Chapter: 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, &c., &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 stripes 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 day 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.

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.

Shortly after Jos's first appearance at Brompton, a dismal scene,
indeed, took place at that humble cottage at which the Sedleys had
passed the last ten years of their life.  Jos's carriage (the temporary
one, not the chariot under construction) arrived one day and carried
off old Sedley and his daughter--to return no more.  The tears that
were shed by the landlady and the landlady's daughter at that event
were as genuine tears of sorrow as any that have been outpoured in the
course of this history. In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy
they could not recall a harsh word that had been uttered by Amelia. She
had been all sweetness and kindness, always thankful, always gentle,
even when Mrs. Clapp lost her own temper and pressed for the rent.
When the kind creature was going away for good and all, the landlady
reproached herself bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to
her--how she wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window, a paper
notifying that the little rooms so long occupied were to let!  They
never would have such lodgers again, that was quite clear.  After-life
proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and Mrs. Clapp revenged
herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage
contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her
locataires.  Most of them scolded and grumbled; some of them did not
pay; none of them stayed. The landlady might well regret those old, old
friends, who had left her.

As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia's departure was such as I shall
not attempt to depict.  From childhood upwards she had been with her
daily and had attached herself so passionately to that dear good lady
that when the grand barouche came to carry her off into splendour, she
fainted in the arms of her friend, who was indeed scarcely less
affected than the good-natured girl.  Amelia loved her like a daughter.
During eleven years the girl had been her constant friend and
associate.  The separation was a very painful one indeed to her.  But
it was of course arranged that Mary was to come and stay often at the
grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne was going, and where Mary was sure
she would never be so happy as she had been in their humble cot, as
Miss Clapp called it, in the language of the novels which she loved.

Let us hope she was wrong in her judgement.  Poor Emmy's days of
happiness had been very few in that humble cot.  A gloomy Fate had
oppressed her there.  She never liked to come back to the house after
she had left it, or to face the landlady who had tyrannized over her
when ill-humoured and unpaid, or when pleased had treated her with a
coarse familiarity scarcely less odious. Her servility and fulsome
compliments when Emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's
liking.  She cast about notes of admiration all over the new house,
extolling every article of furniture or ornament; she fingered Mrs.
Osborne's dresses and calculated their price. Nothing could be too good
for that sweet lady, she vowed and protested.  But in the vulgar
sycophant who now paid court to her, Emmy always remembered the coarse
tyrant who had made her miserable many a time, to whom she had been
forced to put up petitions for time, when the rent was overdue; who
cried out at her extravagance if she bought delicacies for her ailing
mother or father; who had seen her humble and trampled upon her.

Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our poor
little woman's lot in life.  She kept them secret from her father,
whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery.  She had to
bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly gentle
and humble as to be made by nature for a victim.

I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage.  And, as in
all griefs there is said to be some consolation, I may mention that
poor Mary, when left at her friend's departure in a hysterical
condition, was placed under the medical treatment of the young fellow
from the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short period.
Emmy, when she went away from Brompton, endowed Mary with every article
of furniture that the house contained, only taking away her pictures
(the two pictures over the bed) and her piano--that little old piano
which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she
loved for reasons of her own.  She was a child when first she played on
it, and her parents gave it her.  It had been given to her again since,
as the reader may remember, when her father's house was gone to ruin
and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck.

Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending the
arrangements of Jos's new house--which the Major insisted should be
very handsome and comfortable--the cart arrived from Brompton, bringing
the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that village, and with
them the old piano.  Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a
neat little apartment on the second floor, adjoining her father's
chamber, and where the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings.

When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and Amelia gave
orders that it should be placed in the chamber aforesaid, Dobbin was
quite elated.  "I'm glad you've kept it," he said in a very sentimental
manner.  "I was afraid you didn't care about it."

"I value it more than anything I have in the world," said Amelia.

"Do you, Amelia?" cried the Major.  The fact was, as he had bought it
himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into
his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the
purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift
came from him.  "Do you, Amelia?" he said; and the question, the great
question of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied--

"Can I do otherwise?--did not he give it me?"

"I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his countenance fell.

Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take immediate heed
of the very dismal expression which honest Dobbin's countenance
assumed, but she thought of it afterwards.  And then it struck her,
with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was William who
was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had fancied. It was
not George's gift; the only one which she had received from her lover,
as she thought--the thing she had cherished beyond all others--her
dearest relic and prize.  She had spoken to it about George; played his
favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening hours, touching, to the
best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies on the keys, and weeping
over them in silence. It was not George's relic.  It was valueless now.
The next time that old Sedley asked her to play, she said it was
shockingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that she couldn't play.

Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her pettishness
and ingratitude and determined to make a reparation to honest William
for the slight she had not expressed to him, but had felt for his
piano. A few days afterwards, as they were seated in the drawing-room,
where Jos had fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner, Amelia
said with rather a faltering voice to Major Dobbin--

"I have to beg your pardon for something."

"About what?" said he.

"About--about that little square piano.  I never thanked you for it
when you gave it me, many, many years ago, before I was married.  I
thought somebody else had given it.  Thank you, William." She held out
her hand, but the poor little woman's heart was bleeding; and as for
her eyes, of course they were at their work.

But William could hold no more.  "Amelia, Amelia," he said, "I did buy
it for you.  I loved you then as I do now.  I must tell you.  I think I
loved you from the first minute that I saw you, when George brought me
to your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was engaged to.  You were
but a girl, in white, with large ringlets; you came down singing--do
you remember?--and we went to Vauxhall.  Since then I have thought of
but one woman in the world, and that was you.  I think there is no hour
in the day has passed for twelve years that I haven't thought of you.
I came to tell you this before I went to India, but you did not care,
and I hadn't the heart to speak.  You did not care whether I stayed or
went."

"I was very ungrateful," Amelia said.

"No, only indifferent," Dobbin continued desperately. "I have nothing
to make a woman to be otherwise.  I know what you are feeling now.  You
are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the piano, and that it
came from me and not from George.  I forgot, or I should never have
spoken of it so.  It is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for
a moment, and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have
pleaded with you."

"It is you who are cruel now," Amelia said with some spirit. "George is
my husband, here and in heaven.  How could I love any other but him? I
am his now as when you first saw me, dear William. It was he who told
me how good and generous you were, and who taught me to love you as a
brother.  Have you not been everything to me and my boy? Our dearest,
truest, kindest friend and protector? Had you come a few months sooner
perhaps you might have spared me that--that dreadful parting.  Oh, it
nearly killed me, William--but you didn't come, though I wished and
prayed for you to come, and they took him too away from me.  Isn't he a
noble boy, William? Be his friend still and mine"--and here her voice
broke, and she hid her face on his shoulder.

The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she was a
child, and kissed her head.  "I will not change, dear Amelia," he said.
"I ask for no more than your love.  I think I would not have it
otherwise. Only let me stay near you and see you often."

"Yes, often," Amelia said.  And so William was at liberty to look and
long--as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the
contents of the tart-woman's tray.

 Mr. Sedley is shaken into some rather pathetic business-type activity by the idea that Jos is coming. He starts going through his papers as if Jos is going to do some kind of audit, then cries because Mrs. Sedley is dead and won't be able to ride on Jos's carriage. He's really a very sad old man at this point. But Jos doesn't come; he sends a letter saying he will be there in a day or two. Before coming to London, Jos has to get a whole bunch of new clothes and spends the day shopping. He is as vain and metrosexual about his appearance as ever. Then, when he is finally on the road, he stops at every single inn along the way and eats and drinks an enormous amount of food. Obviously this makes his travel slow going. Finally he gets to the Sedley house. Amelia tells him about their mother's death. He sees how decrepit his father is and is moved by all of this. He's always been a pretty generous guy and now decides to really take care of them well. Jos tells Amelia that she will make a nice hostess at his house until she has a house of her own . Amelia shakes her head and says no way, because she will never stop loving old dead George. But still, it's always nice to be loved, and Amelia acts pretty nice to Dobbin because of his love for her. She tries hard not to lead him on, and thus relegates him strictly to the dreaded friend zone. She decides that she thinks of him as a brother. Ouch! Jos rents a nice house in a neighborhood where other people formerly stationed in India now live. Amelia is really happy to leave the gross little house they've been renting all this time. She's also happy to leave behind the Clapps, who apparently have not been the best of landlords. She leaves all her furniture except the piano which someone bought back for her at the auction of all their stuff when Mr. Sedley first went bankrupt. Dobbin is totally excited to see that she kept it and asks about it. Amelia, who all along has thought it was George who bought it for her, is like, "Oh, I love it so much since George bought it for me." Dobbin is completely defeated and crushed. Based on his reaction, Amelia suddenly realizes that George never bought her any such thing. Um, because he was a selfish jerk. She apologizes to Dobbin for not realizing it was him, but then she no longer wants to play the piano again. Dobbin finally busts out with all his love. He tells her he's loved her forever and ever and asks why she doesn't care about him. Amelia cries. Like always. About everything. The narrator snipes a little something about her really, really not being worth it. She then does her thing about only loving dead George and asks Dobbin to be her friend. She criticizes him for not coming sooner, since maybe he could have prevented George Jr. from having to go live with Mr. Osborne. Dobbin doesn't have anything to say to this and just asks to be able to see her often, to which she agrees. The narrator sums it up nicely by quipping that Dobbin was now "at liberty to look and long - as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman's tray" .

