Джорджетт Хейер: Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

“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 realize, 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 passionate 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 recognize 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 the 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?”

“In her own sitting-room, your grace, waiting for you to come in,” beamed Reeth. “And stood the journey very well, I am happy to be able to assure your grace.”

“I’ll go to her at once!” Sylvester said, walking quickly to the great stair.

She was alone, seated on one side of the fireplace. She looked up as Sylvester came in, and smiled mischievously.

“Mama!”

“Sylvester! Now, I won’t be scolded! You are to tell me that you are delighted to find me here, if you please!”

“I don’t have to tell you that,” he said, bending over her. “But to have set out without me—! I ought never to have written to tell you what had happened! I did so only because I was afraid you might hear of it from some other source. My dear, have you been so anxious?”

“Not a bit! I knew you would bring him back safely. But it was a little too much to expect me to stay at Chance when such stirring events were taking place in London. Now, sit down and tell me all about it! Edmund’s confidences have given rise to the wildest conjectures in my mind, and that delightful boy you have brought home with you thinks that perhaps I shall like to hear the story better from your lips. My dear, who is he?”

He had turned aside to pull forward a chair, and as he seated himself the Duchess saw him for the first time in the full light of the candles burning near her chair. Like Reeth, she suffered a shock; like Reeth, she recognized the look on Sylvester’s face. He had worn it for many months after Harry’s death; and she had prayed she might never see it again. She was obliged to clasp her hands together in her lap, so urgent was her impulse to stretch them out to him.

“Thomas Orde,” he replied, smiling, as it seemed to her, with an effort. “A nice lad, isn’t he? I’ve invited him to stay here for as long as he cares to: his father thinks it time he acquired a little town bronze.” He hesitated, and then said:

“I daresay he may have told you—or Edmund has—that he is a friend of Miss Marlow’s. An adopted brother, as it were.”

“Oh, Edmund was very full of Tom and Phoebe ! But how they came to be mixed up in that imbroglio I can’t imagine! Phoebe seems to have been very kind to Edmund.”