The question remained unanswered until the following day, when she met him again. She was riding with her Ingham cousins in the Park in a sedate party composed of herself, Miss Mary and Miss Amabel, young Mr Dudley Ingham, and two grooms following at a discreet distance; and she was heartily bored. The Misses Ingham were very plain, and very good, and very dull; and their brother, Lord Ingham’s promising second son, was already bidding fair to become a solid member of some future government; and the hack provided for her use was an animal with no paces and a placid disposition.
Sylvester, himself mounted on a neatish bay, and accompanied by two of his friends, took in the situation in one amused glance, and dealt with it in a way that showed considerable dexterity and an utter want of consideration for Lord Yarrow and Mr Ashford. Without anyone knowing (except himself) how it had come about, the two parties had become one; and while his hapless friends found themselves making polite conversation to the Misses Ingham, Sylvester was riding with Phoebe, a little way behind.
‘Oh, my poor Sparrow!’ he said, mocking her. ‘Never have I encountered so heartrending a sight! A job-horse?’
‘No,’ replied Phoebe. ‘My cousin Anne’s favourite mount. A very safe, comfortable ride for a lady, Duke.’
‘I beg your pardon! I have not seen him show his paces, of course.’
She cast him a glance of lofty scorn. ‘He has none. He has a very elegant shuffle, being just a trifle tied in below the knee.’
‘But such shoulders!’
Gravity deserted her; she burst into laughter, which made Miss Mary Ingham turn her head to look at her in wondering reproof, and said: ‘Oh, dear, did you ever set eyes on such a flatsided screw?’
‘No – or on a lady with a better seat. The combination is quite shocking! Will you let me mount you while you are in town?’
She was so astonished she could only stare at him. He smiled, and said: ‘I keep several horses at Chance for my sister-in-law’s convenience. She was used to ride a great deal. There would be nothing easier than for me to send for a couple to be brought up to London.’
‘Ride Lady Henry’s horses?’ she exclaimed. ‘You must be mad! I shouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!’
‘They are not her horses. They are mine.’
‘You said yourself you kept them for her use: she must consider them as good as her own! Besides, you must know I couldn’t permit you to mount me!’
‘I suppose you couldn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I hate to see you so unworthily mounted, though.’
‘Thank you – you are very good!’ she stammered.
‘I am what? Sparrow, I do implore you not to let Lady Ingham teach you to utter civil whiskers! You know I am no such thing, but, on the contrary, the villain whose evil designs drove you from home!’ He stopped, as her eyes flew involuntarily to meet his. The look held for no more than an instant, but the expression in her eyes drove the laughter from his own. He waited for a moment, and then asked quietly: ‘What is it? What did I say to make you look at me like that?’
Scarlet-cheeked, she said: ‘Nothing! I don’t know how I looked.’
‘Very much as I saw you look once at your mother-in-law: stricken!’
She managed to laugh. ‘How absurd! I am afraid you have too lively an imagination, Duke!’
‘Well, I hope I may have,’ he returned.
‘There can be no doubt. I was – oh, shocked to think that after all that has passed you could suppose me to regard you in the light – in the light of a villain. But you were only funning, of course.’
‘I was, but I’m not funning when I tell you that I was not maliciously funning – to distress you.’
She turned her head to look at him again, this time in candid appraisal. ‘No. Although it is a thing you could do, I fancy.’
‘You may believe that I did not.’
‘And you may believe I don’t think you villainous!’
‘Oh, that is a much harder task!’ he protested, rallying her. ‘When I think of the reception I was accorded at that appalling inn I have the gravest misgivings!’
She laughed, but tacitly refused the challenge. He did not pursue the subject; and after riding beside him in silence for a few minutes she introduced another, saying: ‘I had almost forgotten to tell you that I had the pleasure of meeting your nephew yesterday, Duke! You must be very proud of him: he is a most beautiful child!’
‘He is a very spoilt one. Are you acquainted with my sister-in-law?’
‘I made her acquaintance a few days ago, and she was so kind as to invite me to spend the afternoon with her yesterday.’
‘Ah, now I understand the meaning of that stricken look!’ he remarked. ‘Did I figure as the Unfeeling Brother-in-law, or as the Wicked Uncle?’
She was not obliged to answer him, for as the words left his tongue his attention was diverted. A lady who was walking beside the carriage-way just then waved to him. He recognised his cousin, Mrs Newbury, and at once desired Phoebe to rein in. ‘If you are not already known to one another I should like to introduce you to Mrs Newbury, Miss Marlow. She is quite the most entertaining of my cousins: I am persuaded you would deal extremely! – Georgie, what a stunning sight! How comes it about that you are walking in this demure style? No faithful husband to ride with you? Not one cicisbeo left to you?’
She laughed, stretching up her hand to clasp his. ‘No, isn’t it infamous? Lion has a spell of duty, and all my cicisbeos have failed me! Those who are not still buried in the country have their feet in mustard-baths, so that I’ve sunk to walking with a mere female. No, you can’t see her, because we have parted company.’
He had leaned down to take her hand, and now, just before he released it, he pressed it meaningly, saying: ‘Sunk indeed! Are you acquainted with Miss Marlow, or may I introduce her to you?’
‘So that is who you are!’ she said, smiling up at Phoebe. ‘To be sure, I should have guessed it, for I have just been exchanging bows with your cousins. You are Lady Ingham’s granddaughter, and – you are riding Anne Ingham’s deplorable slug! But you should not be: it is quite shocking! Even under that handicap you take the shine out of us all.’
‘I have been trying to persuade her to let me have the privilege of mounting her, but she insists it will not do,’ Sylvester said. ‘I have now a better notion, however. I fancy your second hack would be just the thing for her.’
Mrs Newbury owned only one hack, but she had been on the alert from the moment of having her hand significantly squeezed, and she took this without a blink, interrupting Phoebe’s embarrassed protests to say warmly: ‘Oh, don’t say you won’t, Miss Marlow! You can’t think how much obliged to you I shall be if you will but ride with me sometimes! I detest walking, but to ride alone, with only one’s groom following primly behind, is intolerable! I am pining for a good gallop, too, and that can’t be had in Hyde Park. Sylvester, if I can prevail upon Miss Marlow to go, will you escort the pair of us to Richmond Park upon the first real spring day?’
‘But with the greatest pleasure, my dear cousin!’ he responded.
‘Do say you would like it!’ Mrs Newbury begged Phoebe.
‘I should like it of all things, ma’am, but it is quite dreadful that you should be obliged to invite me!’
‘But I promise you I’m not! Sylvester knew I should be charmed to have a companion – and, you know, I could have said my other horse was lame, or sold, if I had wished to! I shall come to pay Lady Ingham a morning-visit, and coax her into giving her consent.’
She stepped back then, and as they parted from her cast a quizzing look up at Sylvester. He met it with a smile, so she concluded that he was pleased, and went on her way, wondering whether he was indulging a fit of gallantry, or if it was possible that he was really trying to fix his interest with Miss Marlow. It seemed unlikely, but no more unlikely than his having singled her out for his latest fli
rt. Or was he merely being kind to Lady Ingham’s countrified little granddaughter? Oh, no! Not Sylvester! decided Mrs Newbury. He could be kind, but only where he liked. Well, it was all very intriguing, and for her part she was perfectly ready to lend him whatever aid he wanted. One did not look gift-horses in the mouth, certainly not a gift-horse of Sylvester’s providing.
Sixteen
The encounter in the Park decided the matter: Sylvester was not to be immediately rebuffed. He had certainly made it almost impossible for Phoebe to do so, but this was a consideration that only occurred to her after she had made her decision. Without standing the smallest danger of losing her heart to him, she found his company agreeable, and would be sorry to lose it. If he was trying to serve her as he had served the unknown Miss Wharfe there could be no better way of discomfiting him, than by receiving his advances in a spirit of cool friendliness. This was an excellent reason for tolerating Sylvester; within a very short time Phoebe had found another. With the return to London of so many members of the ton quite a number of invitations arrived in Green Street; and Phoebe, attending parties in some trepidation, rapidly discovered the advantages attached to her friendship with him. Very different was her second season from the first! Then she had possessed no acquaintance in town; she had endured agonies of shyness; and she had attracted no attention. Now, though the list of her acquaintances was not large, she attracted a great deal of attention, for she was Salford’s latest flirt. People who had previously condemned Phoebe as a dowd with neither beauty nor style to recommend her now discovered that her countenance was expressive, her blunt utterances diverting, and her simplicity refreshing. Unusual: that was the epithet affixed to Miss Marlow. It emanated from Lady Ingham, but no one remembered that: a quiet girl with no pretension to beauty must be unusual to have captured Sylvester’s fancy. There were many, of course, who could not imagine what he saw in her; she would never rival the accredited Toasts, or enjoy more than a moderate success. Happily she was satisfied merely to feel at home in society, to have made a few agreeable friends, and never to lack a partner at a ball. No lady whose hand was claimed twice in one evening by Sylvester need fear that fate. Nor did Sylvester stand in danger of being rebuffed while he continued to treat her with just the right degree of flattering attention. His motive might be perfidious, but it could not be denied that he was a delightful companion; and one, moreover, with whom it was not necessary to mind one’s tongue. His sense of humour, too, was lively: often, if a fatuous remark were uttered, or someone behaved in a fashion so typical as to be ludicrous, Phoebe would look instinctively towards him, knowing that he must be sharing her amusement. It was strange how the dullest party could be enjoyed because there was one person present whose eyes could be met for the fraction of a second, in wordless appreciation of a joke unshared by others: almost as strange as the insipidity of parties at which that person was not present. Oh, no! Miss Marlow, though fully alive to his arrogance, his selfishness, and his detestable vanity had no intention – no immediate intention – of repulsing Sylvester.
Besides, he had provided for her use a little spiriting mare with a silken mouth, perfect in all her paces, and as full of playfulness as she could hold. Phoebe had cried out involuntarily when first she had seen the Firefly: how could Mrs Newbury bear to let another ride her beautiful mare? Mrs Newbury did not know how it was, but she preferred her dear old Jupiter. Phoebe understood at once: she herself owned a cover-hack long past his prime but still, and always, her favourite hack.
It was not long before she had discovered the truth about the Firefly. Major Newbury, very smart in his scarlet regimentals, had seen his wife and her new friend off on their almost daily ride one day. He had come out on to the step leading up to the door of his narrow little house, and no sooner had he set eyes on the Firefly than he had exclaimed: ‘Is that the mare Sylvester gave you, Georgie? Well, by Jove – !’
Phoebe had been standing just far enough away to make it possible that she had not heard either this remark or the Major’s subsequent, and conscience-stricken: ‘Eh? Oh – ! Just so, my love! Forgot!’ For a rather dreadful moment she had wondered what she ought to do; then she had made up her mind to pretend she had not heard, prompted as much by consideration for Georgiana as by reluctance to forgo her rides.
Sylvester had been right when he had prophesied that she and Georgiana would deal extremely: each took an instant liking to the other; and since the Dowager raised no objection Phoebe became a frequent guest in the Newburys’ haphazard house. Lady Ingham said they were a ramshackle pair; Phoebe, who had hitherto attended only large, formal parties in London, thought them delightful, and enjoyed nothing so much as the evenings she spent in their very ill-run house. One never knew what might happen at one of Georgie’s parties, said Lord Yarrow, declaring that he had once arrived five minutes after the crystal chandelier in the drawing-room had crashed to the floor, and had found Georgie standing like Dido amongst the ruins of Carthage, only rather more composed. Sylvester agreed that this had been a remarkably good party, but contended that by far the best evening he had yet spent in the establishment was that on which the new butler, having admitted him into the ball, had fallen flat on his face in a drunken stupor. Phoebe had never dreamed that people could be as gay and as unceremonious as they were in Georgie’s house. Nor had she ever liked Sylvester as well as when she saw him there, amongst his intimates. It might be another instance of his pride that he should show his most agreeable side only to his relations and his closest friends, but it was impossible to deny that that side was endearing.
He was just as charming when the projected expedition to Richmond Park took place, and even more surprisingly, since the original party was augmented by three persons, one of whom was not very acceptable to him. He welcomed the news that Major Newbury was to join it; when his sister-in-law, hearing of the scheme, announced that she would come too, with her brother Charles, he bore it with equanimity; but when the day dawned, and it was discovered that Ianthe, instead of by her brother, was escorted by Sir Nugent Fotherby, even the Major, not famed for perspicacity, informed his wife, in a penetrating whisper, that he had a very good mind to tip the double, since he clearly saw that this expedition of pleasure was bitched at the outset.
For an anxious minute it did indeed seem that it was doomed to failure. It had been arranged that Ianthe and her brother would meet the rest of the party at Roehampton Gate, having sent their horses on in charge of a groom: a last-minute alteration in plan which was only made known to Sylvester when he arrived at the Newburys’ house to escort the party. He looked vexed when the message was repeated to him, and exclaimed: ‘Good God, Georgie, why didn’t you tell Ianthe that if she didn’t choose to go with us she might remain at home? She’ll keep us waiting an hour, and very likely more!’
‘I daresay she will, but it’s of no use to fly into a pet with me,’ responded Georgiana calmly. ‘I received her note not twenty minutes ago, and all I could do was to send the footman back to her with a reminder that since you held the tickets of admission she must take care not to be late.’
‘Much good that will do!’ he observed.
But when they reached the Roehampton Gate he was agreeably surprised to find his sister-in-law already there, and was beginning to feel quite in charity with her when he suddenly perceived that the sprig of fashion with her was not her brother but Sir Nugent Fotherby. He stiffened, the expression of easy good-humour on his face changing on a flash to one of haughty astonishment. Phoebe, obliged to repress a strong desire to tell him precisely what she thought of such odious self-consequence, could only be sorry for Sir Nugent.
Her pity was wasted. Sir Nugent knew that Sylvester did not like him, but it never crossed his mind that Sylvester, or anyone else, held him in contempt. If he could have been brought to believe it, he would have known that Sylvester was queer in his attic, and he would have been very much shocked. When Sylvester raised his quizzing-glass he was not a
t all unnerved, because it was plain that Sylvester was studying the exquisite folds of his neck-cloth. He was not surprised; he would have been disappointed if what had cost him so much time and skill to arrange had attracted no attention. It was not everyone who could tie an Oriental: he was pretty sure Sylvester couldn’t; and if Sylvester were to ask him how it was done he would be obliged to tell him that it took years to learn the art, and often several hours of concentrated effort to achieve a respectable result when one had learnt it. Other men might envy Sir Nugent; they could not despise him, for his pedigree was impeccable, his fortune exceeded sixty thousand pounds a year, and he had it on the authority of those boon-companions whom Lord Marlow rudely stigmatised as barnacles that, just as in all matters of fashion he was the finest Pink of the Ton, in the world of sport he figured as a Nonpareil, a regular Top-of-the-Trees, a Sure Card, up to all kinds of slums, never to be beaten on any suit.
His imperviousness to insult saved the day’s pleasure from wreck. He seized the earliest opportunity that offered of edging his showy chestnut alongside Sylvester’s hack for the purpose of drawing his attention to the circumstance of his having, as he phrased it, brought Lady Henry bang up to the mark on time.
‘You are to be congratulated,’ said Sylvester, in a discouraging tone.
‘Devilish good of you to say so, Duke!’ responded Sir Nugent, acknowledging the tribute with a slight bow. ‘Don’t mind owning it wasn’t easy. Took a devilish deal of address. If there is a thing I pride myself on it’s that. “Lady Henry,” I said – well, not to cut a wheedle with you, Duke, I put it a devilish sight stronger than that! “My love,” I said, “we shan’t turn his grace up sweet if we keep him kicking his heels at the rendezvous. Take my word for it!” She did.’