Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

22

The Lion d’Argent was Calais’ most fashionable inn. A parlour and its two best bedchambers had been engaged by Sinderby, the courier hired by Sir Nugent to smooth the furrows from the path of what promised to be a protracted honeymoon. Sinderby had crossed to Calais to be sure of securing accommodation worthy of his wealthy patron, both at the Lion d’Argent and at Abbeville’s best hotel. He had also hired a bonne to wait on Master Edmund; and he returned to Dover to superintend the embarkation of the party, feeling that he had provided for every eventuality.

He could not like the chariot of Sir Nugent’s design but he accepted it; the arrival of my lady without her maid was harder to accept, for he foresaw that he would be expected to produce a first-rate abigail as soon as he landed again in France, which would be impossible. Her ladyship would have to be content with the services of some quite inferior person until she came to Paris, and she did not bear the appearance of a lady easily contented.

With the arrival on board the Betsy Anne of Miss Marlow and Mr. Orde his spirits sank. Not only did the addition of two more people to the party overset his careful plans, but he could not approve of these unexpected travellers. He speedily came to the conclusion that there was something smoky about them. They had no baggage; and when, on arrival at Calais, he had requested Mr. Orde to give into his charge his and Miss Marlow’s passports Mr. Orde, clapping a hand to his pocket, had uttered an exclamation of dismay. “Don’t say you haven’t got the passports!” had cried Miss Marlow. “Oh, no!” had been Mr. Orde’s grim response. “I’ve got ’em all right and tight! All of ’em!” Upon which Miss Marlow had looked ready to faint. Something very havey-cavey about Miss Marlow and Mr. Orde, decided Sinderby.

He had foreseen that a wearing time awaited him in Calais, but he had not bargained for a search among the haberdashers’ shops for a nightshirt to fit a six-year-old child. Furthermore, neither Sir Nugent’s wealth nor his own address could procure two extra bedchambers at the Lion d’Argent, as full as it could hold. He was obliged to accept for Miss Marlow the apartment hired for my lady’s abigail, and to put Mr. Orde in with Sir Nugent, an arrangement which was agreeable to neither of these gentlemen. The Young Person he had found to wait on my lady clearly would not do: she lacked quality. There would be complaints from my lady.

When he returned from scouring the town for a nightshirt it was to discover that another of his arrangements had been overset. Master Rayne had flatly refused to have anything to do with the excellent bonne provided for him.

“Had to send her off,” said Sir Nugent. “Silly wench started gabbling French to him! He wouldn’t stand that, of course. Took it in snuff immediately. I knew he would, the moment she said bong-jaw. “Mark me,” I said to Miss Marlow, “if her tale ain’t told!” Which it was. However, it don’t signify: Miss Marlow means to look after him. Devilish good thing we brought her with us!”

Lady Ianthe having retired to bed as soon as she had arrived at the Lion d’Argent, only three of the party sat down to dinner in the private parlour. Edmund, who had revived the instant he had set foot on land, had providentially dropped asleep in the little bed set up for him in Phoebe’s attic, and Pett was mounting guard over him. He was also washing and ironing his only day-shirt, an office which he promised to perform every evening until the young gentleman’s wardrobe could be replenished.

Phoebe was too tired to talk, and Tom too much preoccupied with the problems besetting them, so the burden of conversation fell on Sir Nugent, who maintained throughout the meal a stream of amiable reminiscences. However, when the covers were removed he excused himself, and went off to enjoy one of his cigars downstairs.

“Thank the lord!” said Tom. “Phoebe, we must discuss what’s to be done. I don’t want to croak, but the fact is we’re in the devil of a fix.”

“I suppose we are,” she agreed, with remarkable calm. “But at least I know what I must do. Should you mind, Tom, if I write two letters before we discuss anything? I have spoken to the courier, and he engages to have them conveyed to England by the next packet, by a private hand. My letter to Grandmama, and the passports, will be taken directly to the Ship, but the courier warns me that if this wind continues the packet may not sail tomorrow.” She sighed, and said resignedly: “I hope it may, but if it doesn’t there’s no other way of reaching poor Grandmama, so it’s no use fretting.”

“Who is the other letter for? Salford?” asked Tom shrewdly.

“Yes, of course. If he is unable to discover in which direction Ianthe fled—”

“I shouldn’t think that likely,” interrupted Tom. “Not if he gets wind of that carriage!”

“No, that’s what I hope,” she agreed. “But he might not, you know. So I shall send him word, and tell him also that I don’t mean to leave Edmund, and will contrive somehow to leave word for him wherever we stop on the road.”

“Oh!” said Tom. “So that’s it, is it? Never mind the letters yet! We’ll discuss this business first. How much money have you?” She shook her head. “None, eh? I thought not. Well, all I have is the ready in my pockets, and it don’t amount to more than a couple of Yellow Boys, fifteen shillings in coach-wheels, and a few ha’pence. The roll of soft Father gave me is locked in my portmanteau. I daresay I could borrow from Fotherby, but I don’t mind telling you it’ll go against the shins with me to do it! I’ve had to borrow one of his shirts already, and a few neckcloths and handkerchiefs, you know. What about you?”

“Oh, isn’t it horrid?” she exclaimed. “I’ve had to borrow from Lady Ianthe, and one would so much prefer not to be beholden to either of them! But perhaps we may be able to set it right again, if things go as I hope they may. Grandmama will receive those passports with my letter, and surely she must set out at once, whatever the weather?”

“I should think so,” he agreed. “And a rare tweak she’ll be in! Phew!”

“Yes, and how could one blame her? And if I were obliged to go beyond Paris—No, I think Salford must have overtaken us before that could happen, even if he doesn’t start until he has read my letter. I know that Sir Nugent means to take four days on the road to Paris, and I fancy he will find he must take more, with Edmund on his hands. If he leaves Calais at all!”

“Leaving tomorrow, aren’t they?”

“Yes, that’s what they mean to do, but I shouldn’t wonder at it if they find themselves fixed here for several days. Tom, I think Lady Ianthe really is ill!”

“Well, I own that would be nuts for us, but what if she ain’t?”

“Then I am going with them,” said Phoebe. “I won’t leave Edmund. Oh, Tom, for all his quaint ways he’s the merest baby! When I kissed him goodnight he put his arms round my neck, and made me promise not to go away! I nearly cried myself, for it was so very affecting. He can’t understand what is happening to him, and he was afraid I might slip away if he let me out of his sight. But when I said I would stay until he has Button again he was quite satisfied. I don’t mean to break faith with him, I assure you.”

“I see,” Tom said.

She looked gratefully at him. “I knew you would. But I have been thinking whether it might not be best, perhaps, if you borrowed enough money from Sir Nugent to buy your passage back to Dover, to escort Grandmama?”

“You needn’t say any more!” he interrupted. “If you think I’ll leave you to career across France with this ramshackle pair you were never more mistaken in your life!”

“Well, to own the truth I didn’t think you would,” she said candidly. “And I must say I am thankful for it! Not but what Sir Nugent is very good-natured.”

“Oh, he’s good-natured enough!” Tom said. “But don’t you get it into your head that he’s a man of character, because he ain’t! He’s a pretty loose fish, if you want the truth! He was talking to me for ever aboard the schooner, and it’s as plain as a pack-saddle he hobnobs with a set of dashed Queer Nabs: all sorts upon the lark! In fact, he’s what my father calls half flash and half foolish. Well, good God, if he had any principles he wouldn’t have kidnapped Edmund!”

She smiled. “A Bad Man!”

“Ah, there’s a deal of sense in young Edmund’s cock-loft!” he said, grinning.

On the following morning Phoebe led Edmund down to breakfast to find that Ianthe was still keeping her bed; but her hopes of delay were dashed when Sir Nugent informed her with an air of grave concern that although her la’ship was feeling devilish poorly she was determined to leave Calais that morning. She had not closed her eyes all night. People had tramped past her door; boots had been flung about in the room above hers; doors had been slammed; and the rumble of vehicles over the pavé had brought on her nervous tic. Though it killed her she would drive to Abbeville that day.

Edmund, who was seated beside Phoebe at the table, a napkin knotted round his neck, looked up at this. “You wish to kill Mama,” he stated.

“Eh?” ejaculated Sir Nugent. “No, dash it—! You can’t say things like that!”

“Mama said it,” replied Edmund. “On that boat she said it.”

“Did she? Well, but—well, what I mean is it’s a bag of moonshine! Devoted to her! Ask anyone!”

“And you told lies, and—”

“You eat your egg and don’t talk so much!” intervened Tom, adding in an undervoice to his perturbed host: “I shouldn’t argue with him, if I were you.”

“Yes, that’s all very well,” objected Sir Nugent. “He don’t go about telling people you are a regular hedge-bird! Where will he draw the line, that’s what I should like to know?”

“When Uncle Vester knows what you did to me he will punish you in a terrible way!” said Edmund ghoulishly.

“You see?” exclaimed Sir Nugent. “Now we shall have him setting it about I’ve been ill-using him!”

“Uncle Vester,” pursued his small tormentor, “is the terriblest person in the world!”

“You know, you shouldn’t talk like that about your uncle,” Sir Nugent said earnestly. “I don’t say I like him myself, but I don’t go about saying he’s terrible! Top-lofty, yes, but—”

“Uncle Vester doesn’t wish you to like him!” declared Edmund, very much flushed.

“I daresay he don’t, but if you mean he’ll call me out—well, I don’t think he will. Mind, if he chooses to do so—”

“Lord, Fotherby, don’t encourage him!” said Tom, exasperated.

“Uncle Vester will grind your bones!” said Edmund.

“Grind my bones?” repeated Sir Nugent, astonished. “You’ve got windmills in your head, boy! What the deuce should he do that for?”

“To make him bread,” responded Edmund promptly.

“But you don’t make bread with bones!”

“Uncle Vester does,” said Edmund.

“That’s enough!” said Tom, trying not to laugh. “It’s you that’s telling whiskers now! You know very well your uncle doesn’t do any such thing, so just you stop pitching it rum!”

Edmund, apparently recognizing Tom as a force to be reckoned with, subsided, and applied himself to his egg again. But when he had finished it he shot a speculative glance at Tom under his curling lashes, and said: “P’raps Uncle Vester will nap him a rum ’un.”

Tom gave a shout of laughter, but Phoebe scooped Edmund up and bore him off. Edmund, pleased by the success of his audacious sally, twinkled engagingly at Tom over her shoulder, but was heard to say before the door closed: “We Raynes do not like to be carried!”

The party left for Abbeville an hour later, in impressive style. Sir Nugent having loftily rejected a suggestion that the heavy baggage should be sent to Paris by the roulier, no fewer than four vehicles set out from the Lion d’Argent. The velvet-lined chariot bearing Sir Nugent and his bride headed the cavalcade; Phoebe, Tom, and Edmund followed in a hired post-chaise; and the rear was brought up by two cabriolets, one occupied by Pett and the Young Person hired to wait on my lady, and the other crammed with baggage. Quite a number of people gathered to watch this departure, a circumstance that seemed to afford Sir Nugent great satisfaction until a jarring note was introduced by Edmund, who strenuously resisted all efforts to make him enter the chaise, and was finally picked up, kicking and screaming, by Tom, and unceremoniously tossed on to the seat. As he saw fit to reiterate at the top of his voice that his father-in-law was a Bad Man, Sir Nugent fell into acute embarrassment, which was only alleviated when Tom reminded him that the interested onlookers were probably unable to understand anything Edmund said.

Once inside the chaise Edmund stopped screaming. He bore up well for the first stages, beguiled by a game of Travelling Piquet. But as the number of flocks of geese, parsons riding grey horses, or old women sitting under hedges was limited on the post-road from Calais to Boulogne, this entertainment soon palled, and he began to be restive. By the time Boulogne was reached Phoebe’s repertoire of stories had been exhausted, and Edmund, who had been growing steadily more silent, said in a very tight voice that he felt as sick as a horse. He was granted a respite at Boulogne, where the travellers stopped for half an hour to refresh, but the look of despair on his face when he was lifted again into the chaise moved Tom to say, over his head: “I call it downright cruel to drag the poor little devil along on a journey like this!”

At Abbeville, which they reached at a late hour, Sinderby was awaiting them at the best hotel with tidings which caused Sir Nugent to suffer almost as much incredulity as vexation. Sinderby had to report failure. He had been unable to persuade the best hotel’s proprietor either to eject his other clients from the premises, or to sell the place outright to Sir Nugent. “As I ventured, sir, to warn you would be the case,” added Sinderby, in a voice wholly devoid of expression.

“Won’t sell it?” said Sir Nugent. “You stupid fellow, did you tell him who I am?”

“The information did not appear to interest him, sir.”

“Did you tell him my fortune is the largest in England?” demanded Sir Nugent.

“Certainly, sir. He desired me to offer you his felicitations.”

“He must be mad!” ejaculated Sir Nugent, stunned.

“It is curious that you should say so, sir,” replied Sinderby. “Precisely what he said—expressing himself in French, of course.”

“Well, upon my soul!” said Sir Nugent, his face reddening with anger. “That to me? I’ll have the damned ale-draper to know I ain’t in the habit of being denied! Go and tell him that when Nugent Fotherby wants a thing he buys it, cost what it may!”

“I never listened to such nonsense in my life!” said Phoebe, unable any longer to restrain her impatience. “I wish you will stop brangling, Sir Nugent, and inform me whether we are to put up here, or not! It may be nothing to you, but here is this unfortunate child nearly dead with fatigue, while you stand there puffing off your consequence!”

Sir Nugent was too much taken aback by this sudden attack to be able to think of anything to say; Sinderby, regarding Miss Marlow with a faint glimmer of approval in his cold eyes, said: “Bearing in mind, sir, your instructions to me to provide for her ladyship the strictest quiet, I have arranged what I trust will be found to be satisfactory accommodation in a much smaller establishment. It is not a resort of fashion, but its situation, which is removed from the centre of the town, may render it agreeable to her ladyship. I am happy to say that I was able to persuade Madame to place the entire inn at your disposal, sir, for as many days as you may desire it, on condition that the three persons she was already entertaining were willing to remove from the house.”

“You aren’t going to tell us that they were willing, are you?” demanded Tom.

“At first, sir, no. When, however, they understood that the remainder of their stay in Abbeville—I trust not a protracted one—would be spent by them in the apartments I had engaged at this hotel for Sir Nugent, and at his expense, they expressed themselves as being enchanted to fall in with his wishes. Now, sir, if you will rejoin her ladyship in the travelling chariot, I will escort you to the Poisson Rouge.”

Sir Nugent stood scowling for a moment, and pulling at his underlip. It was left to Edmund to apply the goad: “I want to go home!” announced Edmund fretfully. “I want my Button! I’m not happy!”

Sir Nugent started, and without further argument climbed back into the chariot.

When he saw the size and style of the Poisson Rouge he was so indignant that had it not been for Ianthe, who said crossly that rather than go another yard she would sleep the night in a cowbyre, another altercation might have taken place. As she was handed tenderly down the steps, Madame Bonnet came out to welcome her eccentric English guests, and fell into such instant raptures over the beauty of miladi and her enchanting little son that Ianthe was at once disposed to be very well pleased with the inn. Edmund, glowering upon Madame, showed a tendency to hide behind Phoebe, but when a puppy came frisking out of the inn his brow cleared magically, and he said: “I like this place!”

Everyone but Sir Nugent liked the place. It was by no means luxurious, but it was clean, and had a homelike air. The coffee-room might be furnished only with benches and several very hard chairs, but Ianthe’s bedchamber looked out on to a small garden and was perfectly quiet, which, as she naively said, was all that signified. Moreover, Madame, learning of her indisposition, not only gave up her own featherbed to her, but made her a tisane, and showed herself to be in general so full of sympathy that the ill-used beauty, in spite of aching head and limbs, began to feel very much more cheerful, and even expressed a desire to have her child brought to kiss her before he went to bed. Madame said she had a great envy to witness this spectacle, having been forcibly reminded of the Sainte Vierge as soon as she had set eyes on the angelic visages of miladi and her lovely child.

A discordant note was struck by Phoebe, who entered upon this scene of ecstasy only to tell Ianthe bluntly that she had not brought Edmund with her because she had a suspicion that what ailed his doting mother was nothing less than a severe attack of influenza. “And if he were to take it from you, after all he has been made to undergo, it would be beyond everything!” said Phoebe.

Ianthe achieved a wan, angelic smile, and said: “You are very right, dear Miss Marlow. Poor little man! Kiss him for me, and tell him that Mama is thinking of him all the time!”

Phoebe, who had left Edmund playing with the puppy, said: “Oh yes! I will certainly do so, if he should ask for you!” and withdrew, leaving Ianthe to the more agreeable companionship of her new admirer.

Upon the following day a physician was summoned to Ianthe’s sick-bed. He confirmed Phoebe’s diagnosis, and with very little prompting said that with persons of miladi’s delicate constitution the greatest care must be exercised: miladi should beware of over-exertion.

“So I fancy we may consider ourselves as fixed here for at least a week,” Phoebe said, setting out with Tom and Edmund to buy linen for Edmund. “Tom, did you contrive to leave word at that hotel where we were to be found? For Salford, you know!”

“Leave word!” echoed Tom scornfully. “Of course I didn’t! You don’t suppose they will forget Fotherby there in a hurry, do you? Trying to purchase the place! Well, of all the gudgeons!”

“Gudgeon,” repeated Edmund, committing this pleasing word to memory.

“Oh, lord!” said Tom. “Now, don’t you repeat that, young Edmund! And another thing! You are not to call Sir Nugent a moulder!” He waited until Edmund had run ahead again, and then said severely to Phoebe: “You know, Phoebe, you’ve no business to encourage him to be rude to Fotherby!”

“I don’t encourage him,” she said, looking a little guilty. “Only I can’t help feeling that it would be foolish to stop him, because that might make Sir Nugent wish to keep him. And you can’t deny, Tom, that if he were to take him in dislike it would make it much easier for—it would make it much easier to persuade Lady Ianthe to give him up!”

“Well, of all the unprincipled females!” gasped Tom. “Take care Fotherby ain’t goaded into murdering him, that’s all! He ain’t in the humour to stand the roast much longer, and the way that young demon keeps on asking him if he can take a fly off a horse’s ear, or some such thing, and then saying that his Uncle Vester can, is enough to drive the silly chuckle-head into a madhouse!”

Phoebe giggled, but said: “I must say, one can’t wonder at his being out of humour! With an ailing bride and a son-in-law who detests him I do think he is having a horrid honeymoon, don’t you?”

But neither of these disagreeable circumstances was, in fact, at the root of Sir Nugent’s loss of equanimity, as Phoebe was soon to discover. Finding her alone in the coffee-room that afternoon it was not long before he was confiding to her the true cause of his dissatisfaction. He disliked the Poisson Rouge. Phoebe was rather surprised at first, because Madame Bonnet, besides being a notable cook, treated him with all the deference and anxiety to please that the most exacting guest could have demanded; and everyone else, from the waiter to the boots, scurried to obey his lightest commands. After listening to his discourse for a few minutes she understood the matter better. Sir Nugent had never before so lowered himself as to put up at any but the most fashionable and expensive hostelries. Both his consequence and his love of display had suffered severe wounds. More sensitive souls might shrink from attracting public notice; to Sir Nugent Fotherby, the wealthiest man in England, it was the breath of life. He had hugely enjoyed the sensation caused by Ianthe’s opulent chariot; it afforded him intense pleasure to be ushered by landlords, bent nearly double in obsequiousness, into the best apartments, and to know that his sauntering progress was watched by envious eyes. No such eyes were to be found at the Poisson Rouge. To be sure, had he been able to purchase the Hotel d’Angleterre, and to eject from it all other guests, he would have found himself similarly bereft; but what a gesture it would have been! how swiftly would the news of his eccentricity have spread over the town! with what awe would the citizens have pointed him out whenever he had sallied forth into the street! To have commandeered an unfashionable inn in a quiet road might be eccentric, but conveyed no sense of his fabulous wealth to the inhabitants of Abbeville. It was even doubtful if anyone beyond Madame Bonnet’s immediate circle knew anything about it.

Naturally, he did not phrase his grievance so plainly: it rather crept through his other complaints. Acquainted as Phoebe was with another kind of pride, she listened to him with as much amazement as enjoyment. It would have been idle to have denied enjoyment, which was tempered only by regret that the rich mine of absurdity underlying his foppish appearance had been unknown to her when she had caused his image to flit through the pages of The Lost Heir. She found herself weaving a new story round him, and greeted with relief (since the outcome of her first literary adventure had been so appalling) the entrance into the room of Master Rayne, his new friend prancing at his heels.

Madame had bestowed the name of Toto upon the puppy, but he was known to her guests as Chien, a slight misunderstanding having arisen between Madame and Master Rayne. Edmund, overcoming his dislike of foreigners in his desire to pursue his acquaintanceship with Toto, had nerved himself to seek him in the kitchen, and even to demand his name of Madame. Chien was what Madame had said, and when he had repeated it she had nodded and clapped her hands. So Chien the puppy had to be.

Sir Nugent eyed his stepson with apprehension, but Edmund addressed himself to Phoebe. He wanted the coloured chalks Tom had bought for him, Chien having expressed a desire of having his likeness drawn. Having been supplied with the chalks and some paper he disposed himself on the floor and abandoned himself to art. The amiable Chien sat beside him, thumping his tail on the floor, and gently panting.

Seeing that Edmund was absorbed in his own affairs Sir Nugent resumed his discourse, walking up and down the room while he enumerated his grievances.

He had arrayed himself that morning in the nattiest of town-wear. His costume, besides such novel features as white pantaloons, and the Fotherby Tie, included a pair of Hessian boots, never before worn, and decorated with extra-large gold tassels. Hoby had made them to his design, and not Lord Petersham himself had ever been seen in more striking footwear. As Sir Nugent strode about the coffee-room the tassels swung with his every step, just as he had hoped they would. No one could fail to notice them: not even a puppy of dubious lineage.

Chien was fascinated by them. He watched them with his head on one side for several minutes before succumbing to temptation, but they beckoned too alluringly to be withstood. He rose to investigate them more nearly, and snapped at the one bobbing closest to his nose.

An exclamation of horror broke from Sir Nugent, followed by a stentorian command to Chien to drop it. Chien responded by growling as he tugged at the bauble, and wagging his tail. Edmund burst into a peal of joyous laughter, and clapped his hands. This outburst of innocent merriment drew from Sir Nugent so fierce an expletive that Phoebe thought it prudent to go to his rescue.

Tom entered on a scene of turmoil. Chien was barking excitedly in Phoebe’s arms; Edmund was still laughing: Pett, attracted by his master’s anguished cries, was kneeling before him, tenderly smoothing the tassel; and Sir Nugent, red with fury, was describing in intemperate language the various forms of execution of which Chien was deserving.

Tom acted with great presence of mind, commanding Edmund so peremptorily to take Chien away that Edmund obeyed him without venturing on argument. He then frowned down Phoebe’s giggles, and mollified Sir Nugent by promising that Chien should not be allowed in the coffee-room again.

Informed of this ban Edmund was indignant, and had to be called to order for begging Tom to give Sir Nugent a pelt in the smeller. He retired in high dudgeon with Chien to the kitchen, where he spent the rest of the afternoon, playing with a lump of dough, and being regaled with raisins, marchpane, and candied peel.

On the following day Sir Nugent wisely forbore to wear his beautiful new boots; and Edmund surprised his protectors by behaving in such a saintly fashion that Sir Nugent began to look upon him with reluctant favour.

It came on to rain in the afternoon, and after drawing several unconvincing portraits, which he kindly bestowed on Phoebe, Edmund became a trifle disconsolate, but was diverted by raindrop races on the window-pane. He was kneeling on a chair, reporting the dilatory progress of her allotted drop to Phoebe, when a post-chaise and four came along the street, and drew up outside the Poisson Rouge.

Edmund was interested, but not more so than Phoebe, who no sooner heard the clatter of the approaching equipage than she came over to the window. It was the sound she had been hoping to hear, and as the chaise drew to a standstill her heart began to beat fast with hope.

The door was opened, and a figure in a caped overcoat of white drab sprang lightly down, turned to give some order to the postilions, and strode into the inn.

A long sigh escaped Phoebe; Master Rayne uttered a piercing scream, scrambled down from his chair, and tore across the room, shrieking: “Uncle Vester, Uncle Vester!”