The Belton Estate

A >> Anthony Trollope >> The Belton Estate

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

'Or rather not to my feet for gentlemen have laid aside the humble way
of making love for the last twenty years at least; but I don't know
whether the women haven't gained quite as much by the change as the
men.'

'As I know nothing will stop you when you once get into a vein of that
kind, I shall go,' said Clara. 'And till this man has come and gone I
shall not mention his name again in your presence.'

'So be it,' said Mrs Askerton; 'but as I will promise to say nothing
more about him, you need not go on his account.' But Clara had got up,
and did leave the cottage at once.

CHAPTER III

WILL BELTON

Mr Belton came to the castle, and nothing further had been said at the
cottage about his coming. Clara had seen Mrs Askerton in the meantime
frequently, but that lady had kept her promise almost to Clara's
disappointment. For she though she had in truth disliked the
proposition that her cousin could be coming with any special views with
reference to herself had nevertheless sufficient curiosity about the
stranger to wish to talk about him. Her father, indeed, mentioned
Belton's name very frequently, saying something with reference to him
every time he found himself in his daughter's presence. A dozen times
he said that the man was heartless to come to the house at such a time,
and he spoke of his cousin always as though the man were guilty of a
gross injustice in being heir to the property. But not the less on that
account did he fidget himself about the room in which Belton was to
sleep, about the food that Belton was to eat, and especially about the
wine that Belton was to drink. What was he to do for wine? The stock of
wine in the cellars at Belton Castle was, no doubt, very low. The
squire himself drank a glass or two of port daily, and had some remnant
of his old treasures by him, which might perhaps last him his time; and
occasionally there came small supplies of sherry from the grocer at
Taunton; but Mr Amedroz pretended to think that Will Belton would want
champagne and claret and he would continue to make these suggestions in
spite of his own repeated complaints that the man was no better than an
ordinary farmer. 'I've no doubt he'll like beer,' said Clara. 'Beer!'
said her father, and then stopped himself, as though. he were lost in
doubt whether it would best suit him to scorn his cousin for having so
low a taste as that suggested on his behalf, or to ridicule his
daughter's idea that the household difficulty admitted of so convenient
a solution.

The day of the arrival at last came, and Clara certainly was in a
twitter, although she had steadfastly resolved that she would be in no
twitter at all. She had told her aunt by letter of the proposed visit,
and Mrs Winterfield had expressed her approbation, saying that she
hoped it would lead to good results. Of what good results could her
aunt be thinking? The one probable good result would surely. be this
that relations so nearly connected should know each other. Why should
there be any fuss made about such a visit? But, nevertheless, Clara,
though she made no outward fuss, knew that inwardly she was not as calm
about the man's coming as she would have wished herself to be.

He arrived about five o'clock in a gig from Taunton. Five was the
ordinary dinner hour at Belton, but it had been postponed till six on
this day, in the hope that the cousin might make his appearance at any
rate by that hour. Mr Amedroz had uttered various complaints as to the
visitor's heartlessness in not having written to name the hour of his
arrival, and was manifestly intending to make the most of the grievance
should he not present himself before six but this indulgence was cut
short by the sound of the gig wheels. Mr Amedroz and his daughter were
sitting in a small drawing-room which looked out to the front of the
house, and he, seated in his accustomed chair near the window, could
see the arrival. For a moment or two he remained quiet in his chair, as
though he would not allow so insignificant a thing as his cousin's
coming to ruffle him but he could not maintain this dignified
indifference, and before Belton was out of the gig he had shuffled out
into the hall.

Clara followed her father almost unconsciously, and soon found herself
shaking hands with a big man, over six feet high, broad in the
shoulders, large limbed, with bright quick grey eyes, a large mouth,
teeth almost too perfect and a well-formed nose, with thick short brown
hair and small whiskers which came half-way down his cheeks a decidedly
handsome man with a florid face, but still, perhaps, with something of
the promised roughness of the farmer. But a more good-humoured looking
countenance Clara felt at once that she had never beheld.

'And you are the little girl that I remember when I was a boy at Mr
Folliott's?' he said. His voice was clear, and rather loud, but it
sounded very pleasant in that sad old house.

'Yes; I am the little girl,' said Clara smiling.

'Dear, dear! and that's twenty years ago now,' said he.

'But you oughtn't to remind me of that, Mr Belton.'

'Oughtn't I? Why not?'

'Because it shows how very old I am.'

'Ah, yes to be sure. But there's nobody here that signifies. How well I
remember this room and the old tower out there. It isn't changed a bit!'

'Not to the outward eye, perhaps,' said the squire.

'That's what I mean. So they're making hay still. Our hay has been all
up these three weeks. I didn't know you ever meadowed the park.' Here
he trod with dreadful severity upon the corns of Mr Amedroz, but he did
not perceive it. And when the squire muttered something about a tenant,
and the inconvenience of keeping land in his own hands, Belton would
have gone on with the subject had not Clara changed the conversation.
The squire complained bitterly of this to Clara when they were alone,
saying that it was very heartless.

She had a little scheme of her own a plan arranged for the saying of a
few words to her cousin on the earliest opportunity of their being
alone together and she contrived that this should take place within
half an hour after his arrival, as he went through the hall up to his
room. 'Mr Belton,' she said, 'I'm sure you will not take it amiss if I
take a cousin's privilege at once and explain to you something of our
way of living here. My dear father is not very strong.'

'He is much altered since I saw him last.'

'Oh, yes. Think of all that he has had to bear! Well, Mr Belton, the
fact is, that we are not so well off as we used to be, and are obliged
to live in a very quiet way. You will not mind that?'

'Who? I?'

'I take it very kind of you, your coming all this way to see us'

'I'd have come three times the distance.'

'But you must put up with us as you find us, you know. The truth is we
are very poor.'

'Well, now that's just what I wanted to know. One couldn't write and
ask such a question; but I was sure I should find out if I came.'

'You've found it out already, you see.'

'As for being poor, it's a thing I don't think very much about not for
young people. But it isn't comfortable when a man gets old. Now what I
want to know is this; can't something be done?'

'The only thing to do is to be very kind to him. He has had to let the
park to Mr Stovey, and he doesn't like talking about it.'

'But if it isn't talked about, how can it be mended?'

'It can't be mended.'

'We'll see about that. But I'll be kind to him; you see if I ain't. And
I'll tell you what, I'll be kind to you too, if you'll let me. You have
got no brother now.'

'No,' said Clara; 'I have got no brother now.' Belton was looking full
into her face, and saw that her eyes had become clouded with tears.

'I will be your brother,' said he. 'You see if I don't. When I say a
thing I mean it. I will be your brother.' And he took her hand,
caressing it, and showing her that he was not in the least afraid of
her. He was blunt in his bearing, saying things which her father would
have called indelicate and heartless, as though they gave him no
effort, and placing himself at once almost in a position of ascendency.
This Clara had not intended. She had thought that her farmer cousin, in
spite of the superiority of his prospects as heir to the property,
would have acceded to her little hints with silent acquiescence; but
instead of this he seemed prepared to take upon himself the chief part
in the play that was to be acted between them. 'Shall it be so?' he
said, still holding her hand.

'You are very kind.'

'I will be more than kind; I will love you dearly if you will let me.
You don't suppose that I have looked you up here for nothing. Blood is
thicker than water, and you have nobody now so near to you as I am. I
don't see why you should be so poor, as the debts have been paid.'

'Papa has had to borrow money on his life interest in the place.'

'That's the mischief! Never mind. We'll see if we can't do something.
And in the meantime don't make a stranger of me. Anything does for me.
Lord bless you! if you were to see how I rough it sometimes! I can eat
beans and bacon with any one; and what's more, I can go without 'em if
I can't get 'em.'

'We'd better get ready for dinner now. I always dress, because papa
likes to see it.' This she said as a hint to her cousin that he would
be expected to change his coat, for her father would have been annoyed
had his guest sat down to dinner without such ceremony. Will Belton was
not very good at taking hints; but he did understand this, and made the
necessary change in his apparel.

The evening was long and dull, and nothing occurred worthy of remark
except the surprise manifested by Mr Amedroz when Belton called his
daughter by her Christian name. This he did without the slightest
hesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for
him to do. She was his cousin, and cousins of course addressed each
other in that way. Clara's quick eye immediately saw her father's
slight gesture of dismay, but Belton caught nothing of this. The squire
took an early opportunity of calling him Mr Belton with some little
peculiarity of expression; but this was altogether lost on Will, who
five times in the next five minutes addressed 'Clara' as though they
were already on the most intimate terms. She would have answered him in
the same way, and would have called him Will, had she not been afraid
of offending her father.

Mr Amedroz had declared his purpose of coming down to breakfast during
the period of his cousin's visit, and at half-past nine he was in the
parlour. Clara had been there some time, but had not seen her cousin.
He entered the room immediately after her father, bringing his hat with
him in his hand, and wiping the drops of perspiration from his brow.
'You have been out, Mr Belton,' said the squire.

'All round the place, sir. Six o'clock doesn't often find me in bed,
summer or winter. What's the use of laying in bed when one has had
enough of sleep?'

'But that's just the question,' said Clara; 'whether one has had enough
at six o'clock.'

'Women want more than men, of course. A man, if he means to do any good
with land, must be out early. The grass will grow of itself at nights,
but it wants looking after as soon as the daylight comes.'

'I don't know that it would do much good to the grass here,' said the
squire, mournfully.

'As much here as anywhere. And indeed I've got something to say about
that.' He had now seated himself at the breakfast-table, and was
playing with his knife and fork. 'I think, sir, you're hardly making
the best you can out of the park.'

'We won't mind talking about it, if you please,' said the squire.

'Well; of course I won't, if you don't like it; but upon my word you
ought to look about you; you ought indeed.'

'In what way do you mean?' said Clara.

'If your father doesn't like to keep the land in his own hands, he
should let it to some one who would put stock in it not go on cutting
it year after year and putting nothing back, as this fellow will do.
I've been talking to Stovey, and that's just what he means.'

'Nobody here has got money to put stock on the land,' said the squire,
angrily.

'Then you should look for somebody somewhere else. That's all. I'll
tell you what now, Mr Amedroz, I'll do it myself.' By this time he had
helped himself to two large slices of cold mutton, and was eating his
breakfast and talking with an equal amount of energy for either
occupation.

'That's out of the question,' said the squire.

'I don't see why it should be out of the question. It would be better
for you and better for me too, if this place is ever to be mine.' On
hearing this the squire winced, but said nothing. This terrible fellow
was so vehemently outspoken that the poor old man was absolutely unable
to keep pace with him even to the repeating of his wish that the matter
should be talked of no further. 'I'll tell you what I'll do, now,'
continued Belton. 'There's altogether, outside the palings and in,
about a hundred and fifty acres of it. I'll give you one pound two and
sixpence an acre, and I won't cut an acre of grass inside the park no,
nor much of it outside either only just enough to give me a little
fodder for the cattle in winter.'

'And give up Plaistow Hall?' asked Clara.

'Lord love you, no. I've a matter of nine hundred acres on hand there,
and most of it under the plough. I've counted it up, and it would just
cost me a thousand pounds to stock this place. I should come and look
at it twice a year or so, and I should see my money home again, if I
didn't get any profit out of it.'

Mr Amedroz was astonished. The man had only been in his house one
night, and was proposing to take all his troubles off his hands. He did
not relish the proposition at all. He did not like to be accused of not
doing as well for himself as others could do for him. He did not wish
to make any change although he remembered at the moment his anger with
Farmer Stovey respecting the haycarts. He did not desire that the heir
should have any immediate interest in the place. But he was not strong
enough to meet the proposition with a direct negative. 'I couldn't get
rid of Stovey in that way,' he said, plaintively. I've settled it all
with Stovey already,' said Belton. 'He'll be glad enough to walk off
with a twenty-pound note, which I'll give him. He can't make money out
of the place. He hasn't got means to stock it, and then see the wages
that hay-making runs away with! He'd lose by it even at what he's
paying, and he knows it. There won't be any difficulty about Stovey.'

By twelve o'clock on that day Mr Stovey had been brought into the
house, and had resigned the land. It had been let to Mr William Belton
at an increased rental a rental increased by nearly forty pounds per
annum and that gentleman had already made many of his arrangements for
entering upon his tenancy. The twenty pounds had already been paid to
Stovey, and the transaction was complete. Mr Amedroz sat in his chair
bewildered, dismayed and, as he himself declared shocked, quite
shocked, at the precipitancy of the young man. It might be for the
best. He didn't know. He didn't feel at all sure. But such hurrying in
such a matter was, under all the circumstances of the family, to say
the least of it, very indelicate. He was angry with himself for having
yielded, and angry with Clara for having allowed him to do so. 'It
doesn't signify much,' he said, at last. 'Of course he'll have it all
to himself before long.'

'But, papa, it really seems to be a much better arrangement for you.
You'll get more money'

'Money is not everything, my dear.'

'But you'd sooner have Mr Belton, our own cousin, about the place, than
Mr Stovey.'

'I don't know. We shall see. The thing is done now, and there is no use
in complaining. I must say he hasn't shown a great deal of delicacy.'

On that afternoon Belton asked Clara to go out with him, and walk round
the place. He had been again about the grounds, and had made plans, and
counted up capabilities, and calculated his profit and losses. 'If you
don't dislike scrambling about,' said he, 'I'll show you everything
that I intend to do.'

'But I can't have any changes made, Mr Belton,' said Mr Amedroz, with
some affectation of dignity in his manner. 'I won't have the fences
moved, or anything of that kind.'

'Nothing shall be done, sir, that you don't approve. I'll just manage
it all as if I was acting as your own bailiff.' 'Son,' he was going to
say, but he remembered the fate of his cousin Charles just in time to
prevent the use of the painful word.

'I don't want to have anything done,' said Mr Amedroz.

'Then nothing shall be done. We'll just mend a fence or two, to keep in
the cattle, and leave other things as they are. But perhaps Clara will
walk out with me all the same.'

Clara was quite ready to walk out, and had already tied on her hat and
taken her parasol.

'Your father is a little nervous,' said he, as soon as they were beyond
hearing of the house.

'Can you wonder at it, when you remember all that he has suffered.'

'I don't wonder at it in the least; and I don't wonder at his disliking
me either.'

'I don't think he dislikes you, Mr Belton.'

'Oh, but he does. Of course he does. I'm the heir to the place instead
of you. It is natural that he should dislike me. But I'll live it down.
You see if I don't. I'll make him so fond of me, he'll always want to
have me here. I don't mind a little dislike to begin with.'

'You're a wonderful man, Mr Belton.'

'I wish you wouldn't call me Mr Belton. But of course you must do as
you please about that. If I can make him call me Will, I suppose you'll
call me so too.'

'Oh, yes; then I will.'

'It don't much matter what a person is called; does it! Only one likes
to be friendly with one's friends. I suppose you don't like my calling
you Clara.'

'Now you've begun you had better go on.'

'I mean to. I make it a rule never to go back in the world. Your father
is half sorry that he has agreed about the place; but I shan't let him
off now. And I'll tell you what. In spite of what he says, I'll have it
as different as possible before this time next year. 'Why, there's lots
of timber that ought to come out of the plantation; and there's places
where the roots want stubbing up horribly. These things always pay for
themselves if they are properly done. Any good done in the world always
pays.' Clara often remembered those words afterwards when she was
thinking of her cousin's character. Any good done in the world always
pays!

'But you mustn't offend my father, even though it should do good,' she
said.

'I understand,' he answered. 'I won't tread on his toes. Where do you
get your milk and butter?'

'We buy them.'

'From Stovey, I suppose.'

'Yes; from Mr Stovey. It goes against the rent.'

'And it ought to go against the grain too living in the country and
paying for milk! I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a cow. It
shall be a little present from me to you.' He said nothing of the more
important present which this would entail upon him in the matter of the
grass for the cow; but she understood the nature of the arrangement,
and was anxious to prevent it.

'Oh, Mr Belton, I think we'd better not attempt that,' she said.

'But we will attempt it. I've pledged myself to do nothing to oppose
your father; but I've made no such promise as to you. We'll have a cow
before I'm many days older. What a pretty place this is! I do like
these rocks so much, and it is such a comfort to be off the flat.'

'It is pretty.'

'Very pretty. You've no conception what an ugly place Plaistow is. The
land isn't actual fen now, but it was once. And it's quite flat. And
there is a great dike, twenty feet wide, oozing through it just oozing,
you know; and lots of little dikes, at right angles with the big one.
And the fields are all square. And there are no hedges and hardly a
tree to be seen in the place.

'What a picture you have drawn! I should commit suicide if I lived
there.'

'Not if you had so much to do as I have.'

'And what is the house like?'

'The house is good enough an old-fashioned manor-house, with high brick
chimneys, and brick gables, tiled all over, and large square windows
set in stone. The house is good enough, only it stands in the middle of
a farm-yard. I said there were no trees, but there is an avenue.'

'Come, that is something.'

'It was an old family seat, and they used to have avenues in those
days; but it doesn't lead up to the present hail door. It comes
sideways up to the farm. yard; so that the whole thing must have been
different once, and there must have been a great court-yard. In
Elizabeth's time Plaistow Manor was rather a swell place, and belonged
to some Roman Catholics who came to grief, and then the Howards got it.
There's a whole history about it, only I don't care much about those
things.'

'And is it yours now?'

'It's between me and my uncle, and I pay him rent for his part. He's a
clergyman you know, and he has a living in Lincolnshire not far off.'

'And do you live alone in that big house?'

'There's my sister. You've heard of Mary haven't you?'

Then Clara remembered that there was a Miss Belton, a poor sickly
creature, with a twisted spine and a hump back, as to whose welfare she
ought to have made inquiries.

'Oh yes; of course,' said Clara. 'I hope she's better than she used to
be when we heard of her.'

'She'll never be better. But then she does not become much worse. I
think she does grow a little weaker. She's older than I am, you know
two years older; but you would think she was quite an old woman to look
at her.' Then, for the next half-hour, they talked about Mary Belton as
they visited every corner of the place. Belton still had an eye to
business as he went on talking, and Clara remarked how many sticks he
moved as he went, how many stones he kicked on one side, and how
invariably he noted any defect in the fences. But still he talked of
his sister, swearing that she was as good as gold, and at last wiping
away the tears from his eyes as he described her maladies. 'And yet I
believe she is better off than any of us,' he said, 'because she is so
good.' Clara began to wish that she had called him Will from the
beginning, because she liked him so much. He was just the man to have
for a cousin a true loving cousin, stalwart, self-confident, with a
grain or two of tyranny in his composition as becomes a man in relation
to his intimate female relatives; and one, moreover, with whom she
could trust herself to be familiar without any danger of love-making!
She saw his character clearly, and told herself that she understood it
perfectly. He wag a jewel of a cousin, and she must begin to call him
Will as speedily as possible.

At last they came round in their walk to the gate leading into Colonel
Askerton's garden; and here in the garden, close to the gate, they
found Mrs Askerton. I fancy that she had been watching for them, or at
any rate watching for Clara, so that she might know how her friend was
carrying herself with her cousin. She came at once to the wicket, and
there she was introduced by Clara to Mr Belton. Mr Belton, as he made
his bow, muttered something awkwardly, and seemed to lose his self-
possession for the moment. Mrs Askerton was very gracious to him, and
she knew well how to be both gracious and ungracious. She talked about
the scenery, and the charms of the old place, and the dullness of the
people around them, and the inexpediency of looking for society in
country places; till after awhile Mr Belton was once more at his ease.

'How is Colonel Askerton?' asked Clara.

'He's in-doors. Will you come and see him? He's reading a French novel,
as usual. It's the only thing he ever does in summer. Do you ever read
French novels, Mr Belton?'

'I read very little at all, and when I do I read English.'

'Ah, you're a man who has a pursuit in life, no doubt.'

'I should rather think so that is, if you mean, by a pursuit, earning
my bread. A man has not much time for French novels with a thousand
acres of land on his hands; even if he knew how to read French, which I
don't.'

'But you're not always at work on your farm?'

'It's pretty constant, Mrs Askerton. Then I shoot, and hunt.'

'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 assumed too many of the
airs of proprietorship because the shooting of the place had been let
to her husband for thirty pounds a year.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33