"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!