Grand Sophy Read online

  He looked at her, his eyes hard and bright. ‘I know well it is I who should have noticed there was something preying on Hubert’s mind!’

  He was evidently deeply mortified; she said: ‘You have many other things to think about, perhaps. Men do not notice as quickly as women do. I am very glad that he has told you all. Don’t refine too much upon it! I am quite sure that he has had a lesson he will be in no danger of forgetting.’

  ‘I believe you are right. I used to think him as volatile as – well, I was used to think him volatile, but he has given me reason to indulge the hope that I was mistaken! But, Sophy, I don’t yet know the whole of this deplorable business! Whom did you employ in it?’

  ‘No one, upon my honour!’ she assured him at once. ‘I considered the matter from every aspect, and although I was much inclined, at first, to consult my father’s lawyer, I soon saw that it would not do. There was no one I could apply to without divulging Hubert’s part in the business. So I set about it myself.’

  ‘Sophy, you cannot have gone to this creature yourself !’

  ‘Yes, I did. Oh, I know it was dreadfully fast and bold of me, but I thought nobody would ever know! And then, too, I could not but reflect how much you must dislike Hubert’s affairs becoming known outside our immediate circle.’

  She saw that he was looking at her in patent disbelief, and raised her brows enquiringly.

  ‘Hubert has told me enough about Goldhanger to make it perfectly plain to me what sort of a man he is!’ he said. ‘Do not tell me he willingly relinquished a note of hand and a valuable pledge to you for no more than the bare principal!’

  She smiled. ‘Most unwillingly! But only consider at what a disadvantage he stood! He had lent his money to a minor and he could not recover a penny of it, at law. I fancy he was glad to see back his principal. The instant I said I would go to Bow Street – a shot drawn at a venture, too! – I could see that I had discomposed him. My dear Charles, what Hubert found to alarm him in such a creature I cannot imagine. A bogey to frighten children!’

  He was watching her closely, his brows knit. ‘This sounds to me pure fantasy, Sophy! From what I collect, this was no accredited moneylender, but an out-and-out villain! Do you tell me he made no effort to extort his interest from you?’

  ‘No, he tried to frighten me into paying him, or giving him my pearl ear-rings. But Hubert had warned me with what manner of person I should have to deal, and I took the precaution of carrying my pistol with me.’

  ‘What?’

  She was surprised, and again raised her brows. ‘My pistol,’ she repeated.

  His mortification found expression in disbelief. ‘This must be nonsense! I wish you will tell me the truth! You do not ask me to believe that you carry a pistol about your person! I tell you now that I do not believe it!’

  She got up quickly, a sparkle in her eye. ‘Indeed? Wait! I shall not be gone above a minute or two!’

  She whisked herself out of the room, only to reappear very soon afterwards with her silver-mounted gun in her hand. ‘Do you not believe it, Charles? Do you not?’ she demanded.

  He stared at the weapon. ‘Good God! You?’ He held out his hand, as though he would have taken it from her, but she withheld it.

  ‘Take care! It is loaded!’

  He replied impatiently: ‘Let me see it!’

  ‘Sir Horace,’ said Sophy provocatively, ‘told me always to be careful, and never to give it into the hands of anyone I was not perfectly satisfied could be trusted to handle it.’

  For an astounded moment, Mr Rivenhall, who was no mean shot, stared at her. The pent-up emotions in his breast got the better of him. He flung over to the fireplace, and ripped down from the overmantel an invitation-card which had been stuck into a corner of a large, gilded mirror. ‘Hold that up, stand there, and give me that gun!’ he commanded.

  Sophy laughed, and obeyed, standing quite fearlessly with her back to one wall, and holding the card out by one corner. ‘I warn you, it throws a trifle left!’ she said coolly.

  He was white with anger, an anger that had very little to do with her slighting reference to his ability to handle a pistol, but even as he levelled the gun, he seemed in some measure to recollect himself, for he lowered his arm again, and said: ‘I cannot! Not with a pistol I don’t know!’

  ‘Faintheart!’ mocked Sophy.

  He cast her a glance of dislike, stepped forward to twitch the card out of her hand, and stuck it against the wall under the corner of a picture. In great interest, Sophy watched him walk away to the other end of the room, turn, jerk up his arm, and fire. An explosion, deafening in the confined space of the room, shattered the stillness, and the bullet, nicking one edge of the card, buried itself in the wall.

  ‘I told you that it threw left,’ Sophy reminded him, critically surveying his handiwork. ‘Shall we reload it so that I can show you what I can do?’

  They looked at one another. The enormity of this conduct suddenly dawned on Mr Rivenhall, and he began to laugh. ‘Sophy, you – you devil!’

  That made Sophy laugh too, so when a startled crowd of persons burst into the room a minute to two later, they found only a scene of unbridled mirth. Lady Ombersley, Cecilia, Miss Wraxton, Lord Bromford, Hubert, one of the footmen, and two housemaids all clustered in the doorway, evidently in the expectation of beholding the results of a shocking accident. ‘I could murder you, Sophy!’ said Mr Rivenhall.

  ‘Unjust! Did I tell you to do it?’ she countered. ‘Dear Aunt Lizzie, do not look so alarmed! Charles was – was merely satisfying himself that my pistol was in order!’

  By this time the eyes of most of the company had discovered the rent in the wall. Lady Ombersley, clutching Hubert’s arm for support, faintly enunciated: ‘Are you mad, Charles?’

  He looked a little guiltily at the havoc he had wrought. ‘I must be, I suppose. The damage can soon be made good, however. It does throw left, Sophy. I would give much to see you fire it! What a pity I cannot take you to Manton’s!’

  ‘Is that Sophy’s pistol?’ asked Hubert, much interested. ‘By Jupiter, you are an out-and-outer, Sophy! But what possessed you to fire it here, Charles? You must be mad!’

  ‘It was naturally, an accident,’ pronounced Lord Bromford. ‘A man in his senses, which we cannot doubt Lord Rivenhall to be, does not, of intent, fire a pistol in the presence of ladies. My dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, you have sustained a severe shock to the nerves! It could not be otherwise. Let me beg you to repose yourself for a while!’

  ‘I am not such a poor creature!’ Sophy replied, her eyes still brimming with laughter. ‘Charles will bear me out, if there is any truth in him, that I neither squeaked nor jumped! Sir Horace nipped such bad habits in the bud by soundly boxing my ears!’

  ‘I am sure you are always an example to us all!’ said Miss Wraxton acidly. ‘One can only envy you your iron composure! I, alas, am made of weaker stuff, and must confess to have been very much startled by such an unprecedented noise in the house. I do not know what you can have been about, Charles. Or is it indeed Miss Stanton-Lacy’s pistol, and was she exhibiting her skill to you?’

  ‘On the contrary, it was I who shot disgracefully wide of my mark. May I clean this for you, Sophy?’

  She shook her head, and held out her hand for the gun. ‘Thank you, but I like to clean and load it myself.’

  ‘Load it?’ gasped Lady Ombersley. ‘Sophy, you do not mean to load that horrid thing again, surely?’

  Hubert laughed. ‘I said she was a redoubtable girl, Charles! I say, Sophy, do you always keep it loaded?’

  ‘Yes, for how can one tell when one may need it, and what is the use of an empty pistol! You know, what a delicate business it is, too! I daresay Charles can do it in a trice, but I cannot!’

  He gave the gun into her hand. ‘If we go down to Ombersley this summer, we must have a match, you and I,’ he said. As their hands met, and she took the gun, he grasped her wrist, and held it for a moment. ‘An infamous thing to have done