“Nothing worth the mention, my lord—since Amaranthus won at Nottingham.”
Damerel burst out laughing, and got up. “You’re a fool to stay with me, you know. What makes you do it? Habit?”
“Not entirely,” Marston replied, with one of his rare smiles. “Serving you, my lord, has its drawbacks, but also its advantages.”
“I’m damned if I know what they are!” said Damerel frankly. “Unless you count being paid at irregular intervals and finding yourself in scrapes not of your making as advantages?”
“No,” said Marston, moving to the door, and holding it open. “But sooner or later you do pay me, and if you lead me into scrapes you don’t forget to rescue me from them—on one or two occasions at considerable risk to yourself. There is a nice fire in the library, my lord, and Nidd brought back the London papers from York half an hour ago.”
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!”