A Civil Contract Read online

  Lord Oversley, rising also, and going to him to lay a hand on his shoulder, said: ‘I know, my boy, I know! And if I were a rich man –’

  He was interrupted. The door opened suddenly; a male voice was heard to exclaim: ‘No, dash it, Julia, you can’t – !’ and he and Adam turned to see that Miss Oversley was standing on the threshold, one hand clasping the door-knob, the other holding her riding-whip and gloves.

  For a moment or two she remained there, her lips parted in eagerness, her eyes, almost too large for her little delicate face, full of light. The picture she presented was lovely indeed. She was a slim creature, so fragile that it was easy to understand why her admirers called her Sylph. Even the feathery curls peeping from under a hat like a shako were ethereal; and her severely cut riding-dress seemed merely to emphasize her fairy-like charm.

  Adam stood gazing at her, his heart in his eyes. She let her whip and gloves fall, and ran forward, uttering in a soft, joyful voice: ‘I knew it! You couldn’t be so close to me and I not know! Adam!’

  Entering the room in her wake, her brother Charles interpreted this for his father’s ear, saying in an undervoice: ‘Saw the hat in the hall, and guessed how it was! Darted off before I knew what she meant to do.’

  She would have thrown herself into Adam’s arms, but he prevented her, catching her hands in a painful grip, and holding her at a distance. He was very pale, and could not command his voice to speak more than her name. He bent his head to kiss her hands, his own shaking.

  Lord Oversley said bracingly: ‘A little less in alt, Julia, if you please! We are all glad to see Adam home again, but there is no occasion for these transports. I don’t think you and Charlie met when you were last in England, Adam, but I daresay you haven’t forgotten each other.’

  His heir, nobly seconding this attempt to create a diversion, said immediately: ‘Lord, no! That is, I remember you, Lynton, though you might not remember me. How do you do?’

  Adam released Julia’s hands. He was still pale, but he replied with tolerable composure: ‘Of course I remember you! I own, however, that I might not have recognized you again.’

  ‘No, well, I was only a schoolboy when you first joined. Jupiter, how much I did envy you!’

  ‘Adam!’ Julia faltered. ‘Oh, what has Papa been saying to you?’

  ‘Now, for heaven’s sake, Julia!’ interrupted Oversley testily. ‘I’ve said nothing Adam doesn’t say himself, so –’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she exclaimed, turning her brimming eyes towards Adam. ‘No, no, I don’t believe it! You haven’t changed! I know you have not!’

  ‘No – not that, but –’

  ‘For shame, Adam!’ she said, showing him an April face. ‘Oh, how vexed I am with you! What a scold you deserve! Did you think I was fickle? Or that I care a rush for wealth? I think I will give you a scold!’

  She had stretched out her hands to him again, an enchanting smile trembling on her lips. He took them, but he dared not trust himself to look into her face, and said, keeping his eyes lowered: ‘I could never doubt you. But when I – when we – when I had the presumption to ask your father –’ He broke off rather hopelessly, and continued after a moment’s pause: ‘I thought then that I should be able to support you. The ugly truth is that I’m not even able to provide for my sisters. If I were to be thinking of marriage now I should be the greatest villain unhung – and your father as bad, if he so much as considered my suit!’ he added, trying for a smile.

  She directed an arch look at her parent, and said audaciously: ‘Pooh! As though we couldn’t bring Papa about our thumbs! Stoopid!’

  Adam raised his eyes. ‘Julia, you haven’t understood. Dear love, this is no case of being obliged to live for a time in straitened circumstances. I – I have no circumstances. Within a very short space now I shan’t even have a home to offer you.’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘No home? But – but Fontley – ?’

  ‘I am putting Fontley up for sale.’

  There was a shocked silence. Charles Oversley directed a look of astonished enquiry at his father, but Oversley was looking under suddenly frowning brows at Adam. Julia cried, in a throbbing voice: ‘Oh, no, no, no!’

  Adam did not speak.

  She pulled her hands free. ‘You cannot mean that! Oh, how can you talk so? Dear, dear Fontley! All its associations – the home of the Deverils throughout the ages!’

  ‘No, hang it, Ju!’ expostulated her brother. ‘Can’t have been! I mean, it’s a Priory! That’s the same as a monastery, ain’t it? Dissolution of the monasteries – well, I don’t precisely remember when that was, but the thing is there can’t have been any Deverils living there before it – unless, of course – No, that won’t fit!’ he decided, adding knowledgeably: ‘Celibacy of the clergy, you know. So that’s a hum!’

  In spite of himself Adam laughed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. The first Deveril of whom we have any very precise information settled in Leicestershire. There has been a Deveril at Fontley only since 1540 – and a shocking rogue he was, from all I can discover!’

  ‘Very likely,’ agreed Mr Oversley sagely. ‘Seems to me that most of those old fellows were regular thatchgallows. Well, only think of the Oversley who made our fortunes! When he wasn’t playing least in sight he was pretty well swimming in lard, wasn’t he, Papa?’

  ‘Alas, too true!’ said his father, twinkling.

  ‘Oh, don’t talk so, don’t talk so!’ Julia broke in. ‘How can you turn everything to jest? Adam, you didn’t mean it! Strangers at Fontley? Oh, no! every feeling revolts! The groves and the alleys! The chapel ruins where I’ve so often sat, feeling the past all about me, so close that I could almost fancy myself a part of it, and see the ghosts of those dead Deverils who lived there!’ She paused, looking from one to the other, and cried passionately: ‘Ah, you don’t understand! Not even you, Adam! How is it possible? Charlie doesn’t, I know, but you – ?’

  ‘I should rather think I don’t!’ said her brother. ‘If you ever saw a ghost you’d run screeching for your life! What’s more, I remember those ruins quite as well as you do, and very likely better! Whenever we stayed at Fontley we used to play at hide-and-seek amongst ’em, and capital sport it was!’

  ‘There were other days,’ Julia said, in a low tone. ‘You choose to pretend that you don’t care, Adam, but I know you too well to be hoaxed! You were used to partake of all my sentiments: this reserve has been forced on you by Papa!’

  Adam replied steadily: ‘I do care. It would be absurd to pretend that I didn’t. If I seem to you reserved it’s because I care too much to talk about it.’

  She said, with quick sympathy: ‘Oh, how horrid I am! how stupid! I understand you – of course I understand you! We won’t speak of it, or even think of it! As for repining, I shan’t do so, I promise you! Could you be happy in a cottage? I could! How often I have longed to live in one – with white walls, and a thatched roof, and a neat little garden! We’ll have a cow, and I’ll learn to milk, and make butter and cheese. And some hens, and a bee-hive, and some pigs. Why, with these, and our books, and a pianoforte, we shall be as rich as nabobs, and want nothing to complete our felicity!’

  ‘Oh, won’t you?’ struck in her unappreciative brother. ‘Well, if you mean to cook the meals Lynton will precious soon want something more! And who’s to kill the pigs, and muck out the henhouse?’

  This sardonic interpolation went unheeded. Julia was rapt in contemplation of the picture she had conjured up; and Adam, tenderly amused though he was, felt too deeply moved to laugh. He could only shake his head; and it was left to Lord Oversley to bring his daughter down to earth, which he did, by saying briskly: ‘Very pretty, my dear, but quite impractical. I hope Adam can find something better to do than to keep pigs. Indeed, I have no doubt he will, and all the more easily without encumbrance! No one is more sorry than I am that things have turned out as they have, but you must be a good girl, and understand that marriage is out of the question. Adam feels this as str
ongly as I do, so you need not think me a tyrant, puss!’

  She listened with whitening cheeks, and turned her eyes imploringly towards Adam. She read the answer in his face, and burst into tears.

  ‘Julia! Oh, don’t, my darling, don’t!’ he begged.

  She sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands, her slender form convulsed by deep sobs. Fortunately, since neither her father nor her brother showed the smallest ability to contend with such a situation, Lady Oversley at that moment came into the room.

  A very pretty woman, plumper than her daughter, but with the same large blue eyes, and sensitive mouth, she exclaimed distressfully, and hurried forward. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear! No, no, my love! Adam, dear boy! Oh, you poor children! There, there, Julia! Now, hush, my dearest! You mustn’t cry so: you will make yourself quite ill, and think how painful for poor Adam! Oh, dear, I had no notion you had come in from your ride! Oversley, how could you? You must have been perfectly brutal to her!’

  ‘If it is brutal to tell her that she can’t live in a thatched cottage, rearing hens and pigs, I have certainly been brutal, and Adam too!’ retorted Oversley, with some acerbity.

  Lady Oversley, having removed Julia’s hat, had clasped her in her arms, and was tenderly wiping the tears from her face, but she looked up at this, and exclaimed: ‘Live in a cottage? Oh, no, dearest, you would be very ill-advised to do that! Particularly a thatched one, for I believe thatch harbours rats, though nothing, of course, is more picturesque, and I perfectly understand why you should have a fancy for it! But you would find it sadly uncomfortable: it wouldn’t do for you at all, or for Adam either, I daresay, for you have both of you been accustomed to live in such a very different style. And as for hens, I would not on any account rear such dispiriting birds! You know how it is whenever an extra number of eggs is needed in the kitchen: the hen-woman is never able to supply them, and always says it’s because the creatures are broody. Yes, and then they make sad noises, which you, my love, with your exquisite sensibility, would find quite insupportable. And pigs,’ concluded her ladyship, with a shudder, ‘have a most unpleasant odour!’

  Julia, tearing herself out of that soft embrace, started to her feet, dashing a hand across her eyes. Addressing herself to Adam, standing rigid behind a chair, his hands gripping its back, she said in a voice choked by sobs: ‘I could have borne any privation – any discomfort! Remember it!’ She laughed hysterically, and hurried to the door. Looking back, as she opened it, she added: ‘My courage did not fail! Remember that too!’

  ‘Well, of all the shabby things to have said!’ ejaculated Mr Oversley, as the door slammed behind his sister.

  ‘Hush, Charlie!’ commanded his mama. She went to Adam, and warmly embraced him. ‘Dear boy, you have done just as you ought – just as we knew you would! My heart aches for you! But don’t despair! I am persuaded you will come about! Recollect what the poet says! I’m not sure which poet, but very likely it was Shakespeare, because it generally is, though why I can’t imagine!’

  With these obscure but encouraging words she departed, pausing only to recommend Mr Oversley to follow her example. Only too thankful to escape from this painful scene, Mr Oversley took leave of Adam. When he had gone, Adam said: ‘I think, sir, that I’ll take myself off too.’

  ‘Yes, in a minute!’ Oversley said. ‘Adam – what you said to Julia – Fontley – You are not serious? Things are not as bad as that?’

  ‘I was quite serious, sir.’

  ‘Good God! But you must have ten or twelve thousand acres of good land!’

  ‘Yes, sir. Much of it encumbered, and all of it so neglected that the rent-roll has dwindled to little more than a thousand pounds a year. It could be ten times as much if I had the means –’ He stopped. ‘Well, I haven’t the means, and I can only hope that someone more fortunately circumstanced will perceive how easily farms worth no more than twelve shillings an acre might be valued, five years from now perhaps, at four times that sum. I think we must be fifty years behind the times at Fontley.’

  Hardly heeding him, Oversley exclaimed: ‘Adam, this must not be! Yes, yes, I know! You’re saddled with short tenancies – no proper covenants – open fields – too much flax and mustard being grown – bad drainage – But these ills can be remedied!’

  ‘Not by me,’ Adam replied. ‘If I had twenty – fifteen – even ten thousand pounds at my disposal I think there is a great deal I could do – supposing that I were free of debt, which, unhappily, I am not.’

  Looking very much shocked, Oversley began to pace up and down the room. ‘I hadn’t thought – Good God, what can have possessed – Well, never mind that! Something must be done! Sell Fontley! And what then? Oh, yes, yes! You’ll rid yourself of debt, provide for your sisters, but what of yourself? Have you considered that, boy?’

  ‘I daresay I shan’t find myself quite destitute, sir. And if I do – why, I shan’t be the first officer to live on his pay! I haven’t sold out, you know. As soon as I’ve settled my affairs –’

  ‘Nonsense!’ interjected Oversley. ‘Don’t stand there talking as though selling your birthplace was no more to you than disposing of a horse whose action you don’t like!’ He resumed his pacing, his brow furrowed. After a few moments, he said over his shoulder: ‘Julia’s not the wife for you, you know. You don’t think it now, but you’ll live to be glad of this day’s work.’ Receiving no answer to this, he repeated: ‘Something must be done! I don’t scruple to tell you, Adam, that I think it your duty to save Fontley, whatever it may cost you to do it.’

  ‘If I knew how it might be done I don’t think I should count the cost,’ Adam said, a little wearily. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t know. Don’t tease yourself over my affairs, sir! I shall come about. I’ll take my leave of you now.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Oversley, emerging briefly from deep cogitations.

  Adam resigned himself. Silence reigned, while his lordship stood frowning at the carpet. After a long pause he looked up, and said: ‘I think I may be able to help you. Oh, don’t stiffen up! I’m not offering to frank you, my dear boy! The lord knows I would if I could, but it’s all I can do to keep myself above hatches. This curst war! Ay, and if Boney is beaten before the year’s out – did you see that Bordeaux has declared for the Bourbons? The latest on-dit is that there’s a deputation coming to invite Louis to go back to France. I have it on pretty good authority that they are expecting it, at Hartwell. I don’t know how it will answer, and in any event they don’t look for any sudden prosperity in the City, whatever be the outcome. Well, that’s for tomorrow, and not what I had in mind to say to you. It occurs to me –’ He paused, and shook his head. ‘No, better I shouldn’t disclose to you – I don’t suppose for a moment you’d like it, and I’m not even sure that – Still, it might be worth while to throw out a feeler!’ He looked undecidedly at Adam. ‘Not going back to Fontley immediately, are you? Where are you staying?’

  ‘At Fenton’s, sir. No, I’m not going home for some days yet: there’s a great deal of business to be done, and although Wimmering is very good – far more competent than I am, indeed! – things can’t be settled without me.’

  ‘Good!’ said Oversley. ‘Now, there’s only one thing I have to say to you at present, Adam! Don’t do anything rash until I’ve seen what I can do! I have a notion in my head, but it might well be that it won’t answer, so the least said to you now the better!’

  Three

  When Adam had left Mount Street Lord Oversley suffered some qualms of conscience, fearing that he had raised hopes that he might presently be obliged to dash to earth. Had he but known it his apprehensions were wasted: Adam’s hopes were not at all raised. If, at a moment of severe emotional stress, he had been capable of weighing them, he would have concluded that they were the words of a kindly optimist, for he could imagine no way in which Oversley could rescue him from his embarrassments. He was not so capable. For many hours the ruin of his own hopes drove the larger problems with which he was confronted to t
he back of his brain. They were not forgotten, but while his lost love’s breaking voice still echoed in his ears, and her beautiful face was vivid in his memory, every other ill seemed trivial.

  In some detached corner of his mind he knew that his present despair could not, in nature, endure, and ought not to be encouraged, but it was long before he could drag his thoughts from contemplation of what might have been and concentrate them instead on what must be.

  It was perhaps fortunate that there was too much business demanding his attention to leave him with much time for reflection. It acted as a counter-irritant rather than a palliative, but it kept him fully occupied.

  A diversion, which presented him with an added anxiety, as well as some inevitable amusement, was provided by his younger sister, who sent him a long letter, for which he was obliged to disburse the sum of two shillings. Lydia apologized for this vicarious extravagance, pointing out to him that since he was away from home she had been unable to obtain a frank.

  She had abandoned her matrimonial schemes. Charlotte (Adam invoked a silent blessing on her head) was of the opinion that the acquisition of a wealthy and senile husband was not a matter to be accomplished with the speed requisite for the re-establishment of the family fortunes. Recognizing the force of this argument, Lydia wrote to warn Adam not to place any reliance on her former project. In a loving attempt to alleviate the pangs of disappointment she assured him that if she should contrive, at some future date, to achieve her ambition her first care would be to compel her hapless spouse to buy back Fontley, and to bestow it instantly on her dear Adam.