nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent
manner. Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria
during this family feud. "I always told you, Maria, that it
was your money he loved and not you," she said,
soothingly.
"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't
choose you and yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.
The rapture was, however, only temporary. Fred's father
and senior partners counselled him to take Maria, even
with the twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at
the death of Mr. Osborne, with the chances of the further
division of the property. So he "knuckled down," again to
use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable
overtures to Osborne. It was his father, he said, who would
not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he
was most anxious to keep the engagement. The excuse was
sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne. Hulker and Bullock were
a high family of the City aristocracy, and connected with
the "nobs" at the West End. It was something for the old
man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker,
Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary
Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon. The Earl of
Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house
peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and
consented that the marriage should take place.
It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the
breakfast, their habitations being near St. George's,
Hanover Square, where the business took place. The "nobs
of the West End" were invited, and many of them signed
the book. Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there,
with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as
bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest
son of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane),
another cousin of the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs.
Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord Levant's son,
and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount
Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs. McMull
(formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who
have all married into Lombard Street and done a great
deal to ennoble Cornhill.
The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a
small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony
there. Fred was considered to have made rather a
mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose grandfather
had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through
the husbands with some of the best blood in England. And
Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the
composition of her visiting-book, to make up for the
defects of birth, and felt it her duty to see her father and
sister as little as possible.
That she should utterly break with the old man, who had
still so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is
absurd to suppose. Fred Bullock would never allow her to
do that. But she was still young and incapable of hiding her
feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister to her third-
rate parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they
came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and indiscreetly
begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did
more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy could repair, and
perilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedless
creature as she was.
So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hay?"
said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as
he and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs.
Frederick Bullock's, after dinner. "So she invites her father
and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or
ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served yesterday, I'm
d--d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and keeps
the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.
Honourables? Damn Honourables. I am a plain British
merchant I am, and could buy the beggarly hounds over
and over. Lords, indeed!--why, at one of her swarreys I
saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler--a fellar I despise.
And they won't come to Russell Square, won't they? Why,
I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay a
better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of
silver, and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than
ever they see on theirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up
fools. Drive on quick, James: I want to get back to Russell
Square--ha, ha!" and he sank back into the corner with a
furious laugh. With such reflections on his own superior
merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not
unfrequently to console himself.
Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions
respecting her sister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's
first-born, Frederick Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux
Bullock, was born, old Osborne, who was invited to the
christening and to be godfather, contented himself with
sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineas inside it
for the nurse. "That's more than any of your Lords will
give, I'LL warrant," he said and refused to attend at the
ceremony.
The splendour of the gift, however, caused great
satisfaction to the house of Bullock. Maria thought that her
father was very much pleased with her, and Frederick
augured the best for his little son and heir.
One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her
solitude in Russell Square read the Morning Post, where
her sister's name occurred every now and then, in the
articles headed "Fashionable Reunions," and where she had
an opportunity of reading a description of Mrs. F. Bullock's
costume, when presented at the drawing room by Lady
Frederica Bullock. Jane's own life, as we have said,
admitted of no such grandeur. It was an awful existence.
She had to get up of black winter's mornings to make
breakfast for her scowling old father, who would have
turned the whole house out of doors if his tea had not been
ready at half-past eight. She remained silent opposite to
him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor
while the parent read his paper and consumed his
accustomed portion of muffins and tea. At half-past nine
he rose and went to the City, and she was almost free till
dinner-time, to make visitations in the kitchen and to scold
the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon the
tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her
cards and her papa's at the great glum respectable houses
of their City friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-
room, expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of
worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great
Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful
loudness in the dreary room. The great glass over the
mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the
opposite end of the room, increased and multiplied
between them the brown Holland bag in which the
chandelier hung, until you saw these brown Holland bags
fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment of
Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of
drawing-rooms. When she removed the cordovan leather
from the grand piano and ventured to play a few notes on
it, it sounded with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal
echoes of the house. George's picture was gone, and laid
upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; and though there
was a consciousness of him, and father and daughter often
instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no
mention was ever made of the brave and once darling son.
At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which
he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except
when he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to
his liking), or which they shared twice in a month with a
party of dismal friends of Osborne's rank and age. Old Dr.
Gulp and his lady from Bloomsbury Square; old Mr.
Frowser, the attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great
man, and from his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs
at the West End"; old Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay
Army, and Mrs. Livermore, from Upper Bedford Place; old
Sergeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; and sometimes old Sir
Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from Bedford Square. Sir
Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the
particular tawny port was produced when he dined with
Mr. Osborne.
These people and their like gave the pompous Russell
Square merchant pompous dinners back again. They had
solemn rubbers of whist, when they went upstairs after
drinking, and their carriages were called at half past ten.
Many rich people, whom we poor devils are in the habit of
envying, lead contentedly an existence like that above
described. Jane Osborne scarcely ever met a man under
sixty, and almost the only bachelor who appeared in their
society was Mr. Smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor.
I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the
monotony of this awful existence: the fact is, there had
been a secret in poor Jane's life which had made her father
more savage and morose than even nature, pride, and
over-feeding had made him. This secret was connected
with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, very
celebrated since as a portrait-painter and R.A., but who
once was glad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of
fashion. Mr. Smee has forgotten where Russell Square is
now, but he was glad enough to visit it in the year 1818,
when Miss Osborne had instruction from him.
Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a
dissolute, irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with
great knowledge of his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt,
we say, and introduced by her to Miss Osborne, whose
hand and heart were still free after various incomplete
love affairs, felt a great attachment for this lady, and it is
believed inspired one in her bosom. Miss Wirt was the
confidante of this intrigue. I know not whether she used to
leave the room where the master and his pupil were
painting, in order to give them an opportunity for
exchanging those vows and sentiments which cannot be
uttered advantageously in the presence of a third party; I
know not whether she hoped that should her cousin
succeed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he
would give Miss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she
had enabled him to win--all that is certain is that Mr.
Osborne got some hint of the transaction, came back from
the City abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his
bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the
companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the
former out of doors with menaces that he would break
every bone in his skin, and half an hour afterwards
dismissed Miss Wirt likewise, kicking her trunks down the
stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and shaking his fist at
her hackney coach as it bore her away.
Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days. She was
not allowed to have a companion afterwards. Her father
swore to her that she should not have a shilling of his
money if she made any match without his concurrence;
and as he wanted a woman to keep his house, he did not
choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged to
give up all projects with which Cupid had any share.
During her papa's life, then, she resigned herself to the
manner of existence here described, and was content to be
an old maid. Her sister, meanwhile, was having children
with finer names every year and the intercourse between
the two grew fainter continually. "Jane and I do not move
in the same sphere of life," Mrs. Bullock said. "I regard her
as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it mean
when a lady says that she regards Jane as a sister?
It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with
their father at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there
were beautiful graperies and peach-trees which delighted
little Georgy Osborne. The Misses Dobbin, who drove often
to Brompton to see our dear Amelia, came sometimes to
Russell Square too, to pay a visit to their old acquaintance
Miss Osborne. I believe it was in consequence of the
commands of their brother the Major in India (for whom
their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid
attention to Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and
guardian of Amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's
grandfather might be induced to relent towards him and
acknowledge him for the sake of his son. The Misses
Dobbin kept Miss Osborne acquainted with the state of
Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and
mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what
men, and such men as their brother and dear Captain
Osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how
she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-
water affected creature--but how the boy was really the
noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all women
warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is
kind to them.
One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses
Dobbin, Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day
with them at Denmark Hill--a part of which day she spent
herself in writing to the Major in India. She congratulated
him on the happy news which his sisters had just
conveyed to her. She prayed for his prosperity and that of
the bride he had chosen. She thanked him for a thousand
thousand kind offices and proofs of stead fast friendship to
her in her affliction. She told him the last news about little
Georgy, and how he was gone to spend that very day with
his sisters in the country. She underlined the letter a great
deal, and she signed herself affectionately his friend,
Amelia Osborne. She forgot to send any message of
kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was--and did not
