Sedley said, "and here's something to drink your health when you get home, Trotter."There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottage and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it farewell.What a gulf lay between her and that past life.She could look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate, almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one desire.The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse.Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition.But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore.
In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessary to prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, and after the first ebullition of talk, took leave of Mrs.George Osborne for a while, and dived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr.and Mrs.Clapp, and in the evening, when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by Miss Flannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea.All people have their ways of expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs.Sedley that a muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her most interesting situation.
While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how, in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and in that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours.
She sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend;and fell to thinking over the past week, and the life beyond it.Already to be looking sadly and vaguely back:
always to be pining for something which, when obtained, brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our poor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.
Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of George to which she had knelt before marriage.Did she own to herself how different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had worshipped? It requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a confession.Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay.And so she sate for awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewed his offer of marriage.
She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few days before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: Then she thought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in Cavendish Square.Dear little white bed!
how many a long night had she wept on its pillow!
How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she had despaired her own for ever? Kind mother!
how patiently and tenderly she had watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside; and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had but seldom looked for it.Love had been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of another consoler.
Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers?
These, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in which our story lies.
But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late.She went downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day.She sate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her father's favourite old songs.She pronounced the tea to be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was arranged in the saucers.And in determining to make everybody else happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from the theatre.
For the next day, George had more important "business"to transact than that which took him to see Mr.