A Civil Contract

Chapter XV

It had not occurred to him that she might be pregnant, and surprise held him silent, just staring at her. She said defensively: “Well, it was only what was to be expected, after all! I mean I’m breeding, you know.”

His lips quivered. “Yes, I understand that, but — I beg your pardon, but really, Jenny — !”

“I don’t see what there is to laugh at,” she said, eyeing him in resentful bewilderment. “I thought you would be glad!”

“Yes, yes, of course I am! But to fling it at me like that, and at such a moment — !” His voice shook, but he controlled it, saying contritely: “I’m sorry — don’t look so affronted! I won’t laugh at you any more! But what’s to be done? You goose, to have come on such an expedition as this! How the devil am I to get you home?”

She sat up, replying with something like her usual briskness: “You’ll get me home when the show’s over, and not before, thank you! I’m better now. I told you there was no need for you to be in a worry, and nor there is. It’s no more than natural I should have sick turns, though I must own it quite takes the edge off one’s pleasure!”

He gave a tiny gasp. “I imagine it must!” he said unsteadily. “Poor, poor Jenny!”

“Yes, I can see you think it’s highly diverting!” she retorted.

“No, I don’t — it’s you I think highly diverting, not your sickness, I promise you! Are you sure you are well enough to remain here? I wish you had told me before ever we arranged this party!”

“Fiddle!” she said, getting up, and straightening her shoulders. “I’m in a capital way now. For goodness’ sake, don’t get into a taking, Adam, for there’s nothing wrong with me, and if there’s one thing I can’t bear it’s setting people in a bustle, and having them fidgeting round me, as if I was going into a decline! And mind, now! not a word to Papa!”

“But, my dear — !” he exclaimed, considerably startled. “Surely you don’t mean to keep it secret from him?”

“That’s just what I do mean to do, while I’m able. I wouldn’t have told you either, if I hadn’t been obliged to, because it’s early days yet, and no sense in boasting of what might not come to pass after all. Now, Adam, you don’t know Papa as I do, so you’ll be pleased to do as I bid you! The instant he knows I’m in the family way he’ll fly into one of his grand fusses, wanting to keep me in cotton, let alone bringing in half the doctors in London to drive me crazy! You may ask Martha, if you don’t believe me! She’ll tell you the same, and that I’ll do better without being cossetted, what’s more!”

“Oh, does Martha know?” he asked, rather relieved.

“Well, of course she does! Now, if you’ll pour me out a drop more of your cordial, I shall be as right as a trivet again, and well go back to watch the rest of the show. And don’t think I shall go off in a swoon, or anything of that kind, for I shan’t, and so I promise you!”

He was obliged to fall in with these plans, though with considerable misgiving. They rejoined the rest of the party just in time to see the Tsar’s procession pass, and to learn that not even the presence in his carriage of the King of Prussia had deterred certain persons in the crowd from hissing the Prince Regent. If their absence had been noticed, no one commented on it. The show being at an end, thoughts turned towards nuncheon. Adam kept a watchful eye on Jenny, but although she ate nothing but a morsel of capon, and two spoonfuls of jelly, she showed no signs of succumbing again to nausea. The fear, however, that the festivities might prove too much for her remained with him, and although he continued to talk to his guests his brain was occupied in trying to decide what to do if she should be taken ill. It was not until he handed her out of the carriage, in Grosvenor Street, that his mind returned to his conversation with Julia, and even then it did not engross his thoughts. It was no more forgotten than a bruise which gave pain whenever it was touched, but Jenny’s pregnancy was a matter of greater importance, because she was his wife, and he was responsible for her well-being.

He was uneasily aware of having failed to respond to her announcement with the delight she had expected him to feel. Though she had immediately concealed it under a more than ordinarily matter-of-fact manner, he thought he had seen a look of chagrin in her face. He was sorry for it, but try as he would he was unable to conjure up any more fervent emotion than a detached feeling that an heir to his name would be desirable. He was more concerned for Jenny, who was obviously enduring a good deal of discomfort. She never mentioned the matter, except to reply to enquiry that she was very well, and to one accustomed to the Dowager’s demands for sympathy over the most trifling disorders this stoicism appeared to him far more admirable and unusual than, in fact, it was. He wanted her to consult a doctor, but she would not. “If you mean I should send for Dr Wrangle, who is the only doctor I’m acquainted with, I won’t do it! For one thing, he’s an old woman, and for another, he’d tell Papa within the hour, because he’d be afraid for his life not to. And if you mean I should see an accoucheur, there’s time and to spare for that, for he couldn’t advise me better than Martha, and very likely not as well. So just you forget all about it, my dear, or you’ll make me sorry I ever told you!”

“That’s asking too much of me. Have I no part in this?”

She gave a sudden chuckle. “To be sure you have, but you’ve played it, and the rest’s my business!”

“Jenny, this want of delicacy in you puts me to the blush!”

“Well, but — Oh, you’re laughing at me! Now, Adam, do but leave me to manage for myself! I promise you I’ll do just as I ought.”

“But are you doing just as you ought? All this junketing about the town with Lydia — ! Tell me the truth: wouldn’t it be best to send her back to Bath? She has seen all the lions, after all!”

“Yes, I can see what you’d have me do!” she retorted. “Lie on a sofa all day, with that nasty vinaigrette which Mrs Quarley-Bix gave me in my hand!”

“No, indeed! but I do wonder if I ought not to take you out of town while you are feeling so poorly. Cheltenham, perhaps, or Worthing, or — ”

“Oh, do you?” she interrupted. “Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, my lord, but I’ve no fancy for any such place! What a notion to take into your head, with the cards sent out already for our own assembly, and the party at Carlton House, not to mention the Thanksgiving at St Paul’s — ”

“Good God, we’re not going to that, are we?” he exclaimed.

“Well, we are if Brough can procure tickets for us, which he says he can easily do, through my Lord Adversane, I collect. Now, don’t put on that Friday-face, Adam! I’m as eager as Lydia is to go! As for sending her back to Bath before the Grand Spectacle in the Parks, I won’t hear of it! What with a balloon ascent in the Green Park, and the battle of Trafalgar to be fought on the Serpentine in the evening, let alone the Temple of Concord to see, and the Chinese Pagoda, and goodness only knows what more besides, it would pretty well break her heart to be obliged to miss it!”

“Jenny, if you imagine that I am so complaisant as to permit you to kill yourself, trudging all over the Parks to inspect a collection of gimcrackery — ”

“No, it’s you that will do that, my lord!” she said, with another of her sudden chuckles. “Or Brough, more likely. I shall see all I want to from the carriage, and so I promise you!” She hesitated, and then said: “Lydia is to go back to Bath as soon as that’s over, and I should like it if you would take me down to Fontley. To — to stay, I mean.”

“Of course I’ll take you there,” he replied. “To Holkham too, if you should feel able for it. I don’t think you’d care for Lincolnshire during the winter months, so — ”

“If I gave you my word not to meddle — change anything — any more than if I was a visitor — ?”

He stared at her, so much shocked by these halting words that for a moment he could think of nothing to say. He had been glad to escape to Fontley from the stifling luxury of Lynton House, but he had never acknowledged to himself that he did not want to see Jenny installed there. It was true, however, and she knew it; and the humble note in her voice when she uttered her request, the look that told him she; was afraid of a rebuff, shamed him more than any spoken reproach. He thought, in horror: I take everything, and give nothing.

“I know you don’t wish me to be there, but I shouldn’t tease you,” she said simply.

He pulled himself together, forcing into his voice a lightness he was far from feeling. “Are you trying to give me my own again, for having laughed at you? What if I tell you that of course I don’t wish for you, and think myself much more comfortable without you? That would make you look no-how, wouldn’t it?”

She smiled, but doubtfully. “I do make you comfortable, don’t I?”

“No not a bit! Now, be serious, Jenny! Is that really what you would like to do? You don’t say it because you think it’s what I wish?”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, her brow clearing. “I should like it of all things! Why, you know how much I enjoyed being at Rushleigh!”

“That was in the spring, and in Hampshire. Whether you will like the fens in winter-time is another matter. Well, if you don’t, you must tell me so, or if you are bored to tears, which I’m afraid you may be. When is this absurd Grand Spectacle to take place?”

“On August 1st.”

“August? My dear girl, we shall find ourselves in a hurly-burly of — ”

“Cits?” she suggested, as he broke off abruptly.

A slight flush betrayed him, but he made a quick recover. “Nothing so respectable! Jackstraws and counter-coxcombs! Does your father know of this project?”

Her eyes narrowed in a sudden smile. “That was a masterstroke!” she said disconcertingly. “Lord, do you think I don’t know Cits was on the tip of your tongue? Yes, Papa knows, and sees no objection. But if you don’t care for Lydia to go — ”

“What I don’t care for is that you should be knocked-up merely to give Lydia pleasure,” he retorted.

“Well, I shan’t be.”

“I’ll see what Martha has to say on that head.”

Miss Pinhoe, however, when he consulted her, snubbed him severely, giving him to understand that his solicitude was misplaced, and that any attempt to cosset Jenny was to be strongly deprecated. “We shall have enough of that when the Master gets to hear of it,” she said grimly. “You leave Miss Jenny to me, my lord!”

He was glad to be able to do so, but he thought that the secret would not be kept for long from Mr Chawleigh. Very little escaped Mr Chawleigh’s penetrating eyes, and once he had perceived that Jenny was looking sickly he would certainly demand to know the cause.

But Mr Chawleigh’s eyes were dazzled by a vision of vicarious grandeur, and although he did notice that Jenny was not in her best looks he merely recommended her not to wear herself to a bone with gadding about. “A nice thing it would be, my girl, if you was to knock yourself up before the party at Carlton House!” he said.

Mr Chawleigh could not think of this function without rubbing his hands together gleefully; nor, whenever he visited his daughter, could he resist the temptation to pick up the card of invitation, and to gloat over it, very often reading it aloud.

“To think how close I came to telling my Lord Oversley you’d be no manner of use to me!” he told Adam, in a burst of confidence. “Why, a Marquis couldn’t have done better for my Jenny! Well, it was a great day for me when I saw her go off to Court to be presented, but no more than what I bargained for, after all. But this — ! The Lord Chamberlain being commanded by his Royal Highness to invite you and Jenny to a Dress Party, to have the honour of meeting her Majesty the Queen! I don’t scruple to own that I never looked for anything as bang-up as that, my lord!”

Adam, who was becoming inured to his father-in-law’s frank utterances, laughed, but disclaimed responsibility. “No bread-and-butter of mine, sir! We owe the invitation to my father, who was one of the Prince’s friends, you know. I hope Jenny will enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it! You may lay your life she will! Ay, and I’ll enjoy hearing all about it, I can tell you, and thinking how proud Mrs C. would have been, if she’d been spared to see her wish come true.”

“Perhaps she can see it,” suggested Adam.

“Well, I like to think she can,” confessed Mr Chawleigh, “but there’s no saying — and no sense in getting into the dismals either, you’ll be telling me.”

“I shan’t, but you put me in mind of a crow I have to pull with you, sir: Jenny tells me that you don’t mean to come to our rout-party.”

“No, that I don’t, and a fine trimming I gave her for sending me a card — not but what I take it very kind in you to invite me! A pretty figure I’d cut, rubbing shoulders with the nobs! Nor I’m not going along with you to St Paul’s neither, so let’s hear no more of that!” He gave a deep chuckle. “Eh, the way my Jenny told me she was getting tickets from my Lord Adversane! ‘Brough’s father,’ was what she called him, to the manner born!”

Adam was slightly mystified by this, so he left it unanswered, reverting instead to the subject of the approaching rout-party. But to all his persuasions Mr Chawleigh remained adamant, saying, with embarrassing candour, that if my lord started to dish him up at his parties he would soon find that his acquaintance had dropped off.

It was soon made apparent that although he would not attend the party he had every intention of making his presence felt at it, so keen an interest did he take in the arrangements for it, and so determined was he that it should excel in magnificence every other party held during the Season. “Order everything of the best!” he adjured his daughter. “I’ll stand the nonsense, never you fear! You’ll be wanting half-a-dozen footmen: I’ll send those fellows of mine along. And no need to trouble yourself about the champagne, because I’ll attend to that, and I warrant you’ll hear no complaints from your guests!”

“Thank you — we are much obliged to you, but I’ve already attended to that matter, sir,” said Adam, trying to speak cordially, and not quite succeeding.

“Then I’ll be bound you’ve wasted your blunt, my lord!” responded Mr Chawleigh tartly. “Beef-witted, that’s what I call it — meaning no offence! — for you might ha’ known I could buy it cheaper, and better, than what you could!”

Baulked on this issue, he veered off on another tack, offering to augment the Lynton silver with his own formidable collection of plate, to make, he explained, more of a show. This suggestion drove Adam from the room, too angry even to excuse himself. He betook himself to his book-room, and here Jenny found him, some time later. He looked at her with alien eyes, and said curtly: “Jenny, I have no wish to wound your father, but I shall be obliged to you if you will make it plain to him that I want neither his footmen nor his plate, nor, let me add, do I desire him to frank me!”

She replied calmly: “As though I didn’t know it! Now, there’s not a bit of need for you to get into a miff! Just keep a still tongue in your head, my dear, and leave me to deal with Papa — which I promise you I can do! There’ll be nothing done you don’t like, and I’ve no more intention of letting him frank us than you have. That’s what I came to tell you, for I could see Papa put you into a regular flame.”

He relaxed, saying: “I hope he could not!”

“Well, he did, of course, but that’s no matter. He’s one that likes to be giving, and he don’t always see when people don’t want him to butter their bread on both sides. I’ve told him how it is, so you may be easy.”

“I’m not at all easy,” he confessed. “I ought to beg his pardon for behaving so churlishly.”

“No such thing! I don’t say he enters into your feelings, but he doesn’t like you any the worse for not wishing to hang on his sleeve. Don’t give it another thought!”

If he was unable to follow this advice, at least he took care to conceal from Jenny that Mr Chawleigh’s subsequent activities caused him to feel an even greater unease. Mr Chawleigh, prohibited from bringing his daughter’s party up to the nines, turned his attention to the question of her personal appearance. His rout by Lady Nassington still rankled in his mind, and his energies were next alarmingly directed to the task of turning Jenny out in what he called prime style, and what Adam shudderingly thought would transform her into a walking advertisement for a jeweller’s shop. He never knew by what means she had dissuaded her father from purchasing for her a ruby and diamond tiara which had taken his fancy, and since she agreed to all Mr Chawleigh’s suggestions for her embellishment he was agreeably startled by the discovery, on the night of the party, that she was wearing no other jewels than the delicate necklace approved by Lady Nassington, the diamond aigrette which he had himself given her as wedding-present, one ring, and only two of her many bracelets.

There was another improvement, for which he was indebted to his sister. Lydia, critically studying the fashion-plates in a periodical devoted to current modes, had suddenly exclaimed: “Jenny, this would become you!”

Looking over her shoulder at the sketch of a willowy female clad in a ball-dress of white satin with a three-quarter pelisse of pale blue, Jenny said bluntly: “Well, it₍wouldn’t. It would make me look more squat than Nature did, you silly girl!”

“Oh, not the dress!” Lydia said. “The hair! No curls, you see, and no crimping, which I think hideous, like Mama’s crape! Now, if you were to arrange your hair like this, it would be becoming, and not just in the common style, which my Aunt Bridestow says is most important, unless, of course, one has the good fortune to be a Beauty.”

Jenny studied the drawing rather doubtfully. To one accustomed to the effect produced by curl-papers and hot irons the willowy lady’s smooth braids presented a very odd appearance. “I’d look like a dowd,” she decided.

“Do but try it!” coaxed Lydia. “You know you mean to have it washed and curled again for the party: well, when Martha has washed it, let me dress it for you! I have often done so for Charlotte, and even Mama owns that I do it better than Miss Poolstock. And if you don’t care for it, Martha can curl it for you after all.”

Jenny allowed herself to be persuaded, not without misgiving. But when Lydia’s clever fingers had done their work, and she studied her reflection in the mirror she was not displeased. After a prolonged scrutiny, she said: “It seems queer not to have curls over my ears, but there’s no denying my face doesn’t look so broad — does it?”

“Exactly so!” said Lydia. “You must never have those bunches of curls again, but always dress your hair close at the sides, and braid it into a coronet on the top of your head. And I wish you will stop sniffing, Martha! Don’t you see how well her ladyship looks?”

“It’s not a proper mode, miss,” said Miss Pinhoe obstinately. “Curls are smart, and nothing will make me say different! And what his lordship will say, when he sees what you’ve done, I’m sure I don’t know!”

“Oh, I do hope he won’t think I’ve made a figure of myself!” Jenny said apprehensively. “Well, if he don’t like it, you must curl it for me again, Martha, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I’ll have the tongs hot inside of ten minutes, my lady,” promised Martha grimly.

But they were not needed, since Adam, after a quick look of surprise, was pleased to approve of the transformation. “Turning out in new trim, Jenny?” he asked. “You’ll be setting a fashion!”

“Lydia dressed it for me. Do you like it? Pray tell me truthfully!”

“Yes, I do. Quakerish, but elegant. You look charmingly,” he said.

She did not suppose him to be sincere, but the compliment pleased her, nevertheless, and made the ordeal of receiving some sixty or seventy guests of ton seem less daunting. Any lingering doubts were presently banished by Lady Nassington, who ran a critical eye over her, and said: “Very good! you begin to look like a woman of quality.”

While it did not rank amongst the Season’s most fashionable squeezes the Lyntons’ first assembly passed off very creditably. Mr Chawleigh would have voted it a shabby affair; but Jenny, warned by Lady Nassington, offered her guests no extraordinary entertainment, or any excuse for the ill-disposed to stigmatize her party as pretentious. She relied for success on the excellence of the refreshments; for, as she sagely observed to Lydia, guests who had been uncommonly well-fed rarely complained of having endured an insipid evening.

Another circumstance helped to make the party agreeable: there was no lack of conversation, for the Princess Charlotte had once more furnished material for gossip by escaping from Warwick House to her mother’s residence in Connaught Place. Everyone was agreed that the flight was attributable to the Regent. There seemed to be no doubt that he blamed the Princess’s ladies for the rupture of her engagement, and so he had exercised a father’s right to dismiss her household and to instal a new staff of ladies. No one could censure him for that; but it was generally thought that to descend upon Warwick House at six o’clock in the evening and there and then to effect this sweeping change was conduct calculated to drive a high-spirited girl into revolt. It had apparently done so, and however deplorable the affair might be it came as a blessing to a hostess fearful of seeing her guests smothering yawns before flitting away to other and more amusing parties. Lady Lynton had scored a hit, for she had sent a card of invitation to Miss Mercer Elphinstone, and Miss Mercer Elphinstone was not only the Princess’s close friend: she had actually been at Warwick House when these exciting events took place, and had been one of the several persons despatched by the Regent during the course of the evening to persuade his daughter to return to her home. The engagement of the great Catalini to sing at it could not have conferred more distinction on the party than Miss Mercer Elphinstone’s presence. Everyone wanted to know whether the Princess and her mother had refused admittance to Chancellor Eldon; whether the Duke of York and the Bishop of Salisbury had been made to kick their heels in the dining-room at Connaught House while the Princess deliberated in the drawing-room with her mother’s advisers; whether she had been taken back to her father by force; or whether she had yielded on the advice of Brougham and her Uncle Sussex. And what was to be the outcome?

Miss Mercer Elphinstone was unable to satisfy curiosity on this point, but it was learnt within a few days that the Princess had been packed off to Cranborne Lodge, a small house in Windsor Park, where she was residing under much the same conditions as might have been thought suitable for a State prisoner.

“Well, I’m sorry it all happened before the Carlton House fete,” said Jenny, “for it means I shan’t see her, and I did hope I might.”

“Whatever for?” demanded Lydia.

“Well, she’s going to be Queen one day, isn’t she? Stands to reason anyone would want to see her!”

As she had expected, she was denied this treat, but so splendid was the fête that instead of regretting the Princess’s absence she forgot all about it.

The fête was held in honour of the Duke of Wellington, whose bust, executed in marble, was placed in a temple erected at the end of a covered walk leading from a huge, polygon room, especially built by Nash in the garden for the occasion. Jenny was a little disappointed at seeing no more of Carlton House than the Great Hall, with its coved ceiling and yellow porphyry pillars, but this disappointment too was forgotten when she had passed through this vestibule to the polygon room, which was hung with white muslin, with mirrors past counting flinging back the lights of hundreds of candles. She gave a gasp, and told Adam that she had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

At half-past ten the Royal party entered the room, the Regent leading the procession with the aged Queen on his arm; and after a lavish supper the Princess Mary opened the ball with the Duke of Devonshire for her partner. Since she was nearing her fortieth year and he was no more than four-and-twenty they might have been considered an ill-assorted couple, but only the irreverent indulged this reflection. The Princess Mary was the Beauty of the Family, and the custom of describing her as a remarkably handsome girl was of too long-standing to be readily altered.

It was past four o’clock when the Queen took her departure. Adam bore Jenny away after this, saying, as their carriage moved forward under the colonnade: “My poor dear, you must be dead from fatigue!”

“I fancy you are more fatigued than I am. Is your leg paining you?”

“Lord, yes! It has been aching like the devil these two hours past. That’s nothing: standing for too long is always a penance to me. I was afraid you might faint at any moment. Insufferably hot, wasn’t it?”

“Lord Rockhill says the Regent is terrified of draughts. I thought at first that perhaps Ishould faint, but I soon grew accustomed. Oh, Adam, I can’t tell how many people spoke to me, and as for the number who bowed and smiled — well, there was never anything like it! I couldn’t believe it was me, Jenny Chawleigh, saying how-do-you-do to all those grand people!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” was all he could think of to say. Her enjoyment, as might have been expected, was as nothing to Mr Chawleigh’s. He listened with rapt interest to her account of the festivity, drew deep breaths when she enumerated all the guests of high rank with whom she had exchanged civilities; and sat rubbing his knees, and ejaculating such phrases as: “Bang-up to the knocker!” and: “To think I should have lived to see this day!”

A very little of Mr Chawleigh in this mood was enough to drive Adam from the room. His more robust sister might derive affectionate amusement from this display of unabashed vulgarity; Brough, who was present, might regard Mr Chawleigh with a tolerant twinkle, but he could not. Yet less than a week later he suffered a revulsion of feeling when he walked into the drawing-room to find Mr Chawleigh displaying to Jenny a superb sang de boeuf bowl he had that very day acquired.

“Oh, how beautiful!” Adam exclaimed involuntarily.

Mr Chawleigh turned a beaming countenance towards him. “Ain’t it just? Ain’t it?”

“It’s K’ang-hsi, Adam,” Jenny informed him. “The T’sing Dynasty; you know, when the art of Chinese porcelain was at its height.”

“I don’t, but I can well believe it! I never saw anything more exquisite!”

“You like it, my lord?”

“I should rather think so, sir!”

Mr Chawleigh gazed lovingly at it for an instant, and then held it out to Adam. “Take it, then! It’s yours!”

“Good God, sir, no!”

“Nay, I mean it! You’ll be doing me a favour!”

“Doing you a favour to take such a treasure from you? My dear Mr Chawleigh, I could not!”

“Now don’t say that!” begged Mr Chawleigh. “You take it, and I’ll know I’ve hit on something which you do like, and that’ll give me more pleasure than what putting it into one of my cabinets would, for it’s something I was thinking I never would do. You don’t drive the curricle I had built, for you, nor — ”

His cheeks burning, Adam interrupted: “I — I found my father’s curricle, almost new — ! It seemed a pity — and I had a fancy to — ”

“Ay, well, no need to colour up! Your taste don’t in general jump with mine. Lord, did you think I hadn’t twigged that? No, no, a Jack Pudding I may be, but no one’s ever called Jonathan Chawleigh a bleater!”

“Certainly I have not!” Adam said, trying to hide his discomfiture. “As for my not liking what you’ve given me, sir, ask Jenny if I wasn’t delighted with the shaving-stand you placed in my room!”

“That’s nothing! You take this bowl, my lord, and it will be something.”

“Thank you. I can’t resist — though I know I ought!” Adam said, receiving the bowl from him, and holding it between his hands. “You are a great deal too good to me, but you need never think I don’t value this treasure as I should. You have given my house an heirloom!”

“Well,” said Mr Chawleigh, much gratified, “I’m sure I didn’t look for you to say that, but I don’t deny it’s as good a piece as you’ll find anywhere — and not bought for a song either!”

Jenny said, in a practical tone that betrayed none of the relief she felt: “Now, where will you have it put, Adam? It ought to be under lock and key, but it won’t look well all amongst the Bow China, and I don’t care to turn that out of the cabinet, for it belongs to your family, besides being very pretty.”

“Don’t trouble your head over it, my dear! I know just where I mean to put it,” Adam said, turning the bowl carefully between his thin fingers. “What a lustre, sir! How can you bear to part with it? No, Jenny, it would not look well amongst the Bow China! It is going to stand alone in the library at Fontley, in the embrasure at present occupied by that very ugly bust of one of my forebears.” He set the bowl down on the table, saying as he did so: “When you come to visit us, sir, you shall tell me if you approve of my taste!”

“Nay, I wouldn’t want you to put it in your ancestor’s place!” said Mr Chawleigh. “It wouldn’t be seemly!”

“My ancestor can remove himself to the gallery. I don’t want to look at him, and this I do want to look at. There are wall-sconces on either side of the embrasure, sir, and — But you will see for yourself!”

“Now, don’t you run on so fast, my lord!” Mr Chawleigh admonished him. “It’s — not by any means a settled thing that I’ll be visiting you in the country.”

“You’re mistaken, sir. I know you don’t care for the country, but you must resign yourself.”

“Well,” said Mr Chawleigh, intensely pleased, “I don’t deny I’d like to see this Fontley of yours, but I told you at the outset you wouldn’t find me foisting myself on to you, and no more you will.”

“I hope you’ll think better of that decision, sir. I shall be obliged to kidnap you, if you don’t. That’s a fair warning!”

Mr Chawleigh’s formidable bulk was shaken by chuckles. “Eh, it would puzzle you to do that, lad — my lord, I should say!”

“You should not — as I have frequently told you! It wouldn’t puzzle me in the least: I should hire a gang of masked bravoes to do the thing. So let us have no more of your flummery, sir!”

Mr Chawleigh thought this an excellent joke, but it was not until he had been assured that he would not arrive at Fontley to find the house full of his son-in-law’s grand friends that he could be brought to consent to the scheme.

“A nice thing when I have to beg and pray my father to pay me a visit!” Jenny said severely. “And well do I know you wouldn’t have hesitated, not for a moment, if Lydia had been going with us!”

This sally made Mr Chawleigh laugh heartily. He denied the accusation, but admitted that it seemed to him a great pity Lydia was not to remain in her brother’s charge.

In this opinion he met with agreement, but neither Adam nor Jenny could feel that it would be proper to keep her away from the Dowager, whose letters were becoming ever more querulous, and who described herself as counting the moments until her youngest loved one should be restored to her.

So, when the fete in the parks was over, Lydia went regretfully back to Bath, bearing with her a store of rich memories, and renewed theatrical longings. One visit to Drury Lane had been enough to set her on fire. She had sat spellbound throughout a performance of Hamlet, her lips eagerly parted, and her wide gaze fixed on the new star that had appeared in the theatrical firmament. So entranced had she been that she had barely uttered a syllable from start to finish; and when she had emerged from this cataleptic state she had begged to be taken home before the farce, since she could not endure to listen to any other actors in the world after having been so ravished by Kean. Subsequent visits (two of which she had coaxed out of Mr Chawleigh) to see Kean play in Othello, and Riches, had confirmed her in her first opinion of his genius, and had provided her with her only disappointment: that she had come to London too late to see him as Shylock, in which rôle he had taken the town by storm, in this, his opening London season. In the first heat of her enthusiasm she could imagine no greater felicity than to play opposite to him, and startled Jenny by evolving various schemes for the attainment of this object. These quite scandalized Mr Chawleigh, who begged her not to talk so silly, and nearly promoted a quarrel by saying that he couldn’t see what there was in such a miserable little snirp as Kean to send the town mad.

Adam entered gravely into all his sister’s plans, and was far more successful than Jenny or Mr Chawleigh in convincing her that they would not answer. He wasted no breath on foolish arguments, but he did suggest that perhaps Kean might not think a lady half a head taller than himself quite the ideal stage partner. These casual words sank in; Lydia became thoughtful; and when it next occurred to her sympathetic elder brother that an actress who excelled in comedy would find too little scope for her genius in the company of one acclaimed for his portrayals of the great tragic rôles, she was most forcibly struck by the truth of this observation. So, although it would have been too much to have said that she no longer cherished hankerings, Adam was reasonably confident, when he put her on the Bath Mail with her maid, that she would not prostrate their fond parent by divulging them to her.