This event had occurred three years previously, within a month of the glorious victory at Waterloo, and quite unexpectedly, of a fatal stroke. It had been a shock to his children, but not a grief. “In fact,” said Venetia, scandalizing kind Lady Denny, “we go on very much better without him.”

“My dear!” gasped her ladyship, who had come to the Manor prepared to clasp the orphans to her sentimental bosom. “You are overwrought!”

“Indeed I’m not!” Venetia replied, laughing. “Why, ma’am, how many times have you declared him to have been the most unnatural parent?”

“But he’s dead, Venetia!”

“Yes, but I don’t suppose he has any more fondness for us now than he had when he was alive, ma’am. He never made the least push to engage our affections, you know, so he really cannot expect us to grieve for him.”

Finding this unanswerable Lady Denny merely begged her not to say such things, and made haste to ask what she now meant to do. Venetia had said that it all depended on Conway. Until he came home to take up his inheritance there was nothing she could do but continue in the old way. “Except, of course, that I shall now be able to entertain our friends at the Manor, which will be very much more comfortable than it was when Papa would allow none but Edward Yardley and Dr. Bentworth to cross the threshold.”

Three years later Venetia was still awaiting Conway’s return, and Lady Denny had almost ceased to inveigh against his selfishness in leaving the burden of his affairs on her shoulders. No one had been surprised that he had at first found it impossible to return to England, for no doubt everything must have been at sixes and sevens in Belgium and France, and all our regiments sadly depleted after so sanguinary a battle as Waterloo. But as the months slid by, and all the news that was to be had of Conway came in a brief scrawl to his sister assuring her that he had every confidence in her ability to do just as she ought at Undershaw, and would write to her again when he had more time to devote to the task, it began to be generally felt that his continued absence arose less from a sense of duty than from reluctance to abandon a life that seemed (from accounts gleaned from visitors to the Army of Occupation) to consist largely of cricket-matches and balls. When last heard of, Conway had had the good fortune to be appointed to Lord Hill’s staff, and was stationed at Cambray. He had been unable to write at much length to Venetia because the Great Man was expected, and there was to be a Review, followed by a dinner-party, which meant that the staff was kept busy. He knew she would understand exactly how it was, and he remained her affectionate brother Conway. P.S. I don’t know which field you mean—you had best do what Powick thinks right.

“And for anything he cares she may live all her days at Undershaw, and die an old maid!” tearfully declared Lady Denny.

“She is more likely to marry Edward Yardley,” responded her lord prosaically.

“I have nothing to say against Edward Yardley—indeed, I believe him to be a truly estimable person!—but I have always said, and I always shall say, that it would be throwing herself away! If only our own dear Oswald were ten years older, Sir John!”

But here the conversation took an abrupt turn, Sir John’s evil genius prompting him to exclaim that he hoped such a fine-looking girl had more sense than to look twice at the silliest puppy in the county. As he added a rider to the effect that it was high time his wife stopped encouraging Oswald to make a cake of himself with his play-acting ways, Venetia was forgotten in a pretty spirited interchange of conflicting opinions.

None would have denied that Venetia was a fine-looking girl; most would not have hesitated to call her beautiful. Amongst the pick of the debutants at Almack’s she must have attracted attention; in the more restricted society in which she dwelt she was a nonpareil. It was not only the size and brilliance of her eyes which excited admiration, or the glory of her shining guinea-gold hair, or even the enchanting arch of her pretty mouth: there was something very taking in her face which owed nothing to the excellence of her features: an expression of sweetness, a sparkle of irrepressible fun, an unusually open look, quite devoid of self consciousness.

The humorous gleam sprang to her eyes as she glanced at Aubrey, still lost in antiquity. She said: “Aubrey! Dear, odious Aubrey! Do lend me your ears! Just one of your ears, love!”

He looked up, an answering gleam in his own eyes. “Not if it is something I particularly dislike!”

“No, I promise you it isn’t!” she replied, laughing. “Only, if you mean to ride out presently will you be so very obliging as to call at the Receiving Office, and enquire if there has been a parcel delivered there for me from York? Quite a small parcel, dear Aubrey! not in the least unwieldy, upon my honour!”

“Yes, I’ll do that—if it’s not fish! If it is, you may send Puxton for it, m’dear.”

“No, it’s muslin—unexceptionable!”

He had risen, and walked over to the window with his awkward, dragging step. “It’s too hot to go out at all, I think, but I will—Oh, I most certainly will, and at once! M’dear, both your suitors are come to pay us a morning-visit!”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Venetia imploringly. “Not again!”

“Riding up the avenue,” he assured her. “Oswald is looking as sulky as a bear, too.”

“Now, Aubrey, pray don’t say so! It is his gloomy look. He is brooding over nameless crimes, I daresay, and only think how disheartening to have his dark thoughts mistaken for a fit of the sulks!”

“What nameless crimes?”

“My dear, how should I know—or he either? Poor boy! it is all Byron’s fault! Oswald can’t decide whether it is his lordship whom he resembles or his lordship’s Corsair. In either event it is very disturbing for poor Lady Denny. She is persuaded he is suffering from a disorder of the blood, and has been begging him to take James’s Powders.”

“Byron!” Aubrey ejaculated, with one of his impatient shrugs. “I don’t know how you can read such stuff!”

“Of course you don’t, love—and I must own I wish Oswald had found himself unable to do so. I wonder what excuse Edward will offer us for this visit? Surely there cannot have been another Royal marriage, or General Election?”

“Or that he should think we care for such trash.” Aubrey turned away from the window. “Are you going to marry him?” he asked.

“No—oh, I don’t know! I am sure he would be a kind husband, but try as I will I can’t hold him in anything but esteem,” she replied, in a comically despairing tone.

“Why do you try?”

“Well, I must marry someone, you know! Conway will certainly do so, and then what is to become of me? It wouldn’t suit me to continue living here, dwindling into an aunt—and I daresay it wouldn’t suit my unknown sister either!”

“Oh, you may live with me! I shan’t be married, and I shouldn’t at all object to it: you never trouble me!”

Her eyes danced, but she assured him gravely that she was very much obliged to him.

“You would like it better than to be married to Edward.”

“Poor Edward! Do you dislike him so much?”

He replied, with a twisted smile: “I never forget, when he’s with us, that I’m a cripple, m’dear.”

A voice was heard to say, beyond the door: “In the breakfast-parlour, are they? Oh, you need not announced me: I know my way!”

Aubrey added: “And I dislike his knowing his way!”

“So do I, indeed! There is no escape!” she agreed, turning to greet the visitors.

Two gentlemen of marked dissimilarity came into the room, the elder, a solid-looking man in his thirtieth year, leading the way, as one who did not doubt his welcome; the younger, a youth of nineteen, with a want of assurance imperfectly concealed by a slight, nonchalant swagger.

“Good-morning, Venetia! Well, Aubrey!” said Mr. Edward Yardley, shaking hands. “What a pair of slugabeds, to be sure! I was afraid I shouldn’t find you in on such a day, but came on the chance that Aubrey might care to try his luck with the carp in my lake. What do you say, Aubrey? You may fish from the boat, you know, and not suffer any fatigue.”

“Thank you, but I shouldn’t expect to get a rise in such weather.”

“It would do you good, however, and you may drive your gig to within only a few yards of the lake, you know.”

It was kindly said, but there was a suggestion of gritted teeth in Aubrey’s reiterated refusal. Mr. Yardley noticed this, and supposed, compassionately, that his hip was paining him. Meanwhile, young Mr. Denny was informing his hostess, rather more impressively than the occasion seemed to warrant, that he had come to see her. He added, in a low, vibrant voice, that he could not keep away. He then scowled at Aubrey, who was looking at him with derision in his eyes, and relapsed into blushful silence. He was nearly three years older than Aubrey, and had seen much more of the world, but Aubrey could always put him out of countenance, as much by his dispassionate gaze as by the use of his adder’s tongue. He could not be at ease in the boy’s presence, for besides being no match for him in a battle of wits he had a healthy young animal’s dislike of physical deformity, and considered, moreover, that Aubrey traded on this in a very shabby way. But for that halting left leg he could have been speedily taught what civility was due to his elders. He knows himself to be safe from me, thought Oswald, and curled his lip.

Upon being invited to sit down he had assumed a careless pose upon a small sofa. He now found that his fellow-guest was steadfastly regarding him, and with unmistakeable reprobation, and he was at once torn between hope that he presented a romantic figure and fear that he had a trifle overdone the nonchalant attitude. He sat up, and Edward Yardley transferred his gaze to Venetia’s face.