By the time Jenny had finished reading the letter Dunster had brought a sharp-faced youth into the room, who disclosed that he had come down by the Mail, with instructions from the Master not to return without his lordship. That was all he knew. The Master had not told him why my lord was wanted in London; he had not heard any news about the war. It was obviously useless to question him further, so Jenny bore him off to introduce him to Mrs Dawes, promising that his lordship would let him know in the morning what he had decided to do.
‘Queer start!’ Brough said, when Jenny had gone out of the room. ‘I wonder what’s in the wind? Sounds to me as though the old boy has had some news – and none too good either.’
‘You heard what the clerk said. If there had been any news from Belgium he must have known it!’
‘Might not. There’s no doubt the City men do get to hear of important news before the rest of the world.’
‘Then why the devil didn’t he tell me what it is?’ demanded Adam irritably.
‘He probably don’t like writing letters, or don’t want it repeated.’
‘Adam!’ Lydia burst out. ‘If you are not here for my party –’
‘Of course I shall be here! I can see not the slightest reason why I should post up to town, whatever Mr Chawleigh may have heard!’
Lydia looked relieved; but when Jenny came back into the room, she said bluntly: ‘By what the boy tells me, Papa is in a taking. You’ll have to go, Adam.’
‘I’ll be hanged if I do! If your father wanted me to go chasing up to London, he should have told me why!’
She regarded him seriously. ‘Well, writing doesn’t come easily to him. But I know Papa, and you may depend upon it he’d never have sent for you like this if he hadn’t good reason to. There’s something he thinks you should do. It looks to me like some matter of business, and if that’s so, you do as he tells you, my lord, for there isn’t a shrewder head in the City than his!’
He looked vexed, and rather mulish; but when Brough endorsed this advice, recommending him not to be a clunch, he shrugged, and said: ‘Oh, very well!’
He made the journey in his own chaise, taking Kinver and the clerk with him, and arriving in St James’s Street a little after six o’clock. A Sunday calm seemed to prevail; and when he entered the hotel he was received with all the usual civilities, untouched by any sign of excitement or alarm. He felt more than ever sceptical, and went up to the parlour set aside for his use in a mood that was far from benign.
He found Mr Chawleigh awaiting him, walking up and down the floor in a fret of impatience. Mr Chawleigh was looking more than ordinarily grim, but his scowl lifted at sight of Adam, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘Eh, but I’m glad to see you, my lord!’ he said, grasping Adam’s hand. ‘Good lad, good lad!’
Adam’s brows rose a little. ‘How do you do, sir? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?’
‘Nay, it’s no matter! There’s naught to be done till the morning. I’m sorry to have brought you away from Fontley, all in a rush, but there was no help for it, because it’s a matter of damned urgency!’
‘Yes, so I understand, sir. One moment, however! Have you bespoken dinner?’
‘No, no, I’ve more to think of than dinner!’ said Mr Chawleigh testily.
‘But if there’s nothing to be done till tomorrow we can surely eat dinner tonight!’ said Adam. ‘What’s your choice, sir?’
‘I don’t know as I’ll be staying – Oh, well, anything you fancy, my lord! The ordinary will do for me.’
Adam began to think that there must be something very wrong, if his father-in-law’s appetite had failed. He looked at him for a moment, and then turned to his valet. ‘Tell them to send up a neat dinner, Kinver, at seven – and some sherry immediately, if you please!’ He smiled at Mr Chawleigh, saying, as Kinver went out of the room: ‘I’ve a mind to give you a scold, sir, for not ordering that for yourself. Now, what is it? Why was it necessary for me to come up to town?’
‘It’s bad news, my lord,’ Mr Chawleigh said heavily. ‘It’s damned bad news! We’ve been beat!’
Adam’s brows snapped together. ‘Who says so? Where did you learn that?’
‘Never you mind where I learned it! You’d be none the wiser if I was to tell you, but it ain’t a hoax, nor yet a mere rumour. There’s those in the City whose business it is to know what’s going on abroad, and they’ve agents all over, ay, and other ways of getting the news before it’s known elsewhere! We’ve been gapped, my lord! Beaten all hollow!’
‘Moonshine!’ Adam was a little pale, but he gave a scornful laugh. ‘Good God, sir, did you bring me all this way just to tell me a Canterbury tale?’
‘No, I didn’t, and it ain’t moonshine either! They’ve been fighting over there these two days past, let me tell you!’
‘That I can well believe,’ Adam responded coolly. ‘But that we’ve been beaten all hollow – no!’
Mr Chawleigh began to champ his jaws. ‘No? Don’t believe Boney’s sitting in Brussels at this very minute, I daresay? Or that those Prussians were rolled up – finished! – at the very outset? Or that Boney was too quick for your precious Wellington, and took him by surprise? I knew how it would be! Didn’t I say from the start we’d have him rampaging all over again?’
The entrance of a waiter checked him. He was obliged to contain himself until the man had gone away again; and when he next spoke it was in a milder tone. ‘There’s no sense in you and me coming to cuffs, my lord. You’ve got your notions, and it don’t matter what mine may be, because what I’m telling you ain’t anyone’s notion: it’s the truth! It came straight from Ghent, where maybe they know a trifle more than we do here! The town’s packed full of refugees, and Antwerp too!’
Adam poured out two glasses of sherry, and handed one to him. ‘That might well be, if the Army is on the retreat – which might also be. You say the Prussians suffered a bad reverse. I can believe that, but consider, sir! If Blücher was obliged to fall back, Wellington must have done so too, to maintain his communications with him. Any soldier could tell you that! – and also that Boney’s first objective must have been to cut them!’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ve taken part in a good few retreats under old Hookey’s command, sir, and you may believe me when I tell you that he’s never more masterly than when he retires!’
Mr Chawleigh, swallowing his sherry at a gulp, choked, and ejaculated: ‘Retires? For God’s sake, boy, can’t you understand plain English? It’s a damned rout!’
‘Apparently I can’t!’ Adam said, rather mischievously. ‘But I’ve no experience of damned routs, you know – unless you count Salamanca a rout? We rompéd Marmont in prime style, but I shouldn’t have called his retreat a rout.’
‘Marmont! This is Bonaparte!’
‘Very true, but I still find it impossible to believe in your rout.’ He saw that Mr Chawleigh’s colour was rising, and said: ‘Don’t let us argue on that head, sir! Tell me why I’m here! Even if your information were correct, I don’t understand why it is of such importance that I should be in London. What the devil can I do to mend matters?’
‘You can save your bacon!’ replied Mr Chawleigh grimly. ‘Not all of it, but some, I do trust! Eh, I blame myself! I should have warned you weeks ago – same as I should have pulled out myself, the moment I knew the jobbers had closed their books! I’ve dropped a tidy penny, my lord, and so I tell you!’
‘Have you, sir? I’m excessively sorry to hear it,’ said Adam, refilling the glasses. ‘How did you come to do that?’
Mr Chawleigh drew an audible breath, eyeing him much as a choleric schoolmaster might have eyed a doltish pupil. Speaking with determined patience, he said: ‘Your blunt’s invested in the Funds, ain’t it? Never mind these rents of yours! I’m talking about your private fortune. Well, I know it is – what was left of it! Me and your man Wimmering went into things pretty thoroughly before you was married to my Jenny. Not to wrap it up in clean linen, your pa played wily beguiled with his
blunt, so that what was left don’t amount to much, not to my way of thinking. Nor your rents don’t either – and don’t waste your breath telling me what they might bring you in, because it don’t signify, not at this moment! The thing is, I wouldn’t want you to lose your fortune, my lord. I don’t say I ain’t ready to stand the nonsense, but well I know it ’ud fairly choke you if you was forced to be obliged to me for every groat you spent! Proud as an apothecary you are, for all you’ve tried to hide it, which I don’t deny you have, let alone behaving to me as affable and as respectful as if you was my own son!’ He paused, observing Adam’s sudden flush with an indulgent eye. ‘No need to colour up, my lord,’ he said kindly. ‘And no need for any roundaboutation either! They’ll tell you in the City that Jonathan Chawleigh’s a sure card. Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t, but I’m not a nodcock, lad, and well I know why you don’t drive the curricle I gave you, nor wouldn’t let me set up this farm of yours! You don’t choose to be beholden, and I like you the better for it! Which is why I bid you come up to town, for there’s naught to be done without you’re here to give the word. I’ve seen Wimmering: he knows what’s to be done, but he can’t move without he has your authority.’
‘Have I any?’ Adam interrupted, as pale as he had previously been flushed.
‘Don’t talk so silly!’ begged Mr Chawleigh. ‘It stands to reason your man of business can’t act without you tell him to!’
‘So I had supposed! But I’m sadly ignorant: I had also supposed that my man of business would have shown the door to anyone – even my father-in-law! – who came to tell him what to do with my affairs!’
‘Well, so he did, in a manner of speaking!’ said Mr Chawleigh, keeping his temper. ‘Now, don’t fly into your high ropes, my lord! We ain’t after anything but your good, Wimmering and me, nor he never had any intention of acting arbitrary. But he’s a deep old file, and he knows, if you don’t, what’s the worth of a nudge from Jonathan Chawleigh, and a mighty poor man of business he’d be if he didn’t pay heed to it, and act according! Why, if I’d waited to drum it into your head, without a word spoken to Wimmering, it would have been too late to do anything by the time I’d done it, and you’d told Wimmering – which likely you’d have made a mull of, you having no more understanding of business than a babe unborn!’
Adam’s anger cooled a little. ‘Very well, and what is it that must be done?’
‘Sell, of course! Sell, my lord, and at the best price you can get! If it can be done – if it ain’t too late already – you’ll suffer a loss, same as I have myself, but you’ll save yourself from ruin! It’ll be bad, and I don’t deny it, but see if I don’t put you in the way of making a recover presently! But there’s no time to be lost: once the news is made known there’ll be no selling the stock, not if you was to offer it at a grig! Forty-nine was all I got for mine, and they was standing at fifty-seven and a half when the jobbers closed their books! Eh, it don’t bear thinking of! A bubble-merchant, that’s what they’ll be calling me!’
He sounded so tragic that Adam might have supposed that he was facing ruin had he not had every reason to think that however large a part of his private fortune had been invested in the Funds it represented only a tithe of his enormous wealth. He said: ‘I’m afraid I don’t perfectly understand, sir. How am I to sell my shares if there’s no dealing being done?’
‘You leave that to Wimmering!’ said Mr Chawleigh. ‘He’ll know how to do the thing, never you fear! What’s more, he’s ready and anxious to do it, the moment you say the word. He’ll be here to wait on you first thing tomorrow morning, and you’ll find he’ll advise you the same as I have.’ He glanced shrewdly at Adam. ‘Well, he did so when that Bonaparte first broke out again, didn’t he?’
Adam nodded. Mr Wimmering had written to him in March, venturing to suggest that in view of the uncertain political situation it might be wise for his lordship to consider the advisability of realizing his holding in Government stock; but he had not considered it either advisable or proper to do so, and had replied quite unequivocally.
‘Eh, if you’d only listened to him!’ mourned Mr Chawleigh, shaking his head.
Adam looked at him thoughtfully. It was plainly a waste of time to attempt to persuade him that a strategic withdrawal was not a rout: civilians were always cast into panic by a retreat, just as they were wildly elated by quite minor victories. So he refrained from telling Mr Chawleigh that his own confidence was unshaken, and tried instead to discover the exact nature of the news which had been whispered in his ear. It was not easy to do this, but by the time the neat dinner had been disposed of, and Mr Chawleigh took his leave, Adam had formed his own conclusions. It was certain that hostilities had begun; it seemed fairly certain that Napoleon, so far from being a spent force, had moved with all his former, disconcerting rapidity. It was possible that Wellington had been taken by surprise, and had been obliged to oppose the enemy with only his advance troops: it sounded like that; and it sounded too as if the action had been fought on ground not of his choosing. In which case, he would certainly retreat; and no doubt the flocks of pleasure-seeking visitors to Brussels would take fright immediately, and make for the coast. It was more difficult to assess the probable extent of the Prussian reverse. Adam had never seen the Prussians in action, but he knew the Hanoverian troops well, and he thought that if the Prussians were at all like the men of the King’s German Legion there would be little fear that they would run away, even if they had suffered a repulse. Mr Chawleigh talked as though Napoleon had smashed that army; Adam thought this unlikely, because the Allied Army had also been engaged, which meant that Napoleon must have been fighting on two fronts.
He allowed Mr Chawleigh to leave him in the belief that he meant to follow his advice. It was useless to argue with him; that would only lead to a quarrel. Besides, the poor man was already in a stew of anxiety: probably some of his many trading ventures would be badly affected by a French victory.
Thinking about it, weighing it in his mind, Adam knew that he was not going to try to sell his stock. Mr Chawleigh had done so at a loss, and he seemed to think that the price was rapidly sinking. To sell would be wantonly to diminish his principal; and he would certainly do no such thing: running shy merely because the Allied Army had clashed disadvantageously with the enemy, and had fallen back, perhaps to better ground, almost certainly to maintain communications with the Prussians.
Sipping a last glass of brandy before going to bed, remembering the years of his military service, confidence grew in him. There had been plenty of retreats, but no lost battles under Douro’s command: not one!
He thought, regretfully, that it was a pity he hadn’t sold his stock at the beginning of March, when Wimmering had advised it. Had he done so, he would now have had a large sum at his disposal, and might have bought again, making a handsome profit.
He set his empty glass down suddenly. The idly reflective expression in his eyes altered; he sat staring intently straight before him, his eyes now bright and hard between slightly narrowed lids. A queer little smile began to play around his mouth; he drew a breath like a sigh, and got up, pouring more brandy into his glass. He stood for quite some time, swirling the brandy round, watching it but not thinking about it. The ghost of a laugh shook him; he tossed off the brandy, set the glass down again, and went off to bed.
Twenty-five
He had just finished breakfast when Mr Wimmering was brought up to the parlour on the following morning. Wimmering was looking grave, but he said that he was very glad to see my lord.
‘I’m extremely glad to see you,’ replied Adam. ‘I need your advice and your services.’
‘Your lordship knows that both are at your disposal.’
‘I’m obliged to you. Sit down! Now, tell me, Wimmering, what, by your reckoning, am I worth? How much credit will Drummond allow me?’
Mr Wimmering’s jaw dropped; he gazed blankly at Adam, and said feebly: ‘Credit? Drummond?’
‘I don’t want to go to t
he Jews unless I must.’
‘Go to the – But, my lord – ! You cannot have run into debt? I beg your pardon! But I had not the smallest suspicion –’
‘No, no, I haven’t run into debt!’ Adam said. ‘But I’m in urgent need of ready money – as large a sum as I can contrive to raise! Immediately!’
Wimmering felt a little faint. At any other hour of the day he would have concluded that his client had been imbibing too freely, and was half-sprung. He wondered if Mr Chawleigh’s news had temporarily turned his brain. He bore no appearance of being either drunk or unhinged, but it had struck Wimmering as soon as he had entered the room that he was looking unlike himself. There was a tautness about him Wimmering had never before noticed; his eyes, usually so cool, were strangely bright; and the smile hovering at the corners of his mouth held a disquieting hint of recklessness. Wimmering was at a loss to interpret these signs, never having been privileged to see his noble client in command of a Forlorn Hope.
‘Well?’ Adam said impatiently.
Wimmering pulled himself together, saying firmly: ‘My lord, before I enter upon that question, may I respectfully remind you that there is a far more urgent matter awaiting your attention? If you have seen Mr Chawleigh it must be unnecessary for me to tell you that there is no time to be lost in empowering me to dispose of your stock.’
‘Oh, I’m not selling!’ Adam said cheerfully. ‘I beg pardon! Of course you supposed that that was why I needed you! No, I’m buying.’
‘Buying?’ gasped Wimmering, turning quite pale. ‘You’re not serious, my lord?’
‘I’m perfectly serious – and perfectly sane as well, I promise you. No, don’t repeat Mr Chawleigh’s Banbury story to me! I’ve heard it once, and I don’t wish to hear it again! My father-in-law is an excellent man, but he has not the smallest understanding of military matters. As far as I can discover, word of a retreat has reached the City, brought by some agent, who had heard that the Prussians had been cut up a trifle, that we had retired, and who no doubt saw the refugees pouring into Antwerp, or Ghent, or wherever he chanced to be, and out of this built up a lurid tale of disaster! My dear Wimmering, do you really imagine that if the Army was in headlong flight not one hint of it would appear in today’s journals?’
A Civil Contract Page 36
