“I don’t think she took very good care of the house,” said Charlbury, putting up his glass to inspect a landscape in a heavy gilded frame.
“No, I fear she cannot have. Never mind! Sir Horace will soon put it to rights. Meanwhile, Mathilda is to set the breakfast parlor in order, and we may sit there and be cozy presently.” She frowned slightly. “The only thing that troubles me a little is dinner,” she confided. “It does not appear to me that Mathilda has the least notion of cookery, and I must confess that I have not either. You may say that this is a trifling circumstance, but — ”
“No,” interrupted his lordship, with great firmness. “I shall say nothing of the sort! Are we dining here? Must we?”
“Oh, yes, I am sure we must make up our minds to that!” she replied. “I am not quite certain when we may expect to see Cecilia, but I hardly think she will reach us before seven o’clock, for she was gone to Richmond with my aunt, you know, and they will very likely spend the afternoon there. Are you interested in pictures? Shall I take you up to show you the Long Gallery? The best ones are hung there, I think.”
“Thank you, I should like to see them. Are you expecting Rivenhall to accompany his sister?”
“Well, I imagine he will. After all, she will hardly set forth alone, and he must surely be the person she would turn to in such a predicament. There is no saying, of course, but you may depend upon it that if Charles does not come with Cecy he will follow her swiftly. Let us go up to the gallery until tea is ready for us!”
She led the way to the staircase, pausing by a chair to pick up from it her large traveling reticule. The gallery, which ran along the north side of the house, was in sepulchral darkness, heavy curtains having been drawn across its several tall windows. Sophy began to fling these back, saying, “There are two Van Dycks, and something that is said to be a Holbein, though Sir Horace doubts it. And that is my mother’s portrait, done by Hoppner. I don’t remember her myself, but Sir Horace never cared for this likeness; he says it makes her simper, which she never did.”
“You are not very like her,” Charlbury remarked, looking up at the portrait.
“Oh, no! She was thought a great beauty!” Sophy said.
He smiled, but made no comment. They passed on to the next picture, and so the length of the gallery, when Sophy supposed that Mathilda would have set the tea tray for them. She thought the curtains should be drawn again, so Charlbury went to the windows to perform this duty for her. He had shut the light out from two of them, and had stretched out his hand to grasp one of the curtains of the third when Sophy, from behind him, said, “Stay just as you are for an instant, Charlbury. Can you see the summer house from where you stand?”
He stood still, his arm across the window, and had just begun to say, “I can see something through the trees which might be — ” when there was a loud report, and he sprang aside, clutching his forearm, which felt as though a red-hot wire had seared it. For a moment, his senses were entirely bewildered by the shock; then he became aware that his sleeve was singed and rent, that blood was welling up between his fingers, and that Sophy was laying down an elegant little pistol.
She was looking a trifle pale, but she smiled reassuringly at him, and said, as she came toward him: “I do beg your pardon! An infamous thing to have done, but I thought it would very likely make it worse for you if I warned you!”
“Sophy, have you run mad?” he demanded furiously, beginning to twist his handkerchief round his arm. “What the devil do you mean by it?”
“Come into one of the bedchambers, and let me bind it up. I have everything ready. I was afraid you might be a little cross, for I am sure it must have hurt you abominably. It took the greatest resolution to make me do it,” she said, gently propelling him toward the door.
“But why? In God’s name, what have I done that you must needs put a bullet through me?”
“Oh, nothing in the world! That door, if you please, and take off your coat. My dread was that my aim might falter, and I should break your arm, but I am sure I have not, have I?”
“No, of course you have not! It is hardly more than a graze, but I still don’t perceive why — ”
She helped him to take off his coat, and to roll up his sleeve. “No, it is only a slight flesh wound. I am so thankful!”
“So am I!” said his lordship grimly. “I may think myself fortunate not to be dead, I suppose!”
She laughed. “What nonsense! At that range? However, I do think Sir Horace would have been proud of me, for my aim was as steady as though I were shooting at a wafer, and it would not have been wonderful, you know, if my hand had trembled. Sit down, so that I may bathe it!”
He obeyed, holding his arm over the bowl of water she had so thoughtfully provided. He had a very lively sense of humor, and now that the first shock was over, he could not prevent his lip quivering. “Yes, indeed!” he retorted. “One can readily imagine a parent’s pleasure at such an exploit! Resolution is scarcely the word for it, Sophy! Don’t you even mean to fall into a swoon at the sight of the blood?”
She looked quickly up from her task of sponging the wound. “Good God, no! I am not missish, you know!”
At that he flung back his head and broke into a shout of laughter. “No, no, Sophy! You’re not missish!” he gasped, when he could speak at all. “The Grand Sophy!”
“I wish you will keep still!” she said severely, patting his arm with a soft cloth. “See, it is scarcely bleeding now! I will dust it with basilicum powder, and bind it up for you, and you may be comfortable again.”
“I am not in the least comfortable and shall very likely be in a high fever presently. Why did you do it, Sophy?”
“Well,” she said, quite seriously, “Mr. Wychbold said that Charles would either call you out for this escapade, or knock you down, and I don’t at all wish anything of that nature to befall you.”
This effectually put a period to his amusement. Grasping her wrist with his sound hand, he exclaimed, “Is this true? By God, I have a very good mind to box your ears! Do you imagine that I am afraid of Charles Rivenhall?”
“No, I daresay you are not, but only conceive how shocking it would be if Charles perhaps killed you, all through my fault!”
“Nonsense!” he said angrily. “As if either of us were crazy enough to let it come to that, which, I assure you, we are not — ”
“No, I feel you are right, but also I think Mr. Wychbold was right in thinking that Charles would — what does he call it? — plant you a facer?”
“Very likely, but although I may be no match for Rivenhall, I might still give quite a tolerable account of myself!”
She began to wind a length of lint round his forearm. “It could not answer,” she said. “If you were to floor Charles, Cecy would not like it above half; and if you imagine, my dear Charlbury, that a black eye and a bleeding nose will help your cause with her, you must be a great gaby!”
“I thought,” he said sarcastically, “that she was to be made to pity me?”
“Exactly so! And that is the circumstance which decided me to shoot you!” said Sophy triumphantly.
Again, he was quite unable to help laughing. But the next moment he was testily pointing out to her that she had made so thick a bandage round his arm as to prevent his being able to drag the sleeve of his coat over it.
“Well, the sleeve is quite spoilt, so it is of no consequence,” said Sophy. “You may button the coat across your chest, and I will fashion you a sling for your arm. To be sure, it is only a flesh wound, but it will very likely start to bleed again, if you do not hold your arm up. Let us go downstairs, and see whether Mathilda has yet made tea for us!”
Not only had the harassed Mrs. Clavering done so, but she had sent the gardener’s boy running off to the village to summon to her assistance a stout, red-cheeked damsel, whom she proudly presented to Sophy as her sister’s eldest.