Venetia Read online

  Venetia rode over to Ebbersley to spend one day with Lady Denny, but although the respite from the frets and animosities at Undershaw did her good her visit was not one of unalloyed pleasure. One glance at Clara’s face was enough to confirm her in the belief that more had passed between her and Conway than her parents had suspected. So indeed she had now confessed, as Lady Denny presently disclosed to her young friend, in reluctant answer to a blunt question. ‘Yes, my dear, I am afraid you were right,’ she said. ‘But as for thinking that Conway was in any way bound to Clara, pray put such a notion out of your head! I need not tell you what were my feelings when I learned that a daughter of mine had behaved with such impropriety, and as for Sir John, I promise you I never saw him more confounded in my life! For, you know, my love, to be exchanging promises with a man without the consent or knowledge of her parents shows such a want of conduct as I had not thought it possible I could discover in Clara! Indeed, it is even worse, for Sir John had expressly forbidden any such exchanges, not because he would not have been very well pleased with the match, but because he judged them both to be too young to enter upon an engagement. If poor Clara had but realised then that her papa knew best, how much pain she would have been spared now! She is very sensible of how deeply she erred, so we don’t reproach her.’

  ‘Conway deserves to be flogged!’ exclaimed Venetia.

  ‘No, my dear, the fault was Clara’s, though I don’t deny that he did not behave just as he ought. But young men don’t take such affairs as seriously as you perhaps suppose, and of one thing you may be sure! he neither suggested nor attempted to carry on a clandestine correspondence with Clara!’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am very sure of that!’ said Venetia. ‘Only to think I should live to be thankful he is an illiterate! I wish I might congratulate Clara upon her good fortune, but I collect she does not yet see what an escape she has had!’

  ‘No, and we have agreed amongst ourselves that it is a case of the least said the soonest mended. We think that a change of scene would benefit her, and have planned to send her on a visit to her grandmama. Oh dear, if one knew the trouble one’s children would be to one!’ sighed Lady Denny. ‘First it was Oswald, and now it is Clara, and next, depend upon it, it will be Emily!’

  ‘Dear ma’am, if you are imagining that there was anything more to Oswald’s fancy for me than a fit of boy’s nonsense I promise you there was not!’ said Venetia, with her usual frankness. ‘He certainly made a great goose of himself, but wrote me a very handsome apology, so that I am in perfect charity with him.’

  ‘It is like your sweet nature to say so, my love,’ replied Lady Denny, blinking rather rapidly, ‘but I know very well that he must have behaved most improperly to you, besides vexing Lord Damerel, the very thought of which quite dismayed me!’

  ‘Now, that I am very sure he did not!’ declared Venetia.

  ‘So Lord Damerel told Sir John,’ said her ladyship, with unabated gloom. ‘Sir John, chancing to meet him the other day, asked him to his head if Oswald had been causing him annoyance, and he replied immediately, Not at all! which convinced Sir John that it was only too true.’

  Venetia could not help laughing at this, but she assured her old friend that Oswald had rather amused than annoyed Damerel. Lady Denny remarked with some feeling that it was small comfort to know that one’s only son was setting up as a laughing-stock; but she did seem to derive some comfort from the knowledge, for she made a determined effort to overcome her despondency, and demanded from Venetia an account of the happenings at Undershaw. She was not deceived by the comical aspect which Venetia took care to stress, but expressed her opinion of Mrs Scorrier’s conduct in unusually forthright terms, and adjured Venetia not to hesitate, should that Creature become outrageous, to pack up her trunks and come at once to Ebbersley.

  ‘I shall pay Lady Lanyon a bride-visit, of course,’ she said, with quiet dignity. ‘Pray, my dear, present my compliments to her, and explain to her that I am prevented at the moment from giving myself the pleasure of making her acquaintance by the illness in my house. Would you believe it, Venetia! – Cook has thrown out a rash this very day!’

  On this calamitous note they parted; and it was not until she had waved goodbye to Venetia that Lady Denny realised that her more pressing troubles had driven all thought of Venetia’s unfortunate tendre for Damerel out of her head. She now recalled that the look of radiance had disappeared from that lovely face, and although she was sorry for the cause she could not but hope that the infatuation which had set the girl in a glow had been as brief as it was violent. Much as she desired to alleviate Venetia’s present unhappiness she would have been appalled by the knowledge that only the dangerous rake’s presence in the district enabled Venetia to support her trials with smiling fortitude.

  When she was with him the most galling vexation dwindled to a triviality; when she recounted to him Mrs Scorrier’s latest attack upon her position she perceived all at once that it was funny. She found it as natural to confide in him as in Aubrey, and, under her present circumstances, far less dangerous, since Aubrey was ripe for murder. There was no more need to warn Damerel not to betray, even to Aubrey, what she might have told him than there was to explain to him the thought that lay behind some ill-expressed utterance.

  He found her, late one afternoon, seated alone in the library, at Aubrey’s desk. She was not writing, but sitting with her hands rather tightly clasped on the desk, and her frowning gaze fixed on them in deep abstraction. She paid no heed at first to the opening of the door, which seemed not to penetrate her reverie, but after a moment or two, as though aware of the searching scrutiny bent on her, she looked up, and, seeing Damerel on the threshold, uttered an exclamation of surprise, her brow clearing, and a smile lighting her eyes. She had not been expecting him, for in general he came to Undershaw before noon, and she said, as she rose, and went towards him: ‘You, my dear friend! Oh, I am glad to see you! I fell a prey to blue devils, and needed you so much, to laugh them away! What brings you to us? I didn’t look for your today, for I recall that you told me you would be occupied with business.’

  He showed no disposition to laugh, but replied in rather a harsh tone: ‘You bring me! What is it, my dear delight?’

  She gave a tiny sigh, but shook her head, and looked up smilingly into his face. ‘Mere irritation of the nerves, perhaps. Never mind it! I’m better now.’

  ‘I do mind it.’ He had been holding both her hands, but he released one, and drew a finger lightly across her brow. ‘You mustn’t frown, Venetia. Never in my presence, at all events!’

  ‘Well, I won’t!’ she said obligingly. ‘Are you smoothing it away – stoopid?’

  ‘I wish I might! What has happened to bring the blue devils upon you?’

  ‘Nothing worth the trouble of mentioning to you, or that is not so commonplace as to be a dead bore! A battle royal with Mrs Gurnard, from which I fled in quaking terror, the cause of the dispute being a complaint against the laundry-maid. Perfectly just, I daresay, but the wretched girl is none other than Mrs Gurnard’s own niece!’

  ‘A Homeric encounter: you should have stayed to hymn it. That did not bring the frown to your brow.’

  ‘No. If I was frowning, it was in an effort to decide what were best for me to do. I don’t think, you see, that we shall be able to remain here, Aubrey and I, until December, and there seems to be little hope that Conway will be free to return until then.’

  ‘I have never thought you could do so. Tell me the result of your deliberations!’ He led her to the sofa as he spoke, and sat down beside her on it.

  ‘None, alas! No sooner do I think of a scheme than objections rear their ugly heads, and I’m back in the suds again. Do you care to advise me? You always give me such good advice, dear friend!’

  ‘If I do, I have the distinction of providing a living refutation of Dr Johnson’s maxim, that example is always more efficacious than precept,�