Chapter 1

THE BUTLER, recognizing her ladyship’s only surviving brother at a glance, as he afterward informed his less percipient subordinates, favored Sir Horace with a low bow, and took it upon himself to say that my lady, although not at home to less nearly connected persons, would be happy to see him. Sir Horace, unimpressed by this condescension, handed his caped greatcoat to one footman, his hat and cane to the other, tossed his gloves onto the marble-topped table, and said that he had no doubt of that, and how was Dassett keeping these days? The butler, torn between gratification at having his name remembered and disapproval of Sir Horace’s free and easy ways, said that he was as well as could be expected, and happy (if he might venture to say so) to see Sir Horace looking not a day older than when he had last had the pleasure of announcing him to her ladyship. He then led the way, in a very stately manner, up the imposing stairway to the Blue Saloon, where Lady Ombersley was dozing gently on a sofa by the fire, a Paisley shawl spread over her feet, and her cap decidedly askew. Mr. Dassett, observing these details, coughed, and made his announcement in commanding accents: “Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy, my lady!”

Lady Ombersley awoke with a start, stared for an uncomprehending moment, made an ineffective clutch at her cap, and uttered a faint shriek. “Horace!”

“Hallo, Lizzie, how are you?” said Sir Horace, walking across the room, and bestowing an invigorating buffet upon her shoulder.

“Good heavens, what a fright you gave me!” exclaimed her ladyship, uncorking the vinaigrette which was never out of her reach.

The butler, having tolerantly observed these transports, closed the door upon the reunited brother and sister, and went away to disclose to his underlings that Sir Horace was a gentleman as lived much abroad, being, as he was informed, employed by the government on diplomatic business too delicate for their understanding.

The diplomatist, meanwhile, warming his coattails by the fire, refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff and told his sister that she was putting on weight. “Not growing any younger, either of us,” he added handsomely. “Not but what I can give you five years, Lizzie, unless my memory’s at fault, which I don’t think it is.”

There was a large gilded mirror on the wall opposite the fireplace, and as he spoke Sir Horace allowed his gaze to rest upon his own image, not in a conceited spirit, but with critical approval. His forty-five years had treated him kindly. If his outline had thickened a little his height, which was well above six feet, made a slight portliness negligible. He was a very fine figure of a man, and had, besides a large and well-proportioned frame, a handsome countenance, topped by luxuriant brown locks as yet unmarred by silver streaks. He was always dressed with elegance, but was far too wise a man to adopt such extravagances of fashion, as could only show up the imperfections of a middle-aged figure. “Take a look at poor Prinny!” said Sir Horace to less discriminating cronies. “He’s a lesson to us all!”

His sister accepted the implied criticism unresentfully. Twenty-seven years of wedlock had left their mark upon her; and the dutiful presentation to her erratic and far from grateful spouse of eight pledges of her affection had long since destroyed any pretensions to beauty in her. Her health was indifferent, her disposition compliant, and she was fond of saying that when one was a grandmother it was time to be done with thinking of one’s appearance.

“How’s Ombersley?” asked Sir Horace, with more civility than interest.

“He feels his gout a little, but considering everything he is remarkably well,” she responded.

Sir Horace took a mere figure of speech in an undesirably literal spirit, saying, with a nod, “Always did drink too much. Still, he must be going on for sixty now, and I don’t suppose you have so much of the other trouble, do you?”

“No, no!” said his sister hastily. Lord Ombersley’s infidelities, though mortifying when conducted, as they too often were, in the full glare of publicity, had never greatly troubled her, but she had no desire to discuss them with her outspoken relative, and gave the conversation an abrupt turn by asking where he had come from.

“Lisbon,” he replied, taking another pinch of snuff.

Lady Ombersley was vaguely surprised. It was now two years since the close of the long Peninsular War, and she rather thought that when last heard of Sir Horace had been in Vienna, no doubt taking mysterious part in the Congress, which had been so rudely interrupted by the escape of that dreadful Monster from Elba. “Oh!” she said, a little blankly. “Of course, you have a house there! I was forgetting! And how is dear Sophia?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Sir Horace, shutting his snuffbox, and restoring it to his pocket, “it’s about Sophy that I’ve come to see you.”

Sir Horace had been a widower for fifteen years, during which period he had neither requested his sister’s help in rearing his daughter nor paid the least heed to her unsolicited advice, but at these words an uneasy feeling stole over her. She said, “Yes, Horace? Dear little Sophia! It must be four years or more since I saw her. How old is she now? I suppose she must be almost out?”

“Been out for years,” responded Sir Horace. “Never anything else, really. She’s twenty.”

“Twenty!” exclaimed Lady Ombersley. She applied her mind to arithmetic, and said, “Yes, she must be, for my own Cecilia is just turned nineteen, and I remember that your Sophia was born almost a year before. Dear me, yes! Poor Marianne! What a lovely creature she was, to be sure!”

With a slight effort Sir Horace conjured up the vision of his dead wife. “Yes, so she was,” he agreed. “One forgets, you know. Sophy’s not much like her — favors me!”

“I know what a comfort she must have been to you,” sighed Lady Ombersley. “And I’m sure, dear Horace, that nothing could be more affecting than your devotion to the child!”

“I wasn’t in the least devoted,” interrupted Sir Horace. “I shouldn’t have kept her with me if she’d been troublesome. Never was. Good little thing, Sophy!”

“Yes, my dear, no doubt, but to be dragging a little girl all over Spain and Portugal, when she would have been far better in a select school — ”

“Not she! She’d have learned to be missish,” said Sir Horace cynically. “Besides, no use to prose to me now on that head — it’s too late! The thing is, Lizzie, I’m in something of a fix. I want you to take care of Sophy while I’m in South America.”

“South America?” gasped Lady Ombersley.

“Brazil. I don’t expect to be away for very long, but I can’t take my little Sophy, and I can’t leave her with Tilly because Tilly’s dead. Died in Vienna, couple of years ago. A devilish inconvenient thing to do, but I daresay she didn’t mean it.”

“Tilly?” said Lady Ombersley, all at sea.

“Lord, Elizabeth, don’t keep on repeating everything I say! Shocking bad habit! Miss Tillingham, Sophy’s governess!”

“Good heavens! Do you mean to tell me that the child has no governess now?”

“Of course she has not! She don’t need a governess. I always found plenty of chaperons for her when we were in Paris, and in Lisbon it don’t signify. But I can’t leave her alone in England.”

“Indeed, I should think not! But, my dearest Horace, though I would do anything to oblige you, I am not quite sure — ”

“Nonsense!” said Sir Horace bracingly. “She’ll be a nice companion for your girl — what’s her name? Cecilia? Dear little soul, you know — not an ounce of vice in her!”

This fatherly tribute made his sister blink, and utter a faint protest. Sir Horace paid no heed to it. “What’s more, she won’t cause you any trouble,” he said. “She has her head well on her shoulders, my Sophy. I never worry about her.”

An intimate knowledge of her brother’s character made it perfectly possible for Lady Ombersley to believe this, but since she herself was blessed with much the same easygoing temperament no acid comment even rose to her lips. “I am sure she must be a dear girl,” she said. “But, you see, Horace — ”

“And another thing is that it’s time we were thinking of a husband for her,” pursued Sir Horace, seating himself in a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “I knew I could depend on you. Dash it, you’re her aunt! My only sister, too.”

“I should be only too happy to bring her out,” said Lady Ombersley wistfully. “But the thing is I don’t think — I am rather afraid — You see, what with the really dreadful expense of presenting Cecilia last year, and dearest Maria’s wedding only a little time before that, and Hubert’s going up to Oxford, not to mention the fees at Eton for poor Theodore — ”

“If it’s expense that bothers you, Lizzie, you needn’t give it a thought, for I’ll stand the nonsense. You won’t have to present her at Court — I’ll attend to all that when I come home, and if you don’t want to be put to the trouble of it then I can find some other lady to do it. What I want at this present is for her to go about with her cousins, meet the right set of people — you know the style of thing!”

“Of course I know, and as for trouble it would be no such thing! But I cannot help feeling that perhaps, perhaps it would not do! We do not entertain very much.”

“Well, with a pack of girls on your hands you ought to,” said Sir Horace bluntly.

“But, Horace, I have not got a pack of girls on my hands!” protested Lady Ombersley. “Selina is only sixteen, and Gertrude and Amabel are barely out of the nursery!”

“I see what it is,” said Sir Horace indulgently. “You’re afraid she may take the shine out of Cecilia. No, no, my dear! I daresay you’ll think she’s a very pretty girl. But Cecilia’s something quite out of the common way. Remember thinking so when I saw her last year. I was surprised, for you were never above the average yourself, Lizzie, while I always thought Ombersley a plain-looking fellow.”

His sister accepted these strictures meekly, but was quite distressed that he should suppose her capable of harboring such unhandsome thoughts about her niece. “And even if I was so odious, there is no longer the least need for such notions,” she added. “Nothing has as yet been announced, Horace, but I don’t scruple to tell you that Cecilia is about to contract a very eligible alliance.”

“That’s good,” said Sir Horace. “You’ll have leisure to look about you for a husband for Sophy. You won’t have any difficulty. She’s a taking little thing, and she’ll have a snug fortune one of these days, besides what her mother left her. No need to be afraid of her marrying to disoblige us, either. She’s a sensible girl, and she’s been about the world enough to be well up to snuff. Whom have you got for Cecilia?”

“Lord Charlbury has asked Ombersley’s permission to address her,” said his sister, swelling a little with pride.

“Charlbury, eh?” said Sir Horace. “Very well indeed, Elizabeth! I must say, I didn’t think you’d catch much of a prize, because looks aren’t everything, and from the way Ombersley was running through his fortune when I last saw him — ”

“Lord Charlbury,” said Lady Ombersley a little stiffly, “is an extremely wealthy man, and, I know, has no such vulgar consideration in mind. Indeed, he told me himself that it was a case of love at first sight with him!”

“Capital!” said Sir Horace. “I should suppose him to have been hanging out for a wife for some time — thirty at least, ain’t he? But if he has a veritable tendre for the girl, so much the better! It should fix his interest with her.”

“Yes,” agreed Lady Ombersley. “And I am persuaded they will suit very well. He is everything that is amiable and obliging, his manners most gentlemanlike, his understanding decidedly superior, and his person such as must please.”

Sir Horace, who was not much interested in his niece’s affairs, said, “Well, well, he is plainly a paragon, and we must allow Cecilia to think herself fortunate to be forming such a connection! I hope you may manage as prettily for Sophy!”

“Indeed, I wish I might!” she responded, sighing. “Only it is an awkward moment, because — the thing is, you see, that I am afraid Charles may not quite like it!”

Sir Horace frowned in an effort of memory. “I thought his name was Bernard. Why shouldn’t he like it?”

“I am not speaking of Ombersley, Horace. You must remember Charles!”

“If you’re talking about that eldest boy of yours, of course I remember him! But what right has he to say anything, and why the devil should he object to my Sophy?”

“Oh, no, not to her! I am sure he could not do so! But I fear he may not like it if we are to be plunged into gaiety just now! I daresay you may not have seen the announcement of his own approaching marriage, but I should tell you that he has contracted an engagement to Miss Wraxton.”

“What, not old Brinklow’s daughter? Upon my word, Lizzie, you have been busy to some purpose! Never knew you had so much sense! Eligible, indeed! You are to be congratulated!”

“Yes,” said Lady Ombersley. “Oh, yes! Miss Wraxton is a most superior girl. I am sure she has a thousand excellent qualities. A most well-informed mind, and principles such as must command respect.”

“She sounds to me like a dead bore,” said Sir Horace frankly.

“Charles,” said Lady Ombersley, staring mournfully into the fire, “does not care for very lively girls, or — or for any extravagant folly. I own, I could wish Miss Wraxton had rather more vivacity. But you are not to regard that, Horace, for I had never the least inclination toward being a bluestocking myself, and in these days, when so many young females are wild to a fault, it is gratifying to find one who — Charles thinks Miss Wraxton’s air of grave reflection very becoming!” she ended, in rather a hurry.

“You know, Lizzie, it’s a queer thing that any son of yours and Ombersley should have grown into such a dull stick,” remarked Sir Horace dispassionately. “I suppose you didn’t play Ombersley false, did you?”

“Horace!”

“No, I know you didn’t! No need to fly into a pucker! Not with your eldest; you know better than that! Still, it is an odd circumstance — often thought so! He can marry his bluestocking, and welcome, for anything I care, but none of this explains why you should be caring a fig for what he likes or don’t like!”

Lady Ombersley transferred her gaze from the glowing coals to his face. “You do not perfectly understand, Horace.”

“That’s what I said!” he retorted.

“Yes, but — Horace, Matthew Rivenhall left his whole fortune to Charles!”

Sir Horace was generally accounted an astute man, but he appeared to find it difficult correctly to assimilate this information. He stared fixedly at his sister for a moment or two, and then said, “You don’t mean that old uncle of Ombersley?”

“Yes, I do.”

“The nabob?”

Lady Ombersley nodded, but her brother was still not satisfied. “Fellow who made a fortune in India?”

“Yes, and we always thought — but he said Charles was the only Rivenhall other than himself who had the least grain of sense, and he left him everything, Horace! Everything!”

“Good God!”

This ejaculation seemed to appear to Lady Ombersley as fitting, for she nodded again, looking at her brother in a woe-begone fashion, and twisting the fringe of her shawl between her fingers.

“So it is Charles who calls the tune!” said Sir Horace.

“No one could have been more generous,” said Lady Ombersley unhappily. “We cannot but be sensible of it.”

“Damn his impudence!” said Sir Horace, himself a father. “What’s he done?”

“Well, Horace, you might not know it, because you are always abroad, but poor Ombersley had a great many debts.”

“Everyone knows that! Never knew him when he wasn’t under a cloud! You’re not going to tell me the boy was fool enough to settle ’em?”

“But, Horace, someone had to settle them!” she protested. “You can have no notion how difficult things were becoming! And with the younger boys to establish creditably, and the dear girls — It is no wonder that Charles should be so anxious that Cecilia should make a good match!”

“Providing for the whole pack, is he? More fool he! What about the mortgages? If the greater part of Ombersley’s inheritance had not been entailed he would have gambled the whole away long since!”

“I do not properly understand entails,” said his sister, “but I am afraid that Charles did not behave just as he should over it. Ombersley was very much displeased, though I shall always say that to call one’s first-born a serpent’s tooth is to use quite unbecoming language! It seems that when Charles came of age he might have made everything quite easy for his poor papa, if only he had been in the least degree obliging! But nothing would prevail upon him to agree to break the entail, so all was at a standstill, and one cannot blame Ombersley for being vexed! And then that odious old man died.”

“When?” demanded Sir Horace. “How comes it that I never heard a word of this before today?”

“It was rather more than two years ago, and — ”

“That accounts for it, then. I was devilish busy, dealing with Angouleme, and all that set. Must have happened at the time of Toulouse, I dare swear. But when I saw you last year you never spoke a word, Lizzie!”

She was stung by the injustice of this, and said indignantly, “I am sure I don’t know how I should have been thinking of such paltry things, with that Monster at large, and the Champs de Mars, and the banks suspending payment, and heaven knows what beside! And you coming over from Brussels without a word of warning, and sitting with me a bare twenty minutes! My head was in a whirl, and if I answered you to the point it is more than I would have bargained for!”

Sir Horace, disregarding this irrelevancy, said, with what for him was strong feeling, “Outrageous! I don’t say Ombersley’s not a shocking loose screw, because there’s no sense in wrapping plain facts up in clean linen, but to be cutting a man out of one’s will and setting up his son to lord it over him, which I’ll be bound he does!”

“No, no!” expostulated Lady Ombersley feebly. “Charles is fully sensible of what is due to his father! It is not that he is ever lacking in respect, I do assure you! Only poor Ombersley cannot but feel it a little, now that Charles has taken everything into his own hands.”

“A pretty state of affairs!”

“Yes, but one comfort is that it is not generally known. And I cannot deny that in some ways it is by far more pleasant. You would scarcely credit it, Horace, but I do believe there is not an unpaid bill in the house!” A moment’s reflection caused her to modify this statement. “At least, I cannot answer for Ombersley, but all those dreadful household accounts, which Eckington — you remember our good Eckington, Ombersley’s agent — used to pull such a face over; and the fees at Eton and Oxford — everything, my dear brother, Charles takes care of!”

“You aren’t going to tell me Charles is fool enough to fritter away old Matt Rivenhall’s fortune paying all the expenses of this barrack of a house!” exclaimed Sir Horace.

“No. Oh, no! I have not the least head for business, so it is of no use to ask me to explain it to you, but I believe that Charles persuaded his father to — to allow him to administer the estate.”

“Blackmailed him into it, more like!” said Sir Horace grimly. “Rare times we live in! Mind, I see the boy’s point, Lizzie, but, by God, I’m sorry for you!”

“Oh, pray believe it’s no such thing!” cried Lady Ombersley, distressed. “I did not wish you to think — to give you cause to suppose that Charles is ever disagreeable, for indeed he is not, except when he is put out of temper, and one must own that he has a great deal to try his patience! Which is why I can’t but feel, dear Horace, that if he does not like me to take charge of Sophia for you, I ought not to tease him!”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Sir Horace. “And why shouldn’t he like it?”

“We — we had decided not to give any parties this season, beyond what must be thought necessary. It is a most unfortunate circumstance that Charles’s wedding has had to be postponed, on account of a bereavement Miss Wraxton has suffered. One of Lady Brinklow’s sisters, and they will not be out of black gloves for six months. You must know that the Brinklows are very particular in all matters of correct conduct. Eugenia goes only to very quiet parties, and — and naturally one must expect Charles to partake of her sentiments!”

“Lord, Elizabeth, a man don’t have to wear black gloves for the aunt of a female he ain’t even married to!”

“Of course not, but Charles seemed to feel — and then there is Charlbury!”

“What the devil ails him?”

“Mumps,” replied Lady Ombersley tragically.

“Eh?” Sir Horace burst out laughing. “Well, what a fellow he must be to have the mumps when he should be getting married to Cecilia!”

“Really, Horace, I must say that I think that most unjust of you, for how could he help it? It is so mortifying for him! And, what is more, excessively unfortunate, because I don’t doubt that had he been able to attach Cecilia, which I am sure he must have done, for nothing could be more amiable than his disposition, while his manners and address are just what they ought to be! But girls are so foolish, and take romantical notions into their heads, besides all kinds of encroaching fancies. However, I am happy to think that Cecilia is not one of these dreadful modern misses, and of course she will be guided by her parents! But no one can deny that nothing could be more ill timed than Charlbury’s mumps!”

Sir Horace, once more opening his snuffbox, regarded her with an amused and sapient eye. “And what is Miss Cecilia’s particular encroaching fancy?” he enquired.

Lady Ombersley knew that her eldest son would have counseled her to preserve a discreet silence; but the impulse to unburden herself to her brother was too strong to be denied. She said, “Well, you will not repeat it, I know, Horace, but the fact is that the silly child thinks she is in love with Augustus Fawnhope!”

“Would that be one of Lutterworth’s brood?” asked Sir Horace. “I don’t think much of that for a match, I must say!”

“Good heavens, don’t mention such a thing! The youngest son, too, with not the least expectation in the world! But he is a poet.”

“Very dangerous,” agreed Sir Horace. “Don’t think I ever saw the boy. What’s he like?”

“Quite beautiful!” said Lady Ombersley, in despairing accents.

“What, in the style of Lord Byron? That fellow has a great deal to answer for!”

“N-no. I mean, he is as fair as Cecilia is herself, and he doesn’t limp, and though his poems are very pretty, bound up in white velum, they don’t seem to take very well. I mean, not at all like Lord Byron’s. It seems sadly unjust, for I believe it cost a great deal of money to have them printed, and he had to bear the whole — or, rather, Lady Lutterworth did, according to what I have heard.”

“Now that I come to think of it,” said Sir Horace, “I do know the boy. He was with Stuart in Brussels last year. If you take my advice you’ll marry her off to Charlbury as quickly as you can!”

“Well, and so I would, if only — that is to say, of course I would not, if I thought she held him in aversion! And you must see, Horace, that it is quite out of my power to do anything of the sort when he is in bed with the mumps!”

Sir Horace shook his head. “She will marry the poet.”

“Do not say so! But Charles thinks that I should do wisely not to take her where she is bound to meet the young man, which is another reason why we are living in a quiet style for the present. It is of all things the most awkward! Indeed, sometimes I feel that it would be much easier if the wretched creature were quite ineligible — a fortune hunter, or a merchant’s son, or something of that nature! One could then forbid him the house, and forbid Cecilia to stand up with him at balls, only it would not be in the least necessary, for we should never meet him in society. But naturally one meets the Fawnhopes everywhere! Nothing could be more provoking! And although I am sure Charles’s manner towards him is most repellent, even he acknowledges the impropriety of being so repulsive to him as to offend his family. Almeria Lutterworth is one of my oldest friends!”

Sir Horace, who was already bored with the subject, yawned, and said lazily, “I daresay there is no occasion for you to be on the fidgets. The Fawnhopes are all as poor as church mice, and very likely Lady Lutterworth desires the match as little as you do.”

“Nothing of the sort!” she replied, quite crossly. “She is foolish beyond permission, Horace! Whatever Augustus wants he must have! She has given me the most unmistakable hints, so that I scarcely knew where to look, much less what to say, except that Lord Charlbury had requested our leave to address Cecilia, and I believed her to be — well, not indifferent to him! It never entered my head that Augustus was so lost to all sense of propriety as to apply to Cecilia without first approaching Ombersley, yet that is precisely what he has done!”

“Oh, well!” said Sir Horace. “If she has such a fancy for him, you had better let her take him. It’s not as though she would be marrying beneath her, and if she chooses to be the wife of a penniless younger son it is quite her own affair.”

“You would not say so if it were Sophia!” said his sister.

“Sophy’s not such a fool.”

“Cecilia is not a fool either!” declared Lady Ombersley, affronted. “If you have seen Augustus you cannot wonder at her! No one could help feeling a decided partiality for him! I own, I did myself. But Charles is quite right, as I was soon brought to acknowledge; it would not answer!”

“Ah, well, when she has her cousin to keep her company it will divert her, and very likely give her thoughts another direction,” said Sir Horace consolingly.

Lady Ombersley appeared to be much struck by this suggestion. Her face brightened; she said: “I wonder if it might be so? She is a little shy, you must know, and does not make friends easily, and since her dear friend, Miss Friston, was married, and has gone to live in the Midlands, there is really no young female with whom she is upon terms of intimacy. Now, if we had dear Sophia to stay with us ...” She broke off, obviously turning plans over in her mind. She was still engaged on this exercise when the door opened, and her eldest son entered the salon.

The Honorable Charles Rivenhall was twenty-six years old, but a rather harsh-featured countenance, coupled with a manner that combined assurance with a good deal of reserve, made him give the impression of being some years older. He was a tall, powerfully built young man, who looked as though he would have been better pleased to have been striding over his father’s acres than exchanging civilities in his mother’s sitting room. He nearly always wore riding dress in preference to the more fashionable pantaloons and Hessians, tied his cravat in the plainest of styles, would permit only a modicum of starch to stiffen his very moderate shirt points, wholly disdained such fopperies as seals, fobs, or quizzing glasses, and offended his tailor by insisting on having his coats cut so that he could shrug himself into them without the assistance of his valet. He had been heard to express the hope that heaven would forbid he should ever be mistaken for one of the dandy set, but, as his friend Mr. Cyprian Wychbold kindly pointed out to him, there was not the least need for heavenly intervention in the matter. The dandies, said Mr. Wychbold with some severity, were distinguished as much for their polished address as for their exquisite apparel, and were in general an amiable set of men, whose polite manners and winning graces made them acceptable in any drawing room. As Mr. Rivenhall’s notion of making himself agreeable in company was to treat with cold civility anyone for whom he felt no particular liking, and his graces, far from winning, included a trick of staring out of countenance those who pretensions he deprecated, and of uttering blighting comments which put an abrupt end to social intercourse, he stood in far greater danger (Mr. Wychbold said) of being mistaken for a Yahoo.

As he shut the door behind him, his mother looked up, started slightly, and said with a nervous inflection which annoyed her brother: “Oh! Charles! Only fancy! Your uncle Horace!”

“So Dassett informed me,” responded Mr. Rivenhall. “How do you do, sir?”

He shook hands with his uncle, drew up a chair, and sat down, civilly engaging Sir Horace in conversation. His mother, fidgeting first with the fringe of her shawl and then with her handkerchief, presently broke in on this interchange to say, “Charles, you remember Sophia? Your little cousin!”

Mr. Rivenhall did not present the appearance of one who remembered his little cousin, but he said in his cool way, “Certainly. I hope she is well, sir?”

“Never had a day’s illness in her life, barring the measles,” said Sir Horace. “You’ll see her for yourself soon; your mother is going to take charge of her while I’m in Brazil.”

It was plain that this way of breaking the news did not recommend itself to Lady Ombersley, who at once hurried into speech. “Well, of course it is not quite decided yet, though I am sure there is nothing I should like better than to have my dear brother’s daughter to stay with me. I was thinking, too, Charles, that it would be so pleasant for Cecilia. Sophia and she are nearly the same age, you know.”

“Brazil?” said Mr. Rivenhall. “That should be very interesting, I daresay. Do you make a long stay there, sir?”

“Oh, no!” replied Sir Horace vaguely. “Probably not. It will depend upon circumstance. I have been telling your mother that I shall be much in her debt if she can find an eligible husband for my Sophy. It’s time she was married, and your mother seems, from what I hear, to be quite a dab in that line. I understand I have to offer you my felicitations, my boy?”

“Thank you, yes,” said Mr. Rivenhall, with a slight bow.

“If you should not dislike it, Charles, I own I should be very happy to have Sophia,” said Lady Ombersley placatingly.

He cast her an impatient glance, and replied, “I beg you will do precisely as you wish, ma’am. I cannot conceive what business it is of mine.”

“Of course I have explained to your uncle that we lead very quiet lives.”

“She won’t give a fig for that,” said Sir Horace comfortably. “She’s a good little thing, never at a loss for something to occupy herself with. Just as happy in a Spanish village as in Vienna, or Brussels.”

At this, Lady Ombersley sat up with a jerk. “Do not tell me you dragged the child to Brussels last year!”

“Of course she was in Brussels! Where the devil should she have been?” replied Sir Horace testily. “You wouldn’t have had me leave her in Vienna, would you? Besides, she enjoyed it. We met a great many old friends there.”

“The danger!”

“Oh, pooh! Nonsense! Precious little of that with Wellington in command!”

“When, sir, may we have the pleasure of expecting my cousin?” interposed Mr. Rivenhall. “We must hope that she will not find life in London too humdrum after the superior excitements of the Continent.”

“Not she!” said Sir Horace. “I never knew Sophy when she wasn’t busy with some ploy or another. Give her her head! I always do, and she never comes to any harm. Don’t quite know when she’ll be with you. She’s bound to want to see the last of me, but she’ll post up to London as soon as I’ve sailed.”

“Post up to London as soon as — Horace, surely you will bring her to me!” gasped his sister, quite scandalized. “A girl of her age, traveling alone! I never heard of such a thing!”

“Won’t be alone. She’ll have her maid with her — dragon of a woman, she is; journeyed all over Europe with us — and John Potton as well.” He caught sight of his nephew’s raised brows, and felt himself impelled to add: “Groom, courier, general factotum! Looked after Sophy since she was a baby.” He drew out his watch, and consulted it. “Well, now that we’ve settled everything, I must be off, Lizzie. I shall rely upon you to take care of Sophy, and look about you for a match. It’s important, because — but I’ve no time to explain that now! She’ll tell you all about it, I expect.”

“But, Horace, we have not settled everything!” protested his sister. “And Ombersley will be disappointed not to see you! hoped you would dine with us!”

“No, I can’t do that,” he replied. “I’m dining at Carlton House. You may give my respects to Ombersley; daresay I shall see him again one of these days!”

He then kissed her in a perfunctory style, bestowed another of his hearty pats upon her shoulder, and took himself off, followed by his nephew. “Just as if I had nothing more to wish for!” Lady Ombersley said indignantly, when Charles came back into the room. “And I have not the least notion when that child is to come to me!”

“It doesn’t signify,” said Charles, with an indifference she found exasperating. “You will give orders for a room to be prepared for her, I suppose, and she may come when she pleases. It’s to be hoped Cecilia likes her, since I imagine she will be obliged to see the most of her.”

“Poor little thing!” sighed Lady Ombersley. “I declare I quite long to mother her, Charles! What a strange, lonely life she must lead!”

“Strange certainly; hardly lonely, if she has been acting hostess for my uncle. I must suppose that she has had some elder lady to live with her — a governess, or some such thing.”

“Indeed, one would think it must have been so, but your uncle distinctly told me that the governess died when they were in Vienna! I do not like to say such a thing of my only brother, but really it seems as though Horace is quite unfit to have the care of a daughter!”

“Extremely unfit,” he said dryly. “I trust you will not have cause to regret your kindness, Mama.”

“Oh, no, I am sure I shall not!” she said. “Your uncle spoke of her in such a way that gave me the greatest desire to welcome her! Poor child, I fear she has not been used to have her wishes or her comfort much considered! I could almost have been angry with Horace when he would keep on telling me that she is a good little thing, and had never been a worry to him! I daresay he has never allowed anyone to be a worry to him, for a more selfish man I believe you could hardly meet! Sophia must have her poor mother’s sweet disposition. I have no doubt of her being a charming companion for Cecilia.”

“I hope so,” said Charles. “And that reminds me, Mama! I have just intercepted another of that puppy’s floral offerings to my sister. This billet was attached to it.”

Lady Ombersley took the proffered missive, and looked at it in dismay. “What shall I do with it?” she asked.

“Put it on the fire,” he recommended.

“Oh, no, I could not, Charles! It might be quite unexceptionable! Besides — why, it might even contain a message from his mother for me!”

“Highly unlikely, but if you think that, you had better read it.”

“Of course, I know it is my duty to do so,” she agreed unhappily.

He looked rather contemptuous, but said nothing, and after a moment’s indecision she broke the seal, and spread open the single sheet. “Oh, dear, it is a poem!” she announced. “I must say, it is very pretty. Listen, Charles!

‘Nymph, when thy mild cerulean gaze

Upon my restless spirit casts its beam — ’”

“I thank you, I have no taste for verse!” interrupted Mr. Rivenhall harshly. “Put it on the fire, ma’am, and tell Cecilia she is not to be receiving letters without your sanction!”

“Yes, but do you think I should burn it, Charles? Only think if this were the only copy of the poem! Perhaps he wants to have it printed!”

“He is not going to print such stuff about any sister of mine!” said Mr. Rivenhall grimly, holding out an imperative hand.

Lady Ombersley, always overborne by a stronger will, was just about to give the paper to him when a trembling voice from the doorway arrested her, “Mama! Do not!”

Chapter 2

LADY OMBERSLEY’S hand dropped; Mr. Rivenhall turned sharply, a frown on his brow. His sister, casting him a look of burning reproach, ran across the room to her mother, and said, “Give it to me, Mama! What right has Charles to burn my letters?”

Lady Ombersley looked helplessly at her son, but he said nothing. Cecilia twitched the open sheet of paper from her mother’s fingers, and clasped it to her palpitating bosom. This did goad Mr. Rivenhall into speech. “For God sake, Cecilia, let us have no play acting!” he said.

“How dared you read my letter?” she retorted.

“I did not read your letter ! I gave it to Mama, and you will scarcely say that she had no right to read it!”

Her soft blue eyes swam with tears; she said in a low voice, “It is all your fault! Mama would never — I hate you, Charles, I hate you!”

He shrugged, and turned away. Lady Ombersley said feebly, “You should not talk so, Cecilia! You know it is quite improper in you to be receiving letters without my knowledge! I do not know what your papa would say if he heard of it.”

“Papa!” exclaimed Cecilia scornfully. “No! It is Charles who delights in making me unhappy!”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “It would be useless, I collect, to say that my earnest wish is that you should not be made unhappy.”

She returned no answer, but folded her letter with shaking hands, and bestowed it in her bosom, throwing a defiant look at him as she did so. It was met with one of contempt; Mr. Rivenhall propped his shoulders against the mantelshelf, dug his hands into his breeches pockets, and waited sardonically for what she might say next.

She dried her eyes instead, catching her breath on little sobs. She was a very lovely girl, with pale golden locks arranged in ringlets about an exquisitely shaped face, whose delicate complexion was at the moment heightened, not unbecomingly, by an angry flush. In general, her expression was one of sweet pensiveness, but the agitation of the moment had kindled a martial spark in her eyes, and she was gripping her underlip between her teeth in a way that made her look quite vicious. Her brother, cynically observing this, said that she should make a practice of losing her temper, since it improved her, lending animation to a countenance well enough in its way but a trifle insipid.

This unkind remark left Cecilia unmoved. She could hardly fail to know that she was much admired, but she was a very modest girl quite unappreciative of her own beauty, and would much have preferred to have been fashionably dark. She sighed, released her lip, and sat down on a low chair beside her Mama’s sofa, saying in a more moderate tone: “You cannot deny, Charles, that it is your doing that Mama has taken this — this unaccountable dislike to Augustus!”

“Now, there,” said Lady Ombersley earnestly, “you are at fault, dearest, for I do not dislike him at all! Only I cannot think him an eligible husband!”

“I don’t care for that!” declared Cecilia. “He is the only man for whom I could ever feel that degree of attachment which — In short, I beg you will abandon any notion you may have that I could ever entertain Lord Charlbury’s extremely flattering proposal, for I never shall!”

Lady Ombersley uttered a distressful but incoherent protest; Mr. Rivenhall said in his prosaic way, “Yet you were not, I fancy, so much averse from Charlbury’s proposal when it was first told you.”

Cecilia turned her lambent gaze upon him, and answered, “I had not then met Augustus.”

Lady Ombersley appeared to be a good deal struck by the logic of this pronouncement, but her son was less impressionable. He said, “Don’t waste these high flights on me, I beg of you! You have been acquainted with young Fawnhope any time these nineteen years!”

“It was not the same,” said Cecilia simply.

“That,” said Lady Ombersley, in a judicial way, “is perfectly true, Charles. I am sure he was the most ordinary little boy, and when he was up at Oxford he had the most dreadful spots, so that no one would have supposed he would grow into such an excessively handsome young man! But the time he spent in Brussels with Sir Charles Stuart improved him out of all knowledge! I own, I never should have known him for the same man!”

“I have sometimes wondered,” retorted Mr. Rivenhall, “whether Sir Charles will ever be the same man again either! How Lady Lutterworth can have reconciled it with her conscience to have foisted upon a public man such a nincompoop to be his secretary I must leave it to herself to decide! All we are privileged to know is that your precious Augustus no longer fills that office! Or any other!” he added trenchantly.

“Augustus,” said Cecilia loftily, “is a poet. He is quite unfitted for the — the humdrum business of an ambassador’s secretary.”

“I do not deny it,” said Mr. Rivenhall. “He is equally unfitted to support a wife, my dear sister. Do not imagine that I will frank you in this folly, for I tell you now I will not! And do not delude yourself into believing that you will obtain my father’s consent to this most imprudent match, for while I have anything to say you will not!”

“I know well that it is only you who have anything to say in this house!” cried Cecilia, large teardrops welling over her eyelids. “I hope that when you have driven me to desperation you may be satisfied!”

From the tightening of the muscles about his mouth it was to be seen that Mr. Rivenhall was making a praiseworthy effort to keep his none too amiable temper in check. His mother glanced anxiously up at him, but the voice in which he answered Cecilia was almost alarmingly even. “Will you, my dear sister, have the goodness to reserve these Cheltenham tragedies for some moment when I am not within hearing? And before you carry Mama away upon the tide of all this rodomontade, may I be permitted to remind you that so far from being forced into an unwelcome marriage you expressed your willingness to listen to what you have yourself described as Lord Charlbury’s very flattering offer?”

Lady Ombersley leaned forward to take one of Cecilia’s hands in hers, and to squeeze it compassionately. “Well, you know, my dearest love, that is quite true!” she said. “Indeed, I thought you liked him excessively! You must not imagine that Papa or I have the least notion of compelling you to marry anyone whom you hold in aversion, for I am sure that such a thing would be quite shocking! And Charles would not do so either, would you, dear Charles?”

“No, certainly not. But neither would I consent to her marriage with any such frippery fellow as Augustus Fawnhope!”

“Augustus,” announced Cecilia, putting up her chin, “will be remembered long after you have sunk into oblivion!”

“By his creditors? I don’t doubt it. Will that compensate you for a lifetime spent in dodging duns?”

Lady Ombersley could not repress a shudder. “Alas, my love, it is too true! You cannot know the mortification — but we will not speak of that!”

“It is useless to speak to my sister of anything outside the covers of a novel from the lending library!” said Charles. “I might have supposed that she would be thankful, in the state to which this family has been reduced, to have been on the point of contracting even a respectable alliance! But no! She is offered not a respectable but a brilliant match, and she chooses to behave like any Bath miss, swooning and languishing over a poet! A poet! Good God, Mama, if the specimen of his talent which you were so ill advised as to read me — But I have no patience to argue further on that head! If you cannot prevail upon her to conduct herself in a manner worthy of her breeding she had better be sent down to Ombersley, to rusticate for a while, and see if that will bring her to her senses!”

With this terrible threat he strode out of the room, leaving his sister to dissolve into tears, and his mother to recruit her strength through the medium of her vinaigrette.

Between sobs Cecilia animadverted for some moments on the cruelty of fate, which had saddled her with a brother who was as heartless as he was tyrannical, and parents who were totally unable to enter into her feelings. Lady Ombersley, though sympathetic in the main, could not allow this to pass. Without taking it upon herself to answer for her husband’s sensibilities, she assured Cecilia that her own were extremely nice, making it perfectly possible for her to appreciate the anguish of a forbidden love.

“When I was a girl, dearest, something of the same nature happened to me,” she said, sighing. “He was not a poet, of course, but I fancied myself very much in love with him. But it would not do, and in the end I was married to your papa, which was thought to be a splendid match, for in those days he had scarcely begun to run through his fortune, and — ” She broke off, realizing that these reminiscences were infelicitous. “In short, Cecilia — and I should not be obliged to say this to you — persons of our order do not marry only to please themselves.”

Cecilia was silenced, and could only hang down her head, dabbing at her eyes with an already damp handkerchief. She knew herself to have been a good deal indulged through the fondness of one parent and the cheerful indifference of the other, and was well aware that in discovering her inclination before permitting Lord Charlbury to address his suit to her Lady Ombersley had shown more consideration for her than would have been approved of by the greater part of her contemporaries. Cecilia might read novels, but she knew that the spirited behavior of her favorite heroines was not for her to imitate. She foresaw that she was doomed to spinster-hood; and this reflection was so melancholy that she drooped more than ever, and once more applied her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Only think how happy your sister is!” said Lady Ombersley, in a heartening tone. “I am sure nothing could be more gratifying than to see her in her own home, with her dear baby, and James so attentive and obliging, and — and everything just what one would wish! I declare I do not believe that any love match could have turned out better, not that I mean to say that Maria is not sincerely attached to James! But she had not met him above half-a-dozen times when he asked Papa’s leave to speak to her, and her affections were not engaged. Naturally, she felt a strong degree of liking, or I should never — But Maria was such a good, pretty-behaved girl! She told me herself that she felt it to be her duty to accept such a respectable offer, with Papa in such difficulties, and four more of you to be provided for!”

“Mama, I hope I am not an unnatural daughter, but I had rather be dead than married to James!” declared Cecilia, raising her head. “He thinks of nothing but hunting, and when they do not have company in the evening, he goes to sleep, and snores!”

Daunted by this disclosure, Lady Ombersley could find nothing to say for a minute or two. Cecilia blew her nose, and added, “And Lord Charlbury is even older than James!”

“Yes, but we do not know that he snores, my love,” Lady Ombersley pointed out. “Indeed, we may be almost certain that he does hot, for his manners are so very gentlemanlike!”

“A man who would contract the mumps,” declared Cecilia, “would do anything!”

Lady Ombersley saw nothing unreasonable in this pronouncement, nor was she surprised that his lordship’s unromantic behavior had given Cecilia a distaste for him. She had herself been sadly disappointed, for she had thought him a man of sense, certainly not one to be succumbing to childish ailments at inopportune moments. She could think of nothing to say to palliate his offense, and as Cecilia had apparently no further observations to make, silence reigned uneasily for a time. Cecilia presently broke it, asking rather listlessly whether it was true that her uncle had been in the house that afternoon. Glad of an excuse to talk of more cheerful matters, Lady Ombersley at once told her of the treat in store for her, and had the satisfaction of seeing the cloud lift a little from her daughter’s brow. It was not difficult to enlist Cecilia’s sympathies on behalf of her cousin. She could scarcely envisage a more horrid fate than to be sent to stay for an indefinite period amongst relatives who were almost strangers, and warmly promised to do all that lay in her power to make Sophia feel herself at home in Berkeley Square. She could conjure up no very clear recollection of her cousin, for it had been some years since they had met; and although she had sometimes thought that to travel about Europe must be exciting, she had also suspected that it might also be extremely uncomfortable, and readily agreed with Lady Ombersley that such an unconventional existence was scarcely an ideal preparation for a London debut. The reflection that Sophia’s arrival in Berkeley Square must mean some relaxation of the almost conventual life imposed upon the family by Charles’s determination to economize sent her away to change her dress for dinner in a far happier frame of mind.

Four of the family sat down at the huge table in the dining room that evening, his lordship having decided to gratify his wife with one of his rare appearances at his own board. He was the only unconstrained member of the party, for he had a happy disposition which made it possible for him to remain oblivious to the most blatant signs of discontent in his companions. In the same spirit he contrived with amazing ease to be cheerful under the humiliation of being little more than his son’s pensioner. He had the greatest dread of being obliged to face unpleasantness, so he never allowed himself to think about unpleasant things, which answered very well, and could be supported in times of really inescapable stress by his genius for persuading himself that any disagreeable necessity forced upon him by his own folly, or by his son’s overriding will, was the outcome of his own choice and wise decision. While Charles continued to render him the observances of filial respect he was able to forget that the reins of government had been wrenched out of his hands; and when, as sometimes happened, filial respect wore a little thin, at least these regrettable lapses did not last for long, and were not difficult for a man of his sanguine temperament to forget. He bore his son no malice, though he thought him a dull dog; and provided that the luck was running his way, and he was not expected to bear any distasteful part in the management of his young family, he was very well satisfied with his lot.

He could hardly have been unaware of the dissension at present raging in his household, for a request from his wife that he should exercise parental authority over Cecilia had driven him posthaste to Newmarket not a fortnight before. But neither his son’s heavy frown nor his daughter’s reddened eyelids occasioned the slightest comment from him. He appeared to derive no small satisfaction from partaking of a lengthy meal in the company of an anxious wife, an injured daughter, and a glowering son. He said: “Well, upon my soul, this is very pleasant, to be dining en famille in this cozy way! You may tell your cook, Lady Ombersley, that I like this way of serving a duck. I declare I don’t get as good at White’s!” After that he recounted the latest piece of society gossip, and inquired affably how his children had spent the day.

“If you mean me, Papa,” said Cecilia, “I have spent the day just as I spend every day. I shopped with Mama; I walked in the Park with my sisters and Miss Adderbury; and I practiced my music.”

Her tone did not suggest that she had found these amusements exhilarating, but Lord Ombersley said, “Capital!” and turned his attention to his wife. She told him of her brother’s visit, and of his proposal that she should assume the charge of Sophia; and Lord Ombersley gave his gracious consent to the scheme, saying that nothing could be better, and congratulating his daughter upon her good luck in so unexpectedly acquiring a charming companion. Charles, who was irritated enough by all this bland insensibility to sympathize with his sister, said dampingly that they had as yet no reason to suppose that Sophia would be in the least charming. But Lord Ombersley said that he entertained no doubts on that head, and added that they must all do their best to make their cousin’s stay agreeable. After that he asked Charles whether he intended to go to the races next day. Charles, who knew that the races referred to were run under the patronage of the Duke of York, and would entail, for that jovial personage’s cronies, several evenings spent at Oatlands, playing whist for pound points, looked more forbidding than ever, and said that he was going down to Ombersley Park for a few days.

“To be sure you are!” agreed his father cheerfully. “I was forgetting that business about the South Hanger. Yes, yes, I wish you would attend to that, my boy!”

“I will, sir,” responded Mr. Rivenhall politely. He then glanced across the table at his sister, and asked, “Do you care to accompany me, Cecilia? I am very willing to take you, if you should like it.”

She hesitated. This might be an olive branch; on the other hand it might be a singularly futile attempt to wean her mind from thoughts of Mr. Fawnhope. The reflection that Charles’s absence from town might, with a little contrivance, make it possible for her to meet Mr. Fawnhope decided the matter. She shrugged, and said, “No, I thank you. I do not know what I should do in the country at this season.”

“Ride with me,” suggested Charles.

“I prefer to ride in the Park. If you desire company, I wonder you do not invite the children to go with you. I am sure they would be delighted to oblige you.”

“As you please,” he replied indifferently. Dinner at an end, Lord Ombersley withdrew from the family circle. Charles, who had no evening engagement, accompanied his mother and sister to the drawing room, and, while Cecilia strummed idly at the piano, sat talking to his mother about Sophia’s visit. Much to her relief, he seemed to be resigned to the necessity of holding at least one moderate party in Sophia’s honor, but he strongly advised her against charging herself with the office of finding a suitable husband for her niece.

“Why my uncle, having allowed her to reach the age of — twenty, is it? — without bestirring himself in the matter,” he said, “must suddenly take it into his head to persuade you to undertake the business, is a matter beyond my comprehension.”

“It does seem odd,” agreed Lady Ombersley. “I daresay he might not have realized how time flies, you know. Twenty! Why, she is almost upon the shelf! I must say, Horace has been most remiss! There could be no difficulty, I am sure, for she must be quite an heiress! Even if she were a very plain girl, which I do not for a moment suppose she can be, for you will allow Horace to be a handsome man, while poor dear Marianne was excessively pretty, though I don’t expect that you can remember her — well, even if she were plain, it should be the easiest thing in the world to arrange a respectable match for her!”

“Very easy, but you would do well to leave it to my uncle, ma’am,” was all he would say.

At this moment, the schoolroom party came into the room, escorted by Miss Adderbury, a little gray mouse of a woman, who had originally been hired to take charge of Lady Ombersley’s numerous offspring when Charles and Maria had been adjudged old enough to leave Nurse’s jealous care. It might have been supposed that a twenty-year residence in the household, under the aegis of a kindhearted mistress, and the encouragement of her pupils’ affection, would long since have allayed Miss Adderbury’s nervousness, but this had endured with the years. Not all her accomplishments — and these included, besides a sufficient knowledge of Latin to enable her to prepare little boys for school, the expert use of the globes, a thorough grounding in the theory of music, enough proficiency upon the pianoforte and the harp to satisfy all but the most exacting, and considerable talent in the correct use of water colors — made it possible for her to enter the drawing room without an inward shrinking, or to converse with her employer on terms of equality. Those of her pupils who had outgrown her care found her shyness and her anxiety to please tiresome, but they could never forget her kindness to them in their schoolroom days, and always treated her with something more than civility. So Cecilia smiled at her, and Charles said, “Well, Addy, and how are you today?” which slight attentions made her grow pink with pleasure, and stammer a good deal in her replies.

Her charges now numbered three only, for Theodore, the youngest son of the house, had lately been sent to Eton. Selina, a sharp-looking damsel of sixteen, went to sit beside her sister on the pianoforte stool; and Gertrude, bidding fair at twelve to rival Cecilia in beauty, and Amabel, a stout ten-year-old, cast themselves upon their brother, with loud professions of delight at seeing him, and rather louder reminders to him of a promise he had made them to play at lottery tickets the very next time he should spend an evening at home. Miss Adderbury, kindly invited by Lady Ombersley to take a seat by the fire, made faint clucking noises in deprecation of this exuberance. She had no hope of being attended to, but was relieved to observe that Lady Ombersley was regarding the group about Charles with a fond smile. Lady Ombersley, in fact, was wishing that Charles, who was so popular with the children, could bring himself to be equally kind to the brother and sister nearer to him in age. There had been a rather painful scene at Christmas, when poor Hubert’s Oxford debts had been discovered.

The card table had been set up, and Amabel was already counting out the mother-of-pearl fishes on its green baize cloth. Cecilia begged to be excused from joining in the game, and Selina, who would have liked to play but always made a point of following her sister’s example, said that she found lottery tickets a dead bore. Charles paid no heed to this, but as he passed behind the music stool on his way to fetch the playing cards from a tall marquetry chest, bent to say something in Cecilia’s ear. Lady Ombersley, anxiously watching, could not hear what it was, but she saw, her heart sinking, that it had the effect of making Cecilia color up to the roots of her hair. However, she rose from the stool, and went to the table, saying very well, she would play for a little while. So Selina relented too, and after a very few minutes both young ladies were making quite as much noise as their juniors, and laughing enough to make an impartial observer think that the one had forgotten her advanced years and the other her lacerated sensibilities. Lady Ombersley was able to withdraw her attention from the table and to settle down to a comfortable chat with Miss Adderbury.

Miss Adderbury had already heard from Cecilia of Sophia’s proposed visit and was all eagerness to discuss it with Lady Ombersley. She could enter into her ladyship’s feelings upon the event, join her in sighing over the melancholy situation of a girl left motherless at five years old, agree with her plans for Sophia’s accommodation and amusement, and, while deploring the irregularity of Sophia’s upbringing, feel sure that she would be found to be a very sweet girl.

“I always know I can rely upon you, Miss Adderbury,” said Lady Ombersley. “Such a comfort to me!”

In what way she was to be relied on Miss Adderbury had no idea, but she did not ask enlightenment, which was just as well, since her ladyship had no idea either, and had merely uttered the gratifying phrase from a general desire to please. Miss Adderbury said, “Oh, Lady Ombersley! So good — ! So very obliging — !” and was almost ready to burst into tears at the thought of so much confidence being placed in one so unworthy as herself. Most fervently did she hope that her ladyship would never discover that she had nursed a snake in her bosom; and dolefully did she regret the lack of resolution that made it impossible for her to withstand her dear Miss Rivenhall’s coaxing. Only two days before she had permitted young Mr. Fawnhope to join the walking party in the Green Park, and, far worse, had made no objection to his falling behind with Cecilia. It was true that Lady Ombersley had not mentioned Cecilia’s unhappy infatuation to her, much less laid commands upon her to repulse Mr. Fawnhope, but Miss Adderbury was the daughter of a clergyman (mercifully deceased) of stern and rigid morals, and she knew that such quibbling merely aggravated her depravity.

These reflections were interrupted by a further observation made by her ladyship in a lowered tone and with a glance cast toward the card table at the other end of the room. “I am persuaded that I have no need to tell you, Miss Adderbury, that we have been made a trifle uneasy lately by one of those fancies which young females are subject to. I shall say no more, but you will appreciate how glad I shall be to welcome my niece. Cecilia has been too much alone, and her sisters are not of an age to be the companions which her cousin must be. I am hopeful that in striving to make dear Sophia feel at home amongst us — for the poor little thing will be sadly lost in the middle of such a large family, I daresay — and in showing her how she should go on in London, she will have enough to occupy her to give her thoughts another direction.”

This view of the matter had not until now presented itself to Miss Adderbury, but she grasped it eagerly, and felt sure that all would happen precisely as Lady Ombersley anticipated. “Oh, yes, indeed!” she declared. “Nothing could be better! So condescending of your ladyship to — I had collected from dear Miss Rivenhall — but she is such a sweet girl I know she will devote herself to her less fortunate cousin! When do you expect Miss Stanton-Lacy, dear Lady Ombersley?”

“Sir Horace was able to give me no very precise information,” replied Lady Ombersley, “but I understand that he expects to sail for South America almost immediately. No doubt my niece will be in London very shortly. Indeed, I shall speak to the housekeeper tomorrow about preparing a bedchamber for her.”

Chapter 3

BUT it was not until the Easter holidays were a week old that Sophia arrived in Berkeley Square. The only intelligence received by her aunt during the intervening ten days was a brief scrawl from Sir Horace, conveying the information that his mission was a trifle delayed, but that she would assuredly see her niece before very long. The flowers which Cecilia so prettily arranged in her cousin’s room withered and had to be thrown away; and Mrs. Ludstock, a meticulously careful housekeeper, had twice aired the sheets before, in the middle of a bright spring afternoon, a post chaise and four, generously splashed with mud, drew up at the door.

It so happened that Cecilia and Selina had been driving with their Mama in the Park, and had returned to the house not five minutes earlier. All three were just about to ascend the staircase when Mr. Hubert Rivenhall came bounding down, uttering, “It must be my cousin, for there is a mountain of baggage on the roof! Such a horse! By Jupiter, if ever I saw such a bang-up piece of flesh and blood!”

This extraordinary speech made the three ladies stare at him in bewilderment. The butler, who had only a minute before withdrawn from the hall, sailed back again with his attendant satellites, and trod across the marble floor to the front door, announcing, with a bow to his mistress, that he apprehended Miss Stanton-Lacy had that instant arrived. The satellites then threw open the double door, and the ladies had a clear view not only of the equipage in the road but of the awed and inquisitive faces of the younger members of the family, who had been playing at bat-and-ball in the garden of the Square and were now crowded close to the railings, gazing, in spite of Miss Adderbury’s remonstrances, at the animal which had brought Hubert in such pelting haste down the stairs.

Miss Stanton-Lacy’s arrival was certainly impressive. Four steaming horses drew her chaise, two outriders accompanied it, and behind it rode a middle-aged groom, leading a splendid black horse. The steps of the chaise were let down, the door opened, and out leaped an Italian greyhound, to be followed a moment later by a gaunt-looking female, holding a dressing bag, three parasols, and a bird cage. Lastly, Miss Stanton-Lacy herself descended, thanking the footman for his proffered help, but requesting him instead to hold her poor little Jacko. Her poor little Jacko was seen to be a monkey in a scarlet coat, and no sooner had this magnificent fact dawned on the schoolroom party than they brushed past their scandalized preceptress, tore open the garden gate, and tumbled out into the road, shouting, “A monkey! She has brought a monkey!”

Lady Ombersley, meanwhile, standing as though rooted to her own doorstep, was realizing, with strong indignation, that the light in which a gentleman of great height and large proportions regarded his daughter had been misleading. Sir Horace’s little Sophy stood five feet nine inches in her stocking-feet, and was built on generous lines, a long-legged, deep-bosomed creature, with a merry face, and a quantity of glossy brown ringlets under one of the most dashing hats her cousins had ever seen. A pelisse was buttoned up to her throat, a very long sable stole was slipping from her shoulders, and she carried an enormous sable muff. This, however, she thrust into the second footman’s hands so that she was the better able to greet Amabel, who was the first to reach her. Her dazed aunt watched her stoop gracefully over the little girl, catching her hands, and saying laughingly, “Yes, yes, indeed I am your cousin Sophia, but pray won’t you call me Sophy? If anyone calls me Sophia I think I am in disgrace, which is a very uncomfortable thing. Tell me your name!”

“It’s Amabel, and oh, if you please, may I talk to the monkey?” stammered the youngest Miss Rivenhall.

“Of course you may, for I brought him for you. Only be a little gentle with him at first, because he is shy, you know.”

“Brought him for me?” gasped Amabel, quite pale with excitement.

“For you all,” said Sophy, embracing Gertrude and Theodore in her warm smile. “And also the parrot. Do you like pets better than toys and books? I always did, so I thought very likely you would too.”

“Cousin!” said Hubert, breaking in on the fervent assurances of his juniors that their new relative had gauged their tastes with an accuracy utterly unequaled in all their experience of adults. “Is that your horse?”

She turned, surveying him with a certain unselfconscious candor, the smile still lingering on her mouth. “Yes, that is Salamanca. Do you like him?”

“By Jove, I should think I do! Is he Spanish? Did you bring him from Portugal?”

“Cousin Sophy, what is your dear little dog’s name? What kind of a dog is it?”

“Cousin Sophy, can the parrot talk? Addy, may we keep it in the schoolroom?”

“Mama, Mama, Cousin Sophy has brought us a monkey!”

This last shout, from Theodore, made Sophy look quickly round. Perceiving her aunt and her two other cousins in the doorway, she ran up the steps, exclaiming, “Dear Aunt Elizabeth! I beg your pardon! I was making friends with the children! How do you do? I am so happy to be with you! Thank you for letting me come to you!”

Lady Ombersley was still dazed, still clutching feebly at the fast vanishing picture of the shy little niece of her imaginings, but at these words that insipid damsel was cast into the limbo of things unregretted and unremembered. She clasped Sophy in her arms, raising her face to the glowing one above her, and saying tremulously, “Dear, dear Sophy! So happy! So like your father! Welcome, dear child, welcome!”

She was quite overcome, and it was several moments before she could recollect herself enough to introduce Sophy to Cecilia and Selina. Sophy stared at Cecilia, and exclaimed: “Are you Cecilia? But you are so beautiful! Why don’t I remember that?”

Cecilia, who had been feeling quite overpowered, began to laugh. You could not suspect Sophy of saying things like that only to please you. She said exactly what came into her head. “Well, I did not remember either!” she retorted. “I thought you were a little brown cousin, all legs and tangled hair!”

“Yes, but I am — oh, not tangled, perhaps, but all legs, I assure you, and dreadfully brown! I have not grown into a beauty! Sir Horace tells me I must abandon all pretensions — and he is a judge, you know!”

Sir Horace was right. Sophy would never be a beauty. She was by far too tall; nose and mouth were both too large; and a pair of expressive gray eyes could scarcely be held to atone entirely for these defects. Only you could not forget Sophy, even though you could not recall the shape of her face or the color of her eyes.

She had turned again toward her aunt. “Will your people direct John Potton where he may stable Salamanca, ma’am? Only for tonight! And a room for himself? I shall arrange everything just as soon as I have learnt my way about!”

Mr. Hubert Rivenhall made haste to assure her that he would himself conduct John Potton to the stables. She smiled, and thanked him, and Lady Ombersley said that there was room and to spare for Salamanca in the stables, and she must not trouble her head about such matters. But it seemed that Sophy was determined to trouble her head, for she answered quickly, “No, no, my horses are not to be a charge on you, dear aunt! Sir Horace most particularly charged me to make my own arrangements, if I should be setting up my stable, and indeed I mean to do so! But for tonight it would be so kind of you!”

There was enough here to set her aunt’s brain reeling. What kind of a niece was this, who set up her stable, made her own arrangements, and called her father Sir Horace? Then Theodore created a diversion, coming up with the scared monkey clasped in his arms, demanding that she should tell Addy that he might take it to the schoolroom, since Cousin Sophy had given it to them. Lady Ombersley shrank from the monkey, and said feebly, “My love, I don’t think — oh, dear, whatever will Charles say?”

“Charles is not such a muff as to be afraid of a monkey!” declared Theodore. “Oh, Mama, pray tell Addy we may keep him.

“Indeed, Jacko will not bite anyone!” Sophy said. “I have had him with me for close on a week, and he is the gentlest creature! You will not banish him, Miss — Miss Addy? No, I know that is wrong!”

“Miss Adderbury, but we always call her Addy!” Cecilia explained.

“How do you do?” Sophy said, holding out her hand. “Forgive me! It was impertinent, but I did not know! Do permit the children to keep poor Jacko!”

Between her dismay at having a monkey thrust upon her and her desire to please this glowing girl, who smiled so kindly down at her and extended her hand with such frank good nature, Miss Adderbury lost herself in a morass of half-sentences. Lady Ombersley said that they must ask Charles, a remark which was at once interpreted as permission to take Jacko up to the schoolroom at once, none of the children thinking so poorly of their brother as to believe that he would raise the least objection to their new pet. Sophy was then led up to the Blue Saloon, where she at once cast her sables onto a chair, unbuttoned her pelisse, and tossed off her modish hat. Her aunt, fondly drawing her down to sit beside her on the sofa, asked her if she were tired from the long journey, and if she would like to take some refreshment.

“No, indeed! Thank you, but I am never tired, and although it was a trifle tedious, I could not count it as a journey!” Sophy replied. “I should have been with you this morning, only that I was obliged to go first to Merton.”

“Go first to Merton?” echoed Lady Ombersley. “But why, my love? Have you acquaintances there?”

“No, no, but Sir Horace particularly desired it!”

“My dear, do you always call you papa Sir Horace?” asked Lady Ombersley.

The gray eyes began to dance again. “No, if he makes me very cross I call him Papa!” Sophy said. “It is of all things what he most dislikes! Poor angel, it is a great deal too bad that he should be saddled with such a maypole for a daughter, and no one could expect him to bear it!” She perceived that her aunt was looking a little shocked, and added, with her disconcerting frankness, “You don’t like that. I am so sorry, but indeed he is a delightful parent, and I love him dearly! But it is one of his maxims, you know, that one should never allow one’s partiality to blind one to a person’s defects.”

The startling proposition that a daughter should be encouraged to take note of her father’s faults so much horrified Lady Ombersley that she could think of nothing to say. Selina, who liked to get to the root of everything, asked why Sir Horace had particularly desired Sophy to go to Merton.

“Only to take Sancia to her new home,” Sophy explained. “That was why you saw me with those absurd outriders. Nothing will convince poor Sancia that English roads are not infested with bandits and guerilleros!”

“But who is Sancia?” demanded Lady Ombersley, in some bewilderment.

“Oh, she is the Marquesa de Villacañas! Did Sir Horace not tell you her name? You will like her; indeed, you must like her! She is quite stupid, and dreadfully indolent, like all Spaniards, but so pretty and good natured!” She saw that her aunt was now wholly perplexed, and her straight, rather thick brows drew together. “You don’t know? He did not tell you? Now, how infamous of him! Sir Horace is going to marry Sancia.”

“ What?” gasped Lady Ombersley.

Sophy leaned forward to take her hand, and to press it coaxingly. “Yes, indeed he is, and you must be glad, if you please, because she will suit him very well. She is a widow, and extremely wealthy.”

“A Spaniard!” said Lady Ombersley. “He never breathed a word of this to me!”

“Sir Horace says that explanations are so tedious,” said Sophy excusingly. “I daresay he might have felt that it would take too long. Or,” she added, a mischievous look in her eyes, “that I would do it for him!”

“I never heard of such a thing!” said Lady Ombersley, almost roused to wrath. “Just like Horace! And when, pray, my dear, does he mean to marry this Marquesa?”

“Well,” said Sophy seriously, “that, I fancy, is why he did not care to explain it all to you. Sir Horace cannot marry Sancia until I am off his hands. It is so awkward for him, poor dear! I have promised to do my best, but I cannot engage to marry anyone I don’t like! He understands my feelings perfectly. I will say this for Sir Horace, that he is never unreasonable!”

Lady Ombersley was strongly of the opinion that these remarks were quite unsuited to her daughters’ ears, but she saw no way of stemming them. Selina, still delving to the roots, asked, “Why cannot your papa be married until you are, Sophy?”

“On account of Sancia,” replied Sophy readily. “Sancia says she does not at all wish to be my stepmama.”

Lady Ombersley was smitten to the heart. “My poor child!” she said, laying a hand on Sophy’s knee. “You are so brave, but you may confide in me! She is jealous of you. I believe all Spaniards have the most shockingly jealous natures! It is too bad of Horace! If I had known this! Is she unkind, Sophy? Does she dislike you?”

Sophy went off into a peal of laughter. “Oh, no, no, no! I am sure she never disliked anyone in all her life! The thing is that if she married Sir Horace while I am still on his hands everyone will expect her to behave to me like a mama, and she is much too lazy! Then, too, with the best will in the world, I might continue to manage Sir Horace, and his house and everything that I have been accustomed to do. We have talked it over, and I can’t but see that there is a great deal in what she says. But as for jealousy, no indeed! She is much too handsome to be jealous of me, and much too good natured as well. She says that she has the greatest imaginable affection for me, but share a house with me she will not. I do not blame her. Pray do not think I blame her!”

“She sounds a very odd sort of a woman,” said Lady Ombersley disapprovingly. “And why does she live in Merton?”

“Oh, Sir Horace hired the prettiest villa for her there! She means to live retired until he comes back to England. That,” said Sophy, with a gurgle of mirth, “is because she is excessively idle. She will lie in bed until the morning is half gone, eat a great many sweetmeats, read a great many novels, and be perfectly pleased to see any of her friends who will give themselves the trouble of driving out to visit her. Sir Horace says she is the most restful female of his acquaintance.” She bent to stroke her little dog, which had all the time been sitting at her feet. “Except Tina here, of course! Dear ma’am, I hope you do not dislike dogs? She is very good, I promise you, and I could not part with her!”

Lady Ombersley assured her that she had no objection to dogs, but was by no means partial to monkeys. Sophy laughed, and said, “Oh, dear! Was it wrong of me to bring him for the children? Only when I saw him, in Bristol, he seemed to me to be just the thing! And now that I have given him to them, I daresay it will be difficult to persuade them to give him up.”

Lady Ombersley rather thought that it would be impossible, and as there did not seem to be anything more to be said on that subject, and she was feeling quite bemused by her niece’s various disclosures, she suggested that Cecilia should escort Sophy up to her room, where she would no doubt like to rest for awhile before changing her dress for dinner.

Cecilia rose with alacrity, ready to add her persuasions to her mother’s if it should be necessary. She did not suppose that Sophy wished to rest, for the little she had seen of her cousin had been enough to convince her that a creature so full of vitality rarely stood in need of rest. But she felt herself strongly drawn to Sophy and was anxious to make a friend of her as soon as possible. So when it was discovered that Sophy’s maid was unpacking her trunks in her bedchamber, she begged Sophy to come to her own room for a chat. Selina, finding that she was not to be admitted to this tête-à-tête, pouted, but went off, deriving consolation from the reflection that to her would fall the agreeable task of describing to Miss Adderbury every detail of Sophy’s conversation in the Blue Saloon.

Cecilia’s disposition was shy, and although her manners lacked the forbidding reserve which distinguished those of her elder brother, they were never confiding. Yet within a very few minutes she found herself pouring into her cousin’s ears some at least of the evils of her situation. Sophy listened to her with interest and sympathy, but the constant recurrence of Mr. Rivenhall’s name seemed to puzzle her, and she presently interrupted to say, “I beg your pardon, but this Charles — is he not your brother?”

“My eldest brother,” said Cecilia.

“Well, that is what I collected. But what has he to say to anything?”

Cecilia sighed. “You will soon discover, Sophy, that nothing may be done in this house without Charles’s sanction. It is he who orders everything, arranges everything, and rules everything!”

“Now, let me understand this!” said Sophy. “My uncle has not died, has he? I am sure Sir Horace never told me so!”

“Oh, no! But Papa — I should not be talking about him, and of course I don’t know precisely — but I think poor Papa found himself in difficulties! In fact, I know it was so, for I found my mother in great distress once, and she told me a little, because she was so distracted she hardly knew what she was doing. In general, she would never say a word about Papa to any of us — except Charles, I suppose, and I daresay Maria, now that she is a married lady. Only then my great-uncle Matthew died, and he left all his fortune to Charles, and I don’t understand exactly how it was, but I believe Charles did something with mortgages. Whatever it was, it seems to have placed poor Papa quite in his power. And I am very certain that it is Charles who pays for Hubert and Theodore, besides settling all the debts, for that Mama did tell me.”

“Dear me, how very uncomfortable it must be for your Papa! remarked Sophy. “My cousin Charles sounds a most disagreeable creature!”

“He is quite odious!” said Cecilia. “I sometimes think he takes a delight in making everyone miserable, for I am sure he grudges us the least pleasure, and is only anxious to marry us to respectable men with large fortunes, who are quite middle-aged, and sober, and can do nothing but catch the mumps!”

Since Sophy was far too intelligent to suppose that this embittered speech was a mere generalization, she at once pressed Cecilia to tell her more about the respectable man with mumps, and after a little hesitation, and a good deal of circumlocution, Cecilia not only divulged that a marriage between herself and Lord Charlbury had been arranged (though not as yet announced), but favored her with a word picture of the Honorable Augustus Fawnhope which must have seemed like the ravings of delirium to anyone who had not been privileged to behold that beautiful young man. But Sophy had already met Mr. Fawnhope, and instead of coaxing her cousin to lie down upon her bed with a cooling draught, she said in the most matter-of-fact way, “Yes, very true. I have never seen Lord Byron, but they tell me that he is nothing to Mr. Fawnhope. He is quite the most handsome man I think I ever saw.”

“You know Augustus!” Cecilia breathed, clasping her hands at her palpitating bosom.

“Yes — that is to say, I am acquainted with him. I fancy I danced with him once or twice at the balls in Brussels last year. Was he not attached to Sir Charles Stuart in some capacity or another?”

“One of his secretaries, but Augustus is a poet, and of course he has no head for business, or affairs, which is a circumstance that disgusts Charles more than all the rest, I believe! Oh, Sophy, when we met — it was at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, and I was wearing a gown of palest blue satin, embroidered all over with silken rosebuds, and knots of silver twist — we no sooner saw each other than — he has assured me that it was the same with him! How could I suppose that there would be the least objection? The Fawnhopes, you know! I daresay they have been here since the Conquest, or some such thing! If I do not care a button for such things as fortunes or titles, what concern is it of Charles’s?”

“None at all,” said Sophy briskly. “Dear Cecilia, don’t cry, I beg of you! Only tell me this! Does your mama dislike the notion of your marrying Mr. Fawnhope?”

“Dearest Mama has such sensibility that I know she must feel for me!” declared Cecilia, obediently drying her eyes. “She has as good as told me so, but she dare not withstand Charles! That, Sophy, is what governs all in this house!”

“Sir Horace is always right!” declared Sophy, rising, and shaking out her skirts. “I teased him to take me to Brazil, you know, because, to own the truth, I could not imagine how I should contrive to occupy myself in London, with nothing to do but amuse myself in my aunt’s house! He assured me that I should find something to be busy with, and you see that he had gauged the matter exactly! I wonder if he knew of all this? My dear Cecilia — oh, may I call you Cecy instead? Cecilia! Such a mouthful! Only trust me! You have fallen into a fit of despondency, and there is not the least need! In fact, nothing could be more fatal, in any predicament! It encourages one to suppose that there is nothing to be done, when a little resolution is all that is wanted to bring matters to a happy conclusion. I must go to my room, and dress for dinner, or I shall be late, and there is nothing more odious than a guest who comes late to meals!”

“But, Sophy, what can you possibly mean?” gasped Cecilia. “What can you do to help me?”

“I have not the least notion, but I daresay a hundred things. Everything you have told me shows me that you are fallen, all of you, into a shocking state of melancholy! Your brother! Good gracious, what were you about to let him grow into such a tyrant? Why, I would not permit even Sir Horace to become so dictatorial, which is a thing the best of men will do, if the females of their families are so foolish as to encourage them! It is not at all good for them, besides making them such dead bores! Is Charles a dead bore? I am sure he must be! Never mind! If he has a fancy for making eligible matches he shall look about him for a husband for me, and that will divert his mind. Cecy, do come with me to my bedroom! Sir Horace desired me to choose mantillas for you and my aunt, and I daresay Jane will have unpacked them by now. How clever it was of me to have selected a white one for you! I am by far too brown-complexioned to wear white, but you will look enchantingly in it!”

She then swept Cecilia off to her own room, where she found the mantillas, carefully wrapped in silver paper, one of which she instantly carried to Lady Ombersley’s dressing room, declaring that Sir Horace had charged her to present it, with his love, to his dear sister. Lady Ombersley was delighted with the mantilla, a particularly handsome black one; and much touched (as she afterward told Cecilia) by the message that went with it, not one word of which did she believe, but which showed, she said, such thoughtful delicacy in her niece.

By the time Sophy had changed her traveling dress for an evening gown of pale green crape, festooned at the bottom with rich silk trimmings, and confined at the waist with a cord and tassels, Cecilia had completed her own toilet, and was waiting to escort her downstairs to the drawing room. Sophy was trying to clasp a necklace of pearls round her throat while the gaunt maid, adjuring her not to be so fidgety, was equally determined to button up the cuffs of her long, full sleeves. Cecilia, tastefully but not strikingly attired in sprigged muslin, with a blue sash, supposed enviously that Sophy had had her gown made in Paris. She was quite right; nearly all Sophy’s dresses came from Paris.

“One consolation,” said Cecilia naively, “is that Eugenia will dislike it excessively!”

“Good gracious, who is Eugenia?” exclaimed Sophy, wheeling round upon her dressing stool. “Why should she dislike it? I don’t think it ugly, do you?”

“Miss Sophy, drat you, will you sit still?” interpolated Jane Storridge, giving her a shake.

“No, of course I do not!” responded Cecilia. “But Eugenia never wears modish gowns. She says there are more important things to think of than one’s dresses.”

“What a stupid thing to say!” remarked Sophy. “Naturally there are, but not, I hold, when one is dressing for dinner. Who is she?”

“Miss Wraxton. Charles is betrothed to her, and Mama sent to warn me a few minutes ago that she is dining here tonight. We had all of us forgotten it in the bustle of your arrival. I daresay she will be in the drawing room already, for she is always very punctual. Are you ready? Shall we go down?”

“If only my dear Jane would bestir herself a little!” Sophy said, giving up her other wrist to her maid and casting a roguish look into Miss Storridge’s disapproving face.

The maid smiled rather grimly, but said nothing. She did up the tiny buttons, draped a gold-embroidered scarf over her mistress’s elbows, and gave a little nod of approval. Sophy bent and kissed her cheek, saying, “Thank you! Go to bed, and don’t think I will let you undress me, for I assure you I will not! Good night, Jane dear!”

Cecilia, a good deal astonished, said as they descended the stairs together, “I suppose she has been with you a long time? I fear Mama would stare to see you kiss your maid!”

Sophy lifted her brows at this. “Indeed? Jane was my mother’s maid, and my own kind nurse when my mother died. I hope I may do nothing worse to make my aunt stare.”

“Oh! Of course she would perfectly understand the circumstances!” Cecilia said hastily. “Only it looked so odd, you know!”

A decided sparkle in her cousin’s find eyes seemed to indicate that she did not much relish this criticism of her conduct, but as they had by this time reached the drawing-room door she did not say anything, but allowed herself to be ushered into the room.

Lady Ombersley, her two elder sons, and Miss Wraxton were seated in a group about the fire. All looked round at the opening of the door, and the two gentlemen rose to their feet, Hubert gazing at his cousin in frank admiration, Charles looking her over critically.

“Come in, dear Sophy!” Lady Ombersley said, in a welcoming tone. “You see that I am wearing the beautiful mantilla instead of a shawl! Such exquisite lace! Miss Wraxton has been much admiring it. You will let me introduce Miss Stanton-Lacy to you, my dear Eugenia. Cecilia will have told you, Sophy, that we are soon to have the joy of counting Miss Wraxton one of the family.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Sophy, smiling, and holding out her hand. “I wish you very happy, Miss Wraxton, and my cousin also.” She turned, having briefly clasped Miss Wraxton’s hand, and extended her own to Charles. “How do you do?”

He shook hands, and discovered that he was being looked at in a manner quite as critical as his own. This surprised him, but it amused him too, and he smiled. “How do you do? I shall not say that I remember you very well, Cousin, for I am sure that neither of us has the least recollection of the other!”

She laughed. “Very true! Not even Aunt Elizabeth could remember me! Cousin — Hubert, is it? — tell me, if you please, about Salamanca, and John Potton! Did you see both safely bestowed?”

She moved a little aside, to talk to Hubert. Lady Ombersley, who had been anxiously watching her son, was relieved to see that he was looking perfectly amiable, even rather appreciative. A half smile lingered on his lips, and he continued to observe Sophy until his attention was recalled by his betrothed.

The Honorable Eugenia Wraxton was a slender young woman, rather above the average height, who was accustomed to hearing herself described as a tall, elegant girl. Her features were aristocratic, and she was generally held to be a good-looking girl, if a trifle colorless. She was dressed with propriety but great modesty in a gown of dove-colored crape, whose sober hue seemed to indicate her mourning condition. Her hair, which she wore in neat bands, was of a soft tint between brown and gold; she had long, narrow hands and feet; and rather a thin chest, which, however, was rarely seen, her mama having the greatest objection to such low-cut bodices as (for instance) Miss Stanton-Lacy was wearing. She was the daughter of an Earl, and, although she was always careful not to appear proud, perfectly aware of her worth. Her manners were gracious, and she took pains to put people at their ease. She had had every intention of being particularly gracious to Sophy, but when she rose to shake hands with her she had found herself looking up into Sophy’s face, which made it very difficult to be gracious. She felt just a little ruffled for a moment, but overcame this, and said to Charles in a low voice, and with her calm smile: “How very tall Miss Stanton-Lacy is! I am quite dwarfed.”

“Yes, too tall,” he replied.

She could not help being glad that he apparently did not admire his cousin, for although she perceived, on closer scrutiny, that Sophy was not as handsome as herself, her first impression had been of a very striking young woman. She now saw that she had been misled by the size and brilliance of Sophy’s eyes; her other features were less remarkable. She said, “Perhaps, a trifle, but she is very graceful.”

Sophy at this moment went to sit down beside her aunt, and Charles caught sight of the fairylike little greyhound, which had been clinging close to her skirts, not liking so many strangers. His brows rose; he said, “We seem to have two guests. What is her name, cousin?”

He was holding down his hand to the greyhound, but Sophy said, “Tina. I am afraid she will not go to you, she is very shy.”

“Oh, yes, she will!” he replied, snapping his fingers.

Sophy found his air of cool certainty rather annoying, but when she saw that he was quite right, and watched her pet making coquettish overtures of friendship, she forgave him, and was inclined to think he could not be as black as he had been painted.

“What a pretty little creature!” remarked Miss Wraxton amiably. “I am not, in general, fond of pets in the house. My mama, dear Lady Ombersley, will never have even a cat, you know, but I am sure this must be quite an exception.”

“Mama has a great liking for pet dogs,” said Cecilia. “We are not usually without one, are we, ma’am?”

“Fat and overfed pugs,” said Charles, with a grimace at his mother. “I prefer this elegant lady, I confess.”

“Oh, that is not the most famous of Cousin Sophy’s pets!” declared Hubert. “You wait, Charles, until you see what else she has brought from Portugal!”

Lady Ombersley stirred uneasily, for she had not yet broken the news to her eldest son that a monkey in a red coat was now king of the schoolroom. But Charles only said, “I understand, Cousin, that you have brought your horse with you too. Hubert can talk of nothing else. Spanish?”

“Yes, and Mameluke-trained. He is very beautiful.”

“I’ll go bail you’re a famous horsewoman, cousin!” Hubert said.

“I don’t know that. I have had to ride a great deal.” The door opened just then, but not, as Lady Ombersley had expected, to admit her butler, with an announcement that dinner awaited her pleasure. Her husband walked in, announcing that he must just catch a glimpse of his little niece before going off to White’s. Lady Ombersley felt that it was bad enough of him to have refused to dine at home in Miss Wraxton’s honor without this added piece of casual behavior, but she did not let her irritation appear; merely saying, “She is not so very little, after all, my love, as you may see.”

“Good Gad!” exclaimed his lordship, as Sophy rose to greet him. Then he burst out laughing, embraced Sophy, and said: “Well, well, well! You’re almost as tall as your father, my dear! Devilish like him, too, now I come to look at you!”

“Miss Wraxton, Lord Ombersley,” said his wife reprovingly.

“Eh? Oh, yes, how-de-do?” said his lordship, bestowing a cheerful nod on Miss Wraxton. “I count you as one of the family, and stand on no ceremony with you. Come and sit down beside me, Sophy, and tell me how your father does these days!”

He then drew Sophy to a sofa, and plunged into animated conversation, recalling incidents thirty years old, laughing heartily over them, and presenting all the appearance of one who had completely forgotten an engagement to dine at his club. He was always well disposed toward pretty young women, and when they added liveliness to their charms, and guessed exactly how he liked to conduct a flirtation, he enjoyed himself very much in their company, and was in no hurry to leave them. Dassett, coming in a few minutes later to announce dinner, took in the situation immediately, and after exchanging a glance with his mistress withdrew again to superintend the laying of another place at the table. When he returned to make his announcement, Lord Ombersley exclaimed: “What’s that? Dinnertime already? I declare, I’ll dine at home after all!”

He then took Sophy down on his arm, ignoring Miss Wraxton’s superior claims to this honor, and as they took their places at the dining table commanded her to tell him what maggot had got into her father’s head to make him go off to Peru.

“Not Peru; Brazil, sir,” Sophy replied.

“Much the same, my dear, and just as outlandish! I never knew such a fellow for traveling all over the world! He’ll be going off to China next!”

“No, Lord Amherst went to China,” said Sophy. “In February, I think. Sir Horace was wanted for Brazil because he perfectly understands Portuguese affairs, and it is hoped he may be able to persuade the Regent to go back to Lisbon. Marshal Beresford has become so excessively unpopular, you know. No wonder! He does not know how to be conciliating and has not a grain of tact.”

“Marshal Beresford,” Miss Wraxton informed Charles, in a well-modulated voice, “is a friend of my father’s.”

“Then you must forgive me for saying that he has no tact,” said Sophy at once, and with her swift smile. “It is perfectly true, but I believe no one ever doubted that he is a man of many excellent qualities. It is a pity that he should be making such a cake of himself.”

This made Lord Ombersley and Hubert laugh, but Miss Wraxton stiffened a little, and Charles shot a frowning look across the table at his cousin, as though he were revising his first favorable impression of her. His betrothed, who always conducted herself with rigid propriety, could not, even at an informal family party, bring herself to talk across the table, and demonstrated her superior upbringing by ignoring Sophy’s remark, and beginning to talk to Charles about Dante, with particular reference to Mr. Cary’s translation. He listened to her with courtesy, but when Cecilia, following her cousin’s unconventional example, joined in their conversation, to express her own preference for the style of Lord Byron, he made no effort to snub her, but on the contrary, seemed rather to welcome her entrance into the discussion.

Sophy enthusiastically applauded Cecilia’s taste, announcing that her copy of The Corsair was so well worn as to be in danger of disintegrating. Miss Wraxton said that she was unable to give an opinion on the merits of this poem, as her mama did not care to have any of his lordship’s works in the house. Since Lord Byron’s marital difficulties were among the most scandalous on dit of the town — it being widely rumored that he was, at the earnest solicitations of his friends, on the point of leaving the country — this remark at once made the discussion seem undesirably raffish, and everyone was relieved when Hubert, disclaiming any liking for poetry, went into raptures over the capital novel, Waverley.

Here again Miss Wraxton was unable to edify the company with any measured criticism, but she graciously said that she believed the work in question to be, for a novel, quite unexceptionable. Lord Ombersley then said that they were all very bookish, but Ruff’s Guide to the Turf was good enough reading for him, and drew Sophy out of the conversation by asking her a great many questions about old friends of his own whom, since they now adorned various embassies, she might be counted upon to know.

After dinner, Lord Ombersley put in no appearance in the drawing room, the claims of faro being too insistent to be ignored, and Miss Wraxton very prettily begged that the children might be permitted to come downstairs, adding, with a smile cast upward at Charles, that she had not had the felicity of seeing her little friend Theodore since he had come home for the Easter holidays. However, when her little friend presently appeared he was carrying Jacko upon his shoulder, which made her shrink back in her chair, and utter an exclamation of protest.

The awful moment of disclosure had come, and, thanks (Lady Ombersley bitterly reflected) to Miss Adderbury’s lamentable lack of control over her young charges, at quite the wrong moment. Charles, at first inclined to be amused, was speedily brought to his senses by Miss Wraxton’s evident disapproval. He said that however desirable a denizen of a schoolroom a monkey might be, which was a question to be discussed later, it was not fit creature for his mother’s drawing room, and ordered Theodore, in a tone that invited no argument, to remove Jacko at once. A sullen scowl descended onto Theodore’s brow, and for a horrid instant his mother feared that she trembled on the brink of an ugly scene. But Sophy stepped quickly into the breach, saying, “Yes, take him upstairs, Theodore! I should have warned you that of all things he most dislikes being brought into company! And pray make haste, for I am going to show you a famous game of cards which I learned in Vienna!”

She thrust him out of the room as she spoke, and shut the door on him. Turning, she found Charles eyeing her frostily, and said, “Am I in disgrace with you for having brought the children a pet you don’t approve of? I assure you, he is perfectly gentle; you need not be afraid of him!”

“I am not in the least afraid of him!” snapped Charles. “Extremely obliging of you to have bestowed him upon the children!”

“Charles! Charles!” said Amabel, tugging at his sleeve. “She has brought us a parrot too, and it talks capitally! Only Addy would put her shawl over its cage, because she said horrid, rough sailors must have taught it to speak. Do tell her not to!”

“Oh, good God, I am quite undone!” Sophy exclaimed, in comical dismay. “And the man promised the wretched bird would say nothing to put anyone to the blush! Now, what is to be done?”

But Charles was laughing. He said, “You must say your Collect to it every day, Amabel, to put it in a better frame of mind. Cousin, my uncle Horace informed us that you were a good little thing, who would give us no trouble. You have been with us for rather less than half a day. I shudder to think what havoc you will have wrought by the end of a week!”

Chapter 4

IT COULD not have been said that Lady Ombersley’s family dinner party had been entirely successful, but it gave rise to a good deal of speculation in the minds of most of those who had been present at it. Miss Wraxton, who had seized the opportunity afforded by the rest of the company’s sitting down to a round game to draw near to her prospective mother-in-law and to engage her in low-voiced conversation, returned to her own home quite convinced that however little harm there might be in Sophy, she had been very badly brought up and stood in need of tactful guidance. She had told Lady Ombersley that she was sorry indeed that the bereavement in her family had postponed her wedding day, for she felt, in all sincerity, that she could have been both a support and a comfort to her mother-in-law under her present affliction. When Lady Ombersley said, rather defiantly, that she did not feel the visit of her niece to be an affliction, Miss Wraxton smiled at her in a way that showed how well she understood the brave front she was determined to present to the world, pressed her hand, and said that she looked forward to the time when she would be able to relieve dear Lady Ombersley of so many of the duties which now fell to her lot. Since this could only refer to the young couple’s scheme of occupying one floor of the family mansion, a profound depression descended upon Lady Ombersley. The arrangement would not be an unusual one, but Lady Ombersley was able to think of many examples where it had been proved a failure, notably in the Melbourne household. Miss Wraxton would certainly not render the Ombersley house hideous by hysterical spasms, or really dreadful scandals, but Lady Ombersley derived small comfort from this knowledge. Almost as insupportable as Lady Caroline Lamb’s frenzied behavior would be Miss Wraxton’s determination to exert a beneficent influence over her young brothers- and sisters-in-law and her conviction that it was her duty to take upon her own shoulders many of the burdens which Lady Ombersley was not at all anxious to relinquish.

Charles, who had enjoyed a few minutes’ grave talk with his betrothed before handing her into her carriage at the end of the evening, went to bed with mixed feelings. He could not but acknowledge the justice of his Eugenia’s criticisms, but since he was himself of a forthright disposition he was inclined to like Sophy’s frank, open manners, and obstinately refused to agree that she put herself forward unbecomingly. He did not think that she had put herself forward at all, which made it difficult to see just how it was that she contrived to introduce quite a new atmosphere into the house. She had certainly done this. He was not sure that he approved of it.

As for Sophy herself, she retired to her bedchamber with even more to think about than her hosts. It seemed to her that she had taken up her residence in an unhappy household. Cecilia held Charles accountable for this, which no doubt he was. But Sophy was no schoolroom miss, and it had not taken her more than ten minutes to get Lord Ombersley’s measure. Unquestionably Charles had had much to bear from that quarter; and since the rest of his family plainly held him in awe, it was not marvelous that a naturally stern and autocratic temper, thus unchecked, should have turned him into a domestic tyrant. Sophy could not believe that he was past reclaim, for not only had Tina made friends with him, but when he laughed his whole personality underwent a change. The worst she yet knew of him was that he had selected for his bride a very tiresome girl. She felt it a pity that so promising a young man should be cast away on one who would make it her business to encourage all the more disagreeable features of his character.

There was no need to worry about the children, she decided, but her quick intelligence had informed her, during the course of the evening, that all was not well with Mr. Hubert Rivenhall. She had a strong suspicion that some undisclosed trouble nagged at him. He might forget this in admiration of Salamanca or in playing an absurd game with his juniors, but when nothing else occupied his mind the trouble crept back into it, and he grew silent until somebody looked at him, when he instantly began to talk again, in a rattling, overcheerful style which seemed to satisfy his relations. Sophy, guided by her experience of young officers, thought that he was probably in some foolish scrape which would turn out to be far less serious than he imagined. He ought, of course, to tell his elder brother about it, for no one could doubt, looking at Mr. Rivenhall’s countenance, that he was competent to deal with any scrape; but since Hubert was obviously afraid to do so, it might be a good thing to persuade him to confide in his cousin.

Then there was Cecilia, so lovely, and so helpless! Her affairs might be much more difficult to arrange satisfactorily, for although Sophy, reared in quite a different school, thought it iniquitous to force any girl into a distasteful marriage, she was by no means determined to further the pretensions of Augustus Fawnhope. Sophy, strongly practical, could not feel that Mr. Fawnhope would make a satisfactory husband, for he lacked visible means of support, and was apt, when under the influence of his Muse, to forget such mundane considerations as dinner engagements, or the delivery of important messages. However, he would certainly be preferable to a middle-aged man with mumps, and if Cecilia’s passion for him proved to be more than a mere infatuation, her friends must busy themselves in finding for him some well-paid and genteel post in which his handsome person and charm of manner would outweigh his erratic habits. Sophy was still trying to think of such a post when she fell asleep.

Breakfast was served, at Ombersley House, in a parlor at the back of the house. Only the three ladies sat down to the table at nine o’clock; for Lord Ombersley, a man of nocturnal habits, never left his room until noon, and his two elder sons had breakfasted an hour earlier and gone off to ride in the Park.

Lady Ombersley, whose indifferent health made restful nights rarities in her life, had employed some part of her wakeful hours in planning entertainments for her niece, and as she dipped fingers of dry toast into her tea she propounded a scheme for an evening party, with dancing. Cecilia’s eyes brightened, but she said rather skeptically, “If Charles will permit it.”

“My dear, you know your brother has no objection to any rational enjoyment. I do not mean that we should give a really large ball, of course.”

Sophy, who had been watching in some awe her aunt’s languid consumption of tea and toast, said, “Dear ma’am, I would infinitely prefer that you should not put yourself out for me.”

“I am quite determined to give a party for you,” replied Lady Ombersley firmly. “I promised your father that I would do so. Besides, I am very fond of entertaining. I assure you, we are not in general so quiet as you find us at present. When I brought dear Maria out, we gave a ball, two rout-parties, a Venetian breakfast, and a masquerade! But then,” she added, with a sigh, “poor Cousin Mathilda was still alive, and she sent out all the invitation cards, and arranged everything with Gunter’s. I miss her sadly. She was carried off by an inflammation of the lung, you know.”

“No, but if that is all that troubles you, ma’am, pray do not give it another thought!” said Sophy. “Cecy and I will arrange everything, and you shall have nothing to do but choose what dress you will wear, and receive your guests.”

Lady Ombersley blinked at her. “But, my love, you could not!”

“Indeed I could!” asserted Sophy, smiling warmly at her. “Why, I have managed all Sir Horace’s parties since I was seventeen years old! And that puts me in mind of something I must do at once! Where shall I find Hoare’s Bank, Aunt Lizzie!”

“Find Hoare’s Bank?” echoed Lady Ombersley blankly.

“What in the world can you want to know that for?” asked Cecilia.

Sophy looked a little surprised. “Why, to present Sir Horace’s letter of authorization, to be sure!” she answered. “I must do so at once, or I may find myself quite at a loss.” She perceived that her aunt and cousin were looking, if anything, rather more bewildered than ever, and lifted her brows. “But what have I said?” she asked, between amusement and dismay. “Hoare’s, you know! Sir Horace banks with them!”

“Yes, my dear, I daresay he may, but you do not have an account with a bank!” expostulated Lady Ombersley.

“No, alas! It is such a bore! However, we settled it that I should draw upon Sir Horace’s funds for my needs. And for the expenses of the household, of course, but at this present we have no house,” said Sophy, lavishly spreading butter on her fourth slice of bread.

“My love! Young ladies never — why, I myself have never entered your uncle’s bank in my life!” said Lady Ombersley, deeply moved.

“No?” said Sophy. “Perhaps he prefers to settle all the bills himself? Nothing teases Sir Horace more than to be forever applied to for money! He taught me years ago to understand business, and so we go on very happily.” Her brow wrinkled. “I hope that Sancia will learn to manage for him. Poor angel! He will very much dislike it if he must study the bills, and pay all the wages.”

“I never heard of such a thing!” said Lady Ombersley. “Really, Horace — but never mind that! Dear child, you cannot possibly need to draw funds while you are with me!”

Sophy could not help laughing at her aunt’s evident conviction that Hoare’s Bank must be a haunt of vice, but she said, “Indeed I shall need funds! You have no notion how expensive I am, ma’am! And Sir Horace warned me most particularly not to allow myself to be a charge on you.”

Cecilia, her eyes round with wonder, asked, “Does your papa set no limit to what you spend?”

“No, how could he do so, when he has gone quite out of reach, and can have no notion what I might suddenly need? He knows I shall not outrun the carpenter. But I did not mean to tease you with my affairs! Only, in what part of the town is Hoare’s situated, if you please?”

Fortunately, since neither of the other ladies had the smallest idea of the locality of any bank, Mr. Rivenhall came into the room at this moment. He was dressed for riding and had merely looked in to ask his mother if she had any commissions she might desire him to execute in the City, whither he was bound. She had none, but did not hesitate (in spite of his probable disapproval) to divulge to him Sophy’s extraordinary wish to be directed to Hoare’s Bank. He took this with equanimity, and even bore up wonderfully under the disclosure that she was at liberty to draw on her father’s account. He said, “Unusual!” but he seemed to be more amused than disapproving. “Hoare’s Bank is at Temple Bar,” he added. “If your need is urgent, I am driving into the city myself this morning and shall be happy to escort you.”

“Thank you! If my aunt has no objection I shall be glad to go with you. When do you wish to start?”

“I shall await your convenience, Cousin,” he replied politely.

This civility augured well for the expedition and made Lady Ombersley, always inclined to be optimistic, nourish the hope that Charles had taken one of his rare likings to his cousin. He was certainly predisposed in her favor when he found that she did not keep him waiting; and she, for her part, could not think very badly of a man who drove such a splendid pair of horses in his curricle. She took her place beside him in this vehicle; the groom swung himself up behind, as the horses plunged past him; and Sophy, herself no mean whip, preserved a critical but not unappreciative silence while Charles controlled the first ardor of his pair. Reserving her ultimate judgment until she should have seen him with a tandem, or a four-in-hand, she yet felt that she could safely repose confidence in his ability to aid her in the purchase of carriage horses for her own use, and said presently, “I must buy a carriage, and don’t know whether to choose a curricle or a high-perch phaeton. Which do you recommend, Cousin?”

“Neither,” he replied, steadying his horses round a bend in the street.

“Oh?” said Sophy, rather surprised. “What, then?”

He glanced down at her. “You are not serious, are you?”

“Not serious? Of course I am serious!”

“If you wish to drive, I will take you in the Park one day,” he said. “I expect I can find a horse, or even a pair, in the stables quiet enough for a lady to drive.”

“Oh, I fear that would never do!” said Sophy, shaking her head.

“Indeed? Why not?”

“I might excite the horse,” said Sophy dulcetly.

He was momentarily taken aback. Then he laughed, and said, “I beg your pardon. I had no intention of offending you. But you cannot need a carriage in London. You will no doubt drive out with my mother, and if you should wish to go on some particular errand you may always order one of the carriages to be sent round to the house for your use.”

“That,” said Sophy, “is very obliging of you, but will not suit me quite so well. Where does one buy carriages in London?”

“You will scarcely drive yourself about the town in a curricle!” he said. “Nor do I consider a high-perch phaeton at all a suitable vehicle for a lady. They are not easy to drive. I should not care to see any of my sisters making the attempt.”

“You must remember to tell  them so,” said Sophy affably. “Do they mind what you say to them? I never had a brother myself, so I can’t know.”

There was a slight pause, while Mr. Rivenhall, unaccustomed to sudden attacks, recovered his presence of mind. It did not take him very long. “It might have been better for you if you had, Cousin!” he said grimly.

“I don’t think so,” said Sophy, quite unruffled. “The little I have seen of brothers makes me glad that Sir Horace never burdened me with any.”

“Thank you! I know how I may take that, I suppose!”

“Well, I imagine you might, for although you have a great many antiquated notions I don’t think you stupid, precisely.”

“Much obliged! Have you any other criticisms you would care to make?”

“Yes, never fly into a miff when you are driving a high-couraged pair! You took that last corner much too fast.”

As Mr. Rivenhall was accounted something of a nonpareil, this thrust failed to pierce his armor. “What an abominable girl you are!” he said, much more amiably. “Come! We cannot quarrel all the way to Temple Bar! Let us cry a truce!”

“By all means,” she agreed cordially. “Let us rather talk about my carriage. Do I go to Tattersall’s for my horses?”

“Certainly not!”

“Dear Cousin Charles, do you wish me to understand that I have the name wrong, or that there is a superior dealer?”

“Neither. What I wish you to understand is that females do not frequent Tattersall’s!”

“Now, is this one of the things you would not like your sisters to do, or would it really be improper in me to go there?”

“Most improper!”

“If you escorted me?”

“I shall do no such thing.”

“Then how shall I manage?” she demanded. “John Potton is an excellent groom, but I would not trust him to buy my horses for me. Indeed, I would not trust anyone, except, perhaps, Sir Horace, who knows exactly what I like.”

He perceived that she was in earnest, and not, as he had suspected, merely bent on roasting him. “Cousin, if nothing will do for you but to drive yourself, I will put my tilbury at your disposal and choose a suitable horse to go between the shafts.”

“One of your own?” enquired Sophy.

“None of my horses is at all suitable for you to drive,” he replied.

“Well, never mind!” said Sophy. “I shall prefer to have my own phaeton and pair.”

“Have you the smallest notion what you would have to pay for a well-matched pair?” he demanded.

“No, tell me! I thought not above three or four hundred pounds?”

“A mere trifle! Your father, of course, would have not the least objection to your squandering three or four hundred pounds on a pair of horses!”

“Not the least, unless I allowed myself to be taken in like a goose, and bought some showy-looking animal for ever throwing out a splint, or a high-stepper found to be touched in the wind at the end of a mile.”

“I advise you to wait until he returns to England, then. He will no doubt choose you the very thing!” was all Mr. Rivenhall would say.

Rather to his surprise, Sophy appeared to take this in perfectly good part, for she made no comment, and almost immediately desired him to tell her the name of the street they were driving down. She did not refer again to the phaeton and pair, and Mr. Rivenhall, realizing that she was merely a little spoiled and in need of a set down, palliated the severe snub he had dealt her by pointing out one or two places of interest which they passed and asking her a few civil questions about the scenery of Portugal. Arrived at Temple Bar, he drew up before the narrow entrance to Hoare’s Bank and would have accompanied her inside had she not declined his escort, saying that he would do better to walk his horses, for she did not know how long she might be detained, and there was a sharp wind blowing. So he waited for her outside; reflecting that however unusual it might be for a young and unattached lady to do business in a bank she could not really come to any harm there. When she reappeared, in about twenty minutes’ time, some senior official of the bank came with her and solicitously handed her up into the curricle. She seemed to be on terms of considerable friendship with this personage, but disclosed, in answer to a somewhat sardonic inquiry made by her cousin as they drove off, that this had been her first meeting with him.

“You surprise me!” said Mr. Rivenhall. “I had supposed he must have dandled you on his knee when you were a baby!”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “He didn’t mention it, at all events. Where do we go now?”

He told her that he had some business to transact near St. Paul’s adding that he should not keep her waiting above five minutes. If this was a shaft aimed at the length of time she had spent in the bank he missed his aim, for Sophy said in the most amiable way that she did not mind waiting. This was a much more successful shaft. Mr. Rivenhall began to think that in Miss Stanton-Lacy he had met an opponent to be reckoned with.

When he presently drew up in a street beside St. Paul’s, Sophy held out her hand, saying, “I will take them.” He therefore put the reins into her hand, for although he did not trust her to control his spirited horses his groom was already at their heads, so that there was no likelihood of any mishap. Sophy watched him walk into the tall building, and pulled off one of her lavender kid gloves. The east wind was blowing quite strongly, certainly strongly enough to whirl a lady’s glove, tossed to it, into the gutter on the farther side of the road. “Oh, my glove!” exclaimed Sophy. “Please run quickly, or it will blow quite away! Don’t fear for the horses. I can handle them!”

The groom found himself in a quandary. His master would certainly not expect him to leave the grays unattended; on the other hand, someone must rescue Miss Stanton-Lacy’s glove, and the street was momentarily deserted. Judging by what he had been able to hear of the lady’s conversation, she at least knew enough about driving to be able to hold the grays for a minute. They were standing quite quietly. The groom touched his hat and strode across the road.

“Tell your master that it is too chilly to keep the horses standing!” Sophy called after him. “I will tool the curricle round the streets for a few minutes, and come back to take him up when he is ready!”

The groom, who was stooping tot pick up the glove, nearly fell over, so swiftly did he spin round. He had an excellent view of Miss Stanton-Lacy driving at a smart pace up the street. He made a gallant but belated attempt to catch the curricle, but it swept round a corner just as the wind blew his hat off, and sent it bowling down the street.

It was nearly half an hour later when the curricle again came into sight. Mr. Rivenhall, awaiting it with folded arms, had ample opportunity to observe with what precision his cousin rounded the comer and how well she handled the reins and whip, but he did not appear to be much gratified, for he watched the approach of the vehicle with a scowl on his brow and his lips tightly gripped together. Of his groom there was no sign.

Miss Stanton-Lacy, pulling up exactly abreast of Mr. Rivenhall, said cheerfully, “I beg your pardon, I have kept you waiting! The thing is that I do not know my way about London, and became quite lost, and was obliged to inquire the direction no less than three times. But where is your groom?”

“I have sent him home!” replied Mr. Rivenhall.

She looked down at him, her expressive eyes brimful of amusement. “How very right of you!” she approved. “I like a man to think of everything. You could never have quarreled with me really well with that man standing up behind us and overhearing every word you uttered.”

“How dared you drive my horses?” demanded Mr. Rivenhall thunderously. He mounted into his seat, and snapped, “Give me the reins at once!”

She relinquished them and also the whip, but said disarmingly, “To be sure, that was not very well done of me, but you will own that there was no bearing your conduct in talking to me as though I were a silly chit scarcely able to drive a donkey.”

Mr. Rivenhall’s impatient mouth was once more set so rigidly that there seemed to be no likelihood of his owning anything at all.

“At least admit that I am able to handle your pair!” said Sophy.

“Well for you that I had taken the edge off them!” he retorted.

“How ungenerous of you!” said Sophy.

It was indeed ungenerous, and he knew it. He said furiously, “Driving about the City, with not even a groom beside you! Very pretty behavior, upon my word! It is a pity you have not a little more conduct, Cousin! Or are these Portuguese manners?”

“Oh, no!” she replied. “In Lisbon, where I am known, I could not indulge in such pranks, of course. Dreadful, was it not? I assure you, all the Cits were staring at me! But do not put yourself into a pucker on that head! No one knows me in London!”

“No doubt,” he said sardonically, “Sir Horace would have applauded such behavior!”

“No,” said Sophy. “I think that Sir Horace would have rather expected you to have offered to let me drive your horses. Just so that you could have judged for yourself whether I was capable of handling a spirited pair,” she explained kindly.

“I let no one — no one — drive my horses but myself!”

“In general,” said Sophy, “I think you are very right. It is amazing how swiftly a clumsy pair of hands will spoil the most tender mouth!”

Mr. Rivenhall almost audibly ground his teeth.

Sophy laughed suddenly. “Oh, don’t be so out-of-reason cross, Cousin!” she begged. “You know very well your horses have taken no sort of hurt! Will you put me in the way of choosing a pair for my own use?”

“I will have nothing whatsoever to do with such a mad project!” he said harshly.

Sophy took this with equanimity. “Very well,” she said. “Perhaps it would suit you better to find an eligible husband for me. I am very willing, and I understand that you have some talent in that.”

“Have you no delicacy of mind?” demanded Mr. Rivenhall.

“Yes, indeed! I daresay it would astonish you to know how much!”

“It would!”

“But with you, my dear Cousin,” pursued Sophy, “I know I need have no reserve. Do, pray, find me an eligible husband! I am not at all nice in my notions, and shall be satisfied with the barest modicum of virtues in my partner.”

“Nothing,” stated Mr. Rivenhall, showing his cousin, as he swirled round the corner into the Haymarket, how to drive to an inch, “would afford me greater satisfaction than to see you married to some man who would know how to control your extraordinary quirks!”

“Very creditably performed!” approved Sophy. “But how would it have been if some dog had strayed into the road, or a poor soul have crossed the street at that moment?”

Mr. Rivenhall’s sense of humor betrayed him. He was obliged to bite back a laugh before replying, “I find it a marvelous circumstance, Cousin, that no one has yet strangled you!”

He found that he had lost his cousin’s attention. Her head was turned away from him, and before he could discover what object of interest had caught her eye she had said quickly, “Oh, if you please, would you stop? I have seen an old acquaintance!”

He complied with this request, and then saw, too late, who was walking down the street toward them. There could be no mistaking that graceful figure, or those guinea-gold locks, revealed by the doffing of a curly-brimmed beaver. Mr. Augustus Fawnhope, perceiving that the lady in the curricle was waving a hand in his direction, halted, took off his hat, and stood with it in his hand, gazing inquiringly up at Sophy.

He was indeed a beautiful young man. His hair waved naturally from a brow of alabaster; his eyes were of a deep blue, a little dreamy, but so exquisitely set under arched brows, of such size and brilliance as to defy criticism; his mouth was moulded in curves to set a sculptor groping for the tools of his art. He was of moderate height, and exact proportions, and had no need to live upon a diet of potatoes steeped in vinegar to preserve his slender figure. Not that it would ever have entered his head to have done so. It was not the least of Mr. Fawnhope’s charms that he was utterly unconcerned with his appearance. It might have been supposed that he could not be unaware of the admiration this excited, but as he was preoccupied with his ambition to become a major poet, paying very little attention to what was said to him and none at all to what was said about him, even his ill wishers (such as Mr. Rivenhall and Sir Charles Stuart) were forced to admit that it was very likely that this admiration had not as yet pierced the cloud of abstraction in which he wrapped himself.

But there was more than abstraction in the gaze turned upward to Miss Stanton-Lacy’s face, and this circumstance was not lost on Mr. Rivenhall, interpreting correctly the blankness and the doubtful smile hovering on Mr. Fawnhope’s lips. Mr. Fawnhope had not the faintest idea of the identity of the lady stretching down her hand to him in so friendly a fashion. However he took it in his, and said, “How-do-you-do,” in his soft, vague voice.

“Brussels,” said Sophy helpfully. “We danced the quadrille at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, do you remember? Oh, are you acquainted with my cousin, Mr. Rivenhall? You must know that I am staying with my aunt, in Berkeley Square, for the season. You must come to call upon us. I know she will be delighted!”

“Of course I remember!” said Mr. Fawnhope, with less truth than good manners. “Enchanting to meet again, ma’am, and so unexpectedly! I shall certainly do myself the pleasure of calling in Berkeley Square.”

He bowed and stepped back. The grays, to whom Mr. Rivenhall’s impatience had communicated itself, bounded forward. Mr. Rivenhall said, “How charming for you to have met an old friend so soon after your arrival!”

“Yes, was it not?” agreed Sophy.

“I hope he will have contrived to recall you name before he avails himself of your invitation to visit you.”

Her lips twitched, but she replied with perfect composure, “Depend upon it, if he does not he will find someone to tell him what it is.”

“You are shameless!” he said angrily.

“Nonsense! You only say so because I drove your horses,” she answered. “Never mind! I will engage not to do so again.”

“I’ll take care of that!” he retorted. “Let me tell you, my dear Cousin, that I should be better pleased if you would refrain from meddling in the affairs of my family!”

“Now, that,” said Sophy, “I am very glad to know, because if ever I should desire to please you I shall know just how to set about it. I daresay I shan’t, but one likes to be prepared for any event, however unlikely.”

He turned his head to look at her, his eyes narrowed, and their expression was by no means pleasant. “Are you thinking of being so unwise as to cross swords with me?” he demanded. “I shan’t pretend to misunderstand you, Cousin, and I will leave you in no doubt of my own meaning! If you imagine that I will ever permit that puppy to marry my sister, you have yet something to learn of me!”

“Pooh!” said Sophy. “Mind your horses, Charles, and don’t talk fustian to me.”

Chapter 5

“Pretty well, for one morning’s work!” said Sophy. Mr. Rivenhall was less satisfied. His mother was dismayed to discover that so far from having taken a liking to his cousin he was appalled to think that they might be obliged to house her for months. “I tell you frankly, ma’am, it will not do!” he said. “God knows how long my uncle may be away! I only wish you may not live to regret the day when you consented to take charge of his daughter! The sooner you can fulfill the rest of his expectations, and marry her off to some poor wretch the better it will be for the rest of us!”

“Good gracious, Charles!” said Lady Ombersley. “What in the world has she done to put you out?”

He declined to answer this, merely saying that Sophy was pert, headstrong, and so badly brought up that he doubted whether any man would be fool enough to offer for her. His mother refrained from inquiring further into Sophy’s iniquities, but instead seized the moment to suggest that as a prelude to finding a husband for her she should be allowed to give an evening party, with dancing. “I do not mean a large affair,” she hastened to add. “Perhaps ten couples, or so — in the drawing-room!”

“By all means!” he said. “That will make it quite unnecessary for you to invite young Fawnhope!”

“Oh, quite!” she agreed.

“I should warn you, Mama,” he said, “that we encountered him this morning! My cousin greeted him an as old and valued acquaintance and begged him to call on her here!”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Lady Ombersley. “How very unfortunate, to be sure! But I daresay she does know him, Charles, for she was with your uncle in Brussels last year.”

“She!” said Charles witheringly. “He had no more notion who she was than the Emperor of China! But he will certainly call! I must leave you to deal with that, ma’am!”

With these very unfair words he strode out of his mother’s room, leaving her to wonder in what way he supposed her to be able to deal with a morning call paid by a young man of unexceptionable birth, who was the son of one of her oldest friends. She came to the conclusion that he had no more idea than she, and banished the matter from her mind, bending it instead to the far more pleasant problem of whom to invite to the first party she had held in two months.

She was presently interrupted by the entrance of her niece. Remembering Charles’s dark words, she asked Sophy, with an assumption of severity, what she had done to vex him. Sophy laughed, and almost stunned her by replying that she had done nothing but steal his curricle and tool it round the city for half an hour.

“Sophy!” gasped her ladyship. “Charles’s grays? You could never hold them!”

“To own the truth,” admitted Sophy, “I had the devil’s own work to do so! Oh, I beg your pardon! I did not mean to say that, dearest Aunt Lizzie! Don’t scold! It comes of living with Sir Horace. I know I say the most shocking things, but I do try to mind my wretched tongue! No, and do not give Charles’s pets another thought! He will come about presently. I daresay if he had not engaged himself to marry that tedious girl he would not be so stuffy!”

“Oh, Sophy!” said Lady Ombersley involuntarily. “I own I cannot like Miss Wraxton, try as I will!”

“Like her! I should think not indeed!” exclaimed Sophy.

“Yes, but one should,” said Lady Ombersley unhappily. “She is so very good, and I am sure she wishes to be a most dutiful daughter to me, and it is so ill natured of me not to wish for a dutiful daughter! But when I think that in quite a short time now I shall have her living in the house — but I should not be talking in this style! It is most improper, and you must forget it, if you please, Sophy!”

Sophy paid no heed to this, but echoed, “Living in the house? You are not serious, ma’am?”

Lady Ombersley nodded. “There is nothing at all out of the way in such an arrangement, you know, my love. They will have their own apartments, of course, but — ” She broke off and sighed.

Sophy looked at her fixedly for a few moments, but, rather to her surprise, said nothing. Lady Ombersley tried to put these melancholy reflections out of her mind and began to talk about the party she meant to give. In these plans her niece entered with enthusiasm, and an efficiency that swept Lady Ombersley quite off her feet. By what stages she arrived at agreement with Sophy on all points she was never afterward able to explain, either to Charles or to herself, but at the end of an interview which left her feeling bemused but convinced that no one could boast of having a sweeter-natured or more thoughtful niece than Sophy, she had certainly consented not only to allow Sophy and Cecilia to undertake all the necessary arrangements, but also to permit Sir Horace (through his daughter) to defray the cost of the entertainment.

“And now,” Sophy said buoyantly to Cecilia, “you shall tell me where we must order the cards of invitation and where you in general go for refreshments. I don’t think we should leave that to my aunt’s cook, for he would be busy for so many days he would have very little time for anything else, and that would make everyone uncomfortable, which I don’t at all wish.”

Cecilia regarded her in round-eyed astonishment. “But Sophy, Mama said it should only be quite a small party!”

“No, Cecy, it was your brother who said that,” replied Sophy. “It is going to be a very large party.”

Selina, who was present at this conference, asked shrewdly: “Does Mama know that?”

Sophy laughed. “Not yet!” she admitted. “Do you think she does not care for large parties?”

“Oh, no! Why, there were more than four hundred people invited to the ball she gave for Maria, were there not, Cecilia? Mama enjoyed it excessively, because it was such a capital success, and everyone complimented her on it. Cousin Mathilda told me so.”

“Yes, but the cost of it!” Cecilia said. “She will not dare! Charles would be so angry!”

“Don’t give him a thought!” recommended Sophy. “It is Sir Horace who will bear the cost, not Charles. Make a list of all your acquaintances, Cecy, and I will make one of those of my friends who are in England, and then we will go out to order the cards. I imagine we shall not need more than five hundred.”

“Sophy,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “are we going to send out five hundred invitations without even asking Mama?”

Imps of mischief danced in her cousin’s eyes. “Of course we are, dear goose! For once we have despatched them, even your horrid brother cannot recall them!”

“Oh, famous, famous!” cried Selina, beginning to skip round the room. “ What a rage he will be in!”

“ Dare I?” breathed Cecilia, at once scared and dazzled.

Her sister begger her not to be poor spirited, but it was Sophy who clinched the matter, by pointing out to her that she would not have to bear the responsibility and was unlikely to incur much recrimination from her brother, who would have no hesitation in laying the blame at the right door.

Mr. Rivenhall, meanwhile, had gone off to visit his betrothed. He arrived at the Brinklow’s somewhat cheerless house in Brook Street still seething with indignation, but so thankless and perverse was his disposition that no sooner did he find his sentiments shared and his strictures on his cousin endorsed than he took an abrupt turn in quite another direction and said much must be forgiven a girl who could handle his grays as Sophy had. From being a female sunk below reproach Sophy became rapidly an unconventional girl whose unaffected manners were refreshing in an age of simpers and high flights.

This was not just to Miss Wraxton’s taste. To be driving about the city unattended did not suit her sense of propriety, and she said so. Mr. Rivenhall grinned. “No, very true, but I suppose it was in some sort my fault. I did put up her back. There’s no harm done; if she could control my grays, as fresh as they were, she’s a capital whip. All the same, if I have anything to say to it, she is not going to set up her own carriage while she remains in my mother’s charge. Good God, we should never know from one moment to the next where she was, for if I know anything of my abominable cousin Sophy, to drive decorously round the Park would not do for her at all!”

“You take it with a composure that does you the greatest credit, my dear Charles.”

“I didn’t!” he interrupted, with a rueful laugh. “She put me in a thundering rage!”

“I am sure it is not wonderful that she should have. To drive a gentleman’s horses without his leave shows a want of conduct that is above the line of being pleasing. Why, even I have never even requested you to let me take the reins!”

He looked amused. “My dear Eugenia, I hope you never will, for I shall certainly refuse such a request! You could never hold my horses.”

If Miss Wraxton had not been so very well bred she would at this tactless remark have returned a pretty hot rejoinder, for she prided herself a little on her handling of the ribbons; and, although she did not drive herself in London, owned an elegant phaeton which she used when staying at her home in Hampshire. As it was, she was obliged to pause for a moment before saying anything. During this brief period she swiftly formed the resolve of demonstrating to Charles, and his objectionable cousin, that a lady reared on the strictest principles of propriety could be quite as notable a horsewoman as any hoyden who had spent her girlhood junketing about the Continent. She had several times been complimented on her seat on a horse and knew her style to be excellent. She said, “If Miss Stanton-Lacy cares for such things, perhaps she would like to ride with me one afternoon in the Park. That will give her thoughts another direction, diverting them from such foolish notions as setting up her own carriage. Let us make up a party, Charles! Dear Cecilia is not fond of the exercise, I know, or I should solicit her to join us. But Alfred will be pleased to go with me, and you may bring your cousin. Tomorrow? Pray beg her to go with us!”

Mr. Rivenhall, an intolerant man, had no affection for his Eugenia’s young brother, and generally made it his business to avoid him, but he was struck by Miss Wraxton’s nobility in promoting an engagement which (he guessed) would afford her little pleasure and at once agreed to it, expressing at the same time his sense of obligation to her. She smiled at him and said that it must be an object with her to exert herself in his interests. He was a not much given to the making of graceful gestures, but at times kissed her hand and said that he knew well how utterly he could rely upon her in every predicament. Miss Wraxton then repeated the remark she had previously made to Lady Ombersley, that she was particularly sorry that, at this crisis in the Ombersley fortunes, circumstance had intervened to postpone her union with him. She rather thought that the indifferent state of dear Lady Ombersley’s health made it impossible for her to manage her household just as Charles could wish. Her kind heart made her perhaps overtolerant, and the languor induced by an ailing constitution rendered her blind to certain defects that could speedily be remedied by a helpful daughter-in-law. Miss Wraxton owned that she had been surprised to learn that Lady Ombersley had allowed herself to be persuaded by her brother — a very odd kind of a man, her papa had told her — to assume the charge of his daughter for an unspecified length of time. She passed from this, in the smoothest fashion, to a gently worded criticism of Miss Adderbury, no doubt an excellent woman, but sadly lacking in accomplishments or in control over her spirited charges. But this was a mistake. Mr. Rivenhall would permit no criticism of Addy, who had guided his own first steps; and as for his uncle, Lord Brinklow’s slighting comment made him instantly bristle in defense of his relative. Sir Horace, he informed Miss Wraxton, was a highly distinguished man, with a genius for diplomacy.

“But not, you will own, a genius for rearing a daughter!” said Miss Wraxton archly.

He laughed at that, but said, “Oh, well! I don’t know that there is any real harm in Sophy, after all!”

When Miss Wraxton’s invitation was conveyed to Sophy she professed herself happy to accept it and at once desired Miss Jane Storridge to press out her riding dress. This garment, when she appeared in it on the following afternoon, filled Cecilia with envy but slightly staggered her brother, who could not feel that a habit made of pale blue cloth, with epaulettes and frogs, a la Hussar, and sleeves braided halfway up the arm, would win approval from Miss Wraxton. Blue kid gloves and half-boots, a high-standing collar trimmed with lace, a muslin cravat, narrow lace ruffles at the wrists, and a tall-crowned hat, like a shako, with a peak over the eyes, and a plume of curled ostrich feathers completed this dashing toilette. The tightly fitting habit set off Sophy’s magnificent figure to admiration; and from under the brim of her hat her brown locks curled quite charmingly; but Mr. Rivenhall, appealed to by his sister to subscribe to her conviction that Sophy looked beautiful, merely bowed, and said that he was no judge of such matters.

However that might be, he was no mean judge of a horse, and when he set eyes on Salamanca, being walked up and down the road by John Potton, he did not withhold his praise, but said that he no longer wondered at Hubert’s ecstasies. John Potton threw his mistress up into the saddle, and after allowing Salamanca to indulge his playfulness for a few moments, Sophy brought him mincing up alongside Mr. Rivenhall’s bay hack, and they set off at a sedate pace in the direction of Hyde Park. Salamanca was inclined to resent the existence of sedan chairs, dogs, crossing sweepers, and took instant exception to a postman’s horn, but Mr. Rivenhall, accustomed to be on the alert to prevent misadventure when riding with Cecilia through London streets, knew better than to offer advice or assistance to his cousin. She was very well able to control her mount for herself, which, reflected Mr. Rivenhall, was just as well, since Salamanca could scarcely have been described as an ideal horse for a lady.

This comment was made by Miss Wraxton, whom they found awaiting them, with her brother, within the gates of the Park. Miss Wraxton, after one glance at Sophy’s habit, transferred her gaze to Salamanca, and said, “Oh, what a beautiful creature! But surely he is a little too strong for you, Miss Stanton-Lacy? You should commission Charles to find a well-mannered lady’s horse for you to ride.”

“I daresay he would be only too delighted, but I have discovered that his notions and mine on that subject are widely separated,” replied Sophy. “Moreover, though he is a trifle spirited, there is not an ounce of vice in Salamanca, and he has what the Duke calls excellent bottom — has carried me for league upon dreary league without sign of flagging!” she leaned forward to pat Salamanca’s gleaming black neck. “To be sure, he has not yet lashed out at the end of a long day, which the Duke vows and declares Copenhagen did, when he dismounted from his back after Waterloo, but I hold that to be a virtue in him!”

“Indeed, yes!” said Miss Wraxton, ignoring the unbecoming pretension shown by this careless reference to England’s hero. “You will let me introduce my brother to you; Miss Stanton-Lacy, Alfred!”

Mr. Wraxton, a pallid young gentleman with a receding chin, a loose, wet mouth, and a knowing look in his eyes, bowed, and said he was happy to make Miss Stanton-Lacy’s acquaintance. He then asked her if she had been in Brussels at the time of the great battle and added that he had had some idea of joining as a Volunteer at the height of the scare. “But from one cause and another nothing came of it,” he said. “Do you know the Duke well? Quite the great man, ain’t he? But perfectly affable, they tell me. I daresay you are on famous terms with him, for you knew him in Spain, didn’t you?”

“My dear Alfred,” interposed his sister, “Miss Stanton-Lacy will think you have less than common sense if you talk such nonsense. She will tell you that the Duke has more important things to think of than all of us poor females who hold him in such admiration.”

Sophy looked rather amused. “Well, no, I don’t think I should say that,” she replied. “But I was never one of his flirts, if that is what you mean, Mr. Wraxton. I am not at all in his style, I assure you.”

“Shall we ride on?” suggested Miss Wraxton. “You must tell me about your horse. Is he Spanish? Very handsome, but a little too nervous for my taste. But I am spoilt. My own dear Dorcas here is so very well mannered.”

“Salamanca is not really nervous; he is merely funning,” said Sophy. “As for manners, I hold him to be unequaled. Would you like to see me put him through his paces? Watch! He was Mameluke trained, you know!”

“For heaven’s sake, Sophy, not in the Park!” said Charles sharply.

She threw him one of her saucy smiles, and set Salamanca caracoling.

“Oh, pray be careful!” exclaimed Miss Wraxton. “It is very dangerous! Charles, stop her! We shall have everyone staring at us!”

“You won’t mind if I shake the fidgets out of his legs!” Sophy called. “He is itching for a gallop!”

With that, she wheeled Salamanca about, and let him have his head down the stretch of tan that lay beside the carriage road.

“Yoicks!” uttered Mr. Wraxton, and set off in pursuit.

“My dear Charles, what is to be done with her?” said Miss Wraxton. “Galloping in the Park, and in that habit, which I should blush to wear! I was never more shocked!”

“Yes,” he agreed, his eyes on the diminishing figure in the distance. “But, by God, she can ride!”

“Of course, if you mean to encourage her in such pranks there is no more to be said.”

“I don’t,” he replied briefly.

She was displeased and said coldly, “I must confess that I do not admire her style. I am reminded of nothing so much as the equestriennes at Astley’s Amphitheatre. Shall we canter?”

In this sedate way they rode side by side down the tan until they saw Sophy galloping back to them, Mr. Wraxton still in pursuit. Sophy reined in, wheeled, and fell in beside her cousin. “How much I enjoyed that!” she said, her cheeks in a glow. “I have not been on Salamanca’s back for over a week. But tell me! Have I done wrong? So many prim persons stared as though they could not believe their eyes!”

“You should not ride in that neck-or-nothing fashion in the Park,” Charles replied. “I should have warned you.”

“You should indeed! I was afraid it might be that. Never mind! I will be good now, and if anyone speaks of it to you you will say that it is only your poor little cousin from Portugal, who has been so badly brought up that there is no doing anything about it.” She leaned forward to speak across him to Miss Wraxton. “I appeal to you, Miss Wraxton! You are a horsewoman! Is it not insupportable to be held down to a canter when you long to gallop for miles?”

“Most irksome,” agreed Miss Wraxton. At this moment Alfred Wraxton rejoined them, calling out, “By Jove, Miss Stanton-Lacy, you will take the shine out of them all! You are nothing to her, Eugenia!”

“We cannot go four abreast,” said Miss Wraxton ignoring this remark. “Charles, fall behind with Alfred! I cannot converse with Miss Stanton-Lacy across you.”

He complied with this request, and Miss Wraxton bringing her mare alongside Salamanca, said with all the tact upon which she plumed herself. “I am persuaded that you must find our London ways strange at first.”

“Why, I imagine they cannot differ greatly from those of Paris, or Vienna, or even Lisbon!” said Sophy.

“I have never visited those cities, but I believe — indeed, I am sure — that the tone of London is vastly superior,” said Miss Wraxton.

Her air of calm certainty struck Sophy as being so funny that she went into a peal of laughter. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” she gasped. “But it is so ridiculous, you know!”

“I expect it must seem so to you,” agreed Miss Wraxton, her calm quite unimpaired. “I understand that a great deal of license is permitted on the Continent to females. Here it is not so. Quite the reverse! To be thought bad ton, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, would be very dreadful. I know that you will not take it amiss if I give you a hint. You will of course wish to attend the Assemblies at Almack’s, for instance. I assure you, the veriest breath of criticism to reach the ears of the Patronesses, and you may say farewell to any hope of obtaining a voucher from them. Tickets may not be purchased without a voucher, you know. It is most exclusive! The rules, too, are very strict, and must not be contravened by a hairsbreadth.”

“You terrify me,” said Sophy. “Do you think I shall be blackballed?”

Miss Wraxton smiled. “Hardly, since you will make your debut under dear Lady Ombersley’s aegis! She will no doubt, tell you just how you should conduct yourself, if her health permits her to take you there. It is unfortunate that circumstances have prevented me from occupying that position which would have enabled me to have relieved her of such duties.”

“Forgive me!” interrupted Sophy, whose attention had been wandering, “but I think Madame de Lieven is waving to me, and it would be very uncivil not to notice her!”

She rode off as she spoke, to where a smart barouche was drawn up beside the track, and leaned down from her saddle to shake the languid hand held up to her.

“Sophie!” pronounced the Countess. “Sir Horace told me I should meet you here. You were galloping ventre a terre. Never do so again! Ah, Mrs. Burrell, permit me to present to you Miss Stanton-Lacy!”

The lady seated beside the Ambassador’s wife bowed slightly, and allowed her lips to relax into an infinitesimal smile. This expanded a little when she observed Miss Wraxton, following in Sophy’s wake, and she inclined her head, a great mark of condescension.

Countess Lieven nodded to Miss Wraxton, but went on talking to Sophy. “You are staying with Lady Ombersley. I am a little acquainted with her, and I shall call. She will spare you to me perhaps one evening. You have not seen Princess Esterhazy yet, or Lady Jersey? I shall tell them I have met you, and they will want to hear how Sir Horace does. What did I promise Sir Horace I would do? Ah, but of course! Almack’s! I will send you a voucher, ma chere Sophie, but do not gallop in Hyde Park.” She then told her coachman to drive on, included the whole of Sophy’s party in her slight, valedictory smile and turned to continue her interrupted conversation with Mrs. Drummond Burrell.

“I was not aware that you are acquainted with the Countess Lieven,” said Miss Wraxton.

“Do you dislike her?” Sophy asked, aware of the coldness in Miss Wraxton’s voice. “Many people do, I know. Sir Horace calls her the great intrigante, but she is clever and can be very amusing. She has a tendre for him, as I daresay you have guessed. I like Princess Esterhazy better myself, I own, and Lady Jersey better than either of them, because she is so much more sincere, in spite of that restless manner of hers.”

“Dreadful woman!” said Charles. “She never stops talking! She is known as Silence, in London.”

“Is she? Well, I am sure, if she knows it, she does not care a bit, for she dearly loves a joke.”

“You are fortunate knowing so many of the Patronesses of Almack’s,” observed Miss Wraxton.

Sophy gave her irrepressible chuckle. “To be honest, I think my good fortune lies in having such an accomplished flirt for a father!”

Mr. Wraxton giggled at this, and his sister, dropping a little behind, brought her mare up on Mr. Rivenhall’s other side, and said in a low tone, under cover of some quizzing remark made to Sophy by Mr. Wraxton: “It is a pity that men will laugh when her liveliness betrays her into saying what cannot be thought becoming. It brings her too much into notice, and that, I fancy, is the root of the evil.”

He raised his brows. “You are severe! Do you dislike her?”

“Oh, no, no!” she said quickly. “It is merely that I have no great taste for just that kind of sportive playfulness.”

He looked as though he would have liked to have said something more, but at this moment a very military-looking cavalcade came into sight, cantering easily toward them. It consisted of four gentlemen, whose dashing side whiskers and soldierly bearing proclaimed their profession. They glanced idly at Mr. Rivenhall’s party. The next instant there was a shout, and a hurried reining in, and one of the quartet exclaimed in ringing accents, “By all that’s wonderful, it’s the Grand Sophy!”

Confusion and babel followed this, all four gentlemen pressing up to grasp Sophy’s hand and pelting her with questions. Where had she sprung from? How long had she been in England? Why had they not been told of her arrival? How was Sir Horace?

“Oh, but, Sophy, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” declared Major Quinton, who had first hailed her.

“You have Salamanca still! Lord, do you remember riding, him, when you were almost snapped up by old Soult?”

“Sophy, what’s your direction? Are you living in London now? Where’s Sir Horace?”

She was laughing, trying to answer them all, while her horse sidled, and fidgeted, and tossed his head. “ Ah! Never mind about me! What are you all doing in England. I thought you in France still! Don’t tell me you have sold!”

“Debenham has, lucky dog! I’m on furlough. We’re stationed in England — what a thing it is to belong to the Gentlemen’s Sons — and Talgarth has become a great man, almost a Tiger! Yes, I assure you! A.D.C. to the Duke York. You notice the air of consequence. But he is condescension, not the least height in his manner — yet!”

“Silence, rattle!” said his victim. He was rather older than his companions, a handsome, dark man, with a decided of fashion and a languid manner. “Dear Sophy, I am tolerably certain that you cannot have been in London above many days. Not the smallest rumor of any volcanic disturbance I come to my ears, and you know how quick I am to get all of the news!”

She laughed. “Oh, that is too bad of you, Sir Vincent, but I don’t create disturbances. You know I don’t!”

“I know nothing of the kind, my child. When last I saw you, you were engaged in arranging in the most ruthless fashion the affairs of the most bewildered family of Belgians I have yet encountered. They had all my sympathy, there was nothing I could do to help them. I know my limitations.”

“Those poor Le Bruns! Well, but someone had to help them out of such a tangle! I assure you, everything was settled most satisfactorily! But come! I forget my manners in all this excitement! Miss Wraxton, do pray forgive me, and allow me to present to you Colonel Sir Vincent Talgarth, and beside him, Colonel Debenham. And this is Major Titus Quinton, and — oh, dear, ought I to have said your name first, Francis? It is one of the things I never know, but no matter! Captain Lord Francis Wolvey! And this is my cousin Mr. Rivenhall. Oh, and Mr. Wraxton also!”

Miss Wraxton inclined her head politely; Mr. Rivenhall, bowing slightly to the rest of the party, addressed himself to Lord Francis, saying, “I don’t think I ever met you, but your brother and I were up at Oxford together.”

Lord Francis leaned forward in his saddle to shake him by the hand. “Now I know who you are!” he announced. “You are Charles Rivenhall! Thought I couldn’t be mistaken! How do you do? Do you still box? Freddy was used to say he never knew an amateur with a more punishing right!”

Mr. Rivenhall laughed. “Did he? He felt it often enough, but I take no credit for that. He was always glaringly abroad!”

Major Quinton, who had been regarding him intently, said, “Then that is very likely where I have see you. Jackson’s Saloon! You are the fellow Jackson says he might have made into a champion if only you had not been a gentleman!”

This remark naturally beguiled all three gentlemen into a sporting conversation. Mr. Wraxton hung on the outskirts of it, occasionally interpolating a few words which no one paid any heed to; Sophy smiled benignly to see her friends and her cousin so happily absorbed; and Colonel Debenham, who had excellent manners, and a kind heart, began to make painstaking conversation to Miss Wraxton. By tacit consent, the military gentlemen turned to accompany Mr. Rivenhall’s party up the track, and the entire cavalcade moved forward at a walking pace.

Sophy found that Sir Vincent had brought his horse up to walk beside hers, and said suddenly, “Sir Vincent, you are the very man I need! Let us draw a little ahead!”

“Nothing in this life, enchanting Juno, could afford me more pleasure!” he instantly responded. “I have no fancy for the Fancy. On no account tell anyone that I said that! It is quite unworthy of me! Are you about to transport me by accepting a heart laid often at your feet and as often spurned? Something informs me that I indulge my optimism too far and that you are going to demand of me some service that will plunge me into a morass of trouble and end in my being cashiered.”

“Nothing of the sort!” declared Sophy. “But I never knew anyone, other than Sir Horace, whose judgment I would rather trust when it comes to buying a horse. Sir Vincent, I want to purchase a pair for my phaeton!”

They had by this time considerably outdistanced the rest of the party. Sir Vincent made his roan drop to a walk, and said brokenly, “Allow me a moment in which to recover my manhood! So that is all the use you have for me!”

“Don’t be so absurd!” said Sophy. “What better could I have for anyone?”

“Dear Juno, I have told you a great many times, and shall tell you no more!”

“Sir Vincent,” said Sophy severely, “you have dangled after every heiress who has come in your way from the day I first met you.”

“Shall I ever forget it? You had lost a front tooth and tore your dress.”

“Very likely. Though I have not the least doubt that you don’t recall the occasion at all and have this instant made that up. You are a more hardened flirt even than Sir Horace, and you only offer for me because you know I shall not accept your suit. My fortune cannot be large enough to tempt you.”

“That,” acknowledged Sir Vincent, “is true. But better men than I, my dear Sophy, have been known to cut their coats to suit their cloth.”

“Yes, but I am not your cloth, and you know very well that indulgent though he may be, Sir Horace would never permit me to marry you, even if I wished to, which I do not.”

“Oh, very well!” sighed Sir Vincent. “Let us talk of horseflesh then!”

“The thing is,” confided Sophy, “that I was obliged to sell my carriage horses when we left Lisbon, and Sir Horace had no time to attend to the matter before he sailed for Brazil. He said my cousin would advise me, but he was quite out! He will not.”

“Charles Rivenhall,” said Sir Vincent, looking at her from under drooping eyelids, “is held to be no bad judge of a horse. What mischief are you brewing, Sophy?”

“None. He has said he will not stir in the matter, and also, that it would be improper for me to visit Tattersall’s. Is that true?”

“Well, it would certainly be unusual.”

“Then I won’t do it. My aunt would be distressed, and she has enough to plague her already... Where else can I buy a pair that will suit me?”

He gazed meditatively ahead between his horse’s ears. “I wonder if you would care to buy two of Manningtree’s breakdowns before they come into the open market?” he said presently. “Quite done up, poor fellow, and is selling off all his cattle. What’s your figure, Sophy?”

“Sir Horace told me not above four hundred, unless I saw a pair it would be a crime not to buy.”

“Manningtree would sell you his match bays for less than that. As handsome a pair as you could wish for. I should buy them myself if I had a feather to fly with.”

“Where may I see them?

“Leave that to me. I’ll arrange it. What’s your direction?”

“At Lord Ombersley’s house in Berkeley Square, that big one, at the corner!”

“Of course. So he is your uncle, is he?”

“No, but his wife is my aunt.”

“And Charles Rivenhall is therefore your cousin. Well, well! How do you contrive to amuse yourself, my Sophy?”

“I own, I did wonder how I should do so, but I find that the whole family is in a sad tangle, poor dears, and I do hope I may be able to make them more comfortable!”

“I have no particular liking for your uncle, who is one of my esteemed Chief’s cronies; on the only occasion when I solicited your beautiful cousin Cecilia to dance with me at Almack’s her forbidding brother forestalled me in a fashion as swift as it was crude. Someone ought to tell him that I am only interested in heiresses; and yet my withers are strangely wrung! Almost my heart goes out to the family. Do they tread blindly toward their doom, Sophy, or did they willingly receive a firebrand into their midst?”

She gave a chuckle. “They tread blindly, but I am not a firebrand!”

“No, I used the wrong word. You are like poor Whinyates’s rockets; no one knows what you will do next!”

Chapter 6

“Is the knocker never still?” demanded Charles of his mother, after the departure of the fourth morning caller in one day.

“Never!” she replied proudly. “Since that day when you took dear Sophy riding in the Park, I have received seven gentlemen — no, eight, counting Augustus Fawnhope; Princess Esterhazy, the Countess Lieven, Lady Jersey, and Lady Castlereagh have all left cards; and — ”

“Was Talgarth amongst those who called, ma’am?”

She wrinkled her brow. “Talgarth? Oh, yes! A most amiable man, with side whiskers! To be sure he was!”

“Take care!” he warned her. “That connection will not do!’“

She was startled. “Charles, what can you mean? He seems to be on terms of great friendship with Sophy, and she told me Sir Horace had been acquainted with him for years!

“I daresay, but if my uncle means to bestow Sophy upon him he is not the man I take him for! He is said to be a gazetted fortune hunter, and is, besides, a gamester, with more debts than expectations, and such libertine propensities as scarcely render him a desirable catch in the marriage mart!”

“Oh dear!” said Lady Ombersley, dismayed. She wondered whether she ought to tell her son that his cousin had gone out driving with Sir Vincent only a day earlier and decided that no purpose could be served in dwelling on what was past. “Perhaps I should drop a hint in Sophy’s ear.”

“I doubt of its being well received, ma’am. Eugenia has already spoken with her on this subject. All that my cousin saw fit to reply was that she was quite up to snuff and would engage not to allow herself to be seduced by Sir Vincent, or anyone else.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Ombersley again. “She really should not say such things!”

“Just so, ma’am!”

“But, though I do not wish to offend you, Charles, I cannot help feeling that perhaps it was not quite wise of Eugenia to have spoken to her on such a subject. You know, my dear, she is not in any way related to Sophy!”

“Only Eugenia’s strong sense of duty,” he said stiffly, “and, I may add, Mama, her earnest desire to spare you anxiety, induced her to undertake a task which she felt to be excessively unpleasant.”

“It is very kind of her, I am sure,” said his mother in a depressed voice.

“Where is my cousin?” he asked abruptly.

She brightened, for to this question she was able to return an unexceptionable answer. “She has gone for a drive in the barouche with Cecilia and your brother.”

“Well, that should be harmless enough,” he said.

He would have been less satisfied on this point had he known that having taken up Mr. Fawnhope, whom they encountered in Bond Street, the occupants of the barouche were at that moment in Longacre, critically inspecting sporting vehicles. There were a great many of these, together with almost every variety of carriage, on view at the warehouse to which Hubert had conducted his cousin, and although Sophy remained firm in her preference for a phaeton, Cecilia was much taken with a caned whiskey, and Hubert having fallen in love with a curricle, forcibly urged his cousin to buy it. Mr. Fawnhope, appealed to for his opinion, was found to be missing, and was presently discovered seated in rapt contemplation of a state berlin, which looked rather like a very large breakfast cup, poised upon elongated springs. It was covered with a domed roof, bore a great deal of gilding, and had a coachman’s seat, perched over the front wheels, which was covered in blue velvet with a gold fringe. “Cinderella!” said Mr. Fawnhope simply.

The manager of the warehouse said that he did not think the berlin, which he kept for show purposes, was quite what the lady was looking for.

“A coach for a princess,” said Mr. Fawnhope, unheeding. “This, Cecilia, is what you must drive in. You shall have six white horses to draw it, with plumes on their heads, and blue harness.”

Cecilia had no fault to find with this program, but reminded him that they had come to help Sophy to choose a sporting carriage. He allowed himself to be dragged away from the berlin, but when asked to cast his vote between the curricle and the phaeton, would only murmur, “ What can little T.O. do? Why drive a phaeton and two! Can little T.O. do no more? Yes, drive a phaeton and four! ”

“That’s all very well,” said Hubert impatiently, “but my cousin ain’t Tommy Onslow, and for my part I think she will do better with this curricle!”

“You cannot scan the lines, yet they have a great deal of merit,” said Mr. Fawnhope. “How beautiful is the curricle! How swift! How splendid! Yet Apollo chose a phaeton. These carriages bewilder me. Let us go away!”

“Who is Tommy Onslow? Does he indeed drive a phaeton and four?” asked Sophy, her eyes kindling. “Now that would be something indeed! What a bore that I have just bought a pair! I could never match them, I fear.”

“You could borrow Charles’s grays,” suggested Hubert, grinning wickedly. “By Jupiter, what a kickup there would be!”

Sophy laughed, but shook her head. “No, it would be an infamous thing to do! I shall purchase that phaeton. I have quite made up my mind.”

The manager looked startled, for the carriage she pointed at was not the phaeton he had supposed she would buy, an elegant vehicle, perfectly suited to a lady, but a high perch model, with huge hind wheels, and the body, which was hung directly over the front axle, fully five feet from the ground. However, it was not his business to dissuade a customer from making an expensive purchase, so he bowed and kept his inevitable reflections to himself.

Hubert, less tactful, said, “I say, Sophy, it really ain’t a lady’s carriage! I only hope you may not overturn it round the first corner!”

“Not I!”

“Cecilia,” suddenly pronounced Mr. Fawnhope, who had been studying the phaeton intently, “must never ride in that vehicle!”

He spoke with such unaccustomed decision that everyone looked at him in surprise, and Cecilia turned quite pink with gratification at his solicitude.

“I assure you, I shan’t overturn it,” said Sophy.

“Every feeling would be outraged by the sight of so exquisite a creature in such a turnout as that!” pursued Mr. Fawnhope. “Its proportions are absurd! It was, moreover, built for excessive speed, and should be driven, if driven it must be, by some down-the-road man with fifteen capes and a spotted neckcloth. It is not for Cecilia!”

“Well!” exclaimed Sophy. “I thought you were afraid I might overturn her in it!”

“I am afraid of that,” replied Mr. Fawnhope. “The very thought of so ungraceful a happening must offend! It does offend! It intrudes its grossness upon the sensibilities; it blurs my vision of a porcelain nymph! Let us immediately leave this place!”

Cecilia, wavering between pleasure at hearing herself likened to a porcelain nymph and affront at having her safety so little regarded, merely said that they could not leave until Sophy had concluded her purchase; but Sophy, a good deal amused, suggested that she should withdraw with her swain to await her in the barouche.

“Y’know,” Hubert said confidentially, when the pair had departed, “I don’t know that I blame Charles for not being able to stomach that fellow! He is quite paltry!”

Within three days of this transaction, Mr. Rivenhall, exercising his grays in the Park, paused by the Riding House to take up his friend, Mr. Wychbold, sauntering along in all the glory of pale yellow pantaloons, shining hessians, and a coat of extravagant cut and delicate hue. “Good God!” he ejaculated. “What a devilish sight! Get up, Cyprian, and stop ogling all the females! Where have you been hiding yourself this age?”

Mr. Wychbold mounted into the curricle, disposing his shapely limbs with rare grace, and replied, with a sigh, “The call of duty, dear boy! Visiting the ancestral home! I do what I may with lavender water, but the aroma of the stables and the cow byres is hard to overcome. Charles, much as I love you, if I had seen that neckcloth before I consented to let you drive me round the Park!”

“Don’t waste that stuff on me!” recommended his friend. “What’s wrong with your chestnuts?”

Mr. Wychbold, one of the shining lights of the Four-Horse Club, sighed mournfully. “Dead lame! No, not both, but one, which is quite as bad. Would you believe it? I let my sister drive them! Take it as a maxim, Charles, that no woman is to be trusted to handle the ribbons!”

“You haven’t yet met my cousin,” replied Mr. Rivenhall, with a twisted smile.

“You are mistaken,” said Mr. Wychbold calmly. “I met her at the Gala night at Almack’s, which, dear boy, you might have known, had you not absented yourself from that gathering.”

“Oh, you did, did you? I have no turn for that form of insipidity.”

“Wouldn’t have done you any good if you had,” said Mr. Wychbold. “There was not getting near your cousin; at least, there wouldn’t have been for you. I managed it, but I have a great deal of address. Danced the boulanger with her. Devilish fine girl!”

“Well, it’s time you were thinking of getting married. Offer for her! I shall be much obliged to you.”

“Almost anything else for you sake, dear boy, but I ain’t a marrying man!” said Mr. Wychbold firmly.

“I wasn’t serious. To be honest with you, if you took such a notion into your head I should do my utmost to dissuade you. She is the most tiresome girl I ever hope to meet. The only thing I know to her credit is that she can drive to an inch. She had the damned impertinence to steal my curricle when my back was turned for five minutes.”

“She drove these grays?” demanded Mr. Wychbold.

“She did. Well up to their bits, too. All to force me into buying a phaeton and pair for her to lionize in! I shan’t do it, but I should rather like to see how she would handle such a turnout.”

“No wish to raise false hopes,” said Mr. Wychbold, who had been watching the approach of a dashing perch phaeton, “but can’t help thinking that that’s just what you’re about to do, dear fellow! Though why your cousin should be driving Manningtree’s bays beats me!”

“What?” ejaculated Mr. Rivenhall sharply. His incredulous gaze fell upon the phaeton coming toward him at a smart trot. Very much at home in the perilous vehicle, seated high above her horses, with her groom beside her, and holding her whip at exactly the correct angle, was Miss Stanton-Lacy, and if the sight afforded Mr. Rivenhall pleasure, he vouchsafed no sign whatever of this. He looked at first thunderstruck and then more than usually grim. As the pace of the bays slackened and dropped to a walk, he reined in his own pair. The two carriages came to a halt abreast of each other.

“Cousin Charles!” said Sophy. “And Mr. Wychbold! How do you do? Tell me, Cousin, what do you think of them? I am persuaded I have a bargain in them.”

“Where,” demanded Mr. Rivenhall, “did you get those horses?”

“Now, Charles, for the Lord’s sake don’t be birdwitted!” implored Mr. Wychbold, preparing to descend from the curricle. “You must see she has Manningtree’s match geldings there! Besides, I told you so a minute ago. But how is this, Miss Stanton-Lacy? Is Manningtree selling up?”

“So I believe,” she smiled.

“By Jove, you have stolen a march on me, then, for I have had my eye on that pair ever since Manningtree sprang ’em on the town! How did you get wind of it, ma’am?”

“To own the truth, I knew nothing about the matter,” she confessed. “It was Sir Vincent Talgarth who put me in the way of buying them.”

“That fellow!” interpolated Mr. Rivenhall explosively. “I might have known!”

“Yes, so you might,” she agreed. “He is quite famous for knowing all the news before others have heard even a rumor. May I take you up, Mr. Wychbold? If I have stolen a march on you the least amends I can make is to off to let you drive my pair.”

“Don’t hesitate to tell me which of my mother’s or my horses you would like me to remove from the stables to make room for these!” begged Mr. Rivenhall, with savage civility. “Unless, of course, you are setting up your own stables!”

“Dear Cousin Charles, I hope I know better than to put you to such shocking inconvenience! John Potton here has seen to all that. You are not to be troubled with my horses! Get down, John. You need not fear to let Mr. Wychbold have your place, for if the horses should bolt with me he is better fitted to get them under control again than either of us.”

The middle-aged groom, having favored Mr. Wychbold with a long scrutiny, appeared to be satisfied, for he obeyed without making any comment. Mr. Wychbold leaped up lightly into the phaeton; Sophy nodded farewell to her, cousin; and the bays moved forward. Mr. Rivenhall watched the phaeton smolderingly for a moment or two, and then lowered his gaze to the groom’s countenance. “What the devil were you about to let your mistress buy a damned dangerous carriage like that?” he demanded.

“Don’t you put yourself in a pucker of Miss Sophy, sir!” said John, in a fatherly way. “Sir Horace himself couldn’t stop her, not when she’s got the bit between her teeth! Many’s the time I’ve told Sir Horace he should have broke her to bridle, but he never done it, nor tried to.”

“Well, if I have much more — ” Mr. Rivenhall pulled himself up short, realizing how improper was this interchange. “Damn your impudence!” he said, and set his grays in motion with a plunge that betrayed the state of his temper.

Mr. Wychbold, meanwhile, was most gallantly refusing to take the reins from Miss Stanton-Lacy. “Dashed if I ever thought I should say so, but it’s a pleasure to be driven by a lady who handles ’em as well as you do, ma’am! Very sweet goers, too; shouldn’t be surprised if Charles has had his eye on ’em, which would account for his flying into one of his miffs.”

“No, no, I am sure you wrong him! He has flown into a miff because I bought them against his advice — indeed, in the face of his prohibition! Do you know my cousin well, sir?”

“Known him since we were at Eton.”

“Then tell me! has he always wanted to rule the roost?”

Mr. Wychbold considered this, but arrived at no very exact conclusion. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Always one to take the lead, of course, but a man don’t come the ruler over his friends, ma’am. At least . . .” He paused, recalling past incidents. “Thing is, he’s got an awkward temper, but he’s a dashed good friend!” he produced. “Told him times out of mind he ought to watch that devilish unpleasant tongue of his, but the fact is, ma’am, there’s no one I’d liefer go to in a fix than Charles Rivenhall!”

“That is a tribute indeed,” she said thoughtfully.

Mr. Wychbold coughed deprecatingly. “Never mentioned the matter to me, of course, but the poor fellow’s had a deal to bear, if the half of what one hears is true. Turned him sour. Often thought so! Though why the deuce he must needs get himself engaged to that — ” He broke off in considerable confusion. “Forgotten what I was going to say!” he added hastily.

“Then that settles it!” said Sophy, dropping her hands slightly and allowing the bays to quicken their pace.

“Settles what?” asked Mr. Wychbold.

“Why, Cecilia told me that you were his particular friend, and if you think it will not do I need have no scruples. Only fancy, Mr. Wychbold, what misery for my dear aunt, and those poor children to have that Friday-faced creature setting them all to rights! Living under the same roof, and, you may depend upon it, encouraging Charles to be as disagreeable as he can stare!”

“It don’t bear thinking of!” said Mr. Wychbold, much struck.

“It must be thought of!” replied Sophy resolutely.

“No use thinking of it,” said Mr. Wychbold, shaking his head. “Betrothal puffed in all the papers weeks ago! Would have been married by now if the girl hadn’t had to put up a black ribbon. Very good match, of course — woman of quality, handsome dowry, I daresay, excellent connections!”

“Well,” said Sophy large mindedly, “if his heart is in the business, I suppose he must be permitted to have his way, but he shall not inflict her upon his family! But I do not think his heart has had anything to say in it, and as for her, she has none! There! That is cutting up a character indeed!”

Mr. Wychbold, stirred to enthusiasm, said in a confidential tone, “Know what, ma’am? Been on the Marriage Mart for two whole years! Fact! Set her cap at Maxstoke last year, but he sheared off. Odds shortened to evens, too, in the clubs, but he got clean away.” He sighed. “Charles won’t. In the Gazette, you know; poor fellow couldn’t declare off if he wanted to!”

“No,” agreed Sophy, her brow creased. “She could, however.”

“She could, but she won’t,” said Mr. Wychbold positively.

“We’ll see!” said Sophy. “At all events, I must and I will prevent her making those poor dears miserable! For that is what she does, I assure you! She is forever coming to Berkeley Square and casting everyone into the dumps! First it is my aunt, who goes to bed with a headache when she has had the creature with her for half an hour; then it is Miss Adderbury, to whom she says the horridest things in that odiously sweet voice she uses when she means to make mischief! She wonders that Miss Adderbury should not have taught the children to read Italian. She is surprised that she makes so little use of the backboard, and tells Charles that she fears little Amabel is growing to be round shouldered! Stuff! She is trying even to persuade him to take their monkey away from the children. But what is worse than all is that she sets him against poor Hubert! That I cannot forgive! She does it in such a shabby way, too! I do not know how I kept my hands from her ears yesterday, for the silly boy had on a new waistcoat — quite dreadful, but he was so proud of it — and what must she do but draw Charles’s attention to it, pretending to chaff Hubert, you know, but contriving to make it appear that he was forever buying new clothes and squandering away his allowance on fripperies!”

“What a devilish woman!” exclaimed Mr. Wychbold. “Must say I shouldn’t have expected Charles to take that kind of thing tamely! Never one to stand interference!”

“Oh, it is all done with such seeming solicitude that he doesn’t see what lies at the root of it — yet!” said Sophy.

“Very bad business,” said Mr. Wychbold. “Nothing to be done, though.”

“That,” said Sophy severely, “is what people always say when they are too lazy, or perhaps too timorous, to make a push to be helpful! I have a great many faults, but I am not lazy, and I am not timorous, though that, I know, is not a virtue, for I was born without any nerves at all, my father tells me, and almost no sensibility. I don’t know that I shall, for I have not yet made up my mind just what I should do, but I may need your assistance in breaking this foolish engagement.” She perceived, in a quick glance at his face, that he was looking extremely scared, and added reassuringly, “Very likely not, but one never knows, and it is always well to be prepared. Now I must put you down, for I see Cecilia awaiting me, and she had promised to let me drive her round the Park once she is assured I shan’t overturn the phaeton.”

“No fear of that!” said Mr. Wychbold, wondering what else this alarming young woman might overturn during her sojourn in Berkeley Square.

He shook hands, told her that if they would but allow females to belong to the Four-Horse Club he should certainly support her candidature, and sprang down from the phaeton, to exchange greetings with Cecilia, who, with Miss Adderbury and the children, were waiting beside the Drive. Gertrude, Amabel, and Theodore naturally asserted their claims to be taken up beside their cousin in preference to their elder sister, but after these had been firmly dealt with Mr. Wychbold helped Cecilia to mount into the carriage, bowed, and strolled off.

It had struck Sophy immediately that Cecilia was looking pale, while the little governess was plainly laboring under a considerable degree of suppressed agitation; so, since she believed in getting to the root of any matter without wasting time on circumlocution, she at once demanded bluntly, “Now, why are you looking as blue as megrim, Cecy?”

Tina, who, during Mr. Wychbold’s occupation of the passenger’s seat, had nestled inconspicuously behind her mistress’s feet, now crawled out from beneath the drab rug, and jumped on to Cecilia’s knee. Cecilia clasped her mechanically and stroked her, but said in a tense voice, “Eugenia!”

“Oh, the deuce take that creature!” exclaimed Sophy. “ Now what has she done?”

“She was walking here with Alfred,” said Cecilia, “and she came upon us!”

“Well,” said Sophy reasonably, “I own I do not like her, and Alfred is certainly the horridest little beast in nature, but I see nothing in that to put you so much out of countenance! He cannot have tried to put his arm round your waist if his sister was present!”

“Oh, Alfred!” said Cecilia contemptuously. “Not but what he would have me take his arm, and then squeezed it in the most odious way, and ogled, and said all the sort of things that make one itch to slap his face. But I care nothing for him! You see, Sophy, Augustus was with me!”

“Well?” said Sophy.

“It is true that we had fallen a little way behind Addy, for how can one have any rational conversation with the children chattering all the time? But she was not out of sight, and we had not stolen down a lonely path — at least, it wasn’t one of the more frequented paths, but Addy was there all the time, so what could it signify? — and to say that I was meeting Augustus clandestinely is wickedly unjust! Anyone would suppose him to be some hateful adventurer, instead of someone I have known all my life, pretty well! Why shouldn’t he walk in the Park? And if he does so, and we meet, pray, why should I not talk to him?”

“No reason at all. Did that repellent girl give you a scold?”

“Not me so much as poor Addy. She is in despair, for Eugenia seems to have said she was betraying Mama’s trust and encouraging me in clandestine behavior. She was quite odious to me, but she could not say anything very much, because Augustus was with me. She made him walk with her instead and told Alfred to give me his arm, and I felt smirched, Sophy, smirched!”

“Anyone would, who was obliged to take Alfred’s arm,” agreed Sophy.

“Not that! But Eugenia’s manner! As though she had found me out in something disgraceful! And that is not the worst! Charles is driving here, and not a moment before you came up he went past us with Eugenia seated beside him. He gave me the coldest look! She has told him all about it, depend upon it, and now he will be furious with me, and very likely work upon Mama as well, and everything will be sp dreadful!”

“No, it won’t,” said Sophy coolly. “In fact, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this turned out to be a very good thing. I cannot explain all that to you now, but I do beg of you, Cecy, not to be so distressed! There is no need. I assure you there is none! Very likely Charles will not say a word to you about this.”

Cecilia turned incredulous eyes toward her. “Charles not say a word? You don’t know him! He was looking like a thundercloud!”

“I daresay he was; he very often does, and you are such a goose that you instantly quake like a blancmanger,” replied Sophy. “Presently, I shall set you down, and you will join poor little Addy and continue your walk. I shall go home, where I am pretty sure to find your brother, for we have driven right round the Park now and seen no sign of him, and I know he will go back to Berkeley Square, for I heard him mention to my uncle that somebody called Eckington would be calling there at five o’clock.”

“Papa’s agent,” said Cecilia listlessly. “And I don’t see, dearest Sophy, what it signifies, whether you find Charles at home or not, because he won’t speak of this to you. Why should he?”

“Oh, won’t he just?” retorted Sophy. “Depend upon it, by this time he will have persuaded himself that everything has been my fault from start to finish! Besides, he is furious with me for having bought this turnout without his help, yes, and for having hired a stable of my own, too! He must be longing for me to come back to the house so that he can quarrel with me without fear of interruption. Poor man! I think I should put you down at once, Cecy.”

“How brave you are!” Cecilia said wonderingly. “I do not know how you can bear it!”

“What, your brother’s tantrums? I see nothing to be afraid of in them!”

Cecilia shuddered. “It is not being afraid precisely, but I dread people being angry and thundering at me! I cannot help it, Sophy, and I know it is poor spirited of me, but my knees shake so, and I feel quite sick!”

“Well, they shan’t be made to shake today,” said Sophy cheerfully. “I am going to spike Charles’s guns. Oh, see! There is Francis Wolvey! The very thing! He shall restore you to Addy for me.”

She drew up as she spoke, and Lord Francis, who had been chatting to two ladies in a landaulet, came up to the phaeton,

“Sophy, a capital turnout! ’Servant, Miss Rivenhall! I wonder to see you trust yourself to such a madcap, I do indeed! She overturned me in a gig once. A gig!”

“What an unhandsome thing to say!” said Sophy indignantly. “As though I could have helped it on such, a road. Grenada! Oh, dear, what a long time ago it seems, to be sure!

“I came up with Sir Horace, and stayed with Mrs. Scovell,” supplied Lord Francis. “She was the only lady living at Headquarters that winter and used to hold loo parties. Do you remember?”

“Of course I do! And more vividly still the fleas in that dreadful village! Francis, I must pick up John Potton and be off. Will you escort my cousin to meet her little brother and sisters? They were walking with their governess somewhere beside the Drive.”

Lord Francis, upon whom Cecilia’s beauty had made a great impression when he had met her on the occasion of his calling in Berkeley Square, promptly said that nothing would give him more pleasure, and reached up his hands to help her down from the phaeton. He said that he hoped that they would not too speedily encounter the schoolroom party, and Cecilia, not impervious to his easy, friendly address, and evident admiration, began to look more cheerful.

Sophy, well satisfied saw them walk off together, and drove to where her groom awaited her by the Stanhope Gate. He reported that he had watched Mr. Rivenhall pass through it not many minutes earlier, and added, with a dry chuckle, that he looked to be on his high ropes still.

“Damned my impudence, Miss Sophy, and fair jobbed at the grays’ mouths!”

“Why, what had you said to enrage him?”

“All I said was you hadn’t never been broke to bridle, missie, and what with him being in agreement with me, and not able to say so, there was nothing for it but to damn me and drive off. I don’t blame him! Hot at hand, Miss Sophy, that’s what you are!”

Upon her arrival in Berkeley Square, Sophy found that Mr. Rivenhall had only just entered the house, having walked round from the mews. He was still wearing his caped driving coat, and had paused by the table in the hall to pick up and read a note that had been sent by one of his friends. He looked up frowningly as Dassett admitted Sophy, but he did not speak. Tina, who had developed (her mistress considered) an ill-judged passion for his society, frisked gaily up to him and employed every art known to her to attract his attention He did indeed glance down at her, but so far from encouraging her advances, said curtly, “Quiet!”

“Ah, so you are in before me!” remarked Sophy, pulling off her gloves. “Now, give me your candid opinion of those bays! Mr. Wychbold fancies you may have had an eye upon them yourself. Is that so?”

“Quite above my touch, Cousin!” he replied.

“No, really? I gave four hundred guineas for them, and think I have a bargain.”

“Were you serious when you gave me to understand that you have set up your own stable?” he demanded.

“Certainly I was serious. A pretty thing it would be if my aunt were obliged to bear the charge of my horses! Besides, I may very likely purchase two more, if I can find a couple to match the bays. I am told that it is all the crack to drive a phaeton and four, though I suppose that would mean altering the shafts, which would be a bore.”

“I have no control over your actions, Cousin,” he said coldly. “No doubt if it seems good to you to make a spectacle of yourself in the Park, you will do so. But you will not, if you please, take any of my sisters up beside you!”

“But it doesn’t please me,” she said. “I have already taken Cecilia for a turn round the Drive. You have very antiquated notions, have you not? I saw several excessively smart sporting carriages being driven by ladies of the highest ton!”

“I have no particular objection to a phaeton and pair,” he said still more coldly, “though a perch model is quite unsuited to a lady. You will forgive me if I tell you that there is something more than a little fast in such a style of carriage.”

“Now, who in the world can have been spiteful enough to have put that idea into your head?” wondered Sophy. He flushed, but did not answer.

“Did you see Cecilia?” asked Sophy. “She was looking quite ravishing in that new hat your Mama was so clever as to choose for her!”

“I did see Cecilia,” he replied grimly. “What is more, I, like you, Cousin, know just how she had been spending her time! I am going to be extremely plain with you!”

“If you wish to be extremely plain with me,” she interrupted, “come into the library! It is quite improper in you to be talking of family matters where you may be overheard. Besides, I have something of a decidedly delicate nature to say to you.”

He strode at once to the door into the library and flung it open. She went past him into the room, and he followed her, shutting the door behind him too soon for Tina, who was left on the other side. This made it necessary for him to open it again, Tina’s orders to him to do so being at once shrill and imperative. This trifling anticlimax did nothing to improve his temper, and it was with a very unpleasant edge to his voice that he said, “We will take the gloves off, Cousin Sophy! Whether or not it was you who arranged an assignation in the Park for my sister with young Fawnhope, I am well aware that you — ”

“Isn’t Cecilia dashing?” said Sophy approvingly. “She walked with Fawnhope, and then with Alfred Wraxton, and I left her with Lord Francis! And that, dear Cousin Charles, is what I wanted to speak to you about! Far, far be it from me to interfere in the affairs of your family, but I think I ought perhaps to give you a hint. I know it is awkward for you, situated as you are, but you will know how to drop a word in Cecy’s ear.”

He was thrown out of his stride by this unexpected gambit, and stared at her. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“I don’t entirely care to mention it,” said Sophy mendaciously, “but you know how fond I am of Cecy! Then, too, I have been about the world and have learnt to take care of myself. Cecy is such an innocent! There is not a particle of harm in Augustus Fawnhope, and Francis Wolvey is by far too great a gentleman to go beyond the line. But you should not encourage so lovely a girl as your sister to stroll about the Park with the Dishonorable Alfred, Charles!”

He was so much taken aback that for a moment he did not say a word. Then he demanded an explanation.

“He is the kind of odious little toad who kisses the housemaids on the stairs,” replied Sophy frankly.

“My sister is not a housemaid!”

“No, and I do trust she will know how to keep him at arm’s length.”

“May I know whether you have the slightest grounds for bringing this charge against Wraxton?”

“If you mean, have I seen him kiss a housemaid, no, dear Charles, I have not. If, on the other hand, you mean, has he tried to kiss me, yes, dear Charles, he has. In this very room, too.”

He looked angry and mortified. “I am extremely sorry that you should have been annoyed in such a fashion under this roof,” he said, getting the words out with an effort.

“Oh, I don’t mind it! I told you I was able to take care of myself. But I doubt whether anyone could prevent his — his squeezing and stroking habits or convince him that the style of his conversation is quite improper.”

She had been taking off her pelisse as she spoke, and she now laid it aside and sat down in a winged chair beside the fireplace. After a moment he said, in a milder tone, “I shall not pretend that I have any liking for Wraxton, for I have not. So far as it lies within my power I shall certainly discourage his visits to this house. My situation is, however, as you said yourself, awkward. I would not, upon any account, have this come to Miss Wraxton’s ears.”

“No, indeed!” she said warmly. “For you to be telling tales of her brother to Miss Wraxton would be the shabbiest thing!”

He was leaning his arm along the mantelpiece and had been looking down into the fire, but at that he raised his head, and shot a penetrating glance at Sophy. She thought there was a good deal of comprehension in his eyes, but he only said, “Just so, Cousin.”

“Do not refine too much upon it!” she advised him kindly. “I do not mean to say that Cecy has a tendre for him, for she thinks him even more odious than I do.”

“I am well aware that she has no tendre for him. I thank you!” he retorted. “She is infatuated with that puppy, Fawnhope!”

“Of course she is,” said Sophy.

“I am also aware that you have made it your business from the day you entered this house to encourage this folly by every means within your reach! You and Cecilia have been constantly seen in Fawnhope’s company; you pretended he was a friend of yours so that he might have an excuse for calling here six days out of the seven; you — ”

“In a word, Charles, I have thrown them continually together. I have, and if you had a grain of sense you would have done so weeks before I came to town!”

He was arrested for a moment, and then asked incredulously, “Do you imagine by doing so you will cure Cecilia? Or that I am likely to believe you have any such intention in mind?”

“Well, I don’t know,” she answered, giving the matter some thought. “One of two things must happen, you know. Either she will grow weary of Augustus — and I must say I do think that very probable, because although he is so handsome and can be very engaging when he chooses, he is shockingly tiresome, besides forgetting Cecilia’s existence just when he should be most solicitous — or she will continue to love him, in spite of his faults. And if that happens, Charles, you will know that it is not an infatuation, and you will be obliged to consent to their marriage.”

“Never!” he said, with considerable violence.

“But you will,” she insisted. “It would be wicked to try to force her into another marriage, and you would be cruel to attempt it.”

“I shall not force her into any marriage!” he flashed. “It may interest you to know that I am extremely attached to Cecilia, and that it is for that reason, and not for any whim of my own, that I will not countenance her union with a man of Fawnhope’s stamp! As for this glib notion you have, that by throwing them together you will make Cecilia tire of him, you were never more mistaken! So far from tiring of his company, Cecilia seizes every opportunity to be alone with him! She is even so lost to all sense of propriety as to make Addy her dupe! Only this afternoon Miss Wraxton came upon her in a secluded path in the Park, alone with Fawnhope, having shaken off the restraint of Addy’s presence. Clandestine meetings! Pretty behavior in Miss Rivenhall of Ombersley, upon my word!”

“My dear Charles,” said Sophy, with unimpaired calm, “you know very well that you are making that up.”

“I am doing no such thing! Do you imagine I would make up such a tale about my sister?”

“To own the truth, I think you would do anything when you are in one of your rages,” she said, smiling. “There is no secret about her having walked with Fawnhope, but the rest of it springs from your disordered temper. Now, do not say that Miss Wraxton told you it was so, because I am sure she would never have told you such fibs about Cecilia! Shaken Addy off, indeed! She was never out of Addy’s sight for a moment! Good gracious, don’t you know Cecilia better than to be accusing her of clandestine behavior? What a very vulgar expression to use, to be sure! Do stop making such a cake of yourself! Next you will be ranting at Cecy for having allowed a respectable young man whom she has known, I daresay, since they were both children, to walk a little way beside her, under the eyes of her governess!”

Again she came under that hard scrutiny. “Do you know this for a fact?” he asked, in an altered tone.

“Certainly I do, for Cecy told me just what had occurred. It seems that Miss Wraxton said something to Addy which distressed her very much — no doubt she misunderstood it, Miss Wraxton perhaps felt that Addy should have sent Augustus about his business, though how she could have done so I hardly know! But she has a great deal of sensibility, you know, and is readily upset.”

He looked annoyed, and said, “Addy is not to be blamed; Cecilia is out of her control, and if she should have told my mother of these meetings — well, she was never one to carry tales of any of us!”

She said coaxingly, “Do show her that you are not angry with her, Charles, and don’t mean to turn her off after all these years!”

“Turn her off?” he echoed, astonished. “What nonsense is this, pray?”

“Exactly what I said to her! Only she has taken it into her head that she is too old-fashioned in her ways to instruct the children, and seems to think she should be able to teach them the Italian tongue, and all sorts of refinement of the same nature.”

There was a slight pause. Mr. Rivenhall sat down on the other side of the fireplace, and rather absently began to pull Tina’s ears. He was frowning, and presently said, at his curtest, “I have nothing whatsoever to say in the education of my sisters. It is my mother’s business, and I cannot conceive how it could ever belong to anyone else.”

Sophy saw no need to labor this point and merely agreed with him. He cast her a glance out of narrowed, searching eyes, but she preserved her countenance. He said, “None of this has anything to do with what I have been saying to you. We did very well, Cousin, before you began to turn this house upside down! I shall be obliged to you if, in the future — ”

“Why, what in the world have I done else?” she exclaimed.

He found himself quite unable to put into words the things that she had done and was obliged to fall back upon her only tangible crime. “You brought that monkey here, for one thing!” he said. “No doubt with the kindest of intentions! But it is a most unsuitable animal to have bestowed on the children, and now, of course, they will think themselves ill used when it is got rid of, as got rid of it must be!”

Her eyes began to dance. “Charles, you are just trying to be disagreeable! You cannot feed Jacko on bits of apple, and teach him tricks, and warn the children to give him a blanket at night one day, and the next say he must be got rid of!”

He bit his lip, but the rueful grin would not be entirely suppressed. “Who told you I had done so?”

“Theodore. And also that you carried him down on your shoulder when Miss Wraxton came to call, to show him off to her. I must say, I think that was foolish of you, for you know she does not like pets; she told us so. I am sure there is no reason why she should, and to plague her with them is not kind in you. I never let Tina tease her, you know.”

“You are mistaken!” he said quickly. “She does not like monkeys, but it is only Lady Brinklow who dislikes dogs!”

“I expect she feels the same,” said Sophy, getting up and giving her skirts a shake. “One cannot help observing how often daughters resemble their mothers. Not in face, but in disposition. You must have remarked it!”

He seemed to be somewhat appalled by this. “No, I have not. I do not think you can be right!”

“Oh, yes, only consider Cecy! She will be just like dear Aunt Lizzie when she is older.” She saw that the truth of this statement was having its effect upon him and thought that she had given him enough to ponder for one day. She moved toward the door, saying, “I must go and change my dress.”

He got up abruptly. “No, wait!”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

He did not seem to know what he wished to say. “Nothing! It’s no matter! Next time you insist on buying horses you had better tell me what you want! To be employing strangers in the business is most undesirable!”

“But you assured me you would have no hand in it!” Sophy pointed out.

“Yes!” he said savagely. “Nothing pleases you more than to put me in the wrong, does it?”

She laughed, but went away without answering him. Upstairs she was pounced on by Cecilia, anxious to know what her fate was to be.

“If he speaks to you at all, it will be to. warn you against, Alfred Wraxton!” said Sophy, with a gurgle of amusement. “I told him exactly how that toad conducts himself and warned him to take care of you!”

“You did not!”

“I did. I have done an excellent day’s work, in the most unprincipled way! Oh, tell Addy Charles does not blame her in the least! He won’t say a word to my aunt about what happened, and I doubt whether he will say a word to you either. The only person he may say a word to is his precious Eugenia. I hope she will induce him to lose his temper!”

Chapter 7

CECILIA WAS quite unable to believe that she was not to receive one of her brother’s scolds, and, when she later came unexpectedly face to face with him on a bend in the stair she gave a gasp and tried to stiffen her unruly knees. “Hallo!” he said, running an eye over her exquisite ball dress of gauze over satin. “You are very smart! Where are you off to?”

“Lady Sefton is calling after dinner to take Sophy and me to Almack’s,” she replied thankfully. “Mama does not find herself equal to it this evening.”

“Taking the shine out of them all?” he said. “You look very fine!”

“Why do you not accompany us?” she asked, plucking up courage.

“You would not spend the entire evening in Fawnhope’s pocket if I did,” he observed dryly.

She lifted her chin. “I should not under any circumstances spend the entire evening in any gentleman’s pocket!”

“No, I believe you would not,” he agreed mildly. “Not in my line, Cilly! Besides, I am engaged with a party of my own.”

His employment of her almost forgotten nursery name made her retort with much less constraint: “Daffy Club!”

He grinned. “No. Cribb’s Parlour!”

“How horrid you are! I suppose you are going to discuss the merits of a Bloomsbury Pet, or a Black Diamond, or — or — ”

“A Mayfair Marvel,” he supplied. “Nothing so interesting. I am going to blow a cloud with a few friends. And what do you know of Bloomsbury Pets, miss?”

She threw him a saucy look as she passed him on the way down the staircase. “Only what I have learnt from my brothers, Charles!”

He laughed, and let her go, but before she had reached the bottom of the flight, leaned over the banisters, and said imperatively, “Cecilia!” She looked up enquiringly. “Does that fellow Wraxton annoy you?”

She was nearly betrayed into losing her gravity. She replied, “Oh, well! I daresay I could snub him easily enough, if — well, if I chose to do so!”

“You need not be deterred by any consideration that I know of. I need scarcely say that if Eugenia knew of it she would be the first to condemn his behavior!”

“Of course,” she said.

Whether he spoke words of censure to Miss Wraxton no one was in a position to know. If he did, they must, Sophy thought, have been mild ones, for she did not appear to be in any way chastened. However, Sophy was granted one satisfaction. When next Miss Wraxton brought up the vexed question of Jacko, confiding to Lady Ombersley that she lived in dread of hearing that the monkey had bitten one of the children, Charles overheard her, and said impatiently, “Nonsense!”

“I believe a monkey’s bite is poisonous.”

“In that case I hope he may bite Theodore.” Lady Ombersley uttered a protest, but Theodore, already soundly cuffed for hitting a cricket ball from the Square garden straight through one of the windows of a neighboring house, merely grinned. Miss Wraxton, who did not feel that he had been adequately punished for such a piece of lawlessness, had already spoken her mind gravely on the subject. Charles had listened, but all he had said was, “Very true, but it was a capital hit. I saw it.” This disregard for her opinion rankled with Miss Wraxton, and she now, with the archness which she too often employed when talking to children, read Theodore a playful lecture, telling him that he was fortunate in not being obliged to forfeit his new pet in retribution of his crime. Beyond casting her a glance of resentment, he paid no heed, but Gertrude blurted out, “I believe you don’t like Jacko because Sophy gave him to us!”

The truth of this embarrassingly forthright pronouncement struck most of those present with blinding effect. Miss Wraxton’s cheeks flew two spots of color; Lady Ombersley gave a gasp, and Cecilia a stifled giggle. Only Charles and Sophy remained unmoved, Sophy not raising her eyes from the sewing she was engaged on, and Charles saying blightingly, “A stupid and an impertinent remark, Gertrude. You may return to the schoolroom, if you cannot conduct yourself more becomingly.”

Gertrude, who had arrived at the age when she cast herself into quite as much confusion as her elders, had already blushed hotly, and now fled in disorder from the room. Lady Ombersley began at once to talk of her projected expedition, with Sophy and Cecilia, to visit the Marquesa de Villacanas at Merton.

“One would not wish to be backward in any attention,” she said, “so I shall make the effort, and we must hope it will not rain, for that would make it very disagreeable. I wish you will go with us, Charles. Your uncle’s affianced wife, you know! I own, I do not care to drive out of town without a gentleman to go with me, though I am sure Radnor is perfectly to be trusted, and I should of course take my footmen.”

“My dear Mama, three able-bodied men should be enough to protect you on this hazardous journey!” he returned, in some amusement.

“Don’t tease Charles to go, Aunt Lizzie!” said Sophy, snipping off her thread. “Sir Vincent vows he will ride there with us, for he has not met Sancia since Madrid days, when her husband was still alive, and they gave splendid parties for all the English officers.”

There was a slight pause before Charles said, “If you wish it, Mama, I will certainly go with you. I can take my cousin in the curricle, and then you will not be crowded in your carriage.”

“Oh, I mean to go in my phaeton!” Sophy said unconcernedly.

“I thought it was your ambition to drive my grays?”

“Why, would you let me?”

“Perhaps.”

She laughed. “Oh, no, no! I have no belief in perhaps. Take Cecilia!”

“Cecilia would by far rather go in my mother’s landaulet. You may take the reins for part of the way.”

She said in a rallying tone, “This is something indeed! I am overcome, Charles, and fear you cannot be feeling quite the thing!”

“It will be a delightful expedition,” said Miss Wraxton brightly. “I am almost tempted, dear Lady Ombersley, to beg a place in your carriage!”

Lady Ombersley was too well bred to betray consternation, but she said a little doubtfully, “Well, my dear, of course — if Sophy does not think that there might be rather too many of us for the Marquesa! I should not wish to put her out in any way.”

“Not at all!” Sophy replied instantly. “It is not in your power to put Sancia out, dearest Aunt Lizzie! She will not bestir herself in the least, but will leave everything to her major-domo. Her is a Frenchman, and will be delighted to make arrangements for even so small a party as ours. I have only to write Sancia a letter, beg a frank from my uncle, and the thing is done — if only she will rouse herself sufficiently to convey my message to Gaston.

“How interesting it will be to meet a real Spanish lady!” remarked Miss Wraxton.

“For all the world as if Sancia had been a giraffe!” as Sophy afterward said to Cecilia.

“I wish I had known you meant to accompany my mother!” Mr. Rivenhall said, when he presently escorted Miss Wraxton to her carriage. “I should have offered you a place in my curricle. I cannot cry off now, but it is a bore. I should not have said I would go had I not heard that Talgarth was to be of the party. God knows I don’t care a jot whom my cousin marries, but I suppose, in the circumstances, we owe it to my uncle not to encourage that connection!”

“I am afraid her visit has brought extra cares upon you, my dear Charles. Much must be forgiven to a girl who has never known a mother’s care, but I confess I had hoped that under your mama’s guidance she would have tried to conform to English standards of propriety.”

“Not she!” he said. “It’s my belief she delights in keeping us all upon tenterhooks! There is no guessing what she will be at next, while the terms she stands on with every rattle who ever wore a scarlet coat — not that I care for that! But to be encouraging Talgarth to dangle after her is the outside of enough. All very well to say she can look after herself. I daresay she can, but if she is seen too much in his company, she will be talked about by every scandalmongering busybody in town!”

Miss Wraxton, treasuring up these hasty words, was unwise enough to repeat the gist of them to Sophy not forty-eight hours later. During the hour of the fashionable Promenade, when walking in the Park with her maid, she came upon Sophy’s phaeton, drawn up to allow Sophy to exchange a few words with the reprehensible Sir Vincent. He had one hand negligently on the step of the phaeton, and she was leaning a little down to say something that seemed to afford them both amusement. She saw Miss Wraxton, and nodded smilingly to her, but looked rather surprised when Eugenia came toward the phaeton, and addressed her.

“How do you do? So this is the carriage I hear so much of! At all events, you have a fine pair of horses, I see. You drive them tandem! You are to be congratulated. I do not think I would trust myself to do so.”

“You are acquainted with Sir Vincent Talgarth, I believe,” Sophy said.

Sir Vincent received the coldest of bows and the merest hint of a smile.

“Do you know,” said Miss Wraxton, looking up at Sophy, “I really think I must ask you to take me up beside you for one turn! I am quite jealous of your prowess, I assure you!”

Sophy signed to John to alight, saying politely, “Pray come with me, Miss Wraxton. I shall naturally be put on my mettle. Sir Vincent, we meet on Friday, then. You will call for us in Berkeley Square!”

Miss Wraxton, assisted by John Potton, mounted with credible grace into the awkwardly high carriage and sat down beside Sophy, disposing her skirt neatly, and acknowledging Tina’s presence by uttering, “Dear little doggie!” a form of address which made the little greyhound shiver and press closer to her mistress. “I am so happy to have this opportunity of speaking with you, Miss Stanton-Lacy. I had come to think it impossible to find you when you should be alone! You are acquainted with so many people.”

“Yes, am I not fortunate?”

“Indeed, yes!” agreed Miss Wraxton, honey sweet. “Though sometimes, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, when one has a multitude of friends, one is inclined not to be as careful as one should be, perhaps. I wonder if I might venture to put you a little on your guard? In Paris and Vienna I am sure you would be able to tell me how I should go on, but in London I must be more at home than you.”

“Oh, I should never be so impertinent as to tell you how to go on anywhere!” Sophy declared.

“Well, perhaps it would not be necessary,” acknowledged Miss Wraxton graciously. “My mama has always been a most careful parent, and very strict in her choice of governesses for her daughters. I have felt so much compassion for you, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, situated as you are. You must so often have felt the want of a mother!”

“Not at all. Don’t waste your compassion on me, I beg! I never wanted a mother while I had Sir Horace.”

“Gentlemen,” said Miss Wraxton, “are not the same.”

“An unarguable statement. How do you like my bays?”

Miss Wraxton laid a hand on her knee. “Allow me to speak without reserve!” she begged.

“Short of overturning you I can hardly prevent you,” Sophy replied. “But you had much better not, you know! I am very unbiddable, and if I were to lose my temper I might do what I should afterward be sorry for.”

“But I must speak!” Miss Wraxton said earnestly. “I owe it to your cousin!”

“Indeed! How is this?”

“You will understand that he does not like to mention the matter to you himself. He feels a certain delicacy — ”

“I thought you were talking of Charles!” interrupted Sophy. “Which cousin do you mean?”

“I am talking of Charles.”

“Nonsense! He has no delicate scruples.”

“Miss Stanton-Lacy, believe me, this air of levity is not becoming!” said Miss Wraxton, losing some of her sweetness. “I do not think you can be aware of what is expected of a woman of quality! Or — forgive me — how fatal it is to set up the backs of people and to give rise to such gossip as must be as painful to the Rivenhalls as I am persuaded it would be to you!”

“Now, what in heaven’s name comes next?” said Sophy, quite astonished. “You cannot be so Gothic as to suppose that because I drive a high-perch phaeton I give rise to gossip!”

“No, though one would have preferred to have seen you, in some vehicle less sporting. But the habits of easy intercourse you are on with so many military gentlemen — rattles in scarlet coats, as Charles divertingly phrases it — and in particular with that man I saw you conversing with a moment ago, make you appear a little fast, dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, which I know you would not wish! Sir Vincent’s company cannot give you consequence,” indeed, quite the reverse! A certain lady — of the first consideration — commented to me only today upon his attaching himself to you so particularly.”

“I expect she has an interest there herself,” observed Sophy. “He is a shocking flirt! And did my cousin Charles desire you to warn me against all these rattles?”

“He did not precisely desire me to do so,” answered Miss Wraxton scrupulously, “but he has spoken to me on this head, and I know what his sentiments are. You must know that Society will look indulgently upon mere pranks, such as driving off in Charles’s curricle, for Lady Ombersley’s protection must give you countenance.”

“How fortunate I am!” said Sophy. “But do you think you are wise to be seen in my company?”

“Now you are quizzing, Miss Stanton-Lacy!”

“No, I am only afraid that you may suffer for being seen in such a vehicle as this, and with so fast a female!”

“Hardly,” Miss Wraxton said gently. “Perhaps it may be thought a little odd in me, for I do not drive myself in London, but I think my character is sufficiently well established to make it possible for me to do, if I wished, what others might be imprudent to attempt.”

They were by this time within sight of the gate by Apsley House. “Now let me understand you!” begged Sophy. “If I were to do something outrageous while in your company, would your credit be good enough to carry me off?”

“Let us say my family’s credit, Miss Stanton-Lacy. I may venture to reply, without hesitation, yes.”

“Capital!” said Sophy briskly, and turned her horses toward the gate.

Miss Wraxton, losing some of her assurance, said sharply, “ tray, what are you about?”

“I am going to do what I have been wanting to do ever I since I was told I must not, on any account!” replied Sophy. “It is with me a kind of Bluebeard’s chamber.” The phaeton swung through the gateway and turned  sharply to the left, narrowly escaping collision with a ponderous lozenge coach.

Miss Wraxton uttered a stifled shriek and clutched the side of the phaeton. “Take care! Please pull up your horses at once! I do not wish to drive through the streets! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“No, no, do not be afraid. I am quite sane. How glad I am that you chose to drive with me! Such an opportunity as this might never else have come in my way!”

“Miss Stanton-Lacy, I do not know what you mean, and again I must beg of you to pull up! I am not at all diverted by this prank, and I wish to, alight from your phaeton instantly!”

“What, and walk along Piccadilly unattended? You cannot mean it!”

“Stop!” commanded Miss Wraxton, in almost shrill accents. “On no account. Dear me, what a lot of traffic! Perhaps you had better not talk to me until I have weaved my way through all these carts and carriages.”

“For heaven’s sake, at least slacken your pace!” Miss Wraxton besought her, in the liveliest alarm.

“I will, when we come to the turning,” promised Sophy, passing between a waggon and a mail coach, with a matter of inches to spare. A moan from her companion caused her to add kindly, “There is no need to be in a fright. Sir Horace made me drive through a gateway until I could be trusted not even to scrape the varnish.”

They were now ascending the rise in Piccadilly. With a strong effort at self-control, Miss Wraxton demanded, “Tell me at once where you are taking me!”

“Down St. James’s Street,” replied Sophy coolly.

“What?” gasped Miss Wraxton, turning quite pale. “You will not do such a thing! No lady would be seen driving there! Amongst all the clubs, the object of every town saunterer! You cannot know what would be said of you! Stop this instant!”

“No, I want to see this Bow Window I hear so much of and all the dandies who sit there. How wretched that Mr. Brummel has been obliged to go abroad! Do you know, I never saw him in my life? Are you able to point out the various clubs to me? Shall we recognize White’s, or are there other houses with bow windows?”

“This is your notion of raillery, Miss Stanton-Lacy! You are not serious?”

“Yes, I am. Of course, I should not have dared to do it without you sitting beside, me to lend me credit, but you have assured me that your position is unassailable, and I see that I need have no scruple in gratifying my ambition. I daresay your consequence is great enough to make it quite a fashionable drive for ladies. We shall see!”

No argument that Miss Wraxton could advance, and she advanced many, had the power to move her. She drove on inexorably. Wild ideas of springing from the phaeton crossed Miss Wraxton’s mind, only to be rejected. It was too dangerous to be attempted. Had she been wearing a veil she might have pulled it over her face, and hoped to have escaped recognition, but her hat was a perfectly plain one and bore only a modest bow of ribbon. She had not even a parasol and was obliged to sit bolt upright, staring rigidly ahead of her the length of that disgraceful street. She did not utter a word until the horses swung round into Pall Mall, and then she said in a low voice, unsteady with rage and chagrin, “I will never forgive you! Never!”

“How uncharitable of you!” said Sophy lightly. “Shall I set you down now?”

“If you dare to abandon me in this locality — ”

“Very well, I will drive you to Berkeley Square. I do not know whether you will find my cousin at home at this hour, but at all events you may complain of me to my aunt, which I am sure you must be longing to do.”

“Do not speak to me!” said Miss Wraxton throbbingly. Sophy laughed.

Outside Ombersley House she broke the silence. “Can you get down without assistance? Having cast off my groom, together with your maid, I must drive the phaeton round to the stables myself.”

Miss Wraxton, vouchsafing no answer, climbed down, and walked up the steps to the front door.

It was half an hour later before Dassett admitted Sophy into the house. She found Mr. Rivenhall at the very moment coming down the stairs, and said at once, “Ah, so you were at home! I am so glad!”

He was looking very stern, and replied in a level tone, “Will you come into the library for a few minutes?”

She accompanied him there and began to drag off her driving gloves with hands that were not quite steady. Her eyes were still sparkling, and a not unbecoming flush mantled her cheeks. “Cousin, what, in God’s name, possessed you?” demanded Mr. Rivenhall.

“Oh, has not Miss Wraxton told you? I have realized an ambition!”

“You must be mad! Don’t you know how improper it was of you to do such a thing?”

“Yes, indeed I knew, and should never have dared to do it without the protection of Miss Wraxton’s presence! Do not look so dismayed! She assured me that even though I did something outrageous in her company her credit was good enough to carry me off! Surely you cannot doubt it!”

“Sophy, she cannot have said such a thing!”

She shrugged, and turned away. “No? Have it as you will!”

“What had occurred? What reason had you for causing her such mortification?”

“I will leave Miss Wraxton to tell you what she chooses. I have said too much already. I do not like tale bearers, and will not sink to that level! My actions are no concern of yours, Cousin Charles, and even less are they Miss Wraxton’s.”

“What you have just done is very much her concern!”

“True. I stand corrected.”

“It is also my concern to see that you come to no harm while you are a guest in this house. Such conduct as you indulged in this afternoon might do you a great deal of harm, let me tell you!”

“My dear Charles, I am past praying for, as intimate as I am with rakes and rattles!” she flashed.

He stiffened. “Who said that?”

“You, I understand, but you had too much delicacy to say it to my face. You should have known better than to think I should listen meekly to Miss Wraxton, however!”

“And you should know better than to imagine that I would deliver my strictures through Miss Wraxton, or anyone else!”

She lifted a hand to her cheek, and he saw it was to dash away a teardrop. “Oh, be quiet! Cannot you see that I am too angry to talk with any moderation? My wretched tongue! But though you did not desire Miss Wraxton to scold me for you, you did discuss me with her, did you not?”

“Whatever I may have said I did not mean to be repeated. It was, however, extremely improper of me to have criticized you to Miss Wraxton. I beg your pardon!”

She pulled out her handkerchief from the sleeve of her habit and blew her nose. Her flush died down; she said ruefully, “Now I am disarmed. How provoking of you! Why could you not have flown into one of your rages? You are so disobliging! Was it so very bad to have driven down St. James’s Street?”

“You knew it was, for Miss Wraxton told you so. You have caused her a great deal of distress, Sophy.”

“Oh, dear! I do such dreadful things when I lose my temper! Very well, it was wrong in me — very wrong! Must I beg her pardon?”

“You must see that you owe her an apology. If anything she may have said to you angered you, at least she had no such intention. She meant nothing but kindness, and is very much upset by the outcome. Mine is the blame, for having led her to suppose that I wished her to take you to task.”

She smiled. “That’s handsome of you, Charles! I am sorry. I have created an uncomfortable situation. Where is Miss Wraxton? In the drawing room? Take me up to her, then, and I will do what I may to mend things!”

“Thank you,” he said, opening the door for her.

Miss Wraxton was found to have recovered from her agitation and to be glancing through the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine. She glanced coldly at Sophy, and lowered her eyes again to the periodical. Sophy walked across the room, saying in her frank way: “Will you forgive me? Indeed, I beg your pardon, and am very sorry! It was shocking conduct!”

“So shocking, Miss Stanton-Lacy, that I prefer not to speak of it.”

“If that means that you will try to forget it, I shall be very grateful to you.”

“Certainly I shall do so.”

“Thank you!” Sophy said. “You are very kind!”

She turned and went quickly to the door. Mr. Rivenhall was holding it, and detained her for a moment, saying in a much warmer voice than she had yet heard him use, “If anyone should mention the affair to me, I shall say that having bought those bays of yours against my advice you were well served, for they got away with you!”

She smiled, but said, “I wish you will do what you can to undo any harm I may have caused.”

“My dear girl, don’t refine too much upon it. There is no need, I assure you.”

She cast him a look of gratitude, and left the room.

“You were not very generous, were you, Eugenia?” said Mr. Rivenhall.

“I consider her behavior unpardonable.”

“It is unnecessary to tell me so; you made it plain enough that you thought so.”

Her bosom swelled. “I did not think to hear you take her part against me, Charles!”

“I have not done so, but the fault was not all hers. You had no right to take her to task, Eugenia, much less to repeat whatever ill-considered words I may have uttered! I am not surprised she was so angry. I have a temper myself!”

“You do not seem to consider the agony of mortification I have been obliged to suffer! What Mama would say if she knew — ”

“Oh, enough, enough!” he said impatiently. “You make too much of it! Let us, for heaven’s sake, forget it!”

She was offended, but she saw that to persist would lower her in his eyes. It annoyed her to think that she had shown to less advantage than Sophy in the little scene that had been enacted. She forced herself to smile, and say magniloquently, “You are right. I have allowed myself to be too much moved. Please assure your cousin that I shall not think of the matter again!”

She had her reward, for he grasped her hand at once, saying, “That is more like you! I knew I could not be mistaken in you!”

Chapter 8

THE TWO ladies did not meet again until the day of the expedition to Merton, Miss Wraxton, convinced that she had become notorious, having decided to pay a long deferred visit to her elder sister, who lived in Kent, and was famous for turning her guests to good account. Eugenia was not fond of running Lady Louisa’s errands or of playing with her numerous offspring, but she was strongly of the opinion that she would be wise to absent herself from London until the inevitable whisperings had died down. The Rivenhalls thus enjoyed immunity from her punitive descents upon them for seven whole days, which was felt by almost all to be an advantage far outweighing the ills of Sophy’s indiscretion. This did not reach the ears of Lady Ombersley, but was naturally known to the younger members of the household, some of whom were much shocked, while others, notably Hubert and Selina, considered that their cousin had taken a splendid lark. No apparent repercussions followed her exploit, and although she was obliged to endure much chaffing from her young relatives, even this very soon took a turn in another direction. A much more fruitful topic for jests presented itself in the shape of young Lord Bromford, who swam suddenly into the Rivenhalls’ ken, and was regarded by them as so much manna dropped from heaven.

Lord Bromford, who was almost unknown to the Polite World, had but lately, upon the death of his father, succeeded to a modest barony. He was the only surviving child of his parents, every one of his brothers and sisters (varying in number, according to popular report from seven to seventeen) having died in infancy. It may have been for this reason that his mother had from the start deemed him unfit to be wrested from her care. No other reason was observable; although, as Sophy fair-mindedly pointed out to her cousins, a florid complexion and a full habit of body were not infallible signs of a robust constitution. He had been educated at home, and although there had been a project afoot to send him up to Oxford, a providential chill had intervened to save him from the perils of University life. It was well known to Lord Bromford that his heir’s lungs were delicate, and it was only necessary for Lady Bromford to point out to him every day for several weeks the evils that would accrue from exposing Henry to the rigors of Oxford to induce him to give his consent to an alternative plan.

Henry, accompanied by a clerical gentleman in whom Lady Bromford reposed the greatest confidence, was sent to Jamaica, on a visit to his uncle, the Governor. The climate was said to be beneficial to persons with weak lungs, and it was not until Henry had been four days at sea that his mama discovered that the island was periodically devastated by hurricanes. It was then too late to recall Henry, who proceeded on his voyage, being extremely seasick, but arriving at Port Royal without any trace of the cough which had cast his mama into such a fever of anxiety. No hurricane occurred during his visit to sweep him away, and when he returned to England, a few months before attaining his majority, he was so stout that his mama was able to congratulate herself on the success of her scheme. She did not immediately perceive that his eighteen-month sojourn apart from her had had the effect of making him occasionally disinclined to submit to her benevolent rule. On her advice, he changed his socks, wound mufflers round his neck, swathed his legs in warm rugs, and eschewed all harmful forms of sustenance; but when she advised him not to subject his person to the racket of London he said, after due consideration, that he rather thought he should like to live in London; and when she proposed a very eligible match for him, he said he was much obliged to her, but had not yet made up his mind what sort of a female he wished to marry. He did not argue. He merely turned his back on the eligible match and took up his residence in London. His mother began to tell her friends that Henry could be led but not driven; his valet, a plain-spoken man, said that his lordship was as obstinate as a pig.

He had been upon the town for some time before the Rivenhalls were more than vaguely aware of his existence, His intimates (whom Hubert stigmatized as a dull set of gudgeons) were not among their particular friends, and it was not until he met Sophy at Almack’s, and stood up with her in a country dance, that the full glory of his personality burst upon them.

For Lord Bromford, impervious alike to Cecilia’s beauty and to the eligibility of his mama’s choice, had made up his mind that Sophy would make him a suitable wife. He called in Berkeley Square, and at a moment when Hubert and Selina were with Lady Ombersley. He stayed for half an hour, imparting information to his hosts on such varied topics as the vegetation in Jamaica and the effects of paregoric draughts upon the human system, and the Rivenhalls listened to him in stunned indignation until Sophy entered the room. Then the scales fell from before their eyes and they perceived why his lordship had honored them with a morning call, and their boredom changed to unholy glee. Sophy’s beau became in a trice the solid foundation upon which a lively set of young persons built the most preposterous of fabrications.

No street singer could lift his voice in the Square but what Hubert or Cecilia would declare it to be Lord Bromford serenading Sophy; when he was confined to his house for three days with an internal disorder he was held to have fought a duel for the sake of her fine eyes; and the serial story of his adventures in the West Indies, conceived, added to, and improved upon by three fertile brains, grew so outrageous as to draw protests from Lady Ombersley and Miss Adderbury. But Lady Ombersley, though she might deprecate such an excess of high spirits, could not help but be amused by the determination shown by Lord Bromford in his pursuit of her niece. He was forever calling in Berkeley Square on the most slender of pretexts; he daily promenaded in the Park only to waylay Sophy and be taken up into her phaeton; he even purchased a showy hack, and rode solemnly up and down the Row every morning in the hope that she might be exercising Salamanca there.

More wonderful still, he prevailed upon his mama to cultivate the acquaintance of Lady Ombersley and to invite Sophy to go with her to one of the Concerts of Ancient Music. He was impervious to snubs, and when his mama hinted to him that Sophy would scarcely make a suitable wife for a serious man, being wholly given over to frivolity, he said that he was confident that he would be able to direct her thoughts into more sober channels.

The cream of the jest, thought the young Rivenhalls, was that Charles, in general so impatient of pretension, was, for inscrutable reasons, encouraging his lordship. Charles said that there was a great deal of good in Lord Bromford. He said that Lord Bromford’s conversation showed him to be sensible and that his descriptions of Jamaica were extremely interesting. Only Selina (who was growing up, Charles said, to be disagreeably pert) ventured to observe that Lord Bromford’s entrance into the house seemed to be the signal for Charles’s departure for his club.

What with his lordship’s courtship, the plans for the ball, the stream of visitors to the house, even Sophy’s indiscretion, life in Berkeley Square had become all at once full of fun and excitement. Even Lord Ombersley was aware of it. “By God, I don’t know what’s come over you all, for the place was used to be as lively as a tomb,” he declared. “I’ll tell you what, Lady Ombersley. I daresay I can prevail upon York to look in on your party. Nothing formal, y’know, but he’s fixed in Stableyard for the present and will very likely be pleased enough to drop in for half an hour.”

“Prevail upon the Duke of York to come to my party?” echoed Lady Ombersley, in the greatest astonishment. “My dear Ombersley, you must be out of your senses. Ten, or perhaps twelve couples, getting up a dance in the drawing room, and a couple of card tables set out in the Crimson Saloon! I beg you will do no such thing!”

“Ten or twelve couples? No, no, Dassett would not be talking of red carpets and awnings for such a paltry affair as that!” said his lordship.

These ominous words struck a chill into his wife’s soul. Beyond fixing the date for the party, and warning Cecilia not to forget to send a card to a very dull girl, who was her goddaughter, and must be invited, she had not as yet thought much about the engagement. She now nerved herself to ask her niece how many people were expected on the fatal night. The answer almost brought on one of her spasms. She was obliged to drink a little hartshorn and water, thoughtfully pressed into her hand by Cecilia, before she could recover herself sufficiently to protest. She sat, alternately sipping the hartshorn and sniffing her vinaigrette, and moaning that she shuddered to think what Charles would say. It took Sophy twenty minutes to convince her that since he was not to be asked to defray the expenses of the entertainment, it was no concern of his, and even then Lady Ombersley dreaded the inevitable moment of discovery and could scarcely see him walk into the room without giving a nervous start.

Fortunately for the success of the expedition, the truth had not dawned upon Charles when the Ombersley party set out to visit the Marquesa de Villancanas at Merton. The omens seemed to be propitious. The Marquesa had written a very pretty letter to Lady Ombersley, expressing her pleasure in the proposed meeting and begging her bring with her many of her interesting children as would care to come; the sun shone, and the day was warm, with no threat of showers; and Miss Wraxton, who had returned to the metropolis in time to share in the treat, was in her most amiable humor, not even excluding Sophy from her good graces.

At the last moment, Hubert suddenly announced his intention accompanying the party, saying the he too wanted to see giraffe. Sophy frowned him down, and as his mother had not caught what he said, but at once began to express delight in having his company, the awkward moment passed unnoticed. Mr. Rivenhall, having greeted Sir Vincent Talgarth with perfect civility, was standing exchanging conversation with him while the three ladies who were to drive in the landaulet arranged themselves in it, Miss Wraxton begging to be allowed to take the back seat, and Cecilia insisting that she should not. Everything seemed to be in train for a day of enjoyment when Mr. Fawnhope came round the corner of the Square, saw the cavalcade, and at once crossed the road toward it.

Mr. Rivenhall’s face hardened; he shot an accusing look at Sophy, but she shook her head. Mr. Fawnhope, shaking hands with Lady Ombersley, asked whither she was bound. She told him, Merton, and he said elliptically, “Statutes. Nolumus leges Angliae mutare. ”

“Very likely,” said Lady Ombersley almost tartly. Miss Wraxton, who could never resist the temptation to display her superior education, smiled quite kindly at Mr. Fawnhope, and said, “Very true. King John, you know, is said to have slept at the priory the night before he signed the Great Charter. It is a very historic spot, for we are told that it was the scene of the murder of Cenulph, King of Wessex. It has, of course, more recent historic associations,” she added, but repressively, for these more recent historic associations regrettably included a quite unmentionable female.

“Nelson!” said Mr. Fawnhope. “Romantic Merton! I will go with you.” He then climbed into the carriage and took his place beside Cecilia, smiling seraphically at Lady Ombersley, and saying, “Now I know what it is I wish to do. I had no notion when I got up this morning but was filled with a vast discontent. I will go to Merton.”

“You cannot wish to go to Merton!” said Lady Ombersley, very much put out, and hoping that Charles would not put her to the blush by saying something cutting to this tiresome young man.

“Yes,” said Mr. Fawnhope. “There will be verdure, and that, I think, is what my soul craves. I, with my fair Cecilia, to Merton now will go, Where softly flows the Wandle, and daffodils that blow — What an ugly word is Wandle! How displeasing to the ear! Why do you frown at me? May I not go with you?”

This sudden change from rapt poet into cajoling boy threw Lady Ombersley off her balance, and she replied in a mollified voice, “I am sure we should be pleased to take you, Augustus, but we are going to visit the Marquesa de Villacañas, and she will not be expecting you.”

“Now there,” said Mr. Fawnhope, “is a beautiful name! Villacañas! It is most rich! A Spanish lady, with ‘garments gay and rich as maybe, Decked with jewels had she on!’”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Lady Ombersley crossly. Sophy, much amused by Mr. Fawnhope’s utter imperviousness to hints that he was not wanted, said laughingly, “Yes, pearls worth a king’s ransom. She even loves an English man, my father!”

“How splendid!” said Mr. Fawnhope. “I am so glad I came!”

Short of ordering him point-blank to get out of the carriage, there seemed to be no way of getting rid of him. Lady Ombersley cast her eldest son a despairing glance and Cecilia an imploring one; and Miss Wraxton smiled in a reassuring way that was designed to show him how perfect was her comprehension and how firm her resolve to keep an eye on Cecilia.

“Who is this Adonis?” Sir Vincent asked Mr. Rivenhall. “He and your sister, seated side by side, quite take one’s breath away!”

“Augustus Fawnhope,” replied Mr. Rivenhall curtly. “Cousin, if you are ready, I will hand you up!”

Lady Ombersley, gathering that she had received a tacit consent to Mr. Fawnhope’s presence, told her coachman to start, Sir Vincent and Hubert fell in behind the carriage, and Mr. Rivenhall said to Sophy, “If this is your doing — !”

“I promise you it is not. If I thought that he had the smallest notion of your hostility, I should say that he had rolled you up, Charles, foot and guns!”

He was obliged to laugh. “I doubt if he would have the smallest notion of anything less violent than a blow from a cudgel. How you can tolerate the fellow!”

“I told you that I was not at all nice in my ideas. Come, don’t let us talk of him! I have sworn an oath to heaven not to quarrel with you today.”

“You amaze me! Why?”

“Don’t be such an ape!” she begged. “I want to drive your grays, of course!”

He took his place beside her in the curricle and nodded to the groom to stand away from the grays’ heads. “Oh, that! When we are clear of the town, you shall do so.”

“That,” said Sophy, “is a remark calculated, I daresay, to make me lose my temper at the outset. I shall not do it, however.”

“I don’t doubt your skill,” he said.

“A handsome admission. It cost you an effort to make it, perhaps, and that makes it the more valuable. But the roads are so good in England that not much skill is required. You should see some of the tracks in Spain!”

“Deliberate provocation, Sophy!” said Mr. Rivenhall. She laughed, disclaimed, and began to ask him about hunting.

Once beyond the narrow streets he let his horses lengthen their stride, and overtook, and passed the landaulet. Miss Wraxton was seen to be conversing amicably with Mr. Fawnhope, while Cecilia was looking bored. The reason was explained by Hubert, who rode beside the curricle for a little way and disclosed that the subject under discussion was Dante’s Inferno. “And this I will say for Fawnhope!” he added handsomely. “He knows that Italian stuff much better than your Eugenia, Charles, and can go on at it for hours, never at a loss! What’s more, there’s another fellow, called Uberti, or some such thing, and he knows him too. Sad stuff, if you ask me, but Talgarth — I say, he’s a bang-up fellow, isn’t he? — says he’s devilish well read. Cecilia don’t like it above half. Jupiter, I should laugh if Eugenia were to cut her out with the poet!”

Receiving no encouragement from his brother to expatiate on this theme, he fell behind again to rejoin Sir Vincent. Mr. Rivenhall handed over the reins to Sophy, observing as he did so that he was glad not to be sitting in the landaulet. She refrained from making any comment, and the rest of the drive passed very pleasantly, no controversial topics arising to mar the good relations between them.

The house procured for the Marquesa by Sir Horace was a spacious Palladian villa, prettily situated in charming gardens, and with a bluebell wood attached, which, though fenced off from the pleasure grounds, could be reached through some graceful iron gates, brought from Italy by a previous owner. A few shallow steps led up from the carriage sweep to the front door, and this, upon the’ approach of the curricle, was flung open, and a thin man, dressed in black, came out of the house, and stood bowing on the top step. Sophy greeted him in her usual friendly fashion, and at once asked where Mr. Rivenhall could stable his horses. The thin man snapped an imperative finger and thumb, rather in the manner of a conjuror, and a groom seemed to spring up out of nowhere, and ran to the grays’ heads.

“I’ll see them stabled, Sophy, and come in presently with my mother,” Mr. Rivenhall said.

Sophy nodded, and walked up the steps, saying, “There are two more in the party than you were expecting, Gaston. You won’t mind that, I daresay.”

“It makes nothing, mademoiselle,” he replied grandly. “Madame awaits you in the salon.”

The Marquesa was discovered reclining upon a sofa in a drawing room facing the south lawn. The April sunshine was not overpowering, but the blinds had been drawn a little way across the windows to exclude it. As these were green, like the upholstery on the chairs, a sub aqueous light dimly lit the apartment. Sophy immediately flung back the curtains, exclaiming as she did so, “Sancia, you cannot go to sleep when your visitors are almost at the door!”

A faint moan came from the sofa. “Sophie, my complexion! Nothing so injurious as sunshine! How often have I said it?”

Sophy walked over to her and bent to kiss her. “Yes, dearest Sancia, but my aunt will think you quite odd if you lie there in darkness while she gropes her way to you by guess. Do get up!”

“ Bien entendido I get up when your aunt approaches,” said the Marquesa, with dignity. “If she is at the door, it shall be now. I grudge no effort.”

In proof of this statement she disentangled a singularly beautiful embroidered shawl from about her feet, dropped it on the floor, and allowed Sophy to help her to rise. She was an opulent brunette, dressed more in the French style than the English, and with her luxuriant black locks covered only by a mantilla, draped over a high comb. Her gown was of gauze over satin, drawn in tightly below her full breasts, and revealing a good deal more of her shape than Lady Ombersley was likely to think seemly. This, however, was slightly concealed by the various scarves and shawls which she draped round herself as protection against treacherous draughts. The mantilla was pinned to her low corsage by a large emerald brooch; more emeralds, set in massive gold, dangled from the lobes of her ears; and she wore her famous pearls, twisted twice round her throat, and hanging almost to her waist. She was extremely handsome, with large, sleepy brown eyes, and a creamy complexion, delicately tinted by the hand of an artist. She was little more than thirty-five, but her plumpness made her appear to be older. She did not look in the least like a widow, which was the first thought that occurred to Lady Ombersley when she presently entered the room and took the languid hand held out to her.

“ Comoestá?” she said, in her rich, lazy voice. This terrified Hubert, who had been assured that she spoke excellent English. He cast a burning look of reproach at Sophy, who at once intervened, calling her future stepmother to order. The Marquesa smiled placidly, and said, “De seguro! I speak French and English, and both very well. Also German, but that not so well, yet better than most people. It is a profound happiness to meet the sister of Sir Horace, though you do not, I find, resemble him, senora. Valgam! Are these then all your sons and daughters?”

Lady Ombersley made haste to reassure her and to perform the necessary introductions. The Marquesa lost interest in these before very long, but smiled in a general way upon her guests, and begged them all to sit down. Sophy reminded her that in Sir Vincent she beheld an old acquaintance, so she gave him her hand and said that she remembered him perfectly. No one believed her, least of all Sir Vincent; but when she had been reminded of a certain evening on the Prado, she began to laugh, and said yes, now indeed she did remember him, pechero that he was! She then, having had time to assimilate the perfection of Cecilia’s features, complimented Lady Ombersley on her beauty, which, she said, was in the best English style and much admired upon the Continent. Apparently feeling that something was due to Miss Wraxton, she smiled kindly at her and said that I she also was very English. Miss Wraxton, who did not grudge Cecilia her beauty (for she had been brought up to think beauty only skin deep), replied that she feared that she was not above the ordinary and that in England the fashion was for dark women.

This subject having been pretty well thrashed out, silence fell, the Marquesa lying back against the cushions in one corner of the sofa, and Lady Ombersley wondering what topic of conversation would interest this lethargic lady. Mr. Fawnhope, who had retired to the brocade-covered window seat, sat gazing out upon the verdure his soul craved; Hubert regarded his hostess with a fascinated eye; and Mr. Rivenhall, adapting himself to his company, picked up a periodical from the table at his elbow and casually flicked over the pages. It was left to Miss Wraxton, with her fine social sense, to fill the breach, which she did by telling the Marquesa that she was a great admirer of Don Quixote.

“All the English are,” responded the Marquesa, a little amused. “And they will none of them say that name correctly. In Madrid, when the English army was there, every officer told me that he so much admired Cervantes, though mostly it was not true. But we have also Quevedo, and Espinel, and Montelban, to name only a few. In poetry, too — ”

“ El Fenix de Espana,” interpolated Mr. Fawnhope, suddenly entering into the conversation.

The Marquesa looked approvingly at him. “That is so. You are familiar with the works of Lope de Vega? Sophy,” she said, breaking into her own tongue, “this young man with the face of an angel reads Spanish!”

“Very indifferently,” said Mr. Fawnhope, quite unmoved by this embarrassing description of his face.

“We will talk together,” said the Marquesa.

“Certainly not,” said Sophy firmly. “At least, not if you mean to do so in Spanish.”

Fortunately for the success of the party, Gaston came in at this moment to announce that refreshments were laid out in the dining room. It was soon discovered that however indolent a hostess the Marquesa might be, her maitre d’hôtel left nothing to chance. A profusion of succulent foreign dishes awaited the guests, garnished with aspic, or spread with subtle sauces, and served with various light wines. Jellies, trifles, syllabubs, puptons of fruit, and coffee creams in cups of almond paste rounded off what the Marquesa called a light merienda. From the sparing way in which Miss Wraxton partook of a few of the delicacies it was not difficult to see that she considered such lavish hospitality vulgar; but Hubert, making a hearty meal, began to thank the Marquesa a very good sort of a woman after all. When he saw how many coffee creams, Italian rusks, and brandy cherries she herself consumed, in the most negligent fashion, his manner toward her became tinged with respect bordering on awe.

The repast at an end, Gaston bent to his mistress’s ear and reminded her that the gate into the wood had been unlocked. She said, “Oh, yes! The bluebell wood! So pretty! These young people would like to wander through it, senora, while you and I repose ourselves a little.”

It would never have occurred to Lady Ombersley to suggest a siesta to a visitor, but since she invariably dozed during the afternoon she had no real fault to find with this program, and accompanied the Marquesa into the drawing room. Here she at first endeavored to engage the Marquesa in talk of her brother, but without much success. The Marquesa said, “It is not amusing to be a widow, and, besides, I prefer England to Spain, since it is now very impoverished there. But to be madrasta to Sophy! No, and a thousand times no!”

“We are all very fond of my dear niece,” said Lady Ombersley, bristling.

“I also, but she is too fatiguing. One does not know what next she will do, or, which is worse by far, what she will make one do that one does not wish at all.”

Lady Ombersley found herself quite unable to resist the temptation of indulging in a little gentle malice. “My dear ma’am, I am sure my niece could never persuade you to exert yourself in any way disagreeable to you!”

“But yes!” said the Marquesa simply. “It is plain that you do not know Sophy. To withstand her is much, much more fatiguing still!”

Meanwhile, the subject of this exchange was arranging a flower in Hubert’s buttonhole in the formal garden. Mr. Rivenhall had gone off in the direction of the stables, and the four others were wending their way through the shrubbery toward the bluebell wood, Mr. Fawnhope having been visited by inspiration which on the sight of Cecilia in the wood could, he said, bring to fruition. So far, he had only achieved one line of his poem, but he felt it to be promising. “ When amidst bluebells my Cecilia treads,” he murmured.

“Quite Carolinian!” remarked Miss Wraxton.

Mr. Fawnhope’s verse was at all times derivative, but he liked being told so no better than any other poet, so he took his Cecilia’s hand and would have led her away had not Miss Wraxton been on the alert to prevent just such a happening. With determination she stayed beside the lovers, and presently, by a happy reference to Cowper, succeeded in diverting Mr. Fawnhope’s attention from Cecilia to herself. Sir Vincent, finding solace for boredom in amusement at this situation, bided his time, and was presently rewarded. Cecilia, unable to bear a part in the elevated discussion in progress (for she was no great reader), began to drop behind. Sir Vincent fell in beside her, and in a very short space of time coaxed her out of her crossness, and, indeed, out of the wood as well. He said that profound as was his admiration for Miss Wraxton’s intellect he found her conversation oppressive. Woods and bluestockings, he said, exercised a lowering effect upon his spirits. He thought the ground was damp, certainly unfit walking for a delicately nurtured lady. He took Cecilia instead to inspect the dovecot, and since he was skilled in the art of flirtation, and she was lovely enough to make a little dalliance a pleasant way of whiling away a dull afternoon, they contrived to pass an agreeable hour together.

While all this was going on, Sophy was walking in the shrubbery with Hubert. She had not failed to notice that during the past few days he had swung between exaggeratedly high spirits and fits of black depression. She had mention the matter to Cecilia, but Cecilia had merely said that Hubert had always been moody and had not seemed to be inclined to think any more about it. But Sophy could not see anyone in the grip of care without instantly wishing to discover the cause, and, if possible, to rectify it. She thought she was now on good enough terms with him to venture to broach the matter to him, and so, it seemed, she was, for although he could not be said to confide in her, he did not, as she had been afraid he might, mount upon a high horse. Yes, he confessed, he was a trifle worried, it was no great matter, and he expected to have put it behind him in a very few days’ time.