“Not your purpose. Your destiny—as it should be!”
“Ah! My aunt’s purpose will be1 to find a husband for me?” He answered only with a shrug, and she got up, saying: “I’m glad you’ve warned me: is it allowable for an unmarried female to put up at an hotel? if she has a maid with her?”
“Venetia— I”
She smiled, putting up her eyebrows. “My dear friend, you are too stoopid today! Why must you picture me moped to tears, pining for company, bored because I shall be leading the life I’m accustomed to? Why, no! a much more entertaining life! Here, I’ve had books, and my garden, and, since my father died, the estate, to occupy me. In London, there will be museums, and picture-galleries, the theatre, the opera—oh, so much that to you seems commonplace, I daresay! And I shall have Aubrey during his vacations, and since I have an aunt who won’t, I hope, cut my acquaintance, I don’t utterly despair of forming a few agreeable friendships!”
“No, my God, no!” he exclaimed, as though the words had been wrenched out of him, and crossed the room in two hasty strides. “Anything were better than that!” He grasped her by the shoulders, so roughly that she was startled into uttering a protest. He paid no heed to it, but said harshly: “Look at me!”
She obeyed unhesitatingly, and endured with tranquillity a fierce scrutiny as keenly searching as a surgeon’s lancet, only murmuring, a little mischievously: “I bruise very easily!”
His grip slackened, and slid down her arms to gather her hands together, and hold them, clasped strongly between his own. “What were you doing when you were nine years old, my dear love?” he asked.
It was so unexpected that she could only blink.
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know! Learning lessons, and sewing samplers, I suppose—and what in the world has that to say to anything?”
“A great deal. Do you know what I was doing at that date?”
“No, how should I? I don’t even know how old you were—at least, not without doing sums, which I abominate. Well, if you are eight-and-thirty now, and I am five-and-twenty—”
“I’ll spare you the trouble: I was two-and-twenty, and seducing a married lady of quality.”
“So you were!” she agreed affably.
A laugh shook him, but he said: “That was the first of my amorous adventures, and probably the most discreditable. So I hope! There is nothing whatsoever in my life to look back upon with pride, but until I met you, my lovely one, I could at least say that my depravity stopped short of tampering with the young and innocent. I never ruined any reputation but Sophia’s—but don’t account it a virtue in me! It’s a dangerous game, seducing virgins, and, in general, they don’t appeal to me. Then I met you, and, to be frank with you, my dear, I stayed in Yorkshire for no other purpose than to win you—on my own terms!”
“Yes, you told me as much, when we parted on that first day,” she said, quite unperturbed. “I thought it a great piece of impertinence, too! Only then Aubrey had that fall, and we became such good friends—and everything was changed.”
“Oh, no, not everything! You call me your friend, but I never called you mine, and never shall! You remained, and always will, a beautiful, desirable creature. Only my intentions were changed. I resolved to do you no hurt, but leave you I could not!”
“Why should you? It seems to me a foolish thing to do.”
“Because you don’t understand, my darling. If the gods would annihilate but space and time—but they won’t, Venetia, they won’t!”
“Pope,” she said calmly. “And make two lovers happy. Aubrey’s favourite amongst English poets, but not mine. I see no reason why two lovers should not be happy without any meddling with space and time.”
He released her hands, but only to pull her into his arms. “When you smile at me like that, it’s all holiday with me! O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I’m not mad yet—not so mad that I don’t know how disastrous it might be to you—to us both! You don’t realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!” He broke off suddenly, jerking up his head as the door opening on to the passage from the ante-room slammed. The sound was followed by that of a dragging footstep. Damerel said quickly: “Aubrey. As well, perhaps! There’s so much that must be said—but not today! Tomorrow, when we are both cooler!”
There was no time for more; he put her almost brusquely away from him, and turned, as the door was opened, to face Aubrey, who came into the room with his pointer-bitch at his heels.
XIV
Damerel had placed himself between Venetia and the door, but it was immediately apparent that the precaution was unnecessary. Aubrey was looking stormy, his thin cheeks flushed, and his rather cold gray eyes full of sparks of light. His interest in his fellow-creatures was at the best of times perfunctory; when in the grip of anger he had none whatsoever, and would scarcely have noticed it had he found his sister in Damerel’s arms. He said, in a brittle voice, as he shut the door: “You’ll like to know, Venetia, that the Empress has issued a new ukase! The dogs—my dogs!—must in future be kept chained up! All but Bess here, who is too savage to be kept at all! Take care, Jasper: can’t you see what an ugly-tempered bitch she is?”
Damerel, who was gently pulling the pointer’s ears, while she stood with gracefully waving tail and an expression on her face of idiotic bliss, laughed, and said: “What’s she been doing?”
“Endangering the succession!” Aubrey snapped. “She came into the house—looking for me, of course!—and Charlotte finding her lying at the foot of the stairs was so startled and appalled that she let out a screech, which made Bess lift up her head, and stare at her—as well she might!”
“Oh dear!” sighed Venetia. “I know Charlotte doesn’t care for dogs, but if that’s all that happened—”
“All! It was but the start of Bess’s ferocious assault! Understand, m’dear, that her stare put Charlotte forcibly in mind of a wild beast! She knew not what to do, but decided on retreat—backwards, and stealthily! Whereupon Bess, not unnaturally intrigued, you may think, rose, and advanced towards her. Charlotte then screamed in good earnest, and ran behind a chair; Bess followed, Mrs. Scorrier burst out from the morning-room to discover what villain was attempting to rape her child, and started scolding Bess, and striking at her with the thing she had in her hand— what-d’ye-call-it? tambour frame? So Bess began to bark, Charlotte fell into hysterics, and—”
“Aubrey, how could, you have allowed it?” exclaimed Venetia, between annoyance and amusement. “It was too bad of you!”
“You’re mistaken: I wasn’t there. What I’m recounting I had from the lips of the afflicted ladies.” He grinned sardonically at his sister. “I was your good little brother, m’dear! I arrived in the arena to find Charlotte sunk into a chair, with Mrs. Scorrier waving her vinaigrette under her nose, and Bess baying the pair of them, but wagging her tail to show that though she wouldn’t stomach being chased from her own house she was too well-bred to bite. I didn’t think it of the least use to try sicking her on to the Empress, so I called her off. I even told that henhearted little ninny that she’d no need to be afraid, but all the thanks I got was abuse from the Empress. I brought Bess into the house on purpose to frighten Charlotte; my manners, character, and disposition all passed under unfavourable review, while Charlotte bleated Oh, pray, Mama! Oh, no, Mama! I think I bore it pretty well. Only when the Empress got to talking of Charlotte’s delicate situation I couldn’t resist! Not if I’d tried to, which I didn’t. She said that perhaps I didn’t realize, to which I replied that indeed I did, for Bess was in the same interesting condition. For one halcyon moment I thought she was going off in an apoplexy.”
“Fiend!” Venetia said, trying not to laugh.
“Yes, and, what’s worse, one who thinks because he is a cripple he may go his length,” said Aubrey, in a silken tone. “Oh, don’t look like that, stoopid! Do you imagine I haven’t known from the outset how abhorrent my limp is to the pair of them? I’m
sure I don’t blame them for that—but Nurse did! By that time, you understand, she had come bustling downstairs to discover what was the reason for all the commotion. You missed a high treat, m’dear! She told the Empress to think shame on herself; she told Charlotte to stop kicking up such an uproar about nothing; and she told me to go away before I forgot that I at least had been taught better than to raise such a nasty, vulgar disturbance in a gentleman’s establishment!”
“That was the most unkindest cut of all!” remarked Damerel. “I’d back your nurse against fifty Mrs. Scorriers!”
“Well, the issue was undecided when I left, but I daresay Nurse will come off the best,” agreed Aubrey. “The cream of the jest is that she, who always cuts up stiff when even Conway brings his dogs into the house, flew up into the boughs when the Empress announced that she would not allow me to keep Bess unless kennelled, since she was clearly dangerous! She was so imprudent as to order me to chain her immediately, and to demand if I had not heard her, when I turned my back upon all that monstrous regiment, and brought Bess along the passage to my own room. The last I heard of the battle was a demand from Nurse to know what right the Empress quite falsely supposed she had to dictate to a Lanyon born in his own house.”
“Oh dear!” Venetia sighed. She glanced at Damerel, a hint of shyness in her smile. “I must go, and do what I can to settle the dispute. Nurse will start quoting from the Book of Proverbs: she was doing so to me only yesterday, all about brawling and contentious women, and how much better it is to dwell in the corner of the housetop—not that I think she would consent to do so, if that means the attics!”
“Don’t be a sapskull!” Aubrey interrupted sharply. “Let her say what she chooses to that virago! If she can rid us of her, so much the better!”
“Yes, if she could, but Mrs. Scorrier would never permit herself to be worsted by Nurse! And if Nurse becomes outrageous, only think how difficult it would be for us!”
“Do you mean to tell that woman the dogs shall be kept on chains?” he demanded, a still angrier flush staining his cheeks. “I give you fair warning, Venetia, that if you do that I’ll shut Flurry into her bedchamber, with her best bonnet to worry!”
“Oh, love, don’t tempt me!” she said mischievously. “Of course I don’t mean to do any such thing! But I think it no more than just to promise her that you’ll bring the dogs only into this room. It is nonsensical of Charlotte to be so much afraid of them, but—oh, Aubrey, we must remember that it is now her house, and not ours!”
“Remember it! When are we allowed to forget it?” he flung at her.
She said nothing, but turned to the door. Damerel moved to open it for her, and said, as she paused for a moment, looking up at him in silent enquiry: “Decisive, I think! I shall see you tomorrow, but not, I fear, before noon. I was going to tell you—but it’s no matter! My agent is at the Priory: I’ve been closeted with him most of the day, and I fancy shall be so again all the morning. It’s important, or I’d let him go hang. As it is—” he paused, and smiled faintly, “—as it is, I must bear with him. Don’t let that woman vex you to death!”
She shook her head, his smile reflected in her eyes, and hurried away, across the ante-room.
He shut the door, and turned, meditatively surveying Aubrey, who had gone over to the fire, and was savagely stirring the logs to a blaze. He did not look up from this task, but as though aware that he was being studied said pugnaciously: “It was no fault of mine!”
“Well, don’t start ripping up at me!” replied Damerel. “I haven’t said it was. Stop putting yourself into a passion for nothing more than a storm in a teacup!” Aubrey looked at him, his mouth hard shut, and two deep clefts between his brows. “Gudgeon!” Damerel said, friendly mockery in his eyes.
Aubrey gave a short laugh. “I’d give a monkey to be present when she tells Conway she won’t have his dogs in the house! As for Charlotte, she’d do well to accustom herself to them, for she ain’t likely ever to see him without at least three at his heels. What’s more, Conway’s dogs are the worst trained in the county, and infernal nuisances! He lets ‘em jump on the chairs, and gives ‘em scraps of meat at table. I don’t make fools of my dogs! Oh, hell and the devil confound him, beef-witted Jack Pudding that he is!”
“Come back to the Priory, and we’ll confound him in unison!” invited Damerel. “I have some worse epithets for him under my tongue!”
Aubrey grinned, but shook his head. “No, I’m not so paltry! I wish to God I were back at the Priory, but I’ve told you already I won’t rub off.”
“Well, I never try conclusions with mules, so I’ll rub off myself,” Damerel said, shrugging, and picking up his hat and his whip from the chair on which he had laid them. “Hasta manana, you resty pup!”
Aubrey glanced quickly at him, seemed to hesitate, and then said: “Are you out with me? I didn’t mean—”
“No, I’m not out with you, chucklehead!” Damerel answered, laughing at him. “Stand buff, if you feel you must— I daresay I should do the same in your shoes.”
He went away, and Aubrey, after a few minutes, sat down at the desk and expended his spleen on the composition of a venomous Latin epigram. After several unsatisfactory essays he achieved four neat and splendidly scurrilous lines, which pleased him so much that he sat down to dinner in a mood of almost bland complaisance. Informed by Mrs. Scorrier that until he expressed contrition for his behaviour she must decline to notice him, he merely bestowed a flickering smile upon her before applying himself with unusual appetite to his dinner.
Little conversation was exchanged, Mrs. Scorrier’s loss of temper having been succeeded by majestic sulks, and Charlotte’s hysterical fit by a nervous despondency which led her to reply to any remark addressed to her in a scared, breathless voice that discouraged further attempts to divert her mind from morbid self-contemplation. On rising from the table she excused herself, pleading a severe headache, and went upstairs to bed; and as Venetia accepted an invitation from Aubrey to play billiards Mrs. Scorrier was left to enjoy her sulks in solitude. Whether as a result of this treatment, or from the inescapable realization that in ostracizing the Lanyons she distressed no one but Charlotte, she appeared next morning with so firm a smile, and so inexhaustible a flow of amiable commonplaces, that she might have been supposed to have suffered a complete loss of memory. Venetia was not deceived, for the glitter in Mrs. Scorrier’s eyes gave the lie to her smile, but she responded with absent civility to whatever was said to her, too preoccupied with her own affairs to perceive that her abstraction was causing Mrs. Scorrier to feel quite as much uneasiness as vexation. It had been forcibly brought home to Mrs. Scorrier that in her eagerness to ensure Charlotte’s supremacy at Undershaw she had gone too far. She wanted to rid Undershaw of Venetia and Aubrey, but not under such circumstances as must render herself and Charlotte odious; and she had had the painful experience of seeing the daughter of whom, in her overbearing fashion, she was sincerely fond, turn not to the parent who was fighting her battles but to the detestable old woman who threatened to throw a jug of cold water over her if she did not instantly abate her hysterical tears. It had not previously occurred to Mrs. Scorrier that she might drive the Lanyons away only to find that Charlotte, instead of being grateful, and ready to convince Conway that she had been made wretched by their unkindness, was ranged on their side, and a great deal more likely to tell Conway that their eviction had been none of her doing.
Finding Venetia unresponsive even to compliment, she smiled more widely than before and forced her unwilling tongue to describe the irresistible prompting of maternal instinct to fly to the support of a beloved child. The result of this magnanimous gesture was disappointing, for after staring blankly at her for a minute, all Venetia said was: “Oh—Bess! Poor Charlotte! I do hope she will contrive to overcome her fear of dogs. Conway’s are always so boisterous and unruly that I’m afraid her life will be a misery if she doesn’t.”
After that, she went away, and was next he
ard desiring Ribble to send a message to the stables that her mare was to be brought up to the house. From what Mrs. Scorrier presently overheard her saying to Aubrey she gathered that she was going to visit some tenant or retainer, who was the victim of an unnamed accident; and that at once deepened her resentment, because she felt that it was for Charlotte to enact the role of lady bountiful; and she would have liked very much to have accompanied her daughter in the carriage, dispensing comforts to the sick and indigent, giving good advice to the improvident, and in general showing all Conway’s dependants how to contrive to the best advantage. Had she but known it, neither charity nor advice would have been acceptable to the afflicted household, whose master was, in fact, a respectable farmer; and the accident which had befallen his youngest son, a lusty young man of some ten summers, was not one that called for jellies or sustaining broths, but rather (in the opinion of his incensed parent) for very different treatment, since all he had done was to break his arm, and that through an act of foolhardy disobedience. Venetia’s visit was one merely of civility, and might not have been paid had she been feeling less restless, or more able to bear with patience the complaints of the various members of the domestic staff at Undershaw, who let no day pass without soliciting her aid against the encroachments of Mrs. Scorrier.
At the time, although she had wished him otherwhere, Aubrey’s intrusion upon a scene that belonged to herself and Damerel alone had not greatly disturbed her. She had been obliged immediately to grapple with a crisis of a very different order; and it was not until much later that she had had the opportunity to think over all that had passed in the library, and to wonder what might have been the meaning behind some of the things Damerel had said to her. She no more doubted that she was loved than that the sun would rise on the morrow; yet, as she lay wakeful in her bed, her deep content, which neither the domestic brawl nor Mrs. Scorrier’s sulks had the power to penetrate, became ruffled by a sense of misgiving, too inchoate to be at first recognizable, but gradually turning content to a vague disquiet. Nothing had been said that she could not attribute to some scruple of masculine honour, too frivolous not to be easily overcome; but even as she smiled at man’s folly the fear that a different interpretation could be set upon Damerel’s reluctance to commit himself peeped in her mind for a searing instant. It vanished as swiftly in the recollection of tenderness which instinct told her was far removed from the fleeting lust of a voluptuary; it was causeless, springing either from the irrational misgivings of a tired brain, or from mankind’s superstitious dread of the unknown, malignant gods, whose sport was to ruin mortal happiness.
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