A Civil Contract

had grown upon her in London had vanished within a week of her arrival at Fontley, and with the abandonment of her reducing diet her strength began to return, and, with it, her energy. She missed Lydia, but she had a thousand things to do, and took so keen an interest in everything that concerned the estate that her mind was too fully occupied to allow her to feel the want of that gay companionship. She was beginning to know the tenantry too. Knowing how shy she was, Adam had not urged her to perform all the duties which his mother and his grandmother had accepted as a matter of course, but Lydia, discovering her ignorance of her obligations, did not hesitate to instruct her, and so anxious was she to conform to the standard set by her predecessors that she overcame her shrinking, visited the sick, relieved the indigent, and tried her best to be affable. She had none of the Dowager’s graciousness; she could never bring her tongue to utter the easy expressions of sympathy which would have won for her an instant popularity; but it was not long before it began to be realized that her brusque tongue concealed a far greater interest in the affairs of her lord’s people than the Dowager had ever felt. The sturdy common sense which made it easy for her to distinguish between the shiftless and the unfortunate might not win universal popularity for her, but it did win respect; she gave freely, but with discrimination; her advice was always practical; and if her blunt strictures were frequently unpalatable they left no one in any doubt that her ladyship was as shrewd as she could hold together.

When Mr Chawleigh arrived, laden with gifts ranging from a tiepin blazing with diamonds set round a large emerald, which he bestowed upon his stunned son-in-law, to a pound of tea, he found Jenny immersed in preparations for the Christmas dinner it was the custom of the house to give to the farm workers and their families, and he was obliged to own (though grudgingly) that she seemed to be in tolerably good health. He was interested in this particular form of benevolence. He himself (in his own words) always did the handsome thing by his numerous dependants at Christmas, but the country habit of inviting all and sundry to a large party was unknown to him, his gifts taking a monetary form. He had never set eyes on the wives and children of the men he employed; but when he had accompanied Jenny on a visit to a sick woman in the village, he had good-naturedly entertained and astonished the invalid’s numerous progeny with conundrums and conjuring tricks, and conceived the notion of adding his mite to the festivities by providing all the children with presents suitable for their various ages and sexes. Armed with the necessary information, he went off to Peterborough, where he ransacked the toyshops to such purpose that Adam told him that his memory would remain green in the district for many years to come.

His visit passed off very well. He was quite unreconciled to country life; he thought the wintry landscape was enough to give one the hips, and could not understand how anyone should prefer to look out upon a vista of gray fields than upon cosy, lamp-lit streets. The night stillness kept him awake, and the sounds of cocks crowing at first light inspired him with nothing more than a desire to wring the birds’ necks. But when he drove out with Jenny he derived immense gratification from seeing the forelocks which were pulled, and the curtsies that were bobbed whenever they met anyone on the way. That was something that did not happen in London, and it seemed to him to provide one good reason at least for her wish to live in the country. He liked it, too, when she leaned out to ask some woman how little Tom, who had the whooping-cough, did, or whether any tidings had come from Betsy, serving an apprenticeship to a milliner in Lincoln. He could scarcely believe it was his Jenny behaving like a great lady; and he told her, with deep pride, that she did it to the manner born.

She answered seriously: “No, Papa, that’s just what I don’t do, and what I never will do, try as I may, because I’m not born and it doesn’t come easily to me.”

“Well, no one would believe it, love, so don’t talk silly!” he advised her consolingly. “Beautifully you do it!”

She shook her head. “I don’t. Not as Adam does, and Lydia too. I don’t seem to be able to be so easy and friendly, the way they are.”

“To my way of thinking,” said Mr Chawleigh, “it don’t do to be too friendly with servants, and workmen, and such: it leads to them taking liberties.”

That’s what I can’t help being afraid of,” she said, in a burst of confidence. “But there’s no one who’d take liberties with Adam, nor with Lydia, because they know just how to talk to people, of all sorts, without ever thinking about it, as I do, and — and without its ever entering either of their heads that anyone would be impertinent.”

“Now, if anyone’s been giving you back answers, Jenny — ”

“Oh, no! No one would. But sometimes I wonder if they would, if I wasn’t Adam’s wife, when I forget to guard my tongue, and say something sharp.”

He did not quite understand, but he detected a wistful note in her voice, and asked anxiously: “You’re not unhappy, love, are you?”

“No, no!” she assured him. “Why, however could you ask me such a question?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said slowly. “There don’t seem to be any reason why you shouldn’t be happy, for I’ve never seen his lordship behave to you other than I’d wish — and you may depend upon it I’ve kept my eyes open, for there was no saying but what he mightn’t have treated you as civil as he does! But sometimes I fall to wondering if you’re quite comfortable, my dear.”

“You needn’t ever do that. And don’t you start wondering if Adam’s not every bit as civil to me when you’re not by, for he is, and always — always so kind! Adam’s a great gentleman, Papa.”

“Ay, that’s what I thought the first day I clapped eyes on him — but what call you’ve got to nap your bib about it, my girl, I’m sure I don’t know!”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know either,” returned Jenny, blowing her nose, but speaking with reassuring cheerfulness.

So when Mr Chawleigh left Fontley it was with a mind relieved of misgiving. He couldn’t for the life of him see why Jenny liked it better there than in London, and it wasn’t what he had planned for her, but there was no denying that she did like it, so no use for him to worry his head over what couldn’t be mended. And my Lord Oversley, who had ridden over from Beckenhurst one day, had told him, in his jovial way, that he thought they might congratulate themselves on having made up such an excellent match. “Turning out very well, don’t you think?” said his lordship.

Oversley had posted down to Beckenhurst alone, and for a very brief stay. Julia’s wedding was to take place early in the New Year, and Lady Oversley was far too busy with the preparations for it to leave London. So the family remained in Mount Street, a circumstance for which Jenny felt thankful, since the customary exchange of visits between Fontley and Beckenhurst at this season would have been hard to avoid, and painful to maintain.

Adam had not seen Julia since the announcement of her engagement, and he had done his best not to think of her. Jenny was not even sure that he knew the actual date of the wedding, for the subject was never mentioned between them. He did know it, and could not drag his thoughts from it. He could picture Julia, the embodiment of his dreams, walking up the aisle on her father’s arm, and he knew that he had reached the end of all dreaming. Whatever the future might hold there would be no enchantment, no glimpses of the isle of Gramarye he had once thought to reach.

It was folly to look back, ridiculous to suppose that Julia was more lost to him today than upon his own wedding-day, fatal to think of her married to Rockhill, whom he could only see as an elderly satyr. Better to count one’s blessings, and to remember how much worse off one might have been.

Looking over his water-logged acres, he thought: I still have Fontley. Then, as he thought how much it would cost to bring his neglected land to prosperity, depression surged up in him again. He shook it off: it would take time to achieve his ambition; it would be years, perhaps, before he had amassed enough capital to make the cut that would drain the swamped fields he had ridden out to inspect, but with thrift and good management it would one day be done, and the mortgages redeemed. To that end all his schemes were immediately directed. It was no use thinking of. the other crying needs: it made him feel rather hopeless to reckon up the farm buildings that needed repair, and the stud-and-mud dwellings which must be replaced by decent brick cottages. Still, he had at least made a start, and very fortunate he was to have been able to build even two new cottages; when less than a year before he had faced the prospect of being forced to sell Fontley. That had seemed to him the worst thing that could befall him; he had thought that no sacrifice would be too great that would save his home. He had been offered the means to do it, and he had accepted the offer of his own will, and to indulge now in nostalgic yearning was foolish and contemptible. One could never have everything one wanted in this world, and he, after all, had been granted a great deal: Fontley, and a wife who desired only to make him happy. His heart would never leap at the sight of Jenny; there was no magic in their dealings; but she was kind, and comfortable, and he had grown to be fond of her — so fond, he realized, that if, by the wave of a wand he could cause her to disappear he would not wave it. Enchantment had vanished from the world; his life was not romantic, but practical, and Jenny