fine and beautiful web, and the

merchant made a very good bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for

her shawl.