‘He won’t know where we are,’ replied Ianthe confidently. ‘Besides, Sylvester hates scandal. I am persuaded he would endure anything rather than let the world know the least one of the family secrets!’
‘Then how could you serve him such a trick?’ demanded Phoebe hotly. ‘The Duchess too! You cannot have considered what distress you will cause her if you hold by this scheme!’
Ianthe began to pout. ‘She is not Edmund’s mama! I think you are being very unjust! You don’t care for my distress! You cannot enter into the feelings of a mother, I daresay, but I should have thought you must have known I could never abandon my child to Sylvester. And don’t tell me you didn’t mean Maximilian for Edmund, because everyone knows you did!’
‘Yes!’ flashed Phoebe. ‘Because you told everyone so! Oh, haven’t you harmed me enough? You promised me you wouldn’t repeat what passed between us-’
‘I didn’t repeat it! The only person I told was Sally Derwent, and I particularly warned her not to mention it to a soul!’ interrupted Ianthe, much aggrieved. ‘How can you be so unkind to me? As though my nerves were not worn down enough! I have had to bring Edmund without Button, and I am obliged to do everything for him, because he is so cross and naughty with poor Nugent, and I scarcely closed my eyes all night, because we were travelling, and I had to hold Edmund in my lap, and he kept waking up and crying, and saying he wanted to be sick, till I was fagged to death! If I told him one fairy-tale I told him fifty, but he would do nothing but say he wished to go home, till I could have slapped him! And that odious abigail refusing at the last minute to go with me, and now you reproaching me-oh, it is too bad! I don’t know how I shall manage, for I am feeling very unwell already! Why can’t those horrid sailors keep the boat still? Why does it rock up and down when it isn’t even moving yet? I know I shall be prostrate the instant we set sail, and then who is to take care of Edmund?’
This impassioned speech ended in a burst of tears, but when Phoebe, seizing on the final woe, represented to the injured beauty how imprudent it would be to embark with Edmund upon a rough sea passage without providing him with an attendant, Ianthe declared herself ready to sacrifice her health, comfort, and even her sanity rather than give up her child; adding however, with a slight lapse from nobility: ‘People would say I cared more for riches than Edmund!’
Since this seemed more than likely Phoebe found it difficult to reassure her; but before she had uttered more than a dozen words Ianthe was struck by a brilliant notion, and started up from her berth, her face transfigured. ‘Oh, Miss Marlow, I have hit on the very thing! We will take you with us! Just as far as to Paris, I mean. There can be no objection: you mean to go there, and I am sure there is no occasion for you to travel with Lady Ingham if you don’t choose to do so! She may join you in Paris-you can stay at the Embassy until she comes: that may easily be arranged!-and she must surely be able to undertake the journey without you. She has her abigail to go with her, remember! I am persuaded she would be the first to say I ought not to be obliged to travel without a female to support me. Oh, Miss Marlow, do, pray, say you will stay with me!’
Miss Marlow was still saying that she would do no such thing when Sir Nugent once more begged his bride’s permission to come in.
He was followed by Tom, whom he at once presented, with great punctilio. Tom said that he begged her ladyship’s pardon for intruding upon her, but had come to tell Phoebe it was time to be going ashore again. A speaking look directed at his childhood’s friend conveyed to her the information that his attempts to bring Sir Nugent to a sense of his wrongdoing had met with failure.
Beyond bestowing a mechanical smile upon him, Ianthe paid him little heed, addressing herself instead to Sir Nugent, and eagerly explaining to him her brilliant notion. In him she found her only supporter: not only did he think it a stroke of genius, but he called upon Phoebe and Tom to applaud it. He won no response. Politely at first, and later with distressing frankness, Tom explained to him why he thought it rather the hallmark of folly. He said that he would neither accompany the party to France nor remain behind to tell Lady Ingham why her granddaughter had abandoned her, and from this standpoint nothing would move him.
He had entered the cabin with the intention only of taking Phoebe ashore. In his view, there was nothing more to be done, and she might wash her hands of the affair with a clear conscience. But as Ianthe reiterated her former arguments, several times asserting that it was absurd of Phoebe to have scruples now, when everyone knew she had instigated the plot, his sentiments soon underwent a change. He saw all the force of what Phoebe had previously urged, and ranged himself on her side, even going so far as to talk of laying information with the nearest magistrate.
‘Very ungentlemanly thing to do,’ said Sir Nugent, shaking his head. ‘Don’t think you should. Besides, there’s no sense in it: you go to the magistrate, we set sail, and then where are you?’
Tom, who was becoming heated, retorted: ‘Not if I don’t go ashore till you’ve lost the tide! What’s more I’ll take the boy with me, because I’ve a strong notion it would be perfectly lawful to do so, and if you try to stop me it will very likely be a felony!’
‘You rude, odious- Nugent! Where is Edmund?’ cried Ianthe. ‘How could you leave him alone? Good God, he may have fallen overboard! Bring him to me this instant, unless you want me to run mad with anxiety!’
‘No, no, don’t do that, my love! Plenty of sailors to fish him out again, you know,’ Sir Nugent assured her. ‘Not but what I’ll fetch him to you, if you want him!’
‘He won’t fall overboard,’ said Tom, as Sir Nugent departed on his errand.
‘You know nothing about it!’ snapped Ianthe. ‘I am his mother, and I shan’t know one moment’s peace until he is safe in my arms.’
She repeated this statement with even more emphasis when Sir Nugent presently reappeared with the comforting intelligence that Edmund, safe in the valet’s charge, was watching the men bring the carriage aboard; but when she learned that an attempt to pick him up had led him to kick his new papa severely before assuming an alarming rigidity, she seemed to feel that his presence in the cabin would not be conducive to peace, for she said only that if he began to scream it would be more than her nerves could endure without breaking under the strain.
Harping on this string, Phoebe then did her best to convince her that this sad accident would inevitably befall her if she were obliged to look after Edmund during the passage. She received unexpected support from Sir Nugent, who said that the more he considered the matter the more he thought it would be a devilish good notion to let Miss Marlow take Edmund home. ‘What I mean is,’ he explained, ‘it’s a notion that took very well with him. He seems set against going to France. I daresay he don’t like foreigners. Very understandable: I don’t know that I like ‘em myself.’
This treachery naturally incensed Ianthe beyond measure. Having poured forth the vials of her wrath upon him, she said tragically that everyone was against her, and burst into a fit of hysterical tears. Feeling the battle to be almost won, Phoebe redoubled her efforts to persuade her, while Tom applied himself to the task of bringing over the waverer. With four people engaged in hot argument the sounds of increased activity on deck passed unheeded. The swell that had all the time been gently rocking the schooner had for several minutes been growing heavier, but it was not until the Betsy Anne took a plunge which made him stagger that Tom realized what must be happening.
‘My God!’ he gasped. ‘We’re moving!’