Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray (portable ebook reader .txt) 📖

lines that her father’s conduct had been of such a nature that all engagements between the families were at an end⁠—when the final award came, it did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother rather expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered honour). Amelia took the news very palely and calmly. It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which had long gone before. It was the mere reading of the sentence⁠—of the crime she had long ago been guilty⁠—the crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason. She told no more of her thoughts now than she had before. She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but dared not confess that it was gone. So she changed from the large house to the small one without any mark or difference; remained in her little room for the most part; pined silently; and died away day by day. I do not mean to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I do not think your heart would break in this way. You are a strong-minded young woman with proper principles. I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered, and, it must be confessed, survived. But there are some souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and tender.

Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had shown. He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless, wicked, and ungrateful. No power on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters which she had ever had from him.

She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she drew them out of the place where she kept them; and read them over⁠—as if she did not know them by heart already: but she could not part with them. That effort was too much for her; she placed them back in her bosom again⁠—as you have seen a woman nurse a child that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation. How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer!

It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and brooded. She lived in her past life⁠—every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how⁠—these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world. And the business of her life, was⁠—to watch the corpse of Love.

To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then, she thought, I shall always be able to follow him. I am not praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for Miss Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate her feelings better than this poor little creature. Miss B. would never have committed herself as that imprudent Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got back nothing⁠—only a brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of the other.

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.

If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which were made in the circle from which her father’s ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her own crimes were, and how entirely her character was jeopardised. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and the end might be a warning to her daughters. “Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry a bankrupt’s daughter,” the Misses Dobbin said. “It was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all⁠—”

“All what?” Captain Dobbin roared out. “Haven’t they been engaged ever since they were children? Wasn’t it as good as a marriage? Dare any soul on earth breathe a word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the most angelical of young women?”

“La, William, don’t be so highty-tighty with us. We’re not men. We can’t fight you,” Miss Jane said. “We’ve said nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct throughout was most imprudent, not to call it by any worse name; and that her parents are people who certainly merit their misfortunes.”

“Hadn’t you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose for her yourself, William?” Miss Ann asked sarcastically. “It would be a most eligible family connection. He! he!”

“I marry her!” Dobbin said, blushing very much, and talking quick. “If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and change, do you suppose that she