A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘Dear Julia!’ sighed the Dowager, when the visitors had departed. ‘No one could marvel at the Edgcotts for liking her so well! Dorothea Oversley has been telling me what a conquest she has made over Rockhill’s sisters, but, as I said to Dorothea, I should have been astonished if they had not liked her, for she is always so prettily behaved, and so attentive – so exactly what one would wish one’s daughter-in-law to be!’

  ‘Sister-in-law, surely, ma’am?’ Adam said, in a dry tone.

  ‘Yes, dear – alas!’ she replied mournfully.

  ‘I hope the visit may not have tired Jenny: I must go up to her.’

  He escaped from her on this excuse, and did indeed go upstairs, to be greeted, as he entered Jenny’s room, by some lusty yells from his son, who appeared to have fallen into a paroxysm of fury. Adam was put unpleasantly in mind of Mr Chawleigh, but thrust the thought away. ‘It’s a constant source of astonishment to me that anything so small should possess such powerful lungs,’ he remarked.

  Jenny signed to the nurse to take the baby away. ‘Yes, and such a strong will!’ she answered. ‘He’s determined not to be laid down in his cradle: that’s all that ails him. But he was very good while Lady Oversley and Julia were with me. It was kind in them to come, wasn’t it? Did you see them?’

  ‘Yes, and also the two girls – oppressively well-behaved damsels! Was the post brought up to you? I saw you had a letter from Lydia.’

  ‘Yes, bless her! She says she’s still as sulky as a bear because Lady Nassington won’t allow her to come to see her godson. I wish she might have come, but it is much too far – and I can’t say that he’s much to look at yet!’ She hesitated, and then said haltingly: ‘I had a letter from Papa as well.’

  ‘Did you? I hope he’s well?’

  She nodded, but she did not speak for a moment or two. She had been unhappily conscious for several days that Adam had withdrawn a little from her, behind his intangible barrier. She had ventured to ask him if she had displeased him, but he had put up his brows, saying: ‘Displeased me? Why, what have I said to make you think so?’ She could not answer him, because he had said nothing to make her think so, and she could not tell him that her love made her acutely sensitive to every change of mood in him. But she knew now what had caused that subtle withdrawal. Rather flushed, bracing herself, she said: ‘Papa tells me that he offered to – to make it possible for you to start the experimental farm you wish for – only that you refused it.’

  ‘Of course I did!’ he replied easily. ‘And very glad he was that I did! I’m much obliged to him – but I can’t imagine why he should offer to do what must go quite against the pluck with him.’

  ‘You thought I had asked him to,’ she said, resolutely lifting her eyes to his. ‘That’s why –’ She checked herself, and then went on: ‘I didn’t – but I did mention it to him, not thinking that you wouldn’t wish it, which – which you’ll say I should have known.’

  ‘My dear Jenny, I assure you –’

  ‘No, let me explain to you how it came about!’ she begged. ‘I never meant – You see, Papa doesn’t understand! He thinks it’s crackbrained nonsense, and not the thing for gentlemen to engage in! I only wished to make him understand, and I told him about Mr Coke’s farm, and how he had prospered, and how important agriculture is… It was his saying that he supposed you would be the next to start such a farm that made me disclose to him that you had that intention, when you could afford to do so. I didn’t ask him – but I don’t run sly any more than he does, and I’ll tell you frankly I did hope that perhaps he might come round to the notion! I didn’t know you’d dislike it – you told him once that if he wished to make you a present he might give you a herd of short-horns!’

  ‘Did I? I wasn’t in earnest. But there’s no need for you to fly into high fidgets, goose! I might wish that you hadn’t talked to him of that remote ambition of mine, but I never desired you not to, so how should I be vexed with you because you did?’

  ‘You are vexed,’ she muttered, her eyes downcast.

  ‘Not so much vexed as blue-devilled!’ he retorted. ‘Have I seemed to be out of reason cross? Well, I am – though I hoped I hadn’t let you perceive it! I dislike it excessively when there’s no Jenny to pander outrageously to all my fads and fancies, and that’s the truth!’

  She did not quite believe him, but she was a little cheered, and was able to smile, and to say: ‘I’m glad!’

  ‘Wretch! What I endure at my mother’s hands – ! Yes, I know I shouldn’t say that, but if you dare to tell me so I shall walk out of the room in a miff! By the bye, have you read the news? It was in the Morning Post, which I told Dunster to send up to you: old Douro has arrived in Brussels!’

  ‘Wellington! Yes, indeed! I knew you would be cast into transports by that!’

  He laughed. ‘I shall at all events sleep sounder o’ nights! The thought of Slender Billy in command of the Army was enough to give anyone nightmares. We shall do now!’

  ‘Oh, dear, I do hope we may! Papa doesn’t think so. He says –’

  ‘I know exactly what he says, my love, and all I have to say is that your Papa doesn’t know Douro!’

  He spoke confidently, but it was not surprising that Mr Chawleigh, and many others, should be pessimistic. The out-look was not promising. Reports reached London that the Emperor was not the man he had been: he grew easily tired; he fell into sudden rages, or into moods of dejection; he had lost his confidence: but the unpalatable fact remained that France had accepted his reinstatement, if not with universal joy, certainly with complaisance. The Midi might be royalist in sentiment; but hopes that were kindled by the raising of a mixed force at Nîmes by the Duc d’Angoulême were soon quenched by the arrival from Paris of Marshal Grouchy, with orders to crush the insurrection. By the middle of April it was known in London that Angoulême had capitulated, and had set sail for Spain. His wife, the daughter of the martyred King Louis XVIth, and a lady of spirit, had been at Bordeaux when the Emperor had entered Paris, and had done her utmost to rally the diminishing loyalty of the troops there; but her efforts had met with no success, and she had been obliged to allow herself to be borne off to safety in an English sloop.

  Meanwhile, a new constitution had been drawn up in Paris, which was to be sworn to in the Champ de Mars, at a grand ceremony to be held on the 1st May. The Emperor hoped to crown his Austrian wife and his infant son on this occasion, but his letters to Marie Louise went unanswered. He postponed the Champ de Mai for a month, still hoping to have his wife restored to him, and to detach his Imperial father-in-law from the coalition formed at Vienna. Failing, he switched his diplomatic attempts to England. These too were unsuccessful, but his machinations made those who believed that his power could and must be broken suffer considerable uneasiness, since among the Opposition were many vociferous members, loud in their condemnation of a renewal of hostilities.

  ‘These damned Whigs!’ Adam said savagely. ‘Do they imagine that Boney wouldn’t overrun Europe the instant he saw his way clear?’

  ‘Lambert says,’ observed Jenny dispassionately.

  He looked up from the newspaper, his anger yielding to amusement. ‘Jenny, if you don’t take care, we shall find ourselves in the suds! It was almost bellows to mend with me yesterday, when Charlotte uttered those fatal words!’

  Between them, Lambert and Charlotte had unwittingly shown Adam that his wife had a certain dry sense of humour. Lambert, whose understanding was no more than moderate, had always been inclined to dogmatize on any and every subject, and this tendency had not been lessened by his marriage. Charlotte had no opinions of her own: she had only an unshakable belief in Lambert’s superiority, and had quickly acquired the habit of prefixing her contribution to whatever subject was under discussion with the words Lambert says, uttered with a finality which made them doubly exasperating. Adam was never more surprised than when Jenny, after several hours spent in Charlotte’s company, interrupted him one evening, exclaiming: ‘Oh, but, Adam, L