Chapter: Between London and Chatham

On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of rank and
fashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to a
fine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a
table magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozen
of black and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentleman
and his bride.  George did the honours of the place with a princely air
to Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding
shyness and timidity, presided at what George called her own table.

George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Jos
gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin helped him to it;
for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so
ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without
bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in which it was
given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner, when Jos was
asleep in the great chair.  But in vain he cried out against the
enormity of turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop. "I've
always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," George said, "and,
damme, my wife shall travel like a lady.  As long as there's a shot in
the locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow,
quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit.  Nor did
Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in
turtle-soup.

A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see her
mamma, at Fulham: which permission George granted her with some
grumbling.  And she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre
of which stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the Emperor
Halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was here," and
put on her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and
pleasure.  George was still drinking claret when she returned to the
dining-room, and made no signs of moving.  "Ar'n't you coming with me,
dearest?" she asked him.  No; the "dearest" had "business" that night.
His man should get her a coach and go with her.  And the coach being at
the door of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed curtsey
after looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down
the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into the
vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. The very valet was
ashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before the
hotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got further on.

Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the Slaughters', thinking
very likely that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach,
along with Mrs. Osborne. George was evidently of quite a different
taste; for when he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at
the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock.  Captain Osborne was a
great lover of the drama, and had himself performed high-comedy
characters with great distinction in several garrison theatrical
entertainments.  Jos slept on until long after dark, when he woke up
with a start at the motions of his servant, who was removing and
emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach stand was
again put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero to
his lodgings and bed.

Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart with
all maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as the
carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping,
trembling, young bride.  Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,
trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed.  The Irish servant-lass
rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you."  Amelia could
hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour.

How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when they
were together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily be
imagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn.
When don't ladies weep?  At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other
business of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and
daughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is
as tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seen
women who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. How much
more do they feel when they love!  Good mothers are married over again
at their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who does
not know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until
she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a mother
is.  Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering and
laughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight.  Old Mr. Sedley
did.  HE had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. He
had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very
warmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, with
his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sitting
with the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the
little apartment in their possession.

George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at Mr.
Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes.  He took off his
hat, however, with much condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news
about his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his horses
had been down to Brighton, and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty,
and the war; until the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a
bottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the
valet.  He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed with
a mixture of wonder and contempt.  "To the health of your master and
mistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, "and here's something to drink
your health when you get home, Trotter."

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottage
and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it
farewell.  What a gulf lay between her and that past life. She could
look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,
almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love,
having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection
if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her
due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one
desire.  The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away,
touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her
with tender remorse. Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the
winner still doubtful and unsatisfied?  As his hero and heroine pass
the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as
if the drama were over then:  the doubts and struggles of life ended:
as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant
there:  and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's
arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and
perfect fruition.  But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her
new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad
friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the
other distant shore.

In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessary
to prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, and after the first
ebullition of talk, took leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and
dived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of
kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening,
when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by Miss
Flannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the preparing
of a magnificent ornamented tea.  All people have their ways of
expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a muffin and a
quantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer
would be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her most
interesting situation.

While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, leaving the
drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how,
in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and in
that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sank
back in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking over
the past week, and the life beyond it.  Already to be looking sadly and
vaguely back: always to be pining for something which, when obtained,
brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our
poor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling
crowds of Vanity Fair.

Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of George to
which she had knelt before marriage.  Did she own to herself how
different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had
worshipped?  It requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad
indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a
confession.  Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile
lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay.  And so she sate for
awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very
listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found
her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewed
his offer of marriage.

She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few days
before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake,
as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: Then she
thought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast
and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in
Cavendish Square.  Dear little white bed! how many a long night had she
wept on its pillow! How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and
now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she had
despaired her own for ever?  Kind mother! how patiently and tenderly
she had watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside;
and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought
for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had
but seldom looked for it.  Love had been her faith hitherto; and the
sad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of another
consoler.

Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers? These, brother,
are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in which our story
lies.

But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our
young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not
despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or
Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late.  She went
downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old
gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She
sate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over
all her father's favourite old songs.  She pronounced the tea to be
excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was
arranged in the saucers.  And in determining to make everybody else
happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal
pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from the
theatre.

For the next day, George had more important "business" to transact than
that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock.  Immediately on his
arrival in London he had written off to his father's solicitors,
signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take place
between them on the morrow.  His hotel bill, losses at billiards and
cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained the young man's purse,
which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he had
no resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the
attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him.  He had a perfect
belief in his own mind that his father would relent before very long.
How could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against such a
paragon as he was?  If his mere past and personal merits did not
succeed in mollifying his father, George determined that he would
distinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the
old gentleman must give in to him.  And if not? Bah! the world was
before him.  His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of
spending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strict
orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everything
requisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, who was going on
a foreign tour.  They had but one day to complete the outfit, and it
may be imagined that their business therefore occupied them pretty
fully.  In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner to
linen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen or
polite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely
happy for the first time since their misfortunes.  Nor was Mrs. Amelia
at all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and
buying pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give
twopence for a woman who was?)  She gave herself a little treat,
obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady's
gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all the
shopfolks said.

And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not much alarmed;
Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a struggle. Margate packets
were sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,
on their way to Brussels and Ghent.  People were going not so much to a
war as to a fashionable tour.  The newspapers laughed the wretched
upstart and swindler to scorn.  Such a Corsican wretch as that
withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal
Wellington!  Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to be
said that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from those
people who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble-minded
to think for itself. Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a
great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with considerable
liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the genteel world
of London.

George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows squared, and his
swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into the
attorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was
scribbling there.  He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain
Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekin
of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a
thousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who should
instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the Captain's
pleasure.  He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed all round
the room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, from the articled
gents to the ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too
tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his cane, and
thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were.  The
miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs.  They talked about
them over their pints of beer at their public-house clubs to other
clerks of a night. Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks
know in London! Nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and their
families mutely rule our city.

Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's apartment, to find
that gentleman commissioned to give him some message of compromise or
conciliation from his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour
was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his
fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the
attorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd.  He pretended to be
writing at a paper, when the Captain entered.  "Pray, sit down, sir,"
said he, "and I will attend to your little affair in a moment.  Mr.
Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he fell to
writing again.

Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the amount of
two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked Captain
Osborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or
whether he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that amount.
"One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out of town," he said
indifferently, "but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done
with the business as quick as possible."

"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily. "Damn the
shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making out
the amount of the draft; and, flattering himself that by this stroke of
magnanimity he had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of the
office with the paper in his pocket.

"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to Mr. Poe.

"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"

"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.

"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk.  "He's only married a
week, and I saw him and some other military chaps handing Mrs.
Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And then another case was
called, and Mr. George Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy
gentlemen's memory.

The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of Lombard Street, to
whose house, still thinking he was doing business, George bent his way,
and from whom he received his money.  Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose
yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk, happened
to be in the banking-room when George entered. His yellow face turned
to a more deadly colour when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back
guiltily into the inmost parlour.  George was too busy gloating over
the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to mark the
countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his sister.

Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance and conduct. "He
came in as bold as brass," said Frederick.  "He has drawn out every
shilling.  How long will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as
that?" Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or how
soon he spent it.  Fred dined every day in Russell Square now.  But
altogether, George was highly pleased with his day's business.  All his
own baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, and
he paid Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with the
splendour of a lord.

 Amelia, Dobbin, Jos, and George head back to London. The more we see of George, the more jerk-tastic he is turning out to be. On their trip back he insists on renting a super-swanky hotel suite and going out to the most expensive restaurant he can find. Ostensibly this is all for Amelia, because "as long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall want for nothing" . Too bad there's really not all that much shot in that locker; soon they're going to be totally bankrupt. Amelia asks to go see her mother, and George is sort of annoyed that she wants to go to the poor neighborhood where the Sedleys now live. Welcome to reality, George. It's only been nine days since the wedding, but it feels like forever ago to Amelia. She hugs her mom, looks at her old room, and studies George's portrait. She's jealous of Becky and upset that George is out every night without her, but she still can't admit to herself how crummy he is. Still, she makes the best of the visit, chats with her parents, and is happier when she gets back to the fancy-pants hotel. The next day George goes downtown to transact what he thinks is "business." The narrator mocks him mercilessly because he is the laziest, most good-for-nothing loser around but carries himself like he's God's gift to humanity. He has no sense of money, and though his father has worked tirelessly all his life, George has been brought up to lead a life of leisure and lacks any useful skills. This was his father's idea of what a gentleman should be - but to be a gentleman like that you need to be really rich. Anyhoodle, George sends Amelia off to buy some suitably spiffy clothes, since he's such a fine gentleman and all. Clearly they can't actually afford them, but he is stubborn and kind of stupid. Meanwhile, George goes to see Mr. Higgs, his father's lawyer, to get a check for the small inheritance his mother left him. It's two thousand pounds, and he spends something like a hundred a week, at least. You do the math! At Mr. Higgs's office, he acts all superior and haughty and doesn't notice that even the lowliest clerks are mocking and sneering at him. Higgs is totally calm and indifferent, gives him the check, and forgets about him. George then goes to the bank and cashes the check. There he runs into Fred Bullock, who of course reports back to Mr. Osborne how obnoxiously George was acting. This makes Mr. Osborne all the more angry and all the more set to never forgive his son. George, totally oblivious of all this, pays for Amelia's clothing, the hotel and the restaurant, convinced that he is quite the aristocrat.

