Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

29. CHAPTER XXIX: THERE IS NOTHING TO TELL (continued)

'Miss Belton is coming here, to the castle, in a fortnight,' said Clara that morning at breakfast. Both Colonel Askerton and his wife were in the room, and she was addressing herself chiefly to the former.

'Indeed, Miss Belton! And is he coming?' said Colonel Askerton.

'So you have heard from Plaistow?' said Mrs Askerton.

'Yes in answer to your letter. No, Colonel Askerton, my Cousin William is not coming. But his sister purposes to be here, and I must go up to the house and get it ready.'

'That will do when the time comes,' said Mrs Askerton.

'I did not mean quite immediately.'

'And are you to be her guest, or is she to be yours? said Colonel Askerton.

'It's her brother's home, and therefore I suppose I must be hers. Indeed it must be so, as I have no means of entertaining any one,'

'Something, no doubt, will be settled,' said the colonel.

'Oh, what a weary word that is,' said Clara; 'weary, at least, for a woman's ears! It sounds of poverty and dependence, and endless trouble given to others, and all the miseries of female dependence. If I were a young man I should be allowed to settle for myself.'

'There would be no question about the property in that case,' said the colonel.

'And there need be no question now,' said Mrs Askerton.

When the two women were alone together, Clara, of course, scolded her friend for having written to Norfolk without letting it be known that she was doing so scolded her, and declared how vain it was for her to make useless efforts for an unattainable end; but Mrs Askerton always managed to slip out of these reproaches, neither asserting herself to be right, nor owning herself to be wrong. 'But you must answer his letter,' she said.