Venetia

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Oh, yes) You are so very good to me! I didn’t mean to complain!” Charlotte said, hastily drying her eyes. “I beg your pardon! It was only not feeling very well, and then having to go with Mama and Mrs. Gurnard— But it is all nonsense! Nurse said— Oh, Venetia, Nurse is very kind, isn’t she?”

  “Ah, so you’ve made Nurse’s acquaintance, have you? I am so glad—and that you like her!”

  “Yes, indeed, she made me feel so comfortable! She was putting a hot brick in my bed when I went up last night, and she helped me to undress, and made me drink a posset, and told me about Conway, when he was a little boy! It was she who brought up my breakfast-tray, too.”

  Thankful that her thoughts had taken a more cheerful direction Venetia encouraged her to continue talking in this strain, and was presently helped by the arrival on the scene of Nurse herself, bringing a cup of hot milk to Charlotte. It was immediately made apparent to Venetia that Nurse had decided to admit Charlotte into the ranks of her charges, for she began scolding almost before she came within tongue-shot, demanding to know what was this that she had heard about her ladyship’s not fancying her nuncheon? To Charlotte’s faint excuse that she was not hungry she replied severely: “Never you mind whether you’re hungry, my lady! You’ve two to feed now, and you’ll just do what Nurse says, and no nonsense! Now, you drink this nice cup of milk!” As she put it into Charlotte’s hand she looked sharply at her, and said: “Who’s been upsetting you, my lady? Not Miss Venetia, I know!”

  “Oh, no, no! I was silly—it’s nothing!”

  “She misses Conway,” Venetia explained.

  “To be sure she does, but crying won’t bring him home any the sooner,” said Nurse briskly. “There, now, my lady, drink up your milk, and you’ll be better! What you want to do is to go with Miss Venetia for a walk in the park, instead of moping here. You’ll have your Mama coming to find you before you know where you are, and you’ve had enough worriting for one day. You take her, Miss Venetia, but not too far, mind!”

  “I will, and gladly,” Venetia said, getting up. “Would you care for it, Charlotte?”

  “Yes, please—only will it not be damp? Mama said—”

  “Now, what did I tell you, my lady?” said Nurse. “There’s no need for you to cosset yourself. It’s what I don’t hold with, and never have, and so I shall tell your Mama.”

  “Oh, Nurse, pray—!”gasped Charlotte imploringly.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty head, my lady!” advised Nurse, with a grim little laugh. “There, you go along with Miss Venetia, and no more nonsense!”

  “I’ll fetch the dogs: they need a run,” said Venetia, unaware that she was striking dismay into Charlotte’s heart.

  “You won’t do that, miss, for Master Aubrey took them with him,” said Nurse, to Charlotte’s great relief. “Yes, you may well stare! Gone off riding, he has, and not a bit of heed would he pay to me, except to say that if he didn’t try whether it hurt him he wouldn’t ever know. The next thing we know we shall have him abed again, for he that hath a froward heart findeth no good, Miss Venetia, as I’ve told him often and often!”

  “When Nurse becomes Biblical, it is a sign that she is much moved!” Venetia said, as she and Charlotte crossed the lawn together. “Aubrey had an accident a few weeks ago, and we are afraid his weak leg may not yet be fit for riding. However, I expect he won’t persist, if he finds it pains him, and in any event it doesn’t do to try to coddle him: he doesn’t like to have his lameness mentioned, you see.”

  She led Charlotte into the park, chatting of such commonplaces as she hoped might set the girl more at her ease. Charlotte had already asked her if she was very bookish, and she had gathered that the epithet stood in her mind for all that was most alarming. She could not help thinking, as she recounted an anecdote of her childhood, that Charlotte would have little reason, after this session, for believing her to be very clever.

  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.

  “Oh, she has a very vulgar mind!” agreed Venetia. “I meant that she is not underbred, in the style of poor Mrs. Huntspill, or that strange female I met when I visited Harrogate with Aunt Hendred, and who talked all the time of duchesses, and as if they had been her dearest friends, which my aunt assured me was not at all the case. Mrs. Scorrier doesn’t boast in that fashion, and though she is not sincere, and quite odiously overbearing, there is nothing in her manners to give one a disgust of her. But I don’t believe she’s a member of the ton.”

  “If she’s the woman I rather fancy she must be, she’d the daughter of some small country squire,” said Damerel, following her into the library. “From what Aubrey tells me, I should say your sister-in-law must be Ned Scorrier’s daughter—in which event you need not blush for the marriage. The Scorriers are well enough: not tonnish, but of good stock: a Staffordshire family. Ned Scorrier was one of the younger sons, and was at Eton in my time, though senior to me by a couple of years. I know he became a military man, and made a bad match when he was only twenty, but what happened after that I don’t think I ever heard.”

  “He died of fever, in the Peninsula,” said Venetia. “I should think he must be the same man, for Mrs. Scorrier did say something about her husband’s family living in Staffordshire. She quarrelled with them.” Her brow wrinkled. “At least, so I understood, from what Charlotte said, but it does seem an idiotish thing to have done, in her circumstances! She’s not very beforehand with the world, you know: doesn’t pretend to be; so one would have supposed that she would have taken care not to quarrel with her husband’s family.”

  “One of the advantages of having led a sequestered life,” said Damerel, smiling, “is that you’ve not until now encountered the sort of woman who can’t refrain from quarrelling with all who cross her path. She is for ever suffering slights, and is so unfortunate as to make friends only with such illnatured persons as soon or late treat her abominably! No quarrel is ever of her seeking; she is the most amiable of created beings, and the most long-suffering. It is her confiding disposition which renders her a prey to the malevolent, who, from no cause whatsoever, invariably impose upon her, or offer her such intolerable insult that she is obliged to cut the connection. Have I hit the mark?”

  “Pretty well!” said Aubrey, grinning wryly.

  “Add jealousy!” Venetia said. “Quite irrational, too! She took me in jealous dislike the instant she laid eyes on me, and I can’t discover why she should have done so, for indeed I don’t think I gave her cause!”

  “But you give her great cause,” Damerel said, the smile lingering in his eyes. “Had you been a dark beauty the case would have been different, for you might have served as a foil to that insipid blonde of hers. But you are fair, my dear, and you shine that girl down. Believe me, the gold casts the flax into dismal eclipse, which Mrs. Scorrier very well knows!”

  “By Jupiter, I believe you’re right!” exclaimed Aubrey, critically surveying his sister. “I suppose she is a remarkably handsome girl! People seem to think her so, at all events.”

  “And even you allow her to be tolerable! There can be no doubt!”

  “Thank you! I am very much obliged to you both!” said Venetia, laughing. “I daresay you know how much I delight in the ridiculous. You will at least do Charlotte the justice to own that she is a very pretty girl!”

  “Certainly—in the style of a puppet, without countenance.”

  “Well, I see nothing in her above the ordinary,” declared Aubrey. “And unless he was castaway at the time I’m dashed if I know why Conway offered for her!”

  “But they will deal charmingly!” said Venetia. “I know exactly why he offered for her! She is pretty, and gentle, she admires him excessively—indeed, I believe she worships him!—she hasn’t two thoughts in her head to bother him, and she will always think he is as wise as he is handsome!”

  “In that case he will become wholly insufferable,” said Aubrey, dragging himself out of his chair. “I must go and attend to Bess: she picked up a thorn in one pad.”

  He limped out, and as the door closed behind him Damerel said: “I’ve no interest in the fair Charlotte, and less than none in her mama, but I own I have the liveliest curiosity in your brother Conway, my dear delight! What the devil’s the meaning of this freak? What kind of a man is he to have served you such a trick?”

  Venetia considered her brother Conway. “Well, he is large, and very handsome,” she offered. “He looks as if he were strong-willed, but in fact he is excessively easy-going, and only now and then obstinate. He is kind, too, and I must say I think it a great virtue in him that he doesn’t take a pet when one roasts him. In fact whenever Aubrey says one of his cutting things to him he is quite proud to think that however puny the poor little fellow may be
he has a devilish clever tongue.”

  Damerel put up his brows. “But you are drawing the portrait of an estimable man, my dear!”

  “So he is—in many ways,” replied Venetia cordially. “Only he is selfish, and indolent, and for all his amiability it is of no use to suppose that he might put himself out for anyone, because without being so disobliging as to refuse outright he would either forget, or discover some excellent reason why it would be much better for everyone if he didn’t bestir himself. He dislikes to be made uncomfortable, you see. And for the rest—oh, he is a bold rider to hounds, a first-rate fiddler, and a tolerable shot! He likes simple jokes, and laughs as heartily when he tells them for the tenth time as he did at the first.”

  “Aubrey’s is not the only deadly tongue in the Lanyon family!” he remarked appreciatively. “Now, if you please, explain to me why this ease-loving fellow saddled himself with a termagant for his mama-in-law!”

  “Oh, he wanted Charlotte, so he left the future to take care of itself! When Mrs. Scorrier made it uncomfortable for him at Cambray he got rid of her, I have no doubt at all, without a disagreeable scene, merely by encouraging Charlotte to fancy herself unwell, and then convincing her, and Mrs. Scorrier, and himself as well, that it was his duty to send her home to England. I daresay he would be glad if I would rid Undershaw of Mrs. Scorrier, and before he returns, but I doubt if I could, and, in any event, I don’t mean to make the attempt. He must do it himself. He will, too—which is something I fancy she doesn’t yet suspect!” Venetia gave a little chuckle. “Of course he would never quarrel with her at Cambray, where she would have made a great noise, and put him to the blush, but he won’t care a button what noise she makes here! And I shouldn’t wonder at it if he makes Charlotte tell her to go, and goes off hunting all day while she does it!”

  Damerel laughed, but he said: “Meanwhile, she is cutting up your peace, confound her!”