A Civil Contract Read online

‘Oh, yes, but it’s of no consequence! If you should still be away I can very well go with Lady Oversley.’ She added, with a gleam of humour: ‘I must learn to go to parties without you, or we shall have people saying that we are quite Gothic. I expect I ought to set up a – what do you call it? – cicisbeo!’

  ‘Not if it would mean my tripping over him every time I entered the house!’

  She laughed. ‘No fear of that! Though I did once have an admirer. He thought me an excellent housekeeper.’

  ‘A dull fellow! But I must own I think so too.’

  She grew instantly pink. ‘Do you? I’m glad.’

  It seemed to him pathetic that she should be pleased by such a mild tribute; he tried to think of something else to say, but she forestalled him, turning the conversation away from herself by asking if she should send the necessary order to the stables, or if he preferred to do it himself.

  ‘No orders,’ he said. ‘I’m going down by the Mail.’

  ‘But – When we have our own chaise, and the boys – perfectly idle, too! – and the Mail won’t carry you to Fontley itself!’

  ‘No, it will set me down at Market Deeping, where Felpham will meet me with the phaeton. As for the postilions, I must own I think it ridiculous to keep them kicking their heels at your expense. Does your father insist on their employment? Why don’t you turn them off?’

  ‘They need not kick their heels,’ she said. ‘They are not here only to serve me. That’s not as Papa meant it to be when he engaged them for us.’

  ‘Well, they will serve me as well as you when I take you to Fontley later on.’ He saw her compress her lips, and said, after a moment’s hesitation: ‘Leave me some little independence, Jenny! I don’t question your expenditure, or wish you to forgo any luxury, but you mustn’t expect me to waste your father’s money on personal extravagance. Don’t look so troubled! there’s no hardship in travelling by the Mail, I assure you!’

  ‘No, but – Your father did not do so, did he?’

  ‘My father conducted himself as though he were as wealthy as yours. His example is not one I mean to follow – even if I wished to, which, believe me, I don’t! It really wouldn’t make me happy to live en prince, as he did, and as you, I think, would like me to.’

  ‘You must do as you wish,’ she said, in a subdued tone.

  He did not pursue the subject. The ice was too thin; nor did he feel able to make her understand what he could not explain even to himself. His personal thrift was illogical: to travel in a public conveyance, to drive his father’s curricle in preference to the glossy new one provided for him, to make no unnecessary purchases, gave him only the illusion of independence. He knew it, but in the middle of the luxury that surrounded and stifled him he clung obstinately to his economies.

  It was a relief to escape from the splendour of the house in Grosvenor Street, to be alone, to be going home; it was even a relief, when he reached Fontley, to see a worn carpet, faded chintz, a chair covered in brocade so old that it would rip at a touch. There were no modern conveniences, no mirrored bathrooms, no Patent Oil Lamps, no Improved Closed Stoves in the kitchen: water was pumped into the scullery, heated in an enormous copper, and carried in cans to the bedchambers; all the rooms, except the kitchen, where an old-fashioned oil-lamp hung, and blackened the ceiling with its fumes, were candle-lit. The house in Grosvenor Street blazed with light, for Mr Chawleigh had installed oil-lamps even in the bedrooms; but at Fontley, unless the candles were lit in all the wall-sconces, there were miles of dim passages, and one carried a single candle up to bed, guarding its flame from the draughts.

  The Dowager had tried for years to induce the Fifth Viscount to renovate Fontley, asserting, with truth, that its shabbiness was a disgrace; and when he had returned to it from the Peninsula Adam had heartily agreed with her; but, escaping from the cushioned splendour of the town house, all the inconveniences of Fontley seemed to him admirable, and he would have received with hostility even a suggestion that the frayed rug in which he caught his heel should be replaced. He did not quite acknowledge it, but in his mind was a jealous determination never to allow Chawleigh-hands to touch his home; shabbiness would not destroy its charm; Chawleigh-gold would destroy it overnight.

  But his acceptance of decay did not extend to his land. Here he wanted every modern improvement he could get. He might indulge foolish sentiment over a torn rug; he had none to waste on an ill-drained field, an outdated plough, or a labourer’s cottage falling to ruin; and had Mr Chawleigh shared his love of the land he might have been willing to admit him into some sort of a partnership, overcoming his pride for the sake of his acres. But Mr Chawleigh, fascinated by mechanical contrivances, had no interest in agriculture. Born in a back-slum, of town-bred ancestry, there was no tradition of farming behind him, and no inherited love of the soil. How anyone could wish to live anywhere but in London was a matter passing his comprehension, but he knew that the nobs (as he phrased it) possessed country estates; and since an estate added greatly to a nob’s consequence Adam’s value in his eyes had been considerably enhanced when he had learned from Lord Oversley that he was the owner of a large one in Lincolnshire, and of a mansion which figured in every Guide Book to the county. Lord Oversley spoke reverently of Fontley. Mr Chawleigh had no great opinion of antiquity, but he knew that the nobs set store by it, so it was obviously desirable that Jenny should become the mistress of an ancient country seat. In his view, this meant a palatial residence, set in extensive gardens, with such embellishments as ornamental water, statuary, and Grecian temples, the whole being surrounded by a park. Had he considered the matter, he would have supposed that a farm to supply the needs of the household would be attached to the mansion; but that the owner should concern himself with its management he would have thought absurd, and even improper. As for the rest of the estate, he knew that in an agricultural district this must consist largely of farms, which were let out to tenants, and from which the overlord drew a large part of his subsistence. In his opinion, it was a poor source of revenue. No one was going to make Mr Chawleigh believe that there were fortunes to be made in farming: as far as he could see, it was as chancy a business as speculating on ’Change. In any event, it was not for the overlord to meddle in such matters: whatever had to be done was done by his agent. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr Chawleigh, like another before him, ‘have no right to be farmers.’

  William Sidford, bailiff, was not quite sure, either, that he approved of Adam’s interest in what had never interested his volatile parent, although he had welcomed the advent of a master who not only listened to what he had to say, but seemed to understand that only ruin could result from wresting every penny it would yield out of the land, and ploughing not one penny back into it. He had felt hopeful, at first, of being able to check the rot he had been deploring for years; but after spending the better part of four days in the Sixth Viscount’s company he was attacked by qualms. His new master was chuck-full of modern ideas, which he had got out of books. William Sidford had no time to waste on books, and he approached new theories with extreme caution, since it stood to reason that what had been good enough for his father and his grandfather must be good enough for him. Not that he was an enemy to progress: when my lord talked of road-making, under-draining, and embanking, he was heartily in agreement with him; and he was by no means averse from adopting the Four-Course System. But when my lord began to talk about Tull’s drill, and such new crops as swedes and mangel-wurzels, it became apparent to him that it was his duty to check him. Such notions might answer: he didn’t say they wouldn’t, nor that the Tullian Method wasn’t a good one; but one thing he could tell his lordship, and that was that he wouldn’t find the Tullian Method in general use amongst those who might be supposed to know their business. Having been accustomed all his life to see fields that were luxuriant in summer barren, and often flooded, in winter, he found it difficult to adjust his mind to my lord’s ideas: winter crops were certainly desirable, but it would cost a mint of money to ma