But as the bright new gloves which both the girls wore had been presents from Mrs. Greenow, they certainly did owe her some affection.
There are not many ladies who would venture to bestow such gifts upon their friends after so very short an acquaintance; but Mrs. Greenow had a power that was quite her own in such matters. She was already on a very confidential footing with the Miss Fairstairs, and had given them much useful advice as to their future prospects.
And then was there a Mrs. Green, whose husband was first-lieutenant on board a man-of-war on the West Indian Station. Mrs. Green was a quiet, ladylike little woman, rather pretty, very silent, and, as one would have thought, hardly adapted for the special intimacy of Mrs. Greenow.
But Mrs. Greenow had found out that she was alone, not very rich, and in want of the solace of society. Therefore she had, from sheer good-nature, forced herself upon Mrs. Green, and Mrs. Green, with much trepidation, had consented to be taken to the picnic. "I know your husband would like it," Mrs. Greenow had said, "and I hope I may live to tell him that I made you go."
There came in also a brother of the Fairstairs girls, Joe Fairstairs, a lanky, useless, idle young man, younger than them, who was supposed to earn his bread in an attorney"s office at Norwich, or rather to be preparing to earn it at some future time, and who was a heavy burden upon all his friends. "We told Joe to come to the house," said f.a.n.n.y to the widow, apologetically, "because we thought he might be useful in carrying down the cloaks." Mrs. Greenow smiled graciously upon Joe, and a.s.sured him that she was charmed to see him, without any reference to such services as those mentioned.
And then they started. When they got to the door both Cheesacre and the captain made an attempt to get possession of the widow"s arm. But she had it all arranged. Captain Bellfield found himself constrained to attend to Mrs. Green, while Mr. Cheesacre walked down to the beach beside Kate Vavasor. "I"ll take your arm, Mr. Joe," said the widow, "and the girls shall come with us." But when they got to the boats, round which the other comers to the picnic were already a.s.sembled, Mr. Cheesacre,--although both the boats were for the day his own,--found himself separated from the widow. He got into that which contained Kate Vavasor, and was shoved off from the beach while he saw Captain Bellfield arranging Mrs. Greenow"s drapery. He had declared to himself that it should be otherwise; and that as he had to pay the piper, the piper should play as he liked it. But Mrs.
Greenow with a word or two had settled it all, and Mr. Cheesacre had found himself to be powerless. "How absurd Bellfield looks in that jacket, doesn"t he?" he said to Kate, as he took his seat in the boat.
"Do you think so? I thought it was so very pretty and becoming for the occasion."
Mr. Cheesacre hated Captain Bellfield, and regretted more than ever that he had not done something for his own personal adornment. He could not endure to think that his friend, who paid for nothing, should carry away the honours of the morning and defraud him of the delights which should justly belong to him, "It may be becoming,"
said Cheesacre; "but don"t you think it"s awfully extravagant?"
"As to that I can"t tell. You see I don"t at all know what is the price of a jacket covered all over with little bra.s.s b.u.t.tons."
"And the waistcoat, Miss Vavasor!" said Cheesacre, almost solemnly.
"The waistcoat I should think must have been expensive."
"Oh, dreadful! and he"s got nothing, Miss Vavasor; literally nothing.
Do you know,"--and he reduced his voice to a whisper as he made this communication,--"I lent him twenty pounds the day before yesterday; I did indeed. You won"t mention it again, of course. I tell you, because, as you are seeing a good deal of him just now, I think it right that you should know on what sort of a footing he stands."
It"s all fair, they say, in love and war, and this small breach of confidence was, we must presume, a love stratagem on the part of Mr.
Cheesacre. He was at this time smitten with the charms both of the widow and of the niece, and he constantly found that the captain was interfering with him on whichever side he turned himself. On the present occasion he had desired to take the widow for his share, and was, upon the whole, inclined to think that the widow was the more worthy of his attentions. He had made certain little inquiries within the last day or two, the answers to which had been satisfactory.
These he had by no means communicated to his friend, to whom, indeed, he had expressed an opinion that Mrs. Greenow was after all only a flash in the pan. "She does very well pour pa.s.ser le temps," the captain had answered. Mr. Cheesacre had not quite understood the exact gist of the captain"s meaning, but had felt certain that his friend was playing him false.
"I don"t want it to be mentioned again, Miss Vavasor," he continued.
"Such things should not be mentioned at all," Kate replied, having been angered at the insinuation that the nature of Captain Bellfield"s footing could be a matter of any moment to her.
"No, they shouldn"t; and therefore I know that I"m quite safe with you, Miss Vavasor. He"s a very pleasant fellow, very; and has seen the world,--uncommon; but he"s better for eating and drinking with than he is for buying and selling with, as we say in Norfolk. Do you like Norfolk, Miss Vavasor?"
"I never was in it before, and now I"ve only seen Yarmouth."
"A nice place, Yarmouth, very; but you should come up and see our lands. I suppose you don"t know that we feed one-third of England during the winter months."
"Dear me!"
"We do, though; n.o.body knows what a county Norfolk is. Taking it altogether, including the game you know, and Lord Nelson, and its watering-places and the rest of it, I don"t think there"s a county in England to beat it. Fancy feeding one-third of all England and Wales!"
"With bread and cheese, do you mean, and those sort of things?"
"Beef!" said Mr. Cheesacre, and in his patriotic energy he repeated the word aloud. "Beef! Yes indeed; but if you were to tell them that in London they wouldn"t believe you. Ah! you should certainly come down and see our lands. The 7.45 A.M. train would take you through Norwich to my door, as one may say, and you would be back by the 6.22 P.M." In this way he brought himself back again into good-humour, feeling, that in the absence of the widow, he could not do better than make progress with the niece.
In the mean time Mrs. Greenow and the captain were getting on very comfortably in the other boat. "Take an oar, Captain," one of the men had said to him as soon as he had placed the ladies. "Not to-day, Jack," he had answered. "I"ll content myself with being bo"san this morning." "The best thing as the bo"san does is to pipe all hands to grog," said the man. "I won"t be behind in that either," said the captain; and so they all went on swimmingly.
"What a fine generous fellow your friend, Mr. Cheesacre, is!" said the widow.
"Yes, he is; he"s a capital fellow in his way. Some of these Norfolk farmers are no end of good fellows."
"And I suppose he"s something more than a common farmer. He"s visited by the people about where he lives, isn"t he?"
"Oh, yes, in a sort of a way. The county people, you know, keep themselves very much to themselves."
"That"s of course. But his house;--he has a good sort of place, hasn"t he?"
"Yes, yes;--a very good house;--a little too near to the horse-pond for my taste. But when a man gets his money out of the till, he mustn"t be ashamed of the counter;--must he, Mrs. Greenow?"
"But he could live like a gentleman if he let his own land, couldn"t he?"
"That depends upon how a gentleman wishes to live." Here the privacy of their conversation was interrupted by an exclamation from a young lady to the effect that Charlie Fairstairs was becoming sick. This Charlie stoutly denied, and proved the truth of her a.s.sertion by her behaviour. Soon after this they completed their marine adventures, and prepared to land close to the spot at which the banquet was prepared.
CHAPTER IX.
The Rivals.
There had been a pretence of fishing, but no fish had been caught.
It was soon found that such an amus.e.m.e.nt would interfere with the ladies" dresses, and the affairs had become too serious to allow of any trivial interruption. "I really think, Mr. Cheesacre," an anxious mother had said, "that you"d better give it up. The water off the nasty cord has got all over Maria"s dress, already." Maria made a faint protest that it did not signify in the least; but the fishing was given up,--not without an inward feeling on the part of Mr.
Cheesacre that if Maria chose to come out with him in his boat, having been invited especially to fish, she ought to have put up with the natural results. "There are people who like to take everything and never like to give anything," he said to Kate afterwards, as he was walking up with her to the picnic dinner. But he was unreasonable and unjust. The girls had graced his party with their best hats and freshest muslins, not that they might see him catch a mackerel, but that they might flirt and dance to the best advantage. "You can"t suppose that any girl will like to be drenched with sea-water when she has taken so much trouble with her starch," said Kate. "Then she shouldn"t come fishing," said Mr. Cheesacre. "I hate such airs."
But when they arrived at the old boat, Mrs. Greenow shone forth pre-eminently as the mistress of the occasion, altogether overshadowing Mr. Cheesacre by the extent of her authority. There was a little contest for supremacy between them, invisible to the eyes of the mult.i.tude; but Mr. Cheesacre in such a matter had not a chance against Mrs. Greenow. I am disposed to think that she would have reigned even though she had not contributed to the eatables; but with that point in her favour, she was able to make herself supreme.
Jeannette, too, was her servant, which was a great thing. Mr.
Cheesacre soon gave way; and though he bustled about and was conspicuous, he bustled about in obedience to orders received, and became a head servant. Captain Bellfield also made himself useful, but he drove Mr. Cheesacre into paroxysms of suppressed anger by giving directions, and by having those directions obeyed. A man to whom he had lent twenty pounds the day before yesterday, and who had not contributed so much as a bottle of champagne!
"We"re to dine at four, and now it"s half-past three," said Mrs.
Greenow, addressing herself to the mult.i.tude.
"And to begin to dance at six," said an eager young lady.
"Maria, hold your tongue," said the young lady"s mother.
"Yes, we"ll dine at four," said Mr. Cheesacre. "And as for the music, I"ve ordered it to be here punctual at half-past five. We"re to have three horns, cymbals, triangle, and a drum."
"How very nice; isn"t it, Mrs. Greenow?" said Charlie Fairstairs.
"And now suppose we begin to unpack," said Captain Bellfield. "Half the fun is in arranging the things."
"Oh, dear, yes; more than half," said f.a.n.n.y Fairstairs.
"Bellfield, don"t mind about the hampers," said Cheesacre. "Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there"s my man there to manage it."
"It"s odd if I don"t know more about wine than the boots from the hotel," said Bellfield. This allusion to the boots almost cowed Mr.
Cheesacre, and made him turn away, leaving Bellfield with the widow.