Venetia Read online

  ‘Do you think him so clever?’ asked Edward, rather surprised. ‘For my part I have often thought him lacking even in commonsense. But I myself am not at all bookish.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think he has any commonsense at all!’ returned Damerel.

  ‘I confess I consider it a pity he had not enough to refrain from riding a horse he could not master,’ said Edward, with a slight smile. ‘I warned him how it would be when I first set eyes on that chestnut. Indeed, I begged him most earnestly not to make the attempt.’

  ‘Did you?’ said Damerel appreciatively. ‘And he didn’t heed you? You astonish me!’

  ‘He has been very much indulged. That, of course, was made inevitable, to some degree, by his sickliness; but he has been allowed to have his own way beyond what is proper, from the circumstances attached to his upbringing,’ said Edward, painstakingly explaining the Lanyons. ‘His father, the late Sir Francis Lanyon, though in many respects a most estimable man, was eccentric.’

  ‘So Miss Lanyon informed me. I should suppose him to have been a curst rum touch, myself, but we won’t quarrel over terms!’

  ‘One hesitates to speak ill of the dead,’ persevered Edward, ‘but towards his children he displayed an almost total want of interest or consideration. One would have expected him to have provided his daughter with a chaperon, for instance, but such was not the case. You may have wondered, I daresay, at the freedom of Miss Lanyon’s manners, and, not knowing the circumstances, have thought it odd that she should be permitted to go abroad unattended.’

  ‘No doubt I should, had I met her when she was a girl,’ responded Damerel coolly. He turned his head, as Imber came into the hall. ‘Imber, here is Mr Yardley, who has come to visit our invalid! Take him up – and see that Mrs Priddy has that bundle of lint, will you?’ He nodded to Edward to follow the butler, and himself walked off to one of the saloons that led from the hall.

  Edward trod up the broad, shallow staircase in Imber’s wake, his feelings almost equally divided between relief at finding Damerel apparently indifferent to Venetia, and annoyance at the casual way he had been dismissed.

  In general he ignored Aubrey’s frequent rudeness, but that scornful adjuration to him not to be a slow-top vexed him so much that he was obliged to suppress a sharp retort. He never allowed himself to speak hastily, and it was therefore in a measured tone that he said, after a moment: ‘Let me point out to you, Aubrey, that if you would not try to be quite such a hard-goer this unfortunate accident would never have occurred.’

  ‘It was not, after all, so very unfortunate,’ intervened Venetia. ‘How kind in you to have come to see how he does!’

  ‘I must regard as unfortunate – to put it no higher! – any accident that places you in an awkward situation,’ he said.

  ‘Well, pray don’t tease yourself over that!’ she said soothingly. ‘To be sure, I had rather Aubrey were at home, but I am able to visit him every day, you know, and he, I am persuaded, has not the least wish to be at home. I must tell you, Edward, that nothing could be greater than Damerel’s kindness to Aubrey, or his good nature in allowing Nurse to order everything precisely as she chooses here. You know her way!’

  ‘You are very much obliged to his lordship,’ he replied gravely. ‘I do not deny it, but you will scarcely expect me to think your indebtedness anything but an evil, the consequences of which may, I fear, be far-reaching.’

  ‘What consequences? I hope you mean to tell me what you mean, for I promise you I don’t know! The only consequence I perceive is that we have made an agreeable new acquaintance – and find the Wicked Baron to be very much less black than rumour has painted him!’

  ‘I make every allowance for your ignorance of the world, Venetia, but surely you cannot be unaware of the evil that attaches to acquaintance with a man of Lord Damerel’s reputation! I should not wish to make a friend of him myself, and in your case – which is one of particular delicacy – every feeling revolts against such an acquaintance!’

  ‘Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?’ muttered Aubrey savagely.

  Edward glanced at him. ‘If you wish me to understand you, Aubrey, I fear you will be forced to speak in English. I do not pretend to be a scholar.’

  ‘Then I’ll give you a tag well within your power to translate! Non amo te, Sabidi!’

  ‘No, Aubrey, pray don’t!’ begged Venetia. ‘It is mere nonsense, and to be flying into a rage over it is the most nonsensical thing of all! Edward is only in one of his fusses over propriety – and so, let me tell you, is Damerel! For when you vexed poor Nurse so much that she threatened to leave you, my love, what must he do but tell her she must remain here to safeguard my reputation? Anyone might think I was a chit just emerged from the schoolroom!’

  Edward’s countenance relaxed a little; he said, with a slight smile: ‘Instead of a staid and middle-aged woman? His lordship was very right, and I don’t hesitate to say that it gives me a better opinion of him. But I wish you will discontinue your visits to Aubrey. He is not so badly hurt as to make your attendance on him necessary, and if you come only to entertain him – well, I must say, however much you may resent it, Aubrey, that I think you deserve to be left to entertain yourself! Had you but listened to older and wiser counsel none of this awkwardness would have arisen. No one has more sympathy than I for the disability which makes it imprudent – indeed, I am afraid I must say foolhardy! – for you to attempt to ride such a headstrong animal as that chestnut of yours. I told you so at the outset, but –’

  ‘Are you imagining that Rufus bolted with me?’ interrupted Aubrey, his eyes glittering with cold dislike. ‘You’re mistaken! The plain truth is that I crammed him! A piece of bad horsemanship which had nothing to do with my disability! I’m well aware of it – don’t need to have it thrust down my throat!’

  ‘That is certainly an admission!’ said Edward, with an indulgent little laugh. ‘Neck-or-nothing, eh? Well, I don’t mean to give you a scold. We must hope your tumble has taught you the lesson you wouldn’t learn from me.’

  ‘Much more likely!’ Aubrey said swiftly. ‘I never dared learn of you, Edward: as well as your caution I might have acquired your hands – quod avertat Deus!’

  It was at this moment that Damerel entered the room, saying cheerfully: ‘May I come in? Ah, your servant, Miss Lanyon!’ He met her eyes for a brief instant, and continued in the easiest style: ‘I’ve told Marston to bring up a nuncheon for you to eat with Aubrey, and my errand is to discover whether you like to drink tea with it – and also to carry off your visitor to share my nuncheon.’ He smiled at Edward. ‘Come and bear me company, Yardley!’

  ‘Your lordship is very obliging, but I never eat at this hour,’ Edward said stiffly.

  ‘Then come and drink a glass of sherry,’ replied Damerel, with unimpaired affability. ‘We will leave our graceless invalid to the ministrations of his sister and his nurse – indeed, we must! for Mrs Priddy, having now a large stock of lint at her disposal, is about to descend upon him, armed with salves, compresses, and lotions, and you and I, my dear sir, will not be welcome here!’

  Edward looked vexed, but as he could scarcely refuse to be dislodged there was nothing to be done but to take his leave. Nor did he receive any encouragement to stay from Venetia, who said frankly: ‘Yes, pray do go away, Edward! I know you mean it kindly, but I cannot have Aubrey put into a passion! He is not at all the thing yet, and Dr Bentworth particularly charged me to keep him quiet.’

  He began to say that he had not meant to put Aubrey in a passion; but the moralising strain in him made it impossible for him to refrain from pointing out how wrong it was of Aubrey to fly into a rage only because one who had his interests sincerely to heart thought it his duty to reprove him. Before he was more than halfway through this speech, however, Venetia, seeing Aubrey raising himself painfully on his elbow, interrupted, saying hastily: ‘Yes, yes, but never mind
! Just go away!’

  She pushed him towards the door, which Damerel was holding open. He had intended to offer to escort her back to Undershaw, but before he could do so he had been irresistibly shepherded out of the room, and Damerel was shutting the door behind him, saying in a consolatory tone: ‘The boy is pretty well knocked-up, you know.’

  ‘One can only hope it may be a lesson to him!’

  ‘I daresay it will be.’

  Edward gave a short laugh. ‘Ay! if one could but make him realise that he owes his aches to his own folly in persisting in his determination to ride horses he can’t control! For my part I consider it the height of imprudence in him to jump at all, for with that weak leg, you know –’

  ‘But what a pudding-hearted creature he would be if he didn’t do so!’ said Damerel. ‘Did you ever know a halfling who deemed prudence a virtue?’

  ‘I should have supposed that when he knows what the consequences of a fall might be – However, it is always the same with him! he will never brook criticism – flies into a miff at the merest hint of it! I don’t envy you the charge of him!’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t criticise him!’ replied Damerel. ‘I have not the least right to do so, after all!’

  Edward made no answer to this, merely saying, as he descended the stairs: ‘I do not know when Miss Lanyon means to return to Undershaw. I should be pleased to escort her, and had meant to have offered it.’

  There was a decidedly peevish note in his voice. Damerel’s lips twitched, but he replied gravely: ‘I am afraid I don’t know either. Would you wish me to discover for you?’

  ‘Oh, it is of no consequence, thank you! I daresay she won’t leave Aubrey until she has coaxed him out of his sullens – though it would be better for him if she did!’

  ‘My dear sir, if you feel her groom to be an insufficient escort, do, I beg of you, make yourself at home here for as long as you choose!’ said Damerel. ‘I would offer to go with her in your stead, but I might not be at hand, you know, and, I own, I should not have thought it at all necessary. However, if you feel –’

  ‘No, no! it was merely – But if she has her groom there is of course no need for me to remain. Your lordship is very good, but I have a great deal of business to attend to, and have wasted too much of my time already.’

  He then took formal leave, refusing all offers of refreshment, but expressing, in punctilious terms, his sense of obligation for the kindness shown to Aubrey, and his hope that it would soon be possible to relieve his lordship of so unwanted a burden.

  To all of this Damerel listened politely, but with a disquieting twinkle in his eye. He said, in the careless way which had previously offended Edward: ‘Oh, Aubrey won’t worry me!’ and having waved farewell almost before Edward’s foot was in the stirrup turned back into the house, and went up to Aubrey’s room again.

  Six

  He entered to find Aubrey still seething with annoyance, his eyes overbright and his thin cheeks flushed, and said, in an amused voice: ‘Well, you do accord your visitors Turkish treatment, don’t you?’

  ‘Where is he?’ demanded Aubrey.

  ‘Abiit, excessit…’

  ‘What, already? Vae victis! Did you kick him out?’

  ‘On the contrary! I invited him to treat the house as his own.’

  ‘Oh, my God, no!’

  ‘No, that’s very much what he thought – though he didn’t phrase it so. I fancy he doesn’t like me above half – but nothing could have exceeded his civility.’ He turned his laughing eyes towards Venetia. ‘Worthy was exactly the right epithet!’

  She laughed back at him. ‘Oh, did you guess?’

  ‘Of course I did! Poor man, I was heartily sorry for him!’

  ‘Sorry for that – that windsucker?’ exploded Aubrey. ‘Wait till you see how little need you had to give him leave to treat your house as his own! He has been doing so with ours ever since my father died! Meddling and moralising! I tell you to your head, Venetia, if you do marry him I’ll have nothing more to do with you!’

  ‘Well, I don’t mean to marry him, so stop fidgeting yourself into a stew!’

  He stirred restlessly, wincing a little. ‘I’d as lief live with Conway! No, by Jove, I’d prefer Conway to that bumptious, prosing piece of self-consequence that never crossed anything but a slug in his life! He to talk of giving me lessons – ! Why, he has the worst seat and the worst hands of any man in the county, and will go half a mile out of his way to find a gap in a hedge his horse might have taken in his stride! You’d take him for a pad-groom! And as for his curst presumption, walking in here to scold and moralise, you may tell him, Venetia, that I might take that from Conway, but from no one else!’

  ‘Good God, he’ll be demanding satisfaction of me next!’ exclaimed Damerel. ‘Mr Lanyon, allow me to offer you my most humble apologies!’

  Aubrey turned his head on the pillow, and looked at him in some impatience and a good deal of suspicion. ‘Are you roasting me?’

  ‘I shouldn’t dare! I am begging your pardon for having had the curst presumption to scold you. How I can have had so little conduct – !’

  ‘Gammon!’ snapped Aubrey crossly, but with the hint of a reluctant grin. ‘All you said was that I was a damned young fool, and had more bottom than sense, and I don’t care for that!’

  ‘No, indeed! Quite unexceptionable!’ approved Venetia. ‘I knew his lordship must have said everything that was kind and civil to have put you so much in charity with him!’

  ‘Well, he didn’t moralise over me!’ retorted Aubrey, trying not to laugh. ‘But as for being in charity with him, when he let that Jack-pudding come up here –’

  ‘Why, you ungrateful brat, who rescued you from him? If I hadn’t come in with a hoaxing tale about your Nurse and a roll of lint he would be here yet! Take care I don’t turn that into a true story! I will, if you don’t stop taking snuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aubrey said, with a sharp sigh. ‘I beg pardon! I didn’t mean – oh, lord, I don’t know why the devil I lost my temper with such a gudgeon! I don’t do so in general.’

  His angry flush began to subside. By the time Marston brought in a tray of cold chicken, and fruit, and tea he had recovered his equanimity; and although he rejected the chicken he was persuaded without much difficulty to drink some tea, and to eat a slice of bread-and-butter. Damerel went away when the nuncheon was brought in, but he came back just as Nurse was preparing to change the compress round Aubrey’s ankle, and to anoint his several bruises with a sovereign remedy of her own, and invited Venetia to take a turn in the garden with him.

  She was very willing, but hardly expected to escape without meeting opposition from Nurse. All Nurse said, however, was that she was not to go out without her hat, which was as surprising as her apparent failure to notice that Aubrey was looking exhausted. This was a circumstance which would ordinarily have drawn from her exclamations, rebukes, searching questions, and a comprehensive scold, but although she had eyed him narrowly she had made no comment.

  For this abstention Aubrey had his host to thank. Damerel had waylaid Nurse on her way up to his room, and had told her of the disastrous results of Edward’s visit.

  Edward, as a respectable candidate for Venetia’s hand, had hitherto enjoyed Nurse’s favour, but no man who had caused Aubrey to suffer a set-back could hope to maintain his place in her esteem. When she learned that he had been reading Aubrey a lecture her eyes snapped with wrath, for reading lectures to Aubrey was a privilege she reserved exclusively to herself. Had she been present Edward should have had a piece of her mind to digest. She had not been present, but in her absence Damerel (though a sinner) had acted with a promptness and a propriety that won her instant approval. So deserving had he shown himself to be that she listened to his advice, and even agreed that it would be imprudent to mention the episode to Aubrey. Damerel thought that if he were to be left alone Aubrey wou
ld fall asleep, to which end he proposed to remove his sister from his side for a while. Perhaps she would like to stroll about the garden: what did Mrs Priddy think?

  Gratified, but suspicious, Nurse said that there was no need for Venetia to remain at the Priory any longer, at which Damerel smiled, and said: ‘None at all, but we could never persuade her to go home until she sees her brother on the mend again.’

  That was true, and since his lordship’s manner was far more that of a civil but slightly bored host than of a ravisher of innocent females Nurse raised no further objection to his scheme.

  ‘How in the world,’ demanded Venetia, accompanying Damerel down the stairs, ‘did you contrive to turn Nurse up so sweet?’

  He glanced quizzingly down at her. ‘Did you think I couldn’t?’

  ‘Well, I know you can cajole young females – at least, you are generally believed to do so! – but I am persuaded it would never answer to try to flirt with Nurse.’

  ‘So flirting is all you give me credit for! You underrate my talents, Miss Lanyon! Having created a breach in her defences by showing solicitude for Aubrey and a proper respect for her judgment in all matters concerning him, I got within her outer walls at least by the exercise of devilish strategy. In fact, I sacrificed your worthy suitor, and stormed the fortifications over his fallen carcase. She was so pleased with me for having rid Aubrey of him that she not only allowed herself to be flummeried into giving her consent to this very perilous expedition, but even agreed not to raise any more dust by commenting on Aubrey’s hagged look.’

  ‘Nurse was pleased with you for getting rid of Edward?’ Venetia exclaimed incredulously. ‘But he is a prime favourite with her!’

  ‘Is he? Well, if he has sufficient address (which I doubt), he may succeed in winning back to that position, but not, if she is to be believed, until she has rung a rare peal over him! And certainly not until Aubrey has left the shelter of my roof: I’ll see to that! A truly estimable young man – and one with whom I find I have nothing in common. I gave him leave to come and go as he chooses – and mean to contrive, by judicious fanning of the flames of your admirable Nurse’s wrath, to ensure that he doesn’t avail himself of my carte blanche. I regret infinitely, Miss Lanyon, but I find that a taste of your worthy suitor constitutes a surfeit!’