Sylvester Page 4

  Sylvester left Chance towards the end of January, a day later than his last, lingering guest. He was bound for Blandford Park, whither his hunters were sent by the direct route from Leicestershire; but he went first to London, a deviation that caused no surprise, since he told his mother he had business there. As it was hunting, not matrimony, that took him to Blandford Park she was able to see him off without any immediate apprehension of his proposing to one of the five eligible candidates for his hand. None of these ladies would be at Blandford Park; and it was in the highest degree unlikely that they were to be found in London either, at the end of January. The Duchess believed he would be granted little opportunity to commit his contemplated imprudence until the beginning of the season. But he had omitted to tell her what was his chief business in town. He went to pay a morning visit to his godmother.

  The Dowager Lady Ingham lived in Green Street, in a house bursting with all the furniture and ornaments she had insisted on removing from Ingham House on the occasion of her son’s marriage, and her own retirement to Green Street. Any piece for which she had a fancy she insisted was her personal property; and since neither Ingham nor his gentle bride was a match for her she bore off several heirlooms, handsomely promising, however, to bequeathe them to their rightful owner. She also removed the butler, but as he was growing old and was obstinate in his adherence to customs Lord Ingham thought obsolete, this was not felt to be a loss. He was now considerably stricken in years, went about his duties in a slow and stately manner, and discouraged the Dowager from holding any entertainments more arduous than a small soirée, or a card-party. Fortunately she had no wish to give dinner-parties, or breakfasts, excusing herself on the score of age and infirmity. She was not, in fact, much above five-and-sixty; and beyond a tendency to gout no one had any very clear idea of what her infirmities might be. She certainly walked with the aid of an ebony cane; and whenever she was confronted with any disagreeable form of exertion she was threatened with palpitations, and was obliged to send for Sir Henry Halford, who understood her constitution so well that he could always be depended on to recommend her to do precisely what she wished.

  When Sylvester was ushered into her crowded drawing-room she greeted him with a snort; but she was pleased to receive a visit from him nevertheless; and after telling him acidly that she had well-nigh forgotten what he looked like she unbent sufficiently to give him her hand, and allow him to kiss it. Mollified by the grace with which he performed this courtesy she waved him to a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace and bade him tell her how his mother did.

  ‘I left her pretty well, I think,’ he answered. ‘But tell me, ma’am, how you do?’

  She told him. The recital lasted for twenty minutes, and might have lasted longer had she not suddenly bethought herself of something she wanted to know. She broke off her account of her aches and ails abruptly, saying: ‘Never mind that! What’s this I’m hearing about your brother’s widow? The on-dit is that she’s going to marry a man-milliner. I knew his father: a namby-pamby creature he was, though he passed for an amiable man. They tell me the son is a Pink of the Ton. I suppose he has a genteel fortune? Old Fotherby should have cut up warm.’

  ‘Oh, as rich as Golden Ball!’ Sylvester replied.

  ‘Is he indeed? H’m!’ She was evidently impressed by this, but said after a reflective moment: ‘In a vast hurry to be married again, ain’t she? What happens to the boy?’

  ‘He will remain at Chance, of course.’

  She stared at him. ‘What, is your poor mother to be charged with the care of him?’

  ‘No, certainly not.’ He held up his quizzing-glass, twisting it between finger and thumb, and watching the flash of firelight on its magnifying lens. ‘I am thinking of getting married myself, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, it’s high time,’ she responded snappishly. ‘The Torrington girl, I collect?’

  ‘I suppose she might answer the purpose – if I could be sure she would not be hipped at Chance. It is an object with me, you know, ma’am, to choose a wife who will be acceptable to my mother.’

  If she thought this an odd reason for matrimony she did not say so. ‘Is your heart engaged?’ she demanded.

  ‘Not in the least,’ he replied. ‘You see what a quandary I am in! Do advise me!’

  She did not speak for a minute, but he knew that she was on the alert, and was content to wait, idly swinging his quizzing-glass.

  ‘You can pour yourself out a glass of wine!’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ll take one too – though I don’t doubt I shall suffer for it.’

  He rose, and crossed the room to where Horwich had set a silver tray on a side-table. When he came back to the fire, and put a glass of sherry into the Dowager’s hand, he said lightly: ‘Now, if you were only a fairy godmother, ma’am, you would wave your wand, and so conjure up exactly the bride I want!’

  He returned to his chair as he spoke, and had embarked on a change of subject when she interrupted him, saying: ‘I may not be able to wave a wand, but I daresay I could produce an eligible bride for you.’ She set her glass down. ‘What you want, Sylvester, is a pretty-behaved girl of good birth, good upbringing, and an amiable disposition. If your Uncle William were not a zany he would have arranged just such an alliance for you years ago, and you may depend upon it you would have been very comfortable in it. Well, I haven’t meddled, though I own I’ve been tempted, when I’ve heard how you were making up to first this female and then that. However, you’ve now applied to me, and it’s my belief that if you wish for a wife who will know what her duty is and be more acceptable than any other to your mother, you could do no better for yourself than to offer for my granddaughter. I don’t mean one of Ingham’s girls, but Phoebe: my Verena’s child.’

  He was extremely annoyed. His godmother was not playing the game as he had planned it. Those carefully casual words of his should have prompted her not to hold him up at the sword’s point, but to have produced her granddaughter presently (at the start of the season, perhaps) for his inspection. There was a lack of finesse about her conduct of the affair which vexed and alarmed him; for while the notion of marrying the daughter of his mother’s dear friend had taken possession of his mind its hold was not so strong that it could not speedily be broken by the discovery that Miss Marlow was lacking in the qualities he considered indispensable in his wife. In Lady Ingham’s bluntness he saw an attempt to force his hand, and nothing could more surely set up the back of a young man who had been, virtually, his own master from the time he was nineteen, and the master of a great many other persons as well. He said in a cool tone: ‘Indeed? Have I met your granddaughter, ma’am? I think I have not.’

  ‘I don’t know. She was brought out last season – it should have been done before, but she contracted scarlet fever, and so it was put off for a year. She will be twenty in October: I’m not offering you a schoolroom miss. As for the rest – I imagine you must several times have been in company with her, for she was taken to all the ton parties. I saw to that! If I had left it to that woman Marlow married as his second the poor child would have spent her time at museums, and the Concerts of Ancient Music, for that’s Constance Marlow’s notion of disporting herself in town! Marlow married her before Phoebe was out of leading-strings, the more fool he! Not but what I give the woman credit for having done her duty by the child. She has been well brought-up – no question about that!’ Glancing across at Sylvester she saw that he was wearing his satyr-look, and she said with the sharpness of defiance: ‘I couldn’t take charge of the girl! At my age, and with my indifferent health it wasn’t to be thought of!’ He said nothing, nor did the satyr-look abate. Since Lady Ingham had made no attempt during the previous season to bring her granddaughter to his notice he concluded that Miss Marlow was probably a plain girl, unlikely to attract him. He tried to remember whether he had seen a girl with Lady Marlow on the few occasions when he had found himself in company with that forbidding lad
y. If he had, she held no place in his memory.

  ‘Phoebe’s not one of your beauties,’ said the Dowager, almost as if she had read his mind. ‘She don’t show to advantage with her mother-in-law, but to my way of thinking she’s not just in the ordinary style. If pink-and-white’s your fancy, she wouldn’t do for you. If you want quality, and a girl with a quick understanding, you’d like her. As for her fortune, she won’t inherit much from Marlow, but her mother’s dowry was tied up in her, so she’ll have that, besides what I shall leave her.’ She was silent for a minute, but said presently: ‘It would please your mother, and I don’t deny it would please me too. I want to see Verena’s child comfortably established. She’s not an heiress, but her fortune won’t be contemptible; and as for her birth, Marlow’s a fool, but his blood’s well enough; and the Inghams may look as high as they please when it comes to matchmaking. But if an alliance with my granddaughter isn’t to your taste, pray don’t hesitate to tell me so!’

  This set the seal on his resentment. She was apparently trying to fluster him into committing himself. A stupid move: she ought to know that hers was not the first trap set for him. He rose, smiling at her with apparently unruffled serenity, and said, as he lifted her hand to his lips: ‘I can’t suppose, my dear ma’am, that you need my assurance that on the score of eligibility I could have no possible objection to the match. I shall only say, therefore, that I hope to have the pleasure of meeting Miss Marlow – this season, perhaps? Ah, that will be delightful!’

  He left her with no clue to his sentiments, but in an angry mood that was not soothed by the reflection that he had laid himself open to her attack. She had proposed to him only what he had had in mind when he visited her, but the alacrity with which she had snapped at the chance offered her was almost as offensive as her attempt to force his hand. It was also stupid, for it inspired him with nothing more than a desire to cross Miss Marlow off the list of his eligibles, and propose without much waste of time to one of the remaining five. Unfortunately, the impropriety of such conduct made it impossible for him to administer this salutary lesson to the Dowager. She must regard it as a studied insult (which, indeed, it would be), and so wholly beneath him was it to insult her that he could only shrug, and resign himself. There was nothing to be done now until he had met Miss Marlow.

  He put the matter aside, only to be confronted with it again the following week, when, upon arrival at Blandford Park, he found Lord Marlow to be one of his fellow guests.

  In itself this circumstance was not suspicious. Marlow and the Duke of Beaufort were old friends; and since Austerby, Marlow’s seat, was situated in the rather indifferent country south of Calne he was a frequent visitor to Badminton during the hunting-season. The Heythrop country, which was hunted by the Duke alternately with the Badminton district, was farther from Austerby and saw his lordship less often, but he was not a stranger to the hunt. Sylvester could have believed that his presence at Blandford Park was due to the workings of chance had it not soon been borne in upon him that Marlow was there by design.

  Lord Marlow was always bluff and good-natured, but he had never been on anything more than common civility terms with Sylvester, twenty-five years his junior. On this occasion, however, his object was to stand well with him, and nothing could have exceeded his affability. Sylvester saw that Lady Ingham had been busy, and had the encounter taken place anywhere but at a hunting-party he might have rebuffed his lordship’s overtures with the chilling formality he was quite capable of adopting whenever it seemed expedient to him to do so. But Lord Marlow blundering jovially through the London scene and Lord Marlow bestriding one of his high-bred hunters were two very different persons. The one could be held in contempt; the other commanded the respect of every hunting-man. Whether over the black fences of Leicestershire or the stone walls of the Cotswold uplands he had few equals, and not even Lord Alvanley could match him for intrepidity. Every available penny from the yield of a fortune long since found to be inadequate was spent on his slapping hunters, of which he never had fewer than fourteen in his stables; and to be singled out by him on the field for a word of advice or approval was the ambition of every young blood seeking to emulate his prowess. Sylvester might know very well why he had suddenly become the recipient of his lordship’s favours, but he could not be indifferent to the bluff word of praise, or ungrateful for the advice which taught him the trick of the stone walls. One thing leading to another, before the end of the week he was fairly caught, and had accepted an invitation to stay for a few days at Austerby when he left Blandford Park. Lord Marlow was generally thought to be a stupid man, but he was not so stupid as to let it appear that he had any other object in mind than to show Sylvester what sport was to be had in admittedly humbug country; and possibly (if it should suit him) to sell him a promising five-year-old that was not quite up to his own weight. There was to be no ceremony about this visit; they would leave Blandford Park together, and Salford would take his pot-luck at Austerby. Lord Marlow made no mention of his daughter; and in these circumstances Sylvester allowed himself to be persuaded. On the whole he was not displeased. Under his host’s unexpectedly tactful handling of the affair he could make the acquaintance of Miss Marlow without in any way committing himself: a better arrangement, he was disposed to think, than a formal London party to which he would be invited for the express purpose of meeting the young lady.

  Four

  The schoolroom of Austerby was presided over by a lady of quelling aspect whose rawbone frame was invariably clad in sober-hued dresses made high to the neck and unadorned by flounces. Her sandy hair was smoothly banded under a cap; her complexion was weatherbeaten; her eyes of a pale blue; and her nose, the most salient feature of her countenance, jutted out intimidatingly. She had a gruff way of talking, and as her voice was a deep one this helped to make her seem a veritable dragon.

  Appearances, however, were deceptive. Under Miss Sibylla Battery’s formidable front beat a warmly affectionate heart. With the possible exception of Eliza, Lady Marlow’s third and best-loved daughter, her young charges all adored her; and Phoebe, Susan, Mary, and even little Kitty confided their hopes and their griefs to her, and loyally shielded her from blame in their peccadilloes.

  It might have been supposed that Miss Phoebe Marlow, nineteen years of age, and a débutante of a season’s standing, would have been emancipated from the schoolroom; but as she feared and disliked her stepmother, and was cordially disliked by Lady Marlow, she was glad to make Italian lessons with Miss Battery an excuse to spend what time she could spare from the stables in the schoolroom. This arrangement suited Lady Marlow equally well, for although she had striven her utmost to rear her stepdaughter in the image of a genteel young female, none of the whippings Phoebe had received and no weight of hours spent in solitary confinement had availed to purge her of what her ladyship called her hoydenish tricks. She careered all over the country-side, mounted either on her own cover-hack, or on one of her father’s big hunters; tore her clothes; hobnobbed with grooms; stitched abominably; and was (in Lady Marlow’s opinion) on far too easy terms with Mr Thomas Orde, her lifelong friend and the son of the Squire. Had she had her way Lady Marlow would have very speedily put a stop to any but the mildest form of equestrian exercise; but to every representation made to him on this sore subject Lord Marlow turned a deaf ear. He was in general the most compliant of husbands, but horses were his passion, and her ladyship had learnt long ago that any attempt to interfere in what concerned the stables would fail. Like many weak men, Lord Marlow could be mulish in obstinacy. He was proud of Phoebe’s horsemanship, liked to take her out with him on hunting-days, and could ill have spared her from his stables, which she managed, in theory, during his frequent absences from home, and, in practice, at all times.

  Summoned peremptorily to London by Lady Ingram, Lord Marlow, an indolent man, left Austerby grumbling. He returned two days later in the best of spirits, and in unaccustomed charity with his one-time mothe
r-in-law. Such a brilliant match as she seemed to have arranged for Phoebe he had never hoped to achieve, for Phoebe had not taken very well during her London season. Lady Marlow had drilled her into propriety; it was Lord Marlow’s unexpressed opinion that she had overdone it. A little more vivacity, of which he knew Phoebe to have plenty, was needed to overcome the disadvantages of a thin, wiry figure, a brown complexion, and no more beauty than could be found in a pair of clear gray eyes, which could certainly twinkle with mischief, but which more frequently held a look of scared apprehension.

  Lady Marlow was a Christian woman, and she did not grudge Phoebe her astonishing good fortune, however unworthy of it she might be. Indeed, she determined to see to it that Phoebe did nothing to alienate such an eligible suitor during his stay at Austerby. ‘For, you may depend upon it,’ she said, ‘that whatever whimsical notion Salford may have taken into his head of offering for the daughter of his mama’s friend he will marry none but a female who conducts herself with propriety. For my part, I am persuaded this marriage has been proposed to him by Lady Ingham. Phoebe has yet to establish herself in his eyes. He met her in London in the spring – indeed, he stood up with her at Lady Sefton’s ball – but if he would recognise her again it is more than I bargain for.’

  ‘You don’t think, my love,’ his lordship ventured to suggest, ‘that it might be wiser not to inform her why he comes to visit us – that is, if he does come, which, you know, is not certain?’

  No, her ladyship did not think so at all, unless it was my lord’s wish that his daughter should instantly disgust the Duke by coming in spattered all over with mud, blurting out one of her ill-considered remarks, or giving him a very odd notion of her character by encouraging the familiarities of young Orde.