Your affectionate Cousin,
It was a bad day for me when I made up my mind to
go to Belton Castle last summer.’
Clara, when she had read the letter, sat down and
cried, holding the bundle of notes in her hand.
What would she do with them? Should she send
them back? Oh no she would do nothing to displease
him, or to make him think that she was angry with
him. Besides, she had none of that dislike to
taking his money which she had felt as to receiving
money from Captain Aylmer. He had said that she
would be his sister, and she would take from him any
assistance that a sister might properly take from
a brother.
She went down-stairs and met Captain Aylmer in the
sitting-room. He stepped up to her as soon as
the door was closed, and she could at once see that
he had determined to forget the unpleasantness of the
previous evening. He stepped up to her, and gracefully
taking her by one hand, and passing the other behind
her waist, saluted her in a becoming and appropriate
manner. She did not like it. She especially
disliked it, believing in her heart of hearts that
she would never become the wife of this man whom she
had professed to love and whom she really had once
loved. But she could only bear it. And, to
say the truth, there was not much suffering of that
kind to be borne.
Their journey down to Yorkshire was very prosperous.
He maintained his good humour throughout the day,
and never once said a word about Will Belton.
Nor did he say a word about Mrs Askerton. ’Do
your best to please my mother, Clara,’ he said,
as they were driving up from the park lodges to the
house. This was fair enough, and she therefore
promised him that she would do her best.
MISS AMEDROZ HAS SOME HASHED CHICKEN
Clara felt herself to be a coward as the Aylmer Park
carriage, which had been sent to meet her at the station,
was drawn up at Sir Anthony Aylmer’s door.
She had made up her mind that she would not bow down
to Lady Aylmer, and yet she was afraid of the woman.
As she got out of the carriage, she looked up, expecting
to see her in the hall; but Lady Aylmer was too accurately
acquainted with the weights and measures of society
for any such movement as that. Had her son brought
Lady Emily to the house as his future bride, Lady
Aylmer would probably have been in the hall when the
arrival took place; and had Clara possessed ten thousand
pounds of her own, she would probably have been met
at the drawing-room door; but as she had neither money
nor title as she in fact brought with her no advantages
of any sort Lady Aylmer was found stitching a bit
of worsted, as though she had expected no one to come
to her. And Belinda Aylmer was stitching also
by special order from her mother. The reader
will remember that Lady Aylmer was not without strong
hope that the engagement might even yet be broken off.
Snubbing, she thought, might probably be efficacious
to this purpose, and so Clara was to be snubbed.
