“By Jove, Becky,” says he, “she’s
only given me twenty pound!”
Though it told against themselves, the joke was too
good, and Becky burst out laughing at Rawdon’s
discomfiture.
Between London and Chatham
On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became
a person of rank and fashion travelling in a barouche
with four horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in
Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms,
and a table magnificently furnished with plate and
surrounded by a half-dozen of black and silent waiters,
was ready to receive the young gentleman and his bride.
George did the honours of the place with a princely
air to Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time,
and with exceeding shyness and timidity, presided at
what George called her own table.
George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters
royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction.
Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house,
before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant
of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley
without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.
The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments
in which it was given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated
after dinner, when Jos was asleep in the great chair.
But in vain he cried out against the enormity of
turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop.
“I’ve always been accustomed to travel
like a gentleman,” George said, “and,
damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. As long
as there’s a shot in the locker, she shall want
for nothing,” said the generous fellow, quite
pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit.
Nor did Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia’s
happiness was not centred in turtle-soup.
A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish
to go and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission
George granted her with some grumbling. And
she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre
of which stood the enormous funereal bed, “that
the Emperor Halixander’s sister slep in when
the allied sufferings was here,” and put on
her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness
and pleasure. George was still drinking claret
when she returned to the dining-room, and made no
signs of moving. “Ar’n’t you
coming with me, dearest?” she asked him.
No; the “dearest” had “business”
that night. His man should get her a coach and
go with her. And the coach being at the door
of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed
curtsey after looking vainly into his face once or
twice, and went sadly down the great staircase, Captain
Dobbin after, who handed her into the vehicle, and
saw it drive away to its destination. The very
valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to the
hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and promised
to instruct him when they got further on.
