Jenny’s saying: “If something’s not done we shall have his lordship dwindling to a thread-paper! Well, I don’t doubt you know as well as I do that for all he never complains or seems to notice what’s set before him he’s very nice in his tastes — not to say capricious! — and if the meat’s not dressed as he likes it he doesn’t eat more of it than would keep a kitten alive.”
The suggestion that his lordship might waste away from lack of sustenance made an instant appeal. Mrs Dawes relented enough to say that he had always been one who had to be tempted to his dinner. Jenny next asked her if she could recall which warehouse had supplied the brocade that covered certain of the chairs. “For if only I could procure it I’d like to have them re-covered,” she said. “Not changing them, but making them the same as they were before. His lordship wouldn’t wish anything to be different, and I wouldn’t for the world — Well; I don’t mean to turn the house out of doors, but what’s worn to shreds must be made new again!”
Mrs Dawes said that she didn’t know but what she might be able to recall the name of the warehouse; and, to discourage any idea that she had been won over, brought the interview to an end by saying that she was sorry the second housemaid had given Miss Pinhoe cause for complaint, and also that Miss Pinhoe had not seen fit to mention the matter to her — “when I should have dealt with it immediately, my lady.”
The haughty Miss Poolstock had been disliked by every member of the household, but her odious air of consequence had marked her as a dresser of the first respectability. Ten minutes spent in Miss Pinhoe’s company were enough to inform her fellows that she was not at all the sort of superior female a lady of real quality would employ as her personal maid. A rough tongue had brought her into instant collision with Mrs Dawes, and a feud of promising longevity seemed to be inevitable when a chance word revealed to Mrs Dawes that Miss Pinhoe came from her own county. Frigid enquiry elicited the information that Miss Pinhoe had first seen the light at Church Stretton, not seven miles from Mrs Dawes’s birthplace. From that moment the thaw set in, Miss Pinhoe recognizing in the daughter of a well-to-do farmer her social superior, and Mrs Dawes (once this point had been established) admitting Miss Pinhoe into the ranks of her intimates. Neither lady regarded the other with unqualified approval, but to the world they soon presented a solid Salopian front, and bored Dunster and Kinver at every meal in the Room by recalling ancient parochial scandals, and exhaustively pursuing obscure genealogies. Nor was it long before MissPinhoe had disclosed an interesting piece of information, which caused Mrs Dawes to regard her mistress with a more tolerant eye. Much would be forgiven to Jenny if she provided Fontley with an heir, but Mrs Dawes suspended final judgment, by no means confident of the issue. In her view, a sickly pregnancy heralded the birth of a daughter: an arrival which would show how unworthy of her position was my lord’s vulgar bride.
In fact, Jenny was beginning to overcome her sickness, but although she went briskly about her affairs she felt so far from well that she cried off from the Holkham week. Adam did not press the matter, but went alone, to mingle with the farmers of every degree who flocked to Holkham at this season, and to learn as much as he could from their discussions.
During his absence the new stove was installed; the reliable upholsterers summoned from Lincoln were set to work on the chair-covers; and the entire household was driven into strenuous activity: mending, making, cleaning, and polishing.
Charlotte, visiting her sister-in-law in case she should be lonely while Adam was away from home, exclaimed astonishment: “Jenny! Good gracious, how different everything looks! I declare, I hardly recognize dear old Fontley!”
“Oh,
“To be sure!” Charlotte said hastily. “My dear sister, I didn’t mean the least disparagement! It is all beautiful! How clever you have been! All the furniture positively glowing, too, and the handles on that chest quite dazzling! I thought it had been a new one!”
In her anxiety to convince Jenny that she felt only admiration she praised every improvement rather too enthusiastically, until Jenny said, in a flattened voice: “You don’t like it, do you?”
“Yes, yes, I do! We have all of us so much regretted that poor Papa was unable to keep the house as it should be. I know it was sadly shabby. It is only that at first it seems, a little strange — How nonsensical I am! you will laugh at me for missing the dimness, and the faded curtains, but one grows so accustomed — ! We love it so much, you see, that even its shabbiness is dear to us.”
“I don’t understand that,” Jenny said. “Don’t you want to see it kept up to the knocker? To my way of thinking, that’s no way of loving it.” She added quickly: “I beg pardon! I shouldn’t have spoken so freely.”
“Oh, no! Of course, you are perfectly right! How pleased dear Adam will be, when he sees all that you have done!”
Jenny thought that he would not be pleased; and, remembering that Lydia had once expressed the hope that Fontley would not be changed, wondered if she would ever understand the Deverils.
But Adam neither exclaimed in admiration nor recoiled in dismay when he came home. He reached Fontley some hours later than had been expected, after a tiresome journey. It was past ten o’clock, and the candles had been lit, and the curtains drawn across the tall, Gothic windows. He was tired, and exasperated by a series of mishaps; it did not occur to him that the candle-smoke stains had vanished from the moulded ceiling, or that the furniture shone with beeswax: he only thought that never had his home appeared more mellow or more lovely.
His plump, commonplace little wife came down the stairs to meet him, treading across the hall with her firm step. She was neither beautiful nor graceful; she was even a little incongruous in so gracious a setting; but she was infinitely comfortable. She smiled at him, saying placidly: “That’s nice! Here you are, just in time for supper! We’ll have it in the Blue Parlour, to be cosy.”
He had told her that he would return in time for dinner, which was served at six, after the country habit. It occurred to him that no matter how long he kept her waiting she never said: “How late you are!” or: “What can have detained you?” He put his arm round her, kissing her cheek. “My dear, I’m so repentant! But you’re quite right not to comb my hair: it has
“Oh, how vexatious! And me thinking no more than that you’d put off your start because there was something pleasant offered you to do at Holkham! Well, that’s a great deal too bad, but never mind! Supper will be ready as soon as you are.”
“That will be in five minutes.” He gave her a hug, and kissed her again, this time on her firm little mouth. “You’re so kind to me, Jenny! I wish you may not indulge me so much that I become quite detestable!”
Her colour flamed into her cheeks; she said gruffly: “You’ll never be that to me. Now, you let Kinver pull off your boots, and give you a pair of slippers, but never mind rigging yourself out in style! That’s the best of living in the country: there’s no fear of being surprised by visitors at this hour of night!”
He took her at her word, reappearing presently in a frogged dressing-gown, and regarding her with a provocative twinkle. She chuckled, but said: “Well, now you can be comfortable, at least! How did you fare at Holkham? Was it an agreeable party?”
“Very — but you were right to cry off, I think. A vast crush, and the talk all of agriculture. I hope I may have profited by the discussions, but I felt as ignorant as when I first went to school! Tell me about yourself! How have you been keeping?”
“Oh, I am perfectly stout!” she asserted. “Charlotte was so kind as to pay me a visit — and Dr Tilford, too, which, I collect, he did at
“He could have spared his breath! What do you call this excellent chicken-dish? Italian salad, is it? It informs me that Scholes has been restored to us, and thank God for it! Has your new stove arrived? Was it very troublesome to make the change?”
“No worse than what was to be expected,” she replied. “We had the chimney swept, and the walls and ceiling new white-washed into the bargain, so you’d hardly know it for the same dingy old kitchen.”
She then wished that she had not said this, but Adam merely said: “I can’t conceive how you can have contrived to get dinner cooked while all this was going forward!”
“‘Oh, quite easily!” she said, not disclosing to his male ignorance that the household had subsisted on picnic meals for three hideous days. She asked him instead to describe the clippings to her.
