The Grand Sophy Read online

  Lord Bromford, whose youth had never been charmed by tales of the Spanish Main, replied that it had much to recommend it, and went on to describe the properties of its medicinal springs, and the great variety of marbles to be found in the mountains, all of which Miss Wraxton listened to with interest, telling Mr Rivenhall later that she thought his lordship had a well-informed mind.

  It was half-way through the evening when Sophy, breathless from an energetic waltz with Mr Wychbold, was standing at the side of the room, fanning herself, and watching the couples still circling round the floor while her partner went to procure a glass of iced lemonade for her, was suddenly accosted by a pleasant-looking gentleman, who came up to her, and said with a smile: ‘My friend, Major Quinton, promised that he would present me to the Grand Sophy, but the wretched fellow goes from one set to the next, and never spares me a thought! How do you do, Miss Stanton-Lacy? You will forgive my informality, won’t you? It is true that I have no business here, for I was not invited, but Charles assures me that had I not been believed to be still laid upon a bed of sickness I must have received a card.’

  She looked at him in that frank way of hers, summing him up. She liked what she saw. He was a man in the early thirties, not precisely handsome, but with a pleasing countenance redeemed from the commonplace by a pair of humorous gray eyes. He was above the medium height, and a good pair of shoulders, and an excellent leg for a riding-boot.

  ‘It is certainly too bad of Major Quinton,’ Sophy said smilingly. ‘But you know what a rattle-pate he is! Ought we to have sent you a card? You must forgive us! I hope your illness was not of a serious nature?’

  ‘Alas, merely painful and humiliating!’ he replied. ‘Would you believe that a man of my age could fall a victim to so childish a complaint, ma’am? – Mumps!’

  Sophy dropped her fan, exclaiming: ‘What did you say? Mumps?’

  ‘Mumps,’ he repeated, picking up the fan, and giving it back to her. ‘I do not wonder at your astonishment!’

  ‘Then you,’ said Sophy, ‘are Lord Charlbury!’

  He bowed. ‘I am, and I perceive that my fame has gone before me. I own, I should not have chosen to figure in your mind as the man with mumps, but so, I see, it is!’

  ‘Let us sit down,’ said Sophy.

  He looked amused, but accompanied her at once to a sofa against the wall. ‘By all means! But may I not get you a glass of lemonade?’

  ‘Mr Wychbold – I expect you are acquainted with him – has already gone to do so. I should like to talk to you for a little while, for I have heard a great deal about you, you know.’

  ‘Nothing could please me more, for I have heard a great deal about you, ma’am, and it has inspired me with the liveliest desire to meet you!’

  ‘Major Quinton,’ said Sophy, ‘is a shocking quiz, and I daresay has given you quite a false notion of me!’

  ‘I must point out to you, ma’am,’ he retaliated, ‘that we are both in the same case, for you know me only as a man with mumps, and at the risk of sounding like a coxcomb I must assure you that that must have given you an equally false notion of me!’

  ‘You are perfectly right,’ said Sophy seriously. ‘It did give me a false notion of you!’ Her eyes followed Cecilia and Mr Fawnhope round the room; she drew a breath, and said: ‘Things may be a trifle difficult.’

  ‘That,’ said Lord Charlbury, his eyes following hers, ‘I had already realized.’

  ‘I cannot conceive,’ said Sophy, with strong feeling, ‘what can have possessed you, sir, to contract mumps at such a moment!’

  ‘It was not done by design,’ said his lordship meekly.

  ‘Nothing could have been more ill-judged!’ said Sophy.

  ‘Not ill-judged!’ he pleaded. ‘Unfortunate!’

  Mr Wychbold came up just then with Sophy’s lemonade. ‘Hallo, Everard!’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were fit to be seen yet! How are you, dear boy?’

  ‘Bruised in spirit, Cyprian, bruised in spirit! My sufferings under the complaint that struck me down were as nothing to what I now undergo. Shall I ever live it down?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ replied Mr Wychbold consolingly. ‘Dashed paltry thing to happen to one, of course, but the town’s memory ain’t long. Why, do you remember poor Bolton taking a toss into the Serpentine, clean over his horse’s head? No one talked of anything else for almost a week. Poor fellow had to rusticate for a while, but it blew over, y’know!’

  ‘Must it be rustication?’ Lord Charlbury asked.

  ‘On no account!’ said Sophy decidedly. She waited until Mr Wychbold’s attention was claimed by a lady in puce satin, and then turned towards her companion, and said forthrightly: ‘Are you a very good dancer, sir?’

  ‘Not, I fancy, above the average, ma’am. Certainly not to compare with the exquisite young man we are both watching.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Sophy, ‘I would not, if I were you, solicit Cecilia to waltz!’

  ‘I have already done so, but your warning is unnecessary: she is engaged for every waltz, and also the quadrille. The most I can hope for is to stand up with her in a country-dance.’

  ‘Don’t do it!’ Sophy advised him. ‘To be trying to talk to anyone when you should be attending to the figure is always fatal, believe me!’

  He turned his head, and gave her back a look as frank as her own. ‘Miss Stanton-Lacy, you are plainly aware of my circumstances. Will you tell me in what case I stand, and who is the Adonis monopolizing Miss Rivenhall?’

  ‘He is Augustus Fawnhope, and he is a poet.’

  ‘That has an ominous ring,’ he said lightly. ‘I know the family, of course, but I think I have not previously encountered this sprig.’

  ‘Very likely you might not, for he was used to be with Sir Charles Stuart, in Brussels. Lord Charlbury, you look to me like a sensible man!’

  ‘I had rather I had a head like a Greek coin,’ he remarked ruefully.

  ‘You must understand,’ said Sophy, disregarding this frivolity, ‘that half of the young ladies in London are in love with Mr Fawnhope.’

  ‘I can readily believe it, and I grudge him only one of his conquests.’

  She would have replied, but they were interrupted. Lord Ombersley, who had gone away after dinner, now reappeared, accompanied by an elderly and immensely corpulent man in whom no one had the least difficulty in recognizing a member of the Royal Family. He was, in fact, the Duke of York, that one of Farmer George’s sons who most nearly resembled him. He had the same protuberant blue eye, and beaky nose, the same puffy cheeks, and pouting mouth, but he was a much larger man than his father. He appeared to be in imminent danger of bursting out of his tightly stretched pantaloons, he wheezed, when he spoke, but he was plainly a genial prince, ready to be pleased, standing on very little ceremony, and chatting affably to anyone who was presented to him. Both Cecilia and Sophy had this honour. His Royal Highness’s appreciation of Cecilia’s beauty was quite as broadly expressed as Mr Wraxton’s had been, and no one could doubt that had he met her in some less public spot it would not have been many minutes before the ducal arm would have been round her waist. Sophy aroused no such amorous tendency in him, but he talked very jovially to her, asked her how her father did, and opined, with a loud laugh, that by this time Sir Horace was enjoying himself amongst all the Brazilian beauties, the dog that he was! After that, he exchanged greetings with several friends, circulated about the room for a while, and finally withdrew to the library with his host and two other of his intimates for a rubber of whist.

  Cecilia, escaping from the Royal presence with burning cheeks (for she hated to be the target of fulsome compliments), was intercepted by Mr Fawnhope, who said with great simplicity: ‘You are more beautiful tonight than I had thought possible!’

  ‘Oh, do not!’ she exclaimed involuntarily. ‘How insufferably hot it is in this room!’

  ‘You are flushed, but it becomes you. I will take you on to the balcony.’

  She made no demur, though