The Grand Sophy Page 6

  ‘Yes, too tall,’ he replied.

  She could not help being glad that he apparently did not admire his cousin, for although she perceived, on closer scrutiny, that Sophy was not as handsome as herself, her first impression had been of a very striking young woman. She now saw that she had been misled by the size and brilliance of Sophy’s eyes: her other features were less remarkable. She said: ‘Perhaps, a trifle, but she is very graceful.’

  Sophy at this moment went to sit down beside her aunt, and Charles caught sight of the fairy-like little greyhound, which had been clinging close to her skirts, not liking so many strangers. His brows rose; he said: ‘We seem to have two guests. What is her name, cousin?’

  He was holding down his hand to the greyhound, but Sophy said: ‘Tina. I am afraid she will not go to you: she is very shy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, she will!’ he replied, snapping his fingers.

  Sophy found his air of cool certainty rather annoying, but when she saw that he was quite right, and watched her pet making coquettish overtures of friendship, she forgave him, and was inclined to think he could not be as black as he had been painted.

  ‘What a pretty little creature!’ remarked Miss Wraxton amiably. ‘I am not, in general, fond of pets in the house – my Mama, dear Lady Ombersley, will never have even a cat, you know – but I am sure this must be quite an exception.’

  ‘Mama has a great liking for pet dogs,’ said Cecilia. ‘We are not usually without one, are we, ma’am?’

  ‘Fat and overfed pugs,’ said Charles, with a grimace at his mother. ‘I prefer this elegant lady, I confess.’

  ‘Oh, that is not the most famous of Cousin Sophy’s pets!’ declared Hubert. ‘You wait, Charles, until you see what else she has brought from Portugal!’

  Lady Ombersley stirred uneasily, for she had not yet broken the news to her eldest son that a monkey in a red coat was now King of the Schoolroom. But Charles only said: ‘I understand, cousin, that you have brought your horse with you too. Hubert can talk of nothing else. Spanish?’

  ‘Yes, and Mameluke-trained. He is very beautiful.’

  ‘I’ll go bail you’re a famous horsewoman, cousin!’ Hubert said.

  ‘I don’t know that. I have had to ride a great deal.’

  The door opened just then, but not, as Lady Ombersley had expected, to admit her butler, with an announcement that dinner awaited her pleasure. Her husband walked in, announcing that he must just catch a glimpse of his little niece before going off to White’s. Lady Ombersley felt that it was bad enough of him to have refused to dine at home in Miss Wraxton’s honour without this added piece of casual behaviour, but she did not let her irritation appear, merely saying, ‘She is not so very little, after all, my love, as you may see.’

  ‘Good Gad!’ exclaimed his lordship, as Sophy rose to greet him. Then he burst out laughing, embraced Sophy, and said: ‘Well, well, well! You’re almost as tall as your father, my dear! Devilish like him, too, now I come to look at you!’

  ‘Miss Wraxton, Lord Ombersley,’ said his wife reprovingly.

  ‘Eh! Oh, yes, how-de-do?’ said his lordship, bestowing a cheerful nod on Miss Wraxton. ‘I count you as one of the family, and stand on no ceremony with you. Come and sit down beside me, Sophy, and tell me how your father does these days!’

  He then drew Sophy to a sofa, and plunged into animated conversation, recalling incidents thirty years old, laughing heartily over them, and presenting all the appearance of one who had completely forgotten an engagement to dine at his club. He was always well-disposed towards pretty young women, and when they added liveliness to their charms, and guessed exactly how he liked to conduct a flirtation, he enjoyed himself very much in their company, and was in no hurry to leave them. Dassett, coming in a few minutes later to announce dinner, took in the situation immediately, and after exchanging a glance with his mistress withdrew again to superintend the laying of another place at the table. When he returned to make his announcement, Lord Ombersley exclaimed: ‘What’s that? Dinner-time already? I declare, I’ll dine at home after all!’

  He then took Sophy down on his arm, ignoring Miss Wraxton’s superior claims to this honour, and as they took their places at the dining-table commanded her to tell him what maggot has got into her father’s head to make him go off to Peru.

  ‘Not Peru: Brazil, sir,’ Sophy replied.

  ‘Much the same, my dear, and just as outlandish! I never knew such a fellow for travelling all over the world! He’ll be going off to China next!’

  ‘No, Lord Amherst went to China,’ said Sophy. ‘In February, I think. Sir Horace was wanted for Brazil because he perfectly understands Portuguese affairs, and it is hoped he may be able to persuade the Regent to go back to Lisbon. Marshal Beresford has become so excessively unpopular, you know. No wonder! He does not know how to be conciliating, and has not a grain of tact.’

  ‘Marshal Beresford,’ Miss Wraxton informed Charles, in a well modulated voice, ‘is a friend of my father’s.’

  ‘Then you must forgive me for saying that he has no tact,’ said Sophy at once, and with her swift smile. ‘It is perfectly true, but I believe no one ever doubted that he is a man of many excellent qualities. It is a pity that he should be making such a cake of himself.’

  This made Lord Ombersley and Hubert laugh, but Miss Wraxton stiffened a little, and Charles shot a frowning look across the table at his cousin, as though he were revising his first favourable impression of her. His betrothed, who always conducted herself with rigid propriety, could not, even at an informal family party, bring herself to talk across the table, and demonstrated her superior upbringing by ignoring Sophy’s remark, and beginning to talk to Charles about Dante, with a particular reference to Mr Cary’s translation. He listened to her with courtesy, but when Cecilia, following her cousin’s unconventional example, joined in their conversation to express her own preference for the style of Lord Byron, he made no effort to snub her, but, on the contrary, seemed rather to welcome her entrance into the discussion. Sophy enthusiastically applauded Cecilia’s taste, announcing that her copy of The Corsair was so well-worn as to be in danger of disintegrating. Miss Wraxton said that she was unable to give an opinion on the merits of this poem, as her Mama did not care to have any of his lordship’s works in the house. Since Lord Byron’s marital difficulties were amongst the most scandalous on dits of the town, it being widely rumoured that he was, at the earnest solicitations of his friends, on the point of leaving the country, this remark at once made the discussion seem undesirably raffish, and everyone was relieved when Hubert, disclaiming any liking for poetry, went into raptures over that capital novel, Waverley. Here again Miss Wraxton was unable to edify the company with any measured criticism, but she graciously said that she believed the work in question to be, for a novel, quite unexceptionable. Lord Ombersley then said that they were all very bookish, but Ruff ’s Guide to the Turf was good enough reading for him, and drew Sophy out of the conversation by asking her a great many questions about old friends of his own whom, since they now adorned various Embassies, she might be counted upon to know.

  After dinner, Lord Ombersley put in no appearance in the drawing-room, the claims of faro being too insistent to be ignored; and Miss Wraxton very prettily begged that the children might be permitted to come downstairs, adding, with a smile cast upwards at Charles, that she had not had the felicity of seeing her little friend Theodore since he had come home for the Easter holidays. However, when her little friend presently appeared he was carrying Jacko upon his shoulder, which made her shrink back in her chair, and utter an exclamation of protest.

  The awful moment of disclosure had come, and, thanks (Lady Ombersley bitterly reflected) to Miss Adderbury’s lamentable lack of control over her young charges, at quite the wrong moment. Charles, at first inclined to be amused, was speedily brought to his senses by Miss Wraxton’s evident disapproval. He said that however desirable a denizen of a schoolroom a monkey might be – which was a question
to be discussed later – it was no fit creature for his mother’s drawing-room; and ordered Theodore, in a tone that invited no argument, to remove Jacko at once. A sullen scowl descended on to Theodore’s brow, and for a horrid instant his mother feared that she trembled on the brink of an ugly scene. But Sophy stepped quickly into the breach, saying: ‘Yes, take him upstairs, Theodore! I should have warned you that of all things he most dislikes being brought into company! And pray make haste, for I am going to show you a famous game of cards which I learned in Vienna!’

  She thrust him out of the room as she spoke, and shut the door on him. Turning, she found Charles eyeing her frostily, and said: ‘Am I in disgrace with you for having brought the children a pet you don’t approve of ? I assure you, he is perfectly gentle: you need not be afraid of him.’

  ‘I am not in the least afraid of him!’ snapped Charles. ‘Extremely obliging of you to have bestowed him upon the children!’

  ‘Charles! Charles!’ said Amabel, tugging at his sleeve. ‘She has brought us a parrot too, and it talks capitally! Only Addy would put her shawl over its cage, because she said horrid, rough sailors must have taught it to speak. Do tell her not to!’

  ‘Oh, good God, I am quite undone!’ Sophy exclaimed in comical dismay. ‘And the man promised the wretched bird would say nothing to put anyone to the blush! Now, what is to be done?’

  But Charles was laughing. He said: ‘You must say your Collect to it every day, Amabel, to put it in a better frame of mind. Cousin, my uncle Horace informed us that you were a good little thing, who would give us no trouble. You have been with us for rather less than half a day: I shudder to think what havoc you will have wrought by the end of a week!’

  Four

  It could not have been said that Lady Ombersley’s family dinner-party had been entirely successful, but it gave rise to a good deal of speculation in the minds of most of those who had been present at it. Miss Wraxton, who had seized the opportunity afforded by the rest of the company’s sitting down to a round game to draw near to her prospective mother-in-law, and to engage her in low-voiced conversation, returned to her own home quite convinced that however little harm there might be in Sophy she had been very badly brought-up, and stood in need of tactful guidance. She had told Lady Ombersley that she was sorry indeed that the bereavement in her family had postponed her wedding-day, for she felt, in all sincerity, that she could have been both a support and a comfort to her mother-in-law under her present affliction. When Lady Ombersley said, rather defiantly, that she did not feel the visit of her niece to be an affliction, Miss Wraxton smiled at her in a way that showed how well she understood the brave front she was determined to present to the world, pressed her hand, and said that she looked forward to the time when she would be able to relieve dear Lady Ombersley of so many of the duties which now fell to her lot. Since this could only refer to the young couple’s scheme of occupying one floor of the family mansion, a profound depression descended upon Lady Ombersley. The arrangement would not be an unusual one, but Lady Ombersley was able to think of many examples where it had been proved a failure, notably in the Melbourne household. Miss Wraxton would certainly not render the Ombersley house hideous by hysterical spasms, or really dreadful scandals, but Lady Ombersley derived small comfort from this knowledge. Almost as insupportable as Lady Caroline Lamb’s frenzied behaviour would be Miss Wraxton’s determination to exert a beneficent influence over her young brothers and sisters-in-law; and her conviction that it was her duty to take upon her own shoulders many of the burdens which Lady Ombersley was not at all anxious to relinquish.

  Charles, who had enjoyed a few minutes’ grave talk with his betrothed before handing her into her carriage at the end of the evening, went to bed with mixed feelings. He could not but acknowledge the justice of his Eugenia’s criticisms, but since he was himself of a forthright disposition he was inclined to like Sophy’s frank, open manners, and obstinately refused to agree that she put herself forward unbecomingly. He did not think that she put herself forward at all, which made it difficult to see just how it was that she contrived to introduce quite a new atmosphere into the house. She had certainly done this: he was not sure that he approved of it.

  As for Sophy herself, she retired to her bedchamber with even more to think about than her hosts. It seemed to her that she had taken up her residence in an unhappy household. Cecilia held Charles accountable for this, which no doubt he was. But Sophy was no schoolroom miss, and it had not taken her more than ten minutes to get Lord Ombersley’s measure. Unquestionably Charles had had much to bear from that quarter; and since the rest of his family plainly held him in awe it was not marvellous that a naturally stern and autocratic temper, thus unchecked, should have turned him into a domestic tyrant. Sophy could not believe that he was past reclaim, for not only had Tina made friends with him, but when he laughed his whole personality underwent a change. The worst she yet knew of him was that he had selected for his bride a very tiresome girl. She felt it a pity that so promising a young man should be cast away on one who would make it her business to encourage all the more disagreeable features of his character.

  There was no need to worry about the children, she decided, but her quick intelligence had informed her, during the course of the evening, that all was not well with Mr Hubert Rivenhall. She had a strong suspicion that some undisclosed trouble nagged at him. He might forget this in admiration of Salamanca, or in playing an absurd game with his juniors, but when nothing else occupied his mind the trouble crept back into it, and he grew silent, until somebody looked at him, when he instantly began to talk again, in a rattling, over-cheerful style which seemed to satisfy his relations. Sophy, guided by her experience of young officers, thought that he was probably in some foolish scrape which would turn out to be far less serious than he imagined. He ought, of course, to tell his elder brother about it, for no one could doubt, looking at Mr Rivenhall’s countenance, that he was competent to deal with any scrape; but since Hubert was obviously afraid to do so it might be a good thing to persuade him to confide in his cousin.

  Then there was Cecilia, so lovely, and so helpless! Her affairs might be much more difficult to arrange satisfactorily, for although Sophy, reared in quite a different school, thought it iniquitous to force any girl into a distasteful marriage, she was by no means determined to further the pretensions of Augustus Fawnhope. Sophy, strongly practical, could not feel that Mr Fawnhope would make a satisfactory husband, for he lacked visible means of support, and was apt, when under the influence of his Muse, to forget such mundane considerations as dinner-engagements, or the delivery of important messages. However, he would certainly be preferable to a middle-aged man with mumps, and if Cecilia’s passion for him proved to be more than a mere infatuation her friends must busy themselves in finding for him some well-paid and genteel post in which his handsome person and charm of manner would outweigh his erratic habits. Sophy was still trying to think of such a post when she fell asleep.

  Breakfast was served, at Ombersley House, in a parlour at the back of the house. Only the three ladies sat down to the table at nine o’clock, for Lord Ombersley, a man of nocturnal habits, never left his room until noon, and his two elder sons had breakfasted an hour earlier, and had gone off to ride in the Park.

  Lady Ombersley, whose indifferent health made restful nights rarities in her life, had employed some part of her wakeful hours in planning entertainments for her niece, and as she dipped fingers of dry toast into her tea she propounded a scheme for an evening-party, with dancing. Cecilia’s eyes brightened, but she said rather sceptically: ‘If Charles will permit it!’

  ‘My dear, you know your brother has no objection to any rational enjoyment. I do not mean that we should give a really large ball, of course.’

  Sophy, who had been watching in some awe her aunt’s languid consumption of tea-and-toast, said: ‘Dear ma’am, I would infinitely prefer that you should not put yourself out for me!’

  ‘I am quite determi
ned to give a party for you,’ replied Lady Ombersley firmly. ‘I promised your father that I would do so. Besides, I am very fond of entertaining. I assure you, we are not in general so quiet as you find us at present. When I brought dear Maria out we gave a ball, two rout-parties, a Venetian breakfast, and a masquerade! But then,’ she added, with a sigh, ‘poor cousin Mathilda was still alive, and she sent out all the invitation-cards, and arranged everything with Gunter’s. I miss her sadly: she was carried off by an inflammation of the lung, you know.’

  ‘No, but if that is all that troubles you, ma’am, pray do not give it another thought!’ said Sophy. ‘Cecy and I will arrange everything, and you shall have nothing to do but choose what dress you will wear, and receive your guests.’

  Lady Ombersley blinked at her. ‘But, my love, you could not!’

  ‘Indeed I could!’ asserted Sophy, smiling warmly at her. ‘Why, I have managed all Sir Horace’s parties since I was seventeen years old! And that puts me in mind of something I must do at once! Where shall I find Hoare’s Bank, Aunt Lizzie?’

  ‘Find Hoare’s Bank?’ echoed Lady Ombersley blankly.

  ‘What in the world can you want to know that for?’ asked Cecilia.

  Sophy looked a little surprised. ‘Why, to present Sir Horace’s letter of authorization, to be sure!’ she answered. ‘I must do so at once, or I may find myself quite at a loss.’ She perceived that her aunt and cousin were looking, if anything, rather more bewildered than ever, and lifted her brows. ‘But what have I said?’ she asked, between amusement and dismay. ‘Hoare’s, you know! Sir Horace banks with them!’

  ‘Yes, my dear, I daresay he may, but you do not have an account with a bank!’ expostulated Lady Ombersley.

  ‘No, alas! It is such a bore! However, we settled it that I should draw upon Sir Horace’s funds for my needs. And for the expenses of the household, of course, but at this present we have no house,’ said Sophy, lavishly spreading butter on her fourth slice of bread.