And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the truth so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire to see his parent which brought Jos once more to Europe.
At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, and then it was Amelia’s opportunity to commence her conversation, which she did with great eagerness — it related exclusively to Georgy. She did not talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed, this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the separation from the child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at losing him; but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and prospects, she poured out. She described his angelic beauty; narrated a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of mind whilst living with her; how a Royal Duchess had stopped and admired him in Kensington Gardens; how splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had a groom and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he had, and what a prodigiously well-read and delightful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, George’s master. “He knows EVERYTHING,” Amelia said. “He has the most delightful parties. You who are so learned yourself, and have read so much, and are so clever and accomplished — don’t shake your head and say no — HE always used to say you were — you will be charmed with Mr. Veal’s parties. The last Tuesday in every month. He says there is no place in the bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here,” and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georgy’s composition. This great effort of genius, which is still in the possession of George’s mother, is as follows:
On Selfishness — Of all the vices which degrade the human character, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. An undue love of Self leads to the most monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest misfortunes both in States and Families. As a selfish man will impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war.
Example: The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks — muri Achaiois alge etheke — (Hom. Il. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte occasioned innumerable wars in Europe and caused him to perish, himself, in a miserable island — that of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own interest and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others as well as our own.
George S. Osborne Athene House, 24 April, 1827
“Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek too, at his age,” the delighted mother said. “Oh, William,” she added, holding out her hand to the Major, “what a treasure Heaven has given me in that boy! He is the comfort of my life — and he is the image of — of him that’s gone!”
“Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him?” William thought. “Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt that such a heart as Amelia’s can love only once and for ever? Oh, George, George, how little you knew the prize you had, though.” This sentiment passed rapidly through William’s mind as he was holding Amelia’s hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.
“Dear friend,” she said, pressing the hand which held hers, “how good, how kind you always have been to me! See! Papa is stirring. You will go and see Georgy tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Not to-morrow,” said poor old Dobbin. “I have business.” He did not like to own that he had not as yet been to his parents’ and his dear sister Anne — a remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major. And presently he took his leave, leaving his address behind him for Jos, against the latter’s arrival. And so the first day was over, and he had seen her.
When he got back to the Slaughters’, the roast fowl was of course cold, in which condition he ate it for supper. And knowing what early hours his family kept, and that it would be needless to disturb their slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record, that Major Dobbin treated himself to half-price at the Haymarket Theatre that evening, where let us hope he enjoyed himself.
CHAPTER LIX
The Old Piano
The Major’s visit left old John Sedley in a great state of agitation and excitement. His daughter could not induce him to settle down to his customary occupations or amusements that night. He passed the evening fumbling amongst his boxes and desks, untying his papers with trembling hands, and sorting and arranging them against Jos’s arrival. He had them in the greatest order — his tapes and his files, his receipts, and his letters with lawyers and correspondents; the documents relative to the wine project (which failed from a most unaccountable accident, after commencing with the most splendid prospects), the coal project (which only a want of capital prevented from becoming the most successful scheme ever put before the public), the patent saw-mills and sawdust consolidation project, amp;c., amp;c. All night, until a very late hour, he passed in the preparation of these documents, trembling about from one room to another, with a quivering candle and shaky hands. Here’s the wine papers, here’s the sawdust, here’s the coals; here’s my letters to Calcutta and Madras, and replies from Major Dobbin, C.B., and Mr. Joseph Sedley to the same. “He shall find no irregularity about ME, Emmy,” the old gentleman said.
Emmy smiled. “I don’t think Jos will care about seeing those papers, Papa,” she said.
“You don’t know anything about business, my dear,” answered the sire, shaking his head with an important air. And it must be confessed that on this point Emmy was very ignorant, and that is a pity some people are so knowing. All these twopenny documents arranged on a side table, old Sedley covered them carefully over with a clean bandanna handkerchief (one out of Major Dobbin’s lot) and enjoined the maid and landlady of the house, in the most solemn way, not to disturb those papers, which were arranged for the arrival of Mr. Joseph Sedley the next morning, “Mr. Joseph Sedley of the Honourable East India Company’s Bengal Civil Service.”
Amelia found him up very early the next morning, more eager, more hectic, and more shaky than ever. “I didn’t sleep much, Emmy, my dear,” he said. “I was thinking of my poor Bessy. I wish she was alive, to ride in Jos’s carriage once again. She kept her own and became it very well.” And his eyes filled with tears, which trickled down his furrowed old face. Amelia wiped them away, and smilingly kissed him, and tied the old man’s neckcloth in a smart bow, and put his brooch into his best shirt frill, in which, in his Sunday suit of mourning, he sat from six o’clock in the morning awaiting the arrival of his son.
However, when the postman made his appearance, the little party were put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter from Jos to his sister, who announced that he felt a little fatigued after his voyage, and should not be able to move on that day, but that he would leave Southampton early the next morning and be with his father and mother at evening. Amelia, as she read out the letter to her father, paused over the latter word; her brother, it was clear, did not know what had happened in the family. Nor could he, for the fact is that, though the Major rightly suspected that his travelling companion never would be got into motion in so short a space as twenty-four hours, and would find some excuse for delaying, yet Dobbin had not written to Jos to inform him of the calamity which had befallen the Sedley family, being occupied in talking with Amelia until long after post-hour.
There are some splendid tailors’ shops in the High Street of Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang gorgeous waistcoats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold and crimson, and pictures of the last new fashions, in which those wonderful gentlemen with quizzing glasses, and holding on to little boys with the exceeding large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies in riding habits prancing by the Statue of Achilles at Apsley House. Jos, although provided with some of the most splendid vests that Calcutta could furnish, thought he could not go to town until he was supplied with one or two of these garments, and selected a crimson satin, embroidered with gold butterflies, and a black and red velvet tartan with white str
ipes and a rolling collar, with which, and a rich blue satin stock and a gold pin, consisting of a five-barred gate with a horseman in pink enamel jumping over it, he thought he might make his entry into London with some dignity. For Jos’s former shyness and blundering blushing timidity had given way to a more candid and courageous self-assertion of his worth. “I don’t care about owning it,” Waterloo Sedley would say to his friends, “I am a dressy man”; and though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the Government House balls, and though he blushed and turned away alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread lest they should make love to him that he avoided them, being averse to marriage altogether. But there was no such swell in Calcutta as Waterloo Sedley, I have heard say, and he had the handsomest turn-out, gave the best bachelor dinners, and had the finest plate in the whole place.
To make these waistcoats for a man of his size and dignity took at least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a servant to wait upon him and his native and in instructing the agent who cleared his baggage, his boxes, his books, which he never read, his chests of mangoes, chutney, and curry-powders, his shawls for presents to people whom he didn’t know as yet, and the rest of his Persicos apparatus.
At length, he drove leisurely to London on the third day and in the new waistcoat, the native, with chattering teeth, shuddering in a shawl on the box by the side of the new European servant; Jos puffing his pipe at intervals within and looking so majestic that the little boys cried Hooray, and many people thought he must be a Governor-General. HE, I promise, did not decline the obsequious invitation of the landlords to alight and refresh himself in the neat country towns. Having partaken of a copious breakfast, with fish, and rice, and hard eggs, at Southampton, he had so far rallied at Winchester as to think a glass of sherry necessary. At Alton he stepped out of the carriage at his servant’s request and imbibed some of the ale for which the place is famous. At Farnham he stopped to view the Bishop’s Castle and to partake of a light dinner of stewed eels, veal cutlets, and French beans, with a bottle of claret. He was cold over Bagshot Heath, where the native chattered more and more, and Jos Sahib took some brandy-and-water; in fact, when he drove into town he was as full of wine, beer, meat, pickles, cherry-brandy, and tobacco as the steward’s cabin of a steam-packet. It was evening when his carriage thundered up to the little door in Brompton, whither the affectionate fellow drove first, and before hieing to the apartments secured for him by Mr. Dobbin at the Slaughters’.
All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little maidservant flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames Clapp looked out from the casement of the ornamented kitchen; Emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage among the hats and coats; and old Sedley in the parlour inside, shaking all over. Jos descended from the post-chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful state, supported by the new valet from Southampton and the shuddering native, whose brown face was now livid with cold and of the colour of a turkey’s gizzard. He created an immense sensation in the passage presently, where Mrs. and Miss Clapp, coming perhaps to listen at the parlour door, found Loll Jewab shaking upon the hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous way, and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.
For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting between Jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister inside. The old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his daughter; nor was Jos without feeling. In that long absence of ten years, the most selfish will think about home and early ties. Distance sanctifies both. Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and sweetness. Jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his father, between whom and himself there had been a coolness — glad to see his little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling, and pained at the alteration which time, grief, and misfortune had made in the shattered old man. Emmy had come out to the door in her black clothes and whispered to him of her mother’s death, and not to speak of it to their father. There was no need of this caution, for the elder Sedley himself began immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it, and wept over it plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little and made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to do.
The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for when Jos had reascended his post-chaise and had driven away to his hotel, Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an air of triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always say that her brother had a good heart?
Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should never suffer want or discomfort any more, that he was at home for some time at any rate, during which his house and everything he had should be theirs: and that Amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table — until she would accept one of her own.
She shook her head sadly and had, as usual, recourse to the waterworks. She knew what he meant. She and her young confidante, Miss Mary, had talked over the matter most fully, the very night of the Major’s visit, beyond which time the impetuous Polly could not refrain from talking of the discovery which she had made, and describing the start and tremor of joy by which Major Dobbin betrayed himself when Mr. Binny passed with his bride and the Major learned that he had no longer a rival to fear. “Didn’t you see how he shook all over when you asked if he was married and he said, ‘Who told you those lies?’ Oh, M’am,” Polly said, “he never kept his eyes off you, and I’m sure he’s grown grey athinking of you.”
But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the portraits of her husband and son, told her young protegee never, never, to speak on that subject again; that Major Dobbin had been her husband’s dearest friend and her own and George’s most kind and affectionate guardian; that she loved him as a brother — but that a woman who had been married to such an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall, could never think of any other union. Poor Polly sighed: she thought what she should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who always looked at her so at church, and who, by those mere aggressive glances had put her timorous little heart into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at once, — what she should do if he were to die? She knew he was consumptive, his cheeks were so red and he was so uncommon thin in the waist.
Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major’s passion, rebuffed him in any way, or felt displeased with him. Such an attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could make no woman angry. Desdemona was not angry with Cassio, though there is very little doubt she saw the Lieutenant’s partiality for her (and I for my part believe that many more things took place in that sad affair than the worthy Moorish officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even very kind to Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same reason. Not that she would encourage him in the least — the poor uncouth monster — of course not. No more would Emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the Major. She would give him that friendly regard, which so much excellence and fidelity merited; she would treat him with perfect cordiality and frankness until he made his proposals, and THEN it would be time enough for her to speak and to put an end to hopes which never could be realized.
She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after the conversation with Miss Polly, and was more than ordinarily happy, in spite of Jos’s delaying. “I am glad he is not going to marry that Miss O’Dowd,” she thought. “Colonel O’Dowd never could have a sister fit for such an accomplished man as Major William.” Who was there amongst her little circle who would make him a good wife? Not Miss Binny, she was too old and ill — tempered; Miss Osborne? too old too. Little Polly was too young. Mrs. Osborne could not find anybody to suit the Major before she went to sleep.
The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the Slaughters’ Coffee-house from his friend at Southampton, begging dear Dob to excuse Jos for being in a rage when awakened the d
ay before (he had a confounded headache, and was just in his first sleep), and entreating Dob to engage comfortable rooms at the Slaughters’ for Mr. Sedley and his servants. The Major had become necessary to Jos during the voyage. He was attached to him, and hung upon him. The other passengers were away to London. Young Ricketts and little Chaffers went away on the coach that day — Ricketts on the box, and taking the reins from Botley; the Doctor was off to his family at Portsea; Bragg gone to town to his co-partners; and the first mate busy in the unloading of the Ramchunder. Mr. Joe was very lonely at Southampton, and got the landlord of the George to take a glass of wine with him that day, at the very hour at which Major Dobbin was seated at the table of his father, Sir William, where his sister found out (for it was impossible for the Major to tell fibs) that he had been to see Mrs. George Osborne.
Mr. Jos's Hookahbadar
Jos was so comfortably situated in St. Martin’s Lane, he could enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and could swagger down to the theatres, when minded, so agreeably, that, perhaps, he would have remained altogether at the Slaughters’ had not his friend, the Major, been at his elbow. That gentleman would not let the Bengalee rest until he had executed his promise of having a home for Amelia and his father. Jos was a soft fellow in anybody’s hands, Dobbin most active in anybody’s concerns but his own; the civilian was, therefore, an easy victim to the guileless arts of this good-natured diplomatist and was ready to do, to purchase, hire, or relinquish whatever his friend thought fit. Loll Jewab, of whom the boys about St. Martin’s Lane used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the street, was sent back to Calcutta in the Lady Kicklebury East Indiaman, in which Sir William Dobbin had a share, having previously taught Jos’s European the art of preparing curries, pilaus, and pipes. It was a matter of great delight and occupation to Jos to superintend the building of a smart chariot which he and the Major ordered in the neighbouring Long Acre: and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed, with which Jos drove about in state in the park, or to call upon his Indian friends. Amelia was not seldom by his side on these excursions, when also Major Dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the carriage. At other times old Sedley and his daughter took advantage of it, and Miss Clapp, who frequently accompanied her friend, had great pleasure in being recognized as she sat in the carriage, dressed in the famous yellow shawl, by the young gentleman at the surgery, whose face might commonly be seen over the window-blinds as she passed.
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