Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

31. CHAPTER XXXI: TAKING POSSESSION (continued)

'Indeed if you had any of that decent feeling of feminine inferiority which ought to belong to all women, he would have found you sitting on the doorstep of his house waiting for him.'

That had been said early in the morning, when they first knew that he had arrived; but they had been talking about him ever since talking about him under pressure from Mrs Askerton, till Clara had been driven to long that she might be spared. 'If he chooses to come, he will come,' she said. 'Of course he will come,' Mrs Askerton had answered, and then they heard the ring of the hell. 'There he is. I could swear to the sound of his foot. Doesn't he step as though he were Belton of Belton, and conscious that everything belonged to him?' Then there was a pause. 'He has been shown in to Colonel Askerton. What on earth could he want with him?'

'He has called to tell him something about the cottage,' said Clara, endeavouring to speak as though she were calm through it all.

'Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his trumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of his own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered up to him. If he does I shall vote for obeying.'

'And I for disobeying and shall vote very strongly too.'

Their suspense was yet prolonged for another ten minutes, and at the end of that time the servant came in and asked if Miss Amedroz would be good enough to go into the master's room. 'Mr Belton is there, Fanny?' asked Mrs Askerton. The girl confessed that Mr Belton was there, and then Clara, without another word, got up and left the room. She had much to do in assuming a look of composure before she opened the door; but she made the effort, and was not unsuccessful. In another second she found her hand in her cousin's, and his bright eye was fixed upon her with that eager friendly glance which made his face so pleasant to those whom he loved.