AYLMER PARK.
Aylmer Park and the great house of the Aylmers together formed an
important, and, as regarded in some minds, an imposing country
residence. The park was large, including some three or four hundred
acres, and was peopled, rather thinly, by aristocratic deer. It
was surrounded by an aristocratic paling, and was entered, at three
different points, by aristocratic lodges. The sheep were more
numerous than the deer, because Sir Anthony, though he had a large
income, was not in very easy circumstances. The ground was quite
flat; and though there were thin belts of trees, and some ornamental
timber here and there, it was not well wooded. It had no special
beauty of its own, and depended for its imposing qualities chiefly
on its size, on its three sets of double lodges, and on its
old-established character as an important family place in the county.
The house was of stone, with a portico of Ionic columns which looked
as though it hardly belonged of right to the edifice, and stretched
itself out grandly, with two pretentious wings, which certainly gave
it a just claim to be called a mansion. It required a great many
servants to keep it in order, and the numerous servants required an
experienced duenna, almost as grand in appearance as Lady Aylmer
herself, to keep them in order. There was an open carriage and a
close carriage, and a butler, and two footmen, and three gamekeepers,
and four gardeners, and there was a coachman, and there were grooms,
and sundry inferior men and boys about the place to do the work
which the gardeners and gamekeepers and grooms did not choose to
do themselves. And they all became fat, and lazy, and stupid, and
respectable together; so that, as the reader will at once perceive,
Aylmer Park was kept up in the proper English style. Sir Anthony
very often discussed with his steward the propriety of lessening the
expenditure of his residence, and Lady Aylmer always attended and
probably directed these discussions; but it was found that nothing
could be done. Any attempt to remove a gamekeeper or a gardener would
evidently throw the whole machinery of Aylmer Park out of gear. If
retrenchment was necessary Aylmer Park must be abandoned, and the
glory of the Aylmers must be allowed to pale. But things were not so
bad as that with Sir Anthony. The gardeners, grooms, and gamekeepers
were maintained; ten domestic servants sat down to four heavy meals
in the servants' hall every day, and Lady Aylmer contented herself
with receiving little or no company, and with stingy breakfasts and
bad dinners for herself and her husband and daughter. By all this it
must be seen that she did her duty as the wife of an English country
gentleman, and properly maintained his rank as a baronet.
He was a heavy man, over seventy years of age, much afflicted with
gout, and given to no pursuit on earth which was available for
his comfort. He had been a hunting man, and he had shot also; but
not with that energy which induces a sportsman to carry on those
amusements in opposition to the impediments of age. He had been, and
still was, a county magistrate; but he had never been very successful
in the justice-room, and now seldom troubled the county with his
judicial incompetence. He had been fond of good dinners and good
wine, and still, on occasions, would make attempts at enjoyment in
that line; but the gout and Lady Aylmer together were too many for
him, and he had but small opportunity for filling up the blanks of
his existence out of the kitchen or cellar. He was a big man, with
a broad chest, and a red face, and a quantity of white hair,--and
was much given to abusing his servants. He took some pleasure in
standing, with two sticks on the top of the steps before his own
front door, and railing at any one who came in his way. But he could
not do this when Lady Aylmer was by; and his dependents, knowing his
habits, had fallen into an ill-natured way of deserting the side of
the house which he frequented. With his eldest son, Anthony Aylmer,
he was not on very good terms; and though there was no positive
quarrel, the heir did not often come to Aylmer Park. Of his son
Frederic he was proud,--and the best days of his life were probably
those which Captain Aylmer spent at the house. The table was then
somewhat more generously spread, and this was an excuse for having
up the special port in which he delighted. Altogether his life was
not very attractive; and though he had been born to a baronetcy, and
eight thousand a-year, and the possession of Aylmer Park, I do not
think that he was, or had been, a happy man.
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, she 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 an 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 curtsey 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 dulness
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 in 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, despatched her
advice about the house at Perivale,--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 up-stairs 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.