“Leave Aubrey for a moment!” he interrupted. “Before I favour you with my opinion of your scheme of setting up an establishment in London—or York—or Timbuctu—tell me something!”
“Very well—but I haven’t asked you to give me your opinion of that!” she objected.
“You will have it, nevertheless. What has happened since I saw you last, Venetia, to overset you, and make you regard your removal from this place as a matter of sudden urgency?” Her eyes lifted quickly to his; he smiled, in loving mockery, and added: “I don’t want any stories about housekeepers or laundry-maids, my girl, and if you think you can hoax me you will have to learn that you are mistaken! What has that devil’s daughter done?”
She shook her head. “Nothing more than I told you. I never thought of hoaxing you, but only that I was perhaps refining too much upon something that was said—very likely with no other purpose than to vex me!”
“And what was said?”
She hesitated for a moment, before replying: “It concerned Aubrey. Mrs. Scorrier dislikes him quite as much as she dislikes me, I fancy—and I must own that he gives her good reason to do sol He is like a particularly malevolent wasp, which, do what you will, continually eludes your efforts to slay it. She brought it on herself, by being spiteful to me, but I’m not excusing him: he should not do it—it is most improper conduct!”
“Oh, confound the boy!” Damerel exclaimed, in quick exasperation. “I hoped I had scotched that pastime!”
She looked at him in surprise. “Did you tell him he must not?”
“No: merely that what he regarded as an agreeable form of relaxation exposes you to the full blast of that woman’s malice.”
“Then that accounts for it! You did scotch it, and I am truly grateful! During these past two days he has scarcely opened his lips in her presence. But either the mischief is done, or she resents his shutting himself up in his room, and joining us only at dinner-time—with a Greek chorus ringing so loudly in his ears that you may speak his name half-a-dozen times before he hears you! She can’t comprehend that, thinks he does it to be uncivil. Charlotte doesn’t like him either, but that’s because he says things she doesn’t understand, which makes her afraid of him. Unfortunately—she is embarrassed by his lameness, and always looks away when he gets up from his chair, or walks across the room.”
“I noticed that she did so when I met you in the park that day, and hoped she would speedily rid herself of the habit!”
“I think she tries to. But the thing is that it has provided Mrs. Scorrier with a pretext for saying what, I own, has quite sunk my spirits. She told me that Charlotte has a horror of deformity, which makes her wish that just now, when she is in a delicate situation, it might have been possible for Aubrey to visit friends. She did not phrase it as plainly as that, and perhaps I have allowed myself to be stupidly apprehensive.” His countenance had darkened; he said in an altered voice: “No. Far from it! If she was capable of saying that to you I would not bet a groat on the chance that she won’t say it to Aubrey himself, the first time he puts her in a rage.”
“That is what I’m afraid of, but could anyone be so infamously cruel?”
“Oh, lord, yes! This vixen, I daresay, would not, in cold blood, but I told you before, my innocent, that you are unacquainted with her sort. Women of unbridled passions are capable de tout! Let them but lose their tempers and they will say, and afterwards find excuse for, what, on another’s lips, they would condemn with sincere loathing!” He paused, scanning her face with eyes grown suddenly hard and frowning. “What else has she said to you?” he demanded abruptly. “You had much better tell me, you know!”
“Well, so I would, but surely you can’t wish me to repeat to you a list of malicious nothings?”
“No: spare me! That fling at Aubrey was all?”
“It was enough! Damerel, if you knew what tortures of self-hatred have been endured—never mentioned, only to be guessed at!—the shrinking from strangers, the dread of pity or such revulsion as Charlotte tries to hide—”
He broke in on her agitation, saying: “I do know. I think it unlikely that this woman would sink so low, unless offered extraordinary provocation, but the boy is abnormally sensitive. Shall I take him off your hands? I’ve told him already that he may remove to the Priory whenever he chooses. His reply was inelegant, but certainly did him credit. He was much inclined to snap my nose off: demanded if I was in all seriousness inviting him to run sly, leaving you to stand the shock! It seemed scarcely the moment to suggest to him that the shock would be less if he did run sly, but I can still do so, and will, if you tell me to. The only difficulty will be to conceal from him the real cause, and I expect I could overcome that.”
She put out her hand, almost unconsciously, saying playfully, to hide her deeper feeling: “What a good friend you are, Wicked Baron! Where should we be in this pass without you? I know I might, if the worst came to the worst, send Aubrey to you. That thought, I promise you, saved me from distraction! In emergency I shouldn’t hesitate—were you ever before so scandalously imposed on?—but there’s no emergency yet—may never be, if Aubrey will but shut his ears to the things that are said merely to vex and sting. I don’t mean to impose on you unless I must!”
His hand had closed on hers, and he was still holding it, but in a clasp that struck her as being curiously rigid. She glanced enquiringly at him, and saw a strange look in his eyes, and about his mouth the bitter sneer that mocked himself. She must have betrayed bewilderment in her face, for the sneer vanished, he smiled, and said lightly, as he released her hand: “I defy anyone to impose on me! I should be glad to have Aubrey at the Priory. I like the boy, and certainly don’t consider him a charge, if that’s what’s in your mind. No one could accuse him of being a difficult guest to entertain! Let him come to me when you choose, and remain for as long as may suit you both!”
“Thus positively conferring a favour on you!” she said, laughing. “Thank you! It would not, I think, be for very long. Lady Denny tells me that Sir John has heard from Mr. Appersett that he means to return to us before the middle of next month. I suspect his cousin—who was so obliging as to offer to exchange with him after his illness—has no great fancy to spend the winter in Yorkshire! Mr. Appersett told me years ago that if ever I should wish to go away for a time he would readily give Aubrey house-room.”
“Then, Aubrey’s affairs being satisfactorily arranged, we will turn to your own, Admir’d Venetia! Are you serious when you talk of setting up your own establishment?”
“Yes, of course I am!”
“Then it is time someone took order to you!” he said grimly. “Leave nursery-dreams, and come to earth, my dear! It is not possible!”
“But it is perfectly possible! Don’t you know that I’m mistress of what Mr. Mytchett—he is our lawyer, and one of my trustees—calls a considerable independence?”
“I still tell you that it is not possible!”
“Good God, Damerel, you don’t mean to talk propriety to me, do you?” she exclaimed. “I warn you, you won’t easily convince me that the least impropriety attaches to a woman of my years choosing rather to live in her own house than in her brother’s! If I were a girl—”