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 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 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 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.
