To her astonishment, and, indeed, indignation, he gave the oddest laugh.
As she glared at him he said in the strangest voice she had yet heard: ‘Have I? Well – if that’s so, I will make reparation! Will you do me the honour, Miss Marlow, of accepting my hand in marriage?’
Thus Sylvester, an accomplished flirt, making his first proposal.
It never occurred to Phoebe that he had shaken himself off his balance, and was as self-conscious as a callow youth just out of school. Still less did it occur to her that the laugh and the exaggerated formality of his offer sprang from embarrassment. He was famed for his polished address; she had never, until this day, seen him lose his mastery over himself. She believed him to be mocking her, and started up from her chair, exclaiming: ‘How dare you?’
Sylvester, burningly aware of his own clumsiness, lost no time in making bad worse. ‘I beg your pardon! you mistake. I had no intention – Phoebe, it was out before I well knew what I was saying! I never meant to ask you to marry me – I was determined I would not! But –’ He broke off, realising into what quagmires his attempts to explain himself were leading him.
‘That I do believe!’ she said hotly. ‘You have been so obliging as to tell me what you think of me, and I believe that too! You came to Austerby to look me over, as though I had been a filly, and decided I was not up to your weight! Didn’t you?’
‘What next will you say?’ he demanded, an involuntary laugh shaking him.
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yes. But have you forgotten how you behaved? How could I know what you were when you tried only to disgust me? It wasn’t until later –’
‘To be sure!’ she said scathingly. ‘Later, when I first made you a victim, embroiling you in my improper flight from Austerby, and next wounded your pride as I daresay it was never wounded before, then you began to think I was just the wife that would suit you! The fervent offer which you have been so flattering as to make to me springs, naturally, from the folly that led me to thrust myself into your affairs, and so make it necessary for you to undertake a journey under circumstances so much beneath your dignity as to be posively degrading! How green of me not to have known immediately how it would be! You must forgive me! Had I dreamt that my lack of conduct would attach you to me I would have assumed the manners of a pattern of propriety whenever you came within sight of me! You would then have been spared the mortification of having your suit rejected, and I should have been spared an intolerable insult!’
‘There was no insult,’ he said, very pale. ‘If I phrased it – if it sounded to you as though I meant to insult you, believe that it was not so! What I said to you before, I said because the crazy things you do convinced me you were not the wife that would suit me! I wanted never to see you again after that night at the Castlereaghs’ – I thought so, but it wasn’t so, because when I did see you again – I was overjoyed.’
Not a speech worthy of a man who made love charmingly, but Sylvester had never before tried to make love to a lady seething with rage and contempt.
‘Were you indeed?’ said Phoebe. ‘But you soon recovered, didn’t you?’
Nettled, he retorted: ‘No, I only tried to! Stop ripping up at me, you little shrew!’
‘Phoebe, don’t you mean to change your dress?’ said Tom, entering the room at this most inauspicious moment. ‘Keighley took your valise up –’ He broke off, dismayed, and stammered: ‘Oh, I b-beg pardon! I didn’t know – I’ll go!’
‘Go? Why?’ Phoebe said brightly. ‘Yes, indeed I mean to change my dress, and will do so immediately!’
Tom held the door for her, thinking that if only Sylvester, interrupted in the middle of an obvious scene, would drop his guard, grant him an opening, he could tell him just how to handle her. He shut the door, and turned.
‘Good God, Thomas! This sartorial magnificence! Are you trying to put me to the blush?’ said Sylvester quizzingly.
Twenty-seven
They left Dover just after eleven o’clock, by which time Miss Marlow had quarrelled with both her escorts. Emerging from her bedchamber in the guise of a haughty young lady of fashion she encountered Tom, and instantly asked him whether he had recovered the money he had left in his portmanteau. Upon being reassured on this point she asked him if he would hire a chaise for their conveyance to London. ‘No,’ said Tom, never one to mince his words. ‘I’ve got a better use for my blunt!’
‘I will repay you, I promise you!’ she urged.
‘Much obliged! When?’ said Tom brutally.
‘Grandmama –’
‘Mighty poor security! No, I thank you!’
‘If she will not do it I’ll sell my pearls!’ she declared. ‘That would make me cut a fine figure, wouldn’t it?’
‘Tom, I don’t wish to travel at Salford’s expense!’ she blurted out.
‘That’s easily settled. Sell your pearls, and pay him!’
She said stiffly: ‘If you won’t do what I particularly wish, will you at least request the Duke to tell you how much money he has expended on my behalf since we left Abbeville?’
‘When I make a cake of myself it will be on my own account, and not on yours, Miss Woolly-crown!’ said Tom.
Two vehicles had been provided for the journey. One was a hired postchaise, the other Sylvester’s own phaeton, and to each was harnessed a team of four horses. They were job horses, but they had been chosen by Keighley, and therefore, as Master Rayne pointed out to his uncle, prime cattle. When Tom brought his haughty charge out of the inn he found Master Rayne seated already in the phaeton, and Sylvester standing beside it, drawing on his gloves. He went up to him, exclaiming: ‘Are you driving yourself all the way to London, Salford?’
‘I am,’ replied Sylvester. ‘I would offer to take you with me, but I’m afraid Keighley must have that seat.’
‘Yes, of course, but you don’t mean to take Edmund too, do you? Had you not better let him come with us in the chaise?’
‘My dear Thomas, my only reason for telling Keighley to bring my phaeton to Dover was to save that brat as much travelsickness as I could! He is invariably sick in closed carriages, and never in open ones. Will you accompany Miss Marlow? I hope she will not find the journey too fatiguing: we are a little late in starting, but we should reach town in time for dinner.’ Tom, though strongly of the opinion that Sylvester, in his present humour, would be happy to part with his nephew on any terms at the end of the first stage, raised no further demur, but went back to hand Phoebe up into the chaise.
For the first five miles not a word was uttered within this vehicle, but at Lydden, Phoebe (recovering a trifle, in her faithful friend’s opinion, from the sullens) asked Tom where he meant to put up in London.
‘At Salford’s house. He has invited me to spend a few days there. As long as I choose, in fact.’
‘Good gracious!’ said Phoebe. ‘What an honour for you! No wonder you were so unwilling to oblige me! I must be quite beneath your touch!’
‘You’ll precious soon wish you were beneath my touch, if you don’t take care, my girl!’ said Tom. ‘If you’ve any more pretty morsels of wit under your tongue, reserve ’em for Salford! He’s far too well bred to give you your deserts: I ain’t!’
Silence reigned for the next mile. ‘Tom,’ said Phoebe, in a small voice.
‘Well?’
‘I didn’t mean to say that. It was a horrid thing to say! I beg your pardon.’
He took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. ‘Pea-goose! What’s the matter?’ He waited for a moment. ‘I know I walked smash into a turn-up between you and Salford. What are you trying to do? Break your own silly neck?’
She withdrew her hand. ‘Excuse me, Tom, if you please! It would be quite improper in me to repeat what passed between us. Pray say no more!’
‘Very well,’ said Tom. ‘But don’t you choke yourself with pride, Phoebe!’ At
Sittingbourne a halt was called, and the travellers partook of refreshment at the Rose. When they came out of the inn again, and Tom was about to hand Phoebe into the chaise. Sylvester said: ‘Do you care to tool the phaeton for a stage or two, Thomas?’
‘By Jove, yes! – If you think I shan’t overturn it!’ Tom replied, with a rueful grin. ‘And if –’ he hesitated, glancing at Phoebe.
‘Do just as you wish!’ she replied at once. ‘I can very well finish the journey in one of the Accommodation coaches!’
Sylvester turned, and strode towards the phaeton. ‘Get in!’ said Tom curtly. He added, as he took his seat beside Phoebe: ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever been glad you are not my sister!’
She returned no answer. Scarcely half a dozen sentences were exchanged during the remainder of the journey; but although Phoebe pretended to be asleep for the greater part of the way sleep was never farther from her, so torn was she by conflicting emotions. Beside her Tom sat gazing out of the window, wondering what Sylvester could have said to have made her so angry; and wishing that there was something he could do for Sylvester, even if it were no more than relieving him of Edmund’s company.
But Keighley was shielding Sylvester from Edmund. ‘Give over plaguing his grace, Master Edmund!’ said Keighley, ‘Now, that’s quite enough, Master Edmund! There’s no good to be got out of flying into one of your tantrums!’ said Keighley, thinking what a pity it was that he could no longer say the same to Sylvester.
It was after six when the carriages drew up in Berkeley Square, before Salford House. ‘Why do we stop here?’ demanded Phoebe.
‘To set down my portmanteau, of course,’ replied Tom, opening the chaise-door. ‘Also, I daresay, to allow Salford to take leave of you! Try for a little civility!’
He climbed down from the chaise as he spoke. The doors of the great house were already flung open, and several persons emerged. ‘Reeth, Reeth, I’ve been to France!’ shouted Edmund, dashing up the steps. ‘Where’s Button? She’ll be ’stonished when she hears the things I’ve done! Oh, Button, I have needed you! Did you miss me, Button? Phoebe doesn’t do things the right way. Do you know, I had to tell her, Button?’
‘Repellent brat!’ remarked Sylvester. ‘Reeth, Mr Orde is staying with me for a few days: take care of him for me! Will you go in with him. Thomas? I’ll escort Miss Marlow to Green Street.’
This scheme seemed so fraught with disaster that Tom could not help saying, in an urgent undervoice: ‘I wouldn’t, Salford! Leave her to come about!’
‘Go in with Reeth, Thomas: I shall be with you presently,’ replied Sylvester, as though he had not heard this advice.
He mounted into the chaise, and almost before the door was shut grasped Phoebe’s hands, saying: ‘Phoebe, you must listen to me! I know I made wretched work of it: I can’t explain it to you now – there is too little time – but I won’t let you go like this! You can’t think I would ask you to marry me in jest, or to insult you!’
‘You have told me already that you never meant to ask me,’ she replied, trying to pull her hands away. ‘I fancy you will be truly thankful, when you have recovered from the mortification of having your suit rejected, that I didn’t snap at so brilliant an offer. Will you please to release me, my lord Duke?’
‘But I love you!’ he said, gripping her hands rather more tightly.
‘You are very obliging, but I cannot return your affection, sir.’
‘I’ll make you!’ he promised.
‘Oh, no, you will not!’ returned Phoebe, thoroughly ruffled. ‘Will you let me go? If you have no more conduct than to behave in this fashion in the middle of the street, I have! Make me love you, indeed! If I were not so angry, I could laugh to think how exactly I hit him off when I wrote of Ugolino that, try as he might to appear conciliating, he could not open his lips without betraying his arrogance!’
‘Do you call it arrogance when I tell you that I love you, and wish to make you my wife?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, and folly too! You have never suffered a rebuff, have you, Duke? When any female has shown herself not to be disposed to like you it has been a sport with you to make her like you very much too well, I daresay, for her comfort. You even lay bets that where others have failed you will succeed!’
‘What nonsense is this?’ he exclaimed. ‘I?’
‘Yes, you! Was there not an heiress who was called the Citadel? Or are your conquests too numerous to be remembered by you?’
‘I remember,’ he said grimly. ‘You had that from Ianthe, did you? Did she also tell you that it was a piece of funning between my brother and me – discreditable, if you like, but never meant to go beyond the pair of us?’
‘In fact, you didn’t storm the Citadel, Duke?’
‘For God’s sake, Phoebe, must you throw in my face the follies I committed when I was a boy?’
‘I would not if you had outgrown that conceit! But you haven’t! Why did you make yourself so agreeable to me? You must have had a great deal of practice, I think, for you did it beautifully! If I had not known what your object was I am sure you must have succeeded in it! But I did know! Tom told you that I ran away from Austerby because the thought of becoming your wife was repugnant to me, and you were so piqued that you determined I should fall in love with you, and afterwards be sorry!’
He had so entirely forgotten that pettish resolve that he was thunderstruck.
‘Well?’ said Phoebe, watching him. ‘Can you deny it Duke?’
He released her hands at last, and uttered his crowning blunder.
‘No. I was piqued, I did, in a fit of – conceit – arrogance – anything you please to call it! – form some such contemptible scheme. I beg you to believe it was of very short duration!’
‘I don’t believe it!’ declared Phoebe.
The chaise turned into Green Street. Miss Marlow, having discharged much of the wrath she had been obliged to keep bottled up for so many painful hours, had begun to feel very low. The Creature beside her, not content with humiliating her in public, and regarding all the disagreeable experiences she had undergone on his behalf with indifference and ingratitude, had stormed at her, and insulted her, and now, when any but a monster of cold-hearted self-consequence must have known how tired and miserable she was, and how desperately in need of reassurance, he sat silent. Perhaps he needed encouragement? She gave it him. ‘Having become acquainted with your other flames, Duke – all diamonds of the first water! – I should have to be uncommonly green to believe that you preferred me! You asked me to marry you because you are so determined not to be obliged to own yourself worsted that you will go to any lengths to achieve your object!’
Now or never was the time for Sylvester to retrieve his character! He said very levelly: ‘You need say no more, Miss Marlow. It would be useless, I realise, for me to attempt to answer you.’
‘If you wish to know what I think of you,’ said Phoebe, in a shaking voice, ‘it is that you are a great deal worse than Count Ugolino!’
He was silent. Well! Now she knew how right she had been. He was not in the least in love with her, and very happy she was to know it. All she wanted was a suitable retreat, such as a lumber-room, or a coal-cellar, in which to enjoy her happiness to the full.
The chaise drew to a standstill, and Sylvester got out, and with his own hands let down the steps. Such condescension! Pulling herself together. Phoebe alighted, and said with great dignity: ‘I must thank you, Duke, for having been so kind as to have brought me back to England. In case we should not meet again, I should like, before we say goodbye, to assure you that I am not unmindful of what I owe you, and that I wish you extremely happy.’
This very beautiful speech might just as well have remained unspoken, for all the heed he paid to it. He said: ‘I am coming in with you,’ and sounded the knocker.
‘I beg you most earnestly not to do so!’ she said, with pas
sionate sincerity. He took her hand in his. ‘Miss Marlow, let me do this one thing for you! I know Lady Ingham, and what her temper is. I promise you she shall not be angry with you, if only I may see her first.’
‘You are very good, Duke, but I assure you I need no intervention!’ she said proudly.
The door opened. Horwich ejaculated: ‘Miss Phoebe!’ He then encountered a most unnerving stare from Sylvester, and bowed, and stammered: ‘Your g-grace!’
‘Have Miss Marlow’s baggage carried into the house!’ said Sylvester coldly, and turned again to Phoebe. It was clearly useless to persist in argument; so, knowing that Horwich was listening to every word he said, he held out his hand, and said: ‘I will leave you now, Miss Marlow. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for what you have done. Will you present my compliments to Lady Ingham, and inform her that I hope to call upon her shortly, when I shall tell her – for I know well that you will not! – how deeply indebted to you I am? Goodbye! God bless you!’ He bent, and kissed her hand, while Horwich, consumed with curiosity, goggled at him.
To Phoebe, long past being able to recognise what his intention must be, this speech was the last straw. She managed to say: ‘Certainly! I mean – you exaggerate, Duke! Goodbye!’ and then hurried into the house.
‘When the baggage has been taken off, drive back to Salford House!’ Sylvester told the chief postilion. ‘You will be paid there. I am going to walk.’
When Reeth presently opened the doors to his master he was a good deal shocked. He had rather suspected that something was wrong, and he perceived now that something was very wrong indeed. He had seen that look on his grace’s face once before. It wouldn’t do to say anything about it, but at least he could tell him something that would do him good to hear. As he helped Sylvester out of his driving-coat, he said: ‘I didn’t have time to tell your grace before, but –’
‘Reeth, what the devil are you doing here?’ demanded Sylvester, as though he had only just become aware of him. ‘Good God, you don’t mean to say my mother is here?’
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