The Belton Estate Part 68

"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 pa.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled to sixpence."

But at last the arrangement as above described was the one to which they all a.s.sented.

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 a.s.sured 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 to-day, 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.serting 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 a.s.sist 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 door-step 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 bell. "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, f.a.n.n.y?" 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 a.s.suming 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.