The Grand Sophy (37 page)

“By no means. Charlbury drove me there.”

“I see! First you must set the town talking with Talgarth, and now with Charlbury! Famous!”

“I do not perfectly understand you,” said Sophy, as one innocently seeking enlightenment. “I thought your objection to Sir Vincent was that he has the name for being a great rake. Surely you do not suspect Charlbury of this! Why, you were even desirous at one time of wedding your sister to him!”

“I am even more desirous that my cousin should not earn for herself the reputation of being fast!”

“Why?” asked Sophy, looking him in the eye. He made her no answer, and, after a moment, she said, “What right have you, Charles, to take exception to what I may choose to do?”

“If your own good taste—”

“What right, Charles?”

“None!” he said. “Do as you please! It can be of no consequence to me! You have an easy conquest in Everard! I had not thought him so fickle. Take care you do not lose your other suitor through encouraging this flirtation—for that is all I believe it to be!”

“Bromford? Now, what a shocking thing would that be! You do right to put me on my guard! Charlbury lives in dread of being called out by him.”

“I might have known I should meet with nothing but levity in you!”

“If you will scold me so absurdly. I am not always so.”

“Sophy—!” He took a hasty step toward her, his hand going out, but almost immediately dropping to his side again. “I wish you had never come amongst us!” he said, and turned away, to lean his arm along the mantelpiece, and stare down at the empty grate.

“That is not kind, Charles.” He was silent.

“Well, you will be rid of me soon, I daresay. I depend upon seeing Sir Horace at any time now. You will be glad!”

“I must be glad.” The words were uttered almost inaudibly, and he did not raise his head or make any movement to prevent her leaving the room.

The exchange had taken place in the library. She stepped out into the hall just as Dassett opened the front door to admit Mr. Wychbold, very natty in a driving coat of innumerable capes, shining hessians, and an enormous nosegay stuck into his buttonhole. He was in the act of laying his tall beaver hat down upon a marble-topped table, but at sight of Sophy he used it to lend flourish to his bow. “Miss Stanton-Lacy. Very obedient servant, ma’am!”

She was surprised to see him, for he had been out of town for some weeks. As she shook hands, she said, “How delightful this is! I did not know you were in London! How do you do?”

“Only reached town today, ma’am. Heard of your troubles from Charlbury. Never more shocked in my life! Came at once to inquire!”

“That is like you! Thank you, she is almost well now, although dreadfully thin, poor little dear, and languid still! You are the very person I wished to see! Are you driving yourself? Must you instantly see my cousin, or will you take me for a turn round the Park?”

He was driving his phaeton, and there could be only one answer to her request. With the greatest gallantry he bowed her out of the house, warning her, however, that she would encounter none but Cits in the Park at this season.

“And what, sir, would you have me say to Mr. Rivenhall?” asked Dassett, fixing his disapproving eye on a point above Mr. Wychbold’s left shoulder.

“Oh, tell him I called and was sorry to find him from home!” replied Mr. Wychbold, with an insouciance the butler found offensive.

“Have you been out in your own phaeton, ma’am?” Mr. Wychbold asked, as he handed Sophy into the carriage. “How do your bays go on?”

“Very well. I have not been driving them today, however, but have been to Merton with Charlbury.”

“Oh—ah!” he said, with a slight cough and a sidelong look.

“Yes, making myself the talk of the town!” Sophy said merrily. “Who told you so? The archenemy?”

He set his pair in motion, nodding gloomily, “Came smash up to her in Bond Street on my way here. Felt obliged to stop. She has put off her black ribands!”

“And means to marry Charles next month!” said Sophy, who, having reached habits of easy intercourse with Mr. Wychbold, never stood upon ceremony with him.

“Told you so,” he pointed out, with a certain melancholy satisfaction.

“So you did, and I replied that I might need your good offices. Do you make a prolonged stay in town, or are you off again immediately?”

“Next week. But, y’know, ma’am, there ain’t anything to be done! Pity, but there it is!”

“We shall see. What do you think would happen if you were to tell Charles one day that you had seen me driving off in a post chaise and four with Charlbury?”

“He would plant me a facer,” responded Mr. Wychbold, without hesitation. “What’s more, shouldn’t blame him!”

“Oh!” said Sophy, disconcerted. “Well, I am sure I don’t wish him to do that. But if it were true?”

“Wouldn’t believe me. No need for you to ,go off with Charlbury. Not the kind of fellow to engage in such freaks, either.”

“I know that, but it might be contrived. He would not plant you a facer if you only asked him why I was leaving town with Charlbury for my escort, would he?”

After giving this his consideration, Mr. Wychbold admitted that he might be spared the facer on these terms.

“Will you do it?” Sophy asked him. “If I were to send you word to your lodgings, would you make certain that Charles knows of it? Is he not always at White’s in the afternoon?”

“Well, you may generally find him there, but I would not say always,” replied Mr. Wychbold cautiously. “Besides, I shan’t see you driving off!”

“You may, if you choose to give yourself the trouble of walking around to Berkeley Square!” she retorted. “If you have word from me, you will know it to be true and may tell Charles with a clear conscience. I’ll take care he knows of it when he comes home, but sometimes he does not come in to dinner, and that would ruin everything! Well, no, not everything, perhaps, but I have always found it to be an excellent scheme to kill two birds with one stone whenever it may be possible!”

Mr. Wychbold gave this his profound consideration. Having turned all the implications of Sophy’s words over in his brain, he said suddenly, “Know what I think?”

“No, tell me!”

“No wish to throw a rub in the way, mind!” Mr. Wychbold said. “Not a particular friend of mine, Charlbury. Very good sort of fellow, I believe, but he don’t happen to have come much in my way.”

“But what do you think?” demanded Sophy, impatient of this divagation.

“Think Charles may very likely call him out,” said Mr. Wychbold. “Come to think of it, bound to! Devilish fine shot, Charles. Just thought I would mention it!” he added apologetically.

“You are right, and I am very much obliged to you for putting me in mind of such a possibility!” said Sophy warmly. “I would not for the world place Charlbury in jeopardy! But there will not be the least need for such a measure, you know.”

“Ah, well!” said Mr. Wychbold comfortably. “Daresay he won’t do more than drop him a few times, then! Draw his claret, I mean!”

“Fisticuffs? Oh, no! surely he would not!”

“Well, he will,” said Mr. Wychbold, without hesitation. “Last time I saw Charles, don’t scruple to tell you he was in “such a miff with Charlbury he said it would be wonderful if he did not plant him a flush hit one of these days! Devil of a fellow with his fives is Charles! Don’t know how Charlbury displays; shouldn’t think he would be a match for Charles, though.” Waxing enthusiastic, he added, “Prettiest fighter, for an amateur, I ever saw in my life! Excellent science and bottom, never any trifling or shifting! No mere flourishing, and very rarely abroad!” He recollected himself suddenly and broke off in some confusion, and begged pardon.

“Yes, never mind that!” said Sophy, her brow creased. “I must think of this, for it won’t do at all. If I make Charles angry, which, I own, I wish to do—”

“No difficulty in that,” interpolated Mr. • Wychbold encouragingly. “Very quick temper! Always has had!”

She nodded. “And would be only to glad of an excuse to hit someone, I have no doubt. Of course, I see how I could prevent him doing Charlbury a mischief.” She drew a breath. “Resolution is all that is needed!” she said. “One should never shrink from the performance of unpleasant tasks to obtain a laudable object, after all! Mr. Wychbold, I am very much obliged to you! I now see just what I must do, and I should not be at all surprised if it answered both purposes to admiration!”

XVI

Miss WRAXTON, learning of Mr. Rivenhall’s consent to his sister’s marriage to Mr. Fawnhope, was so genuinely shocked that she could not forbear remonstrating with him. With her customary good sense she pointed out the evil consequences of such a match, begging him to consider well before he abetted Cecilia in her folly. He heard her in silence, but when she had talked herself out of arguments he said bluntly, “I have given my word. I cannot but agree with much of what you have said. I do not like the match, but I will have no hand in forcing my sister into a marriage she does not desire. I believed that she must soon recover from what seemed to me a mere infatuation. She has not done so. I am forced to acknowledge that’ her heart is engaged, not her fancy only.”

She raised her brows, her expression one of faint distaste. “My dear Charles! This is not like you! I daresay I have not far to seek for the influence which prompts you to utter such a speech, but I own that I scarcely expected you to repeat sentiments so much at variance with your disposition and, I must add, your breeding.”

“Indeed! You will have to explain your meaning more fully, if I am to understand you, Eugenia, for I am quite abroad!”

She said gently, “Surely not! We have so often conversed on this head! Are we not agreed that there is something very unbecoming in a daughter’s setting up her will in opposition to her parents?”

“In general, yes.”

“And in particular, Charles, when it comes to be a question of her marriage. Her parents must be the best judges of what will be most proper for her. There is something very forward and disagreeable in a girl’s falling in love, as the common phrase is. No doubt underbred persons make quite a practice of it, but I fancy a man of birth and upbringing would prefer to see rather more restraint in the lady he marries. The language you have adopted—forgive me, dear Charles—surely belongs more to the stage than to your mother’s drawing room!”

“Does it?” he said. “Tell me, Eugenia! Had I offered for your hand without the consent of your father, would you have entertained my suit?”

She smiled. “We need not consider absurdities! You, of all men, would not have done so!”

“But if I had?”

“Certainly not,” she replied, with composure.

“I am obliged to you!” he said satirically.

“You should be,” she said. “You would scarcely have wished the future Lady Ombersley to have been a female without reserve or filial obedience!”

His eyes were very hard and keen. “I begin to understand you,” he said.

“I knew you would, for you are a man of sense. I am no advocate, I need scarcely say, for a marriage where these is no mutual esteem. That could hardly prosper! Certainly, if Cecilia holds Charlbury in distaste, it would have been wrong to have compelled her to marry him.”

“Generous!”

“I hope so,” she said gravely. “I should not wish to be other than generous toward your sisters—toward all your family! It must be one of my chief objects to promote their welfare, and I assure you I mean to do so!”

“Thank you,” he said, in a colorless tone.

She turned a bracelet upon her arm. “You are inclined to regard Miss Stanton-Lacy with indulgence, I know, but I think you will allow that her influence in this house has not been a happy one, in many respects. Without her encouragement, I venture to think that Cecilia would not have behaved as she has.”

“I don’t know that. You would not say that her influence was not a happy one had you seen her nursing Amabel, supporting both my mother and Cecilia in their anxiety That is something I can never forget.”

“I am sure no one could wish you to. One is glad to be able to praise her conduct in that emergency without reserve.”

“I owe it to her also that I stand now upon such easy terms with Hubert. There she has done nothing but good!”

“Well, on that point we have always differed, have we not?” she said pleasantly. “But I have no wish to argue with you on such a subject! I only hope that Hubert continues to go on well.”

“Very well. I might almost say too well, for what must the ridiculous fellow do but think himself in honor bound to make up some lost study during this vacation! He is gone off on a reading party!” He laughed suddenly. “If he does not fall into a melancholy through all this virtue, I must surely expect to hear that he is in some shocking scrape soon!”

“I am afraid you are right,” she agreed seriously. “There is an instability of purpose that must continually distress you.”

He stared at her incredulously, but before he could speak Dassett had ushered Lord Bromford into the room. He at once went forward to shake hands, greeting this new guest with more amiability than was usual, but saying, “I fear you are out of luck; my cousin has gone out driving.”

“I was informed of it at the door— How do you do, ma’am?—but I considered it proper to step upstairs to felicitate you upon your sister’s happy recovery,” replied his lordship. “I have had occasion to call in our good Baillie—excellent man—and he swore upon his honor there was not the least lingering danger of infection.”