A Civil Contract (16 page)

It was not surprising that it should have exhausted him, for it was more complicated than he had foreseen, and he was obliged to play it while labouring under severe spiritual stress. It was his duty, as he saw it, to thrust his bride into the heart of the ton. It never occurred to him that his own charm and address might achieve his object with the expenditure of very little effort. He saw himself as the insignificant son of a man of immense popularity; and he went to Nassington House determined, however distasteful the task might be, to exploit this popularity, and to persuade his father’s friends, if he could, to accept Jenny because they liked him well enough not to wish to wound him. This in itself was sufficiently disagreeable to make him look forward to the evening’s entertainment with revulsion; when, at the very outset, to this obligation was added the more urgent need to exert himself to the utmost in an effort to shield his love from malicious tongues – and his wife, too, poor little soul! – what had been designed as a party of pleasure became a prolonged ordeal through which he had moved, exchanging light-hearted conversation with his fellow-guests as though nothing had happened to disturb him. Whether he had succeeded in convincing the suspicious he had no idea: he had done his best, and if that proved to be not good enough he was much too tired to consider what more could be done.

So he was grateful to Jenny for her comfortable common-places. They might argue a certain insensibility, but they were preferable to the comments and questions he had dreaded – and why, after all, should she show sensibility over an episode which (if she had realized its significance) could scarcely have wounded her, however much it might have mortified her?

Except that she did not mention the matter at all, which was a little surprising, he could have believed that she really did think the heat responsible for Julia’s collapse. She was her usual, matter-of-fact self, though rather sleepy; she demanded neither explanation nor reassurance: he could relax at last.

Some hours later, when he saw her over the teacups at the breakfast-table, he thought she looked as though she had not slept very much after all. She had not, but she merely said that she was unused to such late nights.

‘You should have stayed in bed. I wish you may not have got up merely to make tea for me?’

It was what she had done, knowing that he was very unhandy with urns and teapots, but she said: ‘As though you couldn’t make it yourself! No, indeed!’

‘I can’t,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘I can never get it as I like it, and if they make it for me downstairs it’s worse. Thank you: that is
exactly
as it should be!’

She smiled, but having supplied his wants turned to the perusal of an advertisement which had been sent her through the post, and which adjured her, in the strongest terms, to lose no time in procuring a new and infallible Nostrum for Gout. She had not the smallest use for this commodity, but if she sat with nothing to occupy her she knew that Adam would bestir himself to talk to her, and Adam did not like breakfast-table conversation.

He went away presently; and after sitting for some time, pondering the problem which had kept her awake during what had remained of the night, she got up from the table, and sent a message to the stables. An hour later, having executed a commission in the Strand, she was being driven back, not to Grosvenor Street, but to Lord Oversley’s house in Mount Street.

Mr Chawleigh, to Adam’s intense but rigorously suppressed annoyance, had visited the stables and the coach-house attached to Lynton House while the bridal pair were in Hampshire, and had condemned out of hand the landaulette which had previously served the ladies of the house. He thought it a very dowdy turn-out; and he replaced it with a glossy barouche, on whose shallow doors he insisted on having the Lynton arms blazoned. The carriage was drawn by a pair of showy chestnuts. Mr Chawleigh had paid a large price for them, but he was not a judge of horseflesh, and when Adam first saw them he ejaculated involuntarily: ‘Oh, my God!’

However, Jenny was not a judge of horseflesh either, so she was quite satisfied with her peacocky pair. They might have been bishoped, as John Coachman told Adam he was willing to swear they had been, but they were quite capable of conveying her about the town in dashing style.

She found Lady Oversley at home, and was taken upstairs to the drawing-room, where her ladyship welcomed her with affection but rather nervously. She was looking harassed, and when Jenny disclosed that she had called to enquire how Julia did she answered in a flurry: ‘Oh – ! So very kind of you! My dear, I’m afraid I didn’t thank you – in the agitation of the moment, you know! But Emily Castlereagh told me how good you were, and indeed I am very much obliged to you! Poor Julia! The rooms
were
hot, weren’t they? I was conscious of it myself, and, of course, Julia’s constitution is
not
strong. She is not in very high health – in fact, quite out of sorts! – so I have kept her in bed today, and Dr Baillie has given me a composer for her.’

Jenny nodded. ‘I was afraid she would fall into one of her hysterical fits,’ she remarked. ‘I thought about it a great deal, after we had gone home, and it seemed to me as though the best thing would be for me to come to see you, ma’am, because I don’t doubt you’re in quite a worry. Well, I don’t know much about tonnish people yet, but I expect they don’t differ greatly from anyone else, and Julia’s going off as she did, the instant she clapped eyes on Adam, is bound to set tongues wagging.’

Thankfully abandoning pretence, Lady Oversley said tragically: ‘Oh, Jenny, I declare I am worn to a bone! What with Julia, and then Oversley – But she did
not
faint on purpose!’

‘No, of course she didn’t. I don’t understand how people can faint away as she does, but there’s no denying that it never needed more than a harsh word to send her off. She used to suffer dreadfully from the vapours, too.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Lady Oversley. ‘And all the doctors could find amiss was that she was too excitable! But she doesn’t have the vapours now – at least, not if she is
gently
treated, and not scolded when she is already so much distressed! I don’t mean to say that I didn’t sympathize with Oversley – heaven knows I could have
murdered
her! In
that
house of all others, and with Emily Cowper in the very room! But what, I ask you, Jenny, is the use of ringing a peal over the poor child, and driving her into hysterics?’

‘Well, it isn’t any use at all, and never was,’ said Jenny. ‘Not that one can wonder at his lordship’s ripping up at her, for gentlemen don’t like scenes, except when they create ’em themselves, like Papa, when the meat’s not dressed right. The thing is, what’s to be done now?’

‘I can’t
think
!’ said Lady Oversley. ‘I am being driven distracted! Oversley is saying that if Julia can’t conduct herself with propriety she had best retire to a convent, which is quite absurd, for if she retired anywhere it would be to old Lady Oversley, but I don’t
wish
her to! Here she is, in her second season, and how, I ask you, is she to be creditably married, when her father talks such nonsense, and
she
will do nothing but – Oh, dear, how awkward this is! I shouldn’t be talking about it to you at all, which just
shows
how much my nerves are overset!’

‘There’s no need for anyone to be in a worry over me,’ replied Jenny stolidly. ‘No need for any flummery between us either, ma’am. No one thinks Adam married me for love. Only it’s a pity that everyone should know it was Julia he wanted, and she him.’ She paused, frowning. ‘There’s plenty of people who fall in love, and then fall out of it again, so I daresay it doesn’t signify, however many of her friends Julia took into her confidence. But it won’t do, will it, for her to be showing everyone that she’s wearing the willow for him?’

‘No, it will
not
do!’ agreed her ladyship, with feeling. ‘And so disagreeable to you, too, which, I
assure
you, I perfectly understand!’

‘That don’t signify. It’s Adam I’m thinking about – and you too, ma’am, for you’ve been very kind to me.’

‘I shall have to keep Julia out of his way. And how I am to do it, unless I send her back to Tunbridge Wells –’

‘Well, you can’t, of course, and to my way of thinking it wouldn’t answer. Sooner or later they’ll be bound to meet, and ten to one we’d be regularly in for it again, because the sight of him would be bound to bring it all back to her. And it won’t do to avoid us, because you’ve always been very friendly with the Deverils, by what Lydia’s told me, and so
that
would set people talking. So what I came to say to you, ma’am, was that the best thing is to let the quizzes see that we’re all very good friends. There’s no sense in putting Julia in Adam’s way more than’s needful, but if she visits me, and goes out with me now and then, she
will
meet him, and – and grow accustomed to it.’

Lady Oversley, who was regarding her in a good deal of astonishment, said: ‘But Jenny,
surely
you cannot wish – I mean,
is
it wise?’

Jenny was silent for a moment. ‘Well, I’ve been wondering that myself. Of course, the best would be if they were never to meet at all, but since that can’t be it seems to me better they should meet often enough for it to get to be an ordinary thing than to meet only by accident.’

‘If only I had
known
!’ exclaimed Lady Oversley, dissolving into tears. ‘I ought never to have allowed it, but it seemed so
suitable
! Oh dear, who could have guessed it would end in my cherished Julia breaking her heart? Though of course I should have guessed she would, because she always said he was like Sir Galahad, which I’m sure he is – if Sir Galahad was the one I think he was – Or don’t you think so?’ she asked, perceiving that Jenny’s eyes had narrowed in sudden laughter.

‘Well, I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have thought so. But I was never one for reading those old romances and legends that Julia dotes on,’ said Jenny apologetically. ‘I
do
know that he likes his eggs boiled for four minutes exactly, and won’t touch muffins.’

‘Won’t touch muffins?’ faltered Lady Oversley.

‘Can’t abide them! And there’s nothing frets him more than having his things out of order. He says it comes from living in tents, when there’s no bearing it if you don’t keep everything just so. I’ve been obliged to tell my housekeeper that if she can’t keep the maids from rearranging the things on his dressing-table she’ll have to leave at the term. Mind, for anything I know Sir Galahad may have been pernickety too – though I’d wager you an egg at Easter, as Papa says, that that’s not what Julia thinks!’

‘No,’ said Lady Oversley faintly. ‘No, indeed!’

‘So, if you’re agreeable, ma’am, I’ll try if I can’t coax Julia to drive with me in the Park tomorrow. And if you and my lord would bring her to dine with us next week, when Adam’s mother and Lydia will be with us, we should be very happy. It would be a natural thing for you to do, wouldn’t it, with Lady Lynton going off to Bath, as she is, and spending a couple of nights in Grosvenor Street? It won’t be a regular party, though I mean to invite Lord Brough as well.’

‘Oh, but Julia would never – Oh, dear, I don’t know what to say! Of course it would make an excellent impression, if it were known that we had all dined informally with you, but I’m afraid Julia would shrink from such a scheme!’

‘I don’t doubt she will, but there’s no saying but what I may be able to bring her round my thumb. I’ll go up to her, if I may.’

Startled, Lady Oversley said: ‘No, no! I mean, she is so much overpowered – She won’t wish to see you, Jenny!’

‘Very likely not, but she won’t have any choice. Now, don’t be in the fidgets, ma’am! There’ll be no harm done, I promise you!’

With these words she got up, and walked briskly out of the room, leaving Lady Oversley feeling helpless and extremely apprehensive.

The light in Julia’s room was dim, the blinds having been drawn across the windows. Shutting the door, Jenny said cheerfully: ‘May I come in? Though that’s a silly thing to say when I’m in already!’

She could just perceive Julia, lost in the middle of the large bed. The fair head turned on the pillow. ‘You!’ Julia uttered.

‘That’s right,’ said Jenny. ‘I came to see how you did. You won’t mind if I draw the blinds back: I shall be blundering into the furniture if we don’t have a bit more light.’

‘Have you come to reproach me?’ Julia demanded. ‘You need not!’

The sunlight flooded the room; Jenny trod over to the bed, saying: ‘Now, when did I ever do so, goose?’ She bent over Julia, and kissed her cheek. ‘Stop fretting yourself to flinders, love!’

Julia shrank, turning her face away. ‘I wish you hadn’t come! You mean to be kind, I collect, but you don’t understand! If you had sensibility –’

‘Well, I haven’t, so there’s no sense expecting me to behave as if I had. And just as well for Adam I haven’t,’ Jenny added, ‘for if I were to carry on as you do, Julia, he’d be driven demented between the pair of us!’

Julia pulled herself up. ‘I would not have spoken his name to you, or have uttered a word of what lies between us, if
you
had but refrained!’

‘No, I daresay you wouldn’t,’ agreed Jenny, shaking up her pillows. ‘So I haven’t refrained. Not that it’s an easy thing to talk about, but it makes for awkwardness if we must never mention it. I don’t know how to hide my teeth either, so you say what you wish, and don’t fear to offend me, because you won’t do it.’

The huge eyes gazed wonderingly at her. ‘How strange you are!’ Julia said. ‘I suppose I never understood you. But I thought I did! When they told me – showed me the notice in the
Gazette
– I wouldn’t believe it! You were my friend! You
knew
, but you stole Adam from me! How
could
you?’

‘That’s more than I can tell you, for I didn’t steal him, and wouldn’t have done so, even if I’d thought I could. What, set myself up as a rival to
you
? Don’t talk such nonsense, Julia! Papa made the match, unbeknownst to me.’

‘Oh, that’s contemptible!’ Julia interrupted, flinging up her hand. ‘Next you will tell me it was not in your power to refuse!’

‘No, I shan’t. I
did
refuse, when he first broached it to me – before I knew how things stood – that things had been put an end to between you and Adam. He
couldn’t
have married you, Julia! He was all to pieces! I daresay you don’t know what his father’s debts were, for it’s not likely he’d tell you, but Papa knew, and he told me. Adam was selling everything – even Fontley!’

‘That at least I knew! And
he
knew it didn’t weigh with me! I would have lived in a hovel, and counted myself happy! You may smile, but it’s true!’

Jenny begged pardon, but said: ‘It weighed with him – I think, more than anything. I don’t understand that myself, but I can see what’s under my nose.
He
wouldn’t have been happy, not if he’d lost Fontley.’

‘I would have made him so! Do you think you will? You won’t! It’s me he loves, not you!’ She caught her breath, and said quickly: ‘Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean to say that! Hateful, hateful – ! Go, Jenny!
pray
go now!’

Jenny paid no heed to this, but answered: ‘I know that. There’s no pretence of love between him and me: that wasn’t part of the bargain.’

‘The bargain!’ Julia exclaimed, shuddering. ‘No, I can never have understood you!’

‘Or him,’ interpolated Jenny dryly.

Julia stared at her, repeating slowly: ‘Or him! No – or him! Ah, but yes, I do understand what forced
him
to do it! But you? For a title? But you never cared for such things! You can’t have sold yourself for mere position!’

‘Why not? I’m not the first, and I shan’t be the last to do so. Easy to despise what you’ve always had!’ replied Jenny, returning the stare doggedly.

‘I don’t believe it! I
couldn’t
have liked you if you had been so mercenary!’

‘Well, it doesn’t make any odds what you think of me, and the lord knows I’ve felt badly enough about it. I wouldn’t have consented to it if there had been the least chance of his being able to marry you, but there wasn’t. He didn’t choose between me and you, Julia: it was between me and ruin. You say he won’t be happy, but at least he’ll be comfortable! What’s more, he’s got Fontley, and for all you may not think it that matters to him.’ She paused. ‘Well, there’s no more to be said on that head. What brought me here was what happened last night.’

Julia winced. ‘Don’t! I can’t endure any more! Papa – even Mama – ! Good God, do they think – do you think – that I
meant
to betray myself?’

‘Well, your mama and I don’t think it. I can’t answer for his lordship, but I don’t suppose he does either – not but what you can’t blame him, if he cut up stiff, because there’s no denying you did make us all look no-how!’

‘Oh, is that all you can think of?’ Julia cried bitterly. ‘What of
my
mortification? The
agony
of regaining my senses – seeing all those faces – !’ She broke off, covering her eyes with her hand.

‘Now, don’t get into a taking, love! It’s not so bad that it can’t be mended,’ said Jenny soothingly.

Julia’s hand fell. ‘Jenny, I didn’t mean to! I thought I could meet him again just as I ought! I
could
have done so, had he been there at the outset! But he wasn’t! I thought – oh, I was so relieved it made me stupid beyond belief! It didn’t occur to me that he might come later. But he did, and when I turned, and suddenly saw him, so close to me – Jenny, it was the shock that made me faint!’

‘You don’t have to tell me that. If it isn’t just like you to fret and fume yourself into such a state that you’d swoon off if a mouse ran across the floor! That’s pretty well what I told them all – though it wasn’t a mouse I set it down to, but the heat.’

‘Mama told me how good you were,’ Julia said listlessly. ‘Thank you! But they won’t believe it. They’ll watch me, and whisper about me. Perhaps they’ll pity me.
Poor girl! He cried off, you know!
’

‘Not if I have anything to say in the matter!’ interrupted Jenny. ‘That’s precisely what I mean to nip in the bud, so I’ll thank you not to fall into a lethargy when what’s wanted is a bit of rumgumption!’

‘Why should you care?’ said Julia, sighing.

‘Have a little sense, Julia, do!’ begged Jenny. ‘Very agreeable it would be to have people saying that about my husband!’

Julia looked startled. ‘But they wouldn’t! They know the circumstances – that he couldn’t help himself!’

‘That won’t stop them thinking he must have treated you pretty shabbily, if they see you looking as if you was sunk in affliction!
He
won’t look so, whatever he feels, because he’s too much the gentleman to let anyone think he don’t like being married to me, so the end of it will be that we’ll have people saying he’s downright heartless, not caring a straw for anything but a fortune, and happy as long as he’s rich!’

‘You need not be afraid!’ Julia said tragically. ‘I am going to return to my grandmother, and live retired. I daresay my very existence will be forgotten within a year!’

‘More likely they’d have to build another hotel in Tunbridge Wells to take in your admirers,’ said Jenny, keeping her temper.

Julia gave a gasp, and a quiver of laughter. ‘Oh, how
can
you be so – so
odiously
unfeeling?’

‘Well, you know I’ve got no sensibility. But I haven’t wind-mills in my head either, so I’ll tell you what you
will
do, and that’s to confound all the spiteful toads who’d be only too ready to crow over you.’ She caught the flash in Julia’s eyes, and continued: ‘Yes, I can just hear them! Pretending to pity you, like you said, but fairly licking their lips, and saying they’d known all along the Sylph would have a downfall. For you can’t knock all the other girls into flinders without stirring up a lot of spite and jealousy: that I
do
know!’

Julia sat up. ‘But how?’ she demanded. ‘Papa wouldn’t consent to a betrothal, but people knew!’

‘What if they did? They won’t think it wonderful that a girl that has as many beaux dangling after her as you have fell out of love as easily as she fell into it! Why, you were barely out of the schoolroom! Then you didn’t see Adam for months, so what’s more natural than that you should find you’d made a mistake?’ She ignored a deep sigh from Julia, and began to draw on her gloves. ‘So I’ll call for you tomorrow, at about four o’clock, and you’ll drive in the Park with me, like the good friends we’ve always been.’

‘Oh, no!’ Julia exclaimed imploringly. ‘No, I can’t!’

‘Yes, you can. And I don’t mind owning that I’ll be very much obliged to you if you will, because I don’t care to drive alone, and I’m not yet acquainted with people. Two or three bows are the most I’ll get, if I go by myself, but if you’re sitting beside me the carriage will be mobbed, I daresay.’ She got up, as a reluctant laugh escaped Julia. ‘And if you could manage to faint the next time you go to a party – but not at Lady Bridgewater’s assembly, mind, because she said last night she should send us a card, and it won’t answer if you do it when Adam’s present – !’

‘Jenny, you are too detestable!’ protested Julia, between tears and laughter. ‘As though I could!’

‘You could, if you set your mind to it,’ said Jenny, with a tight little smile. ‘You’ve only to think you’re stifling from the heat, and stifle you will!’

She bestowed a valedictory pat on Julia’s shoulder, and went away without giving her time to consider the implication of this remark. She was met on the floor below by Lady Oversley, who looked an anxious question. She replied to it with a nod, and a smile. ‘I didn’t say anything about her coming to dine with us, but she’ll drive out with me tomorrow, never fear! I’ll ask her then.’

Lady Oversley embraced her, shedding a few tears of relief. ‘Oh, my dear Jenny, I am so very much obliged to you! Was she – was she still in such distress?’

‘That’s more than I can tell, ma’am,’ replied Jenny, in her blunt way. ‘There’s no saying – at least, I can’t say, because we’re no more alike than a dock and a daisy, and I don’t understand her, and never did. She
thinks
she is, and it has always seemed to me that she’s one of those who’d die of the influenza only because she took it into her head it was smallpox!’

This was rather beyond Lady Oversley, but when she presently recounted it to her lord he looked a good deal struck, and said that Jenny was shrewder than he had supposed. ‘That daughter of yours, my dear,’ he said, ‘lives always in alt, and now we see what comes of it!’

She was accustomed to his very unfair habit of disclaiming responsibility for the existence of any of his children who had vexed him, so she let this pass, agreeing that Julia was too imaginative.

‘Ay, she takes after you,’ said his lordship inexcusably.

Julia remained in her bedchamber all day, but she appeared at the breakfast-table on the following morning. She looked pale, and was obviously in depressed spirits; and when her father, forcibly admonished by Lady Oversley, greeted her with great heartiness, she responded with a wince, and the travesty of a smile. But by a lucky chance a new walking-dress of French cambric, trimmed with frills of broad-lace, was sent home that day, and it was so pretty, particularly when worn with one of the new Oldenburg hats, that Julia was insensibly cheered. It had seemed at one moment as if she meant to refuse to drive with Jenny; but when she had been persuaded to put on the new dress, and her mama, her maid, her two younger sisters, and their governess had all fallen into raptures she changed her mind, and went out perfectly readily when the Lynton barouche drew up before the door.

Jenny, herself expensively but not very becomingly attired in Brunswick gray lustring, admired the dress too, and so, when they reached the Park, did a number of other persons. If the carriage was not mobbed, at least the coachman had to pull up his horses a great many times. It was the hour of the fashionable promenade, and the Park thronged with vehicles, from ladies’ barouches to the Corinthians’ curricles; with horsemen, mounted on high-bred hacks; and with exquisites, strolling along the path beside the roadway. It seemed to Jenny that every second person bowed or waved to her lovely companion; and since Julia wished to exchange greetings with her friends, and a large number of gentlemen were eager to pay homage to her, Jenny resigned herself to a dawdling progress. She had the satisfaction of receiving several civil acknowledgements herself, but she privately considered this promenade a waste of time, and was rather bored. It was otherwise with Julia, always responsive to atmosphere, and reviving like a thirsty plant under a shower of compliments and gallantries. The colour returned to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes, and her pretty laugh was so spontaneous that no one could have supposed her to be nursing a broken heart.

Not all her admirers were youthful. The Marquis of Rockhill, riding with Brough beside him, stayed for longer than any beside the barouche. He was very civil to Jenny, but she saw the warm glint in his eyes when he looked at Julia, and was not deceived into thinking that he had stopped for any other purpose than to talk to her. She thought him an elderly flirt for Julia, but she guessed him to be a notable conquest, and realized that his caressing manner was attractive to Julia. It was plain that he had a
tendre
for her, but he did not try to monopolize her. When Brough claimed her attention he at once began to talk to Jenny, and did not let his eyes stray towards Julia while doing so, which she thought unusually polite. He was apparently well-acquainted with the Deveril family; and when Jenny disclosed that her mother-in-law would be in Grosvenor Street during the following week he said that he must call to pay his respects to her. ‘Such a very old friend – almost a cradle-friend, one might say!’

On an impulse, she said abruptly: ‘Would you care to dine with us?’ She saw his brows lift in surprise, and explained: ‘You see, she means to stay only two nights, so I fancy she won’t have time for morning visitors. I mean to invite the Oversleys to dine, and to bring Miss Oversley as well, and it would – we should be very happy if you liked to come, and not care for its being an informal party.’