A Civil Contract

had succeeded, until she said, in her gruffest voice, and keeping her eyes lowered; “You don’t mean to volunteer, do you?”

“Good God, no!” he replied.

She glanced fleetingly up at him. “I know you’d like to, but I hope you won’t.”

“I give you my word I won’t. As though Old Hookey couldn’t do the thing without Captain Deveril’s assistance!”

Towards the end of the month, Mr Chawleigh arrived at Fontley to attend the birth of his grandchild. He found Jenny in good health, calmly awaiting the event, all her preparations made, and her house in order, but this in no way assuaged his too-evident anxiety. Adam thought that it would have been better for Jenny had he remained in London, but he had not had the heart to close his doors to him, and could only hope that he would not make Jenny nervous. But two days before Jenny began to be ill the household was cast into astonishment by the wholly unexpected arrival of the Dowager, who had come (she said) because she felt it to be her duty to support dear little Jenny through her ordeal, and who lost no time at all in bringing both Mr Chawleigh and Adam to a sense of their folly, uselessness, and total irrelevance. Adam greeted her with mixed feelings. He was grateful to her for overcoming her disinclination to exert herself on behalf of a daughter-in-law of whom she disapproved, but he feared that her descent upon Fontley would throw Jenny into disorder. He was mistaken. If the Dowager had a passion, it was for babies. She had doted on all her children during their infancies, and her bosom was now filled with grandmotherly fervour. Jenny’s failings were not forgotten, but they were set aside: the Dowager, assuming command of the household, was determined to ensure that nothing should be allowed to endanger the birth of her first grandchild, and nothing could have exceeded the gracious kindness with which she enveloped Jenny, or the indulgent contempt with which she dismissed male apprehensions.

Adam begged Jenny to tell him whether she would prefer to be rid of her mother-in-law, but she replied with unmistakable sincerity that the Dowager was being of the greatest support and comfort to her.

Like many women of invalidish habits, the Dowager had borne her children with perfect ease. She could perceive no reason for supposing that Jenny would suffer complications outside her own experience, and her conviction that the issue would be happy gave Jenny a confidence she had hitherto lacked.

Adam, finding himself reduced to schoolboy status, was much inclined to rebel; but Mr Chawleigh, observing him with a sympathetic eye, said gloomily: “It’s no manner of use nabbing the rust, my lord. You wait till Jenny starts in labour! The way females behave when one of ’em’s in the straw you’d think we was no better than a set of lobcocks they’d be very well-pleased to be rid of! And don’t you get to thinking you’d anything to do with this baby, lad, because all you’ll get will be a set-down if you start trying to put yourself forward!”

The arrival of the month-nurse made the female dominion at Fontley absolute, and drew Adam into close alliance with his father-in-law. “The only female in the whole house who doesn’t treat me as I was only just out of short coats is Jenny herself!” he told Mr Chawleigh wrathfully.

“I know,” nodded that worthy. “I remember when Mrs C. was brought to bed there wasn’t one of the maids, not even the kitchen-girl that wasn’t a day more than fourteen, that didn’t make me as mad as Bedlam, carrying on as if they were grandmothers, and me a booberkin!”

When Jenny’s labour began the month nurse warned Adam that she-was not going to be quick in her time. A few hours later she said, with a bright cheerfulness which drove the colour from Mr Chawleigh’s cheeks, that she would be glad if his lordship would send a message to fetch Dr Purley from Peterborough. Adam had, in fact, sent for both this recommended accoucheur, and for Dr Tilford, as soon as Jenny’s pains began; and within a very few minutes Dr Tilford drove up in his gig. In due course he was joined by Dr. Purley, who, having been engaged to attend throughout labour, brought both his night-bag and his servant with him.. His air of confidence exercised a beneficial effect upon Mr Chawleigh, but it seemed an alarmingly long time before he redeemed his promise to report to my lady’s husband and father what his opinion was of her case. However, when he and Dr Tilford joined the anxious gentlemen in the library he appeared quite untroubled, and assured my lord that although he feared it would be some time before her ladyship was safely delivered neither he nor his colleague (with a courteous bow to Dr Tilford) could discover any cause for undue apprehension. Mr Chawleigh could not like the qualifying epithet, and immediately put Dr Purley in possession of the details of his own wife’s several disastrous experiences. Without precisely saying so, Dr Purley managed to convey the impression that the late Mrs Chawleigh had been unfortunate in not having been a patient of his, and he left Mr Chawleigh, if not wholly reassured, at least more inclined to take a hopeful view of the situation.

But midway through the second day, after a sleepless night, Mr Chawleigh, whose nerves had been growing rapidly more disordered, lost his precarious hold over his temper, and tried his best to provoke Adam into a quarrel. Adam entered the room after an absence of an hour to be greeted with, a ferocious glare, and a demand to know where he had been.

“Only in the estate-room, sir,” he replied. “My bailiff has been here with some business needing my attention.”

Mr Chawleigh’s jaw worked. His son-in-law’s quiet voice far from acting as a damper, violently irritated him. “Oh, you have, have you?” he retorted, with bitter sarcasm. “And as cool as a cucumber, I make no doubt! Business needing your attention! Why, you don’t know the meaning of the word! You and your piddling farms! Much you care for my Jenny!”

Adam stood rigidly silent.

“Ay, you may look down your nose!” Mr Chawleigh flung at him. “As proud as a cock on your own dunghill, ain’t you, my lord? But if it weren’t for me you’d have no dunghill — and what’s more, if my Jenny snuffs it, I’ll see to it you don’t have it, as sure as my name’s Jonathan Chawleigh, because it’ll be your blame, giving Croft the go- by, like you did — bringing her down here — not caring the snap of your fingers what might come of it! Well, that’s where you’ll find you’ve made your mistake! And she not thinking of anything but how to please you, and be worthy of you! Worthy of you! She’s too good for you, and so I tell you to your head!”

Anger, colder than Mr Chawleigh’s, but quite as deadly, had welled up in Adam. As he looked at that coarse red face, he felt for a moment almost sick with loathing. Then he saw that large tears were rolling down Mr Chawleigh’s cheeks, and was suddenly sorry for him. He did not know that the things he said were unpardonable, or that self-control in moments of stress was incumbent on him. He had fought his way up in the world with no other weapons than his hard head and his ruthless will. He was brutal but generous, overbearing yet curiously humble, and he gave way to his emotions with the ease of a child.

It was a moment or two before Adam could master himself enough to answer temperately. He limped over to the table on which Dunster had set down decanters and glasses, and said, as he poured out some Madeira: “Yes, sir: she is much too good for me.”

Mr Chawleigh blew his nose defiantly into a large and lavishly embroidered handkerchief. He took the glass that was being held out to him with a muttered Thank’ee! and gulped down the wine.

“I do care, you know,” Adam said; “If anything were to go amiss now, you won’t blame me as much as I shall blame myself.”

Mr Chawleigh grabbed his hand. “Nay, you did what you thought right! I’d no call to fly out at you. It’s being regularly worn down with worrying over my girl, and nothing I can do to help. I’m not one to sit kicking my heels, the way you and me have been doing, not without getting into high fidgets. Don’t you heed me, my lord, for I promise you I don’t mean the rough things I say when I’m in a passion! Well, I don’t rightly know what I do say, and that’s a fact!” He shifted ponderously in his chair, to restore his handkerchief to his pocket, and said, with an apologetic glance up at Adam: “She’s all I’ve got, you see.”

These simple words went straight to Adam’s heart. He said nothing, but laid his hand on Mr Chawleigh’s shoulder for a moment. One of Mr Chawleigh’s own, ham-like hands came up to pat it clumsily. “You’re a kind lad,” he said gruffly. “I’ll take another glass of wine, for I need something to pluck me up!”

He did not again allow his anxiety to get the better of him, though he paced up and down the floor a good deal, until, as the evening wore slowly on, he perceived that Adam was looking very haggard, and realized that there was one thing at least which he could do. He remembered that Adam had shaken his head at every dish offered him at the dinner-table, and went plunging off in search of Dunster, returning presently with a plate of sandwiches, which he bullied Adam into eating. He then applied himself to the task of convincing him that there was no need to get in a stew, because it stood to reason Dr Tilford wouldn’t have shabbed off home if Jenny wasn’t going on promisingly.