THERE IS NOTHING TO TELL.
Captain Aylmer had never before this knelt to Clara Amedroz. Such
kneeling on the part of lovers used to be the fashion because lovers
in those days held in higher value than they do now that which they
asked their ladies to give,--or because they pretended to do so. The
forms at least of supplication were used; whereas in these wiser days
Augustus simply suggests to Caroline that they two might as well
make fools of themselves together,--and so the thing is settled
without the need of much prayer. Captain Aylmer's engagement had
been originally made somewhat after this fashion. He had not,
indeed, spoken of the thing contemplated as a folly, not being a
man given to little waggeries of that nature; but he had been calm,
unenthusiastic, and reasonable. He had not attempted to evince any
passion, and would have been quite content that Clara should believe
that he married as much from obedience to his aunt as from love
for herself, had he not found that Clara would not take him at all
under such a conviction. But though she had declined to come to
him after that fashion,--though something more than that had been
needed,--still she had been won easily, and, therefore, lightly
prized. I fear that it is so with everything that we value,--with our
horses, our houses, our wines, and, above all, with our women. Where
is the man who has heart and soul big enough to love a woman with
increased force of passion because she has at once recognised in him
all that she has herself desired? Captain Aylmer having won his spurs
easily, had taken no care in buckling them, and now found, to his
surprise, that he was like to lose them. He had told himself that he
would only be too glad to shuffle his feet free of their bondage; but
now that they were going from him, he began to find that they were
very necessary for the road that he was to travel. "Clara," he said,
kneeling by her side, "you are more to me than my mother; ten times
more!"
This was all new to her. Hitherto, though she had never desired
that he should assume such attitude as this, she had constantly
been unconsciously wounded by his coldness,--by his cold propriety
and unbending self-possession. His cold propriety and unbending
self-possession were gone now, and he was there at her feet. Such an
argument, used at Aylmer Park, would have conquered her,--would have
won her at once, in spite of herself; but now she was minded to be
resolute. She had sworn to herself that she would not peril herself,
or him, by joining herself to a man with whom she had so little
sympathy, and who apparently had none with her. But in what way
was she to answer such a prayer as that which was now made to her?
The man who addressed her was entitled to use all the warmth of an
accepted lover. He only asked for that which had already been given
to him.
"Captain Aylmer--," she began.
"Why is it to be Captain Aylmer? What have I done that you should use
me in this way? It was not I who,--who,--made you unhappy at Aylmer
Park."
"I will not go back to that. It is of no use. Pray get up. It shocks
me to see you in this way."
"Tell me, then, that it is once more all right between us. Say that,
and I shall be happier than I ever was before;--yes, than I ever was
before. I know how much I love you now, how sore it would be to lose
you. I have been wrong. I had not thought enough of that, but I will
think of it now."
She found that the task before her was very difficult,--so difficult
that she almost broke down in performing it. It would have been so
easy and, for the moment, so pleasant to have yielded. He had his
hand upon her arm, having attempted to take her hand. In preventing
that she had succeeded, but she could not altogether make herself
free from him without rising. For a moment she had paused,--paused as
though she were about to yield. For a moment, as he looked into her
eyes, he had thought that he would again be victorious. Perhaps there
was something in his glance, some too visible return of triumph to
his eyes, which warned her of her danger. "No!" she said, getting up
and walking away from him; "no!"
"And what does 'no' mean, Clara?" Then he also rose, and stood
leaning on the table. "Does it mean that you will be forsworn?"
"It means this,--that I will not come between you and your mother;
that I will not be taken into a family in which I am scorned; that I
will not go to Aylmer Park myself or be the means of preventing you
from going there."
"There need be no question of Aylmer Park."
"There shall be none!"
"But, so much being allowed, you will be my wife?"
"No, Captain Aylmer;--no. I cannot be your wife. Do not press it
further; you must know that on such a subject I would think much
before I answered you. I have thought much, and I know that I am
right."
"And your promised word is to go for nothing?"
"If it will comfort you to say so, you may say it. If you do not
perceive that the mistake made between us has been as much your
mistake as mine, and has injured me more than it has injured you, I
will not remind you of it,--will never remind you of it after this."
"But there has been no mistake,--and there shall be no injury."
"Ah, Captain Aylmer! you do not understand; you cannot understand.
I would not for worlds reproach you; but do you think I suffered
nothing from your mother?"
"And must I pay for her sins?"
"There shall be no paying, no punishment, and no reproaches. There
shall be none at least from me. But,--do not think that I speak in
anger or in pride,--I will not marry into Lady Aylmer's family."
"This is too bad,--too bad! After all that is past, it is too bad!"
"What can I say? Would you advise me to do that which would make us
both wretched?"
"It would not make me wretched. It would make me happy. It would
satisfy me altogether."
"It cannot be, Captain Aylmer. It cannot be. When I speak to you in
that way, will you not let it be final?"
He paused a moment before he spoke again, and then he turned sharp
upon her. "Tell me this, Clara; do you love me? Have you ever loved
me?" She did not answer him, but stood there, listening quietly to
his accusations. "You have never loved me, and yet you have allowed
yourself to say that you did. Is not that true?" Still she did not
answer. "I ask you whether that is not true?" But though he asked
her, and paused for an answer, looking the while full into her face,
yet she did not speak. "And now I suppose you will become your
cousin's wife?" he said. "It will suit you to change, and to say that
you love him."
Then at last she spoke. "I did not think that you would have treated
me in this way, Captain Aylmer! I did not expect that you would
insult me!"
"I have not insulted you."
"But your manner to me makes my task easier than I could have hoped
it to be. You asked me whether I ever loved you? I once thought that
I did so; and so thinking, told you, without reserve, all my feeling.
When I came to find that I had been mistaken, I conceived myself
bound by my engagement to rectify my own error as best I could; and I
resolved, wrongly,--as I now think, very wrongly,--that I could learn
as your wife to love you. Then came circumstances which showed me
that a release would be good for both of us, and which justified me
in accepting it. No girl could be bound by any engagement to a man
who looked on and saw her treated in his own home, by his own mother,
as you saw me treated at Aylmer Park. I claim to be released myself,
and I know that this release is as good for you as it is for me."
"I am the best judge of that."
"For myself at any rate I will judge. For myself I have decided. Now
I have answered the questions which you asked me as to my love for
yourself. To that other question which you have thought fit to put
to me about my cousin, I refuse to give any answer whatsoever." Then,
having said so much, she walked out of the room, closing the door
behind her, and left him standing there alone.
We need not follow her as she went up, almost mechanically, into her
own room,--the room that used to be her own,--and then shut herself
in, waiting till she should be assured, first by sounds in the house,
and then by silence, that he was gone. That she fell away greatly
from the majesty of her demeanour when she was thus alone, and
descended to the ordinary ways of troubled females, we may be quite
sure. But to her there was no further difficulty. Her work for the
day was done. In due time she would take herself to the cottage, and
all would be well, or, at any rate, comfortable with her. But what
was he to do? How was he to get himself out of the house, and take
himself back to London? While he had been in pursuit of her, and
when he was leaving his vehicle at the public-house in the village
of Belton, he,--like some other invading generals,--had failed to
provide adequately for his retreat. When he was alone he took a turn
or two about the room, half thinking that Clara would return to him.
She could hardly leave him alone in a strange house,--him, who, as he
had twice told her, had come all the way from Yorkshire to see her.
But she did not return, and gradually he came to understand that he
must provide for his own retreat without assistance. He was hardly
aware, even now, how greatly he had transcended his usual modes of
speech and action, both in the energy of his supplication and in the
violence of his rebuke. He had been lifted for awhile out of himself
by the excitement of his position, and now that he was subsiding
into quiescence, he was unconscious that he had almost mounted into
passion,--that he had spoken of love very nearly with eloquence. But
he did recognise this as a fact,--that Clara was not to be his wife,
and that he had better get back from Belton to London as quickly as
possible. It would be well for him to teach himself to look back on
the result of his aunt's dying request as an episode in his life
satisfactorily concluded. His mother had undoubtedly been right.
Clara, he could now see, would have led him a devil of a life; and
even had she come to him possessed of a moiety of the property,--a
supposition as to which he had very strong doubts,--still she might
have been dear at the money. "No real feeling," he said to himself,
as he walked about the room,--"none whatever; and then so deficient
in delicacy!" But still he was discontented,--because he had been
rejected, and therefore tried to make himself believe that he could
still have her if he chose to persevere. "But no," he said, as he
continued to pace the room, "I have done everything,--more than
everything that honour demands. I shall not ask her again. It is
her own fault. She is an imperious woman, and my mother read her
character aright." It did not occur to him, as he thus consoled
himself for what he had lost, that his mother's accusation against
Clara had been altogether of a different nature. When we console
ourselves by our own arguments, we are not apt to examine their
accuracy with much strictness.
But whether he were consoled or not, it was necessary that he should
go, and in his going he felt himself to be ill-treated. He left the
room, and as he went down-stairs was disturbed and tormented by the
creaking of his own boots. He tried to be dignified as he walked
through the hall, and was troubled at his failure, though he was not
conscious of any one looking at him. Then it was grievous that he
should have to let himself out of the front door without attendance.
At ordinary times he thought as little of such things as most men,
and would not be aware whether he opened a door for himself or had
it opened for him by another;--but now there was a distressing
awkwardness in the necessity for self-exertion. He did not know the
turn of the handle, and was unfamiliar with the manner of exit. He
was being treated with indignity, and before he had escaped from
the house had come to think that the Amedroz and Belton people were
somewhat below him. He endeavoured to go out without a noise, but
there was a slam of the door, without which he could not get the lock
to work; and Clara, up in her own room, knew all about it.
"Carriage;--yes; of course I want the carriage," he said to the
unfortunate boy at the public-house. "Didn't you hear me say that
I wanted it?" He had come down with a pair of horses, and as he saw
them being put to the vehicle he wished he had been contented with
one. As he was standing there, waiting, a gentleman rode by, and
the boy, in answer to his question, told him that the horseman
was Colonel Askerton. Before the day was over Colonel Askerton
would probably know all that had happened to him. "Do move a little
quicker; will you?" he said to the boy and the old man who was to
drive him. Then he got into the carriage, and was driven out of
Belton, devoutly purposing that he never would return; and as he made
his way back to Perivale he thought of a certain Lady Emily, who
would, as he assured himself, have behaved much better than Clara
Amedroz had done in any such scene as that which had just taken
place.
When Clara was quite sure that Captain Aylmer was off the premises,
she, too, descended, but she did not immediately leave the house. She
walked through the room, and rang for the old woman, and gave certain
directions,--as to the performance of which she certainly was not
very anxious, and was careful to make Mrs. Bunce understand that
nothing had occurred between her and the gentleman that was either
exalting or depressing in its nature. "I suppose Captain Aylmer went
out, Mrs. Bunce?" "Oh yes, miss, a went out. I stood and see'd un
from the top of the kitchen stairs." "You might have opened the
door for him, Mrs. Bunce." "Indeed then I never thought of it, miss,
seeing the house so empty and the like." Clara said that it did not
signify; and then, after an hour of composure, she walked back across
the park to the cottage.
"Well?" said Mrs. Askerton as soon as Clara was inside the
drawing-room.
"Well," replied Clara.
"What have you got to tell? Do tell me what you have to tell."
"I have nothing to tell."
"Clara, that is impossible. Have you seen him? I know you have seen
him, because he went by from the house about an hour since."
"Oh yes; I have seen him."
"And what have you said to him?"
"Pray do not ask me these questions just now. I have got to think of
it all;--to think what he did say and what I said."
"But you will tell me."
"Yes; I suppose so." Then Mrs. Askerton was silent on the subject
for the remainder of the day, allowing Clara even to go to bed
without another question. And nothing was asked on the following
morning,--nothing till the usual time for the writing of letters.
"Shall you have anything for the post?" said Mrs. Askerton.
"There is plenty of time yet."
"Not too much if you mean to go out at all. Come, Clara, you had
better write to him at once."
"Write to whom? I don't know that I have any letter to write at all."
Then there was a pause. "As far as I can see," she said, "I may give
up writing altogether for the future, unless some day you may care to
hear from me."
"But you are not going away."
"Not just yet;--if you will keep me. To tell you the truth, Mrs.
Askerton, I do not yet know where on earth to take myself."
"Wait here till we turn you out."
"I have got to put my house in order. You know what I mean. The job
ought not to be a troublesome one, for it is a very small house."
"I suppose I know what you mean."
"It will not be a very smart establishment. But I must look it all in
the face; must I not? Though it were to be no house at all, I cannot
stay here all my life."
"Yes, you may. You have lost Aylmer Park because you were too noble
not to come to us."
"No," said Clara, speaking aloud, with bright eyes,--almost with her
hands clenched. "No;--I deny that."
"I shall choose to think so for my own purposes. Clara, you are
savage to me;--almost always savage; but next to him I love you
better than all the world beside. And so does he. 'It's her courage,'
he said to me the other day. 'That she should dare to do as she
pleases here, is nothing; but to have dared to persevere in the
fangs of that old dragon,'--it was just what he said,--'that was
wonderful!'"
"There is an end of the old dragon now, so far as I am concerned."
"Of course there is;--and of the young dragon too. You wouldn't have
had the heart to keep me in suspense if you had accepted him again.
You couldn't have been so pleasant last night if that had been so."
"I did not know I was very pleasant."
"Yes, you were. You were soft and gracious,--gracious for you, at
least. And now, dear, do tell me about it. Of course I am dying to
know."
"There is nothing to tell."
"That is nonsense. There must be a thousand things to tell. At any
rate it is quite decided?"
"Yes; it is quite decided."
"All the dragons, old and young, are banished into outer darkness."
"Either that, or else they are to have all the light to themselves."
"Such light as glimmers through the gloom of Aylmer Park. And was he
contented? I hope not. I hope you had him on his knees before he left
you."
"Why should you hope that? How can you talk such nonsense?"
"Because I wish that he should recognise what he has lost;--that he
should know that he has been a fool;--a mean fool."
"Mrs. Askerton, I will not have him spoken of like that. He is a man
very estimable,--of estimable qualities."
"Fiddle-de-dee. He is an ape,--a monkey to be carried on his mother's
organ. His only good quality was that you could have carried him on
yours. I can tell you one thing;--there is not a woman breathing that
will ever carry William Belton on hers. Whoever his wife may be, she
will have to dance to his piping."
"With all my heart;--and I hope the tunes will be good."
"But I wish I could have been present to have heard what
passed;--hidden, you know, behind a curtain. You won't tell me?"
"I will tell you not a word more."
"Then I will get it out from Mrs. Bunce. I'll be bound she was
listening."
"Mrs. Bunce will have nothing to tell you; I do not know why you
should be so curious."
"Answer me one question at least:--when it came to the last, did he
want to go on with it? Was the final triumph with him or with you?"
"There was no final triumph. Such things, when they have to end, do
not end triumphantly."
"And is that to be all?"
"Yes;--that is to be all."
"And you say that you have no letter to write."
"None;--no letter; none at present; none about this affair. Captain
Aylmer, no doubt, will write to his mother, and then all those who
are concerned will have been told."
Clara Amedroz held her purpose and wrote no letter, but Mrs. Askerton
was not so discreet, or so indiscreet, as the case might be. She did
write,--not on that day or on the next, but before a week had passed
by. She wrote to Norfolk, telling Clara not a word of her letter, and
by return of post the answer came. But the answer was for Clara, not
for Mrs. Askerton, and was as follows:--
Plaistow Hall, April, 186--.
MY DEAR CLARA,
I don't know whether I ought to tell you but I suppose I
may as well tell you, that Mary has had a letter from Mrs.
Askerton. It was a kind, obliging letter, and I am very
grateful to her. She has told us that you have separated
yourself altogether from the Aylmer Park people. I don't
suppose you'll think I ought to pretend to be very sorry.
I can't be sorry, even though I know how much you have
lost in a worldly point of view. I could not bring myself
to like Captain Aylmer, though I tried hard.
Oh Mr. Belton, Mr. Belton!
He and I never could have been friends, and it is no use
my pretending regret that you have quarrelled with them.
But that, I suppose, is all over, and I will not say a
word more about the Aylmers.
I am writing now chiefly at Mary's advice, and because she
says that something should be settled about the estate. Of
course it is necessary that you should feel yourself to be
the mistress of your own income, and understand exactly
your own position. Mary says that this should be arranged
at once, so that you may be able to decide how and
where you will live. I therefore write to say that I
will have nothing to do with your father's estate at
Belton;--nothing, that is, for myself. I have written to
Mr. Green to tell him that you are to be considered as the
heir. If you will allow me to undertake the management of
the property as your agent, I shall be delighted. I think
I could do it as well as any one else: and, as we agreed
that we would always be dear and close friends, I think
that you will not refuse me the pleasure of serving you in
this way.
And now Mary has a proposition to make, as to which she
will write herself to-morrow, but she has permitted me to
speak of it first. If you will accept her as a visitor,
she will go to you at Belton. She thinks, and I think too,
that you ought to know each other. I suppose nothing would
make you come here, at present, and therefore she must
go to you. She thinks that all about the estate would be
settled more comfortably if you two were together. At any
rate, it would be very nice for her,--and I think you
would like my sister Mary. She proposes to start about the
10th of May. I should take her as far as London and see
her off, and she would bring her own maid with her. In
this way she thinks that she would get as far as Taunton
very well. She had, perhaps, better stay there for one
night, but that can all be settled if you will say that
you will receive her at the house.
I cannot finish my letter without saying one word for
myself. You know what my feelings have been, and I think
you know that they still are, and always must be, the
same. From almost the first moment that I saw you I have
loved you. When you refused me I was very unhappy; but
I thought I might still have a chance, and therefore I
resolved to try again. Then, when I heard that you were
engaged to Captain Aylmer, I was indeed broken-hearted. Of
course I could not be angry with you. I was not angry, but
I was simply broken-hearted. I found that I loved you so
much that I could not make myself happy without you. It
was all of no use, for I knew that you were to be married
to Captain Aylmer. I knew it, or thought that I knew it.
There was nothing to be done,--only I knew that I was
wretched. I suppose it is selfishness, but I felt, and
still feel, that unless I can have you for my wife, I
cannot be happy or care for anything. Now you are free
again,--free, I mean, from Captain Aylmer;--and how is it
possible that I should not again have a hope? Nothing but
your marriage or death could keep me from hoping.
I don't know much about the Aylmers. I know nothing of
what has made you quarrel with the people at Aylmer
Park;--nor do I want to know. To me you are once more that
Clara Amedroz with whom I used to walk in Belton Park,
with your hand free to be given wherever your heart can
go with it. While it is free I shall always ask for it.
I know that it is in many ways above my reach. I quite
understand that in education and habits of thinking you
are my superior. But nobody can love you better than I do.
I sometimes fancy that nobody could ever love you so well.
Mary thinks that I ought to allow a time to go by before
I say all this again;--but what is the use of keeping it
back? It seems to me to be more honest to tell you at once
that the only thing in the world for which I care one
straw is that you should be my wife.
Your most affectionate Cousin,
WILLIAM BELTON.
"Miss Belton is coming here, to the castle, in a fortnight," said
Clara that morning at breakfast. Both Colonel Askerton and his wife
were in the room, and she was addressing herself chiefly to the
former.
"Indeed, Miss Belton! And is he coming?" said Colonel Askerton.
"So you have heard from Plaistow?" said Mrs. Askerton.
"Yes;--in answer to your letter. No, Colonel Askerton, my cousin
William is not coming. But his sister purposes to be here, and I must
go up to the house and get it ready."
"That will do when the time comes," said Mrs. Askerton.
"I did not mean quite immediately."
"And are you to be her guest, or is she to be yours?" said Colonel
Askerton.
"It's her brother's home, and therefore I suppose I must be hers.
Indeed it must be so, as I have no means of entertaining any one."
"Something, no doubt, will be settled," said the Colonel.
"Oh, what a weary word that is," said Clara; "weary, at least, for
a woman's ears! It sounds of poverty and dependence, and endless
trouble given to others, and all the miseries of female dependence.
If I were a young man I should be allowed to settle for myself."
"There would be no question about the property in that case," said
the Colonel.
"And there need be no question now," said Mrs. Askerton.
When the two women were alone together, Clara, of course, scolded her
friend for having written to Norfolk without letting it be known that
she was doing so;--scolded her, and declared how vain it was for her
to make useless efforts for an unattainable end; but Mrs. Askerton
always managed to slip out of these reproaches, neither asserting
herself to be right, nor owning herself to be wrong. "But you must
answer his letter," she said.
"Of course I shall do that."
"I wish I knew what he said."
"I shan't show it you, if you mean that."
"All the same I wish I knew what he said."
Clara, of course, did answer the letter; but she wrote her answer to
Mary, sending, however, one little scrap to Mary's brother. She wrote
to Mary at great length, striving to explain, with long and laborious
arguments, that it was quite impossible that she should accept the
Belton estate from her cousin. That subject, however, and the manner
of her future life, she would discuss with her dear cousin Mary, when
Mary should have arrived. And then Clara said how she would go to
Taunton to meet her cousin, and how she would prepare William's house
for the reception of William's sister; and how she would love her
cousin when she should come to know her. All of which was exceedingly
proper and pretty. Then there was a little postscript, "Give the
enclosed to William." And this was the note to William:--
DEAR WILLIAM,
Did you not say that you would be my brother? Be my
brother always. I will accept from your hands all that
a brother could do; and when that arrangement is quite
fixed, I will love you as much as Mary loves you, and
trust you as completely; and I will be obedient, as a
younger sister should be.
Your loving Sister,
C. A.
"It's all no good," said William Belton, as he crunched the note in
his hand. "I might as well shoot myself. Get out of the way there,
will you?" And the injured groom scudded across the farm-yard,
knowing that there was something wrong with his master.