A Civil Contract Page 5

  Meanwhile, she was making plans for her own maintenance. She thought it only right to inform Adam that Mama, after calculating ways and means, had come to the conclusion that although no one must doubt her readiness to stuff her last crust into the mouth of a famished daughter she would be wholly incapable of providing for this damsel out of the miserable portion which was her jointure.

  With a sinking heart Adam picked up the second sheet of this missive, and discovered that Mama had formed the intention of seeking an asylum in Bath, with her sister, Lady Bridestow. This, Lydia wrote, could never prosper, since Aunt Bridestow was a widow of much longer standing than Mama.

  The precise significance of these words eluded Adam, but he gathered that they were ominous. Whatever might be the issue the younger Miss Deveril had realized that she was unlikely to be a comfort to Mama, and had therefore decided to seek her own fortune, since nothing (heavily underscored) would prevail upon her to be a charge on her brother. It was just possible that her new scheme might not win his approbation, but she had no doubt that his commonsense would rapidly enable him to perceive all the advantages attached to it.

  In the deepest foreboding he turned the sheet, to discover that his worst fears had been outdistanced: the younger Miss Deveril (but she rather thought she should adopt the name of Lovelace) had formed the intention of leaping to fame and affluence upon the London stage with her brilliant portrayals of all the better known comedy rôles. And let not Adam doubt that she could do this! At Christmas, when a large party had been entertained at Fontley, theatricals had been the order of the day. Twelfth Night had been the chosen play; and by the greatest stroke of good fortune the lady selected to enact the part of Maria had been struck down at the eleventh hour by a sudden indisposition and Lydia had taken her place. Everyone had declared her to be a Born Actress. In this unanimous judgement she concurred, but doubted, modestly, whether she would make a hit in the tragic rôles. Comedy was her forte, and although this might entail the playing of some breeches-parts she was persuaded that Adam would see no real objection to that, whatever Charlotte might say. In short, she would be very much obliged to him if he would approach whichever of the theatrical managers he thought the most respectable, and represent to this magnate that a rare chance was offered him of engaging the services of a young actress perfectly ready to take the town by storm, and not at all afraid of challenging comparison with such experienced players as Mrs Jordan, or Miss Mellon, or Miss Kelly. He gathered, with a grin, that the appearance on the boards of Miss Lydia Deveril (or Lovelace) would be the signal for these ladies to retire into chagrined obscurity.

  He might laugh at his sister’s naïve plans, but they added nothing to his peace of mind. It distressed him to know that she was scheming how to support herself when she should have been thinking of her coming-out, and drove to the back of his tired mind his own trouble. He found the time, not to approach a respectable manager, but to write a tactful reply to Lydia; and was engaged on this task when a waiter came up to his private parlour with a visiting-card on a salver, and a note addressed to him in Lord Oversley’s hand.

  ‘Gentleman waiting downstairs, my lord.’

  Adam picked up the card, and read it with slightly raised brows. It was a rather larger card than was usually carried, and the name on it was inscribed in extremely florid script. Mr Jonathan Chawleigh ran the legend. It was followed by an address in Russell Square, and by another in Cornhill. This seemed very odd. Mystified, Adam turned to Lord Oversley’s letter. It was brief, merely requesting him to receive my good friend, Mr Chawleigh, and to give careful consideration to any proposition which that gentleman might lay before him.

  ‘Desire Mr Chawleigh to step upstairs,’ Adam said.

  He recognized in the waiter’s wooden countenance, and in the utter lack of expression with which he replied: ‘Very good, my lord,’ profound disapproval. Undismayed, but at a loss to account for Mr Chawleigh’s visit, he nodded the waiter away, and awaited events. That Lord Oversley had some scheme in mind for his relief was plain enough, but in what way the unknown Mr Chawleigh could contribute to it he was quite unable to imagine.

  In a few minutes the waiter returned, announcing Mr Chawleigh, and into the room stepped a very large, burly man, who halted on the threshold, and favoured Adam with a fierce stare, directed from under a pair of craggy brows.

  The stare was at once suspicious and appraising. Adam met it tranquilly enough, but he did not entirely relish it. There was amusement in his face, but a faint hauteur too: what the devil did this fellow, who looked like a tradesman, mean by glaring at him?

  Mr Chawleigh was a middle-aged man, whose powerful frame was clad in an old-fashioned suit of snuff-coloured broadcloth. Unlike his host, who wore a close-fitting coat of black superfine, with cutaway tails, pantaloons, and Hessian boots, Mr Chawleigh favoured a mode that had been for many years worn only by respectable tradesmen, and perhaps a few country squires who had no ambition to figure in the world of ton. His coat was full-skirted, and he wore knee-breeches, with stockings, and square-toed shoes embellished with steel buckles. His shirt-points were no more than decently starched, and his neckcloth was tied with more neatness than artistry; but his waistcoat relieved the general drabness of his raiment with broad, alternating stripes of grass-green and gold. The most henhearted member of the dandy-set would have died at the stake rather than have worn such a garment, but it was certainly magnificent. So was the diamond pin stuck into Mr Chawleigh’s neckcloth, and the emerald ring on his finger. He was plainly a man of substance, but he reminded Adam of nothing so much as a belligerent bull, with his great, muscular shoulders, his short, thick neck, and the habit he had of champing his jaws, as though chewing the cud of his ruminations.

  ‘Mr Chawleigh?’ Adam said.

  ‘That’s my name. Jonathan Chawleigh: no more and no less! That ain’t to say I couldn’t get a handle set to it, if I’d a mind to do it. I’d look as like as ninepence is to nothing, wouldn’t I? Nay, Jonathan Chawleigh’s good enough for me! Good enough for anyone, come to think of it,’ he added ruminatively. ‘I’ll tell you this, my lord! – you won’t find a name that’s more honoured in the City, look where you will!’ This was uttered in a voice of menacing challenge; but fortunately for Adam, who could think of nothing whatsoever to say, Mr Chawleigh continued abruptly: ‘Now, I’m one that likes to be sure of my ground! You are the Viscount of Lynton?’

  Taken aback, Adam answered: ‘I’m Viscount Lynton – yes.’

  ‘No of?’ said Mr Chawleigh acutely.

  ‘No of,’ corroborated Adam, with admirable gravity. ‘We Viscounts, you know, are a part of what you might call the scaff and raff of the peerage! No one under the rank of an Earl may use of!’

  ‘That’s something his lordship didn’t tell me,’ Mr Chawleigh observed. ‘I daresay it don’t make much odds, but the fact is I did fancy an Earl. Still, a Viscount’s better than a Baron. A Baron’s no manner of use to me: you won’t budge me from that!’ He directed another of his searching looks at Adam, and chuckled: ‘Ay, you’re wondering who the devil I am, and what I want with you, ain’t you?’

  Adam laughed. ‘I do wonder what you want with me, but not who you are, sir! You are Lord Oversley’s friend. Won’t you sit down?’

  Mr Chawleigh allowed himself to be shepherded to a chair, but said, keeping his shrewd eyes fixed on Adam’s face: ‘Told you that, did he? I take that kindly in him. I wouldn’t make so bold myself, though I don’t deny I’ve been able to nudge his lordship on to a sure thing now and now, and I’ve always found him very affable. But I’m no tuft-hunter, prating about my grand friends, Lord This and Lord That, which don’t bamboozle any but gapeseeds. You want to remember that!’ he added, shooting out a thick finger at Adam. ‘You won’t find me setting up in Mayfair, all amongst the nobs, for I know well I’d be doing naught but making a bobbing-block of myself.’ He refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff. ‘That’s better!’ he announced, wiping his nose with a
handkerchief of finest lawn. ‘Hardman’s 37: nothing to beat it!’ He looked at Adam with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘So that’s all you know about me, is it? A friend of my Lord Oversley!’ He brooded over this for a moment or two. ‘Didn’t tell you more than that, eh?’

  ‘No,’ Adam replied, adding, with a smile: ‘Having told me that there was no need to tell me more.’

  ‘H’m! Didn’t tell you what my business with you is? I thought he would – though he did say he would leave me to lay to you my own way. Damme if he’s not a knowing one! Guessed I’d want more than his testimony before I’d come up to the chalk.’ He nodded, and cast another penetrating stare at Adam. ‘If he had told you what I am he’d have told you that I’m mighty well up in the stirrups. I’m one as likes round dealing – which isn’t to say I won’t get a point the better of a man in a matter of trading, mark you! But there’s no one can say he was clerked by Jonathan Chawleigh! I run no rigs, my lord, because it ain’t my nature, and, what’s more, a good name’s worth a hundred Dutch bargains! I’ve got that all right and regular, and as for my credit, that’s good wherever there’s trading done. You’ll be wanting to know how I made my blunt – for I didn’t come into the world hosed and shod!’

  Feeling slightly stunned, Adam was about to disclaim any such desire when his instinct warned him that his overpowering visitor would take this in bad part. He tried, therefore, to look as if he were interested. Mr Chawleigh smiled indulgently, and said: ‘I’ll wager you wouldn’t be much the wiser if I was to tell you, my lord, and that’s as it should be: each to his own last! You might say I was an India merchant, which is how I began in trade. I’m that, sure enough, but I’m some other things besides: in fact, I’ve got a finger in pretty well every pie that was worth the baking.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Adam, ‘but why do you tell me this?’

  ‘It might be,’ said Mr Chawleigh, watching him, ‘that I’d be willing to stick a finger in your pie, my lord.’

  ‘So I collect,’ said Adam. ‘But if Lord Oversley has informed you that my pie is worth the baking I think I should tell you that he has misled you.’

  ‘That’s as may be. But I’ll tell you to your head, my lord, that the tip of my little finger in your pie would be enough to save your groats. Suppose I was to thrust my whole hand in?’

  ‘You’d find yourself with a bad investment, Mr Chawleigh. I don’t know what Lord Oversley may have told you, but since I’ve no more liking for Dutch bargains than you have I’ll make it plain to you at once that my affairs are quite out of frame. I imagine you don’t invest your money without seeing at least the chance of a handsome return. I can’t offer you that. If, as I suspect, you think of taking up a mortgage –’

  ‘I’ve got no interest in mortgages,’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh. ‘Not but what I’d buy up those you’ve got already, and never ask a penny of you – if we reached an agreement! Nor I don’t want to buy that place of yours neither. It’s not money I’m looking for, my lord. It’s something different I want, and you may take it I’m ready to pay down my dust to get it if I find the right article, which it may be I have done. Setting aside what his lordship says of you, I like the cut of your jib, my lord – no offence meant or taken, I hope!’

  ‘None at all,’ responded Adam, as much amused as bewildered. ‘I am much obliged to you! But what is it that you do want of me?’

  Mr Chawleigh sat champing his jaws for several moments, as though uncertain how to proceed. Finally, he scratched his head, and ejaculated: ‘Damme if anyone ever had to urge me to come to the point before in a matter of business! I’m a plain man, my lord, and how to wrap things up in clean linen I don’t know, nor don’t want to. The fact is, it ’ud have come better from his lordship. However, you’ve put the question to me downright, and I’ll give you a square answer: It’s your name I want, my lord.’

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Properly speaking,’ amended Mr Chawleigh, ‘your title. Though an Earl was what I had in mind, supposing I couldn’t get a Marquis. A Duke I don’t hope for, and never did: you won’t find Jonathan Chawleigh casting beyond the moon! Dukes are above my touch, and no need to tell me so!’

  ‘My dear sir, what are you talking about?’ demanded Adam, in the liveliest astonishment. ‘I can’t give you my title!’

  ‘Damme, I’m not such a nodcock that I don’t know that!’ said Mr Chawleigh, with asperity. ‘It ain’t for myself I want it! It’s for my daughter!’

  ‘Your daughter!’

  Mr Chawleigh raised an enormous hand in a quelling gesture. ‘Easy, now! Don’t you go stiffening up till you’ve heard what I’ve got to say!’

  ‘Are you acquainted with Wimmering – with my man of business?’ demanded Adam.

  ‘I’m not, but I’ll be happy to meet him – supposing we should come to an understanding. Not that I wouldn’t act as fair by you without any lawyer to oversee the bargain, but I don’t think the worse of you for wanting to make sure you ain’t being burnt. What’s more, I’d as lief settle it with a man of affairs. That way, we’ll have it all shipshape and Bristol-fashion.’

  ‘I beg your pardon! I fear I misled you. I asked the question – oh, for quite another reason!’

  ‘Ay, did you? Well, maybe I can guess what that was,’ said Mr Chawleigh with his rather grim smile. ‘Don’t you get to thinking that because I’m a Jack Straw I’m a clodpole besides! I’m as nacky a man as any in the City: I wouldn’t else have made my fortune! And if, as I’ll be bound he did, your man of business told you that the only way to bring yourself about was to get riveted to an heiress he told you no more than’s true, for all you may not like it, which I can see you don’t.’

  Feeling more than a little battered, as much by his visitor’s discursiveness as by his forceful personality, Adam attempted to stem the flood. ‘Mr Chawleigh, pray do not –’

  ‘Now, wait a bit!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh, again raising his ham-like hand. ‘If you don’t care for the scheme you can say so, and no harm done, but I came here to make you an offer – provided I made up my mind that you’d suit, which I have done – and I’ll go through stitch with it, for that’s my way. I don’t think the worse of you for not leaping at it like a cock at a blackberry – in fact, I’d have bid you good-day, if you had – but it won’t hurt you to hear what I’ve got to say. And the first thing I’ve got to say, so as there’ll be no misunderstanding betwixt us, is that I’ve a pretty fair notion how badly you’re dipped. That don’t matter to me, because it wasn’t you that played wily-beguiled with your fortune, which would have been quite another pair of shoes: I’ll frank no gamester, not if he was a dozen Marquises rolled into one! His lordship assures me you don’t bet nor play more than is genteel, and that I don’t object to, though I’m not a betting-man myself.’ He paused, but Adam, realizing that nothing short of a brigade of nine-pounders would halt him, had resigned himself to the inevitable, and offered no comment. This seemed to please Mr Chawleigh, for he nodded, and smiled affably. ‘Well, now!’ he said, settling himself in his chair with all the air of a man about to hold forth at length. ‘You’ll be wondering what made me take such a notion into my head, and I’ll tell you, my lord. I’ve no other chick nor child, nor never looked to have when Mrs Chawleigh was carried off. There were plenty that set their caps at me, mark you, for I was a pretty warm man then, but I never could fancy putting anyone in her place. She was a grand lass, my Mary! Sound as a roast, and came of good stock, too: yeoman-stock, and proud of it! She was thought to have married below her station when we got ourselves leg-shackled, but I swore I’d set her up in style before she was much older, and, by God, I did it! She died when Jenny was no more than three years old: died in childbed, and the brat with her – not that I cared for that, though it was a boy, like we’d hoped for. I’ll say no more about that, or I’ll be falling into the dismals. The thing is, when Jenny was born, Mrs Chawleigh said to me – thinking I’d be disappointed she wasn’t a son – “Jonathan,” she said, “m
ark me if we don’t live to see her married to a lord! For the way you’re rising in the world,” she said, “I don’t see what’s to stop her!” Funning, she was, but the notion took both our fancies, and the long and the short of it is that when she died I made up my mind I’d marry Jenny according to her wish. And when Jonathan Chawleigh makes up his mind, my lord, he’s a hard man to baulk!’

  Adam found no difficulty in believing this, but he said gently: ‘Don’t you think, perhaps, that Mrs Chawleigh would have wished to see her daughter married to a man of superior rank, and greater substance than mine?’

  ‘Ay, I don’t doubt she would,’ replied Mr Chawleigh frankly. ‘But she didn’t want for sense, and she’d have seen as fast as I did that it was no manner of use thinking of Marquises and Earls for a girl like Jenny. Mind, no expense was spared on her rearing! I’m no muckworm, and I never grudged a groat of the fortune I spent on educating her! And this I will say, I got her turned out in prime style! Every inch a lady she is! She had all the extras: pianoforte, singing, dancing, French and Italian, watercolour painting, use of the backboard – everything! And as for book-learning, why, I often say she’s as good as an almanack! I sent her to school in Kensington, you know. She didn’t like it above half: wanted to stay at home with me, but I knew better than to let her do that. I could have got governesses for her, and dancing-masters, and the rest, but that wouldn’t have helped her to rub shoulders with the nobs, would it? Which is what she has done, make no mistake about it! Ay, I sent her to Miss Satterleigh’s Seminary for the Daughters of Gentlemen.’ A rumbling laugh shook him. ‘If I was to tell you what it cost me, first and last, my lord, you wouldn’t credit it! A Bluestocking, that’s what that tabby is supposed to be, but what I say is that she should have set up a two-to-one shop instead of a school, for a bigger lickpenny I wish I may never meet! Held up her long nose at my Jenny she did, until I let her know how full of juice I was. After that –’ He paused, caressing his chin, and grinning reflectively. ‘Well, I’ve got to own she was a damned knowing one! There’s not many can boast of having put the change on Jonathan Chawleigh, but she did it, just as soon as she saw I was ready to pay through the nose for what I wanted. Which I did, I promise you. However, I don’t grudge it to her, because, though it didn’t answer as well as I’d hoped for, that wasn’t her fault.’ He sat in ruminative silence for a moment or two, before disclosing, in a burst of confidence: ‘You won’t find me puffing off my goods above their value, so I don’t mean to tell you my Jenny’s a beauty, because she ain’t. Mind you, she’s by no means an antidote: not squinney, nor buttertoothed, nor anything of that kind! I’m bound to own, though, that she don’t take. She’s quiet, you see, and as shy as be-damned. That’s what floored me, and I don’t deny there’s been times when I was downright vexed with her, for she hasn’t lacked for chances to get arm-in-armly with the nobs, if she’d only made a push to do it, instead of shrinking into a corner, and staying dumb as a mouse, so that no one so much as noticed her. Now, if she’d been of Miss Julia’s cut – ! There’s a beauty for you! She don’t lack for suitors, I’ll warrant you an egg at Easter! Ay, that was the one friendship Jenny struck up at school that did make me feel hopeful. The lord knows what made ’em take a fancy to each other, for they ain’t a bit alike, setting aside that my Jenny’s two years older than Miss Julia. That was how I came to be acquainted with my Lord Oversley. Well, I was able to do him a good turn at a time when he was in bad loaf, which put him, as you might say, under a bit of an obligation. Now, him and me’s as different as chalk from cheese, but we got to be pretty friendly. He’s a man I like, and one as I can talk to without roundaboutation, which I did, telling him straight what I wanted for my girl. Of course, I wasn’t looking to him to find a lord for Jenny, but what I did want, and what I got, was for my Lady Oversley to put her in the way of meeting a lord or two. There’s no one could have been kinder: that I will say! She had my Jenny to all manner of grand parties, besides inviting her just to spend the day with Miss Julia, the way she’d get acquainted with all the swells that came there paying morning visits, and the like. It ain’t her blame that nothing came of it.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘Well, it’s not often I’ve been taken at fault, but I own I was beginning to think myself at a stand when his lordship came to me, to propose I should consider whether a Viscount wouldn’t answer the purpose, because if so he rather fancied he might be able to put me in the way of getting next and nigh the very man for my money. Very frank and open he was with me, and a rare good character he gave you, my lord, if you won’t take snuff at my saying so. Nor at my telling you that I wasn’t by any means mad after the scheme. Letting alone a Viscount’s not an Earl, whichever way you look at it, I wouldn’t want to rivet my Jenny to anyone that was ready to marry a midden for muck, as the saying is. Nay, you’ve no need to take an affront into your head, my lord! The first thing my Lord Oversley told me was that the chances were you wouldn’t like the notion – which I took leave to doubt, begging your pardon, until he told me who you was. Lord Lynton was what he called you, and, barring that I knew your pa was a member of what they call the Carlton House Set, and a buck of the first cut, by all accounts, I was none the wiser. But, of course, as soon as he disclosed to me that you were Captain Deveril – well, that put a different complexion on the matter!’