The Belton Estate

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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, the 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 shillings 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
modicum 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 am. 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 God 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 courtesy 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 dullness 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 passed 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 assented 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 shilling, 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 her assent, 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, dispatched her advice about the house at Perivale
which 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
upstairs 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.'

'After this I don't know how I'm to trust her. I don't indeed. It seems
to me that she has been so artful throughout. It has been a regular
case of catching.'

'I suppose, of course, that she has been anxious to marry Frederic but
perhaps that was natural.'

'Anxious look at her going there just when he had to meet his
constituents. How young women can do such things passes me! And how it
is that men don't see it all, when it's going on just under their
noses, I can't understand. And then, her getting my poor dear sister to
speak to him when she was dying! I didn't think your aunt would have
been so weak.' It will be thus seen that there was entire confidence on
this subject between Lady Aylmer and her daughter.

We know what were the steps taken with reference to the discovery, and
how the family were waiting for Clara's reply. Lady Aylmer, though in
her words she attributed so much mean cunning to Miss Amedroz, still
was disposed to believe that that lady would show rather a high spirit
on this occasion; and trusted to that high spirit as the means for
making the breach which she still hoped to accomplish. It had been
intended or rather desired that Captain Aylmer's letter should have
been much sharper and authoritative than he had really made it; but the
mother could not write the letter herself, and had felt that to write
in her own name would not have served to create anger on Clara's part
against her betrothed. But she had quite succeeded in inspiring her son
with a feeling of horror against the iniquity of the Askertons. He was
prepared to be indignantly moral; and perhaps perhaps the misguided
Clara might be silly enough to say a word for her lost friend! Such
being the present position of affairs, there was certainly ground for
hope.

And now they were all waiting for Clara's answer. Lady Aylmer had well
calculated the course of post, and knew that a letter might reach them
by Wednesday morning. 'Of course she will not write on Sunday,' she had
said to her son, 'but you have a right to expect that not another day
should go by.' Captain Aylmer, who felt that they were putting Clara on
her trial, shook his head impatiently, and made no immediate answer.
Lady Aylmer, triumphantly feeling that she had the culprit on the hip,
did not care to notice this. She was doing the best she could for his
happiness as she had done for his health, when in days gone by she had
administered to him his infantine rhubarb and early senna; but as she
had never then expected him to like her doses, neither did she now
expect that he should be well pleased at the remedial measures to which
he was to be subjected.

No letter came on the Wednesday, nor did any come on the Thursday, and
then it was thought by the ladies at the Park that the time had come
for speaking a word or two. Belinda, at her mother's instance, began
the attack not in her mother's presence, but when she only was with her
brother.

'Isn't it odd, Frederic, that Clara shouldn't write about those people
at Belton?'

'Somersetshire is the other side of London, and letters take a long
time.'

'But if she had written on Monday, her answer would have been here on
Wednesday morning indeed, you would have had it Tuesday evening, as
mamma sent over to Whitby for the day mail letters.' Poor Belinda was a
bad lieutenant, and displayed too much of her senior officer's tactics
in thus showing how much calculation and how much solicitude there had
been as to the expected letter.

'If I am contented I suppose you may be,' said the brother.

'But it does seem to me to be so very important! If she hasn't got your
letter, you know, it would be so necessary that you should write again,
so that the the the contamination should be stopped as soon as
possible.' Captain Aylmer shook his head and walked away. He was, no
doubt, prepared to be morally indignant morally very indignant at the
Askerton iniquity; but he did not like the word contamination as
applied to his future wife.

'Frederic,' said his mother, later on the same day when the hardly-used
groom had returned from his futile afternoon's inquiry at the
neighbouring post. town 'I think you should do something in this
affair.'

'Do what, ma'am? Go off to Belton myself?'

'No, no. I certainly would not do that. In the first place it would be
very inconvenient to you, and in the next place it would not be fair
upon us. I did not mean that at all. But I think that something should
be done. She should be made to understand.'

'You may be sure, ma'am, that she understands as well as anybody.'

'I dare say she is clever enough at these kind of things.'

'What kind of things?'

'Don't bite my nose off, Frederic, because I am anxious about your
wife.'

'What is it that you wish me to do? I have written to her, and can only
wait for her answer.'

'It may be that she feels a delicacy in writing to you on such a
subject; though I own However, to make a long story short, if you like,
I will write to her myself.'

'I don't see that that would do any good. It would only give her
offence.'

'Give her offence, Frederic, to receive a letter from her future
mother-in-law from me! Only think, Frederic, what you are saying.'

'If she thought she was being bullied about this, she would turn rusty
at once.'

'Turn rusty! What am I to think of a young lady who is prepared to turn
rusty at once, too because she is cautioned by the mother of the man
she professes to love against an improper acquaintance against an
acquaintance so very improper?' Lady Aylmer's eloquence should have
been heard to be appreciated. It is but tame to say that she raised her
fat arms and fat hands, and wagged her front her front that was the
more formidable as it was the old one, somewhat rough and dishevelled,
which she was wont to wear in the morning. The emphasis of her words
should have been heard, and the fitting solemnity of her action should
have been seen. 'If there were any doubt,' she continued to say, 'but
there is no doubt. There are the damning proofs.' There are certain
words usually confined to the vocabularies of men, which women such as
Lady Aylmer delight to use on special occasions, when strong
circumstances demand strong language. As she said this she put her hand
below the table, pressing it apparently against her own august person;
but she was in truth indicating the position of a certain valuable
correspondence, which was locked up in the drawer of her writing-table.

'You can write if you like it, of course; but I think you ought to wait
a few more days.'

'Very well, Frederic; then I will wait. I will wait till Sunday. I do
not wish to take any step of which you do not approve. If you have not
heard by Sunday morning, then I will write to her on Monday.'

On the Saturday afternoon life was becoming inexpressibly disagreeable
to Captain Aylmer, and he began to meditate an escape from the Park. In
spite of the agreement between him and his mother, which he understood
to signify that nothing more was to be said as to Clara's wickedness,
at any rate till Sunday after post-hour, Lady Aylmer had twice attacked
him on the Saturday, and had expressed her opinion that affairs were in
a very frightful position. Belinda went about the house in melancholy
guise, with her eyes rarely lifted off the ground, as though she were
prophetically weeping the utter ruin of her brother's respectability.
And even Sir Anthony had raised his eyes and shaken his head, when, on
opening the post-bag at the breakfast-table an operation which was
always performed by Lady Aylmer in person her ladyship had exclaimed,
'again no letter!' Then Captain Aylmer thought that he would fly, and
resolved that, in the event of such flight, he would give special
orders as to the re-direction of his own letters from the post-office
at Whitby.

That evening, after dinner, as soon as his mother and sister had left
the room, he began the subject with his father. 'I think I shall go up
to town on Monday, sir,' said he.

'So soon as that. I thought you were to stop till the 9th.'

'There are things I must see to in London, and I believe I had better
go at once.'

'Your mother will be greatly disappointed.'

'I shall be sorry for that but business is business, you know.' Then
the father filled his glass and passed the bottle. He himself did not
at all like the idea of his son's going before the appointed time, but
he did not say a word of himself. He looked at the red-hot coals, and a
hazy glimmer of a thought passed through his mind, that he too would
escape from Aylmer Park if it were possible.

'If you'll allow me, I'll take the dog-cart over to Whitby on Monday,
for the express train.'

'You can do that certainly, but'

'Sir?'

'Have you spoken to your mother yet?'

'Not yet. I will to-night.'

'I think she'll be a little angry, Fred.' There was a sudden tone of
subdued confidence in the old man's voice as he made this suggestion,
which, though it was by no means a customary tone, his son well
understood. 'Don't you think she will be eh, a little?'

'She shouldn't go on as she does with me about Clara,' said the captain.

'Ah I supposed there was something of that. Are you drinking port?

'Of course I know that she means all that is good,' said the son,
passing back the bottle.

'Oh yes she means all that is good.'

'She is the best mother in the world.'

'You may say that, Fred and the best wife.'

'But if she can't have her own way altogether ' then the son paused,
and the father shook his head.

'Of course she likes to have her own way,' said Sir Anthony.

'It's all very well in some things.'

'Yes it's very well in some things'

'But there are things which a man must decide for himself.'

'I suppose there are,' said Sir Anthony, not venturing to think what
those things might be as regarded himself.

'Now, with reference to marrying'

'I don't know what you want with marrying at all, Fred. You ought to be
very happy as you are. By heavens, I don't know any one who ought to be
happier. If I were you, I know'

'But you see, sir, that's all settled.'

'If it's all settled, I suppose there's an end of it.'

'It's no good my mother nagging at one.'

'My dear boy, she's been nagging at me, as you call it, for forty
years. That's her way. The best woman in the world, as we were saying
but that's her way. And it's the way with most of them. They can do
anything if they keep it up anything. The best thing is to bear it if
you've got it to bear. But why on earth you should go and marry, seeing
that you're not the eldest son, and that you've got everything on earth
that you want as a bachelor, I can't understand. I can't indeed, Fred.
By heaven, I can't!' Then Sir Anthony gave a long sigh, and sat musing
awhile, thinking of the club in London to which he belonged, but which
he never entered of the old days in which he had been master of a
bedroom near St. James's Street of his old friends whom he never saw
now, and of whom he never heard, except as one and another, year after
year, shuffled away from their wives to that world in which there is no
marrying or giving in marriage. Ah, well,' he said, 'I suppose we may
as well go into the drawing-room. If it is settled, I suppose it is
settled. But it really seems to me that your mother is trying to do the
best she can for you. It really does.'

Captain Aylmer did not say anything to his mother that night as to his
going, but as he thought of his prospects in the solitude of his
bedroom, he felt really grateful to his father for the solicitude which
Sir Anthony had displayed on his behalf. It was not often that he
received paternal counsel, but now that it had come he acknowledged its
value. That Clara Amedroz was a self-willed woman he thought that he
was aware. She was self-reliant, at any rate and by no means ready to
succumb with that pretty feminine docility which he would like to have
seen her evince. He certainly would not wish to be 'nagged' by his wife
Indeed he knew himself well enough to assure himself that he would not
stand it for a day. In his own house he would be master, and if there
came tempests he would rule them. He could at least promise himself
that. As his mother had been strong, so had his father been weak. But
he had as he felt thankful in knowing inherited his mother's strength
rather than his father's weakness. But, for all that, why have a
tempest to rule at all? Even though a man do rule his domestic
tempests, he cannot have a very quiet house with them. Then again he
remembered how very easily Clara had been won. He wished to be just to
all men and women, and to Clara among the number. He desired even to be
generous to her with a moderate generosity. But above all things he
desired not to be duped. What if Clara had in truth instigated her aunt
to that deathbed scene, as his mother had more than once suggested! He
did not believe it. He was sure that it had not been so. But what if it
were so? His desire to be generous and trusting was moderate but his
desire not to be cheated, not to be deceived, was immoderate. Upon the
whole might it not be well for him to wait a little longer, and
ascertain how Clara really intended to behave herself in this emergency
of the Askertons? Perhaps, after all, his mother might be right.

On the Sunday the expected letter came but before its contents are made
known, it will be well that we should go back to Belton, and see what
was done by Clara in reference to the tidings which her lover had sent
her.

CHAPTER XVIII

MRS ASKERTON'S STORY

When Clara received the letter from Captain Aylmer on which so much is
supposed to hang, she made up her mind to say nothing of it to any one
not to think of it if she could avoid thinking of it till her cousin
should have left her. She could not mention it to him; for, though
there was no one from whom she would sooner have asked advice than from
him, even on so delicate a matter as this, she could not do so in the
present case, as her informant was her cousin's successful rival. When,
therefore, Mrs Askerton on leaving the church had spoken some customary
word to Clara, begging her to come to the cottage on the following day,
Clara had been unable to answer not having as yet made up her mind
whether she would or would not go to the cottage again. Of course the
idea of consulting her father occurred to her or rather the idea of
telling him; but any such telling would lead to some advice from him
which she would find it difficult to obey, and to which she would be
unable to trust. And, moreover, why should she repeat this evil story
against her neighbours?

She had a long morning by herself after Will had started, and then she
endeavoured to arrange her thoughts and lay down for herself a line of
conduct. Presuming this story to be true, to what did it amount? It
certainly amounted to very much. If, in truth, this woman had left her
own husband and gone away to live with another man, she had by doing so
at any rate while she was doing so fallen in such a way as to make
herself unfit for the society of an unmarried young woman who meant to
keep her name unblemished before the world. Clara would not attempt any
further unravelling of the case, even in her own mind but on that point
she could not allow herself to have a doubt. Without condemning the
unhappy victim, she understood well that she would owe it to all those
who held her dear, if not to herself, to eschew any close intimacy with
one in such a position. The rules of the world were too plainly written
to allow her to guide herself by any special judgment of her own in
such a matter. But if this friend of hers having been thus unfortunate
had since redeemed, or in part redeemed, her position by a second
marriage, would it be then imperative upon her to remember the past for
ever, and to declare that the stain was indelible? Clara felt that with
a previous knowledge of such a story she would probably have avoided
any intimacy with Mrs Askerton. She would then have been justified in
choosing whether such intimacy should or should not exist, and would so
have chosen out of deference to the world's opinion. But now it was too
late for that. Mrs Askerton had for years been her friend; and Clara
had to ask herself this question: was it now needful did her own
feminine purity demand that she should throw her friend over because in
past years her life had been tainted by misconduct.

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