There was a good deal to be said on Mr. Cheesacre’s behalf. Mahogany-furnitured bedrooms assist one’s comfort in this life; and heaps of manure, though they are not brilliant in romance, are very efficacious in farming. Mrs. Greenow by no means despised these things; and as for the owner of them, though she saw that there was much amiss in his character, she thought that his little foibles were of such a nature that she, as his wife, or any other woman of spirit, might be able to repress them, if not to cure them. But she had already married for money once, as she told herself very plainly on this occasion, and she thought that she might now venture on a little love. Her marriage for money had been altogether successful. The nursing of old Greenow had not been very disagreeable to her, nor had it taken longer than she had anticipated. She had now got all the reward that she had ever promised herself, and she really did feel grateful to his memory. I almost think that among those plentiful tears some few drops belonged to sincerity. She was essentially a happy-tempered woman, blessed with a good digestion, who looked back upon her past life with contentment, and forward to her future life with confidence. She would not be greedy, she said to herself. She did not want more money, and therefore she would have none of Mr. Cheesacre. So far she resolved—resolving also that, if possible, the mahogany-furnitured bedrooms should be kept in the family, and made over to her niece, Kate Vavasor.
But should she marry for love; and if so, should Captain Bellfield be the man? Strange to say, his poverty and his scampishness and his lies almost recommended him to her. At any rate, it was not of those things that she was afraid. She had a woman’s true belief in her own power, and thought that she could cure them—as far as they needed cure. As for his stories about Inkerman, and his little debts, she cared nothing about that. She also had her Inkermans, and was quite aware that she made as good use of them as the Captain did of his. And as for the debts—what was a man to do who hadn’t got any money? She also had owed for her gloves and corsets in the ante-Greenow days of her adventures. But there was this danger—that there might be more behind of which she had never heard. Another Mrs. Bellfield was not impossible; and what, if instead of being a real captain at all, he should be a returned ticket-of-leave man! Such things had happened. Her chief security was in this—that Cheesacre had known the man for many years, and would certainly have told anything against him that he did know. Under all these circumstances, she could not quite make up her mind either for or against Captain Bellfield.
Between nine and ten in the evening, an hour or so after Mr. Cheesacre had left her, Jeannette brought to her some arrowroot with a little sherry in it. She usually dined early, and it was her habit to take a light repast before she retired for the night.
“Jeannette,” she said, as she stirred the lumps of white sugar in the bowl, “I’m afraid those two gentlemen have quarrelled.”
“Oh, laws, ma’am, in course they have! How was they to help it?”
Jeannette, on these occasions, was in the habit of standing beside the chair of her mistress, and chatting with her; and then, if the chatting was much prolonged, she would gradually sink down upon the corner of a chair herself—and then the two women would be very comfortable together over the fire, Jeannette never forgetting that she was the servant, and Mrs. Greenow never forgetting that she was the mistress.
“And why should they quarrel, Jeannette? It’s very foolish.”
“I don’t know about being foolish, ma’am; but it’s the most natural thing in life. If I had two beaux as was a-courting me together, in course I should expect as they would punch each other’s heads. There’s some girls do it a purpose, because they like to see it. One at a time’s what I say.”
“You’re a young thing, Jeannette.”
“Well, ma’am—yes; I am young, no doubt. But I won’t say but what I’ve had a beau, young as I look.”
“But you don’t suppose that I want beaux, as you call them?”
“I don’t know, ma’am, as you wants ’em exactly. That’s as may be. There they are; and if they was to blow each other’s brains out in the gig tonight, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised for one. There’s nothing won’t quiet them at Oileymead tonight, if brandy-and-water don’t do it.” As she said this, Jeannette slipt into her chair, and held up her hands in token of the intensity of her fears.
“Why, you silly child, they’re not going home together at all. Did not the Captain go away first?”
“The Captain did go away first, certainly; but I thought perhaps it was to get his pistols and fighting things ready.”
“They won’t fight, Jeannette. Gentlemen have given over fighting.”
“Have they, ma’am? That makes it much easier for ladies, no doubt. Perhaps them peaceable ways will come down to such as us in time. It’d be a comfort, I know, to them as are quiet given,
