Georgette Heyer - Sylvester

‘Then she cannot know where I went! All these days- Oh, good God, what must she be thinking?’

‘Well, she knows I was with you, so she can’t have thought you’d fallen into the sea, at all events. I only hope she ain’t thinking I’ve eloped with you!’

She pressed a hand to her temple. ‘Oh, she must know better than that! Was she alarmed? Did she try to discover where we had gone, or- What did they tell you at the Ship ?’

‘Precious little,’ confessed Tom. ‘You know what it’s like there! All hustle and bustle, with people arriving and leaving at all hours. What I did discover is that your grandmother had a spasm, or some such thing, and went back to London the day after we disappeared, in rather queer stirrups. They had a doctor to her, but she can’t have been very bad, you know, or she couldn’t have travelled.’

But Phoebe, quite appalled, had sunk into a chair, and covered her face with her hands.

‘My dear Thomas,’ said Sylvester, in an amused tone, ‘Lady Ingham’s spasms are her most cherished possession! She adopted them years ago, and must find them invaluable, for while they never interfere with her pleasures they always intervene to prevent her being obliged to engage in anything that might bore her. Depend upon it, she posted back to town to pour out her troubles to Halford.’

‘I daresay that’s exactly so,’ agreed Tom. ‘The lord knows I had the deuce of a time bringing her up to the scratch at all. It’s plain enough what happened: I let go the rein, and she bolted back to the stable. No need to fall into a fit of the dismals, Phoebe.’

‘How can I help but do so?’ she said. ‘I have been so troublesome to her-’ She broke off, turning away her face. After a short pause she said more quietly: ‘She left no message?’

‘Well,’ said Tom reluctantly, ‘only about our baggage! Muker told them at the Ship that if anyone was to ask for it they were to be told it was at the coach-office.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Sylvester, walking over to the sideboard. ‘Obviously she guessed you would be returning. Miss Marlow, I know your tastes too well to hope you will let me pour you out a glass of sherry, so ratafia it must be.’

She accepted the glass he handed her, and sat holding it. ‘At the coach-office-to be called for! She thought, then- She believed me capable of deserting her?’

‘More likely took a pet,’ said Tom.

‘Much more likely,’ said Sylvester. ‘Madeira or sherry, Thomas? Until we confront Lady Ingham, Miss Marlow, it must be all conjecture-and singularly profitless. I’ll engage to convince her that without your aid Edmund would have been irretrievably lost to me.’

‘You have said yourself, Duke, that I had nothing to do with his recovery,’ she said, with a faint smile. ‘It is quite true, moreover.’

‘Oh, I shan’t tell her that!’ he promised.

‘But I shall!’

‘Thank the lord she didn’t take our baggage back to Green Street!’ said Tom, somewhat hastily. ‘I’m going with Keighley to collect it the first thing tomorrow morning, and shan’t I be glad to be able to leave off the clothes I have on!’

‘When I consider,’ said Sylvester, ‘that the shirt you are wearing is mine, not to mention the neck-cloth, and that I could very ill spare them, I resent that remark, Thomas!’

Phoebe, recognising an attempt to give her thoughts a more cheerful direction, dutifully laughed, and made no further reference to Lady Ingham. A waiter came to lay the covers for dinner; and a perfectly spontaneous laugh was drawn from Phoebe when Tom, as soon as the first course was laid before them, recommended his host to send it back to the kitchens at once.

‘Send it back?’ repeated Sylvester, taken off his guard. ‘Why should I?’

‘To puff off your consequence, of course. Ask the waiter if he knows who you are! And if you have any trouble, offer to buy the place. We are accustomed to being entertained in the first style of elegance, I can tell you!’

Fascinated, Sylvester demanded the whole history of the journey to Abbeville. He was so much amused by it that he retaliated with a graphic account of Sir Nugent Fotherby’s warm welcome to himself, which he had not hitherto thought in the least diverting. Not only present anxieties were forgotten, but past quarrels too. The good understanding that had been reached at the Blue Boar seemed to have returned; and Tom, seeing how easily Phoebe and Sylvester were sliding into their old ways of exchanging views on any number of subjects, was just congratulating himself on the success of his tactics when an unthinking remark destroyed all the comfort of the evening. ‘Like the villain in a melodrama!’ Sylvester said, wiping the mischievous smile from Phoebe’s lips, bringing the colour rushing into her cheeks, transforming her from the gayest of companions into a stiff figure reminding Tom forcibly of an effigy. Constraint returned. Sylvester, after the tiniest of checks, continued smoothly enough, but the warmth had left his voice; he had withdrawn behind his film of ice, perfectly affably and quite unapproachably.

Tom gave it up in despair. He had a very fair notion how matters stood, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to promote a lasting reconciliation. He was pretty sure Sylvester had forgotten Ugolino when he had uttered that unfortunate remark, but it was useless to say that to Phoebe. She was so morbidly sensitive about her wretched romance that even the mention of a book was liable to overset her. And however little Sylvester had remembered The Lost Heir when he spoke of a villain, he was remembering it now.

Phoebe retired immediately she rose from the dinner table, Sylvester merely bowing when she said that she was tired, and would bid them goodnight. And when he had closed the door on her retreating form, Sylvester turned, and said, smiling: ‘Well, what is to be, Thomas? Piquet? Or shall we try whether there is a chessboard to be had?’

It was really quite hopeless, thought Tom, deciding in favour of chess.

He ate a hasty breakfast next morning, and went off with Keighley to the coach-office. When he returned, he found Sylvester standing by the window and reading a newspaper, and Phoebe engaged in the homely task of wiping the egg stains from Edmund’s mouth. He said: ‘I’ve got all our gear downstairs, Phoebe. Keighley’s waiting to know which of your valises you wish him to take up to your room. And I found this as well: here you are!’

She took the letter from him quickly, recognizing Lady Ingham’s writing. ‘The smaller one, if you please, Tom. Edmund! where are you off to?’

‘Must speak to Keighley!’ Edmund said importantly, and dashed off in the direction of the stairs.

‘Unfortunate Keighley!’ remarked Sylvester, not looking up from the newspaper.

Tom departed in Edmund’s wake, and Phoebe, her fingers slightly trembling, broke the wafer that sealed her letter, and spread open the single, crossed sheet. Sylvester lowered the newspaper, and watched her. She did not say anything when she had finished reading the letter, but folded it again, and stood holding it, a blind look in her eyes.

‘Well?’

She turned her head towards the window, startled. She had never heard Sylvester speak so roughly, and wondered why he should do so.

‘You may as well tell me. Your face has already informed me that it is not a pleasant missive.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘She supposed me-when she wrote this-to have persuaded Tom to take me home. I think Muker must have encouraged her to think it, to be rid of me. She is very jealous of me. She may even have believed me to be running away with Tom. That-that was my fault.’

‘Unnecessary to tell me that! You have a genius for bringing trouble upon yourself.’