Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by a friend of
his mother's constant admirer, the Rev. Mr. Binny. He brought home
numberless prizes and testimonials of ability. He told his mother
countless stories every night about his school-companions: and what a
fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and how Steel's
father actually supplied the meat for the establishment, whereas
Golding's mother came in a carriage to fetch him every Saturday, and
how Neat had straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how
Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that it was
believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward, himself. So Amelia learned
to know every one of the boys in that school as well as Georgy himself,
and of nights she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her
little head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself going in
the morning into the presence of the master. Once, after a certain
combat with Master Smith, George came home to his mother with a black
eye, and bragged prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old
grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was
known he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he
decidedly had the worst. But Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to
this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.
In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life was
passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time on her
head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair forehead. She
used to smile at these marks of time. "What matters it," she asked,
"For an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to see her
son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to be. She kept his
copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in
her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. She confided
some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss Osborne,
George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne himself--to make that old
man repent of his cruelty and ill feeling towards him who was gone.
All her husband's faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with
him: she only remembered the lover, who had married her at all
sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, in whose arms
she had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight, and die
gloriously for his king. From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon
that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her. We
have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), in his easy
chair in Russell Square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his
daughter, with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on
half the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable,
persecuted old maid. She thought again and again of the beautiful
little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen. She longed to be
allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he lived,
and she used to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive
in the park, in hopes that she might see him. Her sister, the banker's
lady, occasionally condescended to pay her old home and companion a
visit in Russell Square. She brought a couple of sickly children
attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled
to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little Frederick
was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and her sweet Maria had been
noticed by the Baroness as they were driving in their donkey-chaise at
Roehampton. She urged her to make her papa do something for the
darlings. Frederick she had determined should go into the Guards; and
if they made an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock was positively
ruining and pinching himself to death to buy land), how was the darling
girl to be provided for? "I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say,
"for of course my share of our Papa's property must go to the head of
the house, you know. Dear Rhoda McMull will disengage the whole of the
Castletoddy property as soon as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is
quite epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount
Castletoddy. Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their
fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy. My darling Frederick must
positively be an eldest son; and--and do ask Papa to bring us back his
account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his
going to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches, in which
fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss,
which was like the contact of an oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would
gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.