Vanity Fair - Page 98/573

"Soup?" says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his eyes on her,

in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and the rest, did not speak

for a while.

"Take Miss Sedley's plate away," at last he said. "She can't eat the

soup--no more can I. It's beastly. Take away the soup, Hicks, and

to-morrow turn the cook out of the house, Jane."

Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. Osborne made a few

curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical

tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of the

place. Then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry glasses of

wine, looking more and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the door

told of George's arrival when everybody began to rally.

"He could not come before. General Daguilet had kept him waiting at

the Horse Guards. Never mind soup or fish. Give him anything--he

didn't care what. Capital mutton--capital everything." His good humour

contrasted with his father's severity; and he rattled on unceasingly

during dinner, to the delight of all--of one especially, who need not

be mentioned.

As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the glass of

wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal banquets at Mr.

Osborne's house, the signal to make sail for the drawing-room was

given, and they all arose and departed. Amelia hoped George would soon

join them there. She began playing some of his favourite waltzes (then

newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano

in the drawing-room overhead. This little artifice did not bring him.

He was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter and fainter; the

discomfited performer left the huge instrument presently; and though

her three friends performed some of the loudest and most brilliant new

pieces of their repertoire, she did not hear a single note, but sate

thinking, and boding evil. Old Osborne's scowl, terrific always, had

never before looked so deadly to her. His eyes followed her out of the

room, as if she had been guilty of something. When they brought her

coffee, she started as though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks,

the butler, wished to propose to her. What mystery was there lurking?

Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make

darlings of their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed

children.

The gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed George Osborne

with anxiety. With such eyebrows, and a look so decidedly bilious, how

was he to extract that money from the governor, of which George was

consumedly in want? He began praising his father's wine. That was

generally a successful means of cajoling the old gentleman.

"We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as yours. Colonel

Heavytop took off three bottles of that you sent me down, under his

belt the other day."