MR. TURBULENT’S TROUBLESOME PLEASANTRIES.
My two young beaux Stayed dinner with us, and I afterwards strolled upon the lawn with them till tea-time. I could not go on the Terrace, nor persuade them to go on by themselves. We backed as the royal party returned home; and when they had all entered the house, Colonel Wellbred, who had stood aloof, quitted the train to join our little society. “Miss Burney,” he cried, “I think I know which horse you betted upon! Cordelia!”
“For the name’s sake you think it,” I cried; and he began some questions and comments upon the races, when suddenly the window of the tea-room opened, and the voice of Mr. Turbulent, with a most sarcastic tone, called out, “I hope Miss Burney and Colonel Wellbred are well!”
We could neither Of us keep a profound gravity, though really he deserved it from us both. I turned from the Colonel, and said I was coming directly to the tea-room.
Colonel Wellbred would have detained me to finish Our race discourse, for he had shut the window when he had made his speech, but I said it was time to go in.
“Oh no,” cried he, laughing a little, “Mr. Turbulent only wants his own tea, and he does not deserve it for this!”
In, however, I went, and Colonel Manners took the famous chair the instant I was seated. We all began race talk, but Mr. Turbulent, approaching very significantly, said, “Do you want a chair On the other side, ma’am? Shall I tell the colonel-to bring one?”
“No, indeed cried I, half seriously, lest he should do it....”
Colonel Wellbred, not knowing what had passed, came to that same other side, and renewed his conversation. In the midst of all this Mr. Turbulent hastily advanced with a chair, saying, “Colonel Wellbred, I cannot bear to see you standing so long.”
I found it impossible not to laugh under My hat, though I really wished to bid him stand in a corner for a naughty boy. The colonel, I suppose, laughed too, whether he would or not, for I heard no answer. However, he took the chair, and finding me wholly unembarrassed by this polissonnerie, though not wholly unprovoked by it, he renewed his discourse, and kept his seat till the party, very late, broke up; but Colonel Manners, who knew not what to make of all this, exclaimed, “Why, ma’am, you cannot keep Mr. Turbulent in much order.”
June.-Mrs. Schwellenberg came to Windsor with us after the birthday, for the rest of the summer.
Mr. Turbulent took a formal leave of me at the same time, as his wife now came to settle at Windsor, and he ceased to belong to our party. He only comes to the princesses at stated hours, and then returns to his own home. He gave me many serious thanks for the time passed with me, spoke in flourishing terms of its contrast to former times, and vowed no compensation could ever be made him for the hours he had thrown away by compulsion on “The Oyster."[277] His behaviour altogether was very well—here and there a little eccentric, but, in the main, merely good-humoured and high-spirited.