“Well, Mr Guy,” said Cooper, desperately; “I ask your pardon if I mistook your condition; but I’d as soon see my own son with a locked-up brandy-bottle as you—at your age. Eh, my lad, it’s a grand mistake ye’re making.”
“I shan’t let the business go to the dogs in consequence, if I’ve ever a hand in it,” said Guy, but with more softness; “but just make up your mind that I don’t care a—” Here Guy used an expression which appeared to Cooper almost as bad a breach of business propriety as the brandy, and added with much bathos, “I don’t care a brass farthing what any one thinks.”
This act of schoolboy defiance was the refuge of Guy’s manhood, which had not learned a better mode of self-assertion. His soft eyes had a somewhat evil look as he watched his routed enemy, and then went back to the house, where he was unusually lively at dinner, and through the evening.
But either the brandy or the excitement revenged itself next day with a real headache, so violent that he could not lift up his head, and which left him pale and languid and without spirits for any more defiance of consequences. Moreover, Mrs Waynflete decreed that he was to go with her to Waynflete.
Guy resented the proposal as an act of mistrust, and dreaded it from the bottom of his soul. He resisted it, and offended his aunt more bitterly than he had ever done before, since he could only put forward indifference to and contempt of Waynflete and its interests.
And after all, Howarth, the second manager, had a violent attack of gout, and Guy’s presence at Ingleby could hardly be dispensed with. So he remained, in semi-disgrace, with Cousin Susan Joshua to keep house for him. Jeanie went up to Waynflete with the rest of the party.
He had got no answer to his proposals, and no definite authority for the mill. Nevertheless, he made his presence felt there, and people began to feel that he was master.