Chapter XXX: "The Girl I Left Behind Me"

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　We do not claim to rank among the military novelists.Our place is with the non-combatants. When the decksare cleared for action we go below and wait meekly. Weshould only be in the way of the manoeuvres that thegallant fellows are performing overhead. We shall go nofarther with the --th than to the city gate: and leavingMajor O'Dowd to his duty, come back to the Major'swife, and the ladies and the baggage.

　　Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invitedto the ball at which in our last chapter other of ourfriends figured, had much more time to take theirwholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to peoplewho wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty. "It'smy belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulledhis nightcap over his ears, "that there will be such a balldanced in a day or two as some of 'em has never heardthe chune of"; and he was much more happy to retire torest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to figure atany other sort of amusement. Peggy, for her part, wouldhave liked to have shown her turban and bird ofparadise at the ball, but for the information which herhusband had given her, and which made her very grave.

　　"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assemblybeats," the Major said to his lady. "Call me at half-past one, Peggy dear, and see me things is ready. May beI'll not come back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D." With whichwords, which signified his opinion that the regiment wouldmarch the next morning, the Major ceased talking, andfell asleep.

　　Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curlpapers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, andnot to sleep, at this juncture. "Time enough for that," shesaid, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed his travellingvalise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, andother warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him;and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package ofportable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask orpocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkablysound Cognac brandy, of which she and the Major approvedvery much; and as soon as the hands of the"repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interiorarrangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, itsfair owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs.O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable acup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morningin Brussels. And who is there will deny that this worthylady's preparations betokened affection as much as thefits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive femalesexhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee,which they drank together while the bugles were soundingthe turn-out and the drums beating in the various quartersof the town, was not more useful and to the purpose thanthe outpouring of any mere sentiment could be? Theconsequence was, that the Major appeared on parade quitetrim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance,as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidenceto the whole corps. All the officers saluted herwhen the regiment marched by the balcony on which thisbrave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as theypassed; and I daresay it was not from want of courage,but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, thatshe refrained from leading the gallant --th personallyinto action.

　　On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs.O'Dowd used to read with great gravity out of a largevolume of her uncle the Dean's sermons. It had been ofgreat comfort to her on board the transport as they werecoming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on theirreturn from the West Indies. After the regiment'sdeparture she betook herself to this volume for meditation;perhaps she did not understand much of what she wasreading, and her thoughts were elsewhere: but the sleepproject, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow,was quite a vain one. So it is in the world. Jack or Donaldmarches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder,stepping out briskly to the tune of "The Girl I Left BehindMe." It is she who remains and suffers--and has theleisure to think, and brood, and remember.

　　Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgenceof sentiment only serves to make people more miserable,Mrs. Rebecca wisely determined to give way to novain feelings of sorrow, and bore the parting from herhusband with quite a Spartan equanimity. Indeed CaptainRawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-taking than the resolute little woman to whom he badefarewell. She had mastered this rude coarse nature;and he loved and worshipped her with all his faculties ofregard and admiration. In all his life he had never been sohappy, as, during the past few months, his wife had madehim. All former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, andgambling-table; all previous loves and courtships ofmilliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of theclumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid whencompared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late hehad enjoyed. She had known perpetually how to diverthim; and he had found his house and her society athousand times more pleasant than any place or companywhich he had ever frequented from his childhood untilnow. And he cursed his past follies and extravagances,and bemoaned his vast outlying debts above all, whichmust remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his wife'sadvancement in the world. He had often groaned overthese in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although asa bachelor they had never given him any disquiet. Hehimself was struck with this phenomenon. "Hang it,"he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger expressionout of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married Ididn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long asMoses would wait or Levy would renew for three months,I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, exceptrenewing, of course, I give you my honour I've nottouched a bit of stamped paper."

　　Rebecca always knew how to conjure away thesemoods of melancholy. "Why, my stupid love," she wouldsay, "we have not done with your aunt yet. If she fails us,isn't there what you call the Gazette? or, stop, when youruncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme. The livinghas always belonged to the younger brother, and whyshouldn't you sell out and go into the Church?" The ideaof this conversion set Rawdon into roars of laughter:you might have heard the explosion through the hotel atmidnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice.General Tufto heard him from his quarters on the firstfloor above them; and Rebecca acted the scene with greatspirit, and preached Rawdon's first sermon, to theimmense delight of the General at breakfast.

　　But these were mere by-gone days and talk. When thefinal news arrived that the campaign was opened, and thetroops were to march, Rawdon's gravity became suchthat Becky rallied him about it in a manner which ratherhurt the feelings of the Guardsman. "You don't supposeI'm afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremorin his voice. "But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, andyou see if it brings me down, why I leave one andperhaps two behind me whom I should wish to provide for,as I brought 'em into the scrape. It is no laughing matterthat, Mrs. C., anyways."

　　Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words triedto soothe the feelings of the wounded lover. It was onlywhen her vivacity and sense of humour got the better ofthis sprightly creature (as they would do under mostcircumstances of life indeed) that she would break outwith her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face."Dearest love," she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?"and hastily dashing something from her eyes, shelooked up in her husband's face with a smile.

　　"Look here," said he. "If I drop, let us see what thereis for you. I have had a pretty good run of luck here, andhere's two hundred and thirty pounds. I have got tenNapoleons in my pocket. That is as much as I shall want;for the General pays everything like a prince; and if I'mhit, why you know I cost nothing. Don't cry, little woman;I may live to vex you yet. Well, I shan't take either of myhorses, but shall ride the General's grey charger: it'scheaper, and I told him mine was lame. If I'm done, thosetwo ought to fetch you something. Grigg offered ninetyfor the mare yesterday, before this confounded newscame, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under the twoo's. Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'dbetter sell him in this country, because the dealers have somany bills of mine, and so I'd rather he shouldn't goback to England. Your little mare the General gave youwill fetch something, and there's no d--d livery stablebills here as there are in London," Rawdon added, with alaugh. "There's that dressing-case cost me two hundred--that is, I owe two for it; and the gold tops and bottlesmust be worth thirty or forty. Please to put that up thespout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch andchain, and things. They cost a precious lot of money. MissCrawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain andticker. Gold tops and bottles, indeed! dammy, I'm sorryI didn't take more now. Edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and I might have had a dressing-case fittedup with a silver warming-pan, and a service of plate. Butwe must make the best of what we've got, Becky, youknow."

　　And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley,who had seldom thought about anything but himself, untilthe last few months of his life, when Love had obtainedthe mastery over the dragoon, went through the variousitems of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see howthey might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, incase any accident should befall him. He pleased himselfby noting down with a pencil, in his big schoolboyhandwriting, the various items of his portable property whichmight be sold for his widow's advantage as, for example,"My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my drivingcloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols inrosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker),20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; myLaurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles hemade Rebecca the mistress.

　　Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressedhimself in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets,leaving the newest behind, under his wife's (or it mightbe his widow's) guardianship. And this famous dandy ofWindsor and Hyde Park went off on his campaign with akit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with somethinglike a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving.He took her up from the ground, and held her in hisarms for a minute, tight pressed against his strong-beatingheart. His face was purple and his eyes dim, as he put herdown and left her. He rode by his General's side, andsmoked his cigar in silence as they hastened after thetroops of the General's brigade, which preceded them;and it was not until they were some miles on their waythat he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.

　　And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not togive way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband'sdeparture. She waved him an adieu from the window, andstood there for a moment looking out after he was gone.The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint oldhouses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. Therehad been no rest for her that night. She was still in herpretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out ofcurl on her neck, and the circles round her eyes dark withwatching. "What a fright I seem," she said, examiningherself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes onelook!" So she divested herself of this pink raiment; indoing which a note fell out from her corsage, which shepicked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box.And then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass ofwater, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.

　　The town was quite quiet when she woke up at teno'clock, and partook of coffee, very requisite andcomforting after the exhaustion and grief of the morning'soccurrences.

　　This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculationsof the night previous, and surveyed her position.Should the worst befall, all things considered, she waspretty well to do. There were her own trinkets and trousseau,in addition to those which her husband had left behind.Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married,has already been described and lauded. Besides these,and the little mare, the General, her slave and worshipper,had made her many very handsome presents, in the shapeof cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankruptFrench general's lady, and numerous tributes from thejewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer'staste and wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon calledwatches, her apartments were alive with their clicking.For, happening to mention one night that hers, whichRawdon had given to her, was of English workmanship,and went ill, on the very next morning there came to hera little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and covercharmingly set with turquoises, and another signed Brequet,which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely biggerthan a half-crown. General Tufto had bought one, andCaptain Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs.Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, shemight have had one for the asking, and the HonourableMrs. Tufto in England had an old instrument of hermother's that might have served for the plate-warmingpan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. Howell andJames were to publish a list of the purchasers of all thetrinkets which they sell, how surprised would somefamilies be: and if all these ornaments went to gentlemen'slawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of jewellerythere would be exhibited in the genteelest homes ofVanity Fair!

　　Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebeccafound, not without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should circumstances occur, she mightreckon on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least,to begin the world with; and she passed the morningdisposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up herproperties in the most agreeable manner. Among the notesin Rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty poundson Osborne's banker. This made her think about Mrs.Osborne. "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said,"and pay a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If thisis a novel without a hero, at least let us lay claim to aheroine. No man in the British army which has marchedaway, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool orcollected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, thanthe indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.

　　And there was another of our acquaintances who wasalso to be left behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotionsand behaviour we have therefore a right to know.This was our friend the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah,whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the soundingof the bugles in the early morning. Being a greatsleeper, and fond of his bed, it is possible he would havesnoozed on until his usual hour of rising in the forenoon,in spite of all the drums, bugles, and bagpipes in theBritish army, but for an interruption, which did not comefrom George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters withhim, and was as usual occupied too much with his ownaffairs or with grief at parting with his wife, to think oftaking leave of his slumbering brother-in-law--it was notGeorge, we say, who interposed between Jos Sedley andsleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused him up,insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.

　　"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishingthe Captain at the deuce.

　　"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, youknow," Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "becauseyou know some of us mayn't come back again, andI like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, youknow."

　　"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. TheCaptain did not in the least hear him or look at the stoutgentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed tohave such a tender interest. The hypocrite was lookingand listening with all his might in the direction of George'sapartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing othersigns of great inward emotion.

　　Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of theCaptain, and now began to think his courage was somewhatequivocal. "What is it I can do for you, Dobbin?" he said,in a sarcastic tone.

　　"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, comingup to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour,Sedley, and neither George nor I may ever come back.Mind you, you are not to stir from this town until youascertain how things go. You are to stay here and watchover your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harmcomes to her. If anything happens to George, remembershe has no one but you in the world to look to. If it goeswrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to England;and you will promise me on your word that you willnever desert her. I know you won't: as far as money goes,you were always free enough with that. Do you want any?I mean, have you enough gold to take you back toEngland in case of a misfortune?"

　　"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, Iknow where to ask for it. And as for my sister, youneedn't tell me how I ought to behave to her."

　　"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answeredgood-naturedly, "and I am glad that George canleave her in such good hands. So I may give him yourword of honour, may I, that in case of extremity youwill stand by her?"

　　"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whosegenerosity in money matters Dobbin estimated quitecorrectly.

　　"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event ofa defeat?"

　　"A defeat! D-- it, sir, it's impossible. Don't try andfrighten me," the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin'smind was thus perfectly set at ease now that Jos hadspoken out so resolutely respecting his conduct to hissister. "At least," thought the Captain, "there will be aretreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."

　　If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfortand satisfaction from having one more view of Ameliabefore the regiment marched away, his selfishness waspunished just as such odious egotism deserved to be. Thedoor of Jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room whichwas common to the family party, and opposite this doorwas that of Amelia's chamber. The bugles had wakenedeverybody: there was no use in concealment now. George'sservant was packing in this room: Osborne coming inand out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the mansuch articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign.And presently Dobbin had the opportunity which hisheart coveted, and he got sight of Amelia's face oncemore. But what a face it was! So white, so wild anddespair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted himafterwards like a crime, and the sight smote him withinexpressible pangs of longing and pity.

　　She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hairfalling on her shoulders, and her large eyes fixed andwithout light. By way of helping on the preparations forthe departure, and showing that she too could be usefulat a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up asash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, andfollowed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, lookingon mutely as his packing proceeded. She came out andstood, leaning at the wall, holding this sash against herbosom, from which the heavy net of crimson droppedlike a large stain of blood. Our gentle-hearted Captainfelt a guilty shock as he looked at her. "Good God,"thought he, "and is it grief like this I dared to pry into?"And there was no help: no means to soothe and comfortthis helpless, speechless misery. He stood for a momentand looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as aparent regards an infant in pain.

　　At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her backinto the bedroom, from whence he came out alone. Theparting had taken place in that moment, and he was gone.

　　"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, boundingdown the stair, his sword under his arm, as he ranswiftly to the alarm ground, where the regiment wasmustered, and whither trooped men and officers hurryingfrom their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeksflushed: the great game of war was going to be played,and he one of the players. What a fierce excitement ofdoubt, hope, and pleasure! What tremendous hazards ofloss or gain! What were all the games of chance he hadever played compared to this one? Into all contestsrequiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, fromhis boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might.The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravosof his companions had followed him everywhere; fromthe boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had wona hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went womenand men had admired and envied him. What qualitiesare there for which a man gets so speedy a return ofapplause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, andvalour? Time out of mind strength and courage have beenthe theme of bards and romances; and from the story ofTroy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldierfor a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards inheart that they admire bravery so much, and placemilitary valour so far beyond every other quality forreward and worship?

　　So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, Georgejumped away from the gentle arms in which he had beendallying; not without a feeling of shame (although hiswife's hold on him had been but feeble), that he shouldhave been detained there so long. The same feeling ofeagerness and excitement was amongst all those friendsof his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, fromthe stout senior Major, who led the regiment into action,to little Stubble, the Ensign, who was to bear its colourson that day.

　　The sun was just rising as the march began--it wasa gallant sight--the band led the column, playing theregimental march--then came the Major in command,riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then marchedthe grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centrewere the colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns--then George came marching at the head of his company.He looked up, and smiled at Amelia, and passedon; and even the sound of the music died away.