Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
Mr Hendred walked into the room. He was looking pale, tired, and very angry; and after bestowing one brief glance on Venetia he addressed himself stiffly to Damerel.
‘Good-evening! You must allow me to apologise for making so belated an arrival! I do not doubt, however, that you were expecting to see me!’
‘Well, I suppose I ought to have done so, at all events,’ replied Damerel. ‘You have quite a knack of arriving in what might be called the nick of time, haven’t you? Have you dined?’
Mr Hendred shuddered, momentarily closing his eyes. ‘No, sir, I have not dined! Nor, I may add –’
‘Then you must be devilish sharp-set!’ said Damerel curtly. ‘See to it, Imber!’
An expression of acute nausea crossed Mr Hendred’s countenance, but before he could master his spleen enough to decline, with civility, this offer of hospitality, Venetia, less charitable emotions vanquished by compassion, started forward, saying: ‘No, no! My uncle can never eat when he has been travelling all day! Oh, my dear sir, what can have possessed you to have come chasing after me in this imprudent way? I wouldn’t have had you do such a thing for the world!
So unnecessary! So foolish! You will be quite knocked-up! ’
‘Foolish?’ repeated Mr Hendred. ‘I reached London last night, Venetia, to be met with the intelligence that you had left town by the mail-coach, with the expressed intention of coming to this house – where, indeed, I find you! So far as I can discover, you took this disastrous step because of a quarrel with your aunt – and I must say, Venetia, that I credited you with too much sense to refine anything whatsoever on what your aunt may have said in a distempered freak!’
‘My dear, dear uncle, of course I didn’t!
’ Venetia said remorsefully, coaxing him to a chair.
‘Do, pray, sit down, for I know very well you are fagged to death, and have that horrid tic! There was no quarrel, I promise you! My poor aunt was quite overset by first seeing my mother at the theatre, and then discovering that I had been so ungrateful as to make a mull of her efforts to bring me into fashion by walking on my father-in-law’s arm all the way from the Pulteney Hotel to Oxford Street.
She gave me a rare scold, and I didn’t blame her in the least: I knew she would!
But as for leaving town because of it, or parting from her in anger – Sir, she cannot have told you that!
She knew what my reason was: I made no secret of it to her! ’
‘Your aunt,’ said Mr Hendred, expressing himself with determined restraint, ‘is a woman of great sensibility, and is subject, as you must be aware, to irritation of the nerves! When her spirits become overpowered, it is hard for her to compose herself sufficiently to render a coherent or even a rational account of whatever may have occurred to cast her into affliction. In fact,’ he ended, with asperity, ‘you cannot make head or tail of anything she says! As for knowing what your reason was, I don’t know what you may have seen fit to tell her, Venetia, but so far as I understand it you could think of nothing better to do than to beguile her with some farrago about wishing Damerel to strew rose-leaves for you to walk on! ’
Damerel, who had resumed his seat, had been staring moodily into the fire, but at these words he looked up quickly. ‘Rose-leaves?’ he repeated. ‘Rose-leaves?’ His eyes went to Venetia’s face, wickedly quizzing her. ‘But, my dear girl, at this season?’
‘Be quiet, you wretch!’ she said, blushing.
‘Exactly so!’ said Mr Hendred. Scrupulously exact, he added: ‘Or her purpose may have been to discourage you from indulging in such wasteful habits. I was unable to discover which – not that it signifies, for a more foolish story I never heard! What you told your aunt is of no consequence. What is of the first consequence to me is that you, my dear niece, a girl – and do not tell me that you are of age, I beg of you! – a girl, I say, residing in my house, under my protection, should have been allowed to run off, unattended, and with the expressed intention of seeking shelter under this of all imaginable roofs! And you call it foolish and unnecessary of me to exert myself to prevent your ruin and my own mortification?’
‘No, no!’ she said soothingly. ‘But are you not forgetting that I have a brother living under this roof, sir? I told your servants that I had been sent for because he was ill, and surely –’
‘I have neither forgotten Aubrey, nor am I here to lend you countenance!’ he interposed sternly. ‘I am here, as well you must know, to save you from committing an act of irremediable folly! I make no excuse, Damerel, for speaking thus plainly, for you already know my mind!’
‘By all means say what you choose,’ shrugged Damerel. ‘We are perfectly in accord, after all!’
Venetia, watching her uncle press his finger-tips to one temple, rose, and went quietly out of the room.
She was not absent for many minutes, but when she returned her uncle told her that he had been discussing with Damerel her visit to the Steeples.
‘I have no hesitation in assuring, you, my dear niece, that what his lordship has already told you is perfectly true. No stigma whatsoever attaches to you, and although any regular intercourse between you and Sir Lambert and Lady Steeple would be most undesirable, nothing could be more unbecoming – I may say improper – than for a daughter to cut her mother’s acquaintance!
I do not conceal from you that on that painful subject I have never found myself in agreement, either with your aunt, or with your late parent.
In my opinion, the policy of secrecy which was insisted on was as ill-judged as it was absurd! ’
‘Very true!’ said Venetia. She looked from one to the other, a smile in her eyes. ‘What else have you discussed? Have you settled between you what my future is to be? Or shall I tell you what I have settled?’
Mr Hendred, seeing that smile reflected in Damerel’s eyes, said quickly: ‘Venetia, I beg you will consider before you do what I gravely fear you cannot but regret! You think me unfeeling, but believe me, it is not so! I think it my duty to tell you, however – and I trust your lordship will forgive me! – that no more unsuitable marriage than the one you contemplate could well be imagined!’
‘My dear uncle, how can you talk in such an exaggerated fashion?’ Venetia protested. ‘Do but recollect a little! Damerel may be a rake, but at least he won’t turn out to be my father!’
‘Turn out to be your father?’ repeated Mr Hendred, in a stupefied tone. ‘What, in heaven’s name –?’
Damerel’s shoulders had begun to shake. ‘Oedipus,’ he said. ‘At least, so I apprehend, but she has become a trifle confused. What she means is that she won’t turn out to be my mother.’
‘Well, it is the same thing, Damerel!’ said Venetia, impatient of such pedantry. ‘Just as unsuitable!’
‘You will oblige me, Venetia,’ said Mr Hendred acidly, ‘by abandoning a subject which I consider to be extremely improper. I may say that I am excessively shocked to think that Aubrey – for I collect it was he! – should have sullied his sister’s ears with such a story!’
‘But you must surely see, sir, that Damerel isn’t in the least shocked!’ she pointed out. ‘Doesn’t that circumstance help you to understand why he would be the most suitable of all imaginable husbands for me?’
‘No, it does not!’ replied Mr Hendred roundly. ‘Upon my word, I don’t know how to bring you to your senses! You appear to me to be living in a – in a –’
‘Soap-bubble,’ supplied Damerel.
‘Yes, very well! a soap-bubble!’ snapped Mr Hendred. ‘You have fallen in love for the first time in your life, Venetia, and in your eyes Damerel is some sort of a hero out of a fairy-tale!’
She went into a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, no, he is not!’ she exclaimed. ‘Dear sir, how can you suppose me to be such a goose? If that pretty soap-bubble image was meant to signify that a dreadful disillusionment is in store for me, I can assure you that you may be easy!’
‘You compel me to be blunt – and a very distasteful task it is! Damerel may have the intention of reforming his way of life, but habits of long standing – the trend of a man’s character – are not easily altered!
I have a considerable regard for you, Venetia, and it would cause me distress and self-blame if I saw you made unhappy! ’
She looked at Damerel. ‘Well, my dear friend?’
‘Well, my dear delight?’ he returned, a glint in his eyes.
‘Do you think you will make me unhappy?’
‘I don’t – but I will offer you no promises!’
‘No, pray don’t!’ she said seriously. ‘As soon as one promises not to do something it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do!’ She turned her head towards her uncle again.
‘You mean to warn me that he may continue to have mistresses, and orgies, and – and so-on, don’t you, sir? ’
‘Particularly so-on!’ interpolated Damerel.
‘Well, how should I know all the shocking things you do? The thing is, uncle, that I don’t think I ever should know.’
‘You’d know about my orgies!’ objected Damerel.
‘Yes, but I shouldn’t care about them, once in a while. After all, it would be quite unreasonable to wish you to change all your habits, and I can always retire to bed, can’t I?’
‘Oh, won’t you preside over them?’ he said, much disappointed.
‘Yes, love, if you wish me to,’ she replied, smiling at him. ‘Should I enjoy them?’
He stretched out his hand, and when she laid her own in it, held it very tightly. ‘You shall have a splendid orgy, my dear delight, and you will enjoy it very much indeed!’