Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

19

Lady Ingham was indisposed; Sir Henry Halford had said that on no account must her ladyship be agitated; her ladyship was not receiving visitors today. Miss Marlow was indisposed too and was laid down on the sofa in the Small Parlour; Miss Marlow was not receiving visitors today.

These melancholy tidings, delivered by Horwich in a voice of sepulchral gloom, daunted one of the two callers standing on the steps of the house in Green Street, but left the other unmoved. “Her ladyship will receive me,” said Mrs. Newbury briskly. “Very proper of you to warn me, however, Horwich! I shall take care not to agitate her.”

“I could not take it on myself to answer for her ladyship, madam. I will inquire.”

“Quite unnecessary! Is her ladyship in her dressing-room? I will go up, then.”

Emboldened by the success achieved by this bright-eyed lady the second caller said firmly: “Miss Marlow will receive me! Be so good as to take my card up to her!”

Mrs. Newbury ran up the stairs, and having tapped on the dressing-room door peeped in, saying softly: “Dear Lady Ingham, may I come in? I am persuaded you won’t be vexed with me—say you are not!”

The blinds had been drawn halfway across the two windows; a strong aroma of aromatic vinegar pervaded the air; and a gaunt figure advanced, hissing that her ladyship must not be disturbed.

“Is that you, Georgiana?” faintly demanded the Dowager from the sofa. “I am too unwell to see anyone, but I suppose you mean to come in whatever I say. No one cares how soon I am driven into my grave! Set a chair for Mrs. Newbury, Muker, and go away!”

The grim handmaid disapprovingly obeyed this order; and Georgiana, her eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom, trod over to the sofa, and sat down by it, saying coaxingly: “I have not come to tease you, ma’am—only to help you, if I can!”

“No one can help me,” said the sufferer, with awful resignation. “I need not ask if it is all over town!”

“Well, I should think it would be,” said Georgiana candidly. “Charlotte Retford came to see me this morning, and I must own she said that people are talking. She described to me what happened last night, and—oh, I thought I must come to see you, because even if Phoebe did write that book I can’t but like her still, and, whatever Lion may say about not meddling, if I can help her I will!”

“I imagine no one can now doubt that she wrote it,” said the Dowager. “When I think of all I did for her last night, even convincing Sally Jersey that the whole thing was a hum, set about by that pea-goose, Ianthe Rayne—Where are my salts?”

“Why did she write it, ma’am?” asked Georgiana. “One would say she must detest Sylvester, but that she doesn’t!”

The Dowager, between sniffs at her vinaigrette, enlightened her. After that she took a sip of hartshorn and water, and lay back with closed eyes. Mrs. Newbury sat wrapped in meditation for a few minutes, but presently said: “I shouldn’t think that Sylvester will betray her, whatever she may have said to him.”

“She betrayed herself! Leaving him in the middle of the floor as she did! I did my best, Georgiana, but what was the use of saying she was faint when there was Sylvester, looking like a devil? I will never forgive him, never! To overset her there! Heaven knows I don’t excuse the child, but what he did was wicked! And I can’t even take comfort from the reflection that she made a laughing-stock of him, because she ruined herself in doing it!” said the Dowager.

“He must have been very angry,” said Georgiana, frowning. “Too angry to consider what might be the consequence of dashing her down in public. For it was not at all like him, you know, ma’am. Nothing disgusts him more than a want of conduct! I wonder if Lion was right after all?”

“Very unlikely!” snapped the Dowager.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” agreed the Major’s fond spouse. “He said it was a case between them. In fact, he laid me a bet, because I wouldn’t allow it to be so. I know just how Sylvester behaves when he starts one of his á suivie flirtations, and it was not at all like that. Can it be that he had formed a serious attachment?”

The Dowager blew her nose. “I thought it as good as settled!” she disclosed. “The wish of my heart, Georgie! Everything in such excellent train, and all shattered at a blow! Dare I suppose that his affections will reanimate towards her? No! They will not!”

Georgiana, with the sapient Lion’s comments in mind, was glad that Lady Ingham had supplied the answer to her own question. “Dished!” had said the Major. “Pity! Nice little gal, I thought. Won’t pop the question to her now, of course. Couldn’t have found a surer way to drive him off than by making him ridiculous.”

“What to do I don’t know!” said the Dowager. “It is of no use to tell me she should brave it out: she ain’t the sort of girl who could carry it off. Besides, she’ll be refused vouchers for Almack’s. I shan’t even try for them: nothing would delight that odious Burrell creature more than to be able to give me a set-down!”

“No, that won’t do,” said Georgiana. “I have a better scheme, ma’am: that’s why I came! Take her to Paris!”

“Take her to Paris?” repeated the Dowager.

“Yes, ma’am, to Paris!” said Georgiana. “Do but consider! Phoebe can’t remain mewed up within doors, and to send her home would be worse than anything, because it would be to abandon every hope of re-establishing her presently. Paris would be the very thing! Everyone knows that you have had some thought of removing there. Why, I heard you talking of it myself, to Lady Sefton!”

“Everyone may know it, but everyone would also know why I had gone there.”

“That can’t be helped, dear ma’am. At least they will know that you have not cast Phoebe off. And you know how quickly the most shocking scandals are forgotten!”

“This one won’t be.”

“Yes, it will. I promise you I shall be busy while you are away, and you know that no one can be more valuable than I in this affair, because I am Sylvester’s cousin, and what I say of him will be believed rather than what Ianthe says. I shall set it about that that scene last night was the outcome of a quarrel which began before Sylvester went away to Chance, and had nothing to do with The Lost Heir. I shall say that that was why he went to Chance: what could be more likely? And,” said Georgiana, in a voice of profound wisdom, “I shall tell it all in the strictest confidence! To one person, or perhaps two, just to make sure of the story’s spreading.”

There was a short silence. The Dowager broke it. “Pull the blinds back!” she commanded. “What does Muker mean by leaving us to sit in the dark, stupid woman? You’re a flighty, ramshackle creature, Georgie, but one thing I’ll allow! You have a good heart! But will anyone believe Phoebe didn’t write that book?”

“They must be made to, even if I have to say I too know who is the real author! If Sylvester had taken it in good part—made a joke of it, as though he didn’t care a button, and had been in the secret the whole time—it wouldn’t have signified a scrap, because he was the only person unkindly used in the book, and if he hadn’t taken it in snuff all the others whom Phoebe dug her quill into must have followed his example.”

“Don’t talk to me of Sylvester!” said the Dowager, with loathing. “If I hadn’t set my heart on his marrying Phoebe I should be in transports over her book! For she hit him off to the life, Georgie! If he ain’t smarting still I don’t know him! Oh, drat the boy! He might have spared a thought for me before he provoked my granddaughter to enact a Cheltenham tragedy in the middle of a ballroom!”

Perceiving that slow, unaccustomed tears were trickling down her ladyship’s cheeks, Georgiana overcame a desire to retort in defence of Sylvester, and made haste to soothe her, and to turn her thoughts towards Paris.

“Yes, but it’s useless to think of it,” said the Dowager, dabbing at her eyes. “I cannot go without some gentleman to escort me! Poor Ingham would turn in his grave! Don’t talk to me of couriers! I won’t have strangers about me. And I am a wretched traveller, always seasick, and as for depending on Muker, she, you may lay your life, will be in the sullens, because she don’t want to go to France!”

Georgiana was rather daunted by this. After having her suggestion that the present Lord Ingham might escort his parent spurned she was at a loss, and could only say that it seemed a pity if the scheme must fail after all.

“Of course it is a pity!” said the Dowager irascibly. “But with my constitution it would be madness for me to attempt the journey without support! Sir Henry wouldn’t hear of it! If Phoebe had a brother—” She broke off, and startled Georgiana by exclaiming: “Young Orde!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

The Dowager sat up with surprising energy. “The very person! I will write at once to Mr. Orde! Where are they putting up? Reddish’s! Georgie, my love, the ink, my pen, paper, wafers! In that desk! No! I will get up! Here, take all this away, child!”

“But who is he?” asked Georgiana, receiving from the Dowager a fan, a vinaigrette, a bottle of eau-de-Cologne, another of sal volatile, and three clean handkerchiefs.

“He’s as good as a brother. Phoebe’s known him all her life!” replied the Dowager, beginning to divest herself of various scarves, shawls, and rugs. “A very pretty-behaved boy! Wants town-polish, but most gentlemanly!”

Georgiana put up her brows. “A fresh-faced young man, with a shy smile? Does he walk with a limp?”

“Yes, that’s he. Just give me your hand—or no! Where has Muker put my slippers?”

“Then I fancy he is with Phoebe at this very moment,” said Georgiana. “We met on the doorstep: I wondered who it could be!”

The Dowager sank back again. “Why didn’t you tell me so before?” she demanded. “Ring the bell, Georgie! I’ll have him up here at once!”

Georgiana obeyed, but said, as she did so: “To be sure, ma’am—if you think it right to take him?”

“Right? Why shouldn’t it be? It will do him good to see something of the world! Oh, are you thinking they might fall in love? No fear of that, I assure you—though why I should say fear I don’t know,” added her ladyship bitterly. “After last night I should be thankful to see her married to anyone!”

Tom, entering the dressing-room a few minutes later, was looking grave. He cast an awed glance at the battery of medicines and restoratives set out on the table beside the Dowager’s sofa, but was relieved to hear himself hailed in robust accents. When asked abruptly, however, if he would escort her ladyship and Miss Marlow to Paris he looked to be more appalled than pleased; and although, when the inducement of a week in Paris as her ladyship’s guest was held out to him, he stammered that he was much obliged, it was plain that this was a mere expression of civility.

“Let me tell you, Tom, that foreign travel is a necessary part of every young man’s education!” said the Dowager severely.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tom. He added more hopefully: “Only I daresay my father would not wish me to go!”

“Nonsense! Your father is a sensible man, and he told me he thought it time you got a little town bronze. Depend upon it, he can very well spare you for a week or two. I shall write him a letter, and you may take it to him. Now, boy, don’t be tiresome! If you don’t care to go on your own account you may do so on Phoebe’s.”

The matter being put thus to him Tom said that of course he was ready to do anything for Phoebe. Then he thought that this was not quite polite, so he added, blushing to the roots of his hair, that it was excessively kind of her la’ship, he was persuaded he would enjoy himself excessively, and his father would be excessively obliged to her. Only perhaps he ought to mention that he knew very little French, and had not before been out of England.

These trifling objections waved aside, the Dowager explained why she was so suddenly leaving London. She asked him if Phoebe had told him of the previous night’s happenings. That brought the grave look back into his face. He said: “Yes, she has, ma’am. It’s the very deuce of a business, I know, and I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t wrong of her to have written all that stuff about Salford, but it was just as wrong of him to have given her a trimming in public! I—I call it a dashed ungentlemanly thing to have done, because he must have meant to sink her to the ground! What’s more, I wouldn’t have thought it of him! I thought he was a first rate sort of a man—a regular Trojan! Oh lord, if only she had told him! I had meant to have visited him, too! I shan’t now, of course, for whatever she did I’m on Phoebe’s side, and so I should tell him!”

“No, I shouldn’t visit him just yet,” said Georgiana, regarding him with warm approval. “He is a Trojan, but I am afraid he may be in a black rage. He wouldn’t otherwise have behaved so improperly last night, you know. Poor Phoebe! Is she very much afflicted?”

“Well, she was in the deuce of a way when I came,” replied Tom. “Shaking like a blancmanger! She does, you see, when she’s been overset, but she’s better now, though pretty worn down. The thing is, Lady Ingham, she wants me to take her home!”

“Wants you to take her home?” exclaimed the Dowager. “Impossible! She cannot want that!”

“Yes, but she does,” Tom insisted. “She will have it she has disgraced you as well as herself. And she says she had rather face Lady Marlow than anyone in London, and at all events she won’t have to endure Austerby for long, because as soon as those publisher-fellows hand over the blunt—I mean, as soon as they pay her!—she and Sibby will live together in a cottage somewhere. She means to write another novel immediately, because she has been offered a great deal of money for it already!”

The disclosure of this fell project acted alarmingly on the Dowager. To Tom’s dismay she uttered a moan, and fell back against her cushions with her eyes shut. Resuscitated by smelling-salts waved under her nose, and eau-de-Cologne dabbed on her brow, she regained enough strength to tell Tom to fetch Phoebe to her instantly. Georgiana, catching the doubtful glance he cast at her, picked up her gloves and her reticule, and announced that she would take her leave. “I expect she feels she had rather not meet me, doesn’t she? I perfectly understand, but pray give her my love, Mr. Orde, and assure her that I am still her friend!”

The task of persuading Phoebe to view with anything less than revulsion the prospect of being transported from the fashionable world of London to that of Paris was no easy one. In vain did the Dowager assure her that if some ill-natured gossip should have written the story of her downfall to a friend in Paris it could be denied; in vain did she promise to present her to King Louis; in vain did she describe in the most glowing terms the charm and gaiety of French society: Phoebe shuddered at every treat held out to her. Tom, besought by the Dowager to try what he could achieve, was even less successful. Adopting a bracing note, he told Phoebe that she must shake off her blue devils, and try to come about again.

“If only I might go home!” she said wretchedly.

That, said Tom, was addle-brained, for she would only mope herself to death at Austerby. What she must do was to put the affair out of her head—though he thought she should perhaps write a civil letter of apology to Salford from Paris. After that she could be comfortable, for she would not be obliged to meet him again for months, if Lady Ingham hired a house in Paris, as she had some notion of doing.

But the only effect of this heartening speech was to send Phoebe out of the room in floods of tears.

It was left to the Squire to bring her to a more submissive frame of mind, which he did very simply, by telling her that she owed it to her grandmother, after causing her so much trouble, to cheer up and do as she wished. “For it’s my belief,” said the Squire shrewdly, “that she wants to go as much for her own sake as yours. I must say I should like Tom to get a glimpse of foreign parts, too.”

That settled it: Phoebe would go to Paris for Grandmama’s sake, and try very hard to enjoy it. Her subsequent efforts to appear cheerful were heroic, and quite enough (said Tom) to throw the whole party into the dismals.

Between Phoebe’s brave front and Muker’s undisguised gloom the Dowager might well have abandoned the scheme had it not been for the support afforded her by young Mr. Orde. Having consented to go with her, Tom resigned himself with a good grace, and threw himself into all the business of departure with so much energy and good-humour that he soon began to rival Phoebe in the Dowager’s esteem. With a little assistance from the Squire, before that excellent man returned to Somerset, he grappled with passports, customs, and itineraries; ascertained on which days the mails were made up for France, and on which days the packets sailed; calculated how much money would be needed for the journey; and got by heart such French phrases as he thought would be most useful. A Road Book was his constant companion; and whenever he had occasion to pull out his pocket-book a shower of leaflets accompanied it.

It did not take him long to discover that the task of conveying Lady Ingham on a journey was no sinecure. She was exacting and she changed her mind almost hourly. No sooner had he gone off with her old coachman to inspect her travelling carriage (kept by her long-suffering son in his coach-house and occupying a great deal of space which he could ill spare) than she decided that it would be better to travel post. Off went Tom in a hack to arrange for the hire of a chaise, only to find on his return to Green Street that she had remembered that since Muker would occupy the forward seat they would be obliged to sit three behind her, which would be intolerable.

“I am afraid,” said Lord Ingham apologetically, “that you have taken a troublesome office upon yourself, my boy. My mother is rather capricious. You mustn’t allow her to wear you to death. I see you are lame, too.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, sir!” said Tom cheerfully. “I just take a hack, you know, and rub on very well!”

“If I can be of assistance,” said Lord Ingham, in a dubious tone, “you—er—you must not hesitate to apply to me.”

Tom thanked him, but assured him that all was in a way to be done. He could not feel that Lord Ingham’s assistance would expedite matters, since he knew by now that the Dowager invariably ran counter to his advice, and was exasperated by his rather hesitant manners. Lord Ingham looked relieved, but thought it only fair to warn Tom that there was a strong probability that the start would be delayed for several days, owing to the Dowager’s having decided at the last minute that she could not leave town without a gown that had not yet been sent home by her dressmaker, or some article that had been put away years before and could not now be found.

“Well, sir,” said Tom, grinning, “she had the whole set of’em turning the house out of the windows to find some cloak or other when I left, but I’ll bring her up to scratch: see if I don’t!”

Lord Ingham shook his head, and when he repaired to Green Street on the appointed day to bid his parent a dutiful farewell it was in the expectation of finding the plans changed again, and everything at odds. But Tom had made his word good. The old-fashioned coach stood waiting, piled high with baggage; and Lord Ingham entered the house to find the travellers fully equipped for the adventure, and delayed only by the Dowager’s sudden conviction that her curling-tongs had been forgotten, which entailed the removal of everything from her dressing-case, Muker having packed them at the bottom of it.

Lord Ingham, eyeing young Mr. Orde with respect, was moved to congratulate him. Young Mr. Orde then confided to him that it had been a near-run thing, her la’ship having been within ames-ace of crying off as late as yesterday, when the weather took a turn for the worse. “But I managed to persuade her, sir, and I think I shall be able to get her aboard Thursday’s packet all right and tight,” said optimistic Tom.

Lord Ingham, casting an apprehensive glance at the hurrying clouds, thought otherwise, but refrained from saying so.