And now they were all waiting for Clara's answer. Lady Aylmer had well calculated the course of post, and knew that a letter might reach them by Wednesday morning. "Of course she will not write on Sunday," she had said to her son, "but you have a right to expect that not another day should go by." Captain Aylmer, who felt that they were putting Clara on her trial, shook his head impatiently, and made no immediate answer. Lady Aylmer, triumphantly feeling that she had the culprit on the hip, did not care to notice this. She was doing the best she could for his happiness,--as she had done for his health, when in days gone by she had administered to him his infantine rhubarb and early senna; but as she had never then expected him to like her doses, neither did she now expect that he should be well pleased at the remedial measures to which he was to be subjected.
No letter came on the Wednesday, nor did any come on the Thursday, and then it was thought by the ladies at the Park that the time had come for speaking a word or two. Belinda, at her mother's instance, began the attack,--not in her mother's presence, but when she only was with her brother.
"Isn't it odd, Frederic, that Clara shouldn't write about those people at Belton?"
"Somersetshire is the other side of London, and letters take a long time."
"But if she had written on Monday, her answer would have been here on Wednesday morning;--indeed, you would have had it Tuesday evening, as mamma sent over to Whitby for the day mail letters." Poor Belinda was a bad lieutenant, and displayed too much of her senior officer's tactics in thus showing how much calculation and how much solicitude there had been as to the expected letter.
"If I am contented I suppose you may be," said the brother.
"But it does seem to me to be so very important! If she hasn't got your letter, you know, it would be so necessary that you should write again, so that the--the--the contamination should be stopped as soon as possible." Captain Aylmer shook his head and walked away. He was, no doubt, prepared to be morally indignant,--morally very indignant,--at the Askerton iniquity; but he did not like the word contamination as applied to his future wife.