Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

27. CHAPTER XXVII: ONCE MORE BACK TO BELTON (continued)

Clara, when she was alone, did answer her cousin's letter, but she did not accept the invitation that had been given her. She assured Miss Belton that she was most anxious to know her, and hoped that she might do so before long, either at Plaistow or at Belton; but that at present she was under an engagement to stay with her friend Mrs Askerton. In an hour or two Mrs Askerton returned, and Clara handed to her the note to read. 'Then all I can say is you are very silly, and don't know on which side your bread is buttered.' It was evident from Mrs Askerton's voice that she had recovered her mood and tone of mind. 'I don't suppose it will much signify, as it will all come right at last,' she said afterwards. And then, after luncheon, when she had been for a few minutes with her husband in his own room, she told Clara that the colonel wanted to speak to her. 'You'll find him as grave as a judge, for he has got something to say to you in earnest. Nobody can be so stern as he is when he chooses to put on his wig and gown.' So Clara went into the colonel's study, and seated herself in a chair which he had prepared for her.

She remained there for over an hour, and during the hour the conversation became very animated. Colonel Askerton's assumed gravity had given way to ordinary eagerness, during which he walked about the room in the vehemence of his argument; and Clara, in answering him, had also put forth all her strength. She had expected that he also was going to speak to her on the propriety of her going to Norfolk; but he made no allusion to that subject, although all that he did say was founded on Will Belton's letter to himself. Belton, in speaking of the cottage, had told Colonel Askerton that Miss Amedroz would be his future landlord, and had then gone on to explain that it was his, Belton's, intention to destroy the entail, and allow the property to descend from the father to the daughter. 'As Miss Amedroz is with you now,' he said, 'may I beg you to take the trouble to explain the matter to her at length, and to make her understand that the estate is now, at this moment, in fact her own. Her possession of it does not depend on any act of hers or, indeed, upon her own will or wish in the matter.' On this subject Colonel Askerton had argued, using all his skill to make Clara in truth perceive that she was her father's heiress through the generosity undoubtedly of her cousin and that she had no alternative but to assume the possession which was thus thrust upon her.