A Civil Contract

to have it, so you tell me how much of the ready you need to set it going, and I’ll stand the nonsense!”

“How very kind of you, sir!” Adam said, forcing himself to speak pleasantly. “But I assure you I’m not mad after any farm! I have quite enough to do without saddling myself with an experimental farm.”

Mr-Chawleigh was disappointed, but also relieved. He wished to bestow a handsome present on Adam, but it did seem wicked to squander one’s blunt on anything so silly as an experimental farm. So he did not press the matter, but set off for London, cudgelling his brain in an attempt to hit on something which his incomprehensible son-in-law really would like to receive.

Adam was left a prey to bitter hatred of insensitive vulgarians, who could never be made to understand how much their oppressive generosity lacerated the feelings of those cast in finer moulds than themselves.

Yet five minutes later he found himself defending Mr Chawleigh from the Dowager’s acid criticisms, even telling her that he held him in affection and esteem, which, at that moment, was far from being the truth.

The Dowager was suffering slightly from reaction. She had risen nobly to an occasion, but the occasion had passed. While it was of paramount importance that her daughter-in-law should be kept in a tranquil state of mind she had found it easy to suppress every critical impulse; but Jenny, though slow to recover her strength, was now out of danger, and the Dowager felt at liberty to unburden herself of a great many criticisms and grievances. Adam, having endured an extremely wearing week keeping his mother and his father-in-law apart, and, when this was impossible, stepping hastily into every breach created by two such ill-assorted persons, was in no mood to listen to these, and he gave his mother a very improper set-down. A serious rupture threatened, but was averted by the Dowager’s recollecting that her younger daughter was shortly to make her début, and that in her own miserably straitened circumstances it was quite impossible for her to provide all the expensive raiment necessary for this event.

It had been decided that since Jenny, confined at the end of March, would be very imprudent to embark on the exigencies of a London season, Lady Nassington should launch Lydia into the ton. The Dowager had, in fact, brought Lydia to London, and had consigned her to her aunt’s care. She had, at great personal sacrifice, supplied her with a number of elegant ball-dresses, walking-dresses, and demi-toilettes, but it was quite out of her power to provide her with a Court-dress. The child could certainly not afford to pay for this herself, out of the slender allowance her brother made her, and dear Adam would scarcely wish the charge to fall upon his aunt.

He did not wish it; and even less did he wish the cost of Lydia’s presentation to be borne by Jenny. He gave the Dowager a draft on Drummond’s, which put her so much in charity with him that instead of shaking the dust of Fontley from her feet she remained there for another week. She was thus present when Lady Oversley drove over from Beckenhurst on a visit of congratulation, bringing with her Lady Rockhill, and the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth Edgcott, two very well brought-up and rather mouse-like little girls, who (just as Jenny had prophesied) sat and gazed with shy admiration at their lovely young stepmother.

Lady Oversley had neither meant nor wished to bring Julia to Fontley, but she had found it impossible to leave her behind. The Rockhills were paying a brief visit to Beckenhurst on their way up to London, where Julia was going to buy much prettier dresses for her stepdaughters than their austere grandmama had considered suitable, show them all the sights, and in general entertain them royally before sending them back to their governess and their books at Rockhill Castle. “But before we leave you, Mama,” Julia said, “I must go to Fontley to see how Jenny does, of course.”

Lady Oversley ventured to suggest that a letter of felicitation would perhaps be better than a visit.

“When it’s known that I’m here, so close to Fontley?” Julia said. “Oh, no! How unkind it would be in me not to visit Jenny! I won’t have it said that I didn’t render her every observance!”

When the visit was paid Jenny was still confined to her room, but the Dowager was able to assure Lady Oversley that she was quite well enough to receive her, and dear Julia too. She conducted them upstairs, leaving the little girls seated primly side by side on a sofa in the Green Saloon, with a book of engravings to look at.

Jenny, who was permitted now to spend some hours on a day-bed, greeted her visitors with pleasure, but it was not long before Lady Oversley judged it to be time to withdraw. Julia, she thought, was talking too much and too animatedly to Jenny, who was obviously languid and invalidish. One might almost have said that Julia was rattlingon in a way that would probably leave Jenny with a headache. She had kissed her, and felicitated her, and admired the baby, which was perfectly proper, but it would have been better to have kept all her gay reminiscences of Paris for a future date. It could not interest Jenny to know what this person had said to Madame la Marquise, or what that person had said about her. Lady Oversley felt uneasily that had it been anyone but Julia she would have suspected her of flaunting her triumphs and her wedded felicity in front of poor little Jenny. So she got up to take her leave. Julia followed her example, saying: “But I must have one last peep at your baby, Jenny! Dear little man! He’s like you, I think.” She looked up from the cradle, laughing: “I’m a Mama too, you know! I’ve two daughters — such darlings! They ought to hate me, but they spoil me to death!”

When the ladies entered the Green Saloon again they found Adam there, trying to draw out the Ladies Sarah and Elizabeth. Julia gave him her hand, exclaiming: “Oh, you have made the acquaintance of my daughters already! That’s too bad! I’m quite as proud a mama as Jenny, I promise you, and had meant to have presented them to you in form.”

He had dreaded this meeting, but when he looked at Julia, and listened to her, she seemed to be almost a stranger. Even her appearance had altered. She had always been charmingly dressed, but in a style suited to her maiden status; he had never seen her attired in the silks, the velvets, and the jewels of matronhood. He thought she looked very rich and fashionable, with all the curled plumes clustering round the high crown of her hat, the sapphire-drops in her ears, the sable stole flung carelessly over the back of her chair, but she did not look like his Julia. It did not occur to him that she was somewhat overdressed for the occasion, but it had occurred forcibly to Lady Oversley, who had remonstrated, only to be told that she had nothing else to wear, and that Rockhill liked her to look elegant.

She was telling his mother how nervous she had been when Rockhill had taken her to meet his children, making a droll story of it. The little girls giggled, and uttered protestingly: “Oh, Mama!” She had been afraid that Rockhill’s servants would regard her as a usurper, and that his sisters would disapprove of her. Such an ordeal as it had been! But they were all such dear creatures that they positively killed her with kindness: she was becoming odiously spoilt, and would soon, if they persisted in cosseting her, be the most idle, exacting, and selfish toad imaginable.

“Oh, Mama!”

Listening to this, Adam remembered suddenly the words she had spoken to him once. “I must be loved! I can’t live if I’m not loved!” The thought flashed into his mind that she was basking in adulation; and he wondered for a shocked moment if the caresses and the treats she bestowed upon Rockhill’s daughters sprang from this craving rather than from a wish to make them happy. He was aghast, not at her but at himself; he recalled a thousand instances of her sweetness, her generosity, her quick sympathy, her tender heart; and thought: Who has a better right to be loved?

“Dear Julia!” sighed the Dowager, when the visitors had departed. “No one could marvel at the Edgcotts for liking her so well! Dorothea Oversley has been telling me what a conquest she has made over Rockhill’s sisters, but, as I said to Dorothea, I should have been astonished if they had not liked her, for she is always so prettily behaved, and so attentive — so exactly what one would wish one’s daughter-in-law to be!”

“Sister-in-law, surely, ma’am?” Adam said, in a dry tone.

“Yes, dear — alas!” she replied mournfully.

“I hope the visit may not have tired Jenny: I must go up to her.”

He escaped from her on this excuse, and did indeed go upstairs, to be greeted, as he entered Jenny’s room, by some lusty yells from his son, who appeared to have fallen into a paroxysm of fury. Adam was put unpleasantly in mind of Mr Chawleigh, but thrust the thought away. “It’s a constant source of astonishment to me that anything so small should possess such powerful lungs,” he remarked.

Jenny signed to the nurse to take the baby away. “Yes, and such a strong will!” she answered. “He’s determined not to be laid down in his cradle: that’s all that ails him. But he was very good while Lady Oversley and Julia were with me. It was kind of them to come, wasn’t it? Did you see them?”

“Yes, and also the two girls — oppressively well-behaved damsels! Was the post brought up to you? I saw you had a letter from Lydia.”

“Yes, bless her! She says she’s still as sulky asa bear because Lady Nassington won’t allow her to come to see her godson. I wish she might have come, but it is much too far — and I can’t say that he’s much to look at yet!”