Venetia Read online

  ‘I suppose some might think so. Her features – as I recall – were more perfect than yours, but your hair is a richer gold, your eyes a deeper blue, and your smile is by far the sweeter.’

  ‘Oh dear, now you are back in your nonsensical vein! You cannot possibly remember at this distance of time how blue her eyes were, or how gold her hair, so stop hoaxing me!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said meekly. ‘I had far rather talk of your eyes, or even of your pretty lips, which you quite wrongly described as indifferent red.’

  ‘I cannot conceive,’ she interrupted, with some severity, ‘why you will persist in recalling an episode which you would do better to forget!’

  ‘Can’t you?’ He put out his hand, and took her chin in his long fingers, tilting it up. ‘Perhaps to remind you, my dear, that although I am obliged at this present to behave with all the propriety of a host it’s only a veneer – and God knows why I should tell you so!’

  She removed his hand, but said with a chuckle: ‘I don’t think your notion of propriety would take in the first circles! And furthermore, my dear friend, it is high time you stopped trying to make everyone believe you are much blacker than you have been painted. That’s a habit you fell into when you were young and foolish, and perfectly understandable in the circumstances. Though also very like Conway, when he used to boast to me of the shocking pranks he played at Eton. Banbury stories, most of them.’

  ‘Thank you! But I have never done that: there has been no need for Banbury stories. With what improbable virtues are you trying to endow me? An exquisite sensibility? Delicacy of principle?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing of that nature!’ she replied, getting up. ‘I allow you all the vices you choose to claim – indeed, I know you for a gamester, and a shocking rake, and a man of sadly unsteady character! – but I’m not so green that I don’t recognise in you one virtue at least, and one quality.’

  ‘What, is that all? How disappointing! What are they?’

  ‘A well-informed mind, and a great deal of kindness,’ she said, laying her hand on his arm, and beginning to stroll with him back to the house.

  Seven

  Edward Yardley returned to Netherfold in a mood of dissatisfaction but with no apprehension that Damerel might prove to be his rival. He had not liked him, and could perceive nothing either in his manners or his appearance that might reasonably be supposed to take Venetia’s fancy. Punctilious himself in every expression of civility, Edward considered that Damerel’s easy carelessness was unbecoming in a man of rank; while his rather abrupt way of talking could only disgust. As for his appearance, it was no great thing, after all: his figure was good, but his countenance was harsh, with features by no means regular, and a swarthy complexion; and there was nothing particularly modish about his raiment. Females, Edward believed, were often dazzled by an air of fashion; and had Damerel worn yellow pantaloons, Hessians of mirror-like gloss, a tightly waisted coat, a monstrous neckcloth, exaggerated shirtpoints, rings on his fingers, and fobs dangling at his waist it might have occurred to Edward that he was a dangerous fellow. But Damerel wore a plain riding-coat and buckskin breeches, quite a modest neckcloth, and no other ornaments than a heavy signet ring, and a quizzing-glass: he was no Pink of fashion; he was not even a very down-the-road looking man, though report made him a first-rate driver: quite a top-sawyer, in fact. Edward, who had expected a Corinthian, was disposed to rate him pretty cheap: more squeak than wool, he thought, remembering some of the exotic stories which had filtered back to Yorkshire. He flattered himself that he had never believed the half of them: that noble Roman lady, for instance, who was said to have deserted husband and children to cruise with Damerel in the Mediterranean aboard the yacht which he had had the effrontery to christen Corinth; or the dazzling high-flyer, whose meteoric progress across liberated Europe under his protection had been rendered memorable by the quantities of fresh rose-petals he had cause to be strewn on the floors of her various apartments, and the sea of pink champagne provided for her refreshment. Edward, solemnly trying to compute the cost of this extravagant freak, had certainly not believed that tale; and now that he had met Damerel face to face he wholly discredited it. He had not really been afraid that a sensible female would succumb to the lure of such trumpery magnificence, but when he rode away from the Priory there was an unacknowledged relief in his breast. Damerel might try to make Venetia the object of his gallantry (though he had not seemed to be much impressed by her beauty), but Edward, who knew his own worth, could not feel that he stood in danger of being eclipsed in her eyes by such a brusque, bracket-faced fellow. Females were naturally lacking in judgment, but Edward considered Venetia’s understanding to be superior to that of the generality of her sex, and although she had met few men the three whom she knew well – her father, Conway, and himself – must have provided her with a standard of manners and propriety by which she had enough sense to measure Damerel.

  The worst feature of the affair, Edward decided, was the damage that would be done to her reputation if her daily visits to the Priory became known; and this possibility teased him so much that he told his mother the whole story.

  A meek little woman, Mrs Yardley, so colourless that no one would have suspected how deep and jealous was her adoration of her only child. Her skin was parchment, with thin, bloodless lips, and eyes of a shallow, faded blue; and her hair, which she wore neatly banded under a widow’s cap, was of an indeterminate hue, between sand and gray. She was not a talker, and she listened to Edward without comment, and almost without expression. Only when he told her, a trifle too casually, that Venetia was visiting Aubrey daily at the Priory did a flicker of emotion show in her eyes, and then it was no more than a darting, lizard-like look, gone as quickly as it had appeared. He did not notice it, but went on explaining all the circumstances to her, not asking her opinion, but rather instructing her, as his habit was. When he paused she said: ‘Yes,’ in the flat voice that offered no clue to her thoughts. In general he would have been perfectly satisfied with this meagre response, but on this occasion he found it insufficient, because in telling her how unexceptionable it was for Venetia to visit the Priory when she had Nurse for a chaperon he had been arguing against his own convictions, and wanted reassurance.

  ‘One couldn’t expect her not to do so,’ he said. ‘You know how devoted she is to Aubrey!’

  ‘Yes, indeed. He is very much obliged to her. I have always said so,’ she replied.

  ‘Oh, as to that – ! I should be glad to think it, but he is one who takes all for granted. The thing is that there is no harm in Venetia’s visiting him.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Under the circumstances, you know, and with Nurse there – and it is not as if she were a young girl, after all. I do not see that there is anything in it to set people talking, do you?’

  ‘Oh, no! I am persuaded they will not.’

  ‘Of course, I cannot like her being thrown into acquaintanceship with such a man, but I fancy I made it plain to him how the matter stands – just hinted him away, you know, in case he had some notion of trying to attach her. Not that I have any great apprehension of it: I believe I am a pretty good judge, and it did not seem to me that he was at all struck by her.’

  ‘I expect she is not in his style.’

  His countenance lightened. ‘No, very likely she is not! No doubt he is bored by virtuous females. And she, you know, doesn’t want for sense. Under that sportive playfulness she has true delicacy of character, and the tone of her mind is too nice to allow of her encouraging his lordship in any encroaching fancy.’

  ‘Oh, no! I am persuaded she would not do so.’

  He looked relieved; but after fidgeting with the blind-cord for a few moments he said in a vexed tone: ‘It is an awkward situation, however! I should be excessively reluctant to be obliged to be on terms of intimacy with Lord Damerel, even if we lived near enough to the Priory to make frequent visits