Venetia
Page 36
“Oh, good!” said Aubrey, his face lighting up. “I hoped you would, m’dear: Jasper is just the man for you! Besides, I like him. I shall be able to spend my vacations with you, and I could never have stood Edward, you know. By the by, did he come boring for ever in London?”
“Is that all you have to say, boy?” demanded Mr. Hendred, pardonably incensed. “Do you wish your only sister to marry a man of Lord Damerel’s reputation?
“Yes, I told her I thought she should an age since. I never paid much heed to all the gossip about Jasper’s reputation myself, and if she don’t care for it why should I?”
“I suppose,” said Mr. Hendred bitterly, “that such sentiments might have been expected from a boy who does not scruple to recount grossly immoral and indelicate stories to his sister!”
Aubrey looked astonished. “What the deuce has she been saying, sir?” he enquired. “If she’s been telling warm stories she must have had ’em from Jasper, for Edward wouldn’t tell her any, and I don’t know any!”
“Oedipus Rex, cawker!” said Damerel.
“Oedipus Rex? I don’t recall telling Venetia about him, but I daresay I may have, and in any event, to apply such epithets as immoral and indelicate to the works of Sophocles is the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard said—even by Edward!”
At this point, Marston, who had been standing on the threshold for some minutes, intervened, saying: “You rang, my lord?”
“Yes, I did,” said Damerel. “Will you take Mr. Hendred up to his room? Ask Marston for anything you may need, sir: I’ve never yet known him at a loss!”
So Mr. Hendred, bidding a grudging goodnight to the company, allowed himself to be shepherded out of the room. Damerel said softly, just as Marston was preparing to follow his jaundiced charge: “Marston!”
Marston paused. “My lord?”
Damerel grinned at him. “Wish me happy!”
Marston’s impassive countenance relaxed. “If I may, my lord, I wish you both happy. I should like to say that there are others who will be happy with you.”
“Lord, I ought to have wished you happy, oughtn’t I?” said Aubrey, as the door closed behind the valet. “I do, of course—but you know that without my saying it! Well, I think I’ll go up to bed too: I’m sleepy.”
“Aubrey, don’t go for a moment!” begged Venetia. “There is something I want to say to you, and I’d as lief do so at once. I hope you won’t mind it: I don’t think you will. I discovered two days ago that Mama—isn’t dead, as we thought.”
“No, I know she isn’t,” replied Aubrey. “Of course I don’t mind it, stoopid! Why should I?”
Well as she knew him, she gasped. “Aubrey! You mean to say—Did Papa tell you?”
“No, Conway did.”
“Conway! When?”
“Oh, the last time he was at home! Just before he went off to Belgium. He said I ought to know, in case he was killed.”
“Well, of all the ramshackle things to do!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Why could he not have told me? If he could have told a fourteen-year-old boy—!”
“I don’t know. I suppose he thought Papa would be angry, if he found you knew. Anyway, he told me not to speak of it.”
“You might have told me later—after Papa died! Why on earth didn’t you?” she demanded.
“I don’t think I thought of it,” he replied. “Well, why should I? I wasn’t particularly interested. I daresay I should have been if I’d ever known Mama, but, dash it, Venetia, you can’t be interested in what happened when you were only a few months old!” He yawned. “Lord, I am sleepy! ’Night, m’dear! ’Night, Jasper!”
He limped out, and Venetia turned to find her love smiling at her in affectionate mockery. “Let that be a lesson to you, Admir’d Venetia!” he said. He came across the room to her, and took her in his arms. She did not resist, but she held him off a little, with her hands against his chest.
“Damerel, there is something I must say to you!”
His smile faded; he looked searchingly down at her. “What is it, my dear delight?” he said.
“It is—you see, my aunt said—I couldn’t throw myself at your head! It seemed as though I could, and I did, but when my uncle began to talk about your debts, and settlements, I suddenly saw how right she was! Oh, my love—my friend!—I don’t wish you to marry me if perhaps you had rather not be married!”
“Then you are by far more unselfish than I am, my dear heart, for I wish to marry you whatever your sentiments may be!” he replied promptly. “You may regret this day: I could not! What I regret I can never undo, for the gods don’t annihilate space, or time, or transform such a man as I am into one worthy to be your husband.”
She clasped him tightly. “Stoopid, stoopid! You know I found my worthy suitor a dead bore, and as for the rest, does it not occur to you, love, that if you hadn’t run off with that fat woman—”
“She was not fat!” he protested.
“No, not then, but she is now! Well, if you hadn’t behaved so badly you would probably have married some eligible girl, and by now would have been comfortably settled for years, with a wife and six or seven children!”
“No, not the children! The caterpillar would have had them,” he reminded her. “Does it occur to you, Miss Lanyon, that although I have twice been on the verge of it, I have not yet offered for you? Being now safe from interruption, will you do me the honour, ma’am—”
“Good! You haven’t gone to bed yet,” said Aubrey, suddenly re-entering the room. “I have had a most excellent notion!”
“This,” said Damerel wrathfully, “is the second time you have walked in just as I am about to propose to your sister!”
“I should have thought you must have done that hours ago. In any event, this is something important. You can spend your honeymoon in Greece, and I’ll come with you!”
Still standing within the circle of Damerel’s arm, Venetia choked, and turned her face into his shoulder.
“Greece in the middle of the winter? We shall do no such thing!” said Damerel.
“But why be married so soon? If you were to settle on a date in the spring—”
“We have settled on a day in January—if not December!”
“Oh!” said Aubrey, rather dashed. “Then I suppose it had better be Rome. It’s a pity, because I’d prefer Greece. However, we can go there later on, and it’s your honeymoon, after all, not mine. I daresay Venetia will like Rome, too.”
“We must remember to ask her some time—not that it signifies! Go to bed, you repulsive whelp!”
“Oh, you want to propose to Venetia, don’t you? Very well—though you needn’t mind me, you know! Goodnight!”
He limped out, and Damerel strode to the door, and locked it. “And now, my love,” he said, returning to Venetia, “for the fourth time ...!”
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