E-text prepared by Andrew Turek
and revised by Rita Bailey and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
THE BELTON ESTATE
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
First published in serial form in the _Fortnightly Review_
in 1865 and in book form the same year
CONTENTS
I. THE REMNANTS OF THE AMEDROZ FAMILY.
II. THE HEIR PROPOSES TO VISIT HIS COUSINS.
III. WILL BELTON.
IV. SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING.
V. NOT SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING.
VI. SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN.
VII. MISS AMEDROZ GOES TO PERIVALE.
VIII. CAPTAIN AYLMER MEETS HIS CONSTITUENTS.
IX. CAPTAIN AYLMER'S PROMISE TO HIS AUNT.
X. SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE.
XI. MISS AMEDROZ IS TOO CANDID BY HALF.
XII. MISS AMEDROZ RETURNS HOME.
XIII. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY.
XIV. MR. WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON.
XV. EVIL WORDS.
XVI. THE HEIR'S SECOND VISIT TO BELTON.
XVII. AYLMER PARK.
XVIII. MRS. ASKERTON'S STORY.
XIX. MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE.
XX. WILLIAM BELTON DOES NOT GO OUT HUNTING.
XXI. MRS. ASKERTON'S GENEROSITY.
XXII. PASSIONATE PLEADING.
XXIII. THE LAST DAY AT BELTON.
XXIV. THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY HOTEL.
XXV. MISS AMEDROZ HAS SOME HASHED CHICKEN.
XXVI. THE AYLMER PARK HASHED CHICKEN COMES TO AN END.
XXVII. ONCE MORE BACK TO BELTON.
XXVIII. MISS AMEDROZ IS PURSUED.
XXIX. THERE IS NOTHING TO TELL.
XXX. MARY BELTON.
XXXI. TAKING POSSESSION.
XXXII. CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
THE REMNANTS OF THE AMEDROZ FAMILY.
Mrs. Amedroz, the wife of Bernard Amedroz, Esq., of Belton Castle,
and mother of Charles and Clara Amedroz, died when those children
were only eight and six years old, thereby subjecting them to the
greatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be
made to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl the misfortune
was aggravated greatly by the peculiarities of the father's
character. Mr. Amedroz was not a bad man,--as men are held to be bad
in the world's esteem. He was not vicious,--was not a gambler or a
drunkard,--was not self-indulgent to a degree that brought upon him
any reproach; nor was he regardless of his children. But he was an
idle, thriftless man, who, at the age of sixty-seven, when the reader
will first make his acquaintance, had as yet done no good in the
world whatever. Indeed he had done terrible evil; for his son Charles
was now dead,--had perished by his own hand,--and the state of things
which had brought about this woful event had been chiefly due to the
father's neglect.
Belton Castle is a pretty country seat, standing in a small
but beautifully wooded park, close under the Quantock hills in
Somersetshire; and the little town of Belton clusters round the park
gates. Few Englishmen know the scenery of England well, and the
prettinesses of Somersetshire are among those which are the least
known. But the Quantock hills are very lovely, with their rich
valleys lying close among them, and their outlying moorlands running
off towards Dulverton and the borders of Devonshire,--moorlands which
are not flat, like Salisbury Plain, but are broken into ravines and
deep watercourses and rugged dells hither and thither; where old oaks
are standing, in which life seems to have, dwindled down to the last
spark; but the last spark is still there, and the old oaks give forth
their scanty leaves from year to year.
In among the hills, somewhat off the high road from Minehead to
Taunton, and about five miles from the sea, stands the little town,
or village, of Belton, and the modern house of Mr. Amedroz, which
is called Belton Castle. The village,--for it is in truth no more,
though it still maintains a charter for a market, and there still
exists on Tuesdays some pretence of an open sale of grain and
butcher's meat in the square before the church-gate,--contains
about two thousand persons. That and the whole parish of Belton did
once,--and that not long ago,--belong to the Amedroz family. They had
inherited it from the Beltons of old, an Amedroz having married the
heiress of the family. And as the parish is large, stretching away to
Exmoor on one side, and almost to the sea on the other, containing
the hamlet of Redicote, lying on the Taunton high road,--Redicote,
where the post-office is placed, a town almost in itself, and one
which is now much more prosperous than Belton,--as the property when
it came to the first Amedroz had limits such as these, the family had
been considerable in the county. But these limits had been straitened
in the days of the grandfather and the father of Bernard Amedroz; and
he, when he married a Miss Winterfield of Taunton, was thought to
have done very well, in that mortgages were paid off the property
with his wife's money to such an extent as to leave him in clear
possession of an estate that gave him two thousand a year. As Mr.
Amedroz had no grand neighbours near him, as the place is remote
and the living therefore cheap, and as with this income there was
no question of annual visits to London, Mr. and Mrs. Amedroz might
have done very well with such of the good things of the world as had
fallen to their lot. And had the wife lived such would probably have
been the case; for the Winterfields were known to be prudent people.
But Mrs. Amedroz had died young, and things with Bernard Amedroz had
gone badly.
And yet the evil had not been so much with him as with that terrible
boy of his. The father had been nearly forty when he married. He had
then never done any good; but as neither had he done much harm, the
friends of the family had argued well of his future career. After
him, unless he should leave a son behind him, there would be no
Amedroz left among the Quantock hills; and by some arrangement
in respect to that Winterfield money which came to him on his
marriage,--the Winterfields having a long-dated connection with the
Beltons of old,--the Amedroz property was, at Bernard's marriage,
entailed back upon a distant Belton cousin, one Will Belton, whom
no one had seen for many years, but who was by blood nearer to the
squire, in default of children of his own, than any other of his
relatives. And now Will Belton was the heir to Belton Castle; for
Charles Amedroz, at the age of twenty-seven, had found the miseries
of the world to be too many for him, and had put an end to them and
to himself.
Charles had been a clever fellow,--a very clever fellow in the eyes
of his father. Bernard Amedroz knew that he himself was not a clever
fellow, and admired his son accordingly; and when Charles had been
expelled from Harrow for some boyish freak,--in his vengeance against
a neighbouring farmer, who had reported to the school authorities the
doings of a few beagles upon his land, Charles had cut off the heads
of all the trees in a young fir plantation,--his father was proud of
the exploit. When he was rusticated a second time from Trinity, and
when the father received an intimation that his son's name had better
be taken from the College books, the squire was not so well pleased;
but even then he found some delight in the stories which reached him
of his son's vagaries; and when the young man commenced Bohemian life
in London, his father did nothing to restrain him. Then there came
the old story--debts, endless debts; and lies, endless lies. During
the two years before his death, his father paid for him, or undertook
to pay, nearly ten thousand pounds, sacrificing the life assurances
which were to have made provision for his daughter; sacrificing, to a
great extent, his own life income,--sacrificing everything, so that
the property might not be utterly ruined at his death. That Charles
Amedroz should be a brighter, greater man than any other Amedroz,
had still been the father's pride. At the last visit which Charles
had paid to Belton his father had called upon him to pledge himself
solemnly that his sister should not be made to suffer by what had
been done for him. Within a month of that time he had blown his
brains out in his London lodgings, thus making over the entire
property to Will Belton at his father's death. At that last pretended
settlement with his father and his father's lawyer, he had kept back
the mention of debts as heavy nearly as those to which he had owned;
and there were debts of honour, too, of which he had not spoken,
trusting to the next event at Newmarket to set him right. The next
event at Newmarket had set him more wrong than ever, and so there had
come an end to everything with Charles Amedroz.
This had happened in the spring, and the afflicted father,--afflicted
with the double sorrow of his son's terrible death and his daughter's
ruin,--had declared that he would turn his face to the wall and die.
But the old squire's health, though far from strong, was stronger
than he had deemed it, and his feelings, sharp enough, were less
sharp than he had thought them; and when a month had passed by, he
had discovered that it would be better that he should live, in order
that his daughter might still have bread to eat and a house of her
own over her head. Though he was now an impoverished man, there was
still left to him the means of keeping up the old home; and he told
himself that it must, if possible, be so kept that a few pounds
annually might be put by for Clara. The old carriage-horses were
sold, and the park was let to a farmer, up to the hall door of the
castle. So much the squire could do; but as to the putting by of
the few pounds, any dependence on such exertion as that on his part
would, we may say, be very precarious.
Belton Castle was not in truth a castle. Immediately before the front
door, so near to the house as merely to allow of a broad road running
between it and the entrance porch, there stood an old tower, which
gave its name to the residence,--an old square tower, up which the
Amedroz boys for three generations had been able to climb by means
of the ivy and broken stones in one of the inner corners,--and this
tower was a remnant of a real castle that had once protected the
village of Belton. The house itself was an ugly residence, three
stories high, built in the time of George II., with low rooms and
long passages, and an immense number of doors. It was a large
unattractive house,--unattractive, that is, as regarded its own
attributes,--but made interesting by the beauty of the small park in
which it stood. Belton Park did not, perhaps, contain much above a
hundred acres, but the land was so broken into knolls and valleys,
in so many places was the rock seen to be cropping up through the
verdure, there were in it so many stunted old oaks, so many points
of vantage for the lover of scenery, that no one would believe it
to be other than a considerable domain. The farmer who took it, and
who would not under any circumstances undertake to pay more than
seventeen shillings an acre for it, could not be made to think that
it was in any way considerable. But Belton Park, since first it
was made a park, had never before been regarded after this fashion.
Farmer Stovey, of the Grange, was the first man of that class who
had ever assumed the right to pasture his sheep in Belton chase,--as
the people around were still accustomed to call the woodlands of the
estate.
It was full summer at Belton, and four months had now passed since
the dreadful tidings had reached the castle. It was full summer,
and the people of the village were again going about their ordinary
business; and the shop-girls, with their lovers from Redicote, were
again to be seen walking among the oaks in the park on a Sunday
evening; and the world in that district of Somersetshire was getting
itself back into its grooves. The fate of the young heir had
disturbed the grooves greatly, and had taught many in those parts to
feel that the world was coming to an end. They had not loved young
Amedroz, for he had been haughty when among them, and there had been
wrongs committed by the dissolute young squire, and grief had come
from his misdoings upon more than one household; but to think that he
should have destroyed himself with his own hand! And then, to think
that Miss Clara would become a beggar when the old squire should die!
All the neighbours around understood the whole history of the entail,
and knew that the property was to go to Will Belton. Now Will Belton
was not a gentleman! So, at least, said the Belton folk, who had
heard that the heir had been brought up as a farmer somewhere in
Norfolk. Will Belton had once been at the Castle as a boy, now some
fifteen years ago, and then there had sprung up a great quarrel
between him and his distant cousin Charles;--and Will, who was rough
and large of stature, had thrashed the smaller boy severely; and the
thing had grown to have dimensions larger than those which generally
attend the quarrels of boys; and Will had said something which
had shown how well he understood his position in reference to the
estate;--and Charles had hated him. So Will had gone, and had been
no more seen among the oaks whose name he bore. And the people, in
spite of his name, regarded him as an interloper. To them, with their
short memories and scanty knowledge of the past, Amedroz was more
honourable than Belton, and they looked upon the coming man as an
intruder. Why should not Miss Clara have the property? Miss Clara had
never done harm to any one!
Things got back into their old grooves, and at the end of the third
month the squire was once more seen in the old family pew at church.
He was a large man, who had been very handsome, and who now, in his
yellow leaf, was not without a certain beauty of manliness. He wore
his hair and his beard long; before his son's death they were grey,
but now they were very white. And though he stooped, there was still
a dignity in his slow step,--a dignity that came to him from nature
rather than from any effort. He was a man who, in fact, did little or
nothing in the world,--whose life had been very useless; but he had
been gifted with such a presence that he looked as though he were
one of God's nobler creatures. Though always dignified he was ever
affable, and the poor liked him better than they might have done had
he passed his time in searching out their wants and supplying them.
They were proud of their squire, though he had done nothing for them.
It was something to them to have a man who could so carry himself
sitting in the family pew in their parish church. They knew that he
was poor, but they all declared that he was never mean. He was a
real gentleman,--was this last Amedroz of the family; therefore they
curtsied low, and bowed on his reappearance among them, and made all
those signs of reverential awe which are common to the poor when they
feel reverence for the presence of a superior.
Clara was there with him, but she had shown herself in the pew for
four or five weeks before this. She had not been at home when the
fearful news had reached Belton, being at that time with a certain
lady who lived on the further side of the county, at Perivale,--a
certain Mrs. Winterfield, born a Folliott, a widow, who stood to Miss
Amedroz in the place of an aunt. Mrs. Winterfield was, in truth, the
sister of a gentleman who had married Clara's aunt,--there having
been marriages and intermarriages between the Winterfields and
the Folliotts, and the Belton-Amedroz families. With this lady in
Perivale, which I maintain to be the dullest little town in England,
Miss Amedroz was staying when the news reached her father, and when
it was brought direct from London to herself. Instantly she had
hurried home, making the journey with all imaginable speed though her
heart was all but broken within her bosom. She had found her father
stricken to the ground, and it was the more necessary, therefore,
that she should exert herself. It would not do that she also should
yield to that longing for death which terrible calamities often
produce for a season.
Clara Amedroz, when she first heard the news of her brother's fate,
had felt that she was for ever crushed to the ground. She had known
too well what had been the nature of her brother's life, but she
had not expected or feared any such termination to his career as
this which had now come upon him--to the terrible affliction of all
belonging to him. She felt at first, as did also her father, that
she and he were annihilated as regards this world, not only by an
enduring grief, but also by a disgrace which would never allow her
again to hold up her head. And for many a long year much of this
feeling clung to her;--clung to her much more strongly than to her
father. But strength was hers to perceive, even before she had
reached her home, that it was her duty to repress both the feeling
of shame and the sorrow, as far as they were capable of repression.
Her brother had been weak, and in his weakness had sought a coward's
escape from the ills of the world around him. She must not also be a
coward! Bad as life might be to her henceforth, she must endure it
with such fortitude as she could muster. So resolving she returned to
her father, and was able to listen to his railings with a fortitude
that was essentially serviceable both to him and to herself.
"Both of you! Both of you!" the unhappy father had said in his woe.
"The wretched boy has destroyed you as much as himself!" "No, sir,"
she had answered, with a forbearance in her misery, which, terrible
as was the effort, she forced herself to accomplish for his sake. "It
is not so. No thought of that need add to your grief. My poor brother
has not hurt me;--not in the way you mean." "He has ruined us all,"
said the father; "root and branch, man and woman, old and young,
house and land. He has brought the family to an end;--ah me, to such
an end!" After that the name of him who had taken himself from among
them was not mentioned between the father and daughter, and Clara
settled herself to the duties of her new life, striving to live as
though there was no great sorrow around her--as though no cloud-storm
had burst over her head.
The family lawyer, who lived at Taunton, had communicated the fact of
Charles's death to Mr. Belton, and Belton had acknowledged the letter
with the ordinary expressions of regret. The lawyer had alluded to
the entail, saying that it was improbable that Mr. Amedroz would have
another son. To this Belton had replied that for his cousin Clara's
sake he hoped that the squire's life might be long spared. The lawyer
smiled as he read the wish, thinking to himself that luckily no wish
on the part of Will Belton could influence his old client either for
good or evil. What man, let alone what lawyer, will ever believe
in the sincerity of such a wish as that expressed by the heir to a
property? And yet where is the man who will not declare to himself
that such, under such circumstances, would be his own wish?
Clara Amedroz at this time was not a very young lady. She had already
passed her twenty-fifth birthday, and in manners, appearance, and
habits was, at any rate, as old as her age. She made no pretence to
youth, speaking of herself always as one whom circumstances required
to take upon herself age in advance of her years. She did not dress
young, or live much with young people, or correspond with other
girls by means of crossed letters; nor expect that, for her, young
pleasures should be provided. Life had always been serious with her;
but now, we may say, since the terrible tragedy in the family, it
must be solemn as well as serious. The memory of her brother must
always be upon her; and the memory also of the fact that her father
was now an impoverished man, on whose behalf it was her duty to care
that every shilling spent in the house did its full twelve pennies'
worth of work. There was a mixture in this of deep tragedy and of
little care, which seemed to destroy for her the poetry as well as
the pleasure of life. The poetry and tragedy might have gone hand
in hand together; and so might the cares and pleasures of life have
done, had there been no black sorrow of which she must be ever
mindful. But it was her lot to have to scrutinize the butcher's bill
as she was thinking of her brother's fate; and to work daily among
small household things while the spectre of her brother's corpse was
ever before her eyes.
A word must be said to explain how it had come to pass that the life
led by Miss Amedroz had been more than commonly serious before that
tragedy had befallen the family. The name of the lady who stood to
Clara in the place of an aunt has been already mentioned. When a girl
has a mother, her aunt may be little or nothing to her. But when
the mother is gone, if there be an aunt unimpeded with other family
duties, then the family duties of that aunt begin--and are assumed
sometimes with great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs.
Winterfield. No woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious
ideas of her duty as a woman than Mrs. Winterfield of Prospect Place,
Perivale. And this, as I say it, is intended to convey no scoff
against that excellent lady. She was an excellent lady--unselfish,
given to self-restraint, generous, pious, looking to find in her
religion a safe path through life--a path as safe as the facts of
Adam's fall would allow her feet to find. She was a woman fearing
much for others, but fearing also much for herself, striving to
maintain her house in godliness, hating sin, and struggling with the
weakness of her humanity so that she might not allow herself to hate
the sinners. But her hatred for the sin she found herself bound at
all times to pronounce--to show it by some act at all seasons. To
fight the devil was her work--was the appointed work of every living
soul, if only living souls could be made to acknowledge the necessity
of the task. Now an aunt of that kind, when she assumes her duties
towards a motherless niece, is apt to make life serious.
But, it will be said, Clara Amedroz could have rebelled; and Clara's
father was hardly made of such stuff that obedience to the aunt would
be enforced on her by parental authority. Doubtless Clara could
have rebelled against her aunt. Indeed, I do not know that she had
hitherto been very obedient. But there were family facts about these
Winterfield connections which would have made it difficult for her
to ignore her so-called aunt, even had she wished to do so. Mrs.
Winterfield had twelve hundred a year at her own disposal, and she
was the only person related to the Amedroz family from whom Mr.
Amedroz had a right to have expectations on his daughter's behalf.
Clara had, in a measure, been claimed by the lady, and the father had
made good the lady's claim, and Clara had acknowledged that a portion
of her life was due to the demands of Perivale. These demands had
undoubtedly made her life serious.
Life at Perivale was a very serious thing. As regards amusement,
ordinarily so called, the need of any such institution was not
acknowledged at Prospect House. Food, drink, and raiment were
acknowledged to be necessary to humanity, and, in accordance with the
rules of that house, they were supplied in plenty, and good of their
kind. Such ladies as Mrs. Winterfield generally keep good tables,
thinking no doubt that the eatables should do honour to the grace
that is said for them. And Mrs. Winterfield herself always wore a
thick black silk dress,--not rusty or dowdy with age,--but with
some gloss of the silk on it; giving away, with secret, underhand,
undiscovered charity, her old dresses to another lady of her own
sort, on whom fortune had not bestowed twelve hundred a year. And
Mrs. Winterfield kept a low, four-wheeled, one-horsed little phaeton,
in which she made her pilgrimages among the poor of Perivale, driven
by the most solemn of stable-boys, dressed up in a white great coat,
the most priggish of hats, and white cotton gloves. At the rate of
five miles an hour was she driven about, and this driving was to
her the amusement of life. But such an occupation to Clara Amedroz
assisted to make life serious.
In person Mrs. Winterfield was tall and thin, wearing on her brow
thin braids of false hair. She had suffered much from acute ill
health, and her jaws were sunken, and her eyes were hollow, and there
was a look of woe about her which seemed ever to be telling of her
own sorrows in this world and of the sorrows of others in the world
to come. Ill-nature was written on her face, but in this her face was
a false face. She had the manners of a cross, peevish woman; but her
manners also were false, and gave no proper idea of her character.
But still, such as she was, she made life very serious to those who
were called upon to dwell with her.
I need, I hope, hardly say that a young lady such as Miss Amedroz,
even though she had reached the age of twenty-five,--for at the time
to which I am now alluding she had nearly done so,--and was not young
of her age, had formed for herself no plan of life in which her
aunt's money figured as a motive power. She had gone to Perivale
when she was very young, because she had been told to do so, and had
continued to go, partly from obedience, partly from habit, and partly
from affection. An aunt's dominion, when once well established in
early years, cannot easily be thrown altogether aside,--even though
a young lady have a will of her own. Now Clara Amedroz had a strong
will of her own, and did not at all,--at any rate in these latter
days,--belong to that school of divinity in which her aunt shone
almost as a professor. And this circumstance, also, added to the
seriousness of her life. But in regard to her aunt's money she had
entertained no established hopes; and when her aunt opened her mind
to her on that subject, a few days before the arrival of the fatal
news at Perivale, Clara, though she was somewhat surprised, was by
no means disappointed. Now there was a certain Captain Aylmer in the
question, of whom in this opening chapter it will be necessary to say
a few words.
Captain Frederic Folliott Aylmer was, in truth, the nephew of Mrs.
Winterfield, whereas Clara Amedroz was not, in truth, her niece. And
Captain Aylmer was also Member of Parliament for the little borough
of Perivale, returned altogether on the Low Church interest,--for
a devotion to which, and for that alone, Perivale was noted
among boroughs. These facts together added not a little to Mrs.
Winterfield's influence and professorial power in the place, and gave
a dignity to the one-horse chaise which it might not otherwise have
possessed. But Captain Aylmer was only the second son of his father,
Sir Anthony Aylmer, who had married a Miss Folliott, sister of our
Mrs. Winterfield. On Frederic Aylmer his mother's estate was settled.
That and Mrs. Winterfield's property lay in the neighbourhood of
Perivale; and now, on the occasion to which I am alluding, Mrs.
Winterfield thought it necessary to tell Clara that the property must
all go together. She had thought about it, and had doubted about it,
and had prayed about it, and now she found that such a disposition of
it was her duty.
"I am quite sure you're right, aunt," Clara had said. She knew very
well what had come of that provision which her father had attempted
to make for her, and knew also how great were her father's
expectations in regard to Mrs. Winterfield's money.
"I hope I am; but I have thought it right to tell you. I shall feel
myself bound to tell Frederic. I have had many doubts, but I think
I am right."
"I am sure you are, aunt. What would he think of me if, at some
future time, he should have to find that I had been in his way?"
"The future time will not be long now, my dear."
"I hope it may; but long or short, it is better so."
"I think it is, my dear; I think it is. I think it is my duty."
It must be understood that Captain Aylmer was member for Perivale on
the Low Church interest, and that, therefore, when at Perivale he was
decidedly a Low Churchman. I am not aware that the peculiarity stuck
to him very closely at Aylmer Castle, in Yorkshire, or among his
friends in London; but there was no hypocrisy in this, as the world
goes. Women in such matters are absolutely false if they be not
sincere; but men, with political views, and with much of their
future prospects in jeopardy also, are allowed to dress themselves
differently for different scenes. Whatever be the peculiar interest
on which a man goes into Parliament, of course he has to live up to
that in his own borough. Whether malt, the franchise, or teetotalism
be his rallying point, of course he is full of it when among his
constituents. But it is not desirable that he should be full of it
also at his club. Had Captain Aylmer become Prime Minister, he would
no doubt, have made Low Church bishops. It was the side to which he
had taken himself in that matter,--not without good reasons. And
he could say a sharp word or two in season about vestments; he was
strong against candles, and fought for his side fairly well. No one
had good right to complain of Captain Aylmer as being insincere; but
had his aunt known the whole history of her nephew's life, I doubt
whether she would have made him her heir,--thinking that in doing so
she was doing the best for the good cause.
The whole history of her niece's life she did know, and she knew that
Clara was not with her, heart and soul. Had Clara left the old woman
in doubt on this subject, she would have been a hypocrite. Captain
Aylmer did not often spend a Sunday at Perivale, but when he did, he
went to church three times, and submitted himself to the yoke. He was
thinking of the borough votes quite as much as of his aunt's money,
and was carrying on his business after the fashion of men. But Clara
found herself compelled to maintain some sort of a fight, though she
also went to church three times on Sunday. And there was another
reason why Mrs. Winterfield thought it right to mention Captain
Aylmer's name to her niece on this occasion.
"I had hoped," she said, "that it might make no difference in what
way my money was left."
Clara well understood what this meant, as will, probably, the reader
also. "I can't say but what it will make a difference," she answered,
smiling; "but I shall always think that you have done right. Why
should I stand in Captain Aylmer's way?"
"I had hoped your ways might have been the same," said the old lady,
fretfully.
"But they cannot be the same."
"No; you do not see things as he sees them. Things that are serious
to him are, I fear, only light to you. Dear Clara, would I could
see you more in earnest as to the only matter that is worth our
earnestness." Miss Amedroz said nothing as to the Captain's
earnestness, though, perhaps, her ideas as to his ideas about
religion were more correct than those held by Mrs. Winterfield. But
it would not have suited her to raise any argument on that subject.
"I pray for you, Clara," continued the old lady; "and will do so as
long as the power of prayer is left to me. I hope,--I hope you do not
cease to pray for yourself?"
"I endeavour, aunt."
"It is an endeavour which, if really made, never fails."
Clara said nothing more, and her aunt also remained silent. Soon
afterwards, the four-wheeled carriage, with the demure stable-boy,
came to the door, and Clara was driven up and down through the
streets of Perivale in a manner which was an injury to her. She knew
that she was suffering an injustice, but it was one of which she
could not make complaint. She submitted to her aunt, enduring the
penances that were required of her; and, therefore, her aunt had
opportunity enough to see her shortcomings. Mrs. Winterfield did see
them, and judged her accordingly. Captain Aylmer, being a man and a
Member of Parliament, was called upon to bear no such penances, and,
therefore, his shortcomings were not suspected.
But, after all, what title had she ever possessed to entertain
expectations from Mrs. Winterfield? When she thought of it all in her
room that night, she told herself that it was strange that her aunt
should have spoken to her in such a way on such a subject. But, then,
so much had been said to her on the matter by her father, so much, no
doubt, had reached her aunt's ears also, the hope that her position
with reference to the rich widow at Perivale might be beneficial to
her had been so often discussed at Belton as a make-weight against
the extravagance of the heir, there had already been so much of this
mistake, that she taught herself to perceive that the communication
was needed. "In her honesty she has not chosen to leave me with false
hopes," said Clara to herself. And at that moment she loved her aunt
for her honesty.
Then, on the day but one following this conversation as to the
destiny of her aunt's property, came the terrible tidings of her
brother's death. Captain Aylmer, who had been in London at the time,
hurried down to Perivale, and had been the first to tell Miss Amedroz
what had happened. The words spoken between them then had not been
many, but Clara knew that Captain Aylmer had been kind to her; and
when he had offered to accompany her to Belton, she had thanked him
with a degree of gratitude which had almost seemed to imply more of
regard between them than Clara would have acknowledged to exist. But
in moments such as those, soft words may be spoken and hands may be
pressed without any of that meaning which soft words and the grasping
of hands generally carry with them. As far as Taunton Captain Aylmer
did go with Miss Amedroz, and there they parted, he on his journey up
to town, and she for her father's desolate house at Belton.