Jenny was glad to see her, but not communicative. She said that she was very well, and seemed, indeed, to be so much her usual self that Lady Oversley was able to tell Adam that she could find no cause for anxiety. “To be sure, she looks a little pulled, but you need not refine too much upon that,” she said. “I daresay she gets moped, and no wonder, in this horrid weather! It is a pity she hasn’t a sister to bear her company. Depend upon it, that’s all that’s amiss: she is too much alone, and so falls into reflection, which is fatal, even when one is perfectly stout, because it lowers one’s spirits so odiously!”
With this he had to be satisfied, but when Jenny gave him an angry scold for having discussed her situation with Lady Oversley he thought that however cheerful a front she might have presented to that lady she was very far from being her usual self. It was so unlike her to fly into odd rages that he was more perturbed than he allowed her to see. He charmed her out of her tantrum, but while he was promising to refrain in future from troubling himself about her he was turning over in his mind various plans for her well-being.
Three days later he told her that he was going out of town on business, and would be absent for two days. She asked him, rather wistfully, if he was going to Fontley, but he only shook his head, saying: “No, not to Fontley. I don’t expect to be more than one night from home, but I might be a little late, so will you have one of your admirable suppers ready for me on Thursday, kind Jenny?”
She could not help smiling, but it was reluctantly, and her voice was decidedly pettish when she said: “You need not hurry home on my account! Pray don’t come on Thursday if it shouldn’t be convenient to you!”
“I won’t,” he promised, adding, in a soft, provocative voice: “Crosspatch!”
“I’m not cross! And if you don’t choose to tell me where you’re going I’m sure I don’t care!”
“Now that,” he said gravely, “I am excessively relieved to know, because I don’t choose to tell you — unless my errand prospers, when I’ll make a clean breast of it.”
Her face puckered; she turned it away, saying in a thickened voice: “I’m sorry! Don’t heed me! You must think yourself married to a positive vixen!”
“No, just a hedgehog!” he assured her consolingly.
She was appeased, she could even laugh; but when ten o’clock had struck on Thursday evening she abandoned hope, realized that he had callously availed himself of her permission to remain away from home, and sank into gloom. The reflection that she had only her own ill-humour to thank for this miserable state of affairs did nothing to alleviate her woe, but before she had succeeded in convincing herself that he was seeking consolation in the arms of some dazzling bird of paradise she heard a carriage draw up in the street. She listened eagerly, torn between hope and a ridiculous wish not to be deprived of her grievance. But it was Adam. She heard his voice, and hurried out of the drawing-room to look down the well of the staircase. She saw him, and exclaimed: “It is you!”
He looked up, laughing at her. “Yes, and I’ve no need at all to tell you what my errand was! Yow shall instead tell me if I have brought you an agreeable surprise, ma’am!”
The next instant he was thrust rudely aside, and Lydia came running up the stairs, calling out: “Jenny, isn’t this capital? Oh, how happy I am to be here again! Wasn’t it a splendid notion for Adam to take into his head? Are you glad to see me? Please say you are!”
“Lydia!” gasped Jenny, bursting into tears. “Oh, Lydia!”
She very soon recovered from this most unusual demonstration, emerging from Lydia’s embrace with a transformed countenance, and uttering disjointedly: “Oh, I was never more glad of anything! How kind of Lady Lynton — Oh, Adam, the idea of your doing such a thing, and never a word to me! I must have your room made ready immediately, love! If I had only known — ! Come into the warm directly: you must be frozen!”
There could be no doubt of her delight; Lydia’s arrival acted upon her like a tonic, and within a very few minutes she had lost her weary look, and was chuckling over Lydia’s account of her life in Bath, and her description of one Sir Torquil Tregony, whom she insisted on referring to as her Conquest. Jenny, round-eyed with astonishment, gathered, from the graphic word-picture offered her, that this unknown baronet was so stricken in years as to be tottering to the grave; but Adam, more conversant with his sister’s notions, assumed (quite correctly) that the dotard was in the region of forty years of age, and slightly afflicted by rheumatism.
“Fabulously wealthy!” announced Lydia, helping herself to her third lobster patty. “Oh, Jenny, you can’t think how truly blissful it is to be here again, and to have such sumptuous things to eat! Aren’t you going to eat one of these delicious patties? You aren’t eating anything!”
“I should think not, indeed, when I dined only a couple of hours ago!”
“On a morsel of chicken, and a baked apple?” interpolated Adam. ‘
“Good gracious, are you obliged to starve if you have a baby?” enquired Lydia. “I never knew that before! And I must say — ”
“Of course I don’t starve!” said Jenny. “Never mind about me! Tell us about this Sir Torquil of yours!”
“Oh, him! Well, Mama thinks him very eligible. In fact, she favours his Suit! Partly because he is very connected, but mostly because of his wealth. Of course, I see that if I married him I should be able to eat lobster parties every day of my life, but lobster patties, after all, are not everything.”
“Very true!” agreed Adam. “There is also cold pheasant — though even Sir Torquil’s fortune won’t enable you to eat that every day of your life. Here you are, snatch-pastry! don’t hesitate to tell me if I haven’t carved enough for you! Let me tell you, by the way, that Mama says you are inclined to encourage Sir Torquil’s — er — Suit!”
“Well, yes,” admitted Lydia. “But that was only because sitting at home every evening, listening to Mrs Papworth flattering Mama became so intolerable! Sir Torquil wanted to escort us to the Upper Rooms, you see, and I knew Mama would go if he invited us.”
“Oh, Lydia, you naughty girl!” Jenny exclaimed, much entertained. “Of all the wicked flirts — ! And did you enjoy the Bath balls?”
“Not above half. All the Bath quizzes sit round the walls, staring at one. Brough says they are a set of fusty tabbies, and that Bath is the slowest place on earth.”
“Brough?” said Adam, surprised. “Has he been in Bath? He said nothing to me about it!”
“Yes, he was visiting relations in the neighbourhood. At least, not precisely visiting them, because he stayed at the Christopher, but that was what brought him to Bath.”
“Relations living in the neighbourhood? I wonder who they may be? I had thought I was acquainted with most of his relations, but I never heard of any that lived in Somerset”
“I don’t know: he didn’t tell us — and I don’t think he liked them much, because he didn’t seem to go out to see them often.”
By this time Jenny had succeeded in catching Adam’s eye, directing such a dagger-look at him that he blinked. “Well, that was agreeable,” she said, transferring her attention to Lydia. “And for how long can Lady Lynton spare you to me? I must write to tell her how much obliged to her I am.”
“She says I may stay until Charlotte and Lambert go to Bath for Christmas. They mean to spend a night in town, you know, and so they can take me up. Oh, and whatever do you think? — Charlotte is increasing too!”