A Civil Contract Read online

  Over dinner he entered with alarming vigour into her lady-ship’s Bath scheme, offering not only to arrange all the details of her journey, but to send immediately to Bath a smart young fellow from his counting-house to discover what houses were for hire in the town. Lady Lynton said in thread-like accents that she should not dream of troubling him; but he assured her that it would be a pleasure to him to save her the fatigue of house-hunting, and no trouble at all. It began to seem as if the poor lady would find herself swept off to Bath and installed willy-nilly in an establishment chosen for her by the smart young fellow from the counting-house; but just as she cast an anguished glance at her son Miss Chawleigh said bluntly: ‘Lady Lynton would prefer to choose her own house, Papa.’

  ‘Yes, and her ladyship has two sons to serve her, sir,’ chimed in Lambert jovially. ‘That is, if I may be allowed so to term myself!’

  He cast an arch look at her as he spoke, which had the effect of making her smile graciously at Mr Chawleigh, and say that she was much obliged to him, but believed that Wimmering would manage her affairs for her.

  ‘Ay, so he will!’ agreed Mr Chawleigh, adding with a chuckle: ‘A regular downy one he is! He’ll see you ain’t clerked, my lady!’ He saw that this remark had produced constraint, and said cheerfully: ‘No need to colour up, my lord! You don’t want to concern yourself with business either: you leave me and Wimmering to settle things in our own fashion! I warrant we understand one another as you never could!’

  Having in this masterly style put the family at their ease, he then turned his attention to Charlotte. His shrewd eyes looked her over with approval, but conversation did not flourish between them. With every will in the world to talk pleasantly to him, an over-delicate refinement made Charlotte regard him with much the same nervous surprise as she would have felt at being addressed by an aboriginal. Mr Chawleigh’s manner with young females was jocular and paternal. He was convinced that they liked to be complimented on their looks, and quizzed about their beaux; but his compliments made Charlotte blush; and when he made a sly reference to her approaching nuptials, prophesying that there would be a score of broken hearts when the news was made public, she raised her eyes in astonishment to his face, unable to conceal how little to her taste was this ponderous gallantry. Lambert came to her rescue, responding for her jokingly. His efforts to entertain Mr Chawleigh were praiseworthy, but the attempt to adapt his tone to what he thought would be acceptable caused him to assume something of the manner of a man good-naturedly humouring a child, and soon earned him a set-down.

  Miss Chawleigh bore herself throughout with composure, but rather silently: a circumstance on which her father rallied her, as they drove back to Russell Square. She said: ‘Well, I like listening better than talking. But I did talk, Papa: to my lord, and to Miss – to Charlotte! She has asked me to call her that.’

  ‘Mighty condescending of her!’ he grunted. ‘How do you go on with her? Proud sort of a girl, ain’t she?’

  ‘Oh, no! She was very kind, and means to like me, which is truly good, I think, because she doesn’t wish my lord to marry me. She tried hard to seem pleased. I’d like to tell her that I understand how she must feel, but I don’t know her well enough. And perhaps it wouldn’t be quite the thing.’

  ‘Now, Jenny, tell me to my head!’ commanded Mr Chawleigh, laying his hand on her knee. ‘You don’t want to draw back, my girl? I’m not forcing you into it, mind!’

  ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ she replied uncommunicatively.

  He sat back again in his corner of the carriage, saying that he was glad of it. ‘Setting aside the position you’ll have – not that that’s a thing to be lightly done, and don’t you think it! – I like his lordship. That’s not to say that he’s after my cut, or that I’d want to be joined with him in business, but he’s my notion of a regular gentleman. As for his family, I’m sure his ma is a sweet lady, poor soul! I didn’t take to that sister myself, but if she treats you as she ought, which you say she does, she may be as niffy-naffy as she pleases for aught I care. Taking the fat with the lean, I like his lordship’s family better than I thought to do.’

  It was unfortunate that his lordship’s family did not reciprocate these sentiments. Lady Lynton, bearing the appearance of one prevented from swooning only by frequent recourse to her vinaigrette, begged to be told what she had done to deserve such an infliction as Mr Chawleigh; and Charlotte exclaimed, wringing her hands: ‘Oh, my dear Adam, you should have warned us! The shock to poor Mama! We never supposed he could be such a very vulgar person!’

  ‘Oh, come now!’ Lambert said, laughing. ‘It’s natural you should think so, but I can tell you there are many worse! Though I must say –’ He stopped, encountering Adam’s eyes, blinked, and then said rather hastily: ‘I beg pardon! One’s tongue runs away with one sometimes!’

  Adam nodded, and turned away from him. The ladies were not to be so easily silenced, and, after the usual practice of people discussing the faults of the absent, soon discovered in Mr Chawleigh many and more serious shortcomings than had originally been apparent to them. It was useless to defend him; and an attempt to bring the debate to an end merely resulted in Lady Lynton’s exclaiming tragically that things had come to a pretty pass when a mother might not speak frankly to her son. She added that she hoped she had too much regard for his feelings to utter one word in disparagement of his future wife. She could only trust that he would be able to prevail upon her not to overload her person with jewels which, besides being ostentatious, were unsuited to her years, and could at no time be worn to advantage by squabby females who had neither air nor countenance to set them off.

  Charlotte felt that this was going too far. She said quickly: ‘Depend upon it, she only does so because her father wishes it! How thankful we must be that she is not at all like him!’

  ‘Exactly so!’ said Lambert. ‘A very agreeable girl, and with a good understanding, I daresay. As for her father – well, ma’am, there’s no need to think about him, after all! I heard him tell you that he didn’t mean to force himself on you.’

  ‘If I could believe he meant it!’ sighed the widow.

  ‘You may at least believe, Mama, that I mean it when I tell you that he will at all times be made welcome in my house!’ said Adam, rather sternly.

  ‘Oh, Adam, not at Fontley!’ Charlotte cried involuntarily.

  ‘Certainly at Fontley! You seem to forget that but for him Fontley must have been sold! Do you imagine that I shan’t invite him to visit us there? Handsome of me!’

  She turned her face away, saying in a low voice: ‘I had forgotten, or perhaps haven’t allowed myself to reflect upon a circumstance so mortifying – so impossible to bring oneself to accept! I will say no more.’

  ‘I think enough has been said,’ he returned wearily.

  This sentiment was not shared by his mother, who declared herself compelled to say that no one had considered her feelings. Her sole consolation was that Adam’s poor father was not alive to be similarly lacerated.

  Charlotte burst into tears, uttering a choked protest; but a rueful smile crept into Adam’s eyes. All he said, however, was: ‘Very well, Mama. Shall I cry off? Is that what you wish?’

  If he expected the Dowager to be confounded by this question he underrated her. She told him that she had no wishes that were not bound up in the happiness of her dear ones. ‘Far be it from me to try to influence you!’ she said. ‘Alas, our natures are so widely opposed, dearest, that I cannot tell what will make you happy! Wealth means nothing to me. It is otherwise with you, and you must judge for yourself. One thing you may be sure of: no word of blame will ever pass your mother’s lips!’

  On this splendid line she withdrew to her bedchamber, leaning on Charlotte’s arm, and denying any expectation of closing her eyes all night.

  Happily for her dear ones, her thoughts were given another direction on the following day by the news that Wimmering had received a very handsome offer for Lynton House. Indeed, th
e prospective purchaser was prepared to pay the high price set on it if he could have immediate possession. Adam closed with this offer; and the pangs which instantly assailed his parent were almost as quickly cured by his telling her that the sale would make it possible for him to provide for Lydia. So Lady Lynton was able to mourn the loss of a house she neither liked nor wanted, and was supplied with a self-sacrificing reason for acquiescing in its sale. She had now only to decide which pieces of furniture she wished to keep for her own use. Adam gave her carte blanche to take what she chose, and left her to Charlotte’s management. Since everything the house contained appeared to hold precious, if hitherto unsuspected, memories, it seemed unlikely that much would remain to be put in store.

  Seven

  The wedding took place on April 20th, a date that coincided with Louis XVIIIth’s entry into London, where he was met in state by the Prince Regent. He had been living privately at Hartwell, and this was the first time in his twenty years of exile that he had been publicly acknowledged as King of France. This circumstance did much to reconcile Mr Chawleigh to the quiet function forced on him by Adam’s bereavement. ‘For it stands to reason,’ he said, ‘that with all this fuss and to-do over that Frenchy no one would have paid any heed if I’d done the thing twice as handsomely as I’d have wished to!’

  Public events were certainly occupying everyone’s attention. Adam had returned from a brief visit to Fontley to hear the Tower guns firing in honour of the Allied entry to Paris; a week later came the news of Bonaparte’s abdication, to be closely followed by the publication of a dispatch from Lord Wellington, sent from Toulouse on April 12th. It seemed as if his lordship had won his last victory in the war. It had dragged on for so many years that people felt as much incredulity as excitement; there were even those who darkly prophesied that the Allies would yet be taken at fault; and many who thought it madness to allow Bonaparte to retire to Elba.

  ‘Mark me if he don’t start up again!’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘There’s only one thing to be done with him, and that’s to make an end of him, for it stands to reason that a fellow that’s been rampaging all over won’t stay quiet on a bit of an island, which is what I’m told this Elba is. We’ll have him breaking out again, sure as a gun!’ He added, after chewing the cud of disgruntled reflection, that it seemed as if the only thing that would make people take notice of his Jenny’s marriage was for the Grandduchess of Oldenburg to attend the ceremony.

  This lately widowed lady, sister of the Emperor of Russia, had arrived in London some weeks previously, and was staying at the Pulteney, on Piccadilly, having arranged to hire the whole hotel for the accommodation of herself, one of her daughters, two very ugly ladies-in-waiting, and a number of servants. It was generally believed that a match was being planned between her and the Prince Regent; or, if he failed to obtain a divorce from the Princess of Wales, that she might take his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in his stead. She herself said that her visit was one of mere pleasure and sight-seeing; and it hardly seemed that she was taking trouble to make herself agreeable to the Regent. Well-informed persons said that her only matrimonial schemes were vicarious, and that she was meddling in the affairs of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, whose engagement to the Prince of Orange did not seem to be prospering.

  ‘And why anyone should want to gape at her every time she drives out I’m damned if I know!’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘To my way of thinking she’s an antidote, in spite of the white skin we hear so much about. It’s as well for her she has got a white skin, because otherwise you’d take her for a negress, with those thick lips of hers!’

  It was evident, in spite of these strictures, that if only some member of the Deveril family had been acquainted with the Grandduchess nothing would have deterred him from inviting her to the wedding: not, as he explained to Adam, from any desire to rub shoulders with such exalted persons, but because he had always promised to turn his daughter off in prime style. ‘Which it would be,’ he pointed out. ‘It would have made as big a hit as if I’d got the Lord Mayor to come in his coach.’

  Adam replied sympathetically, but was firm in denying the slightest acquaintance with the Grandduchess. He wondered for an unnerving moment if Mr Chawleigh knew of the late Viscount’s friendship with the Prince Regent. Mr Chawleigh did, but he said he hoped he knew better than to aim as high as that. ‘A foreigner’s one thing, but the Prince Regent’s quite another. She may be the Emperor of Russia’s sister, but who’s he, when all’s said?’

  ‘Who indeed?’ agreed Adam. ‘Let us not trouble our heads over any Royals! We shall do much better without them!’

  He spoke cheerfully, with nothing in his voice or manner to betray the sense of unreality which possessed him. He seemed to himself to be living in a dream. Dreams were without future, and he did not try to discover what his might be, being too tired to force his brain to look forward. He had, indeed, little time for contemplation: he was kept endlessly busy; and, as the wedding-day approached, was harassed by such a multitude of things forgotten and things left undone that he only managed to snatch one brief meeting with Lord William Russell, who had brought home the dispatch from Toulouse. The meeting did him good; and in learning all that had happened since he had left the Army, getting news of his friends, rejoicing in Lord March’s miraculous recovery from the wound he had received at Orthes, and laughing at the latest Headquarters’ jokes, he found reality again for a short space, and was heartened by it.

  He bore himself at his wedding in a manner which Lady Oversley declared to be beyond praise. She was a good deal affected, and told her lord later that she could have wept to see dear Adam concealing what must be his true feelings, only his pallor showing how much the effort cost him.

  In fact, there was no effort. Adam, back in his unquiet dream, only obeyed the dictates of his breeding. Good manners demanded a certain line of conduct, and since it was second nature to him to respond to that demand it was with no effort but mechanically that he talked and smiled at the wedding-breakfast.

  There were only a dozen persons present, but nothing could have exceeded the display of plate, or the splendour of the refreshments. The regalia on the sideboard of jellies, creams, and pies made Lydia open her eyes; and she afterwards insisted that she had counted eight dishes a side on the table.

  Lydia had come to London in subdued spirits, chastened by a homily from Charlotte. When she first saw Jenny, all white satin and lace and diamonds, she thought she looked dreadfully commonplace. White satin did not become Jenny; and, to make matters worse, she was as flushed as Adam was pale. She was quite composed, however, and spoke her responses clearly; but after the ceremony Lydia thought that perhaps she was not as composed as she seemed, for when she believed no one to be looking at her she pressed her hands to her cheeks, as though to force back her high colour.

  Lydia felt very low during the unromantic ceremony; but in Russell Square her melancholy vanished. Her surroundings were entirely new to her, and although she had heard a great deal about Mr Chawleigh’s taste she had never imagined quite so much opulence. She looked about her with bright-eyed appreciation, drinking it all in, and wishing that she could exchange just one glance with Adam. That was impossible, but Lord Brough did very well as a substitute. Their eyes met fleetingly, and she saw by the lazy twinkle in his that he was enjoying it as much as she was; and she began to feel much more cheerful. It was still tragic that Adam was married to Jenny instead of Julia, but it was impossible to be sad in the middle of such an ill-assorted party. It was even difficult not to laugh when Mrs Quarley-Bix, robed in Berlin silk, and highly rouged, greeted Lady Lynton with the effusive affectation of intimacy, and lost no time in placing herself on equality with her by the employment of such phrases as: ‘You and I, dear Lady Lynton…’ and: ‘Persons of quality, as we know, dear Lady Lynton…’

  Mr Chawleigh, observing the merry look in Lydia’s eye, took an instant fancy to her, and bore down on her. She was not as beautiful as her sister, but what he called
a big, handsome girl, with no nonsense about her. By way of breaking the ice he told her that he was downright ashamed of himself for having provided no smart beaux for her entertainment. ‘There’s only my Lord Brough to be split between you and Lizzie Tiverton, and that’s what I call a shabby way of doing things. Not but what there won’t be much splitting done, if his lordship’s got as much sense as I think he has!’

  Lydia, who partook far more of her father’s robust character than her brother and sister, was not at all offended by this speech. No one like Mr Chawleigh had previously come in her way, but by the time the assembled guests sat down to the Gargantuan meal provided for them he and she were in a fair way to becoming fast friends; and several times her mother was pained to hear her spontaneous, schoolgirl’s laugh break from her. Lady Lynton, conducting herself throughout with impeccable, if chilly, civility, later took Lydia to task for laughing at Mr Chawleigh, and read her a lecture on the want of breeding she had shown in wounding his sensibilities.

  But Mr Chawleigh’s sensibilities were not even grazed. His shrewd eyes twinkled at Lydia; and he presently told Lady Lynton that he didn’t know when he had taken more of a liking to a girl. He added, in a confidential undertone, that he had placed Lord Brough beside her at the table. ‘Though she tells me she’s not out yet, and his lordship ought to be next to Miss Tiverton. But what I say, my lady, is: Hang Lizzie Tiverton! His lordship will be better pleased to talk to Miss Lydia!’