Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our poor
little woman's lot in life. She kept them secret from her father,
whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery. She had to
bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly gentle
and humble as to be made by nature for a victim.
I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage. And, as in
all griefs there is said to be some consolation, I may mention that
poor Mary, when left at her friend's departure in a hysterical
condition, was placed under the medical treatment of the young fellow
from the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short period.
Emmy, when she went away from Brompton, endowed Mary with every article
of furniture that the house contained, only taking away her pictures
(the two pictures over the bed) and her piano--that little old piano
which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she
loved for reasons of her own. She was a child when first she played on
it, and her parents gave it her. It had been given to her again since,
as the reader may remember, when her father's house was gone to ruin
and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck.
Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending the
arrangements of Jos's new house--which the Major insisted should be
very handsome and comfortable--the cart arrived from Brompton, bringing
the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that village, and with
them the old piano. Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a
neat little apartment on the second floor, adjoining her father's
chamber, and where the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings.
When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and Amelia gave
orders that it should be placed in the chamber aforesaid, Dobbin was
quite elated. "I'm glad you've kept it," he said in a very sentimental
manner. "I was afraid you didn't care about it."
"I value it more than anything I have in the world," said Amelia.
"Do you, Amelia?" cried the Major. The fact was, as he had bought it
himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into
his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the
purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift
came from him. "Do you, Amelia?" he said; and the question, the great
question of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied-"Can I do otherwise?--did not he give it me?"
"I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his countenance fell.
Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take immediate heed
of the very dismal expression which honest Dobbin's countenance
assumed, but she thought of it afterwards. And then it struck her,
with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was William who
was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had fancied. It was
not George's gift; the only one which she had received from her lover,
as she thought--the thing she had cherished beyond all others--her
dearest relic and prize. She had spoken to it about George; played his
favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening hours, touching, to the
best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies on the keys, and weeping
over them in silence. It was not George's relic. It was valueless now.
The next time that old Sedley asked her to play, she said it was
shockingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that she couldn't play.