Chapter Eighteen #3
‘Your quickness of wit, Venetia, has made it easier for me to discharge the unpleasant duty – for such I feel it to be under these unforeseen circumstances – of divulging to you that she is, in fact, your mother,’ said Edward.
‘But my mother is dead!’ exclaimed Venetia. ‘She has been dead for years!’
‘Oh, if only she had been!’ Mrs Hendred set down the glass she was holding, and added bitterly: ‘I said it at the time, and I shall always say it! I knew she would never cease to afflict us! And just now, when we thought she was fixed in Paris –! I shouldn’t wonder at it if she came back on purpose to ruin you, my poor child, for what has she ever done but make trouble, besides being the most unnatural parent! ’
‘But how is this possible?’ demanded Venetia, looking, and, indeed, feeling, quite stunned. ‘Mama – Lady Steeple? Then –’
‘I don’t wonder that you should find it difficult to understand,’ said Edward kindly.
‘Yet I fancy that a moment’s reflection will inform you of how it must have been.
Let me suggest to you, my dear Venetia, that you sit down in this chair, while I procure a glass of water for you.
This has been a shock to you. It could not be otherwise, and although the truth must have been divulged to you it has been my earnest hope that this need not have been until you had become established in life. ’
‘Well, of course it has been a shock to me! But I don’t wish for any water, thank you! Only to have the whole truth told me, and not, Edward, such portions of it as you consider suitable! I collect my parents were divorced. Good God, was it the same as – Did my mother elope with that man?’
‘I think, Venetia, that it is unnecessary for you to know more than the bare fact,’ said Edward repressively.
‘Indeed, I am confident that when you have a little recovered the tone of your mind you will not wish to know more. The subject is not an edifying one, nor is it one on which I can venture to enlighten you. You must remember that at the time of that very unhappy event I was myself still at school.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Edward, must you be so Gothic?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘Aunt, did she elope?’
Mrs Hendred, now that the news was out, had begun to revive.
She sat up, straightening her elegant cap, and replied with tolerable calm: ‘Well, no, my love! No, she didn’t elope, precisely.
In some ways, one can’t help wishing – not that I mean – only it wasn’t the first time, which seemed to make it worse, because people had been talking for years, which made everything so disagreeable, though she was so discreet to begin with that I’m sure I had not the least guess – not, that is, until the affair with – Well, never mind that!
It is not at all to the purpose, for the General was alive then, poor man, and he persuaded Francis to condone it, for he doted on her!
There was never anything like it, for I don’t believe she cared the snap of her fingers for him, or anyone! A more heartless –’
‘Wait, ma’am, wait! What General?’
‘Good gracious, Venetia, her father, of course – your grandfather, though naturally you can’t remember him!
General Chiltoe, such an amiable, delightful man!
Everyone liked him: I did myself. She was his only child, and he thought nothing too good for her, for his wife died when she was quite an infant, which I daresay accounted for it.
She was so spoiled and indulged that anyone might have foretold how it would be, and I can assure you that poor Mama – your dear grandmama, my love – begged and implored Francis not to offer for her, but all to no purpose!
He was utterly out of his senses, and in general, you know, his understanding was most superior, and I assure you that if Mama introduced one eligible female to his notice she must have introduced a score!
His affections were never in the least animated – and, you know, my dear, though I should not say so to you, his disposition was not warm!
– But no sooner did he clap eyes on Aurelia than he fell violently in love with her, and wouldn’t listen to a word anyone said to him!
’ She heaved a gusty sigh, and shook her head.
‘I never liked her, never! I daresay she was very beautiful – everyone thought her ravishing! – but there was always something about her that I couldn’t quite like.
And I wasn’t the only one, I promise you!
A great many of my friends thought the fuss and to-do that was made over her was positively nonsensical, but of course none of the gentlemen could see the least thing amiss with her!
She had them all dangling after her in the most absurd way – and no fortune, mind you!
That was what made it so particularly – However, I must own, that it was a great triumph for your father to have won her, though heaven knows he would have done better to have married Georgiana Denny – Sir John’s sister, my love, that afterwards married Appledore’s eldest son – for you know what he was, dear child, not hard-fisted, but careful, and from the very start there was trouble, because she hadn’t the smallest notion of economy, besides being fatally addicted to gaming!
The dresses she used to have made for her!
The jewels she coaxed out of Francis! – My dear, those diamonds she was wearing tonight!
I never saw anything so vulgar – And that gown, with not a stitch under it but one invisible petticoat!
I wish I might know how she has contrived to keep her figure!
Not but what she looked exactly like –’ She broke off in some confusion, as Edward cleared his throat warningly, and added hastily; ‘I’m sure I don’t know what she looked like, except that it was not at all the thing! ’
‘Like a Bird of Paradise,’ supplied Venetia obligingly. ‘I thought so myself. But –’
‘Venetia,’ interposed Edward, in a tone of grave reproof, ‘do not let your sportive tongue betray you into saying what is not at all becoming, believe me!’
‘How did it come about, ma’am, that Papa divorced her?’ demanded Venetia, ignoring this interruption.
‘That,’ declared Mrs Hendred, with a shudder, ‘nothing shall ever prevail upon me to discuss! If only Francis had not allowed the General to reconcile him to her, after the Yattenden affair! But so it was – and the way Aurelia could twist men round her thumb –! Well, it would have been better for everyone if he had remained adamant, but he let her coax and cajole him, and then Aubrey was born, and such a pet as she fell into when she found she was increasing again –! And then that dreadful Sir Lambert Steeple began to cast out lures, so that anyone could have known how it would be! His father had just died, and left him that immense fortune, and of course he was excessively handsome, but the most shocking profligate, besides being – Well, never mind that, but he wore the Prince’s button – for he wasn’t the Prince Regent then – and a more improper set than the Prince’s people I daresay never existed!
And don’t, I beg of you, my dear niece, ask me to tell you how it was that your father was obliged to divorce her, for it makes me feel vapourish only to think of the scandal, and the way even one’s closest friends – I am quite overpowered!
My smelling-salts! – Oh, I have them here! ’
Venetia, who had listened to this in amazement, said slowly: ‘So that was why Papa shut himself up at Undershaw, and wouldn’t let anyone mention her! Of all the muttonheaded things to have done – But how like him! How very like him!’
‘Hush, Venetia!’ said Edward sternly. ‘Remember of whom you are speaking!’
‘I shall not hush!’ she retorted. ‘You know perfectly well that I never held him in affection, and if you think that this is a suitable moment for me to pretend I loved him you must have windmills in your head! Was there ever such a selfish folly? Pray, how much affection had he for me when, instead of taking care I should be brought up as other girls so that everyone might have been well-acquainted with me, he buried me alive? Why, for anything that is known of me I might be as like Mama in disposition as I’m held to be like her in appearance! ’
‘Exactly so, my love!’ corroborated Mrs Hendred, replacing the stopper of her vinaigrette.
‘It is why I am for ever telling you that you cannot be too careful not to give people the smallest cause to say you are like her! Not but what I for one couldn’t blame your poor papa, though your uncle, of course, did his utmost to persuade him that he would be making the greatest mistake, for he is very strongminded, and never pays the least heed to gossip.
But Francis was always such a high stickler, never passing the line, and holding himself so very much up!
He could not bear to be so mortified, and I’m sure it wasn’t to be wondered at, for instead of hiding herself from the world, as one might have supposed she would, Aurelia – your mama, I mean, and how very dreadful to be speaking to you of her in such terms, but I do feel, dear child, that you should know the truth!
– well, she positively flaunted herself all over town, though not, of course, received, and only think how degrading for Francis it would have been!
No sooner did Sir Lambert marry her – and the wonder is that he did marry her, when it was an open secret that she was his mistress, and costing him a fortune, too!
– no sooner did he marry her than she became perfectly outrageous!
Nothing would do for her but to put us all to the blush, and set everyone staring at her!
She used to drive a high-perch phaeton every afternoon in the park, with four cream-coloured horses in blue and silver harness, which they say Sir Lambert bought from Astley, just as though she had not been his wife at all, but something very different! ’