‘The very worst!’ he said, laughing. ‘God knows why such a fellow should have taken it into his head to fall in love with Sophy! You may imagine how Cecilia and Hubert roast her over it! As for the tales they make up of his adventures in the West Indies, even my mother has been thrown into whoops! He is the most absurd oddity!’
‘I cannot agree with you,’ she said. ‘And even though I did, I could not listen with anything but pain to a man’s sensibility being made a mock of.’
This reproof had the effect of making Mr Rivenhall recollect an engagement in the neighbourhood which necessitated his instant departure. He had never before found himself so little in accord with his betrothed.
On the other hand, never before had he been in such charity with his cousin, a happy state of affairs which lasted for very nearly a week. It inspired him to gratify an expressed wish of hers to see Kemble act. While making no secret of the fact that he found the great player’s affections insupportable, his odd mispronunciations ruining his most brilliant histrionic flights, he took a box at Covent Garden, and escorted Sophy there, with Cecilia and Mr Wychbold. Sophy was a trifle disappointed in an actor of whom she had heard so much praise, but the evening passed very agreeably, ending at the fashionable hotel in Henrietta Street, known as the Star. Here, Mr Rivenhall, proving himself to be an excellent host, had ordered a private dining-room, and a most elegant supper. His mood was so amiable as even to preclude his making a slighting remark about Kemble’s acting. Mr Wychbold was chatty and obliging; Cecilia in her best looks; and Sophy lively enough to set the ball of conversation rolling gaily at the outset. In fact, Cecilia said, when she later bade her brother good-night, that she had not been so much diverted for months.
‘Nor I,’ he responded. ‘I cannot think why we do not go out more often together, Cilly. Do you suppose our cousin would care to see Kean? I believe he is appearing in a new play at the Lane.’
Cecilia could feel no doubts on this head, but before Mr Rivenhall had had time to put a half-formulated plan into execution he had been forestalled, and the better understanding set up between him and Sophy had begun noticeably to wane. Lord Charlbury, obedient to the commands of his instructress, begged Lady Ombersley to honour him by bringing her daughter and her niece to a little theatre-party of his making. Mr Rivenhall bore up perfectly well under this, but when it leaked out, later, that Mr Fawnhope had made one of the party, his equanimity suffered a severe set-back. Nothing, it seemed, could have excelled the evening’s delights! Even Lady Ombersley, who had been decidedly disturbed by the unexpected presence of Mr Fawnhope, succumbed to the combined attentions of her host, and of her old friend, General Retford, who had certainly been invited to entertain her. The play, Bertram, was pronounced to have been most affecting; Kean’s acting was beyond praise; and quite the most delightful supper-party at the Piazza had wound up the evening. Much of this Mr Rivenhall gathered from his mother, but some of it he had from Cecilia, who was at immense pains to tell him how much she had enjoyed herself. She said that Sophy had been in high spirits, but failed to mention that Sophy’s spirits had taken the form of flirtation with her host. Cecilia was naturally glad to find that her rejected suitor was not nursing a broken heart, and almost equally glad to think that she herself had no turn for a form of amusement that showed her otherwise charming cousin in a very poor light. As for Lord Charlbury’s volunteering to show Sophy how his father, a sad rake, had been used to take snuff from a lady’s wrist, and Sophy’s instantly holding out her hand, that, thought Cecilia, was the outside of enough! She was happy to reflect that Augustus would never behave in such an audacious fashion. He had certainly no notion of doing so that evening. The tragedy he had witnessed had fired him with an ambition to write a lyrical drama, and although it would have been impossible to have found fault with his manners as a guest, Cecilia had a strong suspicion that his thoughts were otherwhere.
Bad as this evening had been, there was worse, in Mr Rivenhall’s estimation, to follow. Until Lord Charlbury’s emergence from a sick-room, Sophy’s most frequent cavalier (or, as Mr Rivenhall preferred savagely to dub him, her cicisbeo) had been Sir Vincent Talgarth. But Lord Charlbury was soon seen to have supplanted Sir Vincent. He met her on horseback in the Park in the mornings; he was to be observed seated in her phaeton at the hour of the promenade; he stood up with her for two dances at Almack’s; took her in his own curricle to a military review; and even acted as her escort on a visit to Merton. His lordship made no secret of the fact that he had enjoyed his expedition enormously, his sense of humour being much tickled by the Marquesa’s rich and languorous personality. He told Sophy that he would have been happy to have remained for twice as long in her company. Any lady, he declared, who, overcome by the fatigue of entertaining morning-callers, closed her eyes, and went to sleep under their startled gaze, was something quite out of the ordinary, and worthy of being cultivated. She smiled, and agreed to it, but she was secretly a little dismayed. It had been a shock to her to find Sir Vincent seated with the Marquesa. He had not been her only visitor: the Marquesa’s brief sojourn at the Pulteney had drawn to her several gentlemen who had enjoyed her hospitality in Madrid: but he was all too plainly her most assiduous visitor. Major Quinton had been there too, as well as Lord Francis Wolvey, and Mr Fawnhope. Mr Fawnhope’s presence was easily explained: he rather thought of writing a tragedy about Don John of Austria, whose brief but glorious career seemed to him eminently suited to lyric drama. He had already composed some moving lines for his hero to utter upon his fevered deathbed, and he thought that the Marquesa might reasonably be expected to be in a position to divulge to him many details of Spanish life and customs that would prove invaluable to him in the writing of his masterpiece. In the event, the Marquesa’s knowledge of the customs obtaining in her country in the sixteenth century was considerably less than his own, but she was not to discourage a handsome young man from visiting her, so she smiled sleepily upon him, and invited him to come again, when she had no other company to engage her attention.
Sophy, who had never connected Mr Fawnhope with any manly attribute, was quite surprised to discover that he had ridden out to visit the Marquesa on a pure-bred mare she would not herself have disdained to possess. He rode back to London, behind her phaeton, and handled the pretty, playful creature well, she noticed. She confided to Lord Charlbury that she thought it would be to his advantage if Cecilia were never to see her poet upon a horse.
He sighed. ‘Do not think, dear Sophy, that I have not a great deal of pleasure in your society, but where is all this leading me? Do you know, for I do not?’
‘I depend upon its leading you just where you would wish to be,’ she replied seriously. ‘Pray trust me! Cecilia by no means likes to see you dancing attendance on me, I can assure you!’
Cecilia was not the only one to derive no pleasure from this spectacle. Mr Rivenhall, possibly because he still cherished hopes that a match might be made up between Charlbury and his sister, regarded it with the greatest dislike; and Lord Bromford, finding himself quite cut out, developed such a degree of hostility towards his rival as made it almost impossible for him to meet him even with the appearance of complaisance.
‘It seems to me a very extraordinary circumstance,’ he told his chief sympathizer, ‘that a man who has been dangling after one female – as the common phrase runs! – for more weeks than I care to enumerate should be so fickle as to transfer his attentions to another in so short a time! I confess, I have no comprehension of such conduct. Had I, dear Miss Wraxton, not been about the world a little, and learnt something of the frailty of mankind, I must have been totally at a loss! But I do not scruple to tell you that I never liked Charlbury above half. His conduct does not astonish me. I am only grieved, and I may add, surprised, to see Miss Stanton-Lacy so taken-in!’
‘No doubt,’ said Miss Wraxton pleasantly, ‘a lady who had been used to live upon the Continent must be expected to regard these matters in rather a different light from that
in which such poor stay-at-homes as myself must look upon them. I believe that flirting is quite a pastime amongst foreign ladies.’
‘My dear ma’am,’ said his lordship, ‘I must tell you that I am by no means an advocate of travel for ladies. It does not seem to me to be a necessary thing for the education of the weaker sex, although for a man I think it to be indispensable. I should not be astonished to learn that Charlbury had never set foot outside this island, which is a circumstance that makes me wonder more than ever at Miss Stanton-Lacy’s partiality for his society.’
Lord Bromford’s hostility was perfectly well known to its object. Charlbury, cantering along the Row with Sophy, said to her once: ‘If I come out of this masquerade with a whole skin I may think myself fortunate! Are you determined I shall be slain, Sophy, you wretch?’
She laughed. ‘Bromford?’
‘He or Charles. Of the two, I hope it may be he who calls me out. I daresay he cannot hit a haystack at twelve yards, but Rivenhall I know to be a capital shot.’
She turned her head to look at him. ‘Do you think so indeed? Charles?’
He returned her look, his own eyes quizzing her. ‘Yes, Madam Innocence! Doubtless because of the slight upon his sister! Tell me – you are always frank! – do you make a practice of setting everyone to partners wherever you go?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not unless I am persuaded it would be better for them!’
He laughed and laughed, and was still laughing when they encountered Mr and Miss Rivenhall, riding side by side towards them.
Sophy greeted her cousins with unaffected pleasure, altogether refraining from expressing her surprise at seeing Cecilia indulging in a form of exercise she was not much addicted to. She and Charlbury turned their horses to ride with the Rivenhalls, and she made no objection when, after a little way, Mr Rivenhall obliged her to fall behind the other two, and proceed at a sedate pace down the track. She said: ‘I like that bay of yours, Charles.’
‘You may like him,’ returned Mr Rivenhall disagreeably, ‘but you are not going to ride him!’
She cast him a sidelong look, brimful of mischief. ‘No, dear Charles?’
‘Sophy,’ said Mr Rivenhall, descending rapidly from the autocratic to the merely threatening, ‘if you dare to have your saddle put upon my Thunderer, I will strangle you, and throw your body into the Serpentine!’
She gave the gurgle of laughter that never failed to bring his twisted grin into being. ‘Oh, no, Charles, would you indeed? Well, I do not blame you! If ever I find you astride Salamanca, I shall certainly shoot you – and I can make allowance for a gun that throws a little left!’
‘Yes?’ said Mr Rivenhall. ‘Well, my dear cousin, when we go down to Ombersley I shall derive much satisfaction from watching your marksmanship! You shall show me what you can do with my duelling pistols. They do not throw left, or even right: I am rather nice in the choice of my weapons!’
‘Duelling pistols!’ said Sophy, much impressed. ‘I had not thought it of you, Charles! How many times have you been out? Do you always kill your man?’
‘Rarely!’ he retorted. ‘Duelling has gone sadly out of fashion, dear Sophy! I am so sorry to be obliged to disappoint you!’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I had no real expectation of hearing that you had done anything so dashing!’
That made him laugh. He flung up a hand, in the gesture of a swordsman acknowledging a hit. ‘Very well, Sophy! Touché!’
‘Do you fence?’
‘Indifferently. Why?’
‘Oh, merely that it is something I have never learnt!’
‘Good God, how is this! I had thought Sir Horace must have taught you how to handle a small-sword!’
‘No,’ said Sophy, making her mouth prim. ‘And he has not taught me how to box either, so there are two things, Charles, which you must be able to do better than I can!’
‘You quite outstrip me,’ he agreed suavely. ‘Particularly in the art of dalliance!’
She instantly disconcerted him by making an attack direct. ‘Dalliance, Charles? You do not, I hope, accuse me of flirting?’
‘Do I not?’ he said grimly. ‘Enlighten me, I beg, on the nature of your dealings with Charlbury!’
She showed him an innocent face. ‘But, Charles, how is this? Surely I could not be mistaken! All is at an end between him and Cecilia! You cannot suppose it possible that I would encourage his advances if that were not so!’
The bay horse broke into a canter, and was checked. Mr Rivenhall said furiously: ‘Foolery! Don’t try to humbug me, Sophy! Charlbury and you – ! Why, what a gull you must think me!’
‘Oh, no!’ Sophy assured him soulfully. ‘But there is nothing I would not do to oblige Sir Horace, and I would far rather marry Charlbury than Bromford!’
‘It sometimes seems to me,’ said Mr Rivenhall, ‘that delicacy is a virtue utterly unknown to you!’
‘Yes, tell me about it!’ she said, with immense cordiality.
He did not avail himself of this invitation, but said in a biting tone: ‘I should warn you, perhaps, that Charlbury’s determined pursuit is fast making you the talk of the town. Whether you care a button for that I know not, but since my mother is responsible for you I must own that I should be grateful to you if you would behave with a little more discretion!’
‘You told me once before of something else I could do if ever I should wish to please you,’ remarked Sophy thoughtfully. ‘I must say, I hope I never shall wish to, for, try as I may, I cannot recall what it was!’
‘You have been determined, have you not, to make me dislike you, from the very day we met?’ he shot at her.
‘Not at all: you did so without the least encouragement!’
He rode beside her in silence for a few moments, saying at last, in a stiff voice: ‘You are mistaken. I do not dislike you. That is to say, there have been many times when I have liked you very well. Nor need you imagine that I forget how much I stand in your debt.’
She interrupted him. ‘You do not! Let me hear no more of that, if you please! Tell me about Hubert! I heard you tell my aunt that you had received a letter from him. Is he well?’
‘Perfectly, I imagine. He only wrote to desire me to send him a book he had left behind.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And to tell me of his determination to attend all his lectures! If I did not think that that resolution must fail, I would post up to Oxford immediately! Such virtue could only end in his seeking relief in the most shocking excesses. Let me say one thing to you, Sophy! I have never said it: we were interrupted before I could do so, and I have never found the opportunity since! I must always be grateful to you for showing me, as you did, how much at fault I had been in my dealings with Hubert.’
‘That is nonsense, but I could show you, if you would permit me, how much at fault you are in your dealings with Cecilia!’ she said.
His face hardened. ‘Thank God! On that subject we are not likely to agree!’
She said no more, but allowed Salamanca to break into a canter, and to overtake Lord Charlbury and Cecilia.
She found them conversing comfortably, the constraint Cecilia had felt upon finding herself obliged to ride alone in his company having been speedily banished by the friendly ease of his manners. Neither by word nor by look did he remind her of what lay between them, but began to talk to her at once on some unexceptionable subject that he knew would interest her. This made a pleasant change for her, Mr Fawnhope’s conversation being, at present, almost wholly confined to the scope and structure of his great tragedy. To listen to a poet arguing with himself – for she could scarcely have been said to have borne any part in the discussion – on the merits of blank verse as a dramatic medium was naturally a privilege of which any young lady must be proud, but there could be no denying that to talk for half an hour to a man who listened with interest to anything she said was, if not precisely a relief, certainly a welcome variation in her life. Not for nothing had his lordship endured the world for ten more
years than his youthful rival. Mr Fawnhope’s handsome face and engaging smile might dazzle the female eye, but Mr Fawnhope had not yet learnt the art of conveying to a lady the gratifying impression that he considered her a fragile creature, to be cherished, and in every way considered. Lord Charlbury might be constitutionally incapable of addressing her as Nymph, or of comparing bluebells unfavourably with her eyes, but Lord Charlbury would infallibly provide a cloak for her if the weather were inclement, lift her over obstacles she could well climb without assistance, and in every way convince her that in his eyes she was a precious being whom it was impossible to guard too carefully.
It would have been too much to have said that Cecilia was regretting her rejection of his lordship’s suit, but when Sophy and Charles joined her she was certainly conscious of a faint feeling of dissatisfaction at having her tête-à-tête interrupted.
She tried to discuss the matter in a dispassionate way with Sophy, later, but found it curiously hard to utter any of the sentiments she had persuaded herself she felt. Finally, she bent her head over a piece of embroidery, and asked her cousin whether Lord Charlbury had yet offered for her.
Sophy laughed at this. ‘Good God, no, you goose! Charlbury has no serious intentions towards me.’
Cecilia kept her eyes lowered. ‘Indeed? I should have said that he showed the most decided partiality for you.’
‘My dear Cecy, I would not tease you by adverting to this subject, but I am persuaded that what Charlbury wears on his sleeve is not his heart. I should not wonder at it if he were to end his days a bachelor.’
‘I do not think it,’ said Cecilia, snipping her silk. ‘And nor, I fancy, do you, Sophy. He will offer for you, and – and I hope you will accept him, because if one were not in love with another I cannot imagine any gentleman one would prefer to him.’
‘Well, we shall see!’ was all Sophy would say.