Self-control. Mary Brunton
some good enough butter; so thinks I, I'll make us some good warm toast; for I loves to make the best of a bad bargain. So I bid the waiter bring us the toast-stool; but if you had seen how he stared—why, the pore fellor had never heard of no such thing in his life. Then they shewed us a huge mountain, as black as a sootbag, just opposite the window, and said as we must go up there; but, thinks I, catch us at that; for if we be so bad off here for breakfast, what shall we be there for dinner. So my husband and I were of a mind upon it, to get back to Glasgow as fast as we could; for, though to be sure it cost us a power of money coming down, yet, thinks we, the first loss is the best.'
'What would I have given,' cried Miss Julia, turning up the whites of her eyes, 'to have been permitted to mingle my sighs with the mountain breezes!' Mrs. Jones was accustomed to her sister's nonsense, and she only shrugged her shoulders. But Mrs. Dawkins, provoked that her daughter should be so much more than usually ridiculous before a stranger, said, 'Why, child, how can you be so silly—what in the world should you do sighing o' top of a Scotch hill? I dare to say, if you were there you might sigh long enough before you'd find such a comfortable cup of tea, as what you have in your hand.' Miss Julia disdained reply; but turning to our heroine, she addressed her in a tone so amusingly sentimental, that Laura feared to listen to the purport of her speech, lest the manner and the matter united should prove too much for her gravity; and rising, she apologized for retiring, by saying, that she heard her father stir, and that she must attend him.
When two people of very different ages meet tête à tête in a room, where they are not thoroughly domesticated—where there are no books, no musical instruments, nor even that grand bond of sociality, a fire—it requires no common invention and vivacity to pass an evening with tolerable cheerfulness. The little appearances of discomfort, however, which imperceptibly lower the spirits of others, had generally an opposite effect upon those of Laura. Attentive to the comfort of every human being who approached her, she was always the first to discover the existence and cause of the 'petty miseries of life;'—but, accustomed to consider them merely as calls to exertion, they made not the slightest impression on her spirits or temper. The moment she cast her eyes on her father, leaning on a table, where stood a pair of candles, that but half-lighted the room; and on the chimney, where faded fennel occupied the place of a fire, she perceived that all her efforts would be necessary to produce any thing like comfort. She began her operations, by enticing her father out of the large vacant room, into the small one, where she intended to work. Here she prepared his coffee, gave him account of the party below stairs, read to him her letter to Mrs. Douglas, and did and said every thing she could imagine to amuse him.
When the efforts to entertain are entirely on one side, it is scarcely in human nature to continue them; and Laura was beginning to feel very blank, when it luckily occurred to her, that she had brought her little chess-board from Glenalbert. Away she flew, and in triumph produced this infallible resort. The match was pretty equal. Captain Montreville had more skill, Laura more resource; and she defended herself long and keenly. At last she was within a move of being checkmated. But the move was hers; and the Captain, in the heat of victory, overlooked a step by which the fortune of the game would have been reversed. Laura saw it, and eagerly extended her hand to the piece; but recollecting that there is something in the pride of man's nature that abhors to be beaten at chess by a lady, she suddenly desisted; and, sweeping her lily arm across the board, 'Nay, now,' she cried, with a look of ineffable good nature, 'if you were to complete my defeat after all my hair-breadth 'scapes, you could not be so unreasonable as to expect that I should keep my temper.' 'And how dare you,' said Captain Montreville, in great good humour with his supposed victory, 'deprive me at once of the pleasures of novelty and of triumph?' By the help of this auxiliary, the evening passed pleasantly away; and, before another came, Laura had provided for it the cheap luxury of some books from a circulating library.
CHAPTER VIII
For the first fortnight after Captain Montreville's arrival in London, almost every forenoon was spent in unavailing attempts to see Mr. Baynard, whose illness, at the end of that time, had increased to such a degree, as left no hope that he could soon be in a condition for attending to business. Harassed by suspense, and weary of waiting for an interview which seemed every day more distant, Captain Montreville resolved to stay no longer for his agent's introduction to Mr. Warren, but to visit the young heir, and himself explain his errand. Having procured Mr. Warren's address from Mr. Baynard's servants, he proceeded to Portland Street; and knocking at the door of a handsome house, was there informed that Mr. Warren was gone to Brighton, and was not expected to return for three weeks.
Captain Montreville had now no resource but to unfold his demands to Mr. Warren in writing. He did so, stating his claims with all the simple energy of truth; but no answer was returned. He fatigued himself and Laura in vain, with conjecturing the cause of this silence. He feared that, though dictated by scrupulous politeness, his letter might have given offence. He imagined that it might have miscarried, or that Mr. Warren might have left Brighton before it reached him. All his conjectures were, however, wide of the truth. The letter had given no offence, for it had never been read. It safely reached the person to whom it was addressed, just as he was adding a finishing touch to the graces of a huge silk handkerchief in which he had enveloped his chin, preparatory to the exhibition of his person, and of an elegant new curricle upon the Steine. A single glance had convinced him that the letter was unworthy to encroach on this momentous concern—he had thrown it aside, intending to read it when he had nothing else to do, and had seen it no more, till on his return to London, he unrolled from it his bottle of esprit de rose, which his valet had wrapped in its folds.
The three wearisome weeks came to an end at last, as well as a fourth, which the attractions of Brighton prevailed on Mr. Warren to add to his stay; and Captain Montreville, making another, almost hopeless, inquiry in Portland Street, was, to his great joy, admitted to the long desired conference. He found the young man in his nightgown, reclining on a sofa, intently studious of the Sportsman's Magazine, while he ever and anon refreshed himself for this his literary toil, by sipping a cup of chocolate. Being courteously invited to partake, the Captain began by apologizing for his intrusion, but pleaded that his business was of such a nature as to require a personal interview. At the mention of business, the smile forsook its prescriptive station on the smooth face of Mr. Warren. 'Oh pray pardon me, Sir,' said he, 'my agent manages all my matters—I never meddle with business—I have really no head for it. Here, Du Moulin, give this gentleman Mr. William's address.' 'Excuse me, Sir,' said Captain Montreville. 'On this occasion I must entreat that you will so far depart from your rule as to permit me to state my business to you in person.' 'I assure you, Sir,' said the beau rising from his luxurious posture, 'I know nothing about business—the very name of it is to me the greatest bore in life;—it always reminds me of my old dead uncle. The poor man could never talk of any thing but of bank-stock, the price of the best archangel tar, and the scarcity of hemp. Often did I wish the hemp had been cheap enough to make him apply a little of it to his own use—but the old cock took wing at last without a halter, he, he, he.'
'I shall endeavour to avoid these offensive subjects,' said Captain Montreville, smiling. 'The affair in which I wish to interest you, is less a case of law than of equity, and therefore I must beg permission to state it to your personal attention, as your agent might not think himself at liberty to do me the justice which I may expect from you.'
Mr. Warren at this moment recollected an indispensable engagement, and begged that Captain Montreville would do him the favour to call another time—secretly resolving not to admit him. 'I shall not detain you two minutes,' said the Captain; 'I shall in a few words state my request, and leave you to decide upon it when you are more at leisure.' 'Well, Sir,' replied Mr. Warren, with something between a sigh and an ill-suppressed yawn, 'if it must be so.'—
'About eighteen months ago,' resumed the Captain, 'my agent, Mr Baynard, paid £1500 to your late uncle, as the price of an annuity on my daughter's life. The deed is now found to be informal, and Mr. Williams has refused to make any payment. Mr. Baynard's disposition has prevented me from seeing him since my arrival in London; but I have no doubt that he