“Good God, sir, no!”
“Nay, I mean it! You’ll be doing me a favour!”
“Doing you a favour to take such a treasure from you? My dear Mr Chawleigh, I could not!”
“Now don’t say that!” begged Mr Chawleigh. “You take it, and I’ll know I’ve hit on something which you do like, and that’ll give me more pleasure than what putting it into one of my cabinets would, for it’s something I was thinking I never would do. You don’t drive the curricle I had built, for you, nor — ”
His cheeks burning, Adam interrupted: “I — I found my father’s curricle, almost new — ! It seemed a pity — and I had a fancy to — ”
“Ay, well, no need to colour up! Your taste don’t in general jump with mine. Lord, did you think I hadn’t twigged that? No, no, a Jack Pudding I may be, but no one’s ever called Jonathan Chawleigh a bleater!”
“Certainly I have not!” Adam said, trying to hide his discomfiture. “As for my not liking what you’ve given me, sir, ask Jenny if I wasn’t delighted with the shaving-stand you placed in my room!”
“That’s nothing! You take this bowl, my lord, and it will be something.”
“Thank you. I can’t resist — though I know I ought!” Adam said, receiving the bowl from him, and holding it between his hands. “You are a great deal too good to me, but you need never think I don’t value this treasure as I should. You have given my house an heirloom!”
“Well,” said Mr Chawleigh, much gratified, “I’m sure I didn’t look for you to say that, but I don’t deny it’s as good a piece as you’ll find anywhere — and not bought for a song either!”
Jenny said, in a practical tone that betrayed none of the relief she felt: “Now, where will you have it put, Adam? It ought to be under lock and key, but it won’t look well all amongst the Bow China, and I don’t care to turn that out of the cabinet, for it belongs to your family, besides being very pretty.”
“Don’t trouble your head over it, my dear! I know just where I mean to put it,” Adam said, turning the bowl carefully between his thin fingers. “What a lustre, sir! How can you bear to part with it? No, Jenny, it would not look well amongst the Bow China! It is going to stand alone in the library at Fontley, in the embrasure at present occupied by that very ugly bust of one of my forebears.” He set the bowl down on the table, saying as he did so: “When you come to visit us, sir, you shall tell me if you approve of my taste!”
“Nay, I wouldn’t want you to put it in your ancestor’s place!” said Mr Chawleigh. “It wouldn’t be seemly!”
“My ancestor can remove himself to the gallery. I don’t want to look at him, and this I do want to look at. There are wall-sconces on either side of the embrasure, sir, and — But you will see for yourself!”
“Now, don’t you run on so fast, my lord!” Mr Chawleigh admonished him. “It’s — not by any means a settled thing that I’ll be visiting you in the country.”
“You’re mistaken, sir. I know you don’t care for the country, but you must resign yourself.”
“Well,” said Mr Chawleigh, intensely pleased, “I don’t deny I’d like to see this Fontley of yours, but I told you at the outset you wouldn’t find me foisting myself on to you, and no more you will.”
“I hope you’ll think better of that decision, sir. I shall be obliged to kidnap you, if you don’t. That’s a fair warning!”
Mr Chawleigh’s formidable bulk was shaken by chuckles. “Eh, it would puzzle you to do that, lad — my lord, I should say!”
“You should not — as I have frequently told you! It wouldn’t puzzle me in the least: I should hire a gang of masked bravoes to do the thing. So let us have no more of your flummery, sir!”
Mr Chawleigh thought this an excellent joke, but it was not until he had been assured that he would not arrive at Fontley to find the house full of his son-in-law’s grand friends that he could be brought to consent to the scheme.
“A nice thing when I have to beg and pray my father to pay me a visit!” Jenny said severely. “And well do I know you wouldn’t have hesitated, not for a moment, if Lydia had been going with us!”
This sally made Mr Chawleigh laugh heartily. He denied the accusation, but admitted that it seemed to him a great pity Lydia was not to remain in her brother’s charge.
In this opinion he met with agreement, but neither Adam nor Jenny could feel that it would be proper to keep her away from the Dowager, whose letters were becoming ever more querulous, and who described herself as counting the moments until her youngest loved one should be restored to her.
So, when the fete in the parks was over, Lydia went regretfully back to Bath, bearing with her a store of rich memories, and renewed theatrical longings. One visit to Drury Lane had been enough to set her on fire. She had sat spellbound throughout a performance of Hamlet, her lips eagerly parted, and her wide gaze fixed on the new star that had appeared in the theatrical firmament. So entranced had she been that she had barely uttered a syllable from start to finish; and when she had emerged from this cataleptic state she had begged to be taken home before the farce, since she could not endure to listen to any other actors in the world after having been so ravished by Kean. Subsequent visits (two of which she had coaxed out of Mr Chawleigh) to see Kean play in Othello, and Riches, had confirmed her in her first opinion of his genius, and had provided her with her only disappointment: that she had come to London too late to see him as Shylock, in which rôle he had taken the town by storm, in this, his opening London season. In the first heat of her enthusiasm she could imagine no greater felicity than to play opposite to him, and startled Jenny by evolving various schemes for the attainment of this object. These quite scandalized Mr Chawleigh, who begged her not to talk so silly, and nearly promoted a quarrel by saying that he couldn’t see what there was in such a miserable little snirp as Kean to send the town mad.
Adam entered gravely into all his sister’s plans, and was far more successful than Jenny or Mr Chawleigh in convincing her that they would not answer. He wasted no breath on foolish arguments, but he did suggest that perhaps Kean might not think a lady half a head taller than himself quite the ideal stage partner. These casual words sank in; Lydia became thoughtful; and when it next occurred to her sympathetic elder brother that an actress who excelled in comedy would find too little scope for her genius in the company of one acclaimed for his portrayals of the great tragic rôles, she was most forcibly struck by the truth of this observation. So, although it would have been too much to have said that she no longer cherished hankerings, Adam was reasonably confident, when he put her on the Bath Mail with her maid, that she would not prostrate their fond parent by divulging them to her.
Chapter XVI
Two days later the Lyntons left London, driving to Fontley by easy stages and in the greatest comfort. Much to Jenny’s relief Adam showed no disposition to practise any of his economies, but carried her to Lincolnshire in all the luxury to which she was accustomed.
For her, the journey, in spite of some queasiness, was the most agreeable she had as yet experienced in Adam’s company. Their previous expeditions had taken place when they were so barely acquainted that being shut up together for several hours at a stretch had imposed a strain on them, neither knowing whether the other would like to talk, or to remain silent; and each being anxious not to bore or to appear bored. This awkwardness no longer lay between them; and although they spoke of nothing that went far below the surface they talked with the ease of intimacy, and were able to lapse into companionable silences without feeling any compulsion to seek a new topic for conversation.