Sylvester (40 page)

‘No, I may not,’ returned Tom. ‘You may not care for the mess Phoebe’s in, but I do! You know Lady Ingham! That business—all the kick-up over Phoebe’s book!—tried her pretty high, and she wasn’t in the best of humours when I saw her last. By now I should think she’s in a rare tweak, but
you
could bring her round your finger. If we go back to England with you, and you tell the old lady it was due to Phoebe you were able to recover young Edmund, all will be tidy. But if I have to take Phoebe back alone, and all you care for is to keep the business secret, we shall be lurched. You won’t be able to keep it secret, either. What about Swale? What about—’

‘The only one of my servants who knows where I have gone is Keighley. Swale is not with me. I am not as green as you think, Thomas!’

A slow grin spread over Tom’s face. ‘I don’t think you
green
,
Salford!’ he said. ‘Touched in the upper works is what you are!’

Sylvester looked frowningly at him. ‘What the devil are you at now? Do you think me dependent on my valet? You should know better!’

‘Should I? Who is going to look after Edmund on the journey?’

‘I am.’

‘
Have
you ever looked after him?’ inquired Tom, grinning more widely.

‘No,’ said Sylvester, very slightly on the defensive.

‘You
will
enjoy the journey! You wait till you’ve had to wash him half a dozen times a day, my lord Duke! You’ll have to dress him, and undress him, and tell him stories when he begins to feel queasy in the chaise, and see he don’t eat what he shouldn’t—and I’ll wager you don’t know, so the chances are you’ll be up half the night with him!—and you won’t even be able to eat your dinner in peace, because he might wake up, and start kicking up a dust. He don’t like strange places, you know. And don’t think you can hand him over to a chambermaid, because he don’t like foreigners either! And if you’re gudgeon enough to spank him for being an infernal nuisance he’ll start sobbing his heart out, and you’ll have every soul in the place behaving as if you was Herod!’

‘For God’s sake, Thomas—’ Sylvester said, half laughing. ‘Damn you, I wish I’d never met you! Is it as bad as that?’

‘Much worse!’ Tom assured him.

‘My God! I ought to have brought Keighley, of course. But what you don’t realize is that when I drew from my bank what I supposed I should need I didn’t bargain for two more persons being added to my party. We should come to a standstill before we reached Calais!’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Tom. ‘Well, we shall have to pawn something, that’s all.’

‘
Pawn
something?’ repeated Sylvester. ‘Pawn what?’

‘We must think. Have you got that dressing-case of yours with you?’

‘Oh, it’s I who must pawn something, is it? No, I am happy to say I didn’t bring anything but a portmanteau!’

‘It will have to be your watch and chain, then. It’s a pity you don’t sport diamond tie-pins and rings. Now, if only you had a spanking great emerald, like the one Fotherby’s dazzling us with today—’

‘Oh, be quiet!’ said Sylvester. ‘I’ll be damned if I’ll pawn my watch! Or anything else!’

‘I’ll do it for you,’ offered Tom. ‘
I
ain’t so high in the instep!’

‘What you are, Thomas, is a—’ Sylvester stopped, as the door opened, and Phoebe came into the room.

She was looking so haughty that Tom nearly laughed; and her voice was more frigid than Sylvester’s at its coldest. ‘Excuse me, if you please! Tom—’

‘Miss Marlow,’ interrupted Sylvester, ‘I understand that I did you an injustice. I beg you will accept my sincere apology.’

She threw him a disdainful glance. ‘It is not of the slightest consequence, sir. Tom, I came to tell you that I meant what I said to you on the stairs, and have settled what I shall do. I mean to beg Lady Ianthe to allow me to accompany her as far as to Paris. Once there I can await Grandmama at the Embassy. I am persuaded Sir Charles and Lady Elizabeth will permit me to remain with them when I tell them who I am. If you will go back to Dover with his grace—’

‘Yes, that’s a capital scheme!’ said Tom. ‘What’s more, I’d give my last coachwheel to see the Ambassador’s face when you tripped in, and said you was Lady Ingham’s granddaughter, and had come to stay because you’d mislaid her ladyship on the road,
with
all your baggage! For heaven’s sake, don’t be so shatterbrained! Do you want to set Paris talking as well as London?’

She flinched at this, and Sylvester, seeing it, said: ‘That’s enough! Miss Marlow, you must see that that scheme is quite ineligible. Pray accept my escort to England!’

‘I had rather hire myself out as a cook-maid!’ she declared. ‘
Anything
would be preferable to travelling in your company!’

Having expressed himself in much the same terms, Sylvester was instantly nettled, and retorted: ‘You endured my company for a se’enight not so long since without suffering any ill-effect, and I daresay you will survive a few more days of it!’

‘I wish with all my heart I had never gone aboard that ship!’ said Phoebe, with deep feeling.

‘So do I wish it! For a more ill-judged—I beg your pardon! I believe you meant well!’

‘I shall never mean you well again!’ she told him fierily. ‘As for your
condescension
,
my lord Duke—’

‘Phoebe, take a damper!’ commanded Tom sternly. ‘And listen to me! I’ve gone along with you till now, but I’m going no farther. You’ll do as I tell you, my girl. We shall go home with Salford, and you will
not
be beholden to him, if that’s what frets you, because he needs you to look after Edmund. Yes, and let me remind you that you promised that boy you wouldn’t leave him until he had his Button again!’

‘He won’t care for that
now
!’
she said.

But as Edmund peeped into the coffee-room at that moment, and, upon being applied to by Tom, instantly said that he would not let Phoebe go away, this argument failed. She did suggest to Edmund that his uncle would suffice him, but he vigorously shook his curly head, saying: ‘No, acos Uncle Sylvester is
damned
if he will be plagued with me afore breakfast.’

This naive confidence did much to alleviate constraint. Phoebe could not help laughing, and Sylvester, wreaking awful vengeance on his small nephew, lost his stiffness.

But just as Edmund’s squeals and chuckles were at their height the company was startled by a roar of rage and anguish from above-stairs. It seemed to emanate from a soul in torment, making Sylvester jerk up his head, and Edmund stop squirming in his hold.

‘What the devil—?’ exclaimed Sylvester.

24

‘
Now
what’s amiss?’ said Tom, limping to the door. ‘It sounds as if the Pink of the Ton has found a speck of mud on his coat.’

‘Pett! Pett!’ bellowed Sir Nugent, descending the stairs. ‘Pett, where are you?
Pett
,
I say!’

As Tom pulled the door wide Sylvester set Edmund on his feet, demanding: ‘What in God’s name ails the fellow?’

With a final appeal to Pett as he crossed the hall Sir Nugent appeared in the doorway, nursing in his arms a pair of glossy Hessians, and commanding the occupants of the coffee-room to look—only to look!

‘Don’t make that infernal noise!’ said Sylvester sharply. ‘Look at what?’

‘That cur, that mongrel!’ Sir Nugent shouted. ‘I’ll hang him! I’ll tear him limb from limb, by God I will!’

‘Oh, sir, what is it?’ cried Pett, running into the room.

‘Look!’ roared Sir Nugent, holding out the boots.

They were the Hessians of his own design, but gone were their golden tassels. Pett gave a moan, and fell back with starting eyes; Tom shot one quick look at Edmund, tried to keep his countenance, and, failing, leaned against the door in a fit of unseemly laughter; and Phoebe, after one choking moment, managed to say: ‘Oh, dear, how very unfortunate! But p-pray don’t be distressed, Sir Nugent! You may have new ones put on, after all!’

‘New ones—! Pett! if it was you who left the door open so that that mongrel could get into my room you leave my service today! Now!
Now
,
do you hear me?’

‘
Never
!’
cried Pett dramatically. ‘The chambermaid, sir! the boots!
Anyone
but me!’

Balked, Sir Nugent rounded on Tom. ‘By God, I believe it was you! Laugh, will you?
You
let that cur into my room!’

‘No, of course I didn’t,’ said Tom. ‘I’m sure I beg your pardon, but of all the kick-ups only for a pair of boots!’

‘
Only
—!’ Sir Nugent took a hasty step towards him, almost purple with rage.

‘Draw his cork, Tom, draw his cork!’ begged Edmund, his angelic blue eyes blazing with excitement.

‘Fotherby,
will
you
control yourself?’ Sylvester said angrily.

‘Sir, there is no scratch on them! At least we are spared that!’ Pett said. ‘I shall scour Paris day and night, sir. I shall leave no stone unturned. I shall—’

‘My own design!’ mourned Sir Nugent, unheeding. ‘Five times did Hoby have them back before I was satisfied!’

‘Oh, sir, shall I ever forget?’

‘What a couple of Bedlamites!’ Sylvester remarked to Phoebe, his eyebrows steeply soaring, his tone one of light contempt.

‘Gudgeon,’ said Edmund experimentally, one eye on his mentor.

But as Tom was telling Sylvester the tale of Chien’s previous assault on the Hessians this essay passed unheeded. Sir Nugent, becoming momently more like an actor in a Greek tragedy, was lamenting over one boot, while Pett nursed the other, and recalling every circumstance that had led him to design such a triumph of modishness.

Sylvester, losing all patience, exclaimed: ‘This is ridiculous!’

‘Ridicklus!’ said Edmund, savouring a new word.

‘You can say that?’ cried Sir Nugent, stung. ‘Do you know how many hours I spent deciding between a plain gold band round the tops, or a twisted cord? Do you—’

‘I’m not amused by foppery! I shall be—’

‘Ridicklus gudgeon!’

‘—obliged to you if—
What
did you say?’ Sylvester, arrested by Edmund’s gleeful voice, turned sharply.

The question, most wrathfully uttered, hung on the air. One scared look up into Sylvester’s face and Edmund hung his head. Even Sir Nugent ceased to repine, and waited for the answer. But Edmund prudently refrained from answering. Sylvester, with equal prudence, did not repeat the question, but said sternly: ‘Don’t let me hear your voice again!’ He then turned back to the bereaved dandy, and said: ‘I shall be obliged to you if you will bring this exhibition to a close, and give me your attention!’

But at this moment the Young Person arrived on the scene, with an urgent summons from Ianthe. Miladi, alarmed by the sounds that had reached her ears, desired her husband to come up to her room immediately.

‘I must go to her!’ announced Sir Nugent. ‘She will be in despair when she learns of this outrage! “Nugent,” she said, when I put them on yesterday—the first time! only once worn! “You will set a fashion!” she said. I must go to her at once!’

With that, he laid the boot he was still holding in Pett’s arms, and hurried from the room. Pett, with a deprecating look at Sylvester, said: ‘Your grace will forgive us. It is a sad loss—a great blow, your grace!’

‘Take yourself off!’

‘Yes, your grace! At once, your grace!’ said Pett, bowing himself out in haste.

‘As for you,’ said Sylvester, addressing his sinful nephew, ‘if ever I hear such impertinence from you again it will be very much the worse for you! Now go!’

‘I won’t do it again!’ said Edmund, in a small, pleading voice.

‘I said,
Go
!’

Scarlet-faced, Edmund fled. This painful interlude afforded Phoebe an opportunity to resume hostilities, and she told Sylvester that his conduct was brutal. ‘It is extremely improper, moreover, to vent your own ill-temper on the poor child! It would have been enough for you to have given him a quiet reproof. I was never more shocked!’

‘When I wish for your advice, Miss Marlow, be sure that I will ask for it,’ he replied.

She got up quickly, and walked to the door. ‘Take care what you are about!’ she said warningly, as a parting shot. ‘
I
am not one of your unfortunate servants, obliged to submit to your odious arrogance!’

‘One moment!’ he said.

She looked back, very ready to continue to do battle.

‘Since Fotherby appears to be unable to think of anything but his boots, perhaps you, Miss Marlow, will be good enough to inform Lady Ianthe of my arrival,’ said Sylvester. ‘Will you also, if you please, pack Edmund’s clothes? I wish to remove from this place as soon as may be possible.’

This request startled her into exclaiming: ‘You can’t take him away at this hour! Why, it’s past his bedtime already! It may suit you to travel by night, but it won’t do for Edmund!’

‘I have no intention of travelling by night, but only of removing to some other hôtel. We shall leave for Calais in the morning.’

‘Then you will remove without me!’ said Phoebe. ‘Have you
no
thought for anyone’s convenience but your own? What do you imagine must be
my
feelings—if you can condescend to consider anything so trifling? While I was one of Sir Nugent’s party my lack of baggage passed unheeded, but in yours it will not! And if you think I am going to one of the fashionable hotels in a travel-stained dress, and nothing but a small bandbox for luggage, you are very much mistaken, Duke!’