"After this I don"t know how I"m to trust her. I don"t indeed. It seems to me that she has been so artful throughout. It has been a regular case of catching."
"I suppose, of course, that she has been anxious to marry Frederic;--but perhaps that was natural."
"Anxious;--look at her going there just when he had to meet his const.i.tuents. How young women can do such things pa.s.ses me! And how it is that men don"t see it all, when it"s going on just under their noses, I can"t understand. And then her getting my poor dear sister to speak to him when she was dying! I didn"t think your aunt would have been so weak." It will be thus seen that there was entire confidence on this subject between Lady Aylmer and her daughter.
We know what were the steps taken with reference to the discovery, and how the family were waiting for Clara"s reply. Lady Aylmer, though in her words she attributed so much mean cunning to Miss Amedroz, still was disposed to believe that that lady would show rather a high spirit on this occasion; and trusted to that high spirit as the means for making the breach which she still hoped to accomplish. It had been intended,--or rather desired,--that Captain Aylmer"s letter should have been much sharper and authoritative than he had really made it; but the mother could not write the letter herself, and had felt that to write in her own name would not have served to create anger on Clara"s part against her betrothed. But she had quite succeeded in inspiring her son with a feeling of horror against the iniquity of the Askertons. He was prepared to be indignantly moral; and perhaps,--perhaps,--the misguided Clara might be silly enough to say a word for her lost friend! Such being the present position of affairs, there was certainly ground for hope.
And now they were all waiting for Clara"s answer. Lady Aylmer had well calculated the course of post, and knew that a letter might reach them by Wednesday morning. "Of course she will not write on Sunday," she had said to her son, "but you have a right to expect that not another day should go by." Captain Aylmer, who felt that they were putting Clara on her trial, shook his head impatiently, and made no immediate answer. Lady Aylmer, triumphantly feeling that she had the culprit on the hip, did not care to notice this. She was doing the best she could for his happiness,--as she had done for his health, when in days gone by she had administered to him his infantine rhubarb and early senna; but as she had never then expected him to like her doses, neither did she now expect that he should be well pleased at the remedial measures to which he was to be subjected.
No letter came on the Wednesday, nor did any come on the Thursday, and then it was thought by the ladies at the Park that the time had come for speaking a word or two. Belinda, at her mother"s instance, began the attack,--not in her mother"s presence, but when she only was with her brother.
"Isn"t it odd, Frederic, that Clara shouldn"t write about those people at Belton?"
"Somersetshire is the other side of London, and letters take a long time."
"But if she had written on Monday, her answer would have been here on Wednesday morning;--indeed, you would have had it Tuesday evening, as mamma sent over to Whitby for the day mail letters." Poor Belinda was a bad lieutenant, and displayed too much of her senior officer"s tactics in thus showing how much calculation and how much solicitude there had been as to the expected letter.
"If I am contented I suppose you may be," said the brother.
"But it does seem to me to be so very important! If she hasn"t got your letter, you know, it would be so necessary that you should write again, so that the--the--the contamination should be stopped as soon as possible." Captain Aylmer shook his head and walked away.
He was, no doubt, prepared to be morally indignant,--morally very indignant,--at the Askerton iniquity; but he did not like the word contamination as applied to his future wife.
"Frederic," said his mother, later on the same day,--when the hardly-used groom had returned from his futile afternoon"s inquiry at the neighbouring post-town,--"I think you should do something in this affair."
"Do what, ma"am? Go off to Belton myself?"
"No, no. I certainly would not do that. In the first place it would be very inconvenient to you, and in the next place it would not be fair upon us. I did not mean that at all. But I think that something should be done. She should be made to understand."
"You may be sure, ma"am, that she understands as well as anybody."
"I dare say she is clever enough at these kind of things."
"What kind of things?"
"Don"t bite my nose off, Frederic, because I am anxious about your wife."
"What is it that you wish me to do? I have written to her, and can only wait for her answer."
"It may be that she feels a delicacy in writing to you on such a subject; though I own--. However, to make a long story short, if you like, I will write to her myself."
"I don"t see that that would do any good. It would only give her offence."
"Give her offence, Frederic, to receive a letter from her future mother-in-law;--from me! Only think, Frederic, what you are saying."
"If she thought she was being bullied about this, she would turn rusty at once."
"Turn rusty! What am I to think of a young lady who is prepared to turn rusty,--at once, too, because she is cautioned by the mother of the man she professes to love against an improper acquaintance,--against an acquaintance so very improper?" Lady Aylmer"s eloquence should have been heard to be appreciated. It is but tame to say that she raised her fat arms and fat hands, and wagged her front,--her front that was the more formidable as it was the old one, somewhat rough and dishevelled, which she was wont to wear in the morning. The emphasis of her words should have been heard, and the fitting solemnity of her action should have been seen.
"If there were any doubt," she continued to say, "but there is no doubt. There are the d.a.m.ning proofs." There are certain words usually confined to the vocabularies of men, which women such as Lady Aylmer delight to use on special occasions, when strong circ.u.mstances demand strong language. As she said this she put her hand below the table, pressing it apparently against her own august person; but she was in truth indicating the position of a certain valuable correspondence, which was locked up in the drawer of her writing-table.
"You can write if you like it, of course; but I think you ought to wait a few more days."
"Very well, Frederic; then I will wait. I will wait till Sunday. I do not wish to take any step of which you do not approve. If you have not heard by Sunday morning, then I will write to her--on Monday."
On the Sat.u.r.day afternoon life was becoming inexpressibly disagreeable to Captain Aylmer, and he began to meditate an escape from the Park. In spite of the agreement between him and his mother, which he understood to signify that nothing more was to be said as to Clara"s wickedness, at any rate till Sunday after post-hour, Lady Aylmer had twice attacked him on the Sat.u.r.day, and had expressed her opinion that affairs were in a very frightful position. Belinda went about the house in melancholy guise, with her eyes rarely lifted off the ground, as though she were prophetically weeping the utter ruin of her brother"s respectability. And even Sir Anthony had raised his eyes and shaken his head, when, on opening the post-bag at the breakfast-table,--an operation which was always performed by Lady Aylmer in person,--her ladyship had exclaimed, "Again no letter!"
Then Captain Aylmer thought that he would fly, and resolved that, in the event of such flight, he would give special orders as to the re-direction of his own letters from the post-office at Whitby.
That evening, after dinner, as soon as his mother and sister had left the room, he began the subject with his father. "I think I shall go up to town on Monday, sir," said he.
"So soon as that. I thought you were to stop till the 9th."
"There are things I must see to in London, and I believe I had better go at once."
"Your mother will be greatly disappointed."
"I shall be sorry for that;--but business is business, you know."
Then the father filled his gla.s.s and pa.s.sed the bottle. He himself did not at all like the idea of his son"s going before the appointed time, but he did not say a word of himself. He looked at the red-hot coals, and a hazy glimmer of a thought pa.s.sed through his mind, that he too would escape from Aylmer Park,--if it were possible.
"If you"ll allow me, I"ll take the dog-cart over to Whitby on Monday, for the express train."
"You can do that certainly, but--"
"Sir?"
"Have you spoken to your mother yet?"
"Not yet. I will to-night."
"I think she"ll be a little angry, Fred." There was a sudden tone of subdued confidence in the old man"s voice as he made this suggestion, which, though it was by no means a customary tone, his son well understood. "Don"t you think she will be;--eh, a little?"
"She shouldn"t go on as she does with me about Clara," said the Captain.
"Ah,--I supposed there was something of that. Are you drinking port?"
"Of course I know that she means all that is good," said the son, pa.s.sing back the bottle.
"Oh yes;--she means all that is good."
"She is the best mother in the world."
"You may say that, Fred;--and the best wife."
"But if she can"t have her own way altogether--" Then the son paused, and the father shook his head.
"Of course she likes to have her own way," said Sir Anthony.
"It"s all very well in some things."
"Yes;--it"s very well in some things."