A Civil Contract

Chapter II

The Lynton town house was situated in Grosvenor Street, and was a spacious mansion, considerably enlarged by its late owner, in the days of his affluence, by the addition of a ballroom, with several handsome apartments over it. It was furnished with old-fashioned elegance; but when Adam visited it he found holland covers on all the chairs, and the mantelpieces swept bare of their ornaments. Almost the only economy the late Viscount had practised had been the closing of his town residence during the winter months. When he had not been invited to stay at Carlton House, he preferred to put up, in the most expensive comfort, at the Clarendon.

Adam put up at an hotel too, but not at the Clarendon. When he was escorted all over his house by the retainer who acted as caretaker he knew that he could dispose of this one of his possessions without a pang. It was associated in his mind with weeks of suffering; he decided that the sooner he was rid of it the better he would be pleased.

The stables at Newmarket were already up for sale, with the hunting-lodge at Melton Mowbray, and the late Viscount’s sixteen hunters. Wimmering did not think that any harm would come from selling the racing-stable, but he strongly deprecated putting the hunters up for sale. “It will create a bad impression, my lord,” he said. “I cannot like it!” Adam did not like it either, but he was adamant. They were being brought up to Tattersall’s this week: Lynton’s breakdowns. It was not a pleasant thought, and they wouldn’t sell, at the end of the hunting-season, for anything approaching the sums his father had paid for them; but he would be spared the heavy cost of their upkeep. Wimmering was still talking of the need to allay anxiety, but his further researches into the affairs of his late patron had revealed nothing that could encourage Adam to think that he had anything to gain by a postponement of the inevitable; and his reiterated entreaty that the former state of the Deverils should be maintained served only to exasperate an employer whose nerves were already stretched to the limit of their endurance. An engrained courtesy compelled Adam to listen to Wimmering with patience; but no argument which his man of business had as yet advanced caused him to swerve from the line of conduct dictated by his own judgment. He never knew how baffling his courtesy was to Wimmering, or with what relief that harassed man would have greeted an explosion of wrath.

Following his judgment, he had himself interviewed his banker, at Charing Cross. Wimmering begged him to leave such matters in his own, more experienced hands, but Adam said he thought he ought to see Drummond himself. “My family has always banked with Drummond’s,” he said. “They have always dealt fairly by us, too. I think I should prefer to talk to Drummond myself.”

Mr Wimmering might pull down the corners of his mouth, but it was certain that he could never have achieved the accommodation which old Mr Drummond granted to Adam.

Drummond’s was an old-established firm, and amongst its distinguished clients it numbered no less a personage than His Majesty King George; but the name of Deveril figured in its earliest accounts, and it had been with a heavy heart that Mr Charles Drummond had awaited the arrival of the new Lord Lynton. He feared that demands were going to be made which it would be impossible for him to grant. He was not entirely unacquainted with Adam, but he had had no opportunity to form an opinion of his character. He remembered him only as an unassuming young officer, quite unlike his magnificent father; and although that was admittedly a point in his favour it in no way prepared Mr Drummond for a client who not only took him frankly into his confidence, but who said, with a smile that was as charming as it was rueful: “In these circumstances, sir, it must seem outrageous of me to ask you to let me continue drawing on an account which is already grossly overdrawn, but I hope I can satisfy you of my ability to pay off the debt. I have worked out, as well as I’m able — but the exact worth of some of my assets must be conjectural — a sort of balance between my debts and my expectations, which, naturally, you will wish to study.”

He had then laid papers before Mr Drummond, who had peered at them with misgiving. By the time he had recovered from the shock of discovering that Adam’s expectations were not dependent either upon a sure thing at Newmarket, or some speculation calculated to shorten a respectable banker’s days, he had made another discovery, which he later imparted to his son.

“The young man’s like his grandfather. Same quiet ways, same cool head on his shoulders: he’ll do!”

From Charing Cross Adam took a hackney coach to Mount Street, and, with a heart beating uncomfortably fast, trod up the steps to the front door. He was conducted to Lord Oversley’s book-room; and his lordship, exclaiming: “Adam, my dear boy!” got up from his chair, and came quickly to meet him, grasping his hand, and scanning his face with shrewd, kindly eyes. “Poor lad, you look hagged to death! No wonder, of course! But you are well again, aren’t you? I see you limp a trifle: does your leg pain you still?”

“No, indeed, sir: I’m very well. As for looking hagged, that’s the fault of my black coat, perhaps.”

Oversley nodded understandingly. He was a pleasant-faced man, rather more than fifty years of age, dressed fashionably but without extravagance, and distinguished by an easy affability. He pulled forward a chair for Adam. “I don’t mean to tell you how sorry I am: you must know how I feel upon this occasion! Your father was one of my oldest cronies, and though our ways fell apart we remained good friends. Now, I’m not going to stand on ceremony with you, Adam: how badly are things left?”

“Very badly, sir,” Adam replied. “I hope to emerge free of debt, and that, I’m afraid, is the best that can be said.”

“I feared as much. I saw your father in Brooks’s, not a sennight before the accident — ” He broke off, and after a moment’s hesitation said: “I want to speak to you about that. It caused the deuce of a lot of talk: mere humbug to pretend it didn’t! It was bound to do so, and it was bound to bring his creditors down on you like a swarm of locusts.” He cast another of his shrewd glances at Adam. “Ay, you’ve been having a devilish time of it. But that’s not what I want to say. I’ve thought about that accident a great deal. He didn’t mean it. He may have been all to pieces, but I’m as sure as I sit here that he wasn’t riding to break his neck. That’s what you’ve been thinking, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know!” Adam said. “I try not to think of it!”

“Well, you’ll think of it now, my boy!” said Oversley trenchantly. “If he had meant to put a period to his existence he’d have found a surer way to do it than that! Good God, no man knew better than Bardy Lynton that riding for a fall is no more likely to end in a broken neck than in a broken shoulder! No, no, he never meant it! I knew Bardy! He was too game to cry craven, and too much of a right one, for all his faults, to leave you to stand the roast!” He paused, and laid his hand on Adam’s knee, gripping it slightly. “God knows you’ve cause enough, but don’t think too hardly of him! He came into his inheritance too young. When a lad of his cut is as well-breeched as he was, and has no check on him — ”

“Oh, no, no!” Adam said quickly. “Good God, what right have I — ? I didn’t know how serious matters were, but I knew it wasn’t high water with him: he often said we should soon be under the hatches. I didn’t heed him — there always seemed to be enough money — and all I cared for was a pair of colours! If I had thought less of that, and more of Fontley — ”

“Now, that’s enough!” Oversley interrupted. “You’re not a sapskull, so don’t sit there talking sickly balderdash to me! There was nothing you could have done, and if you’re thinking Bardy wanted you at home you’re out! Let alone that he was proud of you — lord, you should have seen him when you were mentioned in one of the despatches! — he didn’t want you to discover how far he had drifted into Dun territory. Always thought he could make a recover, and set all to rights! And I’m bound to own he had some astonishing runs of luck,” added his lordship reflectively. “The pity was — But so it always is with your true gamester! Well, well, mum for that! But if you mean to set the blame for this afterclap at any other door than your father’s, set it at Stephen’s rather than your own! What that young rip cost Bardy, first and last — ! I tell you that, Adam, but well say no more about it: the poor lad’s accounts are wound up now.”

There was a short silence. Adam broke it. “I don’t know. But there is one matter for which I must blame myself, sir — as much as you do, I dare say.”

Oversley replied with a heartiness assumed to conceal embarrassment: “No, I don’t. I’m not going to pitch any gammon about not knowing what you mean. The round tale is that I ought never to have let you make up to that girl of mine — and so I knew!” He smiled wryly. “You know, Adam, there’s no one I’dliefer have for a son-in-law than you, if the dibs had been in tune, but I knew they weren’t, and I ought to have hinted you away as soon as I saw which quarter the wind was in. The fact is I thought it was just a flirtation, and the lord knows you needed something to divert you at that time! I never supposed it would last, once you’d rejoined. And it’s my belief it wouldn’t have done so — at any rate with Julia! — if it hadn’t been for this shocking business, because there’s no denying that Julia’s a taking little puss, and she don’t want for suitors. She’s had ’em all dangling after her, ever since she came out, and has had as many silly nicknames foisted on to her as poor William Lamb’s wife. Sprite — Sylph — Zephyr — ! Pshaw!” said his lordship, imperfectly disguising his pride. “Enough to rum the chit’s head! Now, I don’t say she wasn’t cut up when you went back to Spain: she was. In fact, her mother would have it that she’d mope herself into a decline, but that was all flim-flam! A girl who has a dozen posies sent her in a day don’t go into a decline! And if you ask me — and I don’t say it to wound you, Adam! — she’d have forgotten that interlude if it hadn’t been for some chucklehead calling her the Unattainable. That grassed us, of course. Took to thinking herself pledged to a gallant soldier, and made such a hero of you as would have made the hair rise on your scalp! And then poor Bardy was killed, and there was no keeping it from her that you were in the suds. So now she’s declaring that she’ll never give you up, which pretty well gaps me — or it would, if I didn’t know you too well to think — Damme, Adam, this is a devilish hard thing to say to you, but — ”

“You needn’t say it, sir!” Adam interrupted, rising, and going with a quick, uneven step to the window. “Of course it’s impossible! I’ve known that ever since I first saw my father’s man of business. I should have come to you immediately — I beg your pardon! I hoped things might not be as bad as Wimmering described. In fact they are worse. I’m not in a position to offer for anyone. I never dreamed I could say it, but I wish — yes, with all my heart! — that she had forgotten me!” His voice shook; he made a gallant attempt to conceal his emotion, saying: “I shouldn’t then have been obliged to cry off, which I must do — and came here to do.”

Lord Oversley, rising also, and going to him to lay a hand on his shoulder, said: “I know, my boy, I know! And if I were a rich man — ”

He was interrupted. The door opened suddenly; a male voice was heard to exclaim: “No, dash it, Julia, you can’t — !” and he and Adam turned to see that Miss Oversley was standing on the threshold, one hand clasping the door-knob, the other holding her riding-whip and gloves.

For a moment or two she remained there, her lips parted in eagerness, her eyes, almost too large for her little delicate face, full of light. The picture she presented was lovely indeed. She was a slim creature, so fragile that it was easy to understand why her admirers called her Sylph. Even the feathery curls peeping from under a hat like a shako were ethereal; and her severely cut riding-dress seemed merely to emphasize her fairy-like charm.

Adam stood gazing at her, his heart in his eyes. She let her, whip and gloves fall, and ran forward, uttering in a soft, joyful voice: “I knew it! You couldn’t be so close to me and I not know! Adam!”

Entering the room in her wake, her brother Charles interpreted this for his father’s ear, saying in an undervoice: “Saw the hat in the hall, and guessed how it was! Darted off before I knew what she meant to do.”

She would have thrown herself into Adam’s arms, but he prevented her, catching her hands in a painful grip, and holding her at a distance. He was very pale, and could not command his voice to speak more than her name. He bent his head to kiss her hands, his own shaking.

Lord Oversley said bracingly: “A little less in alt, Julia, if you please! We are all glad to see Adam home again, but there isno occasion for these transports. I don’t think you and Charlie met when you were last in England, Adam, but I dare say you haven’t forgotten each other.”

His heir, nobly seconding this attempt to create a diversion, said immediately: “Lord, no! That is, I remember you, Lynton, though you might not remember me. How do you do?”

Adam released Julia’s hands. He was still pale, but he replied with tolerable composure: “Of course I remember you! I own, however, that I might not have recognized you again.”

“No, well, I was only a schoolboy when you first joined. Jupiter, how much I did envy you!”

“Adam!” Julia faltered. “Oh, what has Papa been saying to you?”

“Now, for heaven’s sake, Julia!” interrupted Oversley testily. “I’ve said nothing Adam doesn’t say himself, so — ”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, turning her brimming eyes towards Adam. “No, no, I don’t believe it! You haven’t changed! I know you have not!”

“No — not that, but — ”

“For shame, Adam!” she said, showing him an April face. “Oh, how vexed I am with you! What a scold you deserve! Did you think I was fickle? Or that I care a rush for wealth? I think I will give you a scold!”

She had stretched out her hands to him again, an enchanting smile trembling on her lips. He took them, but he dared not trust himself to look into her face, and said, keeping his eyes lowered: “I could never doubt you. But when I — when we — when I had the presumption to ask your father — ” He broke off rather hopelessly, and continued after a moment’s pause: “I thought then that I should be able to support you. The ugly truth is that I’m not even able to provide for my sisters. If I were to be thinking of marriage now I should be the greatest villain unhung — and your father as bad, if he so much as considered my suit!” he added, trying for a smile.

She directed an arch look at her parent, and said audaciously: “Pooh! As though we couldn’t bring Papa about our thumbs! Stoopid!”

Adam raised his eyes. “Julia, you haven’t understood. Dear love, this is no case of being obliged to live for a time in straitened circumstances. I — I have no circumstances. Within a very short space now I shan’t even have a home to offer you.”

She stared at him incredulously. “No home? But — but Fontley — ?”

“I am putting Fontley up for sale.”

There was a shocked silence. Charles Oversley directed a look of astonished enquiry at his father, but Oversley was looking under suddenly frowning brows at Adam. Julia cried, in a throbbing voice: “Oh, no, no, no!”

Adam did not speak.

She pulled her hands free. “You cannot mean that! Oh, how can you talk so? Dear, dear Fontley! All its associations — the home of the Deverils throughout the ages!”

“No, hang it, Ju!” expostulated her brother. “Can’t have been! I mean, it’s a Priory! That’s the same as a monastery, ain’t it? Dissolution of the monasteries — well, I don’t precisely remember when that was, but the thing is there can’t have been any Deverils living there before it — unless, of course — No, that won’t fit!” he decided, adding knowledgeably: “Celibacy of the clergy, you know. So that’s a hum!”

In spite of himself Adam laughed. “Yes, I’m afraid it is. The first Deveril of whom we have any very precise information settled in Leicestershire. There has been a Deveril at Fontley only since 1540 — and a shocking rogue he was, from all I can discover!”

“Very likely,” agreed Mr Oversley sagely. “Seems to me that most of those fellows were regular thatchgallows. Well, only think of the Oversley who made our fortunes! When he wasn’t playing least in sight he was pretty well swimming in lard, wasn’t he, Papa?”

“Alas, too true!” said his father, twinkling.

“Oh, don’t talk so, don’t talk so!” Julia broke in. “How can you turn everything to jest? Adam, you didn’t mean it! Strangers at Fontley? Oh, no! Every feeling revolts! The groves and the alleys! The Chapel ruins where I’ve so often sat, feeling the past all about me, so close that I could almost fancy myself a part of it, and see the ghosts of those dead Deverils who lived there!” She paused, looking from one to the other, and cried passionately: “Ah, you don’t understand! Not even you, Adam! How is it possible? Charlie doesn’t, I know, but you — ?”

“I should rather think I don’t!” said her brother. “If you ever saw a ghost you’d run screeching for your life! What’s more, I remember those ruins quite as well as you do, and very likely better! Whenever we stayed at Fontley we used to play at hide-and-seek amongst ’em, and capital sport it was!”

“There were other days,” Julia said, in a low tone. “You choose to pretend that you don’t care, Adam, but I know you too well to be hoaxed! You were used to partake of all my sentiments: this reserve has been forced on you by Papa!”

Adam replied steadily: “I do care. It would be absurd to pretend that I didn’t. If I seem to you reserved it’s because I care too much to talk about it.”

She said, with quick sympathy: “Oh, how horrid I am! How stupid! I understand you — of course I understand you! We won’t speak of it, or even think of it! As for repining, I shan’t do so, I promise you! Could you be happy in a cottage? I could! How often I have longed to live in one — with white walls, and a thatched roof, and a neat little garden! Well have a cow, and I’ll learn to milk, and make butter and cheese. And some hens, and a bee-hive, and some pigs. Why, with these, and our books, and a pianoforte, we shall be as rich as nabobs, and want nothing to complete our felicity!”

“Oh, won’t you?” struck in her unappreciative brother. “Well, if you mean to cook the meals Lynton will precious soon want something more! And who’s to kill the pigs, and muck out the henhouse?”

This sardonic interpolation went unheeded. Julia was rapt in contemplation of the picture she had conjured up; and Adam, tenderly amused though he was, felt too deeply moved to laugh. He could only shake his head; and it was left to Lord Oversley to bring his daughter down to earth, which he did, by saying briskly: “Very pretty, my dear, but quite impractical. I hope Adam can find something better to do than to keep pigs. Indeed, I have no doubt he will, and all the more easily without encumbrance! No one is more sorry than I am that things have turned out as they have, but you must be a good girl, and understand that marriage is out of the question. Adam feels this as strongly as I do, so you need not think me a tyrant, puss!”

She listened with whitening cheeks, and turned her eyes imploringly towards Adam. She read the answer in his face, and burst into tears.

“Julia! Oh, don’t, my darling, don’t!” he begged.

She sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands, her slender form convulsed by deep sobs. Fortunately, since neither her father nor her brother showed the smallest ability to contend with such a situation, Lady Oversley at that moment came into the room.

A very pretty woman, plumper than her daughter, but with the same large blue eyes, and sensitive mouth, she exclaimed distressfully, and hurried forward. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! No, no, my love! Adam, dear boy! Oh, you poor children! There, there, Julia! Now, hush, my dearest! You mustn’t cry so: you will make yourself quite ill, and think how painful for poor Adam! Oh, dear, I had no notion you had come in from your ride! Oversley, how could you? You must have been perfectly brutal to her!”

“If it is brutal to tell her that she can’t live in a thatched cottage, rearing hens and pigs, I have certainly been brutal, and Adam too!” retorted Oversley, with some acerbity.

Lady Oversley, having removed Julia’s hat, had clasped her in her arms, and was tenderly wiping the tears from her face, but she looked up at this, and exclaimed: “Live in a cottage? Oh, no, dearest, you would be very ill-advised to do that! Particularly a thatched one, for I believe thatch harbours rats, though nothing, of course, is more picturesque and I perfectly understand why you should have a fancy for it! But you would find it sadly uncomfortable: it wouldn’t do for you at all, or for Adam either, I daresay, for you have both of you been accustomed to live in such a very different style. And as for hens, I would not on any account rear such dispiriting birds! You know how it is whenever an extra number of eggs is needed in the kitchen: the hen-woman is never able to supply them, and always says if s because the creatures are broody. Yes, and then they make sad noises, which you, my love, with your exquisite sensibility, would find quite insupportable. And pigs,” concluded her ladyship, with a shudder, “have a most unpleasant odour!”

Julia, tearing herself out of that soft embrace, started to her feet, dashing a hand across her eyes. Addressing herself to Adam, standing rigid behind a chair, his hands gripping its back, she said in a voice choked by sobs: “I could have borne any privation — any discomfort! Remember it!” She laughed hysterically, and hurried to the door. Looking back, as she opened it, she added: “My courage did not fail! Remember that too!”

“Well, of all the shabby things to have said!” ejaculated Mr Oversley, as the door slammed behind his sister.

“Hush, Charlie!” commanded his mama. She went to Adam, and warmly embraced him. “Dear boy, you have done just as you ought — just as we knew you would! My heart aches for you! But don’t despair! I am persuaded you will come about! Recollect what the poet says! I’m not sure which poet, but very likely it was Shakespeare, because it generally is, though why I can’t imagine!”

With these obscure but encouraging words she departed, pausing only to recommend Mr Oversley to follow her example. Only too thankful to escape from this painful scene, Mr Oversley took leave of Adam. When he had gone, Adam said: “I think, sir, that I’ll take myself off too.”

“Yes, in a minute!” Oversley said. “Adam — what you said to Julia — Fontley — You are not serious? Things are not as bad as that?”

“I was quite serious, sir.”

“Good God! But you must have ten or twelve thousand acres of good land!”

“Yes, sir. Much of it encumbered, and all of it so neglected that the rent-roll has dwindled to little more than a thousand pounds a year. It could be ten times as much if I had the means — ” He stopped. “Well, I haven’t the means, and I can only hope that someone more fortunately circumstanced will perceive how easily farms worth no more than twelve shillings an acre might be valued, five years from now perhaps, at four times that sum. I think we must be fifty years behind the times at Fontley.”

Hardly heeding him, Oversley exclaimed: “Adam, this must not be! Yes, yes, I know! You’re saddled with short tenancies — no proper covenants — open fields — too much flax and mustard being grown — bad drainage — But these ills can be remedied!”

“Not by me,” Adam replied. “If I had twenty — fifteen — even ten thousand pounds at my disposal I think there is a great deal I could do — supposing that I were free of debt, which, unhappily, I am not.”

Looking very much shocked, Oversley began to pace up and down the room. “I hadn’t thought — Good God, what can have possessed — Well, never mind that! Something must be done! Sell Fontley! And what then? Oh, yes, yes! You’ll rid yourself of debt, provide for your sisters, but what of yourself? Have you considered that, boy?”

“I daresay I shan’t find myself quite destitute, sir. And if I do — why, I shan’t be the first officer to live on his pay! I haven’t sold out, you know. As soon as I’ve settled my affairs — ”

“Nonsense!” interjected Oversley. “Don’t stand there talking as though selling your birthplace was no more to you than disposing of a horse whose action you don’t like!” He resumed his pacing, his brow furrowed. After a few moments, he said over his shoulder: “Julia’s not the wife for you, you know. You don’t think it now, but you’ll live to be glad of this day’s work.” Receiving no answer to this, he repeated: “Something must be done! I don’t scruple to tell you, Adam, that I think it your duty to save Fontley, whatever it may cost you to do it.”

“If I knew how it might be done I don’t think I should count the cost,” Adam said, a little wearily. “Unfortunately, I don’t know. Don’t tease yourself over my affairs, sir! I shall come about. I’ll take my leave of you now.”

“Wait!” said Oversley, emerging briefly from deep cogitations.

Adam resigned himself. Silence reigned, while his lordship stood frowning at the carpet. After a long pause he looked up, and said: “I think I may be able to help you. Oh, don’t stiffen up! I’m not offering to frank you, my dear boy! The lord knows I would if I could, but it’s all I can do to keep myself above hatches. This curst war! Ay, and if Boney is beaten before the year’s out — did you see that Bordeaux has declared for the Bourbons? The latest on-dit is that there’s a deputation coming to invite Louis to go back to France. I have it on pretty good authority that they are expecting it, at Hartwell. I don’t know how it will answer, and in any event they don’t look for any sudden prosperity in the City, whatever be the outcome. Well, that’s for tomorrow, and not what I had in mind to say to you. It occurs to me — ” He paused, and shook his head. “No, better I shouldn’t disclose to you — I don’t suppose for a moment you’d like it, and I’m not even sure that — Still, it might be worth while to throw out a feeler!” He looked undecidedly at Adam. “Not going back to Fontley immediately, are you? Where are you staying?”

“At Fenton’s, sir. No, I’m not going home for some days yet: there’s a great deal of business to be done, and although Wimmering is very good — far more competent than I am, indeed! — things can’t be settled without me.”

“Good!” said Oversley. “Now, there’s only one thing I have to say to you at present, Adam! Don’t do anything rash until I’ve seen what I can do! I have a notion in my head, but it might well be that it won’t answer, so the least said to you now the better!”