back seat glower

{excerpt}---------The old Earl,

[grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales]

Jack Spencer, had "a very peculiar temperament," according to his own sister, Lady Margaret Douglas-Home. "He didn't see the point of ordinary people." Diana's younger brother, Charles, remembers their grandfather as "a figure of awe. His moustache bristled. His stomach bulged under out-sized trousers and he had the uncompromising air of a man who had no time whatever for fools."

He was so relentlessly taciturn he outlawed small talk; on one occasion

relished by the staff,

he instructed the chauffeur of his Rolls to stop so he could get out and

relieve himself behind a tree.

The wind slammed the car door and the chauffeur assumed that as usual His Lordship was once again glowering in the back seat. He drove off without a backward look, leaving his irate employer

stranded on the A40.

------- {end excerpt}

[The Diana Chronicles, by Tina Brown.
Copyright 2007, Random House, New York]

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