On the following day, a dull, dark, melancholy day, towards the end of November, she went out to saunter about the park, leaving her father still in his bedroom, and after a while made her way down to the cottage. She found Mrs. Askerton as usual alone in the little drawing-room, sitting near the window with a book in her hand; but Clara knew at once that her friend had not been reading,--that she had been sitting there looking out upon the clouds, with her mind fixed upon things far away. The general cheerfulness of this woman had often been cause of wonder to Clara, who knew how many of her hours were passed in solitude; but there did occasionally come upon her periods of melancholy in which she was unable to act up to the settled rule of her life, and in which she would confess that the days and weeks and months were too long for her.
"So you are back," said Mrs. Askerton, as soon as the first greeting was over.
"I supposed you would not stay there long after the funeral."
"And Captain Aylmer is still there, I suppose?"
There was a slight pause, as Mrs. Askerton hesitated before she asked her next question. "May I be told anything about the will?" she said.
"The weary will! If you knew how I hated the subject you would not ask me. But you must not think I hate it because it has given me nothing."
"Nothing! But that does not make me hate it. It is the nature of the subject that is so odious. I have now told you all,--everything that there is to be told, though we were to talk for a week. If you are generous you will not say another word about it."
"There,--that's it. You won't perceive that the expression of such sorrow is a personal injury to me. I don't want you to be sorry."
"You need not express it. I don't come pitying you for supposed troubles. You have plenty of money; but if you were so poor that you could eat nothing but cold mutton, I shouldn't condole with you as to the state of your larder. I should pretend to think that poultry and piecrust were plentiful with you."
"No, you wouldn't, dear;--not if I were as dear to you as you are to me."
"Well, then, be sorry; and let there be an end of it. Remember how much of all this I must of necessity have to go through with poor papa."