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 struck 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.
"Now I've told you a bit of my mind, Cheesy, my boy," continued
Bellfield, "and you'll save yourself a deal of trouble and annoyance
if you'll believe what I say. She doesn't mean to marry you. It's
most probable that she'll marry me; but, at any rate, she won't marry
you."
"Do you mean to pay me my money, sir?" said Cheesacre, at last,
finding his readiest means of attack in that quarter.
"Yes, I do."
"But when?"
"When I've married Mrs. Greenow,--and, therefore, I expect your
assistance in that little scheme. Let us drink her health. We shall
always be delighted to see you at our house, Cheesy, my boy, and you
shall be allowed to hack the hams just as much as you please."
"You shall be made to pay for this," said Cheesacre, gasping with
anger;--gasping almost more with dismay than he did with anger.
"All right, old fellow; I'll pay for it,--with the widow's money.
Come; our half-hour is nearly over; shall we go up-stairs?"
"I'll expose you."
"Don't now;--don't be ill-natured."
"Will you tell me where you mean to sleep to-night, Captain
Bellfield?"
"If I sleep at Oileymead it will only be on condition that I have one
of the mahogany-furnitured bedrooms."
"You'll never put your foot in that house again. You're a rascal,
sir."
"Come, come, Cheesy, it won't do for us to quarrel in a lady's house.
It wouldn't be the thing at all. You're not drinking your wine. You
might as well take another glass, and then we'll go up-stairs."
"You've left your traps at Oileymead, and not one of them you shall
have till you've paid me every shilling you owe me. I don't believe
you've a shirt in the world beyond what you've got there."
"It's lucky I brought one in to change; wasn't it, Cheesy? I
shouldn't have thought of it only for the hint you gave me. I might
as well ring the bell for Jeannette to put away the wine, if you
won't take any more." Then he rang the bell, and when Jeannette came
he skipped lightly up-stairs into the drawing-room.
"Was he here before to-day?" said Cheesacre, nodding his head at the
doorway through which Bellfield had passed.
"Who? The Captain? Oh dear no. The Captain don't come here much
now;--not to say often, by no means."
"He's a confounded rascal."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre!" said Jeannette.
"He is;--and I ain't sure that there ain't others nearly as bad as he
is."
"If you mean me, Mr. Cheesacre, I do declare you're a wronging me; I
do indeed."
"What's the meaning of his going on in this way?"
"I don't know nothing of his ways, Mr. Cheesacre; but I've been as
true to you, sir;--so I have;--as true as true." And Jeannette put
her handkerchief up to her eyes.
He moved to the door, and then a thought occurred to him. He put his
hand to his trousers pocket, and turning back towards the girl, gave
her half-a-crown. She curtsied as she took it, and then repeated her
last words. "Yes, Mr. Cheesacre,--as true as true." Mr. Cheesacre said
nothing further, but followed his enemy up to the drawing-room. "What
game is up now, I wonder," said Jeannette to herself, when she was
left alone. "They two'll be cutting each other's throatses before
they've done, and then my missus will take the surwiver." But she
made up her mind that Cheesacre should be the one to have his throat
cut fatally, and that Bellfield should be the survivor.
Cheesacre, when he reached the drawing-room, found Bellfield sitting
on the same sofa with Mrs. Greenow looking at a book of photographs
which they both of them were handling together. The outside rim of
her widow's frill on one occasion touched the Captain's whisker, and
as it did so the Captain looked up with a gratified expression of
triumph. If any gentleman has ever seen the same thing under similar
circumstances, he will understand that Cheesacre must have been
annoyed.
"Yes," said Mrs. Greenow, waving her handkerchief, of which little but
a two-inch-deep border seemed to be visible. Bellfield knew at once
that it was not the same handkerchief which she had waved before they
went down to dinner. "Yes,--there he is. It's so like him." And then
she apostrophized the _carte de visite_ of the departed one. "Dear
Greenow; dear husband! When my spirit is false to thee, let thine
forget to visit me softly in my dreams. Thou wast unmatched among
husbands. Whose tender kindness was ever equal to thine? whose sweet
temper was ever so constant? whose manly care so all-sufficient?"
While the words fell from her lips her little finger was touching
Bellfield's little finger, as they held the book between them.
Charlie Fairstairs and Mr. Cheesacre were watching her narrowly, and
she knew that they were watching her. She was certainly a woman of
great genius and of great courage.
[Illustration: "Dear Greenow; dear husband!"]
Bellfield, moved by the eloquence of her words, looked with some
interest at the photograph. There was represented there before him,
a small, grey-looking, insignificant old man, with pig's eyes and a
toothless mouth,--one who should never have been compelled to submit
himself to the cruelty of the sun's portraiture! Another widow, even
if she had kept in her book the photograph of such a husband, would
have scrambled it over silently,--would have been ashamed to show it.
"Have you ever seen it, Mr. Cheesacre?" asked Mrs. Greenow. "It's so
like him."
"I saw it at Yarmouth," said Cheesacre, very sulkily.
"That you did not," said the lady with some dignity, and not a little
of rebuke in her tone; "simply because it never was at Yarmouth. A
larger one you may have seen, which I always keep, and always shall
keep, close by my bedside."
"Not if I know it," said Captain Bellfield to himself. Then the widow
punished Mr. Cheesacre for his sullenness by whispering a few words to
the Captain; and Cheesacre in his wrath turned to Charlie Fairstairs.
Then it was that he spake out his mind about the Captain's rank, and
was snubbed by Charlie,--as was told a page or two back.
After that, coffee was brought to them, and here again Cheesacre in
his ill-humour allowed the Captain to out-manoeuvre him. It was the
Captain who put the sugar into the cups and handed them round. He
even handed a cup to his enemy. "None for me, Captain Bellfield; many
thanks for your politeness all the same," said Mr. Cheesacre; and
Mrs. Greenow knew from the tone of his voice that there had been a
quarrel.
Cheesacre sitting then in his gloom, had resolved upon one
thing,--or, I may perhaps say, upon two things. He had resolved that
he would not leave the room that evening till Bellfield had left it;
and that he would get a final answer from the widow, if not that
night,--for he thought it very possible that they might both be sent
away together,--then early after breakfast on the following morning.
For the present, he had given up any idea of turning his time to
good account. He was not perhaps a coward, but he had not that
special courage which enables a man to fight well under adverse
circumstances. He had been cowed by the unexpected impertinence of
his rival,--by the insolence of a man to whom he thought that he had
obtained the power of being always himself as insolent as he pleased.
He could not recover his ground quickly, or carry himself before his
lady's eye as though he was unconscious of the wound he had received.
So he sat silent, while Bellfield was discoursing fluently. He sat
in silence, comforting himself with reflections on his own wealth,
and on the poverty of the other, and promising himself a rich harvest
of revenge when the moment should come in which he might tell Mrs.
Greenow how absolutely that man was a beggar, a swindler, and a
rascal.
And he was astonished when an opportunity for doing so came very
quickly. Before the neighbouring clock had done striking seven,
Bellfield rose from his chair to go. He first of all spoke a word of
farewell to Miss Fairstairs; then he turned to his late host; "Good
night, Cheesacre," he said, in the easiest tone in the world; after
that he pressed the widow's hand and whispered his adieu.
"I thought you were staying at Oileymead?" said Mrs. Greenow.
"I came from there this morning," said the Captain.
"But he isn't going back there, I can tell you," said Mr. Cheesacre.
"Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Greenow; "I hope there is nothing wrong."
"All as right as a trivet," said the Captain; and then he was off.
"I promised mamma that I would be home by seven," said Charlie
Fairstairs, rising from her chair. It cannot be supposed that she had
any wish to oblige Mr. Cheesacre, and therefore this movement on her
part must be regarded simply as done in kindness to Mrs. Greenow. She
might be mistaken in supposing that Mrs. Greenow would desire to be
left alone with Mr. Cheesacre; but it was clear to her that in this
way she could give no offence, whereas it was quite possible that she
might offend by remaining. A little after seven Mr. Cheesacre found
himself alone with the lady.
"I'm sorry to find," said she, gravely, "that you two have
quarrelled."
"Mrs. Greenow," said he, jumping up, and becoming on a sudden full of
life, "that man is a downright swindler."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre."
"He is. He'll tell you that he was at Inkerman, but I believe he
was in prison all the time." The Captain had been arrested, I think
twice, and thus Mr. Cheesacre justified to himself this assertion. "I
doubt whether he ever saw a shot fired," he continued.
"He's none the worse for that."
"But he tells such lies; and then he has not a penny in the world.
How much do you suppose he owes me, now?"
"However much it is, I'm sure you are too much of a gentleman to
say."
"Well;--yes, I am," said he, trying to recover himself. "But when I
asked him how he intended to pay me, what do you think he said? He
said he'd pay me when he got your money."
"My money! He couldn't have said that!"
"But he did, Mrs. Greenow; I give you my word and honour. 'I'll pay
you when I get the widow's money,' he said."
"You gentlemen must have a nice way of talking about me when I am
absent."
"I never said a disrespectful word about you in my life, Mrs.
Greenow,--or thought one. He does;--he says horrible things."
"What horrible things, Mr. Cheesacre?"
"Oh, I can't tell you;--but he does. What can you expect from such
a man as that, who, to my knowledge, won't have a change of clothes
to-morrow, except what he brought in on his back this morning. Where
he's to get a bed to-night, I don't know, for I doubt whether he's
got half-a-crown in the world."
"Poor Bellfield!"
"Yes; he is poor."
"But how gracefully he carries his poverty."
"I should call it very disgraceful, Mrs. Greenow." To this she made
no reply, and then he thought that he might begin his work. "Mrs.
Greenow,--may I say Arabella?"
"Mr. Cheesacre!"
"But mayn't I? Come, Mrs. Greenow. You know well enough by this time
what it is I mean. What's the use of shilly-shallying?"
"Shilly-shallying, Mr. Cheesacre! I never heard such language. If I
bid you good night, now, and tell you that it is time for you to go
home, shall you call that shilly-shallying?"
He had made a mistake in his word and repented it. "I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Greenow; I do indeed. I didn't mean anything offensive."
"Shilly-shallying, indeed! There's very little shall in it, I can
assure you."
The poor man was dreadfully crestfallen, so much so that the widow's
heart relented, and she pardoned him. It was not in her nature to
quarrel with people;--at any rate, not with her lovers. "I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Greenow," said the culprit, humbly. "It is granted," said
the widow; "but never tell a lady again that she is shilly-shallying.
And look here, Mr. Cheesacre, if it should ever come to pass that you
are making love to a lady in earnest--"
"I couldn't be more in earnest," said he.
"That you are making love to a lady in earnest, talk to her a little
more about your passion and a little less about your purse. Now, good
night."
"But we are friends."
"Oh yes;--as good friends as ever."
Cheesacre, as he drove himself home in the dark, tried to console
himself by thinking of the miserable plight in which Bellfield would
find himself at Norwich, with no possessions but what he had brought
into the town that day in a small bag. But as he turned in at his
own gate he met two figures emerging; one of them was laden with a
portmanteau, and the other with a hat case.
"It's only me, Cheesy, my boy," said Bellfield. "I've just come down
by the rail to fetch my things, and I'm going back to Norwich by the
9.20.
"If you've stolen anything of mine I'll have you prosecuted," roared
Cheesacre, as he drove his gig up to his own door.
VOLUME II.