‘I beg you most earnestly not to do so!’ she said, with passionate sincerity.
He took her hand in his. ‘Miss Marlow, let me do this one thing for you! I know Lady Ingham, and what her temper is. I promise you she shall not be angry with you, if only I may see her first.’
‘You are very good, Duke, but I assure you I need no intervention!’ she said proudly.
The door opened. Horwich ejaculated: ‘Miss Phoebe!’ He then encountered a most unnerving stare from Sylvester, and bowed, and stammered: ‘Your g-grace!’
‘Have Miss Marlow’s baggage carried into the house!’ said Sylvester coldly, and turned again to Phoebe. It was clearly useless to persist in argument; so, knowing that Horwich was listening to every word he said, he held out his hand, and said: ‘I will leave you now, Miss Marlow. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you for what you have done. Will you present my compliments to Lady Ingham, and inform her that I hope to call upon her shortly, when I shall tell her-for I know well that you will not!-how deeply indebted to you I am? Goodbye! God bless you!’ He bent, and kissed her hand, while Horwich, consumed with curiosity, goggled at him.
To Phoebe, long past being able to recognize what his intention must be, this speech was the last straw. She managed to say: ‘Certainly! I mean-you exaggerate, Duke! Goodbye!’ and then hurried into the house.
‘When the baggage has been taken off, drive back to Salford House!’ Sylvester told the chief postilion. ‘You will be paid there. I am going to walk.’
When Reeth presently opened the doors to his master he was a good deal shocked. He had rather suspected that something was wrong, and he perceived now that something was very wrong indeed. He had seen that look on his grace’s face once before. It wouldn’t do to say anything about it, but at least he could tell him something that would do him good to hear. As he helped Sylvester out of his driving coat, he said: ‘I didn’t have the time to tell your grace before, but-’
‘Reeth, what the devil are you doing here?’ demanded Sylvester, as though he had only just become aware of him. ‘Good God, you don’t mean to say my mother is here?’
‘In her own sitting room, your grace, waiting for you to come in,’ beamed Reeth. ‘And stood the journey very well, I am happy to be able to assure your grace.’
‘I’ll go to her at once!’ Sylvester said, walking quickly to the great stair.
She was alone, seated on one side of the fireplace. She looked up as Sylvester came in, and smiled mischievously.
‘Mama!’
‘Sylvester! Now, I won’t be scolded! You are to tell me that you are delighted to find me here, if you please!’
‘I don’t have to tell you that,’ he said, bending over her. ‘But to have set out without me-! I ought never to have written to tell you what had happened! I did so only because I was afraid you might hear of it from some other source. My dear, have you been so anxious?’
‘Not a bit! I knew you would bring him back safely. But it was a little too much to expect me to stay at Chance when such stirring events were taking place in London. Now, sit down and tell me all about it! Edmund’s confidences have given rise to the wildest conjectures in my mind, and that delightful boy you have brought home with you thinks that perhaps I shall like to hear the story better from your lips. My dear, who is he?’
He had turned aside to pull forward a chair, and as he seated himself the Duchess saw him for the first time in the full light of the candles burning near her chair. Like Reeth, she suffered a shock; like Reeth, she recognized the look on Sylvester’s face. He had worn it for many months after Harry’s death; and she had prayed she might never see it again. She was obliged to clasp her hands together in her lap, so urgent was her impulse to stretch them out to him.
‘Thomas Orde,’ he replied, smiling, as it seemed to her, with an effort. ‘A nice lad, isn’t he? I’ve invited him to stay here for as long as he cares to: his father thinks it time he acquired a little town bronze.’ He hesitated, and then said: ‘I daresay he may have told you-or Edmund has-that he is a friend of Miss Marlow’s. An adopted brother, as it were.’
‘Oh, Edmund was very full of Tom and Phoebe! But how they came to be mixed up in that imbroglio I can’t imagine! Phoebe seems to have been very kind to Edmund.’
‘Most kind. It is rather a long story, Mama.’
‘And you are tired, and would rather tell it to me presently. I won’t tease you, then. But tell me about Phoebe! You know I have a particular interest in her. To own the truth, it was to see her that I came to London.’
He looked up quickly. ‘To see her? I don’t understand, Mama! Why should you-?’
‘Well, Louisa wrote to tell me that everyone believed her to be the author of that absurd novel, and that she was having a very unhappy time, poor child. I hoped I might be able to put a stop to such nonsense, but I reached London only to discover that Lady Ingham had taken her to Paris. I can’t think why she shouldn’t have written to me, for she must have known I would help Verena’s daughter.’
‘It’s too late!’ he said, ‘I could have scotched the scandal! Instead-’ He broke off, and looked keenly at her. ‘I can’t recall. Was my busy aunt Louisa at the Castlereaghs’ ball?’
‘Yes, dearest.’
‘I see.’ He got up jerkily, and moved to the fireplace, standing with his head turned a little away from the Duchess. ‘I am sure she told you what happened there.’
‘An unfortunate affair,’ said the Duchess calmly. ‘You were naturally very angry.’
‘There was no excuse for what I did. I knew her dread of-I can see her face now!’
‘What is she like, Sylvester?’ She waited, and then prompted: ‘Is she pretty?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not a beauty, Mama. When she is animated, I believe you would consider her taking.’
‘I collect, from all I have heard, that she is unusual?’
‘Oh, yes, she’s unusual!’ he said bitterly. ‘She blurts out whatever may come into her head; she tumbles from one outrageous escapade into another; she’s happier grooming horses and hobnobbing with stable hands than going to parties; she’s impertinent; you daren’t catch her eye for fear she should start to giggle; she hasn’t any accomplishments; I never saw anyone with less dignity; she’s abominable, and damnably hot at hand, frank to a fault, and-a darling!’
‘Should I like her, Sylvester?’ said the Duchess her eyes on his profile.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, a suggestion of impatience in his voice. ‘I daresay-I hope so-but you might not. How can I possibly tell? It’s of no consequence: she won’t have me.’ He paused, and then said, as though the words were wrung out of him: ‘O God, Mama, I’ve made such a mull of it! What am I to do?’
28
After a troubled night, during which she was haunted, waking or dreaming, by all the appalling events of the previous day, which had culminated in a shattering scene with Lady Ingham, Phoebe awoke to find the second housemaid pulling back the blinds, and learned from her that the letter lying on her breakfast tray had been brought round by hand from Salford House not ten minutes earlier. The housemaid was naturally agog with curiosity, but any expectation she had of being made the recipient of an interesting confidence faded before the seeming apathy with which Miss Phoebe greeted her disclosure. All Miss Phoebe wanted was a cup of tea; and the housemaid, after lingering with diminishing hope for a few minutes, left her sitting up in bed, and sipping this restorative.
Once alone, Phoebe snatched up the letter, and tore it open. She looked first at the signature. Elizabeth Salford was what met her eyes, and drew from her a gasp of fright.