A Civil Contract Read online

  ‘Until your powerful mind apprehended that I wanted you for my groomsman!’ said Adam, smiling up into his deep-set eyes. ‘Will you do that for me, Brough?’

  ‘But of course! With the greatest pleasure on earth, dear boy! I’m not acquainted with Miss Chawleigh, but m’father tells me it’s an excellent match. Says you’ve done just as you ought, and I’m to present you with his felicitations. By the bye, how is my young brother?’

  ‘He was in a capital way when I saw him last. I wish I knew what’s been happening since I left! Soult’s on the run, but not rompéd yet. What a moment to have been obliged to apply for furlough! Not that it is that, of course. I’m selling out.’

  ‘Well, you’d think it a dead bore to be serving in peacetime,’ remarked Brough. ‘The on-dit is that the Bourbons will be back before the summer’s out. I don’t know how much of a set-back that pitiful business at Bergen-op-Zoom will prove to be. Graham seems to have made a rare mull of it.’

  Adam nodded, grimacing, but said: ‘We shan’t be lurched by that. If we can outflank Soult, pin him up against the Pyrenees, cut off from his supplies, see if the whole house of cards don’t tumble down! You’ve no notion what the feeling is in southern France: we thought the natives better-disposed towards us than the Spaniards!’ He laughed suddenly. ‘We pay for what we commandeer, you see, which Boney’s army doesn’t! Lord, I do wish I knew where we are now! It’s nearly a month since Orthes – I suppose we’re held up by a mingle-mangle of politicians!’

  On the following day, the news of a victory at Tarbes on the 20th March was published. A part of the Light Division had been hotly engaged, but it did not seem as though the 52nd Regiment had taken much part in the action: a circumstance which slightly consoled Adam for his enforced absence. Nor, however, did it seem that Wellington had succeeded in cutting Soult’s lines of communication. The Marshal was retiring in good order upon Toulouse.

  Matters of more domestic moment claimed Adam’s attention. Mr Chawleigh, baulked in his plans for a splendid marriage ceremony, wanted to know whether his Jenny was expected to wait until the following year before being presented at Court. He understood, on the authority of Mrs Quarley-Bix, that she could not go into society until this function had been performed; but while he didn’t wish Jenny to do anything not quite the thing, it was plain that he viewed with considerable disfavour any postponement of her début. If she was not to appear at any ton-party, it would look as though my lord was ashamed of his bride, and that (said Mr Chawleigh, his jaw pugnaciously out-thrust) was not what he had bargained for.

  Adam neither relished the manner of this admonition nor wished to take part in the season’s festivities, but he did appreciate Mr Chawleigh’s objection. Mr Chawleigh was paying him handsomely to establish Jenny in the ranks of the ton, and although the letter of the bargain might be fulfilled by her elevation to the peerage, the spirit of it demanded that every effort should be made to introduce her into society. There could be little satisfaction in becoming a Viscountess if one was obliged to live for a whole year in seclusion. Moreover, if no presentation took place, and no cards were sent out announcing the bridal couple’s readiness to receive visits of ceremony, Adam was afraid that some of the high sticklers whose notice was of the first importance to a lady desirous of entering the exclusive circle to which they belonged might consider that the period of mourning absolved them from any duty to call on Lady Lynton thereafter. It might even be thought that to preserve the strict period of mourning was a tacit signal that the usual civilities were not expected, for it was certainly very odd conduct to interrupt this period for the celebration of nuptials which it would have been more proper to have postponed.

  ‘Ay, but your affairs won’t wait, my lord,’ said Mr Chawleigh, when Adam tried to explain the difficulty to him. ‘I won’t tip over the dibs until I see the knot tied, because I’m not one to shell out the nonsense without I’ve better security than you can offer me. Now, there’s no need to nab the rust! I don’t doubt you’d stick to the bargain, but who’s to say you’d be alive to do it? Anything could happen to you, and then where would I be? Holding a draft on the Pump at Aldgate!’

  This point of view could scarcely be expected to appeal to Adam; but his sense of humour came to his rescue, and, instead of yielding to a reckless impulse to repudiate the betrothal, he sought counsel of Lady Oversley.

  She perceived the intricacies of the situation at once, and gave the matter her profound consideration. ‘She must be presented,’ she decided. ‘It would have a very strange appearance if she weren’t, because one always is, you know, on the occasion of one’s marriage. And there is nothing improper in going to a Drawing-room when in mourning, though not, I think, in colour – except lavender, perhaps. Only, who is to present her? In general, one’s mother does so, but poor Jenny has no mother, and even if she had – dear me, yes! this is a trifle awkward, because I don’t think you could ask it of your own mother. Not while she is in such deep mourning, I mean! Well, it will have to be me, though I am strongly of the opinion that if we could but hit on a member of your own family it would create a better impression.’

  ‘My Aunt Nassington?’ suggested Adam.

  ‘Would she?’

  ‘I think she might.’

  ‘Well, if you can coax her into it, do so! No one could answer the purpose better, because she’s of the first consequence, and positively famous for the crushing set-downs she gives to perfectly respectable persons! Her approval must be of the greatest value. As for the rest, I don’t think you should go to balls. Dinner-parties and assemblies, yes! Balls, no! At least, you might attend one, but you shouldn’t dance at it.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Adam pointed out. ‘Too lame, ma’am! What a figure I should cut!’

  ‘So you would!’ she agreed, brightening perceptibly.

  She did not disclose that the recollection of his disability had relieved her mind of a severe anxiety; and if he guessed that she had been racking her brain to think how she could induce the haughty patronesses of Almack’s to bestow vouchers on Jenny he did not say so. But he must have known that the right of entry to these chaste Assembly Rooms in King Street conferred on the recipient a greater distinction than a Court presentation, and was far more difficult to obtain. The club was presided over by six great ladies, who imposed rules that were as inflexible as they were arbitrary. Mere rank was no passport to Almack’s; and although the disappointed marvelled that anyone should covet a ticket to an assembly where no more stimulating beverage than orgeat could be got, and where nothing was danced but Scotch reels and country dances, such disgruntled animadversions hoaxed no one. It might be more amusing to twirl round a ballroom in the new German waltz, or to embark on the intricacies of the quadrille; and there was not a hostess in London who would have dreamed of regaling her guests on tea and stale bread-and-butter; but no one could pretend that invitations to all the smartest balls of the season conveyed the cachet won by a single appearance at Almack’s.

  Having passed the six hostesses under mental review, Lady Oversley was so much relieved to be spared the task of begging Lady Sefton or Lady Castlereagh, both very good-natured, to bestow vouchers on Jenny that she offered to act as matron of honour at the wedding. This, however, Jenny refused, saying that she had invited a Miss Tiverton to support her on the occasion. She told Adam that Miss Tiverton was perfectly genteel. The remark grated on him, but he said lightly: ‘If you like her I’m sure she must be an amiable girl. Your chaperon I cannot like! Will you feel yourself obliged to invite her to your parties?’

  ‘Oh, no! I don’t mean to keep up the acquaintance,’ she said calmly. ‘I dislike her very much.’

  There was a hint of her father’s ruthlessness in this, which dismayed him. She saw that he was looking grave, and added: ‘I don’t feel under an obligation to her, you know. She has been handsomely paid, and she has been able to feather her nest in a great many ways. All my wedding-clothes are being made at the most expensive houses, y