Venetia Part III

Venetia knows she is growing too fond of Damerel but she cant help herself. She is annoyed when Oswald Denny tries to kiss her, and when Edward Yardley expresses disapproval of her friendship. She and Aubrey return home from their visit to Damerel's house, and shortly afterwards, Oswald goes away to stay with relatives. Danerel tells her about his first mistress, a society beauty called Sophia, who had run away with him. Her husband would not divorce her, and she grew bored with Damerel... and ran away with another man, an Italian nobleman. Venetia feels that her betrayal caused Damerel to become cynical. He tells her that Sophia's husband died and she was able to marry her noble lover. Then to Venetia's horrified surprise, a middle aged lady turns up, with her daughter, to stay at Undershaw, the Lanyon home, and she finds that Conway has gotten married during his time in Paris. Conway is a lazy man and she's not entirely surprised that he did not want to write to his family to let them know he was getting married. It turns out that Charlotte, his bride, is from a military family but she is not well off or high born. And her mother, Mrs Scorrier, is a dreadful vulgar termagent. She is the cause of Charlotte coming to Yorkshire, before Conway was able to leave and come home, since she started quarrelling with one of the army generals, and creating a fuss in Paris. Conway sent her home, with Charlotte, hoping that the family would be so pleased that he would soon be home that they would accept his secret marriage. Venetia can see that Mrs Scorrier is going to be very difficult and will upset the servants, but she feels it would be unfair to Charlotte who is harmless if silly, to walk out of the house as soon as she arrives. So she makes up her mind to make the best of things for a bit. Aubrey dislikes Mrs Scorrier immediately, and she takes a dislike to him and notices his disability, which he hates. They learn that Charlotte is pregnant. Venetia is worried that there will be trouble at the Denny household, since Conway was involved in a romance with Clara, and she hoped that he would marry her. Now he has married a silly and not very grand young woman.