On the first Sunday, Mrs. Edmonstone coming into the drawing-room at about half-past five, found him sitting alone by the fire, his dog lying at his feet. As he started up, she asked if he had been here in the dark ever since church-time?
‘I have not wanted light,’ he answered with a sigh, long, deep, and irrepressible, and as she stirred the fire, the flame revealed to her the traces of tears. She longed to comfort him, and said—
‘This Sunday twilight is a quiet time for thinking.’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘how few Sundays ago—’ and there he paused.
‘Ah! you had so little preparation.’
‘None. That very morning he had done business with Markham, and had never been more clear and collected.’
‘Were you with him when he was taken ill?’ asked Mrs. Edmonstone, perceiving that it would be a relief to him to talk.
‘No; it was just before dinner. I had been shooting, and went into the library to tell him where I had been. He was well then, for he spoke, but it was getting dark, and I did not see his face. I don’t think I was ten minutes dressing, but when I came down, he had sunk back in his chair. I saw it was not sleep—I rang—and when Arnaud came, we knew how it was.’ His, voice became low with strong emotion.’
‘Did he recover his consciousness?’
‘Yes, that was the comfort,’ said Guy, eagerly. ‘It was after he had been bled that he seemed to wake up. He could not speak or move, but he looked at me—or—I don’t know what I should have done.’ The last words were almost inaudible from the gush of tears that he vainly struggled to repress, and he was turning away to hide them, when he saw that Mrs. Edmonstone’s were flowing fast.
‘You had great reason to be attached to him!’ said she, as soon as she could speak.
‘Indeed, indeed I had.’ And after a long silence—‘He was everything to me, everything from the first hour I can recollect. He never let me miss my parents. How he attended to all my pleasures and wishes, how he watched and cared for me, and bore with me, even I can never know.’
He spoke in short half sentences of intense feeling, and Mrs. Edmonstone was much moved by such affection in one said to have been treated with an excess of strictness, much compassionating the lonely boy, who had lost every family tie in one.
‘When the first pain of the sudden parting has passed,’ said she, ‘you will like to remember the affection which you knew how to value.’
‘If I had but known!’ said Guy; ‘but there was I, hasty, reckless, disregarding his comfort, rebelling against—O, what would I not give to have those restraints restored!’
‘It is what we all feel in such losses,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone. ‘There is always much to wish otherwise; but I am sure you can have the happiness of knowing you were his great comfort.’
‘It was what I ought to have been.’
She knew that nothing could have been more filial and affectionate than his conduct, and tried to say something of the kind, but he would not listen.
‘That is worst of all,’ he said; ‘and you must not trust what they say of me. They would be sure to praise me, if I was anything short of a brute.’
A silence ensued, while Mrs. Edmonstone was trying to think of some consolation. Suddenly Guy looked up, and spoke eagerly:—
‘I want to ask something—a great favour—but you make me venture. You see how I am left alone—you know how little I can trust myself. Will you take me in hand—let me talk to you—and tell me if I am wrong, as freely as if I were Charles? I know it is asking a great deal, but you knew my grandfather, and it is in his name.’
She held out her hand; and with tears answered—
‘Indeed I will, if I see any occasion.’
‘You will let me trust to you to tell me when I get too vehement? above all, when you see my temper failing? Thank you; you don’t know what a relief it is!’
‘But you must not call yourself alone. You are one of us now.’
‘Yes; since you have made that promise,’ said Guy; and for the first time she saw the full beauty of his smile—a sort of sweetness and radiance of which eye and brow partook almost as much as the lips. It alone would have gained her heart.
‘I must look on you as a kind of nephew,’ she added, kindly. ‘I used to hear so much of you from my brother.’
‘Oh!’ cried Guy, lighting up, ‘Archdeacon Morville was always so kind to me. I remember him very well!’
‘Ah! I wish—’ there she paused, and added,—tête-à-tête ‘it is not right to wish such things—and Philip is very like his father.’
‘I am very glad his regiment is so near. I want to know him better.’
‘You knew him at Redclyffe, when he was staying there?’
‘Yes,’ said Guy, his colour rising; ‘but I was a boy then, and a very foolish, headstrong one. I am glad to meet him again. What a grand-looking person he is!’
‘We are very proud of him,’ said Mrs. Edmonstone, smiling. ‘I don’t think there has been an hour’s anxiety about him since he was born.’
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of Charles’s crutches slowly crossing the hall. Guy sprang to help him to his sofa, and then, without speaking, hurried up-stairs.
‘Mamma, tete-a-tete with the silent one!’ exclaimed Charles.
‘I will not tell you all I think of him,’ said she, leaving the room.
‘Hum!’ soliloquised Charles. ‘That means that my lady mother has adopted him, and thinks I should laugh at her, or straightway set up a dislike to him, knowing my contempt for heroes and hero-worship. It’s a treat to have Philip out of the way, and if it was but possible to get out of hearing of his perfection, I should have some peace. If I thought this fellow had one spice of the kind, I’d never trouble my head about him more; and yet I don’t believe he has such a pair of hawk’s eyes for nothing!’
The hawk’s eyes, as Charles called them, shone brighter from that day forth, and their owner began to show more interest in what passed around. Laura was much amused by a little conversation she held with him one day when a party of their younger neighbours were laughing and talking nonsense round Charles’s sofa. He was sitting a little way off in silence, and she took advantage of the loud laughing to say:
‘You think this is not very satisfactory?’ And as he gave a quick glance of inquiry—‘Don’t mind saying so. Philip and I often agree that it is a pity spend so much time in laughing at nothing—at such nonsense.’
‘It is nonsense?’
‘Listen—no don’t, it is too silly.’
‘Nonsense must be an excellent thing if it makes people so happy,’ said Guy thoughtfully. ‘Look at them; they are like—not a picture—that has no life—but a dream—or, perhaps a scene in a play.’
‘Did you never see anything like it?’
‘Oh, no! All the morning calls I ever saw were formal, every one stiff, and speaking by rote, or talking politics. How glad I used to be to get on horseback again! But to see these—why, it is like the shepherd’s glimpse at the pixies!—as one reads a new book, or watches what one only half understands—a rook’s parliament, or a gathering of sea-fowl on the Shag Rock.’
‘A rook’s parliament?’
‘The people at home call it a rook’s parliament when a whole cloud of rooks settle on some bare, wide common, and sit there