Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed Westminster
bridge.
The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the majestic
Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the
fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked
away with Rebecca under his arm. George, of course, took charge of
Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine.
"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things,
there's a good fellow." And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley,
and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at his
side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls,
and by paying at the door for the whole party.
He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil
sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought
Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that
good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl's delight and
wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly
pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something
on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky
young officer carrying this female burthen); but William Dobbin was
very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his
friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? And the
truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens; of the hundred
thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked
hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in
the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental
ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by
bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping,
thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was
about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the
hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so
favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed
about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling
boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost
invisible ham--of all these things, and of the gentle Simpson, that
kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided even then over the
place--Captain William Dobbin did not take the slightest notice.
He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended
under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs. Salmon performed the Battle of
Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately
met with his Russian reverses)--Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked
away, and found he was humming--the tune which Amelia Sedley sang on
the stairs, as she came down to dinner.