Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a great number of
times every day, and upon almost every conceivable subject--indeed, if
Mick O'Dowd had not possessed the temper of an angel two such women
constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his senses--yet
they agreed between themselves on this point, that Glorvina should
marry Major Dobbin, and were determined that the Major should have no
rest until the arrangement was brought about. Undismayed by forty or
fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to him. She sang Irish
melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so frequently and
pathetically, Will ye come to the bower? that it is a wonder how any
man of feeling could have resisted the invitation. She was never tired
of inquiring, if Sorrow had his young days faded, and was ready to
listen and weep like Desdemona at the stories of his dangers and his
campaigns. It has been said that our honest and dear old friend used
to perform on the flute in private; Glorvina insisted upon having duets
with him, and Lady O'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit the room when
the young couple were so engaged. Glorvina forced the Major to ride
with her of mornings. The whole cantonment saw them set out and
return. She was constantly writing notes over to him at his house,
borrowing his books, and scoring with her great pencil-marks such
passages of sentiment or humour as awakened her sympathy. She borrowed
his horses, his servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder that
public rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's sisters in
England should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-law.
Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the meanwhile in a
state of the most odious tranquillity. He used to laugh when the young
fellows of the regiment joked him about Glorvina's manifest attentions
to him. "Bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--she
practises upon me as she does upon Mrs. Tozer's piano, because it's the
most handy instrument in the station. I am much too battered and old
for such a fine young lady as Glorvina." And so he went on riding with
her, and copying music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess
with her very submissively; for it is with these simple amusements that
some officers in India are accustomed to while away their leisure
moments, while others of a less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot
snipes, or gamble and smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to
brandy-and-water. As for Sir Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her
sister both urged him to call upon the Major to explain himself and not
keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in that shameful way, the old
soldier refused point-blank to have anything to do with the conspiracy.
"Faith, the Major's big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael
said; "he'll ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the matter
off jocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young to keep house, and
had written home to ask lave of his mamma." Nay, he went farther, and
in private communications with his Major would caution and rally him,
crying, "Mind your oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent on mischief--me
Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe, and there's a pink satin
for Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, if it's in the power of woman
or satin to move ye."