Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

“Oh, surely you have other grooms? I am persuaded there could never be a want of servants to spare you the least exertion!”

“Many other grooms! But only one Keighley! It may interest you to know, Miss Marlow, that I have a considerable regard for him!”

“Well, it doesn’t interest me, because I don’t believe it!” she said warmly. “You couldn’t have brought him thirty miles in an open carriage on such a day if you had a regard for him! Would you have set out from Austerby if you had had a bad cold? No such thing!”

“You are mistaken! I should! I never pay the least heed to such trifling ailments!”

“You are not fifty years old, or more!”

“Nor is Keighley! Fifty years old indeed! He is not much above forty!” said Sylvester furiously. “What’s more, if he had thought himself too unwell to travel he would have told me so!”

Her lips curled derisively. “Would he?”

“Yes, he—” Sylvester stopped suddenly, staring at her with very hard, frowning eyes. A dull colour crept into his cheeks; he said stiffly: “He should have done so, at all events. He knows very well I wouldn’t—Good God, you seem to think me an inhuman taskmaster!”

“No, only selfish!” she said. “I daresay you never so much as noticed that the poor man had caught cold.”

A retort sprang to his lips, but he checked it, his colour deepening as he recollected feeling vexed with Keighley for contracting an epidemic cold, and hoping that he would not take it from him.

But no sooner had Phoebe uttered her last stricture than she too suffered an uncomfortable recollection. Flushing far more vividly than Sylvester, she said in a conscience-stricken voice: “I beg your pardon! It was very bad of me to have said that, when—when I am so much obliged to you! Pray forgive me, sir!”

“It is of no consequence at all, Miss Marlow,” he replied coldly. “I should be grateful to you for calling my attention to Keighley’s state. Let me assure you that you need feel no further anxiety! I am far too selfish to wish to have him laid up, and shall certainly not send him to Hungerford.”

Before she could reply to this Keighley came back into the room, muffled in his heavy driving-coat. “Beg pardon, your grace, but I went off without the card.”

“I’ve changed my mind, John,” Sylvester said. “I’ll go myself.”

“Go yourself, your grace?” repeated Keighley. “And may I make so bold as to ask why? If your grace don’t care to have me driving the greys, I hope your grace will pardon me if I was to say that it won’t be quite the first time I’ve done so! P’raps your grace would as lief drive them without me in the curricle at all?”

This withering sarcasm had the effect of clearing the frown from Sylvester’s brow. “Exactly so!” he said, his eyes quizzing his offended henchman. “I am going alone! Oh, no I’m not! I shall have the half-wit with me, shall I not? I hope he may not murder me, or anything of that nature! No, don’t argue with me! Miss Marlow believes you to be sinking into a confirmed consumption, and I will not have your death upon my conscience! Besides, what should I do without you? Where is my greatcoat?”

Keighley turned an amazed and slightly reproachful gaze upon Phoebe. “Me? Lor’, ma’am there’s nothing amiss with me barring a bit of a cold in my head! Now, if your grace will give me your card, I’ll be off! And no more funning, if you please, because if I don’t get started quick there’s no saying but what I’ll end in the ditch, and a nice set-out that would be!”

“No, I am quite determined you shan’t go,” Sylvester said.

“Did you put my coat in my bedchamber? Where is my bedchamber? Direct me to it instantly, and be off to put the horses to! Good God! Ought I, perhaps, to do that too? Miss Marlow, do you think —?”

Keighley intervened before Phoebe was obliged to answer a question she suspected to be deliberately provocative. Reiterating his request to Sylvester to stop funning, he added a strongly worded protest against the impropriety of his chasing all over the country after a mere sawbones. Such unbecoming conduct, he said severely, would not do.

“I’m the best judge of that,” returned Sylvester. “Put the horses to, at once, if you please!”

He strode to the door, but was arrested by Phoebe, who said suddenly: “Oh, pray—! I don’t wish to charge you with an office you might think troublesome, but—but if you are going to Hungerford, would you be so very obliging as to try if you can procure for me a few ounces of muriate of ammonia, a pint of spirit of wine, and some spermacetti ointment?”

Sylvester’s lip twitched, and he burst out laughing. “Oh, certainly, Miss Marlow! Are you sure there is nothing else you would wish me to purchase for you?”

“No,” she replied seriously. “Mrs. Scaling has plenty of vinegar. And if you can’t come by the ointment, she will let me have some lard instead—only I can’t be sure it is perfectly free from salt. It is to put on Trusty’s foreleg,” she explained, seeing that he was still much inclined to laugh. “It is badly grazed: I fancy poor True may have kicked him, when he was struggling to get out of the ditch.”

“I’ll come and take a look at that, miss,” said Keighley, his professional interest aroused. “Showing red, is it? It’ll have to be fomented before the ointment’s put on it.”

“Oh, yes, I have been doing so, every hour, and True’s hock as well! I should be very much obliged to you, if you will look at it, Keighley, and tell me if you think I should apply a bran poultice tonight.”

“Render Miss Marlow all the assistance you can, John, but first put the greys to!” interrupted Sylvester. “See to it that fires are lit in our rooms, bespeak dinner, and a private parlour—no, I expect there isn’t one in so small a house: you had better tell the landlady I’ll hire this room—don’t disturb Mr. Orde, and have everything ready for a bowl of punch as soon as I return. And don’t let Miss Marlow keep you out in the draughty stable too long!”

On this Parthian shot he departed, closely followed by Keighley, who did not cease to expostulate with him until he was actually preparing to mount into the curricle.

“Be damned to you, John, no!” he said. “You will stay here, and nurse your cold. Why didn’t you tell me you were out of sorts, you stupid fellow? I could have taken Swale with me, and left you to follow in the chaise.”

He sounded a little contrite, which would have surprised Keighley had he not been so much revolted by the thought of relinquishing his post to Swale that he never noticed Sylvester’s unusual solicitude. By the time he could trust himself to repudiate the disgraceful suggestion in anything but terms quite unsuited to his position, Sylvester had swung himself up into the curricle, and set his pair in motion. Beside him, Will Scaling, a shambling and overgrown youth of somewhat vacuous amiability, grinned hugely, and sat back with all the air of one prepared to enjoy a high treat.

9

It was nearly eight o’clock before Sylvester returned to the Blue Boar, and for a full hour Phoebe had been picturing just such an accident as had befallen Tom, and wishing that she had not sent him forth on his errand. When he did at last arrive he took her by surprise, for the snow muffled the sound of the horses’ hooves, and he drove his curricle straight into the yard, and came into the house through the back-door. She heard a quick stride in the passage, and looked up to see him standing in the doorway of the coffee-room. He had not stayed to put off his long driving-coat, which was very wet, and had snow still clinging to its many shoulder-capes. She started up, exclaiming: “Oh, you are safely back! I have been in such a fidget, fearing you had met with an accident! Have you brought the doctor, sir?”

“Oh, yes, he is here—or he will be, in a few minutes. I came ahead. Is there a fire in your bedchamber, Miss Marlow?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then may I suggest that you retire there until the surgeon has departed? I haven’t mentioned your presence here to him, for although your brother and sister story may do well enough for the landlady, it is quite possible, you know, that a doctor living at Hungerford might recognize one or other of you. You will agree that the fewer people to get wind of this escapade of yours the better.”