“We can scarcely be said to have talked of anything,” replied Sylvester. “Miss Marlow informs me that she has no conversation.”
He glanced at Phoebe as he spoke, and encountered such a burning look of reproach that he repented, and tried to mend matters by adding with a laugh: “In point of fact, ma’am, Miss Marlow entered the room a bare minute before yourself, so we have had little opportunity to converse.”
“My daughter-in-law is shy,” said Lady Marlow, with a look at Phoebe which promised signal vengeance presently.
It occurred to Sylvester that after her first start of surprise Phoebe had not appeared to be at all shy. He remembered that Lady Ingham had said she was not just in the ordinary style, and wondered if there might be something more in her than he had as yet detected. Since she was making no effort to engage his interest he concluded that she did not know that he had come to Austerby to look her over. That made it fairly safe to try whether he could charm her out of her farouche behaviour. He smiled at her, and said: “I must hope, then, that she will not be too shy to converse with me when we are a little better acquainted.”
But by the time he rose from the dinner-table all desire to become better acquainted with Phoebe had left him, and the only thing he did desire was an excuse to leave Austerby not later than the following morning. As he sat through an interminable dinner, enduring on one side a monologue delivered by his hostess, at her most consequential, on such topics of interest as the defections of the latest incumbent of the Parish, the excellence of the Bishop, the decay of modern manners, and the customs obtaining in her dear father’s household; and on the other a series of sporting recollections from his host, the look of the satyr became ever more strongly marked on his countenance. Never had he been subjected to such treatment as he was meeting with at Austerby! When he accepted invitations to stay with friends he knew that he would find himself one of a party composed of agreeable persons, with whom he was well acquainted; and that every form of sport or amusement would be provided for their entertainment. One hunted, or one shot; and if the weather became inclement one played at whist, and billiards, took part in theatricals, danced at impromptu balls, and flirted desperately with the prettiest of the ladies. That was how he entertained his own guests: so much the way of his world that it never occurred to him that quite a number of the hostesses who secured him for their parties put forth their best efforts to entertain him royally. But when he found himself the sole guest at Austerby, had been promised by his host an evening’s whist with two obscure country gentlemen; and, by his hostess, the felicity of meeting the Bishop of Bath and Wells, it occurred to him forcibly that in making no proper provision for his entertainment Lord Marlow had been guilty of a social solecism.
He had been received by a hostess who seemed to think she was conferring a high treat upon him. He was contemptuous of flattery, he disliked toad-eaters, he did not consciously expect to be welcomed with distinction, but to be met with condescension was a new experience which set him instantly on his high ropes.
His bedchamber was rendered untenable by the smoke which gushed from the chimney; the water in the brass ewer had been tepid, so that his valet had had to fetch a fresh supply from the kitchens; the eldest daughter of the house had uttered no more than half a dozen sentences since they had entered the dining-room; and although Lord Marlow’s wines were good, the dinner set before the company was as commonplace as it was long drawn-out.
By the time Lord Marlow, promising some rubbers of piquet later in the evening, took him to join the ladies in the drawing-room, he had resigned himself to boredom; but when the first object to meet his gaze, upon entering the room, was a grim female, dressed in black bombasine and seated bolt upright in a chair slightly drawn back from the circle round the fire, he realized that he had grossly underestimated the horrors that lay before him. Besides the grim female two schoolgirls had joined the party, the elder a bouncing young woman with a high complexion, and her father’s rather protuberant blue eyes; the younger a sallow girl too bashful to speak above a whisper or without blushing fierily from neck to brow. Lady Marlow made them both known to him, but ignored the claims of the grim lady to a share of his civility. He concluded that she must be the governess; and instantly determined to show his hostess what he thought of her insufferable manners. He favoured Miss Battery with a slight bow, and his most pleasant smile, and directed at Lady Marlow an inquiring look she was unable to ignore.
“Oh—! My daughters’ governess,” she said shortly. “Pray come to the fire, Duke!”
Sylvester, choosing instead a chair rather nearer to Miss Battery than to the fireside party, addressed a civil remark to her. She answered it with composure, but gruffly, looking at him with unnerving fixity.
Lord Marlow, always very easy and good-natured with his dependants, then added to his wife’s displeasure by saying: “Ah, Miss Battery! I have not seen you since I came home! How do you go on? But I need not ask: you are always well!”
That gave Sylvester the opportunity to ask her if she were related to a family of the same name living in Norfolk. She replied: “Shouldn’t think so, sir. Never heard of them until your grace mentioned them.”
As the family had no existence outside his imagination this was not surprising; but his question seemed to have broken the ice: Miss Battery, appearing slightly mollified, disclosed that she came from Hertfordshire.
Lady Marlow, breaking rudely in on this, said loudly that she had no doubt the Duke would enjoy a little music, and waved Phoebe towards the pianoforte.
Phoebe was an indifferent performer, but as neither her father nor Lady Marlow was at all musical they were perfectly satisfied, as long as she did not falter, or play any unmistakably wrong notes. Sylvester was not musical either, but he had been used to listen to the first musicians of the day, and thought he had never heard anyone play with less taste or feeling. He could only be thankful that she did not play the harp; but when, in response to some affectionate urging from her father, she sang an old ballad in a small, wooden voice he was much inclined to think that even a harp might have been preferable.
At half-past eight the schoolroom party withdrew, and after half an hour’s desultory conversation the tea-tray was brought in. Sylvester saw the end of his purgatory, and so it was. Punctually at half-past nine Lady Marlow informed him that they kept early hours at Austerby, bade him a formal goodnight, and went away, with Phoebe following in her wake. As they mounted the stairs she said complacently that the evening had gone off very well. She added that although she feared the Duke was a man of fashion, she was on the whole pleased with him. “Your father informs me that hunting will be out of the question tomorrow,” she observed. “If it should not be snowing I shall suggest to Salford that he might like to walk with you and your sisters. Miss Battery will accompany you, of course, but I shall tell her she may fall behind, with the girls, and give her a hint at the same time not to be putting herself forward, as I was excessively surprised to see her doing this evening.”
This programme, which, a few hours earlier, would have appalled her, Phoebe listened to with a calm born of her fixed resolve to be gone from Austerby long before it could be put into execution. Parting from Lady Marlow at the head of the stairs she went away to her bedchamber, knowing that both Susan and Miss Battery would come to her there, and that it would consequently be dangerous to repair to the morning-room before she had received these visitors.
Susan was soon got rid of; but Miss Battery, who followed her, showed a disposition to linger. Seating herself at the foot of the bed, and tucking her hands into the sleeves of her thick woollen dressing-gown, she told Phoebe that she thought she had done Sylvester less than justice.