No sooner had the door closed behind him than Cecilia: said, in some confusion, “Has he understood me? Why did you not tell me he was here, Sophy? I do not know how to look him in the face!”
“No, and you shall not be called upon to do so, dearest? Cecy! Charlbury has gone to order the chaise. You must back to Berkeley Square immediately! Only conceive of your aunt’s anxiety!”
Cecilia, who had been about to demur, wavered perceptibly at this. She was still wavering when Lord Charlbury can back to the house, cheerfully announcing that the chaise would be at the door in five minutes’ time. Sophy picked up her cousin’s hat and fitted it becomingly over sunny locks. Between her efforts and those of Lord Charlbury she was presently escorted, resistless, out of the house, handed up into the chaise. His lordship, pausing only bestow upon his benefactress a hearty embrace, jumped after her; the steps were let up, the door slammed upon the happy couple, and the equipage was driven away.
Sophy having waved a last farewell from the porch, turned back into the house, where she found Miss Wraxton awaiting her an alarming state of frigidity. Miss Wraxton, apprehending, she said, that no assistance from the Marquesa need be expected, desired to be conducted to the kitchen, where proposed to brew a posset, used in her family for generation as a cure for colds.
Not only did Sophy lead her to the kitchen, but she also quelled the Marquesa’s protests and commanded the Claverings to set water on to boil for a mustard foot bath. The unfortunate Claverings, laboring up the back stairs with coals, blankets, and cans of hot water, were kept fully occupied for nearly half an hour, at the end of which time, Lord Bromford was tenderly escorted upstairs a to the best spare bedroom, divested of his boots, and his coat, coaxed into the dressing gown Sir Vincent had had the forethought to pack into his valise, and installed in a winged chair by the fire. Sir Vincent’s protests at having not only his dressing gown but also his nightshirt and cap wrested from him were silenced by Sophy’s representations that she herself was relinquishing to Miss Wraxton her portmanteau, with all the night gear which it contained. “And considering how unhandsome your behavior has been, Sir Vincent, I must say that I shall think it excessively shabby of you if you demur at rendering me this small service!” she declared roundly.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “And you, Sophy? Will you not be remaining here for the night?” He laughed, seeing her at a loss for an answer, and said, “In a previous age you would have been burnt at the stake, and rightly so, Juno! Very well. I will play your game!”
Within half an hour of this passage, Sophy, seated at the able in the hall, which she had drawn into the inglenook by the fire, heard the sound for which she had been waiting. She was engaged in building card houses, having found an aged and grimy pack in the breakfast parlor, and she made no attempt to answer the imperative summons of the bell. Clavering came into the hall from the back premises, looking harassed, and opened the door. Mr. Rivenhall’s decisive accents pleasurably assailed Sophy’s ears. “Lacy Manor? Very well! Be good enough to direct my groom to the stables! I’ll announce myself!”
Mr. Rivenhall then shut the aged servitor out of the house and stepped into the hall, shaking the raindrops from his curly-brimmed beaver. His eye alighted on Sophy, absorbed in architecture, and he said with the greatest amiability imaginable, “Good evening, Sophy! I am afraid you must have quite given me up, but it has been raining, you know, the moonlight quite obscured by clouds!”
At this point, Tina, who had been leaping up at him in an ecstasy of delight, began to bark, so he was obliged to acknowledge her welcome before he could again make himself heard, Sophy, laying a card delicately upon her structure, said, “Charles, this is too kind in you! Have you come to rescue me from the consequences of my indiscretion?”
“No, to wring your neck!”