“I really cannot say there is anything against it, sir, still I thought I would consult you.”
“You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam?” says the Major.
I says “Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady mentioned to me in a casual way that she had not been married many months.”
The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments. Then he says “You would call it a Good Let, Madam?”
“O certainly a Good Let sir.”
“Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put you about very much Madam if—if the worst was to come to the worst?” said the Major.
“Well I hardly know,” I says to the Major. “It depends upon circumstances. Would you object Sir for instance?”
“I?” says the Major. “Object? Jemmy Jackman? Mrs. Lirriper close with the proposal.”
So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me equally legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as friendly as could be wished.
The three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, which fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a place that according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind—it being a very backward spring that year—taking a last leave of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him saying “There there there. Now let me go Peggy.” And by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so accommodating as to say he would not object to happening in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much when he was gone while I comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says “You will soon have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that.”