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 ?59 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 w............