Free Sylvester by Georgette Heyer

cool civility, you know, towards persons who don’t interest him. I believe he is very amiable to those whom he likes, but the thing is—or so I fancy—that he doesn’t care a button for what anyone may think of him. To be sure, that isn’t wonderful,’ she added reflectively, ‘for the way he is courted and toad-eaten is quite repulsive! Why, when Lady Sefton brought him up to me—she is the Baroness Josceline in my story, you know: the affected, fidgety one!—she introduced him as though she were conferring the greatest favour on me!’
    ‘That doesn’t signify,’ interrupted Miss Battery. ‘Did he behave as though he thought it so?’
    ‘Oh, no! He is so much accustomed to such flattery that he doesn’t appear even to heed it. Being civil to poor little dabs of females who have neither beauty nor conversation is one of the tiresome duties his exalted situation obliges him to perform.’
    ‘Well, if I were you, my dear, I wouldn’t fly into a pucker yet awhile,’ said Miss Battery with strong commonsense. ‘Seems to me you don’t know anything about him. One thing you can depend on: if he’s coming here to make you an offer he won’t treat you with cool civility!’
    ‘Even if he did not—oh, he must have changed indeed if I were to like him well enough to marry him!’ 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