Can You Forgive Her? (96 page)

‘I suppose I’d better take a walk,’ he said; ‘and perhaps the young ladies –’

‘If you mean my two nieces,’ said Mrs Greenow, ‘I’m afraid you’ll find they are engaged. But if I’m not too old to walk with –’ The Captain assured her that she was just of the proper age for a walking companion, as far as his taste went, and then attempted some apology for the awkwardness of his expression, at which
the three women laughed heartily. ‘Never mind, Captain,’ said Mrs Greenow. ‘We’ll have our walk all the same, and won’t mind those young girls. Come along.’ They started, not up towards the mountains, as Kate always did when she walked in Westmoreland, but mildly, and at a gentle pace, as beseemed their years, along the road towards Shap. The Captain politely opened
the old gate for the widow,
and then carefully closed it again, –not allowing it to swing, as he would have done at Yarmouth. Then he tripped up to his place beside her, suggested his arm, which she declined, and walked on for some paces in silence. What on earth was he to say to her? He had done his love-making successfully, and what was he to do next?

‘Well, Captain Bellfield,’ said she. They were walking very slowly,
and he was cutting the woods by the roadside with his cane. He knew by her voice that something special was coming, so he left the weeds and ranged himself close up alongside of her. ‘Well, Captain Bellfield, – so I suppose I’m to be good-natured; am I?’

‘Arabella, you’ll make me the happiest man in the world.’

‘That’s all fudge.’ She would have said, ‘all rocks and valleys’, only he would not
have understood her.

‘Upon my word, you will.’

‘I hope I shall make you respectable?’

‘Oh, yes; certainly. I quite intend that.’

‘It is the great thing that you should intend. Of course I am going to make a fool of myself.’

‘No, no; don’t say that.’

‘If I don’t say it, all my friends will say it for me. It’s lucky for you that I don’t much care what people say.’

‘It is lucky; – I know that
I’m lucky. The very first day I saw you I thought what a happy fellow I was to meet you. Then, of course, I was only thinking of your beauty.’

‘Get along with you!’

‘Upon my word, yes. Come, Arabella, as we are to be man and wife, you might as well.’ At this moment he had got very close to her, and had recovered something of his usual elasticity; but she would not allow him even to put his arm
round her waist. ‘Out in the high road!’ she said. ‘How can you be so impertinent, – and so foolish?’

‘You might as well, you know, – just once.’

‘Captain Bellfield, I brought you out here not for such fooling as that, but in order that we might have a little chat about business. If we are to be man and wife, as you say, we ought to understand
on what footing we are to begin together. I’m afraid
your own private means are not considerable?’

‘Well, no; they are not, Mrs Greenow.’

‘Have you anything?’ The Captain hesitated, and poked the ground with his cane. ‘Come, Captain Bellfield, let us have the truth at once, and then we shall understand each other.’ The Captain still hesitated, and said nothing. ‘You must have had something to live upon, I suppose?’ suggested the widow. Then the
Captain, by degrees, told his story. He had a married sister by whom a guinea a week was allowed to him. That was all. He had been obliged to sell out of the army, because he was unable to live on his pay as a lieutenant. The price of his commission had gone to pay his debts, and now, – yes, it was too true, – now he was in debt again. He owed ninety pounds to Cheesacre, thirty-two pounds ten to
a tailor at Yarmouth, over seventeen pounds at his lodgings in Norwich. At the present moment he had something under thirty shillings in his pocket The tailor at Yarmouth had lent him three pounds in order that he might make his journey into Westmoreland, and perhaps be enabled to pay his debts by getting a rich wife. In the course of the cross-examination Mrs Greenow got much information out of
him; and then, when she was satisfied that she had learned, not exactly all the truth, but certain indications of the truth, she forgave him all his offences.

‘And now you will give a fellow a kiss, – just one kiss,’ said the ecstatic Captain, in the height of his bliss.

‘Hush!’ said the widow, ‘there’s a carriage coming on the road – close to us.’

*          *          *

‘H
USH!
’ said the widow, ‘there’s a carriage coming on the road –close to us,’ Mrs Greenow, as she spoke these words, drew back from the Captain’s arms before the first kiss of permitted antenuptial
love had been exchanged. The scene was on the high road from Shap to Vavasor, and as she was still dressed in all the sombre habiliments of early widowhood, and as neither
he nor his sweetheart were under forty, perhaps it was as well that they were not caught toying together in so very public a place. But they were only just in time to escape the vigilant eyes of a new visitor. Round the corner of the road, at a sharp trot, came the Shap post-horse, with the Shap gig behind him, – the same gig which had brought Bellfield to Vavasor on the previous day, – and seated
in the gig, looming large, with his eyes wide awake to everything round him, was, – Mr Cheesacre.

It was a sight terrible to the eyes of Captain Bellfield, and by no means welcome to those of Mrs Greenow. As regarded her, her annoyance had chiefly reference to her two nieces, and especially to Alice. How was she to account for this second lover? Kate, of course, knew all about it; but how could
Alice be made to understand that she, Mrs Greenow, was not to blame, – that she had, in sober truth, told this ardent gentleman that there was no hope for him? And even as to Kate, – Kate, whom her aunt had absurdly chosen to regard as the object of Mr Cheesacre’s pursuit, – what sort of a welcome would she extend to the owner of Oileymead? Before the wheels had stopped, Mrs Greenow had begun to
reflect whether it might be possible that she should send Mr Cheesacre back without letting him go on to the Hall; but if Mrs Greenow was dismayed, what were the feelings of the Captain? For he was aware that Cheesacre knew that of him which he had not told. How ardently did he now wish that he had sailed nearer to the truth in giving in the schedule of his debts to Mrs Greenow.

‘That man’s wanted
by the police,’ said Cheesacre, speaking while the gig was still in motion. ‘He’s wanted by the police, Mrs Greenow,’ and in his ardour he stood up in the gig and pointed at Bellfield. Then the gig stopped suddenly, and he fell back into his seat in his effort to prevent his falling forward. ‘He’s wanted by the police,’ he shouted out again, as soon as he was able to recover his voice.

Mrs Greenow
turned pale beneath the widow’s veil which she had dropped. What might not her Captain have done? He might
have procured things, to be sent to him, out of shops on false pretences; or, urged on by want and famine, he might have committed – forgery. ‘Oh, my!’ she said, and dropped her hand from his arm, which she had taken.

‘It’s false,’ said Bellfield.

‘It’s true,’ said Cheesacre.

‘I’ll indict
⁸
you for slander, my friend,’ said Bellfield.

‘Pay me the money you owe me,’ said Cheesacre. ‘You’re a swindler!’

Mrs Greenow cared little as to her lover being a swindler in Mr Cheesacre’s estimation. Such accusations from him she had heard before. But she did care very much as to this mission of the police against her Captain. If that were true, the Captain could be her Captain no longer.
‘What is this I hear, Captain Bellfield?’she said.

‘It’s a lie and a slander. He merely wants to make a quarrel between us. What police are after me, Mr Cheesacre?’

‘It’s the police, or the sheriff’s officer, or something of the kind,’ said Cheesacre?’

‘Oh, the sheriff’s officers!’ exclaimed Mrs Greenow, in a tone of voice which showed how great had been her relief. ‘Mr Cheesacre, you shouldn’t
come and say such things; – you shouldn’t, indeed. Sheriff’s officers can be paid, and there’s an end of them.’

‘I’ll indict him for the libel – I will, as sure as I’m alive,’ said Bellfield.

‘Nonsense,’ said the widow. ‘Don’t you make a fool of yourself. When men can’t pay their way they must put up with having things like that said of them. Mr Cheesacre, where were you going?’

‘I was going
to Vavasor Hall, on purpose to caution you.’

‘It’s too late,’ said Mrs Greenow, sinking behind her veil.

‘Why, you haven’t been and married him since yesterday? He only had twenty-four hours’ start of me, I know. Or, perhaps, you had it done clandestine in Norwich? Oh, Mrs Greenow!’

He got out of the gig, and the three walked back towards the Hall together, while the boy drove on with Mr Cheesacre’s
carpetbag. ‘I hardly know,’ said Mrs Greenow, ‘whether we can welcome you. There are other visitors, and the house is full.’

‘I’m not one to intrude where I’m not wanted. You may be sure of that. If I can’t get my supper for love, I can get it for money. That’s more than some people can say. I wonder when you’re going to pay me what you owe me, Lieutenant Bellfield?’

Nevertheless, the widow
had contrived to reconcile the two men before she reached the Hall. They had actually shaken hands, and the lamb Cheesacre had agreed to lie down with the wolf Bellfield. Cheesacre, moreover, had contrived to whisper into the widow’s ears the true extent of his errand into Westmoreland. This, however, he did not do altogether in Bellfield’s hearing. When Mrs Greenow ascertained that there was something
to be said, she made no scruple in sending her betrothed away from her. ‘You won’t throw a fellow over, will you, now?’ whispered Bellfield into her ear as he went. She merely frowned at him, and bade him begone; so that the walk which Mrs Greenow began with one lover she ended in company with the other.

Bellfield, who was sent on to the house, found Alice and Kate surveying the newly-arrived
carpet-bag. ‘He knows ‘un,’ said the boy who had driven the gig, pointing to the Captain.

‘It belongs to your old friend, Mr Cheesacre,’said Bellfield to Kate.

‘And has he come too?’ said Kate.

The Captain shrugged his shoulders, and admitted that it was hard. ‘And it’s not the slightest use,’ said he; ‘not the least in the world. He never had a chance in that quarter.’

‘Not enough of the
rocks and valleys about him, was there, Captain Bellfield?’ said Kate. But Captain Bellfield understood nothing about the rocks and valleys, though he was regarded by certain eyes as being both a rock and a valley himself.

In the meantime Cheesacre was telling his story. He first asked, in a melancholy tone, whether it was really necessary that he must abandon all his hopes. ‘He wasn’t going
to say anything against the Captain,’ he said, ‘if things were really fixed. He never begrudged any man his chance.’

‘Things are really fixed,’ said Mrs Greenow.

He could, however, not keep himself from hinting that Oiley-mead was a substantial home, and that Bellfield had not as much as a straw mattress to lie upon. In answer to this Mrs
Greenow told him that there was so much more reason why
some one should provide the poor man with a mattress. ‘If you look at it in that light, of course it’s true,’ said Cheesacre. Mrs Greenow told him that she did look at it in that light. ‘Then I’ve done about that,’ said Cheesacre; ‘and as to the little bit of money he owes me, I must give him his time about it, I suppose.’ Mrs Greenow assured him that it should be paid as soon as possible after
the nuptial benediction had been said over them. She offered, indeed, to pay it at once if he was in distress for it, but he answered contemptuously that he never was in distress for money. He liked to have his own, – that was all.

After this he did not get away to his next subject quite so easily as he wished; and it must be admitted that there was a difficulty. As he could not have Mrs Greenow
he would be content to put up with Kate for his wife. That was his next subject. Rumours as to the old Squire’s will had no doubt reached him, and he was now willing to take advantage of that assistance which Mrs Greenow had before offered him in this matter. The time had come in which he ought to marry; of that he was aware. He had told many of his friends in Norfolk that Kate Vavasor had thrown
herself at his head, and very probably he had thought it true. In answer to all his love speeches to herself, the aunt had always told him what an excellent wife her niece would make him. So now he had come to Westmoreland with this second string to his bow. ‘You know you put it into my head your own self,’ pleaded Mr Cheesacre. ‘Didn’t you, now?’

‘But things are so different since that,’ said
the widow.

‘How different? I ain’t different There’s Oileymead just where it always was, and the owner of it don’t owe a shilling to any man. How are things different?’

‘My niece has inherited property.’

‘And is that to make a change? Oh! Mrs Greenow, who would have thought to find you mercenary like that? Inherited property! Is she going to fling a man over because of that?’

Mrs Greenow endeavoured
to explain to him that her niece could hardly be said to have flung him over, and at last pretended to become angry when he attempted to assert his position. ‘Why,
Mr Cheesacre, I am quite sure she never gave you a word of encouragement in her life.’

‘But you always told me I might have her for the asking.’

‘And now I tell you that you mayn’t. It’s of no use your going on there to ask her, for
she will only send you away with an answer you won’t like. Look here, Mr Cheesacre; you want to get married, and it’s quite time you should. There’s my dear friend Charlie Fairstairs. How could you get a better wife than Charlie?’

‘Charlie Fairstairs!’ said Cheesacre, turning up his nose in disgust. ‘She hasn’t got a penny, nor any one belonging to her. The man who marries her will have to find
the money for the smock she stands up in.’

‘Who’s mercenary now, Mr Cheesacre? Do you go home and think of it; and if you’ll marry Charlie, I’ll go to your wedding. You shan’t be ashamed of her clothing. I’ll see to that.’