Sylvester Read online

  ‘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 naïve 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.

  Twenty-four

  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