A Civil Contract

Chapter IX

Travelling in a light chaise, behind four horses, the Lyntons reached Fontley just before six o’clock. The Priory was screened from the road by the trees in its park, but there was one place from which a long view of the house could be obtained. Adam directed the postilions to pull up there. He said: “There it is, Jenny!”

She could tell from his voice how much he loved it, and she wanted to say something that would please him. Leaning forward, she was disappointed to find that it lay at too great a distance from the road for her to be able to distinguish any particular features. She could see only an irregular mass of buildings, not lofty, but covering a large expanse of ground; and the only thing that occurred to her to say was: “It is quite different from Rushleigh! — just as you told me.”

He signed to the postilions to go on. “Yes, quite different. How does this country strike you?”

She had been thinking how inferior it was to the undulating Hampshire scene; she answered haltingly: “Well, it is new to me, and not just what I expected, but I am sure I shall grow to like it.”

“I hope you may, but I suspect one has to be born in the fens to love them. We are crossing Deeping Fen now.” He added, as the chaise bumped and lurched: “I’m sorry: the surface is shocking, isn’t it? We call these roads driftways. That was a grip we passed over — a trench cut cross-ways for drainage.”

It sounded rather primitive. She scanned the expanse of level fields on either side of the unguarded road, and asked with some misgiving if they were often flooded.

“In winter, yes,” he acknowledged. “Drainage is our chief problem, and the most costly, alas! We get soak, too: that’s sea-water coming up through the silt when the drains are full.”

“I thought it must be pretty damp as soon as I saw those great ditches.”

“Droves. Are you afraid of being flooded out at Fontley? You need not be! I hope to be able to improve matters elsewhere too: I think we must be fifty years behind the times here,”

“I don’t know anything about country things: I must learn them.”

“I’m ashamed to say that I know very little myself — only what any boy reared on an agricultural estate would be bound to pick up. Here we are: this is the gatehouse — part of the old Priory — and here’s Mrs Ridgehill coming out to give you your first welcome! Say something kind to her: she is one of my oldest friends!”

He had noticed at Rushleigh that she was shy of the servants, and too much inclined to hide this under a brusque manner, but she acquitted herself quite creditably on this occasion, responding to the lodgekeeper’s salutations and compliments with no more awkwardness than Mrs Ridgehill thought proper in a bride. The chaise moved forward again; and presently, round a bend in the avenue, the one remaining arch and the several crumbling walls and pillars of the ruined chapel came into view, and, beyond, the heterogeneous mass of the Priory itself. Staring at the long, broken frontage of mingled stone and brick Jenny gave utterance to the first thought that came into her head: “Good gracious! However many servants do you employ to keep it in order?”

He was not obliged to reply to this, for at that moment he caught sight of Charlotte, hurrying across the lawn with an armful of flowers. He directed Jenny’s attention to her; and at once she was assailed by a horrid doubt. She exclaimed, her eyes on Charlotte’s plain round dress of white cambric: “Oh, I am dressed too fine! I didn’t know — and there was no one to tell me!”

“Nonsense! you look very becoming!” he replied, jumping down from the chaise as his sister came running across the drive. “Proserpin gathering flowers! But I trust gloomy Dis won’t forestall Lambert, Charlotte!”

Charlotte, who was not bookish, paid no heed to this, but exclaimed breathlessly: “Oh, my dear Adam, we thought you could not be here for another hour, and had put dinner back accordingly! And here I am, only this instant finished cutting a few flowers for Jenny’s room, and in this old gown too! You must excuse me, Jenny!”

This speech might have been designed to put Jenny at her ease, but she still felt, as she descended from the chaise, that perhaps a puce silk dress, a velvet pelisse, and a feathered bonnet were a little out of place at Fontley. Charlotte, however, seemed to see nothing amiss, but kissed her, and led her into the house.

Jenny was relieved, and a good deal surprised, to find that there was far less ceremony attached to this homecoming than would have attended their arrival in Russell Square. The only footmen she saw were two young men, who wore dark livery and their own unpowdered hair; and the butler, who was elderly, and a little bent, would have looked insignificant beside Mr Chawleigh’s majestic Butterbank.

“I must take you to Mama directly,” Charlotte said. “She was sitting with my aunt in the Little Drawing-room — oh, Adam, I should have written to warn you that my Aunt Nassington is here, with my uncle, and Osbert too, but there was no time, for they took us quite by surprise! Not that I mean — that is to say, I am very much obliged to her for coming on this occasion, only we never supposed that she would, though Mama invited her, of course.”

“Oh, lord!” said Adam, pulling a grimace. “Don’t let her bully you, Jenny — or look to me for protection! She frightens me to death!”

“For shame, Adam!” Charlotte reproved him, leading Jenny towards the broad oaken stairway. “You mustn’t heed him, Jenny! My aunt is very outspoken, but she is perfectly good-natured, I promise you!”

Following his wife and sister up the stairs, across an ante-room to the Long Drawing-room, and down to the Little Drawing-room beyond it, Adam wondered how Jenny would support her introduction to Lady Nassington, and hoped that she would not become tongue-tied. He was afraid that her ladyship’s overbearing ways and caustic speech would paralyse her, and was consequently as much surprised as relieved to discover that Jenny, rendered monosyllabic by Lady Lynton, responded to Lady Nassington without embarrassment.

Physically her ladyship resembled her brother. She was a large woman, with aquiline features, and a gaze of lofty unconcern. Like his, her voice was loud and authoritative; and to some extent she shared his disregard for convention. There the resemblance ended. Lord Lynton’s free and easy ways had sprung from a jovial nature; his sister’s had their roots in a sublime conviction of superiority, and were so incalculable as to have earned for her the reputation of being eccentric. She said and did what she chose on every occasion, and granted a like indulgence to those who had been fortunate enough to win her favour; but she had reared her daughters to a rigid pattern, and would condemn any breach of etiquette committed by persons she disliked.

She had brought with her to Fontley, besides her husband, a spare man of few words and a harassed mien, her third son, the robust sportsman whom she had offered to Adam as his best man. “Quite right not to have had him!” she told Adam. “He’s such a dolt I dare swear he’d have made a mull of it, or gone to Church stinking of the stables.”

Adam wondered what entertainment could be offered to Osbert during a week at Fontley at this season; but Lady Nassington besought him not to trouble himself, since it was impossible to interest Osbert during the dead months.

“But the poor fellow will be bored to tears!” he protested.

“He can as well be bored here as anywhere else,” replied her ladyship. “Never mind him! I must tell you, Adam, that I am agreeably surprised by this wife of yours. No countenance, of course, and dresses badly, but she seems a sensible girl, and she don’t play off any airs of sham gentility. You might have done a great deal worse for yourself. I don’t object to presenting her, and you may bring her to my rout-party on the 20th: that should launch her pretty well. It’s a pity your mother has chosen to be thrown into gloom, but just what I expected! She don’t like Charlotte’s match either: not a great one, I grant, but if a girl flouts the chances she’s offered she must be content with a respectable marriage in the end. I fancied myself in love with his father once,” she added reminiscently. “It wouldn’t have answered, but what I didn’t consider beneath my touch I’m sure your mother need not! But she always was a wet-goose. Upon my word, I wonder that you should have turned out so well — I do indeed, my dear nephew!”

A laugh escaped him, but he shook his head at her. “You know it’s most improper to say such things to me, ma’am!”

“Oh, I say nothing behind Blanche’s back I don’t say to her head!” she replied.

When Charlotte brought Jenny into the Little Drawing-room, Lady Nassington had scanned her appraisingly, and commanded, as soon as she had greeted the Dowager: “Come here, child, and let me take a look at you! H’m! Yes, it’s a pity you’re not taller, but I’m glad to see you hold yourself up. How did you like Rushleigh? I hope my people made you comfortable?”

“Yes, that they did, ma’am. I liked it excessively, and have been wanting to thank you for lending it to us. It was all so beautiful, and interesting! I had never stayed in the country before.”

“Town-bred, are you?”

“Yes, though my mother was a farmer’s daughter, and came from Shropshire, ma’am.”

“Good yeoman stock, I daresay: you have the look of it yourself. Take my advice, and study to dress plainly! Frills don’t become you. Are those real pearls you have in your ears? Yes, they would be, of course, and a thousand pities your neck’s too short for them. Lynton! Buy a neat little pair of earrings for your wife! She can’t wear these.”

“Well, I know my neck’s too short,” said Jenny, “but I shall wear them, ma’am, because Papa gave them to me, and I won’t hurt his feelings, no matter what!”

“Very proper!” approved her ladyship. “I’ll speak to your father myself.”

Lady Lynton here intervened, and bore Jenny off to her bed-chamber, saving as she led the way through a bewildering series of rooms, galleries, and corridors: “You must excuse my sister-in-law: her blunt manners are beyond the line of being pleasing,”

“Oh, no!” Jenny said. “I mean, I didn’t dislike anything she said, for it was all in kindness, and — and I like blunt people, ma’am!”

“I have often wished that my own sensibility were less acute,” said her ladyship.

Daunted, Jenny relapsed into silence. Passing through a doorway into a broad corridor Lady Lynton informed her that they were now in the modern wing of the Priory.

“It seems to stretch for miles!” said Jenny.

“Yes, it is most inconvenient,” sighed the Dowager. “No doubt you will make a great many alterations. Adam’s room is here, and that door leads into a dressing-room. The next is yours, quite at the end of the passage, which I hope you won’t dislike.”

“Oh, no! How should I? Oh — how pretty it is!”

“I am afraid it is sadly shabby. It should have been done-up before your arrival, but, not knowing your tastes, I thought it best to leave it to you to choose what you like.”

“Thank you — but I shan’t! I like it as it is. I don’t wish to change anything, ma’am!”

“Don’t you, my dear? No doubt it is foolish of me, but I cannot help hoping that you may not. It is so full of memories! Alas, so many years since I too entered it as a bride!”

Dismayed, Jenny stammered: “Is it your room? Oh, I would never — Pray let me have some other!

But the Dowager, smiling at her with gentle resignation, merely completed her discomfiture by saying that this was the room always occupied by the mistress of the house. She said that Jenny must not be in a worry, since she herself cared nothing either for her comfort or her consequence. As she managed to convey the impression that she was now housed in one of the garrets it was not surprising that when Adam presently came into the room he found Jenny looking rather troubled.

She was standing beside a table in one of the windows, dipping her hand into a bowl filled with pot-pourri, and allowing the dried petals to sift through her fingers. She looked up when Adam came in, and smiled, saying: “I couldn’t think what makes the house smell so sweet, but now I see it must be this.”

“Pot-pourri? Yes, my mother makes it. I believe she had the recipe from some Frenchwoman — one of the emigrées. You must ask her for it, if you like it.”

“I wonder if she will tell me? Adam, you shouldn’t have permitted her to make her own room ready for me!”

“I didn’t know she meant to. I’m glad she did, however: it was very proper in her.”

“Well, it makes me ready to sink!” she said. “She told me that it had always belonged to the mistress of Fontley, as though she had been deposed, which I hope you know I’d never do!”

“My dear Jenny, if you are going to take all my mother says to heart — ! My grandfather built this wing, so you are only the third mistress of Fontley to occupy the room!”

She was obliged to laugh at this, but she said: “Well, I’m sure it must be disagreeable for her to see me in it, at all events. Thank goodness I told her I didn’t wish to alter anything in it! She had been dreading that, you know, which I can well understand.”

He looked a little quizzical, but said nothing. Lydia, coming to pay her respects to Jenny a few minutes later, was much less reticent. “What a bouncer!” she exclaimed. “Why, it was only last year that Mama had the curtains made, and she had meant to have had new ones this year, because these faded so badly, as you may see! She only said that to make you feel horrid!”

“Lydia!”

“Well, it’s true, Adam. For my part, I think someone ought to explain Mama to Jenny! The thing is, you see, that she positively delights in being ill-used, Jenny, and making us all feel guilty for no reason at all. Don’t heed her! I never do!”

This frank exposition of her mother-in-law’s character startled Jenny, but by the time she had spent two days at Fontley she had begun to see that there was a good deal of truth in it, and began to feel much more at ease.

She had looked forward with shrinking to her introduction to Fontley, and had concealed under a wooden front her dread of offending unknown shibboleths. She had listened to stores of the formal pomp that reigned in several great houses, had been too shy to ask Adam for information, and had thus entered the house feeling sick with apprehension.

But although she frequently lost her way in it she was almost immediately conscious of its home-quality; and since the Dowager disliked pomp she found no rigid etiquette to make her nervous. Even the ordeal of the first dinner-party was less severe than she had expected, for no ceremonial attached to it, and all the family talked so much and so naturally that she was able to sit listening and watching, which exactly suited her disposition. Lord Nassington was found to be quite unalarming, and his son, although at first glance overpoweringly large and bluff, was a simple creature, who laughed a great deal, and bore with unruffled good-humour all the shafts aimed at him. He sat beside Jenny at the table, and told her that he was the bobbing-block of the family. He seemed to take as much pride, in this as in his mother’s ruthless tongue. “Wonderful woman, Mama!” he said. “Abuses us all like pickpockets! Do you hunt?”

“No, I don’t, and it wouldn’t be any use pretending I know anything about it, because you’d be bound to find out that I don’t,” she replied frankly.

“Now, that’s what I call being a sensible woman!” he exclaimed, and instantly began to recount to her various noteworthy incidents of the chase, which were largely unintelligible to her, and might have continued throughout dinner had not Lady Nassington loudly commanded Lydia to “draw off that imbecile before he bores Jenny to death!”

The week-end passed pleasantly and uneventfully in exploring the house and the gardens, making the acquaintance of the housekeeper, helping Charlotte with the last-moment preparations for her wedding, and in general making herself quietly useful.

“Shall we come back soon?” she asked Adam, when they left Fontley two days after the wedding.

“Why, yes, if you would like it — at the end of the season. Unless you would prefer to go to Brighton?”

“No, that I shouldn’t. That is — do you wish to go to Brighton?”

“Not in the least. I don’t want you to be bored, however.”

“Well, I shan’t be. In fact, I wish we might have remained here.”

“That would mean missing the Drawing-Room, and all the parties we shall be invited to attend. You wouldn’t like that would you?”

“No, of course not!” she said quickly. “Except that I’m stupid at parties, and shall very likely say the wrong things, and — and mortify you!”

“No, you won’t,” he responded. “You’ll soon grow accustomed to parties, make a great many friends, and become a noted hostess! You’ll be a credit to me, not a mortification!”

She said gruffly: “I’ll try to be, at least.”

She thought that perhaps the fashionable life was what he wanted, and ventured to ask if he had been to many parties in the Peninsula.

“No, very few. I shall be making my début as well as you!”

That seemed to settle the matter. She nodded, and said: “Well, I hope we shall be invited to all the best parties. How pleased Papa would be!”

There was no doubt about this at least. Mr Chawleigh’s vicarious ambition had led him to prosecute searching enquiries into matters which had not previously interested him, and consequently he was able to furnish his daughter with a list of the ton’s most influential hostesses. He was delighted to hear that she had been invited to Lady Nassington’s assembly, a knowledgeable informant having assured him that her ladyship was the pink of gentility, and strongly adjured her to make herself agreeable to all the fine folk she would meet at this function. “For his lordship’s doing his part like a regular Trojan, and it’s only right you should do yours, my girl, and not sit mumping in a corner, as if you’d never been in company before!”

He came to see her dressed for the Drawing-Room, and was probably the only person to think she was looking her best. Even Martha Pinhoe could not feel that violet satin over a wide hoop and a crape petticoat sewn all over with amethyst beads became her nurseling; but Mr Chawleigh, surveying this splendour with simple pride, said that Jenny looked prime. A closer scrutiny revealed certain deficiencies, however. He had an exact memory for the jewels he had bestowed upon her, and he wanted to know why she was not wearing the riviere of diamonds and rubies, which had been one of his wedding-presents. “I’m not saying those pearls didn’t cost me a fortune, but who’s to know they’re the real thing, and not mere trumpery, made out of glass and fish-scales? There’s no counterfeiting the fire of a diamond or a ruby. You bring me out her ladyship’s jewel-box, Martha!”

“I must say, I like a bit of sparkle myself,” admitted Miss Pinhoe, opening a large casket for his inspection.

“I do, too,” said Jenny, looking rather wistfully at the casket. “And it does seem a pity, on such an occasion. But Lady Nassington told me not to dress too fine, Papa.”

“Oh, she did, did she? Well, if you was to ask me, love, she was jealous, and afraid your jewels would shine hers down! Not that I’ve the pleasure of her ladyship’s acquaintance, but that’s the way it looks to me.”

He was to be granted this pleasure five minutes later, when one startled glance at the famous Nassington emeralds was enough to inform him that the formidable lady who sailed into the room had no reason to be envious of Jenny’s jewels.

Her entry took everyone by surprise, including the footman, who had attempted to usher her into the drawing-room while he went to inform his mistress of her arrival. It had been arranged that the Lyntons were to have driven to Nassington House, in Berkeley Square, and to have proceeded thence to St James’s, and for a moment of almost equal relief and disappointment Jenny thought that some accident must have occurred, and that there was to be no Drawing-Room after all. But her ladyship’s first words, as much as her attire, dispelled this notion. “I thought as much!” she said. “Good God, girl, do you imagine I am going to take you to Court decked out like a jeweller’s window?” Her high-nosed stare encountered Mr Chawleigh, and she demanded: “Who is this?”

“It’s my father, ma’am. Papa — this is Lady Nassington!” responded Jenny, inwardly quaking at what she feared might prove to be a battle of Titans.

“Oh! How-de-do?” said her ladyship. “Those pearls you gave Jenny are too big. She’s got too short a neck for them.”

“That’s as may be, my lady,” replied Mr Chawleigh, bristling.

“No may be about it. Take off that necklace, Jenny! You can’t wear rubies with that dress, child! And those ear-rings! Let me see what you have in this monstrous great box: good God! Enough to furnish a king’s ransom!”

“Ay, that’s about the worth of them,” said Mr Chawleigh, glowering at her. “Not that I know anything about kings’ ransoms, but I know what I paid for my girl’s trinkets, and a pretty penny it was!”

“More money than sense!” observed her ladyship. “Ah! Here’s something much more the thing!”

“That?” demanded Mr Chawleigh, looking with disgust at the delicate diamond necklace dangling from Lady Nassington’s fingers. “Why, that’s a bit of trumpery I gave Mrs Chawleigh when I was no more than a chicken-nabob!”

“You had better taste then than you have now. Very pretty: exactly what she should wear!”

“Well, she ain’t going to wear it!” declared Mr Chawleigh, his choler mounting. “She’ll go to Court slap up to the echo, or I’ll know the reason why!”

“Papa!” uttered Jenny imploringly.

“She’ll go in a proper mode, or not at all. Lord, man, have you no sense? She had as well shout aloud that she’s an heiress as go to Court hung all over with jewels! Puffing off her wealth: that’s what everyone would say. Is that what yon want?”

“No, indeed it isn’t!” said Jenny, as her parent, a trifle nonplussed, turned this over in his mind. “Now, that’s enough. Papa! Her ladyship knows better than you or me what’s the first style of elegance.”

“Well, there’s no need that I know of for you to be ashamed of my fortune!” said Mr Chawleigh, covering his retreat with some sharp fire. “Going about the town in a paltry necklace that looks as if I couldn’t afford to buy the best for you!”

“If that’s all that’s putting you into the hips, you may be easy!” said Lady Nassington. “All the ton knows my nephew’s married a great heiress, and you may believe that she’ll take better if she don’t make a parade of her riches. Tell me this! Would you thank me for meddling in your business, whatever it is?”

“Meddling in my business?” repeated Mr Chawleigh, stupefied. “No, I would not, my lady!”

“Just so! Don’t meddle in mine!”

Fortunately, since Mr Chawleigh’s complexion was rapidly acquiring a rich purple hue, Adam walked in at that moment, drawn by the fine, penetrating voices of the contestants. He had been engaged in the intricate task of arranging his neckcloth, and so made his appearance in his shirtsleeves: a circumstance to which his aunt took instant exception. She told him to go away at once, and to take Mr Chawleigh with him, adding a recommendation to him to put on a fresh neckcloth, since the style he was affecting made him look like a demi-beau, Mr Chawleigh allowed himself to be drawn out of the room. He was a little mollified by the discovery that her nobly-born nephew was not exempt from Lady Nassington’s punitive tongue, but he said, as he followed Adam into his dressing-room: “Well, if she wasn’t your lordship’s aunt I know what I’d say she was!”

“Was she rude to you?” asked Adam. “You should hear the things she says to my uncle!”

“I’m bound to say she properly set my back up. And she a Countess! There’s a leveller for you! Are you going to change that neckcloth?”

“No. What’s she doing here? I thought we were to have gone to her.”

“I’ll tell you what she’s doing,” offered Mr Chawleigh rancorously. “Stripping the jewels off my Jenny, that’s what she’s doing, without so much as a by your leave! Came on purpose to do it, what’s more!”

He sat brooding over this until Adam, receiving his cloak and his chapeau bras from Kinver, announced that he was now ready. “So let us go downstairs before my aunt sends to discover what the devil I mean by keeping her waiting, sir!”

“I don’t know but what I won’t shab off home,” said Mr Chawleigh gloomily. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known her la’ship would be here, and that’s a fact!”

He allowed himself to be persuaded, however, and accompanied Adam to the drawing-room, where they were presently joined by the ladies.

Lady Nassington had been unable to suppress the crimp in Jenny’s hair, but she had reduced the number of ostrich feathers she wore to five, exchanged her over-large earrings for a pair of diamond drops, and stripped from her arms all but two bracelets. She had not been able to transform Jenny into a beauty, but she had succeeded (as she informed Mr Chawleigh) in turning her out like a woman of quality. “She’ll do!” she said briskly. “A nice gal: I like her, and I’ll do what I can to bring her into fashion.”

Mr Chawleigh was flattered to know that his daughter was liked by a Countess, but he still regretted the rubies, and would have said so had not Lady Nassington brought his audience to an end by suddenly calling across the room to her nephew: “Lynton! Did your father ever take you to Court, or is this your first appearance?”

He was talking to Jenny, but he turned his head, saying: “No, ma’am: my father presented me at a levée when I was eighteen.”

“Papa! Lady Nassington!” Jenny blurted out. “See what Adam has given me!”

Pink with pleasure, she displayed a fan of painted chicken-skin, mounted on carved mother-of-pearl sticks. It was an elegant trifle, but hardly deserving the delight she evidently felt. An unwelcome suspicion flickered in Adam’s brain, as he watched her. She met his eyes, and her pink turned to crimson. She looked quickly away, saying hurriedly: “It is so exactly what I needed — precisely the right colours!”

“Very pretty,” said Lady Nassington, after a cursory glance.

“Ay, it’s well enough,” agreed Mr Chawleigh, subjecting it to a longer scrutiny, “but what have you done with the ivory one I gave you, painted Venus Martin? I should have thought it would have been just the thing for that dress of yours.”

Her colour still much heightened, she murmured some disjointed excuse. Lady Nassington brought any further discussion to an end by announcing that it was time they were setting forward. Mr Chawleigh accompanied the party downstairs, and was considerably surprised to be given two of Lady Nassington’s fingers to shake before she mounted into her stately town chariot. To this piece of condescension, she added a gracious, if vicarious, invitation to him to visit Grosvenor Street on the following day, to learn from Jenny how her presentation had gone off.

It went off very well. The Queen had spoken most kindly to Jenny — “Only fancy, Papa! after all these years she speaks with the strongest accent!” — and two of the Princesses had stood talking to her in the most amiable way imaginable, so that she had not felt in the least awkward or tongue-tied. Her only disappointment had been that the Princess Charlotte of Wales had not been present: an extraordinary circumstance, people had seemed to think, for she had been betrothed to the Prince of Orange since December, so surely she must be out? The Prince had not been present either, although he was certainly in London: that had been a pity, for Jenny had hoped to have seen him. Adam, of course, had seen him frequently, because he had been lately a member of Lord — no, the Duke of Wellington’s staff! One would suppose that a Prince chosen to wed the Heiress of England must be a Nonpareil, but when Jenny had said this to Adam he had burst out laughing, exclaiming: “Slender Billy? Good God, no!” She was sorry therefore not to have been able to judge for herself of the Prince’s quality.

But this was a small matter. What did Papa think of her having been presented to the Prince Regent, at his particular request? Someone must have pointed Adam out to him, for — would Papa believe it? — he had come up to them, and had shaken hands with Adam, saying how happy he was to welcome him to Court, and how deeply he regretted his old friend’s death. Then he had expressed his wish to meet Adam’s bride, and Adam had immediately drawn her forward, and Papa could have no idea how charmingly the Regent had spoken to her. His manners were beyond anything perfect! He had stayed for several minutes, chatting to Adam about the late war, and displaying (Adam said) an exact knowledge of military matters. And just as he was moving away he had said that he hoped to see them both at Carlton House one day!

Deeply gratified, Mr Chawleigh rubbed his hands together, and said that it beat the Dutch, by God it did! His one regret was that Jenny’s mother was not alive to rejoice in her triumph. “Still, there’s no saying but what she knows all about it,” he said cheerfully. “To think I was of two minds whether I’d make do with a Viscount, or stand out for an Earl! Well, my Lord Oversley pledged me his word I wouldn’t regret it, and I’m bound to own he was right. Why, a Duke couldn’t have done better by you! Tell me again what the Prince Regent said to you!”

Mr Chawleigh’s opinion of the Prince Regent had not previously been high. While he was not (as he frequently asserted) one to concern himself with, the nobs, the doings of this Royal Nob could scarcely have escaped the notice of the most disinterested person. Had he been asked, Mr Chawleigh would have said that he didn’t hold with such goings-on as marrying two wives, and behaving scaly to the pair of them, let alone mounting more mistresses than a plain man could remember, and wasting the ready till his debts had to be paid for him by the nation. It was an open secret, too, that he was seeking evidence on which to divorce the unfortunate Princess of Wales; and, without wishing to join the mob in hissing him, Mr Chawleigh considered that he had treated the poor lady downright scurvily. But in face of the Regent’s kindness to Jenny that was all forgotten.

Nor did Jenny recall that when she first saw him she suffered a considerable disappointment. At the age of two-and-fifty little trace remained of the handsome Prince Florizel over whose beauty elderly ladies still sighed. Jenny beheld a middle-aged gentleman of corpulent habit, on whose florid countenance dissipation was writ large. He was decidedly overdressed; his corsets creaked audibly; he drenched his person with scent; and, when in repose, his face wore a peevish expression. But whatever good fairy had attended his christening had bestowed upon him a gift which neither time nor excesses would ever cause to wither. He was an undutiful son, and a bad husband, an unkind father, an inconstant lover, and an uncertain friend, but he had a charm which won forgiveness from those whom he had injured, and endeared him to such chance-met persons as Jenny, or some young officer brought to him by Lord Bathurst with an important dispatch. He could disgust his intimates, but in his more public life his bearing was always right; he never said the wrong thing; and never permitted a private vexation to impair his affability. Unmistakably a Prince, he used very little ceremony, his manners, when he moved amongst the ton, being distinguished by a well-bred ease which did not wholly desert him even when, as sometimes happened, he arrived at some party in a sadly inebriated condition. His private manners were not so good; but no one who saw him, as Jenny did, at his mother’s Drawing-Room, could have believed him capable of lying to his greatest supporter, taking a crony to listen to his father’s ravings, treating his only child with boorish roughness, or floundering, like a lachrymose porpoise, at the feet of an embarrassed beauty. Jenny certainly would not have believed such stories; and when she met him again, two days later, at Lady Nassington’s assembly, and received a bow from him, and a smile of recognition, she was much inclined to think that extenuating circumstances must attach even to his two marriages and his mountainous debts.