motive, he was still further annoyed when she hastily interposed a question about Sir Guy.
‘You should only hear them talk about him at Redclyffe,’ said Mr Edmonstone. ‘No one was ever equal to him, according to them. Every one said the same—clergyman, old Markham, all of them. Such attention to his grandfather, such proper feeling, so good-natured, not a bit of pride—it is my firm belief that he will make up for all his family before him.’
Charles set up his eyebrows sarcastically.
‘How does he get on with Philip?’ inquired Laura.
‘Excellently. Just what could be wished. Philip is delighted with him; and I have been telling Guy all the way home what a capital friend he will be, and he is quite inclined to look up to him.’ Charles made an exaggerated gesture of astonishment, unseen by his father. ‘I told him to bring his dog. He would have left it, but they seemed so fond of each other, I thought it was a pity to part them, and that I could promise it should be welcome here; eh, mamma?’
‘Certainly. I am very glad you brought it.’
‘We are to have his horse and man in a little while. A beautiful chestnut—anything to raise his spirits. He is terribly cut up about his grandfather.
It was now time to go down to dinner; and after Charles had made faces of weariness and disgust at all the viands proposed to him by his mother, almost imploring him to like them, and had at last ungraciously given her leave to send what he could not quite say he disliked, he was left to carry on his teasing of Charlotte, and his grumbling over the dinner, for about the space of an hour, when Amabel came back to him, and Charlotte went down.
‘Hum!’ he exclaimed. ‘Another swan of my father’s.’
‘Did not you like his looks?’
‘I saw only an angular hobbetyhoy.’
‘But every one at Redclyffe speaks so well of him.’
‘As if the same things were not said of every heir to more acres than brains! However, I could have swallowed everything but the disposition to adore Philip. Either it was gammon on his part, or else the work of my father’s imagination.’
‘For shame, Charlie.’
‘Is it within the bounds of probability that he should be willing, at the bidding of his guardian, to adopt as Mentor his very correct and sententious cousin, a poor subaltern, and the next in the entail? Depend upon it, it is a fiction created either by papa’s hopes or Philip’s self-complacency, or else the unfortunate youth must have been brought very low by strait-lacing and milk-and-water.’
‘Mr. Thorndale is willing to look up to Philip,’
‘I don’t think the Thorndale swan very—very much better than a tame goose,’ said Charles, ‘but the coalition is not so monstrous in his case, since Philip was a friend of his own picking and choosing, and so his father’s adoption did not succeed in repelling him. But that Morville should receive this “young man’s companion,” on the word of a guardian whom he never set eyes on before, is too incredible—utterly mythical I assure you, Amy. And how did you get on at dinner?’
‘Oh, the dog is the most delightful creature I ever saw, so sensible and well-mannered.’
‘It was of the man that I asked.’
‘He said hardly anything, and sometimes started if papa spoke to him suddenly. He winced as if he could not bear to be called Sir Guy, so papa said we should call him only by his name, if he would do the same by us. I am glad of it, for it seems more friendly, and I am sure he wants to be comforted.’
‘Don’t waste your compassion, my dear; few men need it less. With his property, those moors to shoot over, his own master, and with health to enjoy it, there are plenty who would change with him for all your pity, my silly little Amy.’
‘Surely not, with that horrible ancestry.’
‘All very well to plume oneself upon. I rather covet that ghost myself.’
‘Well, if you watched his face, I think you would be sorry for him.’
‘I am tired of the sound of his name. One fifth of November is enough in the year. Here, find something to read to me among that trumpery.’
Amy read till she was summoned to tea, when she found a conversation going on about Philip, on whose history Sir Guy did not seem fully informed. Philip was the son of Archdeacon Morville, Mrs. Edmonstone’s brother, an admirable and superior man, who had been dead about five years. He left three children, Margaret and Fanny, twenty-five and twenty-three years of age, and Philip, just seventeen. The boy was at the head of his school, highly distinguished for application and good conduct; he had attained every honour there open to him, won golden opinions from all concerned with him, and made proof of talents which could not have failed to raise him to the highest university distinctions. He was absent from home at the time of his father’s death, which took place after so short an illness, that there had been no time to summon him back to Stylehurst. Very little property was left to be divided among the three; and as soon as Philip perceived how small was the provision for his sisters, he gave up his hopes of university honours, and obtained a commission in the army.
On hearing this, Sir Guy started forward: ‘Noble!’ he cried, ‘and yet what a pity! If my grandfather had but known it—’
‘Ah! I was convinced of that,’ broke in Mr. Edmonstone, ‘and so, I am sure, was Philip himself; but in fact he knew we should never have given our consent, so he acted quite by himself, wrote to Lord Thorndale, and never said a word, even to his sisters, till the thing was done. I never was more surprised in my life.’
‘One would almost envy him the opportunity of making such a sacrifice,’ said Sir Guy, yet one must lament it.
‘It was done in a hasty spirit of independence,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; ‘I believe if he had got a fellowship at Oxford, it would have answered much better.’
‘And now that poor Fanny is dead, and Margaret married, there is all his expensive education thrown away, and all for nothing,’ said Mr. Edmonstone.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, ‘he planned for them to go on living at Stylehurst, so that it would still have been his home. It is a great pity, for his talent is thrown away, and he is not fond of his profession.’
‘You must not suppose, though, that he is not a practical man,’ said Mr. Edmonstone; ‘I had rather take his opinion than any one’s, especially about a horse, and there is no end to what I hear about his good sense, and the use he is of to the other young men.’
‘You should tell about Mr. Thorndale, papa,’ said Laura.
‘Ah that is a feather in master Philip’s cap; besides, he is your neighbour—at least, his father is.’
‘I suppose you know Lord Thorndale?’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, in explanation.
‘I have seen him once at the Quarter Sessions,’ said Sir Guy; ‘but he lives on the other side of Moorworth, and there was no visiting.’
‘Well, this youth, James Thorndale, the second son, was Philip’s fag.’
‘Philip says he was always licking him!’ interposed Charlotte.’
‘He kept him out
