The Belton Estate Part 28

It escaped from me that my dear aunt and I had had some conversation about you, and that I had told her what was my intention. Something was said about a promise, and I think it was that word which made you unhappy. At such a time as that, when I and my aunt were talking together, and when she was, as she well knew, on her deathbed, things will be said which would not be thought of in other circ.u.mstances. I can only a.s.sure you now, that the promise I gave her was a promise to do that which I had previously resolved upon doing. If you can believe what I say on this head, that ought to be sufficient to remove the feeling which induced you to break our engagement.

I now write to renew my offer to you, and to a.s.sure you that I do so with my whole heart. You will forgive me if I tell you that I cannot fail to remember, and always to bear in my mind, the sweet a.s.surances which you gave me of your regard for myself. As I do not know that anything has occurred to alter your opinion of me, I write this letter in strong hope that it may be successful. I believe that your fear was in respect to my affection for you, not as to yours for me. If this was so, I can a.s.sure you that there is no necessity for such fear.

I need not tell you that I shall expect your answer with great anxiety.

Yours most affectionately,

F. F. AYLMER.

P.S. I have to-day caused to be bought in your name Bank Stock to the amount of fifteen hundred pounds, the amount of the legacy coming to you from my aunt.

This letter, and that from Mr. Green respecting the money, both reached Clara on the same morning. Now, having learned so much as to the position of affairs at Belton Castle, we may return to Will and his dinner engagement with Mr. Joseph Green.

"And what have you heard about Mrs. Berdmore?" Belton asked, almost as soon as the two men were together.

"I wish I knew why you want to know."

"I don't want to do anybody any harm."

"Do you want to do anybody any good?"

"Any good! I can't say that I want to do any particular good. The truth is, I think I know where she is, and that she is living under a false name."

"Then you know more of her than I do."

"I don't know anything. I'm only in doubt. But as the lady I mean lives near to friends of mine, I should like to know."

"That you may expose her?"

"No;--by no means. But I hate the idea of deceit. The truth is, that any one living anywhere under a false name should be exposed,--or should be made to a.s.sume their right name."

"I find that Mrs. Berdmore left her husband some years before he died. There was nothing in that to create wonder, for he was a man with whom a woman could hardly continue to live. But I fear she left him under protection that was injurious to her character."

"And how long ago is that?"

"I do not know. Some years before his death."

"And how long ago did he die?"

"About three years since. My informant tells me that he believes she has since married. Now you know all that I know." And Belton also knew that Mrs. Askerton of the cottage was the Miss Vigo with whom he had been acquainted in earlier years.

After that they dined comfortably, and nothing pa.s.sed between them which need be recorded as essential to our story till the time came for them to part. Then, when they were both standing at the club door, the lawyer said a word or two which is essential. "So you're off to-morrow?" said he.

"Yes; I shall go down by the express."

"I wish you a pleasant journey. By-the-by, I ought to tell you that you won't have any trouble in being either father or mother, or uncle or aunt to Miss Amedroz."

"Why not?"

"I suppose it's no secret."

"What's no secret?"

"She's going to be married to Captain Aylmer."

Then Will Belton started so violently, and a.s.sumed on a sudden so manifest a look of anger, that his tale was at once told to Mr.

Green. "Who says so?" he asked. "I don't believe it."

"I'm afraid it's true all the same, Will."

"Who says it?"

"Captain Aylmer was with me to-day, and he told me. He ought to be good authority on such a subject."

"He told you that he was going to marry Clara Amedroz?"

"Yes, indeed."

"And what made him come to you, to tell you?"

"There was a question about some money which he had paid to her, and which, under existing circ.u.mstances, he thought it as well that he should not pay. Matters of that kind are often necessarily told to lawyers. But I should not have told it to you, Will, if I had not thought that it was good news."

"It is not good news," said Belton moodily.

"At any rate, old fellow, my telling it will do no harm. You must have learned it soon." And he put his hand kindly,--almost tenderly, on the other's arm. But Belton moved himself away angrily. The wound had been so lately inflicted that he could not as yet forgive the hand that had seemed to strike him.

"I'm sorry that it should be so bad with you, Will."

"What do you mean by bad? It is not bad with me. It is very well with me. Keep your pity for those who want it." Then he walked off by himself across the broad street before the club door, leaving his friend without a word of farewell, and made his way up into St.

James's Square, choosing, as was evident to Mr. Green, the first street that would take him out of sight.

"He's. .h.i.t, and hit hard," said the lawyer, looking after him. "Poor fellow! I might have guessed it from what he said. I never knew of his caring for any woman before." Then Mr. Green put on his gloves and went away home.

We will now follow Will Belton into St. James's Square, and we shall follow a very unhappy gentleman. Doubtless he had hitherto known and appreciated the fact that Miss Amedroz had refused his offer, and had often declared, both to himself and to his sister, his conviction that that refusal would never be reversed. But, in spite of that expressed conviction, he had lived on hope. Till she belonged to another man she might yet be his. He might win her at last by perseverance. At any rate he had it in his power to work towards the desired end, and might find solace even in that working. And the misery of his loss would not be so great to him,--as he found himself forced to confess to himself before he had completed his wanderings on this night,--in not having her for his own, as it would be in knowing that she had given herself to another man. He had often told himself that of course she would become the wife of some man, but he had never yet realised to himself what it would be to know that she was the wife of any one specified rival. He had been sad enough on that moonlight night in the avenue at Plaistow,--when he had leaned against the tree, striking his hands together as he thought of his great want; but his unhappiness then had been as nothing to his agony now. Now it was all over,--and he knew the man who had supplanted him!

How he hated him! With what an unchristian spirit did he regard that worthy captain as he walked across St. James's Square, across Jermyn Street, across Piccadilly, and up Bond Street, not knowing whither he was going. He thought with an intense regret of the laws of modern society which forbid duelling,--forgetting altogether that even had the old law prevailed, the conduct of the man whom he so hated would have afforded him no _casus belli_. But he was too far gone in misery and animosity to be capable of any reason on the matter. Captain Aylmer had interfered with his dearest wishes, and during this now pa.s.sing hour he would willingly have crucified Captain Aylmer had it been within his power to do so. Till he had gone beyond Oxford Street, and had wandered away into the far distance of Portman Square and Baker Street, he had not begun to think of any interest which Clara Amedroz might have in the matter on which his thoughts were employed. He was sojourning at an hotel in Bond Street, and had gone thitherwards more by habit than by thought; but he had pa.s.sed the door of his inn, feeling it to be impossible to render himself up to his bed in his present disturbed mood. As he was pa.s.sing the house in Bond Street he had been intent on the destruction of Captain Aylmer,--and had almost determined that if Captain Aylmer could not be made to vanish into eternity, he must make up his mind to go that road himself.

It was out of the question that he should go down to Belton. As to that he had come to a very decided opinion by the time that he had crossed Oxford Street. Go down to see her, when she had treated him after this fashion! No, indeed. She wanted no brother now. She had chosen to trust herself to this other man, and he, Will Belton, would not interfere further in her affairs. Then he drew upon his imagination for a picture of the future, in which he portrayed Captain Aylmer as a ruined man, who would probably desert his wife, and make himself generally odious to all his acquaintance--a picture as to the realisation of which I am bound to say that Captain Aylmer's antecedents gave no probability. But it was the looking at this self-drawn picture which first softened the artist's heart towards the victim whom he had immolated on his imaginary canvas.

When Clara should be ruined by the baseness and villany and general scampishness of this man whom she was going to marry,--to whom she was about to be weak enough and fool enough to trust herself,--then he would interpose and be her brother once again,--a broken-hearted brother no doubt, but a brother efficacious to keep the wolf from the door of this poor woman and her--children. Then, as he thus created Captain Aylmer's embryo family of unprovided orphans,--for after a while he killed the captain, making him to die some death that was very disgraceful, but not very distinct even to his own imagination,--as he thought of those coming pledges of a love which was to him so bitter, he stormed about the streets, performing antics of which no one would have believed him capable, who had known him as the thriving Mr. William Belton, of Plaistow Hall, among the fens of Norfolk.

But the character of a man is not to be judged from the pictures which he may draw or from the antics which he may play in his solitary hours. Those who act generally with the most consummate wisdom in the affairs of the world, often meditate very silly doings before their wiser resolutions form themselves. I beg, therefore, that Mr. Belton may be regarded and criticised in accordance with his conduct on the following morning,--when his midnight rambles, which finally took him even beyond the New Road, had been followed by a few tranquil hours in his Bond Street bedroom:--for at last he did bring himself to return thither and put himself to bed after the usual fashion. He put himself to bed in a spirit somewhat tranquillised by the exercise of the night, and at last--wept himself to sleep like a baby.

But he was by no means like a baby when he took him early on the following morning to the Paddington Station, and booked himself manfully for Taunton. He had had time to recognise the fact that he had no ground of quarrel with his cousin because she had preferred another man to him. This had happened to him as he was recrossing the New Road about two o'clock, and was beginning to find that his legs were weary under him. And, indeed, he had recognised one or two things before he had gone to sleep with his tears dripping on to his pillow. In the first place, he had ill-treated Joe Green, and had made a fool of himself in his friend's presence. As Joe Green was a sensible, kind-hearted fellow, this did not much signify;--but not on that account did he omit to tell himself of his own fault. Then he discovered that it would ill become him to break his word to Mr.

Amedroz and to his daughter, and to do so without a word of excuse, because Clara had exercised a right which was indisputably her own.

He had undertaken certain work at Belton which required his presence, and he would go down and do his work as though nothing had occurred to disturb him. To remain away because of this misfortune would be to show the white feather. It would be unmanly. All this he recognised as the pictures he had painted faded away from their canvases. As to Captain Aylmer himself, he hoped that he might never be called upon to meet him. He still hoped that, even as he was resolutely cramming his shirts into his portmanteau before he began his journey. His cousin Clara he thought he could meet, and tender to her some expression of good wishes as to her future life, without giving way under the effort. And to the old squire he could endeavour to make himself pleasant, speaking of the relief from all trouble which this marriage with Captain Aylmer would afford,--for now, in his cooler moments, he could perceive that Captain Aylmer was not a man apt to ruin himself, or his wife and children. But to Captain Aylmer himself, he could not bring himself to say pleasant things or to express pleasant wishes. She who was to be Captain Aylmer's wife, who loved him, would of course have told him what had occurred up among the rocks in Belton Park; and if that was so, any meeting between Will and Captain Aylmer would be death to the former.

Thinking of all this he journeyed down to Taunton, and thinking of all this he made his way from Taunton across to Belton Park.