Venetia Read online

  ‘Oh, won’t you preside over them?’ he said, much disappointed.

  ‘Yes, love, if you wish me to,’ she replied, smiling at him. ‘Should I enjoy them?’

  He stretched out his hand, and when she laid her own in it, held it very tightly. ‘You shall have a splendid orgy, my dear delight, and you will enjoy it very much indeed!’

  Fortunately, since the much-tried Mr Hendred was showing alarming signs of having reached the end of his endurance, the door opened at that moment, and Imber came in with the tea-tray. He set this down before Venetia, who at once poured out a cup, and gave it to her uncle, saying: ‘I know you won’t venture to eat anything, sir, but tea always does you good, doesn’t it?’

  He could not deny it, and it did indeed exercise a beneficial effect upon him, for by the time he had finished his second cup he had so far accepted the marriage as inevitable as to demand of Damerel whether he had any notion how his affairs stood, to what tune he was in debt, and in what style he proposed to support his wife.

  These pregnant questions were posed in a tone of withering irony, but Damerel’s answer was in the nature of a doubler. ‘I know exactly how my affairs stand: what my debts amount to, and what my disposable assets will bring in. I shan’t be able to support my wife in luxury, but I trust to support her in comfort. I have been into all this with my man of business – a month since! He merely awaits my instructions to act in the manner agreed upon at that time.’

  Driven against the ropes, Mr Hendred was still full of pluck, and rattled in again, game as a pebble. ‘And a settlement?’ he demanded.

  He was thrown in the close. ‘Naturally!’ said Damerel, raising his brows with unaccustomed haughtiness.

  At this point Venetia entered the ring. ‘I may not know much about orgies, but you are now talking of what I do understand!’ she announced. ‘And in a perfectly idiotish way! Disposable assets means your race-horses, and your yacht, and the post-horses you stable all over England, and I know not how many other things! There is not the smallest need for you to dispose of them, and as for making a settlement on me, why the – the devil should you, when I have a great deal of money of my own? I must own, I should myself choose to pay off the debts, but if you prefer to live in debt, it is quite your own affair! As for making all these sacrifices – Damerel, it would end in regret for you, not for me!’

  ‘Live in debt?’ exclaimed Mr Hendred, regarding her with an expression not far removed from revulsion. ‘Prefer to live in debt?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll discuss all these matters, sir – in our idiotish way – at some future date!’ said Damerel. ‘Don’t distress yourself, my sweet! My happiness doesn’t hang on my disposable assets, but on one green girl.’

  ‘Stop!’ commanded Mr Hendred. ‘You are going a great deal too fast! This will not do!’

  ‘Well, at least it will do better than for her to join the Steeples’ set!’ retorted Damerel. ‘Yes, you may stare, but that is the pistol that has been held to my head!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Mr Hendred testily. ‘Aurelia wouldn’t entertain such a notion for an instant! Aurelia with a daughter taking the shine out of her? Ha!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I think, but although I haven’t yet discovered how she did it, Venetia has wrung an invitation out of her: I’ve been privileged to read it!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Mr Hendred blankly.

  ‘So,’ continued Damerel, ‘we will now devote our energies not to the hopeless task of convincing my green girl that she is making a mistake, but to the problem of how to ensure that she shall not find herself ostracised by the ton.’

  ‘I assure you it won’t trouble me in the least to be ostracised!’ interpolated Venetia.

  ‘It would trouble me, however.’ Damerel turned his head, and looked thoughtfully at Mr Hendred. ‘With your support, sir, and my Aunt Stoborough’s, I think we may contrive to brush through it. I rather fancy you are acquainted with my aunt?’

  ‘I have been acquainted with Lady Stoborough these twenty years,’ replied Mr Hendred, with a thin, triumphant smile. ‘And the only heed she would pay to any persuasion of mine, or of anyone, would be to do precisely the opposite to what was desired.’

  ‘Just so!’ said Damerel. ‘I see that you will know to a nicety how to bring her round your thumb.’

  There was a silence. Mr Hendred, on whom this speech seemed to have exercised a powerful effect, sat gazing at a picture invisible to his companions. Under Venetia’s fascinated eyes, the skin round his mouth began slowly to stretch, and while his thin lips remained a little pursed two deep creases appeared in his cheek: Mr Hendred was enjoying a private joke, too rare to be imparted to his companions. Emerging from this reverie, he surveyed them with disfavour, and declared his inability to discuss the matter on hand any more that evening. He then asked his niece if she meant to accompany him to York, where he meant to spend the night, but not as though he expected to receive an assenting answer.

  This gave her the opportunity for which she had been waiting. She said: ‘No, dear sir, not another yard will I travel this day, and nor, I must break it to you, do you! Don’t eat me! but I directed Imber to send your chaise on to the Red Lion some time ago. I know that is what you like, and indeed, we are so very short-handed – I mean, Damerel is so short-handed here at present that the postilions could hardly be housed without putting the servants to a great deal of work they really have no time to undertake! And Damerel’s valet, a most excellent man, will have seen that a room is prepared for you by now, and will have unpacked your portmanteau. I ventured to direct him to find the pastilles you always burn when you have the headache, upon hearing which he said that he would immediately prepare a tisane for you to drink when you go to bed.’

  This programme was so attractive that Mr Hendred succumbed, though not without warning his host that his complaisance must not be taken to mean that he gave his consent to a marriage of which he strongly disapproved, much less that he was prepared to promote it in any way whatsoever.

  Accepting this blighting announcement with equanimity, Damerel then rang the bell for Marston, at which moment Aubrey, having driven into the stableyard, and entered the house by way of a side-door, came into the room. He was looking faintly surprised, and said as he entered: ‘Well I wondered who the deuce you could be talking to, Jasper! How d’ye do, sir? Well, m’dear, how are you? I’m glad you’ve come: I’ve missed you.’

  He limped across the room to Venetia as he spoke, and much moved by his greeting she embraced him warmly. ‘And I have missed you, love – you don’t know how much!’

  ‘Stoopid!’ he said, with his twisted smile. ‘Why didn’t you send warning that you were coming? What’s brought you, by the way?’

  ‘I will tell you what brought your sister here!’ said Mr Hendred. ‘You are of an age to be thought capable of forming an opinion, and I am told that you are considered to have a superior understanding! It may be that Venetia will be more willing to attend to you than to me. Let me tell you, young man, that she has announced her intention of accepting an offer from Lord Damerel!’

  ‘Oh, good!’ said Aubrey, his face lighting up. ‘I hoped you would, m’dear: Jasper is just the man for you! Besides, I like him. I shall be able to spend my vacations with you, and I could never have stood Edward, you know. By the by, did he come boring for ever in London?’

  ‘Is that all you have to say, boy?’ demanded Mr Hendred, pardonably incensed. ‘Do you wish your only sister to marry a man of Lord Damerel’s reputation?’

  ‘Yes, I told her I thought she should an age since. I never paid much heed to all the gossip about Jasper’s reputation myself, and if she don’t care for it why should I?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Mr Hendred bitterly, ‘that such sentiments might have been expected from a boy who does not scruple to recount grossly immoral and indelicate stories to his sister!’

  Aubre