‘I’ve no need to introduce you to Lady Denny, have I?’ Venetia was saying.
‘No, I have already had that honour,’ Damerel replied, advancing with what her ladyship felt to be brazen effrontery to shake hands with her. ‘How do you do?’
She responded civilly, because she was a woman of breeding, but her palm itched to slap that harsh-featured, coolly smiling face. She fancied she could detect mockery in his eyes, as though, well aware of her disapproval, he was daring her to try whether she could come between him and Venetia, and it was with a real effort that she answered his polite enquiry after her husband.
‘Do you want me to bring you anything from York?’ Aubrey asked his sister. ‘That’s what I came to ask you.’
‘Did you, love?’ she retorted, quizzing him. ‘I am so very much obliged to you! And so much moved to think that such a notion came into your head!’
He grinned at her, not at all abashed. ‘It didn’t!’
‘What a graceless scamp you are!’ remarked Damerel. ‘You might at least have assumed that virtue!’
‘Why should I, when she knows I have it not?’ said Aubrey, over his shoulder, as he went to take leave of Lady Denny. ‘Goodbye, ma’am: you don’t think it uncivil of me to go, do you? No, for you came to see Venetia, I know. I won’t keep you waiting above a minute, Jasper, only I can’t go to York in these slippers, can I?’
‘Not in my company, at all events,’ said Damerel. He looked at Venetia as the door shut behind Aubrey, and again Lady Denny saw the smile that passed between them. It was so slight as to be almost imperceptible: hardly more than a softening of expression, a tenderness in the eyes. She realised that it was involuntary, and knew the affair to be more serious than she had dreamed it could be, for Damerel, whatever his intentions might be, was not amusing himself with a desperate flirtation: he was as much in earnest as Venetia. He was speaking to her now, only about Aubrey, but in a way that betrayed how intimate they had become. ‘I won’t let him stand for hours with his nose in a book,’ he was saying. ‘The drive won’t hurt him.’
‘No, on the contrary. What good angel prompted you to this? I couldn’t lure him away from the library! It was close on midnight when I heard him come to bed last night, and when I ventured to remonstrate this morning he informed me that he had wasted a great deal of time since his accident, and must now seriously apply himself to study! I thought that was what he had been doing!’
‘Oh, no!’ Damerel said sardonically. ‘He was absorbed in light reading while in my house – as provided by Berkeley and Hume – with excursions into Dugald Stewart. Mere relaxation!’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘If I am to restore him to you by dinnertime I had best go and see what he’s doing. Would you lay me odds I don’t find him with a boot on one foot, a slipper on the other, and his nose in a lexicon, because he has suddenly remembered that he was about to track some obscure word to its source when I broke rudely in upon him?’
He turned from her to take leave of Lady Denny, and, that done, shook hands briefly with Venetia, saying: ‘Do you want anything brought from York?’
‘No – not even fish, in a rush basket, which is Aubrey’s chief loathing!’
He laughed, and went away. Venetia said, in her frank way: ‘I am glad he should have chanced to come in while you were with me, ma’am.’
‘Are you, my dear? Why?’ asked Lady Denny.
‘Oh – ! Because I could see that you wondered at my liking him, for you did not, when you met him before, did you?’
Lady Denny hesitated, and then said: ‘I perfectly understand why you like him, Venetia. Indeed, I should have been astonished if he had failed to make you do so, for men of his – his stamp know how to make themselves charming to women.’
‘Yes,’ Venetia agreed. ‘They must have had a great deal of practice, though I don’t think it can be wholly due to practice, do you? I never met a rake before, or thought much about it, but I should suppose that a man could scarcely become one – well, not a very successful one, at all events – if he were not naturally engaging.’
‘Very true!’ said Lady Denny, rather faintly. ‘It is what makes them particularly dangerous. You, I am persuaded, have too much good sense and elegance of mind to be taken-in, but I wish you will be a little on your guard, my love. No doubt you find Lord Damerel’s company agreeable, and feel yourself to be very much obliged to him, but I own – and you must not take it amiss that I should tell you this, for I know the world as you do not – I own that I did not quite like to find him so very much at home here. It is not the thing, you know, for an unmarried lady of your age to be entertaining gentlemen.’
Venetia gave a little chuckle. ‘I wish you will tell Edward so!’ she begged. ‘He hasn’t a notion of it! He even dines here, if he can contrive to linger until I am forced, for the sake of common civility, to invite him to do so.’
‘Well, my dear – well, that is another matter!’ said Lady Denny, trying to rally her forces. ‘Your friendship is of such long standing that – Besides, your papa liked him!’
‘No, no, ma’am, how can you do Papa such an injustice?’ protested Venetia. ‘When you must know he liked no one! However, I know what you mean to say: he thought that Edward would do very well for me!’
‘Now, Venetia – !’
Venetia laughed. ‘I beg your pardon! I could not resist! But there is not the least need for uneasiness, because Damerel sees the matter exactly as you do. I daresay you may have noticed that I didn’t ask him if he would stay to dine, when he said he would bring Aubrey back by dinnertime? I know it to be useless: he will never do so. He tells me that while he does no more than pay us morning visits the quizzy people will say that he is dangling after me, but if he dined here they would say that I was encouraging his very improper advances. Does that make you easy, dear ma’am?’
It had the reverse effect on her kind friend, and it was a very troubled lady who was driven back to Ebbersley, and who presently gave Sir John an account of her visit. Had her mind been less preoccupied the expression on her son’s face, at once guilty and apprehensive, when she looked into the room where he was sitting with Sir John and asked Sir John to come to her dressing-room, might have given rise to further anxieties. Fortunately, however, she did not look at Oswald; and he, after a nerve-racking period during which he imagined her to be divulging to his father his shocking conduct in Aubrey’s carpentry-barn, realised, when his father rejoined him, that Venetia had not after all betrayed him, and was so profoundly relieved that he resolved to write a very civil apology to her before he left Ebbersley for Crossley.
Sir John looked grave when he listened to what his lady had to tell him, but he remained firm in his refusal to meddle. Lady Denny, who considered this poor-spirited, said in an accusing tone: ‘Pray, would you hesitate to speak to Lord Damerel if it was your daughter who was in question?’
‘No, certainly not, but Venetia is not my daughter,’ he replied. ‘Nor, my dear, is she eighteen years of age. She is five-and-twenty and her own mistress. If she has indeed fallen in love with Damerel I am sorry for it, because it will cause her to suffer a heartache, I fear. But if you are apprehensive of her committing any very serious imprudence I am persuaded you are permitting your anxiety to overcome your reason. For my part I believe Venetia to be a girl of excellent principles and a good understanding; and I cannot suppose that Damerel who, whatever his principles may be, is certainly not deficient in commonsense, has anything more in mind than flirtation.’ He saw Lady Denny shake her head, and added with a little asperity: ‘Do, my love, allow me to know a little better than you how such a man as Damerel may be expected to conduct himself towards a girl in Venetia’s situation! He is a libertine: I don’t deny that, but the case is that you are too prejudiced. Whatever his follies may be he is a man of breeding, and no common degree of worldly knowledge, and you may depend upon it he has nothing more in his head
than an agreeable flirtation with a very pretty female. It is wrong, very mischievous, for he will forget her within a week of leaving the Priory, and very likely she will suffer a great deal of pain, but if you are right in thinking that she has a tendre for him, that cannot be cured by any meddling on my part, or – I must add – by any attempt on yours to warn her that Damerel is merely trifling with her.’
‘Oh, Sir John, there is no need to tell me that!’ she exclaimed. ‘I am not such a ninnyhammer that I didn’t see in a trice that it was useless to talk to her! But you mistake! I own that when I set out this morning – But when I saw him, the look in his eyes every time they rested on her, the most dreadful apprehension seized me! One thing you may be sure of: he is not trifling, he is as much in love with her as she with him! Sir John, if nothing is done to protect her from him she will marry him!’
‘Good God!’ he ejaculated. ‘Do you mean to tell me – No, I don’t credit it! He has no intention of marrying Venetia, or any other woman! He is every day of eight-and-thirty, and his way of life is fixed: that he has clearly shown the world! If he had meant to marry, for the sake of an heir, perhaps, he would scarcely have pursued so ruinous a course during all these years. If the estates had not been entailed I don’t doubt he would have disposed of them, just as he has wasted a very handsome fortune, and we may judge by that how little he cares who may succeed him. As for the open scandals which attend his progress, one might almost suppose he meant to render himself a most ineligible parti!’
‘All that you say is no doubt very true, and has nothing to do with the case!’ retorted her ladyship. ‘Whatever may have been his intention you may as well put out of your mind, my dear, for he has certainly put it out of his! I know how a man looks when he is flirting, and how he speaks, and you may believe that that is not what I saw today! He is very much in love with her, and if he doesn’t offer her a carte blanche – or she is not so besotted as to listen to so shocking a suggestion! – he will ask her to marry him, and she will accept him!’ She had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing from the change in Sir John’s expression that she had succeeded in convincing him that her alarms were not the products of a disordered mind, and demanded: ‘Now will you speak to Damerel?’
But he remained adamant. ‘Certainly not! Pray, what would you wish me to say to him? My acquaintance with him is of the slightest; Venetia is neither related to me nor accountable to me for her actions. Any such intervention would be a piece of gross impertinence, ma’am! If you cannot prevail upon her to understand how disastrous such a marriage would be there is nothing to be done in the matter.’
Recognising the note of finality in his voice she abandoned the attempt to bring him to her own way of thinking, merely saying that something must be done, since it was nonsensical to suppose that because Venetia was five-and-twenty she could be trusted to manage her own affairs. No one could be less trusted to do so than a girl who could count on the fingers of one hand the bachelors of her acquaintance, and so might be depended on to fall in love with the first man of practised address who crossed her path. ‘And you know what people would say, Sir John! But she is not like her mother, however much she may resemble her in countenance, and she shan’t be allowed to ruin her life! If only Aubrey took the least interest in anything outside his books – But you may depend upon it he doesn’t even see what is going on under his nose, and wouldn’t believe me if I told him!’
In this she was mistaken. Aubrey had not only seen, but was taking a detached interest in the affair, as he disclosed to his sister a day or two later. He had been so obliging as to drive her to Thirsk, where she had shopping to do; and on the way home, when Damerel’s name had cropped up, as it frequently did, he startled her by asking quite casually: ‘Are you going to marry him, m’dear?’
She was a good deal taken aback, for he was in general so indifferent to what lay beyond his own concerns that she had supposed, like Lady Denny, that it had not occurred to him that Damerel’s visits to Undershaw might be due to a desire to see her rather than himself. She hesitated for a moment, and he added: ‘Should I not ask you? You needn’t answer, if you don’t choose.’
‘Well, I can’t answer,’ she said frankly. ‘He hasn’t made me an offer!’
‘I know that, stoopid! You must have told me, if you had become engaged to him! Shall you accept him when he does offer for you?’
‘Aubrey, who set you on to ask me that?’ she demanded. ‘It cannot have been Lady Denny! Was it Nurse?’
‘Lord, no! No one did. Why should anyone?’
‘I thought someone might have told you to try whether you could persuade me not to allow Damerel to come to Undershaw.’
‘Much heed I should have paid! Does Lady Denny know? Why should she wish you not to see Jasper? Don’t she like him?’
‘No – that is, she does not know him, but only his reputation, and I fancy she thinks I might be taken-in.’
‘Oh!’ He frowned ahead, checking his horses a little as they approached the lodge-gates. ‘I don’t know much about such things, but I shouldn’t think you would be. Ought I to ask Jasper what his intentions are?’
She could not help laughing. ‘I beg you will not!’
‘Well, I’d as lief not,’ he owned. ‘Besides, I see no sense in it: he couldn’t tell me he meant to seduce you, even if he did, and, anyway, what a totty-headed notion that is! Why, when I wanted to get rid of Nurse he said she must stay at the Priory to play propriety! I never thought much about the stories people told of him, but I daresay they weren’t true. In any event, you probably know more about ’em than I do, and if you don’t care why should I?’
They had passed through the gates by this time, and were bowling up the avenue that wound through the park. Venetia said: ‘I don’t know why anyone should care, but they all seem to think that because I’ve lived my whole life in this one place I must be a silly innocent with much more hair than wit. I’m glad you don’t, love. I can’t tell what may happen, but – if Damerel did wish to marry me – you at least wouldn’t dislike it, would you?’
‘No, I think I should be glad of it,’ he replied. ‘I shall be going up to Cambridge, of course, next year, but there will be the vacations, you know, and I’d rather by far spend them in Damerel’s house than in Conway’s.’
This view of the matter made her smile, but no more was said, for at that moment the last bend in the avenue brought the house into sight, and she was surprised to see that a laden post-chaise-and-four was drawn up at the door.
‘Hallo, what’s this?’ exclaimed Aubrey. ‘Good God, it must be Conway!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Venetia said, catching sight of a feathered bonnet. ‘It’s a female! But who in the world – oh, can it be Aunt Hendred?’
But when Aubrey pulled his horses up behind the chaise and the visitor turned, Venetia found herself staring down at a complete stranger. She was still more astonished by the discovery that the stranger was apparently superintending the removal from the chaise of a formidable quantity of portmanteaux and bandboxes. She turned her bewildered gaze towards Ribble, her brows lifting in a mute question; but he was looking quite stunned, and before she could ask for an explanation the stranger, who was a middle-aged lady, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped forward, saying with an air of affable assurance: ‘Miss Venetia Lanyon? But I need not ask! And the poor little lame boy? I am Mrs Scorrier, which you have perhaps guessed – though the butler seems not to have been informed of our expected arrival!’
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ said Venetia, descending from the phaeton, ‘but there must be some mistake! I am afraid I don’t understand!’
Mrs Scorrier stared at her for a moment, an expression far removed from affability in her face. ‘Do you mean to tell me that what that man said is true, and you have not received a letter from – I might have known it! Oh, I should certainly have guessed as much when I discovered in London that
no notice had been sent to the Gazette!’
‘Notice?’ repeated Venetia. ‘Gazette?’
Recovering her affability, Mrs Scorrier said, with a little laugh: ‘So naughty and forgetful of him! I shall give him a tremendous scold, I promise you! I daresay you must be quite at a loss. Well, I have brought you a surprise, but not, I hope, an unpleasant one! Charlotte, my pet!’
In response to this call, which was directed towards the open door, a very fair girl, with large, apprehensive eyes of a light blue, a quantity of flaxen ringlets, and a soft, over-sensitive mouth, emerged from the house, saying, in a nervous breathless voice: ‘Yes, Mama?’
‘Come here, my love!’ invited Mrs Scorrier. ‘Dear child! You have been so anxious to meet your new sister, and your little lame brother, have you not? Here they both are! Yes, Miss Lanyon: this is Lady Lanyon!’
Eleven
The shock held Venetia silent for several moments, which was perhaps fortunate, since the first thought to leap to her mind was that the announcement could not be true. She realised immediately that it must be true; and, as the extraordinary nature of the situation came home to her, began to laugh. ‘Oh, how outrageous of Conway, and how like him!’ she exclaimed. She put out her hand to Charlotte. ‘How do you do? What a shocking welcome you have had to your new home! You must forgive us, for indeed we had not the least notion that we were to have this pleasure! I collect that Conway is not with you? Where – Oh, you will tell us all about it presently, but first I must see Mrs Gurnard – our housekeeper, and tell her which rooms to prepare. Pray let me take you in! I daresay you must both be tired after your journey.’
She led the way into the house, and to the drawing-room, where a fire had recently been lit, and begged the two ladies to be seated. Charlotte, who seemed to be too shy to raise her eyes for more than an instant, murmured something about kindness, and being so very sorry, to which Venetia replied smilingly: ‘Now that we have each of us begged pardon of the other I think we should unite in abusing the real culprit, don’t you? I believe Conway would do almost anything rather than write a letter – to him a Herculean labour! – but it is certainly too bad of him to have failed on this occasion! Won’t you take off your hat, and your pelisse? I am sure you will be glad to some refreshment after your journey: do you like tea? You shall have some directly, and then I’ll take you upstairs.’