make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, such as to
assure her a decent competency. If Mrs. George Osborne
proposed to marry again, as Mr. O. heard was her
intention, he would not withdraw that allowance. But it
must be understood that the child would live entirely with
his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever other
place Mr. O. should select, and that he would be
occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her
own residence. This message was brought or read to her
in a letter one day, when her mother was from home
and her father absent as usual in the City.
She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her
life, and it was in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's
attorney had the fortune to behold her. She rose up
trembling and flushing very much as soon as, after
reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore the
paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on. "I
marry again! I take money to part from my child! Who
dares insult me by proposing such a thing? Tell Mr.
Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir--a cowardly letter--
I will not answer it. I wish you good morning, sir--and
she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy Queen,"
said the lawyer who told the story.
Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day,
and she never told them of the interview. They had their
own affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply
interested this innocent and unconscious lady. The old
gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in speculation.
We have seen how the wine company and the coal
company had failed him. But, prowling about the City
always eagerly and restlessly still, he lighted upon some
other scheme, of which he thought so well that he
embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Clapp,
to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had
engaged himself in it. And as it was always Mr. Sedley's
maxim not to talk about money matters before women,
they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store
for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to
make gradual confessions.
The bills of the little household, which had been settled
weekly, first fell into arrear. The remittances had not
arrived from India, Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed
face. As she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto,
one or two of the tradesmen to whom the poor lady was
obliged to go round asking for time were very angry at
a delay to which they were perfectly used from more
irregular customers. Emmy's contribution, paid over
cheerfully without any questions, kept the little company
in half-rations however. And the first six months passed
away pretty easily, old Sedley still keeping up with the
notion that his shares must rise and that all would be
well.
No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household
at the end of the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper
into trouble--Mrs. Sedley, who was growing infirm and
was much shaken, remained silent or wept a great deal
with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen. The butcher was
particularly surly, the grocer insolent: once or twice little
Georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and Amelia, who
still would have been satisfied with a slice of bread for
her own dinner, could not but perceive that her son was
neglected and purchased little things out of her private
purse to keep the boy in health.
At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story
as people in difficulties tell. One day, her own money
having been received, and Amelia about to pay it over,
she, who had kept an account of the moneys expended
by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of
her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new
suit for Georgy.
Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid,
that the house was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to
have seen before, her mother said, but she cared for
nothing or nobody except Georgy. At this she passed all
her money across the table, without a word, to her
mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out.
She had a great access of sensibility too that day, when
obliged to go and countermand the clothes, the darling
clothes on which she had set her heart for Christmas
Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged
in many conversations with a small milliner, her friend.
Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy,
who made a loud outcry. Everybody had new clothes at
Christmas. The others would laugh at him. He would
have new clothes. She had promised them to him. The
poor widow had only kisses to give him. She darned the
old suit in tears. She cast about among her little ornaments
to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired
novelties. There was her India shawl that Dobbin had
sent her. She remembered in former days going with her
mother to a fine India shop on Ludgate Hill, where the
ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these
articles. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with
pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed
away George to school in the morning, smiling brightly
after him. The boy felt that there was good news in her
look.
Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of
the gifts of the good Major), she hid them under her
cloak and walked flushed and eager all the way to
Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall and running
over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she
hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face. She
calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her
shawl--how, besides the clothes, she would buy the books
that he longed for, and pay his half-year's schooling; and
how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of
that old great-coat which he wore. She was not mistaken
as to the value of the Major's gift. It was a very fine and
beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good
bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.
She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to
Darton's shop, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and there
purchased the Parents' Assistant and the Sandford and
Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the coach there
with her parcel, and went home exulting. And she pleased
herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little
hand, "George Osborne, A Christmas gift from his
affectionate-mother." The books are extant to this day,
with the fair delicate superscription.
She was going from her own room with the books in
her hand to place them on George's table, where he
might find them on his return from school, when in
the passage, she and her mother met. The gilt bindings
of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's
eye.
"What are those?" she said.
"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied--I--I
promised them to him at Christmas."
"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books,
when the whole house wants bread! Books, when to keep
you and your son in luxury, and your dear father out of
gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the India shawl from
my back even down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen
mightn't insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed
he is justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a
civil man, and a father, might have his rent. Oh, Amelia!
you break my heart with your books and that boy of
yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him you
will not. Oh, Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful
child than I have had! There's Jos, deserts his father in
his old age; and there's George, who might be provided
for, and who might be rich, going to school like a lord,
with a gold watch and chain round his neck--while my
dear, dear old man is without a sh--shilling." Hysteric
sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech--it echoed
through every room in the small house, whereof the other
female inmates heard every word of the colloquy.
"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply.
"You told me nothing--I--I promised him the books.
I--I only sold my shawl this morning. Take the money
--take everything"--and with quivering hands she took
out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden
sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her
mother, whence they overflowed and tumbled, rolling
down the stairs.
And then she went into her room, and sank down in
despair and utter misery. She saw it all now. Her
selfishness was sacrificing the boy. But for her he might have
wealth, station, education, and his father's place, which
the elder George had forfeited for her sake. She had but
to speak the words, and her father was restored to
competency and the boy raised to fortune. Oh, what a
conviction it was to that tender and stricken heart!
CHAPTER XLVII
Gaunt House
All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace
stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street
leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time
of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley. Peering over the railings
and through the black trees into the garden of the
Square, you see a few miserable governesses with
wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round
the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the
statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a
three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman
Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the Square.
The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that
have passed away into dowagerism--tall, dark houses,
with window-frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter
red. Little light seems to be behind those lean,
comfortless casements now, and hospitality to have passed
away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys
and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their
torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the
lamps over the steps. Brass plates have penetrated into
the square--Doctors, the Diddlesex Bank Western
Branch--the English and European Reunion, &c.--it has
a dreary look--nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less
dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in
front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through
which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and
gloomy red face--and over the wall the garret and
bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there
seldom comes any smoke now. For the present Lord
Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the view of the Bay
and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the wall
in Gaunt Square.
A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading
into Gaunt Mews indeed, is a little modest back
door, which you would not remark from that of any of
the other stables. But many a little close carriage has
stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom Eaves,
who knows everything, and who showed me the place)
told me. "The Prince and Perdita have been in and out
of that door, sir," he had often told me; "Marianne
Clarke has entered it with the Duke of --. It conducts
to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne--one,
sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in
ebony and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room
taken from Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by
Cosway--a little private kitchen, in which every saucepan
was silver and all the spits were gold. It was there
that Egalite Orleans roasted partridges on the night
when he and the Marquis of Steyne won a hundred
thousand from a great personage at ombre. Half of the
money went to the French Revolution, half to purchase
Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter--and the
remainder--" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell
what became of the remainder, for every shilling of
which, and a great deal more, little Tom Eaves, who
knows everybody's affairs, is ready to account.
Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and
palaces in various quarters of the three kingdoms,
whereof the descriptions may be found in the road-books
--Castle Strongbow, with its woods, on the Shannon
shore; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthenshire, where Richard
II was taken prisoner--Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where
I have been informed there were two hundred silver
teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the house, with
everything to correspond in splendour; and Stillbrook in
Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place
of residence, of which we all remember the wonderful
furniture which was sold at my lord's demise by a late
celebrated auctioneer.
The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and
ancient family of the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot,
who have preserved the old faith ever since the
conversion of the venerable Druid, their first ancestor, and
whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival of
King Brute in these islands. Pendragon is the title of the
eldest son of the house. The sons have been called
Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradocs, from immemorial time.
Their heads have fallen in many a loyal conspiracy.
Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her day,
who had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and
carried letters between the Queen of Scots and her uncles
the Guises. A cadet of the house was an officer of the
great Duke and distinguished in the famous Saint
Bartholomew conspiracy. During the whole of Mary's
confinement, the house of Camelot conspired in her behalf.
It was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an
armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the
Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it
by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate
recusancy, and popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time
was momentarily perverted from his religion by the
arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the
family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But
