“Mama did her duty by me,” said Phoebe. “I think I understand what Lady Henry’s feelings must be.”
“Fiddle!” said the Dowager. “I don’t scruple to tell you, my love—for you are bound to hear it—that they are at odds now because the little ninny has got a second marriage in her eye, and knows Sylvester won’t let her take the boy away from Chance.”
“Oh!” Phoebe exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “How could he be so inhuman? Does he expect her to remain a widow all her life? Ah, I suppose it should be enough for her to have been married to a Rayne! I don’t believe there was ever anyone more arrogant!”
“Before you put yourself in a taking,” said the Dowager dryly, “let me tell you that if it is arrogance which prompts Sylvester to say he won’t have his heir brought up by Nugent Fotherby it is a fortunate circumstance for the boy that he is arrogant!”
“Nugent Fotherby?” gasped Phoebe, her righteous wrath suddenly and ludicrously arrested. “Grandmama, you can’t mean it? That absurd creature who can’t turn his head because his shirt points are too high, and who let Papa chouse him out of three hundred guineas for a showy chestnut anyone but a flat must have seen was short of bone?”
Somewhat taken aback, the Dowager said: “I don’t know anything about horses. And as for your father, if he persuaded Fotherby to buy one that was unsound I call it very shabby dealing!”
“Oh, no, ma’am!” Phoebe said earnestly. “I assure you there is nothing wrong in that! If a man who can’t tell when a horse isn’t fit to go chooses to set up as a knowing one he must expect to be burnt!”
“Indeed!” said the Dowager.
Phoebe was silent for a minute or two; but presently she said thoughtfully: “Well, ma’am, I don’t think one can precisely blame Salford for not wishing to let his nephew grow up under such a man!”
“I should think not indeed! What’s more, I fancy that on that head Sylvester and Elvaston are at one. Of course Elvaston don’t like the match, but I daresay he’ll swallow it.”
“Well, Papa wouldn’t!” said Phoebe frankly. “In fact, he told me once that if ever I took it into my head to marry a bleater who, besides being a man-milliner and a cawker who don’t know a blood-horse from a commoner, encourages every barnacle on the town to hang on him, he would wash his hands of me!”
“And if that is the language he sees fit to teach you, the sooner he does so the better!” said her ladyship tartly.
Much abashed, Phoebe begged her pardon; and continued to meditate in silence for the rest of the drive.
Her thoughts were not happy, but it was not Lady Henry’s lapse of taste which cast a damper over her spirits. It was the existence of Lady Henry’s fatherless child.
Dismay had been her first reaction to the evil tidings; it was succeeded by a strong conviction that Fate and Sylvester between them had contrived the whole miserable business for no other purpose than to undo her. She had long known Fate for her enemy, and Fate was clearly responsible for Coincidence. As for Sylvester, however much it might seem to the casual observer that he was hardly to be blamed for possessing a nephew who was also his ward, anyone with the smallest knowledge of his character must recognize at a glance that it was conduct entirely typical of him. And if he had not wished to figure as the villain in a romance he should not have had satanic eyebrows—or, at any rate, amended the ill-used authoress, he should have exerted himself to be more agreeable to her at Lady Sefton’s ball, instead of uttering formal civilities, and looking at her with eyes so coldly indifferent that they seemed scarcely to see her. It would never then have occurred to her to think him satanic, for when he smiled he did not look in the least satanic. Far otherwise, in fact, she decided, realizing with faint surprise that although he had frequently enraged her during their sojourn at the Blue Boar she had never, from his first entering that hostelry, perceived anything villainous in his aspect.
This reflection led her to recall how much she stood in his debt, which resulted in a fit of dejection hard to shake off. Only one alleviating circumstance presented itself to her: he need never know who had written The Lost Heir. But that was a very small grain of comfort, since his ignorance would not make her feel less treacherous.
It was probable that if they had not chanced to meet again only two days later nothing further would have come of Ianthe’s desire to know Phoebe better; but Fate once more took a hand in Phoebe’s affairs. Sent out under the escort of Muker to execute some commissions for her grandmother in Bond Street, she came abreast of a barouche, drawn up beside the flagway, just as Ianthe, a picture of lovely maternity, was helping her child to climb into it. When she saw Phoebe she exclaimed, and at once shook hands. “How charming this is! Are you bent on any very important errand? Do come home with me! Mama has driven out to Wimbledon to visit one of my sisters, so we shall be quite alone, and can enjoy such a comfortable chat!” She hardly waited for Phoebe to accept the invitation, but nodded to Muker, saying that Miss Marlow should be sent home in the carriage later in the day, and made Phoebe get into the carriage, calling on Master Rayne to say how do you do politely.
Master Rayne pulled off his tasselled cap, exposing his sunny curls to the breeze. His resemblance to his mother was pronounced. His complexion was as delicately fair, his eyes as large and as deeply blue, and his locks as silken as hers; but a sturdy frame and a look of determination about his mouth and chin saved him from appearing girlish. Having subjected Phoebe to a dispassionate scrutiny he decided to make her the recipient of an interesting confidence. “I am wearing gloves,”
he said.
“So you are! Very smart ones too!” she replied admiringly.
“If I was at home,” said Master Rayne, with a darkling glance at his parent, “I wouldn’t have to wear them.”
“Now, Edmund—!”
“But I expect you are enjoying your visit to London, are you not?” asked Phoebe, diplomatically changing the subject.
“Indeed he is!” said Ianthe. “Only fancy! his grandpapa promises to take him riding in the Park one morning, doesn’t he, my love?”
“If I’m good,” said Edmund, with unmistakable pessimism. “But I won’t have my tooth pulled out again!”
Ianthe sighed. “Edmund, you know Mama said you should not go to Mr. Tilton this time!”
“You said I shouldn’t go when we came to London afore,” he reminded her inexorably. “But Uncle Vester said I should. And I did. I do not like to have my tooth pulled out, even if I am let keep it in a little box, and people do not throw it away,” said Edmund bitterly.
“No one does,” intervened Phoebe. “I expect, however, that you were very brave.”
“Yes,” acknowledged Edmund. “Acos Uncle Vester said he would make me sorry if I wasn’t, and I don’t like Uncle Vester’s way of making people sorry. It hurts!”
“You see!” said Ianthe in a low voice, and with a speaking look at Phoebe.
“Keighley said I was brave when I fell off my pony,” disclosed Edmund. “Not one squeak out o’ me! Full o’ proper spunk I was!”
“Edmund!” exclaimed Ianthe angrily. “If I have told you once I won’t have you repeating the vulgar things Keighley says to you I have told you a hundred times! Beg Miss Marlow’s pardon this instant! I don’t know what she must think of you!”
“Oh, no, pray do not bid him do so!” begged Phoebe, perceiving the mulish set to Master Rayne’s jaw.
“Keighley,” stated Edmund, the light of battle in his eye, “is a prime gun! He is my partickler friend.”
“I don’t wonder at it,” returned Phoebe, before Ianthe could pick up this gage. “I am a little acquainted with him myself, you know, and I am sure he is a splendid person. Did he teach you to ride your pony? I wish you will tell me about your pony!”