The Grand Sophy (35 page)

That made her laugh weakly, and so, between nonsense and coaxing, she was persuaded to drink nearly all the milk. Sophy laid her gently down again, but nothing would do but that both Charles and Sophy should stay beside her.

“Yes, but no more talking,” Sophy said. “I am going to tell you about another of my adventures, and if you interrupt me I shall lose the thread.”

“Oh, yes, tell about the time you were lost in the Pyrenees!” begged Amabel drowsily.

Sophy did so, her voice sinking as the little girl’s eyelids began to droop. Mr. Rivenhall sat still and silent on the other side of the bed, watching his sister. Presently Amabel’s deeper breathing betrayed that she slept. Sophy’s voice ceased; she looked up and met Mr. Rivenhall’s eyes. He was staring at her, as though a thought, blinding in its novelty, had occurred to him. Her gaze remained steady, a little questioning. He rose abruptly, half stretched out his hand but let it fall again, and, turning, went quickly out of the room.

XV

UPON THE following day, Sophy did not encounter her cousin. He visited Amabel at an hour when he knew Sophy to be resting and was not at home to dinner. Lady Ombersley feared that something had occurred to vex him, for although his manner toward her was unfailingly patient, and he abated none of his solicitude for her comfort, his brow was clouded, and he replied to many of her remarks quite, at random. He submitted, however, to the penance of a hand at cribbage with her; and when the game was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Fawnhope, with a copy of his poem for Lady Ombersley and a posy of moss roses for Cecilia, he was sufficiently master of himself to greet the visitor, if not with enthusiasm, at least with civility.

Mr. Fawnhope, having written some thirty lines of his tragedy the previous day, with which he was not dissatisfied, was in a complaisant humor, neither chasing an elusive epithet nor brooding over an infelicitous line. He said everything that was proper, and, when all inquiries into the invalid’s condition were exhausted, conversed on various topics so much like a sensible man that Mr. Rivenhall himself quite in charity with him and was only driven from the room by Lady Ombersley’s request to the poet to read aloud to her his lyric on Amabel’s deliverance from danger. Even this abominable affectation could not wholly dissipate the kindlier feelings with which he regarded Mr. Fawnhope, whose continued visits to the house gave him a better opinion of the poet than was at all deserved. Cecilia could have told him that Mr. Fawnhope’s intrepidity sprang more from a sublime unconsciousness of the risk of infection than from any deliberate heroism, but since she was not in the habit of discussing her lover with her brother he continued in a happy state of ignorance, himself too practical a man to comprehend the density of the veil in which a poet could wrap himself.

He never again visited the sickroom at a moment when he might expect to find his cousin there, and when they met “at the dinner table, his manner toward her was so curt as to border on the brusque. Cecilia, knowing how very much obliged to Sophy he thought himself, was astonished, and more than once pressed her cousin to tell her whether they had quarreled. But Sophy would only shake her head and look mischievous.

Amabel continued to mend, although slowly, and with many setbacks and all the irrational fidgets of a convalescent. For twelve hours nothing would do for her but to have Jacko brought to her room. Only Sophy’s forcible representations prevented Mr. Rivenhall from posting down to Ombersley Court to bring back the indispensable monkey, so anxious was he that nothing should be allowed to retard his little sister’s recovery, But Tina, hitherto excluded, to her great indignation, from attendance on his mistress in the sickroom, made an excellent substitute for Jacko, and was only too content to curl up on the quilt under Amabel’s caressing hand.

At the beginning of the fourth week of the illness. Dr. Baillie began to talk of the propriety of removing his patient into the country. But here he encountered an unexpected and obstinate opposition from Lady Ombersley. He had once mentioned to her the possibility of a relapse, and this had taken such strong possession of her mind that no inducement could serve to make her consent to Amabel’s going out of reach of his expert care. She represented to him the unwisdom of restoring Amabel to the society of her sisters and her noisy brother soon to be enjoying his summer holiday at Ombersley. The little girl was still languid, disinclined for any exertion, and wincing at sudden sounds. She would do better in London, under his eye, and in the fond care of her mama. Now that all danger was past, Lady Ombersley’s maternal instinct could assert itself. She, and she alone, should bear the charge of her youngest daughter’s convalescence. In the event, to lie upon the sofa in Mama’s dressing room, to drive sedately out with her in the barouche, just suited Amabel’s present humor, and so it was settled, both Cecilia and Sophy disclaiming any desire to leave London for the country.

Town was very thin of company, but the weather was not so sultry as to make the streets disagreeable. The month was showery, and few were the days when even the most modish young lady cared to venture forth without a pelisse or a shawl.

Others besides the Ombersley family had chosen to remain in town until August. Lord Charlbury was still to be found in Mount Street;’ Mr. Fawnhope in his rooms off St. James’s; Lord Bromford, deaf to the entreaties of his mother, refused to retire into Kent; and the Brinklows found several excellent excuses for remaining in Brook Street. As soon as all danger of infection was over, Miss Wraxton was once more to be seen in Berkeley Square, gracious to everyone, even caressing toward Lady Ombersley and Amabel, and very full of wedding schemes. Mr. Rivenhall found pressing business to attend to on his own estates; and if Miss Wraxton chose to assume that his frequent absences from town were accounted for by his desire to set his house in order for her reception, she was quite at liberty to do so.

Cecilia, less robust than her cousin, did not recover so quickly from the anxiety and exertion of her four weeks’ incarceration. She was a good deal pulled down and had lost a little of her bloom. She was rather silent, too, a fact that did not escape her brother’s eye. He taxed her with it; and, when she returned an evasive answer, and would have left the room, detained her, saying, “Don’t go, Cilly!”

She waited, looking inquiringly at him. After a moment, he asked abruptly, “Are you unhappy?”

Her color rose, and her lips trembled in spite of herself. She made a protesting gesture, turning away her face, for it was impossible to explain to him the turmoil raging in her own heart.

To her surprise, he took her hand and pressed it, saying awkwardly, but in a softened tone, “I never meant you to be unhappy. I did not think—You are such a good girl, Cilly. I suppose, if your poet will but engage on some respectable profession, I must withdraw my opposition and let you have your way.”

Amazement held her motionless, only her startled eyes flying to his face. She allowed her hand to lie in his, until he released it and turned away, as though he did not choose to meet her wide gaze.

“You thought me cruel—unfeeling! No doubt I must have seemed so, but I have never desired anything but your happiness. I cannot be glad of your choice, but if your mind is made up, God forbid I should have any hand in parting you from one whom you sincerely love, or in promoting your marriage to a man you cannot care for!”

“Charles!” she uttered faintly.

He said over his shoulder, and with some difficulty, “I have come to see that nothing but misery could result from such a union. You at least shall not be subjected to a lifetime of regret! I will speak to my father. You have resented my influence with him. This time it shall be exerted in your favor.”

At any other moment his words must have prompted her to have inquired into their unexpressed significance, but shock seemed to suspend her every faculty. She found not a word to say, and experienced the greatest difficulty in preventing herself from bursting into tears. He turned his head, and said, with a smile, “What an ogre I must appear to you, to have so taken your breath away, Cilly! Don’t stare at me so unbelievingly! You shall marry your poet; my hand on it!”

She put out her own mechanically, managed to speak two words, “Thank you!” and ran out of the room, unable to say more, or to control her emotion.

She sought the seclusion of her own bedchamber, her thoughts in such disorder that it was long before her agitation had at all subsided.

Never had opposition been withdrawn at so inopportune a moment; never had a victory seemed more empty! Almost without her knowledge, her sentiments, during the “past weeks, had been undergoing a change. Now that her brother had accorded her his permission to marry the man of her choice, she discovered that her feeling for Augustus had been more than the infatuation Charles had always thought it. Opposition had fostered it, leading her into the fatal error of almost publicly announcing her unalterable determination to marry Augustus or no one. Lord Charlbury, so superior to Augustus in every way, had accepted her rejection of his suit and had turned his attention elsewhere; and whatever unacknowledged hope she might have cherished of seeing his affections reanimate toward her must now be quite at an end. To confess to Charles that he had been right from the start, and she most miserably mistaken, was impossible. She had gone too far; nothing now remained to her but to accept the fate she had insisted on bringing on herself; and, for pride’s sake, to show a smiling face to the world.

She showed it first to Sophy, resolutely begging her to felicitate her upon her happiness. Sophy was thunderstruck. “Good God!” she exclaimed, stupefied. “Charles will promote this match?”

“He does not wish me to be unhappy. He never wished it. Now that he is convinced that I am in earnest he will place no bar in my way. Indeed, he was so good as to promise that he would speak to Papa for me! That must decide it. Papa always does what Charles desires him to.” She saw that her cousin was regarding her fixedly, and continued quickly, “I have never known Charles kinder! He spoke of the misery of being forced into a marriage against one’s inclination. He said I should not spend a lifetime of regret. Oh, Sophy, can it be that he no longer cares for Eugenia? The suspicion cannot but obtrude!”

“Good gracious, he never did care for her!” replied Sophy scornfully. “And if he had but just discovered it, that is no reason for—” She broke off, darting a swift glance at Cecilia and perceiving much more than her cousin would have wished. “Well! This is a day of miracles indeed!” she said. “Of course I felicitate you with all my heart, dearest Cecy! When is your betrothal to be announced?”

“Oh, not until Augustus is settled in—in some respectable occupation!” Cecilia answered. “But that will not be long, I am persuaded! Or his tragedy may take, you know.”

Sophy agreed to this without a blink and listened with an assumption of interest to Cecilia’s various schemes for the future. That these were couched in somewhat melancholy terms she allowed to pass without comment, merely repeating her congratulations and wishing her cousin every happiness.

But behind these mendacities her brain was working swiftly. She perfectly understood the fix Cecilia was in, and never for an instant thought of wasting her breath in expostulation. Something far more drastic than expostulation was needed in this case, for no lady who had entered into an engagement in the teeth of parental opposition could be expected to cry off from it the instant she had gained the sanction she had so insistently demanded.

Willingly could Sophy have boxed Mr. Rivenhall’s ears. To remain adamant when opposition could only strengthen his sister’s resolve had been bad enough; to withdraw his opposition at a moment when Charlbury was in a fair way to ousting the poet from her affections was an act of such insanity that it put Sophy out of all patience with him. Thanks to Alfred Wraxton’s predilection for gossip, Cecilia’s secret engagement to Mr. Fawnhope was widely known. She had, moreover, been at some pains to display to Society her determination to wed him. It would need something very drastic indeed to induce so gently bred a girl to fly in the face of all convention.

If Mr. Rivenhall had agreed to the match, Sophy could not suppose that the official announcement would be long delayed; once this had appeared in the Gazette nothing, she thought, would prevail upon Cecilia to brand herself a jilt. It was even doubtful if she could be induced to cry off before the announcement had been made, for she presumably had a greater dependence on the strength of Mr. Fawnhope’s attachment than her shrewder cousin could share; and her tender heart would shrink from giving such pain to one who had been so faithful a lover.

As for Mr. Rivenhall’s extraordinary change of face, this was not perhaps so inexplicable to Sophy as to his sister; but although the sentiments which had prompted it could not but gratify her, she was unable to deceive herself into thinking that he had any intention of terminating his engagement to Miss Wraxton. It was not to be expected of him; careless of appearances he might be, but no man of his breeding could offer such an affront to a lady. Nor could Sophy suppose that Miss Wraxton, surely aware of the tepid nature of his regard for her, would herself put an end to an alliance that held so little prospect of future happiness for either of the contracting parties. Miss Wraxton’s talk was all of her approaching nuptials, and it was quite evident that marriage to a man with whom she scarcely shared a thought was preferable to her than a continued existence as a spinster.

Sophy, cupping her chin in her hands, sat weaving her toils, undismayed by a situation which would certainly have daunted a less ruthless female than herself. Those who knew her best would have taken instant alarm, knowing that, her determination once taken, no consideration of propriety would deter her from embarking on schemes that might well prove to be as outrageous as they were original.