Venetia

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Not to drink!” protested Venetia.

  “Well, he couldn’t have eaten it, so he must have drunk it!” pointed out Mrs. Hendred reasonably.

  “Perhaps he poured it over what he did eat. He would have been shockingly ill if he had drunk it by the glassful!”

  “Do you think that is what I should do?” asked Mrs. Hendred, somewhat dubiously considering the ratafia cream on her plate.

  “Most certainly I do not!” said Venetia, laughing. “Do, pray, let Worting take it away, ma’am!”

  “I must say, I think it would quite ruin this cream. Perhaps it will do as well if I take care to eat a biscuit. Worting, you may hand me the cream again, and then you may go, for I shan’t need anything more, except the macaroons, and those you may leave on the table. My love, I wish you will take one, for they are exceptionally good, and you have hardly eaten a morsel!”

  To oblige her, Venetia took a macaroon and sat nibbling it while her aunt returned to the task of persuading her that solitary expeditions must never be undertaken by young ladies of ton. Venetia let her run on in her discursive way, for she could not tell her that she went sightseeing in a dogged attempt to occupy her mind, any more than she could tell her that she was never alone, because a ghost walked beside her, soundless and invisible, yet so real that she felt sometimes that if she stretched out her hand it would find his.

  “... and it is so particularly important, my love, that you should behave with the utmost propriety!” pursued Mrs. Hendred.

  “Why?” asked Venetia.

  “Every unmarried lady should do so, and in your situation, Venetia, you cannot be too careful what you do! My love, if you knew the world as I do, which of course you can’t be expected to, and I daresay you haven’t a notion how spiteful people can be, especially when a girl is so very handsome, and so exactly—I mean, so striking!”

  “Well, I don’t think anyone can say anything very spiteful about me only because I go out alone,” replied Venetia. “Nothing that I care for, at all events.”

  “Oh, Venetia, I do beg of you not to talk in that style! Only think how dreadful if you caused people to say you were fast! You may depend upon it they are on the watch for the least sign, and will be ready to pounce on you, and one can’t wonder at it, after all! I daresay I should myself, not, of course, on you, dear child, but in another girl in your situation!”

  “But what is there in my situation to make people ready to pounce on me?” asked Venetia.

  “Oh dear, I wish you will not— You quite put me out! Your living with only Aubrey, I mean, with no chaperon, and—good gracious, Venetia, even you must know that it is not at all the thing!”

  “I don’t, but I know better than to argue with you on that head, ma’am! I daresay there may be many who would agree with you, but how should anyone in London know what my situation has been? I am persuaded you can never have divulged it!”

  “No, no, indeed I never did! But—well, such things become known, I’m sure I don’t know how, but you may believe that they do!”

  But as Venetia found it impossible to believe that what happened at Undershaw could be known in London, she was quite unimpressed by her aunt’s dark warnings. Fortunately it was not difficult to divert Mrs. Hendred’s mind, so instead of arguing with her she seized the first opportunity that offered of introducing a fresh topic of conversation, and said that she had overheard someone saying, in Hookham’s Library, that very morning, that he had had it on the best of authority that the Queen was not expected by her physicians to live out the week. As it was Mrs. Hendred’s recurrent nightmare that her Majesty (whom everyone knew to be as tough as whitleather) would survive the winter, and ruin all Theresa’s chances by dying in the middle of the next season, this gambit was very successful; and in hoping, doubting, and wondering for how long a period the Court (and of course the ton) would go into mourning, Mrs. Hendred forgot, for the time being, that she had failed to extract from her wilful niece any promise of conformity.

  The Queen died at Kew, in the small hours of the morning of the 17th November. Mr. Hendred brought the news to his wife, and it did much to raise her spirits, sunk very low by the outrageous behaviour of her dressmaker, who had delivered in Cavendish Square, instead of a promised promenade dress, a prevaricating note full of excuses for having been unable to fulfil her obligation.

  The only fault Mrs. Hendred had to find in the news was that the Queen should have chosen to die on the 17th instead of the 18th November, for the 17th was the day fixed for the ball she was giving in Venetia’s honour. Few things could have been more provoking, for all the preparations had been made, and after having been put to so much exertion, arranging with the French cook about the supper, speaking to Worting about the champagne, deciding what she should wear, and showing Venetia how to direct the cards of invitation, it was a great deal too bad that it should all have been for nothing. However, after wondering what was to be done with the creams and the aspics and the stuffed birds, she hit upon the happy notion of inviting a few of the guests bidden to the ball to come to dinner instead, quite informally, of course, and to spend a quiet, conversible evening, with perhaps a few rubbers of whist, but no music.

  “No more than half-a-dozen persons; for any more would give it the appearance of a party,” she told Venetia. “That would never do! My dear, that reminds me—black gloves! I daresay you have none, and they must be procured instantly! Black ribbons, too, and I think you should wear a high frock, not one cut low at the bosom—and I shall invite none of the young people. Just a few of my chiefest friends! What do you say to Sir Matthew Hallow? I daresay he would be charmed to dine here, and you like him, don’t you, my love?”

  “Yes, very much,” replied Venetia absently.

  “He is a most excellent person: I knew you would be pleased with him, and he with you! He admires you excessively: I saw that at a glance!”

  “Well, as long as he doesn’t take to paying me fulsome compliments—which I don’t think he has the least intention of doing—he may admire me as much as he chooses,” said Venetia depressingly.

  Mrs. Hendred sighed, but said no more. Sir Matthew Hallow, though not quite the ideal man for Venetia, had much to recommend him, and she had been very glad to see how friendly he and Venetia had become. He was rather too old for her, perhaps, and it was a pity that he should be a widower, but he seemed to have taken her fancy, and although he was popularly supposed to have buried his heart in his wife’s grave there was no doubt that he was struck by Venetia’s good looks, and found her company agreeable.

  However, he was not the only possible husband Mrs. Hendred had found for her niece, so she was not unduly cast-down by Venetia’s lack of enthusiasm. She decided that Mr. Armyn also should be invited to dine: he knew all about Roman remains, or something of the sort, and might just suit a girl who spent three hours at the British Museum, and selected from the shelves of the lending library a book about the Middle Ages.

  Venetia seemed to like Mr. Armyn: she said that he had a well-informed mind. She liked two other eligible bachelors, agreeing that one had very good address, and that the other was extremely gentlemanlike. Mrs. Hendred felt a strong inclination to burst into tears, and would probably have done so had she known that Venetia had abandoned sightseeing, and was devoting each afternoon to house-hunting.

  She found it an exhausting and dispiriting task, but she had been living for a full month with her aunt, and not only did she feel that a month constituted a very reasonable visit, but she was increasingly anxious to form her own establishment. Perhaps, if she could be busy all the time, as she meant to be, she might not feel so unhappy; perhaps, in household cares, she could forget her love, or grow at least accustomed to desolation, as Aubrey had grown accustomed to his limp.

  She returned one afternoon from one of these expeditions to be informed by the footman who admitted her into the house that a gentleman had called to visit her, and was sitting with Mrs. Hendred in the drawing-room. She stoo
d rooted, feeling her heart miss a beat.

  “A Mr. Yardley, miss,” said the footman.

  XVII

  Edward had come to London with a double purpose. He wished to consult a physician recommended to him by their good Huntspill—not that he believed there was any cause for alarm, but he could not deny that his cough still hung about him, which set his mother sadly on the fidgets; and so, upon Huntspill’s saying, in his testy way, that if she fancied there might be more amiss than he could discover she had best call in a physician from York, he had taken the resolve to consult a London physician instead. “And I fancy, my dear Venetia, I have no need to tell you why Ipreferred to do so, or what was my other purpose in visiting the metropolis!” he said archly.

  “I am sorry you should not be quite recovered yet,” she replied. “Is Mrs. Yardley also in town?”

  No, he had come without his mama. She had had a great mind to accompany him, but he had thought that the journey would be too fatiguing for her, and so she had remained at Netherfold. He was putting up at Reddish’s, which had been recommended to him as a genteel hotel, though he had been surprised to find it so much larger than had been described to him. He feared the bill would make him open his eyes.

  “However, I daresay it will not ruin me, and when one goes on holiday, you know, it is permissible to be a little extravagant.”

  When Mrs. Hendred left the room, which she very soon found an excuse to do, he told Venetia how happy he was to discover her in such comfortable circumstances. He had had no doubt of her aunt’s being a most estimable female, but he had not been able to feel easy in his mind until he should have seen for himself how she went on. He now perceived that she was living in the first style of elegance, no doubt in a regular whirl of fashionable dissipation! “Your aunt, I daresay, has a large circle of acquaintances. She entertains a great deal, I believe. You will have been meeting quite a crowd of new faces!”‘

  It was not difficult to see what was his real purpose in coming to London. Damerel he had not recognized to be a danger; but the unknown beaux and tulips of fashion, on whom he quizzed her, laughingly, yet watching her pretty sharply, might well dazzle the eyes of a country innocent.

  She interrupted his attempts to discover if this had indeed been the case, by asking him if he had seen Aubrey. His countenance became grave at once; he replied: “Yes, I have seen him. I knew you would wish for news of him, and so I rode over to the Priory—a little against my inclination, I must own, for Damerel is not a man with whom I should wish to stand on terms of more than common civility. That was a very awkward business, Venetia: I was excessively vexed when I heard of it! I wonder your uncle should not have invited Aubrey to come with you to town.”

  “He did invite him, but Aubrey didn’t wish to come. It wouldn’t have answered, you know. Is he well? Pray tell me how—how you found everything at the Priory! Aubrey is the wretchedest correspondent!”

  “Oh, he is very well! I need not tell you I found him with his nose in a book, and the desk all littered over with papers! I ventured to joke him about his barricades, as I called them. I assure you, if he had pulled one book from the shelves he had pulled a dozen. I told him that I wondered that anyone who cared as much as he does for books should leave them lying all over—on the floor, even! Does he never put away what he has done with?”

  “No, never. Did you tell him you were coming to London?”

  “Certainly—since that was my object in visiting him! I offered to be the bearer of any message, or letter, he might like to send you, but he was in one of his crotchety moods: you know his way whenever one tries just to give him a hint! He didn’t like my reminding him that they were not his own books on the floor, and so he wouldn’t entrust any message to me!”

  “Aubrey doesn’t recognize your authority, Edward. In fact, you are the only person to do so, and I wish you will remember that you have none.”

  “As to that—but it was no matter of authority! One would suppose that a boy of his age need not be above accepting a little friendly criticism!”

  “Well, not if one knows Aubrey!” she retorted. “The truth is that you and he don’t deal well together.”

  “I shall dare to contradict you, my dear Venetia!” he said, smiling. “The truth is that Master Aubrey is jealous, and hasn’t yet learned to overcome it. He’ll do so in time, particularly if one pays no heed to his miffs.”

  “You are wrong, Edward,” she said, steadily regarding him. “Aubrey is not jealous. He knows he has no need to be—and I don’t think he would be if there were! He is not much interested in people. I’ve told you that before, but you don’t believe the things I tell you. I don’t wish to give you pain, for we have been very good friends, and—and I am indebted to you for a great deal of kindness, but pray believe one thing at least!—I do not—”

  “Now, if I were a young hot-head, like Aubrey, I should let you say what you would later regret!” he interposed, holding up a warning forefinger. “And then, no doubt, we should indulge ourselves with a stupid quarrel, when we might both of us be led into saying what we should regret! But I fancy I have rather more sense than you give me credit for, and also, my dear, that I know you a trifle better than you know yourself! You will tell me that I am impertinent, but so it is, little though you may think it! You are impetuous, your disposition is lively, you are enjoying your first taste of what is called society, and I daresay—indeed, I am sure!—that you have met with a great deal of admiration and flattery. It is very natural that you should be feeling a little giddy—I do not at all grudge you your treat, and you must not be thinking, you know, that when we are married you will not be granted a similar indulgence. I am not, myself, fond of town life, but I believe it may be of benefit to one to go about the world now and then, and certainly it is very diverting to study the manners and customs of persons whose way of life is so far removed from one’s own!”

  “Edward, if I ever led you to suppose that I should marry you I am sorry for it, and I tell you now that I shall not!” she said earnestly.

  She saw with dismay that her words had made no impression on him. He was still smiling, in a way that she found peculiarly irritating, and he said, in one of his rather ponderous essays in playfulness: “I fancy I must be growing a trifle deaf! But you have not told me, Venetia, how you like London, or what you have seen here! I can picture your astonishment when you first discovered its size, the variety of the aspects of life which it offers to the enquiring gaze, its parks, and monuments, the handsome mansions of the affluent, the wretched hovels of the destitute, the crossing-sweeper in his rags, and the nobleman in his silk and purple!”

  “I have never seen a nobleman dressed in silk and purple. I believe they only wear such things on State occasions.”

  But he only laughed heartily, saying how well he knew her literal mind, and promising to show her some places of interest which he ventured to think she might not yet have discovered. He himself had twice visited London, and although on the occasion of his first visit he had been too much amazed and bemused to do more than stare about him (for she must know that he had been no older than Aubrey at the time), when he came for the second time he provided himself with an excellent guide-book, which had not only acquainted him with what was most worth his notice, but had supplied him as well with such information as had greatly added to his appreciation of the various edifices to which it had directed him. He added that he had brought this valuable book with him, and had read it from cover to cover on the journey, to refresh his memory.

  She could only marvel at him. She had never possessed the key to his mind, and what circumstance it was that made him now so calmly confident was beyond her power to fathom. She did not believe him to be desperately in love with her; she could only suppose that having once made up his mind that she was the wife that would best suit him he had either grown too accustomed to the idea to be able easily to relinquish it, or that the good opinion he had of himself made it impossible for him to believe
that she could in all seriousness reject his offer. He did not appear to be put out by her blunt speech; he seemed rather to have decided that she must be humoured, and he adopted an attitude of kindly tolerance, such as a goodnatured man might assume towards a spoiled child.

  He could not refrain from chiding her a little for having gone away from Undershaw without sending to inform him of her intention: he had heard the news from his mother, who, in her turn, had had it from Lady Denny, and a severe shock it had been to him. However, he forgave her, and did not mean to scold, for none could guess better than he how distracted she must have been. That led him to animadvert on Conway’s marriage, and on that subject he spoke with a good deal of proper feeling, and in more forthright language than it was his custom to employ when talking to Venetia of her brother. He owned that he had thought better of Conway; and in discussing the affair expressed himself so much like a sensible man that Venetia began to be in charity with him again. He had thought it right to take his mother to leave cards on Lady Lanyon; they had stayed no longer than twenty minutes, but half that space of time would have sufficed to provide him with a pretty fair notion of Mrs. Scorrier’s character. She was an intolerable woman! He found no harm in Charlotte, but it had caused him a pang to see such a dab of a girl supplanting Venetia as mistress of Undershaw. He was sorry for her; he had formed the impression that her situation was not comfortable; and when Mrs. Scorrier had begun to talk of Aubrey’s removal to the Priory, setting it down, of course, to his jealousy, and trying to persuade them that she had done all she could to reconcile him, she had looked as if she might burst into tears. A poor-spirited female! For his part he saw nothing to admire in her: Conway would have done better to have kept faith with Clara Denny.

  “Poor Clara! If only she could bring herself to see how very well out of a bad bargain she is!”