ended his letter with a prim Yours etc, and wished, as he sealed it with a wafer, that he could watch her face when she read it.
In point of fact not one of the thoughts he had imagined for her so much as crossed her mind. By the time the letter reached Undershaw she was much more anxious than she cared to betray to Nurse, who had been prophesying disaster ever since the discovery that Aubrey had not come home to share a nuncheon with his sister. That circumstance had not alarmed her; he had not told her where he was going, and for anything she knew it might have been to Thirsk, or even to York, where there was a bookshop that enjoyed his patronage. But by four o‟clock she had reached the nerve-racking stage of wondering whether to send out all the menservants to scour the countryside, or whether in so doing she would be indulging a fit of extravagant folly which would infuriate Aubrey. So when Ribble brought the letter to her, with Nurse wringing her hands
in his wake, and declaring that she had known it all along, and there was her sainted lamb, picked up for dead, and lying at the Priory with every bone in his body broken, there was no room in her head for any thought of Damerel. Her fingers trembled as she broke open the letter; she felt quite sick with dread; and in her anxiety to learn the worst never even noticed the ironic formality over which such pains had been spent. Running her eyes rapidly down the single sheet she exclaimed thankfully: “No, no, he‟s not badly hurt! Rufus came down with him, but there are no bones broken. A sprained ankle—considerable bruising—in case of any injury to the left
hip—oh, how very kind of him! Listen, Nurse! Lord Damerel has sent to York already to fetch Dr. Bentworth to Aubrey! He writes however that although Aubrey believes himself to have fallen on that leg, he thinks, from the spraining of his right ankle, that it was not so and he has done no more than jar the weak joint. I do pray he may be right! He thought it better to convey Aubrey to the Priory than to subject him to the torment of the longer journey to his own home — indeed it was! And if I will be so good as to put up Aubrey‟s necessities the bearer will carry them back to the Priory. As though I shouldn‟t go to Aubrey myself!”
“That you will not!” declared Nurse. “The Lord may see fit to turn an old woman over into the hands of the wicked, but it says in the Good Book that many are the afflictions of the righteous, and, what‟s more, that they shall be upheld, which I do trust I shall be, though never did I think to be forced to stand in the way of sinners! But as for letting you set foot in that ungodly mansion, Miss Venetia, never!”
Recognizing from the sudden Biblical turn of the conversation that her guardian was strongly moved, Venetia applied herself for the next twenty minutes to the task of soothing her agitation, pointing out to her that they had more reason to liken Damerel to the Good Samaritan than to the wicked, and coaxing her to accept her own determination to go to Aubrey as something as harmless as it was inevitable. In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive.
She came closer to the truth than she knew, or could have brought Venetia to believe. Venetia had no guile, and no affectations; she knew the world only by the books she had read; experience had never taught her to doubt the sincerity of anyone who did her a kindness. So when Damerel, seeing the approach of a carriage round a bend in the avenue, strolled out to meet his guest it was
In point of fact not one of the thoughts he had imagined for her so much as crossed her mind. By the time the letter reached Undershaw she was much more anxious than she cared to betray to Nurse, who had been prophesying disaster ever since the discovery that Aubrey had not come home to share a nuncheon with his sister. That circumstance had not alarmed her; he had not told her where he was going, and for anything she knew it might have been to Thirsk, or even to York, where there was a bookshop that enjoyed his patronage. But by four o‟clock she had reached the nerve-racking stage of wondering whether to send out all the menservants to scour the countryside, or whether in so doing she would be indulging a fit of extravagant folly which would infuriate Aubrey. So when Ribble brought the letter to her, with Nurse wringing her hands
in his wake, and declaring that she had known it all along, and there was her sainted lamb, picked up for dead, and lying at the Priory with every bone in his body broken, there was no room in her head for any thought of Damerel. Her fingers trembled as she broke open the letter; she felt quite sick with dread; and in her anxiety to learn the worst never even noticed the ironic formality over which such pains had been spent. Running her eyes rapidly down the single sheet she exclaimed thankfully: “No, no, he‟s not badly hurt! Rufus came down with him, but there are no bones broken. A sprained ankle—considerable bruising—in case of any injury to the left
hip—oh, how very kind of him! Listen, Nurse! Lord Damerel has sent to York already to fetch Dr. Bentworth to Aubrey! He writes however that although Aubrey believes himself to have fallen on that leg, he thinks, from the spraining of his right ankle, that it was not so and he has done no more than jar the weak joint. I do pray he may be right! He thought it better to convey Aubrey to the Priory than to subject him to the torment of the longer journey to his own home — indeed it was! And if I will be so good as to put up Aubrey‟s necessities the bearer will carry them back to the Priory. As though I shouldn‟t go to Aubrey myself!”
“That you will not!” declared Nurse. “The Lord may see fit to turn an old woman over into the hands of the wicked, but it says in the Good Book that many are the afflictions of the righteous, and, what‟s more, that they shall be upheld, which I do trust I shall be, though never did I think to be forced to stand in the way of sinners! But as for letting you set foot in that ungodly mansion, Miss Venetia, never!”
Recognizing from the sudden Biblical turn of the conversation that her guardian was strongly moved, Venetia applied herself for the next twenty minutes to the task of soothing her agitation, pointing out to her that they had more reason to liken Damerel to the Good Samaritan than to the wicked, and coaxing her to accept her own determination to go to Aubrey as something as harmless as it was inevitable. In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive.
She came closer to the truth than she knew, or could have brought Venetia to believe. Venetia had no guile, and no affectations; she knew the world only by the books she had read; experience had never taught her to doubt the sincerity of anyone who did her a kindness. So when Damerel, seeing the approach of a carriage round a bend in the avenue, strolled out to meet his guest it was
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