‘As you please,’ he replied indifferently.
Dinner at an end, Lord Ombersley withdrew from the family circle. Charles, who had no evening engagement, accompanied his mother and sister to the drawing-room, and, while Cecilia strummed idly at the piano, sat talking to his mother about Sophia’s visit. Much to her relief, he seemed to be resigned to the necessity of holding at least one moderate party in Sophia’s honour, but he strongly advised her against charging herself with the office of finding a suitable husband for her niece.
‘Why my uncle, having allowed her to reach the age of – twenty, is it? – without bestirring himself in the matter,’ he said, ‘must suddenly take it into his head to persuade you to undertake the business, is a matter beyond my comprehension.’
‘It does seem odd,’ agreed Lady Ombersley. ‘I daresay he might not have realized how time flies, you know. Twenty! Why, she is almost upon the shelf ! I must say, Horace has been most remiss! There could be no difficulty, I am sure, for she must be quite an heiress! Even if she were a very plain girl, which I do not for moment suppose she can be, for you will allow Horace to be a handsome man, while poor dear Marianne was excessively pretty, though I don’t expect that you can remember her – well, even if she were plain, it should be the easiest thing in the world to arrange a respectable match for her!’
‘Very easy, but you would do well to leave it to my uncle, ma’am,’ was all he would say.
At this moment, the school-room party came into the room, escorted by Miss Adderbury, a little gray mouse of a woman, who had originally been hired to take charge of Lady Ombersley’s numerous offspring when Charles and Maria had been adjudged old enough to leave Nurse’s jealous care. It might have been supposed that a twenty-year’s residence in the household, under the aegis of a kind-hearted mistress, and the encouragement of her pupils’ affection, would long since have allayed Miss Adderbury’s nervousness, but this had endured with the years. Not all her accomplishments – and these included, besides a sufficient knowledge of Latin to enable her to prepare little boys for school, the expert use of the globes, a thorough grounding in the Theory of Music, enough proficiency upon the pianoforte and the harp to satisfy all but the most exacting and considerable talent in the correct use of water-colours – made it possible for her to enter the drawing-room without an inward shrinking, or to converse with her employer on terms of equality. Those of her pupils who had outgrown her care found her shyness and her anxiety to please tiresome, but they could never forget her kindness to them in their schoolroom days, and always treated her with something more than civility. So Cecilia smiled at her, and Charles said: ‘Well, Addy, and how are you today?’ which slight attentions made her grow pink with pleasure, and stammer a good deal in her replies.
Her charges now numbered three only, for Theodore, the youngest son of the house, had lately been sent to Eton. Selina, a sharp-looking damsel of sixteen, went to sit beside her sister on the pianoforte-stool; and Gertrude, bidding fair, at twelve, to rival Cecilia in beauty, and Amabel, a stout ten-year old, cast themselves upon their brother, with loud professions of delight at seeing him, and rather louder reminders to him of a promise he had made them to play at lottery-tickets the very next time he should spend an evening at home. Miss Adderbury, kindly invited by Lady Ombersley to take a seat by the fire, made faint clucking noises in deprecation of this exuberance. She had no hope of being attended to, but was relieved to observe that Lady Ombersley was regarding the group about Charles with a fond smile. Lady Ombersley, in fact, was wishing that Charles, who was so popular with the children, could bring himself to be equally kind to the brother and sister nearer to him in age. There had been a rather painful scene at Christmas, when poor Hubert’s Oxford debts had been discovered…
The card-table had been set up, and Amabel was already counting out the mother-of-pearl fishes on its green-baize cloth. Cecilia begged to be excused from joining in the game, and Selina, who would have liked to play but always made a point of following her sister’s example, said that she found lottery-tickets a dead bore. Charles paid no heed to this, but as he passed behind the music-stool on his way to fetch the playing-cards from a tall marquetry chest, bent to say something in Cecilia’s ear. Lady Ombersley, anxiously watching, could not hear what it was, but she saw, her heart sinking, that it had the effect of making Cecilia colour up to the roots of her hair. However, she rose from the stool, and went to the table, saying, Very well, she would play for a little while. So Selina relented too, and after a very few minutes both young ladies were making quite as much noise as their juniors, and laughing enough to make an impartial observer think that the one had forgotten her advanced years, and the other her lacerated sensibilities. Lady Ombersley was able to withdraw her attention from the table, and to settle down to a comfortable chat with Miss Adderbury.
Miss Adderbury had already heard from Cecilia of Sophia’s proposed visit, and was all eagerness to discuss it with Lady Ombersley. She could enter into her ladyship’s feelings upon the event, join her in the sighing over the melancholy situation of a girl left motherless at five years old, agree with her plans for Sophia’s accommodation and amusement, and, while deploring the irregularity of Sophia’s upbringing, feel sure that she would be found to be a very sweet girl.
‘I always know I can rely upon you, Miss Adderbury,’ said Lady Ombersley. ‘Such a comfort to me!’
In what way she was to be relied on Miss Adderbury had no idea, but she did not ask enlightenment, which was just as well, since her ladyship had no idea either, and had merely uttered the gratifying phrase from a general desire to please. Miss Adderbury said: ‘Oh, Lady Ombersley! So good – ! So very obliging – !’ and was almost ready to burst into tears at the thought of so much confidence being placed in one so unworthy as herself. Most fervently did she hope that her ladyship would never discover that she had nursed a snake in her bosom; and dolefully did she regret the lack of resolution that made it impossible for her to withstand her dear Miss Rivenhall’s coaxing. Only two days before she had permitted young Mr Fawnhope to join the walking-party in the Green Park, and – far worse – had made no objection to his falling behind with Cecilia. It was true that Lady Ombersley had not mentioned Cecilia’s unhappy infatuation to her, much less laid commands upon her to repulse Mr Fawnhope, but Miss Adderbury was the daughter of a clergyman (mercifully deceased) of stern and rigid morals, and she knew that such quibbling merely aggravated her depravity.
These reflections were interrupted by a further observation made by her ladyship, in a lowered tone, and with a glance cast towards the card-table at the other end of the room. ‘I am persuaded that I have no need to tell you, Miss Adderbury, that we had been made a trifle uneasy lately by one of those fancies which young females are subject to. I shall say no more, but you will appreciate how glad I shall be to welcome my niece. Cecilia has been too much alone, and her sisters are not of an age to be the companions which her cousin must be. I am hopeful that in striving to make dear Sophia feel at home amongst us – for the poor little thing will be sadly lost in the middle of such a large family, I daresay – and in showing her how she should go on in London, she will have enough to occupy her to give her thoughts another direction.’
This view of the matter had not until now presented itself to Miss Adderbury, but she grasped it eagerly, and felt sure that all would happen precisely as Lady Ombersley anticipated. ‘Oh, yes, indeed!’ she declared. ‘Nothing could be better! So condescending of your ladyship to – I had collected from dear Miss Rivenhall – but she is such a sweet girl I know she will devote herself to her less fortunate cousin! When do you expect Miss Stanton-Lacy, dear Lady Ombersley?’
‘Sir Horace was able to give me no very precise information,’ replied Lady Ombersley, ‘but I understand that he expects to sail for South America almost immediately. No doubt my niece will be in London very shortly. Indeed, I shall speak to the housekeeper tomorrow about preparing a bedchamber for her.’
Three
B ut it was not until the Easter holidays were a week old that Sophia arrived in Berkeley Square. The only intelligence received by her aunt during the intervening ten days was a brief scrawl from Sir Horace, conveying the information that his mission was a trifle delayed, but that she would assuredly see her niece before very long. The flowers which Cecilia so prettily arranged in her cousin’s room withered, and had to be thrown away; and Mrs Ludstock, a meticulously careful housekeeper, had twice aired the sheets before, in the middle of a bright spring afternoon, a post-chaise-and-four, generously splashed with mud, drew up at the door.
It so happened that Cecilia and Selina had been driving with their Mama in the Park, and had returned to the house not five minutes earlier. All three were just about to ascend the staircase when Mr Hubert Rivenhall came bounding down, uttering: ‘It must be my cousin, for there is a mountain of baggage on the roof ! Such a horse! By Jupiter, if ever I saw such a bang-up piece of flesh-and-blood!’
This extraordinary speech made the three ladies stare at him in bewilderment. The butler, who had only a minute before withdrawn from the hall, sailed back again, with his attendant satellites, and trod across the marble floor to the front door, announcing, with a bow to his mistress, that he apprehended Miss Stanton-Lacy had that instant arrived. The satellites then threw open the double doors, and the ladies had a clear view, not only of the equipage in the road, but of the awed and inquisitive faces of the younger members of the family, who had been playing at bat-and-ball in the garden of the Square, and were now crowded close to the railings, gazing, in spite of Miss Adderbury’s remonstrances, at the animal which had brought Hubert in such pelting haste down the stairs.
Miss Stanton-Lacy’s arrival was certainly impressive. Four steaming horses drew her chaise, two outriders accompanied it, and behind it rode a middle-aged groom, leading a splendid black horse. The steps of the chaise were let down, the door opened, and out leaped an Italian greyhound, to be followed a moment later by a gaunt-looking female, holding a dressing-bag, three parasols, and a birdcage. Lastly, Miss Stanton-Lacy herself descended, thanking the footman for his proffered help, but requesting him instead to hold her poor little Jacko. Her poor little Jacko was seen to be a monkey in a scarlet coat, and no sooner had this magnificent fact dawned on the school-room party than they brushed past their scandalized preceptress, tore open the garden-gate, and tumbled out into the road, shouting: ‘A monkey! She has brought a monkey!’
Lady Ombersley, meanwhile, standing as though rooted to her own doorstep, was realizing, with strong indignation, that the light in which a gentleman of great height and large proportions regarded his daughter had been misleading. Sir Horace’s little Sophy stood five feet nine inches in her stockinged feet, and was built on generous lines, a long-legged, deep-bosomed creature, with a merry face, and a quantity of glossy brown ringlets under one of the most dashing hats her cousins had ever seen. A pelisse was buttoned up to her throat, a very long sable stole was slipping from her shoulders, and she carried an enormous sable muff. This, however, she thrust into the second footman’s hands so that she was better able to greet Amabel, who was the first to reach her. Her dazed aunt watched her stoop gracefully over the little girl, catching her hands, and saying laughingly: ‘Yes, yes, indeed I am your cousin Sophia, but pray won’t you call me Sophy? If any one calls me Sophia I think I am in disgrace, which is a very uncomfortable thing. Tell me your name!’
‘It’s Amabel, and oh, if you please, may I talk to the monkey?’ stammered the youngest Miss Rivenhall.
‘Of course you may, for I brought him for you. Only be a little gentle with him at first, because he is shy, you know.’
‘Brought him for me?’ gasped Amabel, quite pale with excitement.
‘For you all,’ said Sophy, embracing Gertrude and Theodore in her warm smile. ‘And also the parrot. Do you like pets better than toys and books? I always did, so I thought very likely you would too.’
‘Cousin!’ said Hubert, breaking in on the fervent assurances of his juniors that their new relative had gauged their tastes with an accuracy utterly unequalled in all their experience of adults. ‘Is that your horse?’
She turned, surveying him with a certain unselfconscious candour, the smile still lingering on her mouth. ‘Yes, that is Salamanca. Do you like him?’
‘By Jove, I should think I do! Is he Spanish? Did you bring him from Portugal?’
‘Cousin Sophy, what is your dear little dog’s name? What kind of a dog is it?’
‘Cousin Sophy, can the parrot talk? Addy may we keep it in the schoolroom?’
‘Mama, Mama, Cousin Sophy has brought us a monkey!’
This last shout, from Theodore, made Sophy look quickly round. Perceiving her aunt and her two other cousins in the doorway, she ran up the steps, exclaiming: ‘Dear Aunt Elizabeth! I beg your pardon! I was making friends with the children! How do you do? I am so happy to be with you! Thank you for letting me come to you!’
Lady Ombersley was still dazed, still clutching feebly at the fast-vanishing picture of the shy little niece of her imaginings, but at these words that insipid damsel was cast into the limbo of things unregretted and unremembered. She clasped Sophy in her arms, raising her face to the glowing one above her, and saying tremulously: ‘Dear, dear Sophy! So happy! So like your father! Welcome, dear child, welcome!’
She was quite overcome, and it was several moments before she could recollect herself enough to introduce Sophy to Cecilia and Selina. Sophy stared at Cecilia, and exclaimed: ‘Are you Cecilia? But you are so beautiful! Why don’t I remember that?’
Cecilia, who had been feeling quite overpowered, began to laugh. You could not suspect Sophy of saying things like that only to please you, she said exactly what came into her head. ‘Well, I did not remember either!’ she retorted. ‘I thought you were a little brown cousin, all legs and tangled hair!’
‘Yes, but I am – oh, not tangled, perhaps, but all legs, I assure you, and dreadfully brown! I have not grown into a beauty! Sir Horace tells me I must abandon all pretensions – and he is a judge, you know!’
Sir Horace was right: Sophy would never be a beauty. She was by far too tall; nose and mouth were both too large, and a pair of expressive gray eyes could scarcely be held to atone entirely for these defects. Only you could not forget Sophy, even though you could not recall the shape of her face, or the colour of her eyes.
She turned again towards her aunt. ‘Will your people direct John Potton where he may stable Salamanca, ma’am? Only for tonight! And a room for himself ? I shall arrange everything just as soon as I have learnt my way about!’
Mr Hubert Rivenhall made haste to assure her that he would himself conduct John Potton to the stables. She smiled, and thanked him, and Lady Ombersley said that there was room and to spare for Salamanca in the stables, and she must not trouble her head about such matters. But it seemed that Sophy was determined to trouble her head, for she answered quickly: ‘No, no, my horses are not to be a charge on you, dear aunt! Sir Horace most particularly charged me to make my own arrangements, if I should be setting up my stable, and indeed I mean to do so! But for tonight it would be so kind in you!’
There was enough here to set her aunt’s brain reeling. What kind of a niece was this, who set up her stable, made her own arrangements, and called her father Sir Horace? Then Theodore created a diversion, coming up with the scared monkey clasped in his arms, demanding that she should tell Addy that he might take it to the schoolroom, since Cousin Sophy had given it to them. Lady Ombersley shrank from the monkey, and said feebly: ‘My love, I don’t think – oh, dear, whatever will Charles say?’
‘Charles is not such a muff as to be afraid of a monkey!’ declared Theodore. ‘Oh, Mama, pray tell Addy we may keep it!’
‘Indeed, Jacko will not bite anyone!’ Sophy said. ‘I have had him with me for close on a week, and he is the gentlest creature! You will not banish him, Miss – Miss Addy? No, I know that is wrong!’
‘Miss Adderbury – but we always call her Addy!’ Cecilia explained.
‘How do you do?’ Sophy said, holding out her hand. ‘Forgive me! It was impertinent, but I did not know! Do permit the children to keep poor Jacko!’
Between her dismay at having a monkey thrust upon her, and her desire to please this glowing girl, who smiled so kindly down at her, and extended her hand with such frank good-nature, Miss Adderbury lost herself in a morass of half-sentences. Lady Ombersley said that they must ask Charles, a remark which was at once interpreted as permission to take Jacko up to the schoolroom, none of the children thinking so poorly of their brother as to believe that he would raise the least objection to their new pet. Sophy was then led up to the blue Saloon, where she at once cast her sables on to a chair, unbuttoned her pelisse, and tossed off her modish hat. Her aunt, fondly drawing her down to sit beside her on the sofa, asked if she were tired from the long journey, and if she would like to take some refreshment.
‘No, indeed! Thank you, but I am never tired, and although it was a trifle tedious I could not count it as a journey!’ Sophy replied. ‘I should have been with you this morning, only that I was obliged to go first to Merton.’
‘Go first to Merton?’ echoed Lady Ombersley. ‘But why, my love? Have you acquaintances there?’
‘No, no, but Sir Horace particularly desired it!’
‘My dear, do you always call your Papa Sir Horace?’ asked Lady Ombersley.
The gray eyes began to dance again. ‘No, if he makes me very cross I call him Papa!’ Sophy said. ‘It is of all things what he most dislikes! Poor angel, it is a great deal too bad that he should be saddled with such a maypole for a daughter, and no one could expect him to bear it!’ She perceived that her aunt was looking a little shocked, and added, with her disconcerting frankness: ‘You don’t like that. I am so sorry, but indeed he is a delightful parent, and I love him dearly! But it is one of his maxims, you know, that one should never allow one’s partiality to blind one to a person’s defects.’
Grand Sophy Page 4