sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and
unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness
which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own
part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in her hat,
and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she
used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been
presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the
car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other
outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave excruciating
agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the
Major's came in contact; whereas Amelia was only
amused by the honest lady's eccentricities, and not in
the least ashamed of her company.
As they made that well-known journey, which almost
every Englishman of middle rank has travelled since,
there might have been more instructive, but few more
entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major O'Dowd. "Talk
about kenal boats; my dear! Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It's there the rapid
travelling is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure me fawther
got a goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a slice
of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a
four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in
this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that
for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean,
there was no country like England."
"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from,"
said the Major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with
patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in
favour of her own country. The idea of comparing the
market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had
suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision
on her part. "I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by
that old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said
she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old
tower down. The place was full of English soldiery as
they passed. English bugles woke them in the morning;
at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the British
fife and drum: all the country and Europe was in arms,
and the greatest event of history pending: and honest
Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another,
went on prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the
stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and
Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum;
and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best
she should show her love for him; as if these were
the great topics of the world.
Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to
speculate upon what MIGHT have happened in the world,
but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take
place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable
kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to
themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to
come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from
Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame. The historians on our
side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were
all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear
down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor.
The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving
out the kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom,
had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might
have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to
fight against each other, but for the return of the object
of unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army
in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland,
and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half
Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition:
Italy was the object of a third's solicitude. Each was
protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the
Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties
were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned
unmolested. But what would have become of our story
and all our friends, then? If all the drops in it were dried
up, what would become of the sea?
In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and
the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end
were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front.
When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in which their
regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune,
as all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest
and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where
all the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most
tempting liveliness and splendour. Gambling was here in
profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to
fill with delight that great gourmand of a Jos: there
was a theatre where a miraculous Catalani was delighting
all hearers: beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial
splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and
wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia,
who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill
her with charming surprises: so that now and for a few
weeks' space in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the
expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush
of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon
ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased and happy as any
little bride out of England.
Every day during this happy time there was novelty
and amusement for all parties. There was a church to
see, or a picture-gallery--there was a ride, or an opera.
The bands of the regiments were making music at all
hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the Park
--there was a perpetual military festival. George, taking
out his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was
quite pleased with himself as usual, and swore he was
becoming quite a domestic character. And a jaunt or
a junket with HIM! Was it not enough to set this little
heart beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother
were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. Her
husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and
gimcracks of all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest, best, and
most generous of men!
The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies
and fashionable persons who thronged the town, and
appeared in every public place, filled George's truly British
soul with intense delight. They flung off that happy
frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
characterises the great at home, and appearing in
numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the
rest of the company whom they met there. One night
at a party given by the general of the division to which
George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing
with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres'
daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for the
two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for Lady
Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when
he got home, in a way which his own father could not
have surpassed. He called upon the ladies the next day;
he rode by their side in the Park; he asked their party
to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was quite
wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old
Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite,
would go for a dinner anywhere.
"I.hope there will be no women besides our own
party," Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the
invitation which had been made, and accepted with too
much precipitancy.
"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the
man would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who
had been languishing in George's arms in the newly
imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men are
bearable, but their women--"
"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear,"
the old Earl said.
"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose,
as Papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn't know
them in England, you know." And so, determined to cut
their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great folks
went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to
make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity
by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding
her from the conversation. This is a species of dignity
in which the high-bred British female reigns supreme. To
watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter
of Vanity Fair.
This festival, on which honest George spent a great
deal of money, was the very dismallest of all the
entertainments which Amelia had in her honeymoon. She
wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not
answer when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her
with her eye-glass; and what a rage Captain Dobbin was
in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced
it a d-- bad dinner, and d-- dear. But though Amelia
told all these stories, and wrote home regarding
her guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture,
old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless,
and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of
Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son
was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to
Osborne's ears in the City.
Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir
George Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may
on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting
down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled
lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-
by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in
the Parks--those who know the present Sir George Tufto
would hardly recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo
officer. He has thick curling brown hair and black
eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest
purple. He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter
in the person and in the limbs, which especially have
shrunk very much of late. When he was about seventy
years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick,
and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows
took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that
his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never
grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled
ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle
de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his
grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is
notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General's wig has
nothing to do with our story.
One day, as some of our friends of the --th were
sauntering in the flower-market of Brussels, having been
to see the Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O'Dowd
declared was not near so large or handsome as her
fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with
an orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and
descending from his horse, came amongst the flowers, and
selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy.
The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his
military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his
chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.
"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs.
O'Dowd was remarking. "Me fawther has three Scotch
garners with nine helpers. We have an acre of hot-houses,
and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps
weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me
honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big
as taykettles."
Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd
as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to
Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell
back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he
reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the
astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.
"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs.
O'Dowd. "Is it his nose bleedn? He always used to say
'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pomped all the
blood out of 'um. An't the magnolias at Glenmalony
as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"
"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major
said. When the conversation was interrupted in the
manner stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased
the bouquet.
"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.
"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse,
Molasses, that won the cop at the Curragh," the Major's
wife was exclaiming, and was continuing the family
history, when her husband interrupted her by saying--
"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry
division"; adding quietly, "he and I were both shot in
the same leg at Talavera."
"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh.
"General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."
Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why. The sun did
not seem to shine so bright. The tall old roofs and
gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though
it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and
most beautiful days at the end of May.
CHAPTER XXIX
Brussels
Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage,
with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made
a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels.
George purchased a horse for his private riding, and
he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the
carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions
of pleasure. They went out that day in the park for their
accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, George's
