A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘I believe,’ he replied cautiously, ‘that it is some sort of a measure – but pray don’t ask me what sort, for I haven’t the most distant guess!’

  ‘I think it has something to do with wheat,’ she said.

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder at it at all if you are right: it sounds as if it would have something to do with wheat.’

  She looked up into his face at that, laughter brimming in her eyes. ‘Oh, Rockhill, you are so absurd – and such a comfort to me! I believe you do know: you have farms too, have you not?’

  ‘Several, I fancy, but I am ashamed to confess that I’ve never concerned myself with their management.’

  ‘You have an agent, like Papa – though Papa does concern himself a little. Not as Adam does! Helping the reapers! Must he do so? It is very dreadful! I had thought, when he married Jenny, he would have a great fortune.’

  He smiled at the trouble in her face. ‘But it is not at all dreadful, little blossom! Didn’t you hear Lady Lynton say that it was his notion of enjoyment? I don’t doubt it: it’s in his blood. Choice, not necessity, takes him out into the fields, I promise you. Coke of Norfolk does the same, and, for anything I know, a dozen others. I’m prepared to wager that before he is much older Lynton will have joined the ranks of the noble farmers – the Russells, the Keppels, Rockingham, Egremont – oh, don’t look dismayed! It is most creditable, besides becoming so fashionable that those of us who think it a dead bore will soon find ourselves quite outmoded.’

  ‘I don’t think it a bore, precisely,’ Julia said. ‘I love our farm, at Beckenhurst, and have often thought I should like to be a farmer’s wife, with lambs, and calves, and piglets – Papa gave me a lamb once, for a pet, and it was the dearest creature! – but not dull things like crops, except, perhaps, hay.’

  ‘You shall have a little Trianon,’ he promised.

  ‘Oh – ! No, no, pray don’t talk so! You said you would not! Besides, I know it’s nonsensical: one can’t have a farm without horrid things like manure, and crops, and swing-ploughs, and turnips! Oh, Rockhill, I can’t so easily forget – turn my thoughts, my affections, in another direction!’

  ‘But I have only begged to be allowed to love you, blossom.’

  ‘How good you are! No, no, it would be very ill-done of me: I’ve nothing left to give you, you see.’

  ‘On the contrary! You have beauty to give me. My house needs a mistress, and my daughters a kind mother. I am afraid,’ said his lordship, in a tone of deep dejection, ‘that they are not happy in their grandmother’s charge. An excellent woman, but a trifle over-strict, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, poor little dears, they have quite haunted me since you told me – But hush! here is Jenny coming towards us!’

  The Marquis, perfectly well satisfied with the progress he had made, obediently hushed, and presently moved away to talk to his host. With every fibre in his being taut with hostility, Adam still could not dislike him. Rockhill had made many enemies, but when he exerted himself to please no one could be more charming. To Julia he might affect ignorance of farming, but to Adam he chose to disclose a surprising amount of knowledge in one whose enormous revenues derived largely from urban districts. They paced up and down together for a little time, discussing such matters of agricultural interest as the Corn Laws, trunk-drainage, and stall-feeding; and whatever boredom Rockhill felt he concealed admirably.

  It was soon time for the visitors to take their leave. There had been no opportunity for Julia to enjoy any private talk with Adam; only at the last did she find herself alone with him for a few minutes. She said then: ‘Do you wish I hadn’t come? You were not glad to see me, were you?’

  ‘I can’t help but be glad to see you. But it’s true that I wish you hadn’t come. Why did you, Julia? Here, where I once thought to –’ He checked himself. ‘You must know that I can’t but find it painful!’

  ‘I, too,’ she said mournfully.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I wanted to see you, to talk to you. I’m so troubled. I’ve been lost, you know, ever since that dreadful day in March. Were you ever in a maze? You can’t find the way out, though you try every path; and you become frightened, wanting to scream to someone to rescue you, but not doing so, because it would be silly, and’ – a bleak smile touched her lips – ‘“because you are getting to be a big girl now, Miss Julia, and only babies cry!”’

  ‘I can’t help you!’ he said, in a shaken voice. ‘My love, my love, don’t say these things! Don’t come here! It would be better that we shouldn’t meet, but since we must, let it only be in London, when we find ourselves at the same party! To be together, as we are now – no, no, it won’t do! Believe me, Julia, it will be easier for us both if we meet as seldom as may be possible! This is torture to us both!’

  ‘I think it need not be. Cannot something be left to us? If your affections had been engaged, or Jenny’s, it would be another matter, but yours is a marriage of convenience! You did it to save Fontley, she to gain social advancement: there has been no pretence of love between you. Jenny could not be hurt by anything that passed between you and me, Adam. She knows that you love me – she has always known it! Does she demand that everything should be at an end between us, even friendship? It isn’t like her! She has what she desired! Does she demand that you should devote yourself to her, as if you had married her for love?’

  It was a moment or two before he answered. Then he said slowly: ‘No. Jenny demands nothing of me.’

  ‘Ah, I knew she could not! She’s never unreasonable! She’s matter-of-fact, too: full of commonsense, without much sensibility, perhaps – she would tell you so herself! – but –’

  He interrupted her. ‘Yes, she would say that. I don’t know how true it may be, but I do know that she can be hurt. You say she has always known that I love you. I’ve supposed that she must, but she has never spoken of it to me, or betrayed by the least sign that she does know.’

  ‘Why should she care? You’ve given her so much! She can’t grudge me your friendship! Are you thinking of what people would say? But if I were to be married? One’s position is then so different!’

  He gave a shaken laugh. ‘Oh, Julia, my little foolish one! No, I wasn’t thinking of your position, but of Jenny’s. I couldn’t mortify her so. She offered me a carte blanche once, but I knew when I entered into our contract that I was marrying a girl bred in a stricter mould than is general in our order.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes! Respectability is Jenny’s god, but must it be yours?’

  He did not answer for a moment, and then he said gently: ‘I owe Jenny a great deal, you know. She studies all the time to please me, never herself. Our marriage – isn’t always easy, for either of us, but she tries to make it so, and behaves more generously than I do. Given her so much! You know better than to say that, my dear! I had nothing to give her but a title – and I wonder sometimes if she sets any more store by that than you would.’

  ‘Of course she does! I don’t blame her: I know what it must have meant to her, situated as she was, to be so elevated! You may think it a worthless thing, but how could she? Easy to despise what you’ve always had! Once, she said that to me. I hadn’t understood – I was in such distress! – but I did then. She said she wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last to marry for the sake of position.’

  ‘Did she? But position wouldn’t compensate her for the humiliation of being pitied, or sneered at, by the ton, because it was seen that I still loved you, Julia.’

  ‘Oh, no, no! But people don’t! Think of the Ashcotts! Everyone knows that Ashcott is more than Mrs Porth’s friend, but no one –’

  ‘It is also pretty freely rumoured that Lady Ashcott has found consolation,’ he interrupted. ‘But what would Jenny do, if I neglected her? She wasn’t born into our set; she hasn’t a host of friends and relations, as you have – as Lady Ashcott has; and she’s too shy to make her own way. We made a one-sided bargain: it’s she who gives, and I who take – but I can at least give her loyalt