‘Did – did my mother wish to see me?’ asked Venetia.
‘Who wouldn’t wish to see you, my dear? Yes, yes, I’ll venture to say she’ll be devilish glad you came. She don’t speak of it, you know, but I fancy she didn’t above half like it when that brother of yours never came to call. A fine young man, but holds himself too much up!’
‘Conway?’ she exclaimed. ‘Where was this, sir? In Paris?’
‘No, no, in Lisbon! Silly young jackanapes would do no more than bow – as top-lofty as his father! Ay, and a pretty mess he’s made of his marriage, eh? Lord, my dear, what made him fall into that snare? “Well,” I said, when I heard the Widow had snabbled him, “here’s a come-down from his high ropes!” And what brings you to town, my pretty little daughter?’
She told him she was on a visit to her aunt, and when he learned that it was her first, he exclaimed that he wished he might take her to see all the lions.
After about twenty minutes a smart French maid came into the room, announcing that miladi was now ready to receive mademoiselle; and Venetia was led through a smaller saloon and an anteroom and ushered into a large and opulent bedchamber. It was redolent of a subtle scent, which brought Venetia up short on the threshold, exclaiming involuntarily: ‘Oh, your scent! I remember it! I remember it so well!’
A laugh like a peal of bells greeted this. ‘Do you? I’ve alwaysused it –always! Oh, you used to sit and watch me when I dressed to go to a party, didn’t you? Such a quaint little creature you were, but I thought very likely you would grow to be pretty!’
Recalled from her sudden nostalgia, Venetia stammered, as she dropped a curtsy. ‘Oh, Ibegyour pardon, ma’am! How – how do you do?’
Lady Steeple laughed again, and rose from her chair before a dressing-table loaded with jars, bottles, and trinket-boxes, and came towards her daughter, holding out her hands. ‘Isn’t itabsurd?’ she said, offering Venetia a delicately tinted and powdered cheek to kiss. ‘I don’t feel it to be possible that Icanhave a grown-up daughter!’
Obedient to a nudge from her good angel, Venetia responded: ‘Nor could anyone, ma’am – I don’t myself!’
‘Darling! What did they tell you about me – Francis and Maria, and all theirstuffyset?’
‘Nothing, ma’am, except that I should never be as beautiful as you, and that I had from Nurse! Until yesterday I believed you had died when you left us.’
‘Oh, no, did you? Did Francis tell you so? Yes, I’m sure he did, for it would besolike him! Poor man, I wassucha trial to him! Were you fond of him?’
‘No, not at all,’ replied Venetia calmly.
This made her ladyship laugh again. She waved Venetia to a chair, and herself sat down again before the dressing-table, looking her daughter over critically. Venetia now had leisure to observe that the foam of lace and gauze in which she was wrapped was in reality a dressing-gown. It was not at all the sort of garment one would have expected one’s mama to wear, for it was as improper as it was pretty. Venetia wondered whether Damerel would like the sight of his bride in just such a transparent cloud of gauze, and was strongly of the opinion that he would like it very much.
‘Well, tell me all about yourself!’ invited Lady Steeple, picking up her hand mirror, and earnestly studying her profile. ‘You are excessively like me, but your nose is not as straight as mine, and I fancy your face is notquitea perfect oval. And I do think, dearest, that you are afractiontoo tall. Still, you have turned out remarkably well! Conway is very handsome too, but so stiff and stupid that it put me in mind of his father, and I couldn’t but take him in dislike.Whata mull he made of it in Paris! Should you have liked it if I had upset the Widow’s scheme? I daresay I might have, for she is such a respectable creature that it is an object with her to pretend she doesn’t know I exist! I had that from someone who knew it for afact! I had a great mind to pay her a visit – to make the acquaintance of my future daughter-in-law, you know! It would have beensodiverting! I forget why I didn’t go after all: I expect I was busy, or perhaps the Lamb – oh, no, I remember now! It was so hot in Paris that we removed to thechâteau– my Trianon! The Lamb bought it, and gave it to me for a surprise-present on my birthday: the sweetest place imaginable! Oh, well, if Conway finds himself leg-shackled to an insipid littlenigaudehe is very well-served! Why aren’tyoumarried, Venetia? How old are you? It is so stupid not to be able to remember dates, but I never can!’
‘More than five-and-twenty, ma’am!’ replied Venetia, a rather mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
‘Five-and-twenty!’ Lady Steeple seemed for a moment to shrink, and did actually put up her hand as though to thrust something ugly away. ‘Five-and-twenty!’ she repeated, glancing instinctively at the mirror with searching, narrowed eyes. What she saw seemed to reassure her, for she said lightly, ‘Oh, impossible! I was the merestchildwhen you were born, of course! But what in the world have you been doing with yourself to be left positively on the shelf?’
‘Nothing whatsoever, ma’am,’ said Venetia, smiling at her. ‘You see, until I came to London a month ago, I had never seen a larger town than York, nor been farther from Undershaw than Harrogate!’
‘Good God, you can’t be serious?’ cried Lady Steeple, staring at her. ‘I never heard of anything so appalling in my life! Tell me!’
Venetia did tell her, and although the thought of Sir Francis as a recluse made her break into her delicious laugh she really was horrified by the story, and exclaimed at the end of it: ‘Oh, you poor little thing! Do you hate me for it?’
‘No, of course I don’t!’ replied Venetia reassuringly.
‘You see, I neverwishedfor children!’ explained her ladyship. ‘They quite ruin one’s figure, and when one is in the straw one looks positivelyhideous, andtheylook hideous, too, all red and crumpled, though I must say you and Conway were very pretty babies. But my last – what did Francis insist on naming him? Oh, Aubrey, wasn’t it, after one of his stupid ancestors? Yes, Aubrey! Well, he looked like a sick monkey –horrid! Of course Francis thought it was mydutyto nurse him myself, as though I had been a farm-wench! I can’t think how he came by such a vulgar notion, for Idoknow that old Lady Lanyonalwayshired a wet-nurse! But it didn’t answer, for it made me perfectly ill to look at such a wizened creature. Besides, he was so fretful that it made me nervous. I never thought he would survive, but he did, didn’t he?’
Within the shelter of her muff Venetia’s hands clenched till the nails dug into her palms, but she answered coolly: ‘Oh, yes! Perhaps he was fretful because of his hip. He had a diseased joint, you see. It is better now, but he suffered a great deal when he was younger, and he will always limp.’
‘Poor boy!’ said her ladyship compassionately. ‘Did he come with you to London?’
‘No, he is in Yorkshire. I don’t think he could care forLondon. In fact, he cares for nothing much but his books. He’s a scholar – abrilliantscholar!’
‘Good gracious, what a horrid bore!’ remarked Lady Steeple, with simple sincerity. ‘To think of being shut up with a recluse and a scholar makes me feel quite low! You poor child! Oh, you were the Sleeping Beauty! What a touching thing! But there should have been a Prince Charming to kiss you awake! It is too bad!’
‘There was,’ said Venetia. She flushed faintly. ‘Only he has it fixed in his head that he isn’t a Prince, but a usurper, dressed in the Prince’s clothes.’
Lady Steeple was rather amused. ‘Oh, but that spoils the story!’ she protested. ‘Besides, why should he think himself a usurper? It is not at all likely!’
‘No, but you know what that Prince in the fairy tale is like, ma’am! Young, and handsome, and virtuous! And probably a dead bore,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Well, my usurper is not very young, and not handsome, and certainly not virtuous: quite the reverse, in fact. On the other hand, he is not a bore.’
