Vanity Fair (107 page)

She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which she
used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken from
her), and thence as she looked out she could see, over the trees of
Russell Square, the old house in which she herself was born, and
where she had passed so many happy days of sacred youth. They all
came back to her, the pleasant holidays, the kind faces, the
careless, joyful past times, and the long pains and trials that had
since cast her down. She thought of these and of the man who had
been her constant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor,
her tender and generous friend.

"Look here, Mother," said Georgy, "here's a G.O. scratched on the
glass with a diamond, I never saw it before, I never did it."

"It was your father's room long before you were born, George," she
said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy.

She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond, where they had
taken a temporary house: where the smiling lawyers used to come
bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted the visit in the
bill): and where of course there was a room for Major Dobbin too,
who rode over frequently, having much business to transact on behalf
of his little ward.

Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on an unlimited
holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an inscription
for a fine marble slab, to be placed up in the Foundling under the
monument of Captain George Osborne.

The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by that
little monster of one-half of the sum which she expected from her
father, nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit by being
reconciled to the mother and the boy. Roehampton is not far from
Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks
emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within, drove to
Amelia's house at Richmond; and the Bullock family made an irruption
into the garden, where Amelia was reading a book, Jos was in an
arbour placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major in one
of his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy, who chose to jump
over him. He went over his head and bounded into the little advance
of Bullocks, with immense black bows in their hats, and huge black
sashes, accompanying their mourning mamma.

"He is just of the age for Rosa," the fond parent thought, and
glanced towards that dear child, an unwholesome little miss of seven
years of age.

"Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederick said. "Don't
you know me, George? I am your aunt."

"I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't like kissing,
please"; and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin.

"Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Frederick said,
and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than
fifteen years. During Emmy's cares and poverty the other had never
once thought about coming to see her, but now that she was decently
prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as a matter
of course.

So did numbers more. Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and her husband
came thundering over from Hampton Court, with flaming yellow
liveries, and was as impetuously fond of Amelia as ever. Miss
Swartz would have liked her always if she could have seen her. One
must do her that justice. But, que voulez vous?—in this vast town
one has not the time to go and seek one's friends; if they drop out
of the rank they disappear, and we march on without them. Who is
ever missed in Vanity Fair?

But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr. Osborne's
death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the centre of a very
genteel circle indeed, the members of which could not conceive that
anybody belonging to it was not very lucky. There was scarce one of
the ladies that hadn't a relation a Peer, though the husband might
be a drysalter in the City. Some of the ladies were very blue and
well informed, reading Mrs. Somerville and frequenting the Royal
Institution; others were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter
Hall. Emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in
the midst of their clavers, and suffered woefully on the one or two
occasions on which she was compelled to accept Mrs. Frederick
Bullock's hospitalities. That lady persisted in patronizing her and
determined most graciously to form her. She found Amelia's
milliners for her and regulated her household and her manners. She
drove over constantly from Roehampton and entertained her friend
with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble Court slip-slop.
Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growling at the
appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. He went to
sleep under Frederick Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of
the banker's best parties (Fred was still anxious that the balance
of the Osborne property should be transferred from Stumpy and
Rowdy's to them), and whilst Amelia, who did not know Latin, or who
wrote the last crack article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the
least deplore, or otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraordinary
tergiversation on the fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sat dumb amongst
the ladies in the grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns,
trim gravel walks, and glistening hot-houses.

"She seems good-natured but insipid," said Mrs. Rowdy; "that Major
seems to be particularly epris."

"She wants ton sadly," said Mrs. Hollyock. "My dear creature, you
never will be able to form her."

"She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs. Glowry with a
voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head and turban.
"I asked her if she thought that it was in 1836, according to Mr.
Jowls, or in 1839, according to Mr. Wapshot, that the Pope was to
fall: and she said—'Poor Pope! I hope not—What has he done?'"

"She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs. Frederick
replied, "and as such I think we're all bound to give her every
attention and instruction on entering into the world. You may fancy
there can be no MERCENARY motives in those whose DISAPPOINTMENTS are
well known."

"That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock, as they drove
away together—"she is always scheming and managing. She wants Mrs.
Osborne's account to be taken from our house to hers—and the way in
which she coaxes that boy and makes him sit by that blear-eyed
little Rosa is perfectly ridiculous."

"I wish Glowry was choked with her Man of Sin and her Battle of
Armageddon," cried the other, and the carriage rolled away over
Putney Bridge.

But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy, and all
jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed.

Am Rhein

The above everyday events had occurred, and a few weeks had passed,
when on one fine morning, Parliament being over, the summer
advanced, and all the good company in London about to quit that city
for their annual tour in search of pleasure or health, the Batavier
steamboat left the Tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of
English fugitives. The quarter-deck awnings were up, and the
benches and gangways crowded with scores of rosy children, bustling
nursemaids; ladies in the prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses;
gentlemen in travelling caps and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had
just begun to sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old
veterans with starched neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as
have invaded Europe any time since the conclusion of the war, and
carry the national Goddem into every city of the Continent. The
congregation of hat-boxes, and Bramah desks, and dressing-cases was
prodigious. There were jaunty young Cambridge-men travelling with
their tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth or
Konigswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the most dashing
whiskers and jewellery, talking about horses incessantly, and
prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the
contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with
maiden coyness; there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems and
Wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the dinners of the
season, and a little roulette and trente-et-quarante to keep the
excitement going; there was old Methuselah, who had married his
young wife, with Captain Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol
and guide-books; there was young May who was carrying off his bride
on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and who had been at school
with May's grandmother); there was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen
children, and corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee
Bareacres family that sat by themselves near the wheel, stared at
everybody, and spoke to no one. Their carriages, emblazoned with
coronets and heaped with shining imperials, were on the foredeck,
locked in with a dozen more such vehicles: it was difficult to pass
in and out amongst them; and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had
scarcely any space for locomotion. These consisted of a few
magnificently attired gentlemen from Houndsditch, who brought their
own provisions, and could have bought half the gay people in the
grand saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and portfolios,
who set to sketching before they had been half an hour on board; one
or two French femmes de chambre who began to be dreadfully ill by
the time the boat had passed Greenwich; a groom or two who lounged
in the neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or
leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked about who was
good for the Leger, and what they stood to win or lose for the
Goodwood cup.

All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship and had
settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck,
congregated together and began to chatter and smoke; the Hebrew
gentlemen joining them and looking at the carriages. There was Sir
John's great carriage that would hold thirteen people; my Lord
Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres' chariot, britzska, and
fourgon, that anybody might pay for who liked. It was a wonder how
my Lord got the ready money to pay for the expenses of the journey.
The Hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it. They knew what money his
Lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and what interest he
paid for it, and who gave it him. Finally there was a very neat,
handsome travelling carriage, about which the gentlemen speculated.

"A qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier with a large
morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another with ear-rings and a
large morocco money-bag.

"C'est a Kirsch je bense—je l'ai vu toute a l'heure—qui brenoit
des sangviches dans la voiture," said the courier in a fine German
French.

Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of the hold, where
he had been bellowing instructions intermingled with polyglot oaths
to the ship's men engaged in secreting the passengers' luggage, came
to give an account of himself to his brother interpreters. He
informed them that the carriage belonged to a Nabob from Calcutta
and Jamaica enormously rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel;
and at this moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the
bridge between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to
the roof of Lord Methuselah's carriage, from which he made his way
over other carriages and imperials until he had clambered on to his
own, descended thence and through the window into the body of the
carriage, to the applause of the couriers looking on.

"Nous allons avoir une belle traversee, Monsieur George," said the
courier with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced cap.

"D— your French," said the young gentleman, "where's the biscuits,
ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the English language or in
such an imitation of it as he could command—for though he was
familiar with all languages, Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a
single one, and spoke all with indifferent volubility and
incorrectness.

The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and indeed
it was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfasted at Richmond
full three hours before) was our young friend George Osborne. Uncle
Jos and his mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of whom
they used to see a good deal, and the four were about to make a
summer tour.

Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning, and pretty
nearly opposite to the Earl of Bareacres and his family, whose
proceedings absorbed the Bengalee almost entirely. Both the noble
couple looked rather younger than in the eventful year '15, when Jos
remembered to have seen them at Brussels (indeed, he always gave out
in India that he was intimately acquainted with them). Lady
Bareacres' hair, which was then dark, was now a beautiful golden
auburn, whereas Lord Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at
present of a rich black with purple and green reflections in the
light. But changed as they were, the movements of the noble pair
occupied Jos's mind entirely. The presence of a Lord fascinated
him, and he could look at nothing else.

"Those people seem to interest you a good deal," said Dobbin,
laughing and watching him. Amelia too laughed. She was in a straw
bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in mourning, but
the little bustle and holiday of the journey pleased and excited
her, and she looked particularly happy.

"What a heavenly day!" Emmy said and added, with great originality,
"I hope we shall have a calm passage."

Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time under his
eyelids at the great folks opposite. "If you had made the voyages
we have," he said, "you wouldn't much care about the weather." But
nevertheless, traveller as he was, he passed the night direfully
sick in his carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-
water and every luxury.

In due time this happy party landed at the quays of Rotterdam,
whence they were transported by another steamer to the city of
Cologne. Here the carriage and the family took to the shore, and
Jos was not a little gratified to see his arrival announced in the
Cologne newspapers as "Herr Graf Lord von Sedley nebst Begleitung
aus London." He had his court dress with him; he had insisted that
Dobbin should bring his regimental paraphernalia; he announced that
it was his intention to be presented at some foreign courts, and pay
his respects to the Sovereigns of the countries which he honoured
with a visit.