Read Online A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online
Authors: Georgette Heyer
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think the worse of you for wanting to make sure you ain’t being burnt. What’s more, I’d as lief settle it with a man of affairs. That way, we’ll have it all shipshape and Bristol-fashion.’
‘I beg your pardon! I fear I misled you. I asked the question – oh, for quite another reason!’
‘Ay, did you? Well, maybe I can guess what that was,’ said Mr Chawleigh with his rather grim smile. ‘Don’t you get to thinking that because I’m a Jack Straw I’m a clodpole besides! I’m as nacky a man as any in the City: I wouldn’t else have made my fortune! And if, as I’ll be bound he did, your man of business told you that the only way to bring yourself about was to get riveted to an heiress he told you no more than’s true, for all you may not like it, which I can see you don’t.’
Feeling more than a little battered, as much by his visitor’s discursiveness as by his forceful personality, Adam attempted to stem the flood. ‘Mr Chawleigh, pray do not –’
‘Now, wait a bit!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh, again raising his ham-like hand. ‘If you don’t care for the scheme you can say so, and no harm done, but I came here to make you an offer – provided I made up my mind that you’d suit, which I have done – and I’ll go through stitch with it, for that’s my way. I don’t think the worse of you for not leaping at it like a cock at a blackberry – in fact, I’d have bid you good-day, if you had – but it won’t hurt you to hear what I’ve got to say. And the first thing I’ve got to say, so as there’ll be no misunderstanding betwixt us, is that I’ve a pretty fair notion how badly you’re dipped. That don’t matter to me, because it wasn’t you that played wily-beguiled with your fortune, which would have been quite another pair of shoes: I’ll frank no gamester, not if he was a dozen Marquises rolled into one! His lordship assures me you don’t bet nor play more than is genteel, and that I don’t object to, though I’m not a betting-man myself.’ He paused, but Adam, realizing that nothing short of a brigade of nine-pounders would halt him, had resigned himself to the inevitable, and offered no comment. This seemed to please Mr Chawleigh, for he nodded, and smiled affably. ‘Well, now!’ he said, settling himself in his chair with all the air of a man about to hold forth at length. ‘You’ll be wondering what made me take such a notion into my head, and I’ll tell you, my lord. I’ve no other chick nor child, nor never looked to have when Mrs Chawleigh was carried off. There were plenty that set their caps at me, mark you, for I was a pretty warm man then, but I never could fancy putting anyone in her place. She was a grand lass, my Mary! Sound as a roast, and came of good stock, too: yeoman-stock, and proud of it! She was thought to have married below her station when we got ourselves leg-shackled, but I swore I’d set her up in style before she was much older, and, by God, I did it! She died when Jenny was no more than three years old: died in childbed, and the brat with her – not that I cared for that, though it was a boy, like we’d hoped for. I’ll say no more about that, or I’ll be falling into the dismals. The thing is, when Jenny was born, Mrs Chawleigh said to me – thinking I’d be disappointed she wasn’t a son – “Jonathan,” she said, “mark me if we don’t live to see her married to a lord! For the way you’re rising in the world,” she said, “I don’t see what’s to stop her!” Funning, she was, but the notion took both our fancies, and the long and the short of it is that when she died I made up my mind I’d marry Jenny according to her wish. And when Jonathan Chawleigh makes up his mind, my lord, he’s a hard man to baulk!’
Adam found no difficulty in believing this, but he said gently: ‘Don’t you think, perhaps, that Mrs Chawleigh would have wished to see her daughter married to a man of superior rank, and greater
‘I beg your pardon! I fear I misled you. I asked the question – oh, for quite another reason!’
‘Ay, did you? Well, maybe I can guess what that was,’ said Mr Chawleigh with his rather grim smile. ‘Don’t you get to thinking that because I’m a Jack Straw I’m a clodpole besides! I’m as nacky a man as any in the City: I wouldn’t else have made my fortune! And if, as I’ll be bound he did, your man of business told you that the only way to bring yourself about was to get riveted to an heiress he told you no more than’s true, for all you may not like it, which I can see you don’t.’
Feeling more than a little battered, as much by his visitor’s discursiveness as by his forceful personality, Adam attempted to stem the flood. ‘Mr Chawleigh, pray do not –’
‘Now, wait a bit!’ interrupted Mr Chawleigh, again raising his ham-like hand. ‘If you don’t care for the scheme you can say so, and no harm done, but I came here to make you an offer – provided I made up my mind that you’d suit, which I have done – and I’ll go through stitch with it, for that’s my way. I don’t think the worse of you for not leaping at it like a cock at a blackberry – in fact, I’d have bid you good-day, if you had – but it won’t hurt you to hear what I’ve got to say. And the first thing I’ve got to say, so as there’ll be no misunderstanding betwixt us, is that I’ve a pretty fair notion how badly you’re dipped. That don’t matter to me, because it wasn’t you that played wily-beguiled with your fortune, which would have been quite another pair of shoes: I’ll frank no gamester, not if he was a dozen Marquises rolled into one! His lordship assures me you don’t bet nor play more than is genteel, and that I don’t object to, though I’m not a betting-man myself.’ He paused, but Adam, realizing that nothing short of a brigade of nine-pounders would halt him, had resigned himself to the inevitable, and offered no comment. This seemed to please Mr Chawleigh, for he nodded, and smiled affably. ‘Well, now!’ he said, settling himself in his chair with all the air of a man about to hold forth at length. ‘You’ll be wondering what made me take such a notion into my head, and I’ll tell you, my lord. I’ve no other chick nor child, nor never looked to have when Mrs Chawleigh was carried off. There were plenty that set their caps at me, mark you, for I was a pretty warm man then, but I never could fancy putting anyone in her place. She was a grand lass, my Mary! Sound as a roast, and came of good stock, too: yeoman-stock, and proud of it! She was thought to have married below her station when we got ourselves leg-shackled, but I swore I’d set her up in style before she was much older, and, by God, I did it! She died when Jenny was no more than three years old: died in childbed, and the brat with her – not that I cared for that, though it was a boy, like we’d hoped for. I’ll say no more about that, or I’ll be falling into the dismals. The thing is, when Jenny was born, Mrs Chawleigh said to me – thinking I’d be disappointed she wasn’t a son – “Jonathan,” she said, “mark me if we don’t live to see her married to a lord! For the way you’re rising in the world,” she said, “I don’t see what’s to stop her!” Funning, she was, but the notion took both our fancies, and the long and the short of it is that when she died I made up my mind I’d marry Jenny according to her wish. And when Jonathan Chawleigh makes up his mind, my lord, he’s a hard man to baulk!’
Adam found no difficulty in believing this, but he said gently: ‘Don’t you think, perhaps, that Mrs Chawleigh would have wished to see her daughter married to a man of superior rank, and greater
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