A Civil Contract

Chapter XVII

three days later Julia came to Fontley. Lord Oversley’s seat was situated north of Peterborough, and so within easy distance of Fontley. Julia rode over, accompanied by Rockhill and two of her friends: Miss Kilverley and her brother, an inarticulate and sporting young gentleman who reminded Jenny of Adam’s cousin Osbert. Julia explained that the visit was unpremeditated. “We set out to visit Croyland Abbey,” she said, “but when Mary — you do remember Mary, don’t you? — learned how near we were to Fontley nothing would do for her but to ride on to pay you a visit!”

Jenny, who remembered Miss Kilverley as one of Julia’s satellites, somewhat grimly observed this retiring damsel’s blush, and look of startled enquiry, but said, as she shook hands: “Yes, I remember you very well. How do you do?”

“Abominable to have taken you by surprise!” Julia said gaily. “But I couldn’t resist!”

“Why should you?” Jenny returned. “I’ll have a message sent down to Lynton directly: we are getting in the last of the harvest, you know, and he’s helping on one of the farms.”

“Helping?” Julia echoed.

“Yes,” said Jenny, with her small, tight smile. “Dressed up in a smock too, which I can’t say becomes him. But that’s his notion of enjoyment! I’ve this instant come back from taking him a nuncheon. Plum cake and beer iswhat the reapers get at this hour, but beer he can’t stomach: it makes him bilious. Now, do you all step this way, and partake of a nuncheon too!”

When Adam came in he found the visitors in the Prior’s Parlour, still sitting over the remains of a light repast. He greeted Julia with the ease of long friendship, but he could not keep the warmth from his eyes when they rested on her. She gave him her hand, a smile that was wistful in her own eyes, but a quizzing speech on her lips, “Your smock, Fanner Giles! Where is it? I am disappointed!”

“Ah, the farmer always puts off his smock when he has company!” he retorted. He shook hands with Rockhill. “How do you do? And — ?” A lift of the eyebrow put Jenny in mind of her duty; she performed the necessary introduction; and had the satisfaction of seeing him engage the rather shy young couple in a conversation that he soon made general. She had herself no talent for welding ill-assorted persons into one party, and since the Kilverleys were frightened of Rockhill, suspecting him of satire every time he uttered one of his languid remarks, they had been largely silent until Adam’s arrival. But in a very few minutes they were chatting happily about the day’s expedition, Miss Kilverley joining Julia in rapturous appreciation of the beauties of Croyland, and Mr Kilverley deriving entertainment from Rockhill’s disclosure that the Abbey had been founded by King Ethelbald.

Upon Miss Kilverley’s expressing the hope that she might be allowed to see a little more of Fontley, Adam replied: “Why, certainly! But you will be disappointed, I’m afraid. We don’t compare with Croyland, you know.”

“Oh — ! That lovely arch!” she protested. “And is not this room very ancient?”

“Well, it has always been called the Prior’s Parlour,” he admitted. “Part of the outer wall is thought to be original, but the house is more Tudor than mediaeval.”

“Don’t disparage it on that account!” Julia said. “I have sometimes thought that all the ages meet in it, and have indulged the fancy that one might see monks in the gallery that used to be the dortoire; a lady in a farthingale vanishing through a doorway; or a cavalier, with his lace and love-locks, going before one down a corridor.”

“Orlando Deveril, for instance?” said Adam, regarding her in tender amusement “None of my worthier forebears ever pleased you half as well as that chucklehead!”

She winced. “How can you talk so? You should be proud of him!” She turned to her friend. “You will see his portrait presently! the noblest countenance, and with such melancholy eyes — as though he knew himself to be fated! I told you: he is the one who raised a troop, and rode with it to the King’s assistance!”

“And subsequently got it cut to pieces in its first engagement,” interpolated Adam. “The kind of officer, Miss Kilverley, always to be found heroically exposed to the enemy’s fire. We suffered under just such an one last year: very gallant — and no general for the Light Bobs!”

She was uncertain whether to laugh or to be shocked; Julia said: “You are funning, but I don’t care for jokes on such a subject!”

“Well,” said Jenny, bringing the discussion to a prosaic end, “I’m glad to say I haven’t seen him, which I’m thankful for, because I shouldn’t like it if Fontley was haunted, and you may depend upon it there’s not many of the servants would remain above a sennight if they took it into their heads they might come on a monk round a corner.” She rose, saying: “If we’ve all finished, we’ll go up to the gallery, shall we?”

She nodded to Adam to escort the party, and would have followed had not Rockhill, lingering beside her, said: “Do you wish to go too? I’m persuaded you’d find it a dead bore — as I should, being perfectly well-acquainted with Fontley’s antiquities. Let us leave Lynton to his irreverences, and take a turn about the gardens!”

She was a little surprised, but perfectly willing. As they walked down the vaulted corridor to the Great Hall, she asked him if he were staying with the Oversleys at Beckenhurst.

“No, but in the immediate vicinity,” he replied. “I am visiting relations — remote, but one should never ignore even the dullest members of one’s family, should one? Particularly when they reside precisely where one most wishes to be!” She cast a quick look up at him, and saw his thin lips curl into a smile which put such innocents as the Kilverleys upon their guard.

“Just so!” he said, answering the enquiry in her eyes. “You have a great deal of good sense, Lady Lynton, and you are perfectly right in your assumption.”

“I don’t know that,” she responded bluntly. “You’ll forgive me if I speak too plainly, my lord, but it looks to me as if you was dangling after Miss Oversley!”

“Yes, and at my age too!” he murmured. “I learn on the highest authority that I am generally held to be indulging a fit of gallantry — senile, I fear.”

“Well, that’s nonsense, but it’s not to be wondered at that no one should think it more than a flirtation, for there must be twenty years between you, my lord!”

“Rather more,” he confessed wryly, ushering her out into the garden. “But I’m not, I do assure you, senile, ma’am!”

“No, but, myself, I should never have thought — However, it’s no business of mine!”

“No? You disappoint me!”

“I don’t know why I should,” she replied defensively.

“No, no, don’t fence with me! I’m persuaded we understand one another very well. You would naturally be glad to see Miss Oversley married: I have every intention of obliging you in the matter!”

She paused at the entrance to the rose-garden, to look frowningly up at him. “Why do you tell me so?” she demanded.

“Well, do you know, I like you, Lady Lynton,” he replied. “You compelled both my respect and my gratitude upon the occasion of our first meeting. An awkward — one might almost say a disastrous situation, rendered trivial by your admirable presence of mind then, and later by conduct as magnanimous as it was shrewd.”

“Oh, fiddle!” she said roughly, flushing, and walking on into the rose-garden.

He laughed, and followed her. “If you like! But you must allow me to be grateful — and to pay my debts, if you please! You were a little dismayed, were you not, when you saw who had come to visit you? I fancy you thought me positively beef-witted to have lent myself to the expedition. But I am not at all beef-witted. I am reasonably certain, ma’am, that neither you nor I have anything to fear in regarding our loved ones’ meetings with complaisance.”

“You are the strangest creature!” she exclaimed. “How can you wish to marry Julia, if you know she loves Lynton? You do know it, don’t you?”

“But of course! I have been her most sympathetic confidant — perfectly sincerely, too. One remembers one’s own first love — with a tiny pang, and such infinite thankfulness! I shan’t grudge Julia her deliciously nostalgic memories, or be so abominably gross as to suggest to her that her touching little romance was no more real than a fairy story. She won’t indulge them often: only when something has occurred to put her into the hips! And then, poor darling, she will quite forget having made the painful discovery that Lynton really bears very little resemblance to the Prince Charming of her imagination — a creation I find slightly nauseating — but pray don’t tell her that I said so!”

She smiled, but said impatiently: “Oh, Julia knows nothing about Lynton! I don’t understand her — never did! I’m sure I hope you may, but it has always seemed to me that she’s one who would break her heart over a sparrow she found dead in the gutter as easily as she’s done over Lynton. I don’t doubt she’ll recover soon enough, for it’s my belief she hoaxed herself into love with Adam, the way I’ve seen her hoax herself into a high fever, often and often!” She stopped, clipping her lips together, and, after an infinitesimal pause, changed the subject.

He made no attempt to bring her back to it, but talked amusingly to her on a number of idle topics until their stroll through various gardens brought them back to the house again. Voices led them past it to the chapel rains, where they found the rest of the party. Julia was seated on a fallen block of masonry, her frivolous parasol tilted to protect her complexion from the sun, her gaze fixed in melancholy wonder on Adam, who was standing a few paces away, talking to Mr Kilverley. Miss Kilverley was wandering about the ruins, and occasionally calling out appreciative comments as she discovered a fragment of dog-tooth, or a lichened tomb. Mr Kilverley seemed to have become surprisingly loquacious, and when Jenny and Rockhill drew within earshot such overheard phrases as ten coombs to the acre, and improved rotation, informed them that Mr Kilverley’s knowledge was not confined to horses and hounds: he was an enthusiastic agriculturist.

“Ah, the poor little one!” exclaimed Rockhill, under his breath. “Own, Lady Lynton, that it is a picture to wring compassion from a heart of stone!”

Julia turned her head, as she heard the approaching footsteps, and smiled. Her smile was always lovely, and just now it held real pleasure, and more than a suggestion of relief. Her soft eyes were raised to Rockhill’s face as he went towards her, and when he held out his hand she put one of hers into it, and rose, allowing him to lead her a little away. As they walked slowly round the ruins, Julia’s hand in Rockhill’s arm, she sighed, and said: “It is so beautiful, isn’t it? Such reflections as these crumbling stones give rise to! I saw it once by moonlight — so still, so mysterious, brooding in silence over the past! How is it possible to look upon these ruins, and to think only that they make a capital ground for playing at hide-and-seek?”

His eyes lit with amusement, but he replied suitably.

After a disconsolate pause, she said: “That’s what Charlie says about them, but I didn’t think to hear Adam ...” She did not finish the sentence, but sighed again, and said instead: “I suppose, being married to Jenny — She is so prosaic! Very kind, and very good, of course, but — oh, I wish she would not change Adam! He was never used to talk so!”

“Perhaps,” suggested his lordship tactfully, “he was merely setting young Kilverley at his ease.”

“Yes, perhaps — But to call Orlando Deveril a chuckle-head — !”

“That,” agreed his lordship, “was certainly very bad, but one must remember that Lynton is a military man, and may regard conduct which to us appears in the highest degree noble with rather different eyes.”

They walked slowly on while she digested this. “Rockhill!” she said suddenly. “What is a coomb?”

“I believe,” he replied cautiously, “that it is some sort of a measure — but pray don’t ask me what sort, for I haven’t the most distant guess!”

“I think it has something to do with wheat,” she said.

“I shouldn’t wonder at it at all if you are right: it sounds as if it would have something to do with wheat.”

She looked up into his face at that, laughter brimming in her eyes. “Oh, Rockhill, you are so absurd — and such a comfort to me! I believe you do know: you have farms too, have you not?”

“Several, I fancy, but I am ashamed to confess that I’ve never concerned myself with their management.”

“You have an agent, like Papa — though Papa does concern himself a little. Not as Adam does! Helping the reapers! Must he do so? It is very dreadful! I had thought, when he married Jenny, he would have a great fortune.”

He smiled at the trouble in her face. “But it is not at all dreadful, little blossom! Didn’t you hear Lady Lynton say that it was his notion of enjoyment? I don’t doubt it: it’s in his blood. Choice, not necessity, takes him out into the fields, I promise you. Coke of Norfolk does the same, and, for anything I know, a dozen others. I’m prepared to wager that before he is much older Lynton will have joined the ranks of the noble farmers — the Russells, the Keppels, Rockingham, Egremont — oh, don’t look dismayed! It is most creditable, besides becoming so fashionable that those of us who think it a dead bore will soon find ourselves quite outmoded.”

“I don’t think it a bore, precisely,” Julia said. “I love our farm, at Beckenhurst, and have often thought I should like to be a farmer’s wife, with lambs, and calves, and piglets — Papa gave me a lamb once, for a pet, and it was the dearest creature! — but not dull things like crops except, perhaps, hay.”

“You shall have a little Trianon,” he promised.

“Oh — ! No, no, pray don’t talk so! You said you would not! Besides, I know it’s nonsensical: one can’t have a farm without horrid things like manure, and crops, and swing-ploughs, and turnips! Oh, Rockhill, I can’t so easily forget — turn my thoughts, my affections, in another direction!”

“But I have only begged to be allowed to love you, blossom.”

“How good you are! No, no, it would be very ill-done of me: I’ve nothing left to give you, you see.”

“On the contrary! You have beauty to give me. My house needs a mistress, and my daughters a kind mother. I am afraid,” said his lordship, in a tone of deep dejection, “that they are not happy in their grandmother’s charge. An excellent woman, but a trifle over-strict, perhaps.”

“Oh, poor little dears, they have quite haunted me since you told me — But hush! here is Jenny coming towards us!”

The Marquis, perfectly well satisfied with the progress he had made, obediently hushed, and presently moved away to talk to his host. With every fibre in his being taut with hostility, Adam still could not dislike him. Rockhill had made many enemies, but when he exerted himself to please no one could be more charming. To Julia he might affect ignorance of farming, but to Adam he chose to disclose a surprising amount of knowledge in one whose enormous revenues derived largely from urban districts. They paced up and down together for a little time, discussing such matters of agricultural interest as the Corn Laws, trunk-drainage, and stall-feeding; and whatever boredom Rockhill felt he concealed admirably.

It was soon time for the visitors to take their leave. There had been no opportunity for Julia to enjoy any private talk with Adam; only at the last did she find herself alone with him for a few minutes. She said then: “Do you wish I hadn’t come? You were not glad to see me, were you?”

“I can’t help but be glad to see you. But it’s true that I wish you hadn’t come. Why did you, Julia? Here, where I once thought to — ” He checked himself. “You must know that I can’t but find it painful!”

“I, too,” she said mournfully.

Then why?”

“I wanted to see you, to talk to you. I’m so troubled. I’ve been lost, you know, ever since that dreadful day in March. Were you ever in a maze? You can’t find the way out, though you try every path; and you become frightened, wanting to scream to someone to rescue you, but not doing so, because it would be silly, and” — a bleak smile touched her lips — “because you are getting to be a big girl now, Miss Julia, and only babies cry!’”

“I can’t help you!” he said, in a shaken voice. “My love, my love, don’t say these things! Don’t come here! It would be better that we shouldn’t meet, but since we must, let it only be in London, when we find ourselves at the same party! To be together, as we are now — no, no, it won’t do! Believe me, Julia, it will be easier for both if we meet as seldom as may be possible! This is torture to us both!”

“I think it need not be. Cannot something be left to us? If your affections had been engaged, or Jenny’s, it would be another matter, but yours is a marriage of convenience! You did it to save Fontley, she to gain social advancement: there has been no pretence of love between you. Jenny could not be hurt by anything that passed between you and me, Adam. She knows that you love me — she has always known it! Does she demand that everything should be at an end between us, even friendship? It isn’t like her! She has what she desired! Does she demand that you should devote yourself to her, as if you had married her for love?”

It was a moment or two before he answered. Then he said slowly: “No. Jenny demands nothing of me.”

“Ah, I knew she could not! She’s never unreasonable! She’s matter-of-fact, too: full of common sense, without much sensibility, perhaps — she would tell you so herself! — but — ”

He interrupted her. “Yes, she would say that. I don’t know how true it may be, but I do know that she can be hurt. You say she has always known that I love you. I’ve supposed that she must, but she has never spoken of it to me, or betrayed by the least sign that she does know.”

“Why should she care? You’ve given her so much! She can’t grudge me your friendship! Are you thinking of what people would say? But if I were to be married? One’s position is then so different!”

He gave a shaken laugh. “Oh, Julia, my little foolish one! No, I wasn’t thinking of your position, but of Jenny’s. I couldn’t mortify her so. She offered me a carte blanche once, but I knew when I entered into our contract that I was marrying a girl bred in a stricter mould than is general in our order.”

“Oh, yes, yes! Respectability is Jenny’s god, but must it be yours?”

He did not answer for a moment, and then he said gently: “I owe Jenny a great deal, you know. She studies all the time to please me, never herself. Our marriage isn’t always easy, for either of us, but she tries to make it so, and behaves more generously than I do. Given her so much! You know better than to say that, my dear! I had nothing to give her but a title — and I wonder sometimes if she sets any more store by that than you would.”

“Of course she does! I don’t blame her: I know what it must have meant to her, situated as she was, to be so elevated! You may think it a worthless thing, but how could she? Easy to despise what you’ve always had! Once, she said that to me. I hadn’t understood — I was in such distress! — but I did then. She said she wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last to marry for the sake of position.”

“Did she? But position wouldn’t compensate her for the humiliation of being pitied, or sneered at, by the ton, because it was seen that I still loved you, Julia.”

“Oh, no, no! But people don’t! Think of the Ashcotts! Everyone knows that Ashcott is more than Mrs Perth’s friend, but no one — ”

“It is also pretty freely rumoured that Lady Ashcott has found consolation,” he interrupted. “But what would Jenny do, if I neglected her? She wasn’t born into our set; she hasn’t a host of friends and relations, as you have — as Lady Ashcott has; and she’s too shy to make her own way. We made a one-sided bargain: it’s she who gives, and I who take — but I can at least give her loyalty!”

She caught her breath on a sob. “I didn’t mean — or wish — I wouldn’t injure her! But we have been such dear friends, Adam! Must we never meet and talk together, as we were used to do? Jenny wouldn’t grudge us such a tiny crumb of comfort!”

“It wouldn’t be comfort, Julia. Oh, my love, can’t you understand — ?”

“I miss you so,” she said sadly. “Wouldn’t it be a little comfort?”

He could only shake his head. She turned away, saying: “I didn’t know we must be wholly estranged. I must be very stupid, I think.”