Vanity Fair - Page 44/573

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed Westminster

bridge.

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the majestic

Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the

fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked

away with Rebecca under his arm. George, of course, took charge of

Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine.

"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things,

there's a good fellow." And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley,

and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at his

side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls,

and by paying at the door for the whole party.

He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil

sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought

Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that

good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl's delight and

wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly

pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something

on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky

young officer carrying this female burthen); but William Dobbin was

very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his

friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? And the

truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens; of the hundred

thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked

hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in

the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental

ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by

bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping,

thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was

about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the

hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so

favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed

about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling

boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost

invisible ham--of all these things, and of the gentle Simpson, that

kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided even then over the

place--Captain William Dobbin did not take the slightest notice.

He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended

under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs. Salmon performed the Battle of

Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately

met with his Russian reverses)--Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked

away, and found he was humming--the tune which Amelia Sedley sang on

the stairs, as she came down to dinner.