The Belton Estate

  CHAPTER XIX.

  MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE.

  It was on a Sunday morning that Clara's letter reached Aylmer Park,and Frederic Aylmer found it on his plate as he took his place at thebreakfast-table. Domestic habits at Aylmer Park had grown with thegrowth of years till they had become adamantine, and domestic habitsrequired prayers every morning at a quarter before nine o'clock.At twenty minutes before nine Lady Aylmer would always be in thedining-room to make the tea and open the post-bag, and as she wasalways there alone, she knew more about other people's letters thanother people ever knew about hers. When these operations were overshe rang the bell, and the servants of the family, who by that timehad already formed themselves into line in the hall, would marchin, and settle themselves on benches prepared for them near theside-board,--which benches were afterwards carried away by theretiring procession. Lady Aylmer herself always read prayers, as SirAnthony never appeared till the middle of breakfast. Belinda wouldusually come down in a scurry as she heard her mother's bell, in sucha way as to put the army in the hall to some confusion; but FredericAylmer, when he was at home, rarely entered the room till after theservice was over. At Perivale no doubt he was more strict in hisconduct; but then at Perivale he had special interests and influenceswhich were wanting to him at Aylmer Park. During those five minutesLady Aylmer would deal round the letters to the several plates of theinmates of her house,--not without looking at the post-office marksupon them; and on this occasion she had dealt a letter from Clara toher son.

  The arrival of the letter was announced to Frederic Aylmer before hetook his seat.

  "Frederic," said her ladyship, in her most portentous voice, "I amglad to say that at last there is a letter from Belton."

  He made no immediate reply, but making his way slowly to his place,took up the little packet, turned it over in his hand, and then putit into his pocket. Having done this, he began very slowly with histea and egg. For three minutes his mother was contented to make,or to pretend to make, some effort in the same direction. Then herimpatience became too much for her, and she began to question him.

  "Will you not read it, Frederic?"

  "Of course I shall, ma'am."

  "But why not do so now, when you know how anxious we are?"

  "There are letters which one would sooner read in private."

  "But when a matter is of so much importance--" said Belinda.

  "The importance, Bel, is to me, and not to you," said her brother.

  "All we want to know is," continued the sister, "that she promisesto be guided by you in this matter; and of course we feel quite surethat she will."

  "If you are quite sure that must be sufficient for you."

  "I really think you need not quarrel with your sister," said LadyAylmer, "because she is anxious as to the--the respectability, I mustsay, for there is no other word, of a young lady whom you propose tomake your wife. I can assure you that I am very anxious myself,--veryanxious indeed."

  Captain Aylmer made no answer to this, but he did not take the letterfrom his pocket. He drank his tea in silence, and in silence sentup his cup to be refilled. In silence also was it returned to him.He ate his two eggs and his three bits of toast, according to hiscustom, and when he had finished, sat out his three or four minutesas was usual. Then he got up to retire to his room, with the envelopestill unbroken in his pocket.

  "You will go to church with us, I suppose?" said Lady Aylmer.

  "I won't promise, ma'am; but if I do, I'll walk across the park,--sothat you need not wait for me."

  Then both the mother and sister knew that the member for Perivale didnot intend to go to church on that occasion. To morning service SirAnthony always went, the habits of Aylmer Park having in them more ofadamant in reference to him than they had as regarded his son.

  When the father, mother, and daughter returned, Captain Aylmer hadread his letter, and had, after doing so, received further tidingsfrom Belton Castle,--further tidings which for the moment preventedthe necessity of any reference to the letter, and almost drove itfrom his own thoughts. When his mother entered the library he wasstanding before the fire with a scrap of paper in his hand.

  "Since you have been at church there has come a telegraphic message,"he said.

  "What is it, Frederic? Do not frighten me,--if you can avoid it!"

  "You need not be frightened, ma'am, for you did not know him. Mr.Amedroz is dead."

  "No!" said Lady Aylmer, seating herself.

  "Dead!" said Belinda, holding up her hands.

  "God bless my soul!" said the baronet, who had now followed theladies into the room. "Dead! Why, Fred, he was five years youngerthan I am!"

  Then Captain Aylmer read the words of the message:--"Mr. Amedroz diedthis morning at five o'clock. I have sent word to the lawyer and toMr. Belton."

  "Who does it come from?" asked Lady Aylmer.

  "From Colonel Askerton."

  Lady Aylmer paused, and shook her head, and moved her foot uneasilyupon the carpet. The tidings, as far as they went, might beunexceptionable, but the source from whence they had come hadevidently polluted them in her ladyship's judgment. Then she uttereda series of inter-ejaculations, expressions of mingled sorrow andanger.

  "There was no one else near her," said Captain Aylmer,apologetically.

  "Is there no clergyman in the parish?"

  "He lives a long way off. The message had to be sent at once."

  "Are there no servants in the house? It looks,--it looks--. But Iam the last person in the world to form a harsh judgment of a youngwoman at such a moment as this. What did she say in her letter,Fred?"

  Captain Aylmer had devoted two hours of consideration to the letterbefore the telegram had come to relieve his mind by a fresh subject,and in those two hours he had not been able to extract much ofcomfort out of the document. It was, as he felt, a stubborn,stiff-necked, disobedient, almost rebellious letter. It containeda manifest defiance of his mother, and exhibited doctrines of mostquestionable morality. It had become to him a matter of doubt whetherhe could possibly marry a woman who could entertain such ideas andwrite such a letter. If the doubt was to be decided in his own mindagainst Clara, he had better show the letter at once to his mother,and allow her ladyship to fight the battle for him;--a task which,as he well knew, her ladyship would not be slow to undertake. But hehad not succeeded in answering the question satisfactorily to himselfwhen the telegram arrived and diverted all his thoughts. Now that Mr.Amedroz was dead, the whole thing might be different. Clara wouldcome away from Belton and Mrs. Askerton, and begin life, as it were,afresh. It seemed as though in such an emergency she ought to haveanother chance; and therefore he did not hasten to pronounce hisjudgment. Lady Aylmer also felt something of this, and forbore topress her question when it was not answered.

  "She will have to leave Belton now, I suppose?" said Sir Anthony.

  "The property will belong to a distant cousin,--a Mr. WilliamBelton."

  "And where will she go?" said Lady Aylmer. "I suppose she has noplace that she can call her home?"

  "Would it not be a good thing to ask her here?" said Belinda. Sucha question as that was very rash on the part of Miss Aylmer. In thefirst place, the selection of guests for Aylmer Park was rarely leftto her; and in this special case she should have understood that sucha proposal should have been fully considered by Lady Aylmer before itreached Frederic's ears.

  "I think it would be a very good plan," said Captain Aylmer,generously.

  Lady Aylmer shook her head. "I should like much to know what she hassaid about that unfortunate connection before I offer to take her bythe hand myself. I'm sure Fred will feel that I ought to do so."

  But Fred retreated from the room without showing the letter. Heretreated from the room and betook himself to solitude, that he mightagain endeavour to make up his mind as to what he would do. He puton his hat and his great-coat and gloves, and went off,--withouthis luncheon,--that he might consider it all. Clara Amedroz had nowno home,--and, indee
d, very little means of providing one. If heintended that she should be his wife, he must furnish her with a homeat once. It seemed to him that three houses might possibly be open toher,--of which one, the only one which under such circumstances wouldbe proper, was Aylmer Park. The other two were Plaistow Hall and Mrs.Askerton's cottage at Belton. As to the latter,--should she ever takeshelter there, everything must be over between him and her. On thatpoint there could be no doubt. He could not bring himself to marrya wife out of Mrs. Askerton's drawing-room, nor could he expect hismother to receive a young woman brought into the family under suchcircumstances. And Plaistow Hall was almost as bad. It was as bad tohim, though it would, perhaps, be less objectionable in the eyes ofLady Aylmer. Should Clara go to Plaistow Hall there must be an end toeverything. Of that also he taught himself to be quite certain. Thenhe took out Clara's letter and read it again. She acknowledged thestory about the woman to be true,--such a story as it was too,--andyet refused to quarrel with the woman;--had absolutely promised thewoman not to quarrel with her! Then he read and re-read the passagein which Clara claimed the right of forming her own opinion in suchmatters. Nothing could be more indelicate;--nothing more unfit forhis wife. He began to think that he had better show the letter tohis mother, and acknowledge that the match must be broken off. Thatsoftening of his heart which had followed upon the receipt of thetelegraphic message departed from him as he dwelt upon the stubborn,stiff-necked, unfeminine obstinacy of the letter. Then he rememberedthat nothing had as yet been done towards putting his aunt's fifteenhundred pounds absolutely into Clara's hands; and he remembered alsothat she might at the present moment be in great want. William Beltonmight, not improbably, assist her in her want, and this idea waswormwood to him in spite of his almost formed resolution to give uphis own claims. He calculated that the income arising from fifteenhundred pounds would be very small, and he wished that he hadcounselled his aunt to double the legacy. He thought very muchabout the amount of the money and the way in which it might be bestexpended, and was, after his cold fashion, really solicitous as toClara's welfare. If he could have fashioned her future life, and hisown too, in accordance with his own now existing wishes, I think hewould have arranged that neither of them should marry at all, andthat to him should be assigned the duty and care of being Clara'sprotector,--with full permission to tell her his mind as often as hepleased on the subject of Mrs. Askerton. Then he went in and wrotea note to Mr. Green, the lawyer, desiring that the interest of thefifteen hundred pounds for one year might be at once remitted to MissAmedroz. He knew that he ought to write to her himself immediately,without loss of a post; but how was he to write while things werein their present position? Were he now to condole with her on herfather's death, without any reference to the great Askerton iniquity,he would thereby be condoning all that was past, and acknowledgingthe truth and propriety of her arguments. And he would be doing evenworse than that. He would be cutting the ground absolutely frombeneath his own feet as regarded that escape from his engagementwhich he was contemplating.

  What a cold-hearted, ungenerous wretch he must have been! Thatwill be the verdict against him. But the verdict will be untrue.Cold-hearted and ungenerous he was; but he was no wretch,--as men andwomen are now-a-days called wretches. He was chilly hearted, but yetquite capable of enough love to make him a good son, a good husband,and a good father too. And though he was ungenerous from the natureof his temperament, he was not close-fisted or over covetous. And hewas a just man, desirous of obtaining nothing that was not fairly hisown. But, in truth, the artists have been so much in the habit ofpainting for us our friends' faces without any of those flaws andblotches with which work and high living are apt to disfigure us,that we turn in disgust from a portrait in which the roughnesses andpimples are made apparent.

  But it was essential that he should now do something, and beforehe sat down to dinner he did show Clara's letter to his mother."Mother," he said, as he sat himself down in her little roomup-stairs;--and she knew well by the tone of his voice, and bythe mode of his address, that there was to be a solemn occasion,and a serious deliberative council on the present existing familydifficulty,--"mother, of course I have intended to let you know whatis the nature of Clara's answer to my letter."

  "I am glad there is to be no secret between us, Frederic. You knowhow I dislike secrets in families." As she said this she took theletter out of her son's hands with an eagerness that was almostgreedy. As she read it, he stood over her, watching her eyes, as theymade their way down the first page and on to the second, and acrossto the third, and so, gradually on, till the whole reading wasaccomplished. What Clara had written about her cousin Will, LadyAylmer did not quite understand; and on this point now she was solittle anxious that she passed over that portion of the letterreadily. But when she came to Mrs. Askerton and the allusions toherself, she took care to comprehend the meaning and weight of everyword. "Divide your words and mine! Why should we want to divide them?Not agree with me about Mrs. Askerton! How is it possible that anydecent young woman should not agree with me! It is a matter in whichthere is no room for a doubt. True;--the story true! Of course itis true. Does she not know that it would not have reached her fromAylmer Park if it were not true? Provocation! Badly treated! Wentaway! Married to Colonel Askerton as soon as Captain Berdmore died!Why, Frederic, she cannot have been taught to understand the firstprinciple of morals in life! And she that was so much with my poorsister! Well, well!" The reader should understand that the late Mrs.Winterfield and Lady Aylmer had never been able to agree with eachother on religious subjects. "Remember that they are married. Whyshould we remember anything of the kind? It does not make an atomof difference to the woman's character. Repented! How can Clarasay whether she has repented or not? But that has nothing to dowith it. Not quarrel with her,--as she calls it! Not give her up!Then, Frederic, of course it must be all over, as far as you areconcerned." When she had finished her reading, she returned theletter, still open, to her son, shaking her head almost triumphantly."As far as I am a judge of a young woman's character, I can only giveyou one counsel," said Lady Aylmer solemnly.

  "I think that she should have another chance," said Captain Aylmer.

  "What other chance can you give her? It seems to me that she isobstinately bent on her own destruction."

  "You might ask her to come here, as Belinda suggested."

  "Belinda was very foolish to suggest anything of the kind withoutmore consideration."

  "I suppose that my future wife would be made welcome here?"

  "Yes, Frederic, certainly. I do not know who could be more welcome.But is she to be your wife?"

  "We are engaged."

  "But does not that letter break any engagement? Is there not enoughin that to make such a marriage quite out of the question? What doyou think about it yourself, Frederic?"

  "I think that she should have another chance."

  What would Clara have thought of all this herself, if she could haveheard the conversation between Lady Aylmer and her betrothed husband,and have known that her lover was proposing to give her "anotherchance?" But it is lucky for us that we seldom know what our bestfriends say on our behalf, when they discuss us and our faults behindour backs.

  "What chance, Frederic, can she have? She knows all about this horridwoman, and yet refuses to give her up! What chance can she have afterthat?"

  "I think that you might have her here,--and talk to her." LadyAylmer, in answer to this, simply shook her head. And I think she wasright in supposing that such shaking of her head was a sufficientreply to her son's proposition. What talking could possibly be ofservice to such a one as this Miss Amedroz? Why should she throw herpearls before swine? "We must either ask her to come here, or else Imust go to her," said Captain Aylmer.

  "I don't see that at all, Frederic."

  "I think it must be so. As she is situated at present she has got nohome; and I think it would be very horrid that she should be driveninto that woman's house, simply because she has no other shelter fo
rher head."

  "I suppose she can remain where she is for the present?"

  "She is all alone, you know; and it must be very gloomy;--and hercousin can turn her out at a moment's notice."

  "But all that would not entitle her to come here, unless--"

  "No;--I quite understand that. But you cannot wonder that I shouldfeel the hardship of her position."

  "Who is to be blamed if it be hard? You see, Frederic, I take mystanding upon that letter;--her own letter. How am I to ask a youngwoman into my house who declares openly that my opinion on such amatter goes for nothing with her? How am I to do it? That's what Iask you. How am I to do it? It's all very well for Belinda to suggestthis and that. But how am I to do it? That's what I want to know."

  But at last Lady Aylmer managed to answer the question for herself,and did do it. But this was not done on that Sunday afternoon, noron the Monday, nor on the Tuesday. The question was closely debated,and at last the anxious mother perceived that the giving of theinvitation would be more safe than withholding it. Captain Aylmerat last expressed his determination to go to Belton unless theinvitation were given; and then, should he do that, there might bedanger that he would never be again seen at Aylmer Park till hebrought Clara Amedroz with him as his wife. The position was one ofgreat difficulty, but the interests at stake were so immense thatsomething must be risked. It might be that Clara would not comewhen invited, and in that case her obstinacy would be a great pointgained. And if she did come--! Well; Lady Aylmer admitted to herselfthat the game would be difficult,--difficult and very troublesome;but yet it might be played, and perhaps won. Lady Aylmer was a womanwho had great confidence in herself. Not so utterly had victory insuch contests deserted her hands, that she need fear to break a lancewith Miss Amedroz beneath her own roof, when the occasion was sopressing.

  The invitation was therefore sent in a note written by herself,and was enclosed in a letter from her son. After much consultationand many doubts on the subject, it was at last agreed that nothingfurther should now be urged about Mrs. Askerton. "She shall have herchance," said Lady Aylmer over and over again, repeating her son'swords. "She shall have her chance." Lady Aylmer, therefore, in hernote, confined herself strictly to the giving of the invitation, andto a suggestion that, as Clara had now no settled home of her own,a temporary sojourn at Aylmer Park might be expedient. And CaptainAylmer in his letter hardly said much more. He knew, as he wrote thewords, that they were cold and comfortless, and that he ought on suchan occasion to have written words that should have been warm at anyrate, even though they might not have contained comfort. But, tohave written with affection, he should have written at once, and hehad postponed his letter from the Sunday till the Wednesday. It hadbeen absolutely necessary that that important question as to theinvitation should be answered before he could write at all.

  When all this was settled he went up to London; and there was anunderstanding between him and his mother that he should returnto Aylmer Park with Clara, in the event of her acceptance of theinvitation.

  "You won't go down to Belton for her?" said the mother.

  "No;--I do not think that will be necessary," said the son.

  "I should think not," said the mother.