Read Online Sylvester by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online Page A

pen had always been persuasive, and so enthralling did she contrive to make the adventures of her heroine that it was not until he had reached the end of the book that even so stern a critic as young Mr Orde bethought him of the various incidents which he saw, in retrospect, to be impossible. Miss Battery, a more discerning critic, recognized not only the popular nature of the tale, but also the flowering in it of a latent talent. Phoebe had discovered in herself a gift for humorous portraiture, and she had not wasted her time in London. Tom Orde might complain that a score of minor characters were irrelevant, but Miss Battery knew that it was these swift, unerring sketches that raised The Lost Heir above the commonplace. She would not allow Phoebe to expunge one of them, or a line of their wickedly diverting dialogues, but persuaded her instead to write it all out in fairest copperplate. Phoebe groaned at this tedious labour, but since neither she nor Miss Battery knew of a professional copyist, and would have been hard put to it to have paid for such a person’s services, she submitted to the drudgery. After that the book was packed up, and dispatched by the mail to Miss Battery’s cousin, Mr Gilbert Otley, junior partner in the small but aspiring firm of Newsham & Otley, Publishers.
    Mr Otley, receiving the manuscript and perusing the accompanying letter from Miss Battery, was unimpressed. At first glance he did not think The Lost Heir the sort of book he wished to handle; and the intelligence that it was the work of a Lady of Quality drew from him only a heavy sigh. However, he took The Lost Heir home with him, and read it at a sitting. It did not take him long to perceive that it was to some extent a roman a clef ,for although he was unacquainted with the members of the haut ton he was shrewd enough to realize that the authoress in depicting many of her characters was drawing from the life. The success of Glenarvon ,published some eighteen months previously, was still fresh in his mind; and it was this circumstance which led him, rather doubtfully, to hand The Lost Heir to his partner.
    Mr Harvey Newsham was unexpectedly enthusiastic; and when Mr Otley pointed out to him that it was not such a book as they had been used to produce he replied caustically that if it enjoyed better sales than had the last three of these works he for one should not complain.
    ‘But will it?’ said Mr Otley. ‘The story is no great thing, after all—in fact it’s nonsensical!’
    ‘No one will care for that.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know. I should have thought it too fantastical myself. In fact, it still has me in a puzzle. How the devil did that Ugolino-fellow get hold of his nephew in the first place? And why didn’t he smother him, or something, when he had got hold of him, instead of keeping him prisoner in that castle of his? And as for the boy’s sister managing to get into the place, let alone that corkbrained hero, and then the pair of them setting sail with the boy—well, they couldn’t have done it’.’
    Mr Newsham dismissed such trivialities with a wave of his hand. ‘It doesn’t signify. This female—’ he jabbed a finger at Phoebe’s manuscript—’knows how to do the trick! What’s more, the book’s stuffed with people she’s met, and that’s what will make the nobs buy it.’ He glanced down at the manuscript appraisingly. ‘In three volumes, handsomely bound,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘At the start of next season. Say April—skilfully puffed-off, of course. I think it will do, Otley!’
    ‘It will be pretty expensive,’ objected Mr Otley. ‘I mean this book to be in every fashionable drawing-room, and it won’t do to get it up shoddy. Colburn issued Lady Caroline Lamb’s tale in tooled leather. It looked very well.’
    ‘Ay, but you may depend upon it Lady Caroline paid for it,’ retorted Mr Otley.
    ‘No reason to suppose this author won’t do the same,’ said the optimistic Mr Newsham.