‘N-not w-wish to marry you?’ he stammered, thunderstruck.
Her eyes danced. ‘Of course you don’t! Only think what a bore it would be to be obliged to settle down as a respectably married man before you have had a great many adventures!’
He had never before looked at the matter in this light, and he could not help feeling secretly rather struck. However, he was too earnest in the pursuit of his calf-love to acknowledge the good sense of her observation. ‘I ask no greater felicity than to win you!’ he assured her.
Her lips quivered irresistibly, but she managed to keep from laughing. Only if one was very cruel did one laugh at a boy in the throes of his first love. She said: ‘Well, it is excessively kind of you, Oswald, and indeed I am flattered, even if I can’t return your sentiments. Pray don’t talk about it any more! Tell me, is Lady Denny well? And your sisters?’
He ignored this, but said in a gloomy tone: ‘I shall say no more, except to beg you to believe that my devotion is unalterable. I didn’t come for that purpose, but to tell you that you may count upon me. I am not a consequential prig, like Yardley! I am not afraid of going against etiquette – in fact I don’t care a straw for such stuff, but then, I have seen more of the world than –’
‘Oswald, what are you talking about?’ Venetia interrupted. ‘If it is Edward who has put you in this passion –’
‘That skirter!’ he ejaculated, with awful contempt. ‘Let him busy himself with his roots, and his cattle: it is all he is fit for!’
‘Well, you must own that he is very fit for that!’ said Venetia reasonably. ‘I daresay his land is in better heart than any you would find in half a day’s journey. Even Powick, you know, doesn’t disdain his advice when it is a matter of farming.’
‘I didn’t come to talk about Yardley!’ said Oswald. ‘I merely mentioned – well, it’s no odds! Venetia, if that fellow should offer you an insult, send me word!’
‘Edward offer me – Oh, good God, do you mean Damerel? You absurd creature, go home, and try if you can be interested in roots, or cattle, or anything you please as long as it is not me! Lord Damerel is our very good friend, and it vexes me very much to hear you talk in that foolish style about him.’
‘You are too innocent, too divinely pure, to be able to read the mind of a man of his stamp,’ he told her, his brow darkening. ‘He may deceive Yardley, but I knew him for what he is the instant I clapped eyes on him! A Man of the Town! It is a – a desecration to think of his so much as touching your hand! When I saw how he looked at you – By God, I was within amesace of planting him a facer!’
At that she did laugh. ‘I wish I might see you make the attempt! No, no, don’t make me any more protestations! What you have said, you know, is the outside of enough! Indeed, it is most improper! Lord Damerel is a gentleman, and if he were not, I am not so innocent that I’m not very well able to take care of myself. Besides, it’s all fustian! Your papa would say you were enacting a Cheltenham tragedy, and that’s precisely what you are doing! If you choose to play-act it is quite your own concern, but you shall not do so at my expense. Goodbye! – Give my fond love to Lady Denny, if you please, and tell her that Aubrey is going on so well that I hope Dr Bentworth will say, when next he visits him, that I may take him home.’
With these bracing words, she nodded dismissal, and went back into the library before he could form any adequate answer.
He rode home to Ebbersley a prey to mixed emotions, his self-esteem so much wounded by Venetia’s parting speech that for at least a mile he was occupied with extensive plans for renouncing his allegiance, abjuring the society of her sex or perhaps cultivating it in a very cynical way, causing its members to attempt by every art known to them to discover what dark secret was hidden behind his marble front and sardonic sneer. This scheme, though not unattractive, was attended, however, by certain difficulties, chief amongst them being the degradingly conventional standard of behaviour prevailing at Ebbersley, and a marked tendency on Lady Denny’s part to press a Blue Pill on anyone suffering torment of the soul. Nor did the North Riding afford the right background for a mysterious and sinister stranger. For one thing, the country in which Ebbersley was situated was sparsely populated; and for another, he was too well-known to the gentry there, and even in York itself, to have the least hope of figuring as a stranger, much less a mysterious and sinister stranger. He would be obliged to attend the Assemblies, with his mama and his elder sister, because if he refused to go they would raise such a dust that the matter would come to Papa’s ears, and nothing was more certain than that Papa would command him to do as he was bid. As for standing romantically aloof at these functions, and declining all the offers of the Master of Ceremonies to present him to desirable partners, there was no hope of doing that either. The ballroom would be full of girls with whom he had been acquainted all his life, and if he did not ask them to stand up with him Mama would not only scold him for incivility but was quite capable of excusing his behaviour to her friends on the score that he was bilious, or had the toothache. In a better regulated world the father of any young gentleman no longer at school would be compelled to supply his son with an allowance sufficiently handsome to enable him to set up for himself in London, and cut a dash in the fashionable world; but the world was ill-regulated, and Sir John so unenlightened a parent that he thought (and stated) that after sending his heir on a visit to his uncle in Jamaica he had a right to expect him to settle down at home, and learn all the business of managing the considerable estate which would, in due course, be his own.
Fortunately, before he had dwelled for long on his bleak prospects Oswald remembered that in one of the nobler ages that had preceded the present drab century knights and troubadours had apparently been inspired by scornful mistresses to perform heroic deeds. The more disdainful, not to say insulting, the ladies, the greater their devotion had been, and the greater their ultimate triumph when their exploits had convinced the favoured fair ones of their true qualities. The vision thus conjured up of winning Venetia’s admiration was agreeable enough to make him abandon any immediate intention of becoming a misogynist, and brought him back to Ebbersley in a sunny mood, which lasted until the recollection that whatever glory the future might hold in store the present was overcast by the shadow of Lord Damerel unluckily coincided with a request from Sir John that he should change his Belcher handkerchief for a more seemly neckcloth before sitting down to dinner with his mother and sisters. These two circumstances naturally threw him back into gloom, and had it not been for the happy chance that had made Lady Denny order a turkey with truffles for dinner his low spirits would have made it impossible for him to fancy anything that was set before him. However, his fainting appetite revived at sight of the turkey, and he made a very good meal. A tendency to relapse into brooding melancholy was frustrated by Sir John, who challenged him to a game of billiards. He had no heart for such idle sport, but in the excitement of beating his father, running out with the longest break he had ever achieved, he forgot his troubles, and became animated and loquacious, particularly when describing his glorious victory to his mama and his sisters later in the evening. Such was his elation that he went up to bed much inclined to think that he had allowed himself to be needlessly disturbed by Lord Damerel’s menacing presence in the district. As soon as Aubrey returned to Undershaw his lordship would no doubt leave the Priory, and be no more seen in Yorkshire for at least a twelvemonth.
Two days later the welcome tidings that Aubrey was at home again came in a note from Venetia to Lady Denny; and, as though Providence had suddenly decided to bestow favours upon young Mr Denny with a lavish hand, this was almost immediately followed by the news that Edward Yardley, who had been feeling poorly for several days, was in bed with the chicken-pox. Oswald, seeing his path clear of rivals, rode over to Undershaw to make good his opportunity, and arrived there to find Venetia walking in the shrubbery with Damerel.
It was a severe blow,
and still worse was the discovery that Damerel had no immediate intention of leaving the Priory. His ostensible reason for prolonging his stay there might be, as his bailiff hoped, to repair some of the ravages which years of neglect had wrought upon his lands, but his real object was insolently patent: Venetia was his quarry and he was hunting her remorselessly, intent, Oswald was persuaded, on nothing but the gratification of his own evanescent lust. Report credited him with hundreds of lovely victims, and Oswald saw no reason to doubt either its truth, or that no twinge of compunction and no respect for public opinion would check him in the pursuit of his desire. A man whose career had begun with the abduction of a married lady of quality, and included traffic with such trollops as had turned the Priory into a bordello only a year before, was capable of committing any infamy, and Damerel had shown years ago how little he cared for public opinion. If his past actions had not betrayed him, one glance at him, Oswald thought, was enough to inform any but such clods as Edward Yardley that he was a reckless freebooter, who would not hesitate, if he could ensnare her in his toils, to bear Venetia off to foreign lands, just as he had borne off his first mistress; and later, when her sweetness no longer pleased his jaded palate, to abandon her. He had already more than half bewitched her; as those who talked comfortably of her calm good sense must surely realise if they did but see the look in her eyes when she raised them to his. Such smiling eyes they were, but never had they smiled so tenderly as they did now. For a disturbing moment Oswald felt that she had suddenly become quite a different person, and was reminded of some story, probably one of Aubrey’s, about a statue brought to life by some goddess or other. Not that Venetia had ever been at all like a statue, but underlying her liveliness she had been cool and rational, affectionate but never blinded by affection, regarding even Aubrey, whom she loved, with amusement, and offering to no one else more than friendliness. This temperate disposition pleased Edward Yardley, because he believed it to be a sign of modesty and good breeding; it had pleased Oswald too, but on quite another count: it transformed her from the prettiest lady in the district into a princess of fairyland whose hand could only be won by the bravest and noblest and most handsome of her many suitors. In his more romantic moments Oswald had frequently imagined himself in this rôle, either kindling love in her by wit and charm, or by rescuing her (while Edward Yardley stood by, not daring to risk his life in the attempt) from burning houses, runaway steeds, or brutal ravishers. In these dreams she at once fell passionately in love with him, Edward slunk away, shamed and discomfited, and all who had previously treated young Mr Denny as though he had been a schoolboy thereafter looked up to him in awe, spoke of him with respect, and thought it an honour to entertain him at their parties. They were agreeable dreams, but only dreams. He had never expected them to come true. It was extremely unlikely that Venetia would be trapped in a blazing house, and still more unlikely that in such a contingency he would be at hand to rescue her; she was an accomplished horse-woman; and the sudden intrusion into the peaceful and law-abiding neighbourhood of a brutal ravisher had seemed, even in the dream, to be rather too far-fetched.
Yet that was what had happened, for Damerel, though not precisely corresponding to the creature of the dream, was certainly a ravisher. But instead of seeking protection from his loathsome advances Venetia, utterly deceived by the mask he wore, was positively encouraging them. Like the statue, she had been brought to life, but not by a goddess, not even by her heroic young adorer, but by her would-be seducer.
As he watched the meeting of their eyes, and listened to their light, funning talk, some hardly recognised perception of the affinity between them made Oswald feel so sick with hatred of Damerel that he could not bring himself to respond to any of the attempts made to draw him into the conversation, but answered only in a manner that sounded boorish even in his own ears, and soon took an abrupt leave of his hostess. This hatred, so much more intense than the dislike he felt for Edward Yardley, or the jealousy with which he would have regarded any other rival, sprang from his unacknowledged recognition in Damerel of the romantic figure he himself longed to become. He was the devil-may-care outlaw who roamed the world, dark secrets locked in his bosom, nameless crimes littering his past; and had Venetia not existed Oswald would almost certainly have copied his style of dress, his unconventional manners, and would have done his best to have acquired his air of unconcerned assurance. These were all things which a youth chafing against the restrictions of a polite age admired: but when he met them in a rival he bitterly resented them, because he knew himself to be at a disadvantage, playing the Corsair’s rôle in front of the Corsair himself.
Had Sir John been privileged to know what emotions were raging in his son’s breast he might have regretted his decision not to send him up to Oxford or Cambridge, but he was too well accustomed to Oswald’s moodiness to attach any significance to what he thought a fit of the sullens, arising out of the boy’s calf-love for Venetia. He merely trusted that his phase would be as short-lived as it was violent, and paid no other heed to it than to recommend Oswald not to make a fool of himself. Lady Denny would have shown more sympathy had she had the leisure to study him, but Edward Yardley, not content (she said) with contracting chicken-pox himself, had communicated it to Anne, the youngest of the Denny family, whom he had met out walking with the rest of the schoolroom party on the very day he later took to his bed. He was so kind as to indulge her with a ride on his horse, for he was very fond of children, and that was when the mischief must have been done. Anne had lost no time in passing it on to her next sister, Louisa, and to the nursery-maid; and Lady Denny lived in hourly expectation of seeing a rash break out on Elizabeth as well, and had no eyes for her only son’s spiritual ills.
Having no particular friend in the neighbourhood, and despising the company of his sisters, Oswald had very little to do but brood over the disastrous effect of Damerel’s continued residence at the Priory; and it was not long before he had persuaded himself that before Damerel’s arrival on the scene he had been in a fair way to winning Venetia. He recalled every instance of her past kindness, and by magnifying these, minimising her occasional snubs, and contrasting both with her present attitude he soon became convinced that Damerel had deliberately cut him out, and occupied most of his waking hours trying to think how best to win her back.
He had arrived at no satisfactory answer to this problem when he became an unsuspected witness of an episode which brought all his festering resentment to a head. Having ridden to Undershaw on the flimsiest excuse, the first sight to meet his eyes, as he dismounted in the stableyard, was Damerel’s big gray being led into the stable by Aubrey’s groom. Fingle said, with the hint of a dour smile, that his lordship had ridden in not five minutes earlier, bringing with him a book for Mr Aubrey. Oswald vouchsafed no reply to this, but he looked so thunderous that the hinted smile grew into a broad grin, as Fingle watched him stride off towards the house.
Ribble, opening the door to Oswald, rather thought that Miss Venetia was in the garden; but when Oswald asked ominously after Lord Damerel he shook his head. He had not seen his lordship that day.
‘Oh, indeed?’ said Oswald. ‘Yet his horse is in the stables!’ Ribble did not seem to be surprised, but he looked a little worried, and replied after a moment’s pause that his lordship very often walked up to the house through the garden, entering it by way of the door Sir Francis had had made in the ante-room which led to his library. Ribble added, as Oswald gave a snort of indignation: ‘His lordship frequently brings Mr Aubrey books, sir, and stays talking with him for quite a while – about his studies, I understand.’
There was a troubled note in his voice, but Oswald did not hear it, or realise that Ribble was trying to reassure himself. He thought him a gullible old fool, and turned on his heel, saying that if Miss Lanyon was in the garden he would look for her there, since he had come to visit her, not Mr Aubrey. He strode off, seething with anger. Even Edward Yardley, who had been permitted
to enter Undershaw for years, never did so except through the front door, yet this buccaneering stranger was apparently free to walk in whenever he chose, and without the least ceremony.
There was no sign of Venetia either in the gardens or the shrubbery, but just as Oswald was about to follow Damerel’s example, and go into the house through the ante-room door, he bethought him of the orchard. She was not there either, but Oswald heard her voice, raised in laughing protest, and coming from an old barn, which had once housed cattle, and had been used of late years as a storehouse for the gardener’s tools and a workshop for Aubrey, who occasionally amused himself with carpentry. There was no mistaking the voice that spoke in answer to hers, and when he heard it Oswald fell into such a fever of suspicious rage that without so much as considering the impropriety of his conduct he went stealthily up to the barn, and paused beside the big double-door, out of sight, but well within hearing of whatever might be going on inside the barn. A cautious peep revealed no glimpse of Venetia, but it did show him Damerel’s backview, as he stood in the middle of the floor with his head tilted back, as though Venetia were some way above him.
This puzzled Oswald, unfamiliar with the barn, but, in fact, Venetia had mounted by means of a short ladder into the open loft which covered half the barn, to rescue a litter of hungry kittens, whose parent, absent from her duties for a day and a night, was presumed to have met with an untimely end. Damerel had located her by the simple expedient of calling her name, and had been instantly summoned to her assistance. ‘For that ladder is not at all steady, and I had as lief not climb down it carrying the kittens,’ she explained.
‘Is that what you have in that basket?’ he asked. ‘How the deuce did they get up there?’
‘Oh, they were born here! It’s the kitchen-cat: she always comes here to have her kittens. But I’m afraid something must have happened to her this time, and the poor little things are starving. That I cannot bear, though if they can’t lap yet I suppose they will have to be drowned.’