Book: Vanity Fair

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Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this;
and trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped
(with a laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so the pair
went on prattling, as in quite early days. Amelia's
confidence being perfectly restored to her, though she
expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz,
and professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite
as she was--lest George should forget her for the
heiress and her money and her estates in Saint Kitt's. But
the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have fears
or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having George
at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
or indeed of any sort of danger.

When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to
these people--which he did with a great deal of sympathy
for them--it did his heart good to see how Amelia had
grown young again--how she laughed, and chirped, and
sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were only
interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr.
Sedley's return from the City, before whom George received a
signal to retreat.

Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was
an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking
--Miss Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his
visit. But he was content, so that he saw her happy; and
thankful to have been the means of making her so.




CHAPTER XXI


A Quarrel About an Heiress

Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of
ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she
was to realize. He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm
and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the
young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest
pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.

"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that
splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the
West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell
Square. My daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but
their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived
an attachment for you which does them honour--I say,
which does them honour. I'm a plain, simple, humble
British merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends
Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents
of your late lamented father. You'll find us a
united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected,
family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome,
my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my
heart warms to you, it does really. I'm a frank man, and
I like you. A glass of Champagne! Hicks, Champagne to
Miss Swartz."

There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he
said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their
protestations of affection for Miss Swartz. People in Vanity
Fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally. If the simplest
people are disposed to look not a little kindly on
great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British
public to say that the notion of Wealth has not something
awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to
look at him with a certain interest)--if the simple look
benevolently on money, how much more do your old
worldlings regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and
welcome money. Their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it. I know
some respectable people who don't consider themselves
at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who
has not a certain competency, or place in society. They
give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions. And
the proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family,
who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a
hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most
romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.

What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and
Miss Wirt agreed), and how much better than that
insignificant little Amelia! Such a dashing young fellow as
he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments,
would be the very husband for her. Visions of balls in
Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies;
who talked of nothing but George and his grand
acquaintances to their beloved new friend.

Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too,
for his son. He should leave the army; he should go into
Parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in
the state. His blood boiled with honest British exultation,
as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in the person
of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of
a glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on
'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune
of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her
estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants,
would have liked to make a bid for her himself
(it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was
booked to Maria Osborne. But not being able to secure
her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her
as a sister-in-law. "Let George cut in directly and win
her," was his advice. "Strike while the iron's hot, you
know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks
some d-- fellow from the West End will come in with a
title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as
Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's. The
sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my
sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left
the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and
what a pretty girl she was, and how attached to George
Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had
befallen that unlucky young woman.

While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his
good friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the
truant to Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were
arranging this splendid match for him, which they never
dreamed he would resist.

When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint,"
there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake
his meaning. He called kicking a footman downstairs a
hint to the latter to leave his service. With his usual
frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he
would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the
day his son was married to her ward; and called that
proposal a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece
of diplomacy. He gave George finally such another hint
regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out
of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a
cork, or his clerk to write a letter.

This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He
was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second
courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet
to him. The contrast of her manners and appearance with
those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the
latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and
opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the
side of such a mahogany charmer as that! Add to all
that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the
senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his
resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered,
as his father in his most stern moments.

On the first day when his father formally gave him the
hint that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's
feet, George temporised with the old gentleman. "You
should have thought of the matter sooner, sir," he said.
"It can't be done now, when we're expecting every day
to go on foreign service. Wait till my return, if I do
return"; and then he represented, that the time when the
regiment was daily expecting to quit England, was
exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks during
which they were still to remain at home, must be
devoted to business and not to love-making: time enough
for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I
promise you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one
way or other you shall read the name of George Osborne
in the Gazette."

The father's reply to this was founded upon the
information which he had got in the City: that the West
End chaps would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if
any delay took place: that if he didn't marry Miss S., he
might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
into effect when he returned to England; and that a man
who could get ten thousand a year by staying at home,
was a fool to risk his life abroad.

"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir,
and our name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's
money," George interposed.

This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he
had to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless
made up, he said, "You will dine here to-morrow, sir,
and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will be here to
pay your respects to her. If you want for money, call
upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's
way, to interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and
about which he and Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation. His friend's opinion respecting the
line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know
already. And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a
thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the
more resolute.

The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs
of the Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of
all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her
friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the
young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being,
as we have before had occasion to show, of a very
warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection
with quite a tropical ardour. And if the truth may be told,
I dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the
Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George
Osborne a very nice young man. His whiskers had made
an impression upon her, on the very first night she
beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
know, she was not the first woman who had been
charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering
and melancholy, languid and fierce. He looked like a
man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing
griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and deep. He
would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to
take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he
were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a
declaration of love. He trampled over all the young bucks
of his father's circle, and was the hero among those
third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and hated him.
Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his whiskers
had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves
round the affections of Miss Swartz.

Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell
Square, that simple and good-natured young woman
was quite in a flurry to see her dear Misses Osborne. She
went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and
bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. She adorned her
person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror,
and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his
favour. The girls would ask her, with the greatest
gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three
songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever
they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to
herself. During these delectable entertainments, Miss
Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the
peerage, and talked about the nobility.

The day after George had his hint from his father, and
a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling
upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming
and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy. He had
been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in the City
(the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his
son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him,
and rewarded him only as he was in the humour). He
had then been to pass three hours with Amelia, his
dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to
find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-
room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and
honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with
turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and
all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly
decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.

The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation,
talked about fashions and the last drawing-room
until he was perfectly sick of their chatter. He
contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's--their
shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes
and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft
movements and modest graces. Poor Swartz was seated
in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit.
Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin
lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes
rolled about. She was doing nothing with perfect contentment,
and thinking herself charming. Anything so becoming
as the satin the sisters had never seen.

"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she
looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day
but to grin and wag its head. By Jove, Will, it was all I
I could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-
cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of
sentiment, however.

The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. "Stop
that d-- thing," George howled out in a fury from the
sofa. "It makes me mad. You play us something, Miss
Swartz, do. Sing something, anything but the Battle of
Prague."

"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the
Cabinet?" Miss Swartz asked.

"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.

"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa

"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,' " Swartz said, in a meek
voice, "if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy
young woman's collection.

"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,' " Miss Maria cried; "we have the
song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was.

Now it happened that this song, then in the height of
the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young
friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss
Swartz, having concluded the ditty with George's applause
(for he remembered that it was a favourite of Amelia's),
was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the
leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and
she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.

"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on
the music-stool, "is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at
Miss P.'s at Hammersmith? I know it is. It's her. and--
Tell me about her--where is she?"

"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said
hastily. "Her family has disgraced itself. Her father
cheated Papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned
HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for George's
rudeness about the Battle of Prague.

"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing
up. "God bless you for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe
what,the girls say. SHE'S not to blame at any rate.
She's the best--"

"You know you're not to speak about her, George,"
cried Jane. "Papa forbids it."

"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out. "I will speak
of her. I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the
sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, my
sisters are not fit to hold candles to her. If you like her,
go and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and
I say, God bless everybody who befriends her. Anybody
who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who
speaks against her is my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz";
and he went up and wrung her hand.

"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.

"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who
loves Amelia Sed--" He stopped. Old Osborne was in
the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot
coals.

Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his
blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the
generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to
the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative
of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in
his turn, and looked away. He felt that the tussle was
coming. "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner,"
he said. "Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George,"
and they marched.

"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged
almost all our lives," Osborne said to his partner; and
during all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility
which surprised himself, and made his father doubly
nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as
the ladies were gone.

The difference between the pair was, that while the
father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the
nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely
make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment
was now come when the contest between him and
his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with
perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement
began. Old Osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and
drank much. He floundered in his conversation with the
ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering
him more angry. It made him half mad to see the calm
way in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a
swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave
the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it,
and looked his father full in the face, as if to say,
"Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a
supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against
the glass as he tried to fill it.

After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking
face, he then began. "How dare you, sir, mention that
person's name before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-
room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"

"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir. Dare
isn't a word to be used to a Captain in the British Army."

"I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off
with a shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like.
I WILL say what I like," the elder said.

"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George
answered haughtily. "Any communications which you
have to make to me, or any orders which you may
please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of
language which I am accustomed to hear."

Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it
always created either great awe or great irritation in the
parent. Old Osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a
better gentleman than himself; and perhaps my readers
may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity Fair
of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded
man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman.

"My father didn't give me the education you have had,
nor the advantages you have had, nor the money you
have had. If I had kept the company SOME FOLKS have
had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't have
any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END
AIRS (these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's
most sarcastic tones). But it wasn't considered the part
of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man to insult his father.
If I'd done any such thing, mine would have kicked me
downstairs, sir."

"I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to
remember your son was a gentleman as well as yourself.
I know very well that you give me plenty of money,"
said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
got in the morning from Mr. Chopper). "You tell it me
often enough, sir. There's no fear of my forgetting it."

"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the
sire answered. "I wish you'd remember that in this house
--so long as you choose to HONOUR it with your COMPANY,
Captain--I'm the master, and that name, and that
that--that you--that I say--"

"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer,
filling another glass of claret.

"--!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--
"that the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned
here, sir--not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir."

"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name. It
was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and
by Jove I'll defend her wherever I go. Nobody shall
speak lightly of that name in my presence. Our family
has done her quite enough injury already, I think, and
may leave off reviling her now she's down. I'll shoot any
man but you who says a word against her."

"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes
starting out of his head.

"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've
treated that angel of a girl? Who told me to love her? It
was your doing. I might have chosen elsewhere, and
looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I obeyed
you. And now that her heart's mine you give me orders
to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for
the faults of other people. It's a shame, by Heavens,"
said George, working himself up into passion and
enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose with
a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that
--one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived,
that she might have excited envy, only she was so good
and gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her.
If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?"

"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense
and humbug here, sir," the father cried out. "There
shall be no beggar-marriages in my family. If you choose
to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have
for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
pack and walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell
you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"

"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up
his shirt-collars. "I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the
black that sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir. I'm not
going to marry a Hottentot Venus."

Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he
was accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted
wine--and almost black in the face, ordered that functionary
to call a coach for Captain Osborne.

"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters'
an hour afterwards, looking very pale.

"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.

George told what had passed between his father and
himself.

"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. "I
love her more every day, Dobbin."




CHAPTER XXII


A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon

Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold
out against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself
pretty easy about his adversary in the encounter we have
just described; and as soon as George's supplies fell
short, confidently expected his unconditional submission.
It was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured
a stock of provisions on the very day when the first
encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary,
old Osborne thought, and would but delay George's
surrender. No communication passed between father and
son for some days. The former was sulky at this silence,
but not disquieted; for, as he said, he knew where he
could put the screw upon George, and only waited the
result of that operation. He told the sisters the upshot of
the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no
notice of the matter, and welcome George on his return
as if nothing had happened. His cover was laid as usual
every day, and perhaps the old gentleman rather anxiously
expected him; but he never came. Some one inquired
at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was said
that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.

One gusty, raw day at the end of April--the rain whipping
the pavement of that ancient street where the old
Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated--George Osborne
came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard
and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat
and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion
of those days. Here was his friend Captain Dobbin,
in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military
frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual
coverings of his lanky person.

Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or
more. He had tried all the papers, but could not read
them. He had looked at the clock many scores of times;
and at the street, where the rain was pattering down,
and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long
reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table:
he bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick
(he was accustomed to ornament his great big hands in
this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously on the
milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and in fact showed those
signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate
attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to
employ when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed
in mind.

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