“I hope there will be no women besides our own party,” Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and accepted with too much precipitancy.

“Gracious Heaven, Mamma — you don’t suppose the man would bring his wife,” shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George’s arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. “The men are bearable, but their women — ”

“Wife, just married, dev’lish pretty woman, I hear,” the old Earl said.

“Well, my dear Blanche,” said the mother, “I suppose, as Papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn’t know them in England, you know.” And so, determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. This is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns supreme. To watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her honeymoon. She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d-- bad dinner, and d-- dear. But though Amelia told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her guests’ rudeness, and her own discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and talked about Emmy’s friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to Osborne’s ears in the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the Parks — those who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo officer. He has thick curling brown hair and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple. He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa’s hair off in the green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General’s wig has nothing to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the -th were sauntering in the flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O’Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her fawther’s mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.

Mrs. O'Dowd at the Flower Market

“You should see the flowers at Glenmalony,” Mrs. O’Dowd was remarking. “Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps weighs six pounds every bunch of ’em, and upon me honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles.”

Dobbin, who never used to “draw out” Mrs. O’Dowd as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia’s terror, who implored him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.

“Hwhat’s that gawky guggling about?” said Mrs. O’Dowd. “Is it his nose bleedn? He always used to say ’twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pomped all the blood out of ‘um. An’t the magnolias at Glenmalony as big as taykettles, O’Dowd?”

“‘Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy,” the Major said. When the conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased the bouquet.

“Devlish fine horse — who is it?” George asked.

“You should see me brother Molloy Malony’s horse, Molasses, that won the cop at the Curragh,” the Major’s wife was exclaiming, and was continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by saying —

“It’s General Tufto, who commands the — cavalry division”; adding quietly, “he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera.”

“Where you got your step,” said George with a laugh. “General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come.”

Amelia’s heart fell — she knew not why. The sun did not seem to shine so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of May.

CHAPTER XXIX

Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for his private riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure. They went out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, George’s remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and his wife proved to be correct. In the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab, which she rode to perfection (having acquired the art at Queen’s Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and by the side of the gallant General Tufto.

“Sure it’s the Juke himself,” cried Mrs. Major O’Dowd to Jos, who began to blush violently; “and that’s Lord Uxbridge on the bay. How elegant he looks! Me brother, Molloy Malony, is as like him as two pays.”

Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence by a gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers playfully in the direction of the vehicle. Then she resumed her conversation with General Tufto, who asked “who the fat officer was in the gold-laced cap?” on which Becky replied, “that he was an officer in the East Indian service.” But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with Amelia, and said to Jos, “Well, old boy, how are you?” and stared in Mrs. O’Dowd’s face and at the black cock’s feathers until she began to think she had made a conquest of him.