Venetia Read online

  Hers was not a demonstrative nature, and she indulged in no flood of tears, or fits of lethargic abstraction. Only the stricken look in her eyes sometimes betrayed her, and made her aunt uneasy.

  On the whole, she dealt very agreeably with Mrs Hendred, and Mrs Hendred was well pleased with her. She was an attentive companion; she dressed in admirable taste; her manners were graceful; and instead of being awkward and tongue-tied amongst strangers, as might have been expected, she was perfectly assured, and could converse as easily with a clever man as with a stupid one.

  Mrs Hendred had only one fault to find with her behaviour, and that was her incurable independence. Nothing could persuade her that it was unbecoming in her to think she could manage her life without reference to her seniors, and positively improper of her to walk about London by herself. In almost every other respect Venetia was ready to oblige her, and even to defer to her judgment, but relinquish her freedom she would not. She went shopping alone; she walked alone in the parks; and no sooner did she discover that her aunt visited historic monuments only with extreme reluctance, and was interested in no pictures but those which were painted by fashionable artists, than she formed the appalling habit of sallying forth in the afternoon, while Mrs Hendred recruited her forces with a peaceful nap on her bed, and driving off in a hack to such places as Westminster Abbey, or the Tower of London, or even to the British Museum.

  ‘Which, setting aside every other consideration,’ said Mrs Hendred tragically, ‘is enough to make everyone think you a bluestocking! Nothing could be more fatal!’

  This conversation took place at the nuncheon table, and Venetia, who had been watching in great astonishment the extraordinary grimaces her aunt made every time she took a sip of wine, exclaimed: ‘My dear ma’am, are you sure there is not something wrong with that sherry you are drinking?’

  As she spoke she chanced to glance at the butler. He was a wooden-faced individual, but at Venetia’s words he betrayed a quiver of emotion. This was immediately explained by Mrs Hendred, who said, with a heavy sigh: ‘Not sherry, dearest: vinegar!’

  ‘Vinegar?’ repeated Venetia incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ nodded her aunt, eyeing it despondently. ‘Bradpole has been obliged to let out my lavender satin – the one with the French bodice, and the train with French double trimming, and lace net all round the neck – two inches! I am obliged to reduce, and there is nothing like vinegar for that. Vinegar and hard biscuits. Byron lived on that diet, you know, because he had a great tendency to put on flesh, and in that way he kept himself down.’

  ‘I wonder that he didn’t kill himself! Aunt, he cannot have subsisted on such a diet!’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so,’ agreed Mrs Hendred, ‘but I know it’s what Rogers told me. The very first time he dined with Rogers he would partake of none of the dishes set before him, but only ate hard biscuits – or was it potatoes? I am not perfectly sure about that, but I know that he had vinegar.’

  ‘Not to drink!’ protested Venetia.

  ‘Well, he couldn’t have eaten it, so he must have drunk it!’ pointed out Mrs Hendred reasonably.

  ‘Perhaps he poured it over what he did eat. He would have been shockingly ill if he had drunk it by the glassful!’

  ‘Do you think that is what I should do?’ asked Mrs Hendred, somewhat dubiously considering the ratafia cream on her plate.

  ‘Most certainly I do not!’ said Venetia, laughing. ‘Do, pray, let Worting take it away, dear ma’am!’

  ‘I must say, I think it would quite ruin this cream. Perhaps it will do as well if I take care to eat a biscuit. Worting, you may hand me the cream again, and then you may go, for I shan’t need anything more, except the macaroons, and those you may leave on the table. My love, I wish you will take one, for they are exceptionally good, and you have hardly eaten a morsel!’

  To oblige her, Venetia took a macaroon and sat nibbling it while her aunt returned to the task of persuading her that solitary expeditions must never be undertaken by young ladies of ton. Venetia let her run on in her discursive way, for she could not tell her that she went sightseeing in a dogged attempt to occupy her mind, any more than she could tell her that she was never alone, because a ghost walked beside her, soundless and invisible, yet so real that she felt sometimes that if she stretched out her hand it would find his.

  ‘…and it is so particularly important, my love, that you should behave with the utmost propriety!’ pursued Mrs Hendred.

  ‘Why?’ asked Venetia.

  ‘Every unmarried lady should do so, and in your situation, Venetia, you cannot be too careful what you do! My love, if you knew the world as I do, which of course you can’t be expected to, and I daresay you haven’t a notion how spiteful people can be, especially when a girl is so very handsome, and so exactly – I mean, so striking!’

  ‘Well, I don’t think anyone can say anything very spiteful about me only because I go out alone,’ replied Venetia. ‘Nothing that I care for, at all events.’

  ‘Oh, Venetia, I do beg of you not to talk in that style! Only think how dreadful if you caused people to say you were fast! You may depend upon it they are on the watch for the least sign, and will be ready to pounce on you, and one can’t wonder at it, after all! I daresay I should myself, not, of course, on you, dear child, but in another girl in your situation!’

  ‘But what is there in my situation to make people ready to pounce on me?’ asked Venetia.

  ‘Oh dear, I wish you will not – You quite put me out! Your living with only Aubrey, I mean, with no chaperon, and – good gracious, Venetia, even you must know that it is not at all the thing!’

  ‘I don’t, but I know better than to argue with you on that head, ma’am! I daresay there may be many who would agree with you, but how should anyone in London know what my situation has been? I am persuaded you can never have divulged it!’

  ‘No, no, indeed I never did! But – well, such things become known, I’m sure I don’t know how, but you may believe that they do!’

  But as Venetia found it impossible to believe that what happened at Undershaw could be known in London, she was quite unimpressed by her aunt’s dark warnings. Fortunately it was not difficult to divert Mrs Hendred’s mind, so instead of arguing with her she seized the first opportunity that offered of introducing a fresh topic of conversation, and said that she had overheard someone saying, in Hookham’s Library, that very morning, that he had had it on the best of authority that the Queen was not expected by her physicians to live out the week. As it was Mrs Hendred’s recurrent nightmare that her Majesty (whom everyone knew to be as tough as whitleather) would survive the winter, and ruin all Theresa’s chances by dying in the middle of the next season, this gambit was very successful; and in hoping, doubting, and wondering for how long a period the Court (and of course the ton) would go into mourning, Mrs Hendred forgot, for the time being, that she had failed to extract from her wilful niece any promise of conformity.

  The Queen died at Kew, in the small hours of the morning of the 17th November. Mr Hendred brought the news to his wife, and it did much to raise her spirits, sunk very low by the outrageous behaviour of her dressmaker, who had delivered in Cavendish Square, instead of a promised promenade dress, a prevaricating note full of excuses for having been unable to fulfil her obligation.

  The only fault Mrs Hendred had to find in the news was that the Queen should have chosen to die on the 17th instead of the 18th November, for the 17th was the day fixed for the ball she was giving in Venetia’s honour. Few thing could have been more provoking, for all the preparations had been made, and after having been put to so much exertion, arranging with the French cook about the supper, speaking to Worting about the champagne, deciding what she should wear, and showing Venetia how to direct the cards of invitation, it was a great deal too bad that it should all have been for nothing. However, after wondering what was to be done with the creams a