Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

20

Lord Ingham was right. The first glimpse caught of the sea afforded the Dowager a view of tossing grey waters, flecked with foam; and long before she was handed down from the coach at the Ship Inn she had informed Tom that a regiment of Guards would not suffice to drag her on board the packet until the wind had abated. Two days of road travel (for to avoid fatigue she had elected to spend one night at Canterbury) had given her the headache; and during the rest of the journey she became steadily more snappish. Her temper was not improved, on alighting at Dover, by having the hat nearly snatched from her head by a gust of wind; and it seemed for several minutes as though she might re-enter the coach then and there, and return to London. Fortunately Tom had written to bespeak accommodation for the party; and the discovery that the best bedchamber had been reserved for her, and the best parlour with fires kindled in both, mollified her. A dose of the paregoric prescribed by Sir Henry Halford, followed by an hour’s rest, and an excellent dinner did much to restore her, but when Tom told her that the packet had sailed for Calais that day as usual, from which circumstance it might be inferred that no danger of shipwreck attended the passage, she replied discouragingly: “Exactly what I am afraid of!”

On the following morning, in conditions described by knowledgeable persons as fair sailing weather, Tom made the discovery that fair sailing weather, in Lady Ingham’s opinion, was flat calm. April sunshine lit the scene, but Lady Ingham could see white crests on the sea, and that was enough for her, she thanked Tom. An attempt to convince her that a passage of perhaps only four hours with a little pitching would be preferable to being cooped up in a stuffy packet for twice as long succeeded only in making her pick up her vinaigrette. She begged Tom not to mention that horrid word pitching again. If he and Phoebe had set their hearts on the Paris scheme she would not deny them the treat, but they must wait for calm weather.

They waited for five days. Other travellers came and went; Lady Ingham and Party remained at the Ship; and Tom, forewarned that the length of the bills presented at this busy hostelry was proverbial, began to entertain visions of finding himself without a feather to fly with before he had got his ladies to Amiens.

Squally weather continued; the Dowager’s temper worsened; Muker triumphed; and Tom, making the best of it, sought diversion on the waterfront. Being a youth of an inquiring turn of mind and a friendly disposition he found much to interest him, and was soon able to point out to Phoebe the various craft lying in the basins, correctly identifying brigantines, hoys, sloops, and Revenue cutters for her edification.

The Dowager, convinced that every haunt of seafaring persons teemed with desperate characters lying in wait to rob the unwary, was strongly opposed to Tom’s prowling about the yard and basins, but was appeased by his depositing in her care the packet of bills she had entrusted to him. It would have been better, in her opinion, had he and Phoebe climbed the Western Heights (for that might have blown Phoebe’s crotchets away), but she was forced to admit that for a man with a lame leg this form of exercise was ineligible.

It seemed a little hard to Phoebe that she should be accused of having crotchets when she was taking such pains to appear cheerful. She only once begged to be allowed to go back to Austerby; and since this lapse was the outcome of her grandmother’s complaining that she had allowed Mrs. Newbury to over-persuade her, it was surely pardonable. “Pray, pray, ma’am don’t let us go to Paris on my account!” she had said imploringly. “I only said I would go because I thought you wished it! And I don’t think Tom cares for it either, in his heart. Let him take me home instead!”

But the Dowager had been pulled up short by this speech. She was not much given to considering anyone but herself, but she was fond of Phoebe. Her conscience gave her a twinge, and she said briskly: “Fiddle-de-dee, my love! Of course I wish to go, and so I shall as soon as the weather improves!”

It began to seem, on the fifth day, that they were doomed to remain indefinitely at Dover, for the wind, instead of abating, had stiffened, and was blowing strongly off-shore. Tom’s waterfront acquaintances assured him that he couldn’t hope for a better to carry him swiftly across the Channel, but Tom knew that it would be useless to repeat this to the Dowager, even if she had not been keeping her bed that day. She was bilious. Sea-air, said Muker, always made my lady bilious, as those who had waited on her for years could have told others had they seen fit to ask.

So Phoebe, having the parlour to herself, tried for the fourth time to compose a letter to Sylvester that should combine contrition with dignity, and convey her gratitude for past kindness without giving the least hint that she wished ever to see him again. This fourth effort went the way of its predecessors, and as she watched the spoiled sheets of paper blacken and burst into flame she sank into very low spirits. It was foolish to fall into a reminiscent mood when every memory that obtruded itself (and most of all the happy ones) was painful, but try as she would to look forward no sooner was she idle than back went her thoughts, and the most cheerful view of the future which presented itself to her was a rapid decline into the grave. And the author of all her misfortunes, whose marble heart and evil disposition she had detected at the outset, would do no more than raise his fatal eyebrows, and give his shoulders the slight, characteristic shrug she knew so well, neither glad nor sorry, but merely indifferent.

She was roused from the contemplation of this dismal picture by Tom’s voice, hailing her from the street. She hastily blew her nose, and went to the window, thrusting it open, and looking down at Tom, who was standing beneath it, most improperly hallooing to her.

“Oh, there you are!” he observed. “Be quick, and come out, Phoebe! Such doings in the harbour! I wouldn’t have you miss it for a hundred pounds!”

“Why, what?”

“Never mind what! Do make haste, and come down! I promise you it’s as funny as any farce I ever saw!”

“Well, I must put on my hat and pelisse,” she said, not wanting very much to go.

“Lord, you’d never keep a hat on in this wind! Tie a shawl over your head!” he said. “And don’t dawdle, or it will all be over before we get there!”

Reflecting that even being buffeted by a cold wind would be preferable to further reverie, she said that she would be down in a trice, shut the window again, and ran away to her bedchamber. The idea of tieing a shawl round her head did not commend itself to her, but the Dowager had bought a thick travelling cloak with a hood attached for her to wear on board the packet, so she fastened that round her throat instead, and was hastily turning over the contents of a drawer in search of gloves when she was made to jump almost out of her skin by hearing herself unexpectedly addressed.

“May I make so bold as to inquire, miss, if you was meaning to go out?”

Phoebe looked quickly round, exclaiming: “Good gracious, what a start you gave me, Muker! I never heard you come in!”

“No, miss?” said Muker, standing with primly folded arms on the threshold. “And was you meaning to go out, miss?”

Her tone was very much that of a gaoler. It nettled Phoebe, but although she flushed a little she said only: “Yes, I am going for a walk,” because she knew that Muker’s dislike of her arose from jealousy, for which she was more to be pitied than blamed.

“May I ask, miss, if her ladyship is aware of your intention?”

“You may ask, but I don’t know why you should, or why I should answer you,” replied Phoebe, her temper rising.

“I shouldn’t consider it consistent with my duty, miss, to permit you to go out without her ladyship was aware of it.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” retorted Phoebe, by this time roused to real wrath. “Try if you can stop me!”

Muker, thrust with some violence out of the way, followed her from the room, two spots of colour flaming on her cheekbones. “Very well, miss! Very well! Her ladyship shall hear of this! I should have thought she had enough to worrit her, poor dear, without—”

“How dare you speak to me in that insolent way?” Phoebe interrupted, pausing at the head of the stairs to look back. “If my grandmother should wish to know where I am gone, you will please tell her that she need have no anxiety, since I am with Mr. Orde!”

“Hurry, Phoebe!” said Tom, from the hall below. “It will be too late soon!”

“I’m coming!” she answered, running down to join him.

“What an age you’ve been!” he said, pushing her through the doorway into the street. “You had better hold that cloak tightly round you, or you’ll be blown away. What’s the matter?”

“That odious Muker!” she fumed. “Daring to tell me she would not permit me to go out!”

“Oh, never mind her!” said Tom, limping along as fast as he could. “Sour old squeeze-crab! You wait till you see the pantomime in the harbour! I shouldn’t wonder at it if we find the whole town’s turned out to watch it by the time we get there. Lord, I hope they haven’t got the thing aboard yet!”

“What thing?” demanded Phoebe.

“Some sort of a travelling carriage,” replied Tom, with a chuckle.

“Oh, Tom, you wretch, is that all?”

“All! It’s no ordinary carriage, I can tell you. It belongs to some fellow who has chartered a schooner to take his coach and his family to Calais, and there’s him, and a little chitty-faced fellow that looks like a valet, and—But you’ll see! When I left they were all arguing whether it oughtn’t to be got aboard in slings, and there was a string of porters carrying enough champagne and hampers of food for a voyage to India! There! what did I tell you? Half the town at least!”

If this was an exaggeration there was certainly a crowd of people watching with deep interest the activities of those preparing to get a large travelling carriage aboard the Betsy Anne. The little man described by Tom as a valet was keeping a vigilant eye on this astonishing vehicle, every now and then darting forward to ward off the urchins who wanted to look inside it, and saying in a tearful falsetto: “I forbid you to lay your greasy hands on it! Go away! Go away, I say!”

His agitation was pardonable, for never was there so glossy and so exquisite a chariot, double-perched, slung high between high wheels, fitted with patent axles, and embellished with a gilded iron scroll-work all round the roof. The body was painted a bright tan, with the wheels and the panels of sky-blue; and the interior, which, besides a deeply cushioned seat, included a let-down table, appeared to be entirely lined with pale blue velvet.

“Cinderella’s coach!” said Phoebe promptly. “Who in the world can have ordered such a ridiculous thing?”

On board the schooner all was bustle and noise, the crew being much impeded in their tasks by the number of porters who got in their way, and voicing their disapproval in loud and frank terms.

“Getting ready to set sail,” said Tom. “I should laugh if they were to miss the tide!”

As Phoebe’s amused eyes ran over the crowded deck they alighted on the figure of a small boy, who was critically observing the various activities in progress. For one instant she stared unbelievingly, and then she clutched Tom’s arm, exclaiming: “Edmund!”

“Eh?” said Tom. He saw that she was looking at the small boy as though she saw a ghost. “Now what’s the matter?” he demanded.

“Edmund Rayne! Salford’s nephew!” she stammered.

“There—on the boat!”

“Is it?” said Tom, glancing at the child. “Are you poz?”

“Yes, yes, how could I mistake? Oh, Tom, I have the most dreadful fear—What was he like, the man who owns that coach?”

“Like a counter-coxcomb!” replied Tom. “I never saw such a quiz!”

She turned pale. “Fotherby! Then Lady Henry must be aboard. Did you see her? Very fair—very beautiful?”

“No, I only saw the dandy, and the valet, and that fellow over there, whom I take to be the courier. Why, you don’t mean to say you think they’re eloping?”

“I don’t know that, and I don’t care! They are kidnapping Edmund, and—oh, Tom, it is my fault! I am going aboard!”

He detained her. “No, you don’t! How could it be your fault, pray? I wish you won’t fall into such distempered freaks, Phoebe!”

“Don’t you see, Tom? I told you what it was that made my book so particularly abominable!”

“I haven’t forgotten. But your book ain’t to be blamed for Lady Henry’s running off with that Jack-a-dandy. If you’ve got some notion of trying to interfere, let me tell you, I shan’t let you make such a cake of yourself! It’s none of your business.”

She said with determined calm: “Tom, if it is as I believe, and Lady Henry is taking that child out of England, I am so much to blame that I think I shall never hold up my head again. I put the scheme into her head! It was never there before she read my book. Oh, she told me herself how much struck she was by the end of it, and I never guessed, never suspected—!”

“Took the scheme out of a trumpery novel? She couldn’t be such a greenhead!”

“She is just such a greenhead! I don’t know how it will be, if they get Edmund to France, whether it will be possible for Salford to recover him, or even to find him, but only think what it must mean! More trouble, more scandal, and all to be laid at my door! I can’t bear it, Tom! You must let me go aboard that boat! Perhaps, if I could prevent this, he—people—might not think so badly of me. Tom, I’ve wished the book had never been written over and over again, but I can’t unwrite it, and don’t you think that this—if I could stop it—would be a sort of—of atonement?”

He was struck by her earnest manner, and even more by the expression in her eyes, which was almost tragic. After a moment he said: “Well—if you think you should, I suppose—Come to think of it, if the boy is being taken out of the country without his guardian’s leave it’s against the law! So we have got some right to meddle. I only hope we don’t catch cold at it, that’s all!”

But Phoebe had already stepped on to the gangway. As she reached the deck Sir Nugent Fotherby emerged from a doorway behind the ladder leading to the quarterdeck, and at once perceived her.

After looking at her through his quizzing-glass for a minute he came forward, bowing, and saying in a pleased voice: “Miss Marlow! How-de-do? ’Pon my soul, I take it very kind in you to have called, and so, I venture to say, will her la’ship! Happy to welcome you aboard! Tidy little craft, ain’t she? Chartered her, you know: couldn’t take her la’ship on the common packet!”

“Sir Nugent, will you have the goodness to lead me to Lady Henry?” said Phoebe, ignoring these civilities.

“Greatest pleasure on earth, ma’am! But—you won’t take it amiss if I give you a hint?—not Lady Henry!

“I see. I should have said Lady Fotherby, perhaps?”

“No,” replied Sir Nugent regretfully. “Not Lady Fotherby. Lady Ianthe Fotherby. I don’t like it as well, but her la’ship informs me that to be called Lady Ianthe again makes her feel ten years younger, which is a gratifying circumstance, don’t you think?”

At this point they were interrupted. Master Rayne had approached, and he planted himself squarely before Sir Nugent, demanding: “When are we going to see the circus?”

Master Rayne had to look a long way up to Sir Nugent’s face, but his gaze was stern and unwavering, and under it Sir Nugent was visibly embarrassed. “Oh—ah—the circus!” he said. “Precisely so! The circus!”

“You said we were going to the circus,” said Edmund accusingly. “You said if I didn’t kick up riot and rumpus I should go to the circus.”

“Did I ?” said Sir Nugent, eyeing him uneasily. “Said that, did I?”

“Yes, you did,” asserted Edmund. “Turnin’ me up sweet!” he added bitterly.

“Well, there you have the matter in a nutshell,” responded Sir Nugent confidentially. “Must realize it was a devilish awkward situation, my dear boy!”

“You told me a whisker,” stated Edmund. “You are a Bad Man, and I won’t have you for a new papa. My papa didn’t tell whiskers.”

“Be reasonable!” begged Sir Nugent. “You must own it was the only thing to be done, with you saying you didn’t wish to go driving with us, and threatening to raise a dust! Why, you’d have had the whole household out on us!”

“I want to go home,” said Edmund.

“Do you, my dear?” interpolated Phoebe. “Then I will ask your mama to let me take you home! Do you remember me? You told me all about your pony!”

Edmund considered her. Apparently he remembered her with kindness, for his severity relaxed, and he politely held out his hand. “You are the lady which knows Keighley. I will let you take me home. An’ p’raps if you tell me some more about your pony I won’t feel sick,” he added.

“Very bad traveller,” said Sir Nugent in an audible aside. “Seems to turn queasy every time he goes in a chaise. Dashed unfortunate, because it fidgets her la’ship. Pity we couldn’t have brought his nurse, but her la’ship said no. No use trying to bribe her: had to bamboozle her instead. Meant he should travel with her la’ship’s maid, but at the last moment we were queered upon that suit too. Maggoty female couldn’t be brought up to the scratch! Said she was scared to go on a ship. “ What would have happened if Nelson had been scared to go on a ship?” I said. She said she didn’t know. “The Frogs would have landed,” I said. “ No one to stop’em,” I said. No use. Said she couldn’t stop ’em even if she did go to sea. Bit of a doubler, that, because I don’t suppose she could. So there we were, floored at all points.”

“Who is this gentleman?” suddenly demanded Edmund.

“That is Mr. Orde, Edmund. Sir Nugent, will you—”

“I’m glad he asked that,” said Sir Nugent. “Didn’t quite like to do it myself. Happy to make your acquaintance, sir! Daresay her la’ship would say the same, but she’s rather fagged. Gone to lie down in her cabin. Allow me to escort you, ma’am!”

“I’ll wait for you here, Phoebe,” Tom said. “Come on, Master Poll Parrot, you may bear me company!”

Sir Nugent, handing Phoebe down the short companion-way, told her that Ianthe found her quarters rather constricted but was bearing every inconvenience with the fortitude of an angel. He then opened one of the two doors at the bottom of the companionway and announced: “A visitor, my love!”

Ianthe had been lying on one of the two berths in what seemed to Phoebe quite a spacious cabin, but upon hearing these words she uttered a shriek, and sat up, her hands clasped at her bosom. But as soon as she saw who it was who had entered, her fright vanished, and she exclaimed: “Miss Marlow! Good God, how comes this about? Oh, my dear Miss Marlow, how glad I am to see you! To think that you should be the first to felicitate me! For you must know that Nugent and I were married by special licence yesterday! We fled immediately from the church door, in the travelling chariot Nugent has had built for me. Was it not particularly touching of him? It is lined with blue, to match my eyes! Nugent, do go and tell them to make less noise! I shall be driven distracted by it! Shouting, and tramping, and clanking, and creaking till I could scream! You must tell the sailors that I have the headache, and cannot endure such a racket. Dear Miss Marlow, I thought you had gone to Paris a week ago!”

“We have been delayed. Lady Ianthe, I wish you very happy, but—excuse me—!—that was not my purpose in coming aboard. I saw Edmund, and realized what must be the reason for his being here. You will think me impertinent, but you must not steal him out of England! Indeed, indeed you must not!”

“Not steal him out of England? Why, how can you say so when it was you who showed me what I must do?”

“Oh, don’t say so!” Phoebe cried sharply.

Ianthe laughed. “But of course it was you! As soon as I read how Florian and Matilda smuggled Maximilian on to that boat—”

“I implore you, stop!” begged Phoebe. “You cannot think that I meant that nonsense to be taken seriously! Lady Henry, you must let me take Edmund back to London! When I wrote that Ugolino couldn’t pursue Maximilian out of his own country it was make-believe! But this is real life, and I assure you Salford can pursue you—perhaps even have you punished by the law!”

“He won’t know where we are,” replied Ianthe confidently. “Besides, Sylvester hates scandal. I am persuaded he would endure anything rather than let the world know the least one of the family secrets!”

“Then how could you serve him such a trick?” demanded Phoebe hotly. “The Duchess too! You cannot have considered what distress you will cause her if you hold by this scheme!”

Ianthe began to pout. “She is not Edmund’s mama! I think you are being very unjust! You don’t care for my distress! You cannot, enter into the feelings of a mother, I daresay, but I should have thought you must have known I could never abandon my child to Sylvester. And don’t tell me you didn’t mean Maximilian for Edmund, because everyone knows you did!”

“Yes!” flashed Phoebe. “Because you told everyone so! Oh, haven’t you harmed me enough? You promised me you wouldn’t repeat what passed between us—”

“I didn’t repeat it! The only person I told was Sally Derwent, and I particularly warned her not to mention it to a soul!” interrupted Ianthe, much aggrieved. “How can you be so unkind to me? As though my nerves were not worn down enough! I have had to bring Edmund without Button, and I am obliged to do everything for him, because he is so cross and naughty with poor Nugent, and I scarcely closed my eyes all night, because we were travelling, and I had to hold Edmund in my lap, and he kept waking up and crying, and saying he wanted to be sick, till I was fagged to death! If I told him one fairy-tale I told him fifty, but he would do nothing but say he wished to go home, till I could have slapped him! And that odious abigail refusing at the last minute to go with me, and now you reproaching me—oh, it is too bad! I don’t know how I shall manage, for I am feeling very unwell already! Why can’t those horrid sailors keep the boat still? Why does it rock up and down when it isn’t even moving yet? I know I shall be prostrate the instant we set sail, and then who is to take care of Edmund?”

This impassioned speech ended in a burst of tears, but when Phoebe, seizing on the final woe, represented to the injured beauty how imprudent it would be to embark with Edmund upon a rough sea passage without providing him with an attendant, Ianthe declared herself ready to sacrifice her health, comfort, and even her sanity rather than give up her child; adding however, with a slight lapse from nobility: “People would say I cared more for riches than Edmund!”

Since this seemed more than likely Phoebe found it difficult to reassure her; but before she had uttered more than a dozen words Ianthe was struck by a brilliant notion, and started up from her berth, her face transfigured. “Oh, Miss Marlow, I have hit on the very thing! We will take you with us! Just as far as to Paris, I mean. There can be no objection: you mean to go there, and I am sure there is no occasion for you to travel with Lady Ingham if you don’t choose to do so! She may join you in Paris—you can stay at the Embassy until she comes: that may easily be arranged!—and she must surely be able to undertake the journey without you. She has her abigail to go with her, remember! I am persuaded she would be the first to say I ought not to be obliged to travel without a female to support me. Oh, Miss Marlow, do, pray, say you will stay with me!”

Miss Marlow was still saying that she would do no such thing when Sir Nugent once more begged his bride’s permission to come in.

He was followed by Tom, whom he at once presented, with great punctilio. Tom said that he begged her ladyship’s pardon for intruding upon her, but had come to tell Phoebe it was time to be going ashore again. A speaking look directed at his childhood’s friend conveyed to her the information that his attempts to bring Sir Nugent to a sense of his wrongdoing had met with failure.

Beyond bestowing a mechanical smile upon him, Ianthe paid him little heed, addressing herself instead to Sir Nugent, and eagerly explaining to him her brilliant notion. In him she found her only supporter: not only did he think it a stroke of genius, but he called upon Phoebe and Tom to applaud it. He won no response. Politely at first, and later with distressing frankness, Tom explained to him why he thought it rather the hall-mark of folly. He said that he would neither accompany the party to France nor remain behind to tell Lady Ingham why her granddaughter had abandoned her, and from this standpoint nothing would move him.

He had entered the cabin with the intention only of taking Phoebe ashore. In his view, there was nothing more to be done, and she might wash her hands of the affair with a clear conscience. But as Ianthe reiterated her former arguments, several times asserting that it was absurd of Phoebe to have scruples now, when everyone knew she had instigated the plot, his sentiments soon underwent a change. He saw all the force of what Phoebe had previously urged, and ranged himself on her side, even going so far as to talk of laying information with the nearest magistrate.

“Very ungentlemanly thing to do,” said Sir Nugent, shaking his head. “Don’t think you should. Besides, there’s no sense in it: you go to the magistrate, we set sail, and then where are you?”

Tom, who was becoming heated, retorted: “Not if I don’t go ashore till you’ve lost the tide! What’s more I’ll take the boy with me, because I’ve a strong notion it would be perfectly lawful to do so, and if you try to stop me it will very likely be a felony!”

“You rude, odious—Nugent! Where is Edmund?” cried Ianthe. “How could you leave him alone? Good God, he may have fallen overboard! Bring him to me this instant, unless you want me to run mad with anxiety!”

“No, no, don’t do that, my love! Plenty of sailors to fish him out again, you know,” Sir Nugent assured her. “Not but what I’ll fetch him to you, if you want him!”

“He won’t fall overboard,” said Tom, as Sir Nugent departed on his errand.

“You know nothing about it!” snapped Ianthe. “I am his mother, and I shan’t know one moment’s peace until he is safe in my arms.”

She repeated this statement with even more emphasis when Sir Nugent presently reappeared with the comforting intelligence that Edmund, safe in the valet’s charge, was watching the men bring the carriage aboard; but when she learned that an attempt to pick him up had led him to kick his new papa severely before assuming an alarming rigidity, she seemed to feel that his presence in the cabin would not be conducive to peace, for she said only that if he began to scream it would be more than her nerves could endure without breaking under the strain.

Harping on this string, Phoebe then did her best to convince her that this sad accident would inevitably befall her if she were obliged to look after Edmund during the passage. She received unexpected support from Sir Nugent, who said that the more he considered the matter the more he thought it would be a devilish good notion to let Miss Marlow take Edmund home. “What I mean is,” he explained, “it’s a notion that took very well with him. He seems set against going to France. I daresay he don’t like foreigners. Very understandable: I don’t know that I like’em myself.”

This treachery naturally incensed Ianthe beyond measure. Having poured forth the vials of her wrath upon him, she said tragically that everyone was against her, and burst into a fit of hysterical tears. Feeling the battle to be almost won, Phoebe redoubled her efforts to persuade her, while Tom applied himself to the task of bringing over the waverer. With four people engaged in hot argument the sounds of increased activity on deck passed unheeded. The swell that had all the time been gently rocking the schooner had for several minutes been growing heavier, but it was not until the Betsy Anne took a plunge which made him stagger that Tom realized what must be happening.

“My God!” he gasped. “We’re moving!”