A Civil Contract

stupidity any who could be persuaded to listen on the strategy and the tactics the Duke would employ in the campaign, To hear them prating about the Dutch-Belgian Army was more than Adam could stomach. They seemed to believe that the Dutch-Belgians would be as valuable as the Portuguese Caçadores, whom Marshal Beresford had trained: they were more likely to be as unreliable as the Spaniards, he thought, remembering how often those volatile, damnably-officered troops had proved a dangerous embarrassment during the war in the Peninsula. He kept his tongue between his teeth, because to spread despondency was a military crime. Heaven knew, too,  that there were too many croakers already, shaking their gloomy heads, saying that they had always foreseen how it would be, that it was folly to think Napoleon could ever be beaten. The most woodheaded optimist was preferable to these gentry; so, even, were the fashionables, preoccupied with their balls, their scandals, the newest style of tieing a neckcloth, the chances of some pugilist in a forthcoming match. It was unreasonable to be so much irritated by the pleasure-seekers: there was nothing for them to do, after all, but to occupy themselves with their usual pursuits. It was even unreasonable to look with bitter contempt upon the rabid Whigs, who had been declaring for years that Wellington’s victories had been grossly exaggerated, that he was nothing but a Sepoy General, and who were now so thankful to know that he was in command: Adam knew that he ought rather to rejoice in their conversion. He could not, and the only thing to do was to remove himself from their vicinity. He would never, perhaps, feel himself a civilian, but he was one,  and had as little to do in the present military crisis as the most frivolous member of the ton. So he had gone home to Fontley, where there was so much to do that his inward fret was sensibly allayed. He still wished that he were with his Regiment, but if the work into which he had thrown himself was not military it was at least of enormous importance, whatever might be Mr Chawleigh’s opinion of it. Having agreed to the proposed betrothal party, he thought no more about it. Jenny never bored him with her housewifely schemes, so it was only when he saw his mother that the party was brought to his mind; and since Membury was ten miles distant from Fontley his meetings with the Dowager were infrequent. Nor did Jenny vex him by talking arrant nonsense about the military situation. Lambert did so, and Charlotte, too, acting as Lambert’s echo, but he met the Rydes as seldom as he met his mother; and, in any event, Lambert (thanks to Jenny) had become a mere bobbing-block.

Jenny rarely talked about the war at all, but when she did mention it she showed, he thought, a great deal of good sense. It did not occur to him that Jenny, like Charlotte, was her husband’s echo.

Out of hearing of all the rumours that flew about London, he regained cheerfulness and confidence. One or two of his old friends wrote from Belgium now and then: the news was growing better. Some of the Peninsular Regiments which had been recalled from America had arrived, and in capital trim; the dauntingly heterogeneous Army had been welded into a workmanlike whole (trust old Hookey!); Blücher’s Prussians were present in force, and were credibly reported to be well-disciplined soldiers. The Allied Army, in fact, was now ready to receive Napoleon at any date convenient to him. “We are all anxious to discover what costume he means to wear for the occasion,” wrote one of Adam’s, correspondents, in sardonic allusion to the postponed ceremony at the Champ du Mars, at which the Emperor, as far as could be gathered from the accounts published in the newspapers, had appeared in the vaguely historical raiment suitable for a Covent Garden masquerade.

Meanwhile, Jenny went quietly about the preparations for her first house-party, enthusiastically assisted by Mrs Dawes, who perceived in this small beginning the promise of a return to Fontley’s former state.

It came as no surprise to Jenny that the Rockhills accepted the invitation. She thought that for some reason beyond the grasp of her own simplicity Julia could not keep away from Fontley and Adam, and she had no reason to suppose that Rockhill would put any bar in her way. So far as she understood Rockhill, he believed that Julia’s love for Adam was a romantic fancy merely, which thrived on imagination, and would dwindle in the face of reality. Jenny hoped he might be right, but resented the strain which this peculiar cure imposed on Adam.

However, it could have been worse. She had felt herself obliged to invite them to come to Fontley on the day before her dinner-party, since it would take them some nine hours or more to reach it, but Julia wrote, very prettily, to decline this: she was bringing her next sister, Susan, to join the nursery-party at Beckenhurst, to be cossetted back to health by old Nurse, after an attack of influenza which had left her with an obstinate cough, and she and Rockhill would  spend the night there, driving on to Fontley on the following day.

Brough brought Lydia down on the 17th, a Saturday. There was no need to ask Lydia if she was happy: she was radiant. Mrs Dawes, much moved, said: “Oh, my lady, it quite brings the tears to one’s eyes, the way they look at each other, Miss Lydia and his lordship!”

“Brough, is there any news!” Adam asked, as soon as Jenny had taken Lydia upstairs to see her godson.

Brough shook his head, grimacing. “Nothing but on-dits. It seems pretty certain that Bonaparte ain’t in Paris: that’s all I know.”

“If he has left Paris, he’s gone to join his Army of the North. There ought to be news any day now: it wouldn’t be like him to dawdle! Do you believe all these stories that he’s a spent force? Gammon!”

“I’m damned if I know what to believe!” said Brough. “I’ve never heard so much slum talked in my life, I can tell you that! It’s a queer thing, Adam: you’d think there’s no question about it that we’re in for it again, but there are plenty of fellows still saving there’ll be no war — men better placed than I am to know what’s brewing.”

“It’s war,” Adam said confidently. “It must be! I’ve been expecting all the week to hear that we’re engaged on the frontier: Boney won’t wait to be attacked on two fronts! His only hope of making the game his own is to give us a knockdown before the Austrians and the Russians can come up!”

“Think he can do the trick?” asked Brough, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“Good God, no!”

The ladies came back into the room, putting an end to discussion. The war was not mentioned again. It seemed remote from Fontley, drowsing in the late sunshine of a summer’s evening; but when the little party sat at dinner it came suddenly closer, with the arrival, in a chaise-and-pair hired in Market Deeping, of one of Mr Chawleigh’s junior clerks, bearing a letter from his master.

Dunster brought it to Adam, at the head of the table. Recognizing the scrawl as he picked the letter up, Adam said, a note of surprise in his voice: “For me?”

“Yes, my lord.  The young man desired me to tell your lordship that it is most urgent. One of Mr Chawleigh’s clerks, I apprehend.”

Adam broke the wafer, and spread open the single sheet, frowning as he tried to decipher it. An anxious silence had fallen on his companions, all three of whom sat watching him. His frown deepened; his lips were seen to tighten. Jenny’s heart sank, but she said calmly: “Has Papa met with an accident? Please to tell me, my lord!”

“No, nothing like that.” Adam glanced up at Dunster. “Where is the young man? Bring him in!” He waited until Dunster had left the room before adding: “It is difficult to discover what has happened. He seems to think it necessary that I should post up to London immediately, and has been so obliging as to warn them at Fenton’s that I shall be arriving tomorrow evening.” There was an edge to this; aware of it, he forced up a smile, and passed the letter to Jenny, saying: “Try what you can make of it, my love!”

“Post up to London?” cried Lydia. “But you can’t! How could Papa Chawleigh ask you to do so? He knows you can’t leave Fontley, for I told him myself about the party!”

Mr Chawleigh had not forgotten the party: in a postscript he told his son-in-law never to mind, since he would be able to post back to Fontley in plenty of time for it.

Jenny, deciphering the letter more easily than Adam, was as far as he from understanding why he should have been summoned to town; but she saw at once what had vexed him. At no time distinguished by tact, Mr Chawleigh, writing under the stress of urgency, had given full rein to the Juggernaut within him. Adam was to come to town on the following day, and there was to be no argumentation about Sunday-travel; he was to come post; he was to put up at Fenton’s, where he would find a bedchamber and a parlour hired for him; and he was there to await further enlightenment. Mr Chawleigh would come to Fenton’s to tell him what he must do. Finally, he was to do as he was bid, or he would regret it.

By the time Jenny had finished reading the letter Dunster had brought a sharp-faced youth into the room, who disclosed that he had come down by the Mail, with instructions from the Master not to return without his lordship. That was all he knew. The Master had not told him why my lord was wanted in London; he had not heard any news about the war. It was obviously useless to question him further, so Jenny bore him off to introduce him to Mrs Dawes, promising that his lordship would let him know in the morning what he had decided to do.

“Queer start!” Brough said, when Jenny had gone out of the room. “I wonder what’s in the wind? Sounds to