“Yes, because he has gone out to kill chickens,” replied Sophy. “Cecy, help me to collect the ducklings, and put them back into the box! If we were to place your muff on top of them they will very likely believe it to be their mother, and settle down!”
Cecilia having no fault to find with this scheme, it was at once put into execution. Miss Wraxton, who had coaxed Lord Bromford into a deep chair by the fire, said, “This levity will not serve, Miss Stanton-Lacy! Even you will allow that your conduct demands some explanation! Are you aware of the terrible consequences which must have followed on this — this escapade, had your cousin and I not come to rescue you from the disgrace you appear to regard so lightly?”
Lord Bromford sneezed.
“Oh, hush, Eugenia!” begged Cecilia. “How can you talk so? All’s well that ends well!”
“You must be lost to every scruple of female delicacy, Cecilia, if you can think it well for your cousin to show such a brazen face, when she has lost both character and reputation!”
The door at the back of the hall opened to admit the Marquesa, a sacking apron tied round her waist and a large ladle in her hand. “Eggs I must instantly have!” she announced. “And Lope de Vega I will not have, though in general a fine poet, but not in the kitchen! Someone must go to the chicken house, and tell Vincent to bring me eggs. Who are these people?”
It might have been supposed that the appearance on the scene of the Marquesa would have filled Miss Wraxton’s Christian soul with relief, but no such emotion was visible in her countenance, which, on the contrary, froze into an expression of such chagrin as to be almost ludicrous. She could find not a word to say and was unable to command herself enough even to shake hands with the Marquesa.
Lord Bromford, always punctilious, rose from his chair and bowed. Sophy presented him, and he begged pardon for having contracted what he feared would prove to be a dangerous cold. The Marquesa held him off with the ladle, saying, “If you have a cold, do not approach me! Now I see that it is Miss Rivenhall whose beauty is entirely English, and that other one, also in the English estilo, but less beautiful. I do not think two chickens will be enough, so that man with the cold must eat the pig’s cheek. But eggs I must have!”
Having delivered herself of this ultimatum, she withdrew, paying not the smallest heed to Lord Bromford’s agitated protest that all forms of pork were poison to him, and that a bowl of thin gruel was all that he felt himself able to swallow. He seemed to feel that Miss Wraxton was the only person among those present who was likely to sympathize with him, for he looked piteously at her. She responded at once, assuring him that he should not be asked to eat the pig’s cheek. “If it were possible to remove you from this draughty hall!” she said, casting an angry glance at Sophy. “Had I known that I was coming to an establishment which appears to be something between a fowlyard and bedlam, I would never have set forth from town!”
“Well, I must say I wish you had known it, then,” said Sophy candidly. “We could have been comfortable enough, if only you and Lord Bromford had minded your own business, and now I suppose we must make gruel, and mustard foot baths!”