By the time Jenny returned to the Priory Mr Chawleigh had explored the better part of the house, and had come to the conclusion that it was a regular rabbit warren, with far too many uneven floors, ill-fitting windows, odd steps, and rooms too small to be of use. He preferred the modern wing, but even this disappointed him, for there was no suite of state apartments, and most of the furniture was so old-fashioned as to be downright shabby.
When Jenny arrived he was standing on the carriage-drive, scanning the gardens. This was unfortunate, for if she had not seen him she would have driven into the stable-yard, and he would have been spared the degrading spectacle of his daughter seated in a paltry gig with a staid cob between the shafts, and no groom beside her to lend her protection or consequence. As it was, she drove up to the house, calling out: “Papa! Good gracious, have you been here long? And me not here to welcome you! Well, I
“I should have thought,” said Mr Chawleigh, in a voice of displeasure, “that you’d have had a groom to do that for you — even if you don’t take one up beside you, like you should! Never did I think to live to see the day when you’d go careering over the country in a dowdy old gig without so much as your maid beside you, and that’s a fact! What’s more, you ain’t dressed as I like to see you: anyone would take you for a farmer’s wife!”
“Well, that’s just what I am!” she retorted. “Now, don’t put yourself in a fume, Papa! No one dresses fine in the country. And as for me driving alone, if Adam sees no harm in it I’m sure you need not. I’ve only been to see how the new cottages go on: never off our own land, I promise you!”
“You come down, and tell one of the footmen to take the gig off to the stables!” commanded her parent.
Perceiving that he was seriously vexed, she thought it prudent to obey. She then tucked her hand in his arm, and said: “Don’t be cross, Papa! How nice it is to have you here at last! Do you like Fontley? Have you been about the house at all?”
“It’s not what I expected,” he replied. “I’m bound to say I thought it would be more handsome. From the way my Lord Oversley puffed it off to me — well, it gave me a very different notion of it than what turns out to be the truth!”
Her heart sank; and by the time he had suggested to her various plans for knocking several small rooms into one, carpeting the Grand Staircase, reflooring most of the rooms, and installing a great many modern conveniences, she was so much dismayed that she blurted out: “Papa! If you say such things to Adam I’ll never forgive you!”
That’s a pretty way to talk!” he ejaculated.
“Yes, but you don’t understand! Adam is so passionately devoted to Fontley! As if it was a sacred thing! All the Deverils are!”
“You don’t say so! Well, there’s no accounting for tastes, and I’m sure I’ve no wish to tread on his lordship’s toes — though I’d have thought he’d want to see it brought more up-to-date, if he’s so proud of it!”
“It isn’t meant to be up-to-date, Papa: it’s historical!”
“History’s all very well in its place,” said Mr Chawleigh, largemindedly, “but I don’t see what anyone wants with it in his home. You can’t pretend it’s comfortable! And when it comes to having a ruined chapel in your garden, with a couple of mouldy tombs as well — why; it’s enough to give anyone a fit of the dismals! If I was his lordship, I’d be rid of it, and set up a few good succession houses instead: there’d be some sense in that!”
This did not promise well for the success of the visit; it was not, in fact, at all successful, but neither Mr Chawleigh’s strictures on the house, nor his suggestions for its improvement was to blame for this. To Jenny’s relief, Adam took these in good part. Mr Chawleigh was powerless to put any of his schemes into execution, so Adam was able to listen to them with amusement. They included the throwing out of several bows and bays, the employment of a landscape gardener to lay out the gardens to better advantage, and the introduction of a herd of deer to the park. Mr Chawleigh argued that deer would make Fontley more the thing, but Adam said: “If you wish to bestow a herd on me, sir, let it be a herd of short-horns!”
But Mr Chawleigh would have nothing to do with cattle. He told Adam that he had a bee in his head, which made Jenny exclaim: “Now, that’s something I want! I’ve been talking to Wicken — he’s our head gardener, Papa! — and we are agreed that a few hives are exactly what we need here. And I for one don’t want a grand landscape gardener coming to upset us all! Just as I’ve started to bring the knot-garden back into order, and have ordered more rose-trees for planting later! No, I thank you!”
“Ay!” said Mr Chawleigh. “Pottering about a garden is new to you, my girl, but I’ll warrant you’ll soon tire of it! And as for cows, my lord, you’ve no call to meddle with such, and you’ll get none from me! You leave farming to those as was bred to it, and that’s my advice to you!”
His disapproval of Adam’s agricultural activities was profound, but this was not what made his visit disastrous. It did not take him more than a day to realize that Jenny was not looking well; and he was so much inclined to set this to the account of Fontley’s situation that she told him the truth.
The result was unhappy. His first delight was swiftly followed by wrath; for when he asked when the infant would be born, and learned that it would be in March, he did a rapid sum in his head, and demanded incredulously: “You’ve been in a promising way these three months, and never a word to me?”
Neither she nor Martha Pinhoe succeeded in mollifying him; it was Adam who soothed his rage and his hurt. He said: “Yes, you have every right to be vexed, sir. I should have insisted on your being told — and also my mother.”
“Oh!” growled Mr Chawleigh. “So she don’t know either?”
“No one knows, except Martha and our doctor here. I don’t think
“You don’t say!” gasped Mr Chawleigh. “What the devil’s got into her? It ain’t coming by way of the back- door! Well, if ever I knew my Jenny to behave so missish!”
Adam smiled at that, but replied: “I think her reluctance to tell either you or me was partly due to her dislike of what she calls fuss. And partly to spare you the anxiety she guessed you would feel. She’s very much attached to you, you know, sir.”
This diplomacy was not without its effect. Mr Chawleigh pondered for a few moments, champing his powerful jaws. “A fine way to show she’s attached to me!” he said at last, determined not to be won over too easily. “Her own father, and the last to hear of it!” He went on fulminating for a minute or two, but suddenly said: “Thought I’d be anxious, did she? Well, she didn’t miss her tip! You may lay your life I’m anxious, my lord!”
“I hope you need not be, sir. Our doctor here assures me I need feel no apprehension.”
“And who’s he, pray?” said Mr Chawleigh scathingly. “I’ll have no country sawbones attending my Jenny! Croft’s the man for her, and Croft she shall have, say what you will!”
“It is you who now have the advantage of me,” said Adam, a little coldly. “Who, if you please, is Croft?”
“He’s an accoucheur — top-of-the-trees! If I could have brought him in to Mrs Chawleigh, him being then what he is now, she might be with me this day — ay, and I might have had a son to my name too!”
“But that’s precisely what Jenny has set her face against — to have such a person called in,
“It ain’t what you know, but what I know!” interrupted Mr Chawleigh. “And if you think you can come the lord over me when it’s my Jenny that’s in question — ” He stopped, controlling himself with a strong effort.
There was just a moment’s pause before Adam, recognizing that this outburst sprang from concern, said quietly: “No, I don’t think that. I must have expressed myself very badly if you could suppose — ”
“Nay, I didn’t mean it!” said Mr Chawleigh roughly. “You couldn’t have treated me more civil if I’d been a Duke, and well I know it! The thing is that it’s got me regularly nattered, me knowing what I do know! Now, lookee here, lad! She’s the very make of her ma, my Jenny! Three times did Mrs C. miscarry — and the lord only knows how Jenny came to be born hale and hearty! A son was what Mrs C. wanted — well, so I did too, though I’ve lived to regret it! She went her full time at the end, and a son it was, but he was a stillborn, and Mrs C. was taken from me, like I told you.
“Very well,” Adam said. “What do you wish me to do? To take her back to London? I will, of course — but she has been in better health since we came to Fontley, and
“Ay!” said Mr Chawleigh, with a bark of laughter. “Because she knows that’s