“Well, if I were you,” interposed Sir Vincent practically, “I would come in out of the rain while you make up your mind.”
Chapter 17
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 headache 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 must know, ma’am, that we have put off our black gloves. Mama is desirous of holding a dress party in honor 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 toward 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, miss, 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 toward 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 pungent 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.