Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

19. CHAPTER XI: MISS AMEDROZ HAS ANOTHER CHANCE (continued)

But Fred retreated from the room without showing the letter. He retreated from the room and betook himself to solitude, that he might again endeavour to make up his mind as to what he would do. He put on his hat and his great-coat and gloves, and went off without his luncheon that he might consider it all. Clara Amedroz had now no home and, indeed, very little means of providing one. If he intended that she should be his wife, he must furnish her with a home at once. It seemed to him that three houses might possibly be open to her of which one, the only one which under such circumstances would be proper, was Aylmer Park. The other two were Plaistow Hall and Mrs Askerton's cottage at Belton. As to the latter should she ever take shelter there, everything must be over between him and her. On that point there could be no doubt. He could not bring himself to marry a wife out of Mrs Askerton's drawing-room, nor could he expect his mother to receive a young woman brought into the family under such circumstances. And Plaistow Hall was almost as bad. It was as bad to him, though it would, perhaps, be less objectionable in the eyes of Lady Aylmer. Should Clara go to Plaistow Hall there must be an end to everything. Of that also he taught himself to be quite certain. Then he took out Clara's letter and read it again. She acknowledged the story about the woman to be true such a story as it was too and yet refused to quarrel with the woman had absolutely promised the woman not to quarrel with her! Then he read and re-read the passage in which Clara claimed the right of forming her own opinion in such matters. Nothing could be more indelicate nothing more unfit for his wife. He began to think that he had better show the letter to his mother, and acknowledge that the match must be broken off. That softening of his heart which had followed upon the receipt of the telegraphic message departed from him as he dwelt upon the stubborn, stiff-necked, unfeminine obstinacy of the letter. Then he remembered that nothing had as yet been done towards putting his aunt's fifteen hundred pounds absolutely into Clara's hands; and he remembered also that she might at the present moment be in great want. William Belton might, not improbably, assist her in her want, and this idea was wormwood to him in spite of his almost formed resolution to give up his own claims. He calculated that the income arising from fifteen hundred pounds would be very small, and he wished that he had counselled his aunt to double the legacy. He thought very much about the amount of the money and the way in which it might be beat expended, and was, after his cold fashion, really solicitous as to Clara's welfare. If he could have fashioned her future life, and his own too, in accordance with his own now existing wishes, I think he would have arranged that neither of them should marry at all, and that to him should be assigned the duty and care of being Clara's protector with full permission to tell her his mind as often as he pleased on the subject of Mrs Askerton. Then he went in and wrote a note to Mr Green, the lawyer, desiring that the interest of the fifteen hundred pounds for one year might be at once remitted to Miss Amedroz. He knew that he ought to write to her himself immediately, without loss of a post; but how was he to write while things were in their present position? Were he now to condole with her on her father's death, without any reference to the great Askerton iniquity, he would thereby be condoning all that was past, and acknowledging the truth and propriety of her arguments. And he would be doing even worse than that. He would be cutting the ground absolutely from beneath his own feet as regarded that escape from his engagement which he was contemplating.