Vanity Fair (21 page)

"What's the matter now, my dear?" asked one of the other, as they
rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire. "I suppose the funds
are falling," whispered Miss Wirt; and so, trembling and in silence,
this hushed female company followed their dark leader. They took
their places in silence. He growled out a blessing, which sounded
as gruffly as a curse. The great silver dish-covers were removed.
Amelia trembled in her place, for she was next to the awful Osborne,
and alone on her side of the table—the gap being occasioned by the
absence of George.

"Soup?" says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his eyes on
her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and the rest, did
not speak for a while.

"Take Miss Sedley's plate away," at last he said. "She can't eat
the soup—no more can I. It's beastly. Take away the soup, Hicks,
and to-morrow turn the cook out of the house, Jane."

Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. Osborne made a
few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical
tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of
the place. Then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry glasses
of wine, looking more and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the
door told of George's arrival when everybody began to rally.

"He could not come before. General Daguilet had kept him waiting at
the Horse Guards. Never mind soup or fish. Give him anything—he
didn't care what. Capital mutton—capital everything." His good
humour contrasted with his father's severity; and he rattled on
unceasingly during dinner, to the delight of all—of one especially,
who need not be mentioned.

As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the glass
of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal banquets
at Mr. Osborne's house, the signal to make sail for the drawing-room
was given, and they all arose and departed. Amelia hoped George
would soon join them there. She began playing some of his favourite
waltzes (then newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-
cased grand piano in the drawing-room overhead. This little
artifice did not bring him. He was deaf to the waltzes; they grew
fainter and fainter; the discomfited performer left the huge
instrument presently; and though her three friends performed some of
the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she
did not hear a single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil. Old
Osborne's scowl, terrific always, had never before looked so deadly
to her. His eyes followed her out of the room, as if she had been
guilty of something. When they brought her coffee, she started as
though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks, the butler, wished
to propose to her. What mystery was there lurking? Oh, those women!
They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of
their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

The gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed George
Osborne with anxiety. With such eyebrows, and a look so decidedly
bilious, how was he to extract that money from the governor, of
which George was consumedly in want? He began praising his father's
wine. That was generally a successful means of cajoling the old
gentleman.

"We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as yours.
Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you sent me down,
under his belt the other day."

"Did he?" said the old gentleman. "It stands me in eight shillings
a bottle."

"Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?" said George, with a
laugh. "There's one of the greatest men in the kingdom wants some."

"Does he?" growled the senior. "Wish he may get it."

"When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop gave him a
breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine. The General liked it
just as well—wanted a pipe for the Commander-in-Chief. He's his
Royal Highness's right-hand man."

"It is devilish fine wine," said the Eyebrows, and they looked more
good-humoured; and George was going to take advantage of this
complacency, and bring the supply question on the mahogany, when the
father, relapsing into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner,
bade him ring the bell for claret. "And we'll see if that's as good
as the Madeira, George, to which his Royal Highness is welcome, I'm
sure. And as we are drinking it, I'll talk to you about a matter of
importance."

Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously upstairs.
She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental bell.
Of the presentiments which some people are always having, some
surely must come right.

"What I want to know, George," the old gentleman said, after slowly
smacking his first bumper—"what I want to know is, how you and—ah-
-that little thing upstairs, are carrying on?"

"I think, sir, it is not hard to see," George said, with a self-
satisfied grin. "Pretty clear, sir.—What capital wine!"

"What d'you mean, pretty clear, sir?"

"Why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard. I'm a modest man. I—
ah—I don't set up to be a lady-killer; but I do own that she's as
devilish fond of me as she can be. Anybody can see that with half
an eye."

"And you yourself?"

"Why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't I a good boy?
Haven't our Papas settled it ever so long?"

"A pretty boy, indeed. Haven't I heard of your doings, sir, with
Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards, the Honourable Mr.
Deuceace and that set. Have a care sir, have a care."

The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with the
greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before
him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do. He came
home and looked out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his
name into his daily conversation; he bragged about his Lordship to
his daughters. He fell down prostrate and basked in him as a
Neapolitan beggar does in the sun. George was alarmed when he heard
the names. He feared his father might have been informed of certain
transactions at play. But the old moralist eased him by saying
serenely:

"Well, well, young men will be young men. And the comfort to me is,
George, that living in the best society in England, as I hope you
do; as I think you do; as my means will allow you to do—"

"Thank you, sir," says George, making his point at once. "One can't
live with these great folks for nothing; and my purse, sir, look at
it"; and he held up a little token which had been netted by Amelia,
and contained the very last of Dobbin's pound notes.

"You shan't want, sir. The British merchant's son shan't want, sir.
My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy; and I don't grudge
'em. Call on Mr. Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow;
he'll have something for you. I don't grudge money when I know
you're in good society, because I know that good society can never
go wrong. There's no pride in me. I was a humbly born man—but you
have had advantages. Make a good use of 'em. Mix with the young
nobility. There's many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your
guinea, my boy. And as for the pink bonnets (here from under the
heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not very pleasing leer)—why
boys will be boys. Only there's one thing I order you to avoid,
which, if you do not, I'll cut you off with a shilling, by Jove; and
that's gambling."

"Oh, of course, sir," said George.

"But to return to the other business about Amelia: why shouldn't you
marry higher than a stockbroker's daughter, George—that's what I
want to know?"

"It's a family business, sir,".says George, cracking filberts. "You
and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred years ago."

"I don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir. I don't deny
that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the way of
acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud position, which,
I may say, I occupy in the tallow trade and the City of London.
I've shown my gratitude to Sedley; and he's tried it of late, sir,
as my cheque-book can show. George! I tell you in confidence I
don't like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs. My chief clerk, Mr.
Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an old file, and
knows 'Change as well as any man in London. Hulker & Bullock are
looking shy at him. He's been dabbling on his own account I fear.
They say the Jeune Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee
privateer Molasses. And that's flat—unless I see Amelia's ten
thousand down you don't marry her. I'll have no lame duck's
daughter in my family. Pass the wine, sir—or ring for coffee."

With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening paper, and George knew
from this signal that the colloquy was ended, and that his papa was
about to take a nap.

He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What was it
that made him more attentive to her on that night than he had been
for a long time—more eager to amuse her, more tender, more
brilliant in talk? Was it that his generous heart warmed to her at
the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear
little prize made him value it more?

She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for many days
afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the song he sang; his
attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her from a distance. As
it seemed to her, no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne's
house before; and for once this young person was almost provoked to
be angry by the premature arrival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl.

George came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; and
then hurried off to the City, where he visited Mr. Chopper, his
father's head man, and received from that gentleman a document which
he exchanged at Hulker & Bullock's for a whole pocketful of money.
As George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing out of the
banker's parlour, looking very dismal. But his godson was much too
elated to mark the worthy stockbroker's depression, or the dreary
eyes which the kind old gentleman cast upon him. Young Bullock did
not come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont
in former years.

And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed upon Mr.
Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to
hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out
of a copper shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on
his right. Mr. Driver winked again.

"No go," Mr. D. whispered.

"Not at no price," Mr. Q. said. "Mr. George Osborne, sir, how will
you take it?" George crammed eagerly a quantity of notes into his
pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that very evening at mess.

That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long letters.
Her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it still foreboded
evil. What was the cause of Mr. Osborne's dark looks? she asked.
Had any difference arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa
returned so melancholy from the City, that all were alarmed about
him at home—in fine, there were four pages of loves and fears and
hopes and forebodings.

"Poor little Emmy—dear little Emmy. How fond she is of me," George
said, as he perused the missive—"and Gad, what a headache that
mixed punch has given me!" Poor little Emmy, indeed.

Miss Crawley at Home

About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and well-
appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on
the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls
on the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. It was
the equipage of our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants. The
carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue
ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the lap of the
discontented female. When the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle
of shawls was taken out of the carriage by the aid of various
domestics and a young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. That
bundle contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith,
and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the reception
of an invalid. Messengers went off for her physician and medical
man. They came, consulted, prescribed, vanished. The young
companion of Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview,
came in to receive their instructions, and administered those
antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered.

Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knightsbridge
Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his
invalid aunt's door. He was most affectionate in his inquiries
regarding that amiable relative. There seemed to be much source of
apprehension. He found Miss Crawley's maid (the discontented female)
unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de
compagnie, in tears alone in the drawing-room. She had hastened
home, hearing of her beloved friend's illness. She wished to fly to
her couch, that couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in
the hour of sickness. She was denied admission to Miss Crawley's
apartment. A stranger was administering her medicines—a stranger
from the country—an odious Miss . . . —tears choked the utterance
of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and
her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.

Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and
Miss Crawley's new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-
room, put a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to
meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and
beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him
downstairs into that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a
good dinner had been celebrated.

Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the
symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period
the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by
Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed,
happened to be at the keyhole during the most part of the
interview); and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios,
mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to the admiration
of the little blackguard boys collected in the street. He looked in
at the dining-room window, managing his horse, which curvetted and
capered beautifully—for one instant the young person might be seen
at the window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she went
upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence.