Chapter 14
'By birth,' said Mrs. Edmonstone. It is only her high spirits and small judgment that make her so absurd.'
'How loud she is, too!' said Laura. 'What was all that about horses, Guy?'
'She was saying she drove two such spirited horses, that all the grooms were afraid of them; and when she wanted to take out her little boy, Mr.
Brownlow said "You may do as you like my dear, but I won't have my son's neck broken, whatever you do with your own." So Maurice answered by declaring he knew a lady who drove not two, but four-in-hand, and when the leaders turned round and looked her in the face, gave a little nod, and said, 'I'm obliged for your civility.'
'Oh! I wish I had heard that,' cried Laura.
'Did you hear her saying she smoked cigars?'
Everyone cried out with horror or laughter.
'Of course, Maurice told a story of a lady who had a cigar case hanging at her chatelaine, and always took one to refresh her after a ball.'
Guy was interrupted by the announcement of his horse, and rode off at once to Mr. Lascelles.
On his return he went straight to the drawing-room, where Mrs.
Edmonstone was reading to Charles, and abruptly exclaimed,--
'I told you wrong. She only said she had smoked one cigar.' Then perceiving that he was interrupting, he added, 'I beg your pardon,' and went away.
The next evening, on coming in from a solitary skating, he found the younger party in the drawing-room, Charles entertaining the Miss Harpers with the story of the cigars. He hastily interposed--
'I told you it was but one.'
'Ay, tried one, and went on. She was preparing an order for Havannah.'
'I thought I told you I repeated the conversation incorrectly.'
'If it is not the letter, it is the spirit,' said Charles, vexed at the interference with his sport of amazing the Miss Harpers with outrageous stories of Mrs. Brownlow.
'It is just like her,' said one of them. 'I could believe anything of Mrs. Brownlow.'
'You must not believe this,' said Guy, gently. 'I repeated incorrectly what had better have been forgotten, and I must beg my foolish exaggeration to go no further.'
Charles became sullenly silent; Guy stood thoughtful; and Laura and Amabel could not easily sustain the conversation till the visitors took their leave.
'Here's a pother!' grumbled Charles, as soon as they were gone.
'I beg your pardon for spoiling your story,' said Guy; but it was my fault, so I was obliged to interfere.'
'Bos.h.!.+' said Charles. 'Who cares whether she smoked one or twenty? She is Mrs. Brownlow still.'
The point is, what was truth?' said Laura.
'Straining at gnats,' said Charles.
'Little wings?' said Guy, glancing at Amabel.
'Have it your won way,' said Charles, throwing his head back; 'they must be little souls, indeed that stick at such trash.'
Guy's brows were contracted with vexation, but Laura looked up very prettily, saying--
'Never mind him. We must all honour you for
'You will recommend him favourably to Philip,' growled Charles.
There was no reply, and presently Guy asked whether he would go up to dress? Having no other way of showing his displeasure, he refused, and remained nursing his ill-humour, till he forgot how slight the offence had been, and worked himself into a sort of insane desire--half mischievous, half revengeful--to be as provoking as he could in his turn.
Seldom had he been more contrary, as his old nurse was wont to call it.
No one could please him, and Guy was not allowed to do anything for him.
Whatever he said was intended to rub on some sore place in Guy's mind.
His mother and Laura's signs made him worse, for he had the pleasure of teasing them, also; but Guy endured it all with perfect temper, and he grew more cross at his failure; yet, from force of habit, at bed-time, he found himself on the stairs with Guy's arm supporting him.
'Good night,' said Charles; 'I tried hard to poke up the lion to-night, but I see it won't do.'
This plea of trying experiments was neither absolutely true nor false; but it restored Charles to himself, by saving a confession that he had been out of temper, and enabling him to treat with him wonted indifference the expostulations of father, mother, and Laura.
Now that the idea of 'poking up the lion' had once occurred, it became his great occupation to attempt it. He wanted to see some evidence of the fiery temper, and it was a new sport to try to rouse it; one, too, which had the greater relish, as it kept the rest of the family on thorns.
He would argue against his real opinion, talk against his better sense, take the wrong side, and say much that was very far from his true sentiments. Guy could not understand at first, and was quite confounded at some of the views he espoused, till Laura came to his help, greatly irritating her brother by hints that he was not in earnest. Next time she could speak to Guy alone, she told him he must not take all Charles said literally.
'I thought he could hardly mean it: but why should he talk so?'
'I can't excuse him; I know it is very wrong, and at the expense of truth, and it is very disagreeable of him--I wish he would not; but he always does what he likes, and it is one of his amus.e.m.e.nts, so we must bear with him, poor fellow.'
From that time Guy seemed to have no trouble in reining in his temper in arguing with Charles, except once, when the lion was fairly roused by something that sounded like a sneer about King Charles I.
His whole face changed, his hazel eye gleamed with light like an eagle's, and he started up, exclaiming--
'You did not mean that?'
'Ask Strafford,' answered Charles, coolly, startled, but satisfied to have found the vulnerable point.
'Ungenerous, unmanly,' said Guy, his voice low, but quivering with indignation; 'ungenerous to reproach him with what he so bitterly repented. Could not his penitence, could not his own blood'--but as he spoke, the gleam of wrath faded, the flush deepened on the cheek, and he left the room.
'Ha!' soliloquized Charles, 'I've done it! I could fancy his wrath something terrific when it was once well up. I didn't know what was coming next; but I believe he has got himself pretty well in hand. It is playing with edge tools; and now I have been favoured with one flash of the Morville eye, I'll let him alone; but it _ryled_ me to be treated as something beneath his anger, like a woman or a child.'
In about ten minutes, Guy came back: 'I am sorry that I was hasty just now,' said he.
'I did not know you had such personal feelings about King Charles.'
'If you would do me a kindness,' proceeded Guy, 'you would just say you did not mean it. I know you do not, but if you would only say so.'
'I am glad you have the wit to see I have too much taste to be a roundhead.'
'Thank you,' said Guy; 'I hope I shall know your jest from your earnest another time. Only if you would oblige me, you would never jest again about King Charles.'
His brow darkened into a stern, grave expression, so entirely in earnest, that Charles, though making no answer, could not do otherwise than feel compliance unavoidable. Charles had never been so entirely conquered, yet, strange to say, he was not, as usual, rendered sullen.