Vanity Fair
Captain. Marry HER indeed--he, he! why should he? I warrant you she'd
go to him fast enough without."
"Sir," said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; "no man shall
abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of all."
"O, you're a-going to call me out, are you? Stop, let me ring the bell
for pistols for two. Mr. George sent you here to insult his father,
did he?" Osborne said, pulling at the bell-cord.
"Mr. Osborne," said Dobbin, with a faltering voice, "it's you who are
insulting the best creature in the world. You had best spare her, sir,
for she's your son's wife."
And with this, feeling that he could say no more, Dobbin went away,
Osborne sinking back in his chair, and looking wildly after him. A
clerk came in, obedient to the bell; and the Captain was scarcely out
of the court where Mr. Osborne's offices were, when Mr. Chopper the
chief clerk came rushing hatless after him.
"For God's sake, what is it?" Mr. Chopper said, catching the Captain by
the skirt. "The governor's in a fit. What has Mr. George been doing?"
"He married Miss Sedley five days ago," Dobbin replied. "I was his
groomsman, Mr. Chopper, and you must stand his friend."
The old clerk shook his head. "If that's your news, Captain, it's bad.
The governor will never forgive him."
Dobbin begged Chopper to report progress to him at the hotel where he
was stopping, and walked off moodily westwards, greatly perturbed as to
the past and the future.
When the Russell Square family came to dinner that evening, they found
the father of the house seated in his usual place, but with that air of
gloom on his face, which, whenever it appeared there, kept the whole
circle silent. The ladies, and Mr. Bullock who dined with them, felt
that the news had been communicated to Mr. Osborne. His dark looks
affected Mr. Bullock so far as to render him still and quiet: but he
was unusually bland and attentive to Miss Maria, by whom he sat, and to
her sister presiding at the head of the table.
Miss Wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of the board, a gap
being left between her and Miss Jane Osborne. Now this was George's
place when he dined at home; and his cover, as we said, was laid for
him in expectation of that truant's return. Nothing occurred during
dinner-time except smiling Mr. Frederick's flagging confidential
whispers, and the clinking of plate and china, to interrupt the silence
of the repast. The servants went about stealthily doing their duty.
Mutes at funerals could not look more glum than the domestics of Mr.
Osborne The neck of venison of which he had invited Dobbin to partake,
was carved by him in perfect silence; but his own share went away
almost untasted, though he drank much, and the butler assiduously
filled his glass.
At last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which had been
staring at everybody in turn, fixed themselves for a while upon the
plate laid for George. He pointed to it presently with his left hand.
His daughters looked at him and did not comprehend, or choose to
comprehend, the signal; nor did the servants at first understand it.
"Take that plate away," at last he said, getting up with an oath--and
with this pushing his chair back, he walked into his own room.
Behind Mr. Osborne's dining-room was the usual apartment which went in
his house by the name of the study; and was sacred to the master of the
house. Hither Mr. Osborne would retire of a Sunday forenoon when not
minded to go to church; and here pass the morning in his crimson
leather chair, reading the paper. A couple of glazed book-cases were
here, containing standard works in stout gilt bindings. The "Annual
Register," the "Gentleman's Magazine," "Blair's Sermons," and "Hume and
Smollett." From year's end to year's end he never took one of these
volumes from the shelf; but there was no member of the family that
would dare for his life to touch one of the books, except upon those
rare Sunday evenings when there was no dinner-party, and when the great
scarlet Bible and Prayer-book were taken out from the corner where they
stood beside his copy of the Peerage, and the servants being rung up to
the dining parlour, Osborne read the evening service to his family in a
loud grating pompous voice. No member of the household, child, or
domestic, ever entered that room without a certain terror. Here he
checked the housekeeper's accounts, and overhauled the butler's
cellar-book. Hence he could command, across the clean gravel
court-yard, the back entrance of the stables with which one of his
bells communicated, and into this yard the coachman issued from his
premises as into a dock, and Osborne swore at him from the study
window. Four times a year Miss Wirt entered this apartment to get her
salary; and his daughters to receive their quarterly allowance. George
as a boy had been horsewhipped in this room many times; his mother
sitting sick on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip. The boy
was scarcely ever known to cry under the punishment; the poor woman
used to fondle and kiss him secretly, and give him money to soothe him
when he came out.
There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed thither
from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's death--George was on a pony,
the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by
her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering
on each other in the approved family-portrait manner. The mother lay
underground now, long since forgotten--the sisters and brother had a
hundred different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were
utterly estranged from each other. Some few score of years afterwards,
when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire
there is in those flaunting childish family-portraits, with their farce
of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and
self-satisfied. Osborne's own state portrait, with that of his great
silver inkstand and arm-chair, had taken the place of honour in the
dining-room, vacated by the family-piece.
To this study old Osborne retired then, greatly to the relief of the
small party whom he left. When the servants had withdrawn, they began
to talk for a while volubly but very low; then they went upstairs
quietly, Mr. Bullock accompanying them stealthily on his creaking
shoes. He had no heart to sit alone drinking wine, and so close to the
terrible old gentleman in the study hard at hand.
An hour at least after dark, the butler, not having received any
summons, ventured to tap at his door and take him in wax candles and
tea. The master of the house sate in his chair, pretending to read the
paper, and when the servant, placing the lights and refreshment on the
table by him, retired, Mr. Osborne got up and locked the door after
him. This time there was no mistaking the matter; all the household
knew that some great catastrophe was going to happen which was likely
direly to affect Master George.
In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had a drawer
especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers. Here he kept all
the documents relating to him ever since he had been a boy: here were
his prize copy-books and drawing-books, all bearing George's hand, and
that of the master: here were his first letters in large round-hand
sending his love to papa and mamma, and conveying his petitions for a
cake. His dear godpapa Sedley was more than once mentioned in them.
Curses quivered on old Osborne's livid lips, and horrid hatred and
disappointment writhed in his heart, as looking through some of these
papers he came on that name. They were all marked and docketed, and
tied with red tape. It was--"From Georgy, requesting 5s., April 23,
18--; answered, April 25"--or "Georgy about a pony, October 13"--and so
forth. In another packet were "Dr. S.'s accounts"--"G.'s tailor's bills
and outfits, drafts on me by G. Osborne, jun.," &c.--his letters from
the West Indies--his agent's letters, and the newspapers containing his
commissions: here was a whip he had when a boy, and in a paper a locket
containing his hair, which his mother used to wear.
Turning one over after another, and musing over these memorials, the
unhappy man passed many hours. His dearest vanities, ambitious hopes,
had all been here. What pride he had in his boy! He was the
handsomest child ever seen. Everybody said he was like a nobleman's
son. A royal princess had remarked him, and kissed him, and asked his
name in Kew Gardens. What City man could show such another? Could a
prince have been better cared for? Anything that money could buy had
been his son's. He used to go down on speech-days with four horses and
new liveries, and scatter new shillings among the boys at the school
where George was: when he went with George to the depot of his
regiment, before the boy embarked for Canada, he gave the officers such
a dinner as the Duke of York might have sat down to. Had he ever
refused a bill when George drew one? There they were--paid without a
word. Many a general in the army couldn't ride the horses he had! He
had the child before his eyes, on a hundred different days when he
remembered George after dinner, when he used to come in as bold as a
lord and drink off his glass by his father's side, at the head of the
table--on the pony at Brighton, when he cleared the hedge and kept up
with the huntsman--on the day when he was presented to the Prince
Regent at the levee, when all Saint James's couldn't produce a finer
young fellow. And this, this was the end of all!--to marry a bankrupt
and fly in the face of duty and fortune! What humiliation and fury:
what pangs of sickening rage, balked ambition and love; what wounds of
outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old worldling now to suffer
under!
Having examined these papers, and pondered over this one and the other,
in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which miserable men think
of happy past times--George's father took the whole of the documents
out of the drawer in which he had kept them so long, and locked them
into a writing-box, which he tied, and sealed with his seal. Then he
opened the book-case, and took down the great red Bible we have spoken
of a pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold.
There was a frontispiece to the volume, representing Abraham
sacrificing Isaac. Here, according to custom, Osborne had recorded on
the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like hand, the dates of his
marriage and his wife's death, and the births and Christian names of
his children. Jane came first, then George Sedley Osborne, then Maria
Frances, and the days of the christening of each. Taking a pen, he
carefully obliterated George's names from the page; and when the leaf
was quite dry, restored the volume to the place from which he had moved
it. Then he took a document out of another drawer, where his own
private papers were kept; and having read it, crumpled it up and
lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it burn entirely away in the
grate. It was his will; which being burned, he sate down and wrote off
a letter, and rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in
the morning. It was morning already: as he went up to bed, the whole
house was alight with the sunshine; and the birds were singing among
the fresh green leaves in Russell Square.
Anxious to keep all Mr. Osborne's family and dependants in good humour,
and to make as many friends as possible for George in his hour of
adversity, William Dobbin, who knew the effect which good dinners and
good wines have upon the soul of man, wrote off immediately on his
return to his inn the most hospitable of invitations to Thomas Chopper,
Esquire, begging that gentleman to dine with him at the Slaughters'