A Civil Contract (3 page)

‘I’m afraid not. And if I were I should conceal them from you! I had liefer by far let Fontley go than see you sacrificed to save it, and though you haven’t yet been in love there’s no saying but what you might be one day, and then what a bore it would be for you to be tied to a wealthy old gentleman!’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but one ought to be ready to make sacrifices for one’s family, I think. And, after all, he might be dead by then!’

‘Very true! And if he had survived – though I don’t think it at all likely that he would! – we could always finish him off with a phial of some subtle poison.’

This appealed so strongly to Lydia that she went into a peal of laughter, at which inopportune moment the door opened to admit Lady Lynton, trailing yards of crape, mobled with black lace, and leaning on the arm of her elder daughter. She paused on the threshold, saying in a faint, incredulous voice: ‘
Laughing
, my dear ones?’

Charlotte, who was as kind as she was beautiful, said: ‘It was so delightful to hear! Lydia was always able to make dear Adam laugh, even when he was in pain, wasn’t she, Mama?’

‘I am glad to know that there is anyone at Fontley who is able to laugh at this moment,’ said Lady Lynton.

There was nothing in her voice or mien to lend colour to this statement, but none of her dear ones ventured to cavil at it. Having completed the discomfiture of the guilty parties by heaving a mournful sigh she allowed Charlotte to support her to a sofa, and sank down upon it. Charlotte arranged a cushion behind her head, placed a stool under her feet, and retired to a chair on the other side of the wide hearth, directing a look of anxious enquiry at her brother as she sat down. There was a strong resemblance between them. Both favoured their mama, unlike the larger and darker Lydia, who took after her father. Lady Lynton’s oft-repeated assertion that Charlotte was the image of what she herself had been strained no one’s credulity, for although time had faded the widow’s fair beauty, and domestic trials had implanted a peevish expression on her classic countenance, she was still a remarkably handsome woman.

‘I collect,’ she said, ‘that That Man has departed. I might have expected, perhaps, that he would have thought it proper to have taken leave of me. No doubt I must accustom myself to being treated as a person of no account.’

‘I’m afraid I must take the blame of that omission on myself, Mama,’ said Adam. ‘Wimmering was anxious to pay his parting respects to you, but I wouldn’t permit it, knowing you to be laid down upon your bed. He charged me with the task of making his apologies.’

‘I am only too thankful to have been spared the necessity of seeing him again,’ stated her ladyship, somewhat irrationally. ‘I never liked him, never! And nothing will convince me that our misfortunes are not due to his management of your poor father’s affairs!’

Once again Charlotte intervened. ‘May we know how matters stand, Adam? We feel they can’t be worse than our conjectures, don’t we, Mama? It can scarcely come as a shock to us, even if we are quite ruined.’

‘Nothing could be a shock to
me
,’ said her parent. ‘After all I have undergone I have become inured to disaster. I only wish to know when I must expect to find the roof sold over my head.’

‘I won’t do that, I promise you, Mama,’ Adam replied. ‘Indeed, I hope that you at least may be able to live in tolerable comfort, even if we can none of us remain at Fontley.’

Charlotte said in a faltering voice: ‘Must Fontley be sold? Can nothing be done to save it?’

He was looking down at the smouldering logs in the hearth, and answered only with a tiny shake of his head. Tears started to her eyes, but before they could spill over Lydia created a diversion by observing dispassionately that she rather thought Mama was suffering a Spasm.

The widow’s aspect was certainly alarming, and although she revived sufficiently, when her vinaigrette was held under her nose, to express a desire for hartshorn, it was not until a dose of this cordial had been procured by her younger daughter, and held to her lips by Charlotte, that she was able to raise her head from the cushion, and to utter in brave, but failing accents: ‘Thank you, my dear ones! Pray don’t regard it! It was nothing – merely the agitation of having the dreadful tidings broken to me in
such
a way – ! You have been for so long a stranger to your home, dearest Adam, that you could not be expected to know how wretchedly worn down are my poor nerves.’

‘You must forgive me, Mama: I had really no intention of oversetting you,’ said Adam. ‘It seemed to me to be cruel to conceal from you what you must learn, sooner or later.’

‘No doubt you did as you thought right, my dear son. My first-born!’ said the widow, extending to him one frail hand. ‘But had your brother been spared to me
he
would have understood how shattering this blow must be to me! Ah, my poor Stephen! always so considerate, so exactly partaking of my sentiments!’

Since the career of her second-born, cut off while he was still up at Oxford, had been distinguished by a sublime disregard for any other considerations than those immediately concerning himself, this ejaculation caused her surviving children to exchange speaking glances.

It was when Adam was struggling to convince her that her jointure and the direst penury were not synonymous terms that Lydia suddenly exclaimed: ‘So Dawes was right! I didn’t think it in the least, but only see! These odious tradesmen are sending bills for things Papa never bought, Adam!’

He turned his head quickly to discover that she was engaged in studying the accounts he had left on the desk. Before he could intervene she had betrayed an embarrassing gap in her store of worldly knowledge. ‘Papa never gave you a necklace of emeralds and diamonds, did he, Mama? But here are Rundell & Bridge demanding the most
outrageous
sum for one! Of all the wicked cheats!’

The effect of this disclosure on the Dowager was galvanic. Reduced to a moribund state by the efforts of her two elder children to portray in attractive colours her future existence, she sat bolt upright, demanding sharply: ‘
What?
’

‘Lydia, put those papers back on my desk!’ commanded Adam, a look of vexation on his face.

‘But, Adam –’

‘Flaunting it under my very nose!’ said Lady Lynton. ‘I might have known it! At the Opera, and very vulgar I thought it! Exactly what one would have expected of such a Creature! Oh, it’s all of a piece!
We
might go in rags, but he would offer a carte blanche to any Cyprian that took his fancy!’

‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Lydia, round-eyed with surprise. ‘You can’t mean that Papa – Papa! – had a –’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said Adam briefly, taking the bill out of her hand, and thrusting it into one of the drawers in the desk.

Perceiving that he was seriously displeased she at once begged pardon, but she was obviously so much less concerned with her own indiscretion than with the problem of how any female could welcome the attentions of a gentleman so stricken in years as her father, who had had no fewer than two-and-fifty in his dish, that Charlotte, amongst whose excellencies a sense of humour was absent, later felt obliged to point out to Adam that dear Lydia’s impenitence argued innocence rather than depravity.

Lady Lynton had accepted her lord’s vagaries with well-bred indifference for years, but the emerald necklace, for some cause which her children never discovered, exercised a powerful effect upon her. Indignation brought a flush to her cheeks, and she so far forgot herself as to recall several of his lordship’s previous lapses, declaring, however, that those she had been able to condone. The emerald necklace, which she described as bread snatched from his children’s mouths to hang round the neck of an abandoned female, was, she asserted, Too Much. It was certainly too much for Lydia, who uttered a choked giggle, and thus reclaimed her afflicted parent to a sense of her company. She was, she said, grieved that any child of hers could be so totally devoid of delicacy, or proper feeling. She seemed to derive some slight comfort from the reflection that Lydia had always been just like her father; but that damsel’s imperfections naturally challenged comparison with the infant Maria’s virtues, and led the widow to bemoan the cruelty of Fate, which had reft from her the two children who would have supported and consoled her in her hour of need. One thing leading to another, it was not long before Adam found himself convicted of gross insensibility; while as for Charlotte, who was doing her best to soothe her mama, Lady Lynton wondered that she could hold up her head after her wilful refusal to avail herself of the opportunity offered her to restore the fallen fortunes of her family.

‘No word of censure will ever pass
my
lips,’ she said magnanimously. ‘I merely marvel at you, dearest, for anything in the nature of selfishness is wholly foreign to me. Poor child! I wish you may not live to regret that day’s work, but, alas, I fear you will find a sad falling-off in young Ryde’s attentions now that we are beggared.’

But in this she was wrong. Not twenty-four hours after she had uttered the dismal prophecy Mr Ryde was wringing Adam’s hand, and saying: ‘By Jove, it’s good to see you again, Adam, and looking pretty stout too! But you know how sorry I am for the cause of your being here! What a fellow you must have been thinking me! But I daresay Charlotte told you how it was: I’ve been away from home – one of my old aunts cut her stick, and I was obliged to post up to Scotland in a hurry. What with the other two clinging to my coat-tails, and all the lawyers’ nonsense, I thought I never should be able to break free! But no use to run off before the business was settled: I must have gone back, you know, and
that
I don’t mean to do, unless I take Charlotte there on our honeymoon!’ He grinned, and added: ‘You don’t mean to forbid our marriage, do you? You’d better not, I can tell you, old chap!’

Adam laughed, and shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t dare! But I think you should know that matters are in very bad shape here, Lambert. I shall do what I can to provide Charlotte with some part at least of her dowry, but it won’t be what she’s entitled to receive, and what you might reasonably expect.’

‘No?’ retorted Lambert. ‘Giving me a chance to cry off? Handsome of you – just like you, indeed! But come now! no more funning! I’m as sorry as I could be, but it’s no surprise to me. I don’t scruple to own that when Charlotte sent me the news the first thought that entered my head was that now at last we could be riveted! Membury Place don’t compare with Fontley, but though my fortune’s not handsome it enables me to be sufficiently beforehand with the world to support a wife in comfort – ay, and Lydia too, if she should choose to make her home with us!’

He asked Adam if he would be obliged to sell Fontley; and when Adam replied that he feared so he looked grave, and said that it was a bad business, and that Charlotte would feel it excessively. ‘Living so close, you know, and seeing strangers here. I wish I might help you, but it’s out of my power. Except,’ he added, with his ready laugh, ‘by taking Charlotte off your hands!’

It was not to be expected that Lady Lynton would readily allow herself to be reconciled to her daughter’s marriage to a mere country squire; but the alternative, which was to provide for Charlotte out of her jointure, won from her a reluctant consent. While reserving to herself the right to deplore the connection she was forced to own that it was not disgraceful: Lambert’s birth was not noble, but it was respectable; and his fortune, which had previously seemed paltry, had been changed, in the light of her own miserable circumstances, into a considerable independence. She could never like the match, but she told her son that she must acknowledge that Lambert had behaved with generosity and kindness.

Lydia acknowledged Lambert’s kindness too, but told Adam that nothing would prevail upon her to take up residence in his house.

‘Well, of course you won’t do that,’ he replied. ‘You will live with Mama.’

‘Yes, and though it may seem strange to you I had liefer do so,’ she said disconcertingly. ‘I hope I value Lambert as I ought, but it would be anguish to be obliged to live in the same house with someone who is always jolly, and laughs so frequently! Depend upon it, if an earthquake engulfed us all he would discover a bright side to the disaster! Doesn’t he sometimes set
your
teeth on edge?’

He could not deny it. He had known Lambert since they had been boys together, and liked him well enough; but he was quite as much irritated as Lydia by his unflagging cheerfulness. However, he recognized the worth of his character; and when he saw Charlotte going about in a glow of happiness he was able to look forward to the marriage, if not with enthusiasm, at least with relief. That her future was assured was the one alleviating thought he carried to London with him at the beginning of the following week.

The Lynton town house was situated in Grosvenor Street, and was a spacious mansion, considerably enlarged by its late owner, in the days of his affluence, by the addition of a ballroom, with several handsome apartments over it. It was furnished with old-fashioned elegance; but when Adam visited it he found holland covers on all the chairs, and the mantelpieces swept bare of their ornaments. Almost the only economy the late Viscount had practised had been the closing of his town residence during the winter months. When he had not been invited to stay at Carlton House, he preferred to put up, in the most expensive comfort, at the Clarendon.

Adam put up at an hotel too, but not at the Clarendon. When he was escorted all over his house by the retainer who acted as caretaker he knew that he could dispose of this one of his possessions without a pang. It was associated in his mind with weeks of suffering; he decided that the sooner he was rid of it the better he would be pleased.

The stables at Newmarket were already up for sale, with the hunting-lodge at Melton Mowbray, and the late Viscount’s sixteen hunters. Wimmering did not think that any harm would come from selling the racing-stable, but he strongly deprecated putting the hunters up for sale. ‘It will create a bad impression, my lord,’ he said. ‘I cannot like it!’ Adam did not like it either, but he was adamant. They were being brought up to Tattersall’s this week: Lynton’s breakdowns. It was not a pleasant thought, and they wouldn’t sell, at the end of the hunting-season, for anything approaching the sums his father had paid for them; but he would be spared the heavy cost of their upkeep. Wimmering was still talking of the need to allay anxiety, but his further researches into the affairs of his late patron had revealed nothing that could encourage Adam to think that he had anything to gain by a postponement of the inevitable; and his reiterated entreaty that the former state of the Deverils should be maintained served only to exasperate an employer whose nerves were already stretched to the limit of their endurance. An engrained courtesy compelled Adam to listen to Wimmering with patience; but no argument which his man of business had as yet advanced caused him to swerve from the line of conduct dictated by his own judgement. He never knew how baffling his courtesy was to Wimmering, or with what relief that harassed man would have greeted an explosion of wrath.

Following his judgement, he had himself interviewed his banker, at Charing Cross. Wimmering begged him to leave such matters in his own, more experienced hands, but Adam said he thought he ought to see Drummond himself. ‘My family has always banked with Drummond’s,’ he said. ‘They have always dealt fairly by us, too. I think I should prefer to talk to Drummond myself.’

Mr Wimmering might pull down the corners of his mouth, but it was certain that he could never have achieved the accommodation which old Mr Drummond granted to Adam.

Drummond’s was an old-established firm, and amongst its distinguished clients it numbered no less a personage than His Majesty King George; but the name of Deveril figured in its earliest accounts, and it had been with a heavy heart that Mr Charles Drummond had awaited the arrival of the new Lord Lynton. He feared that demands were going to be made which it would be impossible for him to grant. He was not entirely unacquainted with Adam, but he had had no opportunity to form an opinion of his character. He remembered him only as an unassuming young officer, quite unlike his magnificent father; and although that was admittedly a point in his favour it in no way prepared Mr Drummond for a client who not only took him frankly into his confidence, but who said, with a smile that was as charming as it was rueful: ‘In these circumstances, sir, it must seem outrageous of me to ask you to let me continue drawing on an account which is already grossly
over
drawn, but I hope I can satisfy you of my ability to pay off the debt. I have worked out, as well as I’m able – but the exact worth of some of my assets must be conjectural – a sort of balance between my debts and my expectations, which, naturally, you will wish to study.’

He had then laid papers before Mr Drummond, who had peered at them with misgiving. By the time he had recovered from the shock of discovering that Adam’s expectations were not dependent either upon
a sure thing
at Newmarket, or some speculation calculated to shorten a respectable banker’s days, he had made another discovery, which he later imparted to his son.

‘The young man’s like his grandfather. Same quiet ways, same cool head on his shoulders: he’ll do!’

From Charing Cross Adam took a hackney coach to Mount Street, and, with a heart beating uncomfortably fast, trod up the steps to the front door.

He was conducted to Lord Oversley’s book-room; and his lordship, exclaiming: ‘Adam, my dear boy!’ got up from his chair, and came quickly to meet him, grasping his hand, and scanning his face with shrewd, kindly eyes. ‘Poor lad, you look hagged to death! No wonder, of course! But you
are
well again, aren’t you? I see you limp a trifle: does your leg pain you still?’

‘No, indeed, sir: I’m very well. As for looking hagged, that’s the fault of my black coat, perhaps.’

Oversley nodded understandingly. He was a pleasant-faced man, rather more than fifty years of age, dressed fashionably but without extravagance, and distinguished by an easy affability. He pulled forward a chair for Adam. ‘I don’t mean to tell you how sorry I am: you must know how I feel upon this occasion! Your father was one of my oldest cronies, and though our ways fell apart we remained good friends. Now, I’m not going to stand on ceremony with you, Adam: how badly are things left?’

‘Very badly, sir,’ Adam replied. ‘I hope to emerge free of debt, and that, I’m afraid, is the best that can be said.’

‘I feared as much. I saw your father in Brooks’s, not a sennight before the accident –’ He broke off, and after a moment’s hesitation said: ‘I want to speak to you about that. It caused the deuce of a lot of talk: mere humbug to pretend it didn’t! It was bound to do so, and it was bound to bring his creditors down on you like a swarm of locusts.’ He cast another of his shrewd glances at Adam. ‘Ay, you’ve been having a devilish time of it. But that’s not what I want to say. I’ve thought about that accident a great deal. He didn’t mean it. He may have been all to pieces, but I’m as sure as I sit here that he wasn’t riding to break his neck. That’s what you’ve been thinking, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know!’ Adam said. ‘I try
not
to think of it!’

‘Well, you’ll think of it now, my boy!’ said Oversley trenchantly. ‘If he had meant to put a period to his existence he’d have found a surer way to do it than that! Good God, no man knew better than Bardy Lynton that riding for a fall is no more likely to end in a broken neck than in a broken shoulder! No, no, he never meant it! I knew Bardy! He was too game to cry craven, and too much of a right one, for all his faults, to leave you to stand the roast!’ He paused, and laid his hand on Adam’s knee, gripping it slightly. ‘God knows you’ve cause enough, but don’t think too hardly of him! He came into his inheritance too young. When a lad of his cut is as well-breeched as he was, and has no check on him –’

‘Oh, no, no!’ Adam said quickly. ‘Good God, what right have I – ? I didn’t know how serious matters were, but I knew it wasn’t high water with him: he often said we should soon be under the hatches. I didn’t heed him – there always seemed to be enough money – and all I cared for was a pair of colours! If I had thought less of that, and more of Fontley –’

‘Now, that’s enough!’ Oversley interrupted. ‘You’re not a sapskull, so don’t sit there talking sickly balderdash to me! There was nothing you could have done, and if you’re thinking Bardy wanted you at home you’re out! Let alone that he was proud of you – lord, you should have seen him when you were mentioned in one of the dispatches! – he didn’t want you to discover how far he had drifted into Dun territory. Always thought he could make a recover, and set all to rights! And I’m bound to own he had some astonishing runs of luck,’ added his lordship reflectively. ‘The pity was – But so it always is with your true gamester! Well, well, mum for that! But if you mean to set the blame for this after-clap at any other door than your father’s, set it at Stephen’s rather than your own! What that young rip cost Bardy, first and last – ! I tell you that, Adam, but we’ll say no more about it: the poor lad’s accounts are wound up now.’

There was a short silence. Adam broke it. ‘I don’t know. But there is one matter for which I must blame myself, sir – as much as you do, I daresay.’

Oversley replied with a heartiness assumed to conceal embarrassment: ‘No, I don’t. I’m not going to pitch any gammon about not knowing what you mean. The round tale is that I ought never to have let you make up to that girl of mine – and so I knew!’ He smiled wryly. ‘You know, Adam, there’s no one I’d liefer have for a son-in-law than you, if the dibs had been in tune, but I knew they weren’t, and I ought to have hinted you away as soon as I saw which quarter the wind was in. The fact is I thought it was just a flirtation, and the lord knows you needed something to divert you at that time! I never supposed it would last, once you’d rejoined. And it’s my belief it wouldn’t have done so – at any rate with Julia! – if it hadn’t been for this shocking business, because there’s no denying that Julia’s a taking little puss, and she don’t want for suitors. She’s had ’em all dangling after her, ever since she came out, and has had as many silly nick-names foisted on to her as poor William Lamb’s wife. Sprite – Sylph – Zephyr – ! Pshaw!’ said his lordship, imperfectly disguising his pride. ‘Enough to turn the chit’s head! Now, I don’t say she wasn’t cut up when you went back to Spain: she was. In fact, her mother would have it that she’d mope herself into a decline, but that was all flim-flam! A girl who has a dozen posies sent her in a day don’t go into a decline! And if you ask me – and I don’t say it to wound you, Adam! – she’d have forgotten that interlude if it hadn’t been for some chucklehead calling her the Unattainable. That grassed us, of course. Took to thinking herself pledged to a gallant soldier, and made such a hero of you as would have made the hair rise on your scalp! And then poor Bardy was killed, and there was no keeping it from her that you were in the suds. So now she’s declaring that she’ll never give you up, which pretty well gaps me – or it would, if I didn’t know you too well to think – Damme, Adam, this is a devilish hard thing to say to you, but –’

‘You needn’t say it, sir!’ Adam interrupted, rising, and going with a quick, uneven step to the window. ‘Of course it’s impossible! I’ve known that ever since I first saw my father’s man of business. I should have come to you immediately – I beg your pardon! I hoped things might not be as bad as Wimmering described. In fact, they are worse. I’m not in a position to offer for anyone. I never dreamed I could say it, but I wish – yes, with all my heart! – that she had forgotten me!’ His voice shook; he made a gallant attempt to conceal his emotion, saying: ‘I shouldn’t then have been obliged to cry off, which I must do – and came here to do.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘No – not that, but –’

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

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