Sylvester Read online

  ‘She has gone to Gretna Green with Tom Orde, Papa,’ said Eliza.

  The tone in which she uttered this staggering information was so smug that it goaded Susan into exclaiming impetuously: ‘I know that’s a rapper, you odious little mischief-maker, you!’

  ‘Susan, you will go to my dressing-room and remain there until I come to you!’ said Lady Marlow.

  But greatly to her surprise Lord Marlow came to Susan’s rescue. ‘No, no, this matter must be sifted! It’s my belief Sukey is in the right of it.’

  ‘Mine too,’ interpolated Miss Battery.

  ‘Eliza is a very truthful child,’ stated Lady Marlow.

  ‘How do you know she is gone to Gretna Green?’ demanded Mrs Orde. ‘Did she tell you so?’

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am!’ said Eliza, looking so innocent that Susan’s hand itched to slap her. ‘I think it was a secret between her and Tom, and it has made me very unhappy, because it is wrong to have secrets from Mama and Papa, isn’t it, Mama?’

  ‘Very wrong indeed, my dear,’ corroborated Lady Marlow graciously. ‘I am glad to know that one at least of my daughters feels as she ought.’

  ‘Yes, very likely,’ said Lord Marlow without any marked display of enthusiasm, ‘but how do you come to know this, girl?’

  ‘Well, Papa, I don’t like to tell tales of my sister, but Tom came to see her last night.’

  ‘Came to see her last night? When?’

  ‘I don’t know, Papa. It was very late, I think, because I was fast asleep.’

  ‘Then you couldn’t have known anything about it!’ interrupted Susan.

  ‘Be silent, Susan!’ commanded Lady Marlow.

  ‘I woke up,’ explained Eliza. ‘I heard people talking in the morning-room, and I thought it was robbers, so I got up, because it was my duty to tell Papa, so that he could –’

  ‘Oh, you wicked, untruthful brat!’ gasped Susan. ‘If you had thought that you would have put your head under the blankets in a quake of fright!’

  ‘Am I to speak to you again, Susan?’ demanded Lady Marlow.

  ‘Perfectly true,’ said Miss Battery. ‘Never had such an idea in her head. Not at all courageous. Got up out of curiosity.’

  ‘Oh, what does it signify?’ cried Mrs Orde. ‘Tom must have come to see Phoebe on his way home last night, that much is certain! You heard them talking in the morning-room, did you, Lizzy? What did they say?’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. Only that just as I was about to run to find Papa I heard Tom speak, quite loud, so I knew it wasn’t house-breakers. He said he hoped there wouldn’t be snow in the north, because it must be Gretna Green.’

  ‘Good God!’ ejaculated Lord Marlow. ‘The young – And what had Phoebe to say that, pray?’

  ‘She told him not to speak so loud, papa, and then I heard no more, for I went back to bed.’

  ‘Yes, because try as you might you couldn’t hear any more!’ said Susan.

  ‘You behaved very properly,’ said Lady Marlow. ‘If your sister is saved from the dreadful consequences of her conduct she will owe it to your sense of duty. I am excessively pleased with you, Eliza.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am,’ said Miss Battery, ‘I should like to know why Eliza’s sense of duty didn’t prompt her to come immediately to my bedchamber to inform me of what was going forward! Don’t scruple to tell you, ma’am, that I don’t think there’s a word of truth in the story.’

  ‘Yes, by God!’ said Lord Marlow, kindling. ‘So should I like to know that! Why didn’t you rouse Miss Battery immediately. Eliza? Susan’s right! You made up the whole story, didn’t you? Eh? Answer me!’

  ‘I didn’t! Oh, Mama, I didn’t!’ declared Eliza, beginning to cry.

  ‘Good gracious, my lord!’ cried Mrs Orde. ‘I should hope that it would be beyond the power of a child of her age to imagine such a tale! Pray, what should she know of Gretna Green? I do not doubt her: indeed, the terrible suspicion had already crossed my mind! What else can we think, in face of what my son wrote? If he felt himself obliged to rescue her, how could he do so except by marrying her? And where could he do that, being under age, except across the Border? I beg of you – I implore you, sir! – to go after them!’

  ‘Go after them!’ ejaculated his lordship, his face alarmingly suffused with colour. ‘I should rather think so, ma’am! Implore me, indeed! Let me tell you you have no need to do that! My daughter to be running off to Gretna Green like any – Oh, let the pair of them but wait until I catch up with them!’

  ‘Well, they won’t do that!’ said Mrs Orde, with some asperity. ‘And if you do catch them (which I don’t consider certain, for you may depend on it they have several hours’ start of you, and will stay away from the post roads for as far as they may) you will be so good as to remember, sir, that my son is little more than a schoolboy, and has acted, I don’t question, from motives of the purest chivalry!’

  At this point, perceiving that his host, having forgotten all about him, was preparing to storm out of the room, Sylvester judged it to be time to make his presence felt. Coming back into the centre of the room, he said soothingly: ‘Oh, I should think he would catch them quite easily, ma’am! The strongest probability is that they will run into a snow-drift. I believe it has been snowing for several days in the north. My dear Lord Marlow, before you set out in pursuit of the runaways you must allow me to take my leave of you. In such circumstances I daresay you and her ladyship must be wishing me at Jericho. Accept my thanks for your agreeable hospitality, my regret for its unavoidable curtailment, and my assurance – I trust unnecessary! – that you may rely upon my discretion. It remains only for me to wish you speedy success in your mission, and to beg that you will not delay your departure on my account.’

  With these words, delivered very much in the grand manner, he shook hands with Lady Marlow, executed two slight bows to Mrs Orde and Miss Battery, and was gone from the room before his host had collected his wits enough to do more than utter a half-hearted protest.

  His valet, a very correct gentleman’s gentleman, received the news of his immediate departure from Austerby with a deferential bow and an impassive countenance; John Keighley, suffering all the discomfort of a severe cold in his head, bluntly protested. ‘We’ll never reach London, your grace, not with the roads in the state they’re in, by all accounts.’

  ‘I daresay we shan’t,’ replied Sylvester. ‘But do you think I can’t reach Speenhamland? I’ll prove you wrong!’

  Swale, already folding one of Sylvester’s coats, heard this magical word with relief. Speenhamland meant the Pelican, a hostelry as famous for the excellence of its accommodation as for the extortionate nature of its charges. Far better entertainment would be found there than at Austerby, as well for his grace’s servants as for his grace himself.

  Unmoved by this reflection, Keighley objected: ‘It’s more than thirty miles from here, your grace! You’ll have to change horses, and postilions too, because the boys couldn’t do it, not if we run into snow.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not travelling in the chaise!’ said Sylvester. ‘I’ll take the curricle, of course, and drive myself. You will come with me, and Swale can follow in the chaise. Tell the boys they must go as far as they can without a change. They are to bring my own team on by easy stages to the Pelican, and if I’m not there, to town. Swale, put up all I might need for several days in one of my portmanteaux!’

  ‘If your grace should wish me to travel in the curricle I shall be happy to do so,’ said Swale, with less truth than heroism.

  ‘No, Keighley will be of far more use to me,’ replied Sylvester.

  His devoted retainer grunted, and went off to the stables. Within half an hour, resigned to his fate, he was seated beside his master in the curricle, gloomily surveying the prospect, which had by this time become extremely threatening. He had added a large muffler to his attire, and from time to