“In general, yes.”
“And in particular, Charles, when it comes to be a question of her marriage. Her parents must be the best judges of what will be most proper for her. There is something very forward and disagreeable in a girl’s falling in love, as the common phrase is. No doubt underbred persons make quite a practice of it, but I fancy a man of birth and upbringing would prefer to see rather more restraint in the lady he marries. The language you have adopted — forgive me, dear Charles — surely belongs more to the stage than to your mother’s drawing room!”
“Does it?” he said. “Tell me, Eugenia! Had I offered for your hand without the consent of your father, would you have entertained my suit?”
She smiled. “We need not consider absurdities! You, of all men, would not have done so!”
“But if I had?”
“Certainly not,” she replied, with composure.
“I am obliged to you!” he said satirically.
“You should be,” she said. “You would scarcely have wished the future Lady Ombersley to have been a female without reserve or filial obedience!”
His eyes were very hard and keen. “I begin to understand you,” he said.
“I knew you would, for you are a man of sense. I am no advocate, I need scarcely say, for a marriage where these is no mutual esteem. That could hardly prosper! Certainly, if Cecilia holds Charlbury in distaste, it would have been wrong to have compelled her to marry him.”
“Generous!”
“I hope so,” she said gravely. “I should not wish to be other than generous toward your sisters — toward all your family! It must be one of my chief objects to promote their welfare, and I assure you I mean to do so!”
“Thank you,” he said, in a colorless tone.
She turned a bracelet upon her arm. “You are inclined to regard Miss Stanton-Lacy with indulgence, I know, but I think you will allow that her influence in this house has not been a happy one, in many respects. Without her encouragement, I venture to think that Cecilia would not have behaved as she has.”
“I don’t know that. You would not say that her influence was not a happy one had you seen her nursing Amabel, supporting both my mother and Cecilia in their anxiety That is something I can never forget.”
“I am sure no one could wish you to. One is glad to be able to praise her conduct in that emergency without reserve.”
“I owe it to her also that I stand now upon such easy terms with Hubert. There she has done nothing but good!”
“Well, on that point we have always differed, have we not?” she said pleasantly. “But I have no wish to argue with you on such a subject! I only hope that Hubert continues to go on well.”
“Very well. I might almost say too well, for what must the ridiculous fellow do but think himself in honor bound to make up some lost study during this vacation! He is gone off on a reading party!” He laughed suddenly. “If he does not fall into a melancholy through all this virtue, I must surely expect to hear that he is in some shocking scrape soon!”
“I am afraid you are right,” she agreed seriously. “There is an instability of purpose that must continually distress you.”
He stared at her incredulously, but before he could speak Dassett had ushered Lord Bromford into the room. He at once went forward to shake hands, greeting this new guest with more amiability than was usual, but saying, “I fear you are out of luck; my cousin has gone out driving.”
“I was informed of it at the door — How do you do, ma’am? — but I considered it proper to step upstairs to felicitate you upon your sister’s happy recovery,” replied his lordship. “I have had occasion to call in our good Baillie — excellent man — and he swore upon his honor there was not the least lingering danger of infection.”
Judging from the curl of Mr. Rivenhall’s lip that he was about to make a sardonic rejoinder, Miss Wraxton intervened rather hastily. “Have you been indisposed, dear Lord Bromford? This is sad hearing! No serious disorder, I must hope?”
“Baillie does not consider it so. He thinks the season has been uncommonly sickly, such inclement weather, you know, and very likely to produce affections of the throat, to which I am peculiarly susceptible. My mother has been, you may imagine, quite in a worry, for my constitution is delicate — It would be idle to deny that it is delicate! I was obliged to keep my room above a week”
Mr. Rivenhall, leaning his broad shoulders against the mantelpiece, drove his hands into the pockets of his breeches and presented all the appearance of a man willing to be amused. Lord Bromford did not recognize the signs, but Miss Wraxton did and was cast into an agony of apprehension. She once more hurried into speech. “Sore throats have been very prevalent, I believe. I do not wonder Lady Bromford was anxious. You were well nursed, I know!”
“Yes,” he concurred. “Not that my complaint was of such a nature as to — In short, even Mama owns herself to have been moved by the devotion of Miss Stanton-Lacy to her little cousin!” He moved to Mr. Rivenhall, who graciously inclined his head in acknowledgment of the courtesy, only spoiling the effect by a peculiarly saturnine grin. “I have been put in mind of certain lines from Marmion, in this connection.”
Miss Wraxton, who had heard enough of Sophy’s perfections in a sickroom, could only be grateful to Mr. Rivenhall for interpolating, “Yes, we know them well!”
Lord Bromford, who had started to repeat “O woman, in our hours of ease!” was thrown a little out of his stride by this, but recovered directly, and pronounced, “Any doubts that might have been nourished of the true womanliness of Miss Stanton-Lacy’s character, must, I venture to say, have been lulled to rest.”
At this moment, Dassett reappeared to announce that Lady Brinklow’s carriage was at the door. Miss Wraxton, who had only been set down in Berkeley Square while her parent executed a commission in Bond Street, was obliged to take her leave. Lord Bromford said that since neither Lady Ombersley nor her niece was at home he would not trespass longer upon the premises, and within a very few minutes Mr. Rivenhall was able to have his laugh out in comfort. Lord Bromford, who was a favorite with Lady Brinklow, was offered a seat in the landaulet, and beguiled the short drive to Brook Street with an exact account of the symptoms of his late indisposition.
Mr. Rivenhall, for all his resolve to hold his cousin at arm’s length, could not resist the temptation of recounting this passage to her. She enjoyed the joke just as he had known she would but put an abrupt end to his amusement by exclaiming involuntarily, “How well he and Miss Wraxton would suit! Now, why did I never think of that before?”
“Possibly,” said Mr. Rivenhall frostily, “you may have recalled that Miss Wraxton is betrothed to me!”
“I don’t think that was the reason,” said Sophy, considering it. She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Offended, Charles?”
“Yes!” said Mr. Rivenhall.
“Oh, Charles, I wonder at you!” she said, with her irrepressible gurgle of mirth. “So untruthful!”
As she beat a strategic retreat upon the words, he was left to glare at the unresponsive door.
He told his mother roundly that Sophy’s conduct went from bad to worse, but the full measure of her iniquity did not burst upon him until two days later, when, upon ordering his groom to harness his latest acquisition to his tilbury, he was staggered to learn that Miss Stanton-Lacy had driven out in this equipage not half an hour earlier.
“Taken my tilbury out?” he repeated. His voice sharpened. “Which horse?” he demanded.
The groom shook visibly. “The — the young horse, sir!”
“You harnessed the young horse for Miss Stanton-Lacy to drive?” said Mr. Rivenhall, giving his words such awful weight as almost to deprive his henchman of all power of speech.
“Miss said — miss was sure — you would have no objection, sir!” stammered this unfortunate. “And seeing as how she has twice driven the grays, sir, and me not having no orders contrary and her saying as all was right — I thought she had your permission, sir!”