Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would propose to
make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at home had acquiesced in
the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a
feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. He said he was vain,
selfish, lazy, and effeminate. He could not endure his airs as a man
of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories.
"I shall leave the fellow half my property," he said; "and he will
have, besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if
you, and I, and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say 'Good
Gad!' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not going to make
myself anxious about him. Let him marry whom he likes. It's no affair
of mine."
Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence and
temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match. Once or twice Jos
had been on the point of saying something very important to her, to
which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not
be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret, and very much to his
sister's disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh and turned
away.
This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a perpetual
flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with Rebecca on the tender
subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate conversations
with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the
lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook,
who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so that
Mr. Jos's marriage was now talked of by a very considerable number of
persons in the Russell Square world.
It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son would demean
himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. "But, lor', Ma'am,"
ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, "we was only grocers when we married Mr.
S., who was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five hundred pounds
among us, and we're rich enough now." And Amelia was entirely of this
opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought.
Mr. Sedley was neutral. "Let Jos marry whom he likes," he said; "it's
no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no more had Mrs. Sedley.
She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in order,
perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of
mahogany grandchildren."
So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's fortunes. She took
Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had sate by
him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous "buck" he was,
as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his greys), and though
nobody said a word on the subject of the marriage, everybody seemed to
understand it. All she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca
now felt the want of a mother!--a dear, tender mother, who would have
managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little
delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted the
interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young man!