A Civil Contract Read online

  Adam had not seen Julia since the announcement of her engagement, and he had done his best not to think of her. Jenny was not even sure that he knew the actual date of the wedding, for the subject was never mentioned between them. He did know it, and could not drag his thoughts from it. He could picture Julia, the embodiment of his dreams, walking up the aisle on her father’s arm, and he knew that he had reached the end of all dreaming. Whatever the future might hold there would be no enchantment, no glimpses of the isle of Gramarye he had once thought to reach.

  It was folly to look back, ridiculous to suppose that Julia was more lost to him today than upon his own wedding-day, fatal to think of her married to Rockhill, whom he could only see as an elderly satyr. Better to count one’s blessings, and to remember how much worse off one might have been.

  Looking over his water-logged acres, he thought: I still have Fontley. Then, as he thought how much it would cost to bring his neglected land to prosperity, depression surged up in him again. He shook it off: it would take time to achieve his ambition; it would be years, perhaps, before he had amassed enough capital to make the cut that would drain the swamped fields he had ridden out to inspect; but with thrift and good management it would one day be done, and the mortgages redeemed. To that end all his schemes were immediately directed. It was no use thinking of the other crying needs: it made him feel rather hopeless to reckon up the farm buildings that needed repair, and the stud-and-mud dwellings which must be replaced by decent brick cottages. Still, he had at least made a start, and very fortunate he was to have been able to build even two new cottages, when less than a year before he had faced the prospect of being forced to sell Fontley. That had seemed to him the worst thing that could befall him; he had thought that no sacrifice would be too great that would save his home. He had been offered the means to do it, and he had accepted the offer of his own will; and to indulge now in nostalgic yearning was foolish and contemptible. One could never have everything one wanted in this world, and he, after all, had been granted a great deal: Fontley, and a wife who desired only to make him happy. His heart would never leap at the sight of Jenny; there was no magic in their dealings; but she was kind, and comfortable, and he had grown to be fond of her – so fond, he realized, that if, by the wave of a wand, he could cause her to disappear he would not wave it. Enchantment had vanished from the world; his life was not romantic, but practical, and Jenny had become a part of it.

  He rode slowly back to the Priory, wondering why one derived so little comfort from counting blessings. His mood was as bleak as the January day; he wanted to be alone, but he must go back to Jenny, and try not to let her guess what were his true feelings. He hoped that he would be able to maintain a cheerful front, but he thought that it was going to be as difficult a duty as any he had ever undertaken.

  But it was only in epic tragedies that gloom was unrelieved. In real life tragedy and comedy were so intermingled that when one was most wretched ridiculous things happened to make one laugh in spite of oneself.

  He came round an angle of the Priory from the stable-yard to find Jenny surveying with every sign of disgust a peacock and hen, who appeared to view both her and their surroundings with suspicion and dislike. The sight was at once so surprising and so comical that it drove his other thoughts out of his head. He exclaimed: ‘Where the deuce did they come from?’

  ‘Need you ask?’ she said bitterly. ‘Papa sent them!’

  Amusement sprang to his eyes. ‘Oh, no, you don’t mean it? Now, why should he – Ah, to smarten us up a trifle! Well, and so they will!’

  ‘Adam! You can’t wish for a couple of peacocks!’ she said. ‘There’s no sense in them! Now, if Papa had sent me a couple of pigeons I’d have said thank-you, and meant it!’

  He knew that her view of the animal creation was strictly practical, but this puzzled him. ‘But why? Do you want some pigeons?’

  ‘No, I can’t say that I do, but at least they would have been of use. You told me that you use pigeon-dung for manure, so – Now, Adam – !’

  He had uttered a shout of laughter. ‘Oh, Jenny, you absurd creature! What will you say next?’

  She smiled, but abstractedly, considering the peacocks. ‘I know!’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ll give them to Charlotte! They are just the thing for the terrace at Membury Place! And if Papa asks you what became of them, Adam, you’ll say that a fox got them!’

  Twenty-two

  Jenny’s baby was expected at the end of March, but before she was brought to bed Adam had narrowly escaped being involved in the Corn Law Riots, and an appalling piece of news had burst like a thunder-clap over Europe. On the first day of the month, the ex-Emperor Napoleon, having escaped from Elba and slipped through the British blockade, landed in the south of France with a small force, and issued proclamations calling on the faithful to trample the white cockade underfoot, and to return to their former allegiance.

  After the first shock, it was felt by all but the most pessimistic that this attempt to regain command of France would prove abortive. Masséna, from Marseilles, had sent two regiments to cut Bonaparte off on his march to Paris; and it did not seem, according to reports received in London, that the ex-Emperor’s return was being greeted with any marked display of enthusiasm. But the news grew steadily more disquieting. Instead of following the main road through unfriendly Provence, Bonaparte chose the mountain road to Grenoble, and Masséna’s troops failed to intercept him. At Grasse his reception was chilly; but as he proceeded northward through the Dauphiné men began to flock to his standard.

  It was reassuring to learn that in Paris complete calm reigned; and if there were those who doubted the willingness of the Minister of War to take active measures against his old master their suspicions were soon allayed by the news that Marshal Soult had proposed to the Council to throw a large force into the southern provinces, under the command of Monsieur, the King’s brother, with three Marshals to support him. With this force in his front, and Masséna’s regiments in his rear, Bonaparte must be trapped.

  He met a battalion of Infantry of the Line on the road beyond Gap, and, with his unfailing instinct for the dramatic gesture, dismounted and walked forward alone. An officer shouted an order to fire, but it was not obeyed. ‘Men of the Fifth!’ said Napoleon, standing squarely before the uneasy troops, ‘I am your Emperor! Know me! If there is one of you who would kill his Emperor here I am!’

  It was hardly surprising that men who had fought under the Eagles should not have availed themselves of this invitation. Instead, they broke their ranks, yelling Vive l’Empéreur! and tearing off their white cockades.

  After that the end was certain. The Parisians, enjoying a period of prosperity, due to the influx of wealthy English travellers to their city, were for the most part loyal to the Bourbons; at Vienna the Congress declared Bonaparte to be hors la loi; the King maintained his lethargy; and Marshal Ney, quite as dramatic a person as the ex-Emperor, heroically announced his intention of bringing Bonaparte to Paris in an iron cage; but Bonaparte continued to advance, gathering troops all the way, and entering Lyons without opposition. A letter inviting Ney to meet him, and promising that flamboyant gentleman a welcome as warm as after the Moskowa, was enough to persuade Ney, Prince of the Moskowa, to renounce his allegiance, and to take himself and his willing troops over to the ex-Emperor’s side. They met at Auxerre, on the 17th March; on the evening of the 19th the King, with his family and his Ministers, left Paris in ignominious haste, with Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the English Chargé d’Affaires during the absence of the Duke of Wellington in Vienna, and a horde of visitors to the capital; and on the 20th Napoleon was carried shoulder-high into the Palace of the Tuileries to begin a new reign.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ demanded Mr Chawleigh of his son-in-law, who was in London on a brief visit. ‘Didn’t I say we’d have him rampaging all over the Continent again before the cat could lick its ear?’

  ‘You did, sir, but I’ll lay you handsome odds we don’t!’