Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

declared Phoebe. “I could not,Sibby!”

“Then you will decline his offer,” said Miss Battery, with a conviction she was far from feeling.

Phoebe looked at her rather hopelessly, but said nothing. She knew it to be unnecessary. No one understood more thoroughly the difficulties of her situation than her governess; and no one was better acquainted with the ruthlessness of Lady Marlow’s imperious temper. After a few moments’ reflection Miss Battery said: “Speak to your father. He wouldn’t wish you to be forced into a marriage you disliked.”

This advice was repeated, in substance, by young Mr. Orde, upon the following day, when Phoebe, knowing her mama to be out of the way, rode over to the Manor House to confer with him.

Thomas was the only child of the Squire of the district, a very respectable man, who contrived to maintain thirty or more couples of hounds, a score of hunters for himself, his son, and his huntsmen, several coach-horses and cover-hacks, half a dozen spaniels, and upwards of a hundred gamecocks at walk, on an income of no more than eight thousand pounds a year, and that without being obliged to stint his lady of the elegancies of life, or to allow to fall into disrepair the dwellings of his numerous tenants. His family had been established in the county for many generations, most of its members having been distinguished for their sporting proclivities, and none of them having made any particular mark in the world. The Squire was a man of excellent plain sense, much looked up to as a personage of the first consequence within his circle. While perfectly aware of his own worth, his way of life was unpretentious; although he employed, besides his huntsman, several grooms, a coachman, a gamekeeper, an experienced kennel-man, and a cocker, he was content, when he travelled any distance from Somerset, to hire postilions; and his household boasted no more than three indoor menservants.

He was a fond as well as a judicious parent, and had his son shown the least leaning towards academic pursuits he would have sent him up to Oxford upon his leaving Rugby, whatever retrenchments this might have entailed. That they must have been heavy he knew, for it was impossible for such a thoroughgoing sportsman as Tom to maintain a creditable appearance at Oxford on a penny less than six hundred pounds a year, setting aside such debts as the Squire thought him bound to incur. A sense of what was due to his heir enabled him to face the necessity of reducing his stable and disposing of his cocks without grumbling or trying to impress Tom with the notion that he was fortunate to possess so generous a father; but he was not at all displeased when Tom said that he thought it would be a great waste of time for him to go up to Oxford, since he was not bookish, and would very likely be ploughed there. What with cocking and coursing, fishing and flapper-shooting in the summer, hunting and pheasant-shooting through the winter, acquiring a knowledge of farming from the bailiff, and learning how to manage the estates, he thought he would be much better employed at home. He was allowed to have his way, the Squire resolving to arrange for him to be given a little town polish when he should be rather older.

Except for one or two visits to friends living in a different part of the country he had been at home for a year now, enjoying himself very much, and justifying his father’s secret pride in him by taking as much interest in crops as in hounds, and rapidly becoming as popular with the villagers as he was with the neighbouring gentry.

He was a pleasant youth, sturdy rather than tall, with a fresh, open countenance, unaffected manners, and as much of the good sense which characterized his father as was to be expected of a young gentleman of nineteen summers. From the circumstances of his being an only child he had from his earliest youth looked upon Phoebe, just his own age, as a sister; and since she had been, as a child, perfectly ready to engage with him on whatever dangerous pursuit he might suggest to her, besides very rapidly becoming a first-rate horsewoman, and a devil to go, not even his first terms at Rugby had led him to despise her company.

When Phoebe divulged to him her astonishing tidings, he was as incredulous as Susan had been, for, as he pointed out with brotherly candour, she was not at all the sort of girl to achieve a brilliant marriage. She agreed to this, and he added kindly: “I don’t mean to say that I wouldn’t as lief be married to you as to some high flyer, for if I was obliged to marry anyone I think I’d offer for you rather than any other girl I know.”

She thanked him.

“Yes, but I’m not a fashionable duke,” he pointed out. “Besides, I’ve known you all my life. I’m dashed if I understand why this duke should have taken a fancy to you! It isn’t as though you was a beauty, and whenever your mother-in-law is near you behave like a regular pea-goose, so how he could have guessed you ain’t a ninnyhammer I can’t make out!”

“Oh, he didn’t! He wishes to marry me because his mama was a friend of mine.”

“That must be a bag of moonshine!” said Tom scornfully. “As though anyone would offer for a girl for such a reason as that!”

“I think,” said Phoebe, “it is on account of his being a person of great consequence, and wishing to make a suitable alliance, and not caring whether I am pretty, or conversible.”

“He can’t think you suitable!” objected Tom. “He sounds to me a regular knock-in-the-cradle! It may be a fine thing to become a duchess, but I should think you had much better not!”

“No, no, but what am I to do, Tom? For heaven’s sake don’t tell me I have only to decline the Duke’s offer, for you at least know what Mama is like! Even if I had the courage to disobey her only think what misery I should be obliged to endure! And don’t tell me not to regard it, because to be in disgrace for weeks and weeks, as I would be, so sinks my spirits that I can’t even write! I know it’s idiotish of me, but I can’t overcome my dread of being in her black books! I feel as if I were withering!”

He had too often seen her made ill by unkindness to think her words over-fanciful. It was strange that a girl so physically intrepid should have so much sensibility. In his own phrase, he knew her for a right one; but he knew also that in a censorious atmosphere her spirits were swiftly overpowered, none of her struggles to support them alleviating the oppression which transformed her from the neck-or-nothing girl whom no oxer could daunt to the shrinking miss whose demeanour was as meek as her conversation was insipid. He said, rather doubtfully: “You don’t think, if you were to write to him, Lord Marlow would put the Duke off?”

“You know what Papa is!” she said simply. “He will always allow himself to be ruled by Mama, because he can’t bear to be made uncomfortable. Besides, how could I get a letter to him without Mama’s knowing of it?”

He considered for a few moments, frowning. “No. Well—You are quite sure you can’t like the Duke? I mean, I should have supposed anything to be better than to continue living at Austerby. Besides, you said yourself you only once talked to him. You don’t really know anything about him. I daresay he may be rather shy, and that, you know, might easily make him appear stiff.”

“He is not shy and he is not stiff,” stated Phoebe. “His manners are assured; he says everything that is civil because he places himself on so high a form that he would think it unworthy of himself to treat anyone with anything but cool courtesy; and because he knows his consequence to be so great he cares nothing for what anyone may think of him.”

“You did take him in dislike, didn’t you?” said Tom, grinning at her.

“Yes, I did! But even if I had not, how could I accept an offer from him when I made him the villain in my story?”

That made Tom laugh. “Well, you needn’t tell him that, you goose!”

“Tell him! He won’t need telling! I described him exactly!”

“But, Phoebe, you don’t suppose he will read your book, do you?” said Tom.

Phoebe could support with equanimity disparagement of her person, but this slight cast on her first novel made her exclaim indignantly: “Pray, why should he not read it? It is going to be published!”

“Yes, I know, but you can’t suppose that people like Salford will buy it.”

“Then who will?” demanded Phoebe, rather flushed.

“Oh, I don’t know! Girls, I daresay, who like that sort of thing.”

“You liked it well enough!” she reminded him.

“Yes, but that was because it was so odd to think of your having written it,” explained Tom. He saw that she was looking mortified, and added consolingly: “But I’m not bookish, you know, so I daresay it’s very fine, and will sell a great many copies. The thing is that no one will know who wrote it, so there’s no need to tease yourself over that. When does the Duke come to Austerby?”

“Next week. It is given out that he is coming to try the young chestnut. He is going to hunt too, and now Mama is trying to decide whether to dish up all our friends to entertain him at a dinner-party, or to leave it to Papa to invite Sir Gregory Standish and old Mr. Hayle for a game of whist.”

“Lord!” said Tom, in an awed tone.

Phoebe gave a giggle. “That will teach him to come to Austerby in this odious,