Chapter: In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries

The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships provided
by His Majesty's government for the occasion:  and in two days after
the festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of
cheering from all the East India ships in the river, and the military
on shore, the band playing "God Save the King," the officers waving
their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down
the river and proceeded under convoy to Ostend. Meanwhile the gallant
Jos had agreed to escort his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk of
whose goods and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and
turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our two heroines
drove pretty much unencumbered to Ramsgate, where there were plenty of
packets plying, in one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.

That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full of incident,
that it served him for conversation for many years after, and even the
tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives which he
had to tell about the great campaign of Waterloo.  As soon as he had
agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased
shaving his upper lip.  At Chatham he followed the parades and drills
with great assiduity.  He listened with the utmost attention to the
conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after days
sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could. In these
studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great assistance to him; and
on the day finally when they embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which
was to carry them to their destination, he made his appearance in a
braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented
with a smart gold band.  Having his carriage with him, and informing
everybody on board confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of
Wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a
commissary-general, or a government courier at the very least.

He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise
prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the packet made
Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which
entered the harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos
went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the
ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage
from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without
a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired
together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water.  This
revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr.
Sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,
but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the
business, Jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly:  the
mustachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to
embark.  In place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who
could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's party a swarthy
little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by
his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My
lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour.  Times are altered at
Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or
act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy.  They seem for
the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and
brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.

But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of
Wellington's army paid his way.  The remembrance of such a fact surely
becomes a nation of shopkeepers.  It was a blessing for a
commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and
to have such creditable warriors to feed.  And the country which they
came to protect is not military.  For a long period of history they
have let other people fight there.  When the present writer went to
survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor
of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been
at the battle.  "Pas si bete"--such an answer and sentiment as no
Frenchman would own to--was his reply.  But, on the other hand, the
postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial
General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road.  The moral is
surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich
and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its green
fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when
its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages: when its
great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old
villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded
with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the
village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the
Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house, rocked the baby's
cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out getting in the hay.  As our
painters are bent on military subjects just now, I throw out this as a
good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest
English war.  All looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park
review.  Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind his curtain of
frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive
all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them
low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for
the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the
whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm
with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country
seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand
in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and
our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort,
were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease.
The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made
acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to
march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the
which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and
accommodation they afforded.  So prodigiously good was the eating and
drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that
there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to
Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so
delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from
Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he
drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat.  Jos's death was
not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd
insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness
complete.  He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish
beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the
ladies.

His courage was prodigious.  "Boney attack us!" he cried.  "My dear
creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened.  There's no danger. The
allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you
to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove!  There are three hundred thousand
Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by Mayence and the
Rhine--three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly,
my poor love.  You don't know military affairs, my dear.  I do, and I
tell you there's no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian
infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to hold a candle to
Wittgenstein.  Then there are the Austrians, they are five hundred
thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by
this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles.  Then there are the
Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal.  Show me a cavalry chief
like him now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Do you think our
little girl here need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?
Hey, sir?  Get some more beer."

Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive,
let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink
which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words,
faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector, had
lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially
when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be.  He was rather a
favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with
sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. And as there is one
well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the
column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said with respect to
his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant.

Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather
ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present
her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the
latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment
soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women.  But
this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common
among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be
sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person,
had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook
for delicacy on his own part.  Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in
her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to
ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by
her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these
ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave
excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the Major's
came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's
eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of
middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more
instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major
O'Dowd.  "Talk about kenal boats; my dear!  Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe.  It's there the rapid travelling
is; and the beautiful cattle.  Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and
his Excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate
in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw
in this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that for good
streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country
like England."

"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the Major's
lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to
make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country. The idea of
comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had
suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part.
"I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of
the market-place," said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought
the old tower down.  The place was full of English soldiery as they
passed.  English bugles woke them in the morning; at nightfall they
went to bed to the note of the British fife and drum:  all the country
and Europe was in arms, and the greatest event of history pending:  and
honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went on
prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at
Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and Jos Sedley interposed about
curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how
best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great
topics of the world.

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon what
MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what
actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and
profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to
themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from
Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame.  The
historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers
were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a
moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled at
Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to their
wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set
the armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each other, but
for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear.  This
monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself
Poland, and was determined to keep it:  another had robbed half Saxony,
and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of
a third's solicitude.  Each was protesting against the rapacity of the
other; and could the Corsican but have waited in prison until all these
parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned
unmolested.  But what would have become of our story and all our
friends, then?  If all the drops in it were dried up, what would become
of the sea?

In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of
pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them,
and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in
which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as
all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant
little capitals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were
laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendour.  Gambling was
here in profusion, and dancing in plenty:  feasting was there to fill
with delight that great gourmand of a Jos:  there was a theatre where a
miraculous Catalani was delighting all hearers:  beautiful rides, all
enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange
costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little
Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with
charming surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine
handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne,
who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia
was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for
all parties.  There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there
was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making music
at all hours.  The greatest folks of England walked in the Park--there
was a perpetual military festival.  George, taking out his wife to a
new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as
usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character.  And a
jaunt or a junket with HIM!  Was it not enough to set this little heart
beating with joy?  Her letters home to her mother were filled with
delight and gratitude at this season.  Her husband bade her buy laces,
millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts.  Oh, he was the kindest,
best, and most generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable
persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place,
filled George's truly British soul with intense delight.  They flung
off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public
places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they
met there.  One night at a party given by the general of the division
to which George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing with
Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices
and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for
Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed.  He
called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the Park;
he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was
quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come.  Old Bareacres,
who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner
anywhere.

"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady Bareacres
said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and
accepted with too much precipitancy.

"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his
wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms
in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before.  "The men are
bearable, but their women--"

"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl said.

"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants to
go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know." And so,
determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great
folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him
pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife
uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation.  This
is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns
supreme.  To watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity
Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was
the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her
honeymoon.  She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
her mamma:  how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken
to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage
Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d----
bad dinner, and d---- dear.  But though Amelia told all these stories,
and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own
discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and
talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such
assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and
peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B.,
and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and
in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his
high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by,
or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the Parks--those
who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring
Peninsular and Waterloo officer.  He has thick curling brown hair and
black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple.  He was
light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the
limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late.  When he was
about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and
curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour.
Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair,
because it never grows, is a wig.  Tom Tufto, with whose father he
quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de
Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the
green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the
General's wig has nothing to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the
flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which
Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her
fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly
behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came
amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money
could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom,
who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great
state and self-satisfaction.

"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was remarking.
"Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre
of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson.  Our greeps
weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience
I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles."

Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne
delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare
her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a
safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people
with shrieks of yelling laughter.

"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd.  "Is it his nose
bleedn?  He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have
pomped all the blood out of 'um.  An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as
big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"

"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said.  When the
conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the
officer who purchased the bouquet.

"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.

"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won
the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was
continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by
saying--

"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding
quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."

"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!
Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."

Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why.  The sun did not seem to shine
so bright.  The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all
of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest
and most beautiful days at the end of May.

 The army men cross the Channel to Belgium in government boats, and Jos, Amelia, Mrs. O'Dowd, and the other civilians follow them later. Jos makes the most of this time, which will provide him with stories and party conversation for the rest of his life. He has a special military-looking coat made, grows a huge military-looking mustache, and is even sometimes confused for someone official. Jos's British servant refuses to make the trip, so Jos ends up hiring a little Belgian man who addresses him as "my lord," which so makes him happy. The Belgian occupation is a very lovely, peaceful time, according to the narrator. The army men are not forcibly quartered, and instead pay their way. This endears them to the Belgians. Plus, there are many rich and aristocratic tourists coming to see the fighting, who also end up spending a bunch of money there. George starts to be embarrassed at the vulgarity and commonness of some of the women that Amelia has been forced to hang out with. Amelia, being a more normal and less stuck-up person, doesn't really care. Mrs. O'Dowd cracks everyone up because, for her, everything in Belgium is vastly inferior to its Irish equivalent. She is constantly comparing and commenting. The narrator points out that Napoleon picked a terrible time for the second invasion, since all the armies were still massed on the continent and ready to expel him again. If he had just waited until the allies started fighting amongst themselves, history - and the novel - would have been totally different. Amelia is delighted by her time in Brussels. George takes her out every evening and buys her presents, which is enough to make her happy. Abroad, some of the social divisions that are very sharp in England are allowed to mellow. So one night, George actually dances with the daughter of the Countess of Bareacres . George invites the Count and Countess to dinner. The Countess and her daughter decide they will see the Osbornes here in Brussels but will snub them back in England. George is delighted to be hobnobbing with these horrible people. At this dinner, the Countess and her daughter do their best to totally ignore Amelia. She writes her mother a letter describing how awful the evening was. What does Mrs. Sedley take from this letter? That Amelia got to have dinner with a Countess. Snobbery is universal and hard to shake. Now a little bit about General Tufto, Rawdon's employer. He is a very old man who is comically and grossly obsessed with his appearance. He dyes his eyebrows and mustache, wears a wig, and even wears padded clothing to look more built than he really is. Amelia, George, Mrs. O'Dowd, and Major O'Dowd see General Tufto coming down the street one day. He stops and buys a bouquet of flowers. George points out that if he is here, that means Becky and Rawdon are, too. Amelia's heart skips a beat and she is suddenly miserable again.

