Venetia Read online

  ‘I’ve no need to introduce you to Lady Denny, have I?’ Venetia was saying.

  ‘No, I have already had that honour,’ Damerel replied, advancing with what her ladyship felt to be brazen effrontery to shake hands with her. ‘How do you do?’

  She responded civilly, because she was a woman of breeding, but her palm itched to slap that harsh-featured, coolly smiling face. She fancied she could detect mockery in his eyes, as though, well aware of her disapproval, he was daring her to try whether she could come between him and Venetia, and it was with a real effort that she answered his polite enquiry after her husband.

  ‘Do you want me to bring you anything from York?’ Aubrey asked his sister. ‘That’s what I came to ask you.’

  ‘Did you, love?’ she retorted, quizzing him. ‘I am so very much obliged to you! And so much moved to think that such a notion came into your head!’

  He grinned at her, not at all abashed. ‘It didn’t!’

  ‘What a graceless scamp you are!’ remarked Damerel. ‘You might at least have assumed that virtue!’

  ‘Why should I, when she knows I have it not?’ said Aubrey, over his shoulder, as he went to take leave of Lady Denny. ‘Goodbye, ma’am: you don’t think it uncivil of me to go, do you? No, for you came to see Venetia, I know. I won’t keep you waiting above a minute, Jasper, only I can’t go to York in these slippers, can I?’

  ‘Not in my company, at all events,’ said Damerel. He looked at Venetia as the door shut behind Aubrey, and again Lady Denny saw the smile that passed between them. It was so slight as to be almost imperceptible: hardly more than a softening of expression, a tenderness in the eyes. She realised that it was involuntary, and knew the affair to be more serious than she had dreamed it could be, for Damerel, whatever his intentions might be, was not amusing himself with a desperate flirtation: he was as much in earnest as Venetia. He was speaking to her now, only about Aubrey, but in a way that betrayed how intimate they had become. ‘I won’t let him stand for hours with his nose in a book,’ he was saying. ‘The drive won’t hurt him.’

  ‘No, on the contrary. What good angel prompted you to this? I couldn’t lure him away from the library! It was close on midnight when I heard him come to bed last night, and when I ventured to remonstrate this morning he informed me that he had wasted a great deal of time since his accident, and must now seriously apply himself to study! I thought that was what he had been doing!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Damerel said sardonically. ‘He was absorbed in light reading while in my house – as provided by Berkeley and Hume – with excursions into Dugald Stewart. Mere relaxation!’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘If I am to restore him to you by dinnertime I had best go and see what he’s doing. Would you lay me odds I don’t find him with a boot on one foot, a slipper on the other, and his nose in a lexicon, because he has suddenly remembered that he was about to track some obscure word to its source when I broke rudely in upon him?’

  He turned from her to take leave of Lady Denny, and, that done, shook hands briefly with Venetia, saying: ‘Do you want anything brought from York?’

  ‘No – not even fish, in a rush basket, which is Aubrey’s chief loathing!’

  He laughed, and went away. Venetia said, in her frank way: ‘I am glad he should have chanced to come in while you were with me, ma’am.’

  ‘Are you, my dear? Why?’ asked Lady Denny.

  ‘Oh – ! Because I could see that you wondered at my liking him, for you did not, when you met him before, did you?’

  Lady Denny hesitated, and then said: ‘I perfectly understand why you like him, Venetia. Indeed, I should have been astonished if he had failed to make you do so, for men of his – his stamp know how to make themselves charming to women.’

  ‘Yes,’ Venetia agreed. ‘They must have had a great deal of practice, though I don’t think it can be wholly due to practice, do you? I never met a rake before, or thought much about it, but I should suppose that a man could scarcely become one – well, not a very successful one, at all events – if he were not naturally engaging.’

  ‘Very true!’ said Lady Denny, rather faintly. ‘It is what makes them particularly dangerous. You, I am persuaded, have too much good sense and elegance of mind to be taken-in, but I wish you will be a little on your guard, my love. No doubt you find Lord Damerel’s company agreeable, and feel yourself to be very much obliged to him, but I own – and you must not take it amiss that I should tell you this, for I know the world as you do not – I own that I did not quite like to find him so very much at home here. It is not the thing, you know, for an unmarried lady of your age to be entertaining gentlemen.’

  Venetia gave a little chuckle. ‘I wish you will tell Edward so!’ she begged. ‘He hasn’t a notion of it! He even dines here, if he can contrive to linger until I am forced, for the sake of common civility, to invite him to do so.’

  ‘Well, my dear – well, that is another matter!’ said Lady Denny, trying to rally her forces. ‘Your friendship is of such long standing that – Besides, your papa liked him!’

  ‘No, no, ma’am, how can you do Papa such an injustice?’ protested Venetia. ‘When you must know he liked no one! However, I know what you mean to say: he thought that Edward would do very well for me!’

  ‘Now, Venetia – !’

  Venetia laughed. ‘I beg your pardon! I could not resist! But there is not the least need for uneasiness, because Damerel sees the matter exactly as you do. I daresay you may have noticed that I didn’t ask him if he would stay to dine, when he said he would bring Aubrey back by dinnertime? I know it to be useless: he will never do so. He tells me that while he does no more than pay us morning visits the quizzy people will say that he is dangling after me, but if he dined here they would say that I was encouraging his very improper advances. Does that make you easy, dear ma’am?’

  It had the reverse effect on her kind friend, and it was a very troubled lady who was driven back to Ebbersley, and who presently gave Sir John an account of her visit. Had her mind been less preoccupied the expression on her son’s face, at once guilty and apprehensive, when she looked into the room where he was sitting with Sir John and asked Sir John to come to her dressing-room, might have given rise to further anxieties. Fortunately, however, she did not look at Oswald; and he, after a nerve-racking period during which he imagined her to be divulging to his father his shocking conduct in Aubrey’s carpentry-barn, realised, when his father rejoined him, that Venetia had not after all betrayed him, and was so profoundly relieved that he resolved to write a very civil apology to her before he left Ebbersley for Crossley.

  Sir John looked grave when he listened to what his lady had to tell him, but he remained firm in his refusal to meddle. Lady Denny, who considered this poor-spirited, said in an accusing tone: ‘Pray, would you hesitate to speak to Lord Damerel if it was your daughter who was in question?’

  ‘No, certainly not, but Venetia is not my daughter,’ he replied. ‘Nor, my dear, is she eighteen years of age. She is five-and-twenty and her own mistress. If she has indeed fallen in love with Damerel I am sorry for it, because it will cause her to suffer a heartache, I fear. But if you are apprehensive of her committing any very serious imprudence I am persuaded you are permitting your anxiety to overcome your reason. For my part I believe Venetia to be a girl of excellent principles and a good understanding; and I cannot suppose that Damerel who, whatever his principles may be, is certainly not deficient in commonsense, has anything more in mind than flirtation.’ He saw Lady Denny shake her head, and added with a little asperity: ‘Do, my love, allow me to know a little better than you how such a man as Damerel may be expected to conduct himself towards a girl in Venetia’s situation! He is a libertine: I don’t deny that, but the case is that you are too prejudiced. Whatever his follies may be he is a man of breeding, and no common degree of worldly knowledge, and you may depend upon it he has nothing more in his head