"A Civil Contract" - читать интересную книгу автора (Хейер Джорджетт)

Chapter XI

The light in Julia’s room was dim, the blinds having been drawn across the windows. Shutting the door, Jenny said cheerfully: “May I come in? Though that’s a silly thing to say when I’m in already!”

She could just perceive Julia, lost in the middle of the large bed. The fair head turned on the pillow. “You!” Julia uttered.

“That’s right,” said Jenny. “I came to see how you did. You won’t mind if I draw the blinds back: I shall be blundering into the furniture if we don’t have a bit more light.”

“Have you come to reproach me?” Julia demanded. “You need not!”

The sunlight flooded the room; Jenny trod over to the bed, saying: “Now, when did I ever do so, goose?” She bent over Julia and kissed her cheek. “Stop fretting yourself to flinders, love!”

Julia shrank, turning her face away. “I wish you hadn’t come! You mean to be kind, I collect, but you don’t understand! If you had sensibility — ”

“Well, I haven’t, so there’s no sense expecting me to behave as if I had. And just as well for Adam I haven’t,” Jenny added, “for if I were to carry on as you do, Julia, he’d be driven demented between the pair of us!”

Julia pulled herself up. “I would not have spoken his name to you, or have uttered a word of what lies between us, if you had but refrained!”

“No, I daresay you wouldn’t,” agreed Jenny, shaking up her pillows. “So I haven’t refrained. Not that it’s an easy thing to talk about, but it makes for awkwardness if we must never mention it. I don’t know how to hide my teeth, either, so you say what you wish, and don’t fear to offend me, because you won’t do it.”

The huge eyes gazed wonderingly at her. “How strange you are!” Julia said. “I suppose I never understood you. But I thought I did! When they told me — showed me the notice in the Gazette — I wouldn’t believe it! You were my friend! You knew, but you stole Adam from me! How could you?”

“That’s more than I can tell you, for I didn’t steal him, and wouldn’t have done so, even if I’d thought I could. What, set myself up as a rival to you? Don’t talk such nonsense, Julia! Papa made the match, unbeknownst to me.”

“Oh, that’s contemptible!” Julia interrupted, flinging up her hand. “Next you will tell me it was not in your power to refuse!”

“No, I shan’t. I did refuse, when he first broached it to me — before I knew how things stood — that things had been put an end to between you and Adam. He couldn’t have married you, Julia! He was all to pieces! I daresay you don’t know what his father’s debts were, for it’s not likely he’d tell you, but Papa knew, and he told me. Adam was selling everything — even Fontley!”

“That at least I knew! And he knew it didn’t weigh with me! I would have lived in a hovel, and counted myself happy! You may smile, but it’s true!”

Jenny begged pardon, but said: “It weighed with him — I think, more than anything. I don’t understand that myself, but I can see what’s under my nose. He wouldn’t have been happy, not if he’d lost Fontley.”

“I would have made him so! Do you think you will? You won’t! It’s me he loves, not you!” She caught her breath, and said quickly: “Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean to say that! Hateful, hateful — ! Go, Jenny! pray go now!”

Jenny paid no heed to this, but answered: “I know that. There’s no pretence of love between him and me: that wasn’t part of the bargain.”

“The bargain!” Julia exclaimed, shuddering. “No, I can never have understood you!”

“Or him,” interpolated Jenny dryly.

Julia stared at her, repeating slowly: “Or him! No — or him! Ah, but yes, I do understand what forced him to do it! But you? For a title? But you never cared for such things! You can’t, have sold yourself for mere position!”

“Why not? I’m not the first, and I shan’t be the last to do so. Easy to despise what you’ve always had!” replied Jenny, returning the stare doggedly.

“I don’t believe it! I couldn’t have liked you if you had been so mercenary!”

“Well, it doesn’t make any odds what you think of me, and the lord knows I’ve felt badly enough about it. I wouldn’t have consented to it if there had been the least chance of his being able to many you, but there wasn’t. He didn’t choose between me and you, Julia: it was between me and ruin. You say he won’t be happy, but at least he’ll be comfortable! What’s more, he’s got Fontley, and for all you may not think it that matters to him.” She paused. “Well, there’s no more to be said on that head. What brought me here was what happened last night.”

Julia winced. “Don’t! I can’t endure any more! Papa — even Mama — ! Good God, do they think — do you think — that I meant to betray myself?”

“Well, your mama and I don’t think it. I can’t answer for his lordship, but I don’t suppose he does either — not but what you can’t blame him, if he cut up stiff, because there’s no denying you did make us all look no-how!”

“Oh, is that all you can think of?” Julia cried bitterly. “What of my mortification? The agony of regaining my senses — seeing all those faces — !” She broke off, covering her eyes with her hand.

“Now, don’t get into a taking, love! It’s not so bad that it can’t be mended,” said Jenny soothingly.

Julia’s hand fell. “Jenny, I didn’t mean to! I thought I could meet him again just as I ought! I could have done so, had he been there at the outset! But he wasn’t! I thought — oh, I was so relieved it made me stupid beyond belief! It didn’t occur to me that he might come later. But he did, and when I turned, and suddenly saw him, so close to me — Jenny, it was the shock that made me faint!”

“You don’t have to tell me that. If it isn’t just like you to fret and fume yourself into such a state that you’d swoon off if a mouse ran across the floor! That’s pretty well what I told them all — though it wasn’t a mouse I set it down to, but the heat.”

“Mama told me how good you were,” Julia said listlessly. “Thank you! But they won’t believe it. They’ll watch me, and whisper about me. Perhaps they’ll pity me. Poor girl! He cried off, you know!”

“Not if I have anything to say in the matter!” interrupted Jenny. “That’s precisely what I mean to nip in the bud, so I’ll thank you not to fall into a lethargy when what’s wanted is a bit of rumgumption!”

“Why should you care?” said Julia, sighing.

“Have a little sense, Julia, do!” begged Jenny. “Very agreeable it would be to have people saying that about my husband!”

Julia looked startled. “But they wouldn’t! They know the circumstances — that he couldn’t help himself!”

“That won’t stop them thinking he must have treated you pretty shabbily, if they see you looking as if you was sunk in affliction! He won’t look so, whatever he feels, because he’s too much the gentleman to let anyone think he don’t like being married to me, so the end of it will be that we’ll have people saying he’s downright heartless, not caring a straw for anything but a fortune, and happy as long as he’s rich!”

“You need not be afraid!” Julia said tragically. “I am going to return to my grandmother, and live retired. I daresay my very existence will be forgotten within a year!”

“More likely they’d have to build another hotel in Tunbridge Wells to take in your admirers,” said Jenny, keeping her temper.

Julia gave a gasp, and a quiver of laughter. “Oh, how can you be so — so odiously unfeeling?”

“Well, you know I’ve got no sensibility. But I haven’t windmills in my head either, so I’ll tell you what you will do, and that’s to confound all the spiteful toads who’d be only too ready to crow over you.” She caught the flash in Julia’s eyes, and continued: “Yes, I can just hear them! Pretending to pity you, like you said, but fairly licking their lips, and saying they’d known all along the Sylph would have a downfall. For you can’t knock all the other girls into flinders without stirring up a lot of spite and jealousy: that I do know!”

Julia sat up. “But how?” she demanded. “Papa wouldn’t consent to a betrothal, but people knew!”

“What if they did? They won’t think it wonderful that a girl that has as many beaux dangling after her as you have fell out of love as easily as she fell into it! Why, you were barely out of the schoolroom! Then you didn’t see Adam for months, so what’s more natural than you should find you’d made a mistake?” She ignored a deep sigh from Julia, and began to draw on her gloves. “So I’ll call for you tomorrow, at about four o’clock, and you’ll drive in the Park with me, like the good friends we’ve always been.”

“Oh, no!” Julia exclaimed imploringly. “No, I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. And I don’t mind owning that I’ll be very much obliged to you if you will, because I don’t care to drive alone, and I’m not yet acquainted with people. Two or three bows are the most I’ll get, if I go by myself, but if you’re sitting beside me the carriage will be mobbed, I daresay.” She got up, as a reluctant laugh escaped Julia. “And if you could manage to faint the next time you go to a party — but not at Lady Bridgewater’s assembly, mind, because she said last night she should send us a card, and it won’t answer if you do it when Adam’s present — !”

“Jenny, you are too detestable!” protested Julia, between tears and laughter. “As though I could!”

“You could, if you set your mind to it,” said Jenny, with a tight little smile. “You’ve only to think you’re stifling from the heat, and stifle you will!”

She bestowed a valedictory pat on Julia’s shoulder, and went away without giving her time to consider the implication of this remark. She was met on the floor below by Lady Oversley, who looked an anxious question. She replied to it with a nod, and a smile. “I didn’t say anything about her coming to dine with us, but she’ll drive out with me tomorrow, never fear! I’ll ask her then.”

Lady Oversley embraced her, shedding a few tears of relief. “Oh, my dear Jenny, I am so very much obliged to you! Was she — was she still in such distress?”

“That’s more than I can tell, ma’am,” replied Jenny, in her blunt way. “There’s no saying — at least, I can’t say, because we’re no more like than a dock and a daisy, and I don’t understand her, and never did. She thinks she is, and it has always seemed to me that she’s one of those who’d die of the influenza only because she took it into her head it was smallpox!”

This was rather beyond Lady Oversley, but when she presently recounted it to her lord he looked a good deal struck, and said that Jenny was shrewder than he had supposed. “That daughter of yours, my dear,” he said, “lives always in alt, and now we see what comes of it!”

She was accustomed to his very unfair habit of disclaiming responsibility for the existence of any of his children who had vexed him, so she let this pass, agreeing that Julia was too imaginative.

“Ay, she takes after you,” said his lordship inexcusably.

Julia remained in her bedchamber all day, but she appeared at the breakfast-table on the following morning. She looked pale, and was obviously in depressed spirits; and when her father, forcibly admonished by Lady Oversley, greeted her with great heartiness, she responded with a wince, and the travesty of a smile. But by a lucky chance a new walking-dress of French cambric, trimmed with frills of broad-lace, was sent home that day, and it was so pretty, particularly when worn with one of the new Oldenburg hats, that Julia was insensibly cheered. It had seemed at one moment as if she meant to refuse to drive with Jenny, but when she had been persuaded to put on the new dress, and her mama, her maid, her two younger sisters, and their governess had all fallen into raptures she changed her mind, and went out perfectly readily when the Lynton barouche drew up before the door.

Jenny, herself expensively but not very becomingly attired in Brunswick gray lustring, admired the dress too, and so, when they reached the Park, did a number of other persons. If the carriage was not mobbed, at least the coachman had to pull up his horses a great many times. It was the hour of the fashionable promenade, and the Park thronged with vehicles, from ladies’ barouches to the Corinthians’ curricles; with horsemen, mounted on high-bred hacks; and with exquisites, strolling along the path beside the roadway. It seemed to Jenny that every second person bowed or waved to her lovely companion, and since Julia wished to exchange greetings with her friends, and a large number of gentlemen were eager to pay homage to her, Jenny resigned herself to a dawdling progress. She had the satisfaction of receiving several civil acknowledgements herself, but she privately considered this promenade a waste of time, and was rather bored. It was otherwise with Julia, always responsive to atmosphere, and reviving like a thirsty plant under a shower of compliments and gallantries. The colour returned to her cheeks, the sparkle to her eyes, and her pretty laugh was so spontaneous that no one could have supposed her to be nursing a broken heart.

Not all her admirers were youthful. The Marquis of Rockhill, riding with Brough beside him, stayed for longer than any beside the barouche. He was very civil to Jenny, but she saw the warm glint in his eyes when he looked at Julia, and was not deceived into thinking that he had stopped for any other purpose than to talk to her. She thought him an elderly flirt for Julia, but she guessed him to be a notable conquest, and realized that his caressing manner was attractive to Julia. It was plain that he had a tendre for her, but he did not try to monopolize her. When Brough claimed her attention he at once began to talk to Jenny, and did not let hiseyes stray towards Julia while doing so, which she thought unusually polite. He was apparently well-acquainted with the Deveril family, and when Jenny disclosed that her mother-in-law would be in Grosvenor Street during the following week he said that he must call to pay his respects to her. “Such a very old friend — almost a cradle-friend, one might say!”

On an impulse, she said abruptly: “Would you care to dine with us?” She saw his brows lift in surprise, and explained: “You see, she means to stay only two nights, so I fancy she won’t have time for morning-visitors. I mean to invite the Oversleys to dine, and to bring Miss Oversley as well, and it would — we should be very happy if you liked to come, and not care for its being an informal party.”

Under their heavy lids his penetrating eyes looked down into hers. A smile crept into them; he said softly: “But I shall be delighted to come, Lady Lynton! An excellent scheme! Parties composed of such intimate friends as the Deverils and the Oversleys are always better for a little leaven, are they not?” The smile deepened in his eyes as he saw the wary look in hers, but he said no more, only bowing and then turning away to tell Brough that they must not detain the carriage longer.

In another minute the gentlemen had ridden on, and Jenny, as a sudden apprehension smote her, demanded: “He is a bachelor, isn’t he?”

“Yes, of course. He’s a cousin of Rockhill’s, you know. Lady Adversane is Rockhill’s — ”

“No, no, not Brough! Rockhill!”

“Oh! No, not a bachelor. He — ”

“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Jenny, dismayed. “I invited him to dine with us next week! Whatever must he think of me? As though I didn’t know better! Oh, dear!”

“Stupid!” Julia said, laughing. “He’s a widower!”

“Thank heaven!” said Jenny devoutly.

Julia glanced curiously at her. “What made you invite him? I didn’t know you were acquainted with him.”

“I’m not — well, barely, at all events! He said he hoped to see Lady Lynton when she comes to town, so I asked him to dine. I told him it was to be quite informal. Your papa and mama are coming, and you too, I hope, for Lydia will be there, you know.”

“I?” gasped Julia. “Oh, no! You cannot ask that of me!”

Casting a warning glance at the back of the coachman, Jenny said: “Well, I own it won’t be a very lively party, but I mean to invite Brough as well, so I trust it won’t be such a dead bore as you think! I wish I knew some more gentlemen! But Adam’s friends are all in France, so there’s only Cousin Osbert, unless — Would your brother come, do you think?”

“Jenny, I won’t, I won’t!” said Julia, under her breath.

“Well, if that’s so Lord Rockhill will think it a regular take-in, for I told him you’d be there, which was why he accepted.”

Except for reiterating that she would not come, Julia said no more, but lapsed into pensive dejection.

At home she was not so forbearing. The only effect Lady Oversley’s entreaties had upon her was to cast her into agitation; and a fit of hysterics might have been the outcome had not her father come into the room, demanding to know what the devil was the matter now. Upon being told, he favoured his wife and daughter with a very tolerable impersonation of a Roman parent, announcing with such unusual sternness that Julia would obey him that she positively quailed, and ventured on no more contumacious a response than an imploring: “Oh, Papa, pray don’t make me go!”

“Not another word!” commanded his lordship. “I am very much displeased with you, Julia, and if you try my patience any further you will be sorry for it!”

At these terrible words both ladies dissolved into tears. His lordship, finding his role rather beyond his power to maintain, beat a dignified retreat, frowning heavily enough to lend colour to Lady Oversley’s statement that Papa was very, very angry. The thought that she, who had always been Papa’s pet, was now in his black books proved to be too much for Julia’s fortitude. She settled down to cry in good earnest, and so despairingly that Papa had to be recalled to soothe her with assurances of his continued regard. As soon as she knew herself to be still loved she grew calmer, and when he said that he sympathized with her much more than she guessed she was so passionately grateful that she was ready to promise to do anything he wished.

When the news of the projected dinner-party was broken to Adam he was almost as much dismayed, but concealed it better. Jenny, at work on the first of a set of chair-covers, asked him placidly if he thought she might invite Mr Oversley, and he replied, in an indifferent voice: “You may do so, of course, but I should doubt whether he’ll come. If I know Charlie, hell think it by far too slow!”

He was right, but Mr Oversley did grace the party with his reluctant presence, because his father, using none of the diplomacy he found necessary when dealing with his daughter, told him that he must.

“What, drive Tab to the Lyntons? No, dash it, sir — !” protested Mr Oversley, revolted by the thought of this family expedition.

“Nonsense! If Jenny wants you she shall have you! I dare say she needs you to make up her numbers.”

Mr Oversley, who had been upon the strut for over a year, directed a look of pained reproach at his parent, and said: “Much obliged to her!”

Lord Oversley laughed, but told him not to be a coxcomb. “The thing is, Charlie, she has hit on this way of bringing your sister about, after that shocking business at Nassington House, and mighty good-natured of her it is!”

“Here, I say!” exclaimed Mr Oversley, alarmed. “Julia ain’t going off into a faint, is she? Because if there’s to be any of that kind of bobbery — ”

“No, no, she has promised to behave just as she ought!” said his father reassuringly.