A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘I suppose they will call him Charles,’ she replied. ‘Pray tell Charlotte how happy I am to hear that she has a son, and how sorry I was not to have seen her! I must run away now, and put on my hat, or Rockhill will give me a scold.’

  She smiled brightly upon them both, and went swiftly out of the room. At the head of the staircase she met Rockhill, just about to come down. He smiled at her, saying softly: ‘What, my lovely one?’

  Her face puckered, she clung to him suddenly, saying in a choked, passionate voice: ‘Take me away, Rock! I wish we hadn’t come! It’s dull and detestable! Please take me away!’

  ‘With the greatest pleasure on earth, my Sylph! I was coming in search of you to suggest that very thing. What a bore that we pledged ourselves to go on to stay with the Rossetts! I shan’t have you to myself for as long as five minutes: you will be swept from me, and wholly surrounded by tiresome admirers.’

  She gave a tiny laugh. ‘Oh, no! How can you, Rock?’

  He turned up her face, and kissed her. ‘Beautiful baggage!’ he remarked. ‘Go and put your hat on, my love!’

  He sauntered on down the stairs, and was talking to his host and hostess when Julia presently joined him. She was looking quite ravishing, and had recovered her spirits sufficiently to be able to kiss Jenny, thanking her for an enjoyable visit, before turning to offer her hand to Adam, rallying him, with rather glittering drollery, on his haycocks, and adjuring him not to bury poor Jenny alive in the fens.

  He answered in kind, escorting her out to where the chaise stood waiting. Standing just within the hall, Rockhill retained Jenny’s hand for a minute, saying softly: ‘A delightful visit, ma’am! I am so much in your debt! Pray believe that you may command my services at any time!’

  ‘I’m afraid it was dreadfully dull and flat,’ she replied.

  ‘Dear Lady Lynton, I assure you it couldn’t have been better! Do you know, I fancy we have nothing more to worry us? Goodbye – and a thousand thanks!’

  He kissed her hand, and was gone before she was put to the necessity of replying. She went out into the porch to see the chaise drive off, and as soon as it had passed out of sight Adam turned, and came to join her, saying: ‘Thank God we have the house to ourselves again!’

  Her eyes twinkled. ‘Well, you didn’t see so very much of the visitors!’

  ‘Very true. Poor Jenny, was it quite abominable? I think it must have been.’

  ‘Oh, well! It might have been worse,’ she said philosophically. ‘Brough took your place, and Lord and Lady Adversane are so kind and easy, you know, that they made it seem as if your not being at home was quite commonplace. Which I’ll take good care it don’t become!’

  He laughed. ‘No, no, I swear I will never do so again! Come into the library! I want to tell you how I made my fortune!’

  ‘Adam, did you say it was twenty thousand?’

  ‘More or less, I think, if Consols recover to the extent Drummond believes they must. I staked everything I had, and still don’t know how I found the courage to do it. What a crazy gamble!’

  ‘I don’t see that it was that,’ she objected. ‘You always knew we should beat Bonaparte!’

  He said wryly: ‘I wasn’t so pot-sure when I’d committed myself. Wimmering wanted me to sell as much as your father did.’

  She listened in silence to the account of his three days in London, and at the end said slowly: ‘You will be able to do all the things you want to, then.’

  ‘Well, hardly that! Not immediately. But I can do enough to set Fontley on its feet, and once that’s accomplished I don’t fear for the future.’ He smiled at her. ‘Who knows? By the time Giles comes of age we may be as rich as Mr Coke! By the bye, your father is going to settle the mortgages on Giles.’

  ‘You don’t mean to redeem them?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘No. He doesn’t wish it, and – Oh, I don’t know how it comes about, but I found, when I might have done it, that I didn’t want to!’

  ‘I’m glad. He wouldn’t have liked it.’

  ‘No, I know he wouldn’t. I mean to try instead if I can’t persuade him to invest some of his wealth in my cut – only, if I can bring him round my finger we’ll make it a canal. You know, Jenny, that’s what’s needed in this district, not only for drainage, but for transport. I’m pretty sure it would pay handsome dividends. Do you think he might be interested?’

  ‘Well, there’s no saying, but I should think he might. He likes engineering and water-works. But – when you wouldn’t let him help you to the farm you want – !’

  ‘This is different. That would have been a gift – and I have accepted too many from him; this will be a business partnership.’ He looked at her, his brows a little raised, a question in his eyes. ‘You don’t like it, Jenny?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Of course I do!’ she said, colouring.

  ‘But you don’t. Why are you looking so grave? What troubles you?’

  ‘I’m not troubled. I’m glad, if you are!’

  ‘If I am!’

  ‘If it’s not too late!’ she blurted out.

  He was puzzled for a moment; then he said: ‘No. It’s not too late.’

  She smiled waveringly. ‘It’s like you to say that. But if this had happened last year…’

  ‘I should have married Julia? I doubt it. I suppose I might have contrived to compound with the creditors, but I hardly think Oversley would have consented to such a poor match for Julia. He told me once that he didn’t think we were well-suited. In fact, we should have been very ill-suited. She would have discovered me to be a dead bore, poor girl, and I am much better off with my Jenny.’

  She blushed fierily. ‘Oh, no – you don’t mean that! I do try to make you comfortable, but I’m not beautiful or accomplished, like she is!’

  ‘No, but on the other hand you don’t enact me Cheltenham tragedies when I’ve barely swallowed my breakfast!’ he said. He took her face between his hands, turning it up, and looking down at her for a moment before he kissed her. ‘I do love you, Jenny,’ he said gently. ‘Very much indeed – and I couldn’t do without you. You are a part of my life. Julia was never that – only a boy’s impractical dream!’

  A little pang smote her; she wanted to ask him: ‘Do you love me as much as you loved her?’ She was too inarticulate to be able to utter the words; and, in a minute, knew that it would be foolish to do so. Searching his eyes, she saw warmth in them, and tenderness, but not the ardent flame that had once kindled them when he had looked at Julia. She hid her face in his shoulder, thinking that she too had had an impractical dream. But she had always known that she was too commonplace and matter-of-fact to inspire him with the passionate adoration he had felt for Julia. Probably Adam would always carry Julia in some corner of his heart. She had been tiresome today, putting him out of love with her; but Jenny did not think that this revulsion would last. Julia stood for his youth, and the high hopes he had cherished; and although he might no longer yearn to possess her she would remain nostalgically dear to him while life endured.

  Yet, after all, Jenny thought that she had been granted more than she had hoped for when she had married him. He did love her: differently, but perhaps more enduringly; and he had grown to depend on her. She thought that they would have many years of quiet content: never reaching the heights, but living together in comfort and deepening friendship. Well, you can’t have it both ways, she thought, and I couldn’t live in alt all the time, so I daresay I’m better off as things are.

  She felt his hand lightly stroking her hair, and lifted her head. He was looking gravely at her, aware that she was troubled, yet not wholly understanding the cause. She gave him a hug, smiling reassuringly at him. She thought, and was comforted, that though she was not the wife of his dreams it was with her, not with Julia, that he shared life’s little, foolish jokes. Her eyes narrowed, twinkling, as she disclosed the latest of these to him.

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you till we were alone, but your mama writes that it is exactly as she for