Venetia Read online

  Nidd thought it was a queer set-out, but when he said as much to Marston he won no other response than a blank stare. But Marston thought it queer too, because it wasn’t like his lordship to throw out lures to innocent young ladies, much less sit in their pockets. He was loose in the haft, but not as loose as that. Or maybe he was too fly to the time of day to meddle with virgins of quality: Marston did not know, but he did know that in all the years he had served his lordship he had never seen him dangling after such a lady as Miss Lanyon. He had never seen him behave to any of his loves as he was behaving to her, either; or known him to stay so quiet and sober. He had not been as much as half-sprung since the day he carried Mr Aubrey into the house, and that was a sure sign that he wasn’t bored, or in one of his black moods. He wasn’t even restless, yet he hadn’t meant to remain at the Priory above a day or two. They had been on their way to Lord Flavell’s shooting-lodge, but they were not going there after all: he had told Marston that he had written to cry off. Were they going back to London, then, when Mr Aubrey had left the Priory? His lordship had made no plans, but thought he should remain in Yorkshire for a while.

  It might be that he was amusing himself with a new kind of flirtation, but in any other man it would have looked remarkably like courtship. If that was it, Marston wondered whether Miss Lanyon knew what sort of a life his lordship had led, and what that elder brother of hers would have to say to such a match.

  He would have been shocked had he guessed how much Venetia knew, and how much she was entertained by some of Damerel’s more repeatable adventures; and he would have been considerably astonished had he known on what terms of easy camaraderie this very odd couple stood.

  They were fast friends: a stranger might have supposed them to be related, so frank and unceremonious were their interchanges, and so far removed from mere dalliance. Accepting, as a matter of tactics in the game few knew better than he how to play, the rôle of fidus Achates thrust upon him, Damerel soon found himself advising Venetia on knotty problems arising out of her stewardship of her elder brother’s estates, or discussing with her the peculiar difficulties presented by her younger brother’s apparent determination to allow his powerful mind to wear out his frail constitution. He gave her better advice than he had ever put into practice, but told her bluntly that there was little she could do to divert Aubrey from his devouring passion. ‘He has been too much alone. If it had been possible to have sent him to Eton he would no doubt have formed friendships there, but as it is he seems to have only two friends: yourself, and his old grinder – this parson he talks about: I forget his name. What he needs is to rub shoulders with sprigs of his own age and tastes – and to overcome his dread of being pitied or despised.’

  She gave him a speaking glance. ‘Do you know, you are the first person ever to have perceived that he hates his lameness in that way! Even Dr Bentworth doesn’t properly understand, and I can only guess, because he doesn’t speak of it. But he has talked to you, hasn’t he? He told me the thing you said to him – that if you were offered the choice between a splendid body or a splendid mind you would choose the mind, because it would long outlast the body. I know he was a good deal struck, for he would not else have told me about it, and I was so grateful I could have embraced you!’

  ‘By all means!’ he said promptly. ‘Do!’

  She laughed, but shook her head. ‘No, I’m not funning. You see, it was exactly the right thing to have said, and that he talked to you at all about it showed me how much he likes you. In general, you know, he is very stiff with strangers, and when people like Lady Denny enquire after his health, or Edward helps him to get up out of his chair, he becomes quite rigid with fury.’

  ‘I should imagine he might! Is that what that gudgeon does?’

  ‘Yes, and say what I will to him he persists! It is all kindness, I know, but –’

  ‘Much that graceless scamp cares for kindness!’

  ‘That’s what I told Edward, but he thought it nonsensical. And your sort of kindness he does care for: I don’t mean entering into what interests him only, but roasting him, and calling him rude names, and threatening to do the most brutal things to him if he won’t swallow that horrid valerian!’

  ‘Is that your notion of kindness?’ he asked, in some amusement.

  ‘Yes, and yours too, or you wouldn’t do it. I expect it makes Aubrey feel that he is just the same as any other boy – or, at any rate, that you don’t care a rush for his lame leg. It has done him a great deal of good to be with you – more good than I could ever do him, because I’m only a female. A sister, too, which makes it even harder.’

  ‘You are a good sister. I hope you may have your reward – but strongly doubt it. Don’t let him hurt you! He’s fond of you, but he’s an egotist, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, I know that!’ she said cheerfully. ‘But he’s not as bad as Papa was, I assure you, or Conway! Aubrey would very likely put himself out to oblige me, if he ever thought of it, but Papa would not, and as for Conway, I don’t think he can think of anyone but himself!’

  It was such remarks as this, delivered perfectly seriously, that kept him in a state of chuckling enjoyment, and made him call her his dear delight. She accepted the title with equanimity, but told him to take care not to say it within tongue-shot of Nurse. ‘For it would be very mortifying for you to see your cajolery wasted, besides destroying all our comfort.’

  ‘I’ll lay you odds she wouldn’t come the ugly. She believes me to be in a state of grace.’

  ‘No, only approaching it – and that was merely because you supported her against Imber! You may not know it, but you suffered a set-back yesterday, when you wouldn’t permit her to have the carpet in the library taken up to be beaten. She began to say things about the ungodly again, and Aubrey swears she told him that one sinner destroys much good.’

  ‘Since then, however, I have expressed my admiration of her tatting, and my credit is now high with her!’ he retorted.

  ‘I wish it might be high enough for her to give it to you! There must be miles of it, for she has been tatting ever since I can remember, and very rarely gives any of it away. The dreadful thing is that she means it for whichever of us is the first to be married. The most lowering reflection!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I had better not make my credit too high! What do you advise? Shall I hold an orgy, ill-use Aubrey, or – just call you my dear delight within her hearing?’

  ‘That would lower your credit too much. Tell her that when you gave her to understand that you came into Yorkshire to redress your tenants’ grievances – which I am very sure you did, for who else would have put such a preposterous notion into her head? – it was nothing but a fudge! Perhaps you had better not tell her, however, that you came because of that thing at Tattersall’s, for she thinks racing very ungodly!’

  ‘What thing at Tattersall’s?’ he demanded. ‘I haven’t yet been floored by the hammer, if that’s what you mean!’

  ‘No, no! At least, I don’t know what it signifies, but it wasn’t that! Conway spoke of it once – oh, Black Monday!’

  ‘Settling-day! No, I won’t tell her that. I am always more or less in Dun territory, but this visit of mine isn’t an attempt to shoot the crow! I am escaping from my aunts.’

  ‘Why, what are they doing to you? Are you roasting me?’

  ‘Not at all. They are bent on re-establishing me. There are three of ’em, and they are all antidotes. Two are unmarried, and live together – one’s fubsy-faced, and t’other’s a squeeze-crab; and the eldest is a widow, and the most intimidating female you ever beheld. She lives in a mausoleum in Grosvenor Square, rarely stirs out of it, but holds receptions, very like the Queen’s Drawing-Rooms. She’s clutch-fisted, dressed like a quiz, has neither wit nor amiability, and yet by means unknown to me – unless it be by force of character, and I’ll allow she has that! – has persuaded the ton that she is a second