Anthony Trollope - The Palliser Novels - Complete Series - All 6 Books in One Edition

“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 farmyard; 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 upstairs?”

“I’ll expose you.”

“Don’t now;—don’t be illnatured.”

“Will you tell me where 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. You might as well take another glass, and then we’ll go upstairs.”

“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 upstairs 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.

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.”