There was a slight pause, while Mr Rivenhall, unaccustomed to sudden attacks, recovered his presence of mind. It did not take him very long. ‘It might have been better for you if you had, cousin!’ he said grimly.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Sophy, quite unruffled. ‘The little I have seen of brothers makes me glad that Sir Horace never burdened me with any.’
‘Thank you! I know how I may take that, I suppose!’
‘Well, I imagine you might, for although you have a great many antiquated notions I don’t thank youstupid, precisely.’
‘Much obliged! Have you any other criticisms you would care to make?’
‘Yes, never fly into a miff when you are driving a high-couraged pair! You took that last corner much too fast.’
As Mr Rivenhall was accounted something of a Non-pareil, this thrust failed to pierce his armour. ‘What an abominable girl you are!’ he said, much more amiably. ‘Come! We cannot quarrel all the way to Temple Bar! Let us cry a truce!’
‘By all means,’ she agreed cordially. ‘Let us rather talk about my carriage. Do I go to Tattersall’s for my horses?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘Dear cousin Charles, do you wish me to understand that I have the name wrong, or that there is a superior dealer?’
‘Neither. What I wish you to understand is that females do not frequent Tattersall’s!’
‘Now, is this one of the things you would not like your sisters to do, or would it really be improper in me to go there?’
‘Most improper!’
‘If you escorted me?’
‘I shall do no such thing.’
‘Then how shall I manage?’ she demanded. ‘John Potton is an excellent groom, but I would not trust him to buy my horses for me. Indeed, I would not trust anyone, except, perhaps, Sir Horace, who knows exactly what I like.’
He perceived that she was in earnest, and not, as he had suspected, merely bent on roasting him. ‘Cousin, if nothing will do for you but to drive yourself. I will put my tilbury at your disposal, and choose a suitable horse to go between the shafts.’
‘One of your own?’ enquired Sophy.
‘None of my horses are at all suitable for you to drive,’ he replied.
‘Well, never mind!’ said Sophy. ‘I shall prefer to have my own phaeton-and-pair.’
‘Have you the smallest notion what you would have to pay for a well-matched pair?’ he demanded.
‘No, tell me! I thought not above three or four hundred pounds?’
‘A mere trifle! Your father, of course, would have not the least objection to your squandering three or four hundred pounds on a pair of horses!’
‘Not the least, unless I allowed myself to be taken in like a goose, and bought some showy-looking animal for ever throwing out a splint, or a high-stepper found to be touched in the wind at the end of a mile.’
‘I advise you to wait until he returns to England, then. He will no doubt choose you the very thing!’ was all Mr Rivenhall would say.
Rather to his surprise, Sophy appeared to take this in perfectly good part, for she made no comment, and almost immediately desired him to tell her the name of the street they were driving down. She did not refer again to the phaeton-and-pair, and Mr Rivenhall, realizing that she was merely a little spoilt and in need of a set-down, palliated the severe snub he had dealt her by pointing out one or two places of interest which they passed, and asking her a few civil questions about the scenery of Portugal. Arrived at Temple Bar, he drew up before the narrow entrance to Hoare’s Bank, and would have accompanied her inside had she not declined his escort, saying that he would do better to walk his horses, for she did not know how long she might be detained, and there was a sharp wind blowing. So he waited for her outside, reflecting that however unusual it might be for a young and unattached lady to do business in a bank she could not really come to any harm there. When she reappeared, in about twenty minutes’ time, some senior official of the Bank came with her, and solicitously handed her up into the curricle. She seemed to be on terms of considerable friendship with this personage, but disclosed, in answer to a somewhat sardonic enquiry made by her cousin as they drove off, that this had been her first meeting with him.
‘You surprise me!’ said Mr Rivenhall. ‘I had supposed he must have dandled you on his knee when you were a baby!’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mention it, at all events. Where do we go now?’
He told her that he had some business to transact near St Paul’s, adding that he should not keep her waiting above five minutes. If this was a shaft aimed at the length of time she had spent in the Bank he missed his aim, for Sophy said in the most amiable way that she did not mind waiting. This was a much more successful shaft: Mr Rivenhall began to think that in Miss Stanton-Lacy he had met an opponent to be reckoned with.
When he presently drew up in a street beside St Paul’s, Sophy held out her hand, saying: ‘I will take them.’ He therefore put the reins into her hand, for although he did not trust her to control his spirited horses his groom was already at their heads, so that there was no likelihood of any mishap.
