28

Amelia determined with all her might and strength to try and make her old father happy. She sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walked him out into Kensington Gardens or the Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles. Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife’s death, and Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.

* * *

The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board very sick, he did not begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his old acquaintance, Mr. Jos Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on the deck. He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make. “Married? not the least,” Jos answered; “he had heard from her: she made no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that he would be happy.” After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin’s gaiety and strength was such as to astonish all his fellow passengers.

But when the ship was within ten days’ sail of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly excited state when the pilot came on board. Good God, how his heart beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.

* * *

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many a time before. She could of late think of her own affairs, and smile or make other marks of recognition of her father’s stories, scarcely hearing a word of the old man’s tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench. Her first thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the messenger’s eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous mother’s bosom.

“News! News!” cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. “He’s come! He’s come!”

“Who is come?” said Emmy, still thinking of her son.

“Look there,” answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in which direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin’s lean figure and long shadow stalking across the grass. Amelia started in her turn, blushed up, and, of course, began to cry. He looked at her – oh, how fondly – as she came running towards him, her hands before her, ready to give them to him. She wasn’t changed. She was a little pale, a little stouter in figure. Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful eyes. There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair. She gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling through her tears into his honest homely face.

“I–I’ve another arrival to announce,” he said after a pause.

“Mrs. Dobbin?” Amelia said, making a movement back – why didn’t he speak?

“No,” he said, letting her hands go: “Who has told you those lies? I mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship with me, and is come home to make you all happy.”

“Papa, Papa!” Emmy cried out, “here are news! My brother is in England. He is come to take care of you. Here is Major Dobbin.”

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his thoughts. Then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to the Major.

Although he had such particular business in London that evening, the Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley’s invitation to him to come home and partake of tea. Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening, performing her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with the utmost grace and propriety, as Dobbin thought. His eyes followed her about as they sat in the twilight. How many a time had he longed for that moment and thought of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy’s miniature, for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home. It was not half handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn’t it noble of him to think of bringing it to his mother?

Dobbin told old Mr. Sedley all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had happened on board the ship, and exaggerated Jos’s benevolent dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him comfortable in his old days. The truth is that during the voyage the Major had impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger and extorted promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and her child. He soothed Jos’s irritation with regard to the bills which the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his own sufferings on the same score. And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the truth so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire to see his parent which brought Jos once more to Europe.

At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, and then it was Amelia’s opportunity to commence her conversation, which she did with great eagerness – it related exclusively to Georgy. She did not talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed, this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the separation from the child, but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and prospects, she poured out.

“Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to her son?” William thought. “Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt that such a heart as Amelia’s can love only once and for ever? Oh, George, George, how little you knew the prize you had, though.” This sentiment passed rapidly through William’s mind as he was holding Amelia’s hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.

“Dear friend,” she said, pressing the hand which held hers, “how good, how kind you always have been to me! You will go and see Georgy tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Not tomorrow,” said poor old Dobbin. “I have business.”

29

For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting between Jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister inside. The old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his daughter; nor was Jos without feeling. In that long absence of ten years, the most selfish will think about home and early ties.

The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for when Jos had driven away to his hotel, Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an air of triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always say that her brother had a good heart?

Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should never suffer want or discomfort any more, and that Amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table – until she would accept one of her own.

She shook her head sadly. She knew what he meant. But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the portraits of her husband and son was going never, never, to speak on that subject again; that Major Dobbin had been her husband’s dearest friend and her own and George’s most kind and affectionate guardian; that she loved him as a brother – but that a woman who had been married to such an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall, could never think of any other union.

Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major’s passion, felt displeased with him. Such an attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could make no woman angry. No more would Emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the Major. She would give him that friendly regard, she would treat him with perfect cordiality and frankness until he made his proposals, and then it would be time enough for her to speak and to put an end to hopes which never could be realized.

Jos found a house to live with his family. Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending the arrangements of Jos’s new house – which the

Major insisted should be very handsome and comfortable – the cart arrived from Brompton, bringing the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that village, and with them the old piano. Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room. When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and Amelia gave orders that it should be placed in the chamber, Dobbin was quite elated. “I’m glad you’ve kept it,” he said in a very sentimental manner. “I was afraid you didn’t care about it.”

“I value it more than anything I have in the world,” said Amelia.

“Do you, Amelia?” cried the Major. The fact was, as he had bought it himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift came from him.

“Do you, Amelia?” he said; and the question, the great question of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied – “Can I do otherwise? – did not he give it me?”

“I did not know,” said poor old Dob, and his countenance fell.

Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, but she thought of it afterwards.

And then it struck her, with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was William who was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had fancied.

A few days afterwards, as they were seated in the drawing-room, where Jos had fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner, Amelia said with rather a faltering voice to Major Dobbin – “I have to beg your pardon for something.”

“About what?” said he.

“About that little square piano. I never thanked you for it when you gave it me, many, many years ago, before I was married. I thought somebody else had given it. Thank you, William.”

She held out her hand, but the poor little woman’s heart was bleeding; and as for her eyes, of course they were at their work.

But William could hold no more. “Amelia, Amelia,” he said, “I did buy it for you. I loved you then as I do now. I must tell you. I think I loved you from the first minute that I saw you, when George brought me to your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was engaged to. I think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve years that I haven’t thought of you. I came to tell you this before I went to India, but you did not care, and I hadn’t the heart to speak. You did not care whether I stayed or went.”

“I was very ungrateful,” Amelia said.

“No, only indifferent,” Dobbin continued desperately. “I have nothing to make a woman to be otherwise. I know what you are feeling now. You are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the piano, and that it came from me and not from George. I forgot, or I should never have spoken of it so. It is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for a moment, and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have pleaded with you.”

“It is you who are cruel now,” Amelia said with some spirit. “George is my husband, here and in heaven. How could I love any other but him? It was he who told me how good and generous you were, and who taught me to love you as a brother. Have you not been everything to me and my boy? Our dearest, truest, kindest friend and protector? Be his friend still and mine” – and here her voice broke, and she hid her face on his shoulder.

The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she was a child, and kissed her head. “I will not change, dear Amelia,” he said. “I ask for no more than your love. I think I would not have it otherwise. Only let me stay near you and see you often.”

“Yes, often,” Amelia said. And so William was at liberty to look and long – as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman’s tray.