A Civil Contract (26 page)

‘Nay, I didn’t mean it!’ said Mr Chawleigh roughly. ‘You couldn’t have treated me more civil if I’d been a Duke, and well I know it! The thing is that it’s got me regularly nattered – me knowing what I do know! Now, lookee here, lad! She’s the very make of her ma, my Jenny! Three times did Mrs C. miscarry – and the lord only knows how Jenny came to be born hale and hearty! – A son was what Mrs C. wanted – well, so I did too, though I’ve lived to regret it! She went her full time at the end, and a son it was, but he was stillborn, and Mrs C. was taken from me, like I told you.
She
wouldn’t have a fuss made, and that’s what came of it! I won’t have it happen to my Jenny, no matter what you say, nor she says either!’

‘Very well,’ Adam said. ‘What do you wish me to do? To take her back to London? I will, of course – but she has been in better health since we came to Fontley, and
her
wish is to remain here.’

‘Ay!’ said Mr Chawleigh, with a bark of laughter. ‘Because she knows that’s
your
wish, my lord! But she don’t bamboozle me! My Jenny wish to be stuck down in the country for months on end? That’s a loud one! Moped to death, that’s what she’d be!’

‘Would she?’ Adam said slowly. ‘I own, I thought so too, but she isn’t moped, you know.’

‘She hasn’t been here much above a month!’ retorted Mr Chawleigh grimly. ‘What’s more she don’t know what it will be like in the winter! I’m no countryman, but don’t you tell me that you ain’t surrounded by water here, because I wouldn’t believe you!’

‘You may at least believe me when I tell you that Fontley has never yet been affected by floods!’ said Adam, nettled.

‘Ay, so I may, but you won’t tell me you’ve never had the water come up over the road, and found yourself on an island!’

‘If there were any likelihood of that I would bring Jenny to town long before it happened, I promise you. We should have plenty of warning.’

‘And I suppose you’ll have plenty of warning that there’s going to be a heavy fall of snow, such as will block all the roads for a sennight?’ said Mr Chawleigh, with heavy sarcasm. ‘What if we get a winter like we had last year, with even the Thames so hard-frozen that there was a fair held on it, and the whole country snowbound? A nice thing it would be if Jenny was to be took ill of a sudden! Why, you’d never get the rabbit-catcher here, let alone –’ He broke off in confusion, and corrected himself. ‘The month-nurse, I
should
say! Yes, you may laugh, my lord, but it wouldn’t be a laughing matter!’

‘No, of course it wouldn’t. But these apprehensions never troubled my mother, sir! Of her five children, four of us were born at Fontley – one of my sisters in November, myself in January.’

‘That’s got nothing to say to anything. Without meaning any disrespect to her la’ship, she’s one of the lean ’uns, and it’s my belief they brush through the business a deal more easily than roundabouts like my Jenny.’

Adam was silent for a moment; then he said: ‘Very well, sir. It shall be as you think best. But I’m afraid she won’t like it.’

This was soon found to be an understatement. When the news was broken to Jenny that she was to return to London, there to await the birth of her child, under the aegis of a fashionable accoucheur, she flew into a towering rage which considerably startled Adam, and reminded him forcibly of her father. That worthy was also surprised. He said that he had never known her to put herself into such a passion, and recommended her not to cut up so stiff. She rounded on him. ‘I knew how it would be!’ she said. ‘Oh, I knew how it would be, the instant I told you I was breeding! I wish I hadn’t done so! I wish you’d never come to Fontley! Well, I won’t go to London! I won’t see Dr Croft! I won’t –’

‘Don’t you think you can talk to me like that, my girl!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh ominously. ‘You’ll do as you’re bid!’

‘Oh, no, I will not!’ she flashed. ‘Not as you bid me, Papa! You’ve no business to interfere – spoil it all –’

‘Jenny.’

Adam had not raised his voice, but it checked her. Her narrowed eyes went swiftly to his face, glaring but arrested. He went to her, and took her hands, holding them closely, and saying, with a faint smile: ‘A little beyond the line, Jenny. Ring your peal over me, not over your father!’

She burst into tears.

‘Jenny!’ ejaculated Mr Chawleigh, aghast. ‘Now, give over, love, do! There’s no call –’ He stopped, encountering his son-in-law’s eyes. Their message was unmistakable; so, too, was the tiny jerk of the head towards the door. It was many years since Mr Chawleigh had bowed to authority, and he was quite at a loss, when he found himself outside the room, to account for his submission.

‘Adam!’ Jenny uttered, tightly gripping his hands. ‘Don’t heed Papa! I’m very well! I promise you I am! I don’t
wish
to leave Fontley! I mean to be so busy – and you know we are to have shooting-parties – and the hunting! You
told
me you were looking forward to that! Adam –’

‘My dear, if that’s what troubles you there’s not the smallest need! I daresay you’ll grant me leave of absence now and then! I wish we might have stayed here through the winter, but your father won’t hear of it, and – Jenny, think! How
can
I go against him in a matter which concerns
your
well-being?’

She pulled her hands away, saying in a trembling voice: ‘You don’t wish to go against him. You don’t wish me to be here. You never did! You had rather see Fontley fall into ruin than allow me any part of it! You won’t even like to see your son here, because he’ll be my son too!’

‘
Jenny!
’

She gave a strangled sob, and fairly ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

For a few minutes he was furiously angry. They had been going on so comfortably together that he had almost forgotten the time when he had not wanted her at Fontley. Her outburst seemed to him unjust; her final words unpardonable. His heart hardened against her. Then his good sense told him that those words at least had been flung at him merely because she was in an ungovernable rage, and could think of nothing worse to say.

He went out presently into the garden. He supposed that he ought to go in search of Jenny, but his anger still smouldered; and because her words had held so much truth he did not know what he could say to reassure her. She was too acute to be deceived by lip-service, and in his present mood of resentment he knew he would find it hard to offer her even as much as that.

He crossed the lawn with his slightly halting step, and passed into the rose-garden. Here Jenny found him some minutes later. He was rather absently nipping off the withered blooms, and when he saw her, hesitating under the arch of the yew hedge, he looked gravely at her, saying nothing.

She had seldom appeared less attractive, for her face was swollen with her tears. She said huskily: ‘I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean it! Forgive me – pray!’

His heart melted. He moved quickly towards her, not thinking that she was plain and commonplace but only that she was in trouble. He said in a light, caressing tone: ‘As though I didn’t know that! What a shrew I have married! Scolding like a cut-purse merely because your father and I have more regard for your health than you have!’

‘It was very bad,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know what made me – I think it must be my situation!’

‘Oh, indeed?’ he said. ‘All the fault of this son whom I shall dislike to see here! Well, if he means to make his mama as cross as a cat I certainly shall dislike to see him here, or anywhere else!’

She hung her head, saying imploringly: ‘Oh, no, no! How could I say such a wicked thing? I know it wasn’t true!’

He patted her shoulder. ‘So I should hope! Moreover, Lady Lynton, if you think that I dislike seeing
you
here you must be even more gooseish than I had supposed – which is not possible!’

She laughed, rather shakily, but said, after a moment’s hesitation: ‘You don’t
wish
to go back to London, do you?’

‘No, I don’t. I’d thought we were snugly settled here for the winter, and came shockingly near to recommending your papa to go to the devil. But there’s no denying that you’re not in high health, Jenny, or that Fontley is rather too remote for either your father’s peace of mind or mine. It may be that you’ll need a more skilled practitioner than old Tilford. It’s a great bore, but we’ll run no stupid risks, my dear.’

‘No,’ she said submissively. ‘I’ll do what you think right. How soon must we go? Not
quite
yet – need we?’

‘No, not if you go on fairly prosperously. Next month, before the winter begins to set in. And if this top-of-the-trees doctor of your father’s gives you leave, I’ll bring you back again. That’s a promise!’

She began to look more cheerful, though she said wistfully, as they strolled back to the house, her hand tucked into Adam’s arm: ‘I wanted him to be born here, where you were born.’

‘But for anything we know she might prefer to be born in London,’ objected Adam provocatively. ‘You were, after all!’

‘
She?
’ exclaimed Jenny. ‘
No!
’

‘I have a great fancy for a daughter,’ said Adam.

‘Well, I haven’t!’ said Jenny, in accents far more like her own. ‘Not till we’ve a son, that is! If I thought – Good gracious, Papa is right! I
will
consult his horrid doctor!’

He gave a shout of laughter; and later, when Mr Chawleigh anxiously asked him if he had persuaded Jenny to behave like a sensible woman, replied promptly: ‘Yes, indeed: like a woman of most superior understanding! I had only to hint that she might present me with a daughter to make her perceive instantly the wisdom of putting herself in the hands of an experienced accoucheur!’

‘Now, Adam – !’ protested Jenny.

‘Yes, but it’s not a bit of good thinking that he can do anything about
that
,’ Mr Chawleigh pointed out.

‘Good God! And you said he was top-of-the-trees!’

‘I didn’t say he was a magician! Yes, I know you’re laughing at me, my lord, but it won’t do for you to go putting a silly notion like that into Jenny’s head. Oh, so now you’re in whoops, are you, my girl? Well,’ said Mr Chawleigh, regarding his hosts indulgently, ‘I was always one for a good laugh myself, so I don’t grudge it you.’

When he discovered that the Lyntons had no intention of removing to London until the end of October, he was by no means pleased; but, happily for the peace of the establishment, he was diverted by an accident to the pulley-wheel used in the ice-house. Anything savouring of mechanism immediately claimed his interest; and the rest of his short stay was spent very agreeably by him in overseeing the necessary repair, and devising a rather better arrangement of the sloping door in the passage above the vault.

The Lyntons returned to London at the end of October, in weeping weather. She was putting a good face on it, but it was Jenny who most regretted leaving Fontley. Adam had left his affairs there in as promising a train as his circumstances permitted, and had meant, in any event, to have gone to London for a time in November, when Parliament reassembled. He was looking forward also to seeing his friends again, for although the 52nd Regiment had been in England since the end of July he had as yet met only three of his particular cronies, who had visited Fontley on short furlough. These visits had been much more successful than Mr Chawleigh’s. Far from disliking the situation of Fontley, or cavilling at the Priory’s many inconveniences, the guests declared it to be the jolliest place imaginable. They enjoyed some excellent partridge shooting; they were extremely well-fed; and their hostess did not expect them to do the pretty. She ministered to their creature comforts, and was apparently pleased if they spent a whole evening in the exchange of Peninsular memories instead of making polite conversation to her. They thought her a capital woman, Captain Langton going so far as to say, with a disarming grin: ‘It’s a great shame Dev sold out, Lady Lynton! You’d have made a famous wife for a soldier, for nothing ever puts you out! No matter how late he returned to his quarters I’ll swear you’d have had a first-rate dinner waiting for him!’

Mr Chawleigh was not present to welcome the Lyntons when they arrived in Grosvenor Street, but he had called there earlier in the day, with a carriage-load of flowers and fruit. Adam could accept such minor tokens of his generosity with equanimity, but it was with tightening lips that he read the note Mr Chawleigh had left for him. Mr Chawleigh had taken it upon himself to request Dr Croft to call at Lynton House on the following day. Adam handed this missive to Jenny without a word. She was so indignant that his own vexation abated, and instead of telling her that he would thank her father to leave him to manage the affairs of his household he found himself excusing that worthy’s officiousness, and saying instead that she must not be too provoked, since it sprang only from concern for her welfare.

She was not at all appeased, but said: ‘Adam! You’ll be pleased to tell Dr Croft that I’ve changed my mind – don’t wish to see him! And
I
will tell Papa that I’ll choose my own doctor, or let
you
do so!’

‘That would teach him a lesson,’ he agreed. ‘It would relieve our spleens too, I daresay. The only rub is that we might – when we were cooler – feel a trifle foolish! After all, it was to consult Croft that we came to town, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘My love,’ he said, smiling, ‘if ever I enter upon an engagement with your father I’ll take care to choose my ground! I don’t like this position at all – and I don’t like Pyrrhic victories either! I should win nothing but your father’s resentment, and an inferior doctor to attend you. I think we’ll admit Croft.’

‘Oh, very well!’ she said crossly. ‘But I’m persuaded I shall dislike him excessively!’

In the event, neither of them was drawn to Dr Croft. He was so pompous as to appear opinionated; and he managed to convey the impression that any lady acquiring his services might think herself fortunate. However, his practice was known to be large; and if his manners were too assertive to be generally pleasing he spoke with an authority which engendered confidence in his patients. He was not surprised to learn that Jenny was in poor health, and he did not hesitate to tell her the cause. She was too full-blooded, and too high in flesh: he would prescribe a reducing diet for her, and bleed her once or twice. He explained just how this would benefit her constitution, recounted a few quelling anecdotes relating to ladies of Jenny’s habit to whom he had been summoned too late to remedy the harm done by over-eating, and took his leave, promising to visit Jenny again a week later.

She accepted his pronouncement more readily than Adam, saying in a resigned voice that she knew she was too fat. He was doubtful, knowing that she had a hearty appetite; and when he found her lunching on tea and bread-and-butter he protested. ‘Jenny, this can’t be right! You are always as hungry as a hawk by noon!’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not now. I’ve felt queasy from the start, not fancying my food, and sometimes downright nauseated by the very sight of it, but I’m bound to own I’m better in that respect since I adopted this diet. Now, my dear, just you let the doctor know best, and forget about it!’

He said no more, conscious of his own ignorance; and she, fearful that she might resemble her mother too closely, adhered to her depressing regimen, and tried not to let Adam see that she was in low spirits.

For these, London was more to blame than Dr Croft. The weather was dull, with a good many rainy days, and some foggy ones. Jenny began to hate the gray streets, and could not look out of her windows without wishing herself back at Fontley; or put on her hat, her furred pelisse, and her kid gloves without longing to be able to step out of the house into her own gardens, with none of these elaborate preparations for taking the air. She tried to confide these yearnings to Mr Chawleigh, when he rallied her on being what he called mumpish, but as he could not understand how anyone could hanker after the country he thought she was being fanciful, and ascribed it to her condition. Nor could he understand that the chief cause of her drooping spirits was boredom. Had she complained that she was bored at Fontley it would have been another matter, for as far as he could see there was nothing for her to do there. In London there were endless amusements, such as shops, and theatres, and concerts. He said kindly: ‘You don’t want to give way to crotchets, love. Not but what it’s natural you should get all manner of odd notions into your head just now. Well do I remember your poor ma before
you
were born! Nothing would do for her but to eat dressed crabs, which wasn’t a dish she was at all partial to, not in the ordinary way. Well, if I hadn’t put my foot down it’s my belief you’d have been born with claws, and that’s a fact!’ He laughed at this recollection, but finding that his joke drew only a slight smile from Jenny said persuasively: ‘Now, you know it’s all fudge, love! You wasn’t bored when you had only me to keep house for, so why should you be bored now, when you’ve got a husband, and a baby coming and a fine house of your own, and everything you could wish for?’

The thought flashed into her mind that before her marriage she had accepted boredom as the inescapable lot of women, but she said nothing, because she loved him too well to hurt him.

But Jenny owed more to her mother’s ancestry than Mr Chawleigh knew, or than she herself had known until Adam had taken her to Rushleigh. She had thought then how much she would enjoy living in a country house of her own, and she had enjoyed it. She took a keen interest in all Adam’s schemes for the improvement of his estate; and she had formed a number of schemes of her own for restoring the Priory to its former state. She was practical; and she was a born housewife. Fontley offered her endless scope for her talents; she had looked forward to a winter crammed with employment. The Dowager had left all household matters in the hands of her servants; but Jenny had found a manuscript book in the library which Adam said had been his grandmother’s; and its pages revealed that that long-dead Lady Lynton had not disdained to interest herself in such homely matters as
How to Make a Marmalade of Oranges
, and
A Better Way to Pickle Beef
. She had known how to make a
Gargle for a Sore Throat
; and she had stated (in an underlined bracket) that her
Own Mixture of Quicksilver, Venice Turpentine, and Hog’s Lard
was the best she had discovered for
Destroying Bugs
.

The winter months would have been all too short for Jenny at Fontley; in London each day was interminable. As her depression grew her placidity diminished. She began to be vexed by trifles, and to fall into a fret of apprehension if Adam came home later than she had expected. She sent him off to Leicestershire for a day’s hunting; but when he had gone she spent the time until his return either picturing him lying (like his father) with a broken neck, or indulging an orgy of self-pity, when she first imagined herself to be neglected, and then decided that no one could blame Adam for escaping from so cross a wife as she had become.

From such thoughts as these it was a short step to speculation on the chances of her own death. One gloomy day of fog she occupied herself in drawing up her Will. It seemed a sensible thing to do, even if it did lead her to imagine Adam married to a handsome but heartless female, who would give him muffins for breakfast, and hideously ill-treat her stepson. But when Adam surprised her at this dismal task he was quite unimpressed by her forethought. He put the Will on the fire, and told her she was a goose; and when she said that she would like Lydia to take care of her child he replied that as it was more than likely that Lydia would hold the infant upside-down he thought she had better take care of it herself. That made her laugh, because when he was with her her gloomy imaginings vanished. She was ashamed of yielding to them, afraid that Adam would grow disgusted with an ailing wife; and yet, while she tried to conceal her wretchedness from him, she felt ill-used when he did not appear to notice it. She drove him from her side; but when he had gone away to spend a convivial evening with some of his friends she thought how strange it was that men never saw when one was out of sorts, or said the right thing at the right moment, or understood how miserable it made one to feel always invalidish.

But Adam, who had endured months of real suffering, did understand, and he was deeply troubled for her. He asked her once if she had no relation she would like to have with her to bear her company, but it seemed that she did not know any of her relations. She retained a dim memory of Aunt Eliza Chawleigh, who had died when she was a little girl; but she had no acquaintance with any of her mother’s family. They had not liked Mama’s marriage to Papa, and there had been a coolness… ‘And I don’t want anyone to bear me company!’ she said. ‘Why you should have taken such a notion into your head I’m sure I don’t know!’

He said no more; but when he met Lord Oversley in Brooks’s, and learned that he had brought his family to London for a few weeks, he called in Mount Street at the first opportunity, and sought counsel of Lady Oversley.

‘Oh, poor Jenny!’ she exclaimed. ‘I know
exactly
how she feels, for I was
never
well in the same situation! I have been meaning to pay her a visit, but there has been so much to do – But you may depend upon it that I shall go to her immediately! My dear Adam, I am persuaded you need not be anxious! If Dr Croft has her in charge you may be sure all will be well!’

‘So he tells me,’ replied Adam. ‘But Jenny is very unlike herself: not as stout, I suspect, as when I brought her to London. Croft takes me out of my depth with his medical talk, but – Ma’am,
can
it be right to keep her on such a low diet, and to bleed her into the bargain?’

He won no support. Lady Oversley begged him not to meddle in matters of which he must be ignorant. The reducing treatment for pregnant ladies was one of the latest discoveries of science: she was only sorry that it had not been in fashion in her day, for she had no doubt she would have derived great benefit from it. ‘You know, dear Adam,’ she said, ‘it is a mistake for husbands to concern themselves too closely in these affairs. Oversley
never
did so, except over my
first
– that was dear Charlie! – when he made me so nervous that I should have become perfectly distracted, had not my dear mother intervened.’

She went on to tell him of the very sensible things her dear mother had said, but he listened only with half an ear. Her comfortable talk about her mother, her sisters, and her innumerable aunts and cousins, served to point the difference between her situation and Jenny’s: she had a host of affectionate relations at her back; Jenny had no one but her father and himself.

He was thinking how impossible it was to shirk that heavy responsibility when Julia came into the room. She came quickly forward, holding out her hand, and exclaiming, with a note of joyful surprise in her voice: ‘Why –
Adam
!’

He rose at once, and took her hand; but although he smiled and responded to her greeting there was a preoccupied frown in his eyes, and he turned back almost immediately to Lady Oversley, saying: ‘I hope you may be right. I don’t know – but I’m perfectly ignorant, as you have said.’ He held out his hand. ‘I must not stay: perhaps, when you have seen Jenny – In any event, your visit will do her good, I know. And you’ll tell me then what your opinion is?’

She assented to this, warmly clasping his hand, and patting it. ‘To be sure I will! But I’m persuaded there can be no reason for you to be on the fidgets.’

‘What is it?’ Julia demanded, her eyes searching Adam’s face. ‘You are in trouble!’

‘Indeed I’m not!’ he answered, smiling at her. ‘Just a little anxious about Jenny, so I came to ask your mama’s advice.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘I must be off! No, don’t trouble to pull the bell, ma’am! I’ll let myself out. Goodbye, Julia: I’m glad to have had a glimpse of you – and don’t ask you how you do, for I can see that you’re in great beauty – not in the least dimmed by these abominable fogs!’

A brief handshake, and he was gone, leaving Julia to turn bewildered eyes towards Lady Oversley. ‘How strangely he spoke! Anxious about Jenny? Why, Mama? Is she ill?’

‘Oh, no, dearest! It’s merely that she’s in a promising way, and feels a trifle sickly. I daresay it’s nothing. I often felt dreadfully low myself.’

‘In a promising way!’ Julia repeated blankly. ‘You can’t mean – Oh, Mama,
no
!’

Lady Oversley eyed her uneasily. ‘Now, my pet, don’t, I implore you, fly into a taking! It was only to be expected, you know, and a very good thing for them both!’

A convulsive shudder shook Julia; she walked over to the window, and stood staring blindly out. She said, in a queer voice: ‘Only to be expected. How – how stupid of me!’