MR. TURBULENT BECOMES A NUISANCE.
Aug.30.—Mrs. Schwellenberg invited Mr. Turbulent to dinner, for she said he had a large correspondence, and might amuse her. He came early; and finding nobody in the eating-parlour, begged to wait in mine till Mrs. Schwellenberg came downstairs. This was the last thing I wished; but he required no answer, and instantly resumed the Kew discussion, entreating me to tell him what he had done. I desired him to desist—in vain, he affirmed I had promised him an explanation, and he had therefore a right to it.
“You fully mistook me, then,” cried I, “for I meant no such thing then; I mean no such thing now; and I never shall mean any such thing in future. Is this explicit? I think it best to tell you so at once, that you may expect nothing more, but give over the subject, and talk of something else. What is the news?”
“I’ll talk of nothing else!—it distracts me;—pray No, no, tell Me!—I call upon your good-nature!”
“I have none—about this!”
“Upon your goodness of heart!”
“‘Tis all hardness here!”
“I will cast myself at your feet,—I will kneel to you!” And he was preparing his immense person for prostration, when Goter[244] opened the door. Such an interruption to his heroics made me laugh heartily; nor could he help joining himself; though the moment she was gone he renewed his importunity with unabated earnestness.
“I remember,” he cried, “it was upon the Terrace you first shewed me this disdain; and there, too, you have shown it me repeatedly since, with public superciliousness.... You well know you have treated me ill,—you know and have acknowledged it!”
“And when?” cried I, amazed and provoked; “when did I do what could never be done?”
“At Kew, ma’am, you were full of concern—full of remorse for the treatment you had given me!—and you owned it!”
“Good heaven, Mr. Turbulent, what can induce you to say this?”
“Is it not true?”
“Not a word of it! You know it is not!”
“Indeed,” cried he, “I really and truly thought so—hoped so;—I believed you looked as if you felt your own ill-usage, and it gave to me a delight inexpressible!”
This was almost enough to bring back the very same supercilious Distance of which he complained; but, in dread of fresh explanations, I forbore to notice this flight, and only told him he might be perfectly satisfied, since I no longer Persevered in the taciturnity to which he objected.
“But how,” cried he, “do you give up, without deigning to assign one reason for It”?
“The greater the compliment!” cried I, laughing; “I give up to your request.”
“Yes, ma’am, upon my speaking,-but why did you keep Me so long in that painful suspense?" “Nay,” cried I, “could I well be quicker? Till you spoke could I know if you heeded it?”
“Ah, ma’am—is there no language but of words? Do you pretend to think there is no other?—Must I teach it you?—teach it to Miss Burney who speaks, who understands it so well?—who is never silent, and never can be silent?”
And then came his heroic old homage to the poor eyebrows vehemently finishing with, “Do you, can you affect to know no language but speech?”
“Not,” cried I, coolly, “without the trouble of more investigation than I had taken here.”
He called this “contempt,” and, exceedingly irritated, de sired me, once more, to explain, from beginning to end, how he had ever offended me.
“Mr. Turbulent,” cried I, “will you be satisfied if I tell you it shall all blow over?”
“Make me a vow, then, you will never more, never while you live, resume that proud taciturnity.”
“No, no,—certainly not; I never make vows; it is a rule with me to avoid them.”
“Give me, then, your promise,—your solemn promise,—at least I may claim that?”
“I have the same peculiarity about promises; I never make them.”
He was again beginning to storm, but again I assured him I would let the acquaintance take its old course, if he would but be appeased, and say no more; and, after difficulties innumerable, he at length gave up the point: but to this he was hastened, if not driven, by a summons to dinner.