Again, he was quite unable to help laughing. But the next moment he was testily pointing out to her that she had made so thick a bandage round his arm as to prevent his being able to drag the sleeve of his coat over it.
‘Well, the sleeve is quite spoilt, so it is of no consequence,’ said Sophy. ‘You may button the coat across your chest, and I will fashion you a sling for your arm. To be sure, it is only a flesh wound, but it will very likely start to bleed again, if you do not hold your arm up. Let us go downstairs, and see whether Mathilda has yet made tea for us!’
Not only had the harassed Mrs Clavering done so, but she had sent the gardener’s boy running off the village to summon to her assistance a stout, red-cheeked damsel, whom she proudly presented to Sophy as her sister’s eldest. The damsel, bobbing a curtsy, disclosed that her name was Clementina. Sophy, feeling that Lacy Manor might be required to house several persons that night, directed her to collect blankets and sheets, and to set them to air before the kitchen fire. Mrs Clavering, still toiling to make the breakfast-parlour habitable, had set the tea-tray in the hall, where the fire had begun to burn more steadily. Puffs of smoke still from time to time gushed into the room, but Lord Charlbury, pressed into a deep chair, and given a cushion for the support of his injured arm, felt that it would have been churlish to have animadverted upon this circumstance. The tea, which seemed to have lost a little of its fragrance through its long sojourn in the panty cupboard, was accompanied by some slices of bread-and-butter and a large, and rather heavy plum-cake, of which Sophy partook heartily. Outside, the rain fell heavily, and the sky became so leaden that very little light penetrated into the low-pitched rooms of the Manor. A stringent search failed to discover any other candles than tallow ones, but Mrs Clavering soon brought a lamp into the hall, which, as soon as she had drawn the curtains across the windows, made the apartment seem excessively cosy, Sophy informed Lord Charlbury.
It was not long before their ears were assailed by the sound of an arrival. Sophy jumped up at once. ‘Sancia!’ she said, and cast her guest a saucy smile. ‘Now you may be easy!’ She picked up the lamp from the table, and carried it to the door, which she set wide, standing on the threshold, with the lamp held high to cast its light as far as possible. Through the driving rain she perceived the Marquesa’s barouche-landau drawn up by the porch, and, as she watched, Sir Vincent Talgarth sprang out of the carriage, and turned to hand down the Marquesa. In another instant, Mr Fawnhope had also alighted, and stood transfixed, gazing at the figure in the doorway, while the rain beat unheeded upon his uncovered head.
‘Oh, Sophie, why?’ wailed the Marquesa, gaining the shelter of the porch. ‘This rain – ! My dinner! It is too bad of you!’
Sophy, paying no heed to her plaints, addressed herself fiercely to Sir Vincent. ‘Now, what the deuce does this mean? Why have you accompanied Sancia, and why the devil have you brought Augustus Fawnhope?’
He was shaken by gentle laughter. ‘My dear Juno, do let me come in out of the wet! Surely your own experience of Fawnhope must have taught you that one does not bring him: he comes! He was reading the first two acts of his tragedy to Sancia when your messenger arrived. Until the light failed, he continued to do so during the drive.’ He raised his voice, calling: ‘Come into the house, rapt poet! You will be soaked if you stand there any longer!’
Mr Fawnhope started, and moved forward.
‘Oh, well!’ said Sophy, making the best of things. ‘I suppose he must come in, but it is the greatest mischance!’
‘It is you!’ announced Mr Fawnhope, staring at her. ‘For a moment, as you stood there, the lamp held above your head, I thought I beheld a goddess! A goddess, or a vestal virgin!’
‘Well, if I were you,’ interposed Sir Vincent practically, ‘I would come in out of the rain while you make up your mind.’
Seventeen
Lady Ombersley, and her daughters, driving soberly home from Richmond, in the late afternoon, reached Berkeley Square to find Miss Wraxton awaiting their return. After affectionately embracing Lady Ombersley, she explained that she had ventured to sit down to wait for her, since she was the bearer of a message from her Mama. Lady Ombersley, feeling a little anxious about Amabel, who was looking tired and had complained of a slight head-ache on the way home, answered absently: ‘Thank your Mama so much, my dear. Amabel, come up to my dressing-room, and I will bathe your forehead with vinegar! You will be better directly, my love!’
‘Poor little dear!’ said Miss Wraxton. ‘She looks sadly peaked still! You know, ma’am, that we have put off our black gloves. Mama is desirous of holding a dress-party in honour of the approaching Event – quite a small affair, for so many people of consequence are out of town! – but she would not for the world fix upon a day that will not suit your arrangements. You behold in me her envoy!’
‘So kind of her!’ murmured her ladyship. ‘We shall be most happy – any day that your mother likes to appoint: we have very few engagements at present! Excuse me, I must not stay! Amabel is not quite well yet, you know! Cecilia will arrange it with you. Say everything from me to your Mama which is proper! Come, dearest!’
She led her youngest daughter to the stairs as she spoke, quite failing to perceive that Cecilia, to whom Dassett had silently handed Sophy’s note, was not attending to a word she said. Under the butler’s interested gaze, Cecilia, reading the letter in the blankest amazement, had turned alarmingly pale. She looked up, as she reached the end, and started forward, her lips parted, as though she would have recalled her mother. She recollected herself in a moment, and tried to be calm. But the hands with which she folded Sophy’s letter shook perceptibly, and her whole appearance was that of one who had sustained a severe shock. Miss Wraxton observed it, and moved towards her, saying solicitously: ‘You are not quite well, I am afraid! You have not received bad news?’
Dassett, whose fingers had itched to break open the wafer that sealed Sophy’s letter, coughed, and said disinterestedly: ‘Will Miss Stanton-Lacy be returning to town this evening, miss? Her abigail is in quite a taking, not having had any notion that Miss was going into the country.’
Cecilia looked at him in rather a dazed way, but pulled herself together sufficiently to reply with tolerable composure: ‘Yes, I think so. Oh, yes, certainly she will come back tonight!’
If this answer failed to gratify Dassett’s thirst for knowledge, it at least made Miss Wraxton prick up her ears. Taking Cecilia’s arm, she led her towards the library, saying in her well-modulated voice: ‘The drive has fatigued you. Be so good, Dassett, as to bring a glass of water to the library, and some smelling-salts! Miss Rivenhall is feeling a trifle faint.’
Cecilia, whose constitution was not strong, was indeed feeling faint, and could only be grateful when obliged to lie down upon the sofa in the library. Miss Wraxton deftly removed her pretty bonnet, and began to chafe her hands, abstracting from one of them the note which Cecilia was feebly clutching. Dassett soon came in with the desired requirements, which Miss Wraxton took from him, with a calm word of thanks and of dismissal. The faintness, which had only been momentary, was already passing off, and Cecilia was able to sit up, to sip the water, and to refresh herself with a few sniffs at the smelling-bottle. Miss Wraxton, meanwhile, in the most assured manner possible, had picked up Sophy’s letter, and was making herself mistress of its contents.
‘You wondered, dearest Cecy, why, at the last, I would not accompany you to Richmond. Let this note be my explanation! I have thought long over the unfortunate situation in which you are placed, and I see only one way to put an end to the distress you have been made to suffer through my uncle’s implacable determination to see you married to C. I believe him to have been strengthened in this resolve by C. himself, but I will not pain you by writing more on this subject. Were C. removed, I cannot but believe that my uncle must soon relent towards F.
‘Charles will tell you that we have quarrelled. While the original fault I must own to have been mine, his manner to me, t
he language he held – so violent, so uncontrolled! – makes it impossible for me to remain any longer under this roof. I am removing immediately to Lacy Manor, and have prevailed upon C. to be my escort. Trust me to make it impossible for him to leave Lacy Manor tonight! He is a gentleman, and although his heart can never be mine, his hand I am persuaded he must offer me, and you may be easy at last.
‘Do not fear for me! You are aware of my wish to establish myself, and although my affections are no more engaged than C.’s and I must shrink from the means his indifference forces me to employ, I daresay we shall contrive to rub along tolerably together. If I can be of assistance to you in this way, my dearest cousin, I shall have my reward. Ever your devoted Sophy.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Miss Wraxton, startled out of her calm. ‘Is this possible? Bad though I have thought her conduct, I would not have believed that she could have gone to such lengths as this! Unhappy girl! There is not a word of contrition! No breath of shame! My poor Cecilia, I do not wonder that you should find yourself overcome! You have been wretchedly deceived!’
‘Oh, what are you about?’ Cecilia cried, starting up. ‘Eugenia, you had no right to read my letter! Give it to me at once, if you please, and never dare to mention its contents to a living soul!’
Miss Wraxton handed it to her, but said: ‘Rather than have me summon Lady Ombersley to you, I thought you would prefer that I should discover what had so much upset you. As for not mentioning the contents, I imagine this news must be all over London by tomorrow! I do not know when I have been so much shocked!’
‘All over London! No, that it shall not be!’ Cecilia said vehemently. ‘Sophy – Charlbury! It cannot, must not be! I shall set out for Ashtead immediately. How could she do such a thing? How could she? It is all her goodness – her wish to help me, but how dare she go off with Charlbury?’ She tried to read the letter again, but crumpled it in her hand, shuddering. ‘A quarrel with Charles! Oh, but she must know he does not mean the things he says when he is in a rage! She does know it! He shall go with me to fetch her home! Where is he? Someone must go at once to White’s!’
Miss Wraxton, who had been thinking, laid a detaining hand on her arm. ‘Pray calm yourself, Cecilia! Consider a little! If your unfortunate cousin has quarrelled so bitterly with Charles, very likely his going could only do more harm than good. I believe you are right in this, however, that it will not do to let matters take their course. The scandal that must result would be such as none of us could contemplate without revulsion. I dread the effect it may have upon dear Lady Ombersley above everything. The wretched girl must be rescued from herself.’
‘And Charlbury!’ Cecilia interjected, wringing her hands ‘It is all my folly! I must set out at once!’
‘You shall do so, and I will go with you,’ said Miss Wraxton nobly. ‘Only permit me sufficient time, while you order your Papa’s chaise to be got ready, to write a note for my mother. I daresay one of the servants would carry it round to Brook Street for me. I shall inform her merely that I have been persuaded to pass the evening with you here, and she will not find it remarkable.’
‘You!’ exclaimed Cecilia, staring at her. ‘Oh, no, no! I mean, it is excessively kind in you, dear Eugenia, but I had rather you did not come!’
‘You will scarcely go alone,’ Miss Wraxton reminded her.
‘Sophy’s maid shall accompany me. I beg of you, do not let a word of this pass your lips!’
‘My dear Cecilia, surely you will not permit a servant into your confidence? As well tell the town-crier! If you will not accept my company, I must think myself obliged to divulge the whole to Lady Ombersley. I consider it my duty to go with you, and I am persuaded it is what Charles would desire me to do. My being at Lacy Manor must lend propriety to the whole; for an engaged woman, you know, stands upon a different footing from an unattached girl.’
‘Oh, I do not know what to say! I wish to heaven you had never set eyes on Sophy’s letter!’
‘I think it may be as well for all of us that I did set eyes on it,’ replied Miss Wraxton, with a smile. ‘You are scarcely in a fit state, dear Cecilia, to conduct this delicate affair with any degree of composure, let me tell you. Which is it to be! Shall I go with you, or do you prefer me to lay the whole before your Mama?’
‘Very well, come then!’ Cecilia said, almost pettishly. ‘Though why you should wish to, when I know very well that you dislike Sophy amazingly, I am at a loss to understand!’
‘Whatever my sentiments towards your cousin may be,’ pronounced Miss Wraxton, looking quite saintly, ‘I trust that I may never forget my duty as a Christian.’
The ready colour flooded Cecilia’s cheeks. She was a gentle girl, but this speech made her so cross that she said waspishly: ‘Well, I daresay Sophy will contrive to make you look foolish, because she always does, and it will serve you right, Eugenia, for meddling in what does not concern you!’
But Miss Wraxton, knowing that her hour of triumph had arrived, merely smiled in an irritating way, and recommended her to think what would be best to say to her Mama.
Cecilia replied with dignity that she knew just what she should say, and moved towards the door. Before she had reached it, it was opened, and Dassett came in again, this time to inform her that Lord Bromford had called, and desired the favour of a word with her.
‘You should have denied me!’ Cecilia said. ‘I cannot see Lord Bromford now!’
‘No, miss,’ said Dassett. ‘But his lordship seems quite set on seeing either you, or her ladyship, miss, and her ladyship is with Miss Amabel and does not wish to be disturbed.’ He gave his deprecating cough. ‘I should perhaps mention that his lordship, knowing that Miss Sophy has gone out of town, is extremely wishful to learn of her direction.’
‘Who told him that Miss Sophy is gone out of town?’ Cecilia said sharply.
‘That I could not take it upon myself to say, miss. Not having received any orders to the contrary, I did not consider it my place to deny the fact, when his lordship condescended to enquire of me if it was true.’
Cecilia cast rather a helpless glance at Miss Wraxton, who at once took the conduct of affairs into her capable hands.
‘Pray desire his lordship to step into this room!’ she said.
Dassett bowed, and withdrew.
‘Eugenia! Take care what you are about! What do you mean to say to him!’
Miss Wraxton replied gravely: ‘That must depend upon circumstances. We do not know how much he is aware of, and we ought not to forget that he has as much interest in your cousin as any of us.’
‘No such thing!’ Cecilia said. ‘Sophy would never marry him!’
‘She has certainly shown herself unworthy of his devotion. I hope she may not have cause to be thankful to marry any respectable man who offers for her.’
Since Lord Bromford was ushered into the room at that moment, Cecilia was spared the necessity of answering her.
His lordship was looking extremely anxious, but no anxiety could suffice to make him abate the formality of his greetings. These were performed with great punctilio, nor did he forget to make civil enquiry after the state of Amabel’s health. He then begged pardon for importuning Miss Rivenhall to grant him an audience, and, after only a little circumlocution, came to the point of his visit. He had seen Miss Stanton-Lacy driving along Piccadilly in a hack-chaise and four, Lord Charlbury beside her, and baggage tied on behind the chaise.
‘My cousin has been called suddenly out of town,’ said Cecilia, in a cool tone that might have been expected to have damped pretension.
‘With only that fellow for her companion!’ he exclaimed, very much shocked. ‘Besides – and this is a circumstance which makes it appear the more extraordinary – I was engaged to drive out with her this afternoon!’
‘She had forgotten,’ Cecilia said. ‘She will be so sorry! You must forgive her.’
He regarded her intently for a moment, and what he saw in her face caused him to turn towards her companion, an
d to say earnestly: ‘Miss Wraxton, I appeal to you! It is useless to tell me that Miss Stanton-Lacy has not left London clandestinely! How should Rivenhall have permitted her to go off in such a fashion? Pardon me, but Charlbury’s attentions – marked, you will agree, beyond the bounds of propriety! – have given rise to the most dreadful suspicions in my mind. It cannot be unknown to you that I have an interest there myself ! I had flattered myself that upon Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy’s return to England – But this sudden departure – baggage strapped on behind, too!’ he stopped, apparently overcome.
Miss Wraxton said smoothly: ‘Miss Stanton-Lacy is at all times impatient of convention. She has driven down to her home at Ashtead, but I am confident that the persuasions of Miss Rivenhall and myself must weigh with her, and she will return to London with us tonight. We are about to set forth for Ashtead immediately.’
He seemed to be much struck, and said at once: ‘This is like you! I understand you, I believe! I have known that fellow for a libertine these many weeks! Depend upon it, he has quite taken her in! Does Rivenhall accompany you?’
‘We go alone,’ Miss Wraxton said. ‘You have guessed the truth, and will readily appreciate that our endeavours now must be fixed on keeping this unhappy event from the ears of the world.’
‘Yes, indeed!’ he said eagerly. ‘But it is not to be thought of that two delicately nurtured females should undertake such a mission, unsupported by the firmness of a man! I think I should escort you. I think it is what I should do. I shall call Charlbury to book. His conduct in this affair has shown me what he is. He has grossly deceived Miss Stanton-Lacy, and shall answer for it!’
An indignant protest rose to Cecilia’s lips, but Miss Wraxton intervened swiftly, to say: ‘Your sentiments do you honour, and, for my own part, I must say that I shall be grateful to you for the protection of your escort. Only the most stringent necessity could prevail upon me to undertake such a mission without the support of a responsible gentleman!’