A Civil Contract

Chapter XXIII

When Mr Chawleigh learned from Jenny that his name was to be bestowed upon his grandson, and at Adam’s suggestion, he was more than pleased: he was overcome. It was several moments before he was able to utter a word. He sat staring at Jenny, his hands on his. knees; and when he did at last speak all he could find to say was: “Giles Jonathan Deveril! Giles-Jonathan-Deveril!”

Nor was this by any means the last time he uttered the names. Every now and then a look of profound satisfaction was seen to spread over his face; his lips would move; he would rub his hands together; and give a little chuckle; and all who observed these signs knew that he was savouring his grandson’s name yet again. He was embarrassingly grateful to Adam, telling him that he hadn’t looked to have such a compliment paid him, and assuring him that he meant to do the handsome thing by the boy. Adam had learned to hear such remarks without wincing; but he soon grew extremely bored by the next manifestation of Mr Chawleigh’s pride in his grandson. The discovery that the infant had no title was a disappointment that seemed likely to bring a lasting cloud to his horizon, nor was his dissatisfaction eased when Adam, rather amused, told him that when he had occasion to write to Giles he would be able to direct his letter to the Honourable Giles Deveril. Mr Chawleigh had a poor opinion of Honourable. He had seen the word written, hut he regarded it with suspicion, because he had never heard anyone called by it.

“No, you wouldn’t. It isn’t used in speech,” said Adam.

“Well, I don’t see the sense of having a title which ain’t used,” said Mr Chawleigh. “Shabby, I call it! Who’s to know he’s got it?”

“I don’t know — and, speaking as one who held the tide until very recently, I promise you Giles won’t care!”

“I’d have liked him to have been a lord,” said Mr Chawleigh wistfully.

“Well, I’ve no wish to seem disobliging,” said Adam, tired of the discussion, “but I don’t consider it to be any part of my paternal duty to put a period of my life merely to provide Giles with a title!”

He spoke a little impatiently, and was immediately ashamed, because Mr Chawleigh said he hoped no offense was taken, as none was intended. To make amends, he devoted himself to Mr Chawleigh’s entertainment all one afternoon, with the result that he became so inwardly chafed that he found himself looking forward with positive yearning to the date of his well-meaning but disastrously irritating guest’s departure. This was not long delayed. Mr Chawleigh remained at Fontley only until he was convinced that there was no danger that Jenny would succumb to puerperal fever, which was another of his bugbears. Satisfied on this point, he was as anxious to be gone as Adam was to see him go: the lord alone knew, he said, what silly mistakes his various subordinates had made during his absence from the City. His worst stroke was left to the last moment, when his chaise was at the door, and he was taking leave of Adam in the porch. His mood was benign: his daughter was safe; he had a lusty grandson; his son-in-law had made him as welcome as if he had been a Duke, even naming the baby after him, and behaving, when he’d come the ugly for no reason at all, as patiently and kindly as if he had been his real son. Mr Chawleigh’s heart was full of gratitude and generosity, and, unfortunately, it overflowed. Shaking Adam warmly by the hand, and looking at him with rough affection, he thanked him for the third time for his hospitality. “If anyone had told me I’d be happy to stay in the country for more than a sennight I’d have laughed in their faces!” he said. “But you make me so welcome, my lord, that if you don’t take care you’ll have me posting down to visit you more often than you bargain for. I’ve got to feel myself so much at home here that the next thing you know I’ll be talking about oats and rye and the like as glib as you do! Which brings me to something I’ve got to say to you!”

“About oats and rye?” said Adam, smiling. “No, no, sir! You stick to your trade and I’ll stick to mine!”

Mr Chawleigh chuckled at this. “Ay, that’s my motto! No, that ain’t it: the thing is, Jenny’s been telling me about some farm or other you’re mad after, for experiments, she said. Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you want with such things, — and I don’t deny it seems corkbrained to me! But there! If you’re set on it, I suppose you’ll have to have it, so you tell me how much of the ready you need to set it going, and I’ll stand the nonsense!”

“How very kind of you, sir!” Adam said, forcing himself to speak pleasantly. “But I assure you I’m not mad after any farm! I have quite enough to do without saddling myself with an experimental farm.”

Mr-Chawleigh was disappointed, but also relieved. He wished to bestow a handsome present on Adam, but it did seem wicked to squander one’s blunt on anything so silly as an experimental farm. So he did not press the matter, but set off for London, cudgelling his brain in an attempt to hit on something which his incomprehensible son-in-law really would like to receive.

Adam was left a prey to bitter hatred of insensitive vulgarians, who could never be made to understand how much their oppressive generosity lacerated the feelings of those cast in finer moulds than themselves.

Yet five minutes later he found himself defending Mr Chawleigh from the Dowager’s acid criticisms, even telling her that he held him in affection and esteem, which, at that moment, was far from being the truth.

The Dowager was suffering slightly from reaction. She had risen nobly to an occasion, but the occasion had passed. While it was of paramount importance that her daughter-in-law should be kept in a tranquil state of mind she had found it easy to suppress every critical impulse; but Jenny, though slow to recover her strength, was now out of danger, and the Dowager felt at liberty to unburden herself of a great many criticisms and grievances. Adam, having endured an extremely wearing week keeping his mother and his father-in-law apart, and, when this was impossible, stepping hastily into every breach created by two such ill-assorted persons, was in no mood to listen to these, and he gave his mother a very improper set-down. A serious rupture threatened, but was averted by the Dowager’s recollecting that her younger daughter was shortly to make her début, and that in her own miserably straitened circumstances it was quite impossible for her to provide all the expensive raiment necessary for this event.

It had been decided that since Jenny, confined at the end of March, would be very imprudent to embark on the exigencies of a London season, Lady Nassington should launch Lydia into the ton. The Dowager had, in fact, brought Lydia to London, and had consigned her to her aunt’s care. She had, at great personal sacrifice, supplied her with a number of elegant ball-dresses, walking-dresses, and demi-toilettes, but it was quite out of her power to provide her with a Court-dress. The child could certainly not afford to pay for this herself, out of the slender allowance her brother made her, and dear Adam would scarcely wish the charge to fall upon his aunt.

He did not wish it; and even less did he wish the cost of Lydia’s presentation to be borne by Jenny. He gave the Dowager a draft on Drummond’s, which put her so much in charity with him that instead of shaking the dust of Fontley from her feet she remained there for another week. She was thus present when Lady Oversley drove over from Beckenhurst on a visit of congratulation, bringing with her Lady Rockhill, and the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth Edgcott, two very well brought-up and rather mouse-like little girls, who (just as Jenny had prophesied) sat and gazed with shy admiration at their lovely young stepmother.

Lady Oversley had neither meant nor wished to bring Julia to Fontley, but she had found it impossible to leave her behind. The Rockhills were paying a brief visit to Beckenhurst on their way up to London, where Julia was going to buy much prettier dresses for her stepdaughters than their austere grandmama had considered suitable, show them all the sights, and in general entertain them royally before sending them back to their governess and their books at Rockhill Castle. “But before we leave you, Mama,” Julia said, “I must go to Fontley to see how Jenny does, of course.”

Lady Oversley ventured to suggest that a letter of felicitation would perhaps be better than a visit.

“When it’s known that I’m here, so close to Fontley?” Julia said. “Oh, no! How unkind it would be in me not to visit Jenny! I won’t have it said that I didn’t render her every observance!”

When the visit was paid Jenny was still confined to her room, but the Dowager was able to assure Lady Oversley that she was quite well enough to receive her, and dear Julia too. She conducted them upstairs, leaving the little girls seated primly side by side on a sofa in the Green Saloon, with a book of engravings to look at.

Jenny, who was permitted now to spend some hours on a day-bed, greeted her visitors with pleasure, but it was not long before Lady Oversley judged it to be time to withdraw. Julia, she thought, was talking too much and too animatedly to Jenny, who was obviously languid and invalidish. One might almost have said that Julia was rattlingon in a way that would probably leave Jenny with a headache. She had kissed her, and felicitated her, and admired the baby, which was perfectly proper, but it would have been better to have kept all her gay reminiscences of Paris for a future date. It could not interest Jenny to know what this person had said to Madame la Marquise, or what that person had said about her. Lady Oversley felt uneasily that had it been anyone but Julia she would have suspected her of flaunting her triumphs and her wedded felicity in front of poor little Jenny. So she got up to take her leave. Julia followed her example, saying: “But I must have one last peep at your baby, Jenny! Dear little man! He’s like you, I think.” She looked up from the cradle, laughing: “I’m a Mama too, you know! I’ve two daughters — such darlings! They ought to hate me, but they spoil me to death!”

When the ladies entered the Green Saloon again they found Adam there, trying to draw out the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth. Julia gave him her hand, exclaiming: “Oh, you have made the acquaintance of my daughters already! That’s too bad! I’m quite as proud a mama as Jenny, I promise you, and had meant to have presented them to you in form.”

He had dreaded this meeting, but when he looked at Julia, and listened to her, she seemed to be almost a stranger. Even her appearance had altered. She had always been charmingly dressed, but in a style suited to her maiden status; he had never seen her attired in the silks, the velvets, and the jewels of matronhood. He thought she looked very rich and fashionable, with all the curled plumes clustering round the high crown of her hat, the sapphire-drops in her ears, the sable stole flung carelessly over the back of her chair, but she did not look like his Julia. It did not occur to him that she was somewhat overdressed for the occasion, but it had occurred forcibly to Lady Oversley, who had remonstrated, only to be told that she had nothing else to wear, and that Rockhill liked her to look elegant.

She was telling his mother how nervous she had been when Rockhill had taken her to meet his children, making a droll story of it. The little girls giggled, and uttered protestingly: “Oh, Mama!” She had been afraid that Rockhill’s servants would regard her as a usurper, and that his sisters would disapprove of her. Such an ordeal as it had been! But they were all such dear creatures that they positively killed her with kindness: she was becoming odiously spoilt, and would soon, if they persisted in cosseting her, be the most idle, exacting, and selfish toad imaginable.

“Oh, Mama!”

Listening to this, Adam remembered suddenly the words she had spoken to him once. “I must be loved! I can’t live if I’m not loved!” The thought flashed into his mind that she was basking in adulation; and he wondered for a shocked moment if the caresses and the treats she bestowed upon Rockhill’s daughters sprang from this craving rather than from a wish to make them happy. He was aghast, not at her but at himself; he recalled a thousand instances of her sweetness, her generosity, her quick sympathy, her tender heart; and thought: Who has a better right to be loved?

“Dear Julia!” sighed the Dowager, when the visitors had departed. “No one could marvel at the Edgcotts for liking her so well! Dorothea Oversley has been telling me what a conquest she has made over Rockhill’s sisters, but, as I said to Dorothea, I should have been astonished if they had not liked her, for she is always so prettily behaved, and so attentive — so exactly what one would wish one’s daughter-in-law to be!”

“Sister-in-law, surely, ma’am?” Adam said, in a dry tone.

“Yes, dear — alas!” she replied mournfully.

“I hope the visit may not have tired Jenny: I must go up to her.”

He escaped from her on this excuse, and did indeed go upstairs, to be greeted, as he entered Jenny’s room, by some lusty yells from his son, who appeared to have fallen into a paroxysm of fury. Adam was put unpleasantly in mind of Mr Chawleigh, but thrust the thought away. “It’s a constant source of astonishment to me that anything so small should possess such powerful lungs,” he remarked.

Jenny signed to the nurse to take the baby away. “Yes, and such a strong will!” she answered. “He’s determined not to be laid down in his cradle: that’s all that ails him. But he was very good while Lady Oversley and Julia were with me. It was kind of them to come, wasn’t it? Did you see them?”

“Yes, and also the two girls — oppressively well-behaved damsels! Was the post brought up to you? I saw you had a letter from Lydia.”

“Yes, bless her! She says she’s still as sulky asa bear because Lady Nassington won’t allow her to come to see her godson. I wish she might have come, but it is much too far — and I can’t say that he’s much to look at yet!” She hesitated, and then said haltingly: “I had a letter from Papa as well.”

“Did you? I hope he’s well?”

She nodded, but she did not speak for a moment or two. She had been unhappily conscious for several days that Adam had withdrawn a little from her, behind his intangible barrier. She had ventured to ask him if she had displeased him, but he had put up his brows, saying: “Displeased me? Why, what have I said to make you think so?” She could not answer him, because he had said nothing to make her think so, and she could not tell him that her love made her acutely sensitive to every change of mood in him. But she knew now what had caused that subtle withdrawal. Rather flushed, bracing herself, she said: “Papa tells me that he offered to — to make it possible for you to start the experimental farm you wish for — only that you refused it.”

“Of course I did!” he replied easily. “And very glad he was that I did! I’m much obliged to him, but I can’t imagine why he should offer to do what must go quite against the pluck with him.”

“You thought I had asked him to,” she said, resolutely lifting her eyes to his. “That’s why — ” She checked herself, and then went on: “I didn’t — but I did mention it to him, not thinking that you wouldn’t wish it, which — which you’ll say I should have known.”

“My dear Jenny, I assure you — ”

“No, let me explain to you how it came about!” she begged. “I never meant — You see, Papa doesn’t understand! He thinks it’s crackbrained nonsense, and not the thing for gentlemen to engage in! I only wished to make him understand, and I told him about Mr Coke’s farm, and how he had prospered, and how important agriculture is.... It was his saying that he supposed you would be the next to start such a farm that made me disclose to him that you had that intention, when you could afford to do so. I didn’t ask him, but I don’t run sly any more than he does, and I’ll tell you frankly I did hope that perhaps he might come round to the notion! I didn’t know you’d dislike it — you told him once that if he wished to make you a present he might give you a herd of short-horns!”

“Did I? I wasn’t in earnest. But there’s no need for you to fly into high fidgets, goose! I might wish that you hadn’t talked to him of that remote ambition of mine, but I never desired you not to, so how should I be vexed with you because you did?”

“You are vexed,” she muttered, her eyes downcast.

“Not so much vexed as blue-devilled!” he retorted. “Have I seemed to be out of reason cross? Well, I am — though I hoped I hadn’t let you perceive it! I dislike it excessively when there’s no Jenny to pander outrageously to all my fads and fancies, and that’s the truth!”

She did not quite believe him, but she was a little cheered, and was able to smile, and to say: “I’m glad!”

“Wretch! What I endure at my mother’s hands — ! Yes, I know I shouldn’t say that, but if you dare to tell me so I shall walk out of the room in a miff! By the bye, have you read the news? It was in the Morning Post, which I told Dunster to send up to you: old Douro has arrived in Brussels!”

“Wellington! Yes, indeed! I knew you would be cast into transports by that!”

He laughed. “I shall at all events sleep sounder o’ nights! The thought of Slender Billy in command of the Army was enough to give anyone nightmares. We shall do now!”

“Oh, dear, I do hope we may! Papa doesn’t think so. He says — ”

“I know exactly what he says, my love, and all I have to say is that your Papa doesn’t know Douro!”

He spoke confidently, but it was not surprising that Mr Chawleigh, and many others, should be pessimistic. The outlook was not promising. Reports reached London that the Emperor was not the man he had been: he grew easily tired; he fell into sudden rages, or into moods of dejection, he had lost his confidence: but the unpalatable fact remained that France had accepted his reinstatement, if not with universal joy, certainly with complaisance. The Midi might be royalist in sentiment, but hopes that were kindled by the raising of a mixed force at Nîmes by the Duc d’Angoulême were soon quenched by the arrival from Paris of Marshal Grouchy, with orders to crush the insurrection. By the middle of April it was known in London that Angoulême had capitulated, and had set sail for Spain. His wife, the daughter of the martyred King Louis XVIth, and a lady of spirit, had been at Bordeaux when the Emperor had entered Paris, and had done her utmost to rally the diminishing loyalty of the troops there, but her efforts had met with no success, and she had been obliged to allow herself to be borne off to safety in an English sloop.

Meanwhile, a new constitution had been drawn up in Paris, which was to be sworn to in the Champ de Mars, at a grand ceremony to be held on the 1st May. The Emperor hoped to crown his Austrian wife and his infant son on this occasion, but his letters to Marie Louise went unanswered. He postponed the Champ de Mai for a month, still hoping to have his wife restored to him, and to detach his Imperial father-in-law from the coalition formed at Vienna. Failing, he switched his diplomatic attempts to England. These too were unsuccessful, but his machinations made those who believed that his power could and must be broken suffer considerable uneasiness, since among the Opposition were many vociferous members, loud in their condemnation of a renewal of hostilities.

“These damned Whigs!” Adam said savagely. “Do they imagine that Boney wouldn’t overrun Europe the instant he saw his way clear?”

“Lambert says,” observed Jenny dispassionately.

He looked up from the newspaper, his anger yielding to amusement. “Jenny, if you don’t take care, we shall find ourselves in the suds! It was almost bellows to mend with me yesterday, when Charlotte uttered those fatal words!”

Between them, Lambert and Charlotte had unwittingly shown Adam that his wife had a certain dry sense of humour. Lambert, whose understanding was no more than moderate, had always been inclined to dogmatize on any and every subject, and this tendency had not been lessened by his marriage. Charlotte had no opinions of her own: she had only an unshakable belief in Lambert’s superiority, and had quickly acquired the habit of prefixing her contribution to whatever subject was under discussion with the words Lambert says, uttered with a finality which made them doubly exasperating. Adam was never more surprised than when Jenny, after several hours spent in Charlotte’s company, interrupted him one evening, exclaiming: “Oh, but Adam, Lambert says — !”

She retorted now: “Yes, and you’d think I’d be ashamed to poke fun at poor Lambert, who is always so civil and kind to me, wouldn’t you? Well, so I am, but if I didn’t do that I should very likely be downright rude to him, and to Charlotte! For when it comes to Lambert setting you right on military tactics — Well, there! it’s better to laugh than to get into a tweak!”

He had retired into the newspaper again, and did not answer; but after a few moments he said: “I shall have to go up to London. How confoundedly inopportune! They’ll be draining the Great Dyke, and I wanted to see whether — However, there’s no remedy!”

“A debate?” Jenny asked.

He nodded. “War or Peace. From what Brough writes, it might be a close-run thing. His father thinks Grenville’s wavering, bamboozled by Grey, who is for peace at any cost!”

“You don’t think the Jacobins would be able to set up a republic?”

“Lambert says? No, I don’t. I think it’s moonshine to suppose that Boney would ever consent to it, and they wouldn’t dare to try to force it on him. The civil population might turn against him, but the Army won’t — and, make no mistake, the Johnny Crapauds understand their trade much too well to be pooh-poohed! I know: I’ve fought against ’em!”

“Well, then, of course you must cast your vote,” she said. “I wish I could come to town with you.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Now, Adam — ! When you know the baby’s not weaned — !”

“You could bring him with you.”

She considered this, but finally shook her head. “No, because I shouldn’t want to open up the house only for a few days, and I don’t fancy taking him to a hotel, for you may depend upon it people would complain!”

“He is noisy,” agreed Adam.

“Only when he’s hungry, or has the wind!” she said. “But I won’t come.”

“Jenny, have you been hoaxing me?” he demanded. “Did you persuade me to believe that you didn’t wish to go to town at all this season because you thought I preferred to remain here?”

She shook her head. “No, upon my honour! The only time I hoaxed you was when I pretended to enjoy all those dreadful squeezes we went to last year, and I only did so because I thought it was my duty. I was never more thankful than when I discovered you were just as bored as I was! Not but what it will be pleasant to go up now and then, I daresay. Not this time: it was merely that I thought suddenly that I’d like to see Lydia, and Papa — but Lydia’s coming to us at the end of the season for a nice, long visit, and I don’t doubt Papa will spend a day or two with us as well. No, I won’t come: only think what a fuss and botheration it would mean!”

“I do think it would be very fatiguing for you,” he admitted. “I don’t mean to be gone more than a few days, you know.”

“You’ll stay as long as you feel inclined. I shan’t look for you under a sennight, for you’ll want to see Lydia, let alone all your friends.”

When she saw him off to board the mail-coach at Market Deeping it was with the private conviction that it would be at least ten days before he returned, but he took her by surprise only five days later, walking into the nursery, where she sat suckling her baby. Thinking that it was the nurse who had entered the room she did not immediately look up. She was fondly watching the child, and it struck Adam that he had never seen her appear to better advantage. Then she glanced up, and gave a gasp. “Adam!”

He went forward, saying mischievously: “Own that I’ve astonished you — and retrieved my reputation!”

Her eyes narrowed in one of her sudden smiles. “Well, it’s certainly the first time I’ve ever known you return when you’d said you would!”

“Before I said I would!” he reminded her reproachfully, bending over her to loss her, and then tickling the infant’s cheek with one finger. “Well, sir? It would be civil in you just to acknowledge me, you know!”

The Honourable Giles, fearful of interruption, shot him an angry look, and applied himself with renewed vigour to the most important business in life.

“You’re as greedy as your aunt Lydia,” Adam informed him, sinking into a chair.

“Well, what a thing to say!” protested Jenny. “Lydia is not greedy!”

“You wouldn’t say so if you’d seen her in Russell Square, when I took her to dine with your father!”

“Oh, did you do that? How delighted Papa must have been! But tell me, how did you prosper?”

“Capitally! We carried it in both houses. Granville made a speech in support of the Ministers — no great thing, but Grey’s amendment was pretty handsomely defeated. All sort of on-dits are flying about the town; one doesn’t know how many of them to believe, but one thing is certain: the Austrians, the Prussians, and the Russians are putting themselves under arms. My own belief is that we shall be at grips with the Frogs pretty soon, and I don’t doubt the issue! Boney’s only hope must be to romper us, with his Army of the North, before the others in the Coalition can be brought into the game. If he could do it — but he won’t!” He laughed, and added: “Your father croaks that Wellington has never yet been opposed by Boney himself! Very true — and so is the converse!” He was interrupted by his son, who, full of repletion, gave a belch. He said: “We shall never be able to introduce him into polite circles, shall we? All well here, Jenny?”

She nodded, and said, as she helpfully patted the Honourable Giles: “Tell me about Lydia! Is she enjoying the season? Does she take?”

“According to my aunt, she has made quite a hit. She certainly seems to have acquired a large number of admirers! Don’t ask me to describe the dress she wore at her Presentation! I didn’t see it, and can only assure you that it was sumptuous!”

She chuckled. “Oh, I can almost hear her saying that! Does she go to a great many parties?”

“She informed me with pride that she had attended no fewer than three during the course of one evening. My aunt must have a constitution of iron! By the bye, what a very pretty bracelet you gave her, Jenny!”

Her colour rushed up; she glanced warily at him, stammering: “It was only a trifle!”

“You needn’t have been afraid to tell me,” he said, faintly smiling. “Yes, I know why you were afraid: you remembered that I wouldn’t permit her to wear your pearls. Well, I still would not — they are quite unsuitable, you know! — but there is a vast difference between lending your pearls to Lydia because she is my sister, and bestowing a charming bracelet upon her because she had become your sister. And let me add, my love, that in spite of my odd humours I haven’t the smallest desire to come the ugly because your father was so kind as to send her an ivory-brisé fan which I do not think he purchased dog-cheap! Was that at your instigation?”

“Well, yes!” she admitted guiltily. “You know what Papa is, Adam! He’s so fond of Lydia that he’d have sent her something you wouldn’t have liked at all if I hadn’t restrained him a little.” Her eyes twinkled. “I warn you, however, that I shan’t be able to do so when it comes to a wedding-gift!”

“Ah!” Adam said. “That puts me in mind of a rare tit-bit of news!”

She exclaimed: “Adam! You don’t mean — ”

“I have received two offers for my sister’s hand,” said Adam, with dignity.

“No!”

“I assure you! You can’t think how patriarchal I now feel! Or the degree of embarrassment I felt on being applied to by a man at least twelve years my senior!”

She gave a crow of mirth. “Adam, not the Conquest?”

“None other! Would you believe it? — having won Mama’s approval, he followed Lydia to town, and has been making an absurd cake of himself with his attentions! She swears there was no hinting him away, try as she would, but I consider that no excuse for fobbing him off on to me, the abominable little wretch! With instructions to inform him that his suit was hopeless: you may imagine with what enthusiasm I faced this task!”

“But you did tell him so?”

“I did, but I was obliged to hint that Lydia’s affections were already engaged before I could convince him.” He smiled, seeing the eagerly questioning look in her eyes. “Yes, the other offer came from Brough, exactly as you foretold. At least he asked me if I had any objection to his marrying Lydia.” He observed the expression of deep satisfaction on Jenny’s face, and continued smoothly: “I told him, of course, to put any such nonsense out of his head — ”

“Adam!” she gasped.

He burst out laughing. “Never did I know a fish that would rise to the fly more readily than you, Jenny! Or see anything more ludicrous than your change of countenance! No, you goose, I gave him my blessing, and some sage advice. He was bent on posting off immediately to Bath — for whatever may be your opinion, my dear, he and I are agreed that Mama’s consent as well as mine must be obtained. But I know Mama a great deal better than Brough does, and I’m persuaded nothing could be more fatal than for him to present himself to her hard on the heels of the baffled Conquest. Mama must be given time to recover from her disappointment. So we have decided that nothing shall be disclosed to her until next month, when she means to spend a night with my aunt, before coming down to be with Charlotte. According to my aunt, she will by then have resigned herself to the melancholy prospect of seeing Lydia dwindle into a withered spinster, and so may be thankful to entertain Brough’s proposal.”

“You aunt knows then, and likes it? But it is very hard that Brough shouldn’t be able to speak to Lydia yet!”

“My dear Jenny, he spoke to her before ever I arrived in town!” Adam said, amused.

“Oh, I’m glad! And she?”

“Well, she told me that she was rapturously happy, and I’d no difficulty in believing her.”

“I wish I might see her! Well, at all events, that settles it!”

“Settles what?”

“We must open Lynton House,” said Jenny decidedly.

“Good God, why?”

“For the party. And don’t say what party, because you know very well there’s always a party held in honour of an engagement, and that’s one thing Lady Nassington shall not do!”

“But — ”

“And don’t say but either!” interrupted Jenny, getting up to carry her sleeping son back to the nursery. “The instant I know that your mama has given her consent, I’ll set about hiring servants. Though I think I’ll take Dunster and Mrs Dawes with me, as well as Scholes, because they’ve got to know my ways, and you may depend upon it they’d be glad to go. And it’s not a bit of use arguing, my lord, for my mind’s made up, and if you don’t know what’s due to your sister I do!”