‘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 honour 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’m afraid you are right,’ she agreed seriously. ‘There is an instability of purpose that must continuously 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 honour there was not the least lingering danger of infection.’
Judging from the curl of Mr Rivenhall’s lip that he was about to make a sardonic rejoinder, Miss Wraxton intervened rather hastily. ‘Have you been indisposed, dear Lord Bromford? This is sad hearing! No serious disorder, I must hope?’
‘Baillie does not consider it so. He thinks the season has been uncommonly sickly: such inclement weather, you know, and very likely to produce affections of the throat, to which I am peculiarly susceptible. My mother has been, you may imagine, quite in a worry, for my constitution is delicate – it would be idle to deny that it is delicate! I was obliged to keep to my room above a week.’
Mr Rivenhall, leaning his broad shoulders against the mantelpiece, drove his hands into the pockets of his breeches, and presented all the appearance of a man willing to be amused. Lord Bromford did not recognize the signs, but Miss Wraxton did, and was cast into an agony of apprehension. She once more hurried into speech. ‘Sore throats have been very prevalent, I believe. I do not wonder that Lady Bromford was anxious. You were well-nursed, I know!’
‘Yes,’ he concurred. ‘Not that my complaint was of such a nature as to – In short, even Mama owns herself to have been moved by the devotion of Miss Stanton-Lacy to her little cousin!’ He bowed to Mr Rivenhall, who graciously inclined his head in acknowledgement of the courtesy, only spoiling the effect by a peculiarly saturnine grin. ‘I have been put in mind of certain lines from Marmion, in this connection.’
Miss Wraxton, who had heard enough of Sophy’s perfections in a sickroom, could only be grateful to Mr Rivenhall for interpolating: ‘Yes, we know them well!’
Lord Bromford, who had started to repeat O woman, in our hours of ease! was thrown a little out of his stride by this, but recovered directly, and pronounced: ‘Any doubts that might have been nourished of the true womanliness of Miss Stanton-Lacy’s character, must, I venture to say, have been lulled to rest.’
At this moment, Dassett reappeared to announce that Lady Brinklow’s carriage was at the door. Miss Wraxton, who had only been set down in Berkeley Square while her parent executed a commission in Bond Street, was obliged to take her leave. Lord Bromford said that since neither Lady Ombersley nor her niece was at home he would not trespass longer upon the premises, and within a very few minutes Mr Rivenhall was able to have his laugh out in comfort. Lord Bromford, who was a favourite with Lady Brinklow, was offered a seat in the landaulet, and beguiled the short drive to Brook Street with an exact account of the symptoms of his late indisposition.
Mr Rivenhall, for all his resolve to hold his cousin at arm’s length, could not resist the temptation of recounting this passage to her. She enjoyed the joke just as he had known she would, but put an abrupt end to his amusement by exclaiming involuntarily: ‘How well he and Miss Wraxton would suit! Now, why did I never think of that before?’
‘Possibly,’ said Mr Rivenhall frostily, ‘you may have recalled that Miss Wraxton is betrothed to me!’
‘I don’t think that was the reason,’ said Sophy, considering it. She lifted an eyebrow at him. ‘Offended, Charles?’
‘Yes!’ said Mr Rivenhall.
‘Oh, Charles, I wonder at you!’ she said, with her irrepressible gurgle of mirth. ‘So untruthful!’
As she beat a strategic retreat upon the words, he was left to glare at the unresponsive door.
He told his mother roundly that Sophy’s conduct went from bad to worse, but the full measure of her iniquity did not burst upon him until two days later, when, upon ordering his groom to harness his latest acquisition to his tilbury, he was staggered to learn that Miss Stanton-Lacy had driven out in this equipage not half an hour earlier.
‘Taken my tilbury out?’ he repeated. His voice sharpened. ‘Which horse?’ he demanded.
The groom shook visibly. ‘The – the young horse, sir!’
‘You – harnessed – the young horse for Miss Stanton-Lacy to drive?’ said Mr Rivenhall, giving his words such awful weight as almost to deprive his henchman of all power of speech.
‘Miss said – miss was sure – you would have no objection, sir!’ stammered this unfortunate. ‘And seeing as how she has twice driven the grays, sir, and me not having no orders contrary – and her saying as all was right – I thought she had your permission, sir!’
Mr Rivenhall, in a few pungent words, swept this illusion from his mind, adding a rider which summarily disposed of any pretensions his groom might have cherished of being able to think at all. The groom, not daring to venture on an explanation of the circumstances, waited in miserable silence for his dismissal. It did not come. Mr Rivenhall was a stern master, but also a just one, and even in his wrath he had a very fair notion of the means his unprincipled cousin must have employed to gain her ends. He checked himself suddenly, and rapped out: ‘Where has she gone? To Richmond? Answer!’
Seeing the culprit quite unable to collect his wits, Lord Ombersley’s own groom intervened, saying obsequiously: ‘Oh no, sir! No, indeed! My lady and Miss Cecilia set out in the barouche an hour ago for Richmond! And Miss Amabel with them, sir!’
Mr Rivenhall, who knew that a visit had been arranged to a cousin who lived at Richmond, stared at him with knit brows. It had certainly been agreed that Sophy was to have accompanied her aunt and cousins, and he was at a loss to imagine what could have caused her to change her mind. But this was a minor problem. The young chestnut she had had the temerity to drive out was a headstrong animal, quite unaccustomed to town-traffic, and certainly unfit for a lady to handle. Mr Rivenhall could control him, but even so notable a whip as Mr Wychbold had handsomely acknowledged that the brute was a rare handful. Mr Rivenhall, thinking of some of the chestnut’s least engaging tricks, felt himself growing cold with apprehension. It was this fear that lent the edge to his anger. A certain degree of anger he must always have felt at having his horse taken out without his permission, but nothing to compare with the murderous rage that now consumed him. Sophy had behaved unpardonably – and that her conduct was strangely unlike her he was in no mood to consider – and might even now be lying upon the cobbles with a broken neck.
‘Saddle Thunderer, and the brown hack!’ he commanded suddenly. ‘Quick!’
Both grooms flew to carry out this order, exchanging glances that spoke volumes. No ostlers, trained to change coach-horses in fifty seconds, could have worked faster; and while a couple of stable-hands still stood gaping at such unaccustomed doings, Mr Rivenhall, followed at a discreet distance by his groom, was riding swiftly in the direction of Hyde Park.
He had judged correctly, but it was perhaps unfortunate that he should have come up with his cousin just as the young chestnut, first trying to rear up between the shafts at the sight of a small boy flying a kite, made a spirited attempt to ki
ck the floor-boards out of the carriage. Mr Rivenhall, who had almost believed that he could forgive all if only he should find his cousin unharmed, found that he had been mistaken. Pale with fury, he dismounted, dragged the bridle over Thunderer’s head, thrust it into the groom’s hand, with a brief order to him to lead the horse home, swung himself into the tilbury, and possessed himself of the reins. For several moments he was fully occupied with his horse, and Sophy had leisure to admire his skill. She did not think she had managed so very badly herself, for, with the best will in the world to do so, the chestnut had not bolted with her, but she did not pretend to Mr Rivenhall’s mastery over a high-couraged, half-broke animal. Assuaging Mr Rivenhall’s wrath formed no part of her schemes, but in spite of herself she exclaimed: ‘Ah, you are a capital whip! I never knew how good until today!’
‘I don’t need you to tell me so!’ he flashed, face and voice at curious variance with his steady hands. ‘How dared you do this? How dared you? If you had broken your neck you would have come by your deserts! That you have not broken my horse’s knees I must think a miracle!’
‘Pooh!’ said Sophy, atoning for her previous error by laying this promising faggot upon the smouldering fire.
The result was all that she had hoped it might be. The drive back to Berkeley Square did not occupy very many minutes, but Mr Rivenhall crammed into them every pent-up exasperation of the past fortnight. He tore his cousin’s character to shreds; condemned her manners, her morals, and her upbringing; expressed his strong desire to have the schooling of her, and, in the same breath, pitied the man who should be fool enough to marry her; and fervently looked forward to the day when he should be relieved of her unwelcome presence in his home.
It was doubtful whether Sophy could have stemmed the tide of this eloquence. In the event, she made no attempt to do so, but sat with folded hands, and downcast eyes, beside her accuser. That his rage had been fanned, quite irrationally, to white heat by finding her unhurt she had no doubt at all. There had been moments during her escapade when she had doubted her ability to bring either herself or the horse off safely. She had never been more glad to see her cousin; and one glance at his face had been enough to assure her that he had suffered a degree of anxiety out of all proportion to the concern even the keenest whip might be expected to feel for his horse. He might say what he pleased: she was not deceived.
He set her down in Berkeley Square, telling her roughly that she might alight without his assistance. She obeyed him, and without so much as waiting to see her admitted into the house he drove off towards the mews.
That was shortly after noon. Mr Rivenhall did not return to the house, and, as soon as she was satisfied that there was no fear of his walking in on her, his wholly unchastened cousin first summoned the under-footman to her, and sent him on an errand to the nearest livery-stables; and then sat down to write several careful notes. By two o’clock, John Potton, puzzled but unsuspicious, was trotting down to Merton with one of these in his pocket. Had he been privileged to know its contents he might not have ridden so cheerfully out of London.
‘Dearest Sancia,’ Sophy wrote. ‘I find myself in the most dreadful predicament, and most earnestly beg of you to join me at Lacy Manor immediately. Do not fail me, or I shall be utterly ruined! Ashtead lies only ten miles from Merton, so you need not fear to be fatigued. I leave London within the hour, and wholly depend upon you. Ever your devoted Sophy.’
Upon the footman’s return from his errand, he was gratified to receive half-a-guinea for his pains; and set forth again with alacrity to deliver two sealed letters. One of these he left at Mr Wychbold’s lodging; the other he carried from Lord Charlbury’s house to Manton’s Shooting Gallery, and thence to Brooks’s Club, where he finally ran his quarry to earth. Lord Charlbury, summoned to the hall to receive the billet in person, read it in considerable astonishment, but handsomely rewarded the bearer, and charged him to inform Miss Stanton-Lacy that he was entirely at her disposal.
Meanwhile, Miss Stanton-Lacy, who had thoughtfully given her too zealous maid a holiday, instructed a startled housemaid to pack her night-gear in a portmanteau, and sat down to write two more letters. She was still engaged on this task when Lord Charlbury was shown into the saloon. She looked up, smiling, and said: ‘I knew I might depend on you! Thank you! Only let me finish this note!’
He waited until the door had closed behind Dassett before demanding: ‘What in heaven’s name is amiss, Sophy? Why must you go to Ashtead?’
‘It is my home: Sir Horace’s house!’
‘Indeed! I was not aware – But so suddenly! You aunt – your cousin – ?’
‘Don’t tease me!’ she begged. ‘I will explain it to you on the way, if you will be so good as to give me your escort! It is not far – may be accomplished in one stage, you know!’
‘Of course I will escort you!’ he replied at once. ‘Is Rivenhall away from home?’
‘It is impossible for me to ask him to go with me. Pray let me finish this note for Cecilia!’
He begged pardon, and moved away to a chair by the window. Good manners forbade him to press her for an explanation she was plainly reluctant to offer, but he was very much puzzled. The mischievous look had quite vanished from her eyes; she seemed to be in an unusually grave mood: a circumstance that threw him off his guard, and made him only anxious to be of service to her.
The note to Cecilia was soon finished, and closed with a wafer. Sophy rose from the writing-table, and Charlbury ventured to ask whether she desired him to drive her to Ashtead in his curricle.
‘No, no, I have hired a post-chaise! I daresay it will be here directly. You did not come in your curricle?’
‘No, I walked from Brooks’s. You are making a stay in the country?’
‘I hardly know. Will you wait while I put on my hat and cloak?’
He assented, and she went away, returning presently with Tina frisking about her in the expectation of being taken for a walk. The hack-chaise was already at the door, and Dassett, quite as mystified as Lord Charlbury, had directed a footman to strap Miss Stanton-Lacy’s portmanteau on to the back. Sophy gave her two last notes into his hand, directing him to be sure that Mr and Miss Rivenhall received them immediately upon their return to the house. Five minutes later she was seated in the chaise beside Charlbury, and expressing the hope that the threatened rain-storm would hold off until they reached Lacy Manor. Tina jumped up into her lap, and she then told his lordship that she had encountered in the Green Park just such another Italian greyhound, who had made no secret of his admiration of Tina. Tina’s coquetry had to be described; this led to an amusing account of the jealousy of Mr Rivenhall’s spaniel, brought up by him from the country for a couple of nights; and in this way, by easy gradations, Lord Charlbury found himself discussing pheasant-shooting, fox-hunting, and various other sporting pursuits. These topics lasted until the Kennington turn-pike had been passed, by which time his lordship’s faculties, at first bewildered, were very much on the alert. He fancied that the mischief was back in Sophy’s eye. At Lower Tooting, he politely allowed his gaze to be directed to the curious churchtower, with its circular form surmounted by a square wooden frame, with a low spire of shingles above it; but when Sophy leaned back again in her corner of the chaise, he said, watching her face: ‘Sophy, are we by chance eloping together?’
Her rich chuckle broke from her. ‘No, no, it is not as bad as that! Must I tell you?’
‘I know very well you have some abominable scheme afoot! Tell me at once!’
She threw him a sidelong look, and he had now no doubt that the mischief was back in her eye. ‘Well, the truth is, Charlbury, that I have kidnapped you.’
After a stunned moment, he began to laugh. In this she readily joined him, but when he had recovered from the first absurdity of the notion, he said: ‘I might have known there was devilry afoot when I saw that your faithful Potton was absent! But what is this, Sophy? Why am I kidnapped? To what end?’
‘So that I
may be so compromised that you will be obliged to marry me, of course,’ replied Sophy matter-of-factly.
This cheerful explanation had the effect of making him start bolt upright, exclaiming: ‘Sophy! ’
She smiled. ‘Oh, don’t be alarmed! I have sent John Potton with a letter to Sancia begging her to come to Lacy Manor at once.’
‘Good God, do you place any dependence upon her doing so?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly! She has a very kind heart, you know, and would never fail me when I particularly desired her help.’
He relaxed against the squabs again, but said: ‘I don’t know what you deserve! I am still quite in a puzzle: why have you done it?’
‘Why, don’t you see? I have left behind me a letter for Cecilia, telling her that I am about to sacrifice myself –’
‘Thank you!’ interjected his lordship.
‘– and you,’ continued Sophy serenely, ‘so that my uncle may be silenced at last. You know, for I told you so, that I persuaded him to announce to poor Cecy his unalterable decision that she was to wed you! If I know Cecy, the shock will bring her post-haste to Ashtead, to rescue the pair of us. If, my dear Charlbury, you cannot help yourself in that eventuality, I wash my hands of you!’
‘I can find it in me to wish you had done so long since!’ was his ungrateful response. ‘Outrageous, Sophy, outrageous! And what if neither she nor the Marquesa comes to Lacy Manor? Let me tell you that nothing will serve to induce me to compromise you!’
‘No, indeed! I should dislike it excessively. If that happened, I fear you will be obliged to spend the night at Leatherhead. It is not very far from Lacy Manor, and I believe you may be tolerably comfortable at the Swan. Or you might hire a chaise to carry you back to London. But Sancia at least will not fail.’
‘Have you told Cecilia that you have kidnapped me?’ he demanded. She nodded, and he exclaimed: ‘I could murder you! What a trick to play! And what a figure I must cut!’