‘She’d do better to be advised by my sister,’ said Aubrey, who had entered the room in time to hear this interchange. ‘Lord, what a dust Conway would kick up if he came home to find Mrs Gurnard had left Undershaw in a pelter!’
The thought of Conway’s displeasure made Charlotte turn pale, and even seemed to give Mrs Scorrier pause. She contented herself with saying: ‘Well, we shall see,’ but although the smile remained firmly pinned to her lips the glance she cast at Aubrey was by no means amiable. Venetia could only pray that she would not offer him any further provocation.
The prayer was not answered, and long before dinner came to an end it must have been apparent to anyone acquainted with Aubrey that he had decided for war. Upon entering the dining-room, and finding that she was expected to sit at the head of the table, Charlotte had hung back, stammering with instinctive good feeling: ‘Oh, pray – ! That is where you are used to sit, Miss Lanyon, is it not? If you please, I would by far rather not take your place!’
‘But I would far rather not take yours!’ returned Venetia. ‘I wish, by the way, that you will call me Venetia!’
‘Oh, yes! Thank you, I should be very happy! But pray won’t you –’
‘My dear Charlotte, Miss Lanyon will think you are quite gooseish if you don’t take care!’ said Mrs Scorrier. ‘She is very right, and you need have no scruples, I assure you.’ She flashed a particularly wide smile at Venetia, and added: ‘It is the fate of sisters, is it not, to be obliged to take second place when their brothers marry?’
‘Undoubtedly, ma’am.’
‘Doing it rather too brown, m’dear!’ said Aubrey, a glint in his eye. ‘You’ll still be first in consequence at Undershaw if you eat your dinner in the kitchen, and well you know it!’
‘What a devoted brother!’ remarked Mrs Scorrier, with a slight titter.
‘What a nonsensical one!’ retorted Venetia. ‘Do you like to sit near the fire, ma’am, or will you –’
‘Mrs Scorrier ought to sit at the bottom of the table,’ said Aubrey positively.
‘You mean the foot of the table: opposite to the head, you understand,’ said Mrs Scorrier instructively.
‘Yes, of course,’ replied Aubrey, looking surprised. ‘Did I say bottom? I wonder what made me do that?’
Venetia asked Charlotte if she had enjoyed her visit to Paris. It was the first of the many hasty interventions she felt herself obliged to make during the course of what she afterwards bitterly described as a truly memorable dinner-party, for while Aubrey offered no unprovoked attacks he was swift to avenge any hint of aggression. Since he made it abundantly plain that he had constituted himself his sister’s champion, and won every encounter with the foe, Venetia could only suppose that Mrs Scorrier was either very stupid, or compelled by her evil genius to court discomfiture. She really seemed to be incapable of resisting the temptation to depress Venetia’s imagined pretensions, so the dining-room rapidly became a battlefield on which (Venetia thought, with an irrepressible gleam of amusement) line inevitably demonstrated its superiority to column. Unable to counter Aubrey’s elusive tactics, Mrs Scorrier attempted to give him a heavy set-down. Bringing her determined smile to bear on him she told him that no one would ever take him and Conway for brothers, so unlike were they. What unflattering comparisons she meant to draw remained undisclosed, for Aubrey instantly said, with a touch of anxiety: ‘No, I don’t think anyone could, do you, ma’am? He has the brawn of the family, I have the brain, and Venetia has the beauty.’
After this it was scarcely surprising that Mrs Scorrier rose from the table with her temper sadly exacerbated. When she disposed herself in a chair by the drawing-room fire there was a steely look in her eyes which made her daughter quake, but her evident intention of making herself extremely unpleasant was foiled by Venetia’s saying that since it behoved her to write two urgent letters she hoped Charlotte would forgive her if she left her until tea-time to the comfort of a quiet evening with only her mama for company. She then left the room, and went to join Aubrey in the library, saying, with deep feeling, as she entered that haven: ‘Devil!’
He grinned at her. ‘What odds will you lay me that I don’t rid the house of her within a se’ennight?’
‘None! It would be robbing you, for you won’t do it. And, indeed, love, you might consider Charlotte’s feelings a trifle! She may be a ninnyhammer, but she can’t help that, and her disposition, I am quite convinced, is perfectly amiable and obliging.’
‘So sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull, is what you mean to say!’
‘Well, at least the sweetness is something to be thankful for! Do you wish to use your desk? I must write to Aunt Hendred, and to Lady Denny, and I haven’t had the fires lit in the saloon, or the morning-room.’
‘You haven’t had them lit?’ he said pointedly.
‘If you don’t wish to see me fall into strong hysterics, be quiet!’ begged Venetia, seating herself at the big desk. ‘Oh, Aubrey, what a shocking pen! Do, pray, mend it for me!’
He took it from her, and picked up a small knife from the desk. As he pared the quill he said abruptly: ‘Are you writing to tell my aunt and the Dennys that Conway is married?’
‘Of course, and I do so much hope that with Lady Denny at least I shall be beforehand. My aunt is bound to read it in the Gazette – may already have done so, for that detestable woman tells me she sent in the notice before she left London! You’d think she might have waited a few days longer, after having done so for three months!’
He gave the pen back to her. ‘Conway wasn’t engaged to Clara Denny, was he?’
‘No – that is, certainly not openly! Lady Denny told me at the time that they were both of them too young, and that Sir John wouldn’t countenance an engagement until Conway was of age and Clara had come out, but there’s no doubt that he would have welcomed the match, and no doubt either that Clara thinks herself promised to Conway.’
‘What fools girls are!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Conway might have sold out when my father died, had he wished to! She must have known that!’
Venetia sighed. ‘You’d think so, but from something she once said to me I very much fear that she believed he remained with the Army because he thought it to be his duty to do so.’
‘Conway? Even Clara Denny couldn’t believe that moonshine!’
‘I assure you she could. And you must own that anyone might who was not particularly acquainted with him, for besides believing it himself, and always being able to think of admirable reasons for doing precisely what suits him best, he looks noble!’
He agreed to this, but said after a thoughtful moment: ‘Do I do that, m’dear?’
‘No, love,’ she replied cheerfully, opening the standish. ‘You merely do what suits you best, without troubling to look for a virtuous reason. That’s because you’re odiously conceited, and don’t care a button for what anyone thinks of you. Conway does.’
‘Well, I’d a deal rather be conceited than a hypocrite,’ said Aubrey, accepting this interpretation of his character with equanimity. ‘I must say I look forward to hearing what the reason was for this havey-cavey marriage. Come to think of it, what was the reason? Why the deuce didn’t he write to tell us? He knew he must tell us in the end! Too corkbrained by half!’
Venetia looked up from the letter she had begun to write. ‘Yes, that had me in a puzzle too,’ she admitted. ‘But I thought about it while I was dressing for dinner, and I fancy I have a pretty fair notion of how it was. And that is what makes me afraid that the news will come as a shocking blow to poor Clara. I think Conway did mean to offer for Clara. I don’t mean to say that he was still in that idiotish state which made him such a bore when he was last at home, but fond enough of her to think she would make him a very agreeable wife. What’s more, I should suppose that there had been an exchange of promises, however little the Dennys may have suspected it. If Conway thou
ght he was in honour bound to offer for Clara I see just why he never wrote to us.’
‘Well, I don’t!’
‘Good God, Aubrey, you know Conway! Whenever there’s a difficult task to be performed he will put off doing anything about it for as long as he possibly can! Only think how difficult it must have been to write to tell me that in the space of one furlough he had met, fallen in love with, and married a girl he never saw before in his life, and had jilted Clara into the bargain!’
‘Knew he’d made a cod’s head of himself. Yes, he wouldn’t like that,’ said Aubrey reflectively. ‘I suppose Charlotte was on the catch for him.’
‘Not she, but Mrs Scorrier most certainly – and had no intention of letting him slip through her fingers! She was responsible for that hasty marriage, not Conway – and I give her credit for being shrewd enough to guess that if she did not tie the knot then, the chances were that he would forget Charlotte in a month! And when it was done, I daresay he meant to write to me – not that day, but the next! And so it went on, just as when he put off for the whole of one holiday breaking it to Papa that he wished him to buy him a pair of colours, instead of sending him up to Oxford – yes, and in the end I had to speak to Papa, for Conway had gone back to Eton! On this occasion there was no one to act for him, and I haven’t the least doubt that he postponed writing until it must have seemed quite impossible to write at all. Perhaps he then persuaded himself that it would be better not to write, but to bring Charlotte home with him, trusting to chance or our pleasure at having him restored to us to make all right! Only Mrs Scorrier scotched that scheme, by quarrelling with some Colonel or other, and making things so awkward for Conway that he saw nothing for it but to be rid of her on any terms. You can’t doubt she would have kicked up a tremendous dust if he had tried to send her packing without Charlotte, and he would never face her doing that at Headquarters!’
‘So he sent Charlotte home with her,’ said Aubrey, his lips beginning to curl. ‘You were wrong, stoopid! There was someone to break the news for him! What a contemptible fellow he is!’
With this he stretched out a hand for the book that was lying open on a table, and immediately became absorbed in it, while Venetia, amused by his detachment and a little envious of it, dipped her pen in the ink again, and resumed her letter to Mrs Hendred.
Twelve
Venetia awoke on the following morning conscious of a feeling of oppression which was not lightened by the discovery, presently, that her sole companion at the breakfast-table was Mrs Scorrier, Charlotte being still in bed, and Aubrey having told Ribble to bring him some coffee and bread-and-butter to the library. Mrs Scorrier greeted her with determined affability, but roused in her a surge of unaccustomed wrath by inviting her to say whether she liked cream in her coffee. For a moment she could not trust herself to answer, but she managed to overcome what she told herself was disproportionate fury, and replied that Mrs Scorrier must not trouble to wait on her. Mrs Scorrier, momentarily quelled by the sudden fire in those usually smiling eyes, did not persist, but embarked on an effusive panegyric which embraced the bed she had slept in, the view from her window, and the absence of all street noises. Venetia responded civilly enough, but when Mrs Scorrier expressed astonishment that she should permit Aubrey to eat his breakfast when and where it pleased him, the tone in which she replied: ‘Indeed, ma’am?’ was discouraging in the extreme.
‘Perhaps I am old-fashioned,’ said Mrs Scorrier, ‘but I believe in strict punctuality. However, I can well understand that you must have found the poor boy a difficult charge. When Sir Conway comes home, no doubt he will know how to manage him.’
That made Venetia laugh. ‘My dear Mrs Scorrier, you speak as if Aubrey were a child! He will soon be seventeen, and since he has managed himself for years it would be quite useless to interfere with him now. To do Conway justice, he wouldn’t attempt to.’
‘As to that, Miss Lanyon, I shall venture to say that I should be greatly astonished if Sir Conway permitted Aubrey to order meals to be sent to him on trays without so much as a by your leave, now that Undershaw has a mistress, for it is not at all the thing. You will forgive my plain speaking, I am sure!’
‘Certainly I will, ma’am, for it enables me to do a little plain speaking myself!’ promptly replied Venetia. ‘Pray abandon any notion you may have of trying to reform Aubrey, for neither you nor your daughter has the smallest right to meddle in his affairs! They are his own concern, and, to some extent, mine.’
‘Indeed! I seem to have been strangely misinformed, then, since I believed him to be Sir Conway’s ward!’
‘No, you have not been misinformed, but Conway would be the first to tell you to leave Aubrey to me. It is only right that I should warn you, ma’am, that while Conway deeply pities Aubrey for his physical disability he stands in absurd awe of his mental superiority. Furthermore, although he has many faults, he is not only excessively good-natured, but has a sort of chivalry besides, which would make it impossible for him to be anything but indulgent – perhaps foolishly! – were Aubrey ten times as vexatious as he is! That is all I have to say, ma’am, and I hope you will forgive my plain speaking as I have forgiven yours. Pray excuse me if I leave you now. I have a good deal to do this morning. I have desired Mrs Gurnard to hold herself at Charlotte’s disposal: will you be so good as to tell Charlotte that she has only to send a message to the housekeeper’s room when she is ready?’
She left the parlour without giving Mrs Scorrier time to answer her, but although she knew that Powick must already be awaiting her in the estate-room she did not join him there for some twenty minutes. She was dismayed to find herself so much shaken by her anger: before she could face the bailiff without betraying to him her agitation a period of quiet reflection was necessary. This enabled her to regain command over herself, but in no way helped her to regard the immediate future with anything but foreboding. She blamed herself for having allowed Mrs Scorrier to goad her into retort, yet felt that sooner or later she must have been forced into taking a stand against a woman whose passion for mastery must, if unchecked, set the whole household by the ears. She entertained no hope that Mrs Scorrier would not bear malice: she had seen implacable enmity in that lady’s eyes, and knew that she would lose no opportunity now to hurt and to annoy.
It was past noon when she left Powick. A morning spent in the company of that dour and phlegmatic Yorkshireman did more to restore the balance of her mind than any amount of reflection, be it never so calm; and the study of accounts exercised over her much the same sobering effect as did the study of Plato over Aubrey.
There was no sign of Charlotte or her mother in the main part of the house, but Ribble, coming into the hall just as Venetia was about to go out into the garden, disclosed that both of these ladies were inspecting the kitchen-wing, under the guidance of Mrs Gurnard. He gave Venetia a sealed billet, which the undergroom sent over to Ebbersley earlier in the day had brought back with him; and waited while Venetia read its message. It was short, a mere acknowledgement of her own letter, but written in affectionate terms. Lady Denny would not keep the messenger waiting, but begged Venetia to come to Ebbersley as soon as might be. She added in a postscript that she was busy packing for Oswald, who was leaving Ebbersley on the following day, to visit his uncle, in Rutlandshire.
Venetia looked up, and met Ribble’s eyes, fixed anxiously on her countenance. For a moment she did not speak, but presently she said ruefully: ‘I know, Ribble, I know! We are in the suds – but we shall come about!’
‘I trust so, miss,’ he said, with a deep sigh.
She smiled at him. ‘Have you fallen under her displeasure? So have I, I promise you!’
‘Yes, miss – as I ventured to say to Mrs Gurnard. If she had heard the things I have heard she would know where the blow has fallen hardest. If I may say so, it was as much as I could do, last night, to keep from boiling over! Oh, Miss Venetia, what can have come over Sir Con
way? Undershaw won’t ever be the same again!’
‘Yes, it will, Ribble: indeed it will!’ she said. ‘Only wait until Conway comes home! To you I needn’t scruple to own that we are in bad loaf, and Mrs Scorrier a detestable woman, but I believe – oh, I am certain! – that you will very soon grow to be as fond of Lady Lanyon as – as you are of me!’
‘No, miss, that couldn’t be. Things will be very different at Undershaw, and I fancy her ladyship will be wishful to make changes. Very understandable, I’m sure. I’m not as young as I was, and I don’t deny it, and if her ladyship feels that –’
She interrupted quickly: ‘She does not! Yes, I know exactly what you are about to tell me, and a great goose you are! How can you suppose that my brother could ever wish for another butler in place of our dear, kind Ribble?’
‘Thank you, miss: you’re very good!’ he said, a little tremulously. ‘But we were hoping, Mrs Gurnard and I, that if you are meaning to set up your own establishment, with Master Aubrey, like you always said you would, you might like us to go with you, which we would be very pleased to do.’
She was a good deal moved, but she said in a rallying tone: ‘Oh, no, no! How could they manage at Undershaw without you? How could I be so shocking as to steal you from my brother? I won’t think of such a thing! And however happy I might be in such circumstances, you would be wretched, away from Undershaw. I know that, and you know it too.’
‘Yes, miss, and indeed I never thought to leave it, nor Mrs Gurnard neither, but we don’t feel we could stay, not with Mrs Scorrier. Nor we don’t feel that – Well, miss, to speak plainly to you, if you’ll pardon the liberty, anyone can see which way the wind’s blowing, and we wouldn’t wish to be turned off with a Scarborough warning, not at our time of life, and that’s what might happen, before ever Sir Conway shows his front, as he would say. I’m too old to learn new ways, and when it comes to being told I’m not to take orders from Master Aubrey without her ladyship agrees to it – well, miss, one of these days I won’t be able to keep the words from my tongue, and that, I know well, is just what that Mrs Scorrier hopes for, so that she can work on her ladyship to send me packing!’