Sophie's Halloo (18 page)

The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry smile, “I might say the same of you, Miss Corby, for I little suspected you to frequent Mr. Crowther’s shop.”

“No, of course not,” she said, recollecting suddenly how odd her appearance there must seem. “I came only because of Aunt Sadie. She has been teaching me to drive her carriage, you see, and thought a trip to Mr. Crowther’s would form a necessary part of the education.”

“I see,” he said, relaxing almost imperceptibly over something she had just said. “Your aunt is always correct on such matters.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, replacing his beaver, “Please give her my warmest regards.” He nodded and made as if to move away.

A feeling of panic entered Sophie’s breast. When she had dreamed or thought of this encounter, she had never allowed herself to think that it would be concluded so quickly. The idea that she should yearn so deeply to speak to Tony again, and then, achieving a meeting, be cheated from receiving any comfort from it was more than she could bear. Her pride, which she had counted on to hold her up through a chance meeting, meant nothing to her now that his back was almost turned. So she called out in a note of desperation which bore the weight of her weeks of unhappiness.

“Sir Tony,” she called. He turned almost cautiously.

“Yes, Miss Corby?”

She swallowed as her mind groped hopelessly for words. “We have missed seeing you in Berkeley Square, of late.” As an excuse to resume speaking, perhaps, the words were rather weak, but they were delivered in such a peculiar way that Tony must have thought them worth attending. He stepped closer to her, as his eyes looked into hers searchingly.

“I have regretted being unable to call,” was all he said. If Sophie had hoped for an explanation, it was not offered, but still Tony watched her as though any explanation should be hers instead. Her eyes wavered under his regard, and she waited tensely, expecting him at any second to depart again. But to her surprise, he offered this comment.

“May I take the liberty, Miss Corby, of wishing you joy in your impending union?”

His tone was all that was proper, but Sophie stared in astonishment as he came to an end.

“Impending union?” she exclaimed, wondering what he could possibly mean. “What union, Sir Tony?”

“Your intended marriage to Mr. Rollo, Miss Corby,” he explained, with a look of frowning enquiry.

“But I have no such intentions with respect to that gentleman,” she protested. Tony’s eyes had not left her face, and he was now regarding her with a curious mixture of distrust and hope. She flushed unhappily.  “Who, may I ask, is responsible for spreading such a malicious untruth?”

Tony’s expression had brightened as rapidly as her outrage had mounted, and his lips twitched irrepressibly as he divulged his source.

“I’m afraid it was your father, Miss Corby.”

Sophie blanched and then coloured with anger as she realized the extent of her father’s interference. She hung her head while attempting to control her rare anger and, finally, responded with embarrassment. “My father is mistaken,” she said uncomfortably.

Just then, her Aunt Sadie’s voice boomed out from behind her, “There you are, Sophie.” She stepped up behind her niece with an air of high frustration. “I shall have to keep you waiting another while...” she began, and then stopped as she perceived Tony with them.

“Sir Tony!” she said with an accusatory frown. “So this is where you’ve been for the past few weeks.” A lesser man would have been quelled by the displeasure in her regard.

But Tony laughed without reserve, and Sophie dimpled helplessly as she witnessed the restoration of his happy looks.

“I’m afraid it has all been an unfortunate misunderstanding, Miss Sadie,” he explained, giving Sophie a look of deep contentment. Staring back and forth from one to the other of them, Aunt Sadie relaxed her stern expression.

“Good,” she said, not troubling them to explain themselves. “Then it’s fortunate we should run into you here. It seems that I shall be held up a few minutes more while the shopkeeper trims the thongs on my whip. I might suggest that you take Sophie out into the street for a stroll up and down while I keep the fellow’s mind to his work. He’s got too many customers today to stick with it if I’m not standing over him.”

“Gladly,” said Tony, offering his arm to Sophie with a smile that threatened to take her breath away. “We’ll be waiting for you out in the street.”

Sophie took his tendered arm with a shaking hand, overcome with the rapid change in the state of her emotions, and stepped gratefully out into the busy street. The fresher air outdoors eased the tightening of her chest, and she stole a look up at Tony, expecting not to be able to meet his direct gaze. But the happiness in her companion’s eyes was like a magnet to her own, and she found, instead, that she was unable to turn away as the dimples burrowed deeply into her cheeks.

They had not begun to speak before they were assailed by an importunate street vendor who approached Sophie, in the garb of a cleric.

“Pardon me, my lady,” he said with the gravest possible dignity. “Permit me to h’offer you a copy of
The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Cadger Lummy.”

Sophie was momentarily disconcerted by the grimness of the subject, but said, “No, thank you,” and would have passed on except that the vendor had placed himself in their path.

“Well, then, ‘ow about the
h’Elegy for Chaffing  Tom, the Mace King
,” he persisted. “It was written by the Wretched Culprit ‘imself, just before ‘is h’execution.”

“Ah, yes, Miss Corby,” agreed Tony to her surprise, and still in the greatest good humour. “I must not let you pass up such a valuable acquisition. Do let me obtain one for you.”

The vendor smiled graciously and offered Tony a flimsy pamphlet, which had been printed in chipped type and decorated with crude woodcuts. “H’a special price for you, sir, just two pennies,” he said.

“A duce instead of a win?” asked Tony, not at all displeased by the vendor’s attempt to cheat him. “No thank you, my good man, they usually sell for one.”  The cleric acknowledged his customer’s superior knowledge and accepted the single penny.

Throughout this exchange, Sophie had stared at Tony with an expression which was at once amused and puzzled, and, seeing it now, he explained. “You think I belong in Bedlam, don’t you, Miss Corby? I can see it in your eyes. But you do not realize the chance that you were about to throw away here. And as a fellow poet, I could not let you pass up this opportunity to obtain a copy of one of the representative works of our time.”

Sophie still smiled sceptically, but the vendor, who had heard it all, beamed with pride and expressed his gratification with a deep bow. “Sir,” he said. “H’I am h’onoured.” 

“Pitts Press, is it?” asked Tony, thumbing through the thin pages.

“Catnach,” corrected the vendor.

“Of course,” agreed Tony. “And if I am not mistaken,” he added, favouring the cleric with a nod of recognition, “we are in the presence of the author.”

The little man’s sense of pride was so deeply gratified that it caused him to squirm with pleasure and threatened to overcome his carefully acquired dignity.  “H’I cannot deny it, sir,” he said. “But,” he said, realizing that he had sold the work as a true confession, “H’I h’attended the Culprit as ‘e h’ascended the gallows, miss, and h’I was Witness to ‘is Wretched Penitence.”

“Capital! An excellent way to make a shilling,” said Tony, and Sophie, understanding him now, listened with delight.

“Listen to this, Sophie,” began Tony. “The prose fairly oozes with penitence. ‘Oh, harken to my Sorrowful Lamentation.’ That’s good. Or this, ‘Please ask the Lord to spare my mother’s tears.’ Do you realize,” he asked, smiling down into her upturned face, “just how much talent is required to create a poem from what this scoundrel probably said? If he mentioned his mother at all, it was more to the tune of (changing his voice to a low growl), ‘tell me mum not to nap ‘er bib.’”

Sophie giggled.

“But I suspect,” Tony concluded, “he only bewailed the fact that he had been ‘lagged by the traps for the rum ken he bumbled.’ Am I right?” he said, turning to the street vendor for confirmation.

“H’indeed, yes, sir,” agreed the man, happy to have a customer who understood his labours so well. But he beat a hasty retreat as Aunt Sadie, done with her errand and armed with a new coach whip, bore down upon him with her whip handle threatening.

“Be off with you, you mangy dog,” she said, clearing him from the pathway with a few vicious jabs. “I’m surprised at you, Tony, for letting that fellow intrude upon you and Sophie. You might get lice. Should have sent him about his business,” she added stoutly.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tony meekly, but he smuggled the pamphlet into Sophie’s hand with a conspiratorial glance, which she answered with another giggle.

Sadie looked from one to the other of them nonplussed, but she soon sobered them by saying, “We’d best be going.”

Sophie’s smile faded rapidly, and her clutch on Tony’s arm tightened involuntarily as if she feared not to see him again. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, but addressed his remarks to Aunt Sadie.

“There is to be a masquerade tomorrow evening at the Opera. Do you go?”

“It’s not very likely,” said Sadie with a huff. “Can you see me dressed as a dairy maid? And I doubt Sophie’s mother would like it.”

“But you must,” exclaimed Tony with, Sophie thought, well-feigned incredulity. “All the Ton will be there. I can vouch for it personally.”

“You can, can you?” said Sadie, not uncharmed by his persuasion. “Well, we’ll see what we can do about it.”

Tony thanked her sincerely and turned to take his leave of Sophie saying, “You will not want to make a habit of attending masquerades. Miss Corby, I know.  But it is something that everyone should experience at least once—and preferably tomorrow night. And,” he added provocatively as he bowed low over her hand, his gaze firmly fixed on her face, “at a masquerade one may do things that one would never do unmasked.” 

The message Sophie read in his eyes caused her to tremble deliciously from her head to her toes, but she answered him shyly with a nod and a dimple.

Tony accompanied them back to their carriage and helped Sophie in before turning to Aunt Sadie and asking in a whisper, “How shall I know you?”

“Impudent rascal,” said Sadie, tapping him playfully on the chest. “I can’t tell you what we’ll be wearing for I don’t know yet, but you can look for me to be in something long and flowing. That should limit you, for I expect half the damsels there will be in shocking states of undress. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I trust you won’t disappoint me.” She gave him a keen look.

“You may have full faith and confidence in me, my lady,” said Tony impishly, but Sadie did not doubt his words. With a satisfied nod, she allowed him to assist her up onto the box, and touching the leader’s shoulder lightly with her new whip, off she drove.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lady Corby was not at all certain that a masquerade was the thing for a young lady to attend, but she was assured by Sadie that on occasion it could be allowed.  She applied to one or two friends for confirmation and found that there was general agreement that if a girl were properly chaperoned, no harm would come to her, and there was the added advantage that in costume one was certain of not being recognized. Added to these reassurances was the pleading of her own daughter, who had been miraculously restored to joyous spirits after the experience of one day’s outing.

So Lady Corby found herself consenting to another scheme of which she was sure Sir John would disapprove. At the very least, she told herself privately, Sophie’s chaperon would be the least likely to be imposed upon in the crowd.

The day of the masquerade was entirely occupied in the hurry of finding a costume to wear in the evening.  The tradesmen were applied to at this rather late date, but Sophie was easily fitted into the garb of a shepherdess, whose simple white blouse, apron and skirt suited her lovely, youthful figure to perfection. The skirt was shorter than she was accustomed to wearing, so a pair of neat stockings were added to clothe her legs below the knee.

But the sight of Aunt Sadie in her costume provided something of a shock, for she arrived that evening in the habit of a nun.

“You needn’t look so scandalized, Clarissa,” said Sadie, colouring a little. “I am not in want of taste. But there were no other costumes to be had which would cover my bulky figure. It seems that masqueraders try to uncover as much as they ordinarily cover to make up for the addition of a mask, but I would much rather be pegged for sacrilege than a show of indecency. I shall leave the rest to your imagination. Come along, Sophie,” she finished, taking her niece by the arm, and the oddly-dressed couple made their way to the Opera in the company of a footman.

As Sophie entered the Opera House a half-hour later, she had to stop and stare in amazement at the scene before her. It was some time before her mind could take in the variety of the spectacle, both above, where the boxes were filled by ladies and gentlemen in differing degrees of costume, and below, where the revellers were engaged in all sorts of alarming behaviour.

The persons who had chosen to dress in their customary evening habits were disguised by hand-held masks, some in hats as well, and the décolleté of the ladies was noticeable in its extreme. Some wore dominoes, but by far the majority were dressed as recognizable characters. The stage was hidden by the large number of people in front of it,  who were principally engaged in dancing, but the stage scenery of an Italian city provided a romantic backdrop. Light shone from the enormous chandeliers above, and someone, presumably a stage actor, was hanging by the waist from a rope which stretched from one corner of the ceiling to another. He gave the appearance of a tight-rope walker.

But the dancers below provided Sophie the greatest opportunity for observation, for she had never seen ladies and gentlemen engaged in such riotous behaviour.  One man, dressed in a cat costume, was down on his knees before a country maiden, nuzzling her gown in the most shocking manner. Another lady, dressed as an Olympian goddess, was jumping rope in the middle of the room beside an amused Zeus, and a milkmaid was dancing with a Spanish conquistador while holding a milk stool in her hand.