Venetia Page 27

  Hers was not a demonstrative nature, and she indulged in no flood of tears, or fits of lethargic abstraction. Only the stricken look in her eyes sometimes betrayed her, and made her aunt uneasy.

  On the whole, she dealt very agreeably with Mrs Hendred, and Mrs Hendred was well pleased with her. She was an attentive companion; she dressed in admirable taste; her manners were graceful; and instead of being awkward and tongue-tied amongst strangers, as might have been expected, she was perfectly assured, and could converse as easily with a clever man as with a stupid one.

  Mrs Hendred had only one fault to find with her behaviour, and that was her incurable independence. Nothing could persuade her that it was unbecoming in her to think she could manage her life without reference to her seniors, and positively improper of her to walk about London by herself. In almost every other respect Venetia was ready to oblige her, and even to defer to her judgment, but relinquish her freedom she would not. She went shopping alone; she walked alone in the parks; and no sooner did she discover that her aunt visited historic monuments only with extreme reluctance, and was interested in no pictures but those which were painted by fashionable artists, than she formed the appalling habit of sallying forth in the afternoon, while Mrs Hendred recruited her forces with a peaceful nap on her bed, and driving off in a hack to such places as Westminster Abbey, or the Tower of London, or even to the British Museum.

  ‘Which, setting aside every other consideration,’ said Mrs Hendred tragically, ‘is enough to make everyone think you a bluestocking! Nothing could be more fatal!’

  This conversation took place at the nuncheon table, and Venetia, who had been watching in great astonishment the extraordinary grimaces her aunt made every time she took a sip of wine, exclaimed: ‘My dear ma’am, are you sure there is not something wrong with that sherry you are drinking?’

  As she spoke she chanced to glance at the butler. He was a wooden-faced individual, but at Venetia’s words he betrayed a quiver of emotion. This was immediately explained by Mrs Hendred, who said, with a heavy sigh: ‘Not sherry, dearest: vinegar!’

  ‘Vinegar?’ repeated Venetia incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ nodded her aunt, eyeing it despondently. ‘Bradpole has been obliged to let out my lavender satin – the one with the French bodice, and the train with French double trimming, and lace net all round the neck – two inches! I am obliged to reduce, and there is nothing like vinegar for that. Vinegar and hard biscuits. Byron lived on that diet, you know, because he had a great tendency to put on flesh, and in that way he kept himself down.’

  ‘I wonder that he didn’t kill himself! Aunt, he cannot have subsisted on such a diet!’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so,’ agreed Mrs Hendred, ‘but I know it’s what Rogers told me. The very first time he dined with Rogers he would partake of none of the dishes set before him, but only ate hard biscuits – or was it potatoes? I am not perfectly sure about that, but I know that he had vinegar.’

  ‘Not to drink!’ protested Venetia.

  ‘Well, he couldn’t have eaten it, so he must have drunk it!’ pointed out Mrs Hendred reasonably.

  ‘Perhaps he poured it over what he did eat. He would have been shockingly ill if he had drunk it by the glassful!’

  ‘Do you think that is what I should do?’ asked Mrs Hendred, somewhat dubiously considering the ratafia cream on her plate.

  ‘Most certainly I do not!’ said Venetia, laughing. ‘Do, pray, let Worting take it away, dear ma’am!’

  ‘I must say, I think it would quite ruin this cream. Perhaps it will do as well if I take care to eat a biscuit. Worting, you may hand me the cream again, and then you may go, for I shan’t need anything more, except the macaroons, and those you may leave on the table. My love, I wish you will take one, for they are exceptionally good, and you have hardly eaten a morsel!’

  To oblige her, Venetia took a macaroon and sat nibbling it while her aunt returned to the task of persuading her that solitary expeditions must never be undertaken by young ladies of ton. Venetia let her run on in her discursive way, for she could not tell her that she went sightseeing in a dogged attempt to occupy her mind, any more than she could tell her that she was never alone, because a ghost walked beside her, soundless and invisible, yet so real that she felt sometimes that if she stretched out her hand it would find his.

  ‘…and it is so particularly important, my love, that you should behave with the utmost propriety!’ pursued Mrs Hendred.

  ‘Why?’ asked Venetia.

  ‘Every unmarried lady should do so, and in your situation, Venetia, you cannot be too careful what you do! My love, if you knew the world as I do, which of course you can’t be expected to, and I daresay you haven’t a notion how spiteful people can be, especially when a girl is so very handsome, and so exactly – I mean, so striking!’

  ‘Well, I don’t think anyone can say anything very spiteful about me only because I go out alone,’ replied Venetia. ‘Nothing that I care for, at all events.’

  ‘Oh, Venetia, I do beg of you not to talk in that style! Only think how dreadful if you caused people to say you were fast! You may depend upon it they are on the watch for the least sign, and will be ready to pounce on you, and one can’t wonder at it, after all! I daresay I should myself, not, of course, on you, dear child, but in another girl in your situation!’

  ‘But what is there in my situation to make people ready to pounce on me?’ asked Venetia.

  ‘Oh dear, I wish you will not – You quite put me out! Your living with only Aubrey, I mean, with no chaperon, and – good gracious, Venetia, even you must know that it is not at all the thing!’

  ‘I don’t, but I know better than to argue with you on that head, ma’am! I daresay there may be many who would agree with you, but how should anyone in London know what my situation has been? I am persuaded you can never have divulged it!’

  ‘No, no, indeed I never did! But – well, such things become known, I’m sure I don’t know how, but you may believe that they do!’

  But as Venetia found it impossible to believe that what happened at Undershaw could be known in London, she was quite unimpressed by her aunt’s dark warnings. Fortunately it was not difficult to divert Mrs Hendred’s mind, so instead of arguing with her she seized the first opportunity that offered of introducing a fresh topic of conversation, and said that she had overheard someone saying, in Hookham’s Library, that very morning, that he had had it on the best of authority that the Queen was not expected by her physicians to live out the week. As it was Mrs Hendred’s recurrent nightmare that her Majesty (whom everyone knew to be as tough as whitleather) would survive the winter, and ruin all Theresa’s chances by dying in the middle of the next season, this gambit was very successful; and in hoping, doubting, and wondering for how long a period the Court (and of course the ton) would go into mourning, Mrs Hendred forgot, for the time being, that she had failed to extract from her wilful niece any promise of conformity.

  The Queen died at Kew, in the small hours of the morning of the 17th November. Mr Hendred brought the news to his wife, and it did much to raise her spirits, sunk very low by the outrageous behaviour of her dressmaker, who had delivered in Cavendish Square, instead of a promised promenade dress, a prevaricating note full of excuses for having been unable to fulfil her obligation.

  The only fault Mrs Hendred had to find in the news was that the Queen should have chosen to die on the 17th instead of the 18th November, for the 17th was the day fixed for the ball she was giving in Venetia’s honour. Few thing could have been more provoking, for all the preparations had been made, and after having been put to so much exertion, arranging with the French cook about the supper, speaking to Worting about the champagne, deciding what she should wear, and showing Venetia how to direct the cards of invitation, it was a great deal too bad that it should all have been for nothing. However, after wondering what was to be done with the creams a
nd the aspics and the stuffed birds, she hit upon the happy notion of inviting a few of the guests bidden to the ball to come to dinner instead, quite informally, of course, and to spend a quiet, conversible evening, with perhaps a few rubbers of whist, but no music.

  ‘No more than half a-dozen persons; for any more would give it the appearance of a party,’ she told Venetia. ‘That would never do! My dear, that reminds me – black gloves! I daresay you have none, and they must be procured instantly! Black ribbons, too, and I think you should wear a high frock, not one cut low at the bosom – and I shall invite none of the young people. Just a few of my chiefest friends! What do you say to Sir Matthew Hallow? I daresay he would be charmed to dine here, and you like him, don’t you, my love?’

  ‘Yes, very much,’ replied Venetia absently.

  ‘He is a most excellent person: I knew you would be pleased with him, and he with you! He admires you excessively: I saw that at a glance!’

  ‘Well, as long as he doesn’t take to paying me fulsome compliments – which I don’t think he has the least intention of doing – he may admire me as much as he chooses,’ said Venetia depressingly.

  Mrs Hendred sighed, but said no more. Sir Matthew Hallow, though not quite the ideal man for Venetia, had much to recommend him, and she had been very glad to see how friendly he and Venetia had become. He was rather too old for her, perhaps, and it was a pity that he should be a widower, but he seemed to have taken her fancy, and although he was popularly supposed to have buried his heart in his wife’s grave there was no doubt that he was struck by Venetia’s good looks, and found her company agreeable.

  However, he was not the only possible husband Mrs Hendred had found for her niece, so she was not unduly cast-down by Venetia’s lack of enthusiasm. She decided that Mr Armyn also should be invited to dine: he knew all about Roman remains, or something of the sort, and might just suit a girl who spent three hours at the British Museum, and selected from the shelves of the lending library a book about the Middle Ages.

  Venetia seemed to like Mr Armyn: she said that he had a well-informed mind. She liked two other eligible bachelors, agreeing that one had very good address, and that the other was extremely gentlemanlike. Mrs Hendred felt a strong inclination to burst into tears, and would probably have done so had she known that Venetia had abandoned sightseeing, and was devoting each afternoon to house-hunting.

  She found it an exhausting and a dispiriting task, but she had been living for a full month with her aunt, and not only did she feel that a month constituted a very reasonable visit, but she was increasingly anxious to form her own establishment. Perhaps, if she could be busy all the time, as she meant to be, she might not feel so unhappy; perhaps, in household cares, she could forget her love, or grow at least accustomed to desolation, as Aubrey had grown accustomed to his limp.

  She returned one afternoon from one of these expeditions to be informed by the footman who admitted her into the house that a gentleman had called to visit her, and was sitting with Mrs Hendred in the drawing-room. She stood rooted, feeling her heart miss a beat.

  ‘A Mr Yardley, miss,’ said the footman.

  Seventeen

  Edward had come to London with a double purpose. He wished to consult a physician recommended to him by their good Huntspill – not that he believed there was any cause for alarm, but he could not deny that his cough still hung about him, which set his mother sadly on the fidgets; and so, upon Huntspill’s saying, in his testy way, that if she fancied there might be more amiss than he could discover she had best call in a physician from York, he had taken the resolve to consult a London physician instead. ‘And I fancy, my dear Venetia, I have no need to tell you why I preferred to do so, or what was my other purpose in visiting the metropolis!’ he said archly.

  ‘I am sorry you would not be quite recovered yet,’ she replied. ‘Is Mrs Yardley also in town?’

  No, he had come without his mama. She had had a great mind to accompany him, but he had thought that the journey would be too fatiguing for her, and so she had remained at Netherfold. He was putting up at Reddish’s, which had been recommended to him as a genteel hotel, though he had been surprised to find it so much larger than had been described to him. He feared the bill would make him open his eyes.

  ‘However, I daresay it will not ruin me, and when one goes on holiday, you know, it is permissible to be a little extravagant.’

  When Mrs Hendred left the room, which she very soon found an excuse to do, he told Venetia how happy he was to discover her in such comfortable circumstances. He had had no doubt of her aunt’s being a most estimable female, but he had not been able to feel easy in his mind until he should have seen for himself how she went on. He now perceived that she was living in the first style of elegance, no doubt in a regular whirl of fashionable dissipation! ‘Your aunt, I daresay, has a large circle of acquaintances. She entertains a great deal, I believe. You will have been meeting quite a crowd of new faces!’

  It was not difficult to see what was his real purpose in coming to London. Damerel he had not recognised to be a danger; but the unknown beaux and tulips of fashion, on whom he quizzed her, laughingly, yet watching her pretty sharply, might well dazzle the eyes of a country innocent.

  She interrupted his attempts to discover if this had indeed been the case, by asking him if he had seen Aubrey. His countenance became grave at once; he replied: ‘Yes, I have seen him. I knew you would wish for news of him, and so I rode over to the Priory – a little against my inclination, I must own, for Damerel is not a man with whom I should wish to stand on terms of more than common civility. That was a very awkward business, Venetia: I was excessively vexed when I heard of it! I wonder your uncle should not have invited Aubrey to come with you to town.’

  ‘He did invite him, but Aubrey didn’t wish to come. It wouldn’t have answered, you know. Is he well? Pray tell me how – how you found everything at the Priory! Aubrey is the wretchedest correspondent!’

  ‘Oh, he is very well! I need not tell you I found him with his nose in a book, and the desk all littered over with papers! I ventured to joke him about his barricades, as I called them. I assure you, if he had pulled one book from the shelves he had pulled a dozen. I told him that I wondered that anyone who cared as much as he does for books should leave them lying all over – on the floor, even! Does he never put away what he has done with?’

  ‘No, never. Did you tell him you were coming to London?’

  ‘Certainly – since that was my object in visiting him! I offered to be the bearer of any message, or letter, he might like to send you, but he was in one of his crotchety moods: you know his way whenever one tries just to give him a hint! He didn’t like my reminding him that they were not his own books on the floor, and so he wouldn’t entrust any message to me!’

  ‘Aubrey doesn’t recognise your authority, Edward. In fact, you are the only person to do so, and I wish you will remember that you have none.’

  ‘As to that – but it was no matter of authority! One would suppose that a boy of his age need not be above accepting a little friendly criticism!’

  ‘Well, not if one knows Aubrey!’ she retorted. ‘The truth is that you and he don’t deal well together.’

  ‘I shall dare to contradict you, my dear Venetia!’ he said, smiling. ‘The truth is that Master Aubrey is jealous, and hasn’t yet learned to overcome it. He’ll do so in time, particularly if one pays no heed to his miffs.’