A Civil Contract

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