Sylvester (45 page)

‘To set down my portmanteau, of course,’ replied Tom, opening the chaise-door. ‘Also, I daresay, to allow Salford to take leave of you! Try for a little civility!’

He climbed down from the chaise as he spoke. The doors of the great house were already flung open, and several persons emerged. ‘Reeth, Reeth, I’ve been to France!’ shouted Edmund, dashing up the steps. ‘Where’s Button? She’ll be
’stonished
when she hears the things I’ve done! Oh, Button, I have
needed
you!
Did you miss me, Button? Phoebe doesn’t do things the right way. Do you know, I had to
tell
her
,
Button?’

‘Repellent brat!’ remarked Sylvester. ‘Reeth, Mr Orde is staying with me for a few days: take care of him for me! Will you go in with him, Thomas? I’ll escort Miss Marlow to Green Street.’

This scheme seemed so fraught with disaster that Tom could not help saying, in an urgent undervoice: ‘I wouldn’t, Salford! Leave her to come about!’

‘Go in with Reeth, Thomas: I shall be with you presently,’ replied Sylvester, as though he had not heard this advice.

He mounted into the chaise, and almost before the door was shut grasped Phoebe’s hands, saying: ‘Phoebe, you must listen to me! I know I made wretched work of it: I can’t explain it to you now—there is too little time—but I won’t let you go like this! You can’t think I would ask you to marry me in
jest
,
or to insult you!’

‘You have told me already that you never meant to ask me,’ she replied, trying to pull her hands away. ‘I fancy you will be truly thankful, when you have recovered from the mortification of having your suit rejected, that I didn’t snap at so brilliant an offer. Will you please to release me, my lord Duke?’

‘But I
love
you!’ he said, gripping her hands rather more tightly.

‘You are very obliging, but I cannot return your affection, sir.’

‘I’ll make you!’ he promised.

‘Oh, no, you will not!’ returned Phoebe, thoroughly ruffled. ‘
Will
you let me go? If you have no more conduct than to behave in this fashion in the middle of the street, I have! Make me love you, indeed! If I were not so angry, I could laugh to think how exactly I hit him off when I wrote of Ugolino that, try as he might to appear conciliating, he could not open his lips without betraying his arrogance!’

‘Do you call it arrogance when I tell you that I love you, and wish to make you my wife?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, and folly too! You have never suffered a rebuff, have you, Duke? When any female has shown herself not to be disposed to like you it has been a sport with you to
make
her like you very much too well, I daresay, for her comfort. You even lay bets that where others have failed
you
will succeed!’

‘What nonsense is this?’ he exclaimed. ‘
I
?’

‘Yes,
you
!
Was there not an heiress who was called the
Citadel
?
Or are your conquests too numerous to be remembered by you?’

‘I remember,’ he said grimly. ‘You had that from Ianthe, did you? Did she also tell you that it was a piece of funning between my brother and me—discreditable, if you like, but never meant to go beyond the pair of us?’

‘In fact, you
didn’t
storm the Citadel, Duke?’

‘For God’s sake, Phoebe, must you throw in my face the follies I committed when I was a boy?’

‘I would not if you had outgrown that conceit! But you haven’t! Why did you make yourself so agreeable to me? You must have had a great deal of practice, I think, for you did it beautifully! If I had not known what your object was I am sure you must have succeeded in it! But I did know! Tom told you that I ran away from Austerby because the thought of becoming your wife was repugnant to me, and you were so piqued that you determined I should fall in love with you, and afterwards be sorry!’

He had so entirely forgotten that pettish resolve that he was thunderstruck.

‘Well?’ said Phoebe, watching him. ‘Can you deny it, Duke?’

He released her hands at last, and uttered his crowning blunder. ‘No. I
was
piqued, I
did
, in a fit of—conceit—arrogance—anything you please to call it!—form some such contemptible scheme. I beg you to believe it was of very short duration!’

‘I
don’t
believe it!’ declared Phoebe.

The chaise turned into Green Street. Miss Marlow, having discharged much of the wrath she had been obliged to keep bottled up for so many painful hours, had begun to feel very low. The Creature beside her, not content with humiliating her in public, and regarding all the disagreeable experiences she had undergone on his behalf with indifference and ingratitude, had stormed at her, and insulted her, and now, when any but a monster of cold-hearted self-consequence must have known how tired and miserable she was, and how desperately in need of reassurance, he sat silent. Perhaps he needed encouragement? She gave it him. ‘Having become acquainted with your other flames, Duke—all diamonds of the first water!—I should have to be uncommonly green to believe that you preferred me! You asked me to marry you because you are so determined not to be obliged to own yourself worsted that you will go to any lengths to achieve your object!’

Now or never was the time for Sylvester to retrieve his character! He said very levelly: ‘You need say no more, Miss Marlow. It would be useless, I realize, for me to attempt to answer you.’

‘If you wish to know what I think of you,’ said Phoebe, in a shaking voice, ‘it is that you are a great deal
worse
than Count Ugolino!’

He was silent. Well! now she knew how right she had been. He was not in the least in love with her, and very happy she was to know it. All she wanted was a suitable retreat, such as a lumber-room, or a coal-cellar, in which to enjoy her happiness to the full.

The chaise drew to a standstill, and Sylvester got out, and with his own hands let down the steps. Such condescension! Pulling herself together, Phoebe alighted, and said with great dignity: ‘I must thank you, Duke, for having been so kind as to have brought me back to England. In case we should not meet again, I should like, before we say goodbye, to assure you that I am not unmindful of what I owe you, and that I wish you extremely happy.’

This very beautiful speech might just as well have remained unspoken, for all the heed he paid to it. He said: ‘I am coming in with you,’ and sounded the knocker.

‘I beg you most earnestly not to do so!’ she said, with passionate sincerity.

He took her hand in his. ‘Miss Marlow, let me do this one thing for you! I know Lady Ingham, and what her temper is. I promise you she shall not be angry with you, if only I may see her first.’

‘You are very good, Duke, but I assure you I need no intervention!’ she said proudly.

The door opened. Horwich ejaculated: ‘
Miss Phoebe
!’
He then encountered a most unnerving stare from Sylvester, and bowed, and stammered: ‘Your g-grace!’

‘Have Miss Marlow’s baggage carried into the house!’ said Sylvester coldly, and turned again to Phoebe. It was clearly useless to persist in argument; so, knowing that Horwich was listening to every word he said, he held out his hand, and said: ‘I will leave you now, Miss Marlow. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for what you have done. Will you present my compliments to Lady Ingham, and inform her that I hope to call upon her shortly, when I shall tell her—for I know well that
you
will not!—how deeply indebted to you I am? Goodbye! God bless you!’ He bent, and kissed her hand, while Horwich, consumed with curiosity, goggled at him.

To Phoebe, long past being able to recognize what his intention must be, this speech was the last straw. She managed to say: ‘Certainly! I mean—you exaggerate, Duke! Goodbye!’ and then hurried into the house.

‘When the baggage has been taken off, drive back to Salford House!’ Sylvester told the chief postilion. ‘You will be paid there. I am going to walk.’

When Reeth presently opened the doors to his master he was a good deal shocked. He had rather suspected that something was wrong, and he perceived now that something was very wrong indeed. He had seen that look on his grace’s face once before. It wouldn’t do to say anything about it, but at least he could tell him something that would do him good to hear. As he helped Sylvester out of his driving-coat, he said: ‘I didn’t have the time to tell your grace before, but—’

‘Reeth, what the devil are you doing here?’ demanded Sylvester, as though he had only just become aware of him. ‘Good God, you don’t mean to say my mother is here?’

‘In her own sitting-room, your grace, waiting for you to come in,’ beamed Reeth. ‘And stood the journey very well, I am happy to be able to assure your grace.’

‘I’ll go to her at once!’ Sylvester said, walking quickly to the great stair.

She was alone, seated on one side of the fireplace. She looked up as Sylvester came in, and smiled mischievously.

‘Mama!’

‘Sylvester! Now, I won’t be scolded! You are to tell me that you are delighted to find me here, if you please!’

‘I don’t have to tell you that,’ he said, bending over her. ‘But to have set out without me—! I ought never to have written to tell you what had happened! I did so only because I was afraid you might hear of it from some other source. My dear, have you been so anxious?’

‘Not a bit! I knew you would bring him back safely. But it was a little too much to expect me to stay at Chance when such stirring events were taking place in London. Now, sit down and tell me all about it! Edmund’s confidences have given rise to the wildest conjectures in my mind, and that delightful boy you have brought home with you thinks that perhaps I shall like to hear the story better from your lips. My dear, who is he?’

He had turned aside to pull forward a chair, and as he seated himself the Duchess saw him for the first time in the full light of the candles burning near her chair. Like Reeth, she suffered a shock; like Reeth, she recognized the look on Sylvester’s face. He had worn it for many months after Harry’s death; and she had prayed she might never see it again. She was obliged to clasp her hands together in her lap, so urgent was her impulse to stretch them out to him.

‘Thomas Orde,’ he replied, smiling, as it seemed to her, with an effort. ‘A nice lad, isn’t he? I’ve invited him to stay here for as long as he cares to: his father thinks it time he acquired a little town bronze.’ He hesitated, and then said:

‘I daresay he may have told you—or Edmund has—that he is a friend of Miss Marlow’s. An adopted brother, as it were.’

‘Oh, Edmund was very full of
Tom
and
Phoebe
!
But how they came to be mixed up in that imbroglio I can’t imagine! Phoebe seems to have been very kind to Edmund.’

‘Most kind. It is rather a long story, Mama.’

‘And you are tired, and would rather tell it to me presently. I won’t tease you, then. But tell me about Phoebe! You know I have a particular interest in her. To own the truth, it was to see her that I came to London.’

He looked up quickly. ‘To see her? I don’t understand, Mama! Why should you—?’

‘Well, Louisa wrote to tell me that everyone believed her to be the author of that absurd novel, and that she was having a very unhappy time, poor child. I hoped I might be able to put a stop to such nonsense, but I reached London only to discover that Lady Ingham had taken her to Paris. I can’t think why she shouldn’t have written to me, for she must have known I would help Verena’s daughter.’

‘It’s too late!’ he said, ‘
I
could have scotched the scandal! Instead—’ He broke off, and looked keenly at her. ‘I can’t recall. Was my busy aunt Louisa at the Castlereaghs’ ball?’

‘Yes, dearest.’

‘I see.’ He got up jerkily, and moved to the fireplace, standing with his head turned a little away from the Duchess. ‘I am sure she told you what happened there.’

‘An unfortunate affair,’ said the Duchess calmly. ‘You were naturally very angry.’

‘There was no excuse for what I did. I knew her dread of—I can see her face now!’

‘What is she like, Sylvester?’ She waited, and then prompted: ‘Is she pretty?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not a beauty, Mama. When she is animated, I believe you would consider her taking.’

‘I collect, from all I have heard, that she is unusual?’

‘Oh, yes, she’s unusual!’ he said bitterly. ‘She blurts out whatever may come into her head; she tumbles from one outrageous escapade into another; she’s happier grooming horses and hobnobbing with stable-hands than going to parties; she’s impertinent; you daren’t catch her eye for fear she should start to giggle; she hasn’t any accomplishments; I never saw anyone with less dignity; she’s abominable, and damnably hot at hand, frank to a fault, and—a
darling
!’

‘Should I like her, Sylvester?’ said the Duchess her eyes on his profile.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, a suggestion of impatience in his voice. ‘I daresay—I hope so—but you might not. How can I possibly tell? It’s of no consequence: she won’t have me.’ He paused, and then said, as though the words were wrung out of him: ‘O God, Mama, I’ve made such a mull of it! What am I to
do
?’

28

After a troubled night, during which she was haunted, waking or dreaming, by all the appalling events of the previous day, which had culminated in a shattering scene with Lady Ingham, Phoebe awoke to find the second housemaid pulling back the blinds, and learned from her that the letter lying on her breakfast-tray had been brought round by hand from Salford House not ten minutes earlier. The housemaid was naturally agog with curiosity, but any expectation she had of being made the recipient of an interesting confidence faded before the seeming apathy with which Miss Phoebe greeted her disclosure. All Miss Phoebe wanted was a cup of tea; and the housemaid, after lingering with diminishing hope for a few minutes, left her sitting up in bed, and sipping this restorative.