The Belton Estate Part 55

A day should be fixed for choosing the furnishing. Or the gentleman should declare that he will at once buy the cows for the farm. But with Frederic Aylmer all discussions seemed to point to some cold, distant future, to which Clara might look forward as she did to the joys of heaven. Will Belton would have bought the ring long since, and bespoken the priest, and arranged every detail of the honeymoon tour,--and very probably would have stood looking into a cradle shop with longing eyes.

At last there came an absolute necessity for some plain speaking.

Captain Aylmer declared his intention of returning to London that he might resume his parliamentary duties. He had purposed to remain till after Easter, but it was found to be impossible. "I find I must go up to-morrow," he said at breakfast. "They are going to make a stand about the Poor-rates, and I must be in the House in the evening."

Clara felt herself to be very cold and uncomfortable. As things were at present arranged she was to be left at Aylmer Park without a friend. And how long was she to remain there? No definite ending had been proposed for her visit. Something must be said and something settled before Captain Aylmer went away.

"You will come down for Easter, of course," said his mother.

"Yes; I shall come down for Easter, I think,--or at any rate at Whitsuntide."

"You must come at Easter, Frederic," said his mother.

"I don't doubt but I shall," said he.

"Miss Amedroz should lay her commands upon him," said Sir Anthony gallantly.

"Nonsense," said Lady Aylmer.

"I have commands to lay upon him all the same," said Clara; "and if he will give me half an hour this morning he shall have them." To this Captain Aylmer, of course, a.s.sented,--as how could he escape from such a.s.sent,--and a regular appointment was made. Captain Aylmer and Miss Amedroz were to be closeted together in the little back drawing-room immediately after breakfast. Clara would willingly have avoided any such formality could she have done so compatibly with the exigencies of the occasion. She had been obliged to a.s.sert herself when Lady Aylmer had rebuked Sir Anthony, and then Lady Aylmer had determined that an air of business should be a.s.sumed. Clara, as she was marched off into the back drawing-room, followed by her lover with more sheep-like gait even than her own, felt strongly the absurdity and the wretchedness of her position. But she was determined to go through with her purpose.

"I am very sorry that I have to leave you so soon," said Captain Aylmer as soon as the door was shut and they were alone together.

"Perhaps it may be better as it is, Frederic; as in this way we shall all come to understand each other, and something will be settled."

"Well, yes; perhaps that will be best."

"Your mother has told me that she disapproves of our marriage."

"No; not that, I think. I don't think she can have quite said that."

"She says that you cannot marry while she is alive,--that is, that you cannot marry me because your income would not be sufficient."

"I certainly was speaking to her about my income."

"Of course I have got nothing." Here she paused. "Not a penny-piece in the world that I can call my own."

"Oh yes, you have."

"Nothing. Nothing!"

"You have your aunt's legacy?"

"No; I have not. She left me no legacy. But as that is between you and me, if we think of marrying each other, that would make no difference."

"None at all, of course."

"But in truth I have got nothing. Your mother said something to me about the Belton estate; as though there was some idea that possibly it might come to me."

"Your cousin himself seemed to think so."

"Frederic, do not let us deceive ourselves. There can be nothing of the kind. I could not accept any portion of the property from my cousin,--even though our marriage were to depend upon it."

"Of course it does not."

"But if your means are not sufficient for your wants I am quite ready to accept that reason as being sufficient for breaking our engagement."

"There need be nothing of the kind."

"As for waiting for the death of another person,--for your mother's death, I should think it very wrong. Of course, if our engagement stands there need be no hurry; but--some time should be fixed." Clara as she said this felt that her face and forehead were suffused with a blush; but she was determined that it should be said, and the words were p.r.o.nounced.

"I quite think so too," said he.

"I am glad that we agree. Of course, I will leave it to you to fix the time."

"You do not mean at this very moment?" said Captain Aylmer, almost aghast.

"No; I did not mean that."

"I'll tell you what. I'll make a point of coming down at Easter. I wasn't sure about it before, but now I will be. And then it shall be settled."

Such was the interview; and on the next morning Captain Aylmer started for London. Clara felt aware that she had not done or said all that should have been done and said; but, nevertheless, a step in the right direction had been taken.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE AYLMER PARK HASHED CHICKEN COMES TO AN END.

Easter in this year fell about the middle of April, and it still wanted three weeks of that time when Captain Aylmer started for London. Clara was quite alive to the fact that the next three weeks would not be a happy time for her. She looked forward, indeed, to so much wretchedness during this period, that the days as they came were not quite so bad as she had expected them to be. At first Lady Aylmer said little or nothing to her. It seemed to be agreed between them that there was to be war, but that there was no necessity for any of the actual operations of war during the absence of Captain Aylmer.

Clara had become Miss Amedroz again; and though an offer to be driven out in the carriage was made to her every day, she was in general able to escape the infliction;--so that at last it came to be understood that Miss Amedroz did not like carriage exercise. "She has never been used to it," said Lady Aylmer to her daughter. "I suppose not," said Belinda; "but if she wasn't so very cross she'd enjoy it just for that reason." Clara sometimes walked about the grounds with Belinda, but on such occasions there was hardly anything that could be called conversation between them, and Frederic Aylmer's name was never mentioned.

Captain Aylmer had not been gone many days before she received a letter from her cousin, in which he spoke with absolute certainty of his intention of giving up the estate. He had, he said, consulted Mr. Green, and the thing was to be done. "But it will be better, I think," he went on to say, "that I should manage it for you till after your marriage. I simply mean what I say. You are not to suppose that I shall interfere in any way afterwards. Of course there will be a settlement, as to which I hope you will allow me to see Mr. Green on your behalf." In the first draught of his letter he had inserted a sentence in which he expressed a wish that the property should be so settled that it might at last all come to some one bearing the name of Belton. But as he read this over, the condition,--for coming from him it would be a condition,--seemed to him to be ungenerous, and he expunged it. "What does it matter who has it," he said to himself bitterly, "or what he is called? I will never set my eyes upon his children, nor yet upon the place when he has become the master of it." Clara wrote both to her cousin and to the lawyer, repeating her a.s.surance,--with great violence, as Lady Aylmer would have said,--that she would have nothing to do with the Belton estate. She told Mr. Green that it would be useless for him to draw up any deeds.

"It can't be made mine unless I choose to have it," she said, "and I don't choose to have it." Then there came upon her a terrible fear.

What if she should marry Captain Aylmer after all; and what if he, when he should be her husband, should take the property on her behalf! Something must be done before her marriage to prevent the possibility of such results,--something as to the efficacy of which for such prevention she could feel altogether certain.

But could she marry Captain Aylmer at all in her present mood? During these three weeks she was unconsciously teaching herself to hope that she might be relieved from her engagement. She did not love him. She was becoming aware that she did not love him. She was beginning to doubt whether, in truth, she had ever loved him. But yet she felt that she could not escape from her engagement if he should show himself to be really actuated by any fixed purpose to carry it out; nor could she bring herself to be so weak before Lady Aylmer as to seem to yield. The necessity of not striking her colours was forced upon her by the warfare to which she was subjected. She was unhappy, feeling that her present position in life was bad, and unworthy of her. She could have brought herself almost to run away from Aylmer Park, as a boy runs away from school, were it not that she had no place to which to run. She could not very well make her appearance at Plaistow Hall, and say that she had come there for shelter and succour. She could, indeed, go to Mrs. Askerton's cottage for awhile; and the more she thought of the state of her affairs, the more did she feel sure that that would, before long, be her destiny. It must be her destiny,--unless Captain Aylmer should return at Easter with purposes so firmly fixed that even his mother should not be able to prevail against them.

And now, in these days, circ.u.mstances gave her a new friend,--or perhaps, rather, a new acquaintance, where she certainly had looked neither for the one or for the other. Lady Aylmer and Belinda and the carriage and the horses used, as I have said, to go off without her.

This would take place soon after luncheon. Most of us know how the events of the day drag themselves on tediously in such a country house as Aylmer Park,--a country house in which people neither read, nor flirt, nor gamble, nor smoke, nor have resort to the excitement of any special amus.e.m.e.nt. Lunch was on the table at half-past one, and the carriage was at the door at three. Eating and drinking and the putting on of bonnets occupied the hour and a half. From breakfast to lunch Lady Aylmer, with her old "front," would occupy herself with her household accounts. For some days after Clara's arrival she put on her new "front" before lunch; but of late,--since the long conversation in the carriage,--the new "front" did not appear till she came down for the carriage. According to the theory of her life, she was never to be seen by any but her own family in her old "front." At breakfast she would appear with head so mysteriously enveloped,--with such a bewilderment of morning caps, that old "front" or new "front" was all the same. When Sir Anthony perceived this change,--when he saw that Clara was treated as though she belonged to Aylmer Park, then he told himself that his son's marriage with Miss Amedroz was to be; and, as Miss Amedroz seemed to him to be a very pleasant young woman, he would creep out of his own quarters when the carriage was gone and have a little chat with her,--being careful to creep away again before her ladyship's return.

This was Clara's new friend.

"Have you heard from Fred since he has been gone?" the old man asked one day, when he had come upon Clara still seated in the parlour in which they had lunched. He had been out, at the front of the house, scolding the under-gardener; but the man had taken away his barrow and left him, and Sir Anthony had found himself without employment.

"Only a line to say that he is to be here on the sixteenth."

"I don't think people write so many love-letters as they did when I was young," said Sir Anthony.

"To judge from the novels, I should think not. The old novels used to be full of love-letters."