“What?” cried Mrs. Hendred, momentarily diverted. “Amelia Ubley? You don’t mean it!”

“But I do mean it, so now, ma’am, will you explain to me how it comes about that though her credit would survive that marriage mine would not?”

Mrs. Hendred’s brief period of relief was over. She stared at her niece with an expression on her face of absurd chagrin, fidgeted with her shawl, started several sentences, and finished none, and finally answered lamely: “The cases are not the same. Oh dear, now I wish—Venetia, you don’t understand these matters! Miss Ubley’s situation—the circumstances— Well, they are quite different!”

“In what way?”

“Oh—oh, in a hundred ways! Good gracious, for one thing she’s more than thirty years old, with a deplorable figure, besides a pug-nose, and she has a way of poking herself forward when she walks, and—oh, she was at her last prayers years ago! No one could blame Latchford for being thankful to accept any offer for her, particularly if the Damerel ladies mean to make him their heir, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least, now I come to think of it. And although I don’t mean to say Miss Ubley is not respectable, for she is dowdily respectable, naturally she cannot be thought an innocent, at her age, and having always lived in town, so that she must be up to snuff, as they say! But in your case, my dear, everyone knows what your circumstances have been, and how you cannot possibly have had any experience! And,” she added, with a flash of inspiration, “if Damerel were to marry you, everyone would say that it was the wickedest thing imaginable, and the most shocking take-in! I assure you, my love, there is something particularly repugnant in the marriage of a rake to a beautiful girl, years younger than himself, and perfectly innocent, as you are, my dear, whatever you may choose to say!”

At the start of this speech a disquietingly confident smile glinted in Venetia’s eyes, but by the time Mrs. Hendred reached her triumphant conclusion it had faded. Anxiously observing her, Mrs. Hendred was thankful to see that she was now looking thoughtful, slightly frowning.

Mrs. Hendred decided to pursue her advantage. “You, dear child, are not aware of the way such things are looked upon—indeed, I don’t know how you should be, any more than a nun!—but you may depend on it that he is!”

Venetia glanced at her. “Yes,” she said slowly, remembering that interrupted scene in the library at Undershaw, and how troubled she had afterwards been by Damerel’s reluctance. You don’t realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence! he had said. “Yes,” she repeated. “I begin to see now ...”

“I was persuaded you must, for you have such excellent good sense, my love!” said Mrs. Hendred, much heartened. “I know how it seems to you now, but you may believe me when I tell you that these things don’t endure. Oh, dear! I thought I should have died of despair when Mama—your grandmama, my dear—and Francis made me give up poor Sebastian! I cried for three days without ceasing, but in the end, you know, I was married to your uncle, and I am sure nothing could have been more comfortable!”

“Did you never regret, ma’am?” asked Venetia, looking curiously at her.

“Never!” declared Mrs. Hendred emphatically. “It would have been a shockingly bad match: he had no fortune—hardly a feather to fly with! Only think how disagreeable that would have been! Yes, and that puts me in mind of another thing, my love! Everyone says that Lord Damerel has brought a noble to ninepence with his extravagant ways, which makes him quite ineligible! Naturally, had he been wealthy the case might have been different, for, after all, a handsome fortune— But he has brought his to a nutshell, so there is nothing whatsoever to recommend him, and so he knows, for he said so to your uncle. You would be throwing yourself away, and though I myself very much doubt whether it can be brought about, he and your uncle are both of the opinion that you will make a splendid marriage. And no one, my dear niece, would be more pleased than I should be if you did!”

“No one, however, would be less pleased than myself, ma’am.”

“It is very proper you should say so,” said Mrs. Hendred approvingly. “Nothing is more unbecoming in a girl than to appear mercenary, or on the catch! For my part, I should be happy to see you married to a respectable man, of sufficient consequence, of course, and affluent enough to be able to provide you with the elegancies without which, I do assure you, life would be insupportable!”

Venetia, who had paced over to the window, and back again, said: “It is going to be difficult. Yes, I see that now.”

“No, no, dearest child! Not the least difficulty in the world! I only meant—”

“To whistle happiness down the wind for a scruple!” Venetia said, unheeding. “To me that seems so absurd—so addle-brained—But that’s what he did, and if he has made up his mind to be idiotishly noble— Yes, it is going to be very difficult. I must think!”

Quite forgetful of her aunt, she went quickly out of the room, leaving that harassed lady to reflections which were as uneasy as they were puzzled.

XVIII

Venturing, rather later, to renew her protests against the hiring of a house in Hans Town, Mrs. Hendred was at first thankful to discover that Venetia had abandoned her fell purpose, and then, when she had thought it over, apprehensive. She could not bring herself to believe that any representations of hers had brought about this sudden change; and the more she considered the matter the less did she like her niece’s readiness to relinquish a scheme to which she had all but committed herself. It had seemed almost as though she had forgotten the house in Hans Town, for upon the subject’s being broached she had stared for a moment, and then had said: “Oh—! That! No, no, ma’am, don’t be in a worry! I daresay you are quite right, and I shouldn’t like to live there at all.”

Mrs. Hendred, with every reason to be satisfied with this answer, felt vaguely alarmed. It seemed to her not only that Venetia’s thoughts were far away, but that she was weaving some new plan. An attempt to discover what this might be failed: Venetia merely smiled, and shook her head, which made it seem unpleasantly probable that the new plan would prove to be quite as shocking as the old. Mrs. Hendred began to wish that her austere spouse had not gone into Berkshire; and during an unusually wakeful night even reached the stage of wondering whether it would not be as well to send a letter to him express. In the morning this desperate resolve seemed as foolish as it was imprudent, for what, after all, could Venetia be contemplating that would justify a summons to her uncle? Such a summons would displease him quite as much as the inevitable disclosure that his wife had told Venetia precisely what he had thought it best she should never know, for he had gone into Berkshire to attend the Quarter Sessions, which, since he was Custos Rotulorum and punctilious in the performance of his duty, he always made a point of doing, generally remaining for a full week. On this occasion, however, he had told his wife that she might expect to see him again within four or, at the most, five days, since he had engaged himself to attend a Party Meeting. Nothing, she thought, could happen in so short a period: in fact, it was hard to see how anything cataclysmic could happen at all. Venetia might be ready to count the world well lost for love, but she could hardly tell Damerel so. And even if she did tell him—not that Mrs. Hendred supposed that she would dream of behaving with such gross impropriety, however unconventional she might be—Damerel knew that for a young female of quality the world would not be at all well lost; and he had given Mr. Hendred his word as a gentleman that he would not propose marriage to Venetia. So there was really no danger threatening Mrs. Hendred’s peace of mind, and the night’s forebodings were possibly to be ascribed to the goose and turkey pie, of which she had partaken a little too freely at supper. Or perhaps it had been a mistake to have eaten mushroom fritters: mushrooms had never agreed with her delicate constitution, so she must remember to send a message to the artist ruling over her kitchens that they must in future be excluded from his luscious recipes.

While Mrs. Hendred’s mind was drifting into gastronomy Venetia’s was employed in forming and discarding schemes for achieving social ruin. Quite as quickly as her aunt she had decided that to tell Damerel how little she cared for the world, or its opinion, would serve no useful purpose. He had from the start called her his green girl; instinct warned her that he would not think her matured by one month’s sojourn in London. She thought, but tenderly, that for all his wide experience of women he was as stupid as Edward Yardley, or her clever uncle. Because she had her knowledge of the world at secondhand he believed she knew her own heart no better, and had apparently convinced himself that within a measurable time of being plunged into fashionable circles she would not only be thankful to have escaped from—what had he called it?—the devil’s own scrape, but would be happily engaged to some virtuous young gentleman of birth, fortune, and consequence. That was bad enough: far worse—or, at any rate, more difficult to overcome—was the aspect put before her by her aunt. A worldly man, he knew what the world’s opinion would be of his marriage to herself: not only knew it, but shared it. He had told her that his depravity had stopped short of tampering with the young and innocent: marriage had not been his context, but she guessed that in just such a light did he regard it. He had placed her above his touch, and how to demonstrate that she was well within it was a problem that she could see no way of solving.