A Civil Contract

forced to acknowledge that it would be improper to advertize the marriage before Adam had broken the news of it to his family.

Another set-back was in store for him. In the midst of his plans for a wedding exceeding in magnificence any that had ever preceded it he was pulled up by a gentle reminder that the recent bereavement suffered by his prospective son-in-law put out of count any such schemes: the ceremony, Adam said, must be private, with only the immediate relations and particular friends of both parties invited to attend it. This was a severe blow, and might have led to a battle of wills had not Jenny intervened, saying in her downright way: “Now, that’s enough, Papa! It wouldn’t be the thing!”

In other quarters the intelligence was received in widely divergent ways. Lord Oversley said he was damned glad to hear it; and Lady Oversley burst into tears. Wimmering, momentarily stunned, recovered to congratulate his patron, and to beg him to leave all financial arrangements in his hands. Like Mrs Quarley-Bix he was filled with delight, the only leaven to his joy being Adam’s resolve to continue in his plan to sell the town house. To representations that now more than ever would he need a town house he replied that he had the intention of hiring one of more modest dimensions than the mansion in Grosvenor Street; to the warning that a hired place could not be thought creditable, he merely said: “What nonsense!”

Adam communicated the news of his betrothal to Lady Lynton by letter, making business his excuse for not returning to Fontley. He could not bring himself to face the inevitable astonishment, the questions, and, perhaps, the disapproval that must greet his announcement; and he knew himself to be unequal to the task of describing Mr Chawleigh by word of mouth. He could write that he was a wealthy merchant, with whom Lord Oversley was on terms of friendship; and Lady Lynton would not know, reading of Jenny’s quiet manners, superior understanding, and well-formed figure, that these fluent phrases had not tripped readily from his pen. He ended his letter by begging his mother to come to London, to make the acquaintance of her future daughter-in-law, but thought it advisable to send by the same post a brief and much more forthright letter to his elder sister.

“Charlotte, I depend upon you to bring Mama to town. Represent to her how improper it would be for her to be backward in any attention: the ceremonial visit must be made. If she holds by her intention to settle in Bath I should wish her to decide which of the furnishings in Lynton House she desires for her own use, which can’t be settled in her absence. Tell her this, if she should fly into one of her ways.”

Before any letters reached him from Fontley the notice of his engagement had been published, and his circumstances underwent a sudden change. Persons who had been dunning him for payment of their accounts became instantly anxious to obtain his custom. Tailors, haberdashers, jewellers, and coachmakers begged the favour of his patronage; and foremost on the list was the firm of Schweitzer & Davidson, whose unpaid bill for raiment supplied to the Fifth Viscount ran into four figures. Even the elder Drummond permitted himself a smile of quiet triumph when he pointed out the announcement to his heir. “His lordship, my boy, will draw on Drummond’s to whatever tune he pleases,” he said.

“Yes, sir! I should think so!” replied Young Drummond, awed.

This result of his engagement came as a welcome change from the incessant demands with which Adam had previously been assailed, but the knowledge that he owed even the obsequiousness of the management and staff of Fenton’s Hotel to Chawleigh-gold could scarcely be expected to gratify him. Nor did the letter from Miss Oversley help to elevate his spirits.

Mama had broken the news to Julia, saying, as she put the fatal copy of the Gazette into her hands: “Julia, my love, you must be brave!” She had been brave, supported by Mama’s exquisite understanding, but the notice had for a time quite overpowered her, and she felt that her mind would not soon recover its tone. Tears made it difficult for her to write, but indeed she wished him happy, and had compelled her reluctant hand to pen a note to Miss Chawleigh — “once, as I believed, my friend.” She was leaving town to visit her grandmama in Tunbridge Wells: Mama thought it would be wiser to run no risk of a chance encounter with Adam for the present.

The next post brought him a spate of letters from various relations, ranging from a demand from his Aunt Bridestow to know who was this Miss Jane Chawleigh? to a sentimental effusion from an elderly spinster cousin, who was persuaded that Miss Chawleigh must be the most amiable girl imaginable: an observation which made Adam realize that he knew nothing about his bride’s disposition.

He had to wait several days for letters from Fontley, but they arrived at last: a frantic scrawl from Lydia, who was sure that Jenny must be the horridest girl in the world; and a troubled letter from Charlotte. Dearest Mama, she wrote, had suffered so severe a shock from the discovery, that her only surviving son had become engaged to a totally unknown female that her every faculty had been suspended. Alarming spasms had subsequently attacked her; and although this distressing condition had yielded to the remedies prescribed by their good Dr Tilford she was still too knocked-up to attempt the arduous task of writing a letter.

“Approbation cannot at present be hoped for,” wrote Charlotte, sounding a warning note, “but I believe she will exert herself to do all that is proper to this occasion. She struggles to overcome her fidgets, but the intelligence that you mean to sell Lynton House has been productive of some agitating reflections, our dear Brother having been born there.... Here, Dst. Adam, I was interrupted by my Beloved Lambert. His visit has done Mama a great deal of good, for he has been sitting with her for an hour, representing, to her with calm good sense all the advantages of your marriage...”

It seemed that until she had had the benefit of Lambert’s calm good sense Mama had declared that her bereavement put it out of the question that she should either stay in a public hotel, or pay morning visits. But Lambert’s counsel had prevailed: provided that Adam could procure accommodation in some genteel hostelry placed in a quiet situation Mama would make the painful effort required of her. But not, Charlotte wrote, the Clarendon, with its poignant memories of Dearest Papa.

The most welcome letter Adam received came from his father’s astringent elder sister. Writing from her lord’s seat in Yorkshire Lady Nassington congratulated him on his common sense, and offered him both her house in Hampshire, as a honeymoon resort, and the services of her third son to support him through the wedding ceremony.

Adam was glad to accept the first of these offers, for Mr Chawleigh was showing alarming signs of being more than willing not only to plan the honeymoon, but to pay for it as well; but the second he refused, having provided himself with a groomsman in the lanky person of Timothy Beamish, Viscount Brough, the eldest son of the Earl of Adversane.

His friendship with Brough dated from his first term at Harrow, and had survived both separation and diverging interests. A desultory correspondence had kept them in touch, and the link had been strengthened after a few years by the arrival at the headquarters of the 52nd Regiment of Mr Vernon Beamish, a raw and bashful subaltern, for whom Brough solicited Adam’s patronage. “If he doesn’t fall overboard, or lose himself in the wilds of Portugal, you will shortly be reinforced by my little brother, my dear Dew,” had scrawled Brough. “Quite a nice pup, so be kind to him, and don’t let him play with the nasty Frogs....”

Brough had not been in London when Adam returned from France, but two days after the notice of Adam’s impending marriage appeared in the Gazette he strolled into Fenton’s Hotel, and, upon being informed that my Lord Lynton was out, said that he would await his return. An hour later Adam entered his private parlour to find him lounging in a chair by the fire, his very long legs stretched out before him, and the rest of his form hidden behind a copy of the Courier. He lowered this, as the door opened, disclosing a cadaverous countenance which wore an expression of settled melancholy.

“Brough!” exclaimed Adam joyfully.

“Now, don’t say you’re glad to see me!” begged his lordship. “I hate whiskers!”

“Whiskers be damned! I was never more glad to see anyone!”

“Pitching it too rum!” sighed Brough, dragging himself out of his chair. “Or have you but this instant arrived in England? Come along! don’t hesitate to try it on rare and thick!”

Adam gripped his bony hand, smiling. “I’ve been in England some weeks. Three — but it seems more.”

“Running rather sly, aren’t you?” drawled his friend.

“No — upon my honour! I looked for you in Brooks’s, but was told you were in Northamptonshire still. I wrote to you yesterday: you can’t have received my letter, surely? How did you find me out? What brings you to town?”