The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

      Dobbin declined: the bad news that George was about to deliver so gleefully was sure to make Amelia cry, and to see Amelia cry would break his heart. Though it wasn’t true that she cried all the time. Whenever he saw Amelia, she always looked delighted; a smile on her face that had to be the reason that the sun came up and flowers grew and birds tweeted.

       Chapter 9

      The Sedley house was in an uproar that morning. Mrs Sedley had cast one look at the Daily Mail and her heart had started to beat so furiously that she thought she might be having a stroke. She wasn’t but she’d had to take to her bed with one of her heads, hissing to Amelia as she went, ‘I want that girl out of the house by the end of the day, Emmy.’

      Becky was already packing or, rather, she’d told Amelia that she was packing. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said to Amelia after Mrs Sedley had been tucked up with two Valium and a hot-water bottle. ‘What must your poor parents think of me? What must Jos think of me? You do know that it wasn’t me who went to the papers?’

      ‘Of course I do,’ Amelia gasped, because her sweet young mind wasn’t capable of such a calculated thought. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’ll feel much better after you’ve had some breakfast.’

      ‘I can’t eat. Food would choke me,’ Becky declared, a trembling hand to her throat as if she was already finding it hard to breathe. She stood at her bedroom door, her body barring Amelia from the room, not just for full dramatic effect but because there were a few items that had found their way into Becky’s possession that she hadn’t had a chance to squirrel away yet. ‘I’m going to pack. I’ll be gone in a few hours.’

      But Becky wasn’t packing at all. She was leaning out of the window of the second-floor guest room as she waited for the first sight of Jos lumbering into the square. He’d have a terrible hangover, which was his own fault, as nobody had forced him to drink all that champagne, and he’d be sweating profusely. Becky would let him stammer and stutter his way through a series of abject apologies for humiliating her.

      After a tense two minutes – no, make it three – she’d forgive Jos, which would make him feel even worse, even more ashamed. Then with some gentle nudging, and that thing she did with her eyes, he’d admit that he’d wanted to kiss her ever since he first saw her. He’d then go on to confess that the kiss in front of the paparazzi, despite its sordid circumstances, had been the happiest moment of his life.

      ‘We could have more happy moments like that, Jos,’ she’d say, her voice catching, then she’d look away. Though sometimes, actually all the time, it was hard work trying to tunnel through Jos’s thick skull, so perhaps she’d have to be a lot less subtle. ‘Our whole life would be a series of happy moments. Of kisses …’

      Of course, Jos would ask her to come back to LA with him. Once they were in LA, away from the annoying presence of his mother and father, and the bad influence of George Wylie, then Becky wouldn’t let Jos do anything more than kiss her and paw her over her clothes, and a proposal would be inevitable.

      So, all was not lost. Far from it. Though Becky hadn’t gone to the papers (and no one could prove it either way), there was no reason why this had to end in tragedy.

      Becky leaned out a little further, just in time to see George Wylie come striding around the corner. She beat a frantic retreat, banging her head so hard on the sash window that it brought tears to her eyes, especially as it had all been in vain because that smug little fucker waved cheerfully up at her.

      ‘Ha! Caught you!’ he cried.

      Still, Becky’s tears were no match for the flood of eye-water and snot that Amelia had been producing ever since Becky had shut the bedroom door in her face. She cried even harder as George described, with particular relish, what a sorry state he’d left Jos in.

      ‘Been chundering for six hours straight. I left him prostrate on Dobbin’s sofa. And it’s just as well we did take him to Dobbin’s last night, as he’s the only man in London whose dressing gown would fit round your brother. Pity that he puked down it,’ George finished with an appreciative chuckle. The whole episode reminded him of similar japes at Oxford.

      Also, the fact that they’d taken Sedley to Dobbin’s and not to George’s own flat in Victoria, had made him quite light-headed with relief.

      ‘I never thought you could be so mean,’ Amelia sobbed.

      ‘Then you haven’t been paying attention,’ Becky said from the doorway, because staying upstairs and sulking would achieve absolutely nothing. Not when there was no sign of a suitably contrite Jos and in his place was George Wylie, who might just explode from sheer malicious delight. Here’s hoping. ‘Where’s Jos?’

      George turned around, eyes gleaming, his delight magnified now that Becky had joined them. ‘I’m afraid Jos sends his regrets but he’s otherwise engaged. Oh! Sorry! Bad choice of words. Otherwise detained, shall we say?’

      Becky’s innate distrust and dislike of George Wylie, in that moment, crystallised and hardened into anger; a stinging, corrosive fury that this arrogant, odious prick had the nerve to mock her, laugh at her. It was only through a sheer accident of birth that the whole world was his for the taking and that she had nothing – not even the clothes she stood up in, because they were borrowed from Amelia.

      There was an edge to George Wylie this morning, a febrile glitter in his eyes, high on his own triumph. He must have said something to Jos about her which had frightened Jos off, and Becky knew then that Jos wasn’t going to turn up and beg for her forgiveness. It wasn’t all going to come good in the end.

      Oh, but she would make George Wylie pay. She would ruin him, destroy everything that he’d worked so hard for.

      Not that she was going to tell him that, like some second-rate Scarlett O’Hara.

      ‘You’re always joking,’ she noted with a quiet dignity that made George falter. ‘It’s not nice to be the punchline of a joke, especially when there’s no one here to defend me.’

      Then she walked away and George was left with Amelia, who had stopped crying and was now looking at him with a furrowed brow and jutting bottom lip. It was almost as if … as if she, silly little Amelia Sedley, was disappointed in him. ‘That wasn’t very kind of you,’ she said quietly and George immediately felt the need to squirm, even though kindness wasn’t a quality that he thought much of.

      ‘Amelia, you are too good for me.’ It was the most sincere thing he’d ever said. ‘Look, I know you’ve hugged orphans in the Third World and spent a few weeks with a bunch of chavs, but you don’t understand the world the way that I do. That Sharp girl overplayed her hand and Jos has had a lucky escape.’

      Amelia’s heart gave a sad little flutter. ‘So, he’s really not coming, then?’

      ‘He’s not,’ George confirmed. ‘Believe me, it’s for the best. I volunteered to fetch his things because, actually, I can be kind, Emmy. This whole business with that Sharp girl – I was only looking out for Jos because he’s your brother and well, I do rather care about you, you know.’

      The sad little flutter transformed into a rapturous symphony when George took Amelia in his arms.

      He smelt delicious – a heady mix of citrus and spices from the cologne that he favoured. But though Amelia raised her face to his, her lips slightly pursed, he kissed her forehead.

      ‘I’m … well, I rather care about you too, George,’ she dared to say and the smile he gave her then was kindness personified.

      ‘I know.’

      After George left, it took quite a bit of time and some dawdling, before Amelia felt brave enough to face her friend.

      Becky was perched on the window seat on the first-floor landing, her gaze fixed morosely on the square outside, the Daily Mail a crumpled, torn