Chapter Eight #2
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 r?le, 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 r?le 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.