VI

He entered to find Aubrey still seething with annoyance, his eyes overbright and his thin cheeks flushed, and said, in an amused voice: “Well, you do accord your visitors Turkish treatment, don’t you?”

“Where is he?” demanded Aubrey.

“Abiit, excessit ...”

“What, already? Vae victis! Did you kick him out?”

“On the contrary! I invited him to treat the house as his own.”

“Oh, my God, no!”

“No, that’s very much what he thought—though he didn’t phrase it so. I fancy he doesn’t like me above half—but nothing could have exceeded his civility.” He turned his laughing eyes towards Venetia. “Worthy was exactly the right epithet!”

She laughed back at him. “Oh, did you guess?”

“Of course I did! Poor man, I was heartily sorry for him!”

“Sorry for that—that windsucker?” exploded Aubrey. “Wait till you see how little need you had to give him leave to treat your house as his own! He has been doing so with ours ever since my father died! Meddling and moralizing! I tell you to your head, Venetia, if you do marry him I’ll have nothing more to do with you!”

“Well, I don’t mean to marry him, so stop fidgeting yourself into a stew!”

He stirred restlessly, wincing a little. “I’d as lief live with Conway! No, by Jove, I’d prefer Conway to that bumptious, prosing piece of self-consequence that never crossed anything but a slug in his life! He to talk of giving me lessons—! Why, he has the worst seat and the worst hands of any man in the county, and will go half a mile out of his way to find a gap in a hedge his horse might have taken in his stride! You’d take him for a pad-groom! And as for his curst presumption, walking in here to scold and moralize, you may tell him, Venetia, that I might take that from Conway, but from no one else!”

“Good God, he’ll be demanding satisfaction of me next!” exclaimed Damerel. “Mr. Lanyon, allow me to offer you my most humble apologies!”

Aubrey turned his head on the pillow, and looked at him in some impatience and a good deal of suspicion. “Are you roasting me?”

“I shouldn’t dare! I am begging your pardon for having had the curst presumption to scold you. How I can have had so little conduct—!”

“Gammon!” snapped Aubrey crossly, but with the hint of a reluctant grin. “All you said was that I was a damned young fool, and had more bottom than sense, and I don’t care for that!”

“No, indeed! Quite unexceptionable!” approved Venetia. “I knew his lordship must have said everything that was kind and civil to have put you so much in charity with him!”

“Well, he didn’t moralize over me!” retorted Aubrey, trying not to laugh. “But as for being in charity with him, when he let that Jack-pudding come up here—”

“Why, you ungrateful brat, who rescued you from him? If I hadn’t come in with a hoaxing tale about your Nurse and a roll of lint he would be here yet! Take care I don’t turn that into a true story! I will, if you don’t stop taking snuff.”

“Yes,” Aubrey said, with a sharp sigh. “I beg pardon! I didn’t mean—oh, lord, I don’t know why the devil I lost my temper with such a gudgeon! I don’t do so in general.”

His angry flush began to subside. By the time Marston brought in a tray of cold chicken, and fruit, and tea he had recovered his equanimity; and although he rejected the chicken he was persuaded without much difficulty to drink some tea, and to eat a slice of bread-and-butter. Damerel went away when the nuncheon was brought in, but he came back just as Nurse was preparing to change the compress round Aubrey’s ankle, and to anoint his several bruises with a sovereign remedy of her own, and invited Venetia to take a turn in the garden with him.

She was very willing, but hardly expected to escape without meeting opposition from Nurse. All Nurse said, however, was that she was not to go out without her hat, which was as surprising as her apparent failure to notice that Aubrey was looking exhausted. This was a circumstance which would ordinarily have drawn from her exclamations, rebukes, searching questions, and a comprehensive scold, but although she had eyed him narrowly she had made no comment.

For this abstention Aubrey had his host to thank. Damerel had waylaid Nurse on her way up to his room, and had told her of the disastrous results of Edward’s visit.

Edward, as a respectable candidate for Venetia’s hand, had hitherto enjoyed Nurse’s favour, but no man who had caused Aubrey to suffer a set-back could hope to maintain his place in her esteem. When she learned that he had been reading Aubrey a lecture her eyes snapped with wrath, for reading lectures to Aubrey was a privilege she reserved exclusively to herself. Had she been present Edward should have had a piece of her mind to digest. She had not been present, but in her absence Damerel (though a sinner) had acted with a promptness and a propriety that won her instant approval. So deserving had he shown himself to be that she listened to his advice, and even agreed that it would be imprudent to mention the episode to Aubrey. Damerel thought that if he were to be left alone Aubrey would fall asleep, to which end he proposed to remove his sister from his side for a while. Perhaps she would like to stroll about the garden: what did Mrs. Priddy think?

Gratified, but suspicious, Nurse said that there was no need for Venetia to remain at the Priory any longer, at which Damerel smiled, and said: “None at all, but we could never persuade her to go home until she sees her brother on the mend again.”

That was true, and since his lordship’s manner was far more that of a civil but slightly bored host than of a ravisher of innocent females Nurse raised no further objection to his scheme.

“How in the world,” demanded Venetia, accompanying Damerel down the stairs, “did you contrive to turn Nurse up so sweet?”

He glanced quizzingly down at her. “Did you think I couldn’t?”

“Well, I know you can cajole young females—at least, you are generally believed to do sol—but I am persuaded it would never answer to try to flirt with Nurse.”

“So flirting is all you give me credit for! You underrate my talents, Miss Lanyon! Having created a breach in her defences by showing solicitude for Aubrey and a proper respect for her judgment in all matters concerning him, I got within her outer walls at least by the exercise of devilish strategy. In fact, I sacrificed your worthy suitor, and stormed the fortifications over his fallen carcase. She was so pleased with me for having rid Aubrey of him that she not only allowed herself to be flummeried into giving her consent to this very perilous expedition, but even agreed not to raise any more dust by commenting on Aubrey’s hagged look.”

“Nurse was pleased with you for getting rid of Edward?” Venetia exclaimed incredulously. “But he is a prime favourite with her!”

“Is he? Well, if he has sufficient address (which I doubt), he may succeed in winning back to that position, but not, if she is to be believed, until she has rung a rare peal over him! And certainly not until Aubrey has left the shelter of my roof: I’ll see to that! A truly estimable young man—and one with whom I find I have nothing in common. I gave him leave to come and go as he chooses—and mean to contrive, by judicious fanning of the flames of your admirable Nurse’s wrath, to ensure that he doesn’t avail himself of my carte blanche. I regret infinitely, Miss Lanyon, but I find that a taste of your worthy suitor constitutes a surfeit!”

“Well, you need not say it as though you supposed I wished him to come!” said Venetia indignantly. “I was never more thankful for anything than the chance that brought you into the room at just that moment!”

“Chance, indeed! I came for no other purpose than to remove him before he had driven Aubrey into a raging fever!”

“You shouldn’t have permitted him to come up at all,” said Venetia severely.

“I know I shouldn’t. Unfortunately I said he might do so before I had his measure. By the time Imber came to conduct him upstairs, however, I had it!”

She laughed, but said in rather a worried voice: “I am afraid Aubrey was more hurt by that fall than I had thought. He doesn’t like Edward, but I never knew him to fly out at him before.”

“Perhaps he has never before encountered him after a bad shakeup and a sleepless night,” suggested Damerel, holding open the door for her to pass into the garden. “To judge by the very improving discourse with which he favoured me, he said precisely what anyone with a grain of tact would have left unsaid.”

“Yes, he did. As though he had been Aubrey’s father!”

“Or his elder brother. He appears to think himself that already, for he thanked me for what he called my kindness to Aubrey.”

“He thanked you—? Now, that,” said Venetia, her eyes kindling, “is coming it very much too strong! In fact, it is a great piece of impertinence, for the only person who ever said I should marry him was my father, and he can’t possibly suppose that I should be guided by Papa’s wishes! Well, it is my own fault for having allowed him to suppose that when my brother Conway returns I shall accept him. I did tell him it was no such thing, but he didn’t believe me, and now see what comes of it!”

“From what I have seen of that young man I should think persuading him to believe anything he did not choose to believe a labour of Hercules,” he remarked.

“Yes, but the truth is that I didn’t try very hard to convince him,” she said frankly.