Sylvester

25

The party reached Calais two days later, having broken the journey at Etaples, where they stayed in what Sylvester unequivocally described as the worst hostelry ever to have enjoyed his patronage. Only Tom might have been said to have fulfilled Edmund’s expectations.

Sylvester’s temper had been ruffled at the outset, for not even the pledging of Phoebe’s little pearl brooch as well as his own watch and chain provided him with enough money to enable him to travel in the style to which he was accustomed. He was extremely vexed with Tom for suddenly producing the brooch in the pawnbroker’s shop, which piece of folly, he said, would now make it necessary for him to send one of his people over to France to redeem it. He disliked haggling over the worth of his watch; he disliked still more to be in any way beholden to Phoebe; and he emerged from this degrading experience in anything but a sunny humour. He then discovered that the hire of two post-chaises and four would result in the whole party’s being stranded halfway between Abbeville and Calais, and was obliged to make up his mind which of two evils was likely to prove the lesser; to cram four persons, one of whom was a small boy subject to travel sickness, into one chaise and four; or to hire two chaises, and drive for well over a hundred and twenty kilometres behind a single pair of horses. The reflection that Edmund, before he succumbed to his malaise, would fidget and ask incessant questions decided the matter: he hired two chaises, and in so doing made the discovery that Mr. Rayne, a man of modest means, did not meet with the deference accorded to his grace of Salford. The post-master was not uncivil: he was uninterested. Sylvester, accustomed his whole life long to dealing with persons who were all anxiety to please him, suffered a slight shock. Until he had landed at Calais he had never made a journey in a hired vehicle. He had thought poorly of the chaise supplied by the Lion d’Argent; the two allotted to him in Abbeville filled his fastidious soul with disgust. They were certainly rather dirty.

‘Why hasn’t this carriage got four horses?’ demanded Edmund.

‘Because it only has two,’ replied Sylvester.

‘Couple o’ bone-setters!’ said Edmund disparagingly.

They were found to be plodders; nor, when the first change was made, was there much improvement in the pace at which the ground was covered. There was a world of difference between a team and a pair, as Phoebe soon discovered. The journey seemed interminable; and although the more sober pace seemed to affect Edmund less than the swaying of a well-sprung chaise drawn by four fast horses, he soon grew bored, a state of mind which made him an even more wearing companion than when he was sick. She could only be thankful when, at Etaples, Sylvester, after one look at her, said they would go no farther that day. She desired nothing so much as her bed; but to her suggestion that some soup might be sent up to her room Sylvester returned a decided: ‘Certainly not! Neither you nor Edmund ate any luncheon, and if you are not hungry now you should be.’ He gave her one of his searching looks, and added: ‘I daresay you will like to rest before you dine, Miss Marlow. Edmund may stay with me.’

She was led upstairs by the boots to a room overlooking a courtyard; and having taken off her dress and hung it up, in the hope that the worst of its creases might disappear, she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. The suspicion of a headache nagged at her, but she soon discovered that there was little chance of being able to rid herself of it. To judge by the noises that came from beneath her window the kitchens had access on to the yard, and were inhabited by a set of persons who seemed all to be quarrelling, and hurling pots and pans about.

Just as she was about to leave her room again Tom came to see how she did. He was carrying a glass of wine, which he handed to her, saying that Salford had sent it. ‘He says you are done-up. And I must say,’ added Tom critically, ‘you do look bagged!’

Having studied her reflection in the spotted looking glass she was well aware of this, and it did nothing to improve her spirits. She sipped the wine, hoping that it might lessen the depression that had been creeping on her all day.

‘What a racket these Frenchies make!’ observed Tom, looking out of the window. ‘Salford cut up stiff when he found this room gave on to the yard, but ours is directly above the salle des buveurs, and that wouldn’t have done for you at all. There seems to be a fair going on: the town’s packed, and no room to be had anywhere.’

‘Have you to share a room with Salford? He won’t like that!’

‘Oh, that ain’t what’s making him ride grub!’ said Tom cheerfully. ‘He don’t care for the company, and he ain’t accustomed to being told by waiters that he shall be served bientot! I left him coming the duke in the coffee room, to get us one of the small tables to ourselves. He’ll do it too: the waiter was beginning to bow and wash his hands-and all for no more than his grace’s high-bred air and winning smile!’

They found, on descending to the coffee room, that Sylvester had indeed procured a small table near the door, and was awaiting them there, with Edmund, who was seated on an eminence composed of two large books placed on his chair. Edmund was looking particularly angelic and was exciting a good deal of admiration.

‘A little more of this sort of thing,’ said Sylvester in an undervoice, as he pushed Phoebe’s chair in for her, ‘and his character would be ruined!’

‘Except that he doesn’t care for it,’ she agreed.

‘No, thank God! I have ordered what I hope you will like, Miss Marlow, but there is very little choice. What we should call an ordinary, at home.’

He turned to speak to a harried waiter, and Edmund, apparently reconciled to the French language by his uncle’s fluency, suddenly announced that he too could talk French.

‘Oh, what a bouncer!’ said Tom. ‘What can you say?’

‘I can say words,’ replied Edmund. ‘I can say bonjour and petit chou and-’ But at this point he lost interest, the waiter having dumped in front of him the plat of his careful choice.

The dinner was good, and, although the service was slow, the meal might have passed without untoward incident had Edmund not been inspired to favour the assembled company with a further example of his proficiency in the French tongue. An enormously fat woman, seated at the end of the table that ran down the centre of the room, after incurring his displeasure by nodding and smiling at him every time he looked up from his plate, was so much ravished by his beauty that when she passed his chair on her way out of the coffee room she not only complimented Phoebe on his seraphic countenance but was unable to resist the temptation of swooping down upon him and planting a smacking kiss on his cheek. ‘Petit chou!’ she said, beaming at him.

‘Salaude!’ returned Edmund indignantly.

For this he was instantly condemned to silence, but when Sylvester, after explaining to the shocked lady that Edmund had picked the word up without an idea of its meaning, offering her his apologies, and enduring the hearty amusement of all those within earshot, sat down again and directed a look at his erring nephew that boded no good to him, Phoebe took up the cudgels in Edmund’s defence, saying: ‘It is unjust to scold him! He doesn’t know what it means! He must have heard someone say it at the Poisson Rouge, when he was in the kitchen!’

‘Madame says it to Elise,’ said Edmund enigmatically.

‘Well, it isn’t a very civil thing to say, my dear,’ Phoebe told him, in gentle reproof.

‘I didn’t think it was,’ said Edmund, in a satisfied voice.

‘It seems to me an extraordinary thing that he should have been allowed to keep kitchen company,’ said Sylvester. ‘I should have supposed that among the four of you-’

‘Yes, and it has often seemed extraordinary to me that among I know not how many people he should have been allowed to keep stable company!’ flashed Phoebe.

This was so entirely unanswerable that silence reigned until Tom, to relieve the tension, asked Sylvester some question about the next day’s journey. As soon as they left the coffee room Phoebe took Edmund up to bed, bidding Sylvester a chilly goodnight, and Tom a very warm one.

At breakfast on the following morning punctilious civility reigned, Sylvester addressing suave remarks to Phoebe, and Phoebe replying to them with formal courtesy.

But formality deserted Phoebe abruptly when she discovered that instead of Edmund she was to have Tom for her travelling companion. She said at once: ‘No, no! Please leave Edmund with me! It was to take care of him that I came with you, Duke, and I assure you I am very happy to do so!’

‘You are very good, ma’am, but I will take him today,’ he replied.

‘But why?’ she demanded.

He hesitated, and then said: ‘I wish it.’

It was spoken in his indifferent voice. She read in it a reflection on her management of Edmund, arising possibly from his overnight solecism, and turned away that Sylvester might not have the satisfaction of seeing how mortified she was. When she next glanced at him she found that he was watching her, she thought with a shade of anxiety in his rather hard eyes. He moved towards her, and said: ‘What did I say to distress you? I had no such intention!’

She put up her brows. ‘Distress me? Oh, no!’

‘I am taking Edmund with me because I am persuaded you have the headache,’ he said bluntly.

It was true, but she disclaimed, begging him to let Edmund go with her. His thought for her disarmed her utterly; her constraint vanished; and when she raised her eyes to his face they were shyly smiling. He looked down at her for a moment, and then said almost brusquely, as he turned away: ‘No, don’t argue! My mind is made up.’

By the time Calais was reached her headache had become severe, a circumstance to which she attributed her increasingly low spirits. Edmund, when he heard of it, disclosed that Uncle Vester had the headache too.

‘I?’ exclaimed Sylvester. ‘I’ve never had the headache in my life, brat!’

‘Oh!’ said Edmund, adding with a confiding smile: ‘Just a bit cagged-like!’

Since Tom had had the forethought to consult Sinderby, the inn which housed them that night, though a modest establishment in the unfashionable quarter of the town, was both quiet and comfortable. A tisane, followed by a night’s undisturbed sleep, cured Phoebe’s headache. Her spirits, however, remained low, but as she opened her eyes to see wet windowpanes and a sky of a uniform grey this was perhaps not to be wondered at.

‘We are in for an intolerably tedious crossing,’ Sylvester said, when he joined the rest of the party at breakfast. ‘There is very little wind-which has this advantage, I suppose, that it will be better for one of our number. I have been able to procure a cabin for you, Miss Marlow, but I fear you will be heartily sick of the crossing-particularly if it continues to rain, as it shows every sign of doing.’

‘Why,’ demanded Edmund, ‘am I not let have an egg? I do not want this bread-and-milk. Keighley says it is cat-lap.’

‘Never mind!’ said Phoebe, laughing. ‘You may have an egg tomorrow.’

‘I may not be hungry tomorrow,’ said Edmund gloomily. ‘I am hungry now!’

‘Oh, dear! Are you?’

‘Fair gut-foundered!’ said Edmund.

Sylvester, who was glancing through a newspaper, lowered it, and said sternly: ‘You never learned that from Keighley!’

‘No,’ admitted Edmund. ‘Jem says it.’

‘Who the devil is Jem?’

‘The one with the spotty face. Don’t you know, Uncle Vester?’ said Edmund, astonished.

‘One of the stable hands?’

Edmund nodded. ‘He tells me very good words. He is a friend of mine.’

‘Oh, is he?’ said Sylvester grimly. ‘Well, unless you want to feel my hand, don’t repeat them!’

Quelled, Edmund returned to his bread-and-milk. Over his head Sylvester said ruefully: ‘I make his apologies, Miss Marlow. It is the fault of too old a nurse, and by far too old a tutor. I must find a younger man.’

‘I don’t think that would answer nearly as well as a sensible female,’ said Phoebe. ‘Someone like my own dear governess, who doesn’t get into a fuss for torn clothes, and likes animals, and collecting butterflies and birds’ eggs, and-oh, you know, Tom!’

‘My dear Miss Marlow, only furnish me with her name and her direction!’ begged Sylvester.

‘You have met her,’ she reminded him. ‘But I am afraid I cannot spare her to you. She and I mean to set up house together, as soon as I come of age.’

‘Set up house together!’ he repeated incredulously.

‘Yes. She is going to keep house, and I-’ She stopped suddenly, gave a little gasp, and continued defiantly: ‘And I am going to write novels!’

‘I see,’ he said dryly, and retired into the newspaper again.