The porter looked down his nose. “H’it is not my place to h’expect her grace,” he said loftily.
Feeling much inclined to hit him, Mrs. Challoner next inquired where the Duke and Duchess might be found. The porter said that he had no idea. “And h’if,” he continued blandly, “you will have the goodness to remove your foot h’out of the way, I shall be h’able to close the door.”
But it was not until the porter had been reinforced by the appearance of a very superior personage indeed that Mrs. Challoner could be induced to leave the doorstep. The superior personage required to know Mrs. Challoner’s business, and when she replied that this concerned the Duke and Duchess only, he shrugged in a very insulting manner, and said that he was sorry for it, as neither the Duke nor the Duchess was in town.
“I want to know where I can find them!” said Mrs. Challoner belligerently.
The superior personage ran her over with a dispassionately appraising eye. He then said suavely: “Their graces’ acquaintances, madam, are cognisant of their graces’ whereabouts.”
Mrs. Challoner went off with a flounce of her wide skirts at that, and reached home again in a very bad temper. She found Eliza Matcham sitting with Sophia, and it was plain from Eliza’s demeanour that she had been the recipient of all Sophia’s angry confidences. She greeted Mrs. Challoner with an excited laugh, saving: “Oh, dear ma’am, I never was more shocked in my life! Only conceive how we have been hoodwinked, for I could have sworn ’twas Sophia he wanted, could not you?”
“It was me! It is me!” choked poor Sophia. “I hope he strangles Mary! And I dare say he has strangled her by now, for he has a horrid temper. And it win serve her right, the mean, designing thing!”
Finding Mrs. Challoner in an unresponsive mood, Miss Matcham soon took her leave of Sophia, and went away agog with her news. When she had gone Mrs. Challoner soundly rated Sophia for her indiscretion. “It will be all over town by to-night!” she said. “I would not have had you tell Eliza for the world.”
“I don’t care,” Sophia answered viciously. “People shan’t think that he preferred her to me, for it’s not true! She’s a shameless hussy, and so I shall tell everyone.”
“You’ll be a fool if you do,” her mother informed her. “Pray who would believe such a tale? People will only laugh at you the more, and say you are jealous.”