Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray [the read aloud family TXT] 📗

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANITY FAIR *** Produced by Juli Rew.

Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray
BEFORE THE CURTAIN

As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there—a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of "Vanity Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?—To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager retires, and the curtain rises.

LONDON, June 28, 1848

CONTENTS I   Chiswick Mall II   In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign III   Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy IV   The Green Silk Purse V   Dobbin of Ours VI   Vauxhall VII   Crawley of Queen's Crawley VIII   Private and Confidential IX   Family Portraits X   Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends XI   Arcadian Simplicity XII   Quite a Sentimental Chapter XIII   Sentimental and Otherwise XIV   Miss Crawley at Home XV   In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears for a Short Time XVI   The Letter on the Pincushion XVII   How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano XVIII   Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought XIX   Miss Crawley at Nurse XX   In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen XXI   A Quarrel About an Heiress XXII   A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon XXIII   Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass XXIV   In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible XXV   In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton XXVI   Between London and Chatham XXVII   In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment XXVIII   In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries XXIX   Brussels XXX   "The Girl I Left Behind Me" XXXI   In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister XXXII   In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close XXXIII   In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her XXXIV   James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out XXXV   Widow and Mother XXXVI   How to Live Well on Nothing a Year XXXVII   The Subject Continued XXXVIII   A Family in a Very Small Way XXXIX   A Cynical Chapter XL   In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family XLI   In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors XLII   Which Treats of the Osborne Family XLIII   In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape XLIV   A Round-about Chapter between London and Hampshire XLV   Between Hampshire and London XLVI   Struggles and Trials XLVII   Gaunt House XLVIII   In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company XLIX   In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert L   Contains a Vulgar Incident LI   In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader LII   In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light LIII   A Rescue and a Catastrophe LIV   Sunday After the Battle LV   In Which the Same Subject is Pursued LVI   Georgy is Made a Gentleman LVII   Eothen LVIII   Our Friend the Major LIX   The Old Piano LX   Returns to the Genteel World LXI   In Which Two Lights are Put Out LXII   Am Rhein LXIII   In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance LXIV   A Vagabond Chapter LXV   Full of Business and Pleasure LXVI   Amantium Irae LXVII   Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths


CHAPTER I Chiswick Mall

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing-room.

"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat."

"Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

"The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister," replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot."

"Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel."

"Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia's box."

"And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's account. This is it, is it? Very good—ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady."

In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the following effect:—

The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18

MADAM,—After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY and OBEDIENCE have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her AGED and her YOUTHFUL companions.

In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends' fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified DEPORTMENT AND CARRIAGE, so requisite for every young lady of FASHION.

In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the presence of THE GREAT LEXICOGRAPHER, and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself,

Madam, Your most obliged humble servant, BARBARA PINKERTON

P.S.—Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.

This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedley's, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson's Dictionary—the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of "Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson." In fact, the Lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.

Being commanded by her