Lady Macleod lived at No. 3, Paramount Crescent, in Cheltenham, where she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom behind it, looking over a stable-yard, and a small room which would have been the dressing-room had the late Sir Archibald been alive, but which was at present called the dining-room: and in it Lady Macleod did dine whenever her larger room was to be used for any purposes of evening company. The vicinity of the stable-yard was not regarded by the tenant as among the attractions of the house; but it had the effect of lowering the rent, and Lady Macleod was a woman who regarded such matters. Her income, though small, would have sufficed to enable her to live removed from such discomforts; but she was one of those women who regard it as a duty to leave something behind them,--even though it be left to those who do not at all want it; and Lady Macleod was a woman who wilfully neglected no duty. So she pinched herself, and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who cared, perhaps, little for her, and would hardly thank her memory for the money.
Had Alice consented to live with her, she would have merged that duty of leaving money behind her in that other duty of finding a home for her adopted niece. But Alice had gone away, and therefore the money was due to Lady Midlothian rather than to her. The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice would consent to visit Cheltenham; and a bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables. Accommodation was also found for her maid much better than that provided for Lady Macleod's own maid. She was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she was so hard to cabmen and others, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, and people generally of a rank of life inferior to her own, a pity that she was disposed to condemn for ever and ever so many of her own rank because they played cards on week days, and did not go to church on Sundays,--and a pity, as I think above all, that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of earls, earl's sons, and such like.
Alice, having fully considered the matter, had thought it most prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter what she had done in regard to Mr. Grey. There had been many objections to the writing of such a letter, but there appeared to be stronger objection to that telling it face to face which would have been forced upon her had she not written. There would in such case have arisen on Lady Macleod's countenance a sternness of rebuke which Alice did not choose to encounter. The same sternness of rebuke would come upon the countenance on receipt of the written information; but it would come in its most aggravated form on the immediate receipt of the letter, and some of its bitterness would have passed away before Alice's arrival. I think that Alice was right. It is better for both parties that any great offence should be confessed by letter.
But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at No. 3, Paramount Crescent. She met her aunt, as was usual, just inside the drawing-room door, and she saw at once that if any bitterness had passed away from that face, the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter. She had so timed her letter that Lady Macleod should have no opportunity of answering it. The answer was written there in the mingled anger and sorrow of those austere features.
"Alice!" she said, as she took her niece in her arms and kissed her; "oh, Alice, what is this?"
"Yes, aunt; it is very bad, I know," and poor Alice tried to make a jest of it. "Young ladies are very wicked when they don't know their own minds. But if they haven't known them and have been wicked, what can they do but repent?"
"Repent!" said Lady Macleod. "Yes; I hope you will repent. Poor Mr. Grey;--what must he think of it?"
"I can only hope, aunt, that he won't think of it at all for very long."
"That's nonsense, my dear, Of course he'll think of it, and of course you'll marry him."
"Shall I, aunt?"
"Of course you will. Why, Alice, hasn't it been all settled among families? Lady Midlothian knew all the particulars of it just as well as I did. And is not your word pledged to him? I really don't understand what you mean. I don't see how it is possible you should go back. Gentlemen when they do that kind of thing are put out of society;--but I really think it is worse in a woman."
"Then they may if they please put me out of society;--only that I don't know that I'm particularly in it."
"And the wickedness of the thing, Alice! I'm obliged to say so."
"When you talk to me about society, aunt, and about Lady Midlothian, I give up to you, willingly;--the more willingly, perhaps, because I don't care much for one or the other." Here Lady Macleod tried to say a word; but she failed, and Alice went on, boldly looking up into her aunt's face, which became a shade more bitter than ever. "But when you tell me about wickedness and my conscience, then I must be my own judge. It is my conscience, and the fear of committing wickedness, that has made me do this."
"You should submit to be guided by your elders, Alice."
"No; my elders in such a matter as this cannot teach me. It cannot be right that I should go to a man's house and be his wife, if I do not think that I can make him happy."
"Then why did you accept him?"
"Because I was mistaken. I am not going to defend that. If you choose to scold me for that, you may do so, aunt, and I will not answer you. But as to marrying him or not marrying him now,--as to that, I must judge for myself."
"It was a pity you did not know your own mind earlier."
"It was a pity,--a great pity. I have done myself an injury that is quite irretrievable;--I know that, and am prepared to bear it. I have done him, too, an injustice which I regret with my whole heart. I can only excuse myself by saying that I might have done him a worse injustice."
All this was said at the very moment of her arrival, and the greeting did not seem to promise much for the happiness of the next month; but perhaps it was better for them both that the attack and the defence should thus be made suddenly, at their first meeting. It is better to pull the string at once when you are in the shower-bath, and not to stand shivering, thinking of the inevitable shock which you can only postpone for a few minutes. Lady Macleod in this case had pulled the string, and thus reaped the advantage of her alacrity.
"Well, my dear," said her ladyship, "I suppose you will like to go up-stairs and take off your bonnet. Mary shall bring you some tea when you come down." So Alice escaped, and when she returned to the comfort of her cup of tea in the drawing-room, the fury of the storm had passed away. She sat talking of other things till dinner; and though Lady Macleod did during the evening make one allusion to "poor Mr. Grey," the subject was allowed to drop. Alice was very tender as to her aunt's ailments, was more than ordinarily attentive to the long list of Cheltenham iniquities which was displayed to her, and refrained from combating any of her aunt's religious views. After a while they got upon the subject of Aunt Greenow, for whose name Lady Macleod had a special aversion,--as indeed she had for all the Vavasor side of Alice's family; and then Alice offered to read, and did read to her aunt many pages out of one of those terrible books of wrath, which from time to time come forth and tell us that there is no hope for us. Lady Macleod liked to be so told; and as she now, poor woman, could not read at nights herself, she enjoyed her evening.
Lady Macleod no doubt did enjoy her niece's sojourn at Cheltenham, but I do not think it could have been pleasant to Alice. On the second day nothing was said about Mr. Grey, and Alice hoped that by her continual readings in the book of wrath her aunt's heart might be softened towards her. But it seemed that Lady Macleod measured the periods of respite, for on the third day and on the fifth she returned to the attack. "Did John Grey still wish that the match should go on?" she asked, categorically. It was in vain that Alice tried to put aside the question, and begged that the matter might not be discussed. Lady Macleod insisted on her right to carry on the examination, and Alice was driven to acknowledge that she believed he did wish it. She could hardly say otherwise, seeing that she had at that moment a letter from him in her pocket, in which he still spoke of his engagement as being absolutely binding on him, and expressed a hope that this change from London to Cheltenham would bring her round and set everything to rights. He certainly did, in a fashion, wave his hand over her, as Kate had said of him. This letter Alice had resolved that she would not answer. He would probably write again, and she would beg him to desist. Instead of Cheltenham bringing her round, Cheltenham had made her firmer than ever in her resolution. I am inclined to think that the best mode of bringing her round at this moment would have been a course of visits from her cousin George, and a series of letters from her cousin Kate. Lady Macleod's injunctions would certainly not bring her round.
After ten days, ten terrible days, devoted to discussions on matrimony in the morning, and to the book of wrath in the evening,--relieved by two tea-parties, in which the sins of Cheltenham were discussed at length,--Lady Macleod herself got a letter from Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey's kindest compliments to Lady Macleod. He believed that Lady Macleod was aware of the circumstances of his engagement with Miss Vavasor. Might he call on Miss Vavasor at Lady Macleod's house in Cheltenham? and might he also hope to have the pleasure of making Lady Macleod's acquaintance? Alice had been in the room when her aunt received this letter, but her aunt had said nothing, and Alice had not known from whom the letter had come. When her aunt crept away with it after breakfast she had suspected nothing, and had never imagined that Lady Macleod, in the privacy of her own room looking out upon the stables, had addressed a letter to Nethercoats. But such a letter had been addressed to Nethercoats, and Mr. Grey had been informed that he would be received in Paramount Crescent with great pleasure.
Mr. Grey had even indicated the day on which he would come, and on the morning of that day Lady Macleod had presided over the two teacups in a state of nervous excitement which was quite visible to Alice. More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she was specially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt's fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost impossible not to allude to it. "There's nothing the matter, my dear, at all," at last Lady Macleod said; but as she said so she was making up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr. Grey's intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the breakfast table she would say nothing about it then, but waited till the teacups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr. Grey's letter in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it out and held it on the little table before her.
"Alice," she said, "I expect a visitor here to-day."
Alice knew instantly who was the expected visitor. Probably any girl under such circumstances would have known equally well. "A visitor, aunt," she said, and managed to hide her knowledge admirably.
"Yes, Alice a visitor. I should have told you before, only I thought,--I thought I had better not. It is Mr.--Mr. Grey."
"Indeed, aunt! Is he coming to see you?"
"Well;--he is desirous no doubt of seeing you more especially; but he has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance, which I cannot, under the circumstances, think is unnatural. Of course, Alice, he must want to talk over this affair with your friends."
"I wish I could have spared them," said Alice,--"I wish I could."
"I have brought his letter here, and you can see it if you please. It is very nicely written, and as far as I am concerned I should not think of refusing to see him. And now comes the question. What are we to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I take it for granted that he will not expect me to offer him a bed, as he knows that I live in lodgings."
"Oh no, aunt; he certainly will not expect that."
"But ought I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means of doing so are;--but I really do not know how it might be,--between you and him, I mean."
"We should not fight, aunt."
"No, I suppose not;--but if you cannot be affectionate in your manner to him--"
"I will not answer for my manners, aunt; but you may be sure of this,--that I should be affectionate in my heart. I shall always regard him as a dearly loved friend; though for many years, no doubt, I shall be unable to express my friendship."
"That may be all very well, Alice, but it will not be what he will want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to dinner."
"Perhaps not, aunt."
"It is a period of the day in which any special constraint among people is more disagreeable than at any other time, and then at dinner the servants must see it. I think there might be some awkwardness if he were to dine here."
"I really think there would," said Alice, anxious to have the subject dropped.
"I hope he won't think that I am inhospitable. I should be so happy to do the best I could for him, for I regard him, Alice, quite as though he were to be your husband. And when anybody at all connected with me has come to Cheltenham I always have asked them to dine, and then I have Gubbins's man to come and wait at table,--as you know."
"Of all men in the world Mr. Grey is the last to think about it."
"That should only make me the more careful. But I think it would perhaps be more comfortable if he were to come in the evening."
"Much more comfortable, aunt."
"I suppose he will be here in the afternoon, before dinner, and we had better wait at home for him. I dare say he'll want to see you alone, and therefore I'll retire to my own rooms,"--looking over the stables! Dear old lady. "But if you wish it, I will receive him first--and then Martha,"--Martha was Alice's maid--"can fetch you down."
This discussion as to the propriety or impropriety of giving her lover a dinner had not been pleasant to Alice, but, nevertheless, when it was over she felt grateful to Lady Macleod. There was an attempt in the arrangement to make Mr. Grey's visit as little painful as possible; and though such a discussion at such a time might as well have been avoided, the decision to which her ladyship had at last come with reference both to the dinner and the management of the visit was, no doubt, the right one.
Lady Macleod had been quite correct in all her anticipations. At three o'clock Mr. Grey was announced, and Lady Macleod, alone, received him in her drawing-room. She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice, to bid him still keep up his heart and as it were hold up his head, to confess to him how very badly Alice was behaving, and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct. But she found that Mr. Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice. It was he who did the speaking at this conference, and not she. She was overawed by him after the first three minutes. Indeed her first glance at him had awed her. He was so handsome,--and then, in his beauty, he had so quiet and almost saddened an air! Strange to say that after she had seen him, Lady Macleod entertained for him an infinitely higher admiration than before, and yet she was less surprised than she had been at Alice's refusal of him. The conference was very short; and Mr. Grey had not been a quarter of an hour in the house before Martha attended upon her mistress with her summons.
Alice was ready and came down instantly. She found Mr. Grey standing in the middle of the room waiting to receive her, and the look of majesty which had cowed Lady Macleod had gone from his countenance. He could not have received her with a kinder smile, had she come to him with a promise that she would at this meeting name the day for their marriage. "At any rate it does not make him unhappy," she said to herself.
"You are not angry," he said, "that I should have followed you all the way here, to see you."
"No, certainly; not angry, Mr. Grey. All anger that there may be between us must be on your side. I feel that thoroughly."
"Then there shall be none on either side. Whatever may be done, I will not be angry with you. Your father advised me to come down here to you."
"You have seen him, then?"
"Yes, I have seen him. I was in London the day you left."
"It is so terrible to think that I should have brought upon you all this trouble."
"You will bring upon me much worse trouble than that unless--. But I have not now come down here to tell you that. I believe that according to rule in such matters I should not have come to you at all, but I don't know that I care much about such rules."
"It is I that have broken all rules."
"When a lady tells a gentleman that she does not wish to see more of him--"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I have not told you that."
"Have you not? I am glad at any rate to hear you deny it. But you will understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal from a lady he should accept it,--that is, his dismissal under such circumstances as I have received mine. But I cannot lay down my love in that way; nor, maintaining my love, can I give up the battle. It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of your comings and goings as long as,--unless, Alice, you should take another name than mine."
"My intention is to keep my own." This she said in the lowest possible tone,--almost in a whisper,--with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
"And you will not deny me that right?"
"I cannot hinder you. Whatever you may do, I myself have sinned so against you that I can have no right to blame you."
"There shall be no question between us of injury from one to the other. In any conversation that we may have, or in any correspondence--"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, do not ask me to write."
"Listen to me. Should there be any on either side, there shall be no idea of any wrong done."
"But I have done you wrong;--great wrong."
"No, Alice; I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my hand,--begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot to ask from a fellow-mortal,--I knew well how great was your goodness to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now that you refuse it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are acting for my welfare,--thinking more of my welfare than of your own."
"Oh yes, yes; it is so, Mr. Grey; indeed it is so."
"Believing that, how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your thinking on this subject,--that your mind has become twisted by false impressions,--that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you less,--nor, so believing, can I consider myself to be injured. Nor am I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife."
She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his eyes,--in his mouth, in the whole visage of his countenance. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love. But Mr. Grey when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when confessing that it was now at stake with a decision against him that would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose tree.
"I hope--and believe that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr. Grey."
"Well; we can but differ, Alice. In that we do differ. And now I will say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to you against your will, it would seem that I were persecuting you. I cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. I do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January,--as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly refuse to see me."
"No," she said; "I cannot refuse to see you."
"Then it shall be so," he said, "and I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest thanks." Then he took her hand and pressed it,--not as George Vavasor had pressed it,--and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found that the question of the evening's tea arrangements had settled itself.

Lady Macleod lived at No. 3, Paramount Crescent, in Cheltenham, where she occupied a very handsome first-floor drawing-room, with a bedroom behind it overlooking the stable-yard, and a small dining-room. The stable-yard was not attractive; but it lowered the rent. Lady Macleod's income, though small, would have sufficed for her to live without such discomforts; but she thought it her duty to leave some money behind to be inherited. So she inhaled the scent of the stables, and squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who would hardly thank her memory for the money.
The saving, however, was postponed whenever Alice visited Cheltenham; and a bedroom was secured for her which did not look out over the stables. Lady Macleod was a hospitable, good old woman, painfully struggling to do the best she could in the world. It was a pity that she was such a bore, a pity that she suspected all tradesmen, servants, cabmen and people of an inferior rank generally - and a pity that while she was so suspicious of the poor she was so lenient to the vices of the high-born.
Alice had thought it prudent to tell Lady Macleod by letter about Mr. Grey. This had seemed preferable to telling her face to face; some of Lady Macleod's bitterness of rebuke would have passed away before Alice's arrival.
But Alice trembled as the cab drew up at Paramount Crescent. She met her aunt at the drawing-room door, and saw at once that if any bitterness had passed away from that face, the original bitterness must indeed have been bitter. Anger and sorrow were mingled in those austere features.
"Alice!" she said, as she kissed her niece; "oh, Alice, what is this?"
"Yes, aunt; it is very bad, I know." Poor Alice tried to make a jest of it. "Young ladies are very wicked when they don't know their own minds. But if they haven't known them, what can they do but repent?"
"Repent!" said Lady Macleod. "Yes; I hope you will repent. Poor Mr. Grey; what must he think?"
"I hope, aunt, that he won't think of it at all for very long."
"That's nonsense, my dear, Of course he'll think of it, and of course you'll marry him."
"Shall I, aunt?"
"Of course you will. Why, Alice, is not your word pledged to him? I don't see how you can go back on it. Gentlemen when they do that kind of thing are expelled from society; but I really think it is worse in a woman."
"Then they may expel from society; only I don't think I'm particularly in it."
"The wickedness of it, Alice!"
"When you talk to me about society, aunt, I let you," answered Alice boldly. "But when you tell me about wickedness, then I must be my own judge. It is my conscience, and the fear of committing wickedness, that has made me do this."
"You should be guided by your elders, Alice."
"No; in such a matter my elders cannot teach me. It cannot be right that I should be a man's wife if I do not think that I can make him happy."
"Then why did you accept him?"
"Because I was mistaken. If you choose to scold me for that, you may do so, aunt. But as to marrying him, I must judge for myself."
"It was a pity you did not know your own mind earlier."
"It was a great pity. I have done myself an injury that is quite irretrievable; I know that. I have done him, too, an injustice which I regret with my whole heart. I can only excuse myself by saying that I might have done him a worse injustice."
All this was said at the very moment of her arrival, and did not seem to promise much for the happiness of the next month; but perhaps it was better for them both that the attack and the defence should be made at once.
"Well, my dear," said her ladyship, "I suppose you will like to go upstairs and take off your bonnet. Mary shall bring you some tea when you come down."
So Alice escaped, and when she returned to the drawing-room, the fury of the storm had passed away. They talked of other things till dinner; and though Lady Macleod did make one allusion to "poor Mr. Grey," the subject was allowed to drop. Alice was very attentive in asking about her aunt's ailments, and listening to her long list of Cheltenham iniquities, and refrained from combating any of her aunt's religious views.
After a while they got onto the subject of Aunt Greenow, for whom Lady Macleod had a special aversion - as indeed she had for all the Vavasor side of Alice's family; and then Alice offered to read from one of those terrible books of wrathful sermons which Lady Macleod took much pleasure in.
Lady Macleod no doubt did enjoy her niece's stay, but Alice did not. On the second day nothing was said about Mr. Grey, and Alice hoped that by her continual readings in the book of wrath her aunt's heart might be softened towards her. But on the third day Lady Macleod returned to the attack.
"Did John Grey still wish that the match should go on?" she asked. Alice had to admit that she believed he did wish it. She could hardly say otherwise, seeing that she had a letter from him in her pocket, in which he still spoke of his engagement as binding on him, and expressed a hope that this change to Cheltenham would bring her round and set everything to rights. This letter Alice had resolved that she would not answer. He would probably write again, and she would beg him to stop. Instead of bringing her round, Cheltenham had made her firmer than ever in her resolution.
After ten terrible days devoted to discussions on matrimony in the morning, and to the book of wrath in the evening - relieved by two tea-parties, in which the sins of Cheltenham were discussed at length - Lady Macleod herself got a letter from Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey sent her his kindest compliments. He believed that Lady Macleod was aware of the circumstances of his engagement with Miss Vavasor. Might he call on Miss Vavasor at Lady Macleod's house? and also have the pleasure of making Lady Macleod's acquaintance?
Alice was in the room when her aunt received this letter, but her aunt said nothing. After breakfast Lady Macleod privately wrote a reply to Nethercoats, informing Mr. Grey that he would be received in Paramount Crescent with great pleasure.
On the morning of his visit Lady Macleod had presided over the teacups in a state of nervous excitement which was quite visible to Alice. She asked about her aunt's restlessness without suspecting it had anything to do with her.
"There's nothing the matter, my dear," Lady Macleod said. She waited until after breakfast to pull Mr. Grey's letter out of her pocket.
"Alice," she said, "I expect a visitor here today."
Alice knew instantly who the visitor was. "A visitor, aunt?"
"Yes, Alice. Mr. Grey."
"Indeed, aunt! Is he coming to see you?"
"Well, no doubt he wants to see you more; but he has expressed a wish to make my acquaintance. I have his letter here, and you can see it if you wish. It is very nicely written. And now comes the question. What are we to do with him? Am I to ask him to dinner? I should be most happy to entertain him, though you know how very scanty my means are; but I really do not know how it might be - between you and him, I mean."
"We would not fight, aunt. I shall always regard him as a dearly loved friend; though for many years, no doubt, I shall be unable to express my friendship."
"That is all very well, Alice, but it is not what he will want. I think upon the whole that I had better not ask him to dinner. I think there might be some awkwardness if he were to dine here."
"I really think there would," said Alice, anxious to have the subject dropped.
"I hope he won't think that I am inhospitable. I dare say he'll want to see you alone, and therefore I'll retire to my own rooms. But if you wish, I will receive him first, and then the maid can fetch you down." Although this discussion was not pleasant to Alice, she felt grateful to Lady Macleod, who was attempting to make Mr. Grey's visit as little painful as possible.
At three o'clock Mr. Grey was announced, and Lady Macleod received him alone in her drawing-room. She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice: to bid him keep up his heart and hold up his head, to confess to him how badly Alice was behaving, and to express her agreement with his theory of illness.
But she found that Mr. Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice. It was he who did the speaking. She was overawed by him after the first three minutes. He was so handsome - and had so quiet and almost saddened an air! Strange to say, after she had seen him, Lady Macleod admired him much more than before, and yet she was less surprised than she had been at Alice's refusal of him. The conference was very short; and after fifteen minutes the maid went to Alice with her summons.
Alice came down instantly. She found Mr. Grey waiting to receive her, and the look of majesty which had cowed Lady Macleod had gone. He could not have received her with a kinder smile.
"At any rate it does not make him unhappy," she said to herself.
"You are not angry," he said, "that I should have followed you all the way here, to see you?"
"No, certainly not. Any anger must be on your side."
"Then there shall be none on either side. Whatever happens, I will not be angry with you. Your father advised me to come here. I believe that according to the rule in such matters I should not have come to you, but I don't know that I care much about such rules."
"It is I who have broken all rules."
"When a lady tells a gentleman that she does not wish to see more of him-"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, I have not told you that."
"Have you not? I am glad to hear that. But you understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal from a lady he should accept it. But I cannot lay down my love in that way; nor can I give up the battle. It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of your comings and goings - unless, Alice, you should take another name than mine."
"I intend to keep my own." This she said almost in a whisper, with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
"And you will not deny me that right?"
"I have sinned so against you that I can have no right to blame you."
"There shall be no question between us of injury. In any conversation that we may have, or in any correspondence-"
"Oh, Mr. Grey, do not ask me to write."
"Listen to me. Should there be any communication on either side, there shall be no idea of any wrong done."
"But I have done you great wrong."
"No, Alice. When I asked you to accept my hand - begging the greatest gift which I could ever ask for - I knew how great was your goodness to me in accepting it. Now that you refuse it, I know that in doing so you are thinking more of my welfare than of your own."
"Oh yes, indeed."
"Then how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your thinking - that your mind has become twisted by false impressions - that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you less, nor consider myself to be injured. I am more selfish than you. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife."
She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his whole expression. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love. But Mr. Grey, when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and with no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose tree.
"I hope that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr. Grey."
"Well; in that we differ, Alice. And now I will explain why I have come. I cannot accept your decision as final. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January, when you return to town. You will hardly refuse to see me."
"No," she said; "I cannot refuse to see you."
"Meanwhile I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you any longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I give her my kindest thanks." Then he took her hand and pressed it - not as George Vavasor had pressed it - and was gone.


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.

How deep and cunning are the wiles of love! When that Saturday morning arrived, Cheesacre said not a word to his rival about his plans for the day.
"You'll take the dog-cart?" Captain Bellfield had asked.
"I don't know yet," he replied. But Bellfield knew that Cheesacre must take the dog-cart, and was contented. He would make sure that he was not left behind.
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 embroidered front, his shiny boots, and all the rest. He hid the bag away secretly in the back of the dog-cart.
But when he returned into the front hall, he perceived another bag lying near the door.
"What the deuce are you going to do with this?" said he, giving the bag a kick.
"Put it where I saw you putting yours just now," said Bellfield.
"D-- it," exclaimed Cheesacre; and then they sat down to breakfast. "How you hack that ham about," he said. "If you ever provided hams yourself you'd be more particular in cutting them."
This was very bad. Feeling unable to eat the ham under such circumstances, Bellfield made do 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," said Bellfield, upset.
"What's the matter now?"
"It isn't fair to ask a fellow into your house, and then say such things to him. And it isn't what I've been accustomed to either; I can tell you that, Mr. Cheesacre. 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.
"No," said Bellfield; "not immediately."
"Then eat your breakfast, and hold your tongue."
Captain Bellfield did eat his breakfast - leaving the ham untouched - and did hold his tongue, vowing vengeance in his heart. Yet the two men went into Norwich quite amicably. Cheesacre felt that he had trespassed a little, and offered the Captain a cigar in the cart. Bellfield accepted the peace offering.
"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 soldiers' quarters, and look the fellows up."
"All right. But mind this, Bellfield; you're not to be in the Close before four."
"I won't be!"
"Very well. If you deceive me, I'll not drive you back to Oileymead tonight."
In this instance Captain Bellfield had no intention to deceive. He did not think that he could do himself any good by hanging about the widow early in the day. She would be busy with the dinner.
The cathedral clock, therefore, had struck four before the Captain rang Mrs. Greenow's bell. When he was shown into the drawing-room, he found Cheesacre there alone, redolent with the marrow oil.
"Haven't you seen her yet?" asked the Captain.
"No," said Cheesacre sulkily.
"Nor Charlie Fairstairs?"
"I've seen nobody," said Cheesacre. But he was compelled to swallow his anger as the ladies came into the room.
"Whoever would have expected two gentlemen to be so punctual!" said Mrs. Greenow.
The widow was almost gorgeous in her mourning dress. Widows' caps are generally hideous; as are dresses of clinging, melancholy crape. But Mrs. Greenow's cap sat jauntily on her head, and showed just enough of her rich brown hair to give her the appearance of youth. Her crape never became faded and rusty, or formed itself into old lumpy folds of cloth.
Mrs. Greenow would still talk much about her husband, as though he had left her only yesterday; but she mistook her dates, referring to the melancholy circumstance as having taken place fifteen months ago. In truth, it was nine months, as everyone knew. But why should they remind her of it? Charlie Fairstairs spoke of the fifteen months with bold confidence, false-tongued little parasite that she was.
"Yes, I'm well enough in health," said the widow, "and I suppose I ought to be thankful for it. But if you had buried a wife whom you had loved within the last eighteen months, you too would be indifferent to all that kind of thing. If I were you, Mr. Cheesacre, I would not run the risk of marrying. The sufferings are too great!" Whereupon she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
"But I mean to try all the same," said Cheesacre, gazing lover-like into the fair one's face.
"Then I hope that she may not be torn away from you early in life. Is dinner ready, Jeannette? Good. Mr. Cheesacre, will you give your arm to Miss Fairstairs?"
There was no doubt as to Mrs. Greenow's correctness. As a former soldier, Captain Bellfield was entitled to take the mistress down to dinner. But Cheesacre did not look at it in this light. He only remembered that he had paid for the Captain's food, that the Captain had been brought into Norwich in his gig, that the Captain owed him money, and ought to be regarded as his property.
"I pay my way, and that ought to give a man a higher station than being a beggarly captain, which I don't believe he is, if the truth was known," he complained to Miss Fairstairs over dinner.
"If you were a magistrate, Mr. Cheesacre, you would have rank; but I believe you are not." Charlie Fairstairs knew what she was doing. Mr. Cheesacre had tried hard to get his name put up as a magistrate, but had failed.
"Nasty, scraggy old cat," he said to himself, as he turned away from her.
But Bellfield gained little by taking the widow down to dinner. He and Cheesacre were at either end of the table, and the ladies sat at the sides. Mrs. Greenow's hospitality was very good. 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 played the kind hostess to perfection. Under her eye Cheesacre was forced into apparent cordiality with Bellfield, and the Captain took the good things provided with thankful good-humour.
The widow was so accurately fair in her favours that even Jeannette could not tell to which of the two men she gave the warmest smile. She talked 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, "We will allow these two gentlemen just half an hour, eh Charlie? and then we shall expect them upstairs."
"Ten minutes will be enough for us here," said Cheesacre.
"Half an hour," said Mrs. Greenow, with a little tone of command. Ten minutes might be enough for Mr. Cheesacre, but it was not enough for her.
Bellfield had opened the door, and the widow glanced at him as she left the room. Cheesacre saw it, and resolved to resent it.
"I'll tell you what it is, Bellfield," he said moodily, "I won't have you coming here at all, till this matter is settled."
"What matter?" 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. That other fellow has only been dead about nine months, and I've got the thing in excellent train already."
"And what harm do I do?"
"You disturb me, and you disturb her. You do it on purpose. I'll tell you what; 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."
"And be told that I hack the ham because it's not my own. Shall I tell you what I think, Cheesacre? That woman has no more idea of marrying you than she has of marrying the Bishop. Won't you fill your glass, old fellow? You may as well give it up. 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?
"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 talked of hers - as I have done. As it is, you haven't any chance at all."
Bellfield went on drinking his wine comfortably. Cheesacre was so astounded that the creature whom he had fed - whom he had bribed - should thus turn against him, that for a while he could not speak. It occurred to him that he, Cheesacre, was expected to drive Bellfield home this very evening.
"Now I've told you my mind, Cheesy, my boy," continued Bellfield, "and you'll save yourself a deal of trouble 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.
"Yes, I do."
"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 as much as you please."
"You shall pay for this," said Cheesacre, gasping with anger and dismay.
"All right, old fellow; I'll pay for it - with the widow's money. Come; our half-hour is nearly over; shall we go upstairs?"
"I'll expose you."
"Don't be ill-natured."
"Where do you mean to sleep tonight, 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. Take another glass, and then we'll go upstairs. No? I might as well ring the bell for Jeannette to take away the wine." Then he rang the bell, and when Jeannette came he skipped lightly upstairs into the drawing-room.
"Was he here earlier today?" demanded Cheesacre of Jeanette.
"Who? The Captain? Oh dear no. The Captain don't come here often now."
"He's a confounded rascal."
"Oh, Mr. Cheesacre!" said Jeannette.
"He is; and others are nearly as bad."
"If you mean me, Mr. Cheesacre, I do declare you're wronging me. I've been as true as true to you, sir; so I have." And Jeannette put her handkerchief up to her eyes.
A thought occurred to Mr. Cheesacre. He put his hand to his trousers pocket, and gave her half-a-crown. He said nothing further, but followed his enemy up to the drawing-room.
"What game is up now, I wonder," said Jeannette to herself. "They'll cut each other's throats before they've done." But she decided that in that case Bellfield should be the survivor.
In the drawing-room Cheesacre found Bellfield sitting on the sofa with Mrs. Greenow looking at a book of photographs together. The outside rim of her widow's frill on one occasion touched the Captain's whisker, and the Captain looked up with an expression of triumph.
"Yes," said Mrs. Greenow, waving her handkerchief. "Yes, there he is. It's so like him. Dear man! Thou wast unmatched among husbands. Whose tender kindness was ever equal to thine? whose sweet temper was so constant? whose manly care so great?" While she spoke 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 courage.
Bellfield looked with some interest at the photograph. It showed a small, grey-looking, insignificant old man, with pig's eyes and a toothless mouth. Any other widow, even if she had kept the photograph of such a husband, would have been ashamed to show it.
"Have you ever seen it, Mr. Cheesacre?" asked Mrs. Greenow.
"I saw it at Yarmouth," said Cheesacre, very sulkily.
"That you did not," said the lady with some dignity, and rebuke in her tone; "because it never was at Yarmouth." Then she punished Mr. Cheesacre for his sullenness by whispering a few words to the Captain; and Cheesacre in his wrath turned to Charlie Fairstairs.
After that, coffee was brought to them, and here again Cheesacre in his ill-humour allowed the Captain to out-manuvre him. It was the Captain who put the sugar into the cups and handed them round. He even handed a cup to his enemy, who refused it sulkily.
Cheesacre in his gloom resolved upon two things. He 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, then early after breakfast on the following morning. He sat silent, while Bellfield was talking fluently, and comforted himself with reflections on his own wealth, and promised himself a rich harvest of revenge when he should tell Mrs. Greenow how 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 finished striking seven, Bellfield rose from his chair to go.
He spoke a word of farewell to Miss Fairstairs; then he said "Good night, Cheesacre," 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 left.
"I promised mamma that I would be home by seven," said Charlie Fairstairs, rising from her chair. So Mr. Cheesacre found himself alone with the lady.
"I'm sorry," 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. I doubt whether he ever saw a shot fired."
"He's none the worse for that."
"But he tells such lies; and 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. '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. 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 doesn't have a spare set of clothes for his back? Where he's to get a bed tonight, 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?"
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Greenow."
"Shilly-shallying, indeed! There's very little shall in it, I can assure you."
The poor man was so dreadfully crestfallen that the widow relented. It was not in her nature to quarrel 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.
"-talk to her a little more about your passion and a little less about your purse. Now, good night."
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. 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 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 door.

Chapter 40: Mrs. Greenow's Little Dinner in the Close