Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

8

The startled exclamation which broke from her, and the look of dismay which came into her face, afforded Sylvester malicious satisfaction. “Ah, how do you do?” he said affably.

One hand gripping the banister-rail, a painful question in her eyes, she uttered: “Mama—?”

“But of course! Outside, in my curricle.” Then he saw that she had turned perfectly white, and said: “Don’t be such a goose-cap! You can’t suppose I would drive your mother-in-law thirty yards, let alone thirty miles!”

Her colour came rushing back; she said: “No—or she consent to drive in a curricle! What—what brings you here, sir?”

“Curiosity, ma’am. I saw the wreck on the road, and guessed it to be Mr. Orde’s curricle.”

“Oh! You didn’t—you were not—” She stopped in some confusion; and then, as he looked up at her in bland inquiry, blurted out: “You didn’t come to find me?”

“Well, no!” he answered apologetically. “I am merely on my way to London. I am afraid, Miss Marlow, that you have been labouring under a misapprehension.”

“Do you mean you were not going to make me an offer?” she demanded.

“You do favour the blunt style, don’t you? Bluntly, then, ma’am, I was not.”

She was not at all offended, but said, with a sigh of relief: “Thank goodness! Not but what it is still excessively awkward. However, you are better than nobody, I suppose!”

“Thank you!”

“Well, when I heard you come in I hoped you had been that odious ostler.”

“What odious ostler?”

“The one who is employed here. Mrs. Scaling—she’s the landlady—sent him off to Newbury to purchase provisions when she feared they might be snowed up here for weeks, perhaps, and he has not come back. His home is there, and Mrs. Scaling thinks he will make the snow an excuse for remaining there until it stops. And the thing is that he has taken the only horse she keeps! Tom—Mr. Orde—won’t hear of my trying if I can ride Trusty—and I own it would be a little difficult, when there’s no saddle, and I am not wearing my riding-dress. And no one ever has ridden Trusty. True would carry me, but that’s impossible: his left hock is badly strained. But that leg is certainly broken, and it must be set!”

“Whose leg?” interrupted Sylvester. “Not the horse’s?”

“Oh, no! It’s not as bad as that!” she assured him. “Mr. Orde’s leg.”

“Are you sure it’s broken?” he asked incredulously. “How the deuce did he get here, if that’s the case? Who got the horses out of their traces?”

“There was a farm-hand, leading a donkey and cart. It was that which caused the accident: Trusty holds donkeys in the greatest aversion, and the wretched creature brayed at him, just as Tom had him in hand, as I thought. Tom caught his heel in the rug, I think, and that’s how it happened. The farmhand helped me to free Trusty and True; and then he lifted Tom into his cart, and brought him here, while I led the horses. Mrs. Scaling and I contrived to cut off Tom’s boot, but I am afraid we hurt him a good deal, because he fainted away in the middle of it. And here we have been ever since, with poor Tom’s leg not set, and no means of fetching a surgeon, all because of that abominable ostler!”

“Good God!” said Sylvester, struggling with a strong desire to laugh. “Wait a minute!”

With these words, he went out into the road again, to where Keighley awaited him. “Stable ’em, John!” he ordered. “We are putting up here for the night. There is only one ostler, and he has gone off to Newbury, so if you see no one in the yard, do as seems best to you!”

“Putting up here, your grace?” demanded Keighley, thunderstruck.

“I should think so: it will be too dark to go farther in another couple of hours,” replied Sylvester, vanishing into the house again.

He found that Phoebe had been joined by a stout woman with iron-grey curls falling from under a mob cap, and a comely countenance just now wearing a harassed expression. She dropped a curtsey to him; and Phoebe said, with careful emphasis: “This is Mrs. Scaling, sir, who has been so very helpful to my brother and to me!”

“How kind of her!” said Sylvester, bestowing upon the landlady the smile which won for him so much willing service. “Their parents would be glad to know that my imprudent young friends fell into such good hands. I have told my groom to stable the horses, but I daresay you will tell him just where he may do so. Can you accommodate the pair of us?”

“Well, I’m sure, sir, I should be very happy—only this is quite a simple house, such as your honour—And I’ve took and put the poor young gentleman in my best room!” said Mrs. Scaling, considerably flustered.

“Oh, that makes no odds!” said Sylvester, stripping off his gloves. “I think, ma’am, it would be as well if you took me up to see your brother.”

Phoebe hesitated, and when Mrs. Scaling bustled off to the back premises, said suspiciously: “Why do you wish to see Tom? Why do you wish to remain here?”

“Oh, it’s not a question of wishing!” he returned, a laugh in his eyes. “Pure fellow-feeling, ma’am! What a dog I should be to leave the poor devil in the hands of two females! Take me up! I promise you, he will be very glad to see me!”

“Well, I don’t think he will,” said Phoebe, regarding him in a darkling way. “And I should like to know why you talked of us to Mrs. Scaling as though you had been our grandfather!”

“I feel like your grandfather,” he replied. “Take me up to the sufferer, and let us see what can be done for him!”

She still seemed to be doubtful, but after a moment’s indecision she said ungraciously: “Oh, very well! But I won’t have him ranted at, or reproached, mind!”

“Good God, who am I to give him a trimming?” Sylvester said, following her up the narrow stair.

Mrs. Scaling’s best bedchamber was a low-pitched room in the front of the house. A fire had been lit in the grate, and the blinds drawn across the dormer window to shut out the bleak dusk. An oil lamp had been set on the dressing-table, and a couple of candles on the mantelshelf, and as the window-blinds and the curtains round the bed were of crimson the room presented a pleasantly cosy appearance. Tom, fully dressed except for his boots and stockings, was lying on the bed, with a patchwork quilt spread lightly over his legs, and his shoulders propped up by several bulky pillows. There was a haggard look on his face, and the eyes which he turned towards the door were heavy with strain.

“Tom, this—this is the Duke of Salford!” said Phoebe. “He would have me bring him up, so—so here he is!”

This startling intelligence made Tom wrench himself up on to his elbow, wincing, but full of determination to protect Phoebe from any attempt to drag her back to Austerby. “Salford?” he ejaculated. “You mean to tell me—Come over here, Phoebe, and don’t you be afraid! He has no authority over you, and so he knows!”

“Now, don’t you enact me a high tragedy!” said Sylvester, walking up to the bed. “I haven’t any authority over either of you, and I’m not the villain of this or any other piece. How do you do?”

Finding that a hand was being held out to him Tom, much disconcerted, took it, and stammered: “Oh, how—how do you do, sir? I mean—”

“Better than you, I fear,” said Sylvester. “In the devil of a hobble, aren’t you? May I look?” Without waiting for an answer he twitched the quilt back. As Tom instinctively braced himself, he glanced up with a smile, and said: “I won’t touch it. Have you been much mauled?”

Tom grinned back at him rather wanly. “Oh, by Jove, haven’t I just!”

“Well, I am very sorry, but we had to get your boot off, and we did try not to hurt you,” said Phoebe.

“Yes, I know. It wasn’t so much that as that booberkin thinking he knew how to set a bone, and Mrs. Scaling believing him!”

“It sounds appalling,” remarked Sylvester, his eyes on the injured leg, which was considerably inflamed, and bore the marks of inexpert handling.

“It was,” asseverated Tom. “He is Mrs. Scaling’s son, touched in his upper works, I think!”

“Well, he is a natural,” amended Phoebe. “Indeed, I wish I hadn’t allowed him to try what he could do, but he was not at all unhandy with poor True, which made me think he would very likely know how to set your leg, for such persons, you know, frequently have that kind of knowledge.” She saw that Sylvester was regarding her with mockery, and added defensively: “It is so! There is a natural in our village who is better than any horse-doctor!”

“You should have been a horse, Orde,” said Sylvester. “How many hours is it since this happened?”

“I don’t know, sir. A great many, I daresay: it seems like an age,” replied poor Tom.

“I am not a doctor—even a horse-doctor—but I fancy the bone should be set as soon as possible. We shall have to see what we can do. Oh, don’t look so aghast! I’m not going to make the attempt! We need Keighley—my groom. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he knows how to do the trick.”

“Your groom?” said Phoebe sceptically. “How should he know anything of the sort, pray?”

“Perhaps he doesn’t, in which case he will tell us so. He put my shoulder back once, when I was a boy and dislocated it, and I recall that when the surgeon came he said he could not have done it better himself. I’ll call him,” said Sylvester, walking to the door.

He went out, and Tom turned wondering eyes towards Phoebe. “What the deuce brought him here?” he asked. “I thought he had been chasing us, but if that was the way of it what makes him care a button for my leg?”

“I can’t think!” said Phoebe. “But he didn’t come in search of me, that I do know! In fact, he says he didn’t come to Austerby to offer for me at all. I was never more relieved in my life!”

Tom looked at her in a puzzled way, but since he was a good deal exhausted by all he had undergone, and his leg was paining him very much, he felt unequal to further discussion, and relapsed into silence.

In a short space of time Sylvester came back, bringing Keighley with him, and carrying a glass half full of a rich brown liquid, which he set down on a small table beside the bed. “Well, Keighley says that if it is a simple fracture he can set it for you,” he remarked cheerfully. “Let us hope it is, therefore! But I can’t help feeling that the first thing to do is to get you out of your clothes, and into your nightshirt. You must be excessively uncomfortable!”

“Oh, I do wish you will persuade him to be undressed,” exclaimed Phoebe, regarding Sylvester for the first time with approval. “It is precisely what Mrs. Scaling and I wanted to do for him at the outset, but nothing would prevail upon him to agree to it!”

“You amaze me!” said Sylvester. “If I find him similarly obstinate Keighley and I will strip him forcibly. Meanwhile, Miss Marlow, you may go downstairs—if you will be so obliging!—and assist Mrs. Scaling to tear up a sheet for bandages. No, I know you don’t wish to leave him to our mercy, but, believe me, you are shockingly in the way here! Go and brew him a posset, or some broth, or whatever you think suitable to this occasion!”

She looked a trifle mulish, but a chuckle from Tom clinched the matter. “Oh, do go away, Phoebe!” he begged.

She went, but the incident did nothing to put her in charity with Sylvester, politely holding the door for her, and saying with odious kindness, as she passed him: “You shall come back presently!”

Tom, however, was so grateful that he began to think Sylvester a very tolerable sort of man; and when Sylvester, turning away from the door, winked at him, he grinned, and said shyly: “I’m much obliged to you, sir! She’s a good girl—as good as ever twanged, in fact—but—but—”

“I know,” said Sylvester sympathetically. “They will be ministering angels!”

“Yes,” agreed Tom, somewhat uneasily eyeing Keighley, who, having shed his coat, was now rolling up his shirtsleeves in an ominous manner.

“You want to bite on the bullet, sir,” recommended Keighley. “Because I’ll have to find out just what you have broke in your leg, if you’ve broke anything, which I’ve only got your word for, when all’s said.”

Tom assented to this, clenched his teeth and his fists, and endured in sweating silence while Keighley discovered the exact nature of his injury. The rough cart-journey, and the inexpert attempts of Will Scaling to set the broken bone, had caused considerable inflammation. Keighley said, as he straightened himself: “Properly mauled you they did, sir! True enough, you’ve broke your fibula—which is what you might call Dutch comfort, because it might have been worse. Now, if that jobbernoll below stairs has sawn me off a nice splint, like I told him to do, we’ll have you going along like winking in a pig’s whisper, sir!”

“Are you sure of that, John?” Sylvester asked. “It won’t do to be making a mull of it!”

“I shan’t do that, your grace. But I’m thinking it would be as well if the young gentleman was put to bed. I’ll have to slit his breeches up the left side, but I can get ’em off easier without his leg being splinted.”

Sylvester nodded; Tom said faintly: “My razor is on the dressing-table. You may as well use it. It’s ruined already, cutting my boot.”

“Don’t let that vex you!” said Sylvester. “You can borrow one of mine.”

Tom thanked him. He submitted to being stripped, and put into his nightshirt, and owned, upon being lowered again on to the pillows, that he felt a degree more comfortable. Keighley then went away to collect splints and bandages; and Tom, a little white about the gills, said with what jauntiness he could muster that he would be devilish glad when it was over.

“I should think you would be,” agreed Sylvester. He picked up the glass he had brought into the room, and held it out. “Meanwhile, here’s a drink to fortify you. No daylights, mind!”

Tom looked rather dubiously at the dark potion, but took the glass, and raised it to his lips. Then he lowered it again. “Yes, but it’s rum, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes. Don’t you like it?”

“Well, not above half. But the thing is I should be as drunk as a wheelbarrow if I drank all this!”

“That isn’t of the slightest consequence. Oh, are you thinking of what Miss Marlow might say? You need not: I shan’t let her come back until you’ve slept it off. Don’t argue with me! Just drink it, and be thankful.”

Keighley, returning to find his patient happily, if somewhat muzzily, smiling, said with approval: “That’s the dandy! Properly shot in the neck, ain’t you, sir? It won’t make any odds to you what’s done to you. Now, if your grace will lend a hand—?”

If Tom was not quite as insensible as Keighley optimistically prophesied, the rum undoubtedly made it much easier for him to bear the exquisite anguish of the next minute or two. He behaved with great fortitude, encouraged by Keighley, who told him he was pluck to the backbone. The ordeal was soon at an end. It left him feeling limp and rather sick. His leg ached; and he found that everything he tried to look at swam so giddily before him that he was obliged to close his eyes, yielding to the powerful effect of rum. Keighley, observing with satisfaction that he was sinking into stertorous sleep, nodded at Sylvester, and said briefly: “He’ll do now, your grace.”

“I hope he may, but it will be as well if we get a surgeon to him,” replied Sylvester, frowning down at Tom. “If anything were to go amiss, I’ve no mind to be responsible. He’s under age, you know. I wonder why the devil I embroiled myself in this affair?”

“Ah!” said Keighley, snuffing the candles. “Just what I’ve been asking myself, your grace!”

They left the room together, and descended the stairs to the coffee room. Here they found Phoebe, sitting before a brisk fire, and looking anxious. Sylvester said: “Well, Keighley has set the bone, and Orde is now asleep. For anything I know, there’s nothing more to be done, but at the same time—What’s the weather like?” He stepped up to the window, and drew the blind aside. “Still snowing, but not dark yet. What do you wish, Miss Marlow?”

She had smiled at Keighley, and thanked him; but at these words she cast him an apologetic glance, and said: “I should wish to bring a doctor to see him, because if it hadn’t been for me it would never have happened, and I know Mrs. Orde would do so. It is the most vexatious thing! Mrs. Scaling only spoke to me of a doctor at Newbury, and now I’ve discovered that there is a Dr Upsall, living at Hungerford! If I had known of him earlier I might have walked there, for I don’t think it’s much above four miles. Mrs. Scaling didn’t think to tell me of him, because from what she says I collect he is above her touch.”

“Let us hope he doesn’t consider himself above mine. Do you suppose the half-wit capable of guiding one to his house?”

“I should think he would be. He says so, at all events. But it is growing dark, and perhaps the doctor might not choose to venture out, for a stranger?”

“Nonsense!” Sylvester said. “It is his business to venture out. He will be well paid for his trouble. You had better put the horses to immediately, John—and tell young Scaling he is to go with you! You may present my card to this Dr Upsall, and say that I shall be obliged to him if he will come here at once.”

“Very good, your grace,” Keighley said.

Phoebe, who had listened to Sylvester’s orders in gathering indignation, waited only until Keighley had left the room before exclaiming in accents of strong censure: “You cannot mean to send that unfortunate man out in this weather!”

He looked surprised. “You said you wished a doctor to see Orde, didn’t you? I own, I wish it too, and though he might take no particular harm through waiting until the morning it is quite possible, you know, that the road may be impassable by then.”

“Indeed, I wish him to see a doctor!” she said. “And if you will trust your horses to me I’ll fetch him myself—since you do not care to go!”

“I?” he demanded. “Why should I do any such thing?”

“Can’t you see that your groom has the most shocking cold?” she said fiercely. “He is looking worn to a bone already, and here you are, sending him out again without a thought to what may come of it! I suppose it is of no consequence if he contracts an inflammation of the lungs, or falls into a confirmed consumption!”

He flushed angrily. “On the contrary! I should find it excessively inconvenient!”

“Oh, surely you have other grooms? I am persuaded there could never be a want of servants to spare you the least exertion!”

“Many other grooms! But only one Keighley! It may interest you to know, Miss Marlow, that I have a considerable regard for him!”

“Well, it doesn’t interest me, because I don’t believe it!” she said warmly. “You couldn’t have brought him thirty miles in an open carriage on such a day if you had a regard for him! Would you have set out from Austerby if you had had a bad cold? No such thing!”

“You are mistaken! I should! I never pay the least heed to such trifling ailments!”

“You are not fifty years old, or more!”

“Nor is Keighley! Fifty years old indeed! He is not much above forty!” said Sylvester furiously. “What’s more, if he had thought himself too unwell to travel he would have told me so!”

Her lips curled derisively. “Would he?”

“Yes, he—” Sylvester stopped suddenly, staring at her with very hard, frowning eyes. A dull colour crept into his cheeks; he said stiffly: “He should have done so, at all events. He knows very well I wouldn’t—Good God, you seem to think me an inhuman taskmaster!”

“No, only selfish!” she said. “I daresay you never so much as noticed that the poor man had caught cold.”

A retort sprang to his lips, but he checked it, his colour deepening as he recollected feeling vexed with Keighley for contracting an epidemic cold, and hoping that he would not take it from him.

But no sooner had Phoebe uttered her last stricture than she too suffered an uncomfortable recollection. Flushing far more vividly than Sylvester, she said in a conscience-stricken voice: “I beg your pardon! It was very bad of me to have said that, when—when I am so much obliged to you! Pray forgive me, sir!”

“It is of no consequence at all, Miss Marlow,” he replied coldly. “I should be grateful to you for calling my attention to Keighley’s state. Let me assure you that you need feel no further anxiety! I am far too selfish to wish to have him laid up, and shall certainly not send him to Hungerford.”

Before she could reply to this Keighley came back into the room, muffled in his heavy driving-coat. “Beg pardon, your grace, but I went off without the card.”

“I’ve changed my mind, John,” Sylvester said. “I’ll go myself.”

“Go yourself, your grace?” repeated Keighley. “And may I make so bold as to ask why? If your grace don’t care to have me driving the greys, I hope your grace will pardon me if I was to say that it won’t be quite the first time I’ve done so! P’raps your grace would as lief drive them without me in the curricle at all?”

This withering sarcasm had the effect of clearing the frown from Sylvester’s brow. “Exactly so!” he said, his eyes quizzing his offended henchman. “I am going alone! Oh, no I’m not! I shall have the half-wit with me, shall I not? I hope he may not murder me, or anything of that nature! No, don’t argue with me! Miss Marlow believes you to be sinking into a confirmed consumption, and I will not have your death upon my conscience! Besides, what should I do without you? Where is my greatcoat?”

Keighley turned an amazed and slightly reproachful gaze upon Phoebe. “Me? Lor’, ma’am there’s nothing amiss with me barring a bit of a cold in my head! Now, if your grace will give me your card, I’ll be off! And no more funning, if you please, because if I don’t get started quick there’s no saying but what I’ll end in the ditch, and a nice set-out that would be!”

“No, I am quite determined you shan’t go,” Sylvester said.

“Did you put my coat in my bedchamber? Where is my bedchamber? Direct me to it instantly, and be off to put the horses to! Good God! Ought I, perhaps, to do that too? Miss Marlow, do you think—?”

Keighley intervened before Phoebe was obliged to answer a question she suspected to be deliberately provocative. Reiterating his request to Sylvester to stop funning, he added a strongly worded protest against the impropriety of his chasing all over the country after a mere sawbones. Such unbecoming conduct, he said severely, would not do.

“I’m the best judge of that,” returned Sylvester. “Put the horses to, at once, if you please!”

He strode to the door, but was arrested by Phoebe, who said suddenly: “Oh, pray—! I don’t wish to charge you with an office you might think troublesome, but—but if you are going to Hungerford, would you be so very obliging as to try if you can procure for me a few ounces of muriate of ammonia, a pint of spirit of wine, and some spermacetti ointment?”

Sylvester’s lip twitched, and he burst out laughing. “Oh, certainly, Miss Marlow! Are you sure there is nothing else you would wish me to purchase for you?”

“No,” she replied seriously. “Mrs. Scaling has plenty of vinegar. And if you can’t come by the ointment, she will let me have some lard instead—only I can’t be sure it is perfectly free from salt. It is to put on Trusty’s foreleg,” she explained, seeing that he was still much inclined to laugh. “It is badly grazed: I fancy poor True may have kicked him, when he was struggling to get out of the ditch.”

“I’ll come and take a look at that, miss,” said Keighley, his professional interest aroused. “Showing red, is it? It’ll have to be fomented before the ointment’s put on it.”

“Oh, yes, I have been doing so, every hour, and True’s hock as well! I should be very much obliged to you, if you will look at it, Keighley, and tell me if you think I should apply a bran poultice tonight.”

“Render Miss Marlow all the assistance you can, John, but first put the greys to!” interrupted Sylvester. “See to it that fires are lit in our rooms, bespeak dinner, and a private parlour—no, I expect there isn’t one in so small a house: you had better tell the landlady I’ll hire this room—don’t disturb Mr. Orde, and have everything ready for a bowl of punch as soon as I return. And don’t let Miss Marlow keep you out in the draughty stable too long!”

On this Parthian shot he departed, closely followed by Keighley, who did not cease to expostulate with him until he was actually preparing to mount into the curricle.

“Be damned to you, John, no!” he said. “You will stay here, and nurse your cold. Why didn’t you tell me you were out of sorts, you stupid fellow? I could have taken Swale with me, and left you to follow in the chaise.”

He sounded a little contrite, which would have surprised Keighley had he not been so much revolted by the thought of relinquishing his post to Swale that he never noticed Sylvester’s unusual solicitude. By the time he could trust himself to repudiate the disgraceful suggestion in anything but terms quite unsuited to his position, Sylvester had swung himself up into the curricle, and set his pair in motion. Beside him, Will Scaling, a shambling and overgrown youth of somewhat vacuous amiability, grinned hugely, and sat back with all the air of one prepared to enjoy a high treat.