“Now you are exposing my ignorance! Is it so different?”
“Oh, yes! In London, you know, one buys, but in the country one makes — or things grow, like cabbages and apples and eggs — Now, don’t laugh at me! you know very well what I mean! Pigs, too: fancy curing one’s own hams! You’d hardly credit it, but until I came here I had never seen cows milked, or had the least notion how butter was made. I like watching what they do on the farm as well as anything. Have you a farm at Fontley?”
“A home farm? Yes — though not, I’m ashamed to say, such a neat one as this!”
She accepted this without comment, but asked, after a moment, if Fontley were as large as Rushleigh Manor.
Rushleigh was not Lord Nassington’s principal seat; and if Adam had been asked to describe it he would have called it a pretty little place in Hampshire. In fact, it was a charming Queen Anne house of mellow red brick, set in a small park; but it bore so little resemblance to Fontley that he was startled into exclaiming: “Fontley? But, my dear Jenny — ! There can be no comparison!”
“Do you mean that Fontley is larger?” she said, not, perhaps, dismayed, but certainly awed.
“Yes, of course it is!” He checked himself, and added, with a laugh and a faint flush: “I can never think any house superior to Fontley, you know. Now you will be expecting a Chatsworth, or a Holkham!”
“No, I shan’t. I’ve never seen either, so how could I? I collect that Fontley is very big?”
“It is bigger than this house, of course, but — well, it is so different! None of the rooms in it is precisely handsome, except for the Great Hall, but there are many more of them than there are here. Perhaps you will be disappointed, or say, as my mother does, that it is shockingly inconvenient, with far too many passages, and staircases, and rooms leading one out of the other, You see, it wasn’t built to a plan, as this one was. A part of it — all that remains of the original Priory — is very old indeed, but my predecessors added to it, and altered it, each according to his fancy, until it grew to be — I suppose one might say a perfect hotch-potch! Most of it is Elizabethan — but don’t be afraid that you’ll find yourself in a bedroom with an uneven floor and a ceiling so low that you can touch it! The principal bedrooms are in the wing my grandfather built. I hope you’ll like it — and can set your mind at rest on one point at least! We have no ghost to trouble you, though we have got a ruined chapel!”
“I don’t believe in ghosts. Is ft a real ruin?”
“Very completely. Indeed, hardly anything of it remains standing.”
“I mean, you didn’t make it?”
“Make it? he repeated.
“Build it? One of Papa’s acquaintances did that, when everything Gothic was fashionable, and I believe it was much admired.”
“Oh!” he said, rather blankly. “No, we didn’t make ours: that was done for us, by zealots, during the Civil War.”
“Yes, of course: I should have known that was how it must have been,” she said apologetically. “You wouldn’t have any need to build a ruin.”
Such interchanges as this might disconcert him, but they amused him as well. It was not until she broke the news to him that it was her father who had bought the house in Grosvenor Street that any serious rift occurred between them.
He was reading a letter from Wimmering when she came into the room, holding in her hand a single sheet covered over with Mr Chawleigh’s undistinguished scrawl, and exclaiming: “Oh, Adam, the post brought me a letter from Papa!”
He looked up. “Did it? I hope he is well?”
“Oh, yes! That is, he doesn’t say, but he never ails! The thing is that he has contrived to do what even I thought was impossible, in such a short space of time. I should have known him better! Particularly when he promised me he would, if he had to hire a whole army of workmen, which I should think he must have done. Papa never promises what he can’t perform!”
“No, I’m sure he doesn’t. What is it that he has done? Something that pleases you very much, I collect!”
“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.”