A Civil Contract Read online

  Lady Lynton, though she accepted the compliment politely, was not gratified. On the other hand, Adam, who had noticed, with relief, that Lydia seemed to be on the best of terms with her host, smiled gratefully at her when he met her eyes across the table.

  In his lazy, unconcerned way Brough too was proving himself to be a tower of strength. Mr Chawleigh, quick to detect and to resent condescension, thought him a very nice young fellow: of much the same cut as Lord Oversley, who was good-naturedly engaging Mrs Quarley-Bix’s attention at one end of the table, while his lady, at the other end, maintained a flow of inconsequent conversation, laughed at all her host’s jokes, and delighted him by partaking of all the dishes offered her and declaring that she had never tasted anything so good.

  When Jenny went upstairs to change her dress Lydia accompanied her, rescuing her from Mrs Quarley-Bix, whose proffered ministrations were clearly unacceptable to her. Waiting only to be sure that Miss Tiverton, a very shy girl, did not mean to put herself forward, she got up, saying: ‘May I come with you? Pray let me!’

  ‘That’s right!’ approved Mr Chawleigh. ‘You go with Miss Lydia, love, and do you sit down again, Mrs Q.-B.! Jenny don’t want two of you to help her dress, thanking you all the same!’

  Lydia trod beside her new sister up the heavily carpeted stairs, trying to think of something friendly to say. But it was Jenny who first spoke, saying with a stammer: ‘Thank you! I’m much obliged to you! I hope you don’t dislike it?’

  ‘No, no, of course not!’ Lydia replied, flushing. ‘If you don’t!’

  ‘Oh, no! so kind!’ Jenny sighed. ‘If you knew what Mrs Quarley-Bix has been like all day – !’

  Lydia giggled. ‘Your papa says she has been capering like a fly in a tar-box! Goodness, is this your bedchamber? Isn’t it huge?’ She stood looking about her in astonishment, presently remarking that there was much to be said for being an only daughter. ‘My bedchamber isn’t nearly as big, and nor is Charlotte’s.’ She added, turning her serious gaze upon Jenny: ‘I expect you’ll think Fontley pretty shabby.’

  ‘Oh, no, I promise you I shan’t! Pray don’t think – Oh, Martha, Miss Lydia Deveril has been so kind as to come and help me! Martha used to be my nurse, Miss Deveril.’

  ‘You should call me Lydia: I wish you will,’ Lydia said, sitting down on the end of an elegant day-bed. She smiled at the angular female who was dropping her a stiff curtsy, and said: ‘I won’t get in the way: I will only watch!’

  The abigail’s presence did not help to lessen the constraint that tied each young lady’s tongue. Conversation was confined to the merest commonplaces, Jenny’s contributions to it being largely monosyllabic. It was not until she stood fully attired, and Martha had left the room, that she seemed to brace herself, and abruptly addressed Lydia. ‘You love him, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You needn’t tell me: I know you do, and that this isn’t what you – or he – wished. I only want to tell you that he’ll be comfortable: I’ll see to that!’ The intensity of her expression was broken by a wintry little smile. ‘You don’t think that signifies, but it does. Men like to be comfortable. Well – he will be! That’s all!’

  She ended this speech with a determined nod, and without waiting for a reply went out of the room with a brisk step, leaving Lydia to follow her downstairs to where the assembled company awaited her in the hall.

  The leave-takings were not prolonged. Mr Chawleigh, enfolding his daughter in a bear’s hug, bade Adam, between jocularity and ferocity, to take good care of his girl; Lady Lynton said mournfully that she hoped Adam would be happy; Charlotte and Lady Oversley shed tears; and Lydia, convulsively embracing Adam, whispered: ‘I don’t hate her! I don’t!’ and the gentlemen of the party offered bluff congratulations mingled with recommendations not to keep the horses standing.

  The posting-chariot, which was one of Mr Chawleigh’s wedding-gifts, stood at the door, a team of match-bays harnessed to it, and the Lynton arms emblazoned on the door panels and the rich hammercloth; behind it a fourgon was drawn up, for the accommodation of my lord’s valet, my lady’s abigail, and all their baggage; and the final touch of grandeur was supplied by a couple of liveried outriders. Adam handed his bride into the chariot, paused only for a word with Brough, and followed her; the steps were put up, the door shut; and as goodbyes were called and handkerchiefs fluttered the carriage moved forward. Since postilions had been chosen for the journey the box seat, under that resplendent hammercloth, was unoccupied. So too was the rumble, Adam having successfully resisted Mr Chawleigh’s attempts to foist two footmen on to him.

  The equipage swept round the angle of the square; and as the group on the flagway was lost to sight Adam turned away from the window, and smiled at Jenny, saying: ‘Well, your father may say what he chooses, but I think we had a very handsome wedding, don’t you? Are you very tired after it all?’

  ‘Well, I am fagged,’ she acknowledged, ‘but not as much as you are, I daresay.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘You’re worn to a bone: I know that. You’ve had far more to do than I have – besides other things. I only hope you may not be sea-sick in this carriage!’

  He laughed. ‘I hope not indeed! Do you think you will?’

  ‘Well, I think I might. It sways about so much. I daresay I shall grow used to it, but if I don’t you mustn’t tell Papa, if you please! He would be so disappointed, for he had it specially built.’

  ‘It won’t be as bad once we’re off the stones. Lean back and shut your eyes! Did you bring your smelling-salts with you?’

  ‘I haven’t any. Oh, yes, I have! A horrid vinaigrette, which was Mrs Quarley-Bix’s wedding-gift to me. I expect she had it by her, for she couldn’t have supposed it would be of the least use to me.’

  ‘Ungrateful girl! Don’t tell me you left it behind!’

  ‘Yes, but never mind! I shall soon grow accustomed.’

  This seemed to be true, for after remaining for some time with her eyes closed she presently opened them, and turned her head a little to study Adam’s profile. He was not at first aware of her scrutiny, his thoughts being remote from her, and his inattentive gaze fixed on the changing landscape; but after some minutes, as though suddenly conscious that he was being watched, he glanced at her.

  His vision of ethereal loveliness vanished. Beside him, plump and a little homely, sat reality, in a stylish pelisse, and a hat whose poke-front and curled ostrich feathers made an incongruous frame for a round, rosy face remarkable only for its determination. Revulsion held him speechless for a moment, but as his eyes met Jenny’s he saw the anxiety in hers, and his mood changed to one of compassion. Whatever had been her motive for consenting to the bargain struck by her father, she did not look happy. He thought her case to be worse than his own. The benefits accruing to him through marriage were solid; if she sought social advancement, he, born into the ton, and taking for granted the advantages of birth and rank, believed that she would discover her elevation to the peerage to be a worthless thing. If she had been forced into a loveless match by her father’s ambition, she was the more to be pitied. He did pity her, and forgot his own aching heart in the need to reassure her. How to do it he did not know; he could only smile at her, and take her gloved hand in his, saying cheerfully: ‘That’s better! Have you been asleep?’

  Her hand trembled momentarily, but she replied in a steady voice: ‘No, but I am better now, thank you. I should like to talk to you, if I may.’

  Having possessed himself of her hand he could not think what to do with it, or how to be rid of it. She solved the problem for him by quietly withdrawing it. He said quizzically: ‘If you may? Now, what can you be going to say that needs my permission, goose?’

  She smiled perfunctorily. ‘Oh, no! Only that you might not wish – I can’t tell, but I think we should discuss our – our situation. I have frequently wanted to, but we have so seldom been granted the opportunity. And perhaps you would have thought it improper in me. I can’t tell that either, for I am
not thoroughly acquainted with you yet, and, though I do try to set a guard on it, I know I have a blunt tongue – I was for ever being scolded for it, at Miss Satterleigh’s!’

  ‘You need never guard it when you talk to me: indeed, I hope you won’t! But first let me tell you that I’m not blind to the evils of your situation. We are barely acquainted, as you have said yourself: it must be uncomfortable for you indeed!’ He smiled at her, not lovingly, but very kindly. ‘That evil will soon be remedied. In the meantime, don’t be afraid! I won’t do anything you don’t like.’

  She took a moment or two to answer this, her countenance inscrutable. ‘You’re very obliging,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not afraid. That wasn’t it! I daresay there are many husbands and wives who were no better acquainted at the outset than we are. It wouldn’t do for people who have a great deal of sensibility, but I don’t think I have much. I mean, there’s no need for you to be in a worry over me: I hate fusses and twitters! In general, persons in my walk of life don’t deal much in marriages of convenience, but in yours they are pretty common, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes – that is, I believe they do still occur, but I really don’t know much about it,’ he said, hardly knowing how to reply to so forthright a speech.

  ‘I don’t mean to embarrass you,’ she said, perceiving that she had done so, ‘but there’s no sense in shamming it: we both know that I’m not quality-born. The thing is, you might suppose that I don’t understand marriages of convenience. Well, I do, so you needn’t fear I shall expect you to sit in my pocket. Nor that you’ll find me hanging on you, like a bur, wanting to know what you’re doing every minute of the day, and why you didn’t come home to dinner.’ She raised her eyes, giving him a resolute look. ‘I shan’t interfere with you, my lord, or ask you any questions. You’ll not live under the cat’s foot, I promise you.’

  ‘Are you giving me permission to embark on a career of profligacy?’ he demanded, trying to turn it off lightly. ‘Ought I to bestow a similar carte blanche on you? You’ll think me very unhandsome, I’m afraid, for I’ve no such intention! I’m even shabby enough to reserve to myself the right to ask you any number of questions!’

  She shook her head, smiling, but lowering her eyes. ‘That’s a different matter. Not that it’s likely you’ll have cause to be uneasy: I’m not pretty enough!’ She paused, and drew a difficult breath, her colour mounting. ‘I’m not the wife you wished for, but I’ll do my possible to behave as I should. You’ll be wanting an heir, and I hope I shall give you one. I should like to have children, and the sooner the better. But that’s for you to decide.’ She stopped, tightly folding her lips, and turned away her face, to look out of the window; but after a few moments, during which he tried to think of something, anything, to say to her, she spoke again, saying in a conversational tone: ‘This is a new thing for me, you know: to be going to stay in the country. My mother was a countrywoman, but Papa is town-bred, and hasn’t any liking for the country, so whenever we have been out of London it has been to Brighton, or to Ramsgate or some such place. Have we far to go before we reach your aunt’s house?’

  Eight

  They stayed for less than a fortnight in Hampshire, the honeymoon being shortened by Lady Lynton’s determination to join her sister in Bath immediately, and Lambert Ryde’s equal determination to marry Charlotte before this date. Family affairs called him north again; and he proposed in earnest what he had originally suggested in jest: that he should carry Charlotte to Scotland for their honeymoon. Charlotte could not deny that the prospect filled her with delight, but wrote diffidently to Adam. On the one hand, she dreaded an indefinite postponement of her wedding; on the other, she could not bear the thought of being led to the altar by anyone but her brother.

  ‘Well, I should think not indeed!’ exclaimed Jenny, when Charlotte’s letter was shown to her. ‘Do write to her directly, and tell her that you’ll be there! You can see she’s quite in a worry, and what difference does it make if we go to Fontley a few days earlier than we intended?’

  ‘As long as you don’t dislike it – ?’

  She replied, with the commonsense which made her at once an easy and an unexciting companion: ‘What are a few days more or less to us? To be sure, I like it here, but now I know that Lady Nassington means to present me at the May Drawing-room we must have gone back to town at the end of a fortnight, because of my Court dress. I ordered one to be made for me, and chose the materials for it, but I must try it on, you know.’ Her eyes narrowed to slits as a rueful chuckle overcame her. ‘I shall look dreadfully in it!’ she disclosed. ‘Me, in hooped petticoats! Why, I’ll be as broad as I’m high! Let alone not knowing how to manage, which Lady Oversley warned me I must practise before appearing in public in it. Well, I only hope I don’t disgrace you!’

  ‘You won’t do that. Then I am to tell Charlotte she may settle for Monday, 9th May, as she wishes?’

  ‘Yes, pray do so! We may go to Fontley on the Friday before, so, if we leave here on the Tuesday, that will give me two days in Grosven – in London, to have the Court dress fitted on me, and to buy the feathers, and the rest.’

  She ended on a note of constraint, but he gave no sign of noticing either this, or the stumble in her speech, saying merely, in a pleasant tone: ‘Very well: I’ll write to Charlotte.’

  The honeymoon had contained awkward moments that were inevitable in the circumstances, but these had been overcome, thanks largely (Adam acknowledged) to the prosaic attitude adopted by his bride. If their union was devoid of romance, less embarrassment attached to it than he had foreseen. Jenny was sometimes shy, but never shrinking. The trend of her mind was practical; she entered into married life in a business-like way; and almost immediately presented the appearance of a wife of several years’ standing. She quickly discovered, and never forgot, his particular fads; she neither demanded nor seemed to desire his constant attendance on herself, but sent him forth to fish the trout stream, greeting him on his return with an enquiry after the sport he had enjoyed, and a placid account of her own activities. Since these included, besides practising on the pianoforte and sketching in the park, hemming, with exquisitely small stitches, a set of handkerchiefs for himself, he was uncomfortably remorseful, feeling that she must have been driven to such a dull task by boredom. She assured him, however, that she enjoyed what she called white needlework; and she certainly seemed content with the quiet life she was leading. Rushleigh Manor might have afforded two persons lost in love an ideal honeymoon-resort; but there was nothing very much for the Lyntons to do there. Adam fished, rode or drove with Jenny; and, in the evenings, they played chess, Jenny played the pianoforte, or sat stitching while Adam read aloud to her. He was much inclined to blame himself for having brought her to Rushleigh, when one of the livelier watering-places would probably have been more to her taste; but when he said so she shook her head, in her decided way, and replied that she would not have liked it half as well. ‘I know all about watering-places, but I have never before stayed in a country house,’ she said. ‘It’s quite new to me, and very agreeable. I am learning a great deal besides, which makes me particularly glad we came here. I shan’t be quite so ignorant when we go to Fontley. I didn’t know how different it would all be from a town house.’

  ‘Now you are exposing my ignorance! Is it so different?’

  ‘Oh, yes! In London, you know, one buys, but in the country one makes – or things grow, like cabbages and apples and eggs – Now, don’t laugh at me! you know very well what I mean! Pigs, too: fancy curing one’s own hams! You’d hardly credit it, but until I came here I had never seen cows milked, or had the least notion how butter was made. I like watching what they do on the farm as well as anything. Have you a farm at Fontley?’

  ‘A home farm? Yes – though not, I’m ashamed to say, such a neat one as this!’

  She accepted this without comment, but asked, after a moment, if Fontley were as large as Rushleigh Manor.

  Rushleigh was not Lord Nassington’
s principal seat; and if Adam had been asked to describe it he would have called it a pretty little place in Hampshire. In fact, it was a charming Queen Anne house of mellow red brick, set in a small park; but it bore so little resemblance to Fontley that he was startled into exclaiming: ‘Fontley? But, my dear Jenny – ! There can be no comparison!’

  ‘Do you mean that Fontley is larger?’ she said, not, perhaps, dismayed, but certainly awed.

  ‘Yes, of course it is!’ He checked himself, and added, with a laugh and a faint flush: ‘I can never think any house superior to Fontley, you know. Now you will be expecting a Chatsworth, or a Holkham!’

  ‘No, I shan’t. I’ve never seen either, so how could I? I collect that Fontley is very big?’

  ‘It is bigger than this house, of course, but – well, it is so different! None of the rooms in it is precisely handsome, except for the Great Hall, but there are many more of them than there are here. Perhaps you will be disappointed, or say, as my mother does, that it is shockingly inconvenient, with far too many passages, and staircases, and rooms leading one out of the other. You see, it wasn’t built to a plan, as this one was. A part of it – all that remains of the original Priory – is very old indeed, but my predecessors added to it, and altered it, each according to his fancy, until it grew to be – I suppose one might say a perfect hotch-potch! Most of it is Elizabethan – but don’t be afraid that you’ll find yourself in a bedroom with an uneven floor and a ceiling so low that you can touch it! The principal bedrooms are in the wing my grandfather built. I hope you’ll like it – and can set your mind at rest on one point at least! – We have no ghost to trouble you, though we have got a ruined chapel!’

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts. Is it a real ruin?’

  ‘Very completely. Indeed, hardly anything of it remains standing.’