The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

for her.”
    III
    BUT it was not until the Easter holidays were a week old that Sophia arrived in Berkeley Square. The only intelligence received by her aunt during the intervening ten days was a brief scrawl from Sir Horace, conveying the information that his mission was a trifle delayed, but that she would assuredly see her niece before very long. The flowers which Cecilia so prettily arranged in her cousin’s room withered and had to be thrown away; and Mrs. Ludstock, a meticulously careful housekeeper, had twice aired the sheets before, in the middle of a bright spring afternoon, a post chaise and four, generously splashed with mud, drew up at the door.
    It so happened that Cecilia and Selina had been driving with their Mama in the Park, and had returned to the house not five minutes earlier. All three were just about to ascend the staircase when Mr. Hubert Rivenhall came bounding down, uttering, “It must be my cousin, for there is a mountain of baggage on the roof! Such a horse! By Jupiter, if ever I saw such a bang-up piece of flesh and blood!”
    This extraordinary speech made the three ladies stare at him in bewilderment. The butler, who had only a minute before withdrawn from the hall, sailed back again with his attendant satellites, and trod across the marble floor to the front door, announcing, with a bow to his mistress, that he apprehended Miss Stanton-Lacy had that instant arrived. The satellites then threw open the double door, and the ladies had a clear view not only of the equipage in the road but of the awed and inquisitive faces of the younger members of the family, who had been playing at bat-and-ball in the garden of the Square and were now crowded close to the railings, gazing, in spite of Miss Adderbury’s remonstrances, at the animal which had brought Hubert in such pelting haste down the stairs.
    Miss Stanton-Lacy’s arrival was certainly impressive. Four steaming horses drew her chaise, two outriders accompanied it, and behind it rode a middle-aged groom, leading a splendid black horse. The steps of the chaise were let down, the door opened, and out leaped an Italian greyhound, to be followed a moment later by a gaunt-looking female, holding a dressing bag, three parasols, and a bird cage. Lastly, Miss Stanton-Lacy herself descended, thanking the footman for his proffered help, but requesting him instead to hold her poor little Jacko. Her poor little Jacko was seen to be a monkey in a scarlet coat, and no sooner had this magnificent fact dawned on the schoolroom party than they brushed past their scandalized preceptress, tore open the garden gate, and tumbled out into the road, shouting, “A monkey! She has brought a monkey!”
    Lady Ombersley, meanwhile, standing as though rooted to her own doorstep, was realizing, with strong indignation, that the light in which a gentleman of great height and large proportions regarded his daughter had been misleading. Sir Horace’s little Sophy stood five feet nine inches in her stocking-feet, and was built on generous lines, a long-legged, deep-bosomed creature, with a merry face, and a quantity of glossy brown ringlets under one of the most dashing hats her cousins had ever seen. A pelisse was buttoned up to her throat, a very long sable stole was slipping from her shoulders, and she carried an enormous sable muff. This, however, she thrust into the second footman’s hands so that she was the better able to greet Amabel, who was the first to reach her. Her dazed aunt watched her stoop gracefully over the little girl, catching her hands, and saying laughingly, “Yes, yes, indeed I am your cousin Sophia, but pray won’t you call me Sophy? If anyone calls me Sophia I think I am in disgrace, which is a very uncomfortable thing. Tell me your name!”
    “It’s Amabel, and oh, if you please, may I talk to the monkey?” stammered the youngest Miss Rivenhall.
    “Of course you may, for I brought him for you. Only be a little gentle with him at first, because