“It won’t be as bad once we’re off the stones. Lean back and shut your eyes! Did you bring your smelling-salts with you?”

“I haven’t any. Oh, yes, I have! A horrid vinaigrette, which was Mrs Quarley-Bix’s wedding-gift to me. I expect she had it by her, for she couldn’t have supposed it would be of the least use to me.”

“Ungrateful girl! Don’t tell me you left it behind!”

“Yes, but never mind! I shall soon grow accustomed.”

This seemed to be true, for after remaining for some time with her eyes closed she presently opened them, and turned her head a little to study Adam’s profile. He was not at first aware of her scrutiny, his thoughts being remote from her, and his inattentive gaze fixed on the changing landscape; but after some minutes, as though suddenly conscious that he was being watched, he glanced at her.

His vision of ethereal loveliness vanished. Beside him, plump and a little homely, sat reality, in a stylish pelisse, and a hat whose poke-front and curled ostrich feathers made ah incongruous frame for a round, rosy face remarkable only for its determination. Revulsion held him speechless for a moment, but as his eyes met Jenny’s he saw the anxiety in hers, and his mood changed to one of compassion. Whatever had been her motive for consenting to the bargain struck by her father, she did not look happy. He thought her case to be worse than his own. The benefits accruing to him through marriage were solid; if she sought social advancement, he, born into the ton, and taking for granted the advantages of birth and rank, believed that she would discover her elevation to the peerage to be a worthless thing. If she had been forced into a loveless match by her father’s ambition, she was the more to be pitied. He did pity her, and forgot his own aching heart in the need to reassure her. How to do it he did not know; he could only smile at her, and take her gloved hand in his, saying cheerfully: “That’s better! Have you been asleep?”

Her hand trembled momentarily, but she replied in a steady voice: “No, but I am better now, thank you. I should like to talk to you, if I may.”

Having possessed himself of her hand he could not think what to do with it, or how to be rid of it. She solved the problem for him by quietly withdrawing it. He said quizzically: “If you may? Now, what can you be going to say that needs my permission, goose?”

She smiled perfunctorily. “Oh, no! Only that you might not wish — I can’t tell, but I think we should discuss our — our situation. I have frequently wanted to, but we have so seldom been granted the opportunity. And perhaps you would have thought it improper in me. I can’t tell that either, for I am not thoroughly acquainted with you yet, and, though I do try to set a guard on it, I know I have a blunt tongue — I was for ever being scolded for it, at Miss Satterleigh’s!”

“You need never guard it when you talk to me: indeed, I hope you won’t! But first let me tell you that I’m not blind to the evils of your situation. We are barely acquainted, as you have said yourself: it must be uncomfortable for you indeed!” He smiled at her, not lovingly, but very kindly. “That evil will soon be remedied. In the meantime, don’t be afraid! I won’t do anything you don’t like.”

She took a moment or two to answer this, her countenance inscrutable. “You’re very obliging,” she said at last. “I’m not afraid. That wasn’t it! I daresay there are many husbands and wives who were no better acquainted at the outset than we are. It wouldn’t do for people who have a great deal of sensibility, but I don’t think I have much. I mean, there’s no need for you to be in a worry over me: I hate fusses and twitters! In general persons in my walk of life don’t deal much in marriages of convenience, but in yours they are pretty common, aren’t they?”

“Yes — that is, I believe they do still occur, but I really don’t know much about it,” he said, hardly knowing how to reply to so forthright a speech.

“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” she said, perceiving that she had done so, “but there’s no sense in shamming it: we both know that I’m not quality-born. The thing is, you might suppose that I don’t understand marriages of convenience. Well, I do, so you needn’t fear I shall expect you to sit in my pocket. Nor that you’ll find me hanging on you, like a burr, wanting to know what you’re doing every minute of the day, and why you didn’t come home to dinner.” She raised her eyes, giving him a resolute look. “I shan’t interfere with, you, my lord, or ask you any questions. You’ll not live under the cat’s foot, I promise you.”

“Are you giving me permission to embark on a career of profligacy?” he demanded, trying to turn it off lightly. “Ought I to bestow a similar carte blanche on you? You’ll think me very unhandsome, I’m afraid, for I’ve no such intention! I’m even shabby enough to reserve to myself the right to ask you any number of questions!”

She shook her head, smiling, but lowering her eyes. “That’s a different matter. Not that it’s likely you’ll have cause to be uneasy: I’m not pretty enough!” She paused, and drew a difficult breath, her colour mounting. “I’m not the wife you wished for, but I’ll do my possible to behave as I should. You’ll be wanting an heir, and I hope I shall give you one. I should like to have children, and the sooner the better. But that’s for you to decide.” She stopped, tightly folding her lips, and turned away her face, to look out the window; but after a few moments, during which he tried to think of something, anything, to say to her, she spoke again, saying in a conversational tone: “This is a new thing for me, you know: to be going to stay in the country. My mother was a countrywoman, but Papa is townbred, and hasn’t any liking for the country, so whenever we have been out of London it has been to Brighton, or to Ramsgate or some such place. Have we far to go before we reach your aunt’s house?”

Chapter VIII

They stayed for less than a fortnight in Hampshire, the honeymoon being shortened by Lady Lynton’s determination to join her sister in Bath immediately, and Lambert Ryde’s equal determination to marry Charlotte before this date. Family affairs called him north again; and he proposed in earnest what he had originally suggested in jest: that he should carry Charlotte to Scotland for their honeymoon. Charlotte could not deny that the prospect filled her with delight, but wrote diffidently to Adam. On the one hand, she dreaded an indefinite postponement of her wedding; on the other, she could not bear the thought of being led to the altar by anyone but her brother.

“Well, I should think not indeed!” exclaimed Jenny, when Charlotte’s letter was shown to her. “Do write to her directly, and tell her that you’ll be there! You can see she’s quite in a worry, and what difference does it make if we go to Fontley a few days earlier than we intended?”

“As long as you don’t dislike it — ?”

She replied, with the common sense which made her at once an easy and an unexciting companion: “What are a few days more or less to us? To be sure, I like it here, but now I know that Lady Nassington means to present me at the May Drawing-Room we must have gone back to town at the end of a fortnight, because of my Court dress. I ordered one to be made for me, and chose the materials for it, but I must try it on, you know.” Her eyes narrowed to slits as a rueful chuckle overcame her. “I shall look dreadfully in it!” she disclosed. “Me, in hooped petticoats! Why, I’ll be as broad as I’m high! Let alone not knowing how to manage, which Lady Oversley warned me I must practise before appearing in public in it. Well, I only hope I don’t disgrace you!”

“You won’t do that. Then I am to tell Charlotte she may settle for Monday, 9th May, as she wishes?”

“Yes, pray do so! We may go to Fontley on the Friday before, so, if we leave here on the Tuesday, that will give me two days in Grosven — in London, to have the Court dress fitted on me, and to buy the feathers, and the rest”

She ended on a note of constraint, but he gave no sign of noticing either this, or the stumble in her speech, saying merely, in a pleasant tone: “Very well: I’ll write to Charlotte.”

The honeymoon had contained awkward moments that were inevitable in the circumstances, but these had been overcome, thanks largely (Adam acknowledged) to the prosaic attitude adopted by his bride. If their union was devoid of romance, less embarrassment attached to it than he had foreseen. Jenny was sometimes shy, but never shrinking. The trend of her mind was practical; she entered into married life in a business-like way; and almost immediately presented the appearance of a wife of several years’ standing. She quickly discovered, and never forgot, his particular fads; she neither demanded nor seemed to desire his constant attendance on herself, but sent him forth to fish the trout stream, greeting him on his return with an enquiry after the sport he had enjoyed, and a placid account of her own activities. Since these included, besides practising on the pianoforte and sketching in the park, hemming, with exquisitely small stitches, a set of handkerchiefs for him, he was uncomfortably remorseful, feeling that she must have been driven to such a dull task by boredom. She assured him, however, that she enjoyed what she called white needlework; and she certainly seemed content with the quiet life she was leading. Rushleigh Manor might have afforded two persons lost in love an ideal honeymoon-resort, but there was nothing very much for the Lyntons to do there. Adam fished, rode or drove with Jenny, and, in the evenings, they played chess, Jenny played the pianoforte, or sat stitching while Adam read aloud to her. He was much inclined to blame himself for having brought her to Rushleigh, when one of the livelier watering-places would probably have been more to her taste; but when he said so she shook her head, in her decided way, and replied that she would not have liked it half as well. “I know all about watering-places, but I have never before stayed in a country house,” she said. “It’s quite new to me, and very agreeable. I am learning a great deal besides, which makes me particularly glad we came here. I shan’t be quite so ignorant when we go to Fontley. I didn’t know how different it would all be from a town house.”