He told her his plan; she nodded her approval, and straightway dragged him off to the card-room where Mme. de Charbonne was playing at euchre. ‘Tante, here is Vidal!’ she announced.
Madame gave him her hand and a preoccupied smile. ‘Cher Dominique! ’ she murmured. ‘One told me that you were here. Come and visit me tomorrow.’
‘Tante, only fancy! – Vidal tells me one of my dearest friends is in Paris. Tante, pray listen to me! I am going to see her at this very moment, for Vidal says she leaves tomorrow for England with her aunt.’
‘But how can you go this moment?’ objected madame.
‘Vidal says he will escort me. You know mamma will let me go anywhere with Vidal. And he will bring me safe home when I’ve seen Mary. So do not wait for me, will you, Tante Elisabeth? Not here, I mean.’
‘It’s all very irregular,’ complained madame, ‘and you interrupt the game, my dear. Take her away, Dominique, and do not be late.’
Half an hour later Miss Challoner, dozing before the fire, was roused by an opening door, and looked up to see her friend Juliana come quickly into the room. ‘Juliana!’ she cried joyfully.
‘Mary!’ squeaked Juliana, and flung herself into Miss Challoner’s arms.
Ten
Mrs Challoner’s emotions upon reading her elder daughter’s letter found expression in a series of loud shrieks that brought Sophia running to her room. ‘Read that!’ gasped the afflicted parent, and thrust the note into Sophia’s hands.
When Sophia had mastered its contents she wasted no time, but went off into strong hysterics, drumming her feet on the carpet, and becoming alarmingly rigid. Mrs Challoner, a practical woman, dashed the contents of a jug of water over her, and upon Sophia recovering sufficiently to break into a flood of tears mixed with sobbing complaints of her sister’s wickedness, she sat down by her dressing-table, and thought very deeply. After some time, during which Sophia had worked herself into a white heat of fury, Mrs Challoner said abruptly: ‘Hold your tongue, Sophy. It may do very well, after all.’
Sophia stared at her. Mrs Challoner threw her a look of unusual impatience, and said: ‘If Vidal has run off with Mary, I’ll make him marry her.’
Sophia gave a choked scream of rage. ‘She shan’t have him! She shan’t, she shan’t! Oh, I shall die of mortification!’
‘I never thought to marry Mary well,’ went on her mother, unheeding, ‘but I begin to see that nothing in the world could be better than this. Lord, the Gunnings will be nothing to it! To think I was intending Joshua for Mary, and all the time the sly minx was meaning to steal Vidal from under your nose, Sophy! I declare I could positively laugh at myself for being so simple.’
Sophia sprang up, clenching her fists. ‘Mary to be a Marchioness? I tell you I’ll kill myself if she gets him!’
‘Oh, don’t fret, Sophy,’ Mrs Challoner reassured her. ‘With your looks you will never want for a husband. But Mary, whom I never dreamed would be wed, unless it were to Joshua – ! La, it is the most amazingly fortunate thing that could ever be.’
‘She isn’t going to marry Vidal!’ Sophia said in a voice that shook with passion. ‘She’s gone to save my honour, the interfering, hateful wretch! And now it’s her honour will be ruined, and I’m glad of it! I’m glad of it!’
Mrs Challoner folded up Mary’s letter. ‘It’s for me to see she’s not ruined, and I promise you I shall see to it. My Lady Vidal – oh, it is famous! I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.’
Sophia’s fingers curled like a kitten’s claws. ‘It’s me Vidal wants, not Mary!’
‘Lord, what has that to say to anything?’ said Mrs Challoner. ‘It’s Mary he has run off with. Now don’t pout at me, miss! You will do very well, I don’t doubt. There’s O’Halloran, mad for you, or Fraser.’
Sophia gave a little scream. ‘O’Halloran! Fraser! I won’t marry a plain mister! I won’t! I’d sooner drown myself !’
‘Oh well, I’m not saying you might not do better for y
ourself,’ replied Mrs Challoner. ‘And if only I can get Mary safe wedded to Vidal there’s no saying who she may not find you. For she has a good heart; I always said Mary had a good heart; and she’ll not forget her mamma and sister, however grand she’s to become.’
The prospect of having a husband found for her by Mary proved too much for Sophia’s self-control. She fell into renewed hysterics, but was startled into silence by a smart box on the ear from a mother who had suddenly discovered that her elder daughter was of more account than her pampered self.
She was bundled off to bed; Mrs Challoner had no time to waste on tantrums. Her chief fear at that moment was that Mary might return uncompromised, and her night’s repose was quite spoiled by her dread of hearing a knock on the front door. When morning came bringing no news of Mary, her maternal anxieties were allayed, and telling Sophia sharply to stop crying, she set about making herself smart for a visit to his grace of Avon. She chose a gown of stiff damson-hued armazine, with one of the new German collars, and a caravan bonnet with a blind of white sarsenet to be let down at will, and thus attired set forth shortly before noon for Avon House. The door was opened by a liveried porter, and she inquired haughtily for his grace of Avon.
The porter informed her that his grace was from home, and having formed his own opinion of Mrs Challoner’s estate, prepared to shut the door.
That redoubtable lady promptly put her foot in the way. ‘Then be so good as to take me to the Duchess,’ she said.
‘Her grace is h’also h’out of town,’ replied the porter.
Mrs Challoner’s face fell. ‘When do you expect her back?’ she demanded.
The porter looked down his nose. ‘H’it is not my place to h’expect her grace,’ he said loftily.