Can You Forgive Her? Part 107

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

"Hus.h.!.+" said the widow, "there's a carriage coming on the road--close to us."

CHAPTER LXV.

The First Kiss.

"Hus.h.!.+" 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 ante-nuptial 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 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 at 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?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 Oileymead 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sistance 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 a.s.sert 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."