Which Treats of the Osborne FamilyConsiderable time has elapsed since we have seen our respectable friend, old Mr.Osborne of Russell Square.He has not been the happiest of mortals since last we met him.
Events have occurred which have not improved his temper, and in more in stances than one he has not been allowed to have his own way.To be thwarted in this reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old gentleman; and resistance became doubly exasperating when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many disappointments combined to weigh him down.His stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more and more as he poured out his glass of port wine.He led his clerks a dire life in the City: his family at home were not much happier.I doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen piously praying for Consols, would have exchanged her poverty and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her life for Osborne's money and the humdrum gloom which enveloped him.He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who married her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility.He was a man to have married a woman out of low life and bullied her dreadfully afterwards; but no person presented herself suitable to his taste, and, instead, he tyrannized over his unmarried daughter, at home.She had a fine carriage and fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded with the grandest plate.She had a cheque-book, a prize footman to follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows and compliments from all the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an heiress; but she spent a woeful time.
The little charity-girls at the Foundling, the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate and now middle-aged young lady.
Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, and Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great deal of difficulty and grumbling on Mr.Bullock's part.
George being dead and cut out of his father's will, Frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was Mr.
Frederick's own expression) on any other terms.Osborne said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty thousand, and he should bind himself to no more."Fred might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be hanged." Fred, whose hopes had been raised when George had been disinherited, thought himself infamously swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made as if he would break off the match altogether.Osborne withdrew his account from Bullock and Hulker's, went on 'Change with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay across the back of a certain scoundrel that should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent manner.Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria during this family feud."I always told you, Maria, that it was your money he loved and not you," she said, soothingly.
"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you and yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.
The rapture was, however, only temporary.Fred's father and senior partners counselled him to take Maria, even with the twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at the death of Mr.Osborne, with the chances of the further division of the property.So he "knuckled down," again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable overtures to Osborne.It was his father, he said, who would not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he was most anxious to keep the engagement.The excuse was sulkily accepted by Mr.Osborne.Hulker and Bullock were a high family of the City aristocracy, and connected with the "nobs" at the West End.It was something for the old man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker, Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon.The Earl of Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and consented that the marriage should take place.
It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the breakfast, their habitations being near St.George's, Hanover Square, where the business took place.The "nobs of the West End" were invited, and many of them signed the book.Mr.Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there, with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest son of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousin of the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs.
Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord Levant's son, and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs.McMull (formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who have all married into Lombard Street and done a great deal to ennoble Cornhill.
The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony there.Fred was considered to have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose grandfather had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through the husbands with some of the best blood in England.And Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the composition of her visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and felt it her duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.
