Джорджетт Хейер - A Civil Contract

“Brough!” exclaimed Adam joyfully.

“Now, don’t say you’re glad to see me!” begged his lordship. “I hate whiskers!”

“Whiskers be damned! I was never more glad to see anyone!”

“Pitching it too rum!” sighed Brough, dragging himself out of his chair. “Or have you but this instant arrived in England? Come along! don’t hesitate to try it on rare and thick!”

Adam gripped his bony hand, smiling. “I’ve been in England some weeks. Three — but it seems more.”

“Running rather sly, aren’t you?” drawled his friend.

“No — upon my honour! I looked for you in Brooks’s, but was told you were in Northamptonshire still. I wrote to you yesterday: you can’t have received my letter, surely? How did you find me out? What brings you to town?”

“I haven’t received your letter; I found you out by enquiring for you in Grosvenor Street; I was brought to town by the notice in the Gazette,” replied Brough, ticking off the several questions on his long fingers. That, you know, conveyed the intelligence to my powerful mind that you had returned to England. But why I should have taken the notion into my head that you might have some use for me I can’t conjecture!”

“Until your powerful mind apprehended that I wanted you for my groomsman!” said Adam, smiling up into his deep-set eyes. “Will you do that for me, Brough?”

“But of course! With the greatest pleasure on earth, dear boy! I’m not acquainted with Miss Chawleigh, but m’father tells me it’s an excellent match. Says you’ve done just as you ought, and I’m to present you with his felicitations. By the bye, how is my young brother?”

“He was in a capital way when I saw him last. I wish I knew what’s been happening since I left! Soult’s on the run, but not rompéd yet. What a moment to have been obliged to apply for furlough! Not that it is that, of course. I’m selling out”

“Well, you’d think it a dead bore to be serving in peacetime,” remarked Brough. “The on-dit is that the Bourbons will be back before the summer’s out. I don’t know how much of a set-back that pitiful business at Bergen-op-Zoom will prove to be. Graham seems to have made a rare mull of it.”

Adam nodded, grimacing, but said: “We shan’t be lurched by that. If we can outflank Soult, pin him up against the Pyrenees, cut off from his supplies, see if the whole house of cards don’t tumble down! You’ve no notion what the feeling is in southern France: We thought the natives better-disposed towards us than the Spaniards!” He laughed suddenly. “We pay for what we commandeer, you see, which Boney’s army doesn’t! Lord, I do wish I knew where we are now! It’s nearly a month since Orthes — I suppose we’re held up by a mingle-mangle of politicians!”

On the following day, the news of a victory at Tarbes on the 20th March was published. A part of the Light Division had been hotly engaged, but it did not seem as though the 52nd Regiment had taken much part in the action: a circumstance which slightly consoled Adam for his enforced absence. Nor, however, did it seem that Wellington had succeeded in cutting Soult’s lines of communication. The Marshal was retiring in good order upon Toulouse.

Matters of more domestic moment claimed Adam’s attention. Mr. Chawleigh, baulked in his plans for a splendid marriage ceremony, wanted to know whether his Jenny was expected to wait until the following year before being presented at Court. He understood, on the authority of Mrs Quarley-Bix, that she could not go into society until this function had been performed; but while he didn’t wish Jenny to do anything not quite the thing, it was plain that he viewed with considerable disfavour any postponement of her debut. If she was not to appear at any ton-party, it would look as though my lord was ashamed of his bride, and that (said Mr Chawleigh, his jaw pugnaciously out-thrust) was not what he had bargained for.

Adam neither relished the manner of this admonition nor wished to take part in the season’s festivities, but he did appreciate Mr Chawleigh’s objection. Mr Chawleigh was paying him handsomely to establish Jenny in the ranks of the ton, and although the letter of the bargain might be fulfilled by her elevation to the peerage, the spirit of it demanded that every effort should be made to introduce her into Society. There could be little satisfaction in becoming a Viscountess if one was obliged to live for a whole year in seclusion. Moreover, if no presentation took place, and no cards were sent out announcing the bridal couple’s readiness to receive visits of ceremony, Adam was afraid that some of the high sticklers whose notice was of the first importance to a lady desirous of entering the exclusive circle to which they belonged might consider that the period of mourning absolved them from any duty to call on Lady Lynton thereafter. It might even be thought that to preserve the strict period of mourning was a tacit signal that the usual civilities were not expected, for it was certainly very odd conduct to interrupt this period for the celebration of nuptials which it would have been more proper to have postponed.

“Ay, but your affairs won’t wait, my lord,” said Mr Chawleigh, when Adam tried to explain the difficulty to him. “I won’t tip over the dibs until I see the knot tied, because I’m not one to shell out the nonsense without I’ve better security than you can offer me. Now, there’s no need to nab the rust! I don’t doubt you’d stick to the bargain, but who’s to say you’d be alive to do it? Anything could happen to you, and then where would I be? Holding a draft on the Pump at Aldgate!”

This point of view could scarcely be expected to appeal to Adam; but his sense of humour came to his rescue, and, instead of yielding to a reckless impulse to repudiate the betrothal, he sought counsel of Lady Oversley.

She perceived the intricacies of the situation at once, and gave the matter her profound consideration. “She must be presented,” she decided. “It would have a very strange appearance if she weren’t, because one always is, you know, on the occasion of one’s marriage. And there is nothing improper in going to a Drawing-Room when in mourning, though not, I think, in colour — except lavender, perhaps. Only, who is to present her? In general, one’s mother does so, but poor Jenny has no mother, and even if she had — dear me, yes! this is a trifle awkward, because I don’t think you could ask it of your own mother. Not while she is in such deep mourning, I mean! Well, it will have to be me, though I am strongly of the opinion that if we could but hit on a member of your own family it would create a better impression.”

“My Aunt Nassington?” suggested Adam.

“Would she?”

“I think she might.”

“Well, if you can coax her into it, do so! No one could answer the purpose better, because she’s of the first consequence, and positively famous for the crushing set-downs she gives to perfectly respectable persons! Her approval must be of the greatest value. As for the rest, I don’t think you should go to balls. Dinner-parties and assemblies, yes! Balls, no! At least, you might attend one, but you shouldn’t dance at it.”

“I can’t,” Adam pointed out. “Too lame, ma’am! What a figure I should cut!”

“So you would!” she agreed, brightening perceptibly.

She did not disclose that the recollection of his disability had relieved her mind of a severe anxiety; and if he guessed that she had been racking her brain to think how she could induce the haughty patronesses of Almack’s to bestow vouchers on Jenny he did not say so. But he must have known that the right of entry to these chaste Assembly Rooms in King Street conferred on the recipient a greater distinction than a Court presentation, and was far more difficult to obtain. The club was presided over by six great ladies, who imposed rules that were as inflexible as they were arbitrary. Mere rank was no passport to Almack’s; and although the disappointed marvelled that anyone should covet a ticket to an assembly where no more stimulating beverage than orgeat could be got, and where nothing was danced but Scotch reels and country dances, such disgruntled animadversions hoaxed no one. It might be more amusing to twirl round a ballroom in the new German waltz, or to embark on the intricacies of the quadrille; and there was not a hostess in London who would have dreamt of regaling her guests on tea and stale bread-and-butter; but no one could pretend that invitations to all the smartest balls of the season conveyed the cachet won by a single appearance at Almack’s.

Having passed the six hostesses under mental review, Lady Oversley was so much relieved to be spared the task of begging Lady Sefton or Lady Castlereagh, both very good-natured, to bestow vouchers on Jenny that she offered to act as matron of honour at the wedding. This, however, Jenny refused, saying that she had invited a Miss Tiverton to support her on the occasion. She told Adam that Miss Tiverton was perfectly genteel. The remark grated on him, but he said lightly: “If you like her I’m sure she must be an amiable girl. Your chaperon I cannot like! Will you feel yourself obliged to invite her to your parties?”

“Oh, no! I don’t mean to keep up the acquaintance,” she said calmly. “I dislike her very much.”

There was a hint of her father’s ruthlessness in this, which dismayed him. She saw that he was looking grave, and added: “I don’t feel under an obligation to her, you know. She has been handsomely paid, and she has been able to feather her nest in a great many ways. All my wedding-clothes are being made at the most expensive houses, you know, and so of course she receives commissions for having put business in their way.”

“Good God! Surely it is most improper of her to be urging you to extravagance so that she may make a profit? You will indeed be well rid of her!”

“Oh, yes, but I daresay she feels it to be of no consequence, since Papa likes me to shop at all the most expensive places.” She hesitated, and then asked shyly: “That puts me in mind of something I wish to ask you: must I engage a dresser? Mrs Quarley-Bix says I must, and I’ll do what you think right — only I would very much prefer to keep my old maid with me! I know a grand dresser would despise me!”

“If all dressers are like my mother’s Miss Poolstock she’d hold up her nose at both of us. A more top-lofty female I never encountered!”

“Then may I tell Papa you don’t think it necessary?”

“Yes, tell him Miss Poolstock has given me such a hatred of dressers that I won’t have one in the house! And, talking of houses, what do you wish me to do about a town-house? Wimmering tells me there will be no difficulty in selling the one in Grosvenor Street, so perhaps we should be looking about us for another — if either of us can spare the time, which I doubt! Shall I tell Wimmering to try what he can find for us while we are in Hampshire? then, if he saw any he thought suitable we may inspect them before I take you to Fontley.”

She agreed at once; and asked if they were to go to Fontley immediately after the honeymoon.

“Unless you should dislike it I want to make you acquainted with it, and with my people.”

“Would you like to remain there? Not come to town at all this season?”

“What, miss all the season?” he replied in a rallying tone, “No, indeed! Have you forgotten that you are to be presented? We ought to make a push to be back in town before the middle of May, which will relegate our stay at Fontley to a very few days.”

“I only thought — since you are in mourning — that perhaps you had liefer not go to parties?”

“On the contrary, I’ve consulted Lady Oversley, and she assures me that it will be proper for us to do everything but dance. And I don’t dance, you know — though I’ll engage to escort you to balls next year, and stand, as my sister tells me Byron does, gloomily surveying the company!”

Lady Lynton took two days to reach London, since she elected to travel in the family coach, an old-fashioned vehicle which had not been designed for swift progress. It had the advantage of being roomy enough to accommodate Miss Poolstock, as well as herself and Charlotte, but she did not mention this when she explained to Adam why she had lumbered up to town in it. She reminded him instead that one of his first economies had been to dismiss the postilions always kept by his father. “Whether that was quite wise, dearest, I must leave it to you to decide. I am sure you did what you thought right, and I don’t regard the inconvenience to myself.”