Vanity Fair (34 page)

George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the appearance of
a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately made the
acquaintance, and who was an object of vast respect to the Russell
Square family. She was reported to have I don't know how many
plantations in the West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and
three stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list. She
had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place. The name of
the rich West India heiress had been mentioned with applause in the
Morning Post. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her
relative, "chaperoned" her, and kept her house. She was just from
school, where she had completed her education, and George and his
sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's house,
Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were long the
correspondents of her house in the West Indies), and the girls had
made the most cordial advances to her, which the heiress had
received with great good humour. An orphan in her position—with her
money—so interesting! the Misses Osborne said. They were full of
their new friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for continually
meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see her the very next
day. Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, a relation of
Lord Binkie, and always talking of him, struck the dear
unsophisticated girls as rather haughty, and too much inclined to
talk about her great relations: but Rhoda was everything they could
wish—the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature—wanting a
little polish, but so good-natured. The girls Christian-named each
other at once.

"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy," Osborne cried,
laughing. "She came to my sisters to show it off, before she was
presented in state by my Lady Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman.
She's related to every one, that Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed
out like Vauxhall on the night we were there. (Do you remember
Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle diddle
darling?) Diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an
advantageous contrast—and the white feathers in her hair—I mean in
her wool. She had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted
'em up, by Jove—and a yellow satin train that streeled after her
like the tail of a cornet."

"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was rattling away
regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their reunion—
rattling away as no other man in the world surely could.

"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left school, must
be two or three and twenty. And you should see the hand she writes!
Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually writes her letters, but in a moment
of confidence, she put pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin
satting, and Saint James's, Saint Jams."

"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour boarder," Emmy
said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been
so hysterically affected when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy.

"The very name," George said. "Her father was a German Jew—a
slave-owner they say—connected with the Cannibal Islands in some
way or other. He died last year, and Miss Pinkerton has finished
her education. She can play two pieces on the piano; she knows
three songs; she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for
her; and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a sister."

"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully. "They were
always very cold to me."

"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had had two hundred
thousand pounds," George replied. "That is the way in which they
have been brought up. Ours is a ready-money society. We live among
bankers and City big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as
he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket. There is
that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria—there's Goldmore,
the East India Director, there's Dipley, in the tallow trade—OUR
trade," George said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush. "Curse the
whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians! I fall asleep at their
great heavy dinners. I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
parties. I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and men of
the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel of turtle-fed
tradesmen. Dear little woman, you are the only person of our set
who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a lady: and you do it
because you're an angel and can't help it. Don't remonstrate. You
are the only lady. Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in
the best company in Europe? And as for Crawley, of the Life Guards,
hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for marrying the girl he
had chosen."

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.

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.