A Civil Contract

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Well, there’s no need to thank me, for I never enjoyed anything half as much as having her with me,’ replied Jenny. ‘I miss her sadly, I can tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad! To be sure, I think everyone must like her, for she is the dearest girl, besides being what Lambert calls full of fun and gig!’ They had by this time reached the Little Drawing-room, where Charlotte instantly perceived an alteration. She exclaimed: ‘Oh, you have taken away the marquetry sewing-table!’

  It was mere comment, but it threw Jenny on to the defensive. ‘I have only moved it into the library,’ she said stiffly. ‘Adam told me I might do so.’

  ‘Yes, of course! I didn’t mean – It just seemed strange not to see it where it was always used to be! But I know many people dislike marquetry: my cousin Augusta can’t bear it!’

  ‘I like it very much,’ replied Jenny. ‘It is exactly what I need for my silks and threads, so it was wasted in this room. Adam likes to sit in the library in the evening, you know. We have taken up our readings again – he was used to read to me when we were at Rushleigh – and that’s why I moved the table, so that I’d have my embroidery ready to my hand.’

  ‘Oh, yes! How cosy! I remember thinking how exquisitely you stitched when Mama and I visited you in Russell Square and so much admired the work you were engaged on. It quite put me to shame – and Mama, of course, was never a needlewoman.’

  Jenny could not help wondering how the Dowager had occupied herself at Fontley. Her inspection of the house had given her the poorest opinion of her mother-in-law: besides being no needlewoman she was no housewife either. She had told Jenny that she had been obliged to let the house fall into disrepair, but in her place Jenny would have set stitches to the first split in a brocade curtain; and if her domestic staff had been so much reduced as to have made it impossible for them to keep the furniture polished she would have set about the task herself rather than have allowed wood to grow dull and handles tarnished. She thought that Fontley had suffered as much from a negligent mistress as from an improvident master. The Dowager would have renovated it in excellent taste; but she lacked Jenny’s eye for an undusted table, or a corner left unswept, and, in consequence, her servants had grown careless, even Mrs Dawes, the housekeeper, finding it easier to join her mistress in bemoaning the want of extra footmen and chamber-maids than to keep the remaining servants up to their work. Jenny held Mrs Dawes in contempt, and showed it. She did not mean to do so, but she knew nothing of dissimulation, and her blunt tongue betrayed her. When every evidence of neglect was attributed to the want of an adequate staff she grew more and more curt, finally losing her temper when Mrs Dawes said: ‘In the old days, my lady, we always had a steward, and a groom of the chambers, and things were different.’

  ‘Well, I should hope they were!’ said Jenny. ‘Though what a steward has to do with keeping linen in good order I’m sure I don’t know!’ She saw the housekeeper stiffen, and added, in an attempt at conciliation: ‘I can see that more servants are needed, and I’ll speak to his lordship about it.’

  But the mischief was done. Mrs Dawes was icily civil there-after, and showed her hostility when Jenny discovered a dinner-service in one of the cupboards, and exclaimed as she inspected it: ‘Good gracious, why is this never used, but only that Bristol set, with every plate chipped? Have it all taken out and washed, if you please! It is most elegant!’

  ‘That, my lady, is the Crown Derby china,’ responded Mrs Dawes loftily.

  ‘To be sure it is, and with the Chantilly pattern too. Is it quite complete? We will use it instead of the other.’

  ‘Certainly, my lady,’ said Mrs Dawes, her eyes downcast, and her hands primly folded. ‘If it is his lordship’s wish to have the best china used every day I will have it taken out immediately.’

  Jenny bit back a tart rejoinder. ‘I daresay his lordship won’t know one set from t’other, but we’ll see!’

  She put the question to him as they sat at dinner, saying: ‘I find you have the prettiest Crown Derby china stowed away in a cupboard – the French sprig pattern. Mrs Dawes seems to think it must not be used, but should you object to it if we did use it, my lord?’

  ‘I?’ he said, putting up his brows. ‘Of course I should not!’

  ‘No, I thought you would not – or even notice it!’ Jenny said, with one of her sudden smiles.

  He perfectly understood why the question had been put to him; he said, knowing that his words would spread through the house: ‘I daresay I might not. In any event, my dear, I have nothing to say in such matters, and wish you will do as you think best. You are the mistress of Fontley: I shan’t dispute with you over any changes you may like to make.’

  Later, he asked her if she would prefer another housekeeper in Mrs Dawes’s place. She said at once: ‘Oh, no! Pray don’t think – I know she has been here for ever, and didn’t mean –’

  ‘Try not to rub against the servants!’ he said. ‘I should be very reluctant to turn any of the older ones off: Dawes knew Fontley before I did, you know!’

  ‘Oh, no, no! I never meant – Only they despise me so!’ she blurted out.

  ‘They won’t do so when they know you better.’ He hesitated, and then said gently: ‘Don’t speak to them quite so roughly, Jenny! Most of them are such very old friends of mine!’

  ‘I don’t know how to talk to servants,’ she confessed. ‘You do – but it wouldn’t do for me to copy you. I’ll try to go on better, but it does vex me so when – Well, never mind! Is the cook an old friend of yours?’

  This sudden question made him laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever laid eyes on the cook!’

  ‘No, very likely not, for he’s only been here a twelvemonth. Now, I told you I wouldn’t meddle, but there’s no teaching that man his trade, Adam, and to see you pecking at your food as you do is more than I can bear – though I’m sure I don’t blame you! So, if you’re agreeable, we’ll send for Scholes, and then maybe you’ll fancy your dinner again.’

  ‘I own it would be pleasant, but how will a French-trained cook relish our old-fashioned kitchens here? I doubt if he’ll come into the country, Jenny.’

  ‘He’ll come fast enough when he knows it will mean another twenty pounds added to his wages,’ said Jenny caustically. ‘As for the kitchens, if you don’t wish them to be altered, Scholes must make the best of them; but if you would but put in a good closed stove, like the Bodley we have at Lynton House, you’d find it an economy. The fuel this great open range burns – !’

  ‘Does it? I expect we should have had a different stove years ago. Send for what you like! Anything else?’

  ‘No, thank you. I shall be hiring a few more servants, but that needn’t concern you, for with Lynton House shut up I’m wonderfully beforehand with the world.’

  Mrs Dawes received the news of these forthcoming changes with mixed feelings. Asked to say which of the closed stoves now on the market she considered the best, she preferred to advance no opinion, being, she said, unacquainted with any of them. But this was not true. At Membury Place her dear Miss Charlotte had a closed stove; she had seen and coveted it, and even indulged the hope that his lordship’s rich wife would install one at Fontley. She viewed with less favour the importation of a top-lofty town cook, but was considerably softened by Jenny’s saying: ‘If something’s not done we shall have his lordship dwindling to a thread-paper! Well, I don’t doubt you know as well as I do that for all he never complains or seems to notice what’s set before him he’s very nice in his tastes – not to say capricious! – and if the meat’s not dressed as he likes it he doesn’t eat more of it than would keep a kitten alive.’

  The suggestion that his lordship might waste away from lack of sustenance made an instant appeal. Mrs Dawes relented enough to say that he had always been one who had to be tempted to his dinner. Jenny next asked her if she could recall which warehouse had supplied the brocade that covered certain of the chairs. ‘For if only I could procure it I’d like to have them recovered,�
� she said. ‘Not changing them, but making them the same as they were before. His lordship wouldn’t wish anything to be different, and I wouldn’t for the world – Well, I don’t mean to turn the house out of doors, but what’s worn to shreds must be made new again!’

  Mrs Dawes said that she didn’t know but what she might be able to recall the name of the warehouse; and, to discourage any idea that she had been won over, brought the interview to an end by saying that she was sorry the second housemaid had given Miss Pinhoe cause for complaint, and also that Miss Pinhoe had not seen fit to mention the matter to her – ‘when I should have dealt with it immediately, my lady.’

  The haughty Miss Poolstock had been disliked by every member of the household, but her odious air of consequence had marked her as a dresser of the first respectability. Ten minutes spent in Miss Pinhoe’s company were enough to inform her fellows that she was not at all the sort of superior female a lady of real quality would employ as her personal maid. A rough tongue had brought her into instant collision with Mrs Dawes, and a feud of promising longevity seemed to be inevitable when a chance word revealed to Mrs Dawes that Miss Pinhoe came from her own county. Frigid enquiry elicited the information that Miss Pinhoe had first seen the light at Church Stretton, not seven miles from Mrs Dawes’s birthplace. From that moment the thaw set in, Miss Pinhoe recognizing in the daughter of a well-to-do farmer her social superior, and Mrs Dawes (once this point had been established) admitting Miss Pinhoe into the ranks of her intimates. Neither lady regarded the other with unqualified approval, but to the world they soon presented a solid Salopian front; and bored Dunster and Kinver at every meal in the Room by recalling ancient parochial scandals, and exhaustively pursuing obscure genealogies. Nor was it long before Miss Pinhoe had disclosed an interesting piece of information, which caused Mrs Dawes to regard her mistress with a more tolerant eye. Much would be forgiven to Jenny if she provided Fontley with an heir, but Mrs Dawes suspended final judgement, by no means confident of the issue. In her view, a sickly pregnancy heralded the birth of a daughter: an arrival which would show how unworthy of her position was my lord’s vulgar bride.

  In fact, Jenny was beginning to overcome her sickness; but although she went briskly about her affairs she felt so far from well that she cried off from the Holkham week. Adam did not press the matter, but went alone, to mingle with the farmers of every degree who flocked to Holkham at this season, and to learn as much as he could from their discussions.

  During his absence the new stove was installed; the reliable upholsterers summoned from Lincoln were set to work on the chair-covers; and the entire household was driven into strenuous activity: mending, making, cleaning, and polishing.

  Charlotte, visiting her sister-in-law in case she should be lonely while Adam was away from home, exclaimed in astonishment: ‘Jenny! Good gracious, how different everything looks! I declare, I hardly recognize dear old Fontley!’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Jenny uttered imploringly. ‘Don’t say that! Not different, Charlotte! I have been at such pains – ! You are looking at those curtains, but indeed they are exactly the same colour as the old ones that were so tattered! The same as they were used to be, before they became faded, I mean. I daresay you have forgotten, but when I unpicked the hems I saw what the colour had been, and was able to match the velvet.’

  ‘To be sure!’ Charlotte said hastily. ‘My dear sister, I didn’t mean the least disparagement! It is all beautiful! How clever you have been! All the furniture positively glowing, too, and the handles on that chest quite dazzling! I thought it had been a new one!’

  In her anxiety to convince Jenny that she felt only admiration she praised every improvement rather too enthusiastically, until Jenny said, in a flattened voice: ‘You don’t like it, do you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do! We have all of us so much regretted that poor Papa was unable to keep the house as it should be. I know it was sadly shabby. It is only that at first it seems a little strange – How nonsensical I am! you will laugh at me for missing the dimness, and the faded curtains, but one grows so accustomed – ! We love it so much, you see, that even its shabbiness is dear to us.’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ Jenny said. ‘Don’t you want to see it kept up to the knocker? To my way of thinking, that’s no way of loving it.’ She added quickly: ‘I beg pardon! I shouldn’t have spoken so freely.’

  ‘Oh, no! Of course, you are perfectly right! How pleased dear Adam will be, when he sees all that you have done!’

  Jenny thought that he would not be pleased; and, remembering that Lydia had once expressed the hope that Fontley would not be changed, wondered if she would ever understand the Deverils.

  But Adam neither exclaimed in admiration nor recoiled in dismay when he came home. He reached Fontley some hours later than had been expected, after a tiresome journey. It was past ten o’clock, and the candles had been lit, and the curtains drawn across the tall, Gothic windows. He was tired, and exasperated by a series of mishaps; it did not occur to him that the candle-smoke stains had vanished from the moulded ceiling, or that the furniture shone with beeswax: he only thought that never had his home appeared more mellow or more lovely.

  His plump, commonplace little wife came down the stairs to meet him, treading across the hall with her firm step. She was neither beautiful nor graceful; she was even a little incongruous in so gracious a setting; but she was infinitely comfortable. She smiled at him, saying placidly: ‘That’s nice! Here you are, just in time for supper! We’ll have it in the Blue Parlour, to be cosy.’

  He had told her that he would return in time for dinner, which was served at six, after the country habit. It occurred to him that no matter how long he kept her waiting she never said: ‘How late you are!’ or: ‘What can have detained you?’ He put his arm round her, kissing her cheek. ‘My dear, I’m so repentant! But you’re quite right not to comb my hair: it has not been my fault! First a broken linch-pin, and next one of the wheelers going dead lame! An abominable journey!’

  ‘Oh, how vexatious! And me thinking no more than that you’d put off your start because there was something pleasant offered you to do at Holkham! Well, that’s a great deal too bad, but never mind! Supper will be ready as soon as you are.’

  ‘That will be in five minutes.’ He gave her a hug, and kissed her again, this time on her firm little mouth. ‘You’re so kind to me, Jenny! I wish you may not indulge me so much that I become quite detestable!’

  Her colour flamed into her cheeks; she said gruffly: ‘You’ll never be that to me. Now, you let Kinver pull off your boots, and give you a pair of slippers, but never mind rigging yourself out in style! That’s the best of living in the country: there’s no fear of being surprised by visitors at this hour of night!’

  He took her at her word, reappearing presently in a frogged dressing-gown, and regarding her with a provocative twinkle. She chuckled, but said: ‘Well, now you can be comfortable, at least! How did you fare at Holkham? Was it an agreeable party?’

  ‘Very – but you were right to cry off, I think. A vast crush, and the talk all of agriculture. I hope I may have profited by the discussions, but I felt as ignorant as when I first went to school! Tell me about yourself! How have you been keeping?’

  ‘Oh, I am perfectly stout!’ she asserted. ‘Charlotte was so kind as to pay me a visit – and Dr Tilford, too, which, I collect, he did at your command, my lord! He’s a sensible man, and tells me not to coddle myself.’

  ‘He could have spared his breath! What do you call this excellent chicken-dish? Italian salad, is it? It informs me that Scholes has been restored to us – and thank God for it! Has your new stove arrived? Was it very troublesome to make the change?’

  ‘No worse than what was to be expected,’ she replied. ‘We had the chimney swept, and the walls and ceiling new white-washed into the bargain, so you’d hardly know it for the same dingy old kitchen.’

  She then wished that she had not said this, but Adam merely said: ‘I can’t concei
ve how you can have contrived to get dinner cooked while all this was going forward!’

  ‘Oh, quite easily!’ she said, not disclosing to his male ignorance that the household had subsisted on picnic meals for three hideous days. She asked him instead to describe the clippings to her.

  In general, he took care not to bore her with agricultural talk, but his head was so full of it that he was led on, from the clippings, to tell her about Mr Coke’s experimental farm. She listened, watching him, and thinking that he was talking more to himself than to her. When he spoke of stall-feeding, of hurdling sheep over turnips, of trebling livestock for manure, of shorthorns, and of North Devons, she knew that he had his own acres in mind, not Mr Coke’s. He sat with the fingers of one hand crooked round the stem of his wineglass, his eyes fixed on the dregs in it; and he answered the few questions she put to him rather abstractedly, until she asked if Mr Coke used the Tullian drill, when he looked up quickly, between surprise and amusement, and replied: ‘He has done so for years – but what do you know about the Tullian drill?’

  ‘Only what I’ve read. It dibbles the soil, and sows the seed – oh, and covers it, too, doesn’t it? Is it used here?’

  ‘Not yet. Where did you read about it, Jenny?’

  ‘In one of your books. I have been looking into them, and trying to learn a little from them.’

  ‘My poor girl! Were you reduced so low? I had thought you brought a boxful of books down from London!’

  ‘Oh, I did! But Mansfield Park is the only one I’ve read yet. I kept it by me, and took it up whenever Artificial Manures, and the Four-Course System began to pall. And I must own, Adam, they do pall! But that drill seems to me to be an excellent machine, and I think you should adopt it.’