Джорджетт Хейер - The Grand Sophy

“I declare, Horace, you pass all bounds! Is it nothing to you that your daughter is in a fair way to ruining herself?”

“Ruining herself!” said Mr. Rivenhall contemptuously. “Do you indeed believe in such a fairy tale, ma’am? Have you lived with my cousin for six months without getting her measure? If that Spanish woman is not also at Lacy Manor at this moment I give you leave to call me a blockhead!”

“Oh, Charles, I pray you may be right!”

Sir Horace began to polish his eyeglass with considerable  assiduity. “Sancia, eh? I was meaning to speak to you about her, Lizzie. Is she still at Merton?”

“Pray, where else should she be, Horace?”

“I just wondered,” he said, studying the result of his labors. “I daresay Sophy may have told you of my intentions in that direction.”

“Of course she did, and I paid her a visit, as I suppose you must have wished me to do! But I must say, my dear Horace, that I cannot conceive what should possess you to offer for her!”

“That’s the trouble,” he replied. “One gets carried away, Lizzie! And there’s no denying she’s a devilish fine woman. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised me to have heard she had someone else dangling after her. Pity I settled her out at Merton! But there it is! One does these things on the spur of the moment, and it is not until one has had leisure to reflect — However, I don’t mean to complain!”

“Plenty of beauties in Brazil, sir?” inquired his nephew sardonically.

“I don’t want any of your impudence, my boy,” said Sir Horace genially. “Fact of the matter is, I doubt if I’m a marrying man!”

“Well, if it’s any consolation to you,” said Mr. Rivenhall, “you may know that my cousin has been doing her possible to hold Talgarth off from the Marquesa!”

“Now, why the devil,” demanded Sir Horace, roused to irritability, “must Sophy meddle? Talgarth, eh? Didn’t know he was in England! Well, well! He has a great deal of address, has Vincent, and, what’s more, I’ll wager he has an eye to Sancia’s fortune!”

Lady Ombersley, quite affronted, broke in on this, exclaiming, “I think you are quite shameless! And what has all this to do with poor Sophy’s escapade? You sit there, as though you had no concern in her affairs, while all the time she is trying to ruin herself! And you may say what you choose, Charles, but if it is true that she has gone off with Charlbury, it is the most shocking thing imaginable, and she must be brought back at once!”

“She will be!” said Mr. Rivenhall. “Can you doubt it, when you have sent off Cecilia and Eugenia, in the highest style of romance, to rescue her, ma’am?”

“I did no such thing! I knew nothing of this, but naturally I would not let your sister go alone, so when she told me that Eugenia had been kind enough to offer to accompany her, what could I do but be grateful?” She paused, struck by an unexplained circumstance. “But how do you know that they went to rescue her, Charles? If Dassett is so lost to all sense of his position as to gossip to you — ”

“No such thing! I am indebted to Eugenia herself for my information! And I must take leave to say, ma’am, that if you and my sister had been so obliging as to have kept this news to yourselves, I might have been spared a damned impertinent letter from Eugenia! What can have possessed you to have confided such a tale to her is something I can never cease to marvel at! Good God, don’t you know that she will spread it all over town that my cousin has behaved outrageously?”

“But I did not!” almost wailed his mother. “Charles, I did not!”

“One of you must have done so!” he said impatiently. He turned to his uncle. “Well, sir, do you mean to remain there, commending my father’s taste in wine, or do you mean to accompany me to Ashtead?”

“Set off for Ashtead at this hour, when I have been traveling for two days?” said Sir Horace. “Now, do, my boy, have a little common sense! Why should I?”

“I imagine that your parental feeling, sir, must provide you with the answer! If it does not, so be it! I am leaving immediately!”

“What do you mean to do when you reach Lacy Manor?” asked Sir Horace, regarding him in some amusement.

“Wring Sophy’s neck!” said Mr. Rivenhall savagely.

“Well, you don’t need my help for that, my dear boy!” said Sir Horace, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.

THE FIRST FEW minutes following the arrival of the Marquesa’s party from Merton were taken up with that lady’s . freely expressed complaints of the situation in which she found herself. The draught occasioned by the opening of the front door had caused the fire to belch forth fresh clouds of acrid smoke into the hall, and not all Mrs. Clavering’s distracted efforts had sufficed to make this apartment look other than neglected. Mrs. Clavering, much impressed by the richness of the Marquesa’s attire, stood bobbing curtsies to her; and the Marquesa, quite unimpressed by Mrs. Clavering, said, “Madre de Dios! If I had brought Gaston it might then have been supportable, and if my cook as well, better still! Why must I come to you in this house, Sophie? Why do you send for me so suddenly, and when it is raining, moreover? Su conducta es perversa?”

Sophy at once told her that she had been summoned to play a duenna’s part, an explanation which made an instant appeal to one in whose veins ran the purest Castilian blood. So well satisfied was the Marquesa that she quite forgot to inquire why Sophy had placed herself in a situation that required the attendance of any other duenna than her aunt, but said approvingly that Sophy had conducted herself with great propriety, and she grudged no fatigue in such a cause. After that, she became aware of Charlbury’s presence and with an effort of memory even recalled his name.

“Hallo, are you hurt?” Sir Vincent asked, nodding at his lordship’s arm sling. “How came that about?”

“Never mind that!” said Sophy, relieving Charlbury of the necessity of answering. “Why are you here, Sir Vincent?”

“That, my dear Juno,” he replied, his eyes glinting at her, “is a long and delicate story. I might, you know, ask the same question. I shan’t, of course, because explanations are apt to be tedious, and what is teasing me more at this present is the far more important subject of dinner. I fear you may not have been expecting so large a party!”

“No, I was not, and heaven knows what we shall find to eat!” Sophy admitted. “I think, perhaps, I should go into the kitchen and discover what there may be in the larder. For it is very likely, I must tell you, that my cousin Cecilia will arrive to dine here. And more than probably Charles also!”

“Oh, Miss Sophy, if only you’d have given us warning!” exclaimed Mrs. Clavering distressfully. “I’m sure I don’t know how to contrive dinner, not for the likes of you, miss, for I am not accustomed, and there’s nothing ready but a pig’s cheek, which Clavering fancied for his supper!”

“It is evident,” said the Marquesa, removing the plumed hat from her luxuriant curls and laying it down on a chair, “that this moza de cocina knows nothing, so that I must exert myself a little. That is bad, but worse, infinitamente, that we should starve! And you will remember it, Sophie, and be grateful to me, so that you do not quarrel with me! For I must tell you, de una vez, that I think it will not suit me to be married to Sir Horace after all, for he is very restless, and Brazil I should not like, but, on the contrary I will remain in England, but an English cook I will not have! So I have married Sir Vincent, and I am now not the Marquesa de Villacanas, but Lady Talgarth, which is a name I cannot pronounce, but no matter! One must accustom oneself.”

This speech not unnaturally stunned her audience into silence for several moments. Sir Vincent drew out his snuffbox and delicately inhaled a pinch of his favorite mixture. It was he who broke the silence. “So the murder is out!” he remarked. “Do not look so aghast, Sophy! Remember that our dear Sancia is to cook the dinner!”

“This,” suddenly announced Mr. Fawnhope, who had not been attending to a word of the conversation, “is a singularly beautiful house! I shall go all over it.”

He then picked up the lamp from the table, and bore it off toward one of the doors that opened on to the hall. Sir Vincent took it from him and restored it to its place, saying kindly, “You shall do so, my dear young friend, but take this candle, if you please!”

“Sir Vincent,” said Sophy, a martial light in her eye, “if I were a man, you should suffer for this treachery!”

“Dear Sophy, you shoot better than nine out of ten men of my acquaintance, so if anyone of us had the forethought to bring with him a pair of dueling pistols — ?”

“No one,” said the Marquesa, with decision, “shall shoot a pistol, because it is of all things what I most detest, and, besides, it is more important that we should prepare dinner!”

“I suppose,” said Sophy regretfully, “that that is true. One must eat! But I now perceive how right my cousin Charles was to warn me to have nothing to do with you, Sir Vincent! I did not think you would have served Sir Horace such a backhanded turn!”

“All is fair, dear Sophy, in love and war!” he said sententiously.

She was obliged to bite back the retort that sprang to her lips. He smiled understandingly and moved toward her, taking her hand, and saying in a lowered voice, “Consider, Juno! My need is far greater than Sir Horace’s! How could I resist?”

“‘Amor ch’a null’amato amar perdona,’ “ dreamily remarked Mr. Fawnhope, whose peregrinations about the hall had brought him within earshot.

“Exactly so, my poet!” said Sir Vincent cordially.

“I need Miss Wraxton to translate that for me,” said Sophy, “but if it means what I think it does it is no such thing! However, there is nothing more foolish than to be making a great noise over what cannot be helped, so I shall say no more. Besides, I have more important things to think of!”

“Certainly that is so,” agreed the Marquesa. “There is a way of preparing fresh-killed chickens, so Vincent shall at once kill me two chickens, for chickens this woman tells me there are in abundance, and I shall contrive.”

She then withdrew with Mrs. Clavering to the kitchen premises, her demitrain of mull muslin sweeping regally behind her over the floor and picking up a great deal of dust on the way. Sophy and Sir Vincent followed her; and as Mr. Fawnhope had by this time discovered the library and had gone in to inspect the books by the light of his tallow candle, Lord Charlbury was left alone. He was soon rejoined by Sir Vincent, who came back into the hall bearing a crusted bottle and some glasses. “Sherry,” he said, setting down the glasses. “If the slaughter of chickens is my fate, I must be fortified. But I trust I shall prevail upon the retainer to commit the actual deed. How did you hurt your arm?”

“Sophy put a bullet through it,” replied his lordship.

“Did she indeed? What a redoubtable female she is, to be sure! I suppose she had her reasons?”

“They were not what you might be pardoned for imagining!” retorted Charlbury.

“I never indulge commonplace thoughts,” said Sir Vincent, carefully wiping the neck of the bottle and beginning to pour out the wine. “Not, at all events, in relation to the Grand Sophy. Here, try this! God knows how long it has lain in the cellar! I collect I don’t drink to your elopement?”

“Good God, no!” said Charlbury, almost blanching at the thought. “I am devoted to Sophy — quite and unalterably devoted to her — but heaven preserve me from marriage with her!”

“If heaven did not, I fancy Rivenhall would,” observed Sir Vincent. “This wine is perfectly tolerable. Don’t finish the bottle before I come back, and don’t waste it on the poet!”

He strolled off again, presumably to oversee the execution in the hen roost, and Lord Charlbury, rendering up silent thanks for his wounded arm, poured himself out a second glass of sherry. After a short interval, Mr. Fawnhope emerged from the library, bearing a worm-eaten volume in his hand. This he reverently displayed to his lordship, saying simply, “La Hermosura de Angelica! One never knows where one may light upon a treasure. I must show it to the Marquesa. Whose is this enchanting house?”

“Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy’s,” replied Charlbury, in some amusement.

“Providence must have led me to it. I could not imagine what brought me here, but it doesn’t signify. When I saw Sophy standing in the open doorway, holding aloft the lamp, the scales fell from my eyes, and all doubts were resolved. I am engaged to dine somewhere or other, but I shan’t regard it.”