Vanity Fair
placed him. He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by
the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo, but mainly by the latter,
pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in to think that his
enemy's fortune was made through his means.
When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the Colonial
Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the Service
upon having made so excellent an appointment. These congratulations
were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the
part of Lord Steyne.
The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley was buried
in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, by the seconds
and the principals. But before that evening was over it was talked of
at fifty dinner-tables in Vanity Fair. Little Cackleby himself went to
seven evening parties and told the story with comments and emendations
at each place. How Mrs. Washington White revelled in it! The
Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond expression; the Bishop went and
wrote his name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt House that very day.
Little Southdown was sorry; so you may be sure was his sister Lady
Jane, very sorry. Lady Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at
the Cape of Good Hope. It was town-talk for at least three days, and
was only kept out of the newspapers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg,
acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham.
The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon Street, and
the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the
meanwhile--where? Who cared! Who asked after a day or two? Was she
guilty or not? We all know how charitable the world is, and how the
verdict of Vanity Fair goes when there is a doubt. Some people said
she had gone to Naples in pursuit of Lord Steyne, whilst others averred
that his Lordship quitted that city and fled to Palermo on hearing of
Becky's arrival; some said she was living in Bierstadt, and had become
a dame d'honneur to the Queen of Bulgaria; some that she was at
Boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at Cheltenham.
Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may be sure that she was a
woman who could make a little money go a great way, as the saying is.
He would have paid his debts on leaving England, could he have got any
Insurance Office to take his life, but the climate of Coventry Island
was so bad that he could borrow no money on the strength of his salary.
He remitted, however, to his brother punctually, and wrote to his
little boy regularly every mail. He kept Macmurdo in cigars and sent
over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, guava jelly,
and colonial produce to Lady Jane. He sent his brother home the Swamp
Town Gazette, in which the new Governor was praised with immense
enthusiasm; whereas the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose wife was not asked
to Government House, declared that his Excellency was a tyrant,
compared to whom Nero was an enlightened philanthropist. Little Rawdon
used to like to get the papers and read about his Excellency.
His mother never made any movement to see the child. He went home to
his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he soon knew every bird's nest about
Queen's Crawley, and rode out with Sir Huddlestone's hounds, which he
admired so on his first well-remembered visit to Hampshire.
CHAPTER LVI
Georgy is Made a Gentleman
Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansion
in Russell Square, occupant of his father's room in the house and heir
apparent of all the splendours there. The good looks, gallant bearing,
and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart for
him. Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder
George.
The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been awarded
his father. Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years.
His wealth and importance in the City had very much increased. He had
been glad enough in former days to put the elder George to a good
private school; and a commission in the army for his son had been a
source of no small pride to him; for little George and his future
prospects the old man looked much higher. He would make a gentleman of
the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding little
Georgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, a
Baronet, perhaps. The old man thought he would die contented if he
could see his grandson in a fair way to such honours. He would have
none but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks and
pretenders--no, no. A few years before, he used to be savage, and
inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they
were a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living
but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that
pretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who could
buy up half a hundred of 'em. He would mourn now, in a very solemn
manner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly point
out, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of
classical acquirements.
When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he had
been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the report
the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little George
when he spoke regarding them. He made a hundred blunders and showed
his ignorance many a time. It did not increase the respect which the
child had for his senior. A quick brain and a better education
elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard,
and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for
his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made
a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather
could make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender
woman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart
was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could not
but needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices and
quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or
thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how
could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!
Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the
contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of
the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord over
the latter too. If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have been
better brought up to think well of himself.
Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believe
every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely nights,
thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures and
consolations administered to him, which made him for his part bear the
separation from Amelia very easily. Little boys who cry when they are
going to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable
place. It is only a few who weep from sheer affection. When you think
that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece of
gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony of
parting with your mamma and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you need
not be too confident of your own fine feelings.
Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that a
wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide. The
coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony which
could be bought for money, and on this George was taught to ride, first
at a riding-school, whence, after having performed satisfactorily
without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through
the New Road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode in
state with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who took
matters more easily in the City now, where he left his affairs to his
junior partners, would often ride out with Miss O. in the same
fashionable direction. As little Georgy came cantering up with his
dandified air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad's
aunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would laugh, and his face would
grow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, as
the groom saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted Master George.
Here too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bullock (whose chariot might daily be
seen in the Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and
harness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades
and feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,
flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rode
by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.
Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore straps
and the most beautiful little boots like a man. He had gilt spurs, and
a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatest
little kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish. His mother
had given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made
some little shirts for him; but when her Eli came to see the widow,
they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little jewelled buttons
in the lawn shirt fronts. Her humble presents had been put aside--I
believe Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy. Amelia
tried to think she was pleased at the change. Indeed, she was happy
and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.
She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and this
was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed. One day the
boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at
Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to
admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph in
his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty white
great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red morocco
case, which he gave her.
"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said. "I thought you'd like
it."
Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection,
seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times. It was a miniature of
himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may be
sure, the widow thought). His grandfather had wished to have a picture
of him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in
Southampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, who
had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a
copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for it
out of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother. The
pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself,
when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave
the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.
But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy?
That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no
child in the world was like hers for goodness. For long weeks after,
the thought of his love made her happy. She slept better with the
picture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it and
weep and pray over it! A small kindness from those she loved made that
timid heart grateful. Since her parting with George she had had no
such joy and consolation.
At his new home Master George ruled like a lord; at dinner he invited
the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off his
champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather. "Look at him,"