loves and is proud of. They always correspond, and he often stays with her; but he owns to disliking the Doctor, and I don’t think he has much comfort in Margaret herself, for he always comes back more grave and stern than he went. Her house, with all her good wishes, can be no home to him; and so we try to make Hollywell supply the place of Stylehurst as well as we can.’
‘How glad he must be to have you to comfort him!’
‘Philip? Oh no. He was always reserved; open to no one but Margaret, not even to his father, and since her marriage he has shut himself up within himself more than ever. It has, at least I think it is this that has given him a severity, an unwillingness to trust, which I believe is often the consequence of a great disappointment either in love or in friendship.’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Guy: ‘I shall understand him better, and look up to him more. Oh! it is a cruel thing to find that what one loves is, or has not been, all one thought. What must he not have gone through!’
Mrs. Edmonstone was well pleased to have given so much assistance to Guy’s sincere desire to become attached to his cousin, one of the most favourable signs in the character that was winning so much upon her.
CHAPTER 5
A cloud was o’er my childhood’s dream,
I sat in solitude;
I know not how—I know not why,
But round my soul all drearily
There was a silent shroud.
Mrs. Edmonstone was anxious to hear Mr. Lascelle’s opinion of his pupil, and in time she learnt that he thought Sir Guy had very good abilities, and a fair amount of general information; but that his classical knowledge was far from accurate, and mathematics had been greatly neglected. He had been encouraged to think his work done when he had gathered the general meaning of a passage, or translated it into English verse, spirited and flowing, but often further from the original than he or his tutor could perceive. He had never been taught to work, at least as other boys study, and great application would be requisite to bring his attainments to a level with those of far less clever boys educated at a public school.
Mr. Lascelles told him so at first; but as there were no reflections on his grandfather, or on Mr. Potts, Guy’s lip did not suffer, and he only asked how many hours a day he ought to read. ‘Three,’ said Mr. Lascelles, with a due regard to a probable want of habits of application; but then, remembering how much was undone, he added, that ‘it ought to be four or more, if possible.’
‘Four it shall be,’ said Guy; ‘five if I can.’
His whole strength of will was set to accomplish these four hours, taking them before and after breakfast, working hard all the morning till the last hour before luncheon, when he came to read the lectures on poetry with Charles. Here, for the first time, it appeared that Charles had so entirely ceased to consider him as company, as to domineer over him like his own family.
Used as Guy had been to an active out-of-doors life, and now turned back to authors he had read long ago, to fight his way through the construction of their language, not excusing himself one jot of the difficulty, nor turning aside from one mountain over which his own efforts could carry him, he found his work as tough and tedious as he could wish or fear, and by the end of the morning was thoroughly fagged. Then would have been the refreshing time for recreation in that pleasant idling-place, the Hollywell drawing-room. Any other time of day would have suited Charles as well for the reading, but he liked to take the hour at noon, and never perceived that this made all the difference to his friend of a toil or a pleasure. Now and then Guy gave tremendous yawns; and once when Charles told him he was very stupid, proposed a different time; but as Charles objected, he yielded as submissively as the rest of the household were accustomed to do.
To watch Guy was one of Charles’s chief amusements, and he rejoiced greatly in the prospect of hearing his history of his first dinner-party. Mr., Mrs. and Miss Edmonstone, and Sir Guy Morville, were invited to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow. Mr. Edmonstone was delighted as usual with any opportunity of seeing his neighbours; Guy looked as if he did not know whether he liked the notion or not; Laura told him it would be very absurd and stupid, but there would be some good music, and Charles ordered her to say no more, that he might have the account, the next morning, from a fresh and unprejudiced mind.
The next morning’s question was, of course, ‘How did you like your party?’
‘O, it was great fun.’ Guy’s favourite answer was caught up in the midst, as Laura replied, ‘It was just what parties always are.’
‘Come, let us have the history. Who handed who in to dinner? I hope Guy had Mrs. Brownlow.’
‘Oh no,’ said Laura; we had both the honourables.’
‘Not Philip!’
‘No,’ said Guy; ‘the fidus Achetes was without his pious Aeneas.’
‘Very good, Guy,’ said Charles, enjoying the laugh.
‘I could not help thinking of it,’ said Guy, rather apologising, ‘when I was watching Thorndale’s manner; it is such an imitation of Philip; looking droller, I think, in his absence, than in his presence. I wonder if he is conscious of it.’
‘It does not suit him at all,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; because he has no natural dignity.’
‘A man ought to be six foot one, person and mind, to suit with that grand, sedate, gracious way of Philip’s,’ said Guy.
‘There’s Guy’s measure of Philip’s intellect,’ said Charles, ‘just six foot one inch.’
‘As much more than other people’s twice his height,’ said Guy.
‘Who was your neighbour, Laura?’ asked Amy.
‘Dr. Mayerne; I was very glad of him, to keep off those hunting friends of Mr. Brownlow, who never ask anything but if one has been to the races, and if one likes balls.’
‘And how did Mrs. Brownlow behave?’ said Charles.
‘She is a wonderful woman,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, in her quiet way; and Guy with an expression between drollery and simplicity, said, ‘Then there aren’t many like her.’
‘I hope not,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘Is she really a lady?’
‘Philip commonly calls her “that woman,”’ said Charles. ‘He has never got over her one night classing him with his “young man” and myself, as three of the shyest monkeys she ever came across.’
‘She won’t say so of Maurice,’ said Laura, as they recovered the laugh.
‘I heard her deluding some young lady by saying he was the eldest son,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘Mamma!’ cried Amy, ‘could she have thought so?’
‘I put in a gentle hint on Lord de Courcy’s existence, to which she answered, in her quick way, ‘O ay, I forgot; but then he is the second, and that’s the next thing.’
‘If you could but have heard the stories she and Maurice were telling each other!’ said Guy. ‘He was playing her off, I believe; for whatever she told, he capped it
