It was such remarks as this, delivered perfectly seriously, that kept him in a state of chuckling enjoyment, and made him call her his dear delight. She accepted the title with equanimity, but told him to take care not to say it within tongue-shot of Nurse. “For it would be very mortifying for you to see your cajolery wasted, besides destroying all our comfort.”
“I’ll lay you odds she wouldn’t come the ugly. She believes me to be in a state of grace.”
“No, only approaching it—and that was merely because you supported her against Imber! You may not know it, but you suffered a set-back yesterday, when you wouldn’t permit her to have the carpet in the library taken up to be beaten. She began to say things about the ungodly again, and Aubrey swears she told him that one sinner destroys much good.”
“Since then, however, I have expressed my admiration of her tatting, and my credit is now high with her!” he retorted.
“I wish it might be high enough for her to give it to you! There must be miles of it, for she has been tatting ever since I can remember, and very rarely gives any of it away. The dreadful thing is that she means it for whichever of us is the first to be married. The most lowering reflection!”
“Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “I had better not make my credit too high! What do you advise? Shall I hold an orgy, ill-use Aubrey, or—just call you my dear delight within her hearing?”
“That would lower your credit too much. Tell her that when you gave her to understand that you came into Yorkshire to redress your tenants’ grievances—which I am very sure you did, for who else would have put such a preposterous notion into her head?—it was nothing but a fudge! Perhaps you had better not tell her, however, that you came because of that thing at Tattersall’s, for she thinks racing very ungodly!”
“What thing at Tattersall’s?” he demanded. “I haven’t yet been floored by the hammer, if that’s what you mean!”
“No, no! At least, I don’t know what it signifies, but it wasn’t that! Conway spoke of it once—oh, Black Monday!”
“Settling-day! No, I won’t tell her that. I am always more or less in Dun territory, but this visit of mine isn’t an attempt to shoot the crow! I am escaping from my aunts.”
“Why, what are they doing to you? Are you roasting me?”
“Not at all. They are bent on re-establishing me. There are three of ’em, and they are all antidotes. Two are unmarried, and live together—one’s fubsy-faced, and t’other’s a squeeze-crab; and the eldest is a widow, and the most intimidating female you ever beheld. She lives in a mausoleum in Grosvenor Square, rarely stirs out of it, but holds receptions, very like the Queen’s Drawing-Rooms. She’s clutch-fisted, dresses like a quiz, has neither wit nor amiability, and yet by means unknown to me—unless it be by force of character, and I’ll allow she has that!—has persuaded the ton that she is a second Lady Cork, to whose salons it is an honour to be invited.”
“She sounds very disagreeable!”
“She is very disagreeable. A veritable dragon!”
“But why does she wish to re-establish you?”
“Oh, for two reasons! The first is that however black my sins may be I’m the head of the family, a circumstance by which she sets great store; and the second is that having issued a royal command to my cousin Alfred, who is also my heir, to present himself in Grosvenor Square for inspection, she made the shocking discovery that he was a member of the dandy-set—indeed, the pinkest of Pinks, a swell of the first stare! Not having the least guess that the old lady holds every Bond Street beau in the utmost abhorrence, the silly pigeon rigged himself out as fine as fivepence, and trotted round to Grosvenor Square looking precise to a pin: Inexpressibles of the most delicate shade of primrose, coat by Stulz, Hessians by Hoby, hat—the Bang-up—by Baxter, neckcloth—the Oriental, which is remarkable for its height— by himself. Add to all this a Barcelona handkerchief, a buttonhole as large as a cabbage, a strong aroma of Circassian hair-oil, the deportment of a dancing-master, and a lisp it took him years to bring to perfection, and you will perceive that Alfred is not just in the ordinary style!”
“I wish I might see him!” she said, laughing. “Did you, or is this make-believe?”
“Certainly not! I didn’t see him, but what he didn’t describe to me my aunt did. Poor fellow! he was only bent on doing the pretty, but all his hopes were cut up! The breach was to have been healed—oh, I didn’t mention, did I, that my aunts had quarrelled with his mother? I believe she offended them on the occasion of my uncle’s obsequies, but as I was not present I don’t know what crime she committed, though I wouldn’t bet against the chance that she didn’t render proper respect to their consequence. In any event, Alfred obeyed my Aunt Augusta’s summons, confident that the exercise of a little address—coupled, of course, with his exquisite appearance—would decide not only her, but my Aunts Jane and Eliza as well, to make him their heir—which is a matter of very much more interest to him than his being my heir, pour cause! But alas! faced with the choice between a fop and a rip they preferred the rip—or they would, if I’d be comformable!”
“Behave with propriety?”
“Worse! Marry a butter-toothed female with a pug-nose and a deplorable figure!”
She laughed. “Well, I daresay they wish you to be married, because that would be the most respectable thing you could do, and also, of course, on account of children, so that your cousin would be quite cut out—but I see no reason why she should be pug-nosed, or butter-toothed!”
“Nor I, but she’s both, I promise you. What’s more, she’s been an ape-leader for ten years at least. Do you wonder that I fled?”
“No, but I do wonder that your aunts should have been so gooseish as to have proposed such a match to you! They must be quite addle-brained to suppose that you would look twice at any but the most ravishing females, for you have been used only to be in love with beauties for years and years! It is most unreasonable to expect people to change their habits in the twinkling of an eye.”
“Very true!” he agreed, admirably preserving his countenance. “And Miss Amelia Ubley’s eye has as much twinkle as may be seen in the eye of a fish.”
“Then on no account must you offer for her!” she said earnestly. “I am excessively sorry for her, poor thing, but she would be far happier as an old maid than as your wife! I shouldn’t wonder at it if you made off with someone else before the bride-visits had all been paid, and only think how mortifying for her. How came your aunts to hit upon such an unsuitable female for you? They must have a great deal more hair than wit!”
His lips twitched, but he replied gravely: “I fancy they consider me to be past the age of romantic indiscretions. My Aunt Eliza, at all events, tells me that it is now time I settled-down. She drew for me a very moving picture of the advantages of becoming regularly established.”
“I can see she did. It moved you all the way to Yorkshire! Pray, what are Miss Ubley’s virtues?”
“Well—virtue!”
“That won’t do in the least. Not if you mean that she’s strait-laced, and she sounds to me as if she would be.”
“That’s what she both sounded and looked like to me. However, my aunts informed me that besides being of the first respectability she has superior sense, propriety of taste, and can be trusted to behave always just as she ought. Her fortune is as good as I have any right to expect; and I must remember that if she were not above thirty years of age, and an antidote, neither she nor her parents would entertain my proposal for a minute.”
“What moonshine!” exclaimed Venetia indignantly.
There was a good deal of the sneer in the half-smile he threw her. “No, that was true enough. I imagine I must rank high on the list of ineligible bachelors—which has this advantage: that there is no need for me to take care lest I fall a prey to a matchmaking mama. It is she who warns her daughter that if she should chance to find herself in company with me she must keep a proper distance.”