A Civil Contract

Chapter XXIV

These disruptive plans were never put into execution. Lydia had a plan of her own, which was laid before Jenny, partly in a characteristic letter from Lydia herself, and partly by the Dowager, who paused at Fontley on her way to Membury Place, where she was going to preside over the entry into the world of a second grandchild.

She had given her consent to Lydia’s marriage, but she was still feeling a trifle dazed. Her mind was not elastic, and since she had first made Brough’s acquaintance when he had been an overgrown schoolboy, who frequently came to stay at Fontley, clattering at breakneck speed up and down the stairs, bringing a great deal of mud into the house, and engaging with Adam in a number of exploits which even now she shuddered to remember, she had never looked upon him as anything other than one of Adam’s friends from Harrow. Jenny had supposed that his visits to Bath must have enlightened her, but the Dowager had accepted without question the excuse he had offered. She had thought it very proper in him to have called in Camden Place, and very good-natured to have taken Lydia out for drives, and to have stood up with her in the Assembly Rooms. It had never so much as crossed her mind that he was extremely particular in his attentions. When he and Adam had been schoolboys Lydia had not emerged from the nursery, and if she had thought about it at all the Dowager would have concluded that Brough regarded Lydia merely as his friend’s little sister, to whom it behooved him to be kind.

It had therefore come as a shock to her when Brough had visited her at Nassington House to beg her permission to pay his addresses to Lydia. She told Adam that although the proposed marriage was not what she would have chosen for dear Lydia Brough had expressed himself so beautifully, and with such delicate consideration, that she had allowed herself to be won over.

(Brough doing the thing in style, thought Adam appreciatively.)

In fact, Lady Nassington had been very nearly right. If the Dowager did not go so far as to visualize her strong-minded daughter as an ageing spinster, it seemed more than likely to her that a girl who could wantonly reject so eligible a suitor as Sir Torquil Tregony would be perfectly capable of falling in love with a penniless soldier, or even of eloping with an adventurer. Regarded in this light, Brough took on the attributes of a God-send. The match was not a brilliant one, as Julia Oversley’s had been; Brough’s fortune did not bear comparison with Sir Torquil Tregony’s; but, on the other hand, Brough was heir to an Earldom, and to the Dowager, who had been obliged to see her lovely elder daughter thrown away on an undistinguished country squire, and her only surviving son married to a female with no pretensions whatsoever to gentility, this circumstance brought more satisfaction than she would ever, in happier days, have believed possible. It was pleasant, too, to reflect that one of her children was contracting an alliance which would meet with the approval of all her friends.

So it was in an unusually mellow frame of mind that she arrived at Fontley. Her first preoccupation was with her grandson, but after she had hung over him adoringly, marvelled at his growth, and discovered that he was even more like his Uncle Stephen than she had previously thought, she was ready to talk about Lydia’s engagement, and to discuss with Adam and Jenny Lydia’s plan for the inevitable party.

Lydia wanted it to be held at Fontley. At first glance this did not seem to be a very feasible scheme, but closer inspection showed that it was really the most sensible one that could have been devised. Lydia had no wish for a large gathering of relations, friends, and mere acquaintances: she would prefer an informal affair, at which only her own and Brough’s immediate relations would be present; and as it was naturally impossible for Charlotte to come up to London, or for Mama to leave Charlotte at such a moment, the obvious place for the party was Fontley. Furthermore, Fontley was much nearer than London to Lord Adversane’s seat, so that as the Adversanes had not come to town this year it would be more convenient for them too. They would have to stay the night, of course, but Lydia hoped Jenny would not object to this. Brough’s sister ought to be invited, but only for civility’s sake: she lived in Cornwall, and certainly would not come; and his brother was with his Regiment, in Belgium. The only other guests Lydia wished to be invited were the Rockhills.

“... at least, I don’t precisely wish it,” she wrote, in a private letter to Jenny, “but I know Brough does, tho’ he does not press it. The thing is that he is much attached to Rockhill, who has always been particularly kind to him, which makes it awkward and slighting not to invite him. I daresay they will refuse, on account of the distance from town, but for my part I do not think it signifies if they do not, because when Adam accompanied my aunt and me to the Bickertons’ party they were present, and Julia in high bloom, but Adam did not appear at all conscious, but was perfectly composed, and greeted her in the most natural way...”

Bless the child, did she expect him to betray himself at a rout-party? Jenny thought, wryly smiling, as she put the letter up, and turned her attention to what the Dowager was saying to Adam.

She was explaining to him, at tedious length, the various circumstances which made June 21st the only really suitable date. The most cogent of these was that both Brough and Lydia had engagements in London during the preceding week, and that to postpone the date beyond the 21st would be to run the risk of coinciding with Charlotte’s confinement; and the least that the 21st would be a Wednesday.

“Jenny, are you sure you like this scheme?” Adam asked, when they were alone.

“Yes, that I do!” she replied. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, yes! As long as it won’t put you to a great deal of trouble.”

“It won’t put me to any trouble at all. But if you had rather — ”

“No, there must be a party, of course — or, at any rate, you all think so!”

“Well, it’s natural we should, but if you don’t wish it — ”

“My dear, you are perfectly right, and I do wish it!”

He spoke impatiently, and she said no more, believing that his reluctance sprang from the knowledge that the Rockhills were to be invited. He was not thinking of Julia, although he did not want her to come to Fontley, and had been dismayed when he had heard that she might. He was reluctant because he thought no time could have been more ill-chosen for festivity than the present. He did not say so; his brief sojourn in London had made him realize that between the soldier and the civilian there was a gulf too wide to be bridged. It had been no hardship to cut his visit short. The season was in full swing; the looming struggle across the Channel seemed to be of no more importance to the ton than a threatened, scandal, and was less discussed. To a man who had spent nearly all his adult life in hard campaigning it was incomprehensible that people should care so little that they could go on dancing, flirting, and planning entertainments to eclipse those given by their social rivals when the fate of Europe was in the balance. But England had been at war for twenty-two years, and the English had grown accustomed to this state, accepting it in much the same spirit as they accepted a London fog, or a wet summer. In political circles and in the City a different and more serious point of view might be taken, but amongst the vast majority of the population only such families as had a son or a brother in the Army regarded the renewal of hostilities as anything more than an inevitable and foreseeable bore. Except that Napoleon had not abdicated in March of 1802, it was the Peace of Amiens all over again. It was disagreeable, because taxes would remain high, and one would once more be unable to enjoy foreign travel, but it was not disastrous, because whatever he might do on the Continent Napoleon would not overrun Great Britain. Life would go on, in fact, just as it had for as long as most people could remember.

To Adam, who, until so recently, had had no other real object than to defeat Napoleon’s troops, such apathy was as nauseating as it was extraordinary. It increased his secret longing to be back with his Regiment tenfold; it drove him out of London, thinking that although he could not be where his heart was at least he need not remain amongst people who babbled about picnics and balls, or prosed comfortably and ignorantly in the clubs about the strength of the forces under Wellington’s command.

No veteran of the Peninsula could visualize without an extreme effort of imagination the possibility of the defeat of an Army under that command; but no one with the smallest military understanding could look upon the force now assembled in Belgium with satisfaction. People talked as if it was the same Army that had fought its way from Lisbon to Toulouse, but it was very far from being that Army. The hard core was composed of seasoned Regiments, but its size, so impressive to the uninstructed, had been swelled by raw battalions, and by dubious foreign troops. Adam had heard pompous and well-fed gentlemen lecturing with what appeared to him to be crass stupidity any who could be persuaded to listen on the strategy and the tactics the Duke would employ in the campaign, To hear them prating about the Dutch-Belgian Army was more than Adam could stomach. They seemed to believe that the Dutch-Belgians would be as valuable as the Portuguese Caçadores, whom Marshal Beresford had trained: they were more likely to be as unreliable as the Spaniards, he thought, remembering how often those volatile, damnably-officered troops had proved a dangerous embarrassment during the war in the Peninsula. He kept his tongue between his teeth, because to spread despondency was a military crime. Heaven knew, too, that there were too many croakers already, shaking their gloomy heads, saying that they had always foreseen how it would be, that it was folly to think Napoleon could ever be beaten. The most woodheaded optimist was preferable to these gentry; so, even, were the fashionables, preoccupied with their balls, their scandals, the newest style of tieing a neckcloth, the chances of some pugilist in a forthcoming match. It was unreasonable to be so much irritated by the pleasure-seekers: there was nothing for them to do, after all, but to occupy themselves with their usual pursuits. It was even unreasonable to look with bitter contempt upon the rabid Whigs, who had been declaring for years that Wellington’s victories had been grossly exaggerated, that he was nothing but a Sepoy General, and who were now so thankful to know that he was in command: Adam knew that he ought rather to rejoice in their conversion. He could not, and the only thing to do was to remove himself from their vicinity. He would never, perhaps, feel himself a civilian, but he was one, and had as little to do in the present military crisis as the most frivolous member of the ton. So he had gone home to Fontley, where there was so much to do that his inward fret was sensibly allayed. He still wished that he were with his Regiment, but if the work into which he had thrown himself was not military it was at least of enormous importance, whatever might be Mr Chawleigh’s opinion of it. Having agreed to the proposed betrothal party, he thought no more about it. Jenny never bored him with her housewifely schemes, so it was only when he saw his mother that the party was brought to his mind; and since Membury was ten miles distant from Fontley his meetings with the Dowager were infrequent. Nor did Jenny vex him by talking arrant nonsense about the military situation. Lambert did so, and Charlotte, too, acting as Lambert’s echo, but he met the Rydes as seldom as he met his mother; and, in any event, Lambert (thanks to Jenny) had become a mere bobbing-block.

Jenny rarely talked about the war at all, but when she did mention it she showed, he thought, a great deal of good sense. It did not occur to him that Jenny, like Charlotte, was her husband’s echo.

Out of hearing of all the rumours that flew about London, he regained cheerfulness and confidence. One or two of his old friends wrote from Belgium now and then: the news was growing better. Some of the Peninsular Regiments which had been recalled from America had arrived, and in capital trim; the dauntingly heterogeneous Army had been welded into a workmanlike whole (trust old Hookey!); Blücher’s Prussians were present in force, and were credibly reported to be well-disciplined soldiers. The Allied Army, in fact, was now ready to receive Napoleon at any date convenient to him. “We are all anxious to discover what costume he means to wear for the occasion,” wrote one of Adam’s, correspondents, in sardonic allusion to the postponed ceremony at the Champ du Mars, at which the Emperor, as far as could be gathered from the accounts published in the newspapers, had appeared in the vaguely historical raiment suitable for a Covent Garden masquerade.

Meanwhile, Jenny went quietly about the preparations for her first house-party, enthusiastically assisted by Mrs Dawes, who perceived in this small beginning the promise of a return to Fontley’s former state.

It came as no surprise to Jenny that the Rockhills accepted the invitation. She thought that for some reason beyond the grasp of her own simplicity Julia could not keep away from Fontley and Adam, and she had no reason to suppose that Rockhill would put any bar in her way. So far as she understood Rockhill, he believed that Julia’s love for Adam was a romantic fancy merely, which thrived on imagination, and would dwindle in the face of reality. Jenny hoped he might be right, but resented the strain which this peculiar cure imposed on Adam.

However, it could have been worse. She had felt herself obliged to invite them to come to Fontley on the day before her dinner-party, since it would take them some nine hours or more to reach it, but Julia wrote, very prettily, to decline this: she was bringing her next sister, Susan, to join the nursery-party at Beckenhurst, to be cossetted back to health by old Nurse, after an attack of influenza which had left her with an obstinate cough, and she and Rockhill would spend the night there, driving on to Fontley on the following day.

Brough brought Lydia down on the 17th, a Saturday. There was no need to ask Lydia if she was happy: she was radiant. Mrs Dawes, much moved, said: “Oh, my lady, it quite brings the tears to one’s eyes, the way they look at each other, Miss Lydia and his lordship!”

“Brough, is there any news!” Adam asked, as soon as Jenny had taken Lydia upstairs to see her godson.

Brough shook his head, grimacing. “Nothing but on-dits. It seems pretty certain that Bonaparte ain’t in Paris: that’s all I know.”

“If he has left Paris, he’s gone to join his Army of the North. There ought to be news any day now: it wouldn’t be like him to dawdle! Do you believe all these stories that he’s a spent force? Gammon!”

“I’m damned if I know what to believe!” said Brough. “I’ve never heard so much slum talked in my life, I can tell you that! It’s a queer thing, Adam: you’d think there’s no question about it that we’re in for it again, but there are plenty of fellows still saving there’ll be no war — men better placed than I am to know what’s brewing.”

“It’s war,” Adam said confidently. “It must be! I’ve been expecting all the week to hear that we’re engaged on the frontier: Boney won’t wait to be attacked on two fronts! His only hope of making the game his own is to give us a knockdown before the Austrians and the Russians can come up!”

“Think he can do the trick?” asked Brough, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“Good God, no!”

The ladies came back into the room, putting an end to discussion. The war was not mentioned again. It seemed remote from Fontley, drowsing in the late sunshine of a summer’s evening; but when the little party sat at dinner it came suddenly closer, with the arrival, in a chaise-and-pair hired in Market Deeping, of one of Mr Chawleigh’s junior clerks, bearing a letter from his master.

Dunster brought it to Adam, at the head of the table. Recognizing the scrawl as he picked the letter up, Adam said, a note of surprise in his voice: “For me?”

“Yes, my lord. The young man desired me to tell your lordship that it is most urgent. One of Mr Chawleigh’s clerks, I apprehend.”

Adam broke the wafer, and spread open the single sheet, frowning as he tried to decipher it. An anxious silence had fallen on his companions, all three of whom sat watching him. His frown deepened; his lips were seen to tighten. Jenny’s heart sank, but she said calmly: “Has Papa met with an accident? Please to tell me, my lord!”

“No, nothing like that.” Adam glanced up at Dunster. “Where is the young man? Bring him in!” He waited until Dunster had left the room before adding: “It is difficult to discover what has happened. He seems to think it necessary that I should post up to London immediately, and has been so obliging as to warn them at Fenton’s that I shall be arriving tomorrow evening.” There was an edge to this; aware of it, he forced up a smile, and passed the letter to Jenny, saying: “Try what you can make of it, my love!”

“Post up to London?” cried Lydia. “But you can’t! How could Papa Chawleigh ask you to do so? He knows you can’t leave Fontley, for I told him myself about the party!”

Mr Chawleigh had not forgotten the party: in a postscript he told his son-in-law never to mind, since he would be able to post back to Fontley in plenty of time for it.

Jenny, deciphering the letter more easily than Adam, was as far as he from understanding why he should have been summoned to town; but she saw at once what had vexed him. At no time distinguished by tact, Mr Chawleigh, writing under the stress of urgency, had given full rein to the Juggernaut within him. Adam was to come to town on the following day, and there was to be no argumentation about Sunday-travel; he was to come post; he was to put up at Fenton’s, where he would find a bedchamber and a parlour hired for him; and he was there to await further enlightenment. Mr Chawleigh would come to Fenton’s to tell him what he must do. Finally, he was to do as he was bid, or he would regret it.

By the time Jenny had finished reading the letter Dunster had brought a sharp-faced youth into the room, who disclosed that he had come down by the Mail, with instructions from the Master not to return without his lordship. That was all he knew. The Master had not told him why my lord was wanted in London; he had not heard any news about the war. It was obviously useless to question him further, so Jenny bore him off to introduce him to Mrs Dawes, promising that his lordship would let him know in the morning what he had decided to do.

“Queer start!” Brough said, when Jenny had gone out of the room. “I wonder what’s in the wind? Sounds to me as though the old boy has had some news — and none too good either.”

“You heard what the clerk said. If there had been any news from Belgium he must have known it!”

“Might not. There’s no doubt the City men do get to hear of important news before the rest of the world.”

“Then why the devil didn’t he tell me what it is?” demanded Adam irritably.

“He probably don’t like writing letters, or don’t want it repeated.”

“Adam!” Lydia burst out. “If you are not here for my party — ”

“Of course I shall be here! I can see not the slightest reason why I should post up to town, whatever Mr Chawleigh may have heard!”

Lydia looked relieved; but when Jenny came back into the room, she said bluntly: “By what the boy tells me, Papa is in a taking. You’ll have to go, Adam.”

“I’ll be hanged if I do! If your father wanted me to go chasing up to London, he should have told me why!”

She regarded him seriously. “Well, writing doesn’t come easily to him. But I know Papa, and you may depend upon it he’d never have sent for you like this if he hadn’t good reason to. There’s something he thinks you should do. It looks to me like some matter of business, and if that’s so, you do as he tells you, my lord, for there isn’t a shrewder head in the City than his!”

He looked vexed, and rather mulish, but when Brough endorsed this advice, recommending him not to be a clunch, he shrugged, and said: “Oh, very well!”

He made the journey in his own chaise, taking Kinver and the clerk with him, and arriving in St James’s Street a little after six o’clock. A Sunday calm seemed to prevail, and when he entered the hotel he was received with all the usual civilities, untouched by any sign of excitement or alarm. He felt more than ever sceptical, and went up to the parlour set aside for his use in a mood that was far from benign.

He found Mr Chawleigh awaiting him, walking up and down the floor in a fret of impatience. Mr Chawleigh was looking more than ordinarily grim, but his scowl lifted at sight of Adam, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Eh, but I’m glad to see you, my lord!” he said, grasping Adam’s hand. “Good lad, good lad!”

Adam’s brows rose a little. “How do you do, sir? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?”

“Nay, it’s no matter! There’s naught to be done till the morning. I’m sorry to have brought you away from Fontley, all in a rush, but there was no help for it, because it’s a matter of damned urgency!”

“Yes, so I understand, sir. One moment, however! Have you bespoken dinner?”

“No, no, I’ve more to think of than dinner!” said Mr Chawleigh testily.

“But if there’s nothing to be done till tomorrow we can surely eat dinner tonight!” said Adam. “What’s your choice, sir?”

“I don’t know as I’ll be staying — Oh, well, anything you fancy, my lord! The ordinary will do for me.”

Adam began to think that there must be something very wrong, if his father-in-law’s appetite had failed. He looked at him for a moment, and then turned to his valet. “Tell them to send up a neat dinner, Kinver, at seven — and some sherry immediately, if you please!” He smiled at Mr Chawleigh, saving, as Kinver went out of the room: “I’ve a mind to give you a scold, sir, for not ordering that for yourself. Now, what is it? Why was it necessary for me to come up to town?”

“It’s bad news, my lord,” Mr Chawleigh said heavily. “It’s damned bad news! We’ve been beat!”

Adam’s brows snapped together. “Who says so? Where did you learn that?”

“Never you mind where I learned it! You’d be none the wiser if I was to tell you, but it ain’t a hoax, nor yet a mere rumour. There’s those in the City whose business it is to know what’s going on abroad, and they’ve agents all over, ay, and other ways of getting the news before it’s known elsewhere! We’ve been gapped, my lord! Beaten all hollow!”

“Moonshine!” Adam was a little pale, but he gave a scornful laugh. “Good God, sir, did you bring me all this way just to tell me a Canterbury tale?”

“No, I didn’t, and it ain’t moonshine either! They’ve been fighting over there these two days past, let me tell you!”

“That I can well believe,” Adam responded coolly. “But that we’ve been beaten all hollow — no!”

Mr Chawleigh began to champ his jaws. “No? Don’t believe Boney’s sitting in Brussels at this very minute, I daresay? Or that those Prussians were rolled up — finished! — at the very outset? Or that Boney was too quick for your precious Wellington, and took him by surprise? I knew how it would be! Didn’t I say from the start we’d have him rampaging all over again?”

The entrance of a waiter checked him. He was obliged to contain himself until the man had gone away again; and when he next spoke it was in a milder tone. “There’s no sense in you and me coming to cuffs, my lord. You’ve got your notions, and it don’t matter what mine may be, because what I’m telling you ain’t anyone’s notion: it’s the truth! It came straight from. Ghent, where maybe they know a trifle more than we do here! The town’s packed full of refugees, and Antwerp too!”

Adam poured out two glasses of sherry, and handed one to him. “That might well be, if the Army is on the retreat — which might also be. You say the Prussians suffered a bad reverse. I can believe that, but consider, sir! If Blücher was obliged to fall back, Wellington must have done so too, to maintain his communications with him. Any soldier could tell you that! — and also that Boney’s first objective must have been to cut them!” He smiled reassuringly. “I’ve taken part in a good few retreats under old Hookey’s command, sir, and you may believe me when I tell you that he’s never more masterly than when he retires!”

Mr Chawleigh, swallowing his sherry at a gulp, choked, and ejaculated: “Retires? For God’s sake, boy, can’t you understand plain English? It’s a damned rout!”

“Apparently I can’t!” Adam said, rather mischievously. “But I’ve no experience of damned routs, you know — unless you count Salamanca a rout? We rompéd Marmont in prime style, but I shouldn’t have called his retreat a rout.”

“Marmont! This is Bonaparte!”

“Very true, but I still find it impossible to believe in your rout.” He saw that Mr Chawleigh’s colour was rising, and said: “Don’t let us argue an that head, sir! Tell me why I’m here! Even if your information were correct, I don’t understand why it is of such importance that I should be in London. What the devil can I do to mend matters?”

“You can save your bacon!” replied Mr Chawleigh grimly. “Not all of it, but some, I do trust! Eh, I blame myself! I should have warned you weeks ago — same as I should have pulled out myself, the moment I knew the jobbers had closed their books! I’ve dropped a tidy penny, my lord, and so I tell you!”

“Have you, sir? I’m excessively sorry to hear it,” said Adam, refilling the glasses. “How did you come to do that?”

Mr Chawleigh drew an audible breath, eyeing him much as a choleric schoolmaster might have eyed a doltish pupil. Speaking with determined patience, he said: “Your blunt’s invested in the Funds, ain’t it? Never mind these rents of yours! I’m talking about your private fortune. Well, I know it is — what was left of it! Me and your man Wimmering went into things pretty thoroughly before you was married to my Jenny. Not to wrap it up in clean linen, your pa played wily beguiled with his blunt, so that what was left don’t amount to much, not to my way of thinking. Nor your rents don’t either — and don’t waste your breath telling me what they might bring you in, because it don’t signify, not at this moment! The thing is, I wouldn’t want you to lose your fortune, my lord. I don’t say I ain’t ready to stand the nonsense, but well I know it ’ud fairly choke you if you was forced to be obliged to me for every groat you spent! Proud as an apothecary you are, for all you’ve tried to hide it, which I don’t deny you have, let alone behaving to me as affable and as respectful as if you was my own son!” He paused, observing Adam’s sudden flush with an indulgent eye. “No need to colour up, my lord,” he said kindly. “And no need for any roundaboutation either! They’ll tell you in the City that Jonathan Chawleigh’s a sure card. Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t, but I’m not a nodcock, lad, and well I know why you don’t drive the curricle I gave you, nor wouldn’t let me set up this farm of yours! You don’t choose to be beholden, and I like you the better for it! Which is why I bid you come up to town, for there’s naught to be done without you’re here to give the word. I’ve seen Wimmering: he knows what’s to be done, but he can’t move without he has your authority.”

“Have I any?” Adam interrupted, as pale as he had previously been flushed.

“Don’t talk so silly!” begged Mr Chawleigh. “It stands to reason your man of business can’t act without you tell him to!”

“So I had supposed! But I’m sadly ignorant: I had also supposed that my man of business would have shown the door to anyone — even my father-in-law! — who came to tell him what to do with my affairs!”

“Well, so he did, in a manner of speaking!” said Mr Chawleigh, keeping his temper. “Now, don’t fly into your high ropes, my lord! We ain’t after anything but your good, Wimmering and me, nor he never had any intention of acting arbitrary. But he’s a deep old file, and he knows, if you don’t, what’s the worth of a nudge from Jonathan Chawleigh, and a mighty poor man of business he’d be if he didn’t pay heed to it, and act according! Why, if I’d waited to drum it into your head, without a word spoken to Wimmering, it would have been too late to do anything by the time I’d done it, and you’d told Wimmering — which likely you’d have made a mull of, you having no more understanding of business than a babe unborn!”

Adam’s anger cooled a little. “Very well, and what is it that must be done?”

“Sell, of course! Sell, my lord, and at the best price you can get! If it can be done — if it ain’t too late already — you’ll suffer a loss, same as I have myself, but you’ll save yourself from ruin! It’ll be bad, and I don’t deny it, but see if I don’t put you in the way of making a recover presently! But there’s no time to be lost: once the news is made known there’ll be no selling the stock, not if you was to offer it at a grig! Forty-nine was all I got for mine, and they was standing at fifty-seven and a half when the jobbers closed their books! Eh, it don’t bear thinking of! A bubble-merchant, that’s what they’ll be calling me!”

He sounded so tragic that Adam might have supposed that he was facing ruin had he not had every reason to think that however large a part of his private fortune had been invested in the Funds it represented only a tithe of his enormous wealth. He said: “I’m afraid I don’t perfectly understand, sir. How am I to sell my shares if there’s no dealing being done?”

“You leave that to Wimmering!” said Mr Chawleigh. “He’ll know how to do the thing, never you fear! What’s more, he’s ready and anxious to do it, the moment you say the word. He’ll be here to wait on you first thing tomorrow morning, and you’ll find he’ll advise you the same as I have.”

He glanced shrewdly at Adam. “Well, he did so when that Bonaparte first broke out again, didn’t he?”

Adam nodded. Mr Wimmering had written to him in March, venturing to suggest that in view of the uncertain political situation it might be wise for his lordship to consider the advisability of realizing his holding in Government stock, but he had not considered it either advisable or proper to do so, and had replied quite unequivocally.

“Eh, if you’d only listened to him!” mourned Mr Chawleigh, shaking his head.

Adam looked at him thoughtfully. It was plainly a waste of tune to attempt to persuade him that a strategic withdrawal was not a rout: civilians were always cast into panic by a retreat, just as they were wildly elated by quite minor victories. So he refrained from telling Mr Chawleigh that his own confidence was unshaken, and tried instead to discover the exact nature of the news which had been whispered in his ear. It was not easy to do this, but by the time the neat dinner had been disposed of, and Mr Chawleigh took his leave, Adam had formed his own conclusions. It was certain that hostilities had begun; it seemed fairly certain that Napoleon, so far from being a spent force, had moved with all his former, disconcerting rapidity. It was possible that Wellington had been taken by surprise, and had been obliged to oppose the enemy with only his advance troops: it sounded like that; and it sounded too as if the action had been fought on ground not of his choosing. In which case, he would certainly retreat; and no doubt the flocks of pleasure-seeking visitors to Brussels would take fright immediately, and make for the coast. It was more difficult to assess the probable extent of the Prussian reverse. Adam had never seen the Prussians in action, but he knew the Hanoverian troops well, and he thought that if the Prussians were at all like the men of the King’s German Legion there would be little fear that they would run away, even if they had suffered a repulse. Mr Chawleigh talked as though Napoleon had smashed that army; Adam thought this unlikely, because the Allied Army had also been engaged, which meant that Napoleon must have been fighting on two fronts.

He allowed Mr Chawleigh to leave him in the belief that he meant to follow his advice. It was useless to argue with him; that would only lead to a quarrel. Besides, the poor man was already in a stew of anxiety: probably some of his many trading ventures would be badly affected by a French victory.

Thinking about it, weighing it in his mind, Adam knew that he was not going to try to sell his stock. Mr Chawleigh had done so at a loss, and he seemed to think that the price was rapidly sinking. To sell would be wantonly to diminish his principal, and he would certainly do no such thing: running shy merely because the Allied Army had clashed disadvantageously with the enemy, and had fallen back, perhaps to better ground, almost certainly to maintain communications with the Prussians.

Sipping a last glass of brandy before going to bed, remembering the years of his military service, confidence grew in him. There had been plenty of retreats, but no lost battles under Douro’s command: not one!

He thought, regretfully, that it was a pity he hadn’t sold his stock at the beginning of March, when Wimmering had advised it. Had he done so, he would now have had a large sum at his disposal, and might have bought again, making a handsome profit.

He set hisempty glass down suddenly. The idly reflective expression in his eyes altered; he sat staring intently straight before him, his eyes now bright and hard between slightly narrowed lids. A queer little smile began to play around his mouth; he drew a breath like a sigh, and got up, pouring more brandy into his glass. He stood for quite some time, swirling the brandy round, watching it but not thinking about it. The ghost of a laugh shook him; he tossed off the brandy, set the glass down again, and went off to bed.