Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

23. CHAPTER XXIII: THE LAST DAY AT BELTON (continued)

'And also very well to do. What best pleases me in going to Aylmer Castle just now is the power it gives me of doing at once that which otherwise I might have put off till the doing of it had become much more unpleasant. Mr Belton, there is the key of the cellar which I believe gentlemen always regard as the real sign of possession. I don't advise you to trust much to the contents.' He took the key from her, and without saying a word chucked it across the room on to an old sofa. 'If you won't take it, you had better, at any rate, have it tied up with the others,' she said.

'I dare say you'll know where to find it when you want it,' he answered.

'I shall never want it.'

'Then it's as well there as anywhere else.'

'But you won't remember, Will.'

'I don't suppose I shall have occasion for remembering.' Then he paused a moment before he went on. 'I have told you before that I do not intend to take possession of the place. I do not regard it as mine at all.'

'And whose is it, then?'

'Yours.'

'No, dear Will; it is not mine. You know that.'

'I intend that it shall be so, and therefore you might as well put the keys where you will know how to find them.'

Alter he had gone she did take up the key, and tied it with sundry others, which she intended to give to the old servant who was to be left in charge of the house. But after a few moments' consideration she took the cellar key again off the bunch, and put it back upon the sofa in the place to which he had thrown it.