Vanity Fair (80 page)

Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family was more
unlucky for her. Her father paid more money into Stumpy and
Rowdy's. Her patronage became more and more insufferable. The poor
widow in the little cottage at Brompton, guarding her treasure
there, little knew how eagerly some people coveted it.

On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father that she had
seen his grandson, the old man had made her no reply, but he had
shown no anger—and had bade her good-night on going himself to his
room in rather a kindly voice. And he must have meditated on what
she said and have made some inquiries of the Dobbin family regarding
her visit, for a fortnight after it took place, he asked her where
was her little French watch and chain she used to wear?

"I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great fright.

"Go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it," said
the old gentleman and lapsed again into silence.

Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated their entreaties
to Amelia, to allow George to visit them. His aunt had shown her
inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself, they hinted, might be
disposed to be reconciled to him. Surely, Amelia could not refuse
such advantageous chances for the boy. Nor could she, but she
acceded to their overtures with a very heavy and suspicious heart,
was always uneasy during the child's absence from her, and welcomed
him back as if he was rescued out of some danger. He brought back
money and toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy;
she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman—"Only old Sir
William, who drove him about in the four-wheeled chaise, and Mr.
Dobbin, who arrived on the beautiful bay horse in the afternoon—in
the green coat and pink neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who
promised to show him the Tower of London and take him out with the
Surrey hounds." At last, he said, "There was an old gentleman, with
thick eyebrows, and a broad hat, and large chain and seals." He came
one day as the coachman was lunging Georgy round the lawn on the
gray pony. "He looked at me very much. He shook very much. I said
'My name is Norval' after dinner. My aunt began to cry. She is
always crying." Such was George's report on that night.

Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather; and looked
out feverishly for a proposal which she was sure would follow, and
which came, in fact, in a few days afterwards. Mr. Osborne formally
offered to take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he
had intended that his father should inherit. He would make Mrs.
George Osborne an allowance, such as to assure her a decent
competency. If Mrs. George Osborne proposed to marry again, as Mr.
O. heard was her intention, he would not withdraw that allowance.
But it must be understood that the child would live entirely with
his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever other place Mr. O.
should select, and that he would be occasionally permitted to see
Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence. This message was brought
or read to her in a letter one day, when her mother was from home
and her father absent as usual in the City.

She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life, and it was
in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's attorney had the fortune to
behold her. She rose up trembling and flushing very much as soon
as, after reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore
the paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on. "I marry
again! I take money to part from my child! Who dares insult me by
proposing such a thing? Tell Mr. Osborne it is a cowardly letter,
sir—a cowardly letter—I will not answer it. I wish you good
morning, sir—and she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy
Queen," said the lawyer who told the story.

Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day, and she never
told them of the interview. They had their own affairs to interest
them, affairs which deeply interested this innocent and unconscious
lady. The old gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in
speculation. We have seen how the wine company and the coal company
had failed him. But, prowling about the City always eagerly and
restlessly still, he lighted upon some other scheme, of which he
thought so well that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances
of Mr. Clapp, to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had
engaged himself in it. And as it was always Mr. Sedley's maxim not
to talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of the
misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy old
gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions.

The bills of the little household, which had been settled weekly,
first fell into arrear. The remittances had not arrived from India,
Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed face. As she had paid her
bills very regularly hitherto, one or two of the tradesmen to whom
the poor lady was obliged to go round asking for time were very
angry at a delay to which they were perfectly used from more
irregular customers. Emmy's contribution, paid over cheerfully
without any questions, kept the little company in half-rations
however. And the first six months passed away pretty easily, old
Sedley still keeping up with the notion that his shares must rise
and that all would be well.

No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household at the end of
the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble—Mrs.
Sedley, who was growing infirm and was much shaken, remained silent
or wept a great deal with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen. The butcher
was particularly surly, the grocer insolent: once or twice little
Georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and Amelia, who still would
have been satisfied with a slice of bread for her own dinner, could
not but perceive that her son was neglected and purchased little
things out of her private purse to keep the boy in health.

At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in
difficulties tell. One day, her own money having been received, and
Amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the
moneys expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out
of her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new suit for
Georgy.

Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid, that the
house was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to have seen before,
her mother said, but she cared for nothing or nobody except Georgy.
At this she passed all her money across the table, without a word,
to her mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out. She had
a great access of sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and
countermand the clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set
her heart for Christmas Day, and the cut and fashion of which she
had arranged in many conversations with a small milliner, her
friend.

Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who made a
loud outcry. Everybody had new clothes at Christmas. The others
would laugh at him. He would have new clothes. She had promised
them to him. The poor widow had only kisses to give him. She
darned the old suit in tears. She cast about among her little
ornaments to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired
novelties. There was her India shawl that Dobbin had sent her. She
remembered in former days going with her mother to a fine India shop
on Ludgate Hill, where the ladies had all sorts of dealings and
bargains in these articles. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone
with pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed away
George to school in the morning, smiling brightly after him. The
boy felt that there was good news in her look.

Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts of the
good Major), she hid them under her cloak and walked flushed and
eager all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall
and running over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she
hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face. She
calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her shawl—how,
besides the clothes, she would buy the books that he longed for, and
pay his half-year's schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her
father instead of that old great-coat which he wore. She was not
mistaken as to the value of the Major's gift. It was a very fine
and beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good bargain when he
gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.

She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to Darton's shop, in
St. Paul's Churchyard, and there purchased the Parents' Assistant
and the Sandford and Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the
coach there with her parcel, and went home exulting. And she
pleased herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little
hand, "George Osborne, A Christmas gift from his affectionate-
mother." The books are extant to this day, with the fair delicate
superscription.

She was going from her own room with the books in her hand to place
them on George's table, where he might find them on his return from
school, when in the passage, she and her mother met. The gilt
bindings of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's
eye.

"What are those?" she said.

"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied—I—I promised them to him
at Christmas."

"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books, when the whole
house wants bread! Books, when to keep you and your son in luxury,
and your dear father out of gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the
India shawl from my back even down to the very spoons, that our
tradesmen mightn't insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed he is
justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a
father, might have his rent. Oh, Amelia! you break my heart with
your books and that boy of yours, whom you are ruining, though part
with him you will not. Oh, Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful
child than I have had! There's Jos, deserts his father in his old
age; and there's George, who might be provided for, and who might be
rich, going to school like a lord, with a gold watch and chain round
his neck—while my dear, dear old man is without a sh—shilling."
Hysteric sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech—it echoed
through every room in the small house, whereof the other female
inmates heard every word of the colloquy.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply. "You told me
nothing—I—I promised him the books. I—I only sold my shawl this
morning. Take the money—take everything"—and with quivering hands
she took out her silver, and her sovereigns—her precious golden
sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her mother, whence
they overflowed and tumbled, rolling down the stairs.

And then she went into her room, and sank down in despair and utter
misery. She saw it all now. Her selfishness was sacrificing the
boy. But for her he might have wealth, station, education, and his
father's place, which the elder George had forfeited for her sake.
She had but to speak the words, and her father was restored to
competency and the boy raised to fortune. Oh, what a conviction it
was to that tender and stricken heart!

Gaunt House

All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt
Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first
conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.
Peering over the railings and through the black trees into the
garden of the Square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-
faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary
grass-plot in the centre of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt,
who fought at Minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited
like a Roman Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the
Square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have
passed away into dowagerism—tall, dark houses, with window-frames
of stone, or picked out of a lighter red. Little light seems to be
behind those lean, comfortless casements now, and hospitality to
have passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and
link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in the
blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps.
Brass plates have penetrated into the square—Doctors, the Diddlesex
Bank Western Branch—the English and European Reunion, &c.—it has a
dreary look—nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less dreary. All I have
ever seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns
at the great gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with
a fat and gloomy red face—and over the wall the garret and bedroom
windows, and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke
now. For the present Lord Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the
view of the Bay and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the
wall in Gaunt Square.

A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading into Gaunt Mews
indeed, is a little modest back door, which you would not remark
from that of any of the other stables. But many a little close
carriage has stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom
Eaves, who knows everything, and who showed me the place) told me.
"The Prince and Perdita have been in and out of that door, sir," he
had often told me; "Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of
——. It conducts to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne
—one, sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony
and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room taken from
Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by Cosway—a little private
kitchen, in which every saucepan was silver and all the spits were
gold. It was there that Egalite Orleans roasted partridges on the
night when he and the Marquis of Steyne won a hundred thousand from
a great personage at ombre. Half of the money went to the French
Revolution, half to purchase Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter—and
the remainder—" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell what
became of the remainder, for every shilling of which, and a great
deal more, little Tom Eaves, who knows everybody's affairs, is ready
to account.