Sylvester

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Oh, yes! I did suggest to her that she need not go to London after all, but she says she will do so, and I must say I think she should – if only the old lady will receive her kindly! You know, sir, Lady Marlow is a regular brute, and it’s not a particle of use thinking Marlow will protect Phoebe, because he won’t! Phoebe knows there’s no help to be got from him – well, he told her so, when she begged him to stand by her! – and now she says she shan’t go back on any account. Only what’s to be done? Even if the snow melted tomorrow I can’t escort her, and I know I ought not to let her go alone. But if that detestable woman catches her here the trap will be down!’

  ‘Not so much fretting and fussing, Galahad!’ said Sylvester. ‘There’s no immediate danger, and before it becomes imminent I don’t doubt you will have hit upon an answer to the problem. Or I might do so for you.’

  ‘How?’ asked Tom quickly.

  ‘Well,’ replied Sylvester, getting on, ‘somewhere between this place and Austerby I have a chaise. I have left orders at the Bear, in Hungerford, that when it arrives there my servants are to be directed to this inn. In the circumstances, I shall be delighted to convey Miss Marlow to her grandmother!’

  Tom’s face lightened; he exclaimed: ‘Oh, by Jove, would you do that, sir? It would be the very thing – if she will go with you!’

  ‘Let me beg you not to fidget yourself into a fever on the chance that she won’t! You had much better try if you can go to sleep. I only hope you may not be too uncomfortable to do so.’

  ‘Oh, no! That is, Dr Upsall left some stuff he said I should drink: syrup of poppies, or some such thing. I daresay I shall sleep like a log.’

  ‘Well, if you should wake, and wish for anything, knock on the wall behind you,’ said Sylvester. ‘I shall hear you: I am a tolerably light sleeper. I’ll send Keighley to you now. Goodnight!’

  He went away with a nod and a smile, leaving Tom to his various reflections. Prominent amongst these was a determination to endure hours of wakefulness rather than to drag his noble acquaintance from his bed. Thanks, however, to Keighley, interpreting the surgeon’s instructions liberally, he very soon succumbed to a large dose of the narcotic prescribed for him, and slept the night through. His dreams were untroubled, for although, when Sylvester left him, he thought over all that he had disclosed, and wished the greater part of it unsaid, he was soon able to persuade himself that he had been grossly indulging his imagination when he had read danger in that queer look of Sylvester’s. When he came to consider the matter he could not remember that he had said anything to arouse anger in Sylvester. It was not given to Tom, rating himself modestly, to understand the emotions of one who had been encouraged all the years of his adult life to set his value high.

  But the discovery that Phoebe had decided he was not at all the sort of man she wished to marry had made Sylvester furious. While he believed her to be eloping with her true love he bore her no ill-will; but the case was now altered, and the more he thought of it the more did the wound to his self-esteem smart. He had chosen to single out from amongst the débutantes a little dab of a country girl, without style or countenance, and she had had the impertinence to snub him. She had done it in such a way, too, as to make a fool of him, and that was not an injury he could easily forgive. It was possible to forgive it when he supposed her to be in love with another man; but when he learned that her flight from her home – an outrageous action which only a passionate attachment to Tom could in some measure excuse – was due to a dread of being compelled to receive his addresses he was not only unable to forgive it, but became possessed of a strong desire to teach Miss Marlow a lesson. To be sure, her crest would very soon be lowered if she thought any match half as brilliant would be offered her, but that was not quite what Sylvester wanted. Something of greater importance than his consequence had been hurt. That he could shrug away; he could not shrug off the knowledge that she apparently found him repulsive. She had had the insolence to criticise him, too; and she did not scruple to show him that she held him cheap. What was it Tom had said? Nothing would induce her to marry you! A little too cock-sure, Miss Marlow! The opportunity will not be granted you – but let us see if you can be made to feel sorry!

  Sylvester dropped asleep on this vengeful thought; and since no summons was rapped on the wall dividing his room from Tom’s, he did not wake until Keighley brought his breakfast to him at ten o’clock next morning. He then discovered that his faithful henchman was not only looking heavy-eyed, but had lost his voice as well. He said: ‘Go back to bed at once, John! Good God, I have knocked you up! You ought to have a mustard-plaster on your chest. Tell Mrs Scaling to fetch one up to you – and go away!’

  Keighley started to whisper reassurance, but was stopped by a paroxysm of coughing.

  ‘John, don’t be a nodcock! Do you think I want your death at my door? Go to bed! And tell them to kindle a fire in your room – my orders!’

  ‘How can I lay up, your grace?’ whispered Keighley. ‘Who’s to look after Mr Orde if I do?’

  ‘To hell with Mr Orde! Can’t the half-wit attend to him? Well, if he can’t, I must. What has to be done for him?’

  ‘I’ve done all that’s needful for the moment, your grace, and seen to the grays, but –’

  ‘Then you have nothing further to worry about, and may go to bed without more ado. Now, don’t be a gudgeon, John! You will only give him your cold if you hang about him!’

  ‘He’s got it,’ croaked Keighley.

  ‘No, has he? Well, I have no wish to catch it, so don’t let me see you again until you’re rid of it!’ He saw that Keighley was torn by a longing for his bed and a determination not to leave his post, and said threateningly: ‘If I have to get up to you, John, you’ll be sorry!’

  That made Keighley laugh, which brought on another paroxysm. This left him feeling so exhausted that he was very glad to obey his master.

  An hour later, Sylvester, beautiful to behold in a frogged dressing-gown of crimson and gold brocade, strolled into Tom’s room, saying cheerfully: ‘Good-morning, Galahad! So you’ve taken Keighley’s cold, have you? What a mutton-headed thing to do! Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Oh, like a top, thank you, sir! As for the cold, if I must stay in bed I might as well have a cold as not. But I’m devilish sorry for Keighley: he’s as sick as a horse!’

  ‘You will soon be devilish sorry for yourself, for I’ve sent him to bed, and you will be obliged to endure my ministrations in place of his. What, as a start, can I do for you?’

  ‘Good God, nothing!’ replied Tom, looking horrified. ‘As though I would let you wait on me!’

  ‘You won’t have any choice in the matter.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will! The boy can do all I want, sir!’

  ‘What, the half-wit? If you think that a choice I’ll thank you not to be so insulting, Thomas!’

  Tom laughed at that, but insisted that for the moment at least he needed nothing, except (with a sigh) something to do.

  ‘That’s what we shall all of us be pining for, if the snow lasts,’ said Sylvester. ‘If Mrs Scaling cannot supply us with a pack of cards we shall be obliged to make up charades, or something of that nature. Do you care to read The Knight of St John? It came out last year, and is by the author of The Hungarian Brothers. I’ll fetch it for you.’

  Tom was no great reader, but when Sylvester, handing him the first volume of Miss Porter’s lastest romance, said: ‘I don’t like it as well as The Hungarian Brothers, but it’s quite a lively tale,’ he realised that the work was not, as he had feared, a history, but a novel, and was much relieved. He accepted it with thanks, and then, after a thoughtful moment, asked Sylvester if he read many novels.

  ‘Any that come in my way. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Tom said. ‘I thought perhaps you might not.’

  Sylvester looked a little surprised, but said after a moment: ‘Oh,
did you think that because my mother is a poetess I might have a turn for verse? No: nothing of the sort!’

  ‘Is she?’ said Tom, awed.

  ‘Yes, indeed she is. And I assure you she does not despise novels! I fancy she buys almost all that are published. She is an invalid, you see, and reading is her greatest solace.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Tom.

  ‘I must go and look to my horses,’ said Sylvester. ‘I collect that Miss Marlow is in the stables already, probably fomenting that hock. I only hope I may not fall under her displeasure for making so belated an appearance!’

  He went away to finish dressing; and then, after consigning Keighley to Mrs Scaling’s care, went out to join Phoebe. It was still snowing hard, but a brazier was burning in the stable. Phoebe, having turned True in his stall, and removed his quarterpiece, was vigorously brushing him.

  ‘Good-morning!’ said Sylvester, removing his coat, and rolling up his sleeves. ‘I’ll do that for you, Miss Marlow. How is the hock?’

  ‘Better, I think. I have just been fomenting it again. I don’t think Tom would like it if I let you dress the horses, Duke.’

  ‘Then don’t tell him,’ said Sylvester, taking the brush away from her. ‘Doesn’t he think me capable of the task?’

  ‘Oh, it isn’t that! He has a great respect for your consequence, you see, and perhaps wouldn’t think it proper for you to do it! But in general he is not at all stupid, I assure you!’

  The smile that went with this remark was so ingenuous that Sylvester was obliged to laugh. Phoebe would have set to work on Trusty with the currycomb, but was deterred by Sylvester’s pointing out to her that her skirt was already covered with True’s hairs. He recommended her to change her dress, giving the one she had on to Alice to brush, but she replied that as the only other dress she had with her was of muslin, she rather thought she might freeze to death in it. ‘Besides, Alice has gone to tell old Mr Shap that we must have his pig. It isn’t full-grown, so perhaps he won’t sell it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he would get more for it later, of course. And also he may be in a bad skin.’

  ‘In a what?’

  She looked up, twinkling, from the task of picking the short hairs out of her skirt. ‘I think it means he had a sullen disposition! But I expect Alice will get the pig: she is a most redoubtable girl!’

  ‘You and she should deal extremely,’ he commented, turning True about, and stripping off the rest of his clothing.

  At that she raised her head again, tilting it enquiringly. ‘Do you mean that I am redoubtable? Oh, you are quite mistaken!’

  ‘Am I? Then let us say intrepid!’

  She sighed. ‘I wish I were! The case is that I am a wretched coward.’

  ‘Your father gives you quite another character.’

  ‘I don’t fear fences.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘People – some people! To – to be slain by unkindness.’

  He looked at her with a slight frown; but before he could ask her to explain what she meant they were interrupted by Alice, who came in, stamping her feet to rid her pattens of the clogged snow, and followed by an ancient with very few teeth but a crafty eye. This individual she introduced as a nasty, twitty old mawworm, disclosing that he wouldn’t sell his pig until convinced that it would be eaten by a duke, and not by a Captain Sharp, masquerading as such.

  Considerably taken aback, for he had never before had his credentials doubted, much less taken for a Captain Sharp, Sylvester said: ‘Well, I don’t know how I should be able to convince him! Unless he’d like one of my visiting-cards?’

  But this Mr Shap rejected, informing the company that he wasn’t a lettered man. He apparently felt this to be a triumph, for he then fell into a fit of cackling mirth. Assured by Phoebe that Sylvester was a duke, he told her, but kindly, that she had been took in by a lot of slum. ‘You don’t want to listen to this great fussock here, missie!’ he said, jerking his thumb at Alice. ‘She’s got a brother what’s dicked in the nob, and a proper jobbernoll she is! Ah!’

  He then nodded his head cunningly several times, and demanded to be told who had ever heard of a duke dressing his horses. But by this time Sylvester had taken the purse from his coat-pocket, and said briefly: ‘What’s the figure?’

  Mr Shap, with great promptness, named a price which drew a shriek of scandalised wrath from Alice. She begged Sylvester not to be choused out of his money by a wicked old lick-penny; but Sylvester, who was tired of Mr Shap, dropped three sovereigns into his gnarled hand, and told him to be off. Such openhanded conduct caused Mr Shap to dang himself if it weren’t a duke after all; and after giving Sylvester a fatherly admonition not to allow himself to be clerked by Widow Scaling, he hobbled off, calling, in a cracked, senile voice, to Will to come and fetch away the pig.

  ‘Well,’ said Alice, preparing to follow him, ‘I’m proper set about he should have behaved like a smidge, but one thing’s sure, your honour! With you paying him so handsome he knows you are a duke, and so he’ll tell everyone.’ She nodded, her eyes sparkling with joyful anticipation. ‘Happen we’ll have ’em all up to the tap today, wishful for to see you with their own eyes!’ she told Sylvester. ‘Why, there’s been nothing like it, not since we had the girl with two heads putting up here! Her dad was taking of her to London, being wishful to put her into a big fair they do be having there. We had half Hungerford here, as well as Kintbury, and not a drop of liquor left in the house by ten o’clock.’

  The fascinated horror with which Sylvester listened to these artless confidences had long since proved to be too much for Phoebe’s gravity. Alice, grinning sympathetically upon her mirth, went off to supervise the transport of Mr Shap’s pig; and Sylvester demanded, with some asperity, whether his attractions were rated above or below those of a freak.

  ‘Oh, below!’ Phoebe answered, wiping her streaming eyes. ‘For you are not in yourself remarkable, you know! Your oddity is in being out of place. I daresay, had you been putting up at the Pelican, your presence in the district wouldn’t have aroused the least interest.’

  ‘How much I wish we were all of us at the Pelican!’ he exclaimed. ‘Only think how different our lot would be! No, don’t let us think of it!’

  ‘I don’t mean to,’ responded Phoebe cheerfully. ‘The Pelican would not do for me at all, in such a situation. But if Keighley is better tomorrow, I shouldn’t wonder at it if you were able to reach Speenhamland. It can’t be many miles ahead, after all!’

  ‘And abandon you and Thomas to your fates? If that’s the opinion you hold of me I am able to understand your reluctance to receive my addresses, Miss Marlow!’

  She blushed fierily, for although Tom had warned her of his indiscretion she had been encouraged by Sylvester’s previous manner to believe that he would not refer to it. ‘I beg pardon! Of course I did not – it wasn’t – I mean, it was all a stupid mistake, wasn’t it?’ she stammered.

  Venturing to look up into his face she saw that his eyes were gleaming with mockery; and she could not doubt that he was enjoying her discomfiture. But as resentment rose in her breast the malice vanished from his expression; and she perceived that he really had got an enchanting smile. This was surprising. She had not before encountered that engaging look; and a moment earlier there had been no trace of it. She was suspicious of it, and yet could not help responding to it.

  ‘Yes, just a stupid mistake!’ he said reassuringly. ‘Shall I promise not to pay my addresses to you? I am perfectly ready to do so, if it will make you more comfortable.’

  But she only laughed at this, and got up, saying that she had no longer any fears on that head. She went away then, and when he saw her next it was an hour later, in Tom’s room, polishing with a scrap of sandpaper the spillikins Tom was cleverly whittling from some wood begged from Mrs Scaling. Tom looked up, smiling, and said: ‘Can you play spillikins
, sir? I was used to be a dab at the game, and am issuing a challenge to all comers!’

  ‘I don’t fear you,’ responded Sylvester, handing him a large pewter tankard. ‘Home-brewed, Thomas – the best thing we’ve yet had here! – Your skill may be superior, but I’ll swear I’m the more in practice! Unless you have young brothers and sisters, in which case I may hedge off a trifle.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ grinned Tom. ‘Have you?’

  ‘No, but I have frequently played with my nephew,’ Sylvester replied.

  His attention was just then diverted by a kick on the door, followed by a demand from Will Scaling to be admitted. He turned to open the door, and so did not see the looks of consternation which his words brought to his young friends’ faces. By the time he had foiled an attempt by Will to dump a heavy nuncheon-tray down on Tom’s legs they had revived sufficiently from the shock of discovering that he had a nephew to be able to meet his casual glance with the appearance at least of composure. They were granted no opportunity for an exchange of more than looks until later in the day, for Sylvester returned with Phoebe to Tom’s room after their nuncheon, and only left it when it became time to attend again to the horses. Mrs Scaling having unearthed from the recesses of a cupboard a pack of somewhat greasy playing-cards the beleaguered travellers were not restricted to spillikins or paper games, but embarked on several desperate gambling ventures, using dried peas for counters, and managing the cards and the bets of all the imaginary persons created by them to make up the correct number of gamesters. This was the sort of fooling that might have amused them for a few minutes, but Phoebe’s talent for endowing her creations with names and characteristics invested the nonsense with wit; and when Sylvester, not slow to follow her lead, invented two eccentrics on his own account the game rapidly became a sort of charade, exercising the histrionic ability of the two players, and keeping Tom, who did not aspire to such heights, in a continuous chuckle. But although Tom laughed he thought it a dangerous diversion, for every now and then Phoebe could not resist indulging her genius for mimicry. Tom recognised several characters from The Lost Heir; he was unacquainted with the originals, but to judge by Sylvester’s swift response Phoebe hit them off very recognizably.