The Grand Sophy (23 page)

“It may be punctilious, but it is the greatest folly imaginable, particularly if you mean to contract mumps before you have even had time to offer for her!”

“It would, I collect, be useless to assure you that I did not mean to contract mumps! I had reason to believe that my suit would not be distasteful to her.”

“I expect she was very well disposed toward you,” agreed Sophy cordially. “But she had not then seen Augustus Fawnhope. At least, she had, but it seems that he was covered in spots at that time, so no one could expect her to fall in love with him.”

“I don’t find the reflection precisely comforting, Miss Stanton-Lacy.”

“Call me Sophy! Everyone does, and we are going to become excessively friendly.”

“Are—are we?” he said. “I mean, I am delighted to hear you say so, of course!”

She laughed. “Oh, pray don’t be alarmed! If you still wish to marry Cecilia—and I must tell you that although I thought otherwise before I had met you, I have now made up my mind to it that you would suit capitally—I will say you just how you must go on.”

He could not help smiling. “I am much obliged to you! But if she loves young Fawnhope—”

“You must, if you please, consider for a moment!” Sophy earnestly. “Only think how it was! No sooner had declared yourself to my uncle than you contracted a ridiculous complaint.
She
was informed that she was to become your wife—quite gothic, and most ill judged—and along came Augustus Fawnhope, looking, you will own, like a prince of a fairy tale, and what must he do but turn his back on the poor females who were setting their caps at him and fall in love with Cecilia’s beauty! My dear sir, he writes poems in her praise! He calls her a nymph, and says her eyes put stars to shame, and such stuff as that!”

“Good God!” said his lordship.

“Exactly so! You cannot wonder that she was swept off her feet. I daresay you had never so much as thought of calling her a nymph!”

“Miss Stanton—Sophy! Even to win Cecilia, I cannot write poetry, and if I could I’ll be dashed if I would write such—Well, in any event I have no turn in that direction!”

“Oh, no, you must not attempt to outshine Augustus in
that
line!” said Sophy. “Your strength lies in being precisely the kind of man who can procure one a chair when it has come on to rain.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can you not?” she asked, turning her head to look at him with raised brows.

“I expect I could, but—”

“Believe me, it is by far more important than being able to turn a verse!” she told him. “Augustus is quite unable to do so. I know, because he failed miserably at the Chelsea Gardens. I thought he would, which is why I made him escort Cecilia and me there on a day when you could see it would come on to pour. Our muslins were soaked, and I daresay we should have died of an inflammation of the lung had not one of my old friends procured a hackney to convey us home. Poor Cecy! She became almost cross with Augustus!”

He burst out laughing. “Major Quinton spoke nothing but the truth about you!” he declared. “I am already terrified of you!”

She smiled, but said, “Well, you need not be, for I mean to help you.”

“That is what terrifies me.”

“Nonsense! You are trying to quiz me. We have established that you can procure chairs in a rainstorm; I am also I the opinion that when you invite a party to supper at the Piazza the waiters do not fob you off with a table in a draught.”

“No,” he agreed, regarding her with a fascinated eye.

“Augustus, of course, is not in a position to invite us to upper at the Piazza, because my aunt would certainly not permit us to accept, but he did once entertain us to tea here, in the Park, and I could not but see that he is just the kind of man whom the waiters serve last. I feel sure I can rely upon you to see to it that everything goes without the least hitch when you invite us to the theater, and to supper afterward. You will be obliged, of course, to invite my aunt as well, but—”

“For heaven’s sake!” he interrupted. “You cannot suppose that in the situation in which we now stand Cecilia would consent to make one of a party of my making!”

“Certainly I do,” she replied coolly. “What is more, you will invite Augustus.”

“No, that I will not!” he declared.

“Then you will be a great gaby. You must understand that Cecilia has been driven into announcing that she means to marry Augustus! You were not there to engage her affections; Augustus was sighing verses to her left eyebrow; and to clinch the matter my cousin Charles behaved in the most tyrannical fashion, forbidding her to think of Augustus, and fairly ordering her to marry you! I assure you, it would have been wonderful indeed if she had not made up her mind to do no such thing!”

He rode in silence beside her for some moments, frowning between his horse’s ears. “I see,” he said at last. “At least—Well, at all events, you don’t advise me to despair!”

“I don’t suppose,” said Sophy honestly, “that I should ever advise anyone to despair, for I can’t bear such poor-spirited conduct!”

“What do you advise me to do?” he asked. “I seem to be wholly in your hands!”

“Withdraw your suit!” said Sophy.

He looked sharply at her. “No I, I mean to make a push—”

“You will call in Berkeley Square this afternoon,” said; Sophy, with the utmost patience, “and you will request the favor of a few minutes alone with Cecilia. When you see her—”

“I shall not see her. She will deny herself!” he said bitterly.

“She will see you, because I shall tell her she owes it to you to do so. I wish you will not keep on interrupting me!” He begged pardon meekly, and she continued, “When you see her, you will assure her that you have no desire to distress her, that you will never mention the matter again to her. You will be excessively noble, and she will feel that you sympathize with her, and if you can convey to her also the sense of your heart being broken, however well you contrive to conceal it, so much the better!”

“I am strongly of the opinion that Major Quinton grossly understated the case!” said his lordship, with feeling.

“Very likely. Gentlemen can never see when a little duplicity is needed. You, I have no doubt, if I left you to your own devices, would storm and rant at Cecilia, so that all would end in a quarrel, and you would find it quite impossible to visit the house, even! But if she knows that you will not enact her any tragedies she will be perfectly pleased to see you as often as you care to come to Berkeley Square.”

“How can I visit in Berkeley Square when she is betrothed to another man? If you imagine that I’ll play the lovelorn suitor in the hope of arousing pity in Cecilia’s breast you were never more at fault! As well be a lap dog!”

“Much better,” said Sophy. “You will visit in Berkeley Square to see
me
. You cannot too suddenly seem to transfer your interest in my direction, of course, but it would be an excellent start if you were to find an opportunity of telling Cecilia today how droll and entertaining you think me.”

“Do you know,” he said seriously, “you are the most startling female it has ever been my fortune to meet? You will observe that I do not say good or ill fortune, for I haven’t the smallest notion which it will prove to be!”

She laughed. “But will you do what I tell you?”

“Yes,” he replied. “To the best of my poor ability. But I wish I knew the extent of the dark scheme you are revolving in your head.”

She turned her head to look at him, her expressive eyes questioning, and at the same time acknowledging a hit. “But I have told you!”

“I have a notion there is more to it than what you have told me.”

She looked mischievous, but would only shake her head.

They had reached the Stanhope Gate again, and she reined in, holding out her hand. “I must go now. Pray don’t be afraid of me! I never do people any harm—indeed I don’t! Good-by! At about four o’clock, mind.”

She reached Berkeley Square again to find the house in a state of considerable uneasiness, Lord Ombersley, informed by his wife of Cecilia’s overnight announcement, having flown into a passion of exasperation at the folly, ingratitude, and selfishness of daughters; and Hubert and Theodore between them having chosen this singularly inappropriate moment to allow Jacko to escape from the schoolroom.

Sophy was met on her arrival by various distracted persons, who lost no time in pouring their woes or grievances into her ears. Cecilia, shaken by the interview with her father, wanted to carry her off instantly to the seclusion of her bedchamber; Miss Adderbury wished to explain that she had repeatedly warned Mr. Hubert not to excite the monkey; Theodore desired to impress upon everyone that it had all been Hubert’s fault; Hubert demanded that she should help him to recover the monkey before its escape came to Charles’s ears; Dassett, having observed with disfavor the enthusiasm with which both footmen entered into the chase, delivered himself of an icily civil monologue, the gist of which seemed to be that wild animals roaming at large in a nobleman’s residence were not what he had been accustomed to or what he could bring himself to tolerate.

As this speech contained a dark threat to inform His Lordship instantly, it appeared to Sophy that her most pressing duty was to soothe Dassett’s feelings, half a dozen persons having informed her that Lord Ombersley was in a dreadful temper. So she told Cecilia that she could come to her room presently, and considerably mollified the butler by rejecting the services of the footmen. Cecilia, who besides her interview with Lord Ombersley, had endured a few moments with her elder brother, and half an hour with Lady Ombersley, was in no mood for monkeys, and said, rather hysterically, that she supposed she might have expected that Jacko would be thought of more importance than herself. Selina, who was thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of drama and impending doom that hung over the house, hissed, “H’sh! Charles is in the library!” Cecilia retorted that she did not care where he was and rushed upstairs to her bedroom.

“What a commotion!” exclaimed Sophy, amused.

Her voice, penetrating the shut library door, reached the sharp ears of Tina, who, during her absence from the house, had attached herself to Mr. Rivenhall. She at once demanded to be allowed to rejoin her mistress, and her insistence brought Mr. Rivenhall upon the scene, for he was obliged to open the door for her. Perceiving that a large part of his family appeared to be assembled in the hall, he somewhat coldly inquired the reason. Before anyone could answer him, Amabel, in the basement, gave a warning shriek, Jacko suddenly erupted into the hall from the nether regions, gibbered at the sight of Tina, and swarmed up the window curtains to a place of safety well out of anyone’s reach. Amabel then came storming up the basement stairs, closely followed by the housekeeper, who at once lodged an impassioned protest with Mr. Rivenhall. The dratted monkey, she said, had wantonly destroyed two of the best dish cloths and had scattered a bowl of raisins all over the kitchen floor.

“If that damned monkey cannot be controlled,” said Mr. Rivenhall, making no apology for the violence of his language, “it must be got rid of!”

Theodore, Gertrude, and Amabel at once burst into a spirited accusation against Hubert, who, they averred, had wantonly teased Jacko. Hubert, conscious of a rent coat pocket, retired into the background, and Mr. Rivenhall, eyeing his juniors with revulsion, walked forward to the window, and held up his hand, saying calmly, “Come along!”

Jacko’s reply to this, though voluble, was incomprehensible. His general attitude, however, was contumacious, so that everyone was surprised when, upon Mr. Rivenhall’s repeating his command, he began to descend the curtain. Tina, in wholehearted agreement with Dassett and the housekeeper on the undesirability of monkeys in noblemen’s residences, caused a slight setback by barking, but Sophy snatched her up and muffled her before Jacko had had time to retreat again to the top of the window. Mr. Rivenhall, acidly requesting his audience to refrain from making any noise or sudden movement, again commanded Jacko to come down. Jacko satisfied that Tina was under strong guard, reluctantly descended, allowed himself to be seized, and clasped both skinny arms round Mr. Rivenhall’s neck. Unimpressed by this mark of affection, Mr. Rivenhall detached him, handed him over to Gertrude, and warned her not to permit him to escape again. The schoolroom party then withdrew circumspectly, scarcely able to believe that their pet was not to be wrested from them; and Sophy, smiling warmly upon Mr. Rivenhall, said, “Thank you. There is some magic in you which makes all animals trust you, I think. When I am most vexed with you I cannot but remember it!”

“The only magic, Cousin, lay in not alarming an already frightened animal,” he replied dampingly, and went back into the library and shut the door.

“Phew!” uttered Hubert, emerging from the embrasure at the head of the basement stairs. “Sophy, only look what that dashed brute has done to my new coat!”

“Give it to me! I’ll mend it for you—and for heaven’s sake, you wretched creature, don’t kick up any more larks today!” said Sophy.

He grinned at her, stripped off the coat, and handed it to her. “What
did
happen last night?” he asked. “Don’t know when I’ve seen my father in such a taking! Is Cecilia going to marry Fawnhope?”

“Ask her!” Sophy advised him. “I will have your coat ready for you in twenty minutes. Come to my room then, and you shall have it!”