A Civil Contract

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Yes — if you are pleased. Your house, Adam! You thought you had sold it to Mr Stickney, but he was only acting for Papa!”

  He stared at her. “Your father bought my house?” he said.

  “Yes, and he would have liked to have given you the title-deeds on our wedding-day, only they were not quite prepared, so then he thought he wouldn’t tell you till all the painting and papering was done, and the house ready for us to step into. I never thought it would be in so short a time, but he writes me that — ”

  “Was this your notion?” he interrupted.

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t think of it,” she replied. Though it was through my telling Papa that you meant to sell the house that it came about. He said immediately that he would buy it, and give it back to you, if I thought you would like it, so — ”

  “And you did think so?”

  She perceived suddenly that he was very white. Her own colour receded; she faltered: “Why, yes! I thought — ”

  “I put the house up for sale as a means of providing for my sisters!”

  “Yes, yes, I know! You told me!”

  “And you thought I should like him to buy it? At a price I always considered to be extortionate, too!”

  Her brow cleared; she said, smiling: “Oh, but you need not think of that! It was nothing to Papa: I promise you he didn’t grudge it! Indeed, he laughed about it, and said that you had a sure card, in Wimmering! Papa never dislikes a man for being what he calls, a deep old file! And in this case I believe that he didn’t wish to haggle — oh, I know he did not!” She hesitated, and then said: “You see, when he asked me why you meant to sell the town house, and I told him, he — he was very much struck. He said that he honoured you for it, though it was — he thought — nonsensical. He is very shrewd, you know: he understood immediately that it would not do for him to tell you — offer to — ” Her voice failed; she lifted a hand to her burning cheek. “Oh, was I wrong to permit it? Papa was so pleased to think he might furnish you with — with what you needed, without hurting your pride — ”

  “Without — Oh, my God!” he ejaculated. “So this was to be an agreeable surprise, was it? You must excuse me: it is intolerable to me! Don’t you understand — No: you don’t, and I can’t explain it to you. I can only trust that your father won’t suffer too great a loss over it. I daresay he won’t, if he has furbished the house up smartly. Recommend him to place it on the market again at once! I shall be happy to learn that he has disposed of it at a profit!”

  He went out of the room as he spoke, with a hasty, limping step. Her hand flew out involuntarily, but he was not looking at her. Her hand dropped; she did not speak; and the next instant the door had shut with a snap behind him.

  She did not see him again for several hours. He had a horse saddled, and rode for miles, at first a prey to fury, but presently, as rage abated, falling into a despairing mood. He had been made to feel his golden shackles; he looked into the future, seeing himself the slave of Mr Chawleigh’s benevolence, and wished, for a dreadful few minutes, that the shot that had lamed him had found a more vital target.

  When he returned to Rushleigh Manor it was already past the dinner-hour, but the butler told him that my lady had not yet come downstairs. He found her at her dressing-table, with her maid clasping her pearls round her neck. Her eyes turned quickly towards the door. He saw how anxiously she looked at him; and he smiled at her, saying: “I’m afraid I’m late! Don’t scold me! I went farther than I knew, but I shan’t keep you waiting above a few minutes.”

  “Well, as though it mattered a straw!” she replied. “I thought very likely you might be late, and told them to keep dinner back. Did you have an agreeable ride?”

  He waited until Martha had left the room, and said, as the door was closed: “Not very. I beg your pardon, Jenny! I was uncivil to you, and unkind: forgive me!”

  “There’s no need for you to beg my pardon,” she replied. “It was my fault. I should have asked you — not have allowed Papa to buy the house without telling you.”

  A gulf yawned between them; as though she saw it, she said, before he could answer: “You’ll be thinking I ought to have known better without your telling me. Well; I didn’t: no use pretending I did! I see now, though not quite the way you do, I daresay. That’s because Papa has always been so rich that I don’t regard money much — don’t think it signifies, in the way you do.”

  “You might well wonder why, having accepted so much from your father, I should ride rusty over this. I can’t tell you. Don’t let us talk about it any more!” He bent over her, and kissed her cheek. “You are much kinder to me than I deserve,” he told her. “I must go and change my rig before our dinner is quite spoilt.”

  “Never mind that!” she said; “Tell me what you wish me to do! You said, recommend Papa to put the house up for sale again: if you meant it, I’ll try to make him understand, but I shan’t be able — I know I shan’t!”

  “There seems to be no end to my incivilities,” he said ruefully. “I wish he hadn’t done it, but since he has I can’t mend it.”

  “I need not tell him? Thank you! — he would be so disappointed! He has taken such pains over it! You see, there’s nothing he enjoys more than planning delightful surprises, or giving one costly presents, and — and if one doesn’t like them — well, he pretends not to care, but one can’t but see how cast down he is! Which is why — ”

  “My dear, indeed you need say no more! We won’t disappoint him.”

  He gave her shoulder a pat, and turned away. As he reached the door, she blurted out: “You won’t like it — and I never knew that he meant to — Adam, he writes to me that he has furnished it for us!”

  He paused, his hand on the door-knob. “Has he? Generous of him! I am much obliged to him! I am sure it was all sadly shabby. And my mother took so much from it, didn’t she? I expect I shall hardly recognize the house when I see it again.”

  He went out of the room as he spoke, and when they met, a little later, he made no reference to the subject, and nor did she. It was never mentioned again until the arrival of Charlotte’s letter, when Jenny’s tongue tripped over the words Grosvenor Street, and she changed them quickly to London. She would have liked to have been able to talk naturally about the house, but dared not. She had discovered that when Adam was angry he retired behind a barrier which was as impenetrable as it was intangible. Accustomed as she was to her father’s unrestrained manifestations of wrath, it had surprised her that Adam should have felt that his own mild outburst called for apology. Had he ripped up at her she would have been sorry, but not alarmed; his forebearance set her at a distance, and his unfailing courtesy made her more frightened of offending than a fit of the sullens would have done.

  In the end it was he who broached the dangerous topic, asking her if servants had been engaged. She replied nervously: “Yes — that is, Papa said he would leave it to Mr Wimmering to hire servants, thinking that he would know best — and, of course, only as a temporary thing, so that if you don’t like any of them, or — ”

  “My dear Jenny, no one knows less than I do about such matters! I’m much obliged to your father. The horrifying thought occurred to me that we might return to town to find ourselves stranded, with no one to cook the meals and sweep the rooms but your Martha, and my Kinver — both of whom, I am persuaded, would have taken instant offence, and deserted us.”

  “Papa felt that you would not want to be troubled with such matters, when you had so much else to do — besides wishing it to be a surprise.” She recollected that this rider was far from being felicitous, and hurried on: “The arrangement is a makeshift one, of course: if you consider too few servants have been hired — or too many — ”

  “Well, that will be for you to decide,” he interposed. “The house is yours, and I hope you will manage it exactly as seems best to you.”: ‘

  Her heart sank; she said: “No — pray don’t say that! Papa gives it to you, not to me!”

  �
�Ah, but you are forgetting that I endowed you with all my worldly goods!” he said lightly.

  It flashed across her mind that he had not called Fontley hers. Then her thoughts were diverted by his saying: “Don’t forget to ask me for a frank when you write to tell your father that we shall be in town on Tuesday!”

  She laughed at that, and protested: “Now, you know it was only once that I forgot you could give me one! I think I should write to him directly. He will want to see me, you know.”

  “You will ask him to dine, of course.”

  Her face lit up; she said eagerly: “May I do so?”

  “But, Jenny — !”

  “He told me I must not,” she disclosed. “He said he would visit me now and then, but privately.”

  “Well, it would be quite improper in you to beg him not to talk nonsense, so just tell him that we both look forward to seeing him in Grosvenor Street at seven o’clock on — shall we say Wednesday?”

  “Thank you! It will please him very much. I’ll write to him immediately!”

  She hurried away, so that he was not obliged to answer her, which he hardly knew how to do, since they were not upon such terms of intimacy as would have made it possible for him to speak at all frankly.

  They reached Grosvenor Street a little before dusk on the 3rd May. Adam was relieved to see only two footmen reinforcing the middle-aged butler; but this alleviation of his worst fears was not of long duration: by the time he had reached the drawing-room on the first floor he would scarcely have noticed it had there been a dozen stalwart lackeys, all arrayed in dazzling livery, in attendance upon him.

  He had said that he would not recognize the house, and he now discovered how true was this prophecy, Mr Chawleigh’s taste for opulence had been given full rein. Even the dining-room had not escaped his transforming hand, for although Lady Lynton had removed none of its furniture, he had given it a new carpet of Turkish origin, and new curtains of a rich red brocade, draped, and looped, and embellished with bright gold cords and tassels. He had also supplemented the illumination cast by four massive candelabra by several girandoles. In the hall, and on the half-landing, his passion for lights had expressed itself in a succession of oil lamps, concealed in alabaster bowls, and mounted on tall pedestals. At the foot of the staircase, another of these lamps, on a shaft in the form of a triform Egyptian figure supported by sphinxes, was set on the lowest baluster, and afforded the first sign of what was to be abundantly proved when the first pair of stairs had been ascended: Mr Chawleigh had fallen a victim to the fashionable rage for the Egyptian and the classical styles. The Dowager had stripped the drawing-room of almost everything but the large Aubusson carpet, and on its delicately hued pattern were placed couches with crocodile-legs, occasional tables inlaid with marble and wreathed with foliated scrolls, lyre-backed chairs, footstools on lion-legs, and several candelabra on pedestals entwined with lotos and anthemion garlands.

  Jenny had never seen the house before, and, treading silently beside Adam, looked about her in doubt, not knowing where the Deveril influence ended and the Chawleigh began. Certain of her doubts were resolved on entering the drawing-room, where the glossy green and gold stripes of the upholstery caused her to say apologetically: “Papa has always been very partial to green.” A glance at Adam’s countenance informed her that he did not share this partiality, and she added cheerfully: “Well, those stripes won’t do in this room, but I’ll soon attend to that. I’ll start at once to work a set of chair covers, and Papa will see in a flash that the rest must be altered to suit them.”

  “But not at his expense, if you please, Jenny.”

  “Oh, no! That is — ”

  “I should have said, at his added expense. He has made a very handsome settlement, you know, besides all else, and I had rather by far endure these stripes than that you should ask him to change them.”

  “I won’t,” she promised. “I only meant that he won’t wonder at my covering the chairs again when he sees the ones I shall embroider. Pray tell me what you wish, Adam! Must I not accept gifts from Papa?”

  “What he chooses to give you for yourself is no concern of mine. But we’ll settle our household accounts ourselves.”

  “Yes, Adam.” She added, after a thoughtful moment: “Though it may be a little difficult now and then. You see, whenever he sees some new thing which takes his fancy, like a Patent Lamp, or a washing-machine, I am afraid he will buy it for us, because that’s his way. Particularly anything which he thinks ingenious, like the Rumford Roaster, which he would have for our kitchen in Russell Square, I didn’t have to ask you if it was he who set up all those lamps: I knew it was, the instant I clapped eyes on them: lighting is one of the things he is particularly interested in. He was one of the biggest subscribers to Mr Winsor’s Light and Heat Company, and now, of course, he has a finger in the Gas Light and Coke Company.”

  “Good God, will he try to bring gas-lamps into the house?”

  She laughed. “No, no, he hasn’t run as mad as that! Though I’ve heard him say that the day will come when we shall have gas in houses!”

  “Not in my house!” said Adam firmly.

  “No, indeed!” she agreed.

  She scanned the room again, but beyond remarking that it was a droll notion to set sofas on crocodile-legs made no further criticisms. However, when she reached her bedchamber she gave a gasp, and exclaimed: “Good gracious, does Papa think I’m Cleopatra? Oh, I never saw such a bed in my life! Whatever does he suppose I shall look like in it?”

  It was certainly a startling piece of furniture, of mahogany inlaid with silver, the head decorated with carved Isis. Adam was amused, but Martha Pinhoe was unequivocally disapproving. “Well, may you ask, Miss Jenny — my lady, I should say! Heathenish, that’s what I call it, and I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over the Master! For there’s worse to come!”

  “Good God, what?” demanded Jenny.

  “You’ll see, my lady!” said Miss Pinhoe darkly. “But not before his lordship! Indecent, that’s what it is! You wait, that’s all!”

  “If it’s indecent I think I ought to see it, not her ladyship!” interposed Adam. “Go away, Jenny! Martha is going to disclose the horrid secret to me, so that I may decide whether it’s fit for you to see.”

  “For shame, my lord!” said Miss Pinhoe, whose first deferential manner towards him had lasted for rather less than a week. Her defences breached by the smile which had won for him so many well-wishers, it had not been many days before she was treating him as though he as well as Jenny had been her nurseling. She now told him, with a severity which only the initiated would have recognized as a sign of doting fondness, that it was no laughing matter. He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her, but she was adamant, so he went away, to discover what fell changes the hand of Mr Chawleigh had wrought in the bedchamber which had been his father’s. He was relieved to find that the only innovation was a shaving-stand of really excellent design. He was exchanging a few words with his valet when the most spontaneous peal of laughter he had yet heard from Jenny gave the lie to Miss Pinhoe’s words, and drew him back to his bride’s room.

  “Oh, my lord, only look!” Jenny besought him, mopping her eyes with one hand, and indicating with the other the door leading into the dressing-room. “Oh, I shall die! Where did Papa come by such a notion?”

  Mr Chawleigh, transforming the dressing-room into a bathroom, lined with mirrors and draped with silk curtains, had provided his daughter with a bath in the shape of a shell: a circumstance which prompted Adam to say, after a stunned moment: “Clearly, from Botticelli — the Birth of Venus!”

  “Oh!” wailed Jenny, cast into fresh agonies. “And I’m not even pretty!”

  “No, and nor you’re not an abandoned hussy neither, my lady!” interpolated her outraged handmaiden. “Now, give over this instant! I’m sure I don’t know what his lordship must be thinking of you, laughing yourself into stitches over what a modest young lady would blush to mention!”

&n
bsp; “Yes, but it’s a most ingenious affair, you know!” said Adam, who was inspecting it in mingled interest and amusement. “Look, Jenny! The water comes into it through this pipe, from that cylinder — I wonder what fuel is used for heating it?”

  “It’s no matter what’s used, my lord!” said Miss Pinhoe, her eyes snapping. “While I have charge of her ladyship, she’ll have hot water brought up to her bedroom, and take her bath before the fire, like a Christian! As for kindling a fire under that nasty contraption, why, I’d be afraid for my life! The next thing we’d know would be that it had exploded, like the new boiler, which was another of the Master’s clever notions, and if you don’t remember what a mess that made of everything, Miss Jenny, I do!”

  Jenny’s bathroom was not Mr Chawleigh’s only clever notion. Having cast a critical eye over the sanitary arrangements in Grosvenor Street, he drove his army of plumbers to create, out of the antiquated apartment discreetly tucked under the staircase, a water-closet which, in his own phrase, was Something Like. When he dined with the young couple on the following evening, he insisted on demonstrating and explaining to Adam the several features which made the new Bramah model superior to the old; and discoursed with so much assurance on valves, sliders, overhead cisterns, and stink-traps that Adam presently said curiously: “You know a great deal about these things, sir!”

  “Ay, you may lay your life I do. You won’t find Jonathan Chawleigh investing his blunt in something he don’t understand, my lord!” replied Mr Chawleigh.

  He enjoyed himself very much that evening, but he warned his daughter not to make a habit of inviting him to her house. “For I don’t expect it, and, what’s more, I told his lordship at the outset that there’d be no need for him to fear he’d have me hanging on him like a barnacle. Now, don’t look glum, love! I’ll visit you now and now, when you’re not expecting company, but don’t you dish me up to your grand friends, because it wouldn’t do — not if you’re to cut a figure in society, which I’ve set my heart on.”

  “I know you have, Papa, but if you’re thinking I coaxed Adam into letting me invite you tonight you’re out! He said I was to do so, and that’s how it will always be, I think, because he is — he is most truly the gentleman!”