Venetia

X

The intelligence that her son was at daggers drawn with Lord Damerel, and Venetia Lanyon head over ears in love with him, reached Lady Denny at third hand, and from the lips of her eldest daughter. Clara was a very sensible girl, no more addicted to exaggeration than her father, but not even her temperate account of what Oswald had confided to Emily, and Emily had repeated to her, could make her disclosures anything but disquieting in the extreme.

It had been Oswald’s intention to have maintained an impenetrable silence on the events that had shattered his faith in women and transformed him, at one blow, from an ardent lover into an incurable misogynist; and had his parents, or even his two oldest sisters, had enough sensibility to enable them to perceive that the care-free youth who had ridden away from his home before noon returned at dinner-time an embittered cynic he would have refused to answer any of their anxious questions, but would have fobbed them off instead in a manner calculated to convince them that he had passed through a soul-searing experience. Unfortunately, the sensibilities of all four were so blunted that they noticed nothing unusual in his haggard mien and monosyllabic utterances, but talked throughout dinner of commonplaces, and in a cheerful style which could not but make him wonder how he came to be born into such an insensate family. His refusal to partake of any of the dishes that made up the second course did draw comment from his mama, but as she ascribed his loss of appetite to a surfeit of sugarplums, he could only be sorry that she had noticed his abstention.

It was not until the following day that a chance remark made by Emily proved too much for his resolution. With all the tactlessness of her fifteen years she marvelled that he had not ridden off to visit Venetia, which goaded him into giving a bitter laugh, and saying that never again would he cross the threshold of Undershaw. As he added a warning to her to ask him no questions she at once begged him to tell her what had happened.

He had no intention of telling her anything, but she was the most spiritually akin to him of all his family, and it was not long before he had confided some part at least of his troubles into her sympathetic ears, in a series of elliptical remarks which, while they conveyed no very accurate idea to her of the previous day’s events, appealed strongly to her romantic heart. She drank in all he said, filled in the gaps with the aid of an imagination quite as dramatic as his, and ended by recounting the whole to Clara, under the seal of secrecy.

“But although I daresay it is all fustian, Mama, I felt obliged to say that I couldn’t think it right not to tell you,” said Clara.

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Lady Denny, quite aghast. “Challenging Lord Damerel to a duel? Good God! he must be out of his mind! I never heard anything to equal it, and what your father will say I tremble to think of! Oh, it can’t be true! Ten to one it’s one of Emily’s Canterbury tales!”

“I think it is not wholly that, Mama,” said Clara conscientiously. “I fear there can be no doubt that Oswald has quarrelled with Lord Damerel, though whether he challenged him to a duel is another matter. You know how he and Emily exaggerate! I should have supposed it to have been impossible, but if it’s true that Lord Damerel is pursuing poor Venetia with his attentions it might be. Which is why I thought it my duty to tell you, because Oswald is certainly in one of his extravagant puckers, and when that happens one can’t depend on his behaving rationally. And if he should be so imprudent as to force a quarrel on Lord Damerel—”

“Don’t speak of such a thing!” begged Lady Denny, shuddering. “Oh dear, oh dear, why had that detestable man to come here? Setting us all in an uproar! Pursuing Venetia— Did you say he goes every day to Undershaw?”

“Well, Mama, so Oswald told Emily, but I didn’t refine very much upon that, because he said also that Venetia is quite besotted, and encourages Lord Damerel to behave with the greatest impropriety, and that must be nonsense, mustn’t it?”

But Lady Denny, far from being reassured, turned quite pale, and ejaculated: “I might have known what would happen! And what must Edward Yardley do at this of all moments but fall sick with chicken-pox! Not that I think he would be of the least use, but he might have prevented Damerel from living in Venetia’s pocket, instead of letting his mother send for Mr. Huntspill every time she fancies his pulse is too rapid, and making as much fuss as if he had the small-pox!”

“Oh, Mama!” protested Clara, distressed by this severity. “You know Mr. Huntspill told us that Edward’s papa had a consumptive habit, so that it was not to be wondered at that Mrs. Yardley should be anxious! And he said that Edward was quite knocked-up, much more so than my sisters!”

“What Mr. Huntspill said,” retorted Lady Denny grimly, “was that people like Edward Yardley, who have excellent constitutions and scarcely know what it is to be out of sorts, are the worst of patients, because they fancy themselves at death’s door if they only have a touch of the colic! Don’t talk to me of Edward! I must speak to your father immediately, for, however angry he may be, Oswald is his son, arid it is his duty to do something about this dreadful business!”

But Sir John, when the story was first disclosed to him, was not disposed to attach much weight to it, and beyond saying that he was out of all patience with Oswald’s childish play-acting he showed no sign of flying into a rage, It was not until he had questioned Clara himself that he began to see that there might be more truth in the tale than he had supposed. Even then he seemed to be more vexed than dismayed, but after he had thought the matter over he said that if Oswald had no more sense than to make a pea-goose of himself over Venetia there was only one thing to be done, and that was to pack him off to another part of the country until he had recovered his wits.

“He had better go to your brother George,” he told Lady Denny. “That will give him something other to think about than this folly!”

“Go to George? But—”

“I’m not going to run the risk of his kicking up some infernal rumpus here. I don’t know how much to believe of the story, but if he’s as jealous as Clara thinks there’s no saying what he might do, and I tell you to your head, my dear, that I won’t have the young cub annoying Damerel, or anyone else!”

“No, no! Only think how dreadful it would be if he forced a quarrel on to that man!”

“Well, he won’t do that, so you may be easy on that score. If he did try to do so yesterday I sincerely hope Damerel clouted him over the head for his impudence! There’s nothing for it but to send him off to your brother’s place.”

She said doubtfully: “Yes, but perhaps it might not suit them to have him at Crossley at this season. To be sure, George is very good-natured, and Elinor too, but I daresay they will have a houseful of guests, for they always do when the hunting begins.”

“No need to worry over that. I said nothing about it at the time, because I don’t above half like sending Oswald into that fashionable set, but I had a letter from George last week saying that they would be glad to have him on a visit, if I cared to let him go. Well, I don’t, but I’d rather send him there than keep him here. I only hope he may keep the line!”

“George will see he does so,” said Lady Denny confidently. “Depend upon it, Sir John, it would be the very thing for Oswald, and nothing could do him more good than to be with his cousins. Only how to persuade him to go?”

“Persuade him?” repeated Sir John. “Persuade him to accept an invitation to stay in the heart of the Cottesmore country? In a house where he knows he’ll find himself amongst the Corinthian set? No, no, my love, that won’t be necessary!”

She was by no means convinced, but Sir John was quite right. When the invitation was conveyed to Oswald its effect on him was almost ludicrous, so suddenly and so completely did it transform him from a sulky martyr into an excited boy in whom gratification, ecstatic anticipation, and some slight trepidation left no room for such minor matters as Venetia’s faithlessness, Damerel’s villainy, or his own broken heart. Stunned by the magnificence of the offered treat, he was at first unable to do more than stammer: “L-like to g-go to Crossley? I should th-think I would!” After that he sat throughout the rest of dinner in a sort of trance, from which he later emerged in so sunny a mood that not even his father’s warning that he must conduct himself with propriety if he were permitted to go to Crossley roused umbrage in his breast. “Oh, yes, of course I will!” he earnestly promised Sir John.

He then spent a happy evening discussing with him such anxious matters as what he should bestow in vails at Crossley, how best to convey his hunters there, and whether he would be expected to wear knee-breeches in the evening. Sir John reassured him on this head, but seized the opportunity to enter an embargo against the sporting of coloured and loosely knotted handkerchiefs in place of neatly arranged neck-cloths. But as the dizzy prospect of entering into Corinthian circles had banished from Oswald’s mind any desire to study the picturesque in his attire this was unnecessary, and Sir John soon found himself obliged instead to forbid the purchase of a pair of riding boots with white uppers. Oswald was disappointed, but so unwontedly docile that Sir John was encouraged to offer him some very sensible advice on the modest demeanour to be adopted by a novice who wished to win the approval of those hardened sportsmen who ranked as Top-of-the-Trees in the world of the haut ton. As he prefixed his rather damping homily by saying that if he had not been satisfied that he had nothing to blush for in his son’s horsemanship he would not for a moment have entertained the thought of permitting him to go to Crossley, Oswald was able to swallow the whole with a good grace. Sir John had not been so much in charity with his only son for many months, as he later informed Lady Denny, adding, as he snuffed his bedside candle, that if the boy behaved as prettily at Crossley he had no doubt that his uncle and aunt would be very well pleased with him.

Her mind relieved of its weightiest care, Lady Denny was able to turn it to the consideration of a secondary anxiety. Sir John having rejected in unequivocal terms a tentative suggestion that he should hint Damerel away from Undershaw, she decided that notwithstanding the claims of her invalid children it was her duty to drive over to Undershaw, to see for herself how much truth there was in Oswald’s allegations, and, if necessary, to take such steps as would bring to an end a very dangerous situation. What steps it would be possible for her to take she did not know, or very seriously consider, for the more she thought about the matter the more hopeful did she become that she would find that the alarming story was nothing but a product of Oswald’s fevered imagination.

But when she arrived at Undershaw on the following day she saw at one glance that she had been indulging a groundless optimism. Venetia was radiant, lovelier than ever before, with happiness shining in her eyes, and a new bloom in her cheeks.

She greeted her motherly friend with her usual affection, and every expression of pleasure at receiving a visit from her, but Lady Denny was not deceived: she was living in a halcyon world of her own; and although she enquired after the invalids at Ebbersley, listened with sympathy to an account of their progress, laughed at a description of Mrs. Yardley’s daily alarms, and appeared to be genuinely interested in these and several other such topics, her civilities were only surface deep.

Lady Denny, trying, while she maintained a comfortable flow of small-talk, to discover some way of introducing the real purpose of her visit without too obviously disclosing what this was, had seldom found herself at such a loss. She had decided that the most natural approach would be through discussion of Aubrey’s accident, but although she got as far as to say that it had placed Venetia in an awkward situation this promising gambit failed. Venetia smiled mischievously at her, and replied: “Dear ma’am, that makes you sound like Edward! I beg your pardon, but I can’t help laughing! It wasn’t in the least awkward.”

Lady Denny tried her best. “Well, my dear, I am happy to know that, but I think you don’t quite understand that the situation was one of particular delicacy.”

“No,” agreed Venetia disconcertingly. “I can understand, of course, that it might have been awkward, though at the outset I was too anxious about Aubrey to think about that, and later it would have been absurd to think about it. The Priory seemed like my own home, and Damerel—oh, a friend whom I had known all my life! I don’t think either Aubrey or I ever spent ten days more happily. Even Nurse, I fancy, was secretly sorry to leave the Priory!”

Taken aback by the unexpected openness of this reply Lady Denny could think of nothing whatsoever to say. Before she had collected her wits again Venetia was entertaining her with a lively account of Nurse’s behaviour at the Priory. The hope of being offered an opportunity to discharge her mission steadily receded, and vanished altogether when Venetia told her how kind Damerel was to Aubrey, and how much Aubrey had benefited from his friendship. She was no fool, and she saw clearly that to suggest to Venetia that Damerel was using Aubrey as a tool would serve no other purpose than to estrange her. Her spirits sank; she began to be seriously alarmed, feeling Venetia to be beyond her reach, and so bedazzled that no dependence could be placed on the calm good sense which had previously characterized her.

All at once the door opened, and Aubrey looked into the room, saying: “Venetia, I’m going into York with Jasper. Have you any—” He broke off, seeing Lady Denny, and limped across the room, to shake hands with her. “I beg pardon, ma’am. How do you do?”

She saw Damerel on the threshold, and while she asked Aubrey if he had quite recovered from the effects of his fall managed to keep both him and Venetia under observation. If either of them had shown a trace of embarrassment she would have been less dismayed. Neither did; and had anything been wanting to convince her that Oswald had not exaggerated when he said that Damerel visited Undershaw daily it would have been supplied by the entire absence of ceremony shown him by Venetia. Instead of rising, as a hostess should, and shaking hands, she only turned her head and smiled at him. Lady Danny saw that smile, and, glancing swiftly at Damerel, saw the smile that answered it. As well might they have kissed! she thought, suddenly aware of a hitherto unsuspected danger.

“I’ve no need to introduce you to Lady Denny, have I?” Venetia was saying.

“No, I have already had that honour,” Damerel replied, advancing with what her ladyship felt to be brazen effrontery to shake hands with her. “How do you do?”

She responded civilly, because she was a woman of breeding, but her palm itched to slap that harsh-featured, coolly smiling face. She fancied she could detect mockery in his eyes, as though, well aware of her disapproval, he was daring her to try whether she could come between him and Venetia, and it was with a real effort that she answered his polite enquiry after her husband.

“Do you want me to bring you anything from York?” Aubrey asked his sister. “That’s what I came to ask you.”

“Did you, love?” she retorted, quizzing him. “I am so very much obliged to you! And so much moved to think that such a notion came into your head!”

He grinned at her, not at all abashed. “It didn’t!”

“What a graceless scamp you are!” remarked Damerel. “You might at least have assumed that virtue!”

“Why should I, when she knows I have it not?” said Aubrey, over his shoulder, as he went to take leave of Lady Denny. “Goodbye, ma’am: you don’t think it uncivil of me to go, do you? No, for you came to see Venetia, I know. I won’t keep you waiting above a minute, Jasper, only I can’t go to York in these slippers, can I?”

“Not in my company, at all events,” said Damerel. He looked at Venetia as the door shut behind Aubrey, and again Lady Denny saw the smile that passed between them. It was so slight as to be almost imperceptible: hardly more than a softening of expression, a tenderness in the eyes. She realized that it was involuntary, and knew the affair to be more serious than she had dreamed it could be, for Damerel, whatever his intentions might be, was not amusing himself with a desperate flirtation: he was as much in earnest as Venetia. He was speaking to her now, only about Aubrey, but in a way that betrayed how intimate they had become. “I won’t let him stand for hours with his nose in a book,” he was saying. “The drive won’t hurt him.”

“No, on the contrary. What good angel prompted you to this? I couldn’t lure him away from the library! It was close on midnight when I heard him come to bed last night, and when I ventured to remonstrate this morning he informed me that he had wasted a great deal of time since his accident, and must now seriously apply himself to study! I thought that was what he had been doing!”

“Oh, no!” Damerel said sardonically. “He was absorbed in light reading while in my house—as provided by Berkeley and Hume—with excursions into Dugald Stewart. Mere relaxation!” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “If I am to restore him to you by dinner-time I had best go and see what he’s doing. Would you lay me odds I don’t find him with a boot on one foot, a slipper on the other, and his nose in a lexicon, because he has suddenly remembered that he was about to track some obscure word to its source when I broke rudely in upon him?”

He turned from her to take leave of Lady Denny, and, that done, shook hands briefly with Venetia, saying: “Do you want anything brought from York?”

“No—not even fish, in a rush basket, which is Aubrey’s chief loathing!”

He laughed, and went away. Venetia said, in her frank way: “I am glad he should have chanced to come in while you were with me, ma’am.”

“Are you, my dear? Why?” asked Lady Denny.

“Oh—! Because I could see that you wondered at my liking him, for you did not, when you met him before, did you?”

Lady Denny hesitated, and then said: “I perfectly understand why you like him, Venetia. Indeed, I should have been astonished if he had failed to make you do so, for men of his—his stamp know how to make themselves charming to women.”

“Yes,” Venetia agreed. “They must have had a great deal of practice, though I don’t think it can be wholly due to practice, do you? I never met a rake before, or thought much about it, but I should suppose that a man could scarcely become one—well, not a very successful one, at all events—if he were not naturally engaging.”

“Very true!” said Lady Denny, rather faintly. “It is what makes them particularly dangerous. You, I am persuaded, have too much good sense and elegance of mind to be taken-in, but I wish you will be a little on your guard, my love. No doubt you find Lord Damerel’s company agreeable, and feel yourself to be very much obliged to him, but I own—and you must not take it amiss that I should tell you this, for I know the world as you do not—I own that I did not quite like to find him so very much at home here. It is not the thing, you know, for an unmarried lady of your age to be entertaining gentlemen.”

Venetia gave a little chuckle. “I wish you will tell Edward so!” she begged. “He hasn’t a notion of it! He even dines here, if he can contrive to linger until I am forced, for the sake of common civility, to invite him to do so.”

“Well, my dear—well, that is another matter!” said Lady Denny, trying to rally her forces. “Your friendship is of such long standing that— Besides, your papa liked him!”

“No, no, ma’am, how can you do Papa such an injustice?” protested Venetia. “When you must know he liked no one! However, I know what you mean to say: he thought that Edward would do very well for me!”

“Now, Venetia—!”

Venetia laughed. “I beg your pardon! I could not resist! But there is not the least need for uneasiness, because Damerel sees the matter exactly as you do. I daresay you may have noticed that I didn’t ask him if he would stay to dine, when he said he would bring. Aubrey back by dinner-time? I know it to be useless: he will never do so. He tells me that while he does no more than pay us morning visits the quizzy people will say that he is dangling after me, but if he dined here they would say that I was encouraging his very improper advances. Does that make you easy, dear ma’am?”

It had the reverse effect on her kind friend, and it was a very troubled lady who was driven back to Ebbersley, and who presently gave Sir John an account of her visit. Had her mind been less preoccupied the expression on her son’s face, at once guilty and apprehensive, when she looked into the room where he was sitting with Sir John and asked Sir John to come to her dressing-room, might have given rise to further anxieties. Fortunately, however, she did not look at Oswald; and he, after a nerve-racking period during which he imagined her to be divulging to his father his shocking conduct in Aubrey’s carpentry-barn, realized, when his father rejoined him, that Venetia had not after all betrayed him, and was so profoundly relieved that he resolved to write a very civil apology to her before he left Ebbersley for Crossley.

Sir John looked grave when he listened to what his lady had to tell him, but he remained firm in his refusal to meddle. Lady Denny, who considered this poor-spirited, said in an accusing tone: “Pray, would you hesitate to speak to Lord Damerel if it was your daughter who was in question?”

“No, certainly not, but Venetia is not my daughter,” he replied. “Nor, my dear, is she eighteen years of age. She is five-and-twenty, and her own mistress. If she has indeed fallen in love with Damerel I am sorry for it, because it will cause her to suffer a heartache, I fear. But if you are apprehensive of her committing any very serious imprudence I am persuaded you are permitting your anxiety to overcome your reason. For my part I believe Venetia to be a girl of excellent principles and a good understanding; and I cannot suppose that Damerel, who, whatever his principles may be, is certainly not deficient in commonsense, has anything more in mind than flirtation.” He saw Lady Denny shake her head, and added with a little asperity: “Do, my love, allow me to know a little better than you how such a man as Damerel may be expected to conduct himself towards a girl in Venetia’s situation! He is a libertine: I don’t deny that, but the case is that you are too prejudiced. Whatever his follies may be he is a man of breeding, and no common degree of worldly knowledge, and you may depend upon it he has nothing more in his head than an agreeable flirtation with a very pretty female. It is wrong, very mischievous, for he will forget her within a week of leaving the Priory, and very likely she will suffer a great deal of pain, but if you are right in thinking that she has a tendre for him, that cannot be cured by any meddling on my part, or—I must add—by any attempt on yours to warn her that Damerel is merely trifling with her.”

“Oh, Sir John, there is no need to tell me that!” she exclaimed. “I am not such a ninnyhammer that I didn’t see in a trice that it was useless to talk to her! But you mistake! I own that when I set out this morning— But when I saw him, the look in his eyes every time they rested on her, the most dreadful apprehension seized me! One thing you may be sure of: he is not trifling, he is as much in love with her as she with him! Sir John, if nothing is done to protect her from him she will marry him!”

“Good God!” he ejaculated. “Do you mean to tell me— No, I don’t credit it! He has no intention of marrying Venetia, or any other woman! He is every day of eight-and-thirty, and his way of life is fixed: that he has clearly shown the world! If he had meant to marry, for the sake of an heir, perhaps, he would scarcely have pursued so ruinous a course during all these years. If the estates had not been entailed I don’t doubt he would have disposed of them, just as he had wasted a very handsome fortune, and we may judge by that how little he cares who may succeed him. As for the open scandals which attend his progress, one might almost suppose he meant to render himself a most ineligible parti!”

“All that you say is no doubt very true, and has nothing to do with the case!” retorted her ladyship. “Whatever may have been his intention you may as well put out of your mind, my dear, for he has certainly put it out of his! I know how a man looks when he is flirting, and how he speaks, and you may believe that that is not what I saw today! He is very much in love with her, and if he doesn’t offer her a carte blanche—or she is not so besotted as to listen to so shocking a suggestion!—he will ask her to marry him, and she will accept him!” She had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing from the change in Sir John’s expression that she had succeeded in convincing him that her alarms were not the products of a disordered mind, and demanded: “Now will you speak to Damerel?”

But he remained adamant. “Certainly not! Pray, what would you wish me to say to him? My acquaintance with him is of the slightest; Venetia is neither related to me nor accountable to me for her actions. Any such intervention would be a piece of gross impertinence, ma’am! If you cannot prevail upon her to understand how disastrous such a marriage would be there is nothing to be done in the matter.”

Recognizing the note of finality in his voice she abandoned the attempt to bring him to her own way of thinking, merely saying that something must be done, since it was nonsensical to suppose that because Venetia was five-and-twenty she could be trusted to manage her own affairs. No one could be less trusted to do so than a girl who could count on the fingers of one hand the bachelors of her acquaintance, and so might be depended on to fall in love with the first man of practised address who crossed her path. “And you know what people would say, Sir John! But she is not like her mother, however much she may resemble her in countenance, and she shan’t be allowed to ruin her life! If only Aubrey took the least interest in anything outside his books. But you may depend upon it he doesn’t even see what is going on under his nose, and wouldn’t believe me if I told him!”

In this she was mistaken. Aubrey had not only seen, but was taking a detached interest in the affair, as he disclosed to his sister a day or two later. He had been so obliging as to drive her to Thirsk, where she had shopping to do; and on the way home, when Damerel’s name had cropped up, as it frequently did, he startled her by asking quite casually: “Are you going to marry him, m’dear?”

She was a good deal taken aback, for he was in general so indifferent to what lay beyond his own concerns that she had supposed, like Lady Denny, that it had not occurred to him that Damerel’s visits to Undershaw might be due to a desire to see her rather than himself. She hesitated for a moment, and he added: “Should I not ask you? You needn’t answer, if you don’t choose.”

“Well, I can’t answer,” she said frankly. “He hasn’t made me an offer!”

“I know that, stoopid! You must have told me, if you had become engaged to him! Shall you accept him when he does offer for you?”

“Aubrey, who set you on to ask me that?” she demanded. “It cannot have been Lady Denny! Was it Nurse?”

“Lord, no! No one did. Why should anyone?”

“I thought someone might have told you to try whether you could persuade me not to allow Damerel to come to Undershaw.”

“Much heed I should have paid! Does Lady Denny know? Why should she wish you not to see Jasper? Don’t she like him?”

“No—that is, she does not know him, but only his reputation, and I fancy she thinks I might be taken-in.”

“Oh!” He frowned ahead, checking his horses a little as they approached the lodge-gates. “I don’t know much about such things, but I shouldn’t think you would be. Ought I to ask Jasper what his intentions are?”

She could not help laughing. “I beg you will not!”

“Well, I’d as lief not,” he owned. “Besides, I see no sense in it: he couldn’t tell me he meant to seduce you, even if he did, and, anyway, what a totty-headed notion that is! Why, when I wanted to get rid of Nurse he said she must stay at the Priory to play propriety! I never thought much about the stories people told of him, but I daresay they weren’t true. In any event, you probably know more about ’em than I do, and if you don’t care why should I?”

They had passed through the gates by this time, and were bowling up the avenue that wound through the park. Venetia said: “I don’t know why anyone should care, but they all seem to think that because I’ve lived my whole life in this one place I must be a silly innocent with much more hair than wit. I’m glad you don’t, love. I can’t tell what may happen, but—if Damerel did wish to marry me— you at least wouldn’t dislike it, would you?”

“No, I think I should be glad of it,” he replied. “I shall be going up to Cambridge, of course, next year, but there will be the vacations, you know, and I’d rather by far spend them in Damerel’s house than in Conway’s.”

This view of the matter made her smile, but no more was said, for at that moment the last bend in the avenue brought the house into sight, and she was surprised to see that a laden post-chaise-and-four was drawn up at the door.

“Hallo, what’s this?” exclaimed Aubrey. “Good God, it must be Conway!”

“No, it isn’t,” Venetia said, catching sight of a feathered bonnet. “It’s a female! But who in the world—oh, can it be Aunt Hendred?”

But when Aubrey pulled his horses up behind the chaise and the visitor turned, Venetia found herself staring down at a complete stranger. She was still more astonished by the discovery that the stranger was apparently superintending the removal from the chaise of a formidable quantity of portmanteaux and bandboxes. She turned her bewildered gaze towards Ribble, her brows lifting in a mute question; but he was looking quite stunned, and before she could ask for an explanation the stranger, who was middle-aged lady, dressed in the height of fashion, stepped forward, saying with an air of affable assurance: “Miss Venetia Lanyon? But I need not ask! And the poor little lame boy? I am Mrs. Scorrier, which you have perhaps guessed—though the butler seems not to have been informed of our expected arrival!”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Venetia, descending from the phaeton, “but there must be some mistake! I am afraid I don’t understand!”

Mrs. Scorrier stared at her for a moment, an expression far removed from affability in her face. “Do you mean to tell me that what that man said is true, and you have not received a letter from—I might have known it! oh, I should certainly have guessed as much when I discovered in London that no notice had been sent to the Gazette!”

“Notice?” repeated Venetia. “Gazette?”

Recovering her affability. Mrs. Scorrier said, with a little laugh: “So naughty and forgetful of him! I shall give him a tremendous scold, I promise you! I daresay you must be quite at a loss. Well, I have brought you a surprise, but not, I hope, an unpleasant one! Charlotte, my pet!”

In response to this call, which was directed towards the open door, a very fair girl, with large, apprehensive eyes of a light blue, a quantity of flaxen ringlets, and a soft, over-sensitive mouth, emergedfrom the house, saying, in a nervous breathless voice: “Yes, Mama?”

“Come here, my love!” invited Mrs. Scorrier. “Dear child! Yon have been so anxious to meet your new sister, and your little lame brother, have you not? Here they both are! Yes, Miss Lanyon: this is Lady Lanyon!”