Venetia Read online

  Sir Lambert chuckled. ‘Yes, yes, I see how it is! You would like to have it out with me at dawn! That’s the dandy! I like to see a young fellow ready to sport his canvas! Lord, I was the devil of a fire-eater myself in my day, but that was before you were born, my boy! You can’t call me out, you know! Well, well, it’s too bad of me to roast you! Do you go along with us to the top of the street, and then, if my pretty little daughter likes, you may take her the rest of the way by yourself.’

  Edward nearly choked. Before he could utter whatever rash words surged to his tongue Venetia intervened, saying in a tone of cool amusement: ‘Oswald Denny to the life! My dear Edward, do not you make a cake of yourself, I beg!’

  ‘And who,’ demanded Sir Lambert, pleasantly intrigued, ‘is Oswald Denny, eh? Oh, you may look demurely, but you don’t bamboozle me, puss! Yes, yes, I can see what a twinkle you have in your eye! I’ll be bound you have all the cockerels in Yorkshire squaring up to each other!’

  She laughed, but turned it off, directing the conversation into channels less exacerbating to Edward. He, determined not to leave her with Sir Lambert and unable to wrest her forcibly away from that elderly buck, had nothing to do but to fall in beside her, and to reply, in stiff monosyllables, to such remarks as were from time to time addressed to him.

  Arrived at the top of the street, Venetia stopped, and, withdrawing her hand from Sir Lambert’s arm, turned to face him, saying, with her friendliest smile: ‘Thank you, sir. You are a great deal too good to have come so far with me, and it would be quite infamous of me to drag you any farther. I am so very much obliged to you – and you were perfectly right: the Indian muslin will make up much better than the sprig!’

  She held out her hand to him, and he clasped it warmly, sweeping off his curly-brimmed and shining beaver with an air many a budding dandy would have envied. She found that he was pressing into her hand the smaller of the two jeweller’s cases, and was for a moment bewildered. ‘But, sir – !’

  He closed her fingers over the little box. ‘There, it’s nothing! A trumpery thing, but you seemed to like it the best! You will let me give you a little present – a trifle from your father-in-law!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Indeed, sir, you mustn’t! Pray – !’

  ‘No, no, take it, my dear! You will oblige me very much by taking it! I never had a daughter, you know, but if I had I should have wished for one like you, with your sweet face, and your pretty ways!’

  She was very much touched, and regardless alike of the passers-by and Edward’s speechless anger stood on tiptoe to kiss Sir Lambert’s cheek, one hand on his broad shoulder. ‘And I wish very much that you had been my father, sir,’ she said. ‘I should have loved you much more than ever I loved my own, for you are a great deal kinder! Thank you! indeed I will take it, and remember you whenever I wear it, I promise you!’

  He returned her embrace, putting his arm round her, and giving her a hug. ‘That’s a good gal!’ he said. He then dug Edward in the ribs with the head of his cane, and said, with a slight lapse from his parental mood: ‘Well, you young dog, you may take her now, but if I were ten years younger damme if I wouldn’t cut you out!’

  After that he executed another of his practised bows, settled the beaver on his head again, and sauntered off down the street, keeping a weather eye cocked for any personable female who might come within his orbit.

  ‘You know, he may be a sad rip, but he’s the dearest creature!’ Venetia said, forgetting that Edward’s mood was scarcely in harmony with hers.

  ‘I can only suppose you to have taken leave of your senses!’ he said.

  She had been watching, with a little smile of appreciative amusement, Sir Lambert’s progress down the street, but she turned her head at this, and said with considerable asperity: ‘I certainly supposed you to have taken leave of yours! What can have possessed you to behave with such a want of conduct? I was never more mortified!’

  ‘You were never more mortified!’ he said. ‘I do not know how you can stand there, Venetia, speaking in such a manner!’

  ‘I don’t mean to stand here speaking in any manner at all,’ she interrupted, stepping off the flagway in the wake of the urchin who was zealously sweeping the crossing for her. ‘Stop looking as sulky as a bear, and give that boy a penny!’

  He caught up with her as she reached the opposite side of Oxford Street. ‘How came you to be in that old court-card’s company?’ he demanded roughly.

  ‘Pray remember that you are speaking of my father-in-law!’ she replied coldly. ‘I have been visiting my mother, and he was so obliging as to escort me home.’

  ‘Visiting your mother?’ he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears.

  ‘Certainly. Pray, have you any objection?’

  He replied in a resolutely controlled voice: ‘I have every objection, and you shall presently learn what they are! I do not choose to bandy words with you in public! We will be silent, if you please!’

  She returned no answer, but walked on, her countenance untroubled. He kept step beside her, his brow frowning, and his mouth grimly set. She made no attempt to speak to him until they stood on the steps of her uncle’s house, when, glancing thoughtfully at him, she said: ‘You may come in with me, if you wish, but don’t show the porter that face, if you please! You have advertised your displeasure to enough people already.’

  As she spoke, the door was opened, and she stepped into the house. It was the under-butler who had admitted her, and she paused to ask him if his mistress was in. On learning that Mrs Hendred, having suffered a disturbed night, had not yet left her bedchamber, she took Edward up to the drawing-room, and said, as she began to strip off her gloves: ‘Now say what you will, but try to recollect, Edward, that I am my own mistress! You appear to believe that you have authority over me, but you have not, and so I have told you very many times!’

  He stood looking at her gloomily, and at length replied: ‘I have been mistaken in your character. I allowed myself to believe that the levity of which I have frequently had cause to complain sprang from a natural liveliness rather than from any want of disposition in you. My eyes have been opened indeed!’

  ‘I am extremely glad to hear it, for it was certainly time they should be. Don’t accuse me, however, of deceiving you! You deceived yourself, for you would never believe that I mean the things I say. The truth is, Edward, that we are poles apart. I have a great respect for you –’

  ‘I wish I might say the same of you!’

  ‘How very uncivil of you! Come, let us shake hands, and say no more, except to wish each other happy!’

  He made no movement to take the hand stretched out to him, but said heavily: ‘My mother was right!’

  Her ready sense of the ridiculous overcame her annoyance; her eyes began to dance; she said cordially: ‘To be sure, she was!’

  ‘She begged me not to allow my judgment to be overborne by my infatuation. I wish that I had heeded her. I might then have been spared the mortification of discovering that the female whom I had intended to make my wife had neither heart nor delicacy!’

  ‘Well, I wish you had, too, but all’s well that ends well, you know! In future you will do as your mother bids you, and I expect she will find the very wife to make you comfortable. I’m sure I hope she will.’

  ‘I should have known what to expect when you did not scruple, in spite of my representations, to visit the Priory daily. You appear to have a preference for libertines!’

  The smile swept over her face, transfiguring it. ‘It’s very true, Edward: I have indeed! Now I think you had better go. You have rung a fine peal over me, and it is time I went up to see how my aunt does.’

  ‘I shall leave London by the first coach tomorrow morning!’ he announced, and on this valedictory line stalked from the room.

  Hardly had his step died away on the stair than the door opened again, this time