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Updated: August 19, 2024
'So you are back, said Mrs Askerton, as soon as the first greeting was over. 'Yes; I am back. 'I supposed you would not stay there long after the funeral. 'No; what good could I do? 'And Captain Aylmer is still there, I suppose? 'I left him at Perivale. There was a slight pause, as Mrs Askerton hesitated before she asked her next question. 'May I be told anything about the will? she said.
'You might do pretty well, I dare say, if you could live privately at Perivale, keeping up the old family house there, and having no expenses; but you'll find even that close enough with your seat in Parliament, and the necessity there is that you should be half the year in London. Of course she won't go to London. She can't expect it.
Clara was there with him, but she had shown herself in the pew for four or five weeks before this. She had not been at home when the fearful news had reached Belton, being at that time with a certain lady who lived on the farther side of the county, at Perivale a certain Mrs Winterfield, born a Folliott, a widow, who stood to Miss Amedroz in the place of an aunt.
It must be understood that Captain Aylmer was member for Perivale on the Low Church interest, and that, therefore, when at Perivale he was decidedly a Low Churchman. I am not aware that the peculiarity stuck to him very closely at Aylmer Castle, in Yorkshire, or among his friends in London; but there was no hypocrisy in this, as the world goes.
These were no less than Captain Aylmer, Member for Perivale, and his newly-married bride, Lady Emily Aylmer, nee Tagmaggert. They were then just married, and had come down to Belton Castle immediately after their honeymoon trip. How it had come to pass that such friendship had sprung up, or rather how it had been revived, it would be bootless here to say.
'Yes; I suppose she has got a husband. Then Clara had, in her own judgment, accused the rector of lying, evil-speaking, and slandering, and had increased the measure of her cordiality to Mrs Askerton. But something more she had heard on the same subject at Perivale.
But in regard to her aunt's money she had entertained no established hopes; and when her aunt opened her mind to her, on that subject, a few days before the arrival of the fatal news at Perivale, Clara, though she was somewhat surprised, was by no means disappointed. Now there was a certain Captain Aylmer in the question, of whom in this opening chapter it will be necessary to say a few words.
That and Mrs Winterfield's property lay in the neighbourhood of Perivale; and now, on the occasion to which I am alluding, Mrs Winterfield thought it necessary to tell Clara that the property must all go together. She had thought about it, and had doubted about it, and had prayed about it, and now she found that such a disposition of it was her duty.
A few words between them might probably set everything right, and therefore be proposed to meet her at the Belton Castle house, at such an hour, on such a day. He should run down to Perivale on his journey, and perhaps Clara would let him have a line addressed to him there. Such was his letter.
'I mean to say that I don't like Sundays at Perivale at all, and that I should do just as you do if I had the power. But women, women, that is, of my age, are such slaves! We are forced to give an obedience for which we can see no cause, and for which we can understand no necessity. I couldn't tell my aunt that I meant to go away on Saturday.
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