It was unfortunate that his lordship’s family did not reciprocate these sentiments. Lady Lynton, bearing the appearance of one prevented from swooning only by frequent recourse to her vinaigrette, begged to be told what she had done to deserve such an infliction as Mr Chawleigh; and Charlotte exclaimed, wringing her hands: “Oh, my dear Adam, you should have warned us! The shock to poor Mama! We never supposed he could be such a very vulgar person!”

“Oh, come now!” Lambert said, laughing. “It’s natural you should think so, but I can tell you there are many worse! Though I must say — ” He stopped, encountering Adam’s eyes, blinked, and then said rather hastily: “I beg pardon! One’s tongue runs away with one sometimes!”

Adam nodded, and turned away from him. The ladies were not to be so easily silenced, and, after the usual practice of people discussing the faults of the absent, soon discovered in Mr Chawleigh many and more serious shortcomings than had originally been apparent to them. It was useless to defend him; and an attempt to bring the debate to an end merely resulted in Lady Lynton’s exclaiming tragically that things had come to a pretty pass when a mother might not speak frankly to her son. She added that she hoped she had too much regard for his feelings to utter one word in disparagement of his future wife. She could only trust that he would be able to prevail upon her not to overload her person with jewels which, besides being ostentatious, were unsuited to her years, and could at no time be worn to advantage by squabby females who had neither air nor countenance to set them off.

Charlotte felt that this was going too far. She said quickly: “Depend upon it, she only does so because her father wishes it! How thankful we must be that she is not at all like him!”

“Exactly so!” said Lambert. “A very agreeable girl, and with a good understanding, I daresay. As for her father — well, ma’am, there’s no need to think about him, after all! I heard him tell you that he didn’t mean to force himself on you.”

“If I could believe he meant it!” sighed the widow.

“You may at least believe, Mama, that I mean it when I tell you that he will at all times be made welcome in my house!” said Adam, rather sternly.

“Oh, Adam, not at Fontley!” Charlotte cried involuntarily.

“Certainly at Fontley! You seem to forget that but for him Fontley must have been sold! Do you imagine that I shan’t invite him to visit us there? Handsome of me!”

She turned her face away, saying in a low voice: “I had forgotten, or perhaps haven’t allowed myself to reflect upon a circumstance so mortifying — so impossible to bring oneself to accept! I will say no more.”

“I think enough has been said,” he returned wearily.

This sentiment was not shared by his mother, who declared herself compelled to say that no one had considered her feelings. Her sole consolation was that Adam’s poor father was not alive to be similarly lacerated.

Charlotte burst into tears, uttering a choked protest; but a rueful smile crept into Adam’s eyes. All he said, however, was: “Very well, Mama. Shall I cry off? Is that what you wish?”

If he expected the Dowager to be confounded by this question he underrated her. She told him that she had no wishes that were not bound up in the happiness of her dear ones. “Far be it from me to try to influence you!” she said. “Alas, our natures are so widely opposed, dearest, that I cannot tell what will make you happy! Wealth means nothing to me. It is otherwise with you, and you must judge for yourself. One thing you may be-sure of: no word of blame will ever pass your mother’s lips!”

On this splendid line she withdrew to her bedchamber, leaning on Charlotte’s arm, and denying any expectation of closing her eyes all night.

Happily for her dear ones, her thoughts were given another direction on the following day by the news that Wimmering had received a very handsome offer for Lynton House. Indeed, the prospective purchaser was prepared to pay the high price set on it if he could have immediate possession. Adam closed with this offer; and the pangs which instantly assailed his parent were almost as quickly cured by his telling her that the sale would make it possible for him to provide for Lydia. So Lady Lynton was able to mourn the loss of a house she neither liked nor wanted, and was supplied with a self-sacrificing reason for acquiescing in its sale. She had now only to decide which pieces of furniture she wished to keep for her own use. Adam gave her carte blanche to take what she chose, and left her to Charlotte’s management. Since everything the house contained appeared to hold precious, if hitherto unsuspected, memories, it seemed unlikely that much would remain to be put in store.

Chapter VII

The wedding took place on April 20th, a date that coincided with Louis XVIIIth’s entry into London, where he was met in state by the Prince Regent. He had been living privately at Hartwell, and this was the first time in his twenty years of exile that he had been publicly acknowledged as King of France. This circumstance did much to reconcile Mr Chawleigh to the quiet function forced on him by Adam’s bereavement. “For it stands to reason,” he said, “that with all this fuss and to-do over that Frenchy no one would have paid any heed if I’d done the thing twice as handsomely as I’d have wished to!”

Public events were certainly occupying everyone’s attention. Adam had returned from a brief visit to Fontley to hear the Tower guns firing in honour of the Allied entry to Paris; a week later came the news of Bonaparte’s abdication, to be closely followed by the publication of a despatch from Lord Wellington, sent from Toulouse on April 12th. It seemed as if his lordship had won his last victory in the war. It had dragged on for so many years that people felt as much incredulity as excitement; there were even those who darkly prophesied that the Allies would yet be taken at fault; and many who thought it madness to allow Bonaparte to retire to Elba.

“Mark me if he don’t start up again!” said Mr Chawleigh. There’s only one thing to be done with him, and that’s to make an end of him, for it stands to reason that a fellow that’s been rampaging all over won’t stay quiet on a bit of an island, which is what I’m told this Elba is. We’ll have him breaking out again, sure as a gun!” He added, after chewing the cud of disgruntled reflection, that it seemed as if the only thing that would make people take notice of his Jenny’s marriage was for the Grandduchess of Oldenburg to attend the ceremony.

This lately widowed lady, sister of the Emperor of Russia, had arrived in London some weeks previously, and was staying at the Pulteney, on Piccadilly, having arranged to hire the whole hotel for the accommodation of herself, one of her daughters, two very ugly ladies-in-waiting, and a number of servants. It was generally believed that a match was being planned between her and the Prince Regent; or, if he failed to obtain a divorce from the Princess of Wales, that she might take his brother, the Duke of Clarence, in his stead. She herself said that her visit was one of mere pleasure and sight-seeing; and it hardly seemed that she was taking trouble to make herself agreeable to the Regent. Well-informed persons said that her only matrimonial schemes were vicarious, and that she was meddling in the affairs of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, whose engagement to the Prince of Orange did not seem to be prospering.

“And why anyone should want to gape at her every time she drives out I’m damned if I know!” said Mr Chawleigh. “To my way of thinking she’s an antidote, in spite of the white skin wehear so much about. It’s as well for her she has got a white skin, because otherwise you’d take her for a negress, with those thick lips of hers!”

It was evident, in spite of these strictures, that if only some member of the Deveril family had been acquainted with the Grandduchess nothing would have deterred him from inviting her to the wedding: not, as he explained to Adam, from any desire to rub shoulders with such exalted persons, but because he had always promised to turn his daughter off in prime style. “Which it would be,” he pointed out. “It would have made as big a hit as if I’d got the Lord Mayor to come in his coach.”

Adam replied sympathetically, but was firm in denying the slightest acquaintance with the Grandduchess. He wondered for an unnerving moment if Mr Chawleigh knew of the late Viscount’s friendship with the Prince Regent. Mr Chawleigh did, but he said he hoped he knew better than to aim as high as that. “A foreigner’s one thing, but the Prince Regent’s quite another, She may be the Emperor of Russia’s sister, but who’s he, when all’s said?”

“Who indeed?” agreed Adam. “Let us not trouble our heads over any Royals! We shall do much better without them!”

He spoke cheerfully, with nothing in his voice or manner to betray the sense of unreality which possessed him. He seemed to himself to be living in a dream. Dreams were without future, and he did not try to discover what his might be, being too tired to force his brain to look forward. He had, indeed, little time for contemplation: he was kept endlessly busy; and, as the wedding-day approached, was harassed by such a multitude of things forgotten and things left undone that he only managed to snatch one brief meeting with Lord William Russell, who had brought home the despatch from Toulouse. The meeting did him good; and in learning all that had happened since he had left the Army, getting news of his friends, rejoicing in Lord March’s miraculous recovery from the wound he had received at Orthes, and laughing at the latest Headquarters’ jokes, he found reality again for a short space, and was heartened by it.