Джорджетт Хейер: Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

“What, my respected godmama? One of the Ingham girls? Oh, no, my dear! I regret infinitely, but—no!”

“No, no, Lord Marlow’s daughter!” she replied, laughing. “He married Verena Ingham, who was my dearest friend, and the most captivating creature!”

“Better and better!” he approved. “Why have I never encountered the captivating Lady Marlow?” He stopped, frowning. “But I have! I’m not acquainted with her—in fact, I don’t remember that I’ve ever so much as spoken to her, but I must tell you, Mama, that whatever she may have been in her youth—”

“Good heavens, that odious woman is Marlow’s second! Verena died when her baby was not a fortnight old.”

“Very sad. Tell me about her!”

“I don’t think you would be much the wiser if I did,” she answered, wondering if he was trying to divert her mind from the memories he had himself evoked. “She wasn’t beautiful, or accomplished, or even modish, I fear! She defeated every effort to turn her into a fashionable young lady, and never appeared elegant except in her riding-dress. She did the most outrageous things, and nobody cared a bit—not even Lady Cork! We came out in the same season, and were the greatest of friends; but while I was so fortunate as to meet Papa—and to fall in love with him at sight, let me tell you!—she refused every offer that was made her—scores of them, for she never lacked for suitors!—and declared she preferred her horses to any man she had met. Poor Lady Ingham was in despair! And in the end she married Marlow, of all people! I believe she must have liked him for his horsemanship, for I am sure there was nothing else to like in him. Not a very exciting story, I’m afraid! Why did you wish to hear it?”

“Oh, I wished to know what sort of a woman she was! Marlow I do know, and I should suppose that any daughter of his must be an intolerable bore. But your Verena’s child might be the very wife for me, don’t you think? You would be disposed to like her, which must be an object with me; and although I don’t mean to burden myself with a wife who wants conduct, I should imagine that there must be enough of Marlow’s blood in this girl to leaven whatever wildness she may have inherited from her mother. Eccentricity may be diverting, Mama, but it is out of place in a wife: certainly in my wife!”

“My dear, what nonsense you are talking! If I believed you meant it I should be most seriously disturbed!”

“But I do mean it! I thought you would have been pleased, too! What could be more romantic than to marry the girl who was betrothed to me in her cradle?”

She smiled, but she did not look to be much amused. His eyes searched her face; he said in the caressing tone he used only to her: “What is it, my dear? Tell me!”

She said: “Sylvester, you have talked of five girls who might perhaps suit you; and now you are talking of a girl of whose existence you were unaware not ten minutes ago—and as though you had only to decide between them! My dear, has it not occurred to you that you might find yourself rebuffed?”

His brow cleared. “Is that all? No, no, Mama, I shan’t be rebuffed!”

“So sure, Sylvester?”

“Of course I’m sure, Mama! Oh, not of Miss Marlow! For anything I know, her affections may be engaged already.”

“Or she might take you in dislike,” suggested the Duchess.

“Take me in dislike? Why should she?” he asked, surprised.

“How can I tell? These things do happen, you know.”

“If you mean she might not fall in love with me, I daresay she might not, though I know of no reason, if she doesn’t love another man, why she shouldn’t come to do so—or, at any rate, to like me very tolerably! Do you suppose me to be so lacking in address that I can’t make myself agreeable when I wish to? Fie on you, Mama!”

“No,” she said. “But I didn’t know you had so much address that you could beguile no fewer than five girls of rank and fashion to be ready to accept an offer from you.”

He could not resist. “Well, Mama, you said yourself that I make love charmingly!” he murmured.

It drew a smile from her, because she could never withstand that gleaming look, but she shook her head as well, and said: “For shame, Sylvester! Do you mean to sound like a coxcomb?”

He laughed. “Of course I don’t! To be frank with you, there are not five but a dozen young women of rank and fashion who are perfectly ready to receive an offer from me. I’m not hard to swallow, you know, though I don’t doubt I have as many faults as a Mr. Smith or a Mr. Jones. Mine are more palatable, however: scarcely noticeable for the rich marchpane that covers them!”

“Do you wish for a wife who marries you for the sake of your possessions?” the Duchess asked, arching her brows.

“I don’t think I mind very much, provided we were mutually agreeable. Such a wife would be unlikely to enact me any tragedies, and anything of that nature, Mama, would lead to our being regularly parted within a twelvemonth. I couldn’t endure it!”

“The enacting of tragedies, my son, is not an invariable concomitant of love-matches,” she said dryly.

“Who should know that better than I?” he retorted, his smile embracing her. “But where am I to look for your counterpart, my dear? Show her to me, and I will engage to fall desperately in love with her, and marry her, fearing no after-ills!”

“Sylvester, you are too absurd!”

“Not as absurd as you think! Seriously, Mama, although I have seen some love-matches that have prospered, I have seen a great many that most certainly have not! Oh! no doubt some husbands and wives of my acquaintance would stare to hear me say I thought them anything but happy! Perhaps they enjoy jealousies, tantrums, quarrels, and stupid misunderstandings: I should not! The well-bred woman who marries me because she has a fancy to be a duchess will suit me very well, and will probably fill her position admirably.” His eyes quizzed her. “Or would you like me to turn my coat inside out, and sally forth in humble disguise, like the prince in a fairy tale? I never thought much of that prince, you know! A chuckle-headed fellow, for how could he hope, masquerading as a mean person, to come near any but quite ineligible females whom it would have been impossible for him to marry?”

“Very true!” she replied.

He was always watchful where she was concerned. It struck him now that she was suddenly looking tired; and he said with quick compunction: “I’ve fagged you to death with my nonsense! Now, why did you let me talk you into a headache? Shall I send Anna to you?”

“No, indeed! My head doesn’t ache, I promise you,” she said, smiling tenderly up at him.

“I wish I might believe you!” he said, bending over her to kiss her cheek. “I’ll leave you to rest before you are assailed by Augusta again: don’t let her plague you!”

He went away, and she remained lost in her reflections until roused from them by her cousin’s return.

“All alone, dear Elizabeth?” Miss Penistone exclaimed. “Now, if I had but known—but in general I do believe Sylvester would stay with you for ever, if I were not obliged at last to come in! I am sure I have said a hundred times that I never knew such an attentive son. So considerate, too! There was never anything like it!”

“Ah, yes!” the Duchess said. “To me so considerate, so endlessly kind!”

She sounded a little mournful, which was unusual in her. Miss Penistone, speaking much in the heartening tone Button used to divert Edmund when he was cross, said: “He was looking particularly handsome today, wasn’t he? Such an excellent figure, and his air so distinguished! What heart-burnings there will be when at last he throws the handkerchief!”