There they were--paid without a word.Many a general in the army couldn't ride the horses he had! He had the child before his eyes, on a hundred different days when he remembered George after dinner, when he used to come in as bold as a lord and drink off his glass by his father's side, at the head of the table--on the pony at Brighton, when he cleared the hedge and kept up with the huntsman--on the day when he was presented to the Prince Regent at the levee, when all Saint James's couldn't produce a finer young fellow.And this, this was the end of all!--to marry a bankrupt and fly in the face of duty and fortune! What humiliation and fury: what pangs of sickening rage, balked ambition and love; what wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this old worldling now to suffer under!
Having examined these papers, and pondered over this one and the other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which miserable men think of happy past times--George's father took the whole of the documents out of the drawer in which he had kept them so long, and locked them into a writing-box, which he tied, and sealed with his seal.Then he opened the book-case, and took down the great red Bible we have spoken of a pompous book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold.
There was a frontispiece to the volume, representing Abraham sacrificing Isaac.Here, according to custom, Osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife's death, and the births and Christian names of his children.
Jane came first, then George Sedley Osborne, then Maria Frances, and the days of the christening of each.Taking a pen, he carefully obliterated George's names from the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the volume to the place from which he had moved it.Then he took a document out of another drawer, where his own private papers were kept; and having read it, crumpled it up and lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it burn entirely away in the grate.It was his will; which being burned, he sate down and wrote off a letter, and rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the morning.It was morning already: as he went up to bed, the whole house was alight with the sunshine; and the birds were singing among the fresh green leaves in Russell Square.
Anxious to keep all Mr.Osborne's family and dependants in good humour, and to make as many friends as possible for George in his hour of adversity, William Dobbin, who knew the effect which good dinners and good wines have upon the soul of man, wrote off immediately on his return to his inn the most hospitable of invitations to Thomas Chopper, Esquire, begging that gentleman to dine with him at the Slaughters' next day.The note reached Mr.Chopper before he left the City, and the instant reply was, that "Mr.Chopper presents his respectful compliments, and will have the honour and pleasure of waiting on Captain D." The invitation and the rough draft of the answer were shown to Mrs.Chopper and her daughters on his return to Somers' Town that evening, and they talked about military gents and West End men with great exultation as the family sate and partook of tea.When the girls had gone to rest, Mr.and Mrs.C.discoursed upon the strange events which were occurring in the governor's family.Never had the clerk seen his principal so moved.When he went in to Mr.
Osborne, after Captain Dobbin's departure, Mr.Chopper found his chief black in the face, and all but in a fit:
some dreadful quarrel, he was certain, had occurred between Mr.O.and the young Captain.Chopper had been instructed to make out an account of all sums paid to Captain Osborne within the last three years."And a precious lot of money he has had too," the chief clerk said, and respected his old and young master the more, for the liberal way in which the guineas had been flung about.
The dispute was something about Miss Sedley.Mrs.
Chopper vowed and declared she pitied that poor young lady to lose such a handsome young fellow as the Capting.
As the daughter of an unlucky speculator, who had paid a very shabby dividend, Mr.Chopper had no great regard for Miss Sedley.He respected the house of Osborne before all others in the City of London: and his hope and wish was that Captain George should marry a nobleman's daughter.The clerk slept a great deal sounder than his principal that night; and, cuddling his children after breakfast (of which he partook with a very hearty appetite, though his modest cup of life was only sweetened with brown sugar), he set off in his best Sunday suit and frilled shirt for business, promising his admiring wife not to punish Captain D.'s port too severely that evening.
Mr.Osborne's countenance, when he arrived in the City at his usual time, struck those dependants who were accustomed, for good reasons, to watch its expression, as peculiarly ghastly and worn.At twelve o'clock Mr.
Higgs (of the firm of Higgs & Blatherwick, solicitors, Bedford Row) called by appointment, and was ushered into the governor's private room, and closeted there for more than an hour.At about one Mr.Chopper received a note brought by Captain Dobbin's man, and containing an inclosure for Mr.Osborne, which the clerk went in and delivered.A short time afterwards Mr.