‘Nothing worth the trouble of mentioning to you, or that is not so commonplace as to be a dead bore! A battle royal with Mrs Gurnard, from which I fled in quaking terror, the cause of the dispute being a complaint against the laundry-maid. Perfectly just, I daresay, but the wretched girl is none other than Mrs Gurnard’s own niece!’
‘A Homeric encounter: you should have stayed to hymn it.Thatdid not bring the frown to your brow.’
‘No. If I was frowning, it was in an effort to decide what were best for me to do. I don’t think, you see, that we shall be able to remain here, Aubrey and I, until December, and there seems to be little hope that Conway will be free to return until then.’
‘I have never thought you could do so. Tell me the result of your deliberations!’ He led her to the sofa as he spoke, and sat down beside her on it.
‘None, alas! No sooner do I think of a scheme than objections rear their ugly heads, and I’m back in the suds again. Do you care to advise me? You always give me such good advice, dear friend!’
‘If I do, I have the distinction of providing a living refutation of Dr Johnson’s maxim, that example is always more efficacious than precept,’ he said. ‘What’s your problem? I’ll do my best!’
‘It is just the problem of where to go, if I should decide to do so – bearing in mind that Aubrey will go with me, and must not be removed from Mr Appersett’s tuition. I’ve always said that when Conway was married I should form an establishment of my own, and had he become engaged, in the ordinary mode, I should immediately have formed my own arrangements, so that I might have left Undershaw before ever he brought his wife to it. The very few friends I have were aware that that was my intention, and would not have wondered at it. But as things have turned out the case is altered – or so it seems to me. What do you think?’
‘I agree that it is altered, in that if you were to leave Undershaw before your brother’s return it would be generally assumed, since it must be widely known that he entrusted the management of his estate to you, that you were driven from your home. Which would be the plain truth.’
‘Exactly so! And that circumstance makes it impossible for me to hire a house in this district.’
‘True – if you think you owe it to your brother to preserve appearances which he does not seem to set much store by!’
‘My dear friend, I have no such notion in my head, so don’t curl your lip at me so contemptuously!’
‘Not at you, simpleton!’
‘At Conway? Oh, by all means, then! The truth is that I owe him nothing.’
‘On the contrary!’
‘Not even that, if you mean that he owes anything to me. I accepted the charge he laid upon me because it suited me to do so. If I hadn’t had Aubrey to think of I shouldn’t have done it, any more than I should have remained here one day after I came of age.’
‘Then are you bent on protecting the fair name of Lanyon?’ he enquired.
‘Stuff! No, be serious, Damerel! you must know I don’t care a rush for fair names – witness my pleasure inyourcompany! The scruple in my mind concerns Charlotte. Aubrey calls hersweetly mawkish, and so she is, but she doesn’t deserve to be made any more uncomfortable than she is already, poor little creature! Conway has done all he can to prejudice people against her, and for me to add the finishing touch to his work would be the outside of enough! She has done me no harm – indeed, she is morbidly anxious to defer to me! To such an extent that if Mrs Scorrier werehors concoursI should infallibly take upon myself her rôle, and spend the better part of my time reminding Charlotte thatsheis now mistress at Undershaw! So if I leave Undershaw I must contrive to provide myself with an unexceptionable excuse for doing so, and I must not remain in this neighbourhood. I always meant to go to London, but that was looking ahead to when Aubrey will be at Cambridge. A whole year ahead, and what’s to be done during that period has me in a sad puzzle. There must be excellent tutors to be found in London, yet I doubt whether Aubrey –’
‘Leave Aubrey for a moment!’ he interrupted. ‘Before I favour you with my opinion of your scheme of setting up an establishment in London – or York – or Timbuctu – tell me something!’
‘Very well – but I haven’t asked you to give me your opinion ofthat!’ she objected.
‘You will have it, nevertheless. What has happened since I saw you last, Venetia, to overset you, and make you regard your removal from this place as a matter of sudden urgency?’ Her eyes lifted quickly to his; he smiled, in loving mockery, and added: ‘I don’t want any stories about housekeepers or laundry-maids, my girl, and if you think you can hoax me you will have to learn that you are mistaken! What has that devil’s daughter done?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing more than I told you. I never thought of hoaxing you, but only that I was perhaps refining too much upon something that was said – very likely with no other purpose than to vex me!’
‘And whatwassaid?’
She hesitated for a moment, before replying: ‘It concerned Aubrey. Mrs Scorrier dislikes him quite as much as she dislikes me, I fancy – and I must own that he gives her good reason to do so! He is like a particularly malevolent wasp, which, do what you will, continually eludes your efforts to slay it. She brought it on herself, by being spiteful to me, but I’m not excusing him: he should not do it – it is most improper conduct!’
‘Oh, confound the boy!’ Damerel exclaimed, in quick exasperation. ‘I hoped I had scotched that pastime!’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘Did you tell him he must not?’
‘No: merely that what he regarded as an agreeable form of relaxation exposes you to the full blast of that woman’s malice.’
‘Then that accounts for it! You did scotch it, and I am truly grateful! During these past two days he has scarcely opened his lips in her presence. But either the mischief is done, or she resents his shutting himself up in his room, and joining us only at dinner-time – with a Greek chorus ringing so loudly in his ears that you may speak his name half-a-dozen times before he hears you! She can’t comprehend that, thinks he does it to be uncivil. Charlotte doesn’t like him either, but that’s because he says things she doesn’t understand, which makes her afraid of him. Unfortunately – she is embarrassed by his lameness, and always looks away when he gets up from his chair, or walks across the room.’
‘I noticed that she did so when I met you in the park that day, and hoped she would speedily rid herself of the habit!’
‘I think she tries to. But the thing is that it has provided Mrs Scorrier with a pretext for saying what, I own, has quite sunkmy spirits. She told me that Charlotte has a horror ofdeformity, which makes her wish that just now, when she is in a delicate situation, it might have been possible for Aubrey to visit friends. She did not phrase it as plainly as that, and perhaps I have allowed myself to be stupidly apprehensive.’
His countenance had darkened; he said in an altered voice: ‘No. Far from it! If she was capable of saying that to you I would not bet a groat on the chance that she won’t say it to Aubrey himself, the first time he puts her in a rage.’
