It was calmly reflected, for Philip’s love was tranquil, though deep and steady, and the rather sought to preserve Laura as she was than to make her anything more; and this very calmness contributed to his self-deception on this first occasion that he had ever actually swerved from the path of right.
With an uncomfortable sensation, he met Guy riding home from his tutor, entirely unsuspicious. He stopped and talked of the preparations at Broadstone, where he had been over the ground with Maurice de Courcy, and had heard the band.
‘What did you think of it? said Philip, absently.
‘They should keep better time! Really, Philip, there is one fellow with a bugle that ought to be flogged every day of his life!’ said Guy, making a droll, excruciated face.
How a few words can change the whole current of ideas. The band was connected with Philip, therefore he could not bear to hear it found fault with, and adduced some one’s opinion that the man in question was one of the best of their musicians.
Guy could not help shrugging his shoulders, as he laughed, and said—‘Then I shall be obliged to take to my heels if I meet the rest. Good-bye.’
‘How conceited they have made that boy about his fine ear,’ thought Philip. ‘I wonder he is not ashamed to parade his music, considering whence it is derived.’
CHAPTER 9
Ah! county Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea,
The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.
The lark, his lay, who thrilled all day,
Sits hushed, his partner nigh,
Breeze, bird, and flower, confess the hour,
But where is county Guy?
—SCOTT
How was it meantime with Laura? The others were laughing and talking round her, but all seemed lost in the transcendent beam that had shone out on her. To be told by Philip that she was all to him that he had always been to her! This one idea pervaded her—too glorious, too happy for utterance, almost for distinct thought. The softening of his voice, and the look with which he had regarded her, recurred again and again, startling her with a sudden surprise of joy almost as at the first moment. Of the future Laura thought not. Never had a promise of love been made with less knowledge of what it amounted to: it seemed merely an expression of sentiments that she had never been without; for had she not always looked up to Philip more than any other living creature, and gloried in being his favourite cousin? Ever since the time when he explained to her the plates in the Encyclopaedia, and made her read ‘Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues,’ when Amy took fright at the first page. That this might lead further did not occur to her; she was eighteen, she had no experience, not even in novels, she did not know what she had done; and above all, she had so leant to surrender her opinions to Philip, and to believe him always right, that she would never have dreamt of questioning wherever he might choose to lead her. Even the caution of secrecy did not alarm her, though she wondered that he thought it required, safe as his confidence always was with her. Mrs. Edmonstone had been so much occupied by Charles’s illness, as to have been unable to attend to her daughters in their girlish days; and in the governess’s time the habit had been disused of flying at once to her with every joy or grief. Laura’s thoughts were not easy of access, and Philip had long been all in all to her. She was too ignorant of life to perceive that it was her duty to make this conversation known; or, more truly, she did not awaken her mind to consider that anything could be wrong that Philip desired.
On coming home, she ran up to her own room, and sitting by the open window, gave herself up to that delicious dream of new-found joy.
There she still sat when Amy came in, opening the door softly, and treading lightly and airily as she entered, bringing two or three roses of different tints.
‘Laura! not begun to dress?’
‘Is it time?’
‘Shall I answer you according to what Philip calls my note of time, and tell you the pimpernels are closed, and the tigridias dropping their leaves? It would be a proper answer for you; you look as if you were in Fairy Land.’
‘Is papa come home?’
‘Long ago! and Guy too. Why, where could you have been, not to have heard Guy and Eveleen singing the Irish melodies?’
‘In a trance,’ said Laura, starting up, and laughing, with a slight degree of constraint, which caused Amy, who was helping her to dress, to exclaim, ‘Has anything happened, Laura?’
‘What should have happened?’
‘I can’t guess, unless the fairies in the great ring on Ashendown came to visit you when we were gone. But seriously, dear Laura, are you sure you are not tired? Is nothing the matter?’
‘Nothing at all, thank you. I was only thinking over the talk I had with Philip.’
‘Oh!’
Amy never thought of entering into Philip’s talks with Laura, and was perfectly satisfied.
By this time Laura was herself again, come back to common life, and resolved to watch over her intercourse with Guy; since, though she was convinced that all was safe at present, she had Philip’s word for it that there might be danger in continuing the pleasant freedom of their behaviour.
Nothing could be more reassuring than Guy’s demeanour. His head seemed entirely full of the Thursday, and of a plan of his own for enabling Charles to go to the review. It had darted into his head while he was going over the ground with Maurice. It was so long since Charles had thought it possible to attempt any amusement away from home, and former experiments had been so unsuccessful, that it had never even occurred to him to think of it; but he caught at the idea with great delight and eagerness. Mrs. Edmonstone seemed not to know what to say; she had much rather that it had not been proposed; yet it was very kind of Guy, and Charles was so anxious about it that she knew not how to oppose him.
She could not bear to have Charles in a crowd, helpless as he was; and she had an unpleasing remembrance of the last occasion when they had taken him to a flower-show, where they had lost, first Mr. Edmonstone, next the carriage, and lastly, Amy and Charlotte—all had been frightened, and Charles laid up for three days from the fatigue.
Answers, however, met each objection. Charles was much stronger; Guy’s arm would be ready for him; Guy would find the carriage. Philip would be there to help, besides Maurice; and whenever Charles was tired, Guy would take him home at once, without spoiling any one’s pleasure.
‘Except your own,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone.
‘Thank you; but this would be so delightful.’
‘Ah!’ said Charles, ‘it would be as great a triumph as the dog’s that caught the hare with the clog round his neck—the dog’s, I mean.’
‘If you will but trust me with him,’ said Guy, turning on her all the pleading eloquence of his eyes, ‘you know