The Grand Sophy (5 page)

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.”

III

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!”