Grand Sophy Read online

  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 Villacañas 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 to bring with her as many of her interesting children as would care to come; the sun shone, and the day was warm, with no threat of April showers; and Miss Wraxton, who had returned to the metropolis in time to share in the treat, was in her most amiable humour, not even excluding Sophy from her good graces. At the last moment, Hubert suddenly announced his intention of accompanying the party, saying that he too wanted to see the giraffe. Sophy frowned him down, and as his mother had not caught what he said, but at once began to express her 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 towards 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 mutari.’

  ‘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 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: horse, 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, ma
demoiselle,’ he replied grandly. ‘Madam awaits you in the salon.’

  The Marquesa was discovered reclining upon a sofa in a drawing-room facing the south lawn. The early spring 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 subaqueous 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 exertion.’

  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.

  ‘Com’ está?’ the Marquesa 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, señora. Valgamé! 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 told 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 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. ‘And they will none of them say the 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 España,’ 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? Sophie,’ 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 maître 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 marienda. 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 think the Marquesa a very good sort of 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 towards 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: ‘Ah, yes! The bluebell wood! So pretty! These young people would like to wander through it, señora, 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 programme, and accompanied the Marquesa into the drawing-room. Here she at first endeavoured 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 madrusta to Sophie – ! 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 Sophie. To withstand her is much, much more fatiguing still!’

  Meanwhile, the subject of this exchange was arranging a flower in Hubert’s button-hole, 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, towards the bluebell wood, Mr Fawnhope having been visited by inspiration which only 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 blue-stockings, 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 mentioned 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, 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, but it was no great matter, and he expected to have put it all behind him in a very few days’ time.