“Can’t you tell me what it is? Is he ill or hurt, or anything?”
“No, no; not that. Something much worse.”
“My grandmother has disowned him; cast him off.”
“Oh! Are you quite sure?”
“Perfectly. I was present when it happened.”
For the first time since he had joined her, Elinor began to notice that Clarence, far from being dejected and cast down, was in such high spirits he could hardly conceal his joy. His eyes had a new light in them. There was an unusual color in his cheeks, and he smiled continually as he flicked the foliage with a light little cane and walked with an elastic step as if he were going down the middle in a quadrille.
“Yes,” he went on joyfully, “I was in the room. So was Georgiana. And we both saw the whole thing.”
“But what brought it about? Had Edward done anything so terrible as to be punished like that?”
“Oh, he’s been going off ever since we came to this place. He’s been rebellious and bad tempered—and—and—” here Clarence smiled reminiscently, “I’ve had some trouble with him myself. Finally, in St. Augustine, Grandmamma and he had an out and out quarrel over nothing apparently, but they worked it up between them until it came near being a pitched battle. They really seemed to enjoy it, the two of them. It was like a game of battledore and shuttlecock. I didn’t know Edward had it in him. But Grandmamma, she’s a Tartar when she’s scratched, and anybody within range of that stick of hers had better look alive. She started to strike him with it, and he caught it and broke it into two pieces and threw it on the floor. Then she turned on him so calmly and quietly Georgiana and I thought she wasn’t angry but we changed our minds. ‘This changes every prospect you ever had,’ she said. ‘Leave me and from this day your future, as far as I am concerned, is altered.’”