A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘My love,’ he said, smiling, ‘if ever I enter upon an engagement with your father I’ll take care to choose my ground! I don’t like this position at all – and I don’t like Pyrrhic victories either! I should win nothing but your father’s resentment, and an inferior doctor to attend you. I think we’ll admit Croft.’

  ‘Oh, very well!’ she said crossly. ‘But I’m persuaded I shall dislike him excessively!’

  In the event, neither of them was drawn to Dr Croft. He was so pompous as to appear opinionated; and he managed to convey the impression that any lady acquiring his services might think herself fortunate. However, his practice was known to be large; and if his manners were too assertive to be generally pleasing he spoke with an authority which engendered confidence in his patients. He was not surprised to learn that Jenny was in poor health, and he did not hesitate to tell her the cause. She was too full-blooded, and too high in flesh: he would prescribe a reducing diet for her, and bleed her once or twice. He explained just how this would benefit her constitution, recounted a few quelling anecdotes relating to ladies of Jenny’s habit to whom he had been summoned too late to remedy the harm done by over-eating, and took his leave, promising to visit Jenny again a week later.

  She accepted his pronouncement more readily than Adam, saying in a resigned voice that she knew she was too fat. He was doubtful, knowing that she had a hearty appetite; and when he found her lunching on tea and bread-and-butter he protested. ‘Jenny, this can’t be right! You are always as hungry as a hawk by noon!’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not now. I’ve felt queasy from the start, not fancying my food, and sometimes downright nauseated by the very sight of it, but I’m bound to own I’m better in that respect since I adopted this diet. Now, my dear, just you let the doctor know best, and forget about it!’

  He said no more, conscious of his own ignorance; and she, fearful that she might resemble her mother too closely, adhered to her depressing regimen, and tried not to let Adam see that she was in low spirits.

  For these, London was more to blame than Dr Croft. The weather was dull, with a good many rainy days, and some foggy ones. Jenny began to hate the gray streets, and could not look out of her windows without wishing herself back at Fontley; or put on her hat, her furred pelisse, and her kid gloves without longing to be able to step out of the house into her own gardens, with none of these elaborate preparations for taking the air. She tried to confide these yearnings to Mr Chawleigh, when he rallied her on being what he called mumpish, but as he could not understand how anyone could hanker after the country he thought she was being fanciful, and ascribed it to her condition. Nor could he understand that the chief cause of her drooping spirits was boredom. Had she complained that she was bored at Fontley it would have been another matter, for as far as he could see there was nothing for her to do there. In London there were endless amusements, such as shops, and theatres, and concerts. He said kindly: ‘You don’t want to give way to crotchets, love. Not but what it’s natural you should get all manner of odd notions into your head just now. Well do I remember your poor ma before you were born! Nothing would do for her but to eat dressed crabs, which wasn’t a dish she was at all partial to, not in the ordinary way. Well, if I hadn’t put my foot down it’s my belief you’d have been born with claws, and that’s a fact!’ He laughed at this recollection, but finding that his joke drew only a slight smile from Jenny said persuasively: ‘Now, you know it’s all fudge, love! You wasn’t bored when you had only me to keep house for, so why should you be bored now, when you’ve got a husband, and a baby coming and a fine house of your own, and everything you could wish for?’

  The thought flashed into her mind that before her marriage she had accepted boredom as the inescapable lot of women, but she said nothing, because she loved him too well to hurt him.

  But Jenny owed more to her mother’s ancestry than Mr Chawleigh knew, or than she herself had known until Adam had taken her to Rushleigh. She had thought then how much she would enjoy living in a country house of her own, and she had enjoyed it. She took a keen interest in all Adam’s schemes for the improvement of his estate; and she had formed a number of schemes of her own for restoring the Priory to its former state. She was practical; and she was a born housewife. Fontley offered her endless scope for her talents; she had looked forward to a winter crammed with employment. The Dowager had left all household matters in the hands of her servants; but Jenny had found a manuscript book in the library which Adam said had been his grandmother’s; and its pages revealed that that long-dead Lady Lynton had not disdained to interest herself in such homely matters as How to Make a Marmalade of Oranges, and A Better Way to Pickle Beef. She had known how to make a Gargle for a Sore Throat; and she had stated (in an underlined bracket) that her Own Mixture of Quicksilver, Venice Turpentine, and Hog’s Lard was the best she had discovered for Destroying Bugs.

  The winter months would have been all too short for Jenny at Fontley; in London each day was interminable. As her depression grew her placidity diminished. She began to be vexed by trifles, and to fall into a fret of apprehension if Adam came home later than she had expected. She sent him off to Leicestershire for a day’s hunting; but when he had gone she spent the time until his return either picturing him lying (like his father) with a broken neck, or indulging an orgy of self-pity, when she first imagined herself to be neglected, and then decided that no one could blame Adam for escaping from so cross a wife as she had become.

  From such thoughts as these it was a short step to speculation on the chances of her own death. One gloomy day of fog she occupied herself in drawing up her Will. It seemed a sensible thing to do, even if it did lead her to imagine Adam married to a handsome but heartless female, who would give him muffins for breakfast, and hideously ill-treat her stepson. But when Adam surprised her at this dismal task he was quite unimpressed by her forethought. He put the Will on the fire, and told her she was a goose; and when she said that she would like Lydia to take care of her child he replied that as it was more than likely that Lydia would hold the infant upside-down he thought she had better take care of it herself. That made her laugh, because when he was with her her gloomy imaginings vanished. She was ashamed of yielding to them, afraid that Adam would grow disgusted with an ailing wife; and yet, while she tried to conceal her wretchedness from him, she felt ill-used when he did not appear to notice it. She drove him from her side; but when he had gone away to spend a convivial evening with some of his friends she thought how strange it was that men never saw when one was out of sorts, or said the right thing at the right moment, or understood how miserable it made one to feel always invalidish.

  But Adam, who had endured months of real suffering, did understand, and he was deeply troubled for her. He asked her once if she had no relation she would like to have with her to bear her company, but it seemed that she did not know any of her relations. She retained a dim memory of Aunt Eliza Chawleigh, who had died when she was a little girl; but she had no acquaintance with any of her mother’s family. They had not liked Mama’s marriage to Papa, and there had been a coolness… ‘And I don’t want anyone to bear me company!’ she said. ‘Why you should have taken such a notion into your head I’m sure I don’t know!’

  He said no more; but when he met Lord Oversley in Brooks’s, and learned that he had brought his family to London for a few weeks, he called in Mount Street at the first opportunity, and sought counsel of Lady Oversley.

  ‘Oh, poor Jenny!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know exactly how she feels, for I was never well in the same situation! I have been meaning to pay her a visit, but there has been so much to do – But you may depend upon it that I shall go to her immediately! My dear Adam, I am persuaded you need not be anxious! If Dr Croft has her in charge you may be sure all will be well!’

  ‘So he tells me,’ replied Adam. ‘But Jenny is very unlike herself: not as stout, I suspect, as when I brought her to London. Croft takes me out of my depth with his medical talk, but –