The Grand Sophy Read online

  Again, he was quite unable to help laughing. But the next moment he was testily pointing out to her that she had made so thick a bandage round his arm as to prevent his being able to drag the sleeve of his coat over it.

  ‘Well, the sleeve is quite spoilt, so it is of no consequence,’ said Sophy. ‘You may button the coat across your chest, and I will fashion you a sling for your arm. To be sure, it is only a flesh wound, but it will very likely start to bleed again, if you do not hold your arm up. Let us go downstairs, and see whether Mathilda has yet made tea for us!’

  Not only had the harassed Mrs Clavering done so, but she had sent the gardener’s boy running off the village to summon to her assistance a stout, red-cheeked damsel, whom she proudly presented to Sophy as her sister’s eldest. The damsel, bobbing a curtsy, disclosed that her name was Clementina. Sophy, feeling that Lacy Manor might be required to house several persons that night, directed her to collect blankets and sheets, and to set them to air before the kitchen fire. Mrs Clavering, still toiling to make the breakfast-parlour habitable, had set the tea-tray in the hall, where the fire had begun to burn more steadily. Puffs of smoke still from time to time gushed into the room, but Lord Charlbury, pressed into a deep chair, and given a cushion for the support of his injured arm, felt that it would have been churlish to have animadverted upon this circumstance. The tea, which seemed to have lost a little of its fragrance through its long sojourn in the panty cupboard, was accompanied by some slices of bread-and-butter and a large, and rather heavy plum-cake, of which Sophy partook heartily. Outside, the rain fell heavily, and the sky became so leaden that very little light penetrated into the low-pitched rooms of the Manor. A stringent search failed to discover any other candles than tallow ones, but Mrs Clavering soon brought a lamp into the hall, which, as soon as she had drawn the curtains across the windows, made the apartment seem excessively cosy, Sophy informed Lord Charlbury.

  It was not long before their ears were assailed by the sound of an arrival. Sophy jumped up at once. ‘Sancia!’ she said, and cast her guest a saucy smile. ‘Now you may be easy!’ She picked up the lamp from the table, and carried it to the door, which she set wide, standing on the threshold, with the lamp held high to cast its light as far as possible. Through the driving rain she perceived the Marquesa’s barouche-landau drawn up by the porch, and, as she watched, Sir Vincent Talgarth sprang out of the carriage, and turned to hand down the Marquesa. In another instant, Mr Fawnhope had also alighted, and stood transfixed, gazing at the figure in the doorway, while the rain beat unheeded upon his uncovered head.

  ‘Oh, Sophie, why?’ wailed the Marquesa, gaining the shelter of the porch. ‘This rain – ! My dinner! It is too bad of you!’

  Sophy, paying no heed to her plaints, addressed herself fiercely to Sir Vincent. ‘Now, what the deuce does this mean? Why have you accompanied Sancia, and why the devil have you brought Augustus Fawnhope?’

  He was shaken by gentle laughter. ‘My dear Juno, do let me come in out of the wet! Surely your own experience of Fawnhope must have taught you that one does not bring him: he comes! He was reading the first two acts of his tragedy to Sancia when your messenger arrived. Until the light failed, he continued to do so during the drive.’ He raised his voice, calling: ‘Come into the house, rapt poet! You will be soaked if you stand there any longer!’

  Mr Fawnhope started, and moved forward.

  ‘Oh, well!’ said Sophy, making the best of things. ‘I suppose he must come in, but it is the greatest mischance!’

  ‘It is you!’ announced Mr Fawnhope, staring at her. ‘For a moment, as you stood there, the lamp held above your head, I thought I beheld a goddess! A goddess, or a vestal virgin!’

  ‘Well, if I were you,’ interposed Sir Vincent practically, ‘I would come in out of the rain while you make up your mind.’

  Seventeen

  Lady Ombersley, and her daughters, driving soberly home from Richmond, in the late afternoon, reached Berkeley Square to find Miss Wraxton awaiting their return. After affectionately embracing Lady Ombersley, she explained that she had ventured to sit down to wait for her, since she was the bearer of a message from her Mama. Lady Ombersley, feeling a little anxious about Amabel, who was looking tired and had complained of a slight head-ache on the way home, answered absently: ‘Thank your Mama so much, my dear. Amabel, come up to my dressing-room, and I will bathe your forehead with vinegar! You will be better directly, my love!’

  ‘Poor little dear!’ said Miss Wraxton. ‘She looks sadly peaked still! You know, ma’am, that we have put off our black gloves. Mama is desirous of holding a dress-party in honour of the approaching Event – quite a small affair, for so many people of consequence are out of town! – but she would not for the world fix upon a day that will not suit your arrangements. You behold in me her envoy!’

  ‘So kind of her!’ murmured her ladyship. ‘We shall be most happy – any day that your mother likes to appoint: we have very few engagements at present! Excuse me, I must not stay! Amabel is not quite well yet, you know! Cecilia will arrange it with you. Say everything from me to your Mama which is proper! Come, dearest!’

  She led her youngest daughter to the stairs as she spoke, quite failing to perceive that Cecilia, to whom Dassett had silently handed Sophy’s note, was not attending to a word she said. Under the butler’s interested gaze, Cecilia, reading the letter in the blankest amazement, had turned alarmingly pale. She looked up, as she reached the end, and started forward, her lips parted, as though she would have recalled her mother. She recollected herself in a moment, and tried to be calm. But the hands with which she folded Sophy’s letter shook perceptibly, and her whole appearance was that of one who had sustained a severe shock. Miss Wraxton observed it, and moved towards her, saying solicitously: ‘You are not quite well, I am afraid! You have not received bad news?’

  Dassett, whose fingers had itched to break open the wafer that sealed Sophy’s letter, coughed, and said disinterestedly: ‘Will Miss Stanton-Lacy be returning to town this evening, miss? Her abigail is in quite a taking, not having had any notion that Miss was going into the country.’

  Cecilia looked at him in rather a dazed way, but pulled herself together sufficiently to reply with tolerable composure: ‘Yes, I think so. Oh, yes, certainly she will come back tonight!’

  If this answer failed to gratify Dassett’s thirst for knowledge, it at least made Miss Wraxton prick up her ears. Taking Cecilia’s arm, she led her towards the library, saying in her well-modulated voice: ‘The drive has fatigued you. Be so good, Dassett, as to bring a glass of water to the library, and some smelling-salts! Miss Rivenhall is feeling a trifle faint.’

  Cecilia, whose constitution was not strong, was indeed feeling faint, and could only be grateful when obliged to lie down upon the sofa in the library. Miss Wraxton deftly removed her pretty bonnet, and began to chafe her hands, abstracting from one of them the note which Cecilia was feebly clutching. Dassett soon came in with the desired requirements, which Miss Wraxton took from him, with a calm word of thanks and of dismissal. The faintness, which had only been momentary, was already passing off, and Cecilia was able to sit up, to sip the water, and to refresh herself with a few sniffs at the smelling-bottle. Miss Wraxton, meanwhile, in the most assured manner possible, had picked up Sophy’s letter, and was making herself mistress of its contents.

  ‘You wondered, dearest Cecy, why, at the last, I would not accompany you to Richmond. Let this note be my explanation! I have thought long over the unfortunate situation in which you are placed, and I see only one way to put an end to the distress you have been made to suffer through my uncle’s implacable determination to see you married to C. I believe him to have been strengthened in this resolve by C. himself, but I will not pain you by writing more on this subject. Were C. removed, I cannot but believe that my uncle must soon relent towards F.

  ‘Charles will tell you that we have quarrelled. While the original fault I must own to have been mine, his manner to me, t