Part 2 (1/2)
”I have just heard from Lilian Chesney,” suddenly says Lady Chetwoode, speaking as though a bombsh.e.l.l had fallen in their midst. ”And she is really coming here next week!”
”No!” says Guy, without meaning contradiction, which at the moment is far from him.
”Yes,” replies his mother, somewhat faintly.
”Another!” murmurs Cyril, weakly,--he being the only one of the three who finds any amus.e.m.e.nt in the situation. ”Well, at all events, _she_ can't write to me, as we shall be under the same roof; and I shall dismiss the very first servant who brings me a _billet-doux_. How pleased you do look, Guy! And no wonder;--a whole live ward, and all to yourself. Lucky you!”
”It is hard on you, mother,” says Guy, ”but it can't be helped. When I promised, I made sure her father would have lived for years to come.”
”You did what was quite right,” says Lady Chetwoode, who, if Guy were to commit a felony, would instantly say it was the only proper course to be pursued. ”And it might have been much worse. Her mother's daughter cannot fail to be a lady in the best sense of the word.”
”I'm sure I hope she won't, then,” says Cyril, who all this time has been carefully laying in an uncommonly good breakfast. ”If there is one thing I hate, it is a young lady. Give me a girl.”
”But, my dear, what an extraordinary speech! Surely a girl may be a young lady.”
”Yes, but unfortunately a young lady isn't always a girl. My experience of the former cla.s.s is, that, no matter what their age, they are as old as the hills, and know considerably more than they ought to know.”
”And just as we had got rid of one ward so successfully we must needs get another,” says Lady Chetwoode, with a plaintive sigh. ”Dear Mabel!
she was certainly very sweet, and I was excessively fond of her, but I do hope this new-comer will not be so troublesome.”
”I hope she will be as pleasant to talk to and as good to look at,” says Cyril. ”I confess I missed Mab awfully; I never felt so down in my life as when she declared her intention of marrying Tom Steyne.”
”I never dreamed the marriage would have turned out so well,” says Lady Chetwoode, in a pleased tone. ”She was such an--an--unreasonable girl.
But it is wonderful how well she gets on with a husband.”
”Flirts always make the best wives. You forget that, mother.”
”And what a coquette she was? If Lilian Chesney resembles her, I don't know what I shall do. I am getting too old to take care of pretty girls.”
”Perhaps Miss Chesney is ugly.”
”I hope not, my dear,” says Lady Chetwoode, with a strong shudder. ”Let her be anything but that. I can't bear ugly women. No, her mother was lovely. I used to think”--relapsing again into the plaintive style--”that one ward in a lifetime would be sufficient, and now we are going to have another.”
”It is all Guy's fault,” says Cyril. ”He does get himself up so like the moral Pecksniff. There is a stern and dignified air about him would deceive a Machiavelli, and takes the hearts of parents by storm. Poor Mr. Chesney, who never even saw him, took him on hearsay as his only child's guardian. This solitary fact shows how grossly he has taken in society in general. He is every bit as immoral as the rest of us, only----”
”Immoral! My _dear_ Cyril----” interrupts Lady Chetwoode, severely.
”Well, let us say frivolous. It has just the same meaning nowadays, and sounds nicer. But he looks a 'grave and reverend,' if ever there was one. Indeed, his whole appearance is enough to make any pa.s.ser-by stop short and say, 'There goes a good young man.'”
”I'm sure I hope not,” says Guy, half offended, wholly disgusted. ”I should be inclined to shoot any one who told me I was a 'good young man.' I have no desire to pose as such: my ambition does not lie that way.”
”I don't believe you know what you are saying, either of you,” says Lady Chetwoode, who, though accustomed to them, can never entirely help showing surprise at their sentiments and expressions every now and then.
”I should be sorry to think everybody did not know you to be (as I do) good as gold.”
”Thank you, Madre. One compliment from you is worth a dozen from any one else,” says Cyril. ”Any news, Guy? You seem absorbed. I cannot tell you how I admire any one who takes an undisguised interest in his correspondence. Now I”--gazing at his five unopened letters--”cannot get up the feeling to save my life. Guy,”--reproachfully,--”don't you see your mother is dying of curiosity?”
”The letter is from Trant,” says Guy, looking up from the closely written sheet before him. ”He wants to know if we will take a tenant for 'The Cottage.' 'A lady'”--reading from the letter--”'who has suffered much, and who wishes for quietness and retirement from the world.'”
”I should recommend a convent under the circ.u.mstances,” says Cyril. ”It would be the very thing for her. I don't see why she should come down here to suffer, and put us all in the dumps, and fill our woods with her sighs and moans.”