A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘Do but try it!’ coaxed Lydia. ‘You know you mean to have it washed and curled again for the party: well, when Martha has washed it, let me dress it for you! I have often done so for Charlotte, and even Mama owns that I do it better than Miss Poolstock. And if you don’t care for it, Martha can curl it for you after all.’

  Jenny allowed herself to be persuaded, not without misgiving. But when Lydia’s clever fingers had done their work, and she studied her reflection in the mirror she was not displeased. After a prolonged scrutiny, she said: ‘It seems queer not to have curls over my ears, but there’s no denying my face doesn’t look so broad – does it?’

  ‘Exactly so!’ said Lydia. ‘You must never have those bunches of curls again, but always dress your hair close at the sides, and braid it into a coronet on the top of your head. And I wish you will stop sniffing, Martha! Don’t you see how well her ladyship looks?’

  ‘It’s not a proper mode, miss,’ said Miss Pinhoe obstinately. ‘Curls are smart, and nothing will make me say different! And what his lordship will say, when he sees what you’ve done, I’m sure I don’t know!’

  ‘Oh, I do hope he won’t think I’ve made a figure of myself!’ Jenny said apprehensively. ‘Well, if he don’t like it, you must curl it for me again, Martha, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘I’ll have the tongs hot inside of ten minutes, my lady,’ promised Martha grimly.

  But they were not needed, since Adam, after a quick look of surprise, was pleased to approve of the transformation. ‘Turning out in new trim, Jenny?’ he asked. ‘You’ll be setting a fashion!’

  ‘Lydia dressed it for me. Do you like it? Pray tell me truthfully!’

  ‘Yes, I do. Quakerish, but elegant. You look charmingly,’ he said.

  She did not suppose him to be sincere, but the compliment pleased her, nevertheless, and made the ordeal of receiving some sixty or seventy guests of ton seem less daunting. Any lingering doubts were presently banished by Lady Nassington, who ran a critical eye over her, and said: ‘Very good! you begin to look like a woman of quality.’

  While it did not rank amongst the Season’s most fashionable squeezes the Lyntons’ first assembly passed off very creditably. Mr Chawleigh would have voted it a shabby affair; but Jenny, warned by Lady Nassington, offered her guests no extraordinary entertainment, or any excuse for the ill-disposed to stigmatize her party as pretentious. She relied for success on the excellence of the refreshments; for, as she sagely observed to Lydia, guests who had been uncommonly well-fed rarely complained of having endured an insipid evening.

  Another circumstance helped to make the party agreeable: there was no lack of conversation, for the Princess Charlotte had once more furnished material for gossip by escaping from Warwick House to her mother’s residence in Connaught Place. Everyone was agreed that the flight was attributable to the Regent. There seemed to be no doubt that he blamed the Princess’s ladies for the rupture of her engagement, and so he had exercised a father’s right to dismiss her household and to install a new staff of ladies. No one could censure him for that; but it was generally thought that to descend upon Warwick House at six o’clock in the evening and there and then to effect this sweeping change was conduct calculated to drive a high-spirited girl into revolt. It had apparently done so, and however deplorable the affair might be it came as a blessing to a hostess fearful of seeing her guests smothering yawns before flitting away to other and more amusing parties. Lady Lynton had scored a hit, for she had sent a card of invitation to Miss Mercer Elphinstone, and Miss Mercer Elphinstone was not only the Princess’s close friend: she had actually been at Warwick House when these exciting events took place, and had been one of the several persons dispatched by the Regent during the course of the evening to persuade his daughter to return to her home. The engagement of the great Catalini to sing at it could not have conferred more distinction on the party than Miss Mercer Elphinstone’s presence. Everyone wanted to know whether the Princess and her mother had refused admittance to Chancellor Eldon; whether the Duke of York and the Bishop of Salisbury had been made to kick their heels in the dining-room at Connaught House while the Princess deliberated in the drawing-room with her mother’s advisers; whether she had been taken back to her father by force; or whether she had yielded on the advice of Brougham and her Uncle Sussex. And what was to be the outcome?

  Miss Mercer Elphinstone was unable to satisfy curiosity on this point, but it was learned within a few days that the Princess had been packed off to Cranborne Lodge, a small house in Windsor Park, where she was residing under much the same conditions as might have been thought suitable for a State prisoner.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry it all happened before the Carlton House fête,’ said Jenny, ‘for it means I shan’t see her, and I did hope I might.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ demanded Lydia.

  ‘Well, she’s going to be Queen one day, isn’t she? Stands to reason anyone would want to see her!’

  As she had expected, she was denied this treat, but so splendid was the fête that instead of regretting the Princess’s absence she forgot all about it.

  The fête was held in honour of the Duke of Wellington, whose bust, executed in marble, was placed in a temple erected at the end of a covered walk leading from a huge, polygon room, especially built by Nash in the garden for the occasion. Jenny was a little disappointed at seeing no more of Carlton House than the Great Hall, with its coved ceiling and yellow porphyry pillars, but this disappointment too was forgotten when she had passed through this vestibule to the polygon room, which was hung with white muslin, with mirrors past counting flinging back the lights of hundreds of candles. She gave a gasp, and told Adam that she had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

  At half-past ten the Royal party entered the room, the Regent leading the procession with the aged Queen on his arm; and after a lavish supper the Princess Mary opened the ball with the Duke of Devonshire for her partner. Since she was nearing her fortieth year and he was no more than four-and-twenty they might have been considered an ill-assorted couple, but only the irreverent indulged this reflection. The Princess Mary was the Beauty of the Family, and the custom of describing her as a remarkably handsome girl was of too long-standing to be readily altered.

  It was past four o’clock when the Queen took her departure. Adam bore Jenny away after this, saying, as their carriage moved forward under the colonnade: ‘My poor dear, you must be dead from fatigue!’

  ‘I fancy you are more fatigued than I am. Is your leg paining you?’

  ‘Lord, yes! It has been aching like the devil these two hours past. That’s nothing: standing for too long is always a penance to me. I was afraid you might faint at any moment. Insufferably hot, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Lord Rockhill says the Regent is terrified of draughts. I thought at first that perhaps I should faint, but I soon grew accustomed. Oh, Adam, I can’t tell how many people spoke to me, and as for the number who bowed and smiled – well, there was never anything like it! I couldn’t believe it was me, Jenny Chawleigh, saying how-do-you-do to all those grand people!’

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ was all he could think of to say.

  Her enjoyment, as might have been expected, was as nothing to Mr Chawleigh’s. He listened with rapt interest to her account of the festivity, drew deep breaths when she enumerated all the guests of high rank with whom she had exchanged civilities; and sat rubbing his knees, and ejaculating such phrases as: ‘Bang-up to the knocker!’ and: ‘To think I should have lived to see this day!’

  A very little of Mr Chawleigh in this mood was enough to drive Adam from the room. His more robust sister might derive affectionate amusement from this display of unabashed vulgarity; Brough, who was present, might regard Mr Chawleigh with a tolerant twinkle, but he could not. Yet less than a week later he suffered a revulsion of feeling when he walked into the drawing-room to find Mr Chawleigh displaying to Jenny a superb sang de boeuf bowl he had that very day acquired.