The Grand Sophy (11 page)

“But not, you will own, a genius for rearing a daughter!” said Miss Wraxton archly.

He laughed at that, but said, “Oh, well! I don’t know that there is any real harm in Sophy, after all!”

When Miss Wraxton’s invitation was conveyed to Sophy she professed herself happy to accept it and at once desired Miss Jane Storridge to press out her riding dress. This garment, when she appeared in it on the following afternoon, filled Cecilia with envy but slightly staggered her brother, who could not feel that a habit made of pale blue cloth, with epaulettes and frogs, a la Hussar, and sleeves braided halfway up the arm, would win approval from Miss Wraxton. Blue kid gloves and half-boots, a high-standing collar trimmed with lace, a muslin cravat, narrow lace ruffles at the wrists, and a tall-crowned hat, like a shako, with a peak over the eyes, and a plume of curled ostrich feathers completed this dashing toilette. The tightly fitting habit set off Sophy’s magnificent figure to admiration; and from under the brim of her hat her brown locks curled quite charmingly; but Mr. Rivenhall, appealed to by his sister to subscribe to her conviction that Sophy looked beautiful, merely bowed, and said that he was no judge of such matters.

However that might be, he was no mean judge of a horse, and when he set eyes on Salamanca, being walked up and down the road by John Potton, he did not withhold his praise, but said that he no longer wondered at Hubert’s ecstasies. John Potton threw his mistress up into the saddle, and after allowing Salamanca to indulge his playfulness for a few moments, Sophy brought him mincing up alongside Mr. Rivenhall’s bay hack, and they set off at a sedate pace in the direction of Hyde Park. Salamanca was inclined to resent the existence of sedan chairs, dogs, crossing sweepers, and took instant exception to a postman’s horn, but Mr. Rivenhall, accustomed to be on the alert to prevent misadventure when riding with Cecilia through London streets, knew better than to offer advice or assistance to his cousin. She was very well able to control her mount for herself, which, reflected Mr. Rivenhall, was just as well, since Salamanca could scarcely have been described as an ideal horse for a lady.

This comment was made by Miss Wraxton, whom they found awaiting them, with her brother, within the gates of the Park. Miss Wraxton, after one glance at Sophy’s habit, transferred her gaze to Salamanca, and said, “Oh, what a beautiful creature! But surely he is a little too strong for you, Miss Stanton-Lacy? You should commission Charles to find a well-mannered lady’s horse for you to ride.”

“I daresay he would be only too delighted, but I have discovered that his notions and mine on that subject are widely separated,” replied Sophy. “Moreover, though he is a trifle spirited, there is not an ounce of vice in Salamanca, and he has what the Duke calls excellent bottom—has carried me for league upon dreary league without sign of flagging!” she leaned forward to pat Salamanca’s gleaming black neck. “To be sure, he has not yet lashed out at the end of a long day, which the Duke vows and declares Copenhagen did, when he dismounted from his back after Waterloo, but I hold that to be a virtue in him!”

“Indeed, yes!” said Miss Wraxton, ignoring the unbecoming pretension shown by this careless reference to England’s hero. “You will let me introduce my brother to you; Miss Stanton-Lacy, Alfred!”

Mr. Wraxton, a pallid young gentleman with a receding chin, a loose, wet mouth, and a knowing look in his eyes, bowed, and said he was happy to make Miss Stanton-Lacy’s acquaintance. He then asked her if she had been in Brussels at the time of the great battle and added that he had had some idea of joining as a Volunteer at the height of the scare. “But from one cause and another nothing came of it,” he said. “Do you know the Duke well? Quite the great man, ain’t he? But perfectly affable, they tell me. I daresay you are on famous terms with him, for you knew him in Spain, didn’t you?”

“My dear Alfred,” interposed his sister, “Miss Stanton-Lacy will think you have less than common sense if you talk such nonsense. She will tell you that the Duke has more important things to think of than all of us poor females who hold him in such admiration.”

Sophy looked rather amused. “Well, no, I don’t think I should say that,” she replied. “But I was never one of his flirts, if that is what you mean, Mr. Wraxton. I am not at all in his style, I assure you.”

“Shall we ride on?” suggested Miss Wraxton. “You must tell me about your horse. Is he Spanish? Very handsome, but a little too nervous for my taste. But I am spoilt. My own dear Dorcas here is so very well mannered.”

“Salamanca is not really nervous; he is merely funning,” said Sophy. “As for manners, I hold him to be unequaled. Would you like to see me put him through his paces? Watch! He was Mameluke trained, you know!”

“For heaven’s sake, Sophy, not in the Park!” said Charles sharply.

She threw him one of her saucy smiles, and set Salamanca caracoling.

“Oh, pray be careful!” exclaimed Miss Wraxton. “It is very dangerous! Charles, stop her! We shall have everyone staring at us!”

“You won’t mind if I shake the fidgets out of his legs!” Sophy called. “He is itching for a gallop!”

With that, she wheeled Salamanca about, and let him have his head down the stretch of tan that lay beside the carriage road.

“Yoicks!” uttered Mr. Wraxton, and set off in pursuit.

“My dear Charles, what is to be done with her?” said Miss Wraxton. “Galloping in the Park, and in that habit, which I should blush to wear! I was never more shocked!”

“Yes,” he agreed, his eyes on the diminishing figure in the distance. “But, by God, she can ride!”

“Of course, if you mean to encourage her in such pranks there is no more to be said.”

“I don’t,” he replied briefly.

She was displeased and said coldly, “I must confess that I do not admire her style. I am reminded of nothing so much as the equestriennes at Astley’s Amphitheatre. Shall we canter?”

In this sedate way they rode side by side down the tan until they saw Sophy galloping back to them, Mr. Wraxton still in pursuit. Sophy reined in, wheeled, and fell in beside her cousin. “How much I enjoyed that!” she said, her cheeks in a glow. “I have not been on Salamanca’s back for over a week. But tell me! Have I done wrong? So many prim persons stared as though they could not believe their eyes!”

“You should not ride in that neck-or-nothing fashion in the Park,” Charles replied. “I should have warned you.”

“You should indeed! I was afraid it might be that. Never mind! I will be good now, and if anyone speaks of it to you you will say that it is only your poor little cousin from Portugal, who has been so badly brought up that there is no doing anything about it.” She leaned forward to speak across him to Miss Wraxton. “I appeal to you, Miss Wraxton! You are a horsewoman! Is it not insupportable to be held down to a canter when you long to gallop for miles?”

“Most irksome,” agreed Miss Wraxton. At this moment Alfred Wraxton rejoined them, calling out, “By Jove, Miss Stanton-Lacy, you will take the shine out of them all! You are nothing to her, Eugenia!”

“We cannot go four abreast,” said Miss Wraxton ignoring this remark. “Charles, fall behind with Alfred! I cannot converse with Miss Stanton-Lacy across you.”

He complied with this request, and Miss Wraxton bringing her mare alongside Salamanca, said with all the tact upon which she plumed herself. “I am persuaded that you must find our London ways strange at first.”

“Why, I imagine they cannot differ greatly from those of Paris, or Vienna, or even Lisbon!” said Sophy.

“I have never visited those cities, but I believe—indeed, I am sure—that the tone of London is vastly superior,” said Miss Wraxton.

Her air of calm certainty struck Sophy as being so funny that she went into a peal of laughter. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” she gasped. “But it is so ridiculous, you know!”

“I expect it must seem so to you,” agreed Miss Wraxton, her calm quite unimpaired. “I understand that a great deal of license is permitted on the Continent to females. Here it is not so. Quite the reverse! To be thought bad ton, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, would be very dreadful. I know that you will not take it amiss if I give you a hint. You will of course wish to attend the Assemblies at Almack’s, for instance. I assure you, the veriest breath of criticism to reach the ears of the Patronesses, and you may say farewell to any hope of obtaining a voucher from them. Tickets may not be purchased without a voucher, you know. It is most exclusive! The rules, too, are very strict, and must not be contravened by a hairsbreadth.”

“You terrify me,” said Sophy. “Do you think I shall be blackballed?”

Miss Wraxton smiled. “Hardly, since you will make your debut under dear Lady Ombersley’s aegis! She will no doubt, tell you just how you should conduct yourself, if her health permits her to take you there. It is unfortunate that circumstances have prevented me from occupying that position which would have enabled me to have relieved her of such duties.”

“Forgive me!” interrupted Sophy, whose attention had been wandering, “but I think Madame de Lieven is waving to me, and it would be very uncivil not to notice her!”

She rode off as she spoke, to where a smart barouche was drawn up beside the track, and leaned down from her saddle to shake the languid hand held up to her.

“Sophie!” pronounced the Countess. “Sir Horace told me I should meet you here. You were galloping
ventre a terre
. Never do so again! Ah, Mrs. Burrell, permit me to present to you Miss Stanton-Lacy!”

The lady seated beside the Ambassador’s wife bowed slightly, and allowed her lips to relax into an infinitesimal smile. This expanded a little when she observed Miss Wraxton, following in Sophy’s wake, and she inclined her head, a great mark of condescension.

Countess Lieven nodded to Miss Wraxton, but went on talking to Sophy. “You are staying with Lady Ombersley. I am a little acquainted with her, and I shall call. She will spare you to me perhaps one evening. You have not seen Princess Esterhazy yet, or Lady Jersey? I shall tell them I have met you, and they will want to hear how Sir Horace does. What did I promise Sir Horace I would do? Ah, but of course! Almack’s! I will send you a voucher, ma chere Sophie, but do not gallop in Hyde Park.” She then told her coachman to drive on, included the whole of Sophy’s party in her slight, valedictory smile and turned to continue her interrupted conversation with Mrs. Drummond Burrell.

“I was not aware that you are acquainted with the Countess Lieven,” said Miss Wraxton.

“Do you dislike her?” Sophy asked, aware of the coldness in Miss Wraxton’s voice. “Many people do, I know. Sir Horace calls her the great
intrigante
, but she is clever and can be very amusing. She has a tendre for him, as I daresay you have guessed. I like Princess Esterhazy better myself, I own, and Lady Jersey better than either of them, because she is so much more sincere, in spite of that restless manner of hers.”

“Dreadful woman!” said Charles. “She never stops talking! She is known as Silence, in London.”

“Is she? Well, I am sure, if she knows it, she does not care a bit, for she dearly loves a joke.”

“You are fortunate knowing so many of the Patronesses of Almack’s,” observed Miss Wraxton.

Sophy gave her irrepressible chuckle. “To be honest, I think my good fortune lies in having such an accomplished flirt for a father!”

Mr. Wraxton giggled at this, and his sister, dropping a little behind, brought her mare up on Mr. Rivenhall’s other side, and said in a low tone, under cover of some quizzing remark made to Sophy by Mr. Wraxton: “It is a pity that men will laugh when her liveliness betrays her into saying what cannot be thought becoming. It brings her too much into notice, and that, I fancy, is the root of the evil.”

He raised his brows. “You are severe! Do you dislike her?”

“Oh, no, no!” she said quickly. “It is merely that I have no great taste for just that kind of sportive playfulness.”

He looked as though he would have liked to have said something more, but at this moment a very military-looking cavalcade came into sight, cantering easily toward them. It consisted of four gentlemen, whose dashing side whiskers and soldierly bearing proclaimed their profession. They glanced idly at Mr. Rivenhall’s party. The next instant there was a shout, and a hurried reining in, and one of the quartet exclaimed in ringing accents, “By all that’s wonderful, it’s the Grand Sophy!”

Confusion and babel followed this, all four gentlemen pressing up to grasp Sophy’s hand and pelting her with questions. Where had she sprung from? How long had she been in England? Why had they not been told of her arrival? How was Sir Horace?

“Oh, but, Sophy, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” declared Major Quinton, who had first hailed her.

“You have Salamanca still! Lord, do you remember riding, him, when you were almost snapped up by old Soult?”

“Sophy, what’s your direction? Are you living in London now? Where’s Sir Horace?”

She was laughing, trying to answer them all, while her horse sidled, and fidgeted, and tossed his head. “Ah! Never mind about me! What are you all doing in England. I thought you in France still! Don’t tell me you have sold!”

“Debenham has, lucky dog! I’m on furlough. We’re stationed in England—what a thing it is to belong to the Gentlemen’s Sons—and Talgarth has become a great man, almost a Tiger! Yes, I assure you! A.D.C. to the Duke York. You notice the air of consequence. But he is condescension, not the least height in his manner— yet!”