A Civil Contract (34 page)

‘Brough, is there any news?’ Adam asked, as soon as Jenny had taken Lydia upstairs to see her godson.

Brough shook his head, grimacing. ‘Nothing but on-dits. It seems pretty certain that Bonaparte ain’t in Paris: that’s all I know.’

‘If he has left Paris, he’s gone to join his Army of the North. There ought to be news any day now: it wouldn’t be like him to dawdle! Do you believe all these stories that he’s a spent force? Gammon!’

‘I’m damned if I know what to believe!’ said Brough. ‘I’ve never heard so much slum talked in my life – I can tell you that! It’s a queer thing, Adam: you’d think there’s no question about it that we’re in for it again, but there are plenty of fellows still saying there’ll be no war – men better placed than I am to know what’s brewing.’

‘It’s war,’ Adam said confidently. ‘It
must
be! I’ve been expecting all the week to hear that we’re engaged on the frontier: Boney won’t wait to be attacked on two fronts! His only hope of making the game his own is to give
us
a knock-down before the Austrians and the Russians can come up!’

‘Think he can do the trick?’ asked Brough, cocking an eye-brow at him.

‘Good God, no!’

The ladies came back into the room, putting an end to discussion. The war was not mentioned again. It seemed remote from Fontley, drowsing in the late sunshine of a summer’s evening; but when the little party sat at dinner it came suddenly closer, with the arrival, in a chaise-and-pair hired in Market Deeping, of one of Mr Chawleigh’s junior clerks, bearing a letter from his master.

Dunster brought it to Adam, at the head of the table. Recognizing the scrawl as he picked the letter up, Adam said, a note of surprise in his voice: ‘For me?’

‘Yes, my lord. The young man desired me to tell your lordship that it is most urgent. One of Mr Chawleigh’s clerks, I apprehend.’

Adam broke the wafer, and spread open the single sheet, frowning as he tried to decipher it. An anxious silence had fallen on his companions, all three of whom sat watching him. His frown deepened; his lips were seen to tighten. Jenny’s heart sank, but she said calmly: ‘Has Papa met with an accident? Please to tell me, my lord!’

‘No, nothing like that.’ Adam glanced up at Dunster. ‘Where is the young man? Bring him in!’ He waited until Dunster had left the room before adding: ‘It is difficult to discover what
has
happened. He seems to think it necessary that I should post up to London immediately, and has been so obliging as to warn them at Fenton’s that I shall be arriving tomorrow evening.’ There was an edge to this; aware of it, he forced up a smile, and passed the letter to Jenny, saying: ‘Try what you can make of it, my love!’

‘Post up to London?’ cried Lydia. ‘But you can’t! How
could
Papa Chawleigh ask you to do so? He
knows
you can’t leave Fontley, for I told him myself about the party!’

Mr Chawleigh had not forgotten the party: in a postscript he told his son-in-law never to mind, since he would be able to post back to Fontley in plenty of time for it.

Jenny, deciphering the letter more easily than Adam, was as far as he from understanding why he should have been summoned to town; but she saw at once what had vexed him. At no time distinguished by tact, Mr Chawleigh, writing under the stress of urgency, had given full rein to the Juggernaut within him. Adam was to come to town on the following day, and there was to be no argumentation about Sunday-travel; he was to come post; he was to put up at Fenton’s, where he would find a bedchamber and a parlour hired for him; and he was there to await further enlightenment. Mr Chawleigh would come to Fenton’s to tell him what he must do. Finally, he was to do as he was bid, or he would regret it.

By the time Jenny had finished reading the letter Dunster had brought a sharp-faced youth into the room, who disclosed that he had come down by the Mail, with instructions from the Master not to return without his lordship. That was all he knew. The Master had not told him why my lord was wanted in London; he had not heard any news about the war. It was obviously useless to question him further, so Jenny bore him off to introduce him to Mrs Dawes, promising that his lordship would let him know in the morning what he had decided to do.

‘Queer start!’ Brough said, when Jenny had gone out of the room. ‘I wonder what’s in the wind? Sounds to me as though the old boy
has
had some news – and none too good either.’

‘You heard what the clerk said. If there had been any news from Belgium he must have known it!’

‘Might not. There’s no doubt the City men do get to hear of important news before the rest of the world.’

‘Then why the devil didn’t he tell me what it is?’ demanded Adam irritably.

‘He probably don’t like writing letters, or don’t want it repeated.’

‘Adam!’ Lydia burst out. ‘If you are not here for my party –’

‘Of course I shall be here! I can see not the slightest reason why I should post up to town, whatever Mr Chawleigh may have heard!’

Lydia looked relieved; but when Jenny came back into the room, she said bluntly: ‘By what the boy tells me, Papa is in a taking. You’ll have to go, Adam.’

‘I’ll be hanged if I do! If your father wanted me to go chasing up to London, he should have told me why!’

She regarded him seriously. ‘Well, writing doesn’t come easily to him. But I know Papa, and you may depend upon it he’d never have sent for you like this if he hadn’t good reason to. There’s something he thinks you should do. It looks to me like some matter of business, and if that’s so, you do as he tells you, my lord, for there isn’t a shrewder head in the City than his!’

He looked vexed, and rather mulish; but when Brough endorsed this advice, recommending him not to be a clunch, he shrugged, and said: ‘Oh, very well!’

He made the journey in his own chaise, taking Kinver and the clerk with him, and arriving in St James’s Street a little after six o’clock. A Sunday calm seemed to prevail; and when he entered the hotel he was received with all the usual civilities, untouched by any sign of excitement or alarm. He felt more than ever sceptical, and went up to the parlour set aside for his use in a mood that was far from benign.

He found Mr Chawleigh awaiting him, walking up and down the floor in a fret of impatience. Mr Chawleigh was looking more than ordinarily grim, but his scowl lifted at sight of Adam, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘Eh, but I’m glad to see you, my lord!’ he said, grasping Adam’s hand. ‘Good lad, good lad!’

Adam’s brows rose a little. ‘How do you do, sir? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?’

‘Nay, it’s no matter! There’s naught to be done till the morning. I’m sorry to have brought you away from Fontley, all in a rush, but there was no help for it, because it’s a matter of damned urgency!’

‘Yes, so I understand, sir. One moment, however! Have you bespoken dinner?’

‘No, no, I’ve more to think of than dinner!’ said Mr Chawleigh testily.

‘But if there’s nothing to be done till tomorrow we can surely eat dinner tonight!’ said Adam. ‘What’s your choice, sir?’

‘I don’t know as I’ll be staying – Oh, well, anything you fancy, my lord! The ordinary will do for me.’

Adam began to think that there must be something very wrong, if his father-in-law’s appetite had failed. He looked at him for a moment, and then turned to his valet. ‘Tell them to send up a neat dinner, Kinver, at seven – and some sherry immediately, if you please!’ He smiled at Mr Chawleigh, saying, as Kinver went out of the room: ‘I’ve a mind to give you a scold, sir, for not ordering that for yourself. Now, what is it? Why was it necessary for me to come up to town?’

‘It’s bad news, my lord,’ Mr Chawleigh said heavily. ‘It’s damned bad news! We’ve been beat!’

Adam’s brows snapped together. ‘Who says so? Where did you learn that?’

‘Never you mind where I learned it! You’d be none the wiser if I was to tell you, but it ain’t a hoax, nor yet a mere rumour. There’s those in the City whose business it is to know what’s going on abroad, and they’ve agents all over, ay, and other ways of getting the news before it’s known elsewhere! We’ve been gapped, my lord! Beaten all hollow!’

‘Moonshine!’ Adam was a little pale, but he gave a scornful laugh. ‘Good God, sir, did you bring me all this way just to tell me a Canterbury tale?’

‘No, I didn’t, and it ain’t moonshine either! They’ve been fighting over there these two days past, let me tell you!’

‘That I can well believe,’ Adam responded coolly. ‘But that we’ve been beaten all hollow –
no
!’

Mr Chawleigh began to champ his jaws. ‘No? Don’t believe Boney’s sitting in Brussels at this very minute, I daresay? Or that those Prussians were rolled up – finished! – at the very outset? Or that Boney was too quick for your precious Wellington, and took him by surprise? I knew how it would be! Didn’t I say from the start we’d have him rampaging all over again?’

The entrance of a waiter checked him. He was obliged to contain himself until the man had gone away again; and when he next spoke it was in a milder tone. ‘There’s no sense in you and me coming to cuffs, my lord. You’ve got your notions, and it don’t matter what mine may be, because what I’m telling you ain’t anyone’s notion: it’s the truth! It came straight from Ghent, where maybe they know a trifle more than we do here! The town’s packed full of refugees, and Antwerp too!’

Adam poured out two glasses of sherry, and handed one to him. ‘That might well be, if the Army is on the retreat – which might also be. You say the Prussians suffered a bad reverse. I can believe that, but consider, sir! If Blücher was obliged to fall back, Wellington must have done so too, to maintain his communications with him. Any soldier could tell you that! – and also that Boney’s first objective must have been to cut them!’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ve taken part in a good few retreats under old Hookey’s command, sir, and
you
may believe
me
when I tell you that he’s never more masterly than when he retires!’

Mr Chawleigh, swallowing his sherry at a gulp, choked, and ejaculated: ‘Retires? For God’s sake, boy, can’t you understand plain English? It’s a damned rout!’

‘Apparently I can’t!’ Adam said, rather mischievously. ‘But I’ve no experience of damned routs, you know – unless you count Salamanca a rout? We rompéd Marmont in prime style, but I shouldn’t have called his retreat a
rout
.’

‘Marmont! This is
Bonaparte
!’

‘Very true, but I still find it impossible to believe in your rout.’ He saw that Mr Chawleigh’s colour was rising, and said: ‘Don’t let us argue on that head, sir! Tell me why I’m here! Even if your information were correct, I don’t understand why it is of such importance that I should be in London. What the devil can
I
do to mend matters?’

‘You can save your bacon!’ replied Mr Chawleigh grimly. ‘Not all of it, but some, I do trust! Eh, I blame myself! I should have warned you weeks ago – same as I should have pulled out myself, the moment I knew the jobbers had closed their books! I’ve dropped a tidy penny, my lord, and so I tell you!’

‘Have you, sir? I’m excessively sorry to hear it,’ said Adam, refilling the glasses. ‘How did you come to do that?’

Mr Chawleigh drew an audible breath, eyeing him much as a choleric schoolmaster might have eyed a doltish pupil. Speaking with determined patience, he said: ‘Your blunt’s invested in the Funds, ain’t it? Never mind these rents of yours! I’m talking about your private fortune. Well, I know it is – what was left of it! Me and your man Wimmering went into things pretty thoroughly before you was married to my Jenny. Not to wrap it up in clean linen, your pa played wily beguiled with his blunt, so that what was left don’t amount to much, not to my way of thinking. Nor your rents don’t either – and don’t waste your breath telling me what they
might
bring you in, because it don’t signify, not at this moment! The thing is, I wouldn’t want you to lose your fortune, my lord. I don’t say I ain’t ready to stand the nonsense, but well I know it ’ud fairly choke you if you was forced to be obliged to me for every groat you spent! Proud as an apothecary you are, for all you’ve tried to hide it, which I don’t deny you have, let alone behaving to me as affable and as respectful as if you was my own son!’ He paused, observing Adam’s sudden flush with an indulgent eye. ‘No need to colour up, my lord,’ he said kindly. ‘And no need for any roundaboutation either! They’ll tell you in the City that Jonathan Chawleigh’s a sure card. Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t, but I’m not a nodcock, lad, and well I know why you don’t drive the curricle I gave you, nor wouldn’t let me set up this farm of yours! You don’t choose to be beholden, and I like you the better for it! Which is why I bid you come up to town, for there’s naught to be done without you’re here to give the word. I’ve seen Wimmering: he knows what’s to be done, but he can’t move without he has your authority.’

‘Have I any?’ Adam interrupted, as pale as he had previously been flushed.

‘Don’t talk so silly!’ begged Mr Chawleigh. ‘It stands to reason your man of business can’t act without you tell him to!’

‘So I had supposed! But I’m sadly ignorant: I had also supposed that my man of business would have shown the door to anyone – even my father-in-law! – who came to tell him what to do with my affairs!’

‘Well, so he did, in a manner of speaking!’ said Mr Chawleigh, keeping his temper. ‘Now, don’t fly into your high ropes, my lord! We ain’t after anything but your good, Wimmering and me, nor he never had any intention of acting arbitrary. But he’s a deep old file, and he knows, if you don’t, what’s the worth of a nudge from Jonathan Chawleigh, and a mighty poor man of business he’d be if he didn’t pay heed to it, and act according! Why, if I’d waited to drum it into
your
head, without a word spoken to Wimmering, it would have been too late to do anything by the time I’d done it, and you’d told Wimmering – which likely you’d have made a mull of, you having no more understanding of business than a babe unborn!’

Adam’s anger cooled a little. ‘Very well, and what is it that must be done?’