‘What?’
She was surprised, and again raised her brows. ‘My pistol,’ she repeated.
His mortification found expression in disbelief. ‘This must be nonsense! I wish you will tell me the truth! You do not ask me to believe that you carry a pistol about your person! I tell you now that I do not believe it!’
She got up quickly, a sparkle in her eye. ‘Indeed? Wait! I shall not be gone above a minute or two!’
She whisked herself out of the room, only to reappear very soon afterwards with her silver-mounted gun in her hand. ‘Do you not believe it, Charles? Do you not?’ she demanded.
He stared at the weapon. ‘Good God!You?’ He held out his hand, as though he would have taken it from her, but she withheld it.
‘Take care! It is loaded!’
He replied impatiently: ‘Let me see it!’
‘Sir Horace,’ said Sophy provocatively, ‘told me always to be careful, and never to give it into the hands of anyone I was not perfectly satisfied could be trusted to handle it.’
For an astounded moment, Mr Rivenhall, who was no mean shot, stared at her. The pent-up emotions in his breast got the better of him. He flung over to the fireplace, and ripped downfrom the overmantel an invitation-card which had been stuck into a corner of a large, gilded mirror. ‘Hold that up, stand there, and give me that gun!’ he commanded.
Sophy laughed, and obeyed, standing quite fearlessly with her back to one wall, and holding the card out by one corner. ‘I warn you, it throws a trifle left!’ she said coolly.
He was white with anger, an anger that had very little to do with her slighting reference to his ability to handle a pistol, but even as he levelled the gun, he seemed in some measure to recollect himself, for he lowered his arm again, and said: ‘I cannot! Not with a pistol I don’t know!’
‘Faintheart!’ mocked Sophy.
He cast her a glance of dislike, stepped forward to twitch the card out of her hand, and stuck it against the wall under the corner of a picture. In great interest, Sophy watched him walk away to the other end of the room, turn, jerk up his arm, and fire. An explosion, deafening in the confined space of the room, shattered the stillness, and the bullet, nicking one edge of the card, buried itself in the wall.
‘I told you that it threw left,’ Sophy reminded him, critically surveying his handiwork. ‘Shall we reload it so that I can show you whatIcan do?’
They looked at one another. The enormity of this conduct suddenly dawned on Mr Rivenhall, and he began to laugh. ‘Sophy, you – youdevil!’
That made Sophy laugh too, so when a startled crowd of persons burst into the room a minute to two later, they found only a scene of unbridled mirth. Lady Ombersley, Cecilia, Miss Wraxton, Lord Bromford, Hubert, one of the footmen, and two housemaids all clustered in the doorway, evidently in the expectation of beholding the results of a shocking accident. ‘I could murder you, Sophy!’ said Mr Rivenhall.
‘Unjust! DidItell you to do it?’ she countered. ‘Dear Aunt Lizzie, do not look so alarmed! Charles was – was merely satisfying himself that my pistol was in order!’
By this time the eyes of most of the company had discoveredthe rent in the wall. Lady Ombersley, clutching Hubert’s arm for support, faintly enunciated: ‘Are youmad, Charles?’
He looked a little guiltily at the havoc he had wrought. ‘I must be, I suppose. The damage can soon be made good, however. Itdoesthrow left, Sophy. I would give much to see you fire it! What a pity I cannot take you to Manton’s!’
‘Is that Sophy’s pistol?’ asked Hubert, much interested. ‘By Jupiter, you are an out-and-outer, Sophy! But what possessed you to fire it here, Charles? Youmustbe mad!’
‘It was naturally, an accident,’ pronounced Lord Bromford. ‘A man in his senses, which we cannot doubt Lord Rivenhall to be, does not, of intent, fire a pistol in the presence of ladies. My dear Miss Stanton-Lacy, you have sustained a severe shock to the nerves! It could not be otherwise. Let me beg you to repose yourself for a while!’
‘I am not such a poor creature!’ Sophy replied, her eyes still brimming with laughter. ‘Charles will bear me out, if there is any truth in him, that I neither squeaked nor jumped! Sir Horace nipped such bad habits in the bud by soundly boxing my ears!’
‘I am sure you are always an example to us all!’ said Miss Wraxton acidly. ‘One can only envy you your iron composure! I, alas, am made of weaker stuff, and must confess to have been very much startled by such an unprecedented noise in the house. I do not know what you can have been about, Charles. Or is it indeed Miss Stanton-Lacy’s pistol, and was she exhibiting her skill to you?’
‘On the contrary, it was I who shot disgracefully wide of my mark. May I clean this for you, Sophy?’
She shook her head, and held out her hand for the gun. ‘Thank you, but I like to clean and load it myself.’
‘Load it?’ gasped Lady Ombersley. ‘Sophy, you do not mean to load that horrid thing again,surely?’
Hubert laughed. ‘I said she was a redoubtable girl, Charles! I say, Sophy, do you always keep it loaded?’
‘Yes, for how can one tell when one may need it, and what isthe use of an empty pistol! You know, what a delicate business it is, too! I daresay Charles can do it in a trice, but I cannot!’
He gave the gun into her hand. ‘If we go down to Ombersley this summer, we must have a match, you and I,’ he said. As their hands met, and she took the gun, he grasped her wrist, and held it for a moment. ‘An infamous thing to have done!’ he said, in a slightly lowered tone. ‘I beg your pardon – and I thank you!’
