A Civil Contract Read online

  By the time Jenny had finished reading the letter Dunster had brought a sharp-faced youth into the room, who disclosed that he had come down by the Mail, with instructions from the Master not to return without his lordship. That was all he knew. The Master had not told him why my lord was wanted in London; he had not heard any news about the war. It was obviously useless to question him further, so Jenny bore him off to introduce him to Mrs Dawes, promising that his lordship would let him know in the morning what he had decided to do.

  ‘Queer start!’ Brough said, when Jenny had gone out of the room. ‘I wonder what’s in the wind? Sounds to me as though the old boy has had some news – and none too good either.’

  ‘You heard what the clerk said. If there had been any news from Belgium he must have known it!’

  ‘Might not. There’s no doubt the City men do get to hear of important news before the rest of the world.’

  ‘Then why the devil didn’t he tell me what it is?’ demanded Adam irritably.

  ‘He probably don’t like writing letters, or don’t want it repeated.’

  ‘Adam!’ Lydia burst out. ‘If you are not here for my party –’

  ‘Of course I shall be here! I can see not the slightest reason why I should post up to town, whatever Mr Chawleigh may have heard!’

  Lydia looked relieved; but when Jenny came back into the room, she said bluntly: ‘By what the boy tells me, Papa is in a taking. You’ll have to go, Adam.’

  ‘I’ll be hanged if I do! If your father wanted me to go chasing up to London, he should have told me why!’

  She regarded him seriously. ‘Well, writing doesn’t come easily to him. But I know Papa, and you may depend upon it he’d never have sent for you like this if he hadn’t good reason to. There’s something he thinks you should do. It looks to me like some matter of business, and if that’s so, you do as he tells you, my lord, for there isn’t a shrewder head in the City than his!’

  He looked vexed, and rather mulish; but when Brough endorsed this advice, recommending him not to be a clunch, he shrugged, and said: ‘Oh, very well!’

  He made the journey in his own chaise, taking Kinver and the clerk with him, and arriving in St James’s Street a little after six o’clock. A Sunday calm seemed to prevail; and when he entered the hotel he was received with all the usual civilities, untouched by any sign of excitement or alarm. He felt more than ever sceptical, and went up to the parlour set aside for his use in a mood that was far from benign.

  He found Mr Chawleigh awaiting him, walking up and down the floor in a fret of impatience. Mr Chawleigh was looking more than ordinarily grim, but his scowl lifted at sight of Adam, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘Eh, but I’m glad to see you, my lord!’ he said, grasping Adam’s hand. ‘Good lad, good lad!’

  Adam’s brows rose a little. ‘How do you do, sir? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?’

  ‘Nay, it’s no matter! There’s naught to be done till the morning. I’m sorry to have brought you away from Fontley, all in a rush, but there was no help for it, because it’s a matter of damned urgency!’

  ‘Yes, so I understand, sir. One moment, however! Have you bespoken dinner?’

  ‘No, no, I’ve more to think of than dinner!’ said Mr Chawleigh testily.

  ‘But if there’s nothing to be done till tomorrow we can surely eat dinner tonight!’ said Adam. ‘What’s your choice, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know as I’ll be staying – Oh, well, anything you fancy, my lord! The ordinary will do for me.’

  Adam began to think that there must be something very wrong, if his father-in-law’s appetite had failed. He looked at him for a moment, and then turned to his valet. ‘Tell them to send up a neat dinner, Kinver, at seven – and some sherry immediately, if you please!’ He smiled at Mr Chawleigh, saying, as Kinver went out of the room: ‘I’ve a mind to give you a scold, sir, for not ordering that for yourself. Now, what is it? Why was it necessary for me to come up to town?’

  ‘It’s bad news, my lord,’ Mr Chawleigh said heavily. ‘It’s damned bad news! We’ve been beat!’

  Adam’s brows snapped together. ‘Who says so? Where did you learn that?’

  ‘Never you mind where I learned it! You’d be none the wiser if I was to tell you, but it ain’t a hoax, nor yet a mere rumour. There’s those in the City whose business it is to know what’s going on abroad, and they’ve agents all over, ay, and other ways of getting the news before it’s known elsewhere! We’ve been gapped, my lord! Beaten all hollow!’

  ‘Moonshine!’ Adam was a little pale, but he gave a scornful laugh. ‘Good God, sir, did you bring me all this way just to tell me a Canterbury tale?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and it ain’t moonshine either! They’ve been fighting over there these two days past, let me tell you!’

  ‘That I can well believe,’ Adam responded coolly. ‘But that we’ve been beaten all hollow – no!’

  Mr Chawleigh began to champ his jaws. ‘No? Don’t believe Boney’s sitting in Brussels at this very minute, I daresay? Or that those Prussians were rolled up – finished! – at the very outset? Or that Boney was too quick for your precious Wellington, and took him by surprise? I knew how it would be! Didn’t I say from the start we’d have him rampaging all over again?’

  The entrance of a waiter checked him. He was obliged to contain himself until the man had gone away again; and when he next spoke it was in a milder tone. ‘There’s no sense in you and me coming to cuffs, my lord. You’ve got your notions, and it don’t matter what mine may be, because what I’m telling you ain’t anyone’s notion: it’s the truth! It came straight from Ghent, where maybe they know a trifle more than we do here! The town’s packed full of refugees, and Antwerp too!’

  Adam poured out two glasses of sherry, and handed one to him. ‘That might well be, if the Army is on the retreat – which might also be. You say the Prussians suffered a bad reverse. I can believe that, but consider, sir! If Blücher was obliged to fall back, Wellington must have done so too, to maintain his communications with him. Any soldier could tell you that! – and also that Boney’s first objective must have been to cut them!’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ve taken part in a good few retreats under old Hookey’s command, sir, and you may believe me when I tell you that he’s never more masterly than when he retires!’

  Mr Chawleigh, swallowing his sherry at a gulp, choked, and ejaculated: ‘Retires? For God’s sake, boy, can’t you understand plain English? It’s a damned rout!’

  ‘Apparently I can’t!’ Adam said, rather mischievously. ‘But I’ve no experience of damned routs, you know – unless you count Salamanca a rout? We rompéd Marmont in prime style, but I shouldn’t have called his retreat a rout.’

  ‘Marmont! This is Bonaparte!’

  ‘Very true, but I still find it impossible to believe in your rout.’ He saw that Mr Chawleigh’s colour was rising, and said: ‘Don’t let us argue on that head, sir! Tell me why I’m here! Even if your information were correct, I don’t understand why it is of such importance that I should be in London. What the devil can I do to mend matters?’

  ‘You can save your bacon!’ replied Mr Chawleigh grimly. ‘Not all of it, but some, I do trust! Eh, I blame myself! I should have warned you weeks ago – same as I should have pulled out myself, the moment I knew the jobbers had closed their books! I’ve dropped a tidy penny, my lord, and so I tell you!’

  ‘Have you, sir? I’m excessively sorry to hear it,’ said Adam, refilling the glasses. ‘How did you come to do that?’

  Mr Chawleigh drew an audible breath, eyeing him much as a choleric schoolmaster might have eyed a doltish pupil. Speaking with determined patience, he said: ‘Your blunt’s invested in the Funds, ain’t it? Never mind these rents of yours! I’m talking about your private fortune. Well, I know it is – what was left of it! Me and your man Wimmering went into things pretty thoroughly before you was married to my Jenny. Not to wrap it up in clean linen, your pa played wily beguiled with his