TROUBLESOME MR. TURBULENT.
Upon returning to Kew, I had a scene for which I was little enough, indeed, prepared, though willing, and indeed, earnest to satisfy Mr. Turbulent, I wished him to make an alteration of behaviour. After hastily changing my dress, I went, as usual, to the parlour, to be ready for dinner; but found there no Mrs. Schwellenberg; she was again unwell; Miss Planta was not ready, and Mr. Turbulent was reading by himself.
Away he flung his book in a moment, and hastening to shut the door lest I should retreat, he rather charged than desired me to explain my late “chilling demeanour.”
Almost startled by his apparent entire ignorance of deserving it, I found an awkwardness I had not foreseen in making myself understood. I wished him rather to feel than be told the improprieties I meant to obviate and I did what was possible by half evasive, half expressive answers, to call back his own recollection and consciousness. In vain, however, was the attempt; he protested himself wholly innocent, and that he would rather make an end of his existence than give me offence.
He saw not these very protestations were again doing it, and he grew so vehement in his defence, and so reproachful in his accusation of unjust usage, that I was soon totally in a perplexity how to extricate myself from a difficulty I had regarded simply as his own. The moment he saw I grew embarrassed, he redoubled his challenges to know the cause of my “ill-treatment.” I assured him, then, I could never reckon silence ill-treatment.
“Yes,” he cried, “yes, from you it is ill-treatment, and it has given me the most serious uneasiness.”
“I am sorry,” I said, “for that, and did not mean it.”
“Not mean it?” cried be. “Could you imagine I should miss your conversation, your ease, your pleasantness, your gaiety, and take no notice of the loss?”
Then followed a most violent flow of compliments, ending with a fresh demand for an explanation, made with an energy that, to own the truth, once more quite frightened me. I endeavoured to appease him, by general promises of becoming more voluble and I quite languished to say to him the truth at once; that his sport, his spirit, and his society would all be acceptable to me, would he but divest them of that redundance of gallantry which rendered them offensive: but I could only think how to say this—I could not bring it out.
This promised volubility, though it softened him, he seemed to receive as a sort of acknowledgment that I owed him some reparation for the disturbance I had caused him. I stared enough at such an interpretation, which I could by no means allow; but no sooner did I disclaim it than all his violence was resumed, and he urged me to give in my charge against him with an impetuosity that almost made me tremble.
I made as little answer as possible, finding everything I said seemed but the more to inflame his violent spirit; but his emotion was such, and the cause so inadequate, and my uncertainty so unpleasant what to think of him altogether, that I was seized with sensations so nervous, I Could almost have cried. In the full torrent of his offended justification against my displeasure towards him, he perceived my increasing distress how to proceed, and, suddenly stopping, exclaimed in quite another tone, “Now, then, ma’am, I see your justice returning; you feel that you have used me very ill!”
To my great relief entered Miss Planta. He contrived to say, “Remember, you promise to explain all this.”
I made him no sort of answer, and though he frequently, in the course of the evening, repeated, “I depend upon your promise! I build upon a conference,” I sent his dependence and his building to Coventry, by not seeming to hear him.
I determined, however, to avoid all tête-à-têtes with him whatsoever, as much as was in my power. How very few people are fit for them, nobody living in trios and quartettos can imagine!