The Belton Estate Part 34

"Very well; but we won't talk about that at present, if you please.

When I have, things will be different. In the meantime your course and mine will be separate. You, I suppose, will be with him in London, while I shall be,--at the devil as likely as not."

"How can you speak to me in that way? Is that like being my brother?"

"I don't feel like being your brother. However, I beg your pardon, and now we will have done with it. Spilt milk can't be helped, and my milk pans have got themselves knocked over. That's all. Don't you think we ought to go up to your father again?"

On the following day Belton and Mr. Amedroz discussed the same subject, but the conversation went off very quietly. Will was determined not to exhibit his weakness before the father as he had done before the daughter. When the squire, with a maundering voice, drawled out some expression of regret that his daughter's choice had not fallen in another place, Will was able to say that bygones must be bygones. He regretted it also, but that was now over. And when the squire endeavoured to say a few ill-natured words about Captain Aylmer, Will stopped him at once by a.s.serting that the Captain was all that he ought to be.

"And it would have made me so happy to think that my daughter's child should come to live in his grandfather's old house," murmured Mr.

Amedroz.

"And there's no knowing that he mayn't do so yet," said Will. "But all these things are so doubtful that a man is wrong to fix his happiness upon them." After that he went out to ramble about the place, and before the third day was over Clara was able to perceive that, in spite of what he had said, he was as busy about the cattle as though his bread depended on them.

Nothing had been said as yet about the Askertons, and Clara had resolved that their name should not first be mentioned by her. Mrs.

Askerton had prophesied that Will would have some communication to make about herself, and Clara would at any rate see whether her cousin would, of his own accord, introduce the subject. But three days pa.s.sed by, and he had made no allusion to the cottage or its inhabitants. This in itself was singular, as the Askertons were the only local friends whom Clara knew, and as Belton had become personally acquainted with Mrs. Askerton. But such was the case; and when Mr. Amedroz once said something about Mrs. Askerton in the presence of both Clara and Belton, they both of them shrank from the subject in a manner that made Clara understand that any conversation about the Askertons was to be avoided. On the fourth day Clara saw Mrs. Askerton, but then Will Belton's name was not mentioned. There was therefore, among them all, a sense of some mystery which made them uncomfortable, and which seemed to admit of no solution. Clara was more sure than ever that her cousin had made no inquiries that he should not have made, and that he would put no information that he might have to an improper use. But of such certainty on her part she could say nothing.

Three weeks pa.s.sed by, and it seemed as though Belton's visit were to come to an end without any further open trouble. Now and then something was said about Captain Aylmer; but it was very little, and Belton made no further reference to his own feelings. It had come to be understood that his visit was to be limited to a month; and to both him and Clara the month wore itself away slowly, neither of them having much pleasure in the society of the other. The old squire came down-stairs once for an hour or two, and spent the whole time in bitter complaints. Everything was wrong, and everybody was ill-treating him. Even with Will he quarrelled, or did his best to quarrel, in regard to everything about the place, though at the same time he did not cease to grumble at his visitor for going away and leaving him. Belton bore it all so well that the grumbling and quarrelling did not lead to much; but it required all his good-humour and broad common sense to prevent serious troubles and misunderstanding.

During the period of her cousin's visit at Belton, Clara received two letters from Captain Aylmer, who was spending the Christmas holidays with his father and mother, and on the day previous to that of her cousin's departure there came a third. In neither of these letters was there much said about Sir Anthony, but they were all very full of Lady Aylmer. In the first he wrote with something of the personal enthusiasm of a lover, and therefore Clara hardly felt the little drawbacks to her happiness which were contained in certain innuendoes respecting Lady Aylmer's ideas, and Lady Aylmer's hopes, and Lady Aylmer's fears. Clara was not going to marry Lady Aylmer, and did not fear but that she could hold her own against any mother-in-law in the world when once they should be brought face to face. And as long as Captain Aylmer seemed to take her part rather than that of his mother it was all very well. The second letter was more trying to her temper, as it contained one or two small morsels of advice as to conduct which had evidently originated with her ladys.h.i.+p. Now there is nothing, I take it, so irritating to an engaged young lady as counsel from her intended husband's mamma. An engaged young lady, if she be really in love, will take almost anything from her lover as long as she is sure that it comes altogether from himself. He may take what liberties he pleases with her dress. He may prescribe high church or low church,--if he be not, as is generally the case, in a condition to accept, rather than to give, prescriptions on that subject. He may order almost any course of reading,--providing that he supply the books. And he may even interfere with the style of dancing, and recommend or prohibit partners. But he may not thrust his mother down his future wife's throat. In answer to the second letter, Clara did not say much to show her sense of objection. Indeed she said nothing. But in saying nothing she showed her objection, and Captain Aylmer understood it. Then came the third letter, and as it contained matter touching upon our story, it shall be given entire,--and I hope it may be taken by gentlemen about to marry as a fair specimen of the sort of letter they ought not to write to the girls of their hearts:--

Aylmer Castle, 19th January, 186--.

DEAREST CLARA,--I got your letter of the 16th yesterday, and was sorry you said nothing in reference to my mother's ideas as to the house at Perivale. Of course she knew that I heard from you, and was disappointed when I was obliged to tell her that you had not alluded to the subject. She is very anxious about you, and, having now given her a.s.sent to our marriage, is of course desirous of knowing that her kindly feeling is reciprocated. I a.s.sured her that my own Clara was the last person to be remiss in such a matter, and reminded her that young ladies are seldom very careful in their mode of answering letters. Remember, therefore, that I am now your guarantee, and send some message to relieve me from my liability.

When I told her of your father's long illness, which she laments greatly, and of your cousin's continued presence at Belton Castle, she seemed to think that Mr. Belton's visit should not be prolonged. When I told her that he was your nearest relative, she remarked that cousins are the same as any other people,--which indeed they are. I know that my Clara will not suppose that I mean more by this than the words convey. Indeed I mean less. But not having the advantage of a mother of your own, you will not be sorry to know what are my mother's opinions on matters which so nearly concern you.

And now I come to another subject, as to which what I shall say will surprise you very much. You know, I think, that my aunt Winterfield and I had some conversation about your neighbours, the Askertons; and you will remember that my aunt, whose ideas on such matters were always correct, was a little afraid that your father had not made sufficient inquiry respecting them before he allowed them to settle near him as tenants. It now turns out that she is,--very far, indeed, from what she ought to be. My mother at first thought of writing to you about this; but she is a little fatigued, and at last resolved that under all the circ.u.mstances it might be as well that I should tell you. It seems that Mrs. Askerton was married before to a certain Captain Berdmore, and that she left her first husband during his lifetime under the protection of Colonel Askerton. I believe they, the Colonel and Mrs. Askerton, have been since married. Captain Berdmore died about four years ago in India, and it is probable that such a marriage has taken place. But under these circ.u.mstances, as Lady Aylmer says, you will at once perceive that all acquaintance between you and the lady should be brought to an end. Indeed, your own sense of what is becoming to you, either as an unmarried girl or as my future wife, or indeed as a woman at all, will at once make you feel that this must be so. I think, if I were you, I would tell the whole to Mr. Amedroz; but this I will leave to your own discretion. I can a.s.sure you that Lady Aylmer has full proof as to the truth of what I tell you.

I go up to London in February. I suppose I may hardly hope to see you before the recess in July or August; but I trust that before that we shall have fixed the day when you will make me the happiest of men.

Yours, with truest affection,

F. F. AYLMER.

It was a disagreeable, nasty letter from the first line to the last.

There was not a word in it which did not grate against Clara's feelings,--not a thought expressed which did not give rise to fears as to her future happiness. But the information which it contained about the Askertons,--"the communication," as Mrs. Askerton herself would have called it,--made her for the moment almost forget Lady Aylmer and her insolence. Could this story be true? And if true, how far would it be imperative on her to take the hint, or rather obey the order which had been given her? What steps should she take to learn the truth? Then she remembered Mrs. Askerton's promise--"If you want to ask any questions, and will ask them of me, I will answer them." The communication, as to which Mrs. Askerton had prophesied, had now been made;--but it had been made, not by Will Belton, whom Mrs. Askerton had reviled, but by Captain Aylmer, whose praises Mrs.

Askerton had so loudly sung. As Clara thought of this, she could not a.n.a.lyse her own feelings, which were not devoid of a certain triumph.

She had known that Belton would not put on his armour to attack a woman. Captain Aylmer had done so, and she was hardly surprised at his doing it. Yet Captain Aylmer was the man she loved! Captain Aylmer was the man she had promised to marry. But, in truth, she hardly knew which was the man she loved!

This letter came on a Sunday morning, and on that day she and Belton went to church together. On the following morning early he was to start for Taunton. At church they saw Mrs. Askerton, whose attendance there was not very frequent. It seemed, indeed, as though she had come with the express purpose of seeing Belton once during his visit.

As they left the church she bowed to him, and that was all they saw of each other throughout the month that he remained in Somersets.h.i.+re.

"Come to me to-morrow, Clara," Mrs. Askerton said as they all pa.s.sed through the village together. Clara muttered some reply, having not as yet made up her mind as to what her conduct must be. Early on the next morning Will Belton went away, and again Clara got up to give him his breakfast. On this occasion he had no thought of kissing her. He went away without having had a word said to him about Mrs. Askerton, and then Clara settled herself down to the work of deliberation. What should she do with reference to the communication that had been made to her by Captain Aylmer?

CHAPTER XVII.

AYLMER PARK.

Aylmer Park and the great house of the Aylmers together formed an important, and, as regarded in some minds, an imposing country residence. The park was large, including some three or four hundred acres, and was peopled, rather thinly, by aristocratic deer. It was surrounded by an aristocratic paling, and was entered, at three different points, by aristocratic lodges. The sheep were more numerous than the deer, because Sir Anthony, though he had a large income, was not in very easy circ.u.mstances. The ground was quite flat; and though there were thin belts of trees, and some ornamental timber here and there, it was not well wooded. It had no special beauty of its own, and depended for its imposing qualities chiefly on its size, on its three sets of double lodges, and on its old-established character as an important family place in the county.

The house was of stone, with a portico of Ionic columns which looked as though it hardly belonged of right to the edifice, and stretched itself out grandly, with two pretentious wings, which certainly gave it a just claim to be called a mansion. It required a great many servants to keep it in order, and the numerous servants required an experienced duenna, almost as grand in appearance as Lady Aylmer herself, to keep them in order. There was an open carriage and a close carriage, and a butler, and two footmen, and three gamekeepers, and four gardeners, and there was a coachman, and there were grooms, and sundry inferior men and boys about the place to do the work which the gardeners and gamekeepers and grooms did not choose to do themselves. And they all became fat, and lazy, and stupid, and respectable together; so that, as the reader will at once perceive, Aylmer Park was kept up in the proper English style. Sir Anthony very often discussed with his steward the propriety of lessening the expenditure of his residence, and Lady Aylmer always attended and probably directed these discussions; but it was found that nothing could be done. Any attempt to remove a gamekeeper or a gardener would evidently throw the whole machinery of Aylmer Park out of gear. If retrenchment was necessary Aylmer Park must be abandoned, and the glory of the Aylmers must be allowed to pale. But things were not so bad as that with Sir Anthony. The gardeners, grooms, and gamekeepers were maintained; ten domestic servants sat down to four heavy meals in the servants' hall every day, and Lady Aylmer contented herself with receiving little or no company, and with stingy breakfasts and bad dinners for herself and her husband and daughter. By all this it must be seen that she did her duty as the wife of an English country gentleman, and properly maintained his rank as a baronet.

He was a heavy man, over seventy years of age, much afflicted with gout, and given to no pursuit on earth which was available for his comfort. He had been a hunting man, and he had shot also; but not with that energy which induces a sportsman to carry on those amus.e.m.e.nts in opposition to the impediments of age. He had been, and still was, a county magistrate; but he had never been very successful in the justice-room, and now seldom troubled the county with his judicial incompetence. He had been fond of good dinners and good wine, and still, on occasions, would make attempts at enjoyment in that line; but the gout and Lady Aylmer together were too many for him, and he had but small opportunity for filling up the blanks of his existence out of the kitchen or cellar. He was a big man, with a broad chest, and a red face, and a quant.i.ty of white hair,--and was much given to abusing his servants. He took some pleasure in standing, with two sticks on the top of the steps before his own front door, and railing at any one who came in his way. But he could not do this when Lady Aylmer was by; and his dependents, knowing his habits, had fallen into an ill-natured way of deserting the side of the house which he frequented. With his eldest son, Anthony Aylmer, he was not on very good terms; and though there was no positive quarrel, the heir did not often come to Aylmer Park. Of his son Frederic he was proud,--and the best days of his life were probably those which Captain Aylmer spent at the house. The table was then somewhat more generously spread, and this was an excuse for having up the special port in which he delighted. Altogether his life was not very attractive; and though he had been born to a baronetcy, and eight thousand a-year, and the possession of Aylmer Park, I do not think that he was, or had been, a happy man.

Lady Aylmer was more fortunate. She had occupations of which her husband knew nothing, and for which he was altogether unfit. Though she could not succeed in making retrenchments, she could and did succeed in keeping the household books. Sir Anthony could only blow up the servants when they were thoughtless enough to come in his way, and in doing that was restricted by his wife's presence. But Lady Aylmer could get at them day and night. She had no gout to impede her progress about the house and grounds, and could make her way to places which the master never saw; and then she wrote many letters daily, whereas Sir Anthony hardly ever took a pen in his hand. And she knew the cottages of all the poor about the place, and knew also all their sins of omission and commission. She was driven out, too, every day, summer and winter, wet and dry, and consumed enormous packets of wool and worsted, which were sent to her monthly from York. And she had a companion in her daughter, whereas Sir Anthony had no companion. Wherever Lady Aylmer went Miss Aylmer went with her, and relieved what might otherwise have been the tedium of her life. She had been a beauty on a large scale, and was still aware that she had much in her personal appearance which justified pride.

She carried herself uprightly, with a commanding nose and broad forehead; and though the graces of her own hair had given way to a front, there was something even in the front which added to her dignity, if it did not make her a handsome woman.

Miss Aylmer, who was the eldest of the younger generation, and who was now gently descending from her fortieth year, lacked the strength of her mother's character, but admired her mother's ways, and followed Lady Aylmer in all things,--at a distance. She was very good,--as indeed was Lady Aylmer,--entertaining a high idea of duty, and aware that her own life admitted of but little self-indulgence.

She had no pleasures, she incurred no expenses; and was quite alive to the fact that as Aylmer Park required a regiment of lazy, gormandizing servants to maintain its position in the county, the Aylmers themselves should not be lazy, and should not gormandize. No one was more careful with her few s.h.i.+llings than Miss Aylmer. She had, indeed, abandoned a life's correspondence with an old friend because she would not pay the postage on letters to Italy. She knew that it was for the honour of the family that one of her brothers should sit in Parliament, and was quite willing to deny herself a new dress because sacrifices must be made to lessen electioneering expenses. She knew that it was her lot to be driven about slowly in a carriage with a livery servant before her and another behind her, and then eat a dinner which the cook-maid would despise. She was aware that it was her duty to be snubbed by her mother, and to encounter her father's ill-temper, and to submit to her brother's indifference, and to have, so to say, the slightest possible modic.u.m of personal individuality. She knew that she had never attracted a man's love, and might hardly hope to make friends for the comfort of her coming age. But still she was contented, and felt that she had consolation for it all in the fact that she was an Aylmer. She read many novels, and it cannot but be supposed that something of regret would steal over her as she remembered that nothing of the romance of life had ever, or could ever, come in her way. She wept over the loves of many women, though she had never been happy or unhappy in her own. She read of gaiety, though she never encountered it, and must have known that the world elsewhere was less dull than it was at Aylmer Park.

But she took her life as it came, without a complaint, and prayed that G.o.d would make her humble in the high position to which it had pleased Him to call her. She hated Radicals, and thought that Essays and Reviews, and Bishop Colenso, came direct from the Evil One. She taught the little children in the parish, being specially urgent to them always to curtsey when they saw any of the family;--and was as ignorant, meek, and stupid a poor woman as you shall find anywhere in Europe.

It may be imagined that Captain Aylmer, who knew the comforts of his club and was accustomed to life in London, would feel the dulness of the paternal roof to be almost unendurable. In truth, he was not very fond of Aylmer Park, but he was more gifted with patience than most men of his age and position, and was aware that it behoved him to keep the Fifth Commandment if he expected to have his own days prolonged in the land. He therefore made his visits periodically, and contented himself with clipping a few days at both ends from the length prescribed by family tradition, which his mother was desirous of exacting. September was always to be pa.s.sed at Aylmer Park, because of the shooting. In September, indeed, the eldest son himself was wont to be there,--probably with a friend or two,--and the fat old servants bestirred themselves, and there was something of life about the place. At Christmas, Captain Aylmer was there as the only visitor, and Christmas was supposed to extend from the middle of December to the opening of Parliament. It must, however, be explained, that on the present occasion his visit had been a matter of treaty and compromise. He had not gone to Aylmer Park at all till his mother had in some sort a.s.sented to his marriage with Clara Amedroz. To this Lady Aylmer had been very averse, and there had been many serious letters. Belinda Aylmer, the daughter of the house, had had a bad time in pleading her brother's cause,--and some very harsh words had been uttered;--but ultimately the matter had been arranged, and, as is usual in such contests, the mother had yielded to the son.

Captain Aylmer had therefore gone down a few days before Christmas, with a righteous feeling that he owed much to his mother for her condescension, and almost prepared to make himself very disagreeable to Clara by way of atoning to his family for his folly in desiring to marry her.

Lady Aylmer was very plain-spoken on the subject of all Clara's shortcomings,--very plain-spoken, and very inquisitive. "She will never have one s.h.i.+lling, I suppose?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am." Captain Aylmer always called his mother ma'am. "She will have that fifteen hundred pounds that I told you of."

"That is to say, you will have back the money which you yourself have given her, Fred. I suppose that is the English of it?" Then Lady Aylmer raised her eyebrows and looked very wise.

"Just so, ma'am."

"You can't call that having anything of her own. In point of fact she is penniless."

"It is no good harping on that," said Captain Aylmer, somewhat sharply.

"Not in the least, my dear; no good at all. Of course you have looked it all in the face. You will be a poor man instead of a rich man, but you will have enough to live on,--that is if she doesn't have a large family;--which of course she will."

"I shall do very well, ma'am."

"You might do pretty well, I dare say, if you could live privately,--at Perivale, keeping up the old family house there, and having no expenses; but you'll find even that close enough with your seat in Parliament, and the necessity there is that you should be half the year in London. Of course she won't go to London. She can't expect it. All that had better be made quite clear at once." Hence had come the letter about the house at Perivale, containing Lady Aylmer's advice on that subject, as to which Clara made no reply.

Lady Aylmer, though she had given in her a.s.sent, was still not altogether without hope. It might be possible that the two young people could be brought to see the folly and error of their ways before it would be too late; and that Lady Aylmer, by a judicious course of constant advice, might be instrumental in opening the eyes, if not of the lady, at any rate of the gentleman. She had great reliance on her own powers, and knew well that a falling drop will hollow a stone. Her son manifested no hot eagerness to complete his folly in a hurry, and to cut the throat of his prospects out of hand.

Time, therefore, would be allowed to her, and she was a woman who could use time with patience. Having, through her son, despatched her advice about the house at Perivale,--which simply amounted to this, that Clara should expressly state her willingness to live there alone whenever it might suit her husband to be in London or elsewhere,--she went to work on other points connected with the Amedroz family, and eventually succeeded in learning something very much like the truth as to poor Mrs. Askerton and her troubles. At first she was so comfortably horror-stricken by the iniquity she had unravelled,--so delightfully shocked and astounded,--as to believe that the facts as they then stood would suffice to annul the match.

"You don't tell me," she said to Belinda, "that Frederic's wife will have been the friend of such a woman as that!" And Lady Aylmer, sitting up-stairs with her household books before her, put up her great fat hands and her great fat arms, and shook her head,--front and all,--in most satisfactory dismay.

"But I suppose Clara did not know it." Belinda had considered it to be an act of charity to call Miss Amedroz Clara since the family consent had been given.

"Didn't know it! They have been living in that sort of way that they must have been confidantes in everything. Besides, I always hold that a woman is responsible for her female friends."

"I think if she consents to drop her at once,--that is, absolutely to make a promise that she will never speak to her again,--Frederic ought to take that as sufficient. That is, of course, mamma, unless she has had anything to do with it herself."