Grand Sophy Read online

  ‘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 programme, 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 kick-up 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 turn-out 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 neck-cloth. 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 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 no 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 your 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 turn-out.’

  ‘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 towards 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 bird-witted!’ implied 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 rumour. May I take you up, Mr Wychbold? If I have stolen a march on you, the least amends I can make is to offer 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 then either of us.’

  The middle-aged groom, having favoured 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 smoulderingly for a moment to 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 over 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 had had his eye on ’em, which would account for him 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 roast?’

  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 sheered 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 now 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 for ever coming to Berkeley Square, and casting everyone into the dumps! First it is my aunt, who goes to bed with the head-ache 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 for ever 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 has 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 labouring 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 a 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!’