Vanity Fair - Page 564/573

"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have that woman into the

house?" bounced out the Major, jumping up.

"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent way in the world.

"Don't be angry and break the furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we

are going to have her here."

"Of course, my dear," Jos said.

"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy continued; "her

horrid banker broken and run away; her husband--wicked wretch--having

deserted her and taken her child away from her" (here she doubled her

two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her,

so that the Major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago) "the poor

dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in

singing to get her bread--and not have her here!"

"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major, "but don't have

her in the house. I implore you don't."

"Pooh," said Jos.

"You who are always good and kind--always used to be at any rate--I'm

astonished at you, Major William," Amelia cried. "Why, what is the

moment to help her but when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be

of service to her. The oldest friend I ever had, and not--"

"She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major said, for he was

quite angry. This allusion was too much for Emmy, who, looking the

Major almost fiercely in the face, said, "For shame, Major Dobbin!" and

after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most

majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged

dignity.

"To allude to THAT!" she said, when the door was closed. "Oh, it was

cruel of him to remind me of it," and she looked up at George's

picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy

underneath. "It was cruel of him. If I had forgiven it, ought he to

have spoken? No. And it is from his own lips that I know how wicked

and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pure--oh, yes, you

were pure, my saint in heaven!"

She paced the room, trembling and indignant. She went and leaned on

the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and gazed and gazed

at it. Its eyes seemed to look down on her with a reproach that

deepened as she looked. The early dear, dear memories of that brief

prime of love rushed back upon her. The wound which years had scarcely

cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly! She could not bear the

reproaches of the husband there before her. It couldn't be. Never,

never.

Poor Dobbin; poor old William! That unlucky word had undone the work

of many a year--the long laborious edifice of a life of love and

constancy--raised too upon what secret and hidden foundations, wherein

lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices--a little

word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of hope--one word, and

away flew the bird which he had been trying all his life to lure!