Sylvester

15

Before Phoebe saw Sylvester again she had encountered another member of his family: accompanying her grandmother on a morning visit she met Lady Henry Rayne.

Several ladies had elected to call on old Mrs. Stour that day, but the younger generation was represented only by Lady Henry and Miss Marlow. Lady Henry, brought by her mama, was so heartily bored that even the entrance of an unknown girl came to her as an alleviation. She seized the first opportunity that offered of changing her seat for one beside Phoebe’s, saying, with her pretty smile: ‘I think we have met before, haven’t we? Only I am so stupid at remembering names!’

‘Well, not precisely,’ replied Phoebe, with her usual candour. ‘I never saw you but twice in my life, and I wasn’t introduced to you. Once was at the Opera House, but the first occasion was at Lady Jersey’s ball last year. I am afraid it was the circumstance of my staring at you so rudely which makes you think we have met! But you looked so beautiful I couldn’t drag my eyes away! I beg your pardon! you must think me very impertinent!’

Not unnaturally Ianthe found nothing impertinent in this speech. Her own words had been a mere conversational gambit; she had no recollection of having seen Phoebe before, but she said: ‘Indeed I didn’t! I am sorry we were never introduced until today. I am not often in London.’ She added, with a wistful smile: ‘I am a widow, you know.’

‘Oh-!’ Phoebe was genuinely shocked. It seemed incredible, for she had supposed Ianthe to be little older than herself.

‘I was hardly more than a child when I was married,’ explained Ianthe. ‘I am not so very old now, though I have been a widow for several years!’

‘I thought you were my own age!’ said Phoebe frankly.

No more was needed to seal the friendship. Ianthe, laughing at this misapprehension, disclosed that her only child was six years of age; Phoebe exclaimed: ‘Oh, no! impossible!’ and stepped, all unknown to herself, into the role of Chief Confidante. She learned within the space of twenty minutes that the life of a recluse had been imposed on Ianthe by her husband’s family, who expected her to wear out the rest of her widowhood in bucolic seclusion.

‘I wonder you should yield to such barbarous notions!’ said Phoebe, quite appalled.

‘Alas, there is one person who holds a weapon I am powerless to withstand!’ said Ianthe in a melancholy tone. ‘He is the sole arbiter of my poor child’s destiny. Things were so left that I found myself bereft at one stroke of both husband and son!’ She perceived a startled look on Phoebe’s face, and added: ‘Edmund was not left to my guardianship. I must not say more, and should not have said as much, only that I knew, as soon as we met, that you would understand! I am persuaded I can trust you! You cannot conceive the relief of being able to speak openly: in general I am obliged to be reserved. But I mustn’t talk any more about my troubles!’

She was certainly unable to do so, for at that moment her attention was drawn to Lady Elvaston, who had risen to take leave of her hostess. She too got up, and put out her hand to Phoebe, saying in her soft voice: ‘I see Mama is ready to go, and so I must say goodbye. Do you make a long stay in town? It would be so agreeable to meet again! Perhaps you would give me the pleasure of coming to see me one day? I should like you to see my little boy.’

‘Oh, is he with you?’ exclaimed Phoebe, a good deal surprised. ‘I had collected-I mean, I should like very much to visit you, ma’am!’

‘My bringing him to town was not at all approved of, I can assure you,’ responded Ianthe plaintively. ‘But even his guardian can scarcely forbid me to take him to stay with my parents! Mama quite dotes on him, and would have been so grieved if I hadn’t brought him with me!’

She pressed Phoebe’s hand, and floated away, leaving Phoebe a prey to doubt and curiosity.

From the outset Phoebe had been fascinated by her beauty; within a minute of making her acquaintance she had been captivated by her appealing manners, and the charm of a smile that hinted at troubles bravely borne. But Phoebe was a shrewd observer; she was also possessed of strong common sense; and while the romantic side of her nature responded to the air of tragic mystery which clung about Ianthe the matter-of-fact streak which ran through it relentlessly pointed out to her certain anomalies in what had been disclosed, and compelled her to acknowledge that confidences uttered upon so short an acquaintance were not, perhaps, to be wholly credited.

She was anxious to discover Ianthe’s identity. She now knew her to be a member of the Rayne family, but the family was a large one, and in what degree of relationship to Sylvester Ianthe stood she had no idea. Her grandmother would no doubt be able to enlighten her.

Lady Ingham was well able to enlighten her. ‘Ianthe Rayne?’ she said, as they drove away from Mrs. Stour’s house. ‘A pretty creature, isn’t she? Gooseish, of course, but one can’t but pity her. She’s Elvaston’s daughter, and married poor Harry Rayne the year she was brought out. He died before their son was out of short coats. A dreadful business! I fancy they never discovered what ailed him: you would have said there was not a healthier young man alive! Something internal: that’s all I ever heard. Ah, if they had but called in dear Sir Henry Halford!’

‘I knew she had been married to a member of that family, ma’am, but-who was her husband?’

‘Who was he?’ repeated the Dowager. ‘Why, Sylvester’s younger brother, to be sure! His twin brother, too, which made it worse.’

‘Then the child-Lady Henry’s little boy-?’ Phoebe faltered.

‘Oh, there’s nothing amiss with him that ever I heard!’ replied the Dowager, leaning forward to obtain a clearer view of a milliner’s shop window as she spoke. ‘My love, I wonder if that chip-straw-no, those pink flowers wouldn’t become you! What were you saying? Oh, Harry’s son! A splendid little fellow, I’m told. I’ve never seen him myself: he lives at Chance.’

‘And he is-I understood Lady Henry to say-the Duke’s ward?’

‘Yes, and his heir as well-not that that is likely to signify! Was Ianthe complaining to you about that business?’ she glanced at Phoebe, and said bluntly: ‘You would be ill-advised to refine too much on what she may have said to you, my love. The truth is that she and Sylvester can never deal together. She fell into a pelter as soon as she found how things were left-well, I must own I think she should have been joined with Sylvester in the guardianship!-and he don’t take the trouble to handle her tactfully.’

‘I can readily believe that!’ Phoebe interjected. ‘Is he fond of the little boy, ma’am?’

‘I daresay he may be, for Harry’s sake-though they say the boy is the image of his mother-but the fact is, my dear, young men don’t commonly dote on nursery brats! He will certainly do his duty by the boy.’

‘Mama did her duty by me,’ said Phoebe. ‘I think I understand what Lady Henry’s feelings must be.’

‘Fiddle!’ said the Dowager. ‘I don’t scruple to tell you, my love-for you are bound to hear it-that they are at odds now because the little ninny has got a second marriage in her eye, and knows Sylvester won’t let her take the boy away from Chance.’

‘Oh!’ Phoebe exclaimed, her eyes flashing. ‘How could he be so inhuman? Does he expect her to remain a widow all her life? Ah, I suppose it should be enough for her to have been married to a Rayne! I don’t believe there was ever anyone more arrogant!’

‘Before you put yourself in a taking,’ said the Dowager dryly, ‘let me tell you that if it is arrogance which prompts Sylvester to say he won’t have his heir brought up by Nugent Fotherby it is a fortunate circumstance for the boy that he is arrogant!’

‘Nugent Fotherby?’ gasped Phoebe, her righteous wrath suddenly and ludicrously arrested. ‘Grandmama, you can’t mean it? That absurd creature who can’t turn his head because his shirt points are too high, and who let Papa chouse him out of three hundred guineas for a showy chestnut anyone but a flat must have seen was short of bone?’

Somewhat taken aback, the Dowager said: ‘I don’t know anything about horses. And as for your father, if he persuaded Fotherby to buy one that was unsound I call it very shabby dealing!’

‘Oh, no, ma’am!’ Phoebe said earnestly. ‘I assure you there is nothing wrong in that! If a man who can’t tell when a horse isn’t fit to go chooses to set up as a knowing one he must expect to be burnt!’

‘Indeed!’ said the Dowager.

Phoebe was silent for a minute or two; but presently she said thoughtfully: ‘Well, ma’am, I don’t think one can precisely blame Salford for not wishing to let his nephew grow up under such a man!’

‘I should think not indeed! What’s more, I fancy that on that head Sylvester and Elvaston are at one. Of course Elvaston don’t like the match, but I daresay he’ll swallow it.’

‘Well, Papa wouldn’t!’ said Phoebe frankly. ‘In fact, he told me once that if ever I took it into my head to marry a bleater who, besides being a man-milliner and a cawker who don’t know a blood-horse from a commoner, encourages every barnacle on the town to hang on him, he would wash his hands of me!’

‘And if that is the language he sees fit to teach you, the sooner he does so the better!’ said her ladyship tartly.

Much abashed, Phoebe begged her pardon; and continued to meditate in silence for the rest of the drive.

Her thoughts were not happy, but it was not Lady Henry’s lapse of taste which cast a damper over her spirits. It was the existence of Lady Henry’s fatherless child.

Dismay had been her first reaction to the evil tidings; it was succeeded by a strong conviction that Fate and Sylvester between them had contrived the whole miserable business for no other purpose than to undo her. She had long known Fate for her enemy, and Fate was clearly responsible for Coincidence. As for Sylvester, however much it might seem to the casual observer that he was hardly to be blamed for possessing a nephew who was also his ward, anyone with the smallest knowledge of his character must recognize at a glance that it was conduct entirely typical of him. And if he had not wished to figure as the villain in a romance he should not have had satanic eyebrows-or, at any rate, amended the ill-used authoress, he should have exerted himself to be more agreeable to her at Lady Sefton’s ball, instead of uttering formal civilities, and looking at her with eyes so coldly indifferent that they seemed scarcely to see her. It would never then have occurred to her to think him satanic, for when he smiled he did not look in the least satanic. Far otherwise, in fact, she decided, realizing with faint surprise that although he had frequently enraged her during their sojourn at the Blue Boar she had never, from his first entering that hostelry, perceived anything villainous in his aspect.

This reflection led her to recall how much she stood in his debt, which resulted in a fit of dejection hard to shake off. Only one alleviating circumstance presented itself to her: he need never know who had written The Lost Heir. But that was a very small grain of comfort, since his ignorance would not make her feel less treacherous.

It was probable that if they had not chanced to meet again only two days later nothing further would have come of Ianthe’s desire to know Phoebe better; but Fate once more took a hand in Phoebe’s affairs. Sent out under the escort of Muker to execute some commissions for her grandmother in Bond Street, she came abreast of a barouche, drawn up beside the flagway, just as Ianthe, a picture of lovely maternity, was helping her child to climb into it. When she saw Phoebe she exclaimed, and at once shook hands. ‘How charming this is! Are you bent on any very important errand? Do come home with me! Mama has driven out to Wimbledon to visit one of my sisters, so we shall be quite alone, and can enjoy such a comfortable chat!’ She hardly waited for Phoebe to accept the invitation, but nodded to Muker, saying that Miss Marlow should be sent home in the carriage later in the day, and made Phoebe get into the carriage, calling on Master Rayne to say how do you do politely.

Master Rayne pulled off his tasselled cap, exposing his sunny curls to the breeze. His resemblance to his mother was pronounced. His complexion was as delicately fair, his eyes as large and as deeply blue, and his locks as silken as hers; but a sturdy frame and a look of determination about his mouth and chin saved him from appearing girlish. Having subjected Phoebe to a dispassionate scrutiny he decided to make her the recipient of an interesting confidence. ‘I am wearing gloves,’ he said.

‘So you are! Very smart ones too!’ she replied admiringly.

‘If I was at home,’ said Master Rayne, with a darkling glance at his parent, ‘I wouldn’t have to wear them.’

‘Now, Edmund-!’

‘But I expect you are enjoying your visit to London, are you not?’ asked Phoebe, diplomatically changing the subject.

‘Indeed he is!’ said Ianthe. ‘Only fancy! his grandpapa promises to take him riding in the Park one morning, doesn’t he, my love?’

‘If I’m good,’ said Edmund, with unmistakable pessimism. ‘But I won’t have my tooth pulled out again!’

Ianthe sighed. ‘Edmund, you know Mama said you should not go to Mr. Tilton this time!’

‘You said I shouldn’t go when we came to London afore,’ he reminded her inexorably. ‘But Uncle Vester said I should. And I did. I do not like to have my tooth pulled out, even if I am let keep it in a little box, and people do not throw it away,’ said Edmund bitterly.

‘No one does,’ intervened Phoebe. ‘I expect, however, that you were very brave.’

‘Yes,’ acknowledged Edmund. ‘Acos Uncle Vester said he would make me sorry if I wasn’t, and I don’t like Uncle Vester’s way of making people sorry. It hurts!’

‘You see!’ said Ianthe in a low voice, and with a speaking look at Phoebe.

‘Keighley said I was brave when I fell off my pony,’ disclosed Edmund. ‘Not one squeak out o’ me! Full o’ proper spunk I was!’

‘Edmund!’ exclaimed Ianthe angrily. ‘If I have told you once I won’t have you repeating the vulgar things Keighley says to you I have told you a hundred times! Beg Miss Marlow’s pardon this instant! I don’t know what she must think of you!’

‘Oh, no, pray do not bid him do so!’ begged Phoebe, perceiving the mulish set to Master Rayne’s jaw.

‘Keighley,’ stated Edmund, the light of battle in his eye, ‘is a prime gun! He is my partickler friend.’

‘I don’t wonder at it,’ returned Phoebe, before Ianthe could pick up this gage. ‘I am a little acquainted with him myself, you know, and I am sure he is a splendid person. Did he teach you to ride your pony? I wish you will tell me about your pony!’

Nothing loath, Edmund embarked on a catalogue of this animal’s points. By the time Lord Elvaston’s house in Albemarle Street was reached an excellent understanding flourished between him and Miss Marlow, and it was with considerable reluctance that he parted from her. But his mother had had enough of his company, and she sent him away to the nursery, explaining to Phoebe that if she allowed him to remain with her once he would expect to do so always, which would vex Lady Elvaston. ‘Mama doesn’t like him to play in the drawing room, except for half an hour before he is put to bed.’

‘I thought you said that she doted on him!’ said Phoebe, forgetting to check her unruly tongue.

‘Oh, yes! Only she thinks that it isn’t good for him to be put forward too much!’ said Ianthe, with commendable aplomb. ‘Now I am going to take you upstairs to my bedchamber, so that you may put off your hat and pelisse, for I don’t mean to let you run away in a hurry, I can tell you!’

It was indeed several hours later when the carriage was sent for to convey Phoebe to Green Street; and she was by that time pretty fully informed of all the circumstances of Ianthe’s marriage, widowhood, and proposed remarriage. Before they had risen from the table upon which a light nuncheon had been spread she knew that Sylvester had never wanted to be saddled with his brother’s child; and she had been regaled with a number of stories illustrative of his harsh treatment of Edmund, and the malice which prompted him to encourage Edmund to defy his mother’s authority. Count Ugolino was scarcely more repulsive than the callous individual depicted by Ianthe. Had he not been attached to his twin brother? Oh, well, yes, in his cold way, perhaps! But never would dearest Harry’s widow forget his unfeeling conduct when Harry, after days of dreadful suffering, had breathed his last. ‘Held up in his arms, too! You would have supposed him to be made of marble, my dear Miss Marlow! Not a tear, not a word to me! You may imagine how wholly I was overset, too-almost out of my senses! Indeed, when I saw Sylvester lie my beloved husband down, and heard his voice saying that he was dead-in the most brutal way!-I was cast into such an agony of grief that the doctors were alarmed for my reason. I was in hysterics for three days, but he cared nothing for that, of course. I daresay he never even knew it, for he walked straight out of the room without one look towards me, and I didn’t set eyes on him again for weeks!’

‘Some people, I believe,’ Phoebe said, rendered acutely uncomfortable by these reminiscences, ‘cannot bring themselves to permit others to enter into their deepest feelings. It would not be right-excuse me!-to suppose that they have none.’

‘Oh, no! But reserve is repugnant to me!’ said Ianthe, rather unnecessarily. ‘Not that I believe Sylvester to have feelings of that nature, for I am sure I never knew anyone with less sensibility. The only person he holds in affection is his mama. I own him to be quite devoted to her-absurdly so, in my opinion!’

‘But you are fond of the Duchess, I collect?’ Phoebe asked, in the hope of giving Ianthe’s thoughts a happier direction. ‘She is kind to you?’

‘Oh, yes, but even she does not perfectly understand the misery of my situation! And I dare not hope that she will even try to prevail upon Sylvester not to tear my child from my arms, because she quite idolises him. I pity his wife! She will find herself expected to defer in everything to Mama-Duchess!’

‘Well, perhaps he won’t have a wife,’ suggested Phoebe soothingly.

‘You may depend upon it he will, just to keep poor little Edmund out of the succession. Mama is persuaded that he is hanging out for one, and may throw the handkerchief at any moment.’

‘I daresay! It takes two to make a marriage, however!’

‘Do you mean he might meet with a refusal?’

‘Why not?’ said Phoebe.

‘Sylvester? With all that he has to offer? Of course he won’t! I wish he might, for it would do him good to be rebuffed. Only ten to one if it did happen he would set to work to make the girl fall in love with him, and then offer for another!’

‘I see no reason for anyone to fall in love with him,’ declared Phoebe, a spark in her eyes.

‘No, nor do I, but you would be astonished if you knew how many girls have positively languished over him!’

‘I should!’ said Phoebe fervently. ‘For my part I should suppose them rather to have fallen in love with his rank!’

‘Yes, but it isn’t so. He can make girls form a tendre for him even when they have started by not liking him in the least. He knows it, too. He bet Harry once that he would succeed in attaching Miss Wharfe, and he did!’

‘Bet-?’ gasped Phoebe. ‘How-how infamous! How could any gentleman do such a thing?’

‘Oh, well, you know what they are!’ said Ianthe erroneously. ‘I must own, too, that Miss Wharfe’s coldness was one of the on-dits that year: she was a very handsome girl, and a great heiress as well, so of course she had dozens of suitors. She snubbed them all, so that it got to be a famous jest. They used to call her the Impregnable Citadel. Harry told Sylvester-funning, you know: they were always funning!-that even he would not be able to make a breach in the walls, and Sylvester instantly asked him what odds he was offering against it. I believe they were betting heavily on it in the clubs, as soon as it was seen that Sylvester was laying siege to the Citadel. Men are so odious!’

With this pronouncement Phoebe was in full agreement. She left Albemarle Street, amply provided with food for thought. She was shrewd enough to discount much that had been told her of Sylvester’s treatment of his nephew: Master Rayne did not present to the world the portrait of an ill-used child. On the other hand, his mama had unconsciously painted herself in unflattering colours, and emerged from her various stories as a singularly foolish parent. Probably, Phoebe decided, Sylvester was indifferent to Edmund, but determined, in his proud way, to do his duty by the boy. That word had no very pleasant connotation to one who had had it ceaselessly dinned in her ears by an unloving stepmother, but it did not include injustice. Lady Marlow had always been rigidly just.

It was Ianthe’s last disclosure that gave Phoebe so furiously to think. She found nothing in it to discount, for the suspicion had already crossed her mind that Sylvester’s kindness had been part of a deliberate attempt to make her sorry she had so rudely repulsed him. His manners, too, when he had called in Green Street, even the lurking smile in his eyes when he had looked at her, were calculated to please. Yes, Phoebe admitted, he did know how to fix his interest with unwary females. The question was whether to repulse him, or whether, safe in the knowledge that he was laying a trap for her, to encourage his attentions.

The question remained unanswered until the following day, when she met him again. She was riding with her Ingham cousins in the Park in a sedate party composed of herself, Miss Mary and Miss Amabel, young Mr. Dudley Ingham, and two grooms following at a discreet distance; and she was heartily bored. The Misses Ingham were very plain, and very good, and very dull; and their brother, Lord Ingham’s promising second son, was already bidding fair to become a solid member of some future government; and the hack provided for her use was an animal with no paces and a placid disposition.

Sylvester, himself mounted on a neatish bay, and accompanied by two of his friends, took in the situation in one amused glance, and dealt with it in a way that showed considerable dexterity and an utter want of consideration for Lord Yarrow and Mr. Ashford. Without anyone’s knowing (except himself) how it had come about, the two parties had become one; and while his hapless friends found themselves making polite conversation to the Misses Ingham, Sylvester was riding with Phoebe, a little way behind.

‘Oh, my poor Sparrow!’ he said, mocking her. ‘Never have I encountered so heartrending a sight! A job-horse?’

‘No,’ replied Phoebe. ‘My cousin Anne’s favourite mount. A very safe, comfortable ride for a lady, Duke.’

‘I beg your pardon! I have not seen him show his paces, of course.’

She cast him a glance of lofty scorn. ‘He has none. He has a very elegant shuffle, being just a trifle tied in below the knee.’

‘But such shoulders!’

Gravity deserted her; she burst into laughter, which made Miss Mary Ingham turn her head to look at her in wondering reproof, and said: ‘Oh, dear, did you ever set eyes on such a flat-sided screw?’

‘No-or on a lady with a better seat. The combination is quite shocking! Will you let me mount you while you are in town?’

She was so much astonished she could only stare at him. He smiled, and said: ‘I keep several horses at Chance for my sister-in-law’s convenience. She was used to ride a great deal. There would be nothing easier than for me to send for a couple to be brought up to London.’

‘Ride Lady Henry’s horses?’ she exclaimed. ‘You must be mad! I shouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!’

‘They are not her horses. They are mine.’

‘You said yourself you kept them for her use: she must consider them as good as her own! Besides, you must know I couldn’t permit you to mount me!’

‘I suppose you couldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I hate to see you so unworthily mounted, though.’

‘Thank you-you are very good!’ she stammered.

‘I am what? Sparrow, I do implore you not to let Lady Ingham teach you to utter civil whiskers! You know I am no such thing, but, on the contrary, the villain whose evil designs drove you from home!’ He stopped, as her eyes flew involuntarily to meet his. The look held for no more than an instant, but the expression in her eyes drove the laughter from his own. He waited for a moment, and then asked quietly: ‘What is it? What did I say to make you look at me like that?’

Scarlet-cheeked, she said: ‘Nothing! I don’t know how I looked.’

‘Very much as I saw you look once at your mother-in-law: stricken!’

She managed to laugh. ‘How absurd! I am afraid you have too lively an imagination, Duke!’

‘Well, I hope I may have,’ he returned.

‘There can be no doubt. I was-oh, shocked to think that after all that has passed you could suppose me to regard you in the light-in the light of a villain. But you were only funning, of course.’

‘I was, but I’m not funning when I tell you that I was not maliciously funning-to distress you.’

She turned her head to look at him again, this time in candid appraisal. ‘No. Although it is a thing you could do, I fancy.’

‘You may believe that I did not.’

‘And you may believe I don’t think you villainous!’

‘Oh, that is a much harder task!’ he protested, rallying her. ‘When I think of the reception I was accorded at that appalling inn I have the gravest misgivings!’

She laughed, but tacitly refused the challenge. He did not pursue the subject; and after riding beside him in silence for a few minutes she introduced another, saying: ‘I had almost forgotten to tell you that I had the pleasure of meeting your nephew yesterday, Duke! You must be very proud of him: he is a most beautiful child!’

‘He is a very spoilt one. Are you acquainted with my sister-in-law?’

‘I made her acquaintance a few days ago, and she was so kind as to invite me to spend the afternoon with her yesterday.’

‘Ah, now I understand the meaning of that stricken look!’ he remarked. ‘Did I figure as the Unfeeling Brother-in-law, or as the Wicked Uncle?’

She was not obliged to answer him, for as the words left his tongue his attention was diverted. A lady who was walking beside the carriageway just then waved to him. He recognized his cousin, Mrs. Newbury, and at once desired Phoebe to rein in. ‘If you are not already known to one another I should like to introduce you to Mrs. Newbury, Miss Marlow. She is quite the most entertaining of my cousins: I am persuaded you would deal extremely!-Georgie, what a stunning sight! How comes it about that you are walking in this demure style? No faithful husband to ride with you? Not one cicisbeo left to you?’

She laughed, stretching up her hand to clasp his. ‘No, isn’t it infamous? Lion has a spell of duty, and all my cicisbeos have failed me! Those who are not still buried in the country have their feet in mustard-baths, so that I’ve sunk to walking with a mere female. No, you can’t see her, because we have parted company.’

He had leaned down to take her hand, and now, just before he released it, he pressed it meaningly, saying: ‘Sunk indeed! Are you acquainted with Miss Marlow, or may I introduce her to you?’

‘So that is who you are!’ she said, smiling up at Phoebe. ‘To be sure, I should have guessed it, for I have just been exchanging bows with your cousins. You are Lady Ingham’s granddaughter, and-you are riding Anne Ingham’s deplorable slug! But you should not be: it is quite shocking! Even under that handicap you take the shine out of us all.’

‘I have been trying to persuade her to let me have the privilege of mounting her, but she insists it will not do,’ Sylvester said. ‘I have now a better notion, however. I fancy your second hack would be just the thing for her.’

Mrs. Newbury owned only one hack, but she had been on the alert from the moment of having her hand significantly squeezed, and she took this without a blink, interrupting Phoebe’s embarrassed protests to say warmly: ‘Oh, don’t say you won’t, Miss Marlow! You can’t think how much obliged to you I shall be if you will but ride with me sometimes! I detest walking, but to ride alone, with only one’s groom following primly behind, is intolerable! I am pining for a good gallop, too, and that can’t be had in Hyde Park. Sylvester, if I can prevail upon Miss Marlow to go, will you escort the pair of us to Richmond Park upon the first real spring day?’

‘But with the greatest pleasure, my dear cousin!’ he responded.

‘Do say you would like it!’ Mrs. Newbury begged Phoebe.

‘I should like it of all things, ma’am, but it is quite dreadful that you should be obliged to invite me!’

‘But I promise you I’m not! Sylvester knew I should be charmed to have a companion-and, you know, I could have said my other horse was lame, or sold, if I had wished to! I shall come to pay Lady Ingham a morning visit, and coax her into giving her consent.’

She stepped back then, and as they parted from her cast a quizzing look up at Sylvester. He met it with a smile, so she concluded that he was pleased, and went on her way, wondering whether he was indulging a fit of gallantry, or if it was possible that he was really trying to fix his interest with Miss Marlow. It seemed unlikely, but no more unlikely than his having singled her out for his latest flirt. Or was he merely being kind to Lady Ingham’s countrified little granddaughter? Oh, no! not Sylvester! decided Mrs. Newbury. He could be kind, but only where he liked. Well, it was all very intriguing, and for her part she was perfectly ready to lend him whatever aid he wanted. One did not look gift horses in the mouth, certainly not a gift horse of Sylvester’s providing.