Chapter Ten #4
In this she was mistaken. Aubrey had not only seen, but was taking a detached interest in the affair, as he disclosed to his sister a day or two later.
He had been so obliging as to drive her to Thirsk, where she had shopping to do; and on the way home, when Damerel’s name had cropped up, as it frequently did, he startled her by asking quite casually: ‘Are you going to marry him, m’dear? ’
She was a good deal taken aback, for he was in general so indifferent to what lay beyond his own concerns that she had supposed, like Lady Denny, that it had not occurred to him that Damerel’s visits to Undershaw might be due to a desire to see her rather than himself.
She hesitated for a moment, and he added: ‘Should I not ask you? You needn’t answer, if you don’t choose. ’
‘Well, I can’t answer,’ she said frankly. ‘He hasn’t made me an offer!’
‘I know that, stoopid! You must have told me, if you had become engaged to him! Shall you accept him when he does offer for you?’
‘Aubrey, who set you on to ask me that?’ she demanded. ‘It cannot have been Lady Denny! Was it Nurse?’
‘Lord, no! No one did. Why should anyone?’
‘I thought someone might have told you to try whether you could persuade me not to allow Damerel to come to Undershaw.’
‘Much heed I should have paid! Does Lady Denny know? Why should she wish you not to see Jasper? Don’t she like him?’
‘No – that is, she does not know him, but only his reputation, and I fancy she thinks I might be taken-in.’
‘Oh!’ He frowned ahead, checking his horses a little as they approached the lodge-gates. ‘I don’t know much about such things, but I shouldn’t think you would be. Ought I to ask Jasper what his intentions are?’
She could not help laughing. ‘I beg you will not!’
‘Well, I’d as lief not,’ he owned. ‘Besides, I see no sense in it: he couldn’t tell me he meant to seduce you, even if he did, and, anyway, what a totty-headed notion that is!
Why, when I wanted to get rid of Nurse he said she must stay at the Priory to play propriety!
I never thought much about the stories people told of him, but I daresay they weren’t true.
In any event, you probably know more about ’em than I do, and if you don’t care why should I? ’
They had passed through the gates by this time, and were bowling up the avenue that wound through the park.
Venetia said: ‘I don’t know why anyone should care, but they all seem to think that because I’ve lived my whole life in this one place I must be a silly innocent with much more hair than wit.
I’m glad you don’t, love. I can’t tell what may happen, but – if Damerel did wish to marry me – you at least wouldn’t dislike it, would you? ’
‘No, I think I should be glad of it,’ he replied. ‘I shall be going up to Cambridge, of course, next year, but there will be the vacations, you know, and I’d rather by far spend them in Damerel’s house than in Conway’s.’
This view of the matter made her smile, but no more was said, for at that moment the last bend in the avenue brought the house into sight, and she was surprised to see that a laden post-chaise-and-four was drawn up at the door.
‘Hallo, what’s this?’ exclaimed Aubrey. ‘Good God, it must be Conway!’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Venetia said, catching sight of a feathered bonnet. ‘It’s a female! But who in the world – oh, can it be Aunt Hendred?’
But when Aubrey pulled his horses up behind the chaise and the visitor turned, Venetia found herself staring down at a complete stranger.
She was still more astonished by the discovery that the stranger was apparently superintending the removal from the chaise of a formidable quantity of portmanteaux and bandboxes.
She turned her bewildered gaze towards Ribble, her brows lifting in a mute question; but he was looking quite stunned, and before she could ask for an explanation the stranger, who was a middle-aged lady, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped forward, saying with an air of affable assurance: ‘Miss Venetia Lanyon? But I need not ask! And the poor little lame boy? I am Mrs Scorrier, which you have perhaps guessed – though the butler seems not to have been informed of our expected arrival!’
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ said Venetia, descending from the phaeton, ‘but there must be some mistake! I am afraid I don’t understand!’
Mrs Scorrier stared at her for a moment, an expression far removed from affability in her face.
‘Do you mean to tell me that what that man said is true, and you have not received a letter from – I might have known it! Oh, I should certainly have guessed as much when I discovered in London that no notice had been sent to the Gazette!’
‘Notice?’ repeated Venetia. ‘Gazette?’
Recovering her affability, Mrs Scorrier said, with a little laugh: ‘So naughty and forgetful of him! I shall give him a tremendous scold, I promise you! I daresay you must be quite at a loss. Well, I have brought you a surprise, but not, I hope, an unpleasant one! Charlotte, my pet!’
In response to this call, which was directed towards the open door, a very fair girl, with large, apprehensive eyes of a light blue, a quantity of flaxen ringlets, and a soft, over-sensitive mouth, emerged from the house, saying, in a nervous breathless voice: ‘Yes, Mama?’
‘Come here, my love!’ invited Mrs Scorrier. ‘Dear child! You have been so anxious to meet your new sister, and your little lame brother, have you not? Here they both are! Yes, Miss Lanyon: this is Lady Lanyon!’