he and his wife had many a long night debated: how she
had given up everything for her boy; how she was
careless of her parents in their old age and misfortune, and
only thought of the child; how absurdly and foolishly,
impiously indeed, she took on when George was
removed from her. Old Sedley forgot these charges as he
was making up his last account, and did justice to the
gentle and uncomplaining little martyr. One night when
she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the
broken old man made his confession. "Oh, Emmy, I've
been thinking we were very unkind and unjust to you,"
he said and put out his cold and feeble hand to her. She
knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too,
having still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend,
may we have such company in our prayers!
Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have
passed before him--his early hopeful struggles, his manly
successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining
years, and his present helpless condition--no chance of
revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of
him--neither name nor money to bequeath--a spent-out,
bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the
end here! Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better
lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and
disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to
sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That
must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes
and we say, "To-morrow, success or failure won't
matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of
mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but
I shall be out of the turmoil."
So there came one morning and sunrise when all the
world got up and set about its various works and
pleasures, with the exception of old John Sedley, who was not
to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme any more,
but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown
residence in a churchyard at Brompton by the side of
his old wife.
Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains
to the grave, in a black cloth coach. Jos came on
purpose from the Star and Garter at Richmond, whither he
retreated after the deplorable event. He did not care
to remain in the house, with the--under the circumstances,
you understand. But Emmy stayed and did her
duty as usual. She was bowed down by no especial grief,
and rather solemn than sorrowful. She prayed that her
own end might be as calm and painless, and thought
with trust and reverence of the words which she had
heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his
faith, his resignation, and his future hope.
Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two,
after all. Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-
do and say on that last day, "I am very rich; I am
tolerably well known; I have lived all my life in the best
society, and thank Heaven, come of a most respectable
family. I have served my King and country with honour.
I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say,
my speeches were listened to and pretty well received.
I don't owe any man a shilling: on the contrary, I lent
my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which
my executors will not press him. I leave my daughters
with ten thousand pounds apiece--very good portions
for girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in
Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for
her life; and my landed property, besides money in the
funds, and my cellar of well-selected wine in Baker Street,
to my son. I leave twenty pound a year to my valet; and
I defy any man after I have gone to find anything against
my character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your
swan sings quite a different sort of dirge and you say,
"I am a poor blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have
made an utter failure through life. I was not endowed
either with brains or with good fortune, and confess
that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders.
I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I can't
pay what I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly helpless
and humble, and I pray forgiveness for my weakness and
throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the
Divine Mercy." Which of these two speeches, think
you, would be the best oration for your own funeral?
Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of
mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and
disappointment and vanity sank away from under him.
"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes
of merit, and industry, and judicious speculations, and
that. Look at me and my banker's account. Look at your
poor Grandfather Sedley and his failure. And yet he was
a better man than I was, this day twenty years--a better
man, I should say, by ten thousand pound."
Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who
came over from Brompton to pay a visit of condolence,
not a single soul alive ever cared a penny piece about
old John Sedley, or remembered the existence of such a
person.
When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel
Buckler (as little Georgy had already informed us) how
distinguished an officer Major Dobbin was, he exhibited
a great deal of scornful incredulity and expressed his
surprise how ever such a feller as that should possess
either brains or reputation. But he heard of the Major's
fame from various members of his society. Sir William
Dobbin had a great opinion of his son and narrated
many stories illustrative of the Major's learning, valour,
and estimation in the world's opinion. Finally, his name
appeared in the lists of one or two great parties of the
nobility, and this circumstance had a prodigious effect
upon the old aristocrat of Russell Square.
The Major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose
possession had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered
some meetings between the two gentlemen inevitable;
and it was in one of these that old Osborne, a keen man
of business, looking into the Major's accounts with his
ward and the boy's mother, got a hint, which staggered
him very much, and at once pained and pleased him,
that it was out of William Dobbin's own pocket that a
part of the fund had been supplied upon which the
poor widow and the child had subsisted.
When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not
tell lies, blushed and stammered a good deal and finally
confessed. "The marriage," he said (at which his
interlocutor's face grew dark) "was very much my doing. I
thought my poor friend had gone so far that retreat from
his engagement would have been dishonour to him and
death to Mrs. Osborne, and I could do no less, when she
was left without resources, than give what money I could
spare to maintain her."
"Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking hard at him and
turning very red too--"you did me a great injury; but
give me leave to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller.
There's my hand, sir, though I little thought that my
flesh and blood was living on you--" and the pair shook
hands, with great confusion on Major Dobbin's part, thus
found out in his act of charitable hypocrisy.
He strove to soften the old man and reconcile him
towards his son's memory. "He was such a noble fellow,"
he said, "that all of us loved him, and would have done
anything for him. I, as a young man in those days, was
flattered beyond measure by his preference for me, and
was more pleased to be seen in his company than in
that of the Commander-in-Chief. I never saw his equal
for pluck and daring and all the qualities of a soldier";
and Dobbin told the old father as many stories as he
could remember regarding the gallantry and achievements
of his son. "And Georgy is so like him," the
Major added.
"He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes,"
the grandfather said.
On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with
Mr. Osborne (it was during the time of the sickness of
Mr. Sedley), and as the two sat together in the evening
after dinner, all their talk was about the departed hero.
The father boasted about him according to his wont,
glorifying himself in recounting his son's feats and
gallantry, but his mood was at any rate better and more
charitable than that in which he had been disposed until
now to regard the poor fellow; and the Christian heart of
the kind Major was pleased at these symptoms of
returning peace and good-will. On the second evening old
Osborne called Dobbin William, just as he used to do at
the time when Dobbin and George were boys together,
and the honest gentleman was pleased by that mark of
reconciliation .
On the next day at breakfast, when Miss Osborne,
with the asperity of her age and character, ventured to
make some remark reflecting slightingly upon the Major's
appearance or behaviour--the master of the house
interrupted her. "You'd have been glad enough to git him
for yourself, Miss O. But them grapes are sour. Ha! ha!
Major William is a fine feller."
"That he is, Grandpapa," said Georgy approvingly;
and going up close to the old gentleman, he took a hold
of his large grey whiskers, and laughed in his face
good-humouredly, and kissed him. And he told the story at
night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy.
"Indeed he is," she said. "Your dear father always said so.
He is one of the best and most upright of men." Dobbin
happened to drop in very soon after this conversation,
which made Amelia blush perhaps, and the young
scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin
the other part of the story. "I say, Dob," he said, "there's
such an uncommon nice girl wants to marry you. She's
plenty of tin; she wears a front; and she scolds the
servants from morning till night." "Who is it?" asked
Dobbin.
"It's Aunt O.," the boy answered. "Grandpapa said
so. And I say, Dob, how prime it would be to have you
for my uncle." Old Sedley's quavering voice from the
next room at this moment weakly called for Amelia, and
the laughing ended.
That old Osborne's mind was changing was pretty clear.
He asked George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed
at the boy's imitation of the way in which Jos said
"God-bless-my-soul" and gobbled his soup. Then he said,
"It's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of
your relations. Miss O., when you go out adriving
to-day, leave my card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear?
There's no quarrel betwigst me and him anyhow."
The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were
asked to dinner--to a dinner the most splendid and
stupid that perhaps ever Mr. Osborne gave; every inch
of the family plate was exhibited, and the best company
was asked. Mr. Sedley took down Miss O. to dinner,
and she was very gracious to him; whereas she
hardly spoke to the Major, who sat apart from her, and
by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid. Jos said, with
great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he had ever
tasted in his life, and asked Mr. Osborne where he got his
Madeira.
"It is some of Sedley's wine," whispered the butler to
his master. "I've had it a long time, and paid a good
figure for it, too," Mr. Osborne said aloud to his guest,
and then whispered to his right-hand neighbour how
he had got it "at the old chap's sale."
More than once he asked the Major about--about Mrs.
George Osborne--a theme on which the Major could be
very eloquent when he chose. He told Mr. Osborne of
her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to her
husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender
and dutiful manner in which she had supported her
parents, and given up her boy, when it seemed to her her
duty to do so. "You don't know what she endured, sir,"
said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his voice, "and I
hope and trust you will be reconciled to her. If she
took your son away from you, she gave hers to you;
and however much you loved your George, depend on it,
she loved hers ten times more."
"By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Os-
borne said. It had never struck him that the widow would
feel any pain at parting from the boy, or that his having
a fine fortune could grieve her. A reconciliation was
announced as speedy and inevitable, and Amelia's heart
already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting
with George's father.
It was never, however, destined to take place. Old
Sedley's lingering illness and death supervened, after
which a meeting was for some time impossible. That
catastrophe and other events may have worked upon Mr.
Osborne. He was much shaken of late, and aged, and his
mind was working inwardly. He had sent for his lawyers,
and probably changed something in his will. The medical
man who looked in pronounced him shaky, agitated, and
talked of a little blood and the seaside; but he took
neither of these remedies.
One day when he should have come down to breakfast,
his servant missing him, went into his dressing-room
and found him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in a
fit. Miss Osborne was apprised; the doctors were sent
for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders
and cuppers came. Osborne partially regained cognizance,
but never could speak again, though he tried
dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he died. The
doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up
the stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the
garden in Russell Square. Bullock rushed from the City
in a hurry. "How much money had he left to that boy?
