A Civil Contract Read online

  Mr Chawleigh did not expect to meet with retort. On the other hand, to be listened to in unmoved silence was a new and a disconcerting experience. By rights, this wispy son-in-law of his should be shaking in his shoes, possibly trying to stammer out excuses: certainly not sitting there, as cool as a cucumber, and looking for all the world as if he were watching a raree-show which didn’t amuse him above half. As his rage abated, something very like bewilderment entered into Mr Chawleigh. Ceasing to rail at Adam, he sat staring at him, breathing heavily, still scowling, but with so much surprise in his eyes that Adam very nearly burst out laughing.

  With the tickling of his ready sense of humour, much of Adam’s own anger died away. He felt suddenly sorry for this absurd creature, who had clearly supposed that he could brow-beat him into submission. He picked up his hat and gloves, and rose, saying, with a lurking smile: ‘Will you dine with us tomorrow, sir? We leave town on the day after, but it would distress Jenny very much not to take leave of you.’

  The veins swelled afresh in Mr Chawleigh’s face. ‘Dine with you?’ he uttered, in choked accents. ‘Why, you – you –’

  ‘Mr Chawleigh,’ interrupted Adam, ‘I owe you a great deal, I have a great respect for you – indeed, I have a great regard for you! – but I’ve not the remotest intention of allowing you to rule my household! If that was what you wanted to do you should have chosen another man to be Jenny’s husband. Goodbye: may I tell Jenny to expect you tomorrow?’

  Mr Chawleigh strove with himself, finally enunciating ominously: ‘Ay! she may expect me all right and tight! But as for dining with you – I’ll be damned if I do!’

  ‘As you wish – but she’ll be disappointed.’ He went to the door, but looked back, with his hand on the knob, to say: ‘Don’t rip up at her, will you? She’s more easily upset just now than you may know. But I don’t think you’ll wish to when you see how much her spirits have plucked up since Knighton told her she might go back to Fontley.’

  He did not wait for a response, but went away, leaving Mr Chawleigh more at a loss than he had been since the days of his boyhood. The clerks eyed Adam covertly as he passed through the counting-house, and were almost as much astonished as their employer. He bore none of the signs of one who had passed through the furnace of the Tartar’s fury: his step was firm, his brow serene, and the smile which he bestowed on the youth who leaped to hold open the door for him was perfectly untroubled. ‘Well – !’ breathed Mr Stickney. ‘I wouldn’t have credited it! Not in a hundred years I wouldn’t!’

  Twenty-one

  The Lyntons left London two days later, if not with Mr Chawleigh’s blessing at least without any very serious manifestations of his disapproval. His fondness for Jenny restrained him from giving her anything but the mildest of scolds; and he found it impossible, in the face of her glowing looks, to cling to his belief that it was Adam and not she who wished to return to Fontley. What maggot had entered into her head he didn’t know; but it was plain that she was as eager to be off as ever she had been to escape from Miss Satterleigh’s seminary. He was inclined to take this in bad part, but Lydia was present to coax him out of his ill-humour, and although he was at first a trifle stiff with her it was not long before he was chuckling at her sallies, and telling her with obvious mendacity that she needn’t think to come over him with her bamboozling ways.

  When Adam presently entered the room, the cloud returned to Mr Chawleigh’s brow. He still seethed with resentment, and responded to Adam’s greeting with only the curtest of nods, at the same time informing his daughter that he must be off. She begged him to stay, but he said that he had an engagement in the City. He embraced her with great heartiness, and Lydia too; but when he saw that Adam meant to conduct him to his carriage he told him roughly not to trouble himself. However, Adam paid no heed to this rebuff, but followed him downstairs, nodding dismissal to the footman who was waiting to help him to put on his greatcoat, and performing this office himself.

  ‘Much obliged to you, I’m sure!’ Mr Chawleigh growled. He hesitated, shooting one of his fiery glances at Adam. ‘If any ill comes of this, it’ll be on your head!’

  ‘Whatever had been decided must have been on my head, sir,’ Adam replied quietly. He held out his hand. ‘Forgive me! I know how you must feel, but at least believe that I’m not taking Jenny away to gratify any whim of my own! You may believe too that if it doesn’t answer – if there should be the smallest reason for anxiety – I’ll bring her back. But I hope there won’t be – and you’ll bear in mind that Knighton has furnished me with the name of an experienced accoucheur living no farther away from Fontley than Peterborough.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you’ve got your way, my lord, and so now you think you’ll turn me up sweet!’ said Mr Chawleigh rancorously. ‘I’m not going to do anything that might throw my girl into a taking, but I warn you, when I give my orders I’m used to having ’em obeyed!’

  Adam could not help laughing at this. ‘Why, yes, so am I! Very promptly, too! But I’m not a clerk in your office, any more than you are a soldier in my company, you know.’

  Baffled, Mr Chawleigh strode forth to his carriage.

  He drove home in a state of angry frustration, and later conducted himself so morosely at a convivial supper-party at the Piazza that it was generally supposed that one of his many trading enterprises must have failed. It was not until he was about to climb into his bed that he startled his valet by suddenly exclaiming: ‘Well, there’s not many as ’ud outface Jonathan Chawleigh, that I will say! Damme if I don’t like him the better for it!’ He then recommended the dejected Badger to take himself off, and got into bed, resolved to pay another visit to Grosvenor Street in the morning, to see the party off, so that Adam should see that he bore him no malice.

  He arrived to find two travelling chaises and my lord’s curricle drawn up outside Lynton House, and the second footman in the very act of placing two hot bricks in the foremost of the chaises. He brought with him a basket of pears, a bottle of his Fine Old Cognac (in case Jenny should feel faint), and a travelling-chessboard, to beguile the tedium of the journey for the ladies (neither of whom cared for the game); and he was very glad he had come, swallowing his pride, because Jenny’s face lit up when she saw him, and the hug she gave him did his heart good. He had thought that there might be a little awkwardness between himself and his son-in-law, but there was none at all. No sooner did Adam set eyes on the Fine Old Cognac than he exclaimed: ‘You don’t mean to shut that precious pair up in a chaise with a whole bottle of brandy, do you, sir? Good God, they’ll be as drunk as wheelbarrows before ever we reach Royston!’

  This was a joke that kept Mr Chawleigh chuckling for quite some time. He made a joke himself presently, when Adam said: ‘By the time you come to visit us, sir, I hope you’ll find Jenny much stouter than she is now.’

  ‘Nay, she can’t help but be stouter!’ retorted Mr Chawleigh.

  At the last, when the two chaises bearing the ladies and their maids had moved off, he turned to Adam, and took his out-stretched hand in an extremely painful grip. ‘Well – you’ll take good care of her, my lord!’

  ‘You may be very sure I will, sir.’

  ‘Ay, and you’ll let me know how she goes on?’

  ‘That, too. And you will come down to spend Christmas with us, remember!’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be having your grand friends to stay with you – though I take it very kind in you to invite me!’

  ‘I shan’t even be having any of my far from grand friends to stay – more’s the pity! There’s a pretty strong rumour that my Regiment is going to be ordered to America.’

  ‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ said Mr Chawleigh. He transferred his grip to Adam’s shoulder, slightly shaking him. ‘It’s time you was off. No hard feeling betwixt us, my lord?’

  ‘None on my side, sir.’

  ‘Well, there ain’t any on mine. What’s more,’ said Mr Chawleigh resolutely, ‘if I should have said anything uncivil when we had our turn-up, w