Mrs Scorrier came in all affability, and full of brisk plans for the future. She seemed to have extracted from the housemaid sent by Mrs Gurnard to wait on her every detail of the organisation of Undershaw, and she saw much room for improvement. What was very proper for an unmarried female living in retirement with her brother would by no means do for Lady Lanyon.In particular did her consequence require that there should be two uniformed menservants under the butler; but Miss Lanyon must not be thinking that this need mean any considerable increase in expenditure, for (if she might venture to say so) she believed that the number of females employed in the house was excessive. ‘Not that I mean to say that you have not managed very creditably, my dear Miss Lanyon,’ she assured Venetia kindly. ‘Indeed, I must own I am most agreeably surprised by all I have seen, and can truthfully say that you have no need to blush for your housekeeping.’
‘None at all!’ agreed Venetia, amusement quivering in her voice. ‘Though I might blush to accept a compliment that is due to another! Mrs Gurnard has been housekeeper at Undershaw since before I was born.’ She turned her head to address Charlotte, saying lightly: ‘I expect she will wish to conduct you through every department of the house tomorrow. Don’t mind it if she should seem a trifle stiff! She will very soon take to you when she sees that you don’t mean to upset all her economies and arrangements. Talk to her about Conway! She dotes on him, you know – even allows him to call her his dear old Gurney, which I should never dare to do. She will very likely present you with her keys. I’ve no need to warn you, I’m persuaded, that you must beg her to keep them!’
‘Oh, no! I should not dream of –’
‘Well, as to that, my love,’ interrupted Mrs Scorrier, ‘I believe it is best to begin as you mean to continue. It is very natural that Miss Lanyon should be shy of asserting herself, having known the woman for so long, but for you it is another matter. It is always the same with old retainers! They are quick to take advantage, and become perfect tyrants. If you will be advised by me, my dear –’
‘She’d do better to be advised by my sister,’ said Aubrey, whohad entered the room in time to hear this interchange. ‘Lord, what a dust Conway would kick up if he came home to find Mrs Gurnard had left Undershaw in a pelter!’
The thought of Conway’s displeasure made Charlotte turn pale, and even seemed to give Mrs Scorrier pause. She contented herself with saying: ‘Well, we shall see,’ but although the smile remained firmly pinned to her lips the glance she cast at Aubrey was by no means amiable. Venetia could only pray that she would not offer him any further provocation.
The prayer was not answered, and long before dinner came to an end it must have been apparent to anyone acquainted with Aubrey that he had decided for war. Upon entering the dining-room, and finding that she was expected to sit at the head of the table, Charlotte had hung back, stammering with instinctive good feeling: ‘Oh, pray –! That is where you are used to sit, Miss Lanyon, is it not? If you please, I would by far rather not take your place!’
‘But I would far rather not take yours!’ returned Venetia. ‘I wish, by the way, that you will call me Venetia!’
‘Oh, yes! Thank you, I should be very happy! Butpraywon’t you –’
‘My dear Charlotte, Miss Lanyon will think you are quite gooseish if you don’t take care!’ said Mrs Scorrier. ‘She is very right, and you need have no scruples, I assure you.’ She flashed a particularly wide smile at Venetia, and added: ‘It is the fate of sisters, is it not, to be obliged to take second place when their brothers marry?’
‘Undoubtedly, ma’am.’
‘Doing it rather too brown, m’dear!’ said Aubrey, a glint in his eye. ‘You’ll still be first in consequence at Undershaw if you eat your dinner in the kitchen, and well you know it!’
‘What a devoted brother!’ remarked Mrs Scorrier, with a slight titter.
‘What a nonsensical one!’ retorted Venetia. ‘Do you like to sit near the fire, ma’am, or will you –’
‘Mrs Scorrier ought to sit at thebottomof the table,’ said Aubrey positively.
‘You mean thefootof the table: opposite to thehead, you understand,’ said Mrs Scorrier instructively.
‘Yes, of course,’ replied Aubrey, looking surprised. ‘Did I say bottom? I wonder what made me do that?’
Venetia asked Charlotte if she had enjoyed her visit to Paris. It was the first of the many hasty interventions she felt herself obliged to make during the course of what she afterwards bitterly described as a truly memorable dinner-party, for while Aubrey offered no unprovoked attacks he was swift to avenge any hint of aggression. Since he made it abundantly plain that he had constituted himself his sister’s champion, and won every encounter with the foe, Venetia could only suppose that Mrs Scorrier was either very stupid, or compelled by her evil genius to court discomfiture. She really seemed to be incapable of resisting the temptation to depress Venetia’s imagined pretensions, so the dining-room rapidly became a battlefield on which (Venetia thought, with an irrepressible gleam of amusement) line inevitably demonstrated its superiority to column. Unable to counter Aubrey’s elusive tactics, Mrs Scorrier attempted to give him a heavy set-down. Bringing her determined smile to bear on him she told him that no one would ever take him and Conway for brothers, so unlike were they. What unflattering comparisons she meant to draw remained undisclosed, for Aubrey instantly said, with a touch of anxiety: ‘No, I don’t think anyonecould, do you, ma’am? He has the brawn of the family, I have the brain, and Venetia has the beauty.’
After this it was scarcely surprising that Mrs Scorrier rose from the table with her temper sadly exacerbated. When she disposed herself in a chair by the drawing-room fire there wasa steely look in her eyes which made her daughter quake, but her evident intention of making herself extremely unpleasant was foiled by Venetia’s saying that since it behoved her to write two urgent letters she hoped Charlotte would forgive her if she left her until tea-time to the comfort of a quiet evening with only her mama for company. She then left the room, and went to join Aubrey in the library, saying, with deep feeling, as she entered that haven: ‘Devil!’
He grinned at her. ‘What odds will you lay me that I don’t rid the house of her within a se’ennight?’
‘None! It would be robbing you, for you won’t do it. And, indeed, love, you might consider Charlotte’s feelings a trifle! She may be a ninnyhammer, but she can’t help that, and her disposition, I am quite convinced, is perfectly amiable and obliging.’
‘So sweetly mawkish and so smoothly dull, is what you mean to say!’
‘Well, at least the sweetness is something to be thankful for! Do you wish to use your desk? I must write to Aunt Hendred, and to Lady Denny, and I haven’t had the fires lit in the saloon, or the morning-room.’
‘Youhaven’t had them lit?’ he said pointedly.
‘If you don’t wish to see me fall into strong hysterics,be quiet!’ begged Venetia, seating herself at the big desk. ‘Oh, Aubrey, what a shocking pen! Do, pray, mend it for me!’
He took it from her, and picked up a small knife from the desk. As he pared the quill he said abruptly: ‘Are you writing to tell my aunt and the Dennys that Conway is married?’
‘Of course, and I do so much hope that with Lady Denny at least I shall be beforehand. My aunt is bound to read it in theGazette– may already have done so, for that detestable woman tells me she sent in the notice before she left London! You’d think she might have waited a few days longer, after having done so for three months!’
He gave the pen back to her. ‘Conway wasn’t engaged to Clara Denny, was he?’
‘No – that is, certainly notopenly! Lady Denny told me at the time that they were both of them too young, and that Sir John wouldn’t countenance an engagement until Conway was of age and Clara had come out, but there’s no doubt that he would have welcomed the match, and no doubt either that Clara thinks herself promised to Conway.’
‘What fools girls are!’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘Conway might have sold out when my father died, had he wished to! She must have known that!’
