The Belton Estate

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Hitherto she had been independent she had specially been careful to
show to him her resolve to be independent of him. Now she would put
aside all that, and let him know that she recognized in him her lord
and master as well as husband. To her father had been left no strength
on which she could lean, and she had been forced therefore to trust to
her own strength. Now she would be dependent on him who was to be her
husband. As heretofore she had rejected his offers of assistance almost
with disdain, so now would she accept them without scruple, looking to
him to be her guide in all things, putting from her that carping spirit
in which she had been wont to judge of his actions, and believing in
him as a wife should believe in her husband.

Such were the resolutions which Clara made in the first hour of
solitude which came to her after her engagement; and they would have
been wise resolutions but for this flaw that the stronger was
submitting itself to the weaker, the greater to the less, the more
honest to the less honest, that which was nearly true to that which was
in great part false. The theory of man and wife that special theory in
accordance with which the wife is to bend herself in loving submission
before her husband is very beautiful; and would be good altogether if
it could only be arranged that the husband should be the stronger and
the greater of the two. The theory is based upon that hypothesis and
the hypothesis sometimes fails of confirmation. In ordinary marriages
the vessel rights itself, and the stronger and the greater takes the
lead, whether clothed in petticoats, or in coat, waistcoat, and
trousers; but there sometimes comes a terrible shipwreck, when the
woman before marriage has filled herself full with ideas of submission,
and then finds that her golden. headed god has got an iron body and
feet of clay.

Captain Aylmer, when he was left alone, had also something to think
about; and as there were two hours left for such thought before he
would again meet Clara, and as he had nothing else with which to occupy
himself during those two hours, he again strolled down to the bridge on
which be had made his offer. He strolled down there, thinking that he
was thinking, but hardly giving much mind to his thoughts, which he
allowed to run away with themselves as they listed. Of course he was
going to be married. That was a thing settled. And he was perfectly
satisfied with himself in that he had done nothing in a hurry, and
could accuse himself of no folly even if he had no great cause for
triumph. He had been long thinking that he should like to have Clara
Amedroz for his wife long thinking that he would ask her to marry him;
and having for months indulged such thoughts, he could not take blame
to himself for having made to his aunt that deathbed promise which she
had exacted. At the moment in which she asked him the question he was
himself anxious to do the thing she desired of him. How then could be
have refused her? And, having given the promise, it was a matter of
course with him to fulfil it. He was a man who would have never
respected himself again would have hated himself for ever, had he
failed to keep a promise from which no living being could absolve him.
He had been right therefore to make the promise, and having made it,
had been right to keep it, and to do the thing at once. And Clara was
very good and very wise, and sometimes looked very well, and would
never disgrace him; and as she was in worldly matters to receive much
and give nothing, she would probably be willing to make herself
amenable to any arrangements as to their future mode of life which he
might propose. In respect of this matter he was probably thinking of
lodgings for himself in London during the parliamentary session, while
she remained alone in the big red house upon which his eyes were fixed
at the time. There was much of convenience in all this, which might
perhaps atone to him for the sacrifice which he was undoubtedly making
of himself. Had marriage simply been of itself a thing desirable, he
could doubtless have disposed of himself to better advantage. His
prospects, present fortune, and general position were so favourable,
that he might have dared to lift his expectations, in regard both to
wealth and rank, very high. The Aylmers were a considerable people, and
he, though a younger brother, bad much more than a younger brother's
portion. His seat in Parliament was safe; his position in society was
excellent and secure; he was exactly so placed that marriage with a
fortune was the only thing wanting to put the finishing coping-stone to
his edifice that, and perhaps also the useful glory of having some Lady
Mary or Lady Emily at the top of his table. Lady Emily Aylmer? Yes it
would have sounded better, and there was a certain Lady Emily who might
have suited. Now, as some slight regrets stole upon him gently, he
failed to remember that this Lady Emily had not a shilling in the world.

Yes; some faint regrets did steal upon him, though he went on telling
himself that he had acted rightly. His stars, which were generally very
good to him, had not perhaps on this occasion been as good as usual. No
doubt he had to a certain degree become encumbered with Clara Amedroz.
Had not the direct and immediate leap with which she had come into his
arms shown him somewhat too plainly that one word of his mouth tending
towards matrimony had been regarded by her as being too valuable to be
lost? The fruit that falls easily from the tree, though it is ever the
best, is never valued by the gardener. Let him have well-nigh broken
his neck in gathering it, unripe and crude, from the small topmost
boughs of the branching tree, and the pippin will be esteemed by him as
invaluable. On that morning, as Captain Aylmer had walked home from
church, he had doubted much what would be Clara's answer to him. Then
the pippin was at the end of the dangerous bough. Now it had fallen to
his feet, and he did not scruple to tell himself that it was his and
always might have been his as a matter of course. Well, the apple had
come of a good kind, and, though there might be specks upon it, though
it might not be fit for any special glory of show or pride of place
among the dessert service, still it should be garnered and used, and no
doubt would be a very good apple for eating. Having so concluded,
Captain Aylmer returned to the house, washed his hands, changed his
boots, and went down to the drawing-room just as dinner was ready.

She came up to him almost radiant with joy, and put her hand upon his
arm. 'Martha did not know but what you were here,' she said, 'and told
them to put dinner on the table.'

'I hope I have not kept you waiting.'

'Oh, dear, no. And what if you did? Ladies never care about things
getting cold. It is gentlemen only who have feelings in such matters as
that.'

'I don't know that there is much difference; but, however ' Then they
were in the dining-room, and as the servant remained there during
dinner, there was nothing in their conversation worth repeating. After
dinner they still remained down-stairs, seating themselves on the two
sides of the fire, Clara having fully resolved that she would not on
such an evening as this leave Captain Aylmer to drink his glass of port
wine by himself.

'I suppose I may stay with you, mayn't I?' she said.

'Oh, dear, yes; I'm sure I'm very much obliged. I'm not at all wedded
to solitude.' Then there was a slight pause.

'That's lucky,' she said 'as you have made up your mind to be wedded in
another sort of way.' Her voice as she spoke was very low, but there
was a gentle ring of restrained joyousness in it which ought to have
gone at once to his heart and made him supremely blessed for the time.

'Well yes,' he answered. 'We are in for it now, both of us are we not?
I hope you have no misgivings about it, Clara.'

'Who? I? I have misgivings! No, indeed. I have no misgivings, Frederic;
no doubts, no scruples, no alloy in my happiness. With me it is all as
I would have it be. Ah; you haven't understood why it has been that I
have seemed to be harsh to you when we have met.'

'No, I have not,' said he. This was true; but it is true also that it
would have been well that he should be kept in his ignorance. She was
minded, however, to tell him everything, and therefore she went on.

'I don't know how to tell you; and yet, circumstanced as we are now, it
seems that I ought to tell you everything.'

'Yes, certainly; I think that,' said Aylmer. He was one of those men
who consider themselves entitled to see, hear, and know every little
detail of a woman's conduct, as a consequence of the circumstances of
his engagement, and who consider themselves shorn of their privilege if
anything be kept back. If any gentleman had said a soft word to Clara
eight years ago, that soft word ought to be repeated to him now. lam
afraid that these particular gentlemen sometimes hear some fibs; and I
often wonder that their own early passages in the tournays of love do
not warn them that it must be so. When James has sat deliciously
through all the moonlit night with his arm round Mary's waist and
afterwards sees Mary led to the altar by John, does it not occur to him
that some John may have also sat with his arm round Anna's waist that
Anna whom he is leading to the altar? These things should not be
inquired into too curiously; but the curiosity of some men on such
matters has no end. For the most part, women like telling only they do
not choose to be pressed beyond their own modes of utterance. 'I should
like to know that I have your full confidence,' said he.

'You have got my full confidence,' she replied.

'I mean that you should tell me anything that there is to be told.'

'It was only this, that I had learned to love you before I thought that
my love would be returned.'

'Oh was that it?' said Captain Aylmer, in a tone which seemed to imply
something like disappointment.

'Yes. Fred; that was It. And how could I, under such circumstances,
trust myself to be gentle with you, or to look to you for assistance?
How could I guess then all that I know now?'

'Of course you couldn't.'

'And therefore I was driven to be harsh. My aunt used to speak to me
about it.'

'I don't wonder at that, for she was very anxious that we should be
married.'

Clara for a moment felt herself to be uncomfortable as she heard these
words, half perceiving that they implied some instigation on the part
of Mrs Winterfield. Could it be that Captain Aylmer's offer had been
made in obedience to a promise? 'Did you know of her anxiety?' she
asked.

'Well yes; that is to say, I guessed it. It was natural enough that the
same idea should come to her and to me too. Of course, seeing us so
much thrown together, she could not but think of our being married as a
chance upon the cards.'

'She used to tell me that I was harsh to you abrupt, she called it. But
what could I do? I'll tell you, Fred, how I first found out that I
really cared for you. What I tell you now is of course a secret; and I
should speak of it to no one under any circumstances but those which
unite us two together. My Cousin Will, when he was at Belton, made me
an offer.'

'He did, did he? You did not tell me that when you were saying all
those fine things in his praise in the railway carriage.'

Of course I did not. Why should I? I wasn't bound to tell you my
secrets then, sir.'

'But did he absolutely offer to you?'

'Is there anything so wonderful in that? But, wonderful or not, he did.'

'And you refused him?'

'I refused him certainly.'

'It wouldn't have been a bad match, if all that you say about his
property is true.'

'If you come to that, it would have been a very good match; and perhaps
you think I was silly to decline it?'

'I don't say that.'

'Papa thought so but, then, I couldn't tell papa the whole truth, as I
can tell it to you now, Captain Aylmer. I couldn't tell dear papa that
my heart was not my own to give to my Cousin Will; nor could I give
Will any such reason. Poor Will! I could only say to him bluntly that I
wouldn't have him.'

'And you would, if it hadn't been hadn't been for me.'

'Nay, Fred; there you tax me too far. What might have come of my heart
if you hadn't fallen in my way, who can say? I love Will Belton dearly,
and hope that you may do so'

'I must see him first.'

'Of course but, as I was saying, I doubt whether, under any
circumstances, he would have been the man I should have chosen for a
husband. But as it was it was impossible. Now you know it all, and I
think that I have been very frank with you.'

'Oh! very frank.' He would not take her little jokes, nor understand
her little prettinesses. That he was a man not prone to joking she knew
well, but still it went against the grain with her to find that be was
so very hard in his replies to her attempts.

It was not easy for Clara to carry on the conversation after this, so
she proposed that they should go upstairs into the drawing-room. Such a
change even as that would throw them into a different way of talking,
and prevent the necessity of any further immediate allusion to Will
Belton. For Clara was aware, though she hardly knew why, that her
frankness to her future husband had hardly been successful, and she
regretted that she had on this occasion mentioned her cousin's name.
They went upstairs and again sat themselves in chairs over the fire;
but for a while conversation did not seem to come to them freely. Clara
felt that it was now Captain Aylmer's turn to begin, and Captain Aylmer
felt that he wished he could read the newspaper. He had nothing in
particular that he desired to say to his lady-love. That morning, as he
was shaving himself, he had something to say that was very particular
as to which he was at that moment so nervous, that he had cut himself
slightly through the trembling of his hand. But that had now been said,
and he was nervous no longer. That had now been said, and the thing
settled so easily, that he wondered at his own nervousness. He did not
know that there was anything that required much further immediate
speech. Clara had thought somewhat of the time which might be proposed
for their marriage, making some little resolves, with which the reader
is already acquainted; but no ideas of this kind presented themselves
to Captain Aylmer. He had asked his cousin to be his wife, thereby
making good his promise to his aunt. There could be no further
necessity for pressing haste. Sufficient for the day is the evil
thereof.

It is not to be supposed that the thriving lover actually spoke to
himself in such language as that or that he confessed to himself that
Clara Amedroz was an evil to him rather than a blessing. But his
feelings were already so far tending in that direction, that he was by
no means disposed to make any further promise, or to engage himself in
closer connexion with matrimony by the mention of any special day.
Clara, finding that her companion would not talk without encouragement
from her, had to begin again, and asked all those natural questions
about his family, his brother, his sister, his home habits, and the old
house in Yorkshire, the answers to which must be so full of interest to
her. But even on these subjects he was dry, and in-disposed to answer
with the full copiousness of free communication which she desired. And
at last there came a question and an answer a word or two on one side,
and then a word or two on the other, from which Clara got a wound which
was very sore to her.

'I have always pictured to myself,' she said 'your mother as a woman
who has been very handsome.'

'She is still a handsome woman, though she is over sixty.'

'Tall, I suppose?'

'Yes, tall, and with something of of what shall I say dignity, about
her.'

'She is not grand, I hope?'

'I don't know what you call grand.'

'Not grand in a bad sense I'm sure she is not that. But there are some
ladies who seem to stand so high above the level of ordinary females as
to make us who are ordinary quite afraid of them.'

'My mother is certainly not ordinary,' said Captain Aylmer.

'And I am,' said Clara, laughing. 'I wonder what she'll say to me or,
rather, what she will think of me.' Then there was a moment's silence,
after which Clara, still laughing, went on. 'I see, Fred, that you have
not a word of encouragement to give me about your mother.'

'She is rather particular,' said Captain Aylmer.

Then Clara drew herself up, and ceased to laugh. She had called herself
ordinary with that half- insincere depreciation of self which is common
to all of us when we speak of our own attributes, but which we by no
means intend that they who hear us shall accept as strictly true, or
shall re-echo as their own approved opinions. But in this instance
Captain Aylmer, though he had not quite done that, had done almost as
bad.

'Then I suppose I had better keep out of her way,' said Clara, by no
means laughing as she spoke.

'Of course when we are married you must go and see her.'

'You do not, at any rate, promise me a very agreeable visit, Fred. But
I dare say I shall survive it. After all, it is you that I am to marry,
and not your mother; and as long as you are not majestic to me, I need
not care for her majesty.'

'I don't know what you mean by majesty.'

'You must confess that you speak of her as of something very terrible.'

'I say that she is particular and so she is. And as my respect for her
opinion is equal to my affection for her person, I hope that you will
make a great effort to gain her esteem.'

'I never make any efforts of that kind. If esteem doesn't come without
efforts it isn't worth having.'

'There I disagree with you altogether but I especially disagree with
you as you are speaking about my mother, and about a lady who is to
become your own mother-in-law. I trust that you will make such efforts,
and that you will make them successfully. Lady Aylmer is not a woman
who will give you her heart at once, simply because you have become her
son's wife. She will judge you by your own qualities and will not
scruple to condemn you should she see cause.'

Then there was a longer silence, and Clara's heart was almost in
rebellion even on this, the first day of her engagement. But she
quelled her high spirit, and said no further word about Lady Aylmer.
Nor did she speak again till she had enabled herself to smile as she
spoke.

'Well, Fred,' she said, putting her hand upon his arm, 'I'll do my
best, and woman can do no more. And now I'll say good-night, for I must
pack for tomorrow's journey before I go to bed.' Then he kissed her
with a cold, chilling kiss and she left him for the night.

CHAPTER XII

MISS AMEDROZ RETURNS HOME

Clara was to start by a train leaving Perivale at eight on the
following morning, and therefore there was not much time for
conversation before she went. During the night she had endeavoured so
to school herself as to banish from her breast all feelings of anger
against her lover, and of regret as regarded herself. Probably, as she
told herself, she had made more of what he had said than he had
intended that she should do; and then, was it not natural that he
should think much of his mother, and feel anxious as to the way in
which she might receive his wife. As to that feeling of anger on her
own part, she did get quit of it; but the regret was not to be so
easily removed. It was not only what Captain Aylmer had said about his
mother that clung to her, doing much to quench her joy; but there had
been a coldness in his tone to her throughout the evening which she
recognized almost unconsciously, and which made her heart heavy in
spite of the joy which she repeatedly told herself ought to be her own.
And she also felt though she was not clearly aware that she did so that
his manner towards her had become less affectionate, less like that of
a lover, since the honest tale she had told him of her own early love
for him. She should have been less honest, and more discreet; less
bold, and more like in her words to the ordinary run of women. She had
known this as she was packing last night, and she told herself that it
was so as she was dressing on this her last morning at Perivale. That
frankness of hers had not been successful, and she regretted that she
had not imposed on herself some little reticence or even a little of
that coy pretence of indifference which is so often used by ladies when
they are wooed. She had been boldly honest, and had found her honesty
to be bad policy. She thought, at least, that she had found its policy
to be bad. Whether in truth it may not have been very good have been
the best policy in the world tending to give her the first true
intimation which she had ever yet received of the real character of the
man who was now so much to her that is altogether another question.

But it was clearly her duty to make the best of her present
circumstances, and she went down-stairs with a smiling face and with
pleasant words on her tongue. When she entered the breakfast-room
Captain Aylmer was there; but Martha was there also, and her pleasant
words were received indifferently in the presence of the servant. When
the old woman was gone, Captain Aylmer assumed a grave face, and began
a serious little speech which he had prepared. But he broke down in the
utterance of it, and was saying things very different from what he had
intended before he had completed it.

'Clara,' he began, 'what occurred between us yesterday is a source of
great satisfaction to me.'

'I am glad of that, Frederick,' said she, trying to be a little less
serious than her lover.

'Of very great satisfaction,' he continued; 'and I cannot but think
that we were justified by the circumstances of our position in
forgetting for a time the sad solemnity of the occasion. When I
remember that it was but the day before yesterday that I followed my
dear old aunt to the grave, I am astonished to think that yesterday I
should have made an offer of marriage.'

What could be the good of his talking in this strain? Clara, too, had
had her own misgivings on the same subject little qualms of conscience
that had come to her as she remembered her old friend in the silent
watches of the night; but such thoughts were for the silent watches,
and not for open expression in the broad daylight. But he had paused,
and she must say something.

'One's excuse to oneself is this that she would have wished it so.'

'Exactly. She would have wished it. Indeed she did wish it, and
therefore ' He paused in what he was saying, and felt himself to be on
difficult ground. Her eye was full upon him, and she waited for a
moment or two as though expecting that he would finish his words. But
as he did not go on, she finished them for him.

'And therefore you sacrificed your own feelings.' Her heart was
becoming sore, and she was unable to restrain the utterance of her
sarcasm.

'Just so,' said he; 'or, rather, not exactly that. I don't mean that I
am sacrificed; for, of course, as I have just now said, nothing as
regards myself can be more satisfactory. But yesterday should have been
a solemn day to us; and as it was not'

'I thought it very solemn.'

'What I mean is that I find an excuse in remembering that I was doing
what she asked me to do.'

'What she asked you to do, Fred?'

'What I had promised, I mean.'

'What you had promised? I did not hear that before.' These last words
were spoken in a very low voice, but they went direct to Captain
Aylmer's ears.

'But you have heard me declare,' he said, 'that as regards myself
nothing could be more satisfactory.'

'Fred,' she said, 'listen to me for a moment. You and I engaged
ourselves to each other yesterday as man and wife.'

'Of course we did.'

'Listen to me, dear Fred. In doing that there was nothing in my mind
unbefitting the sadness of the day. Even in death we must think of
life, and if it were well for you and me that we should be together it
would surely have been but a foolish ceremony between us to have
abstained from telling each other that it would be so because my aunt
had died last week. But it may be, and I think it is the case, that the
feelings arising from her death have made us both too precipitate.'

'I don't understand how that can be.'

'You have been anxious to keep a promise made to her, without
considering sufficiently whether in doing so you would secure your own
happiness; and I'

'I don't know about you, but as regards myself I must be considered to
be the best judge.'

'And I have been too much in a hurry in believing that which I wished
to believe.'

'What do you mean by all this, Clara?'

'I mean that our engagement shall be at an end; not necessarily so for
always. But that as an engagement binding us both, it shall for the
present cease to exist. You shall be again free'

'But I don't choose to be free.'

'When you think of it you will find it best that it should be so. You
have performed your promise honestly, even though at a sacrifice to
yourself. Luckily for you for both of us, I should say the full truth
has come out; and we can consider quietly what will be best for us to
do, independently of that promise. We will part, therefore, as dear
friends but not as engaged to each other as man and wife.'

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