Venetia (47 page)

“Stop!” commanded Mr. Hendred. “You are going a great deal too fast! This will not do!”

“Well, at least it will do better than for her join the Steeples’ set!” retorted Damerel. “Yes, you may stare, but that is the pistol that has been held to
my
head!”

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Hendred testily. “Aurelia wouldn’t entertain such a notion for an instant! Aurelia with a daughter taking the shine out of her? Ha!”

“Yes, that’s what I think, but although I haven’t yet discovered how she did it, Venetia has wrung an invitation out of her: I’ve been privileged to read it!”

“Good God!” said Mr. Hendred blankly.

“So,” continued Damerel, “we will now devote our energies not to the hopeless task of convincing my green girl that she is making a mistake, but to the problem of how to ensure that she shall
not
find herself ostracized by the
ton.
”

“I assure you it won’t trouble me in the least to be ostracized!” interpolated Venetia.

“It would trouble me, however.” Damerel turned his head, and looked thoughtfully at Mr. Hendred. “With your support, sir, and my Aunt Stoborough’s, I think we may contrive to brush through it. I rather fancy you are acquainted with my aunt?”

“I have been acquainted with Lady Stoborough these twenty years,” replied Mr. Hendred, with a thin, triumphant smile. “And the only heed she would pay to any persuasion of mine, or of anyone, would be to do precisely the opposite to what was desired.”

“Just so!” said Damerel. “I see that you will know to a nicety how to bring her round your thumb.”

There was a silence. Mr. Hendred, on whom this speech seemed to have exercised a powerful effect, sat gazing at a picture invisible to his companions. Under Venetia’s fascinated eyes, the skin round his mouth began slowly to stretch, and while his thin lips remained a little pursed two deep creases appeared in his cheeks: Mr. Hendred was enjoying a private joke, too rare to be imparted to his companions. Emerging from this reverie, he surveyed them with disfavour, and declared his inability to discuss the matter on hand any more that evening. He then asked his niece if she meant to accompany him to York, where he meant to spend the night, but not as though he expected to receive an assenting answer.

This gave her the opportunity for which she had been waiting. She said: “No, dear sir, not another yard will I travel this day, and nor, I must break it to you, do you! Don’t eat me! but I directed Imber to send your chaise on to the Red Lion some time ago. I know that is what you like, and indeed, we are so very short-handed—I mean, Damerel is so short-handed here at present that the postilions could hardly be housed without putting the servants to a great deal of work they really have no time to undertake! And Damerel’s valet, a most excellent man, will have seen that a room is prepared for you by now, and will have unpacked your portmanteau. I ventured to direct him to find the pastilles you always burn when you have the headache, upon hearing which he said that he would immediately prepare a
tisane
for you to drink when you go to bed.”

This programme was so attractive that Mr. Hendred succumbed, though not without warning his host that his complaisance must not be taken to mean that he gave his consent to a marriage of which he strongly disapproved, much less that he was prepared to promote it in any way whatsoever.

Accepting this blighting announcement with equanimity, Damerel then rang the bell for Marston, at which moment Aubrey, having driven into the stableyard, and entered the house by way of a side-door, came into the room. He was looking faintly surprised, and said as he entered: “Well, I wondered who the deuce you could be talking to, Jasper! How d’ye do, sir? Well, m’dear, how are you? I’m glad you’ve come: I’ve missed you.”

He limped across the room to Venetia as he spoke, and much moved by his greeting she embraced him warmly. “And I have missed you, love—you don’t know how much!”

“Stoopid!” he said, with his twisted smile. “Why didn’t you send warning that you were coming? What’s brought you, by the way?”

“
I
will tell you what brought your sister here!” said Mr. Hendred. “You are of an age to be thought capable of forming an opinion, and I am told that you are considered to have a superior understanding! It may be that Venetia will be more willing to attend to you than to me. Let me tell you, young man, that she has announced her intention of accepting an offer from Lord Damerel!”

“Oh, good!” said Aubrey, his face lighting up. “I hoped you would, m’dear: Jasper is just the man for you! Besides, I like him. I shall be able to spend my vacations with you, and I could never have stood Edward, you know. By the by, did he come boring for ever in London?”

“Is that all you have to say, boy?” demanded Mr. Hendred, pardonably incensed. “Do you
wish
your only sister to marry a man of Lord Damerel’s reputation?

“Yes, I told her I thought she should an age since. I never paid much heed to all the gossip about Jasper’s reputation myself, and if she don’t care for it why should I?”

“I suppose,” said Mr. Hendred bitterly, “that such sentiments might have been expected from a boy who does not scruple to recount grossly immoral and indelicate stories to his sister!”

Aubrey looked astonished. “What the deuce has she been saying, sir?” he enquired. “If she’s been telling warm stories she must have had ‘em from Jasper, for Edward wouldn’t tell her any, and I don’t
know
any!”

“
Oedipus Rex,
cawker!” said Damerel.

“
Oedipus Rex
?
I don’t recall telling Venetia about him, but I daresay I may have, and in any event, to apply such epithets as
immoral
and
indelicate
to the works of Sophocles is the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard said—even by Edward!’

At this point, Marston, who had been standing on the threshold for some minutes, intervened, saying: “You rang, my lord?”

“Yes, I did,” said Damerel. “Will you take Mr. Hendred up to his room? Ask Marston for anything you may need, sir: I’ve never yet known him at a loss!”

So Mr. Hendred, bidding a grudging goodnight to the company, allowed himself to be shepherded out of the room. Damerel said softly, just as Marston was preparing to follow his jaundiced charge: “Marston!”

Marston paused. “My lord?”

Damerel grinned at him. “Wish me happy!”

Marston’s impassive countenance relaxed. “If I may, my lord, I wish you both happy. I should like to say that there are others who will be happy with you.”

“Lord, I ought to have wished you happy, oughtn’t I?” said Aubrey, as the door closed behind the valet. “I do, of course—but you know that without my saying it! Well, I think I’ll go up to bed too: I’m sleepy.”

“Aubrey, don’t go for a moment!” begged Venetia. “There is something I want to say to you, and I’d as lief do so at once. I hope you won’t mind it: I don’t think you will. I discovered two days ago that Mama—isn’t dead, as we thought.”

“No, I know she isn’t,” replied Aubrey. “Of course I don’t mind it, stoopid! Why should I?”

Well as she knew him, she gasped. “Aubrey! You mean to say—Did Papa tell you?”

“No, Conway did.”

“Conway! When?”

“Oh, the last time he was at home! Just before he went off to Belgium. He said I ought to know, in case he was killed.”

“Well, of all the ramshackle things to do!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Why could he not have told
me
?
If he could have told a fourteen-year-old boy—!”

“I don’t know. I suppose he thought Papa would be angry, if he found you knew. Anyway, he told me not to speak of it.”

“You might have told me later—after Papa died! Why on earth didn’t you?” she demanded.

“I don’t think I thought of it,” he replied. “Well, why should I? I wasn’t particularly interested. I daresay I should have been if I’d ever known Mama, but, dash it, Venetia, you can’t be interested in what happened when you were only a few months old!” He yawned. “Lord, I am sleepy! ’Night, m’dear! ’Night, Jasper!”

He limped out, and Venetia turned to find her love smiling at her in affectionate mockery. “Let that be a lesson to you, Admir’d Venetia!” he said. He came across the room to her, and took her in his arms. She did not resist, but she held him off a little, with her hands against his chest.

“Damerel, there is something I must say to you!”

His smile faded; he looked searchingly down at her. “What is it, my dear delight?” he said.

“It is—you see, my aunt said—I couldn’t throw myself at your head! It seemed as though I could, and I
did,
but when my uncle began to talk about your debts, and settlements, I suddenly saw how right she was! Oh, my love—my
friend
!
—
I
don’t wish you to marry me if perhaps you had rather
not
be married!”

“Then you are by far more unselfish than I am, my dear heart, for I wish to marry you whatever your sentiments may be!” he replied promptly. “You may regret this day: I could not! What I regret I can never undo, for the gods don’t annihilate space, or time, or transform such a man as I am into one worthy to be your husband.”

She clasped him tightly. “Stoopid, stoopid! You know I found my w
orthy
suitor a dead bore, and as for the rest, does it not occur to you, love, that if you hadn’t run off with that fat woman—”

“She was not fat!” he protested.

“No, not then, but she is now! Well, if you hadn’t behaved so badly you would probably have married some eligible girl, and by now would have been comfortably settled for
years,
with a wife and six or seven children!”

“No, not the children! The caterpillar would have had them,” he reminded her. “Does it occur to
you,
Miss Lanyon, that although I have twice been on the verge of it, I have not yet offered for you? Being now safe from interruption, will you do me the honour, ma’am—”

“Good! You haven’t gone to bed yet,” said Aubrey, suddenly re-entering the room. “I have had a most excellent notion!”

“This,” said Damerel wrathfully, “is the second time you have walked in just as I am about to propose to your sister!”

“I should have thought you must have done that hours ago. In any event, this is something important. You can spend your honeymoon in Greece, and I’ll come with you!”

Still standing within the circle of Damerel’s arm, Venetia choked, and turned her face into his shoulder.

“Greece in the middle of the winter? We shall do no such thing!” said Damerel.

“But why be married so soon? If you were to settle on a date in the spring—”

“We have settled on a day in January—if not December!”

“Oh!” said Aubrey, rather dashed. “Then I suppose it had better be Rome. It’s a pity, because I’d prefer Greece. However, we can go there later on, and it’s your honeymoon, after all, not mine. I daresay Venetia will like Rome, too.”

“We must remember to ask her some time—not that it signifies! Go to bed, you repulsive whelp!”

“Oh, you want to propose to Venetia, don’t you? Very well—though you needn’t mind me, you know! Goodnight!”

He limped out, and Damerel strode to the door, and locked it. “And now, my love,” he said, returning to Venetia, “for the
fourth
time ...!”