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misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.
"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says
he, after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky
figure and military appearance caused some excitement
likewise to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the
cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the old lady in
black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
bar). "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your
excellent mother, sir?" He looked round at the waiter as
he said, "My lady," as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I
have friends still, and persons of rank and reputation,
too." "Are you come to do anything in my way, sir? My
young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for me
now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
temporarily, you know, Captain. What can we do for you.
sir? Will you like to take anything?"
Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering,
protested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty;
that he had no business to transact; that he only came
to ask if Mr. Sedley was well, and to shake hands with
an old friend; and, he added, with a desperate perversion
of truth, "My mother is very well--that is, she's been very
unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day to go out
and call upon Mrs. Sedley. How is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I
hope she's quite well." And here he paused, reflecting on
his own consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine,
and the sunshine as bright as it ever is in Coffin Court,
where the Tapioca Coffee-house is situated: and Mr.
Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley himself
only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham
in his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.
"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship,"
Sedley replied, pulling out his papers. "I've a very kind
letter here from your father, sir, and beg my respectful
compliments to him. Lady D. will find us in rather a
smaller house than we were accustomed to receive our
friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good
to my daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you
remember little Emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal."
The old gentleman's eyes were wandering as he spoke, and
he was thinking of something else, as he sate thrumming
on his papers and fumbling at the worn red tape.
"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill
Dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the
return of that Corsican scoundrel from Elba? When the
allied sovereigns were here last year, and we gave 'em
that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the Temple of
Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in
St. James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that
peace wasn't really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te
Deum for it, sir? I ask you, William, could I suppose that
the Emperor of Austria was a damned traitor--a traitor,
and nothing more? I don't mince words--a double-faced
infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-
in-law back all along. And I say that the escape of Boney
from Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in
which half the powers of Europe were concerned, to
bring the funds down, and to ruin this country. That's
why I'm here, William. That's why my name's in the
Gazette. Why, sir?--because I trusted the Emperor of
Russia and the Prince Regent. Look here. Look at my
papers. Look what the funds were on the 1st of March
--what the French fives were when I bought for the
count. And what they're at now. There was collusion, sir,
or that villain never would have escaped. Where was the
English Commissioner who allowed him to get away? He
ought to be shot, sir--brought to a court-martial, and
shot, by Jove."
"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said,
rather alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of
whose forehead began to swell, and who sate drumming
his papers with his clenched fist. "We are going to hunt
him out, sir--the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
expect marching orders every day."
"Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain's head, sir.
Shoot the coward down, sir," Sedley roared. "I'd enlist
myself, by--; but I'm a broken old man--ruined by
that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel of swindling
thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in
his voice.
Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once
kind old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving
with senile anger. Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom
money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so,
surely, are they in Vanity Fair.
"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you
warm, and they sting you afterwards. There are some
beggars that you put on horseback, and they're the first
to ride you down. You know whom I mean, William
Dobbin, my boy. I mean a purse-proud villain in Russell
Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I
pray and hope to see a beggar as he was when I
befriended him."
"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend
George," Dobbin said, anxious to come to his point. "The
quarrel between you and his father has cut him up a great
deal, sir. Indeed, I'm the bearer of a message from him."
"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man,
jumping up. "What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he?
Very kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified
airs and West End swagger. He's hankering about my
house, is he still? If my son had the courage of a man,
he'd shoot him. He's as big a villain as his father. I won't
have his name mentioned in my house. I curse the day
that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter
dead at my feet than married to him."
"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir. Your
daughter's love for him is as much your doing as his. Who
are you, that you are to play with two young people's
affections and break their hearts at your will?"
"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off,"
old Sedley cried out. "It's I that forbid it. That family and
mine are separated for ever. I'm fallen low, but not so
low as that: no, no. And so you may tell the whole race--
son, and father and sisters, and all."
"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the
right to separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low
voice; "and that if you don't give your daughter your
consent it will be her duty to marry without it. There's no
reason she should die or live miserably because you
are wrong-headed. To my thinking, she's just as much
married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
London. And what better answer can there be to Osborne's
charges against you, as charges there are, than
that his son claims to enter your family and marry your
daughter?"
A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break
over old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still
persisted that with his consent the marriage between
Amelia and George should never take place.
"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told
Mr. Sedley, as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before,
the story of Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley. It
evidently amused the old gentleman. "You're terrible
fellows, you Captains," said he, tying up his papers; and his
face wore something like a smile upon it, to the astonishment
of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered, and had
never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
since he had used the dismal coffee-house.
The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow
soothed, perhaps, the old gentleman: and, their colloquy
presently ending, he and Dobbin parted pretty good friends.
"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons'
eggs," George said, laughing. "How they must set off her
complexion! A perfect illumination it must be when her
jewels are on her neck. Her jet-black hair is as curly as
Sambo's. I dare say she wore a nose ring when she went
to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."
George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the
appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters
had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object
of vast respect to the Russell Square family. She was reported
to have I don't know how many plantations in the
West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three
stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list. She
had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place.
The name of the rich West India heiress had been mentioned
with applause in the Morning Post. Mrs. Haggistoun,
Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her relative, "chaperoned"
her, and kept her house. She was just from school, where
she had completed her education, and George and his
sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's
house, Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were
long the correspondents of her house in the West Indies),
and the girls had made the most cordial advances to her,
which the heiress had received with great good humour.
An orphan in her position--with her money--so interesting!
the Misses Osborne said. They were full of their new
friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for
continually meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see
her the very next day. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's
widow, a relation of Lord Binkie, and always talking
of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls as rather
haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her great
relations: but Rhoda was everything they could wish--
the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a
little polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-
named each other at once.
"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy,"
Osborne cried, laughing. "She came to my sisters to show
it off, before she was presented in state by my Lady
Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman. She's related to every
one, that Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed out like
Vauxhall on the night we were there. (Do you remember
Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle
diddle darling?) Diamonds and mahogany, my dear!
think what an advantageous contrast--and the white
feathers in her hair--I mean in her wool. She had
earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em
up, by Jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after
her like the tail of a cornet."
"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was
rattling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning
of their reunion--rattling away as no other man in the
world surely could.
"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left
school, must be two or three and twenty. And you should
see the hand she writes! Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually
writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence, she put
pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and
Saint James's, Saint Jams."
"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour
boarder," Emmy said, remembering that good-natured
young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected
when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy
"The very name," George said. "Her father was a German
Jew--a slave-owner they say--connected with the
Cannibal Islands in some way or other. He died last year,
and Miss Pinkerton has finished her education. She can
play two pieces on the piano; she knows three songs;
she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for her;
and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a
sister."
"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully.
"They were always very cold to me."
"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had
had two hundred thousand pounds," George replied. "That
is the way in which they have been brought up. Ours is
a ready-money society. We live among bankers and City
big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he
talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is
that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria--
there's Goldmore, the East India Director, there's Dipley,
in the tallow trade--OUR trade," George said, with an
uneasy laugh and a blush. "Curse the whole pack of money-
grubbing vulgarians! I fall asleep at their great heavy
dinners. I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
parties. I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and
men of the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel
of turtle-fed tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only
person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke
like a lady: and you do it because you're an angel and
can't help it. Don't remonstrate. You are the only lady.
Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in the
best company in Europe? And as for Crawley, of the Life
Guards, hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for
marrying the girl he had chosen."
Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this;
and trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped
(with a laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so the pair
went on prattling, as in quite early days. Amelia's
confidence being perfectly restored to her, though she
expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz,
and professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite
as she was--lest George should forget her for the
heiress and her money and her estates in Saint Kitt's. But
the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have fears
or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having George
at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
or indeed of any sort of danger.
When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to
these people--which he did with a great deal of sympathy
for them--it did his heart good to see how Amelia had
grown young again--how she laughed, and chirped, and
sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were only
interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr.
Sedley's return from the City, before whom George received a
signal to retreat.
Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was
an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking
--Miss Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his
visit. But he was content, so that he saw her happy; and
thankful to have been the means of making her so.
CHAPTER XXI
A Quarrel About an Heiress
Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of
ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she
was to realize. He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm
and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the
young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest
pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that
splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the
West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell
Square. My daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but
their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived
an attachment for you which does them honour--I say,
which does them honour. I'm a plain, simple, humble
British merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends
Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents
of your late lamented father. You'll find us a
united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected,
family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome,
my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my
heart warms to you, it does really. I'm a frank man, and
I like you. A glass of Champagne! Hicks, Champagne to
Miss Swartz."
There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he
said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their
protestations of affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity
Fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest
people are disposed to look not a little kindly on
great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British
public to say that the notion of Wealth has not something
awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to
look at him with a certain interest)--if the simple look
benevolently on money, how much more do your old
worldlings regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and
welcome money. Their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it. I know
some respectable people who don't consider themselves
at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who
has not a certain competency, or place in society. They
give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. And
the proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family,
who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a
hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most
romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.
What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and
Miss Wirt agreed), and how much better than that
insignificant little Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as
he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments,
would be the very husband for her. Visions of balls in
Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies;
who talked of nothing but George and his grand
acquaintances to their beloved new friend.
Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too,
for his son. He should leave the army; he should go into
Parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in
the state. His blood boiled with honest British exultation,
as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in the person
of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of
a glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on
'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune
of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her
estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants,
would have liked to make a bid for her himself
(it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was
booked to Maria Osborne. But not being able to secure
her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her
as a sister-in-law. "Let George cut in directly and win
her," was his advice. "Strike while the iron's hot, you
know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks
some d-- fellow from the West End will come in with a
title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as
Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's. The
sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my
sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left
the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and
what a pretty girl she was, and how attached to George
Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had
befallen that unlucky young woman.
While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his
good friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the
truant to Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were
arranging this splendid match for him, which they never
dreamed he would resist.
When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint,"
there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake
his meaning. He called kicking a footman downstairs a
hint to the latter to leave his service. With his usual
frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he
would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the
day his son was married to her ward; and called that
proposal a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece
of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another hint
regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out
of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a
cork, or his clerk to write a letter.
This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He
was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second
courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet
to him. The contrast of her manners and appearance with
those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the
latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and
opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the
side of such a mahogany charmer as that! Add to all
that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the
senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his
resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered,
as his father in his most stern moments.
On the first day when his father formally gave him the
hint that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's
feet, George temporised with the old gentleman. "You
should have thought of the matter sooner, sir," he said.
"It can't be done now, when we're expecting every day
to go on foreign service. Wait till my return, if I do
return"; and then he represented, that the time when the
regiment was daily expecting to quit England, was
exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks during
which they were still to remain at home, must be
devoted to business and not to love-making: time enough
for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I
promise you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one
way or other you shall read the name of George Osborne
in the Gazette."
The father's reply to this was founded upon the
information which he had got in the City: that the West
End chaps would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if
any delay took place: that if he didn't marry Miss S., he
might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
into effect when he returned to England; and that a man
who could get ten thousand a year by staying at home,
was a fool to risk his life abroad.
"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir,
and our name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's
money," George interposed.
This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he
had to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless
made up, he said, "You will dine here to-morrow, sir,
and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will be here to
pay your respects to her. If you want for money, call
upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's
way, to interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and
about which he and Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation. His friend's opinion respecting the
line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know
already. And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a
thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the
more resolute.
The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs
of the Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of
all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her
friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the
young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being,
as we have before had occasion to show, of a very
warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection
with quite a tropical ardour. And if the truth may be told,
I dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the
Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George
Osborne a very nice young man. His whiskers had made
an impression upon her, on the very first night she
beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
know, she was not the first woman who had been
charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering
and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked like a
man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing
griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He
would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to
take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he
were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a
declaration of love. He trampled over all the young bucks
of his father's circle, and was the hero among those
third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and hated him.
Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his whiskers
had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves
round the affections of Miss Swartz.
Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell
Square, that simple and good-natured young woman
was quite in a flurry to see her dear Misses Osborne. She
went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and
bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. She adorned her
person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror,
and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his
favour. The girls would ask her, with the greatest
gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three
songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever
they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to
herself. During these delectable entertainments, Miss
Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the
peerage, and talked about the nobility.
The day after George had his hint from his father, and
a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling
upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming
and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. He had
been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in the City
(the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his
son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him,
and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). He
had then been to pass three hours with Amelia, his
dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to
find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-
room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and
honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with
turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and
all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly
decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.
The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation,
talked about fashions and the last drawing-room
until he was perfectly sick of their chatter. He
contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's--their
shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes
and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft
movements and modest graces. Poor Swartz was seated
in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit.
Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin
lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes
rolled about. She was doing nothing with perfect contentment,
and thinking herself charming. Anything so becoming
as the satin the sisters had never seen.
"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she
looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day
but to grin and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I
I could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-
cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of
sentiment, however.
The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. "Stop
that d-- thing," George howled out in a fury from the
sofa. "It makes me mad. You play us something, Miss
Swartz, do. Sing something, anything but the Battle of
Prague."
"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the
Cabinet?" Miss Swartz asked.
"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.
"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa
"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,' " Swartz said, in a meek
voice, "if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy
young woman's collection.
"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,' " Miss Maria cried; "we have the
song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was.
Now it happened that this song, then in the height of
the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young
friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss
Swartz, having concluded the ditty with George's applause
(for he remembered that it was a favourite of Amelia's),
was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the
leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and
she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.
"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on
the music-stool, "is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at
Miss P.'s at Hammersmith? I know it is. It's her. and--
Tell me about her--where is she?"
"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said
hastily. "Her family has disgraced itself. Her father
cheated Papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned
HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for George's
rudeness about the Battle of Prague.
"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing
up. "God bless you for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe
what,the girls say. SHE'S not to blame at any rate.
She's the best--"
"You know you're not to speak about her, George,"
cried Jane. "Papa forbids it."
"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out. "I will speak
of her. I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the
sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, my
sisters are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her,
go and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and
I say, God bless everybody who befriends her. Anybody
who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who
speaks against her is my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz";
and he went up and wrung her hand.
"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.
"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who
loves Amelia Sed--" He stopped. Old Osborne was in
the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot
coals.
Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his
blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the
generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to
the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative
of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in
his turn, and looked away. He felt that the tussle was
coming. "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner,"
he said. "Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George,"
and they marched.
"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged
almost all our lives," Osborne said to his partner; and
during all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility
which surprised himself, and made his father doubly
nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as
the ladies were gone.
The difference between the pair was, that while the
father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the
nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely
make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment
was now come when the contest between him and
his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with
perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement
began. Old Osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and
drank much. He floundered in his conversation with the
ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering
him more angry. It made him half mad to see the calm
way in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a
swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave
the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it,
and looked his father full in the face, as if to say,
"Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a
supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against
the glass as he tried to fill it.
After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking
face, he then began. "How dare you, sir, mention that
person's name before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-
room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"
"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir. Dare
isn't a word to be used to a Captain in the British Army."
"I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off
with a shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like.
I WILL say what I like," the elder said.
"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George
answered haughtily. "Any communications which you
have to make to me, or any orders which you may
please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of
language which I am accustomed to hear."
Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it
always created either great awe or great irritation in the
parent. Old Osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a
better gentleman than himself; and perhaps my readers
may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity Fair
of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded
man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman.
"My father didn't give me the education you have had,
nor the advantages you have had, nor the money you
have had. If I had kept the company SOME FOLKS have
had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't have
any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END
AIRS (these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's
most sarcastic tones). But it wasn't considered the part
of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man to insult his father.
If I'd done any such thing, mine would have kicked me
downstairs, sir."
"I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to
remember your son was a gentleman as well as yourself.
I know very well that you give me plenty of money,"
said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
got in the morning from Mr. Chopper). "You tell it me
often enough, sir. There's no fear of my forgetting it."
"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the
sire answered. "I wish you'd remember that in this house
--so long as you choose to HONOUR it with your COMPANY,
Captain--I'm the master, and that name, and that
that--that you--that I say--"
"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer,
filling another glass of claret.
"--!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--
"that the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned
here, sir--not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir."
"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name. It
was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and
by Jove I'll defend her wherever I go. Nobody shall
speak lightly of that name in my presence. Our family
has done her quite enough injury already, I think, and
may leave off reviling her now she's down. I'll shoot any
man but you who says a word against her."
"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes
starting out of his head.
"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've
treated that angel of a girl? Who told me to love her? It
was your doing. I might have chosen elsewhere, and
looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I obeyed
you. And now that her heart's mine you give me orders
to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for
the faults of other people. It's a shame, by Heavens,"
said George, working himself up into passion and
enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose with
a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that
--one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived,
that she might have excited envy, only she was so good
and gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her.
If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?"
"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense
and humbug here, sir," the father cried out. "There
shall be no beggar-marriages in my family. If you choose
to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have
for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
pack and walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell
you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"
"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up
his shirt-collars. "I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the
black that sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. I'm not
going to marry a Hottentot Venus."
Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he
was accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted
wine--and almost black in the face, ordered that functionary
to call a coach for Captain Osborne.
"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters'
an hour afterwards, looking very pale.
"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.
George told what had passed between his father and
himself.
"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. "I
love her more every day, Dobbin."
CHAPTER XXII
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon
Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold
out against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself
pretty easy about his adversary in the encounter we have
just described; and as soon as George's supplies fell
short, confidently expected his unconditional submission.
It was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured
a stock of provisions on the very day when the first
encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary,
old Osborne thought, and would but delay George's
surrender. No communication passed between father and
son for some days. The former was sulky at this silence,
but not disquieted; for, as he said, he knew where he
could put the screw upon George, and only waited the
result of that operation. He told the sisters the upshot of
the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no
notice of the matter, and welcome George on his return
as if nothing had happened. His cover was laid as usual
every day, and perhaps the old gentleman rather anxiously
expected him; but he never came. Some one inquired
at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was said
that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.
One gusty, raw day at the end of April--the rain whipping
the pavement of that ancient street where the old
Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated--George Osborne
came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard
and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat
and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion
of those days. Here was his friend Captain Dobbin,
in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military
frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual
coverings of his lanky person.
Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or
more. He had tried all the papers, but could not read
them. He had looked at the clock many scores of times;
and at the street, where the rain was pattering down,
and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long
reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table:
he bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick
(he was accustomed to ornament his great big hands in
this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously on the
milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and in fact showed those
signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate
attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to
employ when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed
in mind.
Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room,
joked him about the splendour of his costume and his
agitation of manner. One asked him if he was going to be
married? Dobbin laughed, and said he would send his
acquaintance (Major Wagstaff of the Engineers) a piece of
cake when that event took place. At length Captain Osborne
made his appearance, very smartly dressed, but
very pale and agitated as we have said. He wiped his
pale face with a large yellow bandanna pocket-handkerchief
that was prodigiously scented. He shook hands with
Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John, the waiter,
to bring him some curacao. Of this cordial he swallowed
off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness.
His friend asked with some interest about his health.
"Couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob," said
he. "Infernal headache and fever. Got up at nine, and
went down to the Hummums for a bath. I say, Dob, I feel
just as I did on the morning I went out with Rocket at
Quebec."
"So do I," William responded. "I was a deuced deal
more nervous than you were that morning. You made a
famous breakfast, I remember. Eat something now."
"You're a good old fellow, Will. I'll drink your health,
old boy, and farewell to--"
"No, no; two glasses are enough," Dobbin interrupted
him. "Here, take away the liqueurs, John. Have some
cayenne-pepper with your fowl. Make haste though, for it
is time we were there."
It was about half an hour from twelve when this
brief meeting and colloquy took place between the two
captains. A coach, into which Captain Osborne's servant
put his master's desk and dressing-case, had been in
waiting for some time; and into this the two gentlemen
hurried under an umbrella, and the valet mounted on the
box, cursing the rain and the dampness of the coachman
who was steaming beside him. "We shall find a better
trap than this at the church-door," says he; "that's a
comfort." And the carriage drove on, taking the road
down Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St. George's
Hospital wore red jackets still; where there were oil-
lamps; where Achilles was not yet born; nor the Pimlico
arch raised; nor the hideous equestrian monster which
pervades it and the neighbourhood; and so they drove
down by Brompton to a certain chapel near the Fulham
Road there.
A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a
coach of the kind called glass coaches. Only a very few
idlers were collected on account of the dismal rain.
"Hang it!" said George, "I said only a pair."
"My master would have four," said Mr. Joseph Sedley's
servant, who was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne's
man agreed as they followed George and William into
the church, that it was a "reg'lar shabby turn
hout; and with scarce so much as a breakfast or a
wedding faviour."
"Here you are," said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming
forward. "You're five minutes late, George, my boy.
What a day, eh? Demmy, it's like the commencement of
the rainy season in Bengal. But you'll find my carriage
is watertight. Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the
vestry."
Jos Sedley was splendid. He was fatter than ever. His
shirt collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-
frill flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat.
Varnished boots were not invented as yet; but the Hessians
on his beautiful legs shone so, that they must have been
the identical pair in which the gentleman in the old picture
used to shave himself; and on his light green coat
there bloomed a fine wedding favour, like a great white
spreading magnolia.
In a word, George had thrown the great cast. He was
going to be married. Hence his pallor and nervousness--
his sleepless night and agitation in the morning. I have
heard people who have gone through the same thing
own to the same emotion. After three or four ceremonies,
you get accustomed to it, no doubt; but the first
dip, everybody allows, is awful.
The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as
Captain Dobbin has since informed me), and wore a straw
bonnet with a pink ribbon; over the bonnet she had a
veil of white Chantilly lace, a gift from Mr. Joseph Sedley,
her brother. Captain Dobbin himself had asked leave
to present her with a gold chain and watch, which she
sported on this occasion; and her mother gave her her
diamond brooch--almost the only trinket which was left
to the old lady. As the service went on, Mrs. Sedley sat
and whimpered a great deal in a pew, consoled by the
Irish maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from the lodgings.
Old Sedley would not be present. Jos acted for his father,
giving away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up
as groomsman to his friend George.
There was nobody in the church besides the officiating
persons and the small marriage party and their attendants.
The two valets sat aloof superciliously. The rain
came rattling down on the windows. In the intervals of
the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old Mrs.
Sedley in the pew. The parson's tones echoed sadly
through the empty walls. Osborne's "I will" was sounded
in very deep bass. Emmy's response came fluttering up
to her lips from her heart, but was scarcely heard by
anybody except Captain Dobbin.
When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came
forward and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time
for many months--George's look of gloom had gone, and
he seemed quite proud and radiant. "It's your turn,
William," says he, putting his hand fondly upon Dobbin's
shoulder; and Dobbin went up and touched Amelia on
the cheek.
Then they went into the vestry and signed the register.
"God bless you, Old Dobbin," George said, grasping him
by the hand, with something very like moisture glistening
in his eyes. William replied only by nodding his head.
His heart was too full to say much.
"Write directly, and come down as soon as you can,
you know," Osborne said. After Mrs. Sedley had taken an
hysterical adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the
carriage. "Get out of the way, you little devils," George
cried to a small crowd of damp urchins, that were hanging
about the chapel-door. The rain drove into the bride
and bridegroom's faces as they passed to the chariot.
The postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets.
The few children made a dismal cheer, as the carriage,
splashing mud, drove away.
William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it,
a queer figure. The small crew of spectators jeered him.
He was not thinking about them or their laughter.
"Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin," a voice
cried behind him; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder,
and the honest fellow's reverie was interrupted. But
the Captain had no heart to go a-feasting with Jos Sedley.
He put the weeping old lady and her attendants into the
carriage along with Jos, and left them without any farther
words passing. This carriage, too, drove away, and the
urchins gave another sarcastical cheer.
"Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some
sixpences amongst them, and then went off by himself
through the rain. It was all over. They were married, and
happy, he prayed God. Never since he was a boy had he
felt so miserable and so lonely. He longed with a heart-
sick yearning for the first few days to be over, that he
might see her again.
Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young
men of our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful
prospect of bow windows on the one side and blue sea
on the other, which Brighton affords to the traveller.
Sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with countless
dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred
bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his blue garment--
that the Londoner looks enraptured: sometimes, on the
contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects
of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that
he turns, and that swarm of human life which they
exhibit. From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young
lady in ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight
of the fellow-lodgers: at another, lovely Polly, the nurse-
"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says
he, after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky
figure and military appearance caused some excitement
likewise to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the
cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the old lady in
black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
bar). "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your
excellent mother, sir?" He looked round at the waiter as
he said, "My lady," as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I
have friends still, and persons of rank and reputation,
too." "Are you come to do anything in my way, sir? My
young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for me
now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
temporarily, you know, Captain. What can we do for you.
sir? Will you like to take anything?"
Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering,
protested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty;
that he had no business to transact; that he only came
to ask if Mr. Sedley was well, and to shake hands with
an old friend; and, he added, with a desperate perversion
of truth, "My mother is very well--that is, she's been very
unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day to go out
and call upon Mrs. Sedley. How is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I
hope she's quite well." And here he paused, reflecting on
his own consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine,
and the sunshine as bright as it ever is in Coffin Court,
where the Tapioca Coffee-house is situated: and Mr.
Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley himself
only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham
in his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.
"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship,"
Sedley replied, pulling out his papers. "I've a very kind
letter here from your father, sir, and beg my respectful
compliments to him. Lady D. will find us in rather a
smaller house than we were accustomed to receive our
friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good
to my daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you
remember little Emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal."
The old gentleman's eyes were wandering as he spoke, and
he was thinking of something else, as he sate thrumming
on his papers and fumbling at the worn red tape.
"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill
Dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the
return of that Corsican scoundrel from Elba? When the
allied sovereigns were here last year, and we gave 'em
that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the Temple of
Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in
St. James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that
peace wasn't really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te
Deum for it, sir? I ask you, William, could I suppose that
the Emperor of Austria was a damned traitor--a traitor,
and nothing more? I don't mince words--a double-faced
infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-
in-law back all along. And I say that the escape of Boney
from Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in
which half the powers of Europe were concerned, to
bring the funds down, and to ruin this country. That's
why I'm here, William. That's why my name's in the
Gazette. Why, sir?--because I trusted the Emperor of
Russia and the Prince Regent. Look here. Look at my
papers. Look what the funds were on the 1st of March
--what the French fives were when I bought for the
count. And what they're at now. There was collusion, sir,
or that villain never would have escaped. Where was the
English Commissioner who allowed him to get away? He
ought to be shot, sir--brought to a court-martial, and
shot, by Jove."
"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said,
rather alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of
whose forehead began to swell, and who sate drumming
his papers with his clenched fist. "We are going to hunt
him out, sir--the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
expect marching orders every day."
"Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain's head, sir.
Shoot the coward down, sir," Sedley roared. "I'd enlist
myself, by--; but I'm a broken old man--ruined by
that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel of swindling
thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in
his voice.
Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once
kind old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving
with senile anger. Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom
money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so,
surely, are they in Vanity Fair.
"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you
warm, and they sting you afterwards. There are some
beggars that you put on horseback, and they're the first
to ride you down. You know whom I mean, William
Dobbin, my boy. I mean a purse-proud villain in Russell
Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I
pray and hope to see a beggar as he was when I
befriended him."
"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend
George," Dobbin said, anxious to come to his point. "The
quarrel between you and his father has cut him up a great
deal, sir. Indeed, I'm the bearer of a message from him."
"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man,
jumping up. "What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he?
Very kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified
airs and West End swagger. He's hankering about my
house, is he still? If my son had the courage of a man,
he'd shoot him. He's as big a villain as his father. I won't
have his name mentioned in my house. I curse the day
that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter
dead at my feet than married to him."
"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir. Your
daughter's love for him is as much your doing as his. Who
are you, that you are to play with two young people's
affections and break their hearts at your will?"
"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off,"
old Sedley cried out. "It's I that forbid it. That family and
mine are separated for ever. I'm fallen low, but not so
low as that: no, no. And so you may tell the whole race--
son, and father and sisters, and all."
"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the
right to separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low
voice; "and that if you don't give your daughter your
consent it will be her duty to marry without it. There's no
reason she should die or live miserably because you
are wrong-headed. To my thinking, she's just as much
married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
London. And what better answer can there be to Osborne's
charges against you, as charges there are, than
that his son claims to enter your family and marry your
daughter?"
A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break
over old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still
persisted that with his consent the marriage between
Amelia and George should never take place.
"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told
Mr. Sedley, as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before,
the story of Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley. It
evidently amused the old gentleman. "You're terrible
fellows, you Captains," said he, tying up his papers; and his
face wore something like a smile upon it, to the astonishment
of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered, and had
never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
since he had used the dismal coffee-house.
The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow
soothed, perhaps, the old gentleman: and, their colloquy
presently ending, he and Dobbin parted pretty good friends.
"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons'
eggs," George said, laughing. "How they must set off her
complexion! A perfect illumination it must be when her
jewels are on her neck. Her jet-black hair is as curly as
Sambo's. I dare say she wore a nose ring when she went
to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."
George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the
appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters
had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object
of vast respect to the Russell Square family. She was reported
to have I don't know how many plantations in the
West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three
stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list. She
had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place.
The name of the rich West India heiress had been mentioned
with applause in the Morning Post. Mrs. Haggistoun,
Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her relative, "chaperoned"
her, and kept her house. She was just from school, where
she had completed her education, and George and his
sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's
house, Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were
long the correspondents of her house in the West Indies),
and the girls had made the most cordial advances to her,
which the heiress had received with great good humour.
An orphan in her position--with her money--so interesting!
the Misses Osborne said. They were full of their new
friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for
continually meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see
her the very next day. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's
widow, a relation of Lord Binkie, and always talking
of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls as rather
haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her great
relations: but Rhoda was everything they could wish--
the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a
little polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-
named each other at once.
"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy,"
Osborne cried, laughing. "She came to my sisters to show
it off, before she was presented in state by my Lady
Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman. She's related to every
one, that Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed out like
Vauxhall on the night we were there. (Do you remember
Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle
diddle darling?) Diamonds and mahogany, my dear!
think what an advantageous contrast--and the white
feathers in her hair--I mean in her wool. She had
earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em
up, by Jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after
her like the tail of a cornet."
"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was
rattling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning
of their reunion--rattling away as no other man in the
world surely could.
"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left
school, must be two or three and twenty. And you should
see the hand she writes! Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually
writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence, she put
pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and
Saint James's, Saint Jams."
"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour
boarder," Emmy said, remembering that good-natured
young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected
when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy
"The very name," George said. "Her father was a German
Jew--a slave-owner they say--connected with the
Cannibal Islands in some way or other. He died last year,
and Miss Pinkerton has finished her education. She can
play two pieces on the piano; she knows three songs;
she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for her;
and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a
sister."
"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully.
"They were always very cold to me."
"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had
had two hundred thousand pounds," George replied. "That
is the way in which they have been brought up. Ours is
a ready-money society. We live among bankers and City
big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he
talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is
that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria--
there's Goldmore, the East India Director, there's Dipley,
in the tallow trade--OUR trade," George said, with an
uneasy laugh and a blush. "Curse the whole pack of money-
grubbing vulgarians! I fall asleep at their great heavy
dinners. I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
parties. I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and
men of the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel
of turtle-fed tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only
person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke
like a lady: and you do it because you're an angel and
can't help it. Don't remonstrate. You are the only lady.
Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in the
best company in Europe? And as for Crawley, of the Life
Guards, hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for
marrying the girl he had chosen."
Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this;
and trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped
(with a laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so the pair
went on prattling, as in quite early days. Amelia's
confidence being perfectly restored to her, though she
expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz,
and professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite
as she was--lest George should forget her for the
heiress and her money and her estates in Saint Kitt's. But
the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have fears
or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having George
at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
or indeed of any sort of danger.
When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to
these people--which he did with a great deal of sympathy
for them--it did his heart good to see how Amelia had
grown young again--how she laughed, and chirped, and
sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were only
interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr.
Sedley's return from the City, before whom George received a
signal to retreat.
Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was
an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking
--Miss Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his
visit. But he was content, so that he saw her happy; and
thankful to have been the means of making her so.
CHAPTER XXI
A Quarrel About an Heiress
Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of
ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she
was to realize. He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm
and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the
young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest
pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that
splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the
West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell
Square. My daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but
their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived
an attachment for you which does them honour--I say,
which does them honour. I'm a plain, simple, humble
British merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends
Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents
of your late lamented father. You'll find us a
united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected,
family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome,
my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my
heart warms to you, it does really. I'm a frank man, and
I like you. A glass of Champagne! Hicks, Champagne to
Miss Swartz."
There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he
said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their
protestations of affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity
Fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest
people are disposed to look not a little kindly on
great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British
public to say that the notion of Wealth has not something
awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to
look at him with a certain interest)--if the simple look
benevolently on money, how much more do your old
worldlings regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and
welcome money. Their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it. I know
some respectable people who don't consider themselves
at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who
has not a certain competency, or place in society. They
give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. And
the proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family,
who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a
hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most
romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.
What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and
Miss Wirt agreed), and how much better than that
insignificant little Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as
he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments,
would be the very husband for her. Visions of balls in
Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies;
who talked of nothing but George and his grand
acquaintances to their beloved new friend.
Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too,
for his son. He should leave the army; he should go into
Parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in
the state. His blood boiled with honest British exultation,
as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in the person
of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of
a glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on
'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune
of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her
estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants,
would have liked to make a bid for her himself
(it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was
booked to Maria Osborne. But not being able to secure
her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her
as a sister-in-law. "Let George cut in directly and win
her," was his advice. "Strike while the iron's hot, you
know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks
some d-- fellow from the West End will come in with a
title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as
Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's. The
sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my
sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left
the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and
what a pretty girl she was, and how attached to George
Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had
befallen that unlucky young woman.
While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his
good friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the
truant to Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were
arranging this splendid match for him, which they never
dreamed he would resist.
When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint,"
there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake
his meaning. He called kicking a footman downstairs a
hint to the latter to leave his service. With his usual
frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he
would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the
day his son was married to her ward; and called that
proposal a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece
of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another hint
regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out
of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a
cork, or his clerk to write a letter.
This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He
was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second
courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet
to him. The contrast of her manners and appearance with
those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the
latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and
opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the
side of such a mahogany charmer as that! Add to all
that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the
senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his
resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered,
as his father in his most stern moments.
On the first day when his father formally gave him the
hint that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's
feet, George temporised with the old gentleman. "You
should have thought of the matter sooner, sir," he said.
"It can't be done now, when we're expecting every day
to go on foreign service. Wait till my return, if I do
return"; and then he represented, that the time when the
regiment was daily expecting to quit England, was
exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks during
which they were still to remain at home, must be
devoted to business and not to love-making: time enough
for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I
promise you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one
way or other you shall read the name of George Osborne
in the Gazette."
The father's reply to this was founded upon the
information which he had got in the City: that the West
End chaps would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if
any delay took place: that if he didn't marry Miss S., he
might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
into effect when he returned to England; and that a man
who could get ten thousand a year by staying at home,
was a fool to risk his life abroad.
"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir,
and our name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's
money," George interposed.
This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he
had to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless
made up, he said, "You will dine here to-morrow, sir,
and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will be here to
pay your respects to her. If you want for money, call
upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's
way, to interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and
about which he and Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation. His friend's opinion respecting the
line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know
already. And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a
thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the
more resolute.
The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs
of the Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of
all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her
friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the
young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being,
as we have before had occasion to show, of a very
warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection
with quite a tropical ardour. And if the truth may be told,
I dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the
Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George
Osborne a very nice young man. His whiskers had made
an impression upon her, on the very first night she
beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
know, she was not the first woman who had been
charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering
and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked like a
man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing
griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He
would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to
take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he
were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a
declaration of love. He trampled over all the young bucks
of his father's circle, and was the hero among those
third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and hated him.
Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his whiskers
had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves
round the affections of Miss Swartz.
Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell
Square, that simple and good-natured young woman
was quite in a flurry to see her dear Misses Osborne. She
went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and
bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. She adorned her
person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror,
and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his
favour. The girls would ask her, with the greatest
gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three
songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever
they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to
herself. During these delectable entertainments, Miss
Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the
peerage, and talked about the nobility.
The day after George had his hint from his father, and
a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling
upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming
and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. He had
been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in the City
(the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his
son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him,
and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). He
had then been to pass three hours with Amelia, his
dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to
find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-
room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and
honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with
turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and
all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly
decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.
The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation,
talked about fashions and the last drawing-room
until he was perfectly sick of their chatter. He
contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's--their
shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes
and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft
movements and modest graces. Poor Swartz was seated
in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit.
Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin
lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes
rolled about. She was doing nothing with perfect contentment,
and thinking herself charming. Anything so becoming
as the satin the sisters had never seen.
"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she
looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day
but to grin and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I
I could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-
cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of
sentiment, however.
The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. "Stop
that d-- thing," George howled out in a fury from the
sofa. "It makes me mad. You play us something, Miss
Swartz, do. Sing something, anything but the Battle of
Prague."
"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the
Cabinet?" Miss Swartz asked.
"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.
"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa
"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,' " Swartz said, in a meek
voice, "if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy
young woman's collection.
"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,' " Miss Maria cried; "we have the
song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was.
Now it happened that this song, then in the height of
the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young
friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss
Swartz, having concluded the ditty with George's applause
(for he remembered that it was a favourite of Amelia's),
was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the
leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and
she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.
"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on
the music-stool, "is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at
Miss P.'s at Hammersmith? I know it is. It's her. and--
Tell me about her--where is she?"
"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said
hastily. "Her family has disgraced itself. Her father
cheated Papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned
HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for George's
rudeness about the Battle of Prague.
"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing
up. "God bless you for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe
what,the girls say. SHE'S not to blame at any rate.
She's the best--"
"You know you're not to speak about her, George,"
cried Jane. "Papa forbids it."
"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out. "I will speak
of her. I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the
sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, my
sisters are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her,
go and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and
I say, God bless everybody who befriends her. Anybody
who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who
speaks against her is my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz";
and he went up and wrung her hand.
"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.
"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who
loves Amelia Sed--" He stopped. Old Osborne was in
the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot
coals.
Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his
blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the
generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to
the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative
of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in
his turn, and looked away. He felt that the tussle was
coming. "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner,"
he said. "Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George,"
and they marched.
"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged
almost all our lives," Osborne said to his partner; and
during all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility
which surprised himself, and made his father doubly
nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as
the ladies were gone.
The difference between the pair was, that while the
father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the
nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely
make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment
was now come when the contest between him and
his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with
perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement
began. Old Osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and
drank much. He floundered in his conversation with the
ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering
him more angry. It made him half mad to see the calm
way in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a
swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave
the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it,
and looked his father full in the face, as if to say,
"Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a
supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against
the glass as he tried to fill it.
After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking
face, he then began. "How dare you, sir, mention that
person's name before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-
room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"
"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir. Dare
isn't a word to be used to a Captain in the British Army."
"I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off
with a shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like.
I WILL say what I like," the elder said.
"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George
answered haughtily. "Any communications which you
have to make to me, or any orders which you may
please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of
language which I am accustomed to hear."
Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it
always created either great awe or great irritation in the
parent. Old Osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a
better gentleman than himself; and perhaps my readers
may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity Fair
of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded
man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman.
"My father didn't give me the education you have had,
nor the advantages you have had, nor the money you
have had. If I had kept the company SOME FOLKS have
had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't have
any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END
AIRS (these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's
most sarcastic tones). But it wasn't considered the part
of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man to insult his father.
If I'd done any such thing, mine would have kicked me
downstairs, sir."
"I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to
remember your son was a gentleman as well as yourself.
I know very well that you give me plenty of money,"
said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
got in the morning from Mr. Chopper). "You tell it me
often enough, sir. There's no fear of my forgetting it."
"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the
sire answered. "I wish you'd remember that in this house
--so long as you choose to HONOUR it with your COMPANY,
Captain--I'm the master, and that name, and that
that--that you--that I say--"
"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer,
filling another glass of claret.
"--!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--
"that the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned
here, sir--not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir."
"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name. It
was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and
by Jove I'll defend her wherever I go. Nobody shall
speak lightly of that name in my presence. Our family
has done her quite enough injury already, I think, and
may leave off reviling her now she's down. I'll shoot any
man but you who says a word against her."
"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes
starting out of his head.
"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've
treated that angel of a girl? Who told me to love her? It
was your doing. I might have chosen elsewhere, and
looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I obeyed
you. And now that her heart's mine you give me orders
to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for
the faults of other people. It's a shame, by Heavens,"
said George, working himself up into passion and
enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose with
a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that
--one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived,
that she might have excited envy, only she was so good
and gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her.
If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?"
"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense
and humbug here, sir," the father cried out. "There
shall be no beggar-marriages in my family. If you choose
to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have
for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
pack and walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell
you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"
"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up
his shirt-collars. "I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the
black that sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. I'm not
going to marry a Hottentot Venus."
Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he
was accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted
wine--and almost black in the face, ordered that functionary
to call a coach for Captain Osborne.
"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters'
an hour afterwards, looking very pale.
"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.
George told what had passed between his father and
himself.
"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. "I
love her more every day, Dobbin."
CHAPTER XXII
A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon
Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold
out against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself
pretty easy about his adversary in the encounter we have
just described; and as soon as George's supplies fell
short, confidently expected his unconditional submission.
It was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured
a stock of provisions on the very day when the first
encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary,
old Osborne thought, and would but delay George's
surrender. No communication passed between father and
son for some days. The former was sulky at this silence,
but not disquieted; for, as he said, he knew where he
could put the screw upon George, and only waited the
result of that operation. He told the sisters the upshot of
the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no
notice of the matter, and welcome George on his return
as if nothing had happened. His cover was laid as usual
every day, and perhaps the old gentleman rather anxiously
expected him; but he never came. Some one inquired
at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was said
that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.
One gusty, raw day at the end of April--the rain whipping
the pavement of that ancient street where the old
Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated--George Osborne
came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard
and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat
and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion
of those days. Here was his friend Captain Dobbin,
in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military
frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual
coverings of his lanky person.
Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or
more. He had tried all the papers, but could not read
them. He had looked at the clock many scores of times;
and at the street, where the rain was pattering down,
and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long
reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table:
he bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick
(he was accustomed to ornament his great big hands in
this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously on the
milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and in fact showed those
signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate
attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to
employ when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed
in mind.
Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room,
joked him about the splendour of his costume and his
agitation of manner. One asked him if he was going to be
married? Dobbin laughed, and said he would send his
acquaintance (Major Wagstaff of the Engineers) a piece of
cake when that event took place. At length Captain Osborne
made his appearance, very smartly dressed, but
very pale and agitated as we have said. He wiped his
pale face with a large yellow bandanna pocket-handkerchief
that was prodigiously scented. He shook hands with
Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John, the waiter,
to bring him some curacao. Of this cordial he swallowed
off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness.
His friend asked with some interest about his health.
"Couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob," said
he. "Infernal headache and fever. Got up at nine, and
went down to the Hummums for a bath. I say, Dob, I feel
just as I did on the morning I went out with Rocket at
Quebec."
"So do I," William responded. "I was a deuced deal
more nervous than you were that morning. You made a
famous breakfast, I remember. Eat something now."
"You're a good old fellow, Will. I'll drink your health,
old boy, and farewell to--"
"No, no; two glasses are enough," Dobbin interrupted
him. "Here, take away the liqueurs, John. Have some
cayenne-pepper with your fowl. Make haste though, for it
is time we were there."
It was about half an hour from twelve when this
brief meeting and colloquy took place between the two
captains. A coach, into which Captain Osborne's servant
put his master's desk and dressing-case, had been in
waiting for some time; and into this the two gentlemen
hurried under an umbrella, and the valet mounted on the
box, cursing the rain and the dampness of the coachman
who was steaming beside him. "We shall find a better
trap than this at the church-door," says he; "that's a
comfort." And the carriage drove on, taking the road
down Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St. George's
Hospital wore red jackets still; where there were oil-
lamps; where Achilles was not yet born; nor the Pimlico
arch raised; nor the hideous equestrian monster which
pervades it and the neighbourhood; and so they drove
down by Brompton to a certain chapel near the Fulham
Road there.
A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a
coach of the kind called glass coaches. Only a very few
idlers were collected on account of the dismal rain.
"Hang it!" said George, "I said only a pair."
"My master would have four," said Mr. Joseph Sedley's
servant, who was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne's
man agreed as they followed George and William into
the church, that it was a "reg'lar shabby turn
hout; and with scarce so much as a breakfast or a
wedding faviour."
"Here you are," said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming
forward. "You're five minutes late, George, my boy.
What a day, eh? Demmy, it's like the commencement of
the rainy season in Bengal. But you'll find my carriage
is watertight. Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the
vestry."
Jos Sedley was splendid. He was fatter than ever. His
shirt collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-
frill flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat.
Varnished boots were not invented as yet; but the Hessians
on his beautiful legs shone so, that they must have been
the identical pair in which the gentleman in the old picture
used to shave himself; and on his light green coat
there bloomed a fine wedding favour, like a great white
spreading magnolia.
In a word, George had thrown the great cast. He was
going to be married. Hence his pallor and nervousness--
his sleepless night and agitation in the morning. I have
heard people who have gone through the same thing
own to the same emotion. After three or four ceremonies,
you get accustomed to it, no doubt; but the first
dip, everybody allows, is awful.
The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as
Captain Dobbin has since informed me), and wore a straw
bonnet with a pink ribbon; over the bonnet she had a
veil of white Chantilly lace, a gift from Mr. Joseph Sedley,
her brother. Captain Dobbin himself had asked leave
to present her with a gold chain and watch, which she
sported on this occasion; and her mother gave her her
diamond brooch--almost the only trinket which was left
to the old lady. As the service went on, Mrs. Sedley sat
and whimpered a great deal in a pew, consoled by the
Irish maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from the lodgings.
Old Sedley would not be present. Jos acted for his father,
giving away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up
as groomsman to his friend George.
There was nobody in the church besides the officiating
persons and the small marriage party and their attendants.
The two valets sat aloof superciliously. The rain
came rattling down on the windows. In the intervals of
the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old Mrs.
Sedley in the pew. The parson's tones echoed sadly
through the empty walls. Osborne's "I will" was sounded
in very deep bass. Emmy's response came fluttering up
to her lips from her heart, but was scarcely heard by
anybody except Captain Dobbin.
When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came
forward and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time
for many months--George's look of gloom had gone, and
he seemed quite proud and radiant. "It's your turn,
William," says he, putting his hand fondly upon Dobbin's
shoulder; and Dobbin went up and touched Amelia on
the cheek.
Then they went into the vestry and signed the register.
"God bless you, Old Dobbin," George said, grasping him
by the hand, with something very like moisture glistening
in his eyes. William replied only by nodding his head.
His heart was too full to say much.
"Write directly, and come down as soon as you can,
you know," Osborne said. After Mrs. Sedley had taken an
hysterical adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the
carriage. "Get out of the way, you little devils," George
cried to a small crowd of damp urchins, that were hanging
about the chapel-door. The rain drove into the bride
and bridegroom's faces as they passed to the chariot.
The postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets.
The few children made a dismal cheer, as the carriage,
splashing mud, drove away.
William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it,
a queer figure. The small crew of spectators jeered him.
He was not thinking about them or their laughter.
"Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin," a voice
cried behind him; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder,
and the honest fellow's reverie was interrupted. But
the Captain had no heart to go a-feasting with Jos Sedley.
He put the weeping old lady and her attendants into the
carriage along with Jos, and left them without any farther
words passing. This carriage, too, drove away, and the
urchins gave another sarcastical cheer.
"Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some
sixpences amongst them, and then went off by himself
through the rain. It was all over. They were married, and
happy, he prayed God. Never since he was a boy had he
felt so miserable and so lonely. He longed with a heart-
sick yearning for the first few days to be over, that he
might see her again.
Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young
men of our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful
prospect of bow windows on the one side and blue sea
on the other, which Brighton affords to the traveller.
Sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with countless
dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred
bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his blue garment--
that the Londoner looks enraptured: sometimes, on the
contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects
of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that
he turns, and that swarm of human life which they
exhibit. From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young
lady in ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight
of the fellow-lodgers: at another, lovely Polly, the nurse-