A Civil Contract (31 page)

Mr Chawleigh grabbed his hand. ‘Nay, you did what you thought right! I’d no call to fly out at you. It’s being regularly worn down with worrying over my girl, and nothing I can do to help. I’m not one to sit kicking my heels, the way you and me have been doing, not without getting into high fidgets. Don’t you heed me, my lord, for I promise you I don’t mean the rough things I say when I’m in a passion! Well, I don’t rightly know what I
do
say, and that’s a fact!’ He shifted ponderously in his chair, to restore his handkerchief to his pocket, and said, with an apologetic glance up at Adam: ‘She’s all I’ve got, you see.’

These simple words went straight to Adam’s heart. He said nothing, but laid his hand on Mr Chawleigh’s shoulder for a moment. One of Mr Chawleigh’s own, ham-like hands came up to pat it clumsily. ‘You’re a kind lad,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ll take another glass of wine, for I need something to pluck me up!’

He did not again allow his anxiety to get the better of him, though he paced up and down the floor a good deal, until, as the evening wore slowly on, he perceived that Adam was looking very haggard, and realized that there was one thing at least which he could do. He remembered that Adam had shaken his head at every dish offered him at the dinner-table, and went plunging off in search of Dunster, returning presently with a plate of sandwiches, which he bullied Adam into eating. He then applied himself to the task of convincing him that there was no need to get in a stew, because it stood to reason Dr Tilford wouldn’t have shabbed off home if Jenny wasn’t going on promisingly.

Just before midnight the Dowager entered the library, with a swathed bundle in her arms, which she held out to Adam, saying in thrilling accents that showed clearly whence Lydia derived her histrionic talent: ‘Lynton! I have brought your son to you!’

He had sprung up at the opening of the door, but he did not attempt to take the infant, which was just as well, since the Dowager had no real intention of entrusting so precious a burden to his inexpert handling. ‘Jenny?’ he said sharply.

‘
Quite
comfortable!’ replied the Dowager. ‘Sadly exhausted, poor little thing, but Dr Purley assures me that we have no need to feel alarm. I must tell you that you are very much obliged to him, my dear Adam:
most
skilled! So gentlemanlike, too!’

‘May I see her?’ Adam interrupted.

‘Yes, for a very few minutes.’

He went towards the door, but was checked. ‘Dearest!’ said his mother, in pained reproof. ‘Have you
no
thought to spare for your son?’

He turned back. ‘Yes – of course! Let me see him, Mama!’

‘The most beautiful little boy!’ she said fondly.

He thought he had never seen anything less beautiful than the red and crumpled countenance of his son, and for a moment suspected her of irony. Fortunately, since he could think of nothing whatsoever to say, Mr Chawleigh, who had been obliged to blow his nose for the second time that day, now surged forward, wreathed in smiles, and diverted the Dowager’s attention from her son’s deplorable want of enthusiasm by tickling the infant’s cheek with the tip of an enormous finger, and uttering sounds which put Adam in mind of one calling hens to be fed.

‘Eh, the young rascal!’ said Mr Chawleigh, apparently delighted by the infant’s lack of response. ‘So you won’t take notice of your granddad! Top-lofty, ain’t you?’ He looked at Adam, and chuckled. ‘Pluck up, lad!’ he advised him. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but never you fear! Lor’, when I first clapped eyes on my Jenny I pretty near suffered a palsy-stroke!’

Adam laughed, but said: ‘I must own I don’t think him beautiful! How tiny he is! Is he – is he healthy, Mama?’

‘
Tiny?
’ repeated the Dowager incredulously. ‘He is a splendid little fellow!
Aren’t
you, my precious?’

Mr Chawleigh winked at Adam, and jerked his thumb towards the door. ‘You go on up to Jenny!’ he said. ‘My dear love to her – and don’t go putting it into her head she’s got a sickly baby, mind!’

Only too glad to escape from the besotted grandparents, Adam slipped out of the room, to find that he had to run the gauntlet of his household, all lying in wait to felicitate him.

He entered Jenny’s room very quietly, and paused for a moment, looking across at her. He saw how white she was, and how wearily she smiled at him. Pity stirred in him, and with it tenderness. He crossed the room, and bent over her, kissing her, and saying softly: ‘My poor dear! Better now, Jenny?’

‘Oh, yes!’ she said in the thread of a voice. ‘Just so very tired. But it
is
a son, Adam!’

‘A very fine son,’ he agreed. ‘
Clever
Jenny!’

She laughed weakly, but her eyes searched his face. ‘Are you pleased?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Very pleased.’

She gave a little relieved sigh. ‘Your mama says he’s like your brother. Would you like to have him christened Stephen?’

‘No, not at all. We’ll have him christened Giles, after my grandfather, and Jonathan, after his,’ he replied.

Her eyes lit up. ‘Do you mean that? Thank you! Papa will be so pleased and proud! You’ll give him my love, won’t you, and tell him that I am very well.’

‘I will. He sent his love to you – his dear love. I left him making the most peculiar noises to his grandson, who treated them with utter contempt – very understandably, I thought!’

That made her laugh so much that Nurse, who had tactfully joined Martha at the far end of the room, brought Adam’s visit to an end, informing him in a voice that in no way matched the respectful curtsy she dropped, that my lady must go to sleep now, and would be glad to see him in the morning.

When Mr Chawleigh learned from Jenny that his name was to be bestowed upon his grandson, and at Adam’s suggestion, he was more than pleased: he was overcome. It was several moments before he was able to utter a word. He sat staring at Jenny, his hands on his knees; and when he did at last speak all he could find to say was: ‘Giles Jonathan Deveril! Giles-Jonathan-Deveril!’

Nor was this by any means the last time he uttered the names. Every now and then a look of profound satisfaction was seen to spread over his face; his lips would move; he would rub his hands together, and give a little chuckle; and all who observed these signs knew that he was savouring his grandson’s names yet again. He was embarrassingly grateful to Adam, telling him that he hadn’t looked to have such a compliment paid him, and assuring him that he meant to do the handsome thing by the boy. Adam had learned to hear such remarks without wincing; but he soon grew extremely bored by the next manifestation of Mr Chawleigh’s pride in his grandson. The discovery that the infant had no title was a disappointment that seemed likely to bring a lasting cloud to his horizon, nor was his dissatisfaction eased when Adam, rather amused, told him that when he had occasion to write to Giles he would be able to direct his letter to the Honourable Giles Deveril. Mr Chawleigh had a poor opinion of Honourables. He had seen the word written, but he regarded it with suspicion, because he had never heard anyone called by it.

‘No, you wouldn’t. It isn’t used in speech,’ said Adam.

‘Well, I don’t see the sense of having a title which ain’t used,’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘Shabby, I call it! Who’s to know he’s got it?’

‘I don’t know – and, speaking as one who held the title until very recently, I promise you Giles won’t care!’

‘I’d have liked him to have been a lord,’ said Mr Chawleigh wistfully.

‘Well, I’ve no wish to seem disobliging,’ said Adam, tired of the discussion, ‘but I don’t consider it to be any part of my paternal duty to put a period to my life merely to provide Giles with a title!’

He spoke a little impatiently, and was immediately ashamed, because Mr Chawleigh said he hoped no offence was taken, as none was intended. To make amends, he devoted himself to Mr Chawleigh’s entertainment all one afternoon, with the result that he became so inwardly chafed that he found himself looking forward with positive yearning to the date of his well-meaning but disastrously irritating guest’s departure. This was not long delayed. Mr Chawleigh remained at Fontley only until he was convinced that there was no danger that Jenny would succumb to puerperal fever, which was another of his bugbears. Satisfied on this point, he was as anxious to be gone as Adam was to see him go: the lord alone knew, he said, what silly mistakes his various subordinates had made during his absence from the City. His worst stroke was left to the last moment, when his chaise was at the door, and he was taking leave of Adam in the porch. His mood was benign: his daughter was safe; he had a lusty grandson; his son-in-law had made him as welcome as if he had been a Duke, even naming the baby after him, and behaving, when he’d come the ugly for no reason at all, as patiently and kindly as if he had been his real son. Mr Chawleigh’s heart was full of gratitude and generosity, and, unfortunately, it overflowed. Shaking Adam warmly by the hand, and looking at him with rough affection, he thanked him for the third time for his hospitality. ‘If anyone had told me I’d be happy to stay in the country for more than a sennight I’d have laughed in their faces!’ he said. ‘But you make me so welcome, my lord, that if you don’t take care you’ll have me posting down to visit you more often than you bargain for. I’ve got to feel myself so much at home here that the next thing you know I’ll be talking about oats and rye and the like as glib as you do! Which brings me to something I’ve got to say to you!’

‘About oats and rye?’ said Adam, smiling. ‘No, no, sir! You stick to your trade and I’ll stick to mine!’

Mr Chawleigh chuckled at this. ‘Ay, that’s my motto! No, that ain’t it: the thing is, Jenny’s been telling me about some farm or other you’re mad after, for experiments, she said. Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you want with such things, and I don’t deny it seems corkbrained to me! But there! If you’re set on it, I suppose you’ll have to have it, so you tell me how much of the ready you need to set it going, and I’ll stand the nonsense!’

‘How very kind of you, sir!’ Adam said, forcing himself to speak pleasantly. ‘But I assure you I’m not mad after any farm! I have quite enough to do without saddling myself with an experimental farm.’

Mr Chawleigh was disappointed, but also relieved. He wished to bestow a handsome present on Adam, but it did seem wicked to squander one’s blunt on anything so silly as an experimental farm. So he did not press the matter, but set off for London, cudgelling his brain in an attempt to hit on something which his incomprehensible son-in-law really would like to receive.

Adam was left a prey to bitter hatred of insensitive vulgarians, who could never be made to understand how much their oppressive generosity lacerated the feelings of those cast in finer moulds than themselves.

Yet five minutes later he found himself defending Mr Chawleigh from the Dowager’s acid criticisms, even telling her that he held him in affection and esteem, which, at that moment, was far from being the truth.

The Dowager was suffering slightly from reaction. She had risen nobly to an occasion, but the occasion had passed. While it was of paramount importance that her daughter-in-law should be kept in a tranquil state of mind she had found it easy to suppress every critical impulse; but Jenny, though slow to recover her strength, was now out of danger, and the Dowager felt at liberty to unburden herself of a great many criticisms and grievances. Adam, having endured an extremely wearing week, keeping his mother and his father-in-law apart, and, when this was impossible, stepping hastily into every breach created by two such ill-assorted persons, was in no mood to listen to these, and he gave his mother a very improper set-down. A serious rupture threatened, but was averted by the Dowager’s recollecting that her younger daughter was shortly to make her début, and that in her own miserably straitened circumstances it was quite impossible for her to provide all the expensive raiment necessary for this event.

It had been decided that since Jenny, confined at the end of March, would be very imprudent to embark on the exigencies of a London season, Lady Nassington should launch Lydia into the ton. The Dowager had, in fact, brought Lydia to London, and had consigned her to her aunt’s care. She had, at great personal sacrifice, supplied her with a number of elegant ball-dresses, walking-dresses, and demie-toilettes, but it was quite out of her power to provide her with a Court-dress. The child could certainly not afford to pay for this herself, out of the slender allowance her brother made her, and dear Adam would scarcely wish the charge to fall upon his aunt.

He did not wish it; and even less did he wish the cost of Lydia’s presentation to be borne by Jenny. He gave the Dowager a draft on Drummond’s, which put her so much in charity with him that instead of shaking the dust of Fontley from her feet she remained there for another week.

She was thus present when Lady Oversley drove over from Beckenhurst on a visit of congratulation, bringing with her Lady Rockhill, and the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth Edgcott; two very well brought-up and rather mouse-like little girls, who (just as Jenny had prophesied) sat and gazed with shy admiration at their lovely young stepmother.

Lady Oversley had neither meant nor wished to bring Julia to Fontley, but she had found it impossible to leave her behind. The Rockhills were paying a brief visit to Beckenhurst on their way up to London, where Julia was going to buy much prettier dresses for her stepdaughters than their austere grandmama had considered suitable, show them all the sights, and in general entertain them royally before sending them back to their governess and their books at Rockhill Castle. ‘But before we leave you, Mama,’ Julia said, ‘I must go to Fontley to see how Jenny does, of course.’

Lady Oversley ventured to suggest that a letter of felicitation would perhaps be better than a visit.

‘When it’s known that I’m here, so close to Fontley?’ Julia said. ‘Oh, no! How unkind it would be in me not to visit Jenny! I won’t have it said that I didn’t render her every observance!’

When the visit was paid Jenny was still confined to her room, but the Dowager was able to assure Lady Oversley that she was quite well enough to receive her, and dear Julia too. She conducted them upstairs, leaving the little girls seated primly side by side on a sofa in the Green Saloon, with a book of engravings to look at.

Jenny, who was permitted now to spend some hours on a day-bed, greeted her visitors with pleasure, but it was not long before Lady Oversley judged it to be time to withdraw. Julia, she thought, was talking too much and too animatedly to Jenny, who was obviously languid and invalidish. One might almost have said that Julia was
rattling
on in a way that would probably leave Jenny with a headache. She had kissed her, and felicitated her, and admired the baby, which was perfectly proper, but it would have been better to have kept all her gay reminiscences of Paris for a future date. It could not interest Jenny to know what this person had said to Madame la Marquise, or what that person had said about her. Lady Oversley felt uneasily that had it been anyone but Julia she would have suspected her of flaunting her triumphs and her wedded felicity in front of poor little Jenny. So she got up to take her leave. Julia followed her example, saying: ‘But I must have one last peep at your baby, Jenny! Dear little man! He’s like you, I think.’ She looked up from the cradle, laughing: ‘I’m a Mama too, you know! I’ve two daughters – such darlings! They ought to hate me, but they spoil me to death!’

When the ladies entered the Green Saloon again they found Adam there, trying to draw out the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth. Julia gave him her hand, exclaiming: ‘Oh, you have made the acquaintance of my daughters already! That’s too bad! I’m quite as proud a mama as Jenny, I promise you, and had meant to have presented them to you in form.’

He had dreaded this meeting, but when he looked at Julia, and listened to her, she seemed to be almost a stranger. Even her appearance had altered. She had always been charmingly dressed, but in a style suited to her maiden status; he had never seen her attired in the silks, the velvets, and the jewels of matronhood. He thought she looked very rich and fashionable, with all the curled plumes clustering round the high crown of her hat, the sapphire-drops in her ears, the sable stole flung carelessly over the back of her chair, but she did not look like his Julia. It did not occur to him that she was somewhat over-dressed for the occasion, but it had occurred forcibly to Lady Oversley, who had remonstrated, only to be told that she had nothing else to wear, and that Rockhill liked her to look elegant.

She was telling his mother how nervous she had been when Rockhill had taken her to meet his children, making a droll story of it. The little girls giggled, and uttered protestingly: ‘Oh,
Mama
!’ She had been afraid that Rockhill’s servants would regard her as a usurper, and that his sisters would disapprove of her. Such an ordeal as it had been! But they were all such dear creatures that they positively killed her with kindness: she was becoming odiously spoilt, and would soon, if they persisted in cosseting her, be the most idle, exacting, and selfish toad imaginable.

‘Oh,
Mama
!’

Listening to this, Adam remembered suddenly the words she had spoken to him once. ‘
I must be loved! I can’t live if I’m not loved!
’ The thought flashed into his mind that she was basking in adulation; and he wondered for a shocked moment if the caresses and the treats she bestowed upon Rockhill’s daughters sprang from this craving rather than from a wish to make them happy. He was aghast, not at her but at himself; he recalled a thousand instances of her sweetness, her generosity, her quick sympathy, her tender heart; and thought:
Who has a better right to be loved?

‘Dear Julia!’ sighed the Dowager, when the visitors had departed. ‘No one could marvel at the Edgcotts for liking her so well! Dorothea Oversley has been telling me what a conquest she has made over Rockhill’s sisters, but, as I said to Dorothea, I should have been astonished if they had not liked her, for she is always so prettily behaved, and so attentive – so exactly what one would wish one’s daughter-in-law to be!’

‘Sister-in-law, surely, ma’am?’ Adam said, in a dry tone.

‘Yes, dear – alas!’ she replied mournfully.

‘I hope the visit may not have tired Jenny: I must go up to her.’

He escaped from her on this excuse, and did indeed go upstairs, to be greeted, as he entered Jenny’s room, by some lusty yells from his son, who appeared to have fallen into a paroxysm of fury. Adam was put unpleasantly in mind of Mr Chawleigh, but thrust the thought away. ‘It’s a constant source of astonishment to me that anything so small should possess such powerful lungs,’ he remarked.

Jenny signed to the nurse to take the baby away. ‘Yes, and such a strong will!’ she answered. ‘He’s determined not to be laid down in his cradle: that’s all that ails him. But he was very good while Lady Oversley and Julia were with me. It was kind in them to come, wasn’t it? Did you see them?’

‘Yes, and also the two girls – oppressively well-behaved damsels! Was the post brought up to you? I saw you had a letter from Lydia.’

‘Yes, bless her! She says she’s still as sulky as a bear because Lady Nassington won’t allow her to come to see her godson. I wish she might have come, but it is much too far – and I can’t say that he’s much to look at yet!’ She hesitated, and then said haltingly: ‘I had a letter from Papa as well.’

‘Did you? I hope he’s well?’

She nodded, but she did not speak for a moment or two. She had been unhappily conscious for several days that Adam had withdrawn a little from her, behind his intangible barrier. She had ventured to ask him if she had displeased him, but he had put up his brows, saying: ‘Displeased me? Why, what have I said to make you think so?’ She could not answer him, because he had said nothing to make her think so, and she could not tell him that her love made her acutely sensitive to every change of mood in him. But she knew now what had caused that subtle withdrawal. Rather flushed, bracing herself, she said: ‘Papa tells me that he offered to – to make it possible for you to start the experimental farm you wish for – only that you refused it.’