The Grand Sophy (15 page)

“In a word, Charles, I have thrown them continually together. I have, and if you had a grain of sense you would have done so weeks before I came to town!”

He was arrested for a moment, and then asked incredulously, “Do you imagine by doing so you will cure Cecilia? Or that I am likely to believe you have any such intention in mind?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she answered, giving the matter some thought. “One of two things must happen, you know. Either she will grow weary of Augustus—and I must say I do think that very probable, because although he is so handsome and can be very engaging when he chooses, he is shockingly tiresome, besides forgetting Cecilia’s existence just when he should be most solicitous—or she will continue to love him, in spite of his faults. And if that happens, Charles, you will know that it is not an infatuation, and you will be obliged to consent to their marriage.”

“Never!” he said, with considerable violence.

“But you will,” she insisted. “It would be wicked to try to force her into another marriage, and you would be cruel to attempt it.”

“I shall not force her into any marriage!” he flashed. “It may interest you to know that I am extremely attached to Cecilia, and that it is for that reason, and not for any whim of my own, that I will not countenance her union with a man of Fawnhope’s stamp! As for this glib notion you have, that by throwing them together you will make Cecilia tire of him, you were never more mistaken! So far from tiring of his company, Cecilia seizes every opportunity to be alone with him! She is even so lost to all sense of propriety as to make Addy her dupe! Only this afternoon Miss Wraxton came upon her in a secluded path in the Park, alone with Fawnhope, having shaken off the restraint of Addy’s presence. Clandestine meetings! Pretty behavior in Miss Rivenhall of Ombersley, upon my word!”

“My dear Charles,” said Sophy, with unimpaired calm, “you know very well that you are making that up.”

“I am doing no such thing! Do you imagine I would make up such a tale about my sister?”

“To own the truth, I think you would do anything when you are in one of your rages,” she said, smiling. “There is no secret about her having walked with Fawnhope, but the rest of it springs from your disordered temper. Now, do not say that Miss Wraxton told you it was so, because I am sure she would never have told you such fibs about Cecilia! Shaken Addy off, indeed! She was never out of Addy’s sight for a moment! Good gracious, don’t you know Cecilia better than to be accusing her of clandestine behavior What a very vulgar expression to use, to be sure! Do stop making such a cake of yourself! Next you will be ranting at Cecy for having allowed a respectable young man whom she has known, I daresay, since they were both children, to walk a little way beside her, under the eyes of her governess!”

Again she came under that hard scrutiny. “Do you know ! this for a fact?” he asked, in an altered tone.

“Certainly I do, for Cecy told me just what had occurred. It seems that Miss Wraxton said something to Addy which distressed her very much—no doubt she misunderstood it, Miss Wraxton perhaps felt that Addy should have sent Augustus about his business, though how she could have done so I hardly know! But she has a great deal of sensibility, you know, and is readily upset.”

He looked annoyed, and said, “Addy is not to be blamed; Cecilia is out of her control, and if she should have told my mother of these meetings—well, she was never one to carry tales of any of us!”

She said coaxingly, “Do show her that you are not angry with her, Charles, and don’t mean to turn her off after all these years!”

“Turn her off?” he echoed, astonished. “What nonsense is this, pray?”

“Exactly what I said to her! Only she has taken it into her head that she is too old-fashioned in her ways to instruct the children, and seems to think she should be able to teach them the Italian tongue, and all sorts of refinement of the same nature.”

There was a slight pause. Mr. Rivenhall sat down on the other side of the fireplace, and rather absently began to pull Tina’s ears. He was frowning, and presently said, at his curtest, “I have nothing whatsoever to say in the education of my sisters. It is my mother’s business, and I cannot conceive how it could ever belong to anyone else.”

Sophy saw no need to labor this point and merely agreed with him. He cast her a glance out of narrowed, searching eyes, but she preserved her countenance. He said, “None of this has anything to do with what I have been saying to you. We did very well, Cousin, before you began to turn this house upside down! I shall be obliged to you if, in the future—”

“Why, what in the world have I done else?” she exclaimed.

He found himself quite unable to put into words the things that she had done and was obliged to fall back upon her only tangible crime. “You brought that monkey here, for one thing!” he said. “No doubt with the kindest of intentions! But it is a most unsuitable animal to have bestowed on the children, and now, of course, they will think themselves ill used when it is got rid of, as got rid of it must be!”

Her eyes began to dance. “Charles, you are just trying to be disagreeable! You cannot feed Jacko on bits of apple, and teach him tricks, and warn the children to give him a blanket at night one day, and the next say he must be got rid of!”

He bit his lip, but the rueful grin would not be entirely suppressed. “Who told you I had done so?”

“Theodore. And also that you carried him down on your shoulder when Miss Wraxton came to call, to show him off to her. I must say, I think that was foolish of you, for you know she does not like pets; she told us so. I am sure there is no reason why she should, and to plague her with them is not kind in you. I never let Tina tease her, you know.”

“You are mistaken!” he said quickly. “She does not like monkeys, but it is only Lady Brinklow who dislikes dogs!”

“I expect she feels the same,” said Sophy, getting up and giving her skirts a shake. “One cannot help observing how often daughters resemble their mothers. Not in face, but in disposition. You must have remarked it!”

He seemed to be somewhat appalled by this. “No, I have not. I do not think you can be right!”

“Oh, yes, only consider Cecy! She will be just like dear Aunt Lizzie when she is older.” She saw that the truth of this statement was having its effect upon him and thought that she had given him enough to ponder for one day. She moved toward the door, saying, “I must go and change my dress.”

He got up abruptly. “No, wait!”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

He did not seem to know what he wished to say. “Nothing! It’s no matter! Next time you insist on buying horses you had better tell me what you want! To be employing strangers in the business is most undesirable!”

“But you assured me you would have no hand in it!” Sophy pointed out.

“Yes!” he said savagely. “Nothing pleases you more than to put me in the wrong, does it?”

She laughed, but went away without answering him. Upstairs she was pounced on by Cecilia, anxious to know what her fate was to be.

“If he speaks to you at all, it will be to. warn you against, Alfred Wraxton!” said Sophy, with a gurgle of amusement. “I told him exactly how that toad conducts himself and warned him to take care of you!”

“You did not!”

“I did. I have done an excellent day’s work, in the most unprincipled way! Oh, tell Addy Charles does not blame her in the least! He won’t say a word to my aunt about what happened, and I doubt whether he will say a word to you either. The only person he may say a word to is his precious Eugenia. I hope she will induce him to lose his temper!”

VII

CECILIA WAS quite unable to believe that she was not to receive one of her brother’s scolds, and, when she later came unexpectedly face to face with him on a bend in the stair she gave a gasp and tried to stiffen her unruly knees. “Hallo!” he said, running an eye over her exquisite ball dress of gauze over satin. “You are very smart! Where are you off to?”

“Lady Sefton is calling after dinner to take Sophy and me to Almack’s,” she replied thankfully. “Mama does not find herself equal to it this evening.”

“Taking the shine out of them all?” he said. “You look very fine!”

“Why do you not accompany us?” she asked, plucking up courage.

“You would not spend the entire evening in Fawnhope’s pocket if I did,” he observed dryly.

She lifted her chin. “I should not under any circumstances spend the entire evening in any gentleman’s pocket!”

“No, I believe you would not,” he agreed mildly. “Not in my line, Cilly! Besides, I am engaged with a party of my own.”

His employment of her almost forgotten nursery name made her retort with much less constraint: “Daffy Club!”

He grinned. “No. Cribb’s Parlour!”

“How horrid you are! I suppose you are going to discuss the merits of a Bloomsbury Pet, or a Black Diamond, or—or—”

“A Mayfair Marvel,” he supplied. “Nothing so interesting. I am going to blow a cloud with a few friends. And what do you know of Bloomsbury Pets, miss?”

She threw him a saucy look as she passed him on the way down the staircase. “Only what I have learnt from my brothers, Charles!”

He laughed, and let her go, but before she had reached the bottom of the flight, leaned over the banisters, and said imperatively, “Cecilia!” She looked up enquiringly. “Does that fellow Wraxton annoy you?”

She was nearly betrayed into losing her gravity. She replied, “Oh, well! I daresay I could snub him easily enough, if—well, if I chose to do so!”

“You need not be deterred by any consideration that I know of. I need scarcely say that if Eugenia knew of it she would be the first to condemn his behavior!”

“Of course,” she said.

Whether he spoke words of censure to Miss Wraxton no one was in a position to know. If he did, they must, Sophy thought, have been mild ones, for she did not appear to be in any way chastened. However, Sophy was granted one satisfaction. When next Miss Wraxton brought up the vexed question of Jacko, confiding to Lady Ombersley that she lived in dread of hearing that the monkey had bitten one of the children, Charles overheard her, and said impatiently, “Nonsense!”

“I believe a monkey’s bite is poisonous.”

“In that case I hope he may bite Theodore.” Lady Ombersley uttered a protest, but Theodore, already soundly cuffed for hitting a cricket ball from the Square garden straight through one of the windows of a neighboring house, merely grinned. Miss Wraxton, who did not feel that he had been adequately punished for such a piece of lawlessness, had already spoken her mind gravely on the subject. Charles had listened, but all he had said was, “Very true, but it was a capital hit. I saw it.” This disregard for her opinion rankled with Miss Wraxton, and she now, with the archness which she too often employed when talking to children, read Theodore a playful lecture, telling him that he was fortunate in not being obliged to forfeit his new pet in retribution of his crime. Beyond casting her a glance of resentment, he paid no heed, but Gertrude blurted out, “I believe you don’t like Jacko because Sophy gave him to us!”

The truth of this embarrassingly forthright pronouncement struck most of those present with blinding effect. Miss Wraxton’s cheeks flew two spots of color; Lady Ombersley gave a gasp, and Cecilia a stifled giggle. Only Charles and Sophy remained unmoved, Sophy not raising her eyes from the sewing she was engaged on, and Charles saying blightingly, “A stupid and an impertinent remark, Gertrude. You may return to the schoolroom, if you cannot conduct yourself more becomingly.”

Gertrude, who had arrived at the age when she cast herself into quite as much confusion as her elders, had already blushed hotly, and now fled in disorder from the room. Lady Ombersley began at once to talk of her projected expedition, with Sophy and Cecilia, to visit the Marquesa de Villacanas at Merton.

“One would not wish to be backward in any attention,” she said, “so I shall make the effort, and we must hope it will not rain, for that would make it very disagreeable. I wish you will go with us, Charles. Your uncle’s affianced wife, you know! I own, I do not care to drive out of town without a gentleman to go with me, though I am sure Radnor is perfectly to be trusted, and I should of course take my footmen.”

“My dear Mama, three able-bodied men should be enough to protect you on this hazardous journey!” he returned, in some amusement.

“Don’t tease Charles to go, Aunt Lizzie!” said Sophy, snipping off her thread. “Sir Vincent vows he will ride there with us, for he has not met Sancia since Madrid days, when her husband was still alive, and they gave splendid parties for all the English officers.”

There was a slight pause before Charles said, “If you wish it, Mama, I will certainly go with you. I can take my cousin in the curricle, and then you will not be crowded in your carriage.”

“Oh, I mean to go in my phaeton!” Sophy said unconcernedly.

“I thought it was your ambition to drive my grays?”

“Why, would you let me?”

“Perhaps.”

She laughed. “Oh, no, no! I have no belief in perhaps. Take Cecilia!”

“Cecilia would by far rather go in my mother’s landaulet. You may take the reins for part of the way.”

She said in a rallying tone, “This is something indeed! I am overcome, Charles, and fear you cannot be feeling quite the thing!”