‘I’ve no doubt!’ Damerel interrupted wrathfully.
‘– and so do I wish it,’ continued Venetia serenely, ‘for my own father I didn’t like half as well!’
‘Do you mean to tell me,’ demanded Damerel, ‘that your aunt had no more gumption than to permit you to do what any but a greenhead would have known was enough to set every gossiping tongue wagging? Oh, my God!’
‘You must meet my aunt,’ said Venetia. ‘I am persuaded you would deal wonderfully together, for I see you have exactly the same notions! Do you know, it had me quite in a puzzle – before I knew about my mother, I mean – to understand why Aunt was for ever telling me that I must be excessively correct and prim, because of my circumstances? And though she was bent on finding me a respectable husband I could see that she thought it would be a very hard task. It seemed odd to me, for I’m not an antidote, and I’m not by any means penniless. I saw how it was, of course, when I learned the truth about Mama. I must own, Damerel, that I wish you had been frank with me – but I daresay you felt you could not.’ She added reflectively: ‘No, to be sure you couldn’t! It was a most awkward fix to be in!’
‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ Damerel shot at her, in a voice ominous enough to cause any female to quail.
Venetia showed him a face of sweet innocence. ‘Why, only that I do understand how very difficult – quite impossible, in fact! – it was for you to explain that for a Damerel to marry a daughter of Lady Steeple would never do. I think now that you did try, once or twice, to give me a hint, but –’
‘Tried to – How dare you?’ he said furiously. ‘How dare you, Venetia? If you imagine that I let you go because I thought you beneath my touch –’
‘But that must have been the reason!’ she objected. ‘I know you bamboozled me into believing that it was you who were beneath my touch, and that was kind, and very like you, my dear friend – but perfectly absurd, now that I know how shockingly ineligible I am!’
He half started up from his chair. She thought she was going to be seized, and, probably, well shaken, and waited hopefully. But he sank back again, and although he eyed her bodingly she saw that the wrath had vanished from his eyes. ‘You don’t think anything of the sort, my girl,’ he said dryly. ‘Whether your aunt – who sounds to me to be a confirmed ninnyhammer! – put it into your head that your parents’ divorce makes you ineligible, or whether it’s a notion you’ve hatched for my benefit, I know not, but you may now listen to me – and believe that I am speaking the truth! There’s no man worthy to be called a man at all, who, knowing you, and loving you, would care a tinker’s damn for that fustian nonsense! Ask your uncle, if you think I’m lying to you! He’ll tell you the same. Good God, do you imagine that no one was ever divorced before? Anyone would suppose your mother to have joined the muslin company who heard you talk such moonshine, instead of which she has been married to Steeple these fifteen years!’
‘Well, I must say that that takes quite a load from my mind,’ Venetia told him gratefully. ‘And it brings me to the reason why I came home. I knew you would be able to advise me! Of course, Aubrey is the chief person I must consult, but he isn’t old enough to be able to advise me. Damerel, I have received an offer, and I am not perfectly sure whether I should accept it, or not. It’s not what I wish for, but I think I should prefer it to living alone – wasting my life, you called that, and perhaps you were right.’
He said in a hard voice, and rather hastily: ‘If this offer comes from Yardley, I can’t advise you! I should have said – the last man alive to – But you know best what will suit you!’
‘From Edward? Good gracious, no! How could you think it possible I should want advice about an offer from him?’
‘I don’t – that is, I know he followed you to London. He came here to tell Aubrey. I didn’t see him.’
‘He did follow me to London,’ agreed Venetia. She heaved a mournful sigh. ‘He has been mistaken in my character, however, and I daresay he is even now on his way back to Netherfold. It is a very lowering thought, but I’ve been as good as jilted, Damerel! I expect, in the end, he will offer for Clara Denny.’
‘Is this another attempt to hoax me?’
‘No, no! You see, he does care about divorce, and although, after struggling against his judgment for several years, he yielded to his infatuation, believing me to have delicacy, under my levity –’
‘Venetia, even Yardley could not talk like that!’ he protested, his lip quivering.
Her laughter bubbled over. ‘But he did, I promise you! He was strongly of the opinion that I should give my mama the go-by, you see, and – and he took the most unaccountable dislike to Sir Lambert!’
‘Oh, he did, did he?’ retorted Damerel, regarding her with grim appreciation. ‘He’s an insufferable coxcomb, but as for you, fair torment – !’
‘Well, I see nothing to take exception to in Sir Lambert!’ she declared. ‘Only wait until you learn how very kind he is! You see, the offer I spoke of was from Mama!’
‘What?’
‘I don’t wonder you are astonished: I was myself – but so very much touched! Only think, Damerel! She invites me to go back with them both to Paris, and to remain with them for as long as I like – and with Sir Lambert’s full approval! I own, I can’t help but be tempted: I have always longed to travel, you know, and Mama talks of going to Italy in the spring. Italy! I don’t think I can resist!’
‘Venetia, you are doing it very much too brown!’ he said, breaking in on this without ceremony. ‘I know your mama! She would no more invite you to take up residence in her hôtel than she would shave off her eyebrows!’
Quite prepared for this scepticism, Venetia said anxiously: ‘Oh, Damerel, do you think she didn’t mean it after all?’
‘I think she never so much as dreamed of inviting you to visit her, my love!’
‘But she did!’ Venetia assured him. ‘It was because I told her of my scheme to set up house with Aubrey. She was quite as horrified as ever you were, and said I might as well bury myself. She says it wouldn’t do for me to live with her in England, but that abroad people are not so strait-laced, so that – But read her letter for yourself!’
Looking thunderstruck, he took the letter she had extracted from her reticule, and spread it open. He cast her a suspicious glance, and then lowered his eyes to Lady Steeple’s charmingly written missive. He read it, heavily frowning, twice, before he again looked at Venetia. He was still suspicious, but she could see that he was shaken. ‘Venetia, how the devil did you persuade her to write this?’ he asked.
‘Well, you see what persuaded her to write it!’
‘That is exactly what I do not see! Aurelia Steeple in a fret because you told her – Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Venetia, don’t ask me to swallow that fling! I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but if this isn’t a hoax I hope you know that under no circumstances must you join that ménage!’
She said apologetically: ‘No, I fear I don’t. I see that it wouldn’t be a wise thing to do if my ambition were to become one of those tonnish females whom my aunt describes as being of the first consideration, but as it isn’t –’
‘Stop talking like the greenhead you are!’ he said sternly. ‘You know nothing about the Steeples’ world! Well, I do know – none better! – and if I thought that this was anything but a hum –’ He stopped abruptly, raising his head a little.
‘Well?’ she prompted.
He lifted his finger, and she too heard the sound that had reached his ears. A carriage was approaching the house. ‘Aubrey!’ Damerel said. His eyes went back to her face. ‘What reason do you mean to give him for being here? You won’t regale him with this!’ He handed back Lady Steeple’s letter to her as he spoke.
She was wishing Aubrey a hundred miles away, and could have screamed with vexation, but she replied with seeming calm: ‘But, my dear friend, I couldn’t
take such a step without first discovering what his sentiments are!’
‘If that is all –’
She smiled. ‘His sentiments, Damerel, not his opinions! For anything I know he might prefer to lodge with the Appersetts than to join me in London.’ Her smile wavered. ‘I don’t think I am very necessary to him either,’ she said.
He was on his feet now, standing over her, grasping her wrists, and almost jerking her up out of her chair. ‘Venetia, I would give my life to spare you pain – disillusionment – all the things you don’t realise – have no knowledge of! – My life! What an empty, fustian thing to say! I could scarcely have hit upon a more worthless sacrifice!’ he said bitterly.
There was a murmur of voices in the hall, footsteps were approaching. ‘Damn Aubrey!’ Damerel said under his breath, releasing Venetia’s wrists.
But it was not Aubrey. Setting the door wide, Imber announced in a voice of doom: ‘Mr Hendred, my lord!’
Twenty-one
Mr Hendred walked into the room. He was looking pale, tired, and very angry; and after bestowing one brief glance on Venetia he addressed himself stiffly to Damerel. ‘Good-evening! You must allow me to apologise for making so belated an arrival! I do not doubt, however, that you were expecting to see me!’
‘Well, I suppose I ought to have done so, at all events,’ replied Damerel. ‘You have quite a knack of arriving in what might be called the nick of time, haven’t you? Have you dined?’
Mr Hendred shuddered, momentarily closing his eyes. ‘No, sir, I have not dined! Nor, I may add –’
‘Then you must be devilish sharp-set!’ said Damerel curtly. ‘See to it, Imber!’
An expression of acute nausea crossed Mr Hendred’s countenance, but before he could master his spleen enough to decline, with civility, this offer of hospitality, Venetia, less charitable emotions vanquished by compassion, started forward, saying: ‘No, no! My uncle can never eat when he has been travelling all day! Oh, my dear sir, what can have possessed you to have come chasing after me in this imprudent way? I wouldn’t have had you do such a thing for the world! So unnecessary! So foolish! You will be quite knocked-up!’
‘Foolish?’ repeated Mr Hendred. ‘I reached London last night, Venetia, to be met with the intelligence that you had left town by the mail-coach, with the expressed intention of coming to this house – where, indeed, I find you! So far as I can discover, you took this disastrous step because of a quarrel with your aunt – and I must say, Venetia, that I credited you with too much sense to refine anything whatsoever on what your aunt may have said in a distempered freak!’
‘My dear, dear uncle, of course I didn’t!’ Venetia said remorsefully, coaxing him to a chair. ‘Do, pray, sit down, for I know very well you are fagged to death, and have that horrid tic! There was no quarrel, I promise you! My poor aunt was quite overset by first seeing my mother at the theatre, and then discovering that I had been so ungrateful as to make a mull of her efforts to bring me into fashion by walking on my father-in-law’s arm all the way from the Pulteney Hotel to Oxford Street. She gave me a rare scold, and I didn’t blame her in the least: I knew she would! But as for leaving town because of it, or parting from her in anger – Sir, she cannot have told you that! She knew what my reason was: I made no secret of it to her!’
‘Your aunt,’ said Mr Hendred, expressing himself with determined restraint, ‘is a woman of great sensibility, and is subject, as you must be aware, to irritation of the nerves! When her spirits become overpowered, it is hard for her to compose herself sufficiently to render a coherent or even a rational account of whatever may have occurred to cast her into affliction. In fact,’ he ended, with asperity, ‘you cannot make head or tail of anything she says! As for knowing what your reason was, I don’t know what you may have seen fit to tell her, Venetia, but so far as I understand it you could think of nothing better to do than to beguile her with some farrago about wishing Damerel to strew rose-leaves for you to walk on!’
Damerel, who had resumed his seat, had been staring moodily into the fire, but at these words he looked up quickly. ‘Rose-leaves?’ he repeated. ‘Rose-leaves?’ His eyes went to Venetia’s face, wickedly quizzing her. ‘But, my dear girl, at this season?’
‘Be quiet, you wretch!’ she said, blushing.
‘Exactly so!’ said Mr Hendred. Scrupulously exact, he added: ‘Or her purpose may have been to discourage you from indulging in such wasteful habits. I was unable to discover which – not that it signifies, for a more foolish story I never heard! What you told your aunt is of no consequence. What is of the first consequence to me is that you, my dear niece, a girl – and do not tell me that you are of age, I beg of you! – a girl, I say, residing in my house, under my protection, should have been allowed to run off, unattended, and with the expressed intention of seeking shelter under this of all imaginable roofs! And you call it foolish and unnecessary of me to exert myself to prevent your ruin and my own mortification?’
‘No, no!’ she said soothingly. ‘But are you not forgetting that I have a brother living under this roof, sir? I told your servants that I had been sent for because he was ill, and surely –’
‘I have neither forgotten Aubrey, nor am I here to lend you countenance!’ he interposed sternly. ‘I am here, as well you must know, to save you from committing an act of irremediable folly! I make no excuse, Damerel, for speaking thus plainly, for you already know my mind!’
‘By all means say what you choose,’ shrugged Damerel. ‘We are perfectly in accord, after all!’
Venetia, watching her uncle press his finger-tips to one temple, rose, and went quietly out of the room. She was not absent for many minutes, but when she returned her uncle told her that he had been discussing with Damerel her visit to the Steeples. ‘I have no hesitation in assuring, you, my dear niece, that what his lordship has already told you is perfectly true. No stigma whatsoever attaches to you, and although any regular intercourse between you and Sir Lambert and Lady Steeple would be most undesirable, nothing could be more unbecoming – I may say improper – than for a daughter to cut her mother’s acquaintance! I do not conceal from you that on that painful subject I have never found myself in agreement, either with your aunt, or with your late parent. In my opinion, the policy of secrecy which was insisted on was as ill-judged as it was absurd!’
‘Very true!’ said Venetia. She looked from one to the other, a smile in her eyes. ‘What else have you discussed? Have you settled between you what my future is to be? Or shall I tell you what I have settled?’
Mr Hendred, seeing that smile reflected in Damerel’s eyes, said quickly: ‘Venetia, I beg you will consider before you do what I gravely fear you cannot but regret! You think me unfeeling, but believe me, it is not so! I think it my duty to tell you, however – and I trust your lordship will forgive me! – that no more unsuitable marriage than the one you contemplate could well be imagined!’
‘My dear uncle, how can you talk in such an exaggerated fashion?’ Venetia protested. ‘Do but recollect a little! Damerel may be a rake, but at least he won’t turn out to be my father!’
‘Turn out to be your father?’ repeated Mr Hendred, in a stupefied tone. ‘What, in heaven’s name – ?’
Damerel’s shoulders had begun to shake. ‘Oedipus,’ he said. ‘At least, so I apprehend, but she has become a trifle confused. What she means is that she won’t turn out to be my mother.’
‘Well, it is the same thing, Damerel!’ said Venetia, impatient of such pedantry. ‘Just as unsuitable!’
‘You will oblige me, Venetia,’ said Mr Hendred acidly, ‘by abandoning a subject which I consider to be extremely improper. I may say that I am excessively shocked to think that Aubrey – for I collect it was he! – should have sullied his sister’s ears with such a story!’
‘But you must surely see, sir, that Damerel isn’t in the least shocked!’ she pointed out. ‘Doesn’t that circumstan
ce help you to understand why he would be the most suitable of all imaginable husbands for me?’
‘No, it does not!’ replied Mr Hendred roundly. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know how to bring you to your senses! You appear to me to be living in a – in a –’
‘Soap-bubble,’ supplied Damerel.
‘Yes, very well! a soap-bubble!’ snapped Mr Hendred. ‘You have fallen in love for the first time in your life, Venetia, and in your eyes Damerel is some sort of a hero out of a fairy-tale!’
She went into a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, no, he is not!’ she exclaimed. ‘Dear sir, how can you suppose me to be such a goose? If that pretty soap-bubble image was meant to signify that a dreadful disillusionment is in store for me, I can assure you that you may be easy!’
‘You compel me to be blunt – and a very distasteful task it is! Damerel may have the intention of reforming his way of life, but habits of long standing – the trend of a man’s character – are not easily altered! I have a considerable regard for you, Venetia, and it would cause me distress and self-blame if I saw you made unhappy!’
She looked at Damerel. ‘Well, my dear friend?’
‘Well, my dear delight?’ he returned, a glint in his eyes.
‘Do you think you will make me unhappy?’
‘I don’t – but I will offer you no promises!’
‘No, pray don’t!’ she said seriously. ‘As soon as one promises not to do something it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do!’ She turned her head towards her uncle again. ‘You mean to warn me that he may continue to have mistresses, and orgies, and – and so-on, don’t you, sir?’
‘Particularly so-on!’ interpolated Damerel.
‘Well, how should I know all the shocking things you do? The thing is, uncle, that I don’t think I ever should know.’
‘You’d know about my orgies!’ objected Damerel.
‘Yes, but I shouldn’t care about them, once in a while. After all, it would be quite unreasonable to wish you to change all your habits, and I can always retire to bed, can’t I?’