The Belton Estate. Anthony Trollope
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female relatives; and one, moreover, with whom she could trust herself to be familiar without any danger of love-making! She saw his character clearly, and told herself that she understood it perfectly. He was a jewel of a cousin, and she must begin to call him Will as speedily as possible.
At last they came round in their walk to the gate leading into Colonel Askerton's garden; and here in the garden, close to the gate, they found Mrs. Askerton. I fancy that she had been watching for them, or at any rate watching for Clara, so that she might know how her friend was carrying herself with her cousin. She came at once to the wicket, and there she was introduced by Clara to Mr. Belton. Mr. Belton as he made his bow muttered something awkwardly, and seemed to lose his self-possession for the moment. Mrs. Askerton was very gracious to him, and she knew well how to be both gracious and ungracious. She talked about the scenery, and the charms of the old place, and the dullness of the people around them, and the inexpediency of looking for society in country places; till after awhile Mr. Belton was once more at his ease.
"How is Colonel Askerton?" asked Clara.
"He's in-doors. Will you come and see him? He's reading a French novel, as usual. It's the only thing he ever does in summer. Do you ever read French novels, Mr. Belton?"
"I read very little at all, and when I do I read English."
"Ah, you're a man who has a pursuit in life, no doubt."
"I should rather think so,—that is, if you mean, by a pursuit, earning my bread. A man has not much time for French novels with a thousand acres of land on his hands; even if he knew how to read French, which I don't."
"But you're not always at work on your farm?"
"It's pretty constant, Mrs. Askerton. Then I shoot, and hunt."
"You're a sportsman?"
"All men living in the country are,—more or less."
"Colonel Askerton shoots a great deal. He has the shooting of Belton, you know. He'll be delighted, I'm sure, to see you if you are here some time in September. But you, coming from Norfolk, would not care for partridge-shooting in Somersetshire."
"I don't see why it shouldn't be as good here as there."
"Colonel Askerton thinks he has got a fair head of game upon the place."
"I dare say. Game is easily kept if people knew how to set about it."
"Colonel Askerton has a very good keeper, and has gone to a great deal of expense since he has been here."
"I'm my own head-keeper," said Belton; "and so I will be,—or rather should be, if I had this place."
Something in the lady's tone had grated against his feelings and offended him; or perhaps he thought that she assumed too many of the airs of proprietorship because the shooting of the place had been let to her husband for thirty pounds a-year.
"I hope you don't mean to say you'll turn us out," said Mrs. Askerton, laughing.
"I have no power to turn anybody out or in," said he. "I've got nothing to do with it."
Clara, perceiving that matters were not going quite pleasantly between her old and new friend, thought it best to take her departure. Belton, as he went, lifted his hat from his head, and Clara could not keep herself from thinking that he was not only very handsome, but that he looked very much like a gentleman, in spite of his occupation as a farmer.
"By-bye, Clara," said Mrs. Askerton; "come down and see me to-morrow, there's a dear. Don't forget what a dull life I have of it." Clara said that she would come. "And I shall be so happy to see Mr. Belton if he will call before he leaves you." At this Belton again raised his hat from his head, and muttered some word or two of civility. But this, his latter muttering, was different from the first, for he had altogether regained his presence of mind.
"You didn't seem to get on very well with my friend," said Clara, laughing, as soon as they had turned away from the cottage.
"Well, no;—that is to say, not particularly well or particularly badly. At first I took her for somebody else I knew slightly ever so long ago, and I was thinking of that other person at the time."
"And what was the other person's name?"
"I can't even remember that at the present moment."
"Mrs. Askerton was a Miss Oliphant."
"That wasn't the other lady's name. But, independently of that, they can't be the same. The other lady married a Mr. Berdmore."
"A Mr. Berdmore!" Clara as she repeated the name felt convinced that she had heard it before, and that she had heard it in connection with Mrs. Askerton. She certainly had heard the name of Berdmore pronounced, or had seen it written, or had in some shape come across the name in Mrs. Askerton's presence; or at any rate somewhere on the premises occupied by that lady. More than this she could not remember; but the name, as she had now heard it from her cousin, became at once distinctly connected in her memory with her friends at the cottage.
"Yes," said Belton; "a Mr. Berdmore. I knew more of him than of her, though for the matter of that, I knew very little of him either. She was a fast-going girl, and his friends were very sorry. But I think they are both dead or divorced, or that they have come to grief in some way."
"And is Mrs. Askerton like the fast-going lady?"
"In a certain way. Not that I remember what the fast-going lady was like; but there was something about this woman that put me in mind of the other. Vigo was her name; now I recollect it,—a Miss Vigo. It's nine or ten years ago now, and I was little more than a boy."
"Her name was Oliphant."
"I don't suppose they have anything to do with each other. What riled me was the way she talked of the shooting. People do when they take a little shooting. They pay some trumpery thirty or forty pounds a year, and then they seem to think that it's almost the same as though they owned the property themselves. I've known a man talk of his manor because he had the shooting of a wood and a small farm round it. They are generally shopkeepers out of London, gin distillers, or brewers, or people like that."
"Why, Mr. Belton, I didn't think you could be so furious!"
"Can't I? When my back's up, it is up! But it isn't up yet."
"And I hope it won't be up while you remain in Somersetshire."
"I won't answer for that. There's Stovey's empty cart standing just where it stood yesterday; and he promised he'd have it home before three to-day. My back will be up with him if he doesn't mind himself."
It was nearly six o'clock when they got back to the house, and Clara was surprised to find that she had been out three hours with her cousin. Certainly it had been very pleasant. The usual companion of her walks, when she had a companion, was Mrs. Askerton; but Mrs. Askerton did not like real walking. She would creep about the grounds for an hour or so, and even such companionship as that was better to Clara than absolute solitude; but now she had been carried about the place, getting over stiles and through gates, and wandering through the copses, till she was tired and hungry, and excited and happy. "Oh, papa," she said, "we have had such a walk!"
"I thought we were to have dined at five," he replied, in a low wailing voice.
"No, papa, indeed,—indeed you said six."
"That was for yesterday."
"You said we were to make it six while Mr. Belton was here."
"Very well;—if it must be, I suppose it must be."
"You don't mean on my account," said Will. "I'll undertake to eat my dinner, sir, at any hour that you'll undertake to give it me. If there's a strong point about me at all, it is my appetite."
Clara, when she went to her father's room that evening, told him what Mr. Belton had said about the shooting, knowing that her father's feelings would agree with those which had been expressed by her cousin. Mr. Amedroz of course made this an occasion for further