Sir Horace, who was already bored with the subject, yawned, and said lazily, “I daresay there is no occasion for you to be on the fidgets. The Fawnhopes are all as poor as church mice, and very likely Lady Lutterworth desires the match as little as you do.”
“Nothing of the sort!” she replied, quite crossly. “She is foolish beyond permission, Horace! Whatever Augustus wants he must have! She has given me the most unmistakable hints, so that I scarcely knew where to look, much less what to say, except that Lord Charlbury had requested our leave to address Cecilia, and I believed her to be — well, not indifferent to him! It never entered my head that Augustus was so lost to all sense of propriety as to apply to Cecilia without first approaching Ombersley, yet that is precisely what he has done!”
“Oh, well!” said Sir Horace. “If she has such a fancy for him, you had better let her take him. It’s not as though she would be marrying beneath her, and if she chooses to be the wife of a penniless younger son it is quite her own affair.”
“You would not say so if it were Sophia!” said his sister.
“Sophy’s not such a fool.”
“Cecilia is not a fool either!” declared Lady Ombersley, affronted. “If you have seen Augustus you cannot wonder at her! No one could help feeling a decided partiality for him! I own, I did myself. But Charles is quite right, as I was soon brought to acknowledge; it would not answer!”
“Ah, well, when she has her cousin to keep her company it will divert her, and very likely give her thoughts another direction,” said Sir Horace consolingly.
Lady Ombersley appeared to be much struck by this suggestion. Her face brightened; she said: “I wonder if it might be so? She is a little shy, you must know, and does not make friends easily, and since her dear friend, Miss Friston, was married, and has gone to live in the Midlands, there is really no young female with whom she is upon terms of intimacy. Now, if we had dear Sophia to stay with us ...” She broke off, obviously turning plans over in her mind. She was still engaged on this exercise when the door opened, and her eldest son entered the salon.
The Honorable Charles Rivenhall was twenty-six years old, but a rather harsh-featured countenance, coupled with a manner that combined assurance with a good deal of reserve, made him give the impression of being some years older. He was a tall, powerfully built young man, who looked as though he would have been better pleased to have been striding over his father’s acres than exchanging civilities in his mother’s sitting room. He nearly always wore riding dress in preference to the more fashionable pantaloons and Hessians, tied his cravat in the plainest of styles, would permit only a modicum of starch to stiffen his very moderate shirt points, wholly disdained such fopperies as seals, fobs, or quizzing glasses, and offended his tailor by insisting on having his coats cut so that he could shrug himself into them without the assistance of his valet. He had been heard to express the hope that heaven would forbid he should ever be mistaken for one of the dandy set, but, as his friend Mr. Cyprian Wychbold kindly pointed out to him, there was not the least need for heavenly intervention in the matter. The dandies, said Mr. Wychbold with some severity, were distinguished as much for their polished address as for their exquisite apparel, and were in general an amiable set of men, whose polite manners and winning graces made them acceptable in any drawing room. As Mr. Rivenhall’s notion of making himself agreeable in company was to treat with cold civility anyone for whom he felt no particular liking, and his graces, far from winning, included a trick of staring out of countenance those who pretensions he deprecated, and of uttering blighting comments which put an abrupt end to social intercourse, he stood in far greater danger (Mr. Wychbold said) of being mistaken for a Yahoo.
As he shut the door behind him, his mother looked up, started slightly, and said with a nervous inflection which annoyed her brother: “Oh! Charles! Only fancy! Your uncle Horace!”
“So Dassett informed me,” responded Mr. Rivenhall. “How do you do, sir?”
He shook hands with his uncle, drew up a chair, and sat down, civilly engaging Sir Horace in conversation. His mother, fidgeting first with the fringe of her shawl and then with her handkerchief, presently broke in on this interchange to say, “Charles, you remember Sophia? Your little cousin!”
Mr. Rivenhall did not present the appearance of one who remembered his little cousin, but he said in his cool way, “Certainly. I hope she is well, sir?”
“Never had a day’s illness in her life, barring the measles,” said Sir Horace. “You’ll see her for yourself soon; your mother is going to take charge of her while I’m in Brazil.”
It was plain that this way of breaking the news did not recommend itself to Lady Ombersley, who at once hurried into speech. “Well, of course it is not quite decided yet, though I am sure there is nothing I should like better than to have my dear brother’s daughter to stay with me. I was thinking, too, Charles, that it would be so pleasant for Cecilia. Sophia and she are nearly the same age, you know.”
“Brazil?” said Mr. Rivenhall. “That should be very interesting, I daresay. Do you make a long stay there, sir?”
“Oh, no!” replied Sir Horace vaguely. “Probably not. It will depend upon circumstance. I have been telling your mother that I shall be much in her debt if she can find an eligible husband for my Sophy. It’s time she was married, and your mother seems, from what I hear, to be quite a dab in that line. I understand I have to offer you my felicitations, my boy?”
“Thank you, yes,” said Mr. Rivenhall, with a slight bow.
“If you should not dislike it, Charles, I own I should be very happy to have Sophia,” said Lady Ombersley placatingly.
He cast her an impatient glance, and replied, “I beg you will do precisely as you wish, ma’am. I cannot conceive what business it is of mine.”
“Of course I have explained to your uncle that we lead very quiet lives.”
“She won’t give a fig for that,” said Sir Horace comfortably. “She’s a good little thing, never at a loss for something to occupy herself with. Just as happy in a Spanish village as in Vienna, or Brussels.”
At this, Lady Ombersley sat up with a jerk. “Do not tell me you dragged the child to Brussels last year!”
“Of course she was in Brussels! Where the devil should she have been?” replied Sir Horace testily. “You wouldn’t have had me leave her in Vienna, would you? Besides, she enjoyed it. We met a great many old friends there.”
“The danger!”
“Oh, pooh! Nonsense! Precious little of that with Wellington in command!”
“When, sir, may we have the pleasure of expecting my cousin?” interposed Mr. Rivenhall. “We must hope that she will not find life in London too humdrum after the superior excitements of the Continent.”
“Not she!” said Sir Horace. “I never knew Sophy when she wasn’t busy with some ploy or another. Give her her head! I always do, and she never comes to any harm. Don’t quite know when she’ll be with you. She’s bound to want to see the last of me, but she’ll post up to London as soon as I’ve sailed.”
“Post up to London as soon as — Horace, surely you will bring her to me!” gasped his sister, quite scandalized. “A girl of her age, traveling alone! I never heard of such a thing!”
“Won’t be alone. She’ll have her maid with her — dragon of a woman, she is; journeyed all over Europe with us — and John Potton as well.” He caught sight of his nephew’s raised brows, and felt himself impelled to add: “Groom, courier, general factotum! Looked after Sophy since she was a baby.” He drew out his watch, and consulted it. “Well, now that we’ve settled everything, I must be off, Lizzie. I shall rely upon you to take care of Sophy, and look about you for a match. It’s important, because — but I’ve no time to explain that now! She’ll tell you all about it, I expect.”