Vanity Fair
should dine with her future sisters-in-law. This invitation was
accepted joyfully. He conducted her to his sisters; where he left her
talking and prattling in a way that astonished those ladies, who
thought that George might make something of her; and he then went off
to transact his business.
In a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's shop in Charing
Cross; tried a new coat in Pall Mall; dropped in at the Old
Slaughters', and called for Captain Cannon; played eleven games at
billiards with the Captain, of which he won eight, and returned to
Russell Square half an hour late for dinner, but in very good humour.
It was not so with old Mr. Osborne. When that gentleman came from the
City, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by his daughters and the
elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once by his face--which was puffy,
solemn, and yellow at the best of times--and by the scowl and twitching
of his black eyebrows, that the heart within his large white waistcoat
was disturbed and uneasy. When Amelia stepped forward to salute him,
which she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave a surly
grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand out of his great
hirsute paw without any attempt to hold it there. He looked round
gloomily at his eldest daughter; who, comprehending the meaning of his
look, which asked unmistakably, "Why the devil is she here?" said at
once:
"George is in town, Papa; and has gone to the Horse Guards, and will be
back to dinner."
"O he is, is he? I won't have the dinner kept waiting for him, Jane";
with which this worthy man lapsed into his particular chair, and then
the utter silence in his genteel, well-furnished drawing-room was only
interrupted by the alarmed ticking of the great French clock.
When that chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheerful brass group
of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled five in a heavy cathedral tone,
Mr. Osborne pulled the bell at his right hand--violently, and the
butler rushed up.
"Dinner!" roared Mr. Osborne.
"Mr. George isn't come in, sir," interposed the man.
"Damn Mr. George, sir. Am I master of the house? DINNER!" Mr. Osborne
scowled. Amelia trembled. A telegraphic communication of eyes passed
between the other three ladies. The obedient bell in the lower regions
began ringing the announcement of the meal. The tolling over, the head
of the family thrust his hands into the great tail-pockets of his great
blue coat with brass buttons, and without waiting for a further
announcement strode downstairs alone, scowling over his shoulder at the
four females.
"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?