Джорджетт Хейер - Venetia

The note of derision was marked, but she was not deceived by it. Unable to trust her voice she said nothing, and afraid of showing in her face the indignation that swelled within her she kept her eyes lowered. She made the rather horrifying discovery that the slim fingers of a lady could curl into claws, and quickly straightened them. But perhaps she had not done so quickly enough; or perhaps her silence betrayed her; for after a moment Damerel said, more derisively still: “Did you fancy a tragedy to lie behind me? Nothing so romantic, I fear: it was a farce—not one of the ingredients lacking, down to the inevitable heroic meeting at dawn, with both combatants coming off scatheless—for which I am heartily obliged to my rival! He added superb marksmanship to his other accomplishments, and might have put a bullet through me at double the range, I daresay. In fact, he deloped—fired in the air!”

He had told her now as much as she would ever wish to know. He might jeer at the memory of his younger self, but as keenly as though she had been the sufferer did she feel the wound a light woman and a practised man-of-the-town had dealt his pride. She had brothers, and knew that in his pride a boy was most vulnerable. She thought she could see him quite clearly as he must have been: surely a fine young man, tall, straight, and big-shouldered as he was now, but with a face unlined, and eyes full of eagerness, not boredom. He must have been rash, ardent, and perhaps he had been desperately in earnest. Experience had made him a cynic, but he had not been cynical in his fiery youth. He had not then, she knew, been able even to smile at his own folly.

Everything he had done since he had seen himself as a laughing-stock (and she neither knew nor cared to what depths he might have sunk) she perceived to be part of a pattern made inevitable by a wanton’s betrayal. Had they supposed, his righteous parents, that he would return to enact the role of the prodigal son? They should have known better! He might have returned, wedded to his wanton, outfacing the censorious, not, though he ruined himself past recovery, as a cuckolded lover. Ishmael his family had declared him to be, and Ishmael he had chosen to remain, taking a perverse pleasure, she guessed, in providing the interested with rich evidence of his depravity. And all for a little, plump, black-eyed slut, older than himself, whose marriage-ring and noble degree hid the soul of a courtesan!

“Too bad, wasn’t it?” Damerel said. “Instead of dying heroically for love I was left disconsolate—though not, I must admit, for long!”

She raised her eyes at that, and said warmly: “I am excessively glad to hear that, and I do hope your next mistress was entertaining as well as pretty!”

The sneer vanished from his face; the smile that lit his eyes was one of pure amusement. “A charming little ladybird!” he assured her.

“Good! What a fortunate escape you had, to be sure! I daresay it may not have occurred to you, but I have little doubt that by this time Lady Sophia has grown sadly fat. They do, you know, little plump women! I believe the Italians use a great deal of oil in their cookery, too, which would be fatal! I only wish she may not be quite gross!” She added, as his shoulders began to shake: “You may laugh, but I assure you it’s more than likely. What’s more, if your father had warned you of it, instead of behaving in a very foolish and extravagant way, exactly like a Shakespearian father, it would have been very much more to the purpose! Pray, what good did it do old Capulet to fly into a ridiculous passion? Or Lear, or Hermia’s absurd father! But perhaps Lord Damerel was not addicted to Shakespeare?”

His head was down on his hands; he gasped: “It seems he cannot have been!”

Recollecting herself, she said apologetically: “I shouldn’t have said that. It is quite the worst of my bad habits—Aubrey’s too! We say precisely what we happen to be thinking, without pausing to reflect. I beg your pardon!”

He raised his head, still choking with laughter, and said: “Oh, no no! Sweet Mind, then speak yourself ... !”

She wrinkled her brow, and then directed a look of enquiry at him.

“What, lurched, O well-read Miss Lanyon?” he said provocatively. “It was written by Ben Jonson, of another Venetia. I turned it up last night, after you had left me.”

“No, is it indeed so?” she exclaimed, surprised and pleased. “I never heard it before! In fact, I didn’t know there had been any poems written to a Venetia. What was she like?”

“Like yourself, if John Aubrey is to be believed: a beautiful desirable creature!”

Quite unmoved by this tribute, she replied seriously: “I wish you won’t fall into flowery commonplace! It makes you sound like a would-be beau at the York Assemblies!”

“You little wretch!” he exclaimed.

“That’s much better—between friends!” she approved, laughing at him.

“So you think I’m offering you Spanish coin, do you? I can’t imagine why you should, for you know how beautiful you are! You told me so!”

“I?” she gasped. ‘“I never said such a thing!”

“But you did! You were picking blackberries at the time— my blackberries!”

“Oh! Well, that was only to give you a set-down!” she said, blushing a little.

“Good God, girl, and you said you had a mirror!”

“So I have, and it tells me that I am well-enough. I believe I take after my mother in some degree—at least, Nurse told me once, when I was indulging a fit of vanity, that I should never be equal to her.”

“She was mistaken.”

“Oh, did you know her?” she asked quickly. “She died when I was only ten years old, you know, and I can scarcely remember her. We saw so little of her: she and Papa were always away, and her likeness was never taken. Or, if it was, Papa destroyed it when she died. He could not bear even to hear her name spoken—forbade the least mention of her! And no one ever did mention her at Undershaw, except Nurse, on that one occasion. I think it an odd way of showing one’s devotion, but then he was odd. Do I resemble her at all?”

“I suppose some might think so. Her features—as I recall—were more perfect than yours, but your hair is a richer gold, your eyes a deeper blue, and your smile is by far the sweeter.”

“Oh dear, now you are back in your nonsensical vein! You cannot possibly remember at this distance of time how blue her eyes were, or how gold her hair, so stop hoaxing me!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. “I had far rather talk of your eyes, or even of your pretty lips, which you quite wrongly described as indifferent red.”

“I cannot conceive,” she interrupted, with some severity, “why you will persist in recalling an episode which you would do better to forget!”

“Can’t you?” He put out his hand, and took her chin in his long fingers, tilting it up. “Perhaps to remind you, my dear, that although I am obliged at this present to behave with all the propriety of a host it’s only a veneer—and God knows why I should tell you so!”

She removed his hand, but said with a chuckle: “I don’t think your notion of propriety would take in the first circles! And furthermore, my dear friend, it is high time you stopped trying to make everyone believe you are much blacker than you have been painted. That’s a habit you fell into when you were young and foolish, and perfectly understandable in the circumstances. Though also very like Conway, when he used to boast to me of the shocking pranks he played at Eton. Banbury stories, most of them.”

“Thank youl But I have never done that: there has been no need for Banbury stories. With what improbable virtues are you trying to endow me? An exquisite sensibility? Delicacy of principle?”

“Oh, no, nothing of that nature!” she replied, getting up. “I allow you all the vices you choose to claim—indeed, I know you for a gamester, and a shocking rake, and a man of sadly unsteady character!—but I’m not so green that I don’t recognize in you one virtue at least, and one quality.”

“What, is that all? How disappointing! What are they?”

“A well-informed mind, and a great deal of kindness,” she said, laying her hand on his arm, and beginning to stroll with him back to the house.

Edward Yardley returned to Netherfold in a mood of dissatisfaction but with no apprehension that Damerel might prove to be his rival. He had not liked him, and could perceive nothing either in his manners or his appearance that might reasonably be supposed to take Venetia’s fancy. Punctilious himself in every expression of civility, Edward considered that Damerel’s easy carelessness was unbecoming in a man of rank; while his rather abrupt way of talking could only disgust. As for his appearance, it was no great thing, after all: his figure was good, but his countenance was harsh, with features by no means regular, and a swarthy complexion; and there was nothing particularly modish about his raiment. Females, Edward believed, were often dazzled by an air of fashion; and had Damerel worn yellow pantaloons, Hessians of mirror-like gloss, a tightly waisted coat, a monstrous neckcloth, exaggerated shirt-points, rings on his fingers, and fobs dangling at his waist it might have occurred to Edward that he was a dangerous fellow. But Damerel wore a plain riding-coat and buckskin breeches, quite a modest neckcloth, and no other ornaments than a heavy signet ring, and a quizzing-glass: he was no Pink of fashion; he was not even a very down-the-road looking man, though report made him a first-rate driver: quite a top-sawyer, in fact. Edward, who had expected a Corinthian, was disposed to rate him pretty cheap: more squeak than wool, he thought, remembering some of the exotic stories which had filtered back to Yorkshire. He flattered himself that he had never believed the half of them: that noble Roman lady, for instance, who was said to have deserted husband and children to cruise with Damerel in the Mediterranean aboard the yacht which he had had the effrontery to christen Corinth; or the dazzling high-flyer, whose meteoric progress across liberated Europe under his protection had been rendered memorable by the quantites of fresh rose-petals he had caused to be strewn on the floors of her various apartments, and the sea of pink champagne provided for her refreshment. Edward, solemnly trying to compute the cost of this extravagant freak, had certainly not believed that tale; and now that he had met Damerel face to face he wholly discredited it. He had not really been afraid that a sensible female would succumb to the lure of such trumpery magnificence, but when he rode away from the Priory there was an unacknowledged relief in his breast. Damerel might try to make Venetia the object of his gallantry (though he had not seemed to be much impressed by her beauty), but Edward, who knew his own worth, could not feel that he stood in danger of being eclipsed in her eyes by such a brusque, bracket-faced fellow. Females were naturally lacking in judgment, but Edward considered Venetia’s understanding to be superior to that of the generality of her sex, and although she had met few men the three whom she knew well—her father, Conway, and himself—must have provided her with a standard of manners and propriety by which she had enough sense to measure Damerel.