The Grand Sophy Read online

  She threw him one of her saucy smiles, and set Salamanca caracoling.

  ‘Oh, pray be careful!’ exclaimed Miss Wraxton. ‘It is very dangerous! Charles, stop her! We shall have everyone staring at us!’

  ‘You won’t mind if I shake the fidgets out of his legs!’ Sophy called. ‘He is itching for a gallop!’

  With that, she wheeled Salamanca about, and let him have his head down the stretch of tan that lay beside the carriage-road.

  ‘Yoicks!’ uttered Mr Wraxton, and set off in pursuit.

  ‘My dear Charles, what is to be done with her?’ said Miss Wraxton. ‘Galloping in the Park, and in that habit, which I should blush to wear! I was never more shocked!’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, his eyes on the diminishing figure in the distance. ‘But, by God, she can ride!’

  ‘Of course, if you mean to encourage her in such pranks there is no more to be said.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he replied briefly.

  She was displeased, and said coldly: ‘I must confess that I do not admire her style: I am reminded of nothing so much as the equestriennes at Astley’s Amphitheatre. Shall we canter?’

  In this sedate way they rode side by side down the tan until they saw Sophy galloping back to them, Mr Wraxton still in pursuit. Sophy reined in, wheeled, and fell in beside her cousin. ‘How much I enjoyed that!’ she said, her cheeks in a glow. ‘I have not been on Salamanca’s back for over a week. But tell me! Have I done wrong? So many prim persons stared as though they could not believe their eyes!’

  ‘You should not ride in that neck-or-nothing fashion in the Park!’ Charles replied. ‘I should have warned you.’

  ‘You should indeed! I was afraid it might be that. Never mind! I will be good now, and if anyone speaks of it to you you will say that it is only your poor little cousin from Portugal, who has been so badly brought-up that there is no doing anything about it.’ She leaned forward to speak across him to Miss Wraxton. ‘I appeal to you, Miss Wraxton! You are a horsewoman. Is it not insupportable to be held down to a canter when you long to gallop for miles?’

  ‘Most irksome,’ agreed Miss Wraxton.

  At this moment Alfred Wraxton rejoined them, calling out: ‘By jove, Miss Stanton-Lacy, you will take the shine out of them all! You are nothing to her, Eugenia!’

  ‘We cannot go four abreast,’ said Miss Wraxton, ignoring his remark. ‘Charles, fall behind with Alfred! I cannot converse with Miss Stanton-Lacy across you.’

  He complied with this request, and Miss Wraxton, bringing her mare alongside Salamanca, said with all the tact upon which she plumed herself: ‘I am persuaded that you must find our London ways strange at first.’

  ‘Why, I imagine they cannot differ greatly from those of Paris, or Vienna, or even Lisbon!’ said Sophy.

  ‘I have never visited those cities, but I believe – indeed I am sure! – that the tone of London is vastly superior,’ said Miss Wraxton.

  Her air of calm certainty struck Sophy as being so funny that she went into a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ she gasped. ‘But it is so ridiculous, you know!’

  ‘I expect it must seem so to you,’ agreed Miss Wraxton, her calm quite unimpaired. ‘I understand that a great deal of licence is permitted on the Continent to females. Here it is not so. Quite the reverse! To be thought bad ton, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, would be very dreadful. I know that you will not take it amiss if I give you a hint. You will of course wish to attend the Assemblies at Almack’s, for instance. I assure you, the veriest breath of criticism to reach the ears of the patronesses, and you may say farewell to any hope of obtaining a voucher from them. Tickets may not be purchased without a voucher, you know. It is most exclusive! The rules, too, are very strict, and must not be contravened by a hairsbreadth.’

  ‘You terrify me,’ said Sophy. ‘Do you think I shall be blackballed?’

  Miss Wraxton smiled. ‘Hardly, since you will make your début under Lady Ombersley’s aegis! She will no doubt tell you just how you should conduct yourself, if her health permits her to take you there. It is unfortunate that circumstances have prevented me from occupying that position which would have enabled me to have relieved her of such duties.’

  ‘Forgive me!’ interrupted Sophy, whose attention had been wandering, ‘but I think Madam de Lieven is waving to me, and it would be very uncivil not to notice her!’

  She rode off as she spoke, to where a smart barouche was drawn up beside the track, and leaned down from her saddle to shake the languid hand held up to her.

  ‘Sophie!’ pronounced the Countess. ‘Sir Horace told me I should meet you here. You were galloping ventre à terre; never do so again! Ah, Mrs Burrell, permit me to present to you Miss Stanton-Lacy!’

  The lady seated beside the Ambassador’s wife bowed slightly, and allowed her lips to relax into an infinitesimal smile. This expanded a little when she observed Miss Wraxton, following in Sophy’s wake, and she inclined her head, a great mark of condescension.

  Countess Lieven nodded to Miss Wraxton, but went on talking to Sophy. ‘You are staying with Lady Ombersley. I am a little acquainted with her, and I shall call. She will spare you to me perhaps one evening. You have not seen Princess Esterhazy yet, or Lady Jersey? I shall tell them I have met you, and they will want to hear how Sir Horace does. What did I promise Sir Horace I would do? Ah, but of course! Almack’s! I will send you a voucher, ma chère Sophie, but do not gallop in Hyde Park.’ She then told her coachman to drive on, included the whole of Sophy’s party in her light, valedictory smile, and turned to continue her interrupted conversation with Mrs Drummond Burrell.

  ‘I was not aware that you were acquainted with the Countess Lieven,’ said Miss Wraxton.

  ‘Do you dislike her?’ Sophy asked, aware of the coldness in Miss Wraxton’s voice. ‘Many people do, I know. Sir Horace calls her the great intriguante, but she is clever, and can be very amusing. She has a tendre for him, as I daresay you have guessed. I like Princess Esterhazy better myself, I own, and Lady Jersey better than either of them, because she is so much more sincere, in spite of that restless manner of hers.’

  ‘Dreadful woman!’ said Charles. ‘She never stops talking! She is known as Silence, in London.’

  ‘Is she? Well, I am sure, if she knows it, she does not care a bit, for she dearly loves a joke.’

  ‘You are fortunate in knowing so many of the Patronesses of Almack’s,’ observed Miss Wraxton.

  Sophy gave her irrepressible chuckle. ‘To be honest, I think my good fortune lies in having such an accomplished flirt for a father!’

  Mr Wraxton giggled at this, and his sister, dropping a little behind, brought her mare up on Mr Rivenhall’s other side, and said in a low tone, under cover of some quizzing remark made to Sophy by Mr Wraxton: ‘It is a pity that men will laugh when her liveliness betrays her into saying what cannot be thought becoming. It brings her too much into notice, and that, I fancy, is the root of the evil.’

  He raised his brows. ‘You are severe! Do you dislike her?’

  ‘Oh, no, no!’ she said quickly. ‘It is merely that I have no great taste for that kind of sportive playfulness.’

  He looked as though he would have liked to have said something more, but at this moment a very military-looking cavalcade came into sight, cantering easily towards them. It consisted of four gentlemen, whose dashing side-whiskers and soldierly bearing proclaimed their profession. They glanced idly at Mr Rivenhall’s party. The next instant there was a shout, and a hurried reining-in, and one of the quartet exclaimed in ringing accents: ‘By all that’s wonderful, it’s the Grand Sophy!’

  Confusion and babel followed this, all four gentlemen pressing up to grasp Sophy’s hand, and pelting her with questions. Where had she sprung from? how long had she been in England? why had they not been told of her arrival? how was Sir Horace?

  ‘Oh, but, Sophy, you’re a sight for sore eyes!’ declared Major Quinton, who had first hailed her.

  ‘You have Salamanca sti