‘Oh! Thank you! You didn’t tell her anything to alarm her, did you?’
‘No, why should I? I told her precisely what I told you, and merely requested her to put up what you need in the way of nightshirts and tooth-brushes for the boy to bring back with him.’
‘That’s right!’ Aubrey said, relieved. ‘They can’t fly into a pucker over that!’
Four
The letter which reached Venetia had been written in the most elegant of formal terms, and in a spirit of unholy amusement. Damerel took pains over it, wondering what its effect on her would be. He addressed her as a stranger, but she was unlikely to be deceived into thinking that he did not remember very well who she was. Though he was careful not to pen a word that might betray to her his enjoyment of the situation, she would certainly perceive how maliciously fate had played into his hands. That might bring her to the Priory in a mood of seething resentment, but he did not think it would keep her away from a delicate young brother who seemed to be in her sole charge; and he did not doubt his ability to gentle her into laying her ruffled plumage. He ended his letter with a prim Yours etc, and wished, as he sealed it with a wafer, that he could watch her face when she read it.
In point of fact not one of the thoughts he had imagined for her so much as crossed her mind. By the time the letter reached Undershaw she was much more anxious than she cared to betray to Nurse, who had been prophesying disaster ever since the discovery that Aubrey had not come home to share a nuncheon with his sister. That circumstance had not alarmed her; he had not told her where he was going, and for anything she knew it might have been to Thirsk, or even to York, where there was a bookshop that enjoyed his patronage. But by four o’clock she had reached the nerve-racking stage of wondering whether to send out all the menservants to scour the countryside, or whether in so doing she would be indulging a fit of extravagant folly which would infuriate Aubrey. So when Ribble brought the letter to her, with Nurse wringing her hands in his wake, and declaring that she had known it all along, and there was her sainted lamb, picked up for dead, and lying at the Priory with every bone in his body broken, there was no room in her head for any thought of Damerel. Her fingers trembled as she broke open the letter; she felt quite sick with dread; and in her anxiety to learn the worst never even noticed the ironic formality over which such pains had been spent. Running her eyes rapidly down the single sheet she exclaimed thankfully: ‘No, no, he’s not badly hurt! Rufus came down with him, but there are no bones broken. A sprained ankle – considerable bruising – in case of any injury to the left hip – oh, how very kind of him! Listen, Nurse! Lord Damerel has sent to York already to fetch Dr Bentworth to Aubrey! He writes however that although Aubrey believes himself to have fallen on that leg, he thinks, from the spraining of his right ankle, that it was not so and he has done no more than jar the weak joint. I do pray he may be right! He thought it better to convey Aubrey to the Priory than to subject him to the torment of the longer journey to his own home – indeed it was! And if I will be so good as to put up Aubrey’s necessities the bearer will carry them back to the Priory. As though I shouldn’t go to Aubrey myself!’
‘That you will not!’ declared Nurse. ‘The Lord may see fit to turn an old woman over into the hands of the wicked, but it says in the Good Book that many are the afflictions of the righteous, and, what’s more, that they shall be upheld, which I do trust I shall be, though never did I think to be forced to stand in the way of sinners! But as for letting you set foot in that ungodly mansion, Miss Venetia, never!’
Recognising from the sudden Biblical turn of the conversation that her guardian was strongly moved, Venetia applied herself for the next twenty minutes to the task of soothing her agitation, pointing out to her that they had more reason to liken Damerel to the Good Samaritan than to the wicked, and coaxing her to accept her own determination to go to Aubrey as something as harmless as it was inevitable. In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive.
She came closer to the truth than she knew, or could have brought Venetia to believe. Venetia had no guile, and no affectations; she knew the world only by the books she had read; experience had never taught her to doubt the sincerity of anyone who did her a kindness. So when Damerel, seeing the approach of a carriage round a bend in the avenue, strolled out to meet his guest it was neither a wrathful goddess nor a young lady on her dignity who sprang down from the vehicle and gave him both her hands, but a beautiful, ingenuous creature with no consciousness in her frank eyes, but only a glow of warm gratitude. She exclaimed, as he took her hands: ‘I am so much obliged to you! I wish I could tell you, but there seems to be nothing to say but thank you.’ She added, shyly smiling: ‘You wrote me such a comfortable letter, too! That was so very kind: did you guess I must be quite sick with apprehension? Oh, pray tell me that it was true, and he didn’t injure himself badly?’
It was several moments before he answered her or released her hands. In a faded old gown, with her hair untidy under a sunbonnet, and her countenance flushed with indignation he had thought her an uncommonly pretty girl; she was dressed now simply but charmingly in jonquil muslin, with a hat of unbleached straw whose high-poke front made a frame for a lovely face that was neither flushed nor indignant, but smiling up at him with unshadowed friendliness, and she took his breath away. Hardly aware that he was still holding her hands, and in far too strong a grasp, he stood staring down at her until Nurse recalled him to his senses by clearing her throat in a marked and an intimidating manner. He recovered himself quickly then, saying: ‘Why, yes, Miss Lanyon! To the best of my belief it was perfectly true, but although I have some experience of broken bones I know nothing of the trouble that makes your brother lame, and so thought it imperative to send for his doctor. I hope it may not be long before he arrives. Meanwhile, you must, I’m persuaded, be impatient to see the boy. I’ll take you to him at once.’
‘Thank you! I’ve brought our Nurse, as you see, and she means to stay to look after him, if she may do so?’
‘Oh, that’s capital!’ he said, smiling in appreciative amusement as he encountered a glare from that rigid moralist’s hostile eyes. ‘You will know just what to do for him, and to have you will make him feel very much more at home.’
‘Is it paining him very badly?’ Venetia asked anxiously, as Damerel led her into the house.
‘No, not now. I gave him some laudanum, and he seems tolerably comfortable – but I fear you’ll find him pretty drowsy.’
‘Gave him laudanum?’ Venetia exclaimed. ‘Oh, if he would swallow that he must have been suffering dreadfully! He will never take drugs – not even the mildest opiate, only to make him sleep when his hip has been aching!’
‘Oh, he didn’t swallow it at all willingly, I promise you!’ he replied, taking her across the flagged hall to the staircase. ‘I respect his reluctance, but to be allowing him to play the Spartan youth, when he was suffering (unless I mistake the matter) as much from fear that he may have crippled himself as from his bruised bones, would have been folly. Or so I thought!’
‘You were very right!’ she agreed. ‘But unless you forced it down his throat, which I do hope you didn’t, I can’t imagine how you persuaded him to take it, for I never knew anyone so obstinate!’
He laughed. ‘No, no, I wasn’t obliged to resort to violence!’ He opened the door into Aubrey’s room as he spoke, and stood aside for her to go in.
Aubrey, lying in the middle of a big four-poster bed and wearing a nightshirt many sizes too large for him, looked the merest wisp of a boy, but he had recovered his complexion a little. Roused by his sister’s fingers laid over his wrist he opened his eyes, smi
led sleepily at her, and murmured: ‘Stoopid! I’ve only bruised myself, m’dear: nothing to signify! I think I crammed him. Rufus, I mean.’
‘Cawker!’ she said lovingly.
‘I know. Damerel said, more bottom than sense.’ His gaze focused itself on Nurse, who, having set down a bulging portmanteau, was divesting herself of her bonnet with all the air of one determined to remain at his side whatever might be the consequences. He uttered thickly: ‘Oh, no, my God – ! How could you, Venetia? Take her away! I’m damned if I’ll have her fussing and fuming over me as if I were a baby!’
‘Ungrateful brat!’ remarked Damerel. ‘You’d be well-served if your nurse took you at your word, and left you to my mercies! I should certainly beat you.’
Considerably to Venetia’s surprise this intervention, so far from offending him, made Aubrey give a tiny spurt of laughter. Turning his head on the pillow so that he could look at Damerel, he said: ‘Well, how would you like it, sir?’
‘Very much indeed! You are more fortunate than you know.’
Aubrey pulled a face; but when Damerel had left the room he said: ‘I like him, don’t you? You’ll say everything that’s proper, won’t you? I don’t think I did, and I ought.’
She replied soothingly, and he shut his eyes again. He was soon asleep, so that there was nothing for Venetia to do but to sit down to await the arrival of Dr Bentworth, while Nurse unpacked the portmanteau, her lips tightly folded in disapproval, except when she opened them to whisper warnings to Venetia against falling into the snares of the wicked. She was presently drawn into the adjoining dressing-room by Mrs Imber, and Venetia was left to while away the time as best she might. There was nothing to occupy her save her thoughts, and nothing to be seen from the window but a neglected garden bathed in autumn sunshine. Having mentally weeded this, stocked its flower-beds with her favourite plants, and set a couple of men to scythe the lawn, she wondered how long she would be obliged to sit idle. She feared it might be for a considerable period, for York was twelve miles distant, and it was more than probable that a busy practitioner might not be found at liberty to come immediately to Aubrey’s bedside.
When Nurse came back into the room Venetia was glad to see that her countenance had slightly relaxed its expression of uncompromising severity. Her opinion of Damerel’s morals, and her conviction that his end would be a lesson to other sinners, remained unchanged, but she was to some degree mollified by the discovery that he had ordered Mrs Imber not only to make up a bed for her in the dressing-room, but to obey whatever injunctions she might see fit to lay upon her. Furthermore, his valet was not, as might have been supposed, a saucy jackanapes, but a very respectable man who had behaved with great civility to her, deferring to her superior judgment, and begging, as a favour, to be allowed to share with her the duties of waiting on the invalid. It appeared that Nurse had graciously conferred this honour upon him, but whether she had done so because she was won over by this tact, or because she knew that Aubrey would strenuously resist any attempt to reduce him to nursery status, remained undisclosed. She was representing to Venetia in persuasive terms how unnecessary it was for her to remain at the Priory another instant when Aubrey woke up, rather cross, and complaining that he was hot, thirsty, and uncomfortable. Nurse thought this an excellent opportunity to change Damerel’s contaminating nightshirt for one of his own, so she summoned Marston to her assistance, and was pretty well occupied when Damerel walked into the room to invite Venetia to partake of dinner in his company. Before Nurse had grasped the scandalous nature of his errand the invitation had been accepted, and Damerel was bowing Venetia out of the room.
‘Thank you!’ Venetia said, as he shut the door. ‘You came in at precisely the right moment, you know, when poor Nurse was too much taken up with scolding Aubrey for being so tiresome to think what I might be doing!’
‘Yes, I didn’t think I should clear that fence without a check,’ he agreed. ‘Would you have attended to her protests?’
‘No, but she is being strongly moved by the spirit, and the chances are it would have moved her to say something impolite to you, which would have covered me with mortification.’
‘Oh, don’t let that trouble you!’ he said, laughing. ‘Only tell me how I should address her!’
‘Well, we have always called her Nurse.’
‘No doubt! But it won’t do for me to copy you. What is her name?’
‘Priddy. The underservants call her Mrs Priddy, though I can’t think why, for she has never been married.’
‘Mrs Priddy she shall be. You won’t tell me I rank above the underservants in her esteem!’ An irrepressible chuckle made him glance down at her; he saw the brimming merriment in her eyes, and demanded: ‘Now what? Do I rank above them?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she answered cautiously. ‘At least, I never heard her say, even of the laundrymaid, that she would be eaten by frogs!’
He gave a shout of laughter. ‘Good God, does that fate await me?’
Encouraged by the discovery that he shared her enjoyment of the absurd she laughed back at him, saying: ‘Yes, and also that your increase will be delivered to the caterpillar.’
‘Oh, I’ve no objection to that! The caterpillar is welcome to my increase!’
‘No, how can you be so unnatural? Increase must mean your children!’
‘Undoubtedly! Any side-slips of mine the caterpillar may have with my good-will,’ he retorted.
‘Poor little things!’ she said, adding thoughtfully, after a moment: ‘Not that it is at all easy to perceive what harm one caterpillar could do them.’
‘Do you know that you are a very strange girl?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Why? Have I said something I ought not?’ she said rather anxiously.
‘On the contrary: I’m afraid it was I who did that.’
‘Did you?’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘Side-slips? Well, that was quite my fault for mentioning your children at all, when I know you are not married. Have you – No.’
His lips twitched, but he said gravely: ‘Not to my knowledge.’
That drew a responsive twinkle from her. ‘Yes, I was going to ask you that,’ she admitted. ‘I beg your pardon! The thing is, you see, that I so seldom talk to anyone but Aubrey that I forget to take care what I say when I go into company.’
‘Don’t set a guard on your tongue on my account!’ he said, ushering her into the dining-room. ‘I like your frankness – and detest damsels who blush and bridle!’
She took the chair Imber was holding for her. ‘Well, I don’t think I did that, even in my salad days.’
‘A long time ago!’ he said, quizzing her.
‘Well, it is, for I’m five-and-twenty, you know.’
‘I must take your word for that, but do enlighten me! Do you hold my sex in dislike, or have you taken a vow of celibacy?’
‘I wish you won’t make me laugh just as I am drinking soup! You nearly made me choke! Of course not!’
‘What a set of slow-tops the Yorkshire bucks must be! This soup seems to be made entirely of onions. I don’t wonder at your choking. And as far as I can see,’ he said, levelling his quizzing glass at the various dishes set out on the table, ‘there is worse to come. What the devil is that mess, Imber?’
‘Veal, my lord, with a sauce Bechermell – Mrs Imber not being prepared for company,’ replied Imber apologetically. ‘But there is the raised mutton pie, and a brace of partridges for the second course, with French beans and mushrooms, and – and a dish of fruit, which Mrs Imber hopes you will pardon, miss, for his lordship not being partial to sweetmeats she hadn’t a cream nor a jelly ready to serve, and, as you know, miss, such things take time.’
‘I am astonished poor Mrs Imber should have been able to dress half as many dishes,’ instantly responded Venetia. ‘With such an upset in the house she can’t have had a moment to spare! Pray tell her that I a
m particularly partial to veal, and quite detest jellies!’
Damerel was regarding her with a smile in his eyes. He said, as Imber bore off the empty soup-plates: ‘Everything handsome about you! – your face, your name, and your manners! Tell me about your life! Why did I never see you before? Do you never come to London?’
She shook her head. ‘No, though perhaps I shall when Aubrey goes to Cambridge next year. As for telling you about my life – why, there’s only one answer to that, and it’s A blank, my lord!’
‘Am I to understand that you pine in thought? I hope you don’t mean to tell me you have a green and yellow melancholy, for that I’ll swear you have not!’
‘Good gracious, no! Only that I have no history! I have passed all my life at Undershaw, and done nothing worth the telling. I wish you will tell me some of the things you have done!’
He looked up quickly from the dish he was serving, his eyes hardening. She met that searching stare with a little enquiring lift to her brows, and saw his lips curl into the sneer which had made her liken him to the Corsair. ‘I think not,’ he said dryly.
‘I said some of the things you have done!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘You can’t have spent your whole life getting into idiotish scrapes!’
The ugly look vanished as he burst out laughing. ‘Most of it, I assure you! What is it you wish to know?’
‘I should like to know about the places you have been to. You have travelled a great deal, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘I envy you that. It is a thing I always longed to do. I daresay I never shall, because single females are so horridly restricted, but I still indulge myself with planning tours to all the strange places I’ve only read about.’
‘No, no, don’t do it!’ he begged. ‘Such dreams, believe me, are the seeds from which the eccentric springs! You would end, like that ramshackle Stanhope woman, queening it over hordes of evil-smelling Bedouins!’