The Grand Sophy Read online

  ‘She won’t think of that. Do you recall that I told you only the other day that she must be made to pity you instead of Augustus? Besides that, I am persuaded she will suffer perfect torments of jealousy. Only fancy! I was quite at a stand until I remembered what I had once heard pronounced by a most distinguished soldier! “Surprise is the essence of attack!” The most fortunate circumstance!’

  ‘Was it not?’ he said sarcastically. ‘I have a very good mind to get down at the next pike!’

  ‘You will ruin all if you do.’

  ‘It is abominable, Sophy!’

  ‘Yes, if the motive were not pure!’

  He said nothing, and she too remained silent for several minutes. At last, having turned it over in his mind, he said: ‘You had better tell me the whole. That I have only heard half I have no doubt at all! Where does Charles Rivenhall stand in all this?’

  She folded her hands on Tina’s back. ‘Alas! I have quarrelled so dreadfully with Charles that I am obliged to seek refuge at Lacy Manor!’ she said mournfully.

  ‘And have doubtless left a note behind you to inform him of this!’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘I foresee a happy meeting!’ he commented bitterly.

  ‘That,’ she acknowledged, ‘was the difficulty! But I think I can overcome it. I promise you, Charlbury, you shall come out of this with a whole skin – well, no, perhaps not quite that, but very nearly!’

  ‘You do not know how much you relieve my mind! I daresay I may not be a match for Rivenhall, either with pistols or with my fists, but give me credit for not being quite so great a poltroon as to fear a meeting with him!’

  ‘I do,’ she assured him. ‘But it can serve no good purpose for Charles to mill you down – have I that correctly?’

  ‘Quite correctly!’

  ‘– or to put a bullet through you,’ she ended, her serenity unshaken.

  He was obliged to laugh. ‘I see that Rivenhall is more to be pitied than I am! Why did you quarrel with him?’

  ‘I had to make an excuse for flying from Berkeley Square! You must perceive that! I could not think of nothing else to do but to take out that young chestnut he has bought lately. A beautiful creature! Such grand, sloping shoulders! Such an action! But quite unbroke to London traffic, and by far too strong for any female to hold!’

  ‘I have seen the horse. Do you tell me seriously, Sophy, that you took him out?’

  ‘I did – shocking, was not it? I assure you, I suffered a real qualm in my conscience! No harm, however! He did not bolt with me, and Charles came to the rescue before I found myself in real difficulty. The things he said to me – ! I have never seen him in such a fury! If only I could remember the half of the insults he flung at my head! It is no matter, however: they gave me all the cause I needed to fly from his vicinity.’

  He closed his eyes for an anguished moment. ‘Informing him, no doubt, that you had sought my protection?’

  ‘No, there was no need: Cecy will tell him that!’

  ‘What a fortunate circumstance, to be sure! I hope you mean to contribute a handsome wreath to my obsequies?’

  ‘Certainly! In the nature of things, it is likely that you will predecease me.’

  ‘If I survive this adventure there can be no question of that. Your fate is writ clear: you will be murdered. I cannot conceive how it comes about that you were not murdered long since!’

  ‘How odd! Charles himself once said that to me, or something like it!’

  ‘There is nothing odd in it: any sensible man must say it!’

  She laughed, but said: ‘No, you are unjust! I have never yet done the least harm to anyone! It may be that with regard to Charles my stratagems may not succeed: in your case I am convinced they must! That may well content us. Poor Cecy! Only conceive how dreadful to be obliged to marry Augustus, and to spend the rest of one’s life listening to his poems!’

  This aspect of the situation struck Lord Charlbury so forcibly that he was smitten to silence. He said nothing of deserting Sophy when they stopped at the next pike, but appeared to be resigned to his fate.

  Lacy Manor, which lay a little way off the turnpike road, was an Elizabethan house, considerably added to in succeeding generations, but still retaining much of its original beauty. It was reached by an avenue of noble trees, and had once been set amongst well-tended formal gardens. These, through the circumstance of Sir Horace’s being not only an absentee but also a careless landlord, had become overgrown of late years, so that the shrubbery was indistinguishable from the wilderness, and unpruned rose bushes rioted at will in unweeded flower-beds. The sky had become overcast all day, but a fitful ray of sunlight, penetrating the lowering clouds, showed the mullioned windows of the house much in need of cleaning. A trail of smoke issued from one chimney, the only observable sign that the house was still inhabited. Sophy, alighting from the chaise, looked about her critically, while Charlbury tugged at the iron bell-pull beside the front-door.

  ‘Everything seems to be in shocking disorder!’ she observed. ‘I must tell Sir Horace that it will not do! He should not neglect the house in this way. There is work here for an army of gardeners! He never liked the place, you know. I have sometimes wondered if it was because my mother died here.’ Lord Charlbury made a sympathetic sound in his throat, but Sophy continued cheerfully: ‘But I daresay it is only because he is shockingly indolent! Ring the bell again, Charlbury!’

  After a prolonged interval, they heard the sound of footsteps within the house, to be followed immediately by the scrape of bolts being drawn back, and the clank of a chain removed from the door.

  ‘I am reconciled, Sophy!’ announced Charlbury. ‘Never did I hope to find myself existing between the covers of a library novel! Will there be cobwebs, and a skeleton under the stairs?’

  ‘I fear not, but only think how delightful if there should be!’ she retorted. She added, as the door was opened, and a surprised face appeared in the aperture: ‘Good-day, Clavering! Yes, it is I indeed, and I have come home to see how you and Mathilda go on!’

  The retainer, a spare man with grizzled locks and a bent back, peered at her for a moment before gasping: ‘Miss Sophy! Lor’, miss, if we’d thought you was coming – ! Such a turn as it give me, to hear the bell a-pealing! Here, Matty! Matty, I say! It’s Miss Sophy!’

  A female form, as stout as he was lean, appeared in the background, uttering distressful sounds, and trying to untie the strings of a grimy apron. Much flustered, Mrs Clavering begged her young mistress to step into the house, and to excuse the disorder everywhere. They had had no warning of her advent: the master had said he would take order when he returned from foreign parts: she doubted whether there was as much as a pinch of tea in the house: if she had but known of Miss Sophy’s intention to visit them she would have had the chimneys swept, and the best parlour cleaned and taken out of Holland covers.

  Sophy soothed her agitation with the assurance that she had come prepared to find the house in disarray, and stepped into the hall. This was a large apartment, panelled and low-pitched, from which, at one end, a handsome staircase of oak rose in easy flights to the upper floors of the house. The chairs were all shrouded in Holland covers, and a film of dust lay over the gate-legged table in the centre of the room. The air struck unpleasantly dank, and a large patch of damp on one wall made this circumstance easily understandable.

  ‘We must open all the windows, and light fires!’ Sophy said briskly. ‘Has the Marquesa – has a Spanish lady arrived yet?’

  She was assured that no Spanish lady had been seen at the Manor, a circumstance in which the Claverings seemed to think they deserved to be congratulated.

  ‘Good!’ said Sophy. ‘She will be here presently, and we must strive to make things a little more comfortable before we admit her. Bring some wood, and kindling for this fire, Clavering, and do you, Matty, pull off these covers! If there is no tea in the house, I am sure there is some ale! Bring some for Lord Charlbury, if you please! Charlbury, I