Sophia: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

"Well, it's what he did once, I know, my lady," the housekeeper answered apologetically. "It was not very becoming, to be sure, but he was not the less thought of about here, I assure your ladyship. You see, my lady, 'tis in the depth of the country, and the land is his own, and it's not as if it was in London. Where I know things are very different," Mrs. Stokes continued with pride, "for I have been there myself with the family. But about here I'm sure he was not the less considered, begging your ladyship's pardon."

"I can believe it," Sophia said, in a voice suspiciously quiet and even. And then, "Thank you, Mrs. Stokes, you can leave me now," she continued. "I shall sit here a little."

But when Mrs. Stokes, feeling herself a trifle snubbed, had withdrawn and closed the door of the outer room upon her, Sophia's eyes grew moist with tears, and the nosegay that filled the open bodice of her sacque rose and fell strangely. In that age philanthropy was not a fashion. Pope indeed had painted the Man of Ross, and there was a Charitable Corporation, lately in difficulties, and there was a Society of the Sons of the Clergy, and there were other societies of a like kind; and in the country infirmaries were beginning to be founded on the patterns of Winchester and Shrewsbury, and to subscribe to such objects after dining well and drinking deeply, was already, under the Walpoles and the Pelhams, a part of a fine gentleman's life. But for a man of condition to play the Borromeo--to stoop to give practical help and run risks among the vulgar, was still enough to earn for him a character as eccentric as that of the famous nobleman who had seen more kings and more postilions than any of his contemporaries.

In the eyes of the world, but not in Sophia's, or why this dimness of vision, as she gazed at Sir Hervey's picture? Why the unrest of the bodice that threatened to find vent in sobs? Why the sudden rush of self-reproach? More sharply than any kindness shown to her in the long consistent course of his dealings with her, more keenly than his forethought for her brother, this stabbed her. This was the man she had flouted, the man whose generous, whose unselfish offer she had accepted to save her reputation; but whose love she had deemed a floor-clout, not worthy the picking up! Was it wonderful that cynical, taciturn, almost dull as the world thought him, he was not the less considered here?

At twenty-one he had been handsome, with wit and laughter and the gay insouciance of youth written on his face. Time, the lapse of thirteen years, had robbed his features of their bloom, his lips of their easy curve, his eyes of their sparkle. But something, surely, time had given in return. Something, Sophia could not say what. She could not remember; she could only recall a smile, kindly, long-suffering, a little quizzical, with which he had sometimes met her eyes. That she could recall; and as she did so, before his portrait in the stillness of this long-abandoned room, with the dead air of old pot-pourris in her nostrils, she grew frightened. What was it she had thrown away? And how would it fare with her if she could not recover it?

Twisting one hand in the other, she turned to the second portrait, and looked, and looked. At length she glanced round with a guilty air, perceived a tall, narrow mirror that stood framed between the windows, and went towards it. Furtively assuring herself that she was not watched from the terrace, she viewed herself in it.

She saw a pale grave face, barely redeemed from plainness by eloquent eyes and a wealth of hair; a face that looked sombrely into hers, and grew graver and more sombre as she looked. "He is more like his old self than I am like her," she thought. "Why did he choose me! Why did he not choose Lady Betty? She is such another now as Lady Anne was then!"

She was still peering at herself when she heard his voice in the hall, and started guiltily. She would not for the world he caught her in that room, and she darted to the door, dragged it open, and was half-way across the long drawing-room when he entered. She felt that her face was on fire, but he did not seem to notice it.

"A thousand pardons that I was not with you before," he cried pleasantly. "I'd business, and--no I must not touch you, my dear. I have been nearer than was pleasant to one of your friends with the smallpox."

"You have run--no risk, I hope?" she asked faintly.