Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

23

Edmund succeeded in opening the door, still shrieking Uncle Vester! at the top of his voice, just as Sylvester reached the coffee-room. He was halted on the threshold by having his legs embraced, and said, as he bent to detach himself from his nephew’s frenzied grip: “Well, you noisy brat?”

“Uncle Vester, Uncle Vester!” cried Edmund.

Sylvester laughed, and swung him up. “Edmund, Edmund!” he mocked. “No, don’t strangle me! Oh, you rough nephew!”

As yet unperceived, Phoebe remained by the window, watching with some amusement Edmund’s ecstatic welcome to his wicked uncle. She was not so very much surprised, though she had not expected him to be cast into quite such transports of delight. If anything surprised her it was Sylvester’s amused acceptance of Edmund’s violent hug. He did not look at all like a man who disliked children; and he did not look at all like the man who had said such terrible things to her at Lady Castlereagh’s ball. That image, which had so painfully obsessed her, faded, and with it the embarrassment which had made her dread his arrival almost as much as she had hoped for it.

“Tell that Bad Man I am not his little boy!” begged Edmund. “Mama says I don’t belong to you, Uncle Vester, but I do, don’t I?”

This was uttered so passionately that Phoebe could not help laughing. Sylvester looked round quickly, and saw her. Something leaped in his eyes; she had the impression that he was going to start towards her. But the look vanished in a flash, and he did not move. The memory of their last meeting surged back, and she knew herself to be unforgiven.

He did not speak immediately, but set Edmund on his feet. Then he said: “A surprise, Miss Marlow—though I daresay I should have guessed, had I put myself to the trouble of considering the matter, that I should be very likely to find you here.”

His voice was level, concealing all trace of the emotions seething in his breast. They were varied, but uppermost was anger: with her for having, as he supposed, assisted in the abduction of Edmund; with himself for having, for an unthinking moment, been so overjoyed to see her. That made him so furious that he would not open his lips until he could command himself. He had been trying, ever since the night of the ball, to banish all thought of her from his mind. This had not been possible, but by dint of dwelling on the injury she had done him he had supposed he had at least cured himself of his most foolish tendre for her. It had been an easy task to remember only her shameful conduct, for the wound she had inflicted on him could not be forgotten. She had held him up as a mockery to the world: that in itself was an offence, but if the portrait she had drawn of him had been unrecognizable he could have forgiven her. He had thought it so, but when he had turned to his mother, who had given the book to him to read, prepared to shrug it off, to tell her that it was too absurd to be worth a moment’s indignation, he had seen in her face not indignation but trouble. He had been so much shocked that he had exclaimed: “This is not a portrait of me! Oh, I grant the eyebrows, but nothing else!” She had replied: “It is overdrawn, of course.” It had been a full minute before he could bring himself to say: “Am I like this contemptible fellow, then? Insufferably proud, so indifferent—so puffed up in my own esteem that—Mama!” She had said quickly, stretching out her hand to him: “Never to me, Sylvester! But I have sometimes wondered—if you had grown to be a little—uncaring—towards others, perhaps.”

He had been stricken to silence, and she had said no more. There had been no need: Ugolino was a caricature, but a recognizable one; and because he was forced to believe this, his resentment, irrationally but inevitably in one of his temperament, blazed into such rage as he had never known before.

As he looked at Phoebe across the coffee-room he knew her for his evil genius. She had embroiled him in her ridiculous flight from her home; she had led him to pay her such attentions as had brought them both under the gaze of the interested ton. He forgot that his original intention had been to win her regard only to make her regret her rejection of his suit: he had forgotten it long ago. He knew that her book must have been written before she had become so well acquainted with him, but she had neither stopped its publication nor warned him of it. She had been the cause of his having behaved, at that accursed ball, in a manner as unworthy of a man of breeding as anything could well have been. What had made him do it he would never know. It had been his intention to treat her with unswerving civility. He had meant to make no mention, then or thereafter, of her book, but to have conducted himself towards her in such a way as must have shown her how grossly she had misjudged him. He had been sure that he had had himself well in hand; and yet, no sooner was his arm round her waist and his hand clasping hers than his anger and a sense of bitter hurt had mastered him. She had broken from his hold in tears, and he had been furious with her for doing it, because he knew he had brought that scene on himself. And now he found her in Abbeville, laughing at him. He had never doubted that it was she who had put the notion of a flight from England into Ianthe’s head, but he had believed she had not meant to do so. It was now borne in upon him that she must have been throughout in Ianthe’s confidence.

Knowing nothing of what was in his mind Phoebe watched him in perplexity. After a long pause she said, in a constricted tone: “I collect you have not received my letter, Duke?”

“I have not had that pleasure. How obliging of you to have written to me! To inform me of this affair, no doubt?”

“I could have no other reason for writing to you.”

“You should have spared yourself the trouble. Having read your book, Miss Marlow, it was not difficult to guess what had happened. I own it did not occur to me that you were actually aiding my sister-in-law, but of course it should have. When I discovered that she had taken Edmund away without his nurse I ought certainly to have guessed how it must be. Are you filling that position out of malice, or did you feel, having made London too hot to hold you, that it offered you a chance of escape?”

As she listened to these incredible words Phoebe passed from shock to an anger as great as his, and not as well concealed. He had spoken in a light, contemptuous voice; she could not keep hers from shaking when she retorted: “From malice!”

Before he could speak again Edmund said, in an uneasy tone: “Phoebe is my friend, Uncle Vester! Are—are you vexed with her? Please don’t be! I love her next to Keighley!”

“Do you, my dear?” said Phoebe. “That is praise indeed! No one is vexed: your uncle was funning, that’s all!” She looked at Sylvester, and said as naturally as she could: “You must wish to see Lady Ianthe, I daresay. I regret that she is indisposed—is confined to her bed, in fact, with an attack of influenza.”

His colour was rather heightened; for he had forgotten that Edmund was still clinging to his hand, and was annoyed with himself for having been betrayed into impropriety. He said only: “I trust Fotherby is not similarly indisposed?”

“No, I believe he is sitting with Lady Ianthe. I will inform him of your arrival directly.” She smiled at Edmund. “Shall we go and see if that cake Madame said she would bake for your supper is done yet?”

“I think I will stay with Uncle Vester,” Edmund decided.

“No, go with Miss Marlow. I am going to talk to Sir Nugent,” said Sylvester.

“Will you grind his bones?” asked Edmund hopefully.

“No, how should I be able to do that? I’m not a giant, and I don’t live at the top of a beanstalk. Go, now.”

Edmund looked regretful, but obeyed. Sylvester cast his driving-coat over a chair, and walked over to the fire.

He had not long to wait for Sir Nugent. That exquisite came into the room a very few minutes later, exclaiming: “Well, upon my soul! I declare I was never more surprised in my life! How do you do? I’m devilish glad to see your grace!”

This entirely unexpected greeting threw Sylvester off his balance. “Glad to see me?” he repeated.

“Devilish glad to see you!” corrected Sir Nugent. “Ianthe was persuaded you wouldn’t follow us. Thought you wouldn’t wish to kick up a dust. I wouldn’t have betted on it, though I own I didn’t expect you to come up with us so quickly. Damme, I congratulate you, Duke! No flourishing, no casting, and how you picked up the scent the lord only knows!”

“What I want, Fotherby, is not your congratulation, but my ward!” said Sylvester. “You will also be so obliging as to explain to me what the devil you meant by bringing him to France!”

“Now, there,” said Sir Nugent frankly, “you have me at Point-Non-Plus, Duke! I fancy Nugent Fotherby ain’t often at a loss. I fancy you’d be told, if you was to ask anyone, that Nugent Fotherby is as shrewd as he can hold together. But that question is a doubler. I don’t mind telling you that every time I ask myself why the devil I brought that boy to France I’m floored. It’s a great relief to me to hear you say you want him—you did say so, didn’t you?”

“I did, and I will add that I am going to have him!”

“I take your word for that,” Sir Nugent said. “Nugent Fotherby ain’t the man to doubt a gentleman’s honour. Let us discuss the matter!”

“There is nothing whatsoever to discuss!” said Sylvester, almost grinding his teeth.

“I assure your grace discussion is most necessary,” said Sir Nugent earnestly. “The boy has a mother! She is not at the moment in plump currant, you know. She must be cherished!”

“Not by me!” snapped Sylvester.

“Certainly not! If I may say so—without offence, you understand—it’s not your business to cherish her: never said you would! I daresay, being a bachelor, you may not know it, but I did. I’m not at all sure I didn’t swear it: it sounded devilish like an oath to me.”

“If all this is designed to make me relinquish my claim on Edmund—”

“Good God, no!” exclaimed Sir Nugent, blenching. “You mistake, Duke! Only too happy to restore him to you! You know what I think?”

“No! Nor do I wish to!”

“He’s like some fellow in the Bible,” said Sir Nugent, ignoring this savage interpolation. “Or was it a pig? Well, it don’t signify. What I mean is, he’s possessed of a devil.” He added rather hastily: “No need to take a pet: you can rely on my discretion: shouldn’t dream of spreading it about! Well, by Jove, now I know why you’re so anxious to get him back, and, what’s more, I don’t blame you. He’s your heir too, ain’t he? Tut, tut, tut, it’s a nasty business! Very understandable you should wish to keep him hidden away. Shouldn’t be surprised if he got to be dangerous when he grows up.”

Sylvester said with ominous calm: “Will you have the goodness, sir, first to stop talking nonsense, and second to ask Lady Ianthe, without more ado, if she will receive me—for five minutes! No longer!”

“Five minutes! Why, she can be cast down in five seconds!” exclaimed Sir Nugent. “In fact, she would be cast down by the very sight of you, Duke. This business must be handled with delicacy. Her la’ship hasn’t a suspicion in her noddle that you are here. It was a near-run thing, though. I came out of her room just as Miss Marlow was about to knock on the door. I instantly charged her not to breathe a word to her la’ship. “Miss Marlow,” I said—Good God!” he ejaculated, with a sudden change of tone, “The abigail! the landlady! Must crave your grace’s indulgence—not a moment to be lost! They must be warned! Obliged to leave you!”

He hurried over to the door as he spoke, and collided with Tom on the threshold. “The very person!” he said. “Allow me to present Mr. Orde to your grace! It’s Salford, Orde: beg you will entertain him while I’m gone! Feel sure you’ll be pleased with one another!”

“No need to put yourself about,” Tom said. “I want a few words with his grace myself.”

“You do? Well, that’s a devilish fortunate circumstance because I think I should take a look in at her la’ship, in case she’s got wind of Salford.”

Tom shut the door upon him, and turned to confront Sylvester, standing by the table, his eyes as hard as agates, and as glittering. Tom met their challenge unwaveringly, and limped forward.

“If there was one person whom I never expected to have lent himself to this damnable affair it was you,” said Sylvester very evenly. “What, if you please, am I to understand by it?”

“From all I’ve been able to make out,” said Tom, continuing to look him in the eye, “you’re riding too damned rusty to understand anything, my lord Duke! What the devil do you think I’m doing here? Trying to serve you a backhanded turn?”

Sylvester shrugged, and turned away to lean his arm along the mantelshelf. “I suppose you to be here in support of Miss Marlow. The distinction between that and serving me a backhanded turn may be plain to you: it is not so to me.”

“The only persons who have been trying to serve you a backhanded turn, my lord Duke, are Lady Ianthe and the court-card she’s married!” said Tom. “As for Phoebe, the lord knows I didn’t wish her to meddle in this business, but when I think of all she’s done for you, and the thanks she’s had for it, damme, I’d like to call you out! Oh, I know you wouldn’t meet me! You needn’t tell me I’m not of your rank!”

Sylvester turned his head, and looked at him, a puzzled frown in his eyes. “Don’t talk to me like that, Thomas!” he said, in a quieter tone. “You had better sit down: how is that leg of yours?”

“Never mind my leg! It may interest you to know, my lord Duke—”

“For God’s sake, will you stop calling me my lord Duke every time you open your mouth?” interrupted Sylvester irascibly. “Sit down, and tell me what Miss Marlow has done for me to earn my gratitude!”

“Well, that’s what I meant to do at the start, but you made me lose my temper, which was the one thing I meant not to do,” said Tom. “And what with you fit to murder the lot of us, and Phoebe swearing she’ll starve in a ditch before she travels a yard in your company it’ll be as well if I don’t do it again!”

“She will not be asked to travel an inch in my company!”

“We’ll see that presently. If you will sit down I’ll tell you just how we both come to be here. But first I’d be glad to know if Lady Ingham’s still at Dover. Or didn’t you come by way of Dover?”

“I did, but I have no idea where Lady Ingham may be.”

“I hoped you might have passed her on the road. Looks as though she couldn’t face the jump. I take it you didn’t put up at the Ship?”

“I didn’t put up anywhere. I came down by the night-mail,” said Sylvester.

“Oh! Well, I daresay the old lady is still there. Now, the long and the short of it is, Salford, that Phoebe and I were dashed well kidnapped! I’ll tell you how it was.”

Sylvester heard him in unresponsive silence, and at the end of the recital said coldly: “I regret having done Miss Marlow an injustice, but I should feel myself obliged to her if she would confine her love of romantic adventure to her novels. If she felt she owed me some form of reparation she might, with more propriety and better effect, have written to me from Dover to tell me that Edmund had been taken to France.”

“If Fotherby hadn’t told the skipper to set sail I expect that’s what she would have done,” replied Tom equably.

“She had no business to go aboard the schooner at all. My nephew’s movements are not her concern,” said Sylvester, so haughtily that Tom had much ado not to lose his temper again.

“So I told her,” he said. “But she thought them very much her concern, and you know why! I don’t blame you for being angry with her for having written that dashed silly book. I didn’t even blame you for having given her a trimming—though I did think that it was ungentlemanly of you to have done so in public. You may be a duke, but—”

“That will do!” Sylvester said, flushing. “That episode also—I regret!—deeply regret! But if you imagine that I think my rank entitles me to behave—ungentlemanly—you are doing me as great an injustice as any that I have done Miss Marlow! You appear to believe that I set inordinate store by my dukedom: I do not! If I have pride it is in my lineage! You should understand that: your father has the same pride! We Ordes was what he said to me, when we sat at dinner together, not I am the Squire!”

“Beg pardon!” Tom said, smiling a little.

“Yes, very well! but don’t throw my rank in my face again! Good God, am I some money-grubbing Cit, sprung from obscurity, decorated with a title for political ends, and crowing like a cock on its own dunghill?” He broke off, as Tom shouted with laughter, and regarded him almost with hostility. “It was not my intention to divert you!”

“I know it wasn’t,” said Tom, wiping his eyes. “Oh, don’t fall into a miff! I see precisely how it is! You are very like my father, Salford! It’s as natural for you to be a duke as it is for him to be the Squire, and the only time when either of you remembers what you are is when some impudent fellow don’t treat you with respect! Oh, lord, and I shall be just the same myself!” He began to laugh again, but gasped: “Never mind! The thing is that you take it in snuff that Phoebe meddled in your affairs, as though she were encroaching! Well, she wasn’t. The only idea she had in her head was how to undo the harm she never meant to bring on you!”

Sylvester got up, and went back to the fire, and said, as he stirred a log with one booted foot: “You think I should be grateful to her, do you? No doubt her intentions were admirable, but when I think how easily I might but for her interference have recovered Edmund without creating the smallest noise, I am not at all grateful.”

“Yes, I do think you should be grateful!” retorted Tom. “If it hadn’t been for her looking after him on board the Betsy Anne he might have stuck his spoon in the wall! I never saw anyone in worse case, and there was no one else to care what became of him, let me tell you!”

“Then I am grateful to her for that at least. If my gratitude is tempered by the reflection that Edmund would never have been taken to sea if she had not put the notion into his mother’s head—”

“Salford, can’t you forget that trumpery novel?” begged Tom. “If you mean to brood over it all the way home, a merry journey we shall have!”

Sylvester had been looking down at the fire, but he raised his head at that. “What?”

“How do you imagine I’m to get Phoebe home?” asked Tom. “Was you meaning to leave us stranded here?”

“Stranded! I can’t conceive what need you can possibly have of my services when you appear to be on excellent terms with a man of far greater substance! I suggest you apply to Fotherby for a loan.”

“Yes, that’s what I shall be forced to do, if you’re set on a paltry revenge,” said Tom, with deliberation.

“Take care!” said Sylvester. “I’ve borne a good deal from you, Thomas, but that is a trifle too much! If I had a banking correspondent in France you might draw on me to any tune you pleased, but I have not! As for travelling Tab with Miss Marlow—no, by God, I won’t! Ask Fotherby to accommodate you. You may as well be indebted to him as to me!”

“No, I may not,” returned Tom. “You may not care for the mess Phoebe’s in, but I do! You know Lady Ingham! That business—all the kick-up over Phoebe’s book!—tried her pretty high, and she wasn’t in the best of humours when I saw her last. By now I should think she’s in a rare tweak, but you could bring her round your finger. If we go back to England with you, and you tell the old lady it was due to Phoebe you were able to recover young Edmund, all will be tidy. But if I have to take Phoebe back alone, and all you care for is to keep the business secret, we shall be lurched. You won’t be able to keep it secret, either. What about Swale? What about—”

“The only one of my servants who knows where I have gone is Keighley. Swale is not with me. I am not as green as you think, Thomas!”

A slow grin spread over Tom’s face. “I don’t think you green, Salford!” he said. “Touched in the upper works is what you are!”

Sylvester looked frowningly at him. “What the devil are you at now? Do you think me dependent on my valet? You should know better!”

“Should I? Who is going to look after Edmund on the journey?”

“I am.”

“Have you ever looked after him?” inquired Tom, grinning more widely.

“No,” said Sylvester, very slightly on the defensive.

“You will enjoy the journey! You wait till you’ve had to wash him half a dozen times a day, my lord Duke! You’ll have to dress him, and undress him, and tell him stories when he begins to feel queasy in the chaise, and see he don’t eat what he shouldn’t—and I’ll wager you don’t know, so the chances are you’ll be up half the night with him!—and you won’t even be able to eat your dinner in peace, because he might wake up, and start kicking up a dust. He don’t like strange places, you know. And don’t think you can hand him over to a chambermaid, because he don’t like foreigners either! And if you’re gudgeon enough to spank him for being an infernal nuisance he’ll start sobbing his heart out, and you’ll have every soul in the place behaving as if you was Herod!”

“For God’s sake, Thomas—” Sylvester said, half laughing. “Damn you, I wish I’d never met you! Is it as bad as that?”

“Much worse!” Tom assured him.

“My God! I ought to have brought Keighley, of course. But what you don’t realize is that when I drew from my bank what I supposed I should need I didn’t bargain for two more persons being added to my party. We should come to a standstill before we reached Calais!”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Tom. “Well, we shall have to pawn something, that’s all.”

“Pawn something?” repeated Sylvester. “Pawn what?”

“We must think. Have you got that dressing-case of yours with you?”

“Oh, it’s I who must pawn something, is it? No, I am happy to say I didn’t bring anything but a portmanteau!”

“It will have to be your watch and chain, then. It’s a pity you don’t sport diamond tie-pins and rings. Now, if only you had a spanking great emerald, like the one Fotherby’s dazzling us with today—”

“Oh, be quiet!” said Sylvester. “I’ll be damned if I’ll pawn my watch! Or anything else!”

“I’ll do it for you,” offered Tom. “I ain’t so high in the instep!”

“What you are, Thomas, is a—” Sylvester stopped, as the door opened, and Phoebe came into the room.

She was looking so haughty that Tom nearly laughed; and her voice was more frigid than Sylvester’s at its coldest. “Excuse me, if you please! Tom—”

“Miss Marlow,” interrupted Sylvester, “I understand that I did you an injustice. I beg you will accept my sincere apology.”

She threw him a disdainful glance. “It is not of the slightest consequence, sir. Tom, I came to tell you that I meant what I said to you on the stairs, and have settled what I shall do. I mean to beg Lady Ianthe to allow me to accompany her as far as to Paris. Once there I can await Grandmama at the Embassy. I am persuaded Sir Charles and Lady Elizabeth will permit me to remain with them when I tell them who I am. If you will go back to Dover with his grace—”

“Yes, that’s a capital scheme!” said Tom. “What’s more, I’d give my last coachwheel to see the Ambassador’s face when you tripped in, and said you was Lady Ingham’s granddaughter, and had come to stay because you’d mislaid her ladyship on the road, with all your baggage! For heaven’s sake, don’t be so shatterbrained! Do you want to set Paris talking as well as London?”

She flinched at this, and Sylvester, seeing it, said: “That’s enough! Miss Marlow, you must see that that scheme is quite ineligible. Pray accept my escort to England!”

“I had rather hire myself out as a cook-maid!” she declared. “Anything would be preferable to travelling in your company!”

Having expressed himself in much the same terms, Sylvester was instantly nettled, and retorted: “You endured my company for a se’enight not so long since without suffering any ill-effect, and I daresay you will survive a few more days of it!”

“I wish with all my heart I had never gone aboard that ship!” said Phoebe, with deep feeling.

“So do I wish it! For a more ill-judged—I beg your pardon! I believe you meant well!”

“I shall never mean you well again!” she told him fierily. “As for your condescension, my lord Duke—”

“Phoebe, take a damper!” commanded Tom sternly. “And listen to me! I’ve gone along with you till now, but I’m going no farther. You’ll do as I tell you, my girl. We shall go home with Salford, and you will not be beholden to him, if that’s what frets you, because he needs you to look after Edmund. Yes, and let me remind you that you promised that boy you wouldn’t leave him until he had his Button again!”

“He won’t care for that now!” she said.

But as Edmund peeped into the coffee-room at that moment, and, upon being applied to by Tom, instantly said that he would not let Phoebe go away, this argument failed. She did suggest to Edmund that his uncle would suffice him, but he vigorously shook his curly head, saying: “No, acos Uncle Sylvester is damned if he will be plagued with me afore breakfast.”

This naive confidence did much to alleviate constraint. Phoebe could not help laughing, and Sylvester, wreaking awful vengeance on his small nephew, lost his stiffness.

But just as Edmund’s squeals and chuckles were at their height the company was startled by a roar of rage and anguish from above-stairs. It seemed to emanate from a soul in torment, making Sylvester jerk up his head, and Edmund stop squirming in his hold.

“What the devil—?” exclaimed Sylvester.