Venetia (8 page)

He laughed. “No, no, I wasn’t obliged to resort to violence!” He opened the door into Aubrey’s room as he spoke, and stood aside for her to go in.

Aubrey, lying in the middle of a big four-poster bed and wearing a .nightshirt many sizes too large for him, looked the merest wisp of a boy, but he had recovered his complexion a little. Roused by his sister’s fingers laid over his wrist he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily at her, and murmured: “Stoopid! I’ve only bruised myself, m’dear: nothing to signify! I think I crammed him. Rufus, I mean.”

“Cawker!” she said lovingly.

“I know. Damerel said, more bottom than sense.” His gaze focused itself on Nurse, who, having set down a bulging portmanteau, was divesting herself of her bonnet with all the air of one determined to remain at his side whatever might be the consequences. He uttered thickly: “Oh,
no,
my God—! How
could
you, Venetia? Take her away! I’m damned if I’ll have her fussing and fuming over me as if I were a baby!”

“Ungrateful brat!” remarked Damerel. “You’d be well-served if your nurse took you at your word, and left you to my mercies! I should certainly beat you.”

Considerably to Venetia’s surprise this intervention, so far from offending him, made Aubrey give a tiny spurt of laughter. Turning his head on the pillow so that he could look at Damerel, he said: “Well, how would
you
like it, sir?”

“Very much indeed! You are more fortunate than you know.”

Aubrey pulled a face; but when Damerel had left the room he said: “I like him, don’t you? You’ll say everything that’s proper, won’t you? I don’t think I did, and I ought.”

She replied soothingly, and he shut his eyes again. He was soon asleep, so that there was nothing for Venetia to do but to sit down to await the arrival of Dr. Bentworth, while Nurse unpacked the portmanteau, her lips tightly folded in disapproval, except when she opened them to whisper warnings to Venetia against falling into the snares of the wicked. She was presently drawn into the adjoining dressing-room by Mrs. Imber, and Venetia was left to while away the time as best she might. There was nothing to occupy her save her thoughts, and nothing to be seen from the window but a neglected garden bathed in autumn sunshine. Having mentally weeded this, stocked its flower-beds with her favourite plants, and set a couple of men to scythe the lawn, she wondered how long she would be obliged to sit idle. She feared it might be for a considerable period, for York was twelve miles distant, and it was more than probable that a busy practitioner might cot be found at liberty to come immediately to Aubrey’s bedside.

When Nurse came back into the room Venetia was glad to see that her countenance had slightly relaxed its expression of uncompromising severity. Her opinion of Damerel’s morals, and her conviction that his end would be a lesson to other sinners, remained unchanged, but she was to some degree mollified by the discovery that he had ordered Mrs. Imber not only to make up a bed for her in the dressing-room, but to obey whatever injunctions she might see fit to lay upon her. Furthermore, his valet was not, as might have been supposed, a saucy jackanapes, but a very respectable man who had behaved with great civility to her, deferring to her superior judgment, and begging, as a favour, to be allowed to share with her the duties of waiting on the invalid. It appeared that Nurse had graciously conferred this honour upon him, but whether she had done so because she was won over by his tact, or because she knew that Aubrey would strenuously resist any attempt to reduce him to nursery status, remained undisclosed. She was representing to Venetia in persuasive terms how unnecessary it was for her to remain at the Priory another instant when Aubrey woke up, rather cross, and complaining that he was hot, thirsty, and uncomfortable. Nurse thought this an excellent opportunity to change Damerel’s contaminating nightshirt for one of his own, so she summoned Marston to her assistance, and was pretty well occupied when Damerel walked into the room to invite Venetia to partake of dinner in his company. Before Nurse had grasped the scandalous nature of his errand the invitation had been accepted, and Damerel was bowing Venetia out of the room.

“Thank you!” Venetia said, as he shut the door. “You came in at precisely the right moment, you know, when poor Nurse was too much taken up with scolding Aubrey for being so tiresome to think what
I
might be doing!”

“Yes, I didn’t think I should clear that fence without a check,” he agreed. “Would you have attended to her protests?”

“No, but she is being strongly moved by the spirit, and the chances are it would have moved her to say something impolite to you, which would have covered me with mortification.”

“Oh, don’t let that trouble you!” he said, laughing. ‘Only tell me how I should address her!”

“Well,
we
have always called her Nurse.”

“No doubt! But it won’t do for me to copy you. What is her name?”

“Priddy. The underservants call her
Mrs.
Priddy, though I can’t think why, for she has never been married.”

“Mrs. Priddy she shall be. You won’t tell me I rank above the underservants in her esteem!” An irrepressible chuckle made him glance down at her; he saw the brimming merriment in her eyes, and demanded: “Now what? Do I rank above them?”

“I don’t
think
so
,
”
she answered cautiously. “At least, I never heard her say, even of the laundrymaid, that she would be eaten by frogs!”

He gave a shout of laughter. “Good God, does that fate await me?”

Encouraged by the discovery that he shared her enjoyment of the absurd she laughed back at him, saying: “Yes, and also that your increase will be delivered to the caterpillar.”

“Oh, I’ve no objection to that! The caterpillar is welcome to my increase!”

“No, how can you be so unnatural? Increase
must
mean your children!”

“Undoubtedly! Any side-slips of mine the caterpillar may have with my good-will,” he retorted.

“Poor little things!” she said, adding thoughtfully, after a moment: “Not that it is at all easy to perceive what harm one caterpillar could do them.”

“Do you know that you are a very strange girl?” he asked abruptly.

“Why? Have I said something I ought not?” she said rather anxiously.

“On the contrary: I’m afraid it was I who did that.”

“Did you?” She wrinkled her brow. “Side-slips? Well, that was quite my fault for mentioning your children at all, when I know you are not married.
Have
you — No.”

His lips twitched, but he said gravely: “Not to my knowledge.”

That drew a responsive twinkle from her. “Yes, I
was
going to ask you that,” she admitted. “I beg your pardon! The thing is, you see, that I so seldom talk to anyone but Aubrey that I forget to take care what I say when I go into company.”

“Don’t set a guard on your tongue on my account!” he said, ushering her into the dining-room. “I like your frankness—and detest damsels who blush and bridle!”

She took the chair Imber was holding for her. “Well, I don’t think I did that, even in my salad days.”

“A long time ago!” he said, quizzing her. “Well, it is, for I’m five-and-twenty, you know.”

“I must take your word for that, but do enlighten me! Do you hold my sex in dislike, or have you taken a vow of celibacy?”

“I wish you won’t make me laugh just as I am drinking soup! You nearly made me choke! Of course not!”

“What a set of slow-tops the Yorkshire bucks must be! This soup seems to be made “entirely of onions. I don’t wonder at your choking. And as far as I can see,” he said, levelling his quizzing-glass at the various dishes set out on the table, “there is worse to come. What the devil is
that
mess, Imber?”

“Veal, my lord, with a sauce Bechermell—Mrs. Imber not being prepared for company,” replied Imber apologetically. “But there is the raised mutton pie, and a brace of partridges for the second course, with French beans and mushrooms, and—and a dish of fruit, which Mrs. Imber hopes you will pardon, miss, for his lordship not being partial to sweetmeats she hadn’t a cream nor a jelly ready to serve, and, as you know, miss, such things take time.”

“I am astonished poor Mrs. Imber should have been able to dress
half
as many dishes,” instantly responded Venetia. “With such an upset in the house she can’t have had a moment to spare! Pray tell her that I am particularly partial to veal, and quite detest jellies!”

Damerel was regarding her with a smile in his eyes. He said, as Imber bore off the empty soup-plates: “Everything handsome about you!—your face, your name, and your manners! Tell me about your life! Why did I never see you before? Do you never come to London?”

She shook her head. “No, though perhaps I shall when Aubrey goes to Cambridge next year. As for telling you about my life—why, there’s only one answer to that, and it’s A
blank, my lord
!

“Am I to understand that you pine in thought? I hope you don’t mean to tell me you have a green and yellow melancholy, for that I’ll swear you have not!”

“Good gracious, no! Only that I have no history! I have passed all my life at Undershaw, and done nothing worth the telling. I wish you will tell me some of the things
you
have done!”

He looked up quickly from the dish he was serving, his eyes hardening. She met that searching stare with a little enquiring lift to her brows, and saw his lips curl into the sneer which had made her liken him to the
Corsair.
“I think not,” he said dryly.

“I said
some
of the things you have done!” she exclaimed indignantly. “You can’t have spent your whole life getting into idiotish scrapes!”

The ugly look vanished as he burst out laughing. “Most of it, I assure you! What is it you wish to know?”

“I should like to know about the places you have been to. You have travelled a great deal, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes!”

“I envy you that. It is a thing I always longed to do. I daresay I never shall, because single females are so horridly restricted, but I still indulge myself with planning tours to all the strange places I’ve only read about.”

“No, no, don’t do it!” he begged. “Such dreams, believe me, are the seeds from which the eccentric springs! You would end, like that ramshackle Stanhope woman, queening it over hordes of evil-smelling Bedouins!”

“I promise you I should not! It sounds very disagreeable— and quite as boring as the life I’ve known! You refer, I collect, to Lady Hester: did you ever meet her?”

“Yes, at Palmyra, in—oh, I forget!—’13? ‘14? It doesn’t signify.”

“Have you visited Greece, as well as the Levant?” she interrupted.

“I have. Why? Can it be that you are a classical scholar?”

“No, I am not, but Aubrey is. Do, pray, tell him about the things you must have seen in Athens! He has only Mr. Appersett to talk to about what he most cares for, and although Mr. Appersett—he is the Vicar, you know!—is a fine scholar he has not
seen,
with his own eyes, as you have!”

“I’ll tell Aubrey anything he may want to know—if you, mysterious Miss Lanyon, will tell me what I want to know!”

“Well, I will,” she replied handsomely. “Though what there is to tell you, or why you should call me mysterious has me in a puzzle!”

“I call you mysterious because—” he paused, amused by the look of innocent expectancy in her eyes—”Oh, because you are five-and-twenty, unwed, and, so far as I can discover, unsought!”

“On the contrary!” retorted Venetia, entering into the spirit of this. “I have
two
admirers! One of them is excessively romantic, and the other is—”

“Well?” he prompted, as she hesitated.

“Worthy!” she produced, and went into a peal of mirth as he dropped his head into his hands. “And you a nonpareil!”

“No, am I? The truth is that there is no mystery at all: my father was a recluse.”

“That sounds to me like a
non sequitur.
”

“No, it’s the very hub of the matter.”

“But, good God, did he shut you up as well as himself?”

“Not precisely, though I have frequently suspected that he would have liked to have done so. My mother died, you see. He must have loved her quite desperately, I suppose, for he fell into the most deplorable lethargy, and became exactly like Henry I: never smiled again! I can’t tell how it was, because he would never have her name mentioned; and, besides that, I was only ten years old at the time, and not at all acquainted with either of them. In fact, I can scarcely remember what she looked like, except that I am sure she was pretty, and wore beautiful dresses. At all events, Papa was utterly thrown into gloom by her death, and until I was seventeen I think I never exchanged a word with anyone beyond our own household.”

“Good God! Was he mad?”

“Oh no! Merely eccentric!” she replied. “I never knew him to care for anyone’s comfort but his own, but I fancy eccentrics don’t. However, when I grew up he permitted Lady Denny and Mrs. Yardley to take me now and then to the Assemblies in York; and once he actually consented to my spending a week in Harrogate, with my Aunt Hendred! I did hope that he would consent also to let me visit her in London, so that she might bring me out in the regular way. She offered to do so, but he wouldn’t have it, and I daresay she didn’t very much wish to do it, for she didn’t press it.”