'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 recognize 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 tomorrow, 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 car 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.



CHAPTER XXX

MARY BELTON

It was about the middle of the pleasant month of May when Clara Amedroz again made that often repeated journey to Taunton, with the object of meeting Mary Belton. She had transferred herself and her own peculiar belongings back from the cottage to the house, and had again established herself there so that she might welcome her new friend. But she was not satisfied with simply receiving her guest at Belton, and therefore she made the journey to Taunton, and settled herself for the night at the inn. She was careful to get a bedroom for an 'invalid lady', close to the sitting-room, and before she went down to the station she saw that the cloth was laid for tea, and that the tea parlour had been made to look as pleasant as was possible with an inn parlour.

She was very nervous as she stood upon the platform waiting for the new comer to show herself. She knew that Mary was a cripple, but did not know how far her cousin was disfigured by her infirmity; and when she saw a pale-faced little woman, somewhat melancholy, but yet pretty withal, with soft, clear eyes, and only so much appearance of a stoop as to soften the hearts of those who saw her, Clara was agreeably surprised, and felt herself to be suddenly relieved of an unpleasant weight. She could talk to the woman she saw there, as to any other woman, without the painful necessity of treating her always as an invalid. 'I think you are Miss Belton?' she said, holding out her hand. The likeness between Mary and her brother was too great to allow of Clara being mistaken.

'And you are Clara Amedroz? It is so good of you to come to meet me!'

'I thought you would be dull in a strange town by yourself.'

'It will be much nicer to have you with me.'

Then they went together up to the inn; and when they had taken their bonnets off, Mary Belton kissed her cousin. 'You are very nearly what I fancied you,' said Mary.

'Am I? I hope you fancied me to be something that you could like.'

'Something that I could love very dearly. You are a little taller than what Will said; but then a gentleman is never a judge of a lady's height. And he said you were thin.'

'I am not very fat.'

'No; not very fat; but neither are you thin. Of course, you know, I have thought a great deal about you. It seems as though you had come to be so very near to us; and blood is thicker than water, is it not? If cousins are not friends, who can be?'

In the course of that evening they became very confidential together, and Clara thought that she could love Mary Belton better than any woman that she had ever known. Of course they were talking about William, and Clara was at first in constant fear lest some word should be said on her lover's behalf some word which would drive her to declare that she would not admit him as a lover; but Mary abstained from the subject with marvellous care and tact. Though she was talking through the whole evening of her brother, she so spoke of him as almost to make Clara believe that she could not have heard of that episode in his life. Mrs Askerton would have dashed at the subject at once; but then, as Clara told herself, Mary Bolton was better than Mrs Askerton.

A few words were said about the estate, and they originated in Clara's declaration that Mary would have to be regarded as the mistress of the house to which they were going. 'I cannot agree to that,' said Mary.

'But the house is William's, you know,' said Clara.

'He says not.'

'But of course that must be nonsense, Mary.'

'It is very evident that you know nothing of Plaistow ways, or you would not say that anything coming from William was nonsense. We are accustomed to regard all his words as law, and when he says that a thing is to be so, it always is so.'

'Then he is a tyrant at home.'

'A beneficent despot. Some despots, you know, always were beneficent.'

'He won't have his way in this thing.'

'I'll leave you and him to fight about that, my dear. I am so completely under his thumb that I always obey him in everything. You must not, therefore, expect to range me on your side.'

The next day they were at Belton Castle, and in a very few hours Clara felt that she was quite at home with her cousin. On the second day Mrs Askerton came up and called according to an arrangement to that effect made between her and Clara. I'll stay away if you like it,' Mrs Askerton had said. But Clara had urged her to come, arguing with her that she was foolish to be thinking always of her own misfortune. 'Of course I am always thinking of it,' she had replied, and always thinking that other people are thinking of it. Your cousin, Miss Belton, knows all my history, of course, But what matters? I believe it would be better that everybody should know it. I suppose she's very straight-laced and prim.'She is not prim at all,' said Clara. 'Well, I'll come,' said Mrs Askerton, 'but I shall not be a bit surprised if I hear that she goes back to Norfolk the next day.'

So Mrs Askerton came, and Miss Belton did not go back to Norfolk. Indeed, at the end of the visit, Mrs Askerton had almost taught herself to believe that William Belton had kept his secret, even from his sister. 'She's a dear little woman,' Mrs Askerton afterwards said to Clara.

'Is she not?'

'And so thoroughly like a lady.'

'Yes; I think she is a lady.'

'A princess among ladies! What a pretty little conscious way she has of asserting herself when she has an opinion and means to stick to it! I never saw a woman who got more strength out of her weakness. Who would dare to contradict her?'

'But then she knows everything so well,' said Clara.

'And how like her brother she is!'

'Yes there is a great family likeness.'

'And in character, too. I'm sure you'd find, if you were to try her, that she has all his personal firmness, though she can't show it as he does by kicking out his feet and clenching his fist.'

'I'm glad you like her,' said Clara.

'I do like her very much.'

'It is so odd the way you have changed. You used to speak of him as though he was merely a clod of a farmer, and of her as a stupid old maid. Now, nothing is too good to say of them.'

'Exactly, my dear and if you do not understand why, you are not so clever as I take you to be.'

Life went on very pleasantly with them at Belton for two or three weeks but with this drawback as regarded Clara, that she had no means of knowing what was to be the course of her future life. During these weeks she twice received letters from her Cousin Will, and answered both of them. But these letters referred to matters of business which entailed no contradiction to certain details of money due to the estate before the old squire's death, and to that vexed question of Aunt Winterfield's legacy, which had by this time drifted into Belton's hands, and as to which he was inclined to act in accordance with his cousin's wishes, though he was assured by Mr Green that the legacy was as good a legacy as had ever been left by an old woman. 'I think,' he said in his last letter,' that we shall be able to throw him over in spite of Mr Green.' Clara, as she read this, could not but remember that the man to be thrown over was the man to whom she had been engaged, and she could not but remember also all the circumstances of the intended legacy of her aunt's death, and of the scenes which had immediately followed her death. It was so odd that William Belton should now be discussing with her the means of evading all her aunt's intentions and that he should be doing so, not as her accepted lover. He had, indeed, called himself her brother, but he was in truth her rejected lover.

From time to time during these weeks Mrs Askerton would ask her whether Mr Belton was coming to Belton, and Clara would answer her with perfect truth that she did not believe that he had any such intention. 'But he must come soon,' Mrs Askerton would say. And when Clara would answer that she knew nothing about it, Mrs Askerton would ask further questions about Mary Belton. 'Your cousin must know whether her brother is coming to look after the property?' But Miss Belton, though she heard constantly from her brother, gave no such intimation. If he had any intention of coming, she did not speak of it. During all these days she had not as yet said a word of her brother's love. Though his name was daily in her mouth and latterly, was frequently mentioned by Clara there had been no allusion to that still enduring hope of which Will Belton himself could not but speak when he had any opportunity of speaking at all. And this continued till at last Clara was driven to suppose that Mary Belton knew nothing of her brother's hopes.

But at last there came a change a change which to Clara was as great as that which had affected her when she first found that her delightful cousin was not sale against love-making. She had made up her mind that the sister did not intend to plead for her brother that the sister probably knew nothing of the brother's necessity for pleading that the brother probably had no further need for pleading When she remembered his last passionate words, she could not but accuse herself of hypocrisy when she allowed place in her thoughts to this latter supposition. He had been so intently earnest! The nature of the man was so eager and true! But yet, in spite of all that had been said, of all the fire in his eyes, and life in his words, and energy in his actions, he had at last seen that his aspirations were foolish, and his desires vain. It could not otherwise be that she and Mary should pass these hours in such calm repose without an allusion to the disturbing subject! After this fashion, and with such meditations as these, had passed by the last weeks and then at last there came the change.

'I have had a letter from William this morning,' said Mary.

'And so have not I,' said Clara, and yet I expect to hear from him.'

'He means to be here soon,' said Mary.

'Oh, indeed!'

'He speaks of being here next week.'

For a moment or two Clara had yielded to the agitation caused by her cousin's tidings; but with a little gush she recovered her presence of mind, and was able to speak with all the hypocritical propriety of a female. 'I am glad to hear it,' she said. 'It is only right that he should come.'

'He has asked me to say a word to you as to the purport of his journey.'

Then again Clara's courage and hypocrisy were so far subdued that they were not able to maintain her in a position adequate to the occasion. 'Well,' she said laughing, 'what is the word? I hope it is not that I am to pack up, bag and baggage, and take myself elsewhere. Cousin William is one of those persons who are willing to do everything except what they are wanted to do. He will go on talking about the Belton estate, when I want to know whether I may really look for as much as twelve shillings a week to live upon.'

'He wants me to speak to you about—about the earnest love he bears for you.'

'Oh dear! Mary;—could you not suppose it all to be said? It is an old trouble, and need not be repeated.'

'No,' said Mary, 'I cannot suppose it to be all said.' Clara looking up as she heard the voice, was astonished both by the fire in the woman's eye and by the force of her tone. 'I will not think so meanly of you as to believe that such words from such a man can be passed by as meaning nothing. I will not say that you ought to be able to love him; in that you cannot control your heart; but if you cannot love him, the want of such love ought to make you suffer to suffer much and be very sad.'

'I cannot agree to that, Mary.'

'Is all his life nothing, then? Do you know what love means with him;—this love which he bears to you? Do you understand that it is everything to him?—that from the first moment in which he acknowledged to himself that his heart was set upon you, he could not bring himself to set it upon any other thing for a moment? Perhaps you have never understood this; have never perceived that he is so much in earnest, that to him it is more than money, or land, or health,—more than life itself,—that he so loves that he would willingly give everything that he has for his love? Have you known this?'

Clara would not answer these questions for a while. What if she had known it all, was she therefore bound to sacrifice herself? Could it be the duty of any woman to give herself to a man simply because a man wanted her? That was the argument as it was put forward now by Mary Belton.

'Dear, dearest Clara,' said Mary Belton, stretching herself forward from her chair, and putting out her thin, almost transparent, hand, 'I do not think that you have thought enough of this; or, perhaps, you have not known it. But his love for you is as I say. To him it is everything. It pervades every hour of every day, every corner in his life! He knows nothing of anything else while he is in his present state.'

'He is very good more than good.'

'He is very good.'

'But I do not see that;—that— Of course I know how disinterested he is.'

'Disinterested is a poor word. It insinuates that in such a matter there could be a question of what people call interest.'

'And I know, too, how much he honours me.'

'Honour is a cold word. It is not honour, but love downright true, honest love. I hope he does honour you. I believe you to be an honest, true woman; and, as he knows you well, he probably does honour you but I am speaking of love.' Again Clara was silent. She knew what should be her argument if she were determined to oppose her cousin's pleadings; and she knew also she thought she knew that she did intend to oppose them; but there was a coldness in the argument to which she was averse. 'You cannot be insensible to such love as that!' said Mary, going on with the cause which she had in hand.

'You say that he is fond of me.'

'Fond of you! I have not used such trifling expressions as that.'

'That he loves me.'

'You know he loves you. Have you ever doubted a word that he has spoken to you on any subject?'

'I believe he speaks truly.'

'You know he speaks truly. He is the very soul of truth.'

'But, Mary—'

'Well, Clara! But remember; do not answer me lightly. Do not play with a man's heart because you have it in your power.'

'You wrong me. I could never do like that. You tell me that he loves me but what if I do not love him? Love will not be constrained. Am I to say that I love him because I believe that he loves me?'

This was the argument, and Clara found herself driven to use it not so much from its special applicability to herself, as on account of its general fitness. Whether it did or did not apply to herself she had no time to ask herself at that moment; but she felt that no man could have a right to claim a woman's hand on the strength of his own love unless he had been able to win her love. She was arguing on behalf of women in general rather than on her own behalf.

'If you mean to tell me that you cannot love him, of course I must give over,' said Mary, not caring at all for men and women in general, but full of anxiety for her brother. 'Do you mean to say that that you can never love him?' It almost seemed, from her face, that she was determined utterly to quarrel with her new-found cousin to quarrel and to go at once away if she got an answer that would not please her.

'Dear Mary, do not press me so hard.'

'But I want to press you hard. It is not right that he should lose his life in longing and hoping.'

'He will not lose his life, Mary.'

'I hope not not not if I can help it. I trust that he will be strong enough to get rid of his trouble to put it down and trample it under his feet.' Clara, as she heard this, began to ask herself what it was that was to be trampled under Will's feet. 'I think he will be man enough to overcome his passion; and then, perhaps you may regret what you have lost.'

'Now you are unkind to me.'

'Well; what would you have me say? Do I not know that he is offering you the best gift that he can give? Did I not begin by swearing to you that he loved you with a passion of love that cannot but be flattering to you? If it is to be love in vain, this to him is a great misfortune. And, yet, when I say that I hope that he will recover, you tell me that I am unkind.'

'No not for that.'

'May I tell him to come and plead for himself?'

Again Clara was silent, not knowing how to answer that last question. And when she did answer it, she answered it thoughtlessly. 'Of course he knows that he can do that.'

'He says that he has been forbidden.'

'Oh, Mary, what am I to say to you? You know it all, and I wonder that you can continue to question me in this way.'

'Know all what?'

'That I have been engaged to Captain Aylmer.'

'But you are not engaged to him now.'

'No I am not.'

'And there can be no renewal there, I suppose?'

'Oh, no!'

'Not even for my brother would I say a word if I thought'

'No there is nothing of that; but If you cannot understand, I do not think that I can explain it.' It seemed to Clara that her cousin, in her anxiety for her brother, did not conceive that a woman, even if she could suddenly transfer her affections from one man to another, could not bring herself to say that she had done so.

'I must write to him today,' said Mary, 'and I must give him some answer. Shall I tell him that he had better not come here till you are gone?'

'That will perhaps be best,' said Clara.

'Then he will never come at all.'

'I can go can go at once. I will go at once. You shall never have to say that my presence prevented his coming to his own house. I ought not to be here. I know it now. I will go away, and you may tell him that I am gone.'

'No, dear; you will not go.'

'Yes I must go. I fancied things might be otherwise, because he once told me that he would be a brother to me. And I said I would hold him to that not only because I want a brother so badly, but because I love him so dearly. But it cannot be like that.'

'You do not think that he will ever desert you?'

'But I will go away, so that he may come to his own house. I ought not to be here. Of course I ought not to be at Belton either in this house or in any other. Tell him that I will be gone before he can come, and tell him also that I will not be too proud to accept from him what it may be fit that he should give me. I have no one but him no one but him no one but him.' Then she burst into tears, and throwing hack her head, covered her face with her hands.

Miss Belton, upon this, rose slowly from the chair on which she was sitting, and making her way painfully across to Clara, stood leaning on the weeping girl's chair. 'You shall not go while I am here,' she said.

'Yes; I must go. He cannot come till I am gone.'

'Think of it all once again, Clara. May I not tell him to come, and that while he is coming you will see if you cannot soften your heart towards him?'

'Soften my heart! Oh, if I could only harden it!'

'He would wait. If you would only bid him wait, he would be so happy in waiting.'

'Yes till tomorrow morning. I know him. Hold out your little finger to him, and he has your whole hand and arm in a moment.'

'I want you to say that you will try to love him.'

But Clara was in truth trying not to love him. She was ashamed of herself because she did love the one man, when, but a few weeks since, she had confessed that she loved another. She had mistaken herself and her own feelings, not in reference to her cousin, but in supposing that she could really have sympathized with such a man as Captain Aylmer. It was necessary to her self-respect that she should be punished because of that mistake. She could not save herself from this condemnation she would not grant herself a respite because, by doing so, she would make another person happy. Had Captain Aylmer never crossed her path, she would have given her whole heart to her cousin. Nay; she had so given it had done so, although Captain Aylmer had crossed her path and come in her way. But it was matter of shame to her to find that this had been possible, and she could not bring herself to confess her shame.

The conversation at last ended, as such conversations always do end, without any positive decision. Mary wrote of course to her brother, but Clara was not told of the contents of the letter. We, however, may know them, and may understand their nature, without learning above two lines of the letter. 'If you can be content to wait awhile, you will succeed,' said Mary; 'but when were you ever content to wait for anything?' 'If there is anything I hate, it is waiting,' said Will, when he received the letter; nevertheless the letter made him happy, and he went about his farm with a sanguine heart, as he arranged matters for another absence. 'Away long?' he said, in answer to a question asked him by his head man; 'how on earth can I say how long I shall be away? You can go on well enough without me by this time, I should think. You will have to learn, for there is no knowing how often I may be away, or for how long.'

When Mary said that the letter had been written, Clara again spoke about going. 'And where will you go?' said Mary.

'I will take a lodging in Taunton.'

'He would only follow you there, and there would be more trouble. That would be all. He must act as your guardian, and in that capacity, at any rate, you must submit to him.' Clara, therefore, consented to remain at Belton; but, before Will arrived, she returned from the house to the cottage.

'Of course I understand all about it,' said Mrs Askerton; 'and let me tell you this that if it is not all settled within a week from his coming here, I shall think that you are without a heart. He is to be knocked about, and cuffed, and kept from his work, and made to run up and down between here and Norfolk, because you cannot bring yourself to confess that you have been a fool.'

'I have never said that I have not been a fool,' said Clara.

'You have made a mistake as young women will do sometimes, even when they are as prudent and circumspect as you are and now you don't quite like the task of putting it right.'

It was all true, and Clara knew that it was true. The putting right of mistakes is never pleasant; and in this case it was so unpleasant that she could not bring herself to acknowledge that it must be done. And yet, I think that, by this time, she was aware of the necessity.



CHAPTER XXXI

TAKING POSSESSION

'I want her to have it all,' said William Belton to Mr Green, the lawyer, when they came to discuss the necessary arrangements for the property.

'But that would be absurd.'

'Never mind. It is what I wish. I suppose a man may do what he likes with his own.'

'She won't take it,' said the lawyer.

'She must take it, if you manage the matter properly,' said Will.

'I don't suppose it will make much difference,' said the lawyer,—'now that Captain Aylmer is out of the running.'

'I know nothing about that. Of course I am very glad that he should be out of the running, as you call it. He is a bad sort of fellow, and I didn't want him to have the property. But all that has had nothing to do with it. I'm not doing it because I think she is ever to be my wife.'

From this the reader will understand that Belton was still fidgeting himself and the lawyer about the estate when he passed through London. The matter in dispute, however, was so important that he was induced to seek the advice of others besides Mr Green, and at last was brought to the conclusion that it was his paramount duty to become Belton of Belton. There seemed in the minds of all these councillors to be some imperative and almost imperious requirement that the acres should go back to a man of his name. Now, as there was no one else of the family who could stand in his way, he had no alternative but to become Belton of Belton. He would, however, sell his estate in Norfolk, and raise money for endowing Clara with commensurate riches. Such was his own plan but having fallen among counsellors he would not exactly follow his own plan, and at last submitted to an arrangement in accordance with which an annuity of eight hundred pounds a year was to be settled upon Clara, and this was to lie as a charge upon the estate in Norfolk.

'It seems to me to be very shabby,' said William Belton.

'It seems to me to be very extravagant,' said the leader among the counsellors. 'She is not entitled to sixpence.'

But at last the arrangement as above described was the one to which they all assented.

When Belton reached the house which was now his own he found no one there but his sister. Clara was at the cottage. As he had been told that she was to return there, he had no reason to be annoyed. But, nevertheless, he was annoyed, or rather discontented, and had not been a quarter of an hour about the place before he declared his intention to go and seek her.

'Do no such thing, Will; pray do not,' said his sister.

'And why not?'

'Because it will be better that you should wait. You will only injure yourself and her by being impetuous.'

'But it is absolutely necessary that she should know her own position. It would be cruelty to keep her in ignorance though for the matter of that I shall be ashamed to tell her. Yes I shall be ashamed to look her in the face. What will she think of it after I had assured her that she should have the whole?'

'But she would not have taken it, Will. And had she done so, she would have been very wrong. Now she will be comfortable.'

'I wish I could be comfortable,' said he.

'If you will only wait—'

'I hate waiting. I do not see what good it will do. Besides, I don't mean to say anything about that,—not today, at least. I don't indeed. As for being here and not seeing her, that is out of the question. Of course she would think that I had quarrelled with her, and that I meant to take everything to myself, now that I have the power.'

'She won't suspect you of wishing to quarrel with her, Will.'

'I should in her place. It is out of the question that I should be here, and not go to her. It would be monstrous. I will wait till they have done lunch, and then I will go up.'

It was at last decided that he should walk up to the cottage, call upon Colonel Askerton, and ask to see Clara in the colonel's presence. It was thought that he could make his statement about the money better before a third person who could be regarded as Clara's friend, than could possibly be done between themselves. He did, therefore, walk across to the cottage, and was shown into Colonel Askerton's study.

'There he is,' Mrs Askerton said, as soon as she heard the sound of the bell. 'I knew that he would come at once.'

During the whole morning Mrs Askerton had been insisting that Belton would make his appearance on that very day the day of his arrival at Belton, and Clara had been asserting that he would not do so.

'Why should he come?' Clara had said.

'Simply to take you to his own house, like any other of his goods and chattels.'

'I am not his goods or his chattels.'

'But you soon will be; and why shouldn't you accept your lot quietly? He is Belton of Belton, and everything here belongs to him.'

'I do not belong to him.'

'What nonsense! When a man has the command of the situation, as he has, he can do just what he pleases. If he were to come and carry you off by violence, I have no doubt the Beltonians would assist him, and say that he was right. And you of course would forgive him. Belton of Belton may do anything.'

'That is nonsense, if you please.'

'Indeed if you had any of that decent feeling of feminine inferiority which ought to belong to all women, he would have found you sitting on the doorstep of his house waiting for him.'

That had been said early in the morning, when they first knew that he had arrived; but they had been talking about him ever since talking about him under pressure from Mrs Askerton, till Clara had been driven to long that she might be spared. 'If he chooses to come, he will come,' she said. 'Of course he will come,' Mrs Askerton had answered, and then they heard the ring of the hell. 'There he is. I could swear to the sound of his foot. Doesn't he step as though he were Belton of Belton, and conscious that everything belonged to him?' Then there was a pause. 'He has been shown in to Colonel Askerton. What on earth could he want with him?'

'He has called to tell him something about the cottage,' said Clara, endeavouring to speak as though she were calm through it all.

'Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his trumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of his own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered up to him. If he does I shall vote for obeying.'

'And I for disobeying and shall vote very strongly too.'

Their suspense was yet prolonged for another ten minutes, and at the end of that time the servant came in and asked if Miss Amedroz would be good enough to go into the master's room. 'Mr Belton is there, Fanny?' asked Mrs Askerton. The girl confessed that Mr Belton was there, and then Clara, without another word, got up and left the room. She had much to do in assuming a look of composure before she opened the door; but she made the effort, and was not unsuccessful. In another second she found her hand in her cousin's, and his bright eye was fixed upon her with that eager friendly glance which made his face so pleasant to those whom he loved.

'Your cousin has been telling me of the arrangements he has been making for you with the lawyers,' said Colonel Askerton. 'I can only say that I wish all the ladies had cousins so liberal, and so able to be liberal.'

'I thought I would see Colonel Askerton first, as you are staying at his house. And as for liberality there is nothing of the kind. You must understand, Clara, that a fellow can't do what he likes with his own in this country. I have found myself so bullied by lawyers and that sort of people, that I have been obliged to yield to them. I wanted that you should have the old place, to do just what you pleased with It.'

'That was out of the question, Will.'

'Of course it was,' said Colonel Askerton. Then, as Belton himself did not proceed to the telling of his own story, the colonel told it for him, and explained what was the income which Clara was to receive.

'But that is as much out of the question,' said she, 'as the other. I cannot rob you in that way. I cannot and I shall not. And why should I? What do I want with an income? Something I ought to have, if only for the credit of the family, and that I am willing to take from your kindness; but—'

'It's all settled now, Clara.'

'I don't think that you can lessen the weight of your obligation, Miss Amedroz, after what has been done up in London,' said the colonel.

'If you had said a hundred a year—'

'I have been allowed to say nothing,' said Belton; 'those people have said eight,—and so it is settled. When are you coming over to see Mary?'

To this question he got no definite answer, and as he went away immediately afterwards he hardly seemed to expect one. He did not even ask for Mrs Askerton, and as that lady remarked, behaved altogether like a bear. 'But what a munificent bear!' she said. 'Fancy;—eight hundred a year of your own. One begins to doubt whether it is worth one's while to marry at all with such an income as that to do what one likes with! However, it all means nothing. It will all be his own again before you have even touched it.'

'You must not say anything more about that,' said Clara gravely.

'And why must I not?'

'Because I shall hear nothing more of it. There is an end of all that as there ought to be.'

'Why an end? I don't see an end. There will be no end till Belton of Belton has got you and your eight hundred a year as well as everything else.'

'You will find that he does not mean anything more,' said Clara.

'You think not?'

'I am sure of it.' Then there was a little sound in her throat as though she were in some danger of being choked; but she soon recovered herself, and was able to express herself clearly. 'I have only one favour to ask you now, Mrs Askerton, and that is that you will never say anything more about him. He has changed his mind. Of course he has, or he would not come here like that and have gone away without saying a word.'

'Not a word! A man gives you eight hundred a year and that is not saying a word!'

'Not a word except about money! But of course he is right. I know that he is right. Alter what has passed he would be very wrong to to think about it any more. You joke about his being Belton of Belton. But it does make a difference.'

'It does does it?'

'It has made a difference. I see and feel it now. I shall never hear him ask me that question any more.'

'And if you did hear him, what answer would you make him?'

'I don't know.'

'That is just it. Women are so cross-grained that it is a wonder to me that men should ever have anything to do with them. They have about them some madness of a phantasy which they dignify with the name of feminine pride, and under the cloak of this they believe themselves to be justified in tormenting their lovers' lives out. The only consolation is that they torment themselves as much. Can anything be more cross-grained than you are at this moment? You were resolved just now that it would be the most unbecoming thing in the world if he spoke a word more about his love for the next twelve months—'

'Mrs Askerton, I said nothing about twelve months.'

'And now you are broken-hearted because he did not blurt it all out before Colonel Askerton in a business interview, which was very properly had at once, and in which he has had the exceeding good taste to confine himself altogether to the one subject.'

'I am not complaining.'

'It was good taste; though if he had not been a bear he might have asked after me, who am fighting his battles for him night and day.'

'But what will he do next?'

'Eat his dinner, I should think, as it is now nearly five o'clock. Your father used always to dine at five.'

'I can't go to see Mary,' she said, 'till he comes here again.'

'He will be here fast enough. I shouldn't wonder if he was to come here tonight.' And he did come again that night.

When Belton's interview was over in the colonel's study, he left the house without even asking after the mistress, as that mistress had taken care to find out and went off, rambling about the estate which was now his own. It was a beautiful place, and he was not insensible to the gratification of being its owner. There is much in the glory of ownership of the ownership of land and houses, of beeves and woolly flocks, of wide fields and thick-growing woods, even when that ownership is of late date, when it conveys to the owner nothing but the realization of a property on the soil; but there is much more in it when it contains the memories of old years; when the glory is the glory of race as well as the glory of power and property. There had been Beltons of Belton living there for many centuries, and now he was the Belton of the day, standing on his own ground the descendant and representative of the Beltons of old Belton of Belton without a flaw in his pedigree! He felt himself to be proud of his position prouder than he could have been of any other that might have been vouchsafed to him. And yet amidst it all he was somewhat ashamed of his pride. 'The man who can do it for himself is the real man after all,' he said. 'But I have got it by a fluke and by such a sad chance too!' Then he wandered on, thinking of the circumstances under which the property had fallen into his hands, and remembering how and when and where the first idea had occurred to him of making Clara Amedroz his wife. He had then felt that if he could only do that he could reconcile himself to the heirship. And the idea had grown upon him instantly, and had become a passion by the eagerness with which he had welcomed it. From that day to this he had continued to tell himself that he could not enjoy his good fortune unless he could enjoy it with her. There had come to be a horrid impediment in his way a barrier which had seemed to have been placed there by his evil fortune, to compensate the gifts given to him by his good fortune, and that barrier had been Captain Aylmer. He had not, in fact, seen much of his rival, but he had seen enough to make it matter of wonder to him that Clara could be attached to such a man. He had thoroughly despised Captain Aylmer, and had longed to show his contempt of the man by kicking him out of the hotel at the London railway station. At that moment all the world had seemed to him to be wrong and wretched.

But now it seemed that all the world might so easily be made right again! The impediment had got itself removed. Belton did not even yet altogether comprehend by what means Clara had escaped from the meshes of the Aylmer Park people, but he did know that she had escaped. Her eyes had been opened before it was too late, and she was a free woman to be compassed if only a man might compass her. While she had been engaged to Captain Aylmer, Will had felt that she was not assailable. Though he had not been quite able to restrain himself as on that fatal occasion when he had taken her in his arms and kissed her still he had known that as she was an engaged woman, he could not, without insulting her, press his own suit upon her. But now all that was over. Let him say what he liked on that head, she would have no proper plea for anger. She was assailable and, as this was so, why the mischief should he not set about the work at once? His sister bade him wait. Why should he wait when one fortunate word might do it? Wait! He could not wait. How are you to bid a starving man to wait when you put him down at a well-covered board? Here was he, walking about Belton Park just where she used to walk with him and there was she at Belton Cottage, within half an hour of him at this moment, if he were to go quickly; and yet Mary was telling him to wait! No; he would not wait. There could be no reason for waiting. Wait, indeed, till some other Captain Aylmer should come in the way and give him more trouble!

So he wandered on, resolving that he would see his cousin again that very day. Such an interview as that which had just taken place between two such dear friends was not natural,—was not to be endured. What might not Clara think of it! To meet her for the first time after her escape from Aylmer Park, and to speak to her only on matters concerning money! He would certainly go to her again on that afternoon. In his walking he came to the bottom of the rising ground on the top of which stood the rock on which he and Clara had twice sat. But he turned away, and would not go up to it. He hoped that he might go up to it very soon,—but, except under certain circumstances, he would never go up to it again.

'I am going across to the cottage immediately after dinner,' he said to his sister.

'Have you an appointment?'

'No; I have no appointment. I suppose a man doesn't want an appointment to go and see his own cousin down in the country.'

'I don't know what their habits are.'

'I shan't ask to go in; but I want to see her.'

Mary looked at him with loving, sorrowing eyes, but she said no more. She loved him so well that she would have given her right hand to get for him what he wanted but she sorrowed to think that he should want such a thing so sorely. Immediately after his dinner, he took his hat and went out without saying a word further, and made his way once more across to the gate of the cottage. It was a lovely summer evening, at that period of the year in which our summer evenings just begin, when the air is sweeter and the flowers more fragrant, and the forms of the foliage more lovely than at any other time. It was now eight o'clock, but it was hardly as yet evening; none at least of the gloom of evening had come, though the sun was low in the heavens. At the cottage they were all sitting out on the lawn; and as Belton came near he was seen by them, and he saw them.

'I told you so,' said Mrs Askerton, to Clara, in a whisper.

'He is not coming in,' Clara answered. 'He is going on.'

But when he had come nearer, Colonel Askerton called to him over the garden paling, and asked him to join them. He was now standing within ten or fifteen yards of them, though the fence divided them. 'I have come to ask my Cousin Clara to take a walk with me,' he said. 'She can be back by your tea time.' He made his request very placidly, and did not in any way look like a lover.

'I am sure she will be glad to go,' said Mrs Askerton. But Clara said nothing.

'Do take a turn with me, if you are not tired,' said he.

'She has not been out all day, and cannot be tired,' said Mrs Askerton, who had now walked up to the paling. 'Clara, get your hat. But, Mr Belton, what have I done that I am to be treated in this way? Perhaps you don't remember that you have not spoken to me since your arrival.'

'Upon my word, I beg your pardon,' said he, endeavouring to stretch his hand across the bushes.

'I forgot I didn't see you this morning.'

'I suppose I musn't be angry, as this is your day of taking possession; but it is exactly on such days as this that one likes to be remembered.'

'I didn't mean to forget you, Mrs Askerton; I didn't, indeed. And as for the special day, that's all bosh, you know. I haven't taken particular possession of anything that I know of.'

'I hope you will, Mr Belton, before the day is over,' said she. Clara had at length arisen, and had gone into the house to fetch her hat. She had not spoken a word, and even yet her cousin did not know whether she was coming. 'I hope you will take possession of a great deal that is very valuable. Clara has gone to get her hat.'

'Do you think she means to walk?'

'I think she does, Mr Belton. And there she is at the door. Mind you bring her back to tea.'

Clara, as she came forth, felt herself quite unable to speak, or walk, or look after her usual manner. She knew herself to be a victim to be so far a victim that she could no longer control her own fate. To Captain Aylmer, at any rate, she had never succumbed. In all her dealings with him she had fought upon an equal footing. She had never been compelled to own herself mastered. But now she was being led out that she might confess her own submission, and acknowledge that hitherto she had not known what was good for her. She knew that she would have to yield. She must have known how happy she was to have an opportunity of yielding; but yet yet, had there been any room for choice, she thought she would have refrained from walking with her cousin that evening. She had wept that afternoon because she had thought that he would not come again; and now that he had come at the first moment that was possible for him, she was almost tempted to wish him once more away.

'I suppose you understand that when I came up this morning I came merely to talk about business,' said Belton, as soon as they were off together.

'It was very good of you to come at all so soon after your arrival.'

'I told those people in London that I would have it all settled at once, and so I wanted to have it off my mind.'

'I don't know what I ought to say to you. Of course I shall not want so much money as that.'

'We won't talk about the money any more today. I hate talking about money.'

'It is not the pleasantest subject in the world.'

'No,' said he; 'no indeed. I hate it particularly between friends. So you have come to grief with your friends, the Aylmers?'

'I hope I haven't come to grief and the Aylmers, as a family, never were my friends. I'm obliged to contradict you, point by point you see.'

'I don't like Captain Aylmer at all,' said Will, after a pause.

'So I saw, Will; and I dare say he was not very fond of you.' 'Fond of me! I didn't want him to be fond of me. I don't suppose he ever thought much about me. I could not help thinking of him.' She had nothing to say to this, and therefore walked on silently by his side. 'I suppose he has not any idea of coming back here again?'

'What; to Belton? No, I do not think he will come to Belton any more.'

'Nor will you go to Aylmer Park?'

'No; certainly not. Of all the places on earth. Will, to which you could send me, Aylmer Park is the one to which I should go most unwillingly.'

'I don't want to send you there.'

'You never could be made to understand what a woman she is; how disagreeable, how cruel, how imperious, how insolent.'

'Was she so bad as all that?'

'Indeed she was, Will. I can't but tell the truth to you.'

'And he was nearly as bad as she.'

'No, Will; no; do not say that of him.'

'He was such a quarrelsome fellow. He flew at me just because I said we had good hunting down in Norfolk.'

'We need not talk about all that, Will.'

'No of course not. It's all passed and gone, I suppose.'

'Yes it is all passed and gone. You did not know my Aunt Winterfield, or you would understand my first reason for liking him.'

'No,' said Will; 'I never saw her.'

Then they walked on together for a while without speaking, and Clara was beginning to feel some relief some relief at first; but as the relief came, there came back to her the dead, dull, feeling of heaviness at her heart which had oppressed her after his visit in the morning. She had been right, and Mrs Askerton had been wrong. He had returned to her simply as her cousin, and now he was walking with her and talking to her in this strain, to teach her that it was so. But of a sudden they came to a place where two paths diverged, and he turned upon her and asked her quickly which path they should take. 'Look, Clara,' he said, 'will you go up there with me?' It did not need that she should look, as she knew that the way indicated by him led up among the rocks.

'I don't much care which way,' she said, faintly.

'Do you not? But I do. I care very much. Don't you remember where that path goes?' She had no answer to give to this. She remembered well, and remembered how he had protested that he would never go to the place again unless he could go there as her accepted lover. And she had asked herself sundry questions as to that protestation. Could it be that for her sake he would abstain from visiting the prettiest spot on his estate that he would continue to regard the ground as hallowed because of his memories of her? 'Which way shall we go?' he asked.

'I suppose it does not much signify,' said she, trembling.

'But it does signify. It signifies very much to me. Will you go up to the rocks?'

'I am afraid we shall be late, if we stay out long.'

'What matters how late? Will you come?'

'I suppose so if you wish it, Will.'

She had anticipated that the high rock was to be the altar at which the victim was to be sacrificed; but now he would not wait till he had taken her to the sacred spot. He had of course intended that he would there renew his offer; but he had perceived that his offer had been renewed, and had, in fact, been accepted, during this little parley as to the pathway. There was hardly any necessity for further words. So he must have thought; for, as quick as lightning, he flung his arms around her, and kissed her again, as he had kissed her on that other terrible occasion that occasion on which he had felt that he might hardly hope for pardon.

'William, William,' she said; 'how can you serve me like that?' But he had a full understanding as to his own privileges, and was well aware that he was in the right now, as he had been before that he was trespassing egregiously. 'Why are you so rough with me?' she said.

'Clara, say that you love me.'

'I will say nothing to you because you are so rough.' They were now walking up slowly towards the rocks.

And as he had his arm round her waist, he was contented for awhile to allow her to walk without speaking. But when they were on the summit it was necessary for him that he should have a word from her of positive assurance. 'Clara, say that you love me.'

'Have I not always loved you, Will, since almost the first moment that I saw you?'

'But that won't do. You know that is not fair. Come, Clara; I've had a deal of trouble and grief too; haven't I? You should say a word to make up for it that is, if you can say it.'

'What can a word like that signify to you today? You have got everything.'

'Have I got you?' Still she paused. 'I will have an answer. Have I got you? Are you now my own?'

'I suppose so, Will. Don't now. I will not have it again. Does not that satisfy you?'

'Tell me that you love me.'

'You know that I love you.'

'Better than anybody in the world?'

'Yes better than anybody in the world.'

'And after all you will be my wife?'

'Oh, Will how you question one!'

'You shall say it, and then it will all be fair and honest.'

'Say what? I'm sure I thought I had said everything.'

'Say that you mean to be my wife.'

'I suppose so if you wish it.'

'Wish it!' said he, getting up from his seat, and throwing his hat into the bushes on one side; 'wish it! I don't think you have ever understood howl have wished it. Look here, Clara; I found when I got down to Norfolk that I couldn't live without you. Upon my word it is true. I don't suppose you'll believe me.'

'I didn't think it could be so bad with you as that.'

'No I don't suppose women ever do believe. And I wouldn't have believed it of myself. I hated myself for it. By George, I did. That is when I began to think it was all up with me.'

'All up with you! Oh, Will!'

'I had quite made up my mind to go to New Zealand. I had, indeed. I couldn't have kept my hands off that man if we had been living in the same country. I should have wrung his neck.'

'Will, how can you talk so wickedly?'

'There's no understanding it till you have felt it. But never mind. It's all right now; isn't it, Clara?'

'If you think so.'

'Think so! Oh, Clara, I am such a happy fellow. Do give me a kiss. You have never given me one kiss yet.'

'What nonsense! I didn't think you were such a baby.'

'By George, but you shall or you shall never get home to tea to-night. My own, own, own darling. Upon my word, Clara, when I begin to think about it I shall be half mad.'

'I think you are quite that already.'

'No, I'm not but I shall be when I'm alone. What can I say to you, Clara, to make you understand how much I love you? You remember the song, "For Bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee". Of course it is all nonsense talking of dying for a woman. What a man has to do is to live for her. But that is my feeling. I'm ready to give you my life. If there was anything to do for you, I'd do it if I could, whatever it was. Do you understand me?'

'Dear Will! Dearest Will!'

'Am I dearest?'

'Are you not sure of it?'

'But I like you to tell me so. I like to feel that you are not ashamed to own it. You ought to say it a few times to me, as I have said it so very often to you.'

'You'll hear enough of it before you've done with me.'

'I shall never have heard enough of it. Oh, Heavens, only think, when I was coming down in the train last night I was in such a bad way.'

'And are you in a good way now?'

'Yes; in a very good way. I shall crow over Mary so when I get home.'

'And what has poor Mary done?'

'Never mind.'

'I dare say she knows what is good for you better than you know yourself. I suppose she has told you that you might do a great deal better than trouble yourself with a wife?'

'Never mind what she has told me. It is settled now is it not?

'I hope so, Will.'

'But not quite settled as yet. When shall it be? That is the next question.'

But to that question Clara positively refused to make any reply that her lover would consider to be satisfactory. He continued to press her till she was at last driven to remind him how very short a time it was since her father had been among them; and then he was very angry with himself, and declared himself to be a brute. 'Anything but that,' she said. 'You are the kindest and the best of men but at the same time the most impatient.'

'That's what Mary says; but what's the good of waiting? She wanted me to wait today.'

'And as you would not, you have fallen into a trap out of which you can never escape. But pray let us go. What will they think of us?'

'I shouldn't wonder if they didn't think something near the truth.'

'Whatever they think, we will go back. It is ever so much past nine.'

'Before you stir, Clara, tell me one thing. Are you really happy?'

'Very happy.'

'And are you glad that this has been done?'

'Very glad. Will that satisfy you?'

'And you do love me?'

'I do—I do—I do. Can I say more than that?

'More than anybody else in the world?'

'Better than all the world put together.'

'Then,' said he, holding her tight in his arms, 'show me that you love me.' And as he made his request he was quick to explain to her what, according to his ideas, was the becoming mode by which lovers might show their love. I wonder whether it ever occurred to Clara, as she thought of it all before she went to bed that night, that Captain Aylmer and William Belton were very different in their manners. And if so, I must wonder further whether she most approved the manners of the patient man or the man who was impatient.



CHAPTER XXXII

CONCLUSION

About two months after the scene described in the last chapter, when the full summer had arrived, Clara received two letters from the two lovers the history of whose loves have just been told, and these shall be submitted to the reader, as they will serve to explain the manner in which the two men proposed to arrange their affairs. We will first have Captain Aylmer's letter, which was the first read; Clara kept the latter for the last, as children always keep their sweetest morsels.

'Aylmer Park, August 188

'My dear Miss Amedroz,

'I heard before leaving London that you are engaged to marry your cousin Mr William Belton, and I think that perhaps you may be satisfied to have a line from me to let you know that I quite approve of the marriage.' 'I do not care very much for his approval or disapproval,' said Clara as she read this. 'No doubt it will be the best thing you can do, especially as it will heal all the sores arising from the entail.' 'There never was any sore,' said Clara. 'Pray give my compliments to Mr Belton, and offer him my congratulations, and tell him that I wish him all happiness in the married state.' 'Married fiddlestick!' said Clara. In this she was unreasonable; but the euphonious platitudes of Captain Aylmer were so unlike the vehement protestations of Mr Belton that she must be excused if by this time she had come to entertain something of an unreasonable aversion for the former.

'I hope you will not receive my news with perfect indifference when I tell you that I also am going to be married. The lady is one whom I have known for a long time, and have always esteemed very highly. She is Lady Emily Tagmaggert, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Mull.' Why Clara should immediately have conceived a feeling of supreme contempt for Lady Emily Tagmaggert, and assured herself that her ladyship was a thin, dry, cross old maid with a red nose, I cannot explain; but I do know that such were her thoughts, almost instantaneously, in reference to Captain Aylmer's future bride. 'Lady Emily is a very intimate friend of my sister's; and you, who know how our family cling together, will feel how thankful I must be when I tell you that my mother quite approves of the engagement. I suppose we shall be married early in the spring. We shall probably spend some months every year at Perivale, and I hope that we may look forward to the pleasure of seeing you sometimes as a guest beneath our roof.' On reading this Clara shuddered, and made some inward protestation which seemed to imply that she had no wish whatever to revisit the dull streets of the little town with which she had been so well acquainted. 'I hope she'll be good to poor Mr Possit,' said Clara, 'and give him port wine on Sundays.'

'I have one more thing that I ought to say. You will remember that I intended to pay my aunt's legacy immediately after her death, but that I was prevented by circumstances which I could not control. I have paid it now into Mr Green's hands on your account, together with the sum of L59 18s 3d., which is due upon it as interest at the rate of 5 per cent. I hope that this may be satisfactory.' 'It is not satisfactory at all,' said Clara, putting down the letter, and resolving that Will Belton should be instructed to repay the money instantly. It may, however, be explained here that in this matter Clara was doomed to be disappointed; and that she was forced, by Mr Green's arguments, to receive the money. 'Then it shall go to the hospital at Perivale,' she declared when those arguments were used. As to that, Mr Green was quite indifferent, but I do not think that the legacy which troubled poor Aunt Winterfield so much on her dying bed was ultimately applied to so worthy a purpose.

'And now, my dear Miss Amedroz,' continued the letter, 'I will say farewell, with many assurances of my unaltered esteem, and with heartfelt wishes for your future happiness. Believe me to be always,

'Most faithfully and sincerely yours,

'FREDERIC F. AYLMER.

'Esteem!' said Clara, as she finished the letter. 'I wonder which he esteems the most, me or Lady Emily Tagmaggert. He will never get beyond esteem with any one.

The letter which was last read was as follows:

'Plaistow, August 186—.

'Dearest Clara,

'I don't think I shall ever get done, and I am coming to hate farming. It is awful lonely here, too, and I pass all my evenings by myself, wondering why I should be doomed to this kind of thing, while you and Mary are comfortable together at Belton. We have begun with the wheat, and as soon as that is safe I shall cut and run. I shall leave the barley to Bunce. Bunce knows as much about it as I do and as for remaining here all the summer, it's out of the question.

'My own dear, darling love, of course I don't intend to urge you to do anything that you don't like; but upon my honour I don't see the force of what you say. You know I have as much respect for your father's memory as anybody, but what harm can it do to him that we should be married at once? Don't you think he would have wished it himself? It can be ever so quiet. So long as it's done, I don't care a straw how it's done. Indeed, for the matter of that, I always think it would be best just to walk to church and to walk home again without saying anything to anybody. I hate fuss and nonsense, and really I don't think anybody would have a right to say anything if we were to do it at once in that sort of way. I have had a bad time of it for the last twelvemonth. You must allow that, and I think that I ought to be rewarded.

'As for living, you shall have your choice. Indeed you shall live anywhere you please at Timbuctoo if you like it. I don't want to give up Plaistow, because my father and grandfather farmed the land themselves; but I am quite prepared not to live here. I don't think it would suit you, because it has so much of the farm-house about it. Only I should like you sometimes to come and look at the old place. What I should like would be to pull down the house at Belton and build another. But you mustn't propose to put it off till that's done, as I should never have the heart to do it. If you think that would suit you, I'll make up my mind to live at Belton for a constancy; and then I'd go in for a lot of cattle, and don't doubt I'd make a fortune. I'm almost sick of looking at the straight ridges in the big square fields every day of my life.

'Give my love to Mary. I hope she fights my battle for me. Pray think of all this, and relent if you can. I do so long to have an end of this purgatory. If there was any use, I wouldn't say a word; but there's no good in being tortured, when there is no use. God bless you, dearest love. I do love you so well!

'Yours most affectionately,

'W. BELTON.'

She kissed the letter twice, pressed it to her bosom, and then sat silent for half an hour thinking of it of it, and the man who wrote it, and of the man who had written the other letter. She could not but remember how that other man had thought to treat her, when it was his intention and her intention that they two should join their lots together how cold he had been; how full of caution and counsel; how he had preached to her himself and threatened her with the preaching of his mother; how manifestly he had purposed to make her life a sacrifice to his life; how he had premeditated her incarceration at Perivale, while he should be living a bachelor's life in London! Will Belton's ideas of married life were very different. Only come to me at once now, immediately, and everything else shall be disposed just as you please. This was his offer. What he proposed to give or rather his willingness to be thus generous, was very sweet to her; but it was not half so sweet as his impatience in demanding his reward. How she doted on him because he considered his present state to be a purgatory! How could she refuse anything she could give to one who desired her gifts so strongly?

As for her future residence, it would be a matter of indifference to her where she should live, so long as she might live with him; but for him she felt that but one spot in the world was fit for him. He was Belton of Belton, and it would not be becoming that he should live elsewhere. Of course she would go with him to Plaistow Hall as often as he might wish it; but Belton Castle should be his permanent resting-place. It would be her duty to be proud for him, and therefore, for his sake, she would beg that their home might be in Somersetshire.

'Mary,' she said to her cousin soon afterwards, 'Will sends his love to you.'

'And what else does he say?'

'I couldn't tell you everything. You shouldn't expect it.'

'I don't expect it; but perhaps there may be something to be told.'

'Nothing that I need tell specially. You, who know him so well, can imagine what he would say.'

'Dear Will! I am sure he would mean to write what was pleasant.'

Then the matter would have dropped had Clara been so minded,—but she, in truth, was anxious to be forced to talk about the letter. She wished to be urged by Mary to do that which Will urged her to do or, at least, to learn whether Mary thought that her brother's wish might be gratified without impropriety. 'Don't you think we ought to live here?' she said.

'By all means,—if you both like it.'

'He is so good,—so unselfish, that he will only ask me to do what I like best.'

'And which would you like best?'

'I think he ought to live here because it is the old family property. I confess that the name goes for something with me. He says that he would build a new house.'

'Does he think he could have it ready by the time you are married?'

'Ah that is just the difficulty. Perhaps, after all, you had better read his letter. I don't know why I should not show it to you. It will only tell you what you know already that he is the most generous fellow in all the world.' Then Mary read the letter. 'What am I to say to him?' Clara asked. 'It seems so hard to refuse anything to one who is so true, and good, and generous.'

'It is hard.'

'But you see my poor, dear father's death has been so recent.'

'I hardly know,' said Mary, 'how the world feels about such things.'

'I think we ought to wait at least twelve months,' said Clara, very sadly.

'Poor Will! He will be broken-hearted a dozen times before that. But then, when his happiness does come, he will be all the happier.' Clara, when she heard this, almost hated her cousin Mary not for her own sake, but on Will's account. Will trusted so implicitly to his sister, and yet she could not make a better fight for him than this! It almost seemed that Mary was indifferent to her brother's happiness. Had Will been her brother, Clara thought, and had any girl asked her advice under similar circumstances, she was sure that she would have answered in a different way. She would have told such girl that her first duty was owing to the man who was to be her husband, and would not have said a word to her about the feeling of the world. After all, what did the feeling of the world signify to them, who were going to be all the world to each other?

On that afternoon she went up to Mrs Askerton's; and succeeded in getting advice from her also, though she did not show Will's letter to that lady. 'Of course, I know what he says,' said Mrs Askerton. 'Unless I have mistaken the man, he wants to be married tomorrow.'

'He is not so bad as that,' said Clara.

'Then the next day, or the day after. Of course he is impatient, and does not see any earthly reason why his impatience should not be gratified.'

'He is impatient.'

'And I suppose you hesitate because of your father's death?

'It seems but the other day;—does it not?' said Clara.

'Everything seems but the other day to me. It was but the other day that I myself was married.'

'And, of course, though I would do anything I could that he would ask me to do—'

'But would you do anything?'

'Anything that was not wrong I would. Why should I not, when he is so good to me?'

'Then write to him, my dear, and tell him that it shall be as he wishes it. Believe me, the days of Jacob are over. Men don't understand waiting now, and it's always as well to catch your fish when you can.'

'You don't suppose I have any thought of that kind?'

'I am sure you have not and I'm sure that he deserves no such thought but the higher that are his deserts, the greater should be his reward. If I were you, I should think of nothing but him, and I should do exactly as he would have me.' Clara kissed her friend as she parted from her, and again resolved that all that woman's sins should be forgiven her. A woman who could give such excellent advice deserved that every sin should be forgiven her. 'They'll be married yet before the summer is over,' Mrs Askerton said to her husband that afternoon. 'I believe a man may have anything he chooses to ask for, if he'll only ask hard enough.'

And they were married in the autumn, if not actually in the summer. With what precise words Clara answered her lover's letter I will not say; but her answer was of such a nature that he found himself compelled to leave Plaistow, even before the wheat was garnered. Great confidence was placed in Bunce on that occasion, and I have reason to believe that it was not misplaced. They were married in September yes, in September, although that letter of Will's was written in August, and by the beginning of October they had returned from their wedding trip to Plaistow. Clara insisted that she should be taken to Plaistow, and was very anxious when there to learn all the particulars of the farm. She put down in a little book how many acres there were in each field, and what was the average produce of the land. She made inquiry about four-crop rotation, and endeavoured, with Bunce, to go into the great subject of stall-feeding. But Belton did not give her as much encouragement as he might have done. 'We'll come here for the shooting next year,' he said; 'that is, if there is nothing to prevent us.'

'I hope there'll be nothing to prevent us.'

'There might be, perhaps; but we'll always come if there is not. For the rest of it, I'll leave it to Bunce, and just run over once or twice in the year. It would not be a nice place for you to live at long.'

'I like it of all things. I am quite interested about the farm.'

'You'd get very sick of it if you were here in the winter. The truth is that if you farm well, you must farm ugly. The picturesque nooks and corners have all to be turned inside out, and the hedgerows must be abolished, because we want the sunshine. Now, down at Belton, just above the house, we won't mind farming well, but will stick to the picturesque.'

The new house was immediately commenced at Belton, and was made to proceed with all imaginable alacrity. It was supposed at one time at least Belton himself said that he so supposed that the building would be ready for occupation at the end of the first summer; but this was not found to be possible. 'We must put it off till May, after all,' said Belton, as he was walking round the unfinished building with Colonel Askerton. 'It's an awful bore, but there's no getting people really to pull out in this country.'

'I think they've pulled out pretty well. Of course you couldn't have gone into a damp house for the winter.'

'Other people can get a house built within twelve months. Look what they do in London.'

'And other people with their wives and children die in consequence of colds and sore throats and other evils of that nature. I wouldn't go into a new house, I know, till I was quite sure it was dry.'

As Will at this time was hardly ten months married, he was not as yet justified in thinking about his own wife and children; but he had already found it expedient to make arrangements for the autumn, which would prevent that annual visit to Plaistow which Clara had contemplated, and which he had regarded with his characteristic prudence as being subject to possible impediments. He was to be absent himself for the first week in September, but was to return immediately after that. This he did; and before the end of that month he was justified in talking of his wife and family. 'I suppose it wouldn't have done to have been moving now under all the circumstances,' he said to his friend, Mrs Askerton, as he still grumbled about the unfinished house.

'I don't think it would have done at all, under all the circumstances,' said Mrs Askerton.

But in the following spring or early summer they did get into the new house and a very nice house it was, as will, I think, be believed by those who have known Mr William Belton. And when they were well settled, at which time little Will Belton was some seven or eight months old,—little Will, for whom great bonfires had been lit, as though his birth in those parts was a matter not to be regarded lightly; for was he not the first Belton of Belton who had been born there for more than a century?—when that time came visitors appeared at the new Belton Castle, visitors of importance, who were entitled to, and who received, great consideration. These were no less than Captain Aylmer, Member for Perivale, and his newly-married bride, Lady Emily Aylmer, nee Tagmaggert. They were then just married, and had come down to Belton Castle immediately after their honeymoon trip. How it had come to pass that such friendship had sprung up,—or rather how it had been revived,—it would be bootless here to say. But old affiances, such as that which had existed between the Aylmer and the Amedroz families, do not allow themselves to die out easily, and it is well for us all that they should be long-lived. So Captain Aylmer brought his bride to Belton Park, and a small fatted calf was killed, and the Askertons came to dinner on which occasion Captain Aylmer behaved very well, though we may imagine that he must have had some misgivings on the score of his young wife. The Askertons came to dinner, and the old rector, and the squire from a neighbouring parish, and everything was very handsome and very dull. Captain Aylmer was much pleased with his visit, and declared to Lady Emily that marriage had greatly improved Mr. William Belton. Now Will had been very dull the whole evening, and very unlike the fiery, violent, unreasonable man whom Captain Aylmer remembered to have met at the station hotel of the Great Northern Railway.

'I was as sure of it as possible,' Clara said to her husband that night.

'Sure of what, my dear?'

'That she would have a red nose.'

'Who has got a red nose?'

'Don't be stupid, Will. Who should have it but Lady Emily?'

'Upon my word I didn't observe it.'

'You never observe anything, Will; do you? But don't you think she is very plain?'

'Upon my word I don't know. She isn't as handsome as some people.'

'Don't be a fool, Will. How old do you suppose her to be?' 'How old? Let me see. Thirty, perhaps.'

'If she's not over forty, I'll consent to change noses with her.'

'No we won't do that; not if I know it.'

'I cannot conceive why any man should marry such a woman as that. Not but what she's a very good woman, I dare say; only what can a man get by it? To be sure there's the title, if that's worth anything.' But Will Belton was never good for much conversation at this hour, and was too fast asleep to make any rejoinder to the last remark.

THE END