‘You will call in Berkeley Square this afternoon,’ said Sophy, with an utmost patience, ‘and you will request the favour of a few minutes alone with Cecilia. When you see her –’
‘I shall not see her. She will deny herself!’ he said bitterly.
‘She will see you, because I shall tell her she owes it to you to do so. I wish you will not keep on interrupting me!’ He begged pardon meekly, and she continued: ‘When you see her, you will assure her that you have no desire to distress her, that you will never mention the matter again to her. You will be excessively noble, and she will feel that you sympathize with her, and if you can convey to her also the sense of your heart being broken, however well you contrive to conceal it, so much the better!’
‘I am strongly of the opinion that Major Quinton grossly understated the case!’ said his lordship, with feeling.
‘Very likely. Gentlemen can never see when a little duplicity is needed. You, I have no doubt, if I left you to your own devices, would storm and rant at Cecilia, so that all would end in a quarrel, and you would find it quite impossible to visit the house, even! But if she knows that you will not enact her tragedies she will be perfectly pleased to see you as often as you care to come to Berkeley Square.’
‘How can I visit in Berkeley Square when she is betrothed to another man? If you imagine that I’ll play the love-lorn suitor in the hope of arousing pity in Cecilia’s breast you were never more at fault! As well be a lap-dog!’
‘Much better,’ said Sophy. ‘You will visit in Berkeley Square to see me. You cannot too suddenly seem to transfer your interest in my direction, of course, but it would be an excellent start if you were to find an opportunity of telling Cecilia today how droll and entertaining you think me.’
‘Do you know,’ he said seriously, ‘you are the most startling female it has ever been my fortune to meet? You will observe that I do not say good or ill fortune, for I haven’t the smallest notion which it will prove to be!’
She laughed. ‘But will you do what I tell you?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘To the best of my poor ability. But I wish I knew the extent of the dark scheme you are revolving in your head.’
She turned her head to look at him, her expressive eyes questioning, and at the same time acknowledging a hit. ‘But I have told you!’
‘I have a notion there is more to it than what you have told me.’
She looked mischievous, but would only shake her head. They had reached the Stanhope Gate again, and she reined in, holding out her hand. ‘I must go now. Pray don’t be afraid of me! I never do people any harm – indeed I don’t! Goodbye! At about four o’clock, mind!’
She reached Berkeley Square to find the house in a state of considerable uneasiness, Lord Ombersley, informed by his wife of Cecilia’s overnight announcement, having flown into a passion of exasperation at the folly, ingratitude, and selfishness of daughters; and Hubert and Theodore between them having chosen this singularly inappropriate moment to allow Jacko to escape from the schoolroom. Sophy was met on her arrival by various distracted persons, who lost no time in pouring their woes or grievances into her ears. Cecilia, shaken by the interview with her father, wanted to carry her off instantly to the seclusion of her bedchamber; Miss Adderbury wished to explain that she had repeatedly warned Mr Hubert not to excite the monkey; Theodore desired to impress upon everyone that it had all been Hubert’s fault; Hubert demanded that she should help him to recover the monkey before its escape came to Charles’s ears; and Dassett, having observed with disfavour the enthusiasm with which both footmen entered into the chase, delivered himself of an icily civil monologue, the gist of which seemed to be that Wild Animals roaming at large in a Nobleman’s Residence were not what he had been accustomed to, or what he could bring himself to tolerate. As this speech contained a dark threat to Inform His Lordship instantly, it appeared to Sophy that her most pressing duty was to soothe Dassett’s feelings, half a dozen persons havinginformed her that Lord Ombersley was in a dreadful temper. So she told Cecilia that she would come to her room presently, and considerably mollified the butler by rejecting the services of the footmen. Cecilia, who besides her interview with Lord Ombersley, had endured a few moments with her elder brother, and half an hour with Lady Ombersley, was in no mood for monkeys, and said, rather hysterically, that she supposed she might have expected that Jacko would be thought of more importance than herself. Selina, who was thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of drama and impending doom that hung over the house, hissed: ‘H’sh! Charles is in the library!’ Cecilia retorted that she did not care where he was, and rushed upstairs to her bedroom.
‘What a commotion!’ exclaimed Sophy, amused.
Her voice, penetrating the shut library door, reached the sharp ears of Tina, who, during her absence from the house, had attached herself to Mr Rivenhall. She at once demanded to be allowed to rejoin her mistress, and her insistence brought Mr Rivenhall upon the scene, for he was obliged to open the door for her. Perceiving that a large part of his family appeared to be assembled in the hall, he somewhat coldly enquired the reason. Before anyone could answer him, Amabel, in the basement, gave a warning shriek, Jacko suddenly erupted into the hall from the nether regions, gibbered at the sight of Tina, and swarmed up the window curtains to a place of safety well out of anyone’s reach. Amabel then came storming up the basement-stairs, closely followed by the housekeeper, who at once lodged an impassioned protest with Mr Rivenhall. The dratted monkey, she said, had wantonly destroyed two of the best dish-clothes, and had scattered a bowl of raisins all over the kitchen-floor.
‘If that damned monkey cannot be controlled,’ said Mr Rivenhall, making no apology for the violence of his language, ‘it must be got rid of!’
Theodore, Gertrude, and Amabel at once burst into a spirited accusation against Hubert, who, they averred, had wantonlyteased Jacko. Hubert, conscious of a rent coat-pocket, retired into the background, and Mr Rivenhall, eyeing his juniors with revulsion, walked forward to the window, and held up his hand, saying calmly: ‘Come along!’
Jacko’s reply to this, though voluble, was incomprehensible. His general attitude, however, was contumacious, so that everyone was surprised when, upon Mr Rivenhall’s repeating his command, he began to descend the curtain. Tina, in wholehearted agreement with Dassett and the housekeeper on the undesirability of monkeys in noblemen’s residences, caused a slight set-back by barking, but Sophy snatched her up and muffled her before Jacko had had time to retreat again to the top of the window. Mr Rivenhall, acidly requesting his audience to refrain from making any noise or sudden movement, again commanded Jacko to come down. Jacko, satisfied that Tina was under strong guard, reluctantly descended, allowed himself to be seized, and clasped both skinny arms round Mr Rivenhall’s neck. Unimpressed by this mark of affection, Mr Rivenhall detached him, handed him over to Gertrude, and warned her not to permit him to escape again. The schoolroom party then withdrew circumspectly, scarcely able to believe that their pet was not to be wrested from them; and Sophy, smiling warmly upon Mr Rivenhall, said: ‘Thank you! There is some magic in you which makes all animals trust you, I think. When I am most vexed with you I cannot but remember it!’
‘The only magic, cousin, lay in not alarming an already frightened animal,’ he replied dampingly, and went back into the library, and shut the door.
‘Phew!’ uttered Hubert, emerging from the embrasure at the head of the basement-stairs. ‘Sophy, only look what that dashed brute has done to my new coat!’
‘Give it to me! I’ll mend it for you – and for heaven’s sake, you wretched creature, don’t kick up any more larks today!’ said Sophy.
He grinned at her, stripped off the coat, and handed it to her.‘Whatdidhappen last night?’ he asked. ‘Don’t know when I’ve seen my father in such a taking! Is Cecilia going to marry Fawnhope?’
‘Ask her!’ Sophy advised him. ‘I will have your coat ready for you in twenty minutes: come to my room then, and you shall have it!’
She ran up the stairs and, without waiting to change her riding-habit, sat down by the window to repair the rent caused by Jacko’s fury. She was a deft needlewoman, and had mended half the tear with her tiny stitches when Cecilia came to her room. Cecilia was strongly of the opinion that Hubert might have found someone else to do his mending, and begged her to put it aside. This, however, Sophy refused to do, merely saying: ‘I can listen to you while I work, you know. What a goose you were last night, Cecy!’
This brought Cecilia’s chin up. She enunciated with great clarity; ‘I am betrothed to Augustus, and if I may not marry him I will marry no one!’
‘I daresay, but to make such an announcement in the middle of a ball!’
‘Sophy, I thoughtyouwould feel for me!’
It occurred to Sophy suddenly that the fewer people to sympathize with Cecilia the better it would be, so she kept her head bent over her work, and said lightly: ‘Well, and so I do, but I still think it was a ridiculous moment to choose for making such an announcement!’
Cecilia began to tell her again what provocation had been supplied by Charles; she agreed, but absently, and appeared to be more exercised with the set of Hubert’s coat than with Cecilia’s wrongs. She shook it out, smoothed the darn she had made, and, when Hubert came knocking at the door, cut Cecilia short to jump up and restore the garment to him. The end of all this was that when, at four o’clock, Lord Charlbury sent up his card, with a request to see Miss Rivenhall, Cecilia, almost forced to accede to his wishes, found in him her only sympathizer. One glance at her pale face, and tragic mouth, banished from hismind all notion of duplicity. He stepped quickly forward, took the hand so shrinkingly held out to him, and said in a deeply concerned voice. ‘Do not look so unhappy! Indeed, I have not come to distress you!’
