A Civil Contract (24 page)

‘Oh,
no
!’ Jenny uttered imploringly. ‘Don’t say that! Not different, Charlotte! I have been at such pains – ! You are looking at those curtains, but
indeed
they are
exactly
the same colour as the old ones that were so tattered! The same as they were used to be, before they became faded, I mean. I daresay you have forgotten, but when I unpicked the hems I saw what the colour had been, and was able to match the velvet.’

‘To be sure!’ Charlotte said hastily. ‘My dear sister, I didn’t mean the least disparagement! It is all beautiful! How clever you have been! All the furniture positively glowing, too, and the handles on that chest quite dazzling! I thought it had been a new one!’

In her anxiety to convince Jenny that she felt only admiration she praised every improvement rather too enthusiastically, until Jenny said, in a flattened voice: ‘You don’t like it, do you?’

‘Yes, yes, I do! We have all of us so much regretted that poor Papa was unable to keep the house as it should be. I know it was sadly shabby. It is only that at first it seems a little strange – How nonsensical I am! you will laugh at me for missing the dimness, and the faded curtains, but one grows so accustomed – ! We love it so much, you see, that even its shabbiness is dear to us.’

‘I don’t understand that,’ Jenny said. ‘Don’t you want to see it kept up to the knocker? To my way of thinking, that’s no way of loving it.’ She added quickly: ‘I beg pardon! I shouldn’t have spoken so freely.’

‘Oh, no! Of course, you are perfectly right! How pleased dear Adam will be, when he sees all that you have done!’

Jenny thought that he would not be pleased; and, remembering that Lydia had once expressed the hope that Fontley would not be changed, wondered if she would ever understand the Deverils.

But Adam neither exclaimed in admiration nor recoiled in dismay when he came home. He reached Fontley some hours later than had been expected, after a tiresome journey. It was past ten o’clock, and the candles had been lit, and the curtains drawn across the tall, Gothic windows. He was tired, and exasperated by a series of mishaps; it did not occur to him that the candle-smoke stains had vanished from the moulded ceiling, or that the furniture shone with beeswax: he only thought that never had his home appeared more mellow or more lovely.

His plump, commonplace little wife came down the stairs to meet him, treading across the hall with her firm step. She was neither beautiful nor graceful; she was even a little incongruous in so gracious a setting; but she was infinitely comfortable. She smiled at him, saying placidly: ‘That’s nice! Here you are, just in time for supper! We’ll have it in the Blue Parlour, to be cosy.’

He had told her that he would return in time for dinner, which was served at six, after the country habit. It occurred to him that no matter how long he kept her waiting she never said: ‘How late you are!’ or: ‘What can have detained you?’ He put his arm round her, kissing her cheek. ‘My dear, I’m so repentant! But you’re quite right not to comb my hair: it has
not
been my fault! First a broken linch-pin, and next one of the wheelers going dead lame! An abominable journey!’

‘Oh, how vexatious! And me thinking no more than that you’d put off your start because there was something pleasant offered you to do at Holkham! Well, that’s a great deal too bad, but never mind! Supper will be ready as soon as you are.’

‘That will be in five minutes.’ He gave her a hug, and kissed her again, this time on her firm little mouth. ‘You’re so kind to me, Jenny! I wish you may not indulge me so much that I become quite detestable!’

Her colour flamed into her cheeks; she said gruffly: ‘You’ll never be that to me. Now, you let Kinver pull off your boots, and give you a pair of slippers, but never mind rigging yourself out in style! That’s the best of living in the country: there’s no fear of being surprised by visitors at this hour of night!’

He took her at her word, reappearing presently in a frogged dressing-gown, and regarding her with a provocative twinkle. She chuckled, but said: ‘Well, now you can be comfortable, at least! How did you fare at Holkham? Was it an agreeable party?’

‘Very – but you were right to cry off, I think. A vast crush, and the talk all of agriculture. I hope I may have profited by the discussions, but I felt as ignorant as when I first went to school! Tell me about yourself! How have you been keeping?’

‘Oh, I am perfectly stout!’ she asserted. ‘Charlotte was so kind as to pay me a visit – and Dr Tilford, too, which, I collect, he did at
your
command, my lord! He’s a sensible man, and tells me not to coddle myself.’

‘He could have spared his breath! What do you call this excellent chicken-dish? Italian salad, is it? It informs me that Scholes has been restored to us – and thank God for it! Has your new stove arrived? Was it very troublesome to make the change?’

‘No worse than what was to be expected,’ she replied. ‘We had the chimney swept, and the walls and ceiling new white-washed into the bargain, so you’d hardly know it for the same dingy old kitchen.’

She then wished that she had not said this, but Adam merely said: ‘I can’t conceive how you can have contrived to get dinner cooked while all this was going forward!’

‘Oh, quite easily!’ she said, not disclosing to his male ignorance that the household had subsisted on picnic meals for three hideous days. She asked him instead to describe the clippings to her.

In general, he took care not to bore her with agricultural talk, but his head was so full of it that he was led on, from the clippings, to tell her about Mr Coke’s experimental farm. She listened, watching him, and thinking that he was talking more to himself than to her. When he spoke of stall-feeding, of hurdling sheep over turnips, of trebling livestock for manure, of shorthorns, and of North Devons, she knew that he had his own acres in mind, not Mr Coke’s. He sat with the fingers of one hand crooked round the stem of his wineglass, his eyes fixed on the dregs in it; and he answered the few questions she put to him rather abstractedly, until she asked if Mr Coke used the Tullian drill, when he looked up quickly, between surprise and amusement, and replied: ‘He has done so for years – but what do you know about the Tullian drill?’

‘Only what I’ve read. It dibbles the soil, and sows the seed – oh, and covers it, too, doesn’t it? Is it used here?’

‘Not yet. Where did you read about it, Jenny?’

‘In one of your books. I have been looking into them, and trying to learn a little from them.’

‘My poor girl! Were you reduced so low? I had thought you brought a boxful of books down from London!’

‘Oh, I did! But
Mansfield Park
is the only one I’ve read yet. I kept it by me, and took it up whenever Artificial Manures, and the Four-Course System began to pall. And I must own, Adam, they
do
pall! But that drill seems to me to be an excellent machine, and I think you should adopt it.’

‘I mean to, and to induce my tenants to follow my example – I hope! As for manure, we use sticklebacks.’

‘
Sticklebacks?
’

‘Also pigeon-dung.’

‘Oh, you’re roasting me!’ she exclaimed.

‘I’m not. Sticklebacks make the best of all manures. We get them from Boston Haven, at a halfpenny the bushel. Gorse is good for turnips; and in the wolds they spread straw, and burn it.’

‘Good gracious! And here have I been trying to learn about lime, and marl, and rape-cake!’

‘Poor Jenny! Does it comfort you to know that we use those too? Why should you tease yourself over such dull matters?’

‘I like to understand the things that interest you. The home farm isn’t large enough to be made experimental, is it? Do you mean to take over one of the others, as Mr Coke did? I know there are some let on short-term leases.’

‘Too many,’ he said. ‘Yes, perhaps I shall do that, one day, but there’s so much else to be done first that I’m afraid it won’t be for some time to come.’

‘Is it very costly, to bring an estate like this into good order?’ she ventured to ask.

‘Very. I can only do so gradually.’

‘I suppose you wouldn’t –’ She stopped, and then, when he raised his brows enquiringly, blurted out: ‘Why don’t you sell Lynton House?’

The words had no sooner passed her lips than she wished them unspoken. He answered perfectly pleasantly; he even smiled; but she knew that he had retreated behind his disconcerting barriers. ‘Well, you know why I don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t let us fall into a wrangle over that, Jenny!’

‘No,’ she muttered, her eyes lowered, and her cheeks flaming. ‘Only, when I think how much it costs to keep that great house – and how much you need the money
here
– I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean to vex you.’

He stretched out his hand to her, and when she laid her own in it, clasped it warmly. ‘You haven’t vexed me. I think there can be no more generous persons alive than you and your father. Try to understand me! I’m not ungrateful, but there must be a limit set to my indebtedness. I’ve accepted Lynton House from your father; he holds all the mortgages on my lands, and demands nothing from me in return. To restore those lands to prosperity must be
my
business – and if I can’t contrive to do it, the sooner Fontley passes into more worthy hands than mine the better! Can you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, nothing in her tone betraying the desolation in her heart. ‘Fontley is yours, and you will accept no help from Papa in anything that concerns it. Or from me.’

She tried to draw her hand away as she spoke, but his fingers closed round it strongly.

‘But for your father I must have sold Fontley,’ he said. ‘As for –’

‘You mean to pay him back, don’t you?’ she interrupted.

He was startled, but replied almost immediately: ‘Yes, I do mean to do that, but
your
services to my house are another matter. If you choose to spend your blunt on new curtains for Fontley – yes, I
have
observed them, and I like them very much! – instead of on all the things I’m persuaded you must have wished to purchase, I’m grateful, but I don’t mean to repay you, any more than I mean to thank you for having the furniture polished – which, also, I have observed! The best thing I’ve yet done for Fontley is to have bestowed on it such a notable housewife: the house begins to look as it should again. You must have been busier than a colony of ants while I was in Norfolk!’

She blushed again, but this time with pleasure. ‘Oh, I am so glad you don’t dislike the things I’ve done! I told you I wouldn’t meddle, but I thought you might not object to it if I set some things to rights – not changing them, but making them the
same
again! Only Charlotte said that she scarcely recognized the house, and, although she assured me she liked it, I could see she did not, and that put me in a regular quake!’

‘Charlotte’s a goose!’ he said, forgetting that he had dreaded to see even a torn rug replaced. He gave her hand a squeeze, before releasing it, and getting up from the table. ‘Let us go to the library! Have you given that smart new curtains as well?’

‘No, no, I haven’t touched it!’ she said quickly. ‘I thought, perhaps, that, if you don’t dislike it, we might have new curtains made, but none of the colours on the pattern-cards I’ve yet had sent me are at all like what I
think
these old ones must have been.’

‘I fancy they were a sort of mustard,’ he said, frowning in an effort of memory. ‘Pray don’t inflict that on me again! I know I thought them very ugly when my mother first had them hung.’

This cool repudiation of his mother’s taste, which she had striven so zealously to copy, almost made her gasp. She suspected him of having said it merely to reassure her; but when they reached the library he looked at the curtains, and pulled a grimace. ‘Very dingy! Odd that I shouldn’t have noticed it. I suppose one grows accustomed. What shall we hang in their stead?’

Much heartened, she produced her pattern-cards. None of the materials she had thought the most suitable met with more than qualified approval, but when he saw a scrap of red brocade he instantly said: ‘That’s the one!’

She had expected him to choose a more sober colour, but when he took the brocade over to the corner where the K’ang-hsi bowl had been placed she understood, and applauded his choice. Then she said, knowing that it would please him: ‘I give you due warning, though, my lord! – you won’t relish the bill! You’ve chosen the most expensive pattern that’s been sent me.’

‘Oh, dear, have I? But it’s the only one I like! What’s the figure?’

‘About fifty pounds: I can’t tell precisely until I know the measurements.’

‘How shocking! But more shocking, don’t you think, to dishonour my bowl with anything shoddy? We’ll have it.’ He gave the pattern back to her, and sank into his favourite chair, stretching out his legs with a sigh of content, and saying: ‘How comfortable to be at home again! And not to be obliged to play whist, or take part in a charade. Tell me what has been happening while I was away!’

Three days later Julia came to Fontley. Lord Oversley’s seat was situated north of Peterborough, and so within easy distance of Fontley. Julia rode over, accompanied by Rockhill and two of her friends: Miss Kilverley and her brother, an inarticulate and sporting young gentleman who reminded Jenny of Adam’s cousin Osbert. Julia explained that the visit was unpremeditated. ‘We set out to visit Croyland Abbey,’ she said, ‘but when Mary – you do remember Mary, don’t you? – learned how near we were to Fontley nothing would do for her but to ride on to pay you a visit!’

Jenny, who remembered Miss Kilverley as one of Julia’s satellites, somewhat grimly observed this retiring damsel’s blush, and look of startled enquiry, but said, as she shook hands: ‘Yes, I remember you very well. How do you do?’

‘Abominable to have taken you by surprise!’ Julia said gaily. ‘But I couldn’t resist!’

‘Why should you?’ Jenny returned. ‘I’ll have a message sent down to Lynton directly: we are getting in the last of the harvest, you know, and he’s helping on one of the farms.’

‘Helping?’ Julia echoed.

‘Yes,’ said Jenny, with her small, tight smile. ‘Dressed up in a smock too, which I can’t say becomes him. But that’s his notion of enjoyment! I’ve this instant come back from taking him a nuncheon. Plum cake and beer is what the reapers get at this hour, but beer he can’t stomach: it makes him bilious. Now, do you all step this way, and partake of a nuncheon too!’

When Adam came in he found the visitors in the Prior’s Parlour, still sitting over the remains of a light repast. He greeted Julia with the ease of long friendship, but he could not keep the warmth from his eyes when they rested on her. She gave him her hand, a smile that was wistful in her own eyes, but a quizzing speech on her lips. ‘Your smock, Farmer Giles! Where is it? I am disappointed!’

‘Ah, the farmer always puts off his smock when he has company!’ he retorted. He shook hands with Rockhill. ‘How do you do? And – ?’ A lift of the eyebrow put Jenny in mind of her duty; she performed the necessary introduction; and had the satisfaction of seeing him engage the rather shy young couple in a conversation that he soon made general. She had herself no talent for welding ill-assorted persons into one party, and since the Kilverleys were frightened of Rockhill, suspecting him of satire every time he uttered one of his languid remarks, they had been largely silent until Adam’s arrival. But in a very few minutes they were chatting happily about the day’s expedition, Miss Kilverley joining Julia in rapturous appreciation of the beauties of Croyland, and Mr Kilverley deriving entertainment from Rockhill’s disclosure that the Abbey had been founded by King Ethelbald.

Upon Miss Kilverley’s expressing the hope that she might be allowed to see a little more of Fontley, Adam replied: ‘Why, certainly! But you will be disappointed, I’m afraid. We don’t compare with Croyland, you know.’

‘Oh – ! That lovely arch!’ she protested. ‘And is not this room very ancient?’

‘Well, it has always been called the Prior’s Parlour,’ he admitted. ‘Part of the outer wall is thought to be original, but the house is more Tudor than mediaeval.’

‘Don’t disparage it on that account!’ Julia said. ‘I have sometimes thought that all the ages meet in it, and have indulged the fancy that one might see monks in the gallery that used to be the
dortoire
; a lady in a farthingale vanishing through a doorway; or a cavalier, with his lace and love-locks, going before one down a corridor.’

‘Orlando Deveril, for instance?’ said Adam, regarding her in tender amusement. ‘None of my worthier forebears ever pleased you half as well as that chucklehead!’

She winced. ‘How can you talk so? You should be proud of him!’ She turned to her friend. ‘You will see his portrait presently! the noblest countenance, and with such melancholy eyes – as though he knew himself to be fated! I told you: he is the one who raised a troop, and rode with it to the King’s assistance!’

‘And subsequently got it cut to pieces in its first engagement,’ interpolated Adam. ‘The kind of officer, Miss Kilverley, always to be found heroically exposed to the enemy’s fire. We suffered under just such an one last year: very gallant – and no general for the Light Bobs!’

She was uncertain whether to laugh or to be shocked; Julia said: ‘You are funning, but I don’t care for jokes on such a subject!’

‘Well,’ said Jenny, bringing the discussion to a prosaic end, ‘I’m glad to say I haven’t seen him, which I’m thankful for, because I shouldn’t like it if Fontley was haunted, and you may depend upon it there’s not many of the servants would remain above a sennight if they took it into their heads they might come on a monk round a corner.’ She rose, saying: ‘If we’ve all finished, we’ll go up to the gallery, shall we?’

She nodded to Adam to escort the party, and would have followed had not Rockhill, lingering beside her, said: ‘Do you wish to go too? I’m persuaded you’d find it a dead bore – as I should, being perfectly well-acquainted with Fontley’s antiquities. Let us leave Lynton to his irreverences, and take a turn about the gardens!’

She was a little surprised, but perfectly willing. As they walked down the vaulted corridor to the Great Hall, she asked him if he were staying with the Oversleys at Beckenhurst.

‘No, but in the immediate vicinity,’ he replied. ‘I am visiting relations – remote, but one should never ignore even the dullest members of one’s family, should one? Particularly when they reside precisely where one most wishes to be!’

She cast a quick look up at him, and saw his thin lips curl into the smile which put such innocents as the Kilverleys upon their guard.

‘Just so!’ he said, answering the enquiry in her eyes. ‘You have a great deal of good sense, Lady Lynton, and you are perfectly right in your assumption.’

‘I don’t know that,’ she responded bluntly. ‘You’ll forgive me if I speak too plainly, my lord, but it looks to me as if you was dangling after Miss Oversley!’

‘Yes, and at
my
age too!’ he murmured. ‘I learn on the highest authority that I am generally held to be indulging a fit of gallantry – senile, I fear.’

‘Well, that’s nonsense, but it’s not to be wondered at that no one should think it more than a flirtation, for there must be twenty years between you, my lord!’

‘Rather more,’ he confessed wryly, ushering her out into the garden. ‘But I’m not, I do assure you, senile, ma’am!’

‘No, but, myself, I should never have thought – However, it’s no business of mine!’

‘No? You disappoint me!’

‘I don’t know why I should,’ she replied defensively.

‘No, no, don’t fence with me! I’m persuaded we understand one another very well.
You
would naturally be glad to see Miss Oversley married;
I
have every intention of obliging you in the matter!’

She paused at the entrance to the rose-garden, to look frowningly up at him. ‘Why do you tell me so?’ she demanded.

‘Well, do you know, I like you, Lady Lynton,’ he replied. ‘You compelled both my respect and my gratitude upon the occasion of our first meeting. An awkward – one might almost say a
disastrous
situation, rendered trivial by your admirable presence of mind then, and later by conduct as magnanimous as it was shrewd.’

‘Oh, fiddle!’ she said roughly, flushing, and walking on into the rose-garden.

He laughed, and followed her. ‘If you like! But you must allow me to be grateful – and to pay my debts, if you please! You were a little dismayed, were you not, when you saw who had come to visit you? I fancy you thought me positively beef-witted to have lent myself to the expedition. But I am not at all beef-witted. I am reasonably certain, ma’am, that neither you nor I have anything to fear in regarding our loved ones’ meetings with complaisance.’

‘You are the strangest creature!’ she exclaimed. ‘How can you wish to marry Julia, if you know she loves Lynton? You do know it, don’t you?’

‘But of course! I have been her most sympathetic confidant – perfectly sincerely, too. One remembers one’s own first love – with a tiny pang, and such infinite thankfulness! I shan’t grudge Julia her deliciously nostalgic memories, or be so abominably gross as to suggest to her that her touching little romance was no more real than a fairy story. She won’t indulge them often: only when something has occurred to put her into the hips! And then, poor darling, she will quite forget having made the painful discovery that Lynton really bears very little resemblance to the Prince Charming of her imagination – a creation I find slightly nauseating – but pray don’t tell her that I said so!’

She smiled, but said impatiently: ‘Oh, Julia knows nothing about Lynton! I don’t understand her – never did! I’m sure I hope you may, but it has always seemed to me that she’s one who would break her heart over a sparrow she found dead in the gutter as easily as she’s done over Lynton. I don’t doubt
she’ll
recover soon enough, for it’s my belief she hoaxed herself into love with Adam, the way I’ve seen her hoax herself into a high fever, often and often!’ She stopped, clipping her lips together, and, after an infinitesimal pause, changed the subject.

He made no attempt to bring her back to it, but talked amusingly to her on a number of idle topics until their stroll through various gardens brought them back to the house again. Voices led them past it to the chapel ruins, where they found the rest of the party. Julia was seated on a fallen block of masonry, her frivolous parasol tilted to protect her complexion from the sun, her gaze fixed in melancholy wonder on Adam, who was standing a few paces away, talking to Mr Kilverley. Miss Kilverley was wandering about the ruins, and occasionally calling out appreciative comments as she discovered a fragment of dog-tooth, or a lichened tomb. Mr Kilverley seemed to have become surprisingly loquacious, and when Jenny and Rockhill drew within earshot such overheard phrases as
ten coombs to the acre
, and
improved rotation
, informed them that Mr Kilverley’s knowledge was not confined to horses and hounds: he was an enthusiastic agriculturist.

‘Ah, the poor little one!’ exclaimed Rockhill, under his breath. ‘Own, Lady Lynton, that it is a picture to wring compassion from a heart of stone!’

Julia turned her head, as she heard the approaching foot-steps, and smiled. Her smile was always lovely, and just now it held real pleasure, and more than a suggestion of relief. Her soft eyes were raised to Rockhill’s face as he went towards her, and when he held out his hand she put one of hers into it, and rose, allowing him to lead her a little away. As they walked slowly round the ruins, Julia’s hand in Rockhill’s arm, she sighed, and said: ‘It is so beautiful, isn’t it? Such reflections as these crumbling stones give rise to! I saw it once by moonlight – so still, so mysterious, brooding in silence over the past! How is it possible to look upon these ruins, and to think only that they make a capital ground for playing at hide-and-seek?’

His eyes lit with amusement, but he replied suitably. After a disconsolate pause, she said: ‘That’s what Charlie says about them, but I didn’t think to hear Adam…’ She did not finish the sentence, but sighed again, and said instead: ‘I suppose, being married to Jenny – She is so prosaic! Very kind, and very good, of course, but – oh, I wish she would not change Adam! He was never used to talk so!’

‘Perhaps,’ suggested his lordship tactfully, ‘he was merely setting young Kilverley at his ease.’

‘Yes, perhaps – But to call Orlando Deveril a
chucklehead
– !’

‘That,’ agreed his lordship, ‘was certainly very bad, but one must remember that Lynton is a military man, and may regard conduct which to
us
appears in the highest degree noble with rather different eyes.’

They walked slowly on while she digested this. ‘Rockhill!’ she said suddenly. ‘What is a
coomb
?’

‘I
believe
,’ he replied cautiously, ‘that it is some sort of a measure – but pray don’t ask me
what
sort, for I haven’t the most distant guess!’

‘I think it has something to do with wheat,’ she said.

‘I shouldn’t wonder at it at all if you are right: it sounds as if it would have something to do with wheat.’

She looked up into his face at that, laughter brimming in her eyes. ‘Oh, Rockhill, you are so absurd – and
such
a comfort to me! I believe you do know: you have farms too, have you not?’

‘Several, I fancy, but I am ashamed to confess that I’ve never concerned myself with their management.’

‘You have an agent, like Papa – though Papa does concern himself a little. Not as Adam does! Helping the reapers! Must he do so? It is very dreadful! I had thought, when he married Jenny, he would have a great fortune.’

He smiled at the trouble in her face. ‘But it is not at all dreadful, little blossom! Didn’t you hear Lady Lynton say that it was
his notion of enjoyment
? I don’t doubt it: it’s in his blood. Choice, not necessity, takes him out into the fields, I promise you. Coke of Norfolk does the same, and, for anything I know, a dozen others. I’m prepared to wager that before he is much older Lynton will have joined the ranks of the noble farmers – the Russells, the Keppels, Rockingham, Egremont – oh, don’t look dismayed! It is most creditable, besides becoming so fashionable that those of us who think it a dead bore will soon find ourselves quite outmoded.’

‘I don’t think it a bore, precisely,’ Julia said. ‘I love our farm, at Beckenhurst, and have often thought I should like to be a farmer’s wife, with lambs, and calves, and piglets – Papa gave me a lamb once, for a pet, and it was the dearest creature! – but not dull things like crops, except, perhaps, hay.’

‘You shall have a little Trianon,’ he promised.

‘Oh – ! No, no, pray don’t talk so! You said you would not! Besides, I know it’s nonsensical: one can’t have a farm without horrid things like manure, and crops, and swing-ploughs, and turnips! Oh, Rockhill, I can’t so easily forget – turn my thoughts, my affections, in another direction!’

‘But I have only begged to be allowed to love you, blossom.’