Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle

Keighley started to whisper reassurance, but was stopped by a paroxysm of coughing.

“John, don’t be a nodcock! Do you think I want your death at my door? Go to bed! And tell them to kindle a fire in your room—my orders!”

“How can I lay up, your grace?” whispered Keighley. “Who’s to look after Mr. Orde if I do?”

“To hell with Mr. Orde! Can’t the half-wit attend to him? Well, if he can’t, I must. What has to be done for him?”

“I’ve done all that’s needful for the moment, your grace, and seen to the greys, but—”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, and may go to bed without more ado. Now, don’t be a gudgeon, John! You will only give him your cold if you hang about him!”

“He’s got it,” croaked Keighley.

“No, has he? Well, I have no wish to catch it, so don’t let me see you again until you’re rid of it!” He saw that Keighley was torn by a longing for his bed and a determination not to leave his post, and said threateningly: “If I have to get up to you, John, you’ll be sorry!”

That made Keighley laugh, which brought on another paroxysm. This left him feeling so exhausted that he was very glad to obey his master.

An hour later, Sylvester, beautiful to behold in a frogged dressing-gown of crimson and gold brocade, strolled into Tom’s room, saying cheerfully: “Good morning, Galahad! So you’ve taken Keighley’s cold, have you? What a mutton-headed thing to do! Did you sleep well?”

“Oh, like a top, thank you, sir! As for the cold, if I must stay in bed I might as well have a cold as not. But I’m devilish sorry for Keighley: he’s as sick as a horse!”

“You will soon be devilish sorry for yourself, for I’ve sent him to bed, and you will be obliged to endure my ministrations in place of his. What, as a start, can I do for you?”

“Good God, nothing!” replied Tom, looking horrified. “As though I would let you wait on me!”

“You won’t have any choice in the matter.”

“Yes, yes, I will! The boy can do all I want, sir!”

“What, the half-wit? If you think that a choice I’ll thank you not to be so insulting, Thomas!”

Tom laughed at that, but insisted that for the moment at least he needed nothing, except (with a sigh) something to do.

“That’s what we shall all of us be pining for, if the snow lasts,” said Sylvester. “If Mrs. Scaling cannot supply us with a pack of cards we shall be obliged to make up charades, or something of that nature. Do you care to read The Knight of St John? It came out last year, and is by the author of The Hungarian Brothers. I’ll fetch it for you.”

Tom was no great reader, but when Sylvester, handing him the first volume of Miss Porter’s latest romance, said: “I don’t like it as well as The Hungarian Brothers, but it’s quite a lively tale,” he realized that the work was not, as he had feared, a history, but a novel, and was much relieved. He accepted it with thanks, and then, after a thoughtful moment, asked Sylvester if he read many novels.

“Any that come in my way. Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Tom said. “I thought perhaps you might not.”

Sylvester looked a little surprised, but said after a moment: “Oh, did you think that because my mother is a poetess I might have a turn for verse? No: nothing of the sort!”

“Is she?” said Tom, awed.

“Yes, indeed she is. And I assure you she does not despise novels! I fancy she buys almost all that are published. She is an invalid, you see, and reading is her greatest solace.”

“Oh!” said Tom.

“I must go and look to my horses,” said Sylvester. “I collect that Miss Marlow is in the stables already, probably fomenting that hock. I only hope I may not fall under her displeasure for making so belated an appearance!”

He went away to finish dressing; and then, after consigning Keighley to Mrs. Scaling’s care, went out to join Phoebe. It was still snowing hard, but a brazier was burning in the stable. Phoebe, having turned True in his stall, and removed his quarterpiece, was vigorously brushing him.

“Good morning!” said Sylvester, removing his coat, and rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll do that for you, Miss Marlow. How is the hock?”

“Better, I think. I have just been fomenting it again. I don’t think Tom would like it if I let you dress the horses, Duke.”

“Then don’t tell him,” said Sylvester, taking the brush away from her. “Doesn’t he think me capable of the task?”

“Oh, it isn’t that! He has a great respect for your consequence, you see, and perhaps wouldn’t think it proper for you to do it! But in general he is not at all stupid, I assure you!” The smile that went with this remark was so ingenuous that Sylvester was obliged to laugh. Phoebe would have set to work on Trusty with the currycomb, but was deterred by Sylvester’s pointing out to her that her skirt was already covered with True’s hairs. He recommended her to change her dress, giving the one she had on to Alice to brush, but she replied that as the only other dress she had with her was of muslin, she rather thought she might freeze to death in it. “Besides, Alice has gone to tell old Mr. Shap that we must have his pig. It isn’t full-grown, so perhaps he won’t sell it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he would get more for it later, of course. And also he may be in a bad skin.”

“In a what?”

She looked up, twinkling, from the task of picking the short hairs out of her skirt. “I think it means that he has a sullen disposition! But I expect Alice will get the pig: she is a most redoubtable girl!”

“You and she should deal extremely,” he commented, turning True about, and stripping off the rest of his clothing.

At that she raised her head again, tilting it inquiringly.

“Do you mean that I am redoubtable? Oh, you are quite mistaken!”

“Am I? Then let us say intrepid!”

She sighed. “I wish I were! The case is that I am a wretched coward.”

“Your father gives you quite another character.”

“I don’t fear fences.”

“What, then?”

“People—some people! To—to be slain by unkindness.”

He looked at her with a slight frown; but before he could ask her to explain what she meant they were interrupted by Alice, who came in, stamping her feet to rid her pattens of the clogged snow, and followed by an ancient with very few teeth but a crafty eye. This individual she introduced as a nasty, twitty old maw-worm, disclosing that he wouldn’t sell his pig until convinced that it would be eaten by a duke, and not by a Captain Sharp, masquerading as such.

Considerably taken aback, for he had never before had his credentials doubted, much less been taken for a Captain Sharp, Sylvester said: “Well, I don’t know how I should be able to convince him! Unless he’d like one of my visiting cards?”

But this Mr. Shap rejected, informing the company that he wasn’t a lettered man. He apparently felt this to be a triumph, for he then fell into a fit of cackling mirth. Assured by Phoebe that Sylvester was a duke, he told her, but kindly, that she had been took in by a lot of slum. “You don’t want to listen to this great fussock here, missie!” he said, jerking his thumb at Alice. “She’s got a brother what’s dicked in the nob, and a proper jobbernoll she is! Ah!”

He then nodded his head cunningly several times, and demanded to be told who had ever heard of a duke dressing his horses. But by this time Sylvester had taken the purse from his coat-pocket, and said briefly: “What’s the figure?”

Mr. Shap, with great promptness, named a price which drew a shriek of scandalized wrath from Alice. She begged Sylvester not to be choused out of his money by a wicked old lick-penny; but Sylvester, who was tired of Mr. Shap, dropped three sovereigns into his gnarled hand, and told him to be off. Such openhanded conduct caused Mr. Shap to dang himself if it weren’t a duke after all; and after giving Sylvester a fatherly admonition not to allow