A Civil Contract (7 page)

No blinding flash of recognition struck Adam, but he was able to identify her with the commonplace girl whom he had too often found in Mount Street a year earlier. He went up to her, saying, with his endearing smile, and easy civility: ‘I need no introduction to Miss Chawleigh, sir, for we are old acquaintances. How do you do? What a long time it seems since we last met!’

She gave him her hand, but replied only with a quick, spasmodic smile, and a very fleeting glance up at him. The carnation deepened in her cheeks; he felt sincerely sorry for her embarrassment, and tried to help her over the awkward moment by making some remark about the size of Russell Square: surely the largest in London?

Fortunately, since she remained tongue-tied, he was answered by Mr Chawleigh, who was delighted to tell him the history of the square, the circumstances which had led him to remove to it from Southampton Row, and the price he had paid for his house in it.

‘It wouldn’t suit me to be peacocking about among the nobs in Mayfair – not but what we see plenty of ’em driving up to No. 65, now that this painting-fellow’s come to live there, I can tell you! They come to have their portraits taken, and very fine they are, by all accounts. So they should be, is what I say! You’d hardly credit it, my lord, but he’ll chouse you out of eighty or a hundred guineas for a small picture I wouldn’t give a hundred shillings for!’

‘Oh, you are too satirical, Mr Chawleigh!’ protested Mrs Quarley-Bix. ‘You must know, Lord Lynton, that we speak of Mr Lawrence. Such genius! I positively dote on his pictures, and – dare I say it, dear Mr Chawleigh? – have often indulged the wish that you would commission him to take our sweet Miss Chawleigh’s likeness.’

‘Ay, well, I did have a notion of it, but when he got to talking of four hundred guineas for a full-length, which is what I wanted, because if I have the thing done at all I’ll have it done handsomely – well, I was off! Having a touch at me, is what I thought! However, there’s no saying but what I may come to it yet – that’s to say, if things go the way I want ’em to,’ he added significantly.

‘
You
, I daresay, Lord Lynton, have been familiar with this quarter of the town when Bedford House was still standing? One can’t but deplore its passing! So noble a mansion! so many associations! What a pang it must cause you to see the estate built over!’

‘Oh, no!’ Adam replied. ‘I don’t think I ever visited Bedford House above once in my life, and I was so young then that I have only the dimmest recollections of the event.’

‘But you are acquainted with the Duke, I need hardly ask? He reminds one so much of his brother, the
late
Duke, whom, of course, you must often have seen. One of your father’s friends, was he not? Ardent agriculturists, both of them, you know. You observed the Fifth Duke’s statue in the square? One of Westmacott’s, and quite in his best manner – if I am any judge of the matter!’

‘Well, it’s a fine, big statue,’ conceded Mr Chawleigh, ‘but what a Duke wants with a plough I
don’t
see, nor yet with agriculture, which is work for farmers, not for Dukes. Each man to his own last is my motto.’

‘Oh, but I assure you, dear sir, agriculture has become quite the thing!’ cried Mrs Quarley-Bix. ‘I believe it was Mr Coke of Norfolk who made it fashionable, and
he
, you know –’

‘Lord, ma’am, how you do run on!’ exclaimed Mr Chawleigh impatiently. ‘Ah, there’s the dinner-bell at last! Jenny, my dear, you’ll lead the way downstairs, and we’ll hope you’ve ordered a neat dinner to set before his lordship, even if there wasn’t a turtle to be had, not for love or money. But I warned you it would be pot-luck, my lord!’ He added, in case Adam should take him too literally, and be dismayed: ‘Plain, good, and plentiful is my rule, and nothing ever set on the table which I wouldn’t like to offer to a guest, supposing one was to drop in for a bite. I don’t know what Jenny has to offer us today, but one thing I
do
know: you’ll get no hashes and haricots in Jonathan Chawleigh’s house!’

He might have spared his breath. By this time, Adam had formed a fair notion of what lay before him; and he was not in the least surprised at the array of dishes and side-dishes which weighed down the long dining-table, and overflowed on to the sideboard. Since the occasion was informal, only one course had been provided, a circumstance which made Adam feel profoundly thankful. He was not a large eater, and had for several years been accustomed to camp-fare, which, more often than not, consisted of hare soup, and a scraggy chicken, and to do justice even to one course which comprised a dozen dishes was a penance. Mr Chawleigh said, with a wave of his hand: ‘You see your dinner, my lord!’ and thereafter made few contributions to the conversation, only sparing enough time from the serious business of eating his way through the meal to apologize for the absence of turbot from the board, recommend the sweetbreads, and call for more sauce.

Miss Chawleigh explained with composure that the recent storms had made it impossible to procure any turbot; and Adam, for want of anything better to say, gave her a humorous description of some of the less appetizing meals he had eaten in Spain. She smiled, and said: ‘But in one of your billets – I remember that you told us about it – there was always a
penella
, which was very good. Have I that word right?’

‘Indeed you have, and it
was
good! A kind of stew, which I never saw off the stove – but what was put into it I didn’t discover: a little of everything, I suspect!’

‘I don’t hold with stews,’ remarked Mr Chawleigh. ‘Leftovers, that’s what they are, and just as well eaten in the kitchen. Allow me to tempt you to a morsel of ham, my lord!’

Adam declined it; and Mrs Quarley-Bix, possibly with the amiable motive of promoting further conversation, began to enumerate all the scions of nobility, at present serving in the Peninsula, whose parents were old acquaintances of hers, or distant relations. She had no doubt at all that they were well-known to his lordship; but as those who were not in Cavalry Regiments were to be found in the 1st Foot Guards, he was unable to respond satisfactorily; and was grateful to his host for creating a diversion, even though he might deprecate the manner of it.

‘Hang Lord This, and the Honourable That!’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘Try a mouthful of duckling, my lord!’

Adam accepted the duckling; and, while his host carved several slices from the breast, forestalled any further enquiries into his military acquaintances by asking Miss Chawleigh if she had read Lord Byron’s last poem. Her answer surprised him, for instead of going into instant raptures, she gave a quick shake of the head, and said: ‘No. I don’t mean to, either, for it seems to me to be about another barbarous, Eastern person, and quite as full of dripping swords as the
Giaour
, which I thought horrid!’

‘Oh, hush, Miss Chawleigh!’ cried Mrs Quarley-Bix, throwing up her hands in affected dismay. ‘Divine Byron! How can you talk so? The
Bride of Abydos
! The opening lines! –
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime
–’

‘Yes, that’s very pretty, but I think the next lines nonsensical. The rage of the vulture
may
melt into sorrow, though it seems most improbable, but why the love of the turtle should madden to crime I can’t imagine. And, what is more,’ she added resolutely, ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Certainly not!’ Adam agreed, considerably entertained by this novel point of view.

‘I don’t know anything about the love of turtles, and nor does anyone else, if you were to ask me, but the best way of cooking ’em is the West Indian way, with a good pint and a half of Madeira, and a dozen hard eggs spread over the top, and popped under a salamander,’ said Mr Chawleigh.

‘Dear Mr Chawleigh, a misapprehension! The poet writes of the turtle-
dove
!’

‘Oh! Well, why can’t he say so? I don’t know that I’ve ever eaten turtle-doves, but I daresay they’re much the same as pigeons. I’m not over and above partial to them myself,’ said Mr Chawleigh reflectively, ‘but when I was a lad we used to have them cooked in batter. Pigeons in a Hole, they were called.’

‘Like Toad in the Hole?’ enquired Miss Chawleigh.

‘My dear Miss Chawleigh, how can you talk so?’ protested Mrs Quarley-Bix. ‘Lord Lynton is looking perfectly shocked!’

‘Am I?’ Adam said. ‘My looks belie me, then.’ He addressed himself to his hostess, saying, with a slight smile: ‘I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to encounter a female who doesn’t fall into ecstasies at the mere mention of Byron’s name!’

‘Are you quizzing me?’ she asked bluntly.

‘Of course I’m not! I’m no great judge of poetry, but surely Lord Byron’s verses are extraordinarily over-rated?’

‘Well, that’s what I think,’ she replied. ‘But I have for long been aware that, try as I may, I don’t appreciate poetry as I should. I did make the greatest effort to read the
Bride of Abydos
, however.’

‘Unavailing, I collect?’

She nodded, looking a little conscience-stricken. ‘Yes – though I daresay I should have persevered if the library had not sent me a parcel containing two books which I most particularly wanted to read. I found I could no longer concentrate my mind, and so abandoned the attempt. And
one
was perfectly respectable!’ she said defensively, adding, in response to his lifted eyebrows: ‘Mr Southey’s
Life of Nelson
: has it come in your way?’

‘Ah, yes!
That
is a noble work, indeed! Worth all his Thalabas, and Madocs, and Curses! But what, Miss Chawleigh, was the other work – not so respectable! – which lured you away from Abydos?’

‘Well, that one was a novel,’ she confessed.

‘A novel preferred to Lord Byron! Oh, Miss Chawleigh!’ exclaimed Mrs Quarley-Bix archly.

‘Yes, I
did
prefer it. In fact, I turned to it with the greatest relief, for it is all about quite ordinary, real persons, and not about pirate chiefs, or pashas, and nobody kills anyone in it. Besides, it was excessively diverting, just as I guessed it would be.’ She glanced shyly at Adam, and said, with a tiny stammer: ‘It is by the author of
Sense and Sensibility
, which – b-but I daresay you might not recall! – I liked, but M-Miss Oversley thought too humdrum. I remember that we argued about it one day, when you were present.’

‘No, I don’t recall the occasion,’ he replied, his colour a trifle heightened, ‘but I know that Miss Oversley prefers the romantic to the humdrum. She is extremely fond, too, of poetry.’

‘Well, each to his own taste,’ said Mr Chawleigh, who had come to the end of his repast, ‘but I’m bound to say I don’t see what’s the use of writing poetry, except for children to learn at school, though what good that does ’em I don’t know. Still, it was pretty to hear you recite, Jenny, and wonderfully you used to remember your pieces.’

Mrs Quarley-Bix cast a speaking glance at Adam, but he evaded it, and seized the opportunity offered by his host’s remark to draw Miss Chawleigh into an interchange of reminiscences of the various poems which they had been compelled as children to learn by heart. Miss Chawleigh became much less self-conscious over this game of odious comparisons: a circumstance which led her parent to observe, when the ladies had left the dining-room, that he could see that she and Adam went along like winking together.

Adam knew himself to be stiffening, and tried to overcome repulsion. He was not quite successful, but Mr Chawleigh did not pursue the subject, deeming it of more immediate importance first to ascertain that his port was being properly appreciated; and, next, to discover whether his noble guest’s opinion of Mrs Quarley-Bix tallied with his own. Adam answered this evasively, for while he was by no means enamoured of the lady he thought her situation an uncomfortable one, and so profoundly pitied any person who was obliged to live with Mr Chawleigh that he was reluctant to abuse her.

‘Well, to my mind, she’s nothing but a show-off,’ said that worthy. ‘I was hoping you’d give her a set-down, for if there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s sham! No, and I don’t like Smithfield bargains either, which is what I’ve a shrewd notion I got when I hired her to companion Jenny. Mind, I’m not a nip-farthing, but I want value for my blunt, and not a penny do I grudge when I’ve got it,
that
you may depend on! I daresay you noticed the pearls my Jenny’s wearing? I bought ’em at Rundell & Bridge, and paid eighteen thousand for them without so much as a blink – though I brought them down by a couple of thousand before I said Done! of course.’

It was not difficult to persuade him to talk about his possessions. Before he declared that it was time they joined the ladies, Adam had led him on to describe the circumstances under which he had obtained the massive epergne on the table; what he had paid for the various pictures that adorned the walls; how he had had the dinner-service which Adam sincerely admired, straight from the Custom-house; and a great many other pieces of information of the same nature. Despising himself, Adam encouraged him to expatiate on his favourite theme. It was bad; but not so bad as to be asked whether he liked Miss Chawleigh well enough to marry her, which was the question he knew to have been hovering on Mr Chawleigh’s tongue.

When they entered the drawing-room, they found the ladies seated by the fire, Miss Chawleigh being engaged with some embroidery. Mrs Quarley-Bix at once drew Adam’s attention to this, begging him to marvel with her at the exquisite design, which dear Miss Chawleigh had herself drawn, and to declare if he had ever seen anything so beautiful.

‘I am for ever saying that she puts me to the blush, with her industry, and her accomplishments. I flatter myself that I’m not an indifferent needlewoman, but
her
stitches are set so neatly that I am quite ashamed to let my own work be seen. Her music, too! My dear Miss Chawleigh, I hope you mean to indulge us this evening? Allow me to ring for the footman to open the instrument!
You
, Lord Lynton, I know will be pleased with her performance, which, I venture to say, is most superior.’