The Belton Estate Part 5

"You're a sportsman?"

"All men living in the country are,--more or less."

"Colonel Askerton shoots a great deal. He has the shooting of Belton, you know. He'll be delighted, I'm sure, to see you if you are here some time in September. But you, coming from Norfolk, would not care for partridge-shooting in Somersetshire."

"I don't see why it shouldn't be as good here as there."

"Colonel Askerton thinks he has got a fair head of game upon the place."

"I dare say. Game is easily kept if people knew how to set about it."

"Colonel Askerton has a very good keeper, and has gone to a great deal of expense since he has been here."

"I'm my own head-keeper," said Belton; "and so I will be,--or rather should be, if I had this place."

Something in the lady's tone had grated against his feelings and offended him; or perhaps he thought that she a.s.sumed too many of the airs of proprietorship because the shooting of the place had been let to her husband for thirty pounds a-year.

"I hope you don't mean to say you'll turn us out," said Mrs.

Askerton, laughing.

"I have no power to turn anybody out or in," said he. "I've got nothing to do with it."

Clara, perceiving that matters were not going quite pleasantly between her old and new friend, thought it best to take her departure. Belton, as he went, lifted his hat from his head, and Clara could not keep herself from thinking that he was not only very handsome, but that he looked very much like a gentleman, in spite of his occupation as a farmer.

"By-bye, Clara," said Mrs. Askerton; "come down and see me to-morrow, there's a dear. Don't forget what a dull life I have of it." Clara said that she would come. "And I shall be so happy to see Mr. Belton if he will call before he leaves you." At this Belton again raised his hat from his head, and muttered some word or two of civility. But this, his latter muttering, was different from the first, for he had altogether regained his presence of mind.

"You didn't seem to get on very well with my friend," said Clara, laughing, as soon as they had turned away from the cottage.

"Well, no;--that is to say, not particularly well or particularly badly. At first I took her for somebody else I knew slightly ever so long ago, and I was thinking of that other person at the time."

"And what was the other person's name?"

"I can't even remember that at the present moment."

"Mrs. Askerton was a Miss Oliphant."

"That wasn't the other lady's name. But, independently of that, they can't be the same. The other lady married a Mr. Berdmore."

"A Mr. Berdmore!" Clara as she repeated the name felt convinced that she had heard it before, and that she had heard it in connection with Mrs. Askerton. She certainly had heard the name of Berdmore p.r.o.nounced, or had seen it written, or had in some shape come across the name in Mrs. Askerton's presence; or at any rate somewhere on the premises occupied by that lady. More than this she could not remember; but the name, as she had now heard it from her cousin, became at once distinctly connected in her memory with her friends at the cottage.

"Yes," said Belton; "a Mr. Berdmore. I knew more of him than of her, though for the matter of that, I knew very little of him either. She was a fast-going girl, and his friends were very sorry. But I think they are both dead or divorced, or that they have come to grief in some way."

"And is Mrs. Askerton like the fast-going lady?"

"In a certain way. Not that I remember what the fast-going lady was like; but there was something about this woman that put me in mind of the other. Vigo was her name; now I recollect it,--a Miss Vigo. It's nine or ten years ago now, and I was little more than a boy."

"Her name was Oliphant."

"I don't suppose they have anything to do with each other. What riled me was the way she talked of the shooting. People do when they take a little shooting. They pay some trumpery thirty or forty pounds a year, and then they seem to think that it's almost the same as though they owned the property themselves. I've known a man talk of his manor because he had the shooting of a wood and a small farm round it. They are generally shopkeepers out of London, gin distillers, or brewers, or people like that."

"Why, Mr. Belton, I didn't think you could be so furious!"

"Can't I? When my back's up, it is up! But it isn't up yet."

"And I hope it won't be up while you remain in Somersetshire."

"I won't answer for that. There's Stovey's empty cart standing just where it stood yesterday; and he promised he'd have it home before three to-day. My back will be up with him if he doesn't mind himself."

It was nearly six o'clock when they got back to the house, and Clara was surprised to find that she had been out three hours with her cousin. Certainly it had been very pleasant. The usual companion of her walks, when she had a companion, was Mrs. Askerton; but Mrs.

Askerton did not like real walking. She would creep about the grounds for an hour or so, and even such companionship as that was better to Clara than absolute solitude; but now she had been carried about the place, getting over stiles and through gates, and wandering through the copses, till she was tired and hungry, and excited and happy.

"Oh, papa," she said, "we have had such a walk!"

"I thought we were to have dined at five," he replied, in a low wailing voice.

"No, papa, indeed,--indeed you said six."

"That was for yesterday."

"You said we were to make it six while Mr. Belton was here."

"Very well;--if it must be, I suppose it must be."

"You don't mean on my account," said Will. "I'll undertake to eat my dinner, sir, at any hour that you'll undertake to give it me. If there's a strong point about me at all, it is my appet.i.te."

Clara, when she went to her father's room that evening, told him what Mr. Belton had said about the shooting, knowing that her father's feelings would agree with those which had been expressed by her cousin. Mr. Amedroz of course made this an occasion for further grumbling, suggesting that Belton wanted to get the shooting for himself as he had got the farm. But, nevertheless, the effect which Clara had intended was produced, and before she left him he had absolutely proposed that the shooting and the land should go together.

"I'm sure that Mr. Belton doesn't mean that at all," said Clara.

"I don't care what he means," said the squire.

"And it wouldn't do to treat Colonel Askerton in that way," said Clara.

"I shall treat him just as I like," said the squire.

CHAPTER IV.

SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING.

A dear cousin, and safe against love-making! This was Clara's verdict respecting Will Belton, as she lay thinking of him in bed that night.

Why that warranty against love-making should be a virtue in her eyes I cannot, perhaps, explain. But all young ladies are apt to talk to themselves in such phrases about gentlemen with whom they are thrown into chance intimacy;--as though love-making were in itself a thing injurious and antagonistic to happiness, instead of being, as it is, the very salt of life. Safe against love-making! And yet Mrs. Askerton, her friend, had spoken of the probability of such love-making as being the great advantage of his coming. And there could not be a second opinion as to the expediency of a match between her and her cousin in a worldly point of view. Clara, moreover, had already perceived that he was a man fit to guide a wife, very good-humoured,--and good-tempered also, anxious to give pleasure to others, a man of energy and forethought, who would be sure to do well in the world and hold his head always high among his fellows;--as good a husband as a girl could have. Nevertheless, she congratulated herself in that she felt satisfied that he was safe against love-making! Might it be possible that that pressing of hands at Taunton had been so tender, and those last words spoken with Captain Aylmer so soft, that on his account she felt delighted to think that her cousin was warranted not to make love?

And what did Will Belton think about his cousin, insured as he was thus supposed to be against the dangers of love? He, also, lay awake for awhile that night, thinking over this new friendship. Or rather he thought of it walking about his room, and looking out at the bright harvest moon;--for with him to be in bed was to be asleep.

He sat himself down, and he walked about, and he leaned out of the window into the cool night air; and he made some comparisons in his mind, and certain calculations; and he thought of his present home, and of his sister, and of his future prospects as they were concerned with the old place at which he was now staying; and he portrayed to himself, in his mind, Clara's head and face and figure and feet;--and he resolved that she should be his wife. He had never seen a girl who seemed to suit him so well. Though he had only been with her for a day, he swore to himself that he knew he could love her. Nay;--he swore to himself that he did love her. Then,--when he had quite made up his mind, he tumbled into his bed and was asleep in five minutes.

Miss Amedroz was a handsome young woman, tall, well-made, active, and full of health. She carried herself as though she thought her limbs were made for use, and not simply for ease upon a sofa. Her head and neck stood well upon her shoulders, and her waist showed none of those waspish proportions of which ladies used to be more proud than I believe them to be now, in their more advanced state of knowledge and taste. There was much about her in which she was like her cousin, as though the blood they had in common between them had given to both the same proportions and the same comeliness. Her hair was of a dark brown colour, as was his. Her eyes were somewhat darker than his, and perhaps not so full of constant movement; but they were equally bright, and possessed that quick power of expressing tenderness which belonged to them. Her nose was more finely cut, as was also her chin, and the oval of her face; but she had the same large expressive mouth, and the same perfection of ivory-white teeth. As has been said before, Clara Amedroz, who was now nearly twenty-six years of age, was not a young-looking young woman. To the eyes of many men that would have been her fault; but in the eyes of Belton it was no fault.