Chapter LVII: Eothen

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　It was one of the many causes for personal pridewith which old Osborne chose to recreate himselfthat Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and benefactor,was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliatedas to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at thehands of the man who had most injured and insultedhim. The successful man of the world cursed the oldpauper and relieved him from time to time. As hefurnished George with money for his mother, he gavethe boy to understand by hints, delivered in his brutal,coarse way, that George's maternal grandfather wasbut a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and thatJohn Sedley might thank the man to whom he alreadyowed ever so much money for the aid which his generositynow chose to administer. George carried the pompoussupplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whomit was now the main business of her life to tend andcomfort. The little fellow patronized the feeble anddisappointed old man.

　　It may have shown a want of "proper pride" inAmelia that she chose to accept these money benefits atthe hands of her father's enemy. But proper pride andthis poor lady had never had much acquaintance together.A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection;a long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations,and hard words, of kind offices and no returns, had beenher lot ever since womanhood almost, or since herluckless marriage with George Osborne. You who see yourbetters bearing up under this shame every day, meeklysuffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied,poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you everstep down from your prosperity and wash the feet ofthese poor wearied beggars? The very thought of them isodious and low. "There must be classes--there must berich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it iswell if he even sends the broken meat out to Lazarussitting under the window). Very true; but think howmysterious and often unaccountable it is--that lotteryof life which gives to this man the purple and fine linenand sends to the other rags for garments and dogs forcomforters.

　　So I must own that, without much repining, on thecontrary with something akin to gratitude, Amelia took thecrumbs that her father-in-law let drop now and then,and with them fed her own parent. Directly she understoodit to be her duty, it was this young woman's nature(ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call hera young woman even at that age) it was, I say, hernature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had atthe feet of the beloved object. During what long thanklessnights had she worked out her fingers for little Georgywhilst at home with her; what buffets, scorns, privations,poverties had she endured for father and mother! Andin the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseensacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than theworld respected her, but I believe thought in her heartthat she was a poor-spirited, despicable little creature,whose luck in life was only too good for her merits. Oyou poor women! O you poor secret martyrs and victims,whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks inyour bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on theblock daily at the drawing-room table; every man whowatches your pains, or peers into those dark places wherethe torture is administered to you, must pity you--and--and thank God that he has a beard. I recollect seeing,years ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen atBicetre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent down underthe bondage of his imprisonment and his personalinfirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worthof snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper. The kindnesswas too much for the poor epileptic creature. He criedin an anguish of delight and gratitude: if anybody gaveyou and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, wecould not be so affected. And so, if you properly tyrannizeover a woman, you will find a h'p'orth of kindness actupon her and bring tears into her eyes, as though youwere an angel benefiting her.

　　Some such boons as these were the best which Fortuneallotted to poor little Amelia. Her life, begun notunprosperously, had come down to this--to a mean prisonand a long, ignoble bondage. Little George visited hercaptivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleamsof encouragement. Russell Square was the boundary ofher prison: she might walk thither occasionally, but wasalways back to sleep in her cell at night; to performcheerless duties; to watch by thankless sick-beds; tosuffer the harassment and tyranny of querulousdisappointed old age. How many thousands of people arethere, women for the most part, who are doomed to endurethis long slavery?--who are hospital nurses withoutwages--sisters of Charity, if you like, without theromance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast,watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly andunknown.

　　The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions thedestinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and castdown the tender, good, and wise, and to set up the selfish,the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother,in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are lesslucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have youto be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation,whose success may be a chance, whose rank may bean ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likelya satire.

　　They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard atBrompton, upon just such a rainy, dark day as Ameliarecollected when first she had been there to marry George.Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new sables.She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk. Herthoughts were away in other times as the parson read.But that she held George's hand in her own, perhaps shewould have liked to change places with.... Then, asusual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayedinwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.

　　So she determined with all her might and strength totry and make her old father happy. She slaved, toiled,patched, and mended, sang and played backgammon, readout the newspaper, cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walkedhim out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the BromptonLanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles andaffectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side andcommuning with her own thoughts and reminiscences,as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned himself onthe garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or hissorrows. What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of thewidow were! The children running up and down theslopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her ofGeorge, who was taken from her; the first George wastaken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both instances,had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove tothink it was right that she should be so punished. Shewas such a miserable wicked sinner. She was quitealone in the world.

　　I know that the account of this kind of solitaryimprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is somecheerful or humorous incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler,for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress,or a mouse to come out and play about Latude's beardand whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle,dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick: the historianhas no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrativeof Amelia's captivity. Fancy her, if you please, during thisperiod, very sad, but always ready to smile when spokento; in a very mean, poor, not to say vulgar position oflife; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards,mending stockings, for her old father's benefit. So, nevermind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, howeverold, scolding, and bankrupt--may we have in our last daysa kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle handto soothe our gouty old pillows.

　　Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after hiswife's death, and Amelia had her consolation in doing herduty by the old man.

　　But we are not going to leave these two people long insuch a low and ungenteel station of life. Better days, asfar as worldly prosperity went, were in store for both.Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was thestout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school incompany with our old friend Major Dobbin. It wasanother old acquaintance returned to England, and at a timewhen his presence was likely to be of great comfort tohis relatives there.

　　Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leavefrom his good-natured commandant to proceed toMadras, and thence probably to Europe, on urgent privateaffairs, never ceased travelling night and day until hereached his journey's end, and had directed his marchwith such celerity that he arrived at Madras in a highfever. His servants who accompanied him brought himto the house of the friend with whom he had resolved tostay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium;and it was thought for many, many days that he wouldnever travel farther than the burying-ground of the churchof St. George's, where the troops should fire a salvo overhis grave, and where many a gallant officer lies far awayfrom his home.

　　Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, thepeople who watched him might have heard him ravingabout Amelia. The idea that he should never see her againdepressed him in his lucid hours. He thought his last daywas come, and he made his solemn preparations fordeparture, setting his affairs in this world in order andleaving the little property of which he was possessed tothose whom he most desired to benefit. The friend inwhose house he was located witnessed his testament. Hedesired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain whichhe wore round his neck and which, if the truth must beknown, he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, whenthe young widow's hair was cut off, during the feverwhich prostrated her after the death of George Osborneon the plateau at Mount St. John.

　　He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergonesuch a process of blood-letting and calomel asshowed the strength of his original constitution. He wasalmost a skeleton when they put him on board theRamchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta,touching at Madras, and so weak and prostrate that hisfriend who had tended him through his illness prophesiedthat the honest Major would never survive the voyage,and that he would pass some morning, shrouded inflag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carryingdown to the sea with him the relic that he wore at hisheart. But whether it was the sea air, or the hope whichsprung up in him afresh, from the day that the shipspread her canvas and stood out of the roads towardshome, our friend began to amend, and he was quitewell (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before theyreached the Cape. "Kirk will be disappointed of hismajority this time," he said with a smile; "he willexpect to find himself gazetted by the time the regimentreaches home." For it must be premised that while theMajor was lying ill at Madras, having made suchprodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which hadpassed many years abroad, which after its return fromthe West Indies had been baulked of its stay at home bythe Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered fromFlanders to India, had received orders home; and the Majormight have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen towait for their arrival at Madras.

　　Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in hisexhausted state again under the guardianship of Glorvina."I think Miss O'Dowd would have done for me," he saidlaughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had her onboard, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallenupon you, depend upon it, and carried you in as a prizeto Southampton, Jos, my boy."

　　For indeed it was no other than our stout friendwho was also a passenger on board the Ramchunder. Hehad passed ten years in Bengal. Constant dinners, tiffins,pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour of cutcherry,and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he wasforced to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley.A voyage to Europe was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his full time in India and had fineappointments which had enabled him to lay by a considerablesum of money, he was free to come home and staywith a good pension, or to return and resume that rankin the service to which his seniority and his vast talentsentitled him.

　　He was rather thinner than when we last saw him,but had gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour.He had resumed the mustachios to which his services atWaterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on deck in amagnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuseornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person.He took breakfast in his cabin and dressed as solemnly toappear on the quarter-deck as if he were going to turn outfor Bond Street, or the Course at Calcutta. He brought anative servant with him, who was his valet and pipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on histurban. That oriental menial had a wretched life underthe tyranny of Jos Sedley. Jos was as vain of his personas a woman, and took as long a time at his toilette asany fading beauty. The youngsters among thepassengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor littleRicketts, coming home after his third fever, used to drawout Sedley at the cuddy-table and make him tellprodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigersand Napoleon. He was great when he visited theEmperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen andthe young officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by,he described the whole battle of Waterloo and all butannounced that Napoleon never would have gone to SaintHelena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.

　　After leaving St. Helena he became very generous,disposing of a great quantity of ship stores, claret,preserved meats, and great casks packed with soda-water,brought out for his private delectation. There were noladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedencyto the civilian, so that he was the first dignitary attable, and treated by Captain Bragg and the officers ofthe Ramchunder with the respect which his rankwarranted. He disappeared rather in a panic during a two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabinbattened down, and remained in his cot reading theWasherwoman of Finchley Common, left on board theRamchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady EmilyHornblower, wife of the Rev. Silas Hornblower, when ontheir passage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentlemanwas a missionary; but, for common reading, he hadbrought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to therest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable to all byhis kindness and condescension.

　　Many and many a night as the ship was cutting throughthe roaring dark sea, the moon and stars shiningoverhead and the bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley andthe Major would sit on the quarter-deck of the vesseltalking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot andthe civilian puffed at the hookah which his servantprepared for him.

　　In these conversations it was wonderful with whatperseverance and ingenuity Major Dobbin would manageto bring the talk round to the subject of Amelia and herlittle boy. Jos, a little testy about his father's misfortunesand unceremonious applications to him, was sootheddown by the Major, who pointed out the elder's illfortunes and old age. He would not perhaps like to live withthe old couple, whose ways and hours might not agreewith those of a younger man, accustomed to differentsociety (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Majorpointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedleyto have a house of his own in London, and not amere bachelor's establishment as before; how his sisterAmelia would be the very person to preside over it; howelegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined goodmanners. He recounted stories of the success which Mrs.George Osborne had had in former days at Brussels, andin London, where she was much admired by people ofvery great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming itwould be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school andmake a man of him, for his mother and her parentswould be sure to spoil him. In a word, this artful Majormade the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia andher unprotected child. He did not know as yet whatevents had happened in the little Sedley family, and howdeath had removed the mother, and riches had carriedoff George from Amelia. But the fact is that every dayand always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentlemanwas thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heartwas bent upon doing her good. He coaxed, wheedled,cajoled, and complimented Jos Sedley with a perseveranceand cordiality of which he was not aware himself,very likely; but some men who have unmarried sistersor daughters even, may remember how uncommonlyagreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when theyare courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of aDobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

　　The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board theRamchumder, very sick, and for the three days she layin the Madras Roads, he did not begin to rally, nor dideven the appearance and recognition of his old acquaintance,Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after aconversation which they had one day, as the Major waslaid languidly on the deck. He said then he thought hewas doomed; he had left a little something to his godsonin his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would rememberhim kindly and be happy in the marriage she wasabout to make. "Married? not the least," Jos answered;"he had heard from her: she made no mention of themarriage, and by the way, it was curious, she wrote tosay that Major Dobbin was going to be married, andhoped that he would be happy." What were the dates ofSedley's letters from Europe? The civilian fetched them.They were two months later than the Major's; and theship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the treatmentadopted by him towards his new patient, who had beenconsigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner withvery small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the veryday that he changed the draught, Major Dobbin beganto mend. And thus it was that deserving officer, CaptainKirk, was disappointed of his majority.

　　After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin's gaietyand strength was such as to astonish all his fellowpassengers. He larked with the midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sanga comic song one night to the amusement of the wholeparty assembled over their grog after supper, andrendered himself so gay, lively, and amiable that evenCaptain Bragg, who thought there was nothing in hispassenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller atfirst, was constrained to own that the Major was areserved but well-informed and meritorious officer. "Heain't got distangy manners, dammy," Bragg observed tohis first mate; "he wouldn't do at Government House,Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kindto me, and shook hands with me before the wholecompany, and asking me at dinner to take beer with him,before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he ain't gotmanners, but there's something about him--" And thusCaptain Bragg showed that he possessed discriminationas a man, as well as ability as a commander.

　　But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder waswithin ten days' sail of England, Dobbin became soimpatient and ill-humoured as to surprise those comradeswho had before admired his vivacity and good temper.He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, andwas in a highly excited state when the pilot came onboard. Good God, how his heart beat as the two friendlyspires of Southampton came in sight.