‘Which do you like best—that or the ball?’ asked Charles.
‘The hay-field best of all,’ said Guy, releasing Bustle, and blinding him with a heap of hay.
‘Of course!’ said Charlotte, ‘who would not like hay-making better than that stupid ball?’
‘Poor Charlotte!’ said Mrs. Edmonstone; commiseration which irritated Charlotte into standing up and protesting,
‘Mamma, you know I don’t want to go.’
‘No more do I, Charlotte,’ said her brother, in a mock consoling tone. ‘You and I know what is good for us, and despise sublunary vanities.’
‘But you will go, Guy,’ said Laura; ‘Philip is really going.’
‘In spite of Lord Kilcoran’s folly in going to such an expense as either taking Allonby or giving the ball,’ said Charles.
‘I don’t think it is my business to bring Lord Kilcoran to a sense of his folly,’ said Philip. ‘I made all my protests to Maurice when first he started the notion, but if his father chose to take the matter up, it is no concern of mine.’
‘You will understand, Guy,’ said Charles, ‘that this ball is specially got up by Maurice for Laura’s benefit.’
‘Believe as little as you please of that speech, Guy,’ said Laura; ‘the truth is that Lord Kilcoran is very good-natured, and Eveleen was very much shocked to hear that Amy had never been to any ball, and I to only one, and so it ended in their giving one.’
‘When is it to be?’
‘On Thursday week,’ said Amy. ‘I wonder if you will think Eveleen as pretty as we do!’
‘She is Laura’s great friend, is not she?’
‘I like her very much; I have known her all my life, and she has much more depth than those would think who only know her manner.’ And Laura looked pleadingly at Philip as she spoke.
‘Are there any others of the family at home?’ said Guy.
‘The two younger girls, Mabel and Helen, and the little boys,’ said Amy. ‘Lord de Courcy is in Ireland, and all the others are away.’
‘Lord de Courcy is the wisest man of the family, and sets his face against absenteeism,’ said Philip, ‘so he is never visible here.’
‘But you aren’t going to despise it, I hope, Guy,’ said Amy, earnestly; ‘it will be so delightful! And what fun we shall have in teaching you to dance!’
Guy stretched himself, and gave a quaint grunt.
‘Never mind, Guy,’ said Philip, ‘very little is required. You may easily pass in the crowd. I never learnt.’
‘Your ear will guide you,’ said Laura.
‘And no one can stay at home, since Mary Ross is going,’ said Amy. ‘Eveleen was always so fond of her, that she came and forced a promise from her by telling her she should come with mamma, and have no trouble.’
‘You have not seen Allonby,’ said Laura. ‘There are such Vandykes, and among them, such a King Charles!’
‘Is not that the picture,’ said Charles, ‘before which Amy—’
‘O don’t, Charlie!’
‘Was found dissolved in tears?’
‘I could not help it,’ murmured Amy, blushing crimson.
‘There is all Charles’s fate in his face,’ said Philip,—‘earnest, melancholy, beautiful! It would stir the feelings—were it an unknown portrait. No, Amy, you need not be ashamed of your tears.’
But Amy turned away, doubly ashamed.
‘I hope it is not in the ball-room,’ said Guy.
‘No said Laura, ‘it is in the library.’
Charlotte, whose absence had become perceptible from the general quietness, here ran up with two envelopes, which she put into Guy’s hands. One contained Lady Kilcoran’s genuine card of invitation for Sir Guy Morville, the other Charlotte had scribbled in haste for Mr. Bustle.
This put an end to all rationality. Guy rose with a growl and a roar, and hunted her over half the field, till she was caught, and came back out of breath and screaming, ‘We never had such a haymaking!’
‘So I think the haymakers will say!’ answered her mother, rising to go indoors. ‘What ruin of haycocks!’
‘Oh, I’ll set all that to rights,’ said Guy, seizing a hay-fork.
‘Stop, stop, take care!’ cried Charles. ‘I don’t want to be built up in the rick, and by and by, when my disconsolate family have had all the ponds dragged for me, Deloraine will be heard to complain that they give him very odd animal food.’
‘Who could resist such a piteous appeal!’ said Guy, helping him to rise, and conducting him to his wheeled chair. The others followed, and when, shortly after, Laura looked out at her window, she saw Guy, with his coat off, toiling like a real haymaker, to build up the cocks in all their neat fairness and height, whistling meantime the ‘Queen of the May,’ and now and then singing a line. She watched the old cowman come up, touching his hat, and looking less cross than usual; she saw Guy’s ready greeting, and perceived they were comparing the forks and rakes, the pooks and cocks of their counties; and, finally, she beheld her father ride into the field, and Guy spring to meet him.
No one could have so returned to what was in effect a home, unless his time had been properly spent; and, in fact, all that Mr. Edmonstone or Philip could hear of him, was so satisfactory, that Philip pronounced that the first stage of the trial had been passed irreproachably, and Laura felt and looked delighted at this sanction to the high estimation in which she held him.
His own account of himself to Mrs. Edmonstone would not have been equally satisfactory if she had not had something else to check it with. It was given by degrees, and at many different times, chiefly as they walked round the garden in the twilight of the summer evenings, talking over the many subjects mentioned in the letters which had passed constantly. It seemed as if there were very few to whom Guy would ever give his confidence; but that once bestowed, it was with hardly any reserve, and that was his great relief and satisfaction to pour out his whole mind, where he was sure of sympathy.
To her, then, he confided how much provoked he was with himself, his ‘first term,’ he said, ‘having only shown him what an intolerable fool he had to keep in order.’ By his account, he could do nothing ‘without turning his own head, except study, and that stupefied it.’ ‘Never was there a more idle fellow; he could work himself for a given time, but his sense would not second him; and was it not most absurd in him to take so little pleasure in what was his duty, and enjoy only what was bad for him?’
He had tried boating, but it had distracted him from his work; so he had been obliged to give it up, and had done so in a hasty vehement manner, which had caused offence, and for which he blamed himself. It had been the same with other things, till he had left himself no regular recreation but walking and music. ‘The last,’ he said, ‘might engross him in the same way; but he thought (here he hesitated a little) there were higher ends for music, which made it come under Mrs. Edmonstone’s rule, of a thing to be used guardedly, not disused.’ He had resumed light reading, too, which he had nearly discontinued before he went to Oxford. ‘One wants something,’ he said, ‘by way of refreshment, where there is no sea nor rock to look at, and no Laura and Amy to talk to.’
He had made one friend, a scholar of his own college, of the name of Wellwood. This name had been his attraction; Guy was bent on friendship with him; if, as he tried to make him out to be, he was the son of that Captain Wellwood whose death had weighed so heavily on his grandfather’s conscience, feeling almost as if it were his duty to ask forgiveness in his grandfather’s name, yet scarcely knowing how to venture on advances to one to whom his name had such associations. However, they had