A Civil Contract (8 page)

He responded at once by saying that he would very much like to hear Miss Chawleigh play, but she excused herself with so much determination that he forbore to press her. Mrs Quarley-Bix appealed for support to Mr Chawleigh, but in vain.

‘Ay, she plays very prettily, and I don’t deny I’m fond of a good tune now and then, but we don’t want any music now,’ he said. ‘I’ve promised his lordship a sight of my china, love, so do you come over to the cabinet and show him the best pieces, for you know more about it than I do, as I’ve told him.’

She obeyed, but as Adam knew too little about china to be able to draw her out, this attempt to promote a good understanding between them was not very successful. Miss Chawleigh’s knowledge might be considerable, but she was plainly not an enthusiast. Adam, recalling that her father had told him that she was as good as an almanack, thought that textbook would have been the better simile. She could enlighten his ignorance on soft paste and hard; explain that the Vincennes blue on a bowl which he admired was applied with a brush; tell him that a pair of brilliantly enamelled creatures seated on pedestals were kylins; but when she drew his attention to the beautiful texture of an inkstand of St Cloud porcelain she did so in a flat, dispassionate voice; and her hands, when she displayed a ruby-backed plate of the Yung-Chêng dynasty, were careful, but not the hands of a lover. Adam realized suddenly, and with a flicker of surprise, that it was not she, with her superior knowledge, who really loved all these bowls, beakers, and groups, but her father, who could only say, as he fondled a
famille noire
vase: ‘It’s the
feel
of it, my lord: you can always tell!’

It seemed so strange that a man who judged the worth of a picture by its size, and furnished his house with vulgar opulence, should not only collect china but distinguish instinctively between the good and the bad, that Adam’s interest was caught. He tried to lure Mr Chawleigh on to talk about his hobby, but no sooner did that gentleman perceive that his daughter had retired into the background than he broke off, and said, as he restored to the cabinet a graceful Capo di Monte group: ‘Well, I don’t know why I’ve a liking for these things, and that’s a fact! It’s my Jenny you should talk to, if you want to know about ’em: she’s got book-learning, which I never had.’

‘I don’t think Miss Chawleigh will be offended, sir, if I venture to say that you have something of more worth than book-learning.’

‘No, for it is very true,’ she said at once. ‘I learned about china to please Papa, but I am not myself of an artistic disposition.’

‘Oh, Miss Chawleigh, how can you say so?’ exclaimed the faithful Mrs Quarley-Bix. ‘When I think of the charming sketches you have done, your embroidery, your musical talent –’

‘Now, that does put me in mind of something!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh. ‘I want to show his lordship the perspective drawing Jenny did of the square! Do you come down to the library, ma’am, and help me to look for it!’

To her credit, Mrs Quarley-Bix did her best to combat this blatant attempt to leave the young couple alone; but not all her assurances that Mr Chawleigh would find the sketch in a certain portfolio availed to turn him from his purpose. His Juggernaut quality came to the fore; and in a very few minutes he had succeeded in sweeping the reluctant lady out of the room, saying, with obvious mendacity, that both she and he would be back in a trice.

The situation was awkward, and was not rendered less so by Miss Chawleigh’s embarrassment. It rendered her scarlet-faced and tongue-tied; and when Adam made some light remark to bridge the awkward moment she did not respond, but, raising her eyes to his face in a stricken look, blurted out: ‘I’m sorry!’ before turning away, her hands pressed to her burning cheeks.

For a moment his only feeling was one of vexation with her for having so little address. She had only to respond to his lead, and the situation could have been carried off. Her look of consciousness, the words she had uttered, even the hasty way she turned from him, made this impossible. Had she not been so unmistakably distressed he could almost have suspected her of trying to force his hand.

She had walked away to the fire, and after a struggle to regain her composure, she said: ‘It is – it is the greatest imposition to be obliged to admire my drawings; and to have them displayed to visitors – is what I particularly dislike! But Papa – You see, nothing will deter him! I – I am so sorry!’

He recognized a gallant, if belated, attempt to pass the thing off, and his vexation died. He hesitated, and then said: ‘Miss Chawleigh, would you prefer me to agree that it is a sore trial to have one’s sketches shown-off, or – or to say, quite frankly, that I don’t think any two persons can ever have found themselves in such an embarrassing fix as this?’

‘Oh, no! so mortifying!’ she said, in a stifled voice. ‘I didn’t know that – that Papa had the intention – tonight – so soon – !’

‘Nor I, indeed! But he has done it, and it would be foolish in either of us, don’t you think? to pretend not to understand why we have been pitchforked together.’ He saw her nod; and continued, not easily, but with a good deal of earnestness: ‘I wish you will be open with me. Your father is trying to make a match between us, but you don’t like it, do you? You needn’t be afraid of telling me so: how should you like it, when we are barely acquainted?
My
fear is that you have been compelled to entertain me tonight against your wish. Believe me, you have only to tell me that this is so, and the affair shall go no further!’

This frankness steadied her. She had been standing with her back to him, looking down into the fire, but she turned now, and replied, in a low tone: ‘I wasn’t compelled. Papa wouldn’t do so. I know it must appear – and he does like to rule the roast – but he is too fond of me to constrain me, and – and too kind, even though he may seem, sometimes, a – little overbearing.’

He smiled. ‘Yes, a benevolent despot, which is, perhaps, the worst sort of tyrant, because the hardest to withstand! Where all is being done with the best of intentions – and by a parent, to whom one must owe obedience – it seems almost monstrous to rebel!’

Her flush had faded; she was even rather pale. ‘I should be reluctant to do so, but if it were necessary, in such a matter as this, I – I
should
rebel. That’s not the case. He
wishes
me to marry you, my lord: he doesn’t
compel
me.’

There was a faint frown on his brow; he regarded her intently, trying to read her face. ‘The tyranny of affection?’

She shook her head. ‘No. It would grieve me to disappoint him, but I shouldn’t hesitate, if – if my affections were already engaged, or I disliked the scheme.’ This was spoken calmly, but with an effort. She moved towards a chair, and sat down. ‘You asked me to be open with you, my lord. I don’t dislike it. If you think – if you feel you could bear –’ She checked, and went on after a tiny pause. ‘I’m not romantic. I perfectly understand the – the circumstances, and don’t expect – You said yourself that we are barely acquainted.’

He was obliged to master an impulse to retreat, and to tell himself that her acceptance of the proposed match was no more coldblooded than his own. He was quite as pale as she, and he replied, in a strained voice: ‘Miss Chawleigh, if you feel that
you
could bear it I shall count myself fortunate. I won’t offer you false coin. To make the sort of protestations natural to this occasion would be to insult you, but you may believe me sincere when I say that if you do me the honour to marry me I shall try to make you happy.’

She got up. ‘I shall be. Don’t think of that! I don’t wish you to
try
to – Only to be comfortable! I hope I can make you so: I’ll do my best. And you’ll tell me what you wish me to do – or if I do something you don’t like – won’t you?’

He was surprised, and a little touched, but he said, as he took her hand: ‘Yes, indeed! Whenever I’m out of temper, or grow tired of being comfortable!’

She stared for a second, saw the quizzical look in his eyes, and laughed suddenly. ‘Oh – ! No, I
promise
you I won’t get into a miff!’

He kissed her hand, and then, lightly, her cheek. She did not shrink, but she did not look as though she liked it. And since he had no desire to kiss her, he let go her hand, not offended, but relieved.

The engagement was almost immediately announced, and the wedding-day fixed for a month later, on the 20th April. Whether from impatience to see his daughter ennobled, or from fear that Adam might cry off, Mr Chawleigh was anxious to clinch the bargain, and was with difficulty restrained from sending off notices then and there to the
Gazette
and the
Morning Post
. He said in a burst of unendearing frankness that the sooner the news was made public the better it would be for Adam; but he was forced to acknowledge that it would be improper to advertise the marriage before Adam had broken the news of it to his family.

Another set-back was in store for him. In the midst of his plans for a wedding exceeding in magnificence any that had ever preceded it he was pulled up by a gentle reminder that the recent bereavement suffered by his prospective son-in-law put out of count any such schemes: the ceremony, Adam said, must be private, with only the immediate relations and particular friends of both parties invited to attend it. This was a severe blow, and might have led to a battle of wills had not Jenny intervened, saying in her downright way: ‘Now, that’s enough, Papa! It wouldn’t be the thing!’

In other quarters the intelligence was received in widely divergent ways. Lord Oversley said he was damned glad to hear it; and Lady Oversley burst into tears. Wimmering, momentarily stunned, recovered to congratulate his patron, and to beg him to leave all financial arrangements in his hands. Like Mrs Quarley-Bix he was killed with delight, the only leaven to his joy being Adam’s resolve to continue in his plan to sell the town house. To representations that now more than ever would he need a town house he replied that he had the intention of hiring one of more modest dimensions than the mansion in Grosvenor Street; to the warning that a hired place could not be thought creditable, he merely said: ‘What nonsense!’

Adam communicated the news of his betrothal to Lady Lynton by letter, making business his excuse for not returning to Fontley. He could not bring himself to face the inevitable astonishment, the questions, and, perhaps, the disapproval that must greet his announcement; and he knew himself to be unequal to the task of describing Mr Chawleigh by word of mouth. He could write that he was a wealthy merchant, with whom Lord Oversley was on terms of friendship; and Lady Lynton would not know, reading of Jenny’s quiet manners, superior understanding, and well-formed figure, that these fluent phrases had not tripped readily from his pen. He ended his letter by begging his mother to come to London, to make the acquaintance of her future daughter-in-law, but thought it advisable to send by the same post a brief and much more forthright letter to his elder sister.

Charlotte, I depend upon you to bring Mama to town. Represent to her how improper it would be for her to be backward in any attention: the ceremonial visit
must
be made. If she holds by her intention to settle in Bath I should wish her to decide which of the furnishings in Lynton House she desires for her own use, which can’t be settled in her absence. Tell her this, if she should fly into one of her ways.

Before any letters reached him from Fontley the notice of his engagement had been published, and his circumstances underwent a sudden change. Persons who had been dunning him for payment of their accounts became instantly anxious to obtain his custom. Tailors, haberdashers, jewellers, and coach-makers begged the favour of his patronage; and foremost on the list was the firm of Schweitzer & Davidson, whose unpaid bill for raiment supplied to the Fifth Viscount ran into four figures. Even the elder Drummond permitted himself a smile of quiet triumph when he pointed out the announcement to his heir. ‘His lordship, my boy, will draw on Drummond’s to whatever tune he pleases,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir: I should think so!’ replied Young Drummond, awed.

This result of his engagement came as a welcome change from the incessant demands with which Adam had previously been assailed, but the knowledge that he owed even the obsequiousness of the management and staff of Fenton’s Hotel to Chawleigh-gold could scarcely be expected to gratify him. Nor did a letter from Miss Oversley help to elevate his spirits.

Mama had broken the news to Julia, saying, as she put the fatal copy of the
Gazette
into her hands: ‘Julia, my love, you must be brave!’ She had been brave, supported by Mama’s exquisite understanding, but the notice had for a time quite overpowered her, and she felt that her mind would not soon recover its tone. Tears made it difficult for her to write, but indeed she wished him happy, and had compelled her reluctant hand to pen a note to Miss Chawleigh – ‘
once, as I believed, my friend
.’ She was leaving town to visit her grandmama in Tunbridge Wells: Mama thought it would be wiser to run no risk of a chance encounter with Adam for the present.

The next post brought him a spate of letters from various relations, ranging from a demand from his Aunt Bridestow to know
who
was this Miss Jane Chawleigh? to a sentimental effusion from an elderly spinster cousin, who was persuaded that Miss Chawleigh must be the most amiable girl imaginable: an observation which made Adam realize that he knew nothing about his bride’s disposition.

He had to wait several days for letters from Fontley, but they arrived at last: a frantic scrawl from Lydia, who was sure that Jenny must be the horridest girl in the world; and a troubled letter from Charlotte. Dearest Mama, she wrote, had suffered so severe a shock from the discovery that her only surviving son had become engaged to a totally unknown female that her every faculty had been suspended. Alarming spasms had subsequently attacked her; and although this distressing condition had yielded to the remedies prescribed by their good Dr Tilford she was still too knocked-up to attempt the arduous task of writing a letter.

‘
Approbation cannot at present be hoped for
,’ wrote Charlotte, sounding a warning note, ‘
but I believe she will exert herself to do all that is proper to this occasion. She struggles to overcome her fidgets, but the intelligence that you mean to sell Lynton House has been productive of some agitating reflections, our dear Brother having been born there… Here, Dst. Adam, I was interrupted by my Beloved Lambert. His visit has done Mama a great deal of good, for he has been sitting with her for an hour, representing to her with calm good sense all the advantages of your marriage…
’

It seemed that until she had had the benefit of Lambert’s calm good sense Mama had declared that her bereavement put it out of the question that she should either stay in a public hotel, or pay morning visits. But Lambert’s counsel had prevailed: provided that Adam could procure accommodation in some genteel hostelry placed in a quiet situation Mama would make the painful effort required of her. But
not
, Charlotte wrote, the Clarendon, with its poignant memories of Dearest Papa.

The most welcome letter Adam received came from his father’s astringent elder sister. Writing from her lord’s seat in Yorkshire Lady Nassington congratulated him on his common sense, and offered him both her house in Hampshire, as a honeymoon resort, and the services of her third son to support him through the wedding ceremony.

Adam was glad to accept the first of these offers, for Mr Chawleigh was showing alarming signs of being more than willing not only to plan the honeymoon, but to pay for it as well; but the second he refused, having provided himself with a groomsman in the lanky person of Timothy Beamish, Viscount Brough, the eldest son of the Earl of Adversane.

His friendship with Brough dated from his first term at Harrow, and had survived both separation and diverging interests. A desultory correspondence had kept them in touch, and the link had been strengthened after a few years by the arrival at the headquarters of the 52nd Regiment of Mr Vernon Beamish, a raw and bashful subaltern, for whom Brough solicited Adam’s patronage. ‘
If he doesn’t fall overboard, or lose himself in the wilds of Portugal, you will shortly be reinforced by my little brother, my dear Dev,
’ had scrawled Brough. ‘
Quite a nice pup, so be kind to him, and don’t let him play with the nasty Frogs…
’

Brough had not been in London when Adam returned from France, but two days after the notice of Adam’s impending marriage appeared in the
Gazette
he strolled into Fenton’s Hotel, and, upon being informed that my Lord Lynton was out, said that he would await his return. An hour later Adam entered his private parlour to find him lounging in a chair by the fire, his very long legs stretched out before him, and the rest of his form hidden behind a copy of the
Courier
. He lowered this, as the door opened, disclosing a cadaverous countenance which wore an expression of settled melancholy.

‘
Brough!
’ exclaimed Adam joyfully.

‘Now, don’t say you’re glad to see me!’ begged his lordship. ‘I hate whiskers!’

‘Whiskers be damned! I was never more glad to see anyone!’

‘Pitching it
too
rum!’ sighed Brough, dragging himself out of his chair. ‘Or have you but this instant arrived in England? Come along! don’t hesitate to try it on rare and thick!’

Adam gripped his bony hand, smiling. ‘I’ve been in England some weeks. Three – but it seems more.’

‘Running rather sly, aren’t you?’ drawled his friend.

‘No – upon my honour! I looked for you in Brooks’s, but was told you were in Northamptonshire still. I wrote to you yesterday: you can’t have received my letter, surely? How did you find me out? What brings you to town?’

‘I haven’t received your letter; I found you out by enquiring for you in Grosvenor Street; I was brought to town by the notice in the
Gazette
,’ replied Brough, ticking off the several questions on his long fingers. ‘That, you know, conveyed the intelligence to my powerful mind that you had returned to England. But why I should have taken the notion into my head that you might have some use for me I can’t conjecture!’

‘Until your powerful mind apprehended that I wanted you for my groomsman!’ said Adam, smiling up into his deep-set eyes. ‘Will you do that for me, Brough?’

‘But of course! With the greatest pleasure on earth, dear boy! I’m not acquainted with Miss Chawleigh, but m’father tells me it’s an excellent match. Says you’ve done just as you ought, and I’m to present you with his felicitations. By the bye, how is my young brother?’

‘He was in a capital way when I saw him last. I wish I knew what’s been happening since I left! Soult’s on the run, but not rompéd yet. What a moment to have been obliged to apply for furlough! Not that it is that, of course. I’m selling out.’

‘Well, you’d think it a dead bore to be serving in peacetime,’ remarked Brough. ‘The on-dit is that the Bourbons will be back before the summer’s out. I don’t know how much of a set-back that pitiful business at Bergen-op-Zoom will prove to be. Graham seems to have made a rare mull of it.’

Adam nodded, grimacing, but said: ‘We shan’t be lurched by that. If we can outflank Soult, pin him up against the Pyrenees, cut off from his supplies, see if the whole house of cards don’t tumble down! You’ve no notion what the feeling is in southern France:
we
thought the natives better-disposed towards us than the Spaniards!’ He laughed suddenly. ‘We pay for what we commandeer, you see, which Boney’s army doesn’t! Lord, I do wish I knew where we are now! It’s nearly a month since Orthes – I suppose we’re held up by a mingle-mangle of politicians!’

On the following day, the news of a victory at Tarbes on the 20th March was published. A part of the Light Division had been hotly engaged, but it did not seem as though the 52nd Regiment had taken much part in the action: a circumstance which slightly consoled Adam for his enforced absence. Nor, however, did it seem that Wellington had succeeded in cutting Soult’s lines of communication. The Marshal was retiring in good order upon Toulouse.

Matters of more domestic moment claimed Adam’s attention. Mr Chawleigh, baulked in his plans for a splendid marriage ceremony, wanted to know whether his Jenny was expected to wait until the following year before being presented at Court. He understood, on the authority of Mrs Quarley-Bix, that she could not go into society until this function had been performed; but while he didn’t wish Jenny to do anything not quite the thing, it was plain that he viewed with considerable disfavour any postponement of her début. If she was not to appear at any ton-party, it would look as though my lord was ashamed of his bride, and that (said Mr Chawleigh, his jaw pugnaciously out-thrust) was not what he had bargained for.

Adam neither relished the manner of this admonition nor wished to take part in the season’s festivities, but he did appreciate Mr Chawleigh’s objection. Mr Chawleigh was paying him handsomely to establish Jenny in the ranks of the ton, and although the letter of the bargain might be fulfilled by her elevation to the peerage, the spirit of it demanded that every effort should be made to introduce her into society. There could be little satisfaction in becoming a Viscountess if one was obliged to live for a whole year in seclusion. Moreover, if no presentation took place, and no cards were sent out announcing the bridal couple’s readiness to receive visits of ceremony, Adam was afraid that some of the high sticklers whose notice was of the first importance to a lady desirous of entering the exclusive circle to which they belonged might consider that the period of mourning absolved them from any duty to call on Lady Lynton thereafter. It might even be thought that to preserve the strict period of mourning was a tacit signal that the usual civilities were not expected, for it was certainly very odd conduct to interrupt this period for the celebration of nuptials which it would have been more proper to have postponed.

‘Ay, but your affairs won’t wait, my lord,’ said Mr Chawleigh, when Adam tried to explain the difficulty to him. ‘I won’t tip over the dibs until I see the knot tied, because I’m not one to shell out the nonsense without I’ve better security than you can offer me. Now, there’s no need to nab the rust! I don’t doubt you’d stick to the bargain, but who’s to say you’d be alive to do it? Anything could happen to you, and then where would I be? Holding a draft on the Pump at Aldgate!’