Chapter LX: Returns to the Genteel World

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We areglad to get her out of that low sphere in which she hasbeen creeping hitherto and introduce her into a politecircle--not so grand and refined as that in which ourother female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but stillhaving no small pretensions to gentility and fashion. Jos'sfriends were all from the three presidencies, and his newhouse was in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district ofwhich Moira Place is the centre. Minto Square, GreatClive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street, OchterlonyPlace, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" wasa felicitous word not applied to stucco houses withasphalt terraces in front, so early as 1827)--who does notknow these respectable abodes of the retired Indianaristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls theBlack Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grandenough to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, wherenone can live but retired Members of Council, andpartners of Indian firms (who break, after having settled ahundred thousand pounds on their wives, and retire intocomparative penury to a country place and four thousanda year); he engaged a comfortable house of asecond- or third-rate order in Gillespie Street, purchasing thecarpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and appropriateplanned furniture by Seddons from the assignees of Mr.Scape, lately admitted partner into the great CalcuttaHouse of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poorScape had embarked seventy thousand pounds, theearnings of a long and honourable life, taking Fake's place,who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the Fogles havebeen long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is aboutto be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted,I say, partner into the great agency house of Fogleand Fake two years before it failed for a million andplunged half the Indian public into misery and ruin.

　　Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-fiveyears of age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairsof the house. Walter Scape was withdrawn from Etonand put into a merchant's house. Florence Scape, FannyScape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, andwill be heard of no more. To be brief, Jos stepped in andbought their carpets and sideboards and admiredhimself in the mirrors which had reflected their kindhandsome faces. The Scape tradesmen, all honourably paid,left their cards, and were eager to supply the newhousehold. The large men in white waistcoats who waited atScape's dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, andmilkmen in their private capacity, left their addresses andingratiated themselves with the butler. Mr. Chummy, thechimney-purifier, who had swept the last three families,tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whoseduty it was to go out covered with buttons and withstripes down his trousers, for the protection of Mrs.Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.

　　It was a modest establishment. The butler was Jos'svalet also, and never was more drunk than a butler in asmall family should be who has a proper regard for hismaster's wine. Emmy was supplied with a maid, grown onSir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whosekindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who wasat first terrified at the idea of having a servant to waitupon herself, who did not in the least know how to useone, and who always spoke to domestics with the mostreverential politeness. But this maid was very useful inthe family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, whokept almost entirely to his own quarter of the houseand never mixed in any of the gay doings which tookplace there.

　　Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne. LadyDobbin and daughters were delighted at her change offortune, and waited upon her. Miss Osborne from RussellSquare came in her grand chariot with the flaminghammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms. Jos wasreported to be immensely rich. Old Osborne had noobjection that Georgy should inherit his uncle's property aswell as his own. "Damn it, we will make a man of thefeller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before Idie. You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'llnever set eyes on her": and Miss Osborne came. Emmy,you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so bebrought nearer to George. That young fellow wasallowed to come much more frequently than before to visithis mother. He dined once or twice a week in GillespieStreet and bullied the servants and his relations there, justas he did in Russell Square.

　　He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however,and more modest in his demeanour when that gentlemanwas present. He was a clever lad and afraid of theMajor. George could not help admiring his friend'ssimplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietlyimparted, his general love of truth and justice. He had metno such man as yet in the course of his experience, andhe had an instinctive liking for a gentleman. He hungfondly by his godfather's side, and it was his delight towalk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk. William toldGeorge about his father, about India and Waterloo, abouteverything but himself. When George was more thanusually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him,which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. One day, takinghim to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pitbecause it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes,left him there, and went down himself to the pit. Hehad not been seated there very long before he felt an armthrust under his and a dandy little hand in a kid glovesqueezing his arm. George had seen the absurdity of hisways and come down from the upper region. A tenderlaugh of benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face andeyes as he looked at the repentant little prodigal. Heloved the boy, as he did everything that belonged toAmelia. How charmed she was when she heard of thisinstance of George's goodness! Her eyes looked morekindly 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 hismother. "I like him, Mamma, because he knows such lotsof things; and he ain't like old Veal, who is alwaysbragging and using such long words, don't you know? Thechaps call him 'Longtail' at school. I gave him the name;ain't it capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, andFrench and that; and when we go out together he tells mestories about my Papa, and never about himself; though Iheard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that he wasone of the bravest officers in the army, and haddistinguished himself ever so much. Grandpapa was quitesurprised, and said, 'That feller! Why, I didn't think he couldsay Bo to a goose'--but l know he could, couldn't he,Mamma?"

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

　　If there was a sincere liking between George and theMajor, it must be confessed that between the boy and hisuncle no great love existed. George had got a way ofblowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in hiswaistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don'tsay so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it wasimpossible to refrain from laughter. The servants wouldexplode at dinner if the lad, asking for something whichwasn't at table, put on that countenance and used thatfavourite phrase. Even Dobbin would shoot out a suddenpeal at the boy's mimicry. If George did not mimic hisuncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes andAmelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace wasinduced to desist. And the worthy civilian being hauntedby a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass,and was inclined to turn him into ridicule, used to beextremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous anddignified in the presence of Master Georgy. When it wasannounced that the young gentleman was expected inGillespie Street to dine with his mother, Mr. Joscommonly found that he had an engagement at the Club.Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence. Onthose days Mr. Sedley would commonly be induced tocome out from his place of refuge in the upper stories,and there would be a small family party, whereof MajorDobbin pretty generally formed one. He was the ami dela maison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy'sfriend, Jos's counsel and adviser. "He might almost aswell be at Madras for anything we see of him," MissAnn Dobbin remarked at Camberwell. Ah! Miss Ann, didit not strike you that it was not you whom the Majorwanted to marry?

　　Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity suchas 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 hisbrother Indians, where he dined, or whence he broughthome men to dine.

　　Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemenand their ladies. From these she heard how soon Smithwould be in Council; how many lacs Jones had broughthome with him, how Thomson's House in London hadrefused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co.,the Bombay House, and how it was thought the CalcuttaHouse must go too; how very imprudent, to say theleast of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown of theAhmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankeyof the Body Guard, sitting up with him on deck until allhours, and losing themselves as they were riding out atthe Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thirteensisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev: FelixRabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up inthe service; how Hornby was wild because his wifewould stay in Europe, and Trotter was appointedCollector at Ummerapoora. This and similar talk took placeat the grand dinners all round. They had the sameconversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles ofmutton, boiled turkeys, and entrees. Politics set in ashort time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairsand 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' ladiesgossip about the Regiment? Don't the clergymen's ladiesdiscourse about Sunday-schools and who takes whose duty?Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that smallclique of persons to whom they belong? And why shouldour Indian friends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is slow for the laymen whose fate itsometimes is to sit by and listen.

　　Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was drivingabout regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer(wife of Major-General Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., BengalArmy); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff, Bombay ditto;Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c. We are notlong in using ourselves to changes in life. That carriagecame round to Gillespie Street every day; that buttonyboy sprang up and down from the box with Emmy's andJos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and thecarriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing;or, putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the oldman round the Regent's Park. The lady's maid and thechariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, becamesoon as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine ofBrompton. She accommodated herself to one as to theother. If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess,she would even have done that duty too. She was voted, inJos'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 andsimple refined demeanour. The gallant young Indian dandiesat home on furlough--immense dandies these--chainedand moustached--driving in tearing cabs, the pillars ofthe theatres, living at West End hotels--neverthelessadmired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in thepark, and to be admitted to have the honour of payingher a morning visit. Swankey of the Body Guardhimself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of allthe Indian army now on leave, was one day discoveredby Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, anddescribing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour andeloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d--d king'sofficer 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 vanityhe would have been jealous of so dangerous a youngbuck as that fascinating Bengal Captain. But Dobbin wasof too simple and generous a nature to have any doubtsabout Amelia. He was glad that the young men shouldpay her respect, and that others should admire her. Eversince her womanhood almost, had she not beenpersecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to see howkindness bought out her good qualities and how her spiritsgently rose with her prosperity. Any person whoappreciated her paid a compliment to the Major's goodjudgement--that is, if a man may be said to have goodjudgement who is under the influence of Love's delusion.

　　After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure hedid as a loyal subject of his Sovereign (showing himselfin his full court suit at the Club, whither Dobbin cameto fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who hadalways been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of GeorgeIV, became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of theState that he was for having Amelia to go to aDrawing-room, too. He somehow had worked himself upto believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of thepublic welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happyunless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally roundhim 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 theMajor. "I should like to see any that were too good foryou."