‘Isay so!’ snapped Mr Rivenhall. ‘What is more, she has not the smallest intention of such a thing! If you do not know your daughter, I do!’
Lady Ombersley, who had listened in speechless dismay to this interchange, now found enough voice to say faintly: ‘No, no, she would not run away with Charlbury! You must be mistaken! Alas, Charles, I fear this is your doing! You must have been dreadfully unkind to poor Sophy!’
‘Oh, dreadfully unkind, ma’am! I actually had the brutality to take exception to her stealing the young chestnut from my stables, and, without one word to me, driving him in the Park! That she is not lying with a broken neck at this moment is no fault of hers!’
‘Now, that,’ said Sir Horace fairmindedly, ‘was wrong of her! In fact, I’m surprised to hear of her behaving so improperly, for it is not at all like her. What should have got into her to make her do such a thing?’
‘Merely her damnable desire to pick a quarrel with me!’ said Mr Rivenhall bitterly. ‘I see it all now, clearly enough, and if she is not careful she will find she has succeeded better than she bargained for!’
‘I am afraid, my boy,’ said his uncle, an irrepressible twinkle in his eyes, ‘that you do not like my little Sophy!’
‘YourlittleSophy, sir, has not allowed me – us! – one moment’s peace or comfort since she descended upon this house!’ said Mr Rivenhall roundly.
‘Charles, you shall not say so!’ cried his mother, flushing. ‘It is unjust! How can you – howcanyou, when you recall her goodness, her devotion –!’ Her voice failed; she groped blindly for her handkerchief.
The colour rose also to Mr Rivenhall’s cheeks. ‘I do not forget that, ma’am. But this exploit –!’
‘I cannot think where you can have had such a notion! It is untrue! Sophy went away because of the intemperate language you used towards her, and as for imagining that Charlbury was with her –’
‘I know he was with her!’ he interrupted. ‘If I needed proof, I have it in this note she was so obliging as to leave for me! She makes no secret of it!’
‘In that case,’ said Sir Horace, refilling his glass, ‘she is certainly up to some mischief. Try this Madeira, my boy: I’ll say this for your father, he’s a capital judge of a wine!’
‘But, Charles, this is terrible!’ gasped Lady Ombersley. ‘Thank heaven I did not forbid Cecilia to go after her! Only think what a scandal! Oh, Horace pray believe I had no suspicion!’
‘Lord,I’mnot blaming you, Elizabeth! I told you not to let Sophy worry you! Well able to take care of herself: always was!’
‘I declare, Horace, you pass all bounds! Is itnothingto 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 labours. ‘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?’ enquired 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 wentto 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?’
