Venetia Page 22

  Venetia rode over to Ebbersley to spend one day with Lady Denny, but although the respite from the frets and animosities at Undershaw did her good her visit was not one of unalloyed pleasure. One glance at Clara’s face was enough to confirm her in the belief that more had passed between her and Conway than her parents had suspected. So indeed she had now confessed, as Lady Denny presently disclosed to her young friend, in reluctant answer to a blunt question. ‘Yes, my dear, I am afraid you were right,’ she said. ‘But as for thinking that Conway was in any way bound to Clara, pray put such a notion out of your head! I need not tell you what were my feelings when I learned that a daughter of mine had behaved with such impropriety, and as for Sir John, I promise you I never saw him more confounded in my life! For, you know, my love, to be exchanging promises with a man without the consent or knowledge of her parents shows such a want of conduct as I had not thought it possible I could discover in Clara! Indeed, it is even worse, for Sir John had expressly forbidden any such exchanges, not because he would not have been very well pleased with the match, but because he judged them both to be too young to enter upon an engagement. If poor Clara had but realised then that her papa knew best, how much pain she would have been spared now! She is very sensible of how deeply she erred, so we don’t reproach her.’

  ‘Conway deserves to be flogged!’ exclaimed Venetia.

  ‘No, my dear, the fault was Clara’s, though I don’t deny that he did not behave just as he ought. But young men don’t take such affairs as seriously as you perhaps suppose, and of one thing you may be sure! he neither suggested nor attempted to carry on a clandestine correspondence with Clara!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am very sure of that!’ said Venetia. ‘Only to think I should live to be thankful he is an illiterate! I wish I might congratulate Clara upon her good fortune, but I collect she does not yet see what an escape she has had!’

  ‘No, and we have agreed amongst ourselves that it is a case of the least said the soonest mended. We think that a change of scene would benefit her, and have planned to send her on a visit to her grandmama. Oh dear, if one knew the trouble one’s children would be to one!’ sighed Lady Denny. ‘First it was Oswald, and now it is Clara, and next, depend upon it, it will be Emily!’

  ‘Dear ma’am, if you are imagining that there was anything more to Oswald’s fancy for me than a fit of boy’s nonsense I promise you there was not!’ said Venetia, with her usual frankness. ‘He certainly made a great goose of himself, but wrote me a very handsome apology, so that I am in perfect charity with him.’

  ‘It is like your sweet nature to say so, my love,’ replied Lady Denny, blinking rather rapidly, ‘but I know very well that he must have behaved most improperly to you, besides vexing Lord Damerel, the very thought of which quite dismayed me!’

  ‘Now, that I am very sure he did not!’ declared Venetia.

  ‘So Lord Damerel told Sir John,’ said her ladyship, with unabated gloom. ‘Sir John, chancing to meet him the other day, asked him to his head if Oswald had been causing him annoyance, and he replied immediately, Not at all! which convinced Sir John that it was only too true.’

  Venetia could not help laughing at this, but she assured her old friend that Oswald had rather amused than annoyed Damerel. Lady Denny remarked with some feeling that it was small comfort to know that one’s only son was setting up as a laughing-stock; but she did seem to derive some comfort from the knowledge, for she made a determined effort to overcome her despondency, and demanded from Venetia an account of the happenings at Undershaw. She was not deceived by the comical aspect which Venetia took care to stress, but expressed her opinion of Mrs Scorrier’s conduct in unusually forthright terms, and adjured Venetia not to hesitate, should that Creature become outrageous, to pack up her trunks and come at once to Ebbersley.

  ‘I shall pay Lady Lanyon a bride-visit, of course,’ she said, with quiet dignity. ‘Pray, my dear, present my compliments to her, and explain to her that I am prevented at the moment from giving myself the pleasure of making her acquaintance by the illness in my house. Would you believe it, Venetia! – Cook has thrown out a rash this very day!’

  On this calamitous note they parted; and it was not until she had waved goodbye to Venetia that Lady Denny realised that her more pressing troubles had driven all thought of Venetia’s unfortunate tendre for Damerel out of her head. She now recalled that the look of radiance had disappeared from that lovely face, and although she was sorry for the cause she could not but hope that the infatuation which had set the girl in a glow had been as brief as it was violent. Much as she desired to alleviate Venetia’s present unhappiness she would have been appalled by the knowledge that only the dangerous rake’s presence in the district enabled Venetia to support her trials with smiling fortitude.

  When she was with him the most galling vexation dwindled to a triviality; when she recounted to him Mrs Scorrier’s latest attack upon her position she perceived all at once that it was funny. She found it as natural to confide in him as in Aubrey, and, under her present circumstances, far less dangerous, since Aubrey was ripe for murder. There was no more need to warn Damerel not to betray, even to Aubrey, what she might have told him than there was to explain to him the thought that lay behind some ill-expressed utterance.

  He found her, late one afternoon, seated alone in the library, at Aubrey’s desk. She was not writing, but sitting with her hands rather tightly clasped on the desk, and her frowning gaze fixed on them in deep abstraction. She paid no heed at first to the opening of the door, which seemed not to penetrate her reverie, but after a moment or two, as though aware of the searching scrutiny bent on her, she looked up, and, seeing Damerel on the threshold, uttered an exclamation of surprise, her brow clearing, and a smile lighting her eyes. She had not been expecting him, for in general he came to Undershaw before noon, and she said, as she rose, and went towards him: ‘You, my dear friend! Oh, I am glad to see you! I fell a prey to blue devils, and needed you so much, to laugh them away! What brings you to us? I didn’t look for your today, for I recall that you told me you would be occupied with business.’

  He showed no disposition to laugh, but replied in rather a harsh tone: ‘You bring me! What is it, my dear delight?’

  She gave a tiny sigh, but shook her head, and looked up smilingly into his face. ‘Mere irritation of the nerves, perhaps. Never mind it! I’m better now.’

  ‘I do mind it.’ He had been holding both her hands, but he released one, and drew a finger lightly across her brow. ‘You mustn’t frown, Venetia. Never in my presence, at all events!’

  ‘Well, I won’t!’ she said obligingly. ‘Are you smoothing it away – stoopid?’

  ‘I wish I might! What has happened to bring the blue devils upon you?’

  ‘Nothing worth the trouble of mentioning to you, or that is not so commonplace as to be a dead bore! A battle royal with Mrs Gurnard, from which I fled in quaking terror, the cause of the dispute being a complaint against the laundry-maid. Perfectly just, I daresay, but the wretched girl is none other than Mrs Gurnard’s own niece!’

  ‘A Homeric encounter: you should have stayed to hymn it. That did not bring the frown to your brow.’

  ‘No. If I was frowning, it was in an effort to decide what were best for me to do. I don’t think, you see, that we shall be able to remain here, Aubrey and I, until December, and there seems to be little hope that Conway will be free to return until then.’

  ‘I have never thought you could do so. Tell me the result of your deliberations!’ He led her to the sofa as he spoke, and sat down beside her on it.

  ‘None, alas! No sooner do I think of a scheme than objections rear their ugly heads, and I’m back in the suds again. Do you care to advise me? You always give me such good advice, dear friend!’

  ‘If I do, I have the distinction of providing a living refutation of Dr Johnson’s maxim, that example is always more efficacious than precept,�
�� he said. ‘What’s your problem? I’ll do my best!’

  ‘It is just the problem of where to go, if I should decide to do so – bearing in mind that Aubrey will go with me, and must not be removed from Mr Appersett’s tuition. I’ve always said that when Conway was married I should form an establishment of my own, and had he become engaged, in the ordinary mode, I should immediately have formed my own arrangements, so that I might have left Undershaw before ever he brought his wife to it. The very few friends I have were aware that that was my intention, and would not have wondered at it. But as things have turned out the case is altered – or so it seems to me. What do you think?’

  ‘I agree that it is altered, in that if you were to leave Undershaw before your brother’s return it would be generally assumed, since it must be widely known that he entrusted the management of his estate to you, that you were driven from your home. Which would be the plain truth.’

  ‘Exactly so! And that circumstance makes it impossible for me to hire a house in this district.’

  ‘True – if you think you owe it to your brother to preserve appearances which he does not seem to set much store by!’

  ‘My dear friend, I have no such notion in my head, so don’t curl your lip at me so contemptuously!’

  ‘Not at you, simpleton!’

  ‘At Conway? Oh, by all means, then! The truth is that I owe him nothing.’

  ‘On the contrary!’

  ‘Not even that, if you mean that he owes anything to me. I accepted the charge he laid upon me because it suited me to do so. If I hadn’t had Aubrey to think of I shouldn’t have done it, any more than I should have remained here one day after I came of age.’

  ‘Then are you bent on protecting the fair name of Lanyon?’ he enquired.

  ‘Stuff! No, be serious, Damerel! you must know I don’t care a rush for fair names – witness my pleasure in your company! The scruple in my mind concerns Charlotte. Aubrey calls her sweetly mawkish, and so she is, but she doesn’t deserve to be made any more uncomfortable than she is already, poor little creature! Conway has done all he can to prejudice people against her, and for me to add the finishing touch to his work would be the outside of enough! She has done me no harm – indeed, she is morbidly anxious to defer to me! To such an extent that if Mrs Scorrier were hors concours I should infallibly take upon myself her rôle, and spend the better part of my time reminding Charlotte that she is now mistress at Undershaw! So if I leave Undershaw I must contrive to provide myself with an unexceptionable excuse for doing so, and I must not remain in this neighbourhood. I always meant to go to London, but that was looking ahead to when Aubrey will be at Cambridge. A whole year ahead, and what’s to be done during that period has me in a sad puzzle. There must be excellent tutors to be found in London, yet I doubt whether Aubrey –’

  ‘Leave Aubrey for a moment!’ he interrupted. ‘Before I favour you with my opinion of your scheme of setting up an establishment in London – or York – or Timbuktu – tell me something!’

  ‘Very well – but I haven’t asked you to give me your opinion of that!’ she objected.

  ‘You will have it, nevertheless. What has happened since I saw you last, Venetia, to overset you, and make you regard your removal from this place as a matter of sudden urgency?’ Her eyes lifted quickly to his; he smiled, in loving mockery, and added: ‘I don’t want any stories about housekeepers or laundry-maids, my girl, and if you think you can hoax me you will have to learn that you are mistaken! What has that devil’s daughter done?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing more than I told you. I never thought of hoaxing you, but only that I was perhaps refining too much upon something that was said – very likely with no other purpose than to vex me!’

  ‘And what was said?’

  She hesitated for a moment, before replying: ‘It concerned Aubrey. Mrs Scorrier dislikes him quite as much as she dislikes me, I fancy – and I must own that he gives her good reason to do so! He is like a particularly malevolent wasp, which, do what you will, continually eludes your efforts to slay it. She brought it on herself, by being spiteful to me, but I’m not excusing him: he should not do it – it is most improper conduct!’

  ‘Oh, confound the boy!’ Damerel exclaimed, in quick exasperation. ‘I hoped I had scotched that pastime!’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Did you tell him he must not?’

  ‘No: merely that what he regarded as an agreeable form of relaxation exposes you to the full blast of that woman’s malice.’

  ‘Then that accounts for it! You did scotch it, and I am truly grateful! During these past two days he has scarcely opened his lips in her presence. But either the mischief is done, or she resents his shutting himself up in his room, and joining us only at dinnertime – with a Greek chorus ringing so loudly in his ears that you may speak his name half-a-dozen times before he hears you! She can’t comprehend that, thinks he does it to be uncivil. Charlotte doesn’t like him either, but that’s because he says things she doesn’t understand, which makes her afraid of him. Unfortunately – she is embarrassed by his lameness, and always looks away when he gets up from his chair, or walks across the room.’

  ‘I noticed that she did so when I met you in the park that day, and hoped she would speedily rid herself of the habit!’

  ‘I think she tries to. But the thing is that it has provided Mrs Scorrier with a pretext for saying what, I own, has quite sunk my spirits. She told me that Charlotte has a horror of deformity, which makes her wish that just now, when she is in a delicate situation, it might have been possible for Aubrey to visit friends. She did not phrase it as plainly as that, and perhaps I have allowed myself to be stupidly apprehensive.’

  His countenance had darkened; he said in an altered voice: ‘No. Far from it! If she was capable of saying that to you I would not bet a groat on the chance that she won’t say it to Aubrey himself, the first time he puts her in a rage.’

  ‘That is what I’m afraid of, but could anyone be so infamously cruel?’

  ‘Oh, lord, yes! This vixen, I daresay, would not, in cold blood, but I told you before, my innocent, that you are unacquainted with her sort. Women of unbridled passions are capable de tout! Let them but lose their tempers and they will say, and afterwards find excuse for, what, on another’s lips, they would condemn with sincere loathing!’ He paused, scanning her face with eyes grown suddenly hard and frowning. ‘What else has she said to you?’ he demanded abruptly. ‘You had much better tell me, you know!’

  ‘Well, so I would, but surely you can’t wish me to repeat to you a list of malicious nothings?’

  ‘No: spare me! That fling at Aubrey was all?’

  ‘It was enough! Damerel, if you knew what tortures of self-hatred have been endured – never mentioned, only to be guessed at! – the shrinking from strangers, the dread of pity or such revulsion as Charlotte tries to hide –’

  He broke in on her agitation, saying: ‘I do know. I think it unlikely that this woman would sink so low, unless offered extraordinary provocation, but the boy is abnormally sensitive. Shall I take him off your hands? I’ve told him already that he may remove to the Priory whenever he chooses. His reply was inelegant, but certainly did him credit. He was much inclined to snap my nose off: demanded if I was in all seriousness inviting him to run sly, leaving you to stand the shock! It seemed scarcely the moment to suggest to him that the shock would be less if he did run sly, but I can still do so, and will, if you tell me to. The only difficulty will be to conceal from him the real cause, and I expect I could overcome that.’

  She put out her hand, almost unconsciously, saying playfully, to hide her deeper feeling: ‘What a good friend you are, Wicked Baron! Where should we be in this pass without you? I know I might, if the worst came to the worst, send Aubrey to you. That thought, I promise you, saved me from distraction! In emergency I shouldn’t hesitate – were you ever before so scandal
ously imposed on? – but there’s no emergency yet – may never be, if Aubrey will but shut his ears to the things that are said merely to vex and sting. I don’t mean to impose on you unless I must!’

  His hand had closed on hers, and he was still holding it, but in a clasp that struck her as being curiously rigid. She glanced enquiringly at him, and saw a strange look in his eyes, and about his mouth the bitter sneer that mocked himself. She must have betrayed bewilderment in her face, for the sneer vanished, he smiled, and said lightly, as he released her hand: ‘I defy anyone to impose on me! I should be glad to have Aubrey at the Priory. I like the boy, and certainly don’t consider him a charge, if that’s what’s in your mind. No one could accuse him of being a difficult guest to entertain! Let him come to me when you choose, and remain for as long as may suit you both!’

  ‘Thus positively conferring a favour on you!’ she said, laughing. ‘Thank you! It would not, I think, be for very long. Lady Denny tells me that Sir John has heard from Mr Appersett that he means to return to us before the middle of next month. I suspect his cousin – who was so obliging as to offer to exchange with him after his illness – has no great fancy to spend the winter in Yorkshire! Mr Appersett told me years ago that if ever I should wish to go away for a time he would readily give Aubrey houseroom.’

  ‘Then, Aubrey’s affairs being satisfactorily arranged, we will turn to your own, Admir’d Venetia! Are you serious when you talk of setting up your own establishment?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am!’

  ‘Then it is time someone took order to you!’ he said grimly. ‘Leave nursery-dreams, and come to earth, my dear! It is not possible!’

  ‘But it is perfectly possible! Don’t you know that I’m mistress of what Mr Mytchett – he is our lawyer, and one of my trustees – calls a considerable independence?’