Chapter: Our Friend the Major

Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the Ramchunder that
when he and Mr. Sedley descended into the welcome shore-boat which was
to take them from the ship, the whole crew, men and officers, the great
Captain Bragg himself leading off, gave three cheers for Major Dobbin,
who blushed very much and ducked his head in token of thanks.  Jos, who
very likely thought the cheers were for himself, took off his
gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends, and they were
pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the pier, whence they
proceeded to the Royal George Hotel.

Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the silver
tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale and porter, which
perennially greet the eyes of the traveller returning from foreign
parts who enters the coffee-room of the George, are so invigorating and
delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug homely English
inn might well like to stop some days there, yet Dobbin began to talk
about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at Southampton than he
wished to be on the road to London.  Jos, however, would not hear of
moving that evening.  Why was he to pass a night in a post-chaise
instead of a great large undulating downy feather-bed which was there
ready to replace the horrid little narrow crib in which the portly
Bengal gentleman had been confined during the voyage? He could not
think of moving till his baggage was cleared, or of travelling until he
could do so with his chillum.  So the Major was forced to wait over
that night, and dispatched a letter to his family announcing his
arrival, entreating from Jos a promise to write to his own friends.
Jos promised, but didn't keep his promise.  The Captain, the surgeon,
and one or two passengers came and dined with our two gentlemen at the
inn, Jos exerting himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner and
promising to go to town the next day with the Major. The landlord said
it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off his first pint of
porter.  If I had time and dared to enter into digressions, I would
write a chapter about that first pint of porter drunk upon English
ground. Ah, how good it is!  It is worth-while to leave home for a
year, just to enjoy that one draught.

Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very neatly shaved
and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it was so early in the
morning that nobody was up in the house except that wonderful Boots of
an inn who never seems to want sleep; and the Major could hear the
snores of the various inmates of the house roaring through the
corridors as he creaked about in those dim passages.  Then the
sleepless Boots went shirking round from door to door, gathering up at
each the Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside. Then
Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his master's
ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his hookah; then the
maidservants got up, and meeting the dark man in the passages,
shrieked, and mistook him for the devil.  He and Dobbin stumbled over
their pails in the passages as they were scouring the decks of the
Royal George.  When the first unshorn waiter appeared and unbarred the
door of the inn, the Major thought that the time for departure was
arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched instantly, that they
might set off.

He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and opened the curtains
of the great large family bed wherein Mr. Jos was snoring. "Come, up!
Sedley," the Major said, "it's time to be off; the chaise will be at
the door in half an hour."

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but
when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told fibs,
however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the
morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not
repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would
jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go
and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was
most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in
that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged to retreat,
leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers.

The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no longer.

If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a pleasure tour, or a
newspaper courier bearing dispatches (government messages are generally
carried much more quietly), he could not have travelled more quickly.
The post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst them. How happy and
green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from mile-stone
to mile-stone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to
welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the
signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under
the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks; rustic
hamlets clustered round ancient grey churches--and through the charming
friendly English landscape.  Is there any in the world like it? To a
traveller returning home it looks so kind--it seems to shake hands with
you as you pass through it. Well, Major Dobbin passed through all this
from Southampton to London, and without noting much beyond the
milestones along the road.  You see he was so eager to see his parents
at Camberwell.

He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old haunt at the
Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. Long years had passed since
he saw it last, since he and George, as young men, had enjoyed many a
feast, and held many a revel there.  He had now passed into the stage
of old-fellow-hood.  His hair was grizzled, and many a passion and
feeling of his youth had grown grey in that interval. There, however,
stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy black suit, with
the same double chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of
seals at his fob, rattling his money in his pockets as before, and
receiving the Major as if he had gone away only a week ago.  "Put the
Major's things in twenty-three, that's his room," John said, exhibiting
not the least surprise.  "Roast fowl for your dinner, I suppose.  You
ain't got married? They said you was married--the Scotch surgeon of
yours was here.  No, it was Captain Humby of the thirty-third, as was
quartered with the --th in Injee. Like any warm water? What do you come
in a chay for--ain't the coach good enough?" And with this, the
faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the
house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the way up to
Dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby
carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered
with faded chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.

He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and biting his nails,
and swearing that the Governor must come round, and that if he didn't,
he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married. He could
fancy him walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room, and his own
hard by--

"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his friend of former
days.

Dobbin laughed.  "Ten years and a fever don't make a man young, John,"
he said.  "It is you that are always young--no, you are always old."

"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said.  "Fine young
fellow that.  Lord, how he used to spend his money.  He never came back
after that day he was marched from here.  He owes me three pound at
this minute.  Look here, I have it in my book.  'April 10, 1815,
Captain Osborne:  3 pounds.' I wonder whether his father would pay
me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very morocco
pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a
greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda
regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.

Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired with perfect
calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush and a grin at his own
absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and most becoming
civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and grey
hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the
dressing-table.

"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. "She'll know me, too,
I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once more in
the direction of Brompton.

Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was present to
the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house.  The arch and
the Achilles statue were up since he had last been in Piccadilly; a
hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely noted.  He
began to tremble as he walked up the lane from Brompton, that
well-remembered lane leading to the street where she lived.  Was she
going to be married or not? If he were to meet her with the little
boy--Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman coming to him with a
child of five years old--was that she? He began to shake at the mere
possibility.  When he came up to the row of houses, at last, where she
lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and paused.  He might have
heard the thumping of his own heart. "May God Almighty bless her,
whatever has happened," he thought to himself.  "Psha!  she may be gone
from here," he said and went in through the gate.

The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and there
were no inmates in the room.  The Major thought he recognized the
piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in former
days, and his perturbations were renewed.  Mr. Clapp's brass plate was
still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin performed a summons.

A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks,
came to answer the knock and looked hard at the Major as he leant back
against the little porch.

He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--"Does
Mrs. Osborne live here?"

She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white
too--said, "Lord bless me--it's Major Dobbin." She held out both her
hands shaking--"Don't you remember me?" she said.  "I used to call you
Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for the first time
that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl
in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically,
and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy
people, who had already been surveying the Major from the casement of
the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in
the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue
frock-coat and white duck trousers.

"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though.  "Don't you
remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes you used to make for tea?
Don't you recollect me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and just come
back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--Mrs. Clapp was
greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a
vast many times in that passage.

The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the
Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture,
from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument,
Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone,
in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he
sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and
the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative,
informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of particulars in
Amelia's history of which he was not aware--namely of Mrs. Sedley's
death, of George's reconcilement with his grandfather Osborne, of the
way in which the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars
of her life. Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage
question, but his heart failed him. He did not care to lay it bare to
these people.  Finally, he was informed that Mrs. O.  was gone to walk
with her pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the old
gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life,
though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a fine
afternoon, after dinner.

"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, "and have business
to-night of importance.  I should like to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.
Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and show me the way?"

Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal.  She knew the
way.  She would show Major Dobbin.  She had often been with Mr. Sedley
when Mrs. O. was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew the bench
where he liked to sit.  She bounced away to her apartment and appeared
presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large
pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself a
worthy companion for the Major.

That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave
the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily.  He was glad
to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded somehow.  He
asked a thousand more questions from his companion about Amelia:  his
kind heart grieved to think that she should have had to part with her
son.  How did she bear it? Did she see him often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty
comfortable now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all these
questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her power.

And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though very
simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to Major
Dobbin.  A pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white
neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that
is, on each arm.  One was a tall and commanding middle-aged female,
with features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the
Church of England by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted
little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet and
white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch in the
midst of her person.  The gentleman, pinioned as he was by these two
ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms
were entirely engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in
acknowledgement of the curtsey with which Miss Mary Clapp greeted him.

He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two
ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking
severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who
accompanied Miss Polly.

"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group, and after he had
made way for the three to pass up the lane.  Mary looked at him rather
roguishly.

"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major
Dobbin), and his sister Miss B.  Lord bless us, how she did use to
worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a
cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits that
was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold Tea Pot in
Kensington Gravel Pits.  They were married last month, and are just
come back from Margate.  She's five thousand pound to her fortune; but
her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled already."

If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the
bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss Clapp cry, "Law,"
and laugh too.  He stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking
after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary told their history;
but he did not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's
marriage; his head was swimming with felicity.  After this rencontre he
began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination--and
yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a
meeting for which he had been longing any time these ten
years)--through the Brompton lanes, and entering at the little old
portal in Kensington Garden wall.

"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again start back on
her arm.  She was a confidante at once of the whole business. She knew
the story as well as if she had read it in one of her favourite
novel-books--Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.

"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said.  Polly ran
forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his
knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about
old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many
a time before.  She could of late think of her own affairs, and smile
or make other marks of recognition of her father's stories, scarcely
hearing a word of the old man's tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and
Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench.  Her first
thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the
messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous
mother's bosom.

"News!  News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. "He's come!  He's
come!"

"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.

"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in which
direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean figure and long shadow
stalking across the grass.  Amelia started in her turn, blushed up,
and, of course, began to cry.  At all this simple little creature's
fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. He looked at her--oh,
how fondly--as she came running towards him, her hands before her,
ready to give them to him.  She wasn't changed. She was a little pale,
a little stouter in figure.  Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful
eyes.  There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair.
She gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling
through her tears into his honest homely face.  He took the two little
hands between his two and held them there.  He was speechless for a
moment.  Why did he not take her in his arms and swear that he would
never leave her? She must have yielded:  she could not but have obeyed
him.

"I--I've another arrival to announce," he said after a pause.

"Mrs. Dobbin?" Amelia said, making a movement back--why didn't he speak?

"No," he said, letting her hands go:  "Who has told you those lies? I
mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship with me, and is come home
to make you all happy."

"Papa, Papa!" Emmy cried out, "here are news!  My brother is in
England.  He is come to take care of you. Here is Major Dobbin."

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his
thoughts.  Then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to the
Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and hoped his worthy father, Sir
William, was quite well.  He proposed to call upon Sir William, who had
done him the honour of a visit a short time ago.  Sir William had not
called upon the old gentleman for eight years--it was that visit he was
thinking of returning.

"He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered as Dobbin went up and
cordially shook hands with the old man.

Although he had such particular business in London that evening, the
Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley's invitation to him to
come home and partake of tea.  Amelia put her arm under that of her
young friend with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their return
homewards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share. The old man
walked very slowly and told a number of ancient histories about himself
and his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and his bankruptcy.  His
thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were quite in former times.
The present, with the exception of the one catastrophe which he felt,
he knew little about.  The Major was glad to let him talk on.  His eyes
were fixed upon the figure in front of him--the dear little figure
always present to his imagination and in his prayers, and visiting his
dreams wakeful or slumbering.

Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening, performing
her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with the utmost grace
and propriety, as Dobbin thought.  His eyes followed her about as they
sat in the twilight.  How many a time had he longed for that moment and
thought of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gentle
and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating
poverty with sweet submission--as he saw her now.  I do not say that
his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great intellects
to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise, such as sufficed our
simple old friend; but his desires were of this sort, whether for good
or bad, and, with Amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many
cups of tea as Doctor Johnson.

Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it and looked
exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after cup.  It is
true she did not know that the Major had had no dinner and that the
cloth was laid for him at the Slaughters', and a plate laid thereon to
mark that the table was retained, in that very box in which the Major
and George had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child just
come home from Miss Pinkerton's school.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy's miniature,
for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home.  It was not half
handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn't it noble of him to
think of bringing it to his mother? Whilst her papa was awake she did
not talk much about Georgy.  To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell
Square was not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was
unconscious that he had been living for some months past mainly on the
bounty of his richer rival, and lost his temper if allusion was made to
the other.

Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had
happened on board the Ramchunder, and exaggerated Jos's benevolent
dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him comfortable
in his old days.  The truth is that during the voyage the Major had
impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger and
extorted promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and
her child.  He soothed Jos's irritation with regard to the bills which
the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his
own sufferings on the same score and of the famous consignment of wine
with which the old man had favoured him, and brought Mr. Jos, who was
by no means an ill-natured person when well-pleased and moderately
flattered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his relatives in
Europe.

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.

 Jos and Dobbin disembark and take a room at a famous inn. Their first meal of British roast beef and beer is heavenly. Dobbin wants to be off to London ASAP, but Jos is tired and cranky and fat and doesn't want to go without all his stuff. Dobbin agrees to stay overnight at the inn but gets up at the crack of dawn and wants to be off. He wakes Jos up, but when Jos finds out what time it is he curses and yells and then goes back to sleep. Dobbin takes the next carriage out of there and makes super-fast time through the countryside. Why on earth is he in such a hurry? Yes, mysterious. In London, Dobbin goes to his old club and gets a room and a snack there. Quickly, he hurries off to Amelia's old neighborhood. He is totally freaking out at this point. He starts to shake when he sees a woman walking with a child...it's not her. At the house, he see the Clapp family, who recognize him after a second or two and tell him all about Mrs. Sedley's death and where George Jr. lives now. He wants to ask whether Amelia is married but can't come out with it. Finally they tell him that she is out for a walk with her father, and that Polly Clapp knows where they like to walk and can take him there. On the way, they run across a guy walking with a woman on each arm. Polly says hello and tells Dobbin that this is Mr. Binny. Dobbin kind of does a twitch at this. Then it turns out the two ladies are his sister...and his wife. Yay! Amelia isn't married to him! Oh, wait, we already knew that. But Dobbin didn't. He's psyched. Polly and Dobbin get to the park and see Amelia and Mr. Sedley. Dobbin turns pale and then red and then twitches around. Polly would have to be a total idiot not to figure out that he still has the hots for Amelia. Dobbin asks her to go tell Amelia that he's there. When Amelia sees him, she starts to cry. Her first question: So where's Mrs. Dobbin? Dobbin tells her he's not married either. She's psyched . Then he tells her that Jos came with him too and that he's ready to take care of her and Mr. Sedley. Mr. Sedley now starts saying hello to Dobbin and it's clear that he's senile. All of them go back to the house and have some tea. Amelia tells Dobbin all about George Jr. Seriously, all about George Jr. She's obsessed with her kid and how much he is like his dead father. Dobbin is sort of sad. He leaves and goes to the theater, feeling a little guilty that he hasn't seen his own family yet.

