“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 realized 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 you 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,” he said. “What’s your problem? I’ll do my best!”
“It is just the problem of where to go, if I should decide to do so—bearing in mind that Aubrey will go with me, and must not be removed from Mr. Appersett’s tuition. I’ve always said that when Conway was married I should form an establishment of my own, and had he become engaged, in the ordinary mode, I should immediately have formed my own arrangements, so that I might have left Undershaw before ever he brought his wife to it. The very few friends I have were aware that that was my intention, and would not have wondered at it. But as things have turned out the case is altered—or so it seems to me. What do you think?”
“I agree that it is altered, in that if you were to leave Undershaw before your brother’s return it would be generally assumed, since it must be widely known that he entrusted the management of his estate to you, that you were driven from your home. Which would be the plain truth.”
“Exactly so! And that circumstance makes it impossible for me to hire a house in this district.”
“True—if you think you owe it to your brother to preserve appearances which he does not seem to set much store by!”
“My dear friend, I have no such notion in my head, so don’t curl your lip at me so contemptuously!”
“Not at you, simpleton!”
“At Conway? Oh, by all means, then! The truth is that I owe him nothing.”
“On the contrary!”
“Not even that, if you mean that he owes anything to me. I accepted the charge he laid upon me because it suited me to do so. If I hadn’t had Aubrey to think of I shouldn’t have done it, any more than I should have remained here one day after I came of age.”
“Then are you bent on protecting the fair name of Lanyon?” he enquired.
“Stuff! No, be serious, Damerel! you must know I don’t care a rush for fair names—witness my pleasure in your company! The scruple in my mind concerns Charlotte. Aubrey calls her sweetly mawkish, and so she is, but she doesn’t deserve to be made any more uncomfortable than she is already, poor little creature! Conway has done all he can to prejudice people against her, and for me to add the finishing touch to his work would be the outside of enough! She has done me no harm—indeed, she is morbidly anxious to defer to me! To such an extent that if Mrs. Scorrier were hors concours I should infallibly take upon myself her role, and spend the better part of my time reminding Charlotte that she is now mistress at Undershaw! So if I leave Undershaw I must contrive to provide myself with an unexceptionable excuse for doing so, and I must not remain in this neighbourhood. I always meant to go to London, but that was looking ahead to when Aubrey will be at Cambridge. A whole year ahead, and what’s to be done during that period has me in a sad puzzle. There must be excellent tutors to be found in London, yet I doubt whether Aubrey—”