Unfortunately, the Senator soon tired and decided to leave early. Sophie complained all the way home at her evening being cut short, until even his courtesy was frayed to the point where he was ready to reprimand her.
Marietta put a gentle hand on his arm to restrain him and said to her cousin, ‘Sophie, if you say one more word I promise you that I shall not escort you to another function, never mind give tea parties for your admirers. Your uncle is tired and needs to rest.’
This silenced Sophie, but added another to the long list of wrongs which Marietta had committed against her, and for which one day, Sophie promised herself, she would be paid back in full.
Two days later Jack, his brother and Charles Stanton came for afternoon tea at the Hopes’. Sophie had thought that she would enjoy herself in the company of three attractive men, but she didn’t. They appeared to direct their conversation almost exclusively at Marietta.
This wasn’t true, but appeared so to Sophie. They spoke first of what occupied the minds of all Washington—except Sophie’s, of course: the coming war. They were all quite certain that it was coming—only the question of when it would arrive remained. In other circumstances Sophie would have found Alan Dilhorne attractive, but not when he droned on about such boring subjects. Marietta was hanging on his every word—but then she would, wouldn’t she? Goodness, politics was all she had to talk about, poor thing, but did she need to monopolise three…well, two attractive men so determinedly?
Charles Stanton seemed to be irreparably dull. He was even more solemn than Marietta, if that were possible. He was only interested in subjects of such profound boredom that Sophie found it difficult not to yawn in his face.
For once, even Jack was dull. He certainly cracked his usual quota of jokes, but, most uncharacteristically, they were incomprehensible. What in the world was amusing about muffins and iron-clad ships? Iron-clad ships? What drearier topic of conversation could be found than that? But they all pounded away about them as though they were men-of-war themselves. Marietta even had the face to be amused by Jack’s silly jokes, and to look enthralled when the conversation moved on to screw-propellers and Charles’s and Jack’s interest in them.
Give the large and handsome Mr Alan Dilhorne his due—he did come to Sophie’s rescue. He talked about more interesting things, such as the nature of Washington’s social life, but, after all, he was in his forties, already married to some Englishwoman across the Atlantic—horse-faced, no doubt—so there was little point in talking to him. Even then, in the middle of it, he broke in on Jack and Charles, who were talking to Marietta about walking and riding.
Walking and riding! They were two things which Sophie particularly hated. Horses were such tricky creatures and she was too frightened when on them to be able to look alluring. As for walking! Sophie never walked when she could ride in a carriage, and one of the reasons for her intense dislike of Marietta was all the exercise that she was compelled to take with her.
‘You’ll get fat if you sit about so much and eat so many sweet things,’ Marietta had had the gall to say to her severely at least once a week. Fat! Well, she would rather risk that than be a beanpole like Marietta.
To make matters worse, Alan Dilhorne now began to talk of the difficulty he had found in obtaining enough exercise in Washington.
‘We must go riding together,’ he said to Marietta. ‘I am sure that Miss Sophie and yourself can advise me on how to go about finding suitable stables and some useful mounts. I shall get fat if I sit about all day on the Hill, eating and drinking,’ and he made a comical face.
The Dilhorne brothers were good at comical faces, thought Sophie resentfully, unlike Charles Stanton who seemed to possess a permanently glum one. Not that she found either of them very comical on this particular afternoon.
‘Are you missing your sparring, Alan?’ Jack asked his brother, adding to Sophie and Marietta, ‘Big Brother here was quite a bruiser in his time. He could have made a name for himself in the ring.’
Could he, indeed? thought Sophie nastily. I thought that he was supposed to be a fine gentleman with a big house in Yorkshire. Some fine gentleman he must be if he were almost a bruiser once!
Charles Stanton, who, for all his quietness, was no fool, read Sophie’s slightly shrugging manner correctly.
‘Gentlemen box in England, you know,’ he said, trying to be helpful.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Sophie off-puttingly. She thought nothing of Charles. He was apparently only some secretary dragged along by Big Brother in order to prose about dull matters and take Jack’s attention away from her.
Jack was now engaged in discussing railway lines with Marietta, and their importance in the coming war. Railway lines! Who cared about them?
She gave poor Charles her shoulder, ignorant of the fact that he had felt sorry for the pretty young girl who was so patently bored by the conversation of her elders and had tried to include her in it.
Marietta was well aware that, for once, she was not considering Sophie before herself by bringing her out and turning the conversation towards matters that would interest her. She was finding her male guests both interesting and amusing—and was enjoying herself for a change, rather than always thinking of others. Sophie was the third of her cousins whom she had introduced to Washington life.
She decided that Jack and Alan were more alike than she had originally thought, both in looks and intellect. Alan might, at first, give off the impression of being a bluff and open Englishman, but her father’s appreciation of him as a devious and clever man was an accurate one. Jack resembled him in that for, when first met, he gave off the impression of being a charming idler, and this was what had caused Sophie to be attracted to him. But this impression was not a correct one. He was both knowledgeable and shrewd, reminding her of some of the men she had met on Capitol Hill who concealed their ability beneath charm and good manners.
She liked Charles, too, and was sorry that Sophie was being so openly rude to him in her disappointment at the turn which the tea party had taken, which was giving her little opportunity to display her kittenish charm.
Fearful that Sophie might be provoked into displaying even more bad manners, she steered Jack’s and Alan’s interest adroitly towards her and began to talk to Charles herself. She found him as interesting a man as Jack and his brother. Unlike them, his manner was diffident, but he was well informed, and even a little surprised to discover how knowledgeable Marietta was. It was also evident that he hero-worshipped the large Mr Dilhorne, who was plainly fond of him.
Everyone enjoyed the promised tea and Jack’s jokes while they ate it. Everyone that was, but Sophie, who, seeing Marietta’s eye on her, ungraciously refused a third muffin. ‘Marietta will threaten me with growing fat if I eat another.’
‘Quite right, too,’ said Alan cheerfully. ‘I have to watch my weight, alas,’ and he, too, waved a muffin away. ‘We are fellow sufferers, Miss Sophie, and must comfort one another.’
Despite this offered sympathy, Alan had decided that he did not like Miss Sophie, and wondered a little at Jack for pursuing her. The cousin, though not the prettiest of women, was a much better bet. She had a good mind and possessed an excellent body beneath all the clothing which women were forced to wear. Must be the exercise she takes, he decided. It would pay Miss Sophie to take more.
Sophie would have been horrified if she had been privy to Alan’s thoughts, but, devious man that he was, he gave her the false impression that he found her as charming as
