“You don’t; — don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” said the Captain stoutly.
“I wish you’d pay me some of that money you owe me,” said Cheesacre.
“So I will, — when I’ve married the widow. Ha, — ha, — ha.”
Cheesacre longed to turn him out of the house. Words to bid him go, were, so to say, upon his tongue. But the man would only have taken himself to Norwich, and would have gone without any embargo upon his suit; all their treaties would then be at an end. “She knows a trick worth two of that,” said Cheesacre at last.
“I dare say she does; and if so, why shouldn’t I go and dine with her next Saturday?”
“I’ll tell you why, — because you’re in my way. The deuce is in it if I haven’t made the whole thing clear enough. I’ve told you all my plans because I thought you were my friend, and I’ve paid you well to help me, too; and yet it seems to me you’d do anything in your power to throw me over, — only you can’t.”
“What an ass you are,” said the Captain after a pause; “just you listen to me. That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there of course.”
“How do you know?”
“I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come; — and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she wouldn’t set her cap at you, because you’re a farmer.”
“Upon my word she’s kind. Upon my word she is,” said Cheesacre, getting very angry and very red. “Charlie Fairstairs, indeed! I wouldn’t pick her out of a gutter with a pair of tongs. She ain’t good enough for my bailiff, let alone me.”
“But somebody must take her in hand on Saturday, if you’re to do any good,” said the crafty Bellfield.
“What the deuce does she have that nasty creature there for?” said Cheesacre, who thought it very hard that everything should not be arranged exactly as he would desire.
“She wants a companion, of course. You can get rid of Charlie, you know, when you make her Mrs Cheesacre.”
“Get rid of her! You don’t suppose she’ll ever put her foot in this house. Not if I know it. I’ve detested that woman for the last ten years.” Cheesacre could forgive no word of slight respecting his social position, and the idea of Miss Fairstairs having pretended to look down upon him, galled him to the quick.
“You’ll have to dine with her at any rate,” said Bellfield, “and I always think that four are better company than three on such occasions.”
Mr Cheesacre grunted an unwilling assent, and after this it was looked upon as an arranged thing that they two should go into Norwich on the Saturday together, and that they should both dine with the widow. Indeed, Mrs Greenow got two notes, one from each of them, accepting the invitation. Cheesacre wrote in the singular number, altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield, as he might have ignored his footman had he intended to take one. The captain condescended to use the plural pronoun. “We shall be so happy to come,” said he. “Dear old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight,” he added, “and has already begun to polish off the effects of the farmyard.”
“Effects of the farmyard,” said Mrs Greenow aloud, in Jeannette’s hearing, when she received the note. “It would be well for Captain Bellfield if he had a few such effects himself.”
“You can give him enough, ma’am,” said Jeannette, “to make him a better man than Mr Cheesacre any day. And for a gentleman — of course I say nothing, but if I was a lady, I know which should be the man for me.”
CHAPTER XL
Mrs Greenow’s Little Dinner in the Close
How deep and cunning are the wiles of love! When that Saturday morning arrived not a word was said by Cheesacre to his rival as to his plans for the day. “You’ll take the dog-cart in?” Captain Bellfield had asked overnight. “I don’t know what I shall do as yet,” replied he who was master of the house, of the dog-cart, and, as he fondly thought, of the situation. But Bellfield knew that Cheesacre must take the dog-cart, and was contented. His friend would leave him behind, if it were possible, but Bellfield would take care that it should not be possible.
Before breakfast Mr Cheesacre surreptitiously carried out into the yard a bag containing all his apparatus for dressing, — his marrow oil for his hair, his shirt with the wondrous worked front upon an under-stratum of pink to give it colour, his shiny boots, and all the rest of the paraphernalia. When dining in Norwich on ordinary occasions, he simply washed his hands there, trusting to the chambermaid at the inn to find him a comb; and now he came down with his bag surreptitiously, and hid it away in the back of the dog-cart with secret, but alas, not unobserved hands, hoping that Bellfield would forget his toilet. But when did such a Captain ever forget his outward man? Cheesacre, as he returned through the kitchen from the yard into the front hall, perceived another bag lying near the door, apparently filled almost as well as his own.
“What the deuce are you going to do with all this luggage?” said he, giving the bag a kick.
“Put it where I saw you putting yours when I opened my window just now,” said Bellfield.
“D–––– the window,” exclaimed Cheesacre, and then they sat down to breakfast. “How you do hack that ham about,” he said. “If you ever found hams yourself you’d be more particular in cutting them.” This was very bad. Even Bellfield could not bear it with equanimity, and feeling unable to eat the ham under such circumstances, made his breakfast with a couple of fresh eggs. “If you didn’t mean to eat the meat, why the mischief did you cut it?” said Cheesacre.
“Upon my word, Cheesacre, you’re too bad; — upon my word you are,” said Bellfield, almost sobbing.
“What’s the matter now?” said the other.
“Who wants your ham?”
“You do, I suppose, or you wouldn’t cut it.”
“No I don’t; nor anything else either that you’ve got. It isn’t fair to ask a fellow into your house, and then say such things to him as that. And it isn’t what I’ve been accustomed to either; I can tell you that, Mr Cheesacre.”
“Oh, bother!”
“It’s all very well to say bother, but I choose to be treated like a gentleman wherever I go. You and I have known each other a long time, and I’d put up with more from you than from anyone else; but — “
“Can you pay me the money that you owe me, Bellfield?” said Cheesacre, looking hard at him.
“No, I can’t,” said Bellfield; “not immediately.”
“Then eat your breakfast, and hold your tongue.”
After that Captain Bellfield did eat his breakfast, — leaving the ham however untouched, and did hold his tongue, vowing vengeance in his heart. But the two men went into Norwich more amicably together than they would have done had there been no words between them. Cheesacre felt that he had trespassed a little, and therefore offered the Captain a cigar as he seated himself in the cart. Bellfield accepted the offering, and smoked the weed of peace.
“Now,” said Cheesacre, as he drove into the Swan yard, “what do you mean to do with yourself all day?”
“I shall go down to the quarters, and look the fellows up.”
“All right. But mind this, Bellfield; — it’s an understood thing, that you’re not to be in the Close before four?”
“I won’t be in the Close before four!”
“Very well. That’s understood. If you deceive me, I’ll not drive you back to Oileymead to-night.”
In this instance Captain Bellfield had no intention to deceive. He did not think it probable that he could do himself any good by philandering about the widow early in the day. She would be engaged with her dinner and with an early toilet. Captain Bellfield, moreover, had learned from experience that the first comer has not always an advantage in ladies’ society. The mind of a woman is greedy after novelty, and it is upon the stranger, or upon the most strange of her slaves around her, that she often smiles the sweetest. The cathedral clock, therefore, had struc
k four before Captain Bellfield rang Mrs Greenow’s bell, and then, when he was shown into the drawing-room, he found Cheesacre there alone, redolent with the marrow oil, and beautiful with the pink bosom.
“Haven’t you seen her yet?” asked the Captain almost in a whisper.
“No,” said Cheesacre sulkily.
“Nor yet Charlie Fairstairs?”
“I’ve seen nobody,” said Cheesacre.
But at this moment he was compelled to swallow his anger, as Mrs Greenow, accompanied by her lady guest, came into the room. “Whoever would have expected two gentlemen to be so punctual,” said she, “especially on market-day!”
“Market-day makes no difference when I come to see you,” said Cheesacre, putting his best foot forward, while Captain Bellfield contented himself with saying something civil to Charlie. He would bide his time and ride a waiting race.
The widow was almost gorgeous in her weeds. I believe that she had not sinned in her dress against any of those canons which the semi-ecclesiastical authorities on widowhood have laid down as to the outward garments fitted for gentlemen’s relicts. The materials were those which are devoted to the deepest conjugal grief. As regarded every item of the written law her suttee worship was carried out to the letter. There was the widow’s cap, generally so hideous, so well known to the eyes of all men, so odious to womanhood. Let us hope that such headgear may have some assuaging effect on the departed spirits of husbands. There was the dress of deep, clinging, melancholy crape, — of crape which becomes so brown and so rusty, and which makes the six months’ widow seem so much more afflicted a creature than she whose husband is just gone, and whose crape is therefore new. There were the trailing weepers, and the widow’s kerchief pinned close round her neck and somewhat tightly over her bosom. But there was that of genius about Mrs Greenow, that she had turned every seeming disadvantage to some special profit, and had so dressed herself that though she had obeyed the law to the letter, she had thrown the spirit of it to the winds. Her cap sat jauntily on her head, and showed just so much of her rich brown hair as to give her the appearance of youth which she desired. Cheesacre had blamed her in his heart for her private carriage, but she spent more money, I think, on new crape than she did on her brougham. It never became brown and rusty with her, or formed itself into old lumpy folds, or shaped itself round her like a grave cloth. The written law had not interdicted crinoline, and she loomed as large with weeds, which with her were not sombre, as she would do with her silks when the period of her probation should be over. Her weepers were bright with newness, and she would waft them aside from her shoulder with an air which turned even them into auxiliaries. Her kerchief was fastened close round her neck and close over her bosom; but Jeannette well knew what she was doing as she fastened it, — and so did Jeannette’s mistress.
Mrs Greenow would still talk much about her husband, declaring that her loss was as fresh to her wounded heart, as though he, on whom all her happiness had rested, had left her only yesterday; but yet she mistook her dates, frequently referring to the melancholy circumstance, as having taken place fifteen months ago. In truth, however, Mr Greenow had been alive within the last nine months, — as everybody around her knew. But if she chose to forget the exact day, why should her friends or dependents remind her of it? No friend or dependent did remind her of it, and Charlie Fairstairs spoke of the fifteen months with bold confidence, — false-tongued little parasite that she was.
“Looking well,” said the widow, in answer to some outspoken compliment from Mr Cheesacre. “Yes, I’m well enough in health, and I suppose I ought to be thankful that it is so. But if you had buried a wife whom you had loved within the last eighteen months, you would have become as indifferent as I am to all that kind of thing.”
“I never was married yet,” said Mr Cheesacre.
“And therefore you know nothing about it. Everything in the world is gay and fresh to you. If I were you, Mr Cheesacre, I would not run the risk. It is hardly worth a woman’s while, and I suppose not a man’s. The sufferings are too great!” Whereupon she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
“But I mean to try all the same,” said Cheesacre, looking the lover all over as he gazed into the fair one’s face.
“I hope that you may be successful, Mr Cheesacre, and that she may not be torn away from you early in life. Is dinner ready, Jeannette? That’s well. Mr Cheesacre, will you give your arm to Miss Fairstairs?”
There was no doubt as to Mrs Greenow’s correctness. As Captain Bellfield held, or had held, her Majesty’s commission, he was clearly entitled to take the mistress of the festival down to dinner. But Cheesacre would not look at it in this light. He would only remember that he had paid for the Captain’s food for some time past, that the Captain had been brought into Norwich in his gig, that the Captain owed him money, and ought, so to say, to be regarded as his property on the occasion. “I pay my way, and that ought to give a man higher station than being a beggarly captain, — which I don’t believe he is, if all the truth was known.” It was thus that he took an occasion to express himself to Miss Fairstairs on that very evening. “Military rank is always recognised,” Miss Fairstairs had replied, taking Mr Cheesacre’s remarks as a direct slight upon herself. He had taken her down to dinner, and had then come to her complaining that he had been injured in being called upon to do so! “If you were a magistrate, Mr Cheesacre, you would have rank; but I believe you are not.” Charlie Fairstairs knew well what she was about. Mr Cheesacre had striven much to get his name put upon the commission of the peace, but had failed. “Nasty, scraggy old cat,” Cheesacre said to himself, as he turned away from her.
But Bellfield gained little by taking the widow down. He and Cheesacre were placed at the top and bottom of the table, so that they might do the work of carving; and the ladies sat at the sides. Mrs Greenow’s hospitality was very good. The dinner was exactly what a dinner ought to be for four persons. There was soup, fish, a cutlet, a roast fowl, and some game. Jeannette waited at table nimbly, and the thing could not have been done better. Mrs Greenow’s appetite was not injured by her grief, and she so far repressed for the time all remembrance of her sorrow as to enable her to play the kind hostess to perfection. Under her immediate eye Cheesacre was forced into apparent cordiality with his friend Bellfield, and the Captain himself took the good things which the gods provided with thankful good-humour.
Nothing, however, was done at the dinner-table. No work got itself accomplished. The widow was so accurately fair in the adjustment of her favours, that even Jeannette could not perceive to which of the two she turned with the amplest smile. She talked herself and made others talk, till Cheesacre became almost comfortable, in spite of his jealousy. “And now,” she said, as she got up to leave the room, when she had taken her own glass of wine, “We will allow these two gentlemen just half an hour, eh Charlie? and then we shall expect them up-stairs.”
“Ten minutes will be enough for us here,” said Cheesacre, who was in a hurry to utilize his time.
“Half an hour,” said Mrs Greenow, not without some little tone of command in her voice. Ten minutes might be enough for Mr Cheesacre, but ten minutes was not enough for her.
Bellfield had opened the door, and it was upon him that the widow’s eye glanced as she left the room. Cheesacre saw it, and resolved to resent the injury. “I’ll tell you what it is, Bellfield,” he said, as he sat down moodily over the fire, “I won’t have you coming here at all, till this matter is settled.”
“Till what matter is settled?” said Bellfield, filling his glass.
“You know what matter I mean.”
“You take such a deuce of a time about it.”
“No, I don’t. I take as little time as anybody could. That other fellow has only been dead about nine months, and I’ve got the thing in excellent training already.”
“And what harm do I do?”
“You disturb me, and you disturb her. You do it on purpose. Do you suppose I can’t see? I’ll
tell you what, now; if you’ll go clean out of Norwich for a month, I’ll lend you two hundred pounds on the day she becomes Mrs Cheesacre.”
“And where am I to go to?”
“You may stay at Oileymead, if you like; — that is, on condition that you do stay there.”
“And be told that I hack the ham because it’s not my own. Shall I tell you a piece of my mind, Cheesacre?”
“What do you mean?”
“That woman has no more idea of marrying you than she has of marrying the Bishop. Won’t you fill your glass, old fellow? I know where the tap is if you want another bottle. You may as well give it up, and spend no more money in pink fronts and polished boots on her account. You’re a podgy man, you see, and Mrs Greenow doesn’t like podgy men.”
Cheesacre sat looking at him with his mouth open, dumb with surprise, and almost paralysed with impotent anger. What had happened during the last few hours to change so entirely the tone of his dependent captain? Could it be that Bellfield had been there during the morning, and that she had accepted him?
“You are very podgy, Cheesacre,” Bellfield continued, “and then you so often smell of the farm-yard; and you talk too much of your money and your property. You’d have had a better chance if you had openly talked to her of hers, — as I have done. As it is, you haven’t any chance at all.”
Bellfield, as he thus spoke to the man opposite to him, went on drinking his wine comfortably, and seemed to be chuckling with glee. Cheesacre was so astounded, so lost in amazement that the creature whom he had fed, — whom he had bribed with money out of his own pocket, should thus turn against him, that for a while he could not collect his thoughts or find voice wherewith to make any answer. It occurred to him immediately that Bellfield was even now, at this very time, staying at his house, — that he, Cheesacre, was expected to drive him, Bellfield, back to Oileymead, to his own Oileymead, on this very evening; and as he thought of this he almost fancied that he must be in a dream. He shook himself, and looked again, and there sat Bellfield, eyeing him through the bright colour of a glass of port.
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