Chapter: Returns to the Genteel World

Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia.  We are glad to get her
out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto and
introduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as that in
which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but still
having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion.  Jos's friends
were all from the three presidencies, and his new house was in the
comfortable Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the centre.
Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street,
Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" was a
felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt terraces in
front, so early as 1827)--who does not know these respectable abodes of
the retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls
the Black Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grand enough
to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where none can live but
retired Members of Council, and partners of Indian firms (who break,
after having settled a hundred thousand pounds on their wives, and
retire into comparative penury to a country place and four thousand a
year); he engaged a comfortable house of a second- or third-rate order
in Gillespie Street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and
handsome and appropriate planned furniture by Seddons from the
assignees of Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta
House of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarked
seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life,
taking Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the
Fogles have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about to
be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted, I say, partner
into the great agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before it
failed for a million and plunged half the Indian public into misery and
ruin.

Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of age,
went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. Walter Scape
was withdrawn from Eton and put into a merchant's house.  Florence
Scape, Fanny Scape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, and will
be heard of no more.  To be brief, Jos stepped in and bought their
carpets and sideboards and admired himself in the mirrors which had
reflected their kind handsome faces.  The Scape tradesmen, all
honourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the new
household.  The large men in white waistcoats who waited at Scape's
dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their private
capacity, left their addresses and ingratiated themselves with the
butler.  Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had swept the last three
families, tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty it
was to go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trousers,
for the protection of Mrs. Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.

It was a modest establishment.  The butler was Jos's valet also, and
never was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who has
a proper regard for his master's wine.  Emmy was supplied with a maid,
grown on Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whose
kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrified
at the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in
the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics with
the most reverential politeness.  But this maid was very useful in the
family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept almost entirely
to his own quarter of the house and never mixed in any of the gay
doings which took place there.

Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne.  Lady Dobbin and daughters
were delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon her.  Miss
Osborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot with the flaming
hammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms.  Jos was reported to be
immensely rich.  Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy should
inherit his uncle's property as well as his own. "Damn it, we will make
a man of the feller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before I
die.  You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'll never set
eyes on her":  and Miss Osborne came. Emmy, you may be sure, was very
glad to see her, and so be brought nearer to George.  That young fellow
was allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit his
mother.  He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Street and bullied
the servants and his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.

He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and more modest in
his demeanour when that gentleman was present.  He was a clever lad and
afraid of the Major.  George could not help admiring his friend's
simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly imparted, his
general love of truth and justice.  He had met no such man as yet in
the course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a
gentleman.  He hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his
delight to walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk.  William told George
about his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything but
himself.  When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the
Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel.  One
day, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit
because it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, left him there,
and went down himself to the pit.  He had not been seated there very
long before he felt an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand in
a kid glove squeezing his arm.  George had seen the absurdity of his
ways and come down from the upper region.  A tender laugh of
benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at the
repentant little prodigal.  He loved the boy, as he did everything that
belonged to Amelia.  How charmed she was when she heard of this
instance of George's goodness!  Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbin
than they ever had done.  She blushed, he thought, after looking at him
so.

Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother.  "I like
him, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like old
Veal, who is always bragging and using such long words, don't you know?
The chaps call him 'Longtail' at school.  I gave him the name; ain't it
capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and French and that; and
when we go out together he tells me stories about my Papa, and never
about himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that
he was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguished
himself ever so much.  Grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'THAT
feller!  Why, I didn't think he could say Bo to a goose'--but I know he
could, couldn't he, Mamma?"

Emmy laughed:  she thought it was very likely the Major could do thus
much.

If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, it must be
confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love existed.
George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands
in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't say
so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible to
refrain from laughter.  The servants would explode at dinner if the
lad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on that
countenance and used that favourite phrase.  Even Dobbin would shoot
out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry.  If George did not mimic his
uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's
terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist.
And the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim consciousness that the
lad thought him an ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule,
used to be extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous and
dignified in the presence of Master Georgy.  When it was announced that
the young gentleman was expected in Gillespie Street to dine with his
mother, Mr. Jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club.
Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence.  On those days Mr.
Sedley would commonly be induced to come out from his place of refuge
in the upper stories, and there would be a small family party, whereof
Major Dobbin pretty generally formed one.  He was the ami de la
maison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos's
counsel and adviser. "He might almost as well be at Madras for anything
WE see of him," Miss Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell.  Ah!  Miss Ann,
did it not strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major wanted to
marry?

Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became a
person of his eminence.  His very first point, of course, was to become
a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the
company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought
home men to dine.

Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies.
From these she heard how soon Smith would be in Council; how many lacs
Jones had brought home with him, how Thomson's House in London had
refused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co., the Bombay
House, and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too; how very
imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown
of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey of the Body
Guard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, and losing
themselves as they were riding out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had
had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev:
Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in the
service; how Hornby was wild because his wife would stay in Europe, and
Trotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora.  This and similar talk
took place at the grand dinners all round.  They had the same
conversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton,
boiled turkeys, and entrees.  Politics set in a short time after
dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their
complaints and their children.

Mutato nomine, it is all the same.  Don't the barristers' wives talk
about Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the Regiment?
Don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about Sunday-schools and who
takes whose duty? Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that
small clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should our Indian
friends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is slow for
the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.

Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about regularly
in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of Major-General Sir
Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G.  Huff,
Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c.  We are not
long in using ourselves to changes in life.  That carriage came round
to Gillespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down from
the box with Emmy's and Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and
the carriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing; or,
putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old man round the
Regent's Park.  The lady's maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and
the buttony page, became soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble
routine of Brompton.  She accommodated herself to one as to the other.
If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess, she would even have
done that duty too.  She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather a
pleasing young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of
thing.

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined
demeanour.  The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough--immense
dandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing cabs,
the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels--nevertheless
admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the park, and to
be admitted to have the honour of paying her a morning visit.  Swankey
of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck
of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major
Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and describing the sport of
pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence; and he spoke
afterwards of a d--d king's officer that's always hanging about the
house--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though,
that took the shine out of a man in the talking line.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have
been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal
Captain.  But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have
any doubts about Amelia.  He was glad that the young men should pay her
respect, and that others should admire her.  Ever since her womanhood
almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to
see how kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spirits
gently rose with her prosperity.  Any person who appreciated her paid a
compliment to the Major's good judgement--that is, if a man may be
said to have good judgement who is under the influence of Love's
delusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal subject
of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at the Club,
whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who
had always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of George IV, became
such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State that he was for having
Amelia to go to a Drawing-room, too.  He somehow had worked himself up
to believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the public
welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos Sedley and
his family appeared to rally round him at St.  James's.

Emmy laughed.  "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.

"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major.  "I should
like to see any that were too good for you."

 Now that she is restored to reasonable wealth again, Amelia suddenly regains a bunch of her old "friends." Maybe frenemies is a better word? In any case, Miss Osborne and Dobbin's sisters now start to visit her. She starts to make friends with Jos's circle of India retirees. She does well. The women like her OK, and the men like her better. Dobbin comes to the house almost daily. The person there who likes him the best is George Jr., who is now allowed to come visit a lot more frequently. Dobbin is the only person that George Jr. is a little scared of and impressed by. Which is interesting, since Dobbin is the only person who does not brag about his own accomplishments nor think extremely highly of himself. The narrator tells us that this marks him as a gentleman, and George Jr. is able to sense that somehow. Dobbin takes the boy to the theater and tells him stories about his father. In turn, George Jr. tells Amelia how much he likes Dobbin. But Jos? Not such a huge fan of George Jr. And actually, the feeling is mutual. Jos starts to live the life befitting a man of his level of importance. Soon enough he even gets presented at Court, which makes him a very devoted fan of the King. Remind you of anyone else?

