marry him?'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the Major again.
Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major with so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer considering himself challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her exceedingly red lips, but for her interposing the fan with a very winning and juvenile dexterity. It might have been in modesty; it might have been in apprehension of some danger to their bloom.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.'
'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I am shocked.'
'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, and distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock knows it; J. B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am.
Dombey is safe, Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to J. B. for the end.'
'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had eyed him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her listless bearing.
'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless, and her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when sharing the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment.
Dombey's right-hand man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in a chuckle, and becoming serious, 'has arrived.'
'This morning?' said Cleopatra.
'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety for his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred — take J. B.'s word for this; for Joe is devilish sly' — the Major tapped his nose, and screwed up one of his eyes tight: which did not enhance his native beauty — 'to his desire that what is in the wind should become known to him' without Dombey's telling and consulting him. For Dombey is as proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as Lucifer.'
'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest Edith.'
'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already, and the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more, before the day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the Major, swelling with shortness of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a postscript unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger.
'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!'
The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never cast it off; nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any other place than in the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness, or faint confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner: had, for the moment, betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most languid self again, as Edith entered the room.
Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who, slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a keen glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down there, looking out.
'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you been? I have wanted you, my love, most sadly.'
'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered, without turning her head.
'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry.
'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out — and said with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could think of nothing in reply.
'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as you know — '
'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other.'
The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face — a scorn that evidently lighted on herself, no less than them — was so intense and deep, that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy constitution, drooped before it.
'My darling girl,' she began again.
'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile.
'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, that Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey, proposing that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?'
'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly as she looked round at her mother.
'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is, as you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.'
'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer.
'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton, 'though I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As Edith made no movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to wheel her little table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, and to take out pen and paper for her; all which congenial offices of gallantry the Major discharged, with much submission and devotion.
'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in hand, at the postscript.
'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and with supreme indifference.
Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more explicit directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving it as a precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but was fain to put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the insecurity of his waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and chivalrous farewell of both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged in her usual manner, while the younger, sitting with her face addressed to the window, bent her head so slightly that it would have been a greater compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all, and to have left him to infer that he had not been heard or thought of.
'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on which expedition — the afternoon being sunny and hot — he ordered the Native and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of that expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so forth, that won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It won't do here. But as to there being something of a division between 'em — or a gulf as the mother calls it — damme, Sir, that seems true enough. And it's odd enough! Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith Granger and Dombey are well matched; let 'em fight it out! Bagstock backs the winner!'
The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the belief that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last degree by this act of insubordination, the Major (though he was swelling with enjoyment of his own humour, at the moment of its occurrence instantly thrust his cane among the Native's ribs, and continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the way to the hotel.
Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and including everything that came within his master's reach. For the Major plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill, and visited the least departure from strict discipline with this kind of fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other vexations, mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to have earned his pay — which was not large.
At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names as must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this exercise, went downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man.
Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, and his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I had the happiness of meeting you? Have
