She raised her head at that, smiling through her tears, and he contrived to kiss her in spite of the hat. Sophy, effectually blocking the entrance, observed this passage with all the air of one well-satisfied with her labours.
‘Will you be good enough to allow us to enter?’ said Miss Wraxton, in frozen accents.
‘Us?’ said Sophy, quickly looking round. She perceived a stout figure behind Miss Wraxton, in a soaked coat, and a sodden beaver, and, after peering incredulously for a moment, exclaimed: ‘Good God! Lord Bromford? Now, what the deuce does this mean?’
Cecilia, who had cast off her hat to join her muff on the floor,raised her head from the broad shoulder that was supporting it, to say huskily: ‘Oh Sophy, pray do not be cross with me! Indeed, it was not my doing! Charlbury, what happened? How do you come to be hurt?’
His lordship, still clasping her to his bosom, rolled an anguished eye at Sophy. She came promptly to this rescue. ‘Only a flesh wound, dearest Cecy! Footpads – or do I mean highwaymen? – yes, highwaymen! Just a flurry of shots, you know, and poor Charlbury had the misfortune to be hit! But they were driven off, and we took no other hurt. Charlbury behaved with the greatest presence of mind imaginable – perfectly cool, andmorethan a match for such rascals!’
‘Oh,Charlbury!’ sighed Cecilia, overcome by the thought of such intrepid conduct.
His lordship, soothingly patting her shoulder, could not resist asking: ‘How many of the desperate ruffians did I vanquish, Sophy?’
‘That,’ said Sophy, quelling him with a frown, ‘we shall never know!’
Miss Wraxton’s cool voice broke in on this. However glad she might be to see Cecilia’s difference with Charlbury made up, her sense of propriety was really lacerated by the spectacle of Cecilia nestling within his lordship’s arm. ‘My dear Cecilia, pray recollect yourself!’ she said, blushing, and averting her gaze.
‘I do not know what I should do!’ suddenly announced Lord Bromford, in lamentable accents. ‘I came with the purpose of calling this fellow to book, but I have caught a cold!’
‘If that is to my address,’ said Charlbury, ‘a cold may well be the least of the ills that will shortly befall you! Don’t tread on the ducklings!’
‘No, indeed!’ said Sophy, swooping on one that had narrowly escaped death under Bromford’s foot. ‘What a clumsy creature you are! Do, pray, take heed where you are stepping!’
‘I should not be amazed if already I have a fever,’ said Bromford, uneasily eyeing the ducklings. ‘Miss Wraxton, these birds! One does not keep birds in the house! I do not understandwhy they are running all over the floor. There is another! I do not like it. It is not what I have been used to.’
‘I hope, dear Lord Bromford, that nothing that has occurred this day is what either you or I has been used to,’ responded Miss Wraxton. ‘Do let me beg of you to take off that greatcoat! Believe that it was no wish of mine that you were compelled to ride through such a downpour! If you have done your constitution any lasting injury I can never forgive myself for having accepted your escort! Your boots are wet through! Nothing can be more fatal than chilled feet! Miss Stanton-Lacy,isit too much to request that a servant – I presume there is a servant here? – should be sent for to remove Lord Bromford’s boots?’
‘Yes, because he has gone out to kill chickens,’ replied Sophy. ‘Cecy, help me to collect the ducklings, and put them back into the box! If we were to place your muff on top of them they will very likely believe it to be their mother, and settle down!’
Cecilia having no fault to find with this scheme, it was at once put into execution. Miss Wraxton, who had coaxed Lord Bromford into a deep chair by the fire, said: ‘This levity will not serve, Miss Stanton-Lacy! Even you will allow that your conduct demands some explanation! Are you aware of the terrible consequences which must have followed on this – this escapade, had your cousin and I not come to rescue you from the disgrace your appear to regard so lightly!’
Lord Bromford sneezed.
‘Oh, hush, Eugenia!’ begged Cecilia. ‘How can you talk so? All’s well that ends well!’
‘You must be lost to every scruple of female delicacy, Cecilia, if you can think itwellfor your cousin to show such a brazen face, when she has lost both character and reputation!’
The door at the back of the hall opened to admit the Marquesa, a sacking-apron tied round her waist, and a large ladle in her hand. ‘Eggs I must instantly have!’ she announced. ‘And Lope de Vega I will not have, though in general a fine poet, but not in the kitchen! Someone must go to the chicken-house, and tell Vincent to bring me eggs. Who are these people?’
It might have been supposed that the appearance on the scene of the Marquesa would have filled Miss Wraxton’s Christian soul with relief, but no such emotion was visible in her countenance, which, on the contrary, froze into an expression of such chagrin as to be almost ludicrous. She could find not a word to say, and was unable to command herself enough even to shake hands with the Marquesa.
Lord Bromford, always punctilious, rose from his chair and bowed. Sophy presented him, and he begged pardon for having contracted what he feared would prove to be a dangerous cold. The Marquesa held him off with the ladle, saying: ‘If you have a cold, do not approach me! Now I see that it is Miss Rivenhall, whose beauty is entirely English; and that other one, also in the Englishestilo, but less beautiful. I do not think two chickens will be enough, so that man with the cold must eat the pig’s cheek. But eggs I must have!’
Having delivered herself of this ultimatum, she withdrew, paying not the smallest heed to Lord Bromford’s agitated protest that all forms of pork were poison to him, and that a bowl of thin gruel was all that he felt himself able to swallow. He seemed to feel that Miss Wraxton was the only person amongst those present who was likely to sympathize with him, for he looked piteously at her. She responded at once, assuring him that he should not be asked to eat the pig’s cheek. ‘If it were possible to remove you from this draughty hall!’ she said, casting an angry glance at Sophy. ‘Had I known that I was coming to an establishment which appears to be something between a fowl-yard and Bedlam, I would never have set forth from town!’
‘Well, I must say I wish you had known it, then,’ said Sophy candidly. ‘We could have been comfortable enough, if only you and Lord Bromford had minded you own business, and now I suppose we must make gruel, and mustard foot-baths!’
‘A mustard foot-bath,’ said Lord Bromford eagerly, ‘would be the very thing! I do not say that it will entirely arrest the chill: we must not raise our hopes too high! but if we can prevent itsdescending upon the lungs it will be a great thing! Thank you! I am very much obliged to you!’
‘Good gracious, you absurd creature, I did not mean it!’ Sophy cried, breaking into laughter.
‘No!’ said Miss Wraxton. ‘We may readily believe you have not a grain of womanly compassion, Miss Stanton-Lacy! Do not be uneasy, Lord Bromford! If any efforts ofminecan save you from illness they shall not be spared!’
He pressed her hand in a speaking way, and allowed her to press him gently down again into his chair.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Charlbury, ‘let us not forget that eggs the Marquesa must have! I had better try to find Talgarth and the hen-house.’
Sophy, who was looking thoughtful, said slowly: ‘Yes. And Ithink– Charlbury, bring a candle into the breakfast-parlour, and let us see if it is warm enough yet for Lord Bromford to sit in!’
