Chapter Eight
EIGHT
Edward Yardley, secure in the knowledge of his own worth, might rate Damerel cheap, but young Mr Denny, by no means so self-confident as he tried to appear, recognised in him both a model and a menace.
Like Edward, he rode over to the Priory to enquire how Aubrey did; unlike Edward, he no sooner clapped eyes on Damerel than he became possessed of a deep and envious hatred.
Imber ushered him into the library, where Damerel and Aubrey were playing chess, with Venetia seated on a stool by the sofa, watching the game.
This cosy scene afforded him no pleasure at all; and when Damerel rose, and he saw how tall he was, with what careless grace he moved, and how much lazy mockery lurked in his eyes, he knew that his sisters had grossly misled him: they had thought his lordship dull and middle-aged; Oswald perceived at one glance that he was a dangerous marauder.
His visit was not of long duration, but it lasted for quite long enough to enable him to see on what easy terms of intimacy the Lanyons were with their host. They were not only perfectly at home in his house, but they behaved as though they had known him all their lives.
Aubrey even called him Jasper; and although Venetia did not go to such outrageous lengths as that she used no formality when she spoke to him.
As for Damerel, Nurse might think his attitude avuncular, but Oswald, his perception sharpened by jealousy, was not deceived.
When his eyes rested on Venetia there was an expression in them very far from avuncular, and when he addressed her there was a caress in his voice.
Oswald glared at him, and tried in vain to think of some adroit way of getting himself and Venetia out of the room.
None occurred to him, so he was forced to employ direct tactics, saying rather throatily, and with reddening cheeks, as he shook hands in farewell: ‘May I speak to you for a moment?’
‘Yes, of course you may!’ Venetia replied kindly. ‘What is it?’
‘Don’t be gooseish, m’dear!’ recommended Aubrey, inspiring Oswald with a longing to wring his neck.
‘You have a message for her from Lady Denny, which you would prefer to deliver in private, haven’t you?’ suggested Damerel helpfully, but with an unholy twinkle.
In a nobler age one could have answered such impertinence by jostling his lordship as he stood holding open the door, so that he would have been obliged to demand a meeting. Or did one, even in that age, refrain from jostling people in doorways when a lady was present?
Before he had decided this point he had followed Venetia into the hall, and Damerel had shut the door on them. He uttered tensely: ‘If I know myself, there will be a reckoning between us one day!’
Venetia was accustomed to his dramatic outbursts, but she found this one surprising. ‘Between us?’ she asked. ‘Now, what in the world have I done to put you in a miff, Oswald?’
‘You! Never!’ he declared. ‘It’s no matter – I should not have spoken, but there are times when a man’s feelings may not be suppressed!’ He eyed her hungrily. ‘Only give me the right to call you mine!’ he invited.
‘What, is that why you wanted to talk to me alone?’ she exclaimed. ‘Of all the ridiculous starts –! I wish you will believe that when I say No, No is precisely what I mean! How can you be so absurd? I am more than six years older than you! Besides, you don’t really wish to marry me in the least!’
‘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 ames-ace 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.