Adam laughed, and shook his head. “I shouldn’t dare! But I think you should know that matters are in very bad shape here, Lambert I shall do what I can to provide Charlotte with some part at least of her dowry, but it won’t be what she’s entitled to receive, and what you might reasonably expect.”

“N6P” retorted Lambert. “Giving me a chance to cry off? Handsome of you — just like you, indeed! But come now! no more funning! I’m as sorry as I could be, but it’s no surprise to me. I don’t scruple to own that when Charlotte sent me the news the first thought that entered my head was that now at last we could be riveted! Membury Place don’t compare with Fontley, but though my fortune’s not handsome it enables me to be sufficiently beforehand with the world to support a wife in comfort — ay, and Lydia too, if she should choose to make her home with us!”

He asked Adam if he would be obliged to sell Fontley; and when Adam replied that he feared so he looked grave, and said that it was a bad business, and that Charlotte would feel it excessively. “Living so close, you know, and seeing strangers here. I wish I might help you, but it’s out of my power. Except,” he added, with his ready laugh, “by taking Charlotte off your hands!”

It was not to be expected that Lady Lynton would readily allow herself to be reconciled to her daughter’s marriage to a mere country squire; but the alternative, which was to provide for Charlotte out of her jointure, won from her a reluctant consent. While reserving to herself the right to deplore the connection she was forced to own that it was not disgraceful: Lambert’s birth was not noble, but it was respectable; and his fortune, which had previously seemed paltry, had been changed, in the light of her own miserable circumstances, into a considerable independence. She could never like the match, but she told her son that she must acknowledge that Lambert had behaved with, generosity and kindness.

Lydia acknowledged Lambert’s kindness too, but told Adam that nothing would prevail upon her to take up residence in his house.

“Well, of course you won’t do that,” he replied. “You will live with Mama.”

“Yes, and though it may seem strange to you I had liefer do so,” she said disconcertingly. “I hope I value Lambert as I ought, but it would be anguish to be obliged to live in the same house with someone who is always jolly, and laughs so frequently! Depend upon it, if an earthquake engulfed us all he would discover a bright side to the disaster! Doesn’t he sometimes set your teeth on edge?”

He could not deny it. He had known Lambert since they had been boys together, and liked him well enough; but he was quite as much irritated as Lydia by his unflagging cheerfulness. However, he recognized the worth of his character; and when he saw Charlotte going about in a glow of happiness he was able to look forward to the marriage, if not with enthusiasm, at least with relief. That her future was assured was the one alleviating thought he carried to London with him at the beginning of the following week.

Chapter II

The Lynton town house was situated in Grosvenor Street, and was a spacious mansion, considerably enlarged by its late owner, in the days of his affluence, by the addition of a ballroom, with several handsome apartments over it. It was furnished with old-fashioned elegance; but when Adam visited it he found holland covers on all the chairs, and the mantelpieces swept bare of their ornaments. Almost the only economy the late Viscount had practised had been the closing of his town residence during the winter months. When he had not been invited to stay at Carlton House, he preferred to put up, in the most expensive comfort, at the Clarendon.

Adam put up at an hotel too, but not at the Clarendon. When he was escorted all over his house by the retainer who acted as caretaker he knew that he could dispose of this one of his possessions without a pang. It was associated in his mind with weeks of suffering; he decided that the sooner he was rid of it the better he would be pleased.

The stables at Newmarket were already up for sale, with the hunting-lodge at Melton Mowbray, and the late Viscount’s sixteen hunters. Wimmering did not think that any harm would come from selling the racing-stable, but he strongly deprecated putting the hunters up for sale. “It will create a bad impression, my lord,” he said. “I cannot like it!” Adam did not like it either, but he was adamant. They were being brought up to Tattersall’s this week: Lynton’s breakdowns. It was not a pleasant thought, and they wouldn’t sell, at the end of the hunting-season, for anything approaching the sums his father had paid for them; but he would be spared the heavy cost of their upkeep. Wimmering was still talking of the need to allay anxiety, but his further researches into the affairs of his late patron had revealed nothing that could encourage Adam to think that he had anything to gain by a postponement of the inevitable; and his reiterated entreaty that the former state of the Deverils should be maintained served only to exasperate an employer whose nerves were already stretched to the limit of their endurance. An engrained courtesy compelled Adam to listen to Wimmering with patience; but no argument which his man of business had as yet advanced caused him to swerve from the line of conduct dictated by his own judgment. He never knew how baffling his courtesy was to Wimmering, or with what relief that harassed man would have greeted an explosion of wrath.

Following his judgment, he had himself interviewed his banker, at Charing Cross. Wimmering begged him to leave such matters in his own, more experienced hands, but Adam said he thought he ought to see Drummond himself. “My family has always banked with Drummond’s,” he said. “They have always dealt fairly by us, too. I think I should prefer to talk to Drummond myself.”

Mr Wimmering might pull down the corners of his mouth, but it was certain that he could never have achieved the accommodation which old Mr Drummond granted to Adam.

Drummond’s was an old-established firm, and amongst its distinguished clients it numbered no less a personage than His Majesty King George; but the name of Deveril figured in its earliest accounts, and it had been with a heavy heart that Mr Charles Drummond had awaited the arrival of the new Lord Lynton. He feared that demands were going to be made which it would be impossible for him to grant. He was not entirely unacquainted with Adam, but he had had no opportunity to form an opinion of his character. He remembered him only as an unassuming young officer, quite unlike his magnificent father; and although that was admittedly a point in his favour it in no way prepared Mr Drummond for a client who not only took him frankly into his confidence, but who said, with a smile that was as charming as it was rueful: “In these circumstances, sir, it must seem outrageous of me to ask you to let me continue drawing on an account which is already grossly overdrawn, but I hope I can satisfy you of my ability to pay off the debt. I have worked out, as well as I’m able — but the exact worth of some of my assets must be conjectural — a sort of balance between my debts and my expectations, which, naturally, you will wish to study.”

He had then laid papers before Mr Drummond, who had peered at them with misgiving. By the time he had recovered from the shock of discovering that Adam’s expectations were not dependent either upon a sure thing at Newmarket, or some speculation calculated to shorten a respectable banker’s days, he had made another discovery, which he later imparted to his son.

“The young man’s like his grandfather. Same quiet ways, same cool head on his shoulders: he’ll do!”

From Charing Cross Adam took a hackney coach to Mount Street, and, with a heart beating uncomfortably fast, trod up the steps to the front door. He was conducted to Lord Oversley’s book-room; and his lordship, exclaiming: “Adam, my dear boy!” got up from his chair, and came quickly to meet him, grasping his hand, and scanning his face with shrewd, kindly eyes. “Poor lad, you look hagged to death! No wonder, of course! But you are well again, aren’t you? I see you limp a trifle: does your leg pain you still?”

“No, indeed, sir: I’m very well. As for looking hagged, that’s the fault of my black coat, perhaps.”

Oversley nodded understandingly. He was a pleasant-faced man, rather more than fifty years of age, dressed fashionably but without extravagance, and distinguished by an easy affability. He pulled forward a chair for Adam. “I don’t mean to tell you how sorry I am: you must know how I feel upon this occasion! Your father was one of my oldest cronies, and though our ways fell apart we remained good friends. Now, I’m not going to stand on ceremony with you, Adam: how badly are things left?”

“Very badly, sir,” Adam replied. “I hope to emerge free of debt, and that, I’m afraid, is the best that can be said.”

“I feared as much. I saw your father in Brooks’s, not a sennight before the accident — ” He broke off, and after a moment’s hesitation said: “I want to speak to you about that. It caused the deuce of a lot of talk: mere humbug to pretend it didn’t! It was bound to do so, and it was bound to bring his creditors down on you like a swarm of locusts.” He cast another of his shrewd glances at Adam. “Ay, you’ve been having a devilish time of it. But that’s not what I want to say. I’ve thought about that accident a great deal. He didn’t mean it. He may have been all to pieces, but I’m as sure as I sit here that he wasn’t riding to break his neck. That’s what you’ve been thinking, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know!” Adam said. “I try not to think of it!”