Welcome to tonight’s #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong. I hope you are all recovered after the trauma of the ballroom, and that your smelling salts and hartshorn have now been put away.

Tonight we will look at the aftermath of the ball, and consider chapters 19, 20 and 21 of Sylvester.

“Lady Ingham was indisposed”.

That opening sentence always makes me think of “Marley was dead”.

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“Miss Marlow was indisposed too and was laid down on the sofa in the Small Parlour. Miss Marlow was not receiving visitors today.”

Poor Phoebe.

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Georgie arrives. Interesting. She’s Sylvester’s cousin but she’s showing her support for Phoebe by visiting Lady Ingham.

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I see the “grim handmaiden” Muker is not making the atmosphere any lighter.

#SqueezeCrab

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Georgie confirms Lady Ingham’s fears that the scandal is all over town, but goes on to say: “Even if Phoebe did write that book I can’t but like her still, and... if I can help her I will!” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Georgie has obviously been observing the developing relationship between Sylvester and Pheobe and concludes that “One would say she must detest Sylvester, but THAT she doesn’t!”
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As for Sylvester, says Georgie, “I shouldn’t think Sylvester will betray her, whatever she may have said to him”.

Ummmm.... Hasn’t he done that already by his actions at the ball?
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“I will never forgive him, never! To overset her THERE! Heaven knows I don’t excuse the child, but what HE did was wicked! And I can’t even take comfort from the reflection that she made a laughing stock of him, because she ruined herself in doing it.”
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Georgie thinks that Sylvester’s behaviour was out of character because “nothing disgusts him more than a want of conduct”. But he was very angry and didn’t consider the consequences.

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Georgie suspects that Sylvester has formed a serious attachment to Phoebe, and so does Lady Ingham.

But I suspect Phoebe and Sylvester haven’t realised it yet.....
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“Paris would be the very thing!”
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“You know how quickly the most shocking scandals are forgotten!”
“This one won’t be.”
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Georgie gets ready to fight for the couple’s future: “I am Sylvester’s cousin, and what I say of him will be believed rather than what Ianthe says.” And she plans to put it about that the ballroom scene was the result of a long standing quarrel. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

I am noting the calls for a novel about Georgie. Now wouldn’t that be something! Fun!
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Lady Ingham could be more grateful in her thanks:

“You’re a flighty, ramshackle creature, Georgie, but one thing I’ll allow. You have a good heart!”

I’d rather be with Georgie than Lady Ingham.... #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

“If Sylvester had taken it in good part - made a joke of it, as though he didn’t care a button, and had been in the secret the whole time - it wouldn’t have signified a scrap.”

Is Georgie right?
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Lady Ingham doens’t want to go to Paris without a gentleman. But there’s a solution! Tom Orde!
The ink, my pen, paper, wafers! Let us write to him at once!
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Tom Orde is probably the answer to everything TBH.
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Georgie met Tom on the steps and found him “a very pretty-behaved boy! Wants town-polish, but most gentlemanly.”

I think we like Tom without any town-polish don’t we?
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Lady Ingham still believes Pheobe is ruined. “After last night I should be thankful to see her married to anyone!’ #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Tom is “more appalled than pleased” at the prospect of accompanying Lady Ingham and Pheobe to Paris. I sympathise. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

However, Tom is “persuaded he will enjoy himself excessively, and his father would be excessively obliged to Lady Ingham. Only perhaps he ought to mention that he knew very little French and had not before been out of England.”
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Tom’s view of events at the ball:

“I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t wrong of her to have written all that stuff about Salford, but it was just as wrong of him to have given her a trimming in public! I call it a dashed ungentlemanly thing to have done.”
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“I wouldn’t have thought it of him! I thought he was a first-rate sort of man.”
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Pheobe is so desperate about what happened that she wants to go back to Austerby. That’s desperate indeed. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Life Goals:
“As soon as those publisher fellows hand over the blunt... she and Sibby will live together in a cottage somewhere. She means to write another novel immediately, because she has been offered a great deal of money for it already.”
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Phoebe only agrees to go to Paris after an intervention by Mr Orde.
“Her subsequent attempts to appear cheerful were heroic, and quite enough (said Tom) to throw the whole party into the dismals.”
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“Between Phoebe’s brave front and Muker’s undisguised gloom the Dowager might well have abandoned the scheme had it not been for the support afforded her by young Orde.”
(We need @nysuri to remind us that Tom Orde is so solid.)
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I love the description of Tom getting ready to go to Paris - grappling with passports, customs and itineraries, checking the packet sailings, learning French, calculating money, and consulting his Road Book. What a hero! #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

But then a spanner is thrown in the works - Lady Ingham refuses to board the packet because the sea isn’t flat calm. They wait at Dover for five days....
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Lady Ingham and Party remained at the Ship, and Tom, forewarned that the length of the bills presented at this busy hostelry was proverbial, began to entertain visions of finding himself without a feather to fly with before he had got his ladies to Amiens
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So Tom goes out to see the docks and find out about all the sailing vessels.
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“It seemed a little hard to Phoebe that she should be accused of having crotchets when she was taking such pains to appear cheerful.”
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“Sea-air, said Muker, always made my lady bilious, AS THOSE WHO HAD WAITED ON HER FOR YEARS COULD HAVE TOLD OTHERS, HAD THEY SEEN FIT TO ASK.”
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Phoebe tries to write to Sylvester but fails. And then becomes increasingly depressed.
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“Be quick and come out Phoebe! Such doings in the harbour! I wouldn’t have you miss it for a hundred pounds!”

Anyone else got a sense that something is about to go wrong? #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

In going out, Pheobe eventually stands up to the insolent Muker. With some force it seems - Muker is “thrust with some violence out of the way”.
#SourOldSqueezeCrab
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Never was there so glossy, and so exquisite a chariot.....

Who this could this POSSIBLY belong to? It’s so long since I first read Sylvester, and I can’t remember if I KNEW it was Sir Nugent’s, but I suspect Heyer is giving this away in her description.
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Ah. The return of Edmund.
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I love Tom’s casual turn of phrase:

“Are you poz?”

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“They are kidnapping Edmund, and - oh, Tom, it is MY fault!” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Tom tries to stop Phoebe. “I shan’t let you make such a cake of yourself! It’s none of your business.” And he tries to reason with her that her book can’t be blamed for Ianthe’s silly behaviour.
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But Phoebe is convinced:
“I put the scheme into her head! It was never there before she read my book. She told me herself how much struck she was by the end of it...”
“Took the scheme out of a trumpery novel? She couldn’t be such a greenhead.”
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Phoebe is convinced she can make things up with Sylvester, and that people won’t think so badly of her, if she rescues Edmund as a “sort of atonement”.
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Tom points out that “if the boy is being taken out of the country without his guardian’s leave it’s against the law! So we have got SOME right to meddle”.
But he is also cautious: “I only hope we don’t catch cold at it, that’s all!”
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Only Sir Nugent Fotherby could imagine that Phoebe is paying a social call. On a ship. At Dover. Where she wouldn’t have known they were... Logic isn’t his strong point.
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WHEN ARE WE GOING TO SEE THE CIRCUS?

YOU SAID WE WERE GOING TO THE CIRCUS.

YOU SAID IF I DIDN’T KICK UP RIOT AND RUMPUS I SHOULD GO TO THE CIRCUS.

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YOU TOLD ME A WHISKER.

YOU ARE A BAD MAN.

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Phoebe offers to take Edmund home, and he agrees to go with her, as “you are the lady which knows Keighley.” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

“What would have happened if Nelson had been scared to go on a ship?”

I suspect Heyer was a bit of a Nelson fan like Judith in Regency Buck; her friend Carola Oman was one of Nelson’s biographers and published a book about him in 1946.
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Sir Nugent and Lady Ianthe we’re married by special licence and “fled immediately from the church door.” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Anyone else feel slightly* nauseous to learn that Sir Nugent made sure that the travelling chariot was lined with blue to match Ianthe’s eyes?

*extremely

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Phoebe tries to reason with Ianthe, and says she can’t take Edmund. Ianthe argues that it was Phoebe who showed her what she must do:
“As soon as I read how Floria and Matilda smuggled Maximilian on to that boat -“
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Ianthe thinks she will win because “Sylvester hates scandal. I am persuaded he would endure anything rather than let the world know the least one of the family secrets!” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

“Don’t tell me you didn’t mean Maximilian for Edmund, becuase everyone knows you did!”
“Yes! Because you told everyone so! Oh haven’t you harmed me enough? You promised you wouldn’t repeat what passed between us.”
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Ianthe seems to believe that the “horrid sailors” should keep the boat still. She has rather unrealistic expectations i fear. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Finding Edmund a trial, Ianthe hits upon a solution - Pheobe must go with her to Paris! And then she can dump her darling child onto Phoebe.
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Tom is having none of it and says so with “distressing frankness”. And then he threatens to go to the law. He’s a strong notion that taking Edmund to France without his guardian’s knowledge is a felony.
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Ianthe wonders where Edmund is, and fears he has fallen overboard. Sir Nugent’s response is priceless:
“Plenty of sailors to fish him out again, you know.” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

But - horrors! “My God! We’re moving!” #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Sir Nugent is very proud of himself that he’s “diddled the dupes, my lady” and essentially kidnapped Phoebe and Tom. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

The skipper refuses to turn back; Phoebe has no way ot telling her grandmother where she’s gone; Edmund is seasick; Ianthe is ridicuous - what a mess it all is.
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Phoebe takes charge of Edmund, noting acidly that she herself has no time to be seasick.

I wouldn’t have. She’s got the patience of a saint.
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Phoebe is angry with Ianthe:
“It was WICKED to have brought him on such a journey.”
And she concludes that Edmund would be better off with Sylvester:
“Whatever his sentiments may be towards Edmund he CANNOT BE more unfeeling than that CREATURE!”

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Ianthe has packed trunks and bandboxes for herself but brought no clothes or necessities for Edmund. Which seems rather unfortunate.
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Edmund wakes to find Sir Nugent with him and repudiates him and apostrophises him as a BAD MAN. #GeorgetteHeyerReadalong

Edmund wants his Button.
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Sir Nugent is faced with the DREADFUL POSSIBILITY of having to cut a button off one of his many, many coats.
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It takes Pheobe to realise that Edmund wants his nurse - Button. She’s exasperated with the lot of them. Except Edmund.
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“HE SAID IT WAS MY BUTTON! HE IS BAD! I WON’T HAVE HIM, I WON’T, I WON’T!”
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And so we leave Phoebe exasperated, Tom doing his best, Sir Nugent wanting a punch in the face (NB we don’t approve of violence), Ianthe as the heroine of her own drama, Lady Ingham unaware but deserted, and Muker (still) being a sour old squeeze-crab.
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