19
Lady Ingham was indisposed; Sir Henry Halford had said that on no account must her ladyship be agitated; her ladyship was not receiving visitors today. Miss Marlow was indisposed too and was laid down on the sofa in the Small Parlour; Miss Marlow was not receiving visitors today.
These melancholy tidings, delivered by Horwich in a voice of sepulchral gloom, daunted one of the two callers standing on the steps of the house in Green Street, but left the other unmoved. “Her ladyship will receive me,” said Mrs. Newbury briskly. “Very proper of you to warn me, however, Horwich! I shall take care not to agitate her.”
“I could not take it on myself to answer for her ladyship, madam. I will inquire.”
“Quite unnecessary! Is her ladyship in her dressing-room? I will go up, then.”
Emboldened by the success achieved by this bright-eyed lady the second caller said firmly: “Miss Marlow will receive me! Be so good as to take my card up to her!”
Mrs. Newbury ran up the stairs, and having tapped on the dressing-room door peeped in, saying softly: “Dear Lady Ingham, may I come in? I am persuaded you won’t be vexed with me—say you are not!”
The blinds had been drawn halfway across the two windows; a strong aroma of aromatic vinegar pervaded the air; and a gaunt figure advanced, hissing that her ladyship must not be disturbed.
“Is that you, Georgiana?” faintly demanded the Dowager from the sofa. “I am too unwell to see anyone, but I suppose you mean to come in whatever I say. No one cares how soon I am driven into my grave! Set a chair for Mrs. Newbury, Muker, and go away!”
The grim handmaid disapprovingly obeyed this order; and Georgiana, her eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom, trod over to the sofa, and sat down by it, saying coaxingly: “I have not come to tease you, ma’am—only to help you, if I can!”
“No one can help me,” said the sufferer, with awful resignation. “I need not ask if it is all over town!”
“Well, I should think it would be,” said Georgiana candidly. “Charlotte Retford came to see me this morning, and I must own she said that people are talking. She described to me what happened last night, and—oh, I thought I must come to see you, because even if Phoebe did write that book I can’t but like her still, and, whatever Lion may say about not meddling, if I can help her I will!”
“I imagine no one can now doubt that she wrote it,” said the Dowager. “When I think of all I did for her last night, even convincing Sally Jersey that the whole thing was a hum, set about by that pea-goose, Ianthe Rayne—Where are my salts?”
“Why did she write it, ma’am?” asked Georgiana. “One would say she must detest Sylvester, but that she doesn’t!”
The Dowager, between sniffs at her vinaigrette, enlightened her. After that she took a sip of hartshorn and water, and lay back with closed eyes. Mrs. Newbury sat wrapped in meditation for a few minutes, but presently said: “I shouldn’t think that Sylvester will betray her, whatever she may have said to him.”
“She betrayed herself! Leaving him in the middle of the floor as she did! I did my best, Georgiana, but what was the use of saying she was faint when there was Sylvester, looking like a devil? I will never forgive him, never! To overset her there! Heaven knows I don’t excuse the child, but what he did was wicked! And I can’t even take comfort from the reflection that she made a laughing-stock of him, because she ruined herself in doing it!” said the Dowager.
“He must have been very angry,” said Georgiana, frowning. “Too angry to consider what might be the consequence of dashing her down in public. For it was not at all like him, you know, ma’am. Nothing disgusts him more than a want of conduct! I wonder if Lion was right after all?”
“Very unlikely!” snapped the Dowager.
“Well, that’s what I thought,” agreed the Major’s fond spouse. “He said it was a case between them. In fact, he laid me a bet, because I wouldn’t allow it to be so. I know just how Sylvester behaves when he starts one of his á suivie flirtations, and it was not at all like that. Can it be that he had formed a serious attachment?”
The Dowager blew her nose. “I thought it as good as settled!” she disclosed. “The wish of my heart, Georgie! Everything in such excellent train, and all shattered at a blow! Dare I suppose that his affections will reanimate towards her? No! They will not!”
Georgiana, with the sapient Lion’s comments in mind, was glad that Lady Ingham had supplied the answer to her own question. “Dished!” had said the Major. “Pity! Nice little gal, I thought. Won’t pop the question to her now, of course. Couldn’t have found a surer way to drive him off than by making him ridiculous.”
“What to do I don’t know!” said the Dowager. “It is of no use to tell me she should brave it out: she ain’t the sort of girl who could carry it off. Besides, she’ll be refused vouchers for Almack’s. I shan’t even try for them: nothing would delight that odious Burrell creature more than to be able to give me a set-down!”
“No, that won’t do,” said Georgiana. “I have a better scheme, ma’am: that’s why I came! Take her to Paris!”
“Take her to Paris?” repeated the Dowager.
“Yes, ma’am, to Paris!” said Georgiana. “Do but consider! Phoebe can’t remain mewed up within doors, and to send her home would be worse than anything, because it would be to abandon every hope of re-establishing her presently. Paris would be the very thing! Everyone knows that you have had some thought of removing there. Why, I heard you talking of it myself, to Lady Sefton!”
“Everyone may know it, but everyone would also know why I had gone there.”
“That can’t be helped, dear ma’am. At least they will know that you have not cast Phoebe off. And you know how quickly the most shocking scandals are forgotten!”
“This one won’t be.”
“Yes, it will. I promise you I shall be busy while you are away, and you know that no one can be more valuable than I in this affair, because I am Sylvester’s cousin, and what I say of him will be believed rather than what Ianthe says. I shall set it about that that scene last night was the outcome of a quarrel which began before Sylvester went away to Chance, and had nothing to do with The Lost Heir. I shall say that that was why he went to Chance: what could be more likely? And,” said Georgiana, in a voice of profound wisdom, “I shall tell it all in the strictest confidence! To one person, or perhaps two, just to make sure of the story’s spreading.”
There was a short silence. The Dowager broke it. “Pull the blinds back!” she commanded. “What does Muker mean by leaving us to sit in the dark, stupid woman? You’re a flighty, ramshackle creature, Georgie, but one thing I’ll allow! You have a good heart! But will anyone believe Phoebe didn’t write that book?”
“They must be made to, even if I have to say I too know who is the real author! If Sylvester had taken it in good part—made a joke of it, as though he didn’t care a button, and had been in the secret the whole time—it wouldn’t have signified a scrap, because he was the only person unkindly used in the book, and if he hadn’t taken it in snuff all the others whom Phoebe dug her quill into must have followed his example.”
“Don’t talk to me of Sylvester!” said the Dowager, with loathing. “If I hadn’t set my heart on his marrying Phoebe I should be in transports over her book! For she hit him off to the life, Georgie! If he ain’t smarting still I don’t know him! Oh, drat the boy! He might have spared a thought for me before he provoked my granddaughter to enact a Cheltenham tragedy in the middle of a ballroom!”
Perceiving that slow, unaccustomed tears were trickling down her ladyship’s cheeks, Georgiana overcame a desire to retort in defence of Sylvester, and made haste to soothe her, and to turn her thoughts towards Paris.