Vanity Fair - Page 555/573

"I should have known you anywhere," she continued; "a woman never

forgets some things. And you were the first man I ever--I ever saw."

"Was I really?" said Jos. "God bless my soul, you--you don't say so."

"When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely more than a

child," Becky said. "How is that, dear love? Oh, her husband was a sad

wicked man, and of course it was of me that the poor dear was jealous.

As if I cared about him, heigho! when there was somebody--but

no--don't let us talk of old times"; and she passed her handkerchief

with the tattered lace across her eyelids.

"Is not this a strange place," she continued, "for a woman, who has

lived in a very different world too, to be found in? I have had so many

griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley; I have been made to suffer so cruelly

that I am almost made mad sometimes. I can't stay still in any place,

but wander about always restless and unhappy. All my friends have been

false to me--all. There is no such thing as an honest man in the

world. I was the truest wife that ever lived, though I married my

husband out of pique, because somebody else--but never mind that. I

was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted me. I was the fondest

mother. I had but one child, one darling, one hope, one joy, which I

held to my heart with a mother's affection, which was my life, my

prayer, my--my blessing; and they--they tore it from me--tore it from

me"; and she put her hand to her heart with a passionate gesture of

despair, burying her face for a moment on the bed.

The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which held the

cold sausage. Both were moved, no doubt, by the exhibition of so much

grief. Max and Fritz were at the door, listening with wonder to Mrs.

Becky's sobs and cries. Jos, too, was a good deal frightened and

affected at seeing his old flame in this condition. And she began,

forthwith, to tell her story--a tale so neat, simple, and artless that

it was quite evident from hearing her that if ever there was a

white-robed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to the infernal

machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that spotless

being--that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the bed before

Jos--on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.

They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there, in the

course of which Jos Sedley was somehow made aware (but in a manner that

did not in the least scare or offend him) that Becky's heart had first

learned to beat at his enchanting presence; that George Osborne had

certainly paid an unjustifiable court to HER, which might account for

Amelia's jealousy and their little rupture; but that Becky never gave

the least encouragement to the unfortunate officer, and that she had

never ceased to think about Jos from the very first day she had seen

him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman were

paramount--duties which she had always preserved, and would, to her

dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate in which Colonel

Crawley was living should release her from a yoke which his cruelty had

rendered odious to her.