Venetia

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Edward, this encomium un—unwomans me!” said Venetia faintly, sinking into a chair, and covering her eyes with one hand.

  “You are upset,” he told her kindly. “It is not to be wondered at. It has been painful for you to learn what cannot but cause you to feel great affliction, but you must not allow your spirits to become too much oppressed.”

  “I will put forth my best endeavours not to fall into flat, despair,” promised Venetia, in a shaking voice. “Perhaps you had better go now, Edward! I don’t think I can talk about it any more without becoming hysterical!”

  “Yes, it is very natural that you should wish to be alone, to reflect upon all you have heard. I shall leave you, and in good hands,” he added, bowing slightly to Mrs. Hendred. “One thing, which occurs to me, I will say before I go. It may be that—er—Lady Steeple will seek an interview with you. You will not, of course, grant such a request, but if she should send a message to you, do not reply to it until you have seen me again! It will be an awkward business, but I shall think it over carefully, and don’t doubt that by tomorrow I shall be able to advise you in what terms your reply should be couched. Now, do not think you must ring for your butler to show me out, ma’am, I beg! I know my way!”

  He then shook hands with his hostess, patted Venetia reassuringly on the shoulder, and took himself off. Slightly affronted, Mrs. Hendred said: “Well, if anybody should advise you how to reply to Aurelia I should have thought— however, I am sure he meant it kindly! Poor child, you are quite overset! I wish to heaven—”

  “I am quite in stitches!” retorted Venetia, letting her hand drop, and showing her astonished aunt a countenance alive with laughter. “Oh, my dear ma’am, don’t look so shocked, I do beg of you! Can’t you see how absurd— No, I see you can’t! But if he had stayed another instant I must have been in whoops! Painful news? I never was more overjoyed in my life!”

  “Venetia!” gasped Mrs. Hendred. “My dearest niece, you are hysterical!”

  “I promise you I am not, dear ma’am—though when I think of all the nonsense that has been talked about my reputation, and my prospects I wonder I am not lying rigid on the floor and drumming my heels! Damerel must have known the truth! He must have known it! In fact, I daresay he is very well acquainted with my mama, for she looked to me precisely the sort of female he would be acquainted with! Yes, and now I come to think of it he said something to me once that proves he knows her! Only he was in one of his funning moods, and I thought nothing of it. But—but why, if he knew about my mother, did he think it would ruin me to marry him? It is quite idiotish!”

  Mrs. Hendred, reeling under this fresh shock, said: “Venetia, I do implore you—! It is precisely what makes it of the very first importance that you should not marry him! Good gracious, child, only think what would be said! Like mother, like daughter! How many times have I impressed upon you that your circumstances make it imperative that you should conduct yourself with the greatest propriety! Heaven knows it is difficult enough—though your uncle says that he is confident you will receive very eligible offers, for he holds, and Lord Damerel too, I make no doubt, that when you are seen to be an unexceptionable girl—not at all like your mother, however much you may resemble her, which, I must own, it is a thousand pities you do—no man of sense will hesitate—though the more I think of Mr. Foxcott, the more doubtful I feel about him, because—”

  “Don’t waste a thought on him!” said Venetia. “Don’t waste a thought on any of the eligible suitors you’ve found for me, dear ma’am! There is more of my mama in me than you have the least idea of, and the only eligible husband for me is a rake!”

  XIX

  When she was in London, Mrs. Hendred’s breakfast was invariably carried up to her bedchamber on a tray, but it was Venetia’s custom, like that of many other ladies of more energetic habit than Mrs. Hendred, to rise betimes, and sally forth, either to do a little hum-drum shopping, or to walk in one of the parks. Breakfast was served on her return in a parlour at the back of the house, and such was the esteem in which she was held in the household that it was Worting’s practice to wait on her himself, instead of deputing this office to the under-butler. Worting, like Miss Bradpole, had recognized at a glance that Mrs. Hendred’s niece from Yorkshire was no country miss on her probation, or indigent hanger-on unexpectant of any extraordinary civility. Miss Lanyon was Quality; and it was easy to see that she was accustomed to rule over a genteel establishment. Moreover, she was a very agreeable young lady, on whom it was quite a pleasure to wait, for she was neither familiar nor high in the instep. She could depress a pert London housemaid with no more than a look, but many was the chat Worting had enjoyed with her in the breakfast-parlour. They discussed such interesting topics as Domestic Economy, Town Life as contrasted with Country Life, and the Changes that had taken place since Worting had first embarked on his distinguished career. It was he who was Venetia’s chief guide to London, for she did not at all disdain to ask his advice. He told her what places were considered worthy of being visited, how they were to be reached, and what it was proper to bestow on chairmen, or the drivers of hacks.

  On the morning following Edward Yardley’s unlucky theatre-party she did not go out before breakfast, nor did she wish for information about any historic monument. She wanted to know which were the most elegant hotels in town, and she could scarcely have applied to anyone more knowledgeable. Worting could tell her something about them all, and he was only too happy to do so, reciting, with a wealth of detail, a formidable list ranging from such hostelries as Osborne’s Hotel, in Adam Street (genteel accommodation for families, and single gentlemen), to such establishments as the Grand, in Covent Garden (superior), and (if one of the First Houses was required) Grillon’s, the Royal, the Clarendon, the Bath, and the Pulteney, all of which (and a great many others besides) catered exclusively for the Nobility and the Gentry. He was himself inclined to favour the Bath, on the south side of Piccadilly, by Arlington Street: a rambling house, conducted on old-fashioned lines, and patronized by persons of taste and refinement, but if Miss had in mind something generally considered to stand at the height of the mode, he would recommend her to enquire for her friends at the Pulteney.

  Miss had; and after learning that during the somewhat premature Peace Celebrations held in London in 1814 the Pulteney had housed no less a personage than the Tsar of Russia (not to mention his impressive sister, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg), she decided to place it at the head of her list of hotels where she was most likely to discover Sir Lambert and Lady Steeple. Charging Worting with a message for his mistress that she had been obliged to go out on an urgent shopping expedition, she presently set forth, charmingly attired in a blue velvet pelisse trimmed with chinchilla, and a fetching velvet hat with three curled ostrich plumes, and a high poke lined with gathered silk. She carried a large chinchilla muff, and altogether presented so delightful a picture that when she reached the hackney coach stand in Oxford Street the competition for her custom amongst the assembled Jehus was fierce, and extremely noisy.

  Arrived at the Pulteney, which stood on the north side of Piccadilly, and overlooked the Green Park, she found that her instinct had not erred: Sir Lambert and Lady Steeple were occupying the very suite allotted, four years earlier, to his Imperial Majesty.

  Venetia sent up her card; and in a very short space of time was being ushered into an ornate saloon upon the first floor, where Sir Lambert, gorgeously arrayed in a befrogged dressing-gown, had just (and rather hastily) swallowed the last mouthful of a large and varied breakfast. Nothing could have been more gratifying than the affability with which he received her. It might even have been considered to be a trifle excessive, for after rapidly running over her the eye of a connoisseur he claimed the right of a father-in-law to greet her with a kiss. Venetia accepted this demurely, repressed a strong inclination to remove herself from the circle of his arm, and smiled upon him with dazzling sweetness.

  He was delighted. He gave her waist a little
squeeze, saying: “Well, well, well, who would have thought such a dull, gray morning would bring such a beautiful surprise? I declare the sun has come out after all! And so you are my daughter! Let me look at you!” He then held her at arms’ length, scanning her up and down appreciatively, and in a way that gave her the uncomfortable feeling that she had ventured forth far too lightly clad. “Upon my word, I never thought to have such a lovely gal for my daughter!” he told her. “Aha, that makes you blush, and devilish pretty you look, flying your colours, my dear! But you have no need to colour up, you know! If your papa-in-law may not pay you a compliment I wish you will tell me who may! And so you have come to see us! I am not astonished. No, I said last night to Aurelia that you looked like a sweet gal, and so you are! When she saw you with Maria Hendred she guessed at once who you was, but ‘depend upon it,’ she said, ‘Maria will take care not to let her come within tongue-shot of me!’”

  “Did—did my mother wish to see me?” asked Venetia.

  “Who wouldn’t wish to see you, my dear? Yes, yes, I’ll venture to say she’ll be devilish glad you came. She don’t speak of it, you know, but I fancy she didn’t above half like it when that brother of yours never came to call. A fine young man, but holds himself too much up!”

  “Conway?” she exclaimed. “Where was this, sir? In Paris?”

  “No, no, in Lisbon! Silly young jackanapes would do no more than bow—as top-lofty as his father! Ay, and a pretty mess he’s made of his marriage, eh? Lord, my dear, what made him fall into that snare? ‘Well,’ I said, when I heard the Widow had snabbled him, ‘here’s a come-down from his high ropes!’ And what brings you to town, my pretty little daughter?”

  She told him she was on a visit to her aunt, and when he learned that it was her first, he exclaimed that he wished he might take her to see all the lions.

  After about twenty minutes a smart French maid came into the room, announcing that miladi was now ready to receive mademoiselle; and Venetia was led through a smaller saloon and an ante-room and ushered into a large and opulent bedchamber. It was redolent of a subtle scent, which brought Venetia up short on the threshold, exclaiming involuntarily: “Oh, your scent! I remember it! I remember it so well!”

  A laugh like a peal of bells greeted this. “Do you? I’ve always used it—always! Oh, you used to sit and watch me when I dressed to go to a party, didn’t you? Such a quaint little creature you were, but I thought very likely you would grow to be pretty!”

  Recalled from her sudden nostalgia, Venetia stammered, as she dropped a curtsy: “Oh, I beg your pardon, ma’am! How—how do you do?”

  Lady Steeple laughed again, and rose from her chair before a dressing-table loaded with jars, bottles, and trinket-boxes, and came towards her daughter, holding out her hands. “Isn’t it absurd?” she said, offering Venetia a delicately tinted and powdered cheek to kiss. “I don’t feel it to be possible that I can have a grown-up daughter!”

  Obedient to a nudge from her good angel, Venetia responded: “Nor could anyone, ma’am—I don’t myself!”

  “Darling! What did they tell you about me—Francis and Maria, and all their stuffy set?”

  “Nothing, ma’am, except that I should never be as beautiful as you, and that I had from Nurse! Until yesterday I believed you had died when you left us.”

  “Oh, no, did you? Did Francis tell you so? Yes, I’m sure he did, for it would be so like him! Poor man, I was such a trial to him! Were you fond of him?”

  “No, not at all,” replied Venetia calmly. This made her ladyship laugh again. She waved Venetia to a chair, and herself sat down again before the dressing-table, looking her daughter over critically. Venetia now had leisure to observe that the foam of lace and gauze in which she was wrapped was in reality a dressing-gown. It was not at all the sort of garment one would have expected one’s mama to wear, for it was as improper as it was pretty. Venetia wondered whether Damerel would like the sight of his bride in just such a transparent cloud of gauze, and was strongly of the opinion that he would like it very much.

  “Well, tell me all about yourself!” invited Lady Steeple, picking up her hand mirror, and earnestly studying her profile. “You are excessively like me, but your nose is not as straight as mine, and I fancy your face is not quite aperfect oval. And I do think, dearest, that you are a fraction too tall. Still, you have turned out remarkably well! Conway is very handsome too, but so stiff and stupid that it put me in mind of his father, and I couldn’t but take him in dislike. What a mull he made of it in Paris! Should you have liked it if I had upset the Widow’s scheme? I daresay I might have, for she is such a respectable creature that it is an object with her to pretend she doesn’t know I exist! I had that from someone who knew it for a fact! I had a great mind to pay her a visit—to make the acquaintance of my future daughter-in-law, you know! It would have been so diverting! I forget why I didn’t go after all: I expect I was busy, or perhaps the Lamb—oh, no, I remember now! It was so hot in Paris that we removed to the chateau—my Trianon! The Lamb bought it, and gave it to me for a surprise-present on my birthday: the sweetest place imaginable! Oh, well, if Conway finds himself leg-shackled to an insipid little nigaude he is very well-served! Why aren’t you married, Venetia? How old are you? It is so stupid not to be able to remember dates, but I never can!”

  “More than five-and-twenty, ma’am!” replied Venetia, a rather mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  “Five-and-twenty!” Lady Steeple seemed for a moment to shrink, and did actually put up her hand as though to thrust something ugly away. “Five-and-twenty!” she repeated, glancing instinctively at the mirror with searching, narrowed eyes. What she saw seemed to reassure her, for she said lightly: “Oh, impossible! I was the merest child when you were born, of course! But what in the world have you been doing with yourself to be left positively on the shelf?”

  “Nothing whatsoever, ma’am,” said Venetia, smiling at her. “You see, until I came to London a month ago, I had never seen a larger town than York, nor been farther from Undershaw than Harrogate!”

  “Good God, you can’t be serious?” cried Lady Steeple, staring at her. “I never heard of anything so appalling in my life! Tell me!”

  Venetia did tell her, and although the thought of Sir Francis as a recluse made her break into her delicious laugh she really was horrified by the story, and exclaimed at the end of it: “Oh, you poor little thing! Do you hate me for it?”

  “No, of course I don’t!” replied Venetia reassuringly.

  “You see, I never wished for children!” explained her ladyship. “They quite ruin one’s figure, and when one is in the straw one looks positively hideous, and they look hideous, too, all red and crumpled, though I must say you and Conway were very pretty babies. But my last—what did Francis insist on naming him? Oh, Aubrey, wasn’t it, after one of his stupid ancestors? Yes, Aubrey! Well, he looked like a sick monkey—horrid! Of course Francis thought it was my duty to nurse him myself, as though I had been a farm-wench! I can’t think how he came by such a vulgar notion, for I do know that old Lady Lanyon always hired a wet-nurse! But it didn’t answer, for it made me perfectly ill to look at such a wizened creature. Besides, he was so fretful that it made me nervous. I never thought he would survive, but he did, didn’t he?”

  Within the shelter of her muff Venetia’s hands clenched till the nails dug into her palms, but she answered coolly: “Oh, yes! Perhaps he was fretful because of his hip. He had a diseased joint, you see. It is better now, but he suffered a great deal when he was younger, and he will always limp.”

  “Poor boy!” said her ladyship compassionately. “Did he come with you to London?”

  “No, he is in Yorkshire. I don’t think he would care for London. In fact, he cares for nothing much but his books. He’s a scholar—a brilliant scholar!”

  “Good gracious, what a horrid bore!” remarked Lady Steeple, with simple sincerity. “To think of being shut up with a recluse and a scholar makes me feel quite low! You poor c
hild! Oh, you were the Sleeping Beauty! What a touching thing! But there should have been a Prince Charming to kiss you awake! It is too bad!”

  “There was,” said Venetia. She flushed faintly. “Only he has it fixed in his head that he isn’t a Prince, but a usurper, dressed in the Prince’s clothes.”

  Lady Steeple was rather amused. “Oh, but that spoils the story!” she protested. “Besides, why should he think himself a usurper? It is not at all likely!”

  “No, but you know what that Prince in the fairy tale is like, ma’am! Young, and handsome, and virtuous! And probably a dead bore,” she added thoughtfully. “Well, my usurper is not very young, and not handsome, and certainly not virtuous: quite the reverse, in fact. On the other hand, he is not a bore.”

  “You have clearly fallen in love with a rake! But how intriguing! Tell me all about him!”

  “I think perhaps you know him, ma’am.”

  “Oh, no, do I? Who is he?”

  “He is Damerel,” replied Venetia.

  Lady Steeple jumped. “What? Nonsense! Oh, you’re shamming it! You must be!” She broke off, knitting her brows. “I remember now—they have a place there, haven’t they? The Damerels—only they were hardly ever there. So you have met him—and of course he came round you— and you lost your heart to him, devil that he is! Well, my dear, I daresay he has broken a score of hearts besides yours, so dry your tears, and set about breaking a few hearts yourself! It is by far more amusing, I promise you!”

  “I shouldn’t think anything could be as amusing as to be married to Damerel,” said Venetia.

  “Married to him! Heavens, don’t be so gooseish! Damerel never wanted to marry anyone in all his scandalous career!”

  “Oh, yes, he did, ma’am! He wanted once to marry Lady Sophia Vobster, only most fortunately she fell in love with someone else; and now he wants to marry me.”