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Updated: June 3, 2025
"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.
Before he was gone he had invited her to bring the Captain to Oileymead when she was married, and had begged her to tell Miss Vavasor how happy he should be to receive her. "And Mr Cheesacre," said the widow, as he walked back along the road, "don't forget dear Charlie Fairstairs."
When the boats went off she found herself to be in that one over which Mr Cheesacre presided, while the sinning Ophelia with her good-for-nothing admirer were under the more mirthful protection of Captain Bellfield. "Mamma will be so angry," said Ophelia, "and it was all your fault. I did mean to go into the other boat. Don't, Mr Fairstairs."
It's a great pity he shouldn't get himself a wife." "I don't know any man more calculated to make a young woman happy," said Mrs Greenow. "No, indeed," said Miss Fairstairs. "I'm told that his house and all about it is quite beautiful." "Especially the straw-yard and the horse-pond," said the Captain. And then they drank the health of their absent friend.
He was to go away on Saturday morning, and remain in lodgings at Penrith till the wedding, which they agreed to have celebrated at Vavasor Church. Kate promised to be the solitary bridesmaid. There was some talk of sending for Charlie Fairstairs, but the idea was abandoned. "We'll have her afterwards," said the widow to Kate, "when you are gone, and we shall want her more.
That scraggy young woman, Charlie Fairstairs, is to be there of course." "How do you know?" "I tell you that I do know. She was present when the whole thing was arranged, and I heard her asked, and heard her say that she would come; and for the matter of that I heard her declare that she wouldn't set her cap at you, because you're a farmer." "Upon my word she's kind.
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.
"I don't want any young lady," said he. "There's Charlie Fairstairs, who would make as good a wife as any girl I know." "Psha! Charlie Fairstairs, indeed!" The very idea of having such a bride palmed off upon him did something to restore him to his manly courage. "Or my niece, Kate Vavasor, who has a nice little fortune of her own, and who is as accomplished as she is good-looking."
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.
"A fellow ought to be allowed to turn himself," Cheesacre said to her, pleading for himself in a whisper. But no; Mrs Greenow would give him no such mercy. She knew to what a man turning himself might probably lead. She was a woman who was quite in earnest when she went to work, and I hope that Miss Fairstairs was grateful.
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