A Civil Contract Read online

  Mr Chawleigh, to Adam’s intense but rigorously suppressed annoyance, had visited the stables and the coach-house attached to Lynton House while the bridal pair were in Hampshire, and had condemned out of hand the landaulette which had previously served the ladies of the house. He thought it a very dowdy turn-out; and he replaced it with a glossy barouche, on whose shallow doors he insisted on having the Lynton arms blazoned. The carriage was drawn by a pair of showy chestnuts. Mr Chawleigh had paid a large price for them, but he was not a judge of horseflesh, and when Adam first saw them he ejaculated involuntarily: ‘Oh, my God!’

  However, Jenny was not a judge of horseflesh either, so she was quite satisfied with her peacocky pair. They might have been bishoped, as John Coachman told Adam he was willing to swear they had been, but they were quite capable of conveying her about the town in dashing style.

  She found Lady Oversley at home, and was taken upstairs to the drawing-room, where her ladyship welcomed her with affection but rather nervously. She was looking harassed, and when Jenny disclosed that she had called to enquire how Julia did she answered in a flurry: ‘Oh – ! So very kind of you! My dear, I’m afraid I didn’t thank you – in the agitation of the moment, you know! But Emily Castlereagh told me how good you were, and indeed I am very much obliged to you! Poor Julia! The rooms were hot, weren’t they? I was conscious of it myself, and, of course, Julia’s constitution is not strong. She is not in very high health – in fact, quite out of sorts! – so I have kept her in bed today, and Dr Baillie has given me a composer for her.’

  Jenny nodded. ‘I was afraid she would fall into one of her hysterical fits,’ she remarked. ‘I thought about it a great deal, after we had gone home, and it seemed to me as though the best thing would be for me to come to see you, ma’am, because I don’t doubt you’re in quite a worry. Well, I don’t know much about tonnish people yet, but I expect they don’t differ greatly from anyone else, and Julia’s going off as she did, the instant she clapped eyes on Adam, is bound to set tongues wagging.’

  Thankfully abandoning pretence, Lady Oversley said tragically: ‘Oh, Jenny, I declare I am worn to a bone! What with Julia, and then Oversley – But she did not faint on purpose!’

  ‘No, of course she didn’t. I don’t understand how people can faint away as she does, but there’s no denying that it never needed more than a harsh word to send her off. She used to suffer dreadfully from the vapours, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Lady Oversley. ‘And all the doctors could find amiss was that she was too excitable! But she doesn’t have the vapours now – at least, not if she is gently treated, and not scolded when she is already so much distressed! I don’t mean to say that I didn’t sympathize with Oversley – heaven knows I could have murdered her! In that house of all others, and with Emily Cowper in the very room! But what, I ask you, Jenny, is the use of ringing a peal over the poor child, and driving her into hysterics?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t any use at all, and never was,’ said Jenny. ‘Not that one can wonder at his lordship’s ripping up at her, for gentlemen don’t like scenes, except when they create ’em themselves, like Papa, when the meat’s not dressed right. The thing is, what’s to be done now?’

  ‘I can’t think!’ said Lady Oversley. ‘I am being driven distracted! Oversley is saying that if Julia can’t conduct herself with propriety she had best retire to a convent, which is quite absurd, for if she retired anywhere it would be to old Lady Oversley, but I don’t wish her to! Here she is, in her second season, and how, I ask you, is she to be creditably married, when her father talks such nonsense, and she will do nothing but – Oh, dear, how awkward this is! I shouldn’t be talking about it to you at all, which just shows how much my nerves are overset!’

  ‘There’s no need for anyone to be in a worry over me,’ replied Jenny stolidly. ‘No need for any flummery between us either, ma’am. No one thinks Adam married me for love. Only it’s a pity that everyone should know it was Julia he wanted, and she him.’ She paused, frowning. ‘There’s plenty of people who fall in love, and then fall out of it again, so I daresay it doesn’t signify, however many of her friends Julia took into her confidence. But it won’t do, will it, for her to be showing everyone that she’s wearing the willow for him?’

  ‘No, it will not do!’ agreed her ladyship, with feeling. ‘And so disagreeable to you, too, which, I assure you, I perfectly understand!’

  ‘That don’t signify. It’s Adam I’m thinking about – and you too, ma’am, for you’ve been very kind to me.’

  ‘I shall have to keep Julia out of his way. And how I am to do it, unless I send her back to Tunbridge Wells –’

  ‘Well, you can’t, of course, and to my way of thinking it wouldn’t answer. Sooner or later they’ll be bound to meet, and ten to one we’d be regularly in for it again, because the sight of him would be bound to bring it all back to her. And it won’t do to avoid us, because you’ve always been very friendly with the Deverils, by what Lydia’s told me, and so that would set people talking. So what I came to say to you, ma’am, was that the best thing is to let the quizzes see that we’re all very good friends. There’s no sense in putting Julia in Adam’s way more than’s needful, but if she visits me, and goes out with me now and then, she will meet him, and – and grow accustomed to it.’

  Lady Oversley, who was regarding her in a good deal of astonishment, said: ‘But Jenny, surely you cannot wish – I mean, is it wise?’

  Jenny was silent for a moment. ‘Well, I’ve been wondering that myself. Of course, the best would be if they were never to meet at all, but since that can’t be it seems to me better they should meet often enough for it to get to be an ordinary thing than to meet only by accident.’

  ‘If only I had known!’ exclaimed Lady Oversley, dissolving into tears. ‘I ought never to have allowed it, but it seemed so suitable! Oh dear, who could have guessed it would end in my cherished Julia breaking her heart? Though of course I should have guessed she would, because she always said he was like Sir Galahad, which I’m sure he is – if Sir Galahad was the one I think he was – Or don’t you think so?’ she asked, perceiving that Jenny’s eyes had narrowed in sudden laughter.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have thought so. But I was never one for reading those old romances and legends that Julia dotes on,’ said Jenny apologetically. ‘I do know that he likes his eggs boiled for four minutes exactly, and won’t touch muffins.’

  ‘Won’t touch muffins?’ faltered Lady Oversley.

  ‘Can’t abide them! And there’s nothing frets him more than having his things out of order. He says it comes from living in tents, when there’s no bearing it if you don’t keep everything just so. I’ve been obliged to tell my housekeeper that if she can’t keep the maids from rearranging the things on his dressing-table she’ll have to leave at the term. Mind, for anything I know Sir Galahad may have been pernickety too – though I’d wager you an egg at Easter, as Papa says, that that’s not what Julia thinks!’

  ‘No,’ said Lady Oversley faintly. ‘No, indeed!’

  ‘So, if you’re agreeable, ma’am, I’ll try if I can’t coax Julia to drive with me in the Park tomorrow. And if you and my lord would bring her to dine with us next week, when Adam’s mother and Lydia will be with us, we should be very happy. It would be a natural thing for you to do, wouldn’t it, with Lady Lynton going off to Bath, as she is, and spending a couple of nights in Grosvenor Street? It won’t be a regular party, though I mean to invite Lord Brough as well.’

  ‘Oh, but Julia would never – Oh, dear, I don’t know what to say! Of course it would make an excellent impression, if it were known that we had all dined informally with you, but I’m afraid Julia would shrink from such a scheme!’

  ‘I don’t doubt she will, but there’s no saying but what I may be able to bring her round my thumb. I’ll go up to her, if I may.’

  Startled, Lady Oversley said: ‘No, no! I mean, she is so much overpowered – She won’t wish to see yo