Charlotte seemed to enjoy her walk, but as she favoured a dawdling method of progression, and contributed nothing to the conversation but some rather trite observations on the scenery, a description of her wedding-dress, and several uninteresting stones about a school-friend, Venetia was soon heartily bored. She was about to suggest that it was perhaps time they made their way back to the house when the sound of cantering horses made her turn to look across a stretch of turf towards the avenue. She saw that the riders were Aubrey and Damerel, and at once waved to them, saying to Charlotte: “Shall we walk to meet them? The man with Aubrey is Lord Damerel, our nearest neighbour. I expect Aubrey brought him to pay his respects to you.”
Charlotte assented, but in a scared voice which Venetia set down to shyness, and thought it best to ignore. Charlotte, however, was not thinking about the stranger she was to meet: she was hoping very much that the dreadful dogs bounding behind the horses were not savage. The horses were pulled up; Damerel drew his bridle over Crusader’s head, and gave it into Aubrey’s hand; and, to poor Charlotte’s dismay, three of the dreadful dogs came racing towards her. She shrank instinctively, but was relieved to discover that so far from biting her the spaniels paid no heed to her at all, but fawned round Venetia with as much exuberant delight as if they had not seen her for weeks. Then a whistle from Aubrey made them all tear off again, and Charlotte was glad to see that he was riding on to the stables, and taking the dogs with him.
Damerel, coming towards the ladies with his easy stride, met Venetia’s eyes for a pregnant moment before turning his own to the bride’s countenance in a swiftly appraising glance. That second’s interchange proved almost too much for Venetia’s composure; there was a very slight tremor in her voice as she greeted him. “Good-morning! My odious little brother, I perceive, has stolen a march upon me, and told you our exciting news. All that is left for me to do is to present you to my sister-in-law, and although that is a very agreeable task I had hoped to have astonished you! This is Lord Damerel, Charlotte—our good friend and neighbour.”
She saw with satisfaction, as Charlotte gave her hand to Damerel, and exchanged a few conventional words with him, that she showed no more shyness than was perfectly becoming. So nervous and so tongue-tied was she when trying to converse with her brother and sister-in-law that Venetia had begun to be afraid that she would make a poor impression on the neighbouring gentry. She was herself careless of appearances and knew little of the world but she was shrewd enough to guess that the secrecy in which Conway had seen fit to shroud his marriage would provide the ton of the North Riding with rich food for gossip and conjecture, and she thought it to be of the highest importance that Charlotte should give no one cause to say that she was so extraordinarily ill-at-ease that it was plain to be seen that something discreditable must lie behind the mystery of the strange marriage. But there was no fault to be found in her company-manners; she might be shy, she might utter nothing but platitudes, but Venetia was much inclined to think that such sharp-eyed critics as Lady Denny would pronounce her to be very pretty-behaved.
They walked back to the house with Damerel between them, and it was not long before Charlotte was prattling happily about Paris, and Cambray, of Sunday drives to Longchamps, of parties at Lord Hill’s Headquarters, of Lord Hill’s kindness, and of what he had been so very obliging as to say to her about Conway. Venetia, at first astonished by this sudden blossoming, quickly realized that it was due not to any impulse of coquetry in Charlotte but to the adroit handling of an expert. She could only marvel, admire, and be at once amused and rueful. She had tried so hard to draw Charlotte out, and with so little success! Yet Damerel had done it within five minutes of making her acquaintance, and without apparent effort. He even made her laugh, for when she was talking about the delights of shopping in Paris he said: “And for hats of the first style of elegance, Phanie!” which surprised a little trill of mirth out of her.
“Yes! How did you know?” she asked, looking innocently up at him.
Venetia choked, and saw a muscle quiver in the corner of Damerel’s mouth. But he said gravely: “I fancy I must have heard the name on the lips of some lady of my acquaintance.”
“Well, her hats are quite ravishing, but shockingly expensive!”
“They are indeed!—if what I have been told is true!”
“Oh, yes, for my husband bought one for me there, and when I learned the price I declare I was ready to sink, and felt obliged to shake my head at him! But he bought it, for all that, and I wore it at the breakfast that was given for the Duke of Wellington, when he came to Headquarters.”
In this artless style the conversation was maintained until they came within sight of the house. As they approached the arched gateway through which Venetia had led Charlotte into the park they were met by Aubrey, and Charlotte’s confidences were at an end. She was absurdly nervous of Aubrey, and seemed to be embarrassed by his lameness, always looking away when he moved, in a manner too marked, Venetia knew, to escape his notice. His leg was dragging more than usual, as he came towards them, so it was to be inferred that his experimental ride had been premature.
He nodded at Charlotte, saying: “Puxton has just come back from York with your abigail, ma’am. No, I have that wrong: your dresser! You should have sent William Coachman in with the carriage, Venetia: she ain’t accustomed to driving in gigs with an undergroom.”
This threw Charlotte into a flutter of apprehension; and after assuring Venetia incoherently that Mama had engaged Miss Trossell in London but would be the first to depress such pretension, she excused herself and hurried away to the house.
“Of all the ridiculous starts!” Venetia exclaimed. “What can Mrs. Scorrier have imagined Charlotte would want with a dresser at Undershaw?” She looked up at Damerel, mischief in her face. “As for you, sir, with your milliners, whose prices—you have heard—areso extortionate, how you could have the effrontery—!”
“Or you the impropriety, ma’am, to betray your understanding of the circumstances through which I became acquainted with Mlle. Phanie—!” he retorted.
She laughed, but said: “Yes, of course, I ought to have appeared unconscious—and so I would have done had it been anyone but you. How skilfully you contrived to set my sister-in-law at her ease, by the way!”
“But of course!” he murmured provocatively.
“What did you think of her?” interrupted Aubrey.
“Oh, your Pope quotation hits her off! A dead bore, but without guile or malice: she won’t trouble your peace.”
“No. Nor, I fancy,” said Venetia thoughtfully, “was Conway obliged to marry her, though I did suspect it at the outset, when I heard she was breeding.”
“Yes, so did I,” remarked Aubrey. “But Nurse says she expects to be confined in May, so that don’t fit. Nothing smoky about that.”
“Well, don’t sound as if you had rather there had been!” said Damerel, a good deal amused. “Am I to be privileged to meet Mama, or would that be unwise?”
“I should rather suppose it might be, if she knows about you,” responded Venetia, seriously considering the matter. “Let us go into the library—though it may well be that she doesn’t know, because although she is not vulgar—”
“She is excessively vulgar,” interpolated Aubrey.