Then that look of pain returned. Mrs. Askerton had succeeded in recovering the usual tone of her countenance, but now she was once more disturbed. "I think I know the name," said she.
"I fancy that I have seen it in this house," said Clara.
"You may more likely have heard it, my dear. My memory is very poor, but if I remember rightly, Colonel Askerton did know a Captain Berdmore,--a long while ago, before he was married; and you may probably have heard him mention the name." This did not quite satisfy Clara, but she said nothing more about it then. If there was a mystery which Mrs. Askerton did not wish to have explored, why should she explore it?
Soon after this Clara got up to go, and Mrs. Askerton, making another attempt to be cheerful, was almost successful. "So you're going back into Norfolk on Saturday, Clara tells me. You are making a very short visit now that you're come among us."
"It is a long time for me to be away from home. Farmers can hardly ever dare to leave their work. But in spite of my farm, I am talking of coming here again about Christmas."
"But you are going to have a farming establishment here too?"
"That will be nothing. Clara will look after that for me; will you not?" Then they went, and Belton had to consider how he would begin the work before him. He had some idea that too much precipitancy might do him an injury, but he hardly knew how to commence without coming to the point at once. When they were out together in the park, he went back at first to the subject of Mrs. Askerton.
"I would almost have sworn they were one and the same woman," he said.
"It's not only the likeness, but the voice. It so chanced that I once saw that Miss Vigo in some trouble. I happened to meet her in company with a man who was,--who was tipsy, in fact, and I had to relieve her."
"It's a long time ago, and there can't be any harm in mentioning it now. It was the man she was going to marry, and whom she did marry."
"Yes; he was often in that way. And there was a look about Mrs. Askerton just now so like the look of that Miss Vigo then, that I cannot get rid of the idea."
"They can't be the same, as she was certainly a Miss Oliphant. And you hear, too, what she says."
"Yes;--I heard what she said. You have known her long?"