Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

14. CHAPTER XIV: MR WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON (continued)

'There were heaps of people who used to know the Vigos,' said the lawyer.

'No end of people though I couldn't for the life of me say who any of them were.'

'They used to come out in London with an aunt, but nobody knew much about her. I fancy they had neither father nor mother.'

'They were very pretty.'

'And how well they danced. I don't think I ever knew a girl who danced so pleasantly giving herself no airs, you know as Mary Vigo.'

'Her name was Mary,' said Belton, remembering that Mrs Askerton's name was also Mary.

'Jack Berdmore married Mary.'

'Well now, Joe, you must find out for me what became of her. Was she with her husband when he died?'

'Nobody was with him. Phil told me so. No one, that is, but a young lieutenant and his own servant. It was very sad. He had D.T., and all that sort of thing.'

'And where was she?'

'At Jericho, for anything that I know.'

'Will you find out?' Then Mr Joseph Green thought for a moment of his capabilities in that line, and having made an engagement to dine with his friend at his club on the evening before Will left London, said at last that he thought he could find out through certain mutual friends who had known the Berdmores in the old days. 'But the fact is,' said the lawyer, 'that the world is so good- natured instead of being ill-natured, as people say that it always forgets those who want to be forgotten.'