Vanity Fair (61 page)

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr. Osborne's
acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne's house in
Russell Square, with a very pale and agitated face, and insisted
upon seeing that gentleman. Ushered into his room, and after a few
words, which neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former
produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large red seal.
"My son, Major Dobbin," the Alderman said, with some hesitation,
"despatched me a letter by an officer of the —th, who arrived in
town to-day. My son's letter contains one for you, Osborne." The
Alderman placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him
for a moment or two in silence. His looks frightened the
ambassador, who after looking guiltily for a little time at the
grief-stricken man, hurried away without another word.

The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting. It was that
one which he had written before daybreak on the 16th of June, and
just before he took leave of Amelia. The great red seal was
emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from
the Peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal
house with which the vain old man tried to fancy himself connected.
The hand that signed it would never hold pen or sword more. The
very seal that sealed it had been robbed from George's dead body as
it lay on the field of battle. The father knew nothing of this, but
sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy. He almost fell
when he went to open it.

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters,
written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you!
What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests
of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of
love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us
have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons
which we keep and shun. Osborne trembled long before the letter from
his dead son.

The poor boy's letter did not say much. He had been too proud to
acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt. He only said, that
on the eve of a great battle, he wished to bid his father farewell,
and solemnly to implore his good offices for the wife—it might be
for the child—whom he left behind him. He owned with contrition
that his irregularities and his extravagance had already wasted a
large part of his mother's little fortune. He thanked his father
for his former generous conduct; and he promised him that if he fell
on the field or survived it, he would act in a manner worthy of the
name of George Osborne.

His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had prevented him
from saying more. His father could not see the kiss George had
placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne dropped it
with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge.
His son was still beloved and unforgiven.

About two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies of the
family went to church with their father, they remarked how he took a
different seat from that which he usually occupied when he chose to
attend divine worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked
up at the wall over their heads. This caused the young women
likewise to gaze in the direction towards which their father's
gloomy eyes pointed: and they saw an elaborate monument upon the
wall, where Britannia was represented weeping over an urn, and a
broken sword and a couchant lion indicated that the piece of
sculpture had been erected in honour of a deceased warrior. The
sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal emblems in hand;
as you may see still on the walls of St. Paul's, which are covered
with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories. There was a
constant demand for them during the first fifteen years of the
present century.

Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well-known and
pompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said, that the monument
was "Sacred to the memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a
Captain in his Majesty's —th regiment of foot, who fell on the 18th
of June, 1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his king and
country in the glorious victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori."

The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so much,
that Miss Maria was compelled to leave the church. The congregation
made way respectfully for those sobbing girls clothed in deep black,
and pitied the stern old father seated opposite the memorial of the
dead soldier. "Will he forgive Mrs. George?" the girls said to
themselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over. Much
conversation passed too among the acquaintances of the Osborne
family, who knew of the rupture between the son and father caused by
the former's marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the
young widow. There were bets among the gentlemen both about Russell
Square and in the City.

If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recognition of
Amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased presently, and
towards the end of the autumn, by their father's announcement that
he was going abroad. He did not say whither, but they knew at once
that his steps would be turned towards Belgium, and were aware that
George's widow was still in Brussels. They had pretty accurate news
indeed of poor Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our
honest Captain had been promoted in consequence of the death of the
second Major of the regiment on the field; and the brave O'Dowd, who
had distinguished himself greatly here as upon all occasions where
he had a chance to show his coolness and valour, was a Colonel and
Companion of the Bath.

Very many of the brave —th, who had suffered severely upon both days
of action, were still at Brussels in the autumn, recovering of their
wounds. The city was a vast military hospital for months after the
great battles; and as men and officers began to rally from their
hurts, the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with maimed
warriors, old and young, who, just rescued out of death, fell to
gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as people of Vanity Fair will
do. Mr. Osborne found out some of the —th easily. He knew their
uniform quite well, and had been used to follow all the promotions
and exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and its
officers as if he had been one of the number. On the day after his
arrival at Brussels, and as he issued from his hotel, which faced
the park, he saw a soldier in the well-known facings, reposing on a
stone bench in the garden, and went and sate down trembling by the
wounded convalescent man.

"Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said, and added, after a
pause, "he was my son, sir."

The man was not of the Captain's company, but he lifted up his
unwounded arm and touched-his cap sadly and respectfully to the
haggard broken-spirited gentleman who questioned him. "The whole
army didn't contain a finer or a better officer," the soldier said.
"The Sergeant of the Captain's company (Captain Raymond had it now),
was in town, though, and was just well of a shot in the shoulder.
His honour might see him if he liked, who could tell him anything he
wanted to know about—about the —th's actions. But his honour had
seen Major Dobbin, no doubt, the brave Captain's great friend; and
Mrs. Osborne, who was here too, and had been very bad, he heard
everybody say. They say she was out of her mind like for six weeks
or more. But your honour knows all about that—and asking your
pardon"—the man added.

Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he should
have another if he would bring the Sergeant to the Hotel du Parc; a
promise which very soon brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne's
presence. And the first soldier went away; and after telling a
comrade or two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived, and what a
free-handed generous gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer
with drink and feasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had
come from the proud purse of the mourning old father.

In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent, Osborne
made the journey of Waterloo and Quatre Bras, a journey which
thousands of his countrymen were then taking. He took the Sergeant
with him in his carriage, and went through both fields under his
guidance. He saw the point of the road where the regiment marched
into action on the 16th, and the slope down which they drove the
French cavalry who were pressing on the retreating Belgians. There
was the spot where the noble Captain cut down the French officer who
was grappling with the young Ensign for the colours, the Colour-
Sergeants having been shot down. Along this road they retreated on
the next day, and here was the bank at which the regiment bivouacked
under the rain of the night of the seventeenth. Further on was the
position which they took and held during the day, forming time after
time to receive the charge of the enemy's horsemen and lying down
under the shelter of the bank from the furious French cannonade.
And it was at this declivity when at evening the whole English line
received the order to advance, as the enemy fell back after his last
charge, that the Captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill waving
his sword, received a shot and fell dead. "It was Major Dobbin who
took back the Captain's body to Brussels," the Sergeant said, in a
low voice, "and had him buried, as your honour knows." The peasants
and relic-hunters about the place were screaming round the pair, as
the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of mementoes
of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered cuirasses, and
eagles.

Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant when he parted with
him, after having visited the scenes of his son's last exploits.
His burial-place he had already seen. Indeed, he had driven thither
immediately after his arrival at Brussels. George's body lay in the
pretty burial-ground of Laeken, near the city; in which place,
having once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly
expressed a wish to have his grave made. And there the young
officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated corner of the
garden, separated by a little hedge from the temples and towers and
plantations of flowers and shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic
dead repose. It seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think that
his son, an English gentleman, a captain in the famous British army,
should not be found worthy to lie in ground where mere foreigners
were buried. Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in
our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is? Old
Osborne did not speculate much upon the mingled nature of his
feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating
together. He firmly believed that everything he did was right, that
he ought on all occasions to have his own way—and like the sting of
a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonous against
anything like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of
everything else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and
never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which
dullness takes the lead in the world?

As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage was nearing
the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open barouche, in
which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and by the side of
which an officer was riding. Osborne gave a start back, and the
Sergeant, seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour,
as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically returned his
salute. It was Amelia, with the lame young Ensign by her side, and
opposite to her her faithful friend Mrs. O'Dowd. It was Amelia, but
how changed from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face
was white and thin. Her pretty brown hair was parted under a
widow's cap—the poor child. Her eyes were fixed, and looking
nowhere. They stared blank in the face of Osborne, as the carriages
crossed each other, but she did not know him; nor did he recognise
her, until looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her: and then he
knew who it was. He hated her. He did not know how much until he
saw her there. When her carriage had passed on, he turned and
stared at the Sergeant, with a curse and defiance in his eye cast at
his companion, who could not help looking at him—as much as to say
"How dare you look at me? Damn you! I do hate her. It is she who
has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down." "Tell the scoundrel to
drive on quick," he shouted with an oath, to the lackey on the box.
A minute afterwards, a horse came clattering over the pavement
behind Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts had
been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other, and it was not
until he had ridden some paces forward, that he remembered it was
Osborne who had just passed him. Then he turned to examine if the
sight of her father-in-law had made any impression on Amelia, but
the poor girl did not know who had passed. Then William, who daily
used to accompany her in his drives, taking out his watch, made some
excuse about an engagement which he suddenly recollected, and so
rode off. She did not remark that either: but sate looking before
her, over the homely landscape towards the woods in the distance, by
which George marched away.

"Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, as he rode up and held out
his hand. Osborne made no motion to take it, but shouted out once
more and with another curse to his servant to drive on.

Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. "I will see you, sir,"
he said. "I have a message for you."

"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.

"No," replied the other, "from your son"; at which Osborne fell back
into the corner of his carriage, and Dobbin allowing it to pass on,
rode close behind it, and so through the town until they reached Mr.
Osborne's hotel, and without a word. There he followed Osborne up
to his apartments. George had often been in the rooms; they were
the lodgings which the Crawleys had occupied during their stay in
Brussels.