Adam soon realises that unlike his father he has no taste for gambling. At first he was happy to buy the stock, believing firmly that Wellington was going to win, and that it was a gamble worth taking. Before long he begins to feel uneasy. Wellington is a fine general, but he cannot be completely sure that he will win. He has to kick his heels in the clubs, keeping his distance from Mr Chawleigh, and finds that so many upper class people are wholly concerned with their own pleasures or are pretty much convinced that Napoleon can't be beaten.. and that Wellington's victories have never been against Napoleon himself.
He finds it hard to keep calm, and to regain his feeling that he will win through. He wonders if it was foolish to fly in the face of Mr Chawleigh's well-meant advice. The man is a clever businessman and maybe he was right and now he will lose most of his private fortune. He spends 2 days in this miserable frame of mind, and finally late in the evening, a chaise comes into town with news.. and Adam can see that it is flying Eagles. Napoleon has been defeated and Wellington has won.
Exhausted and shaken, he can hardly take in the good news, but he goes to bed and sleeps intending to go home the next day. He realises when he wakes up that he will be missing Lydia's party but it cant be helped. He pays a visit to Mr Chawleigh who is very upset because he gave Adam bad advice. Adam tells him that he chose not to follow the advice and that he has increased his fortune substantially. Mr. Chawleigh is somewhat relieved that he hasn't advised his son in law badly after all. Then Adam tells him that he originally wanted to pay him back for all the money he had spent but now he thinks that it would be better to use his new fortune to improve Fontley and increase his prosperity that way, and to improve life for his tenants and labourers. Mr Chawleigh is pleased that Adam is not flinging his money back in his face because he has grown fonder of his son in law as the year of Jenny's marriage progressed.
Adam thinks that it might be an idea to build a canal at Fontley to drain the land and to improve transport and wonders if his father in law who is interested in engineering would come in with him on it. He has to leave to go home, with the newspapers which have all the news on the Battle of Waterloo... and arrives very late that evening. The following day, he finds that his absence was accepted because of the battle, but that Lydia's party had its problems... Charlotte's baby arrived a bit early, and she and her mother and husband were unable to attend.
Adam tells Jenny his good news and she's delighted that he backed his instinct and has now improved their position and they will be able to reform the estate... and that Adam has regained some independence. He tells her and Lord Brough however that he will never do such a thing again, that he simply hasn't got the nerve for speculation, and that he went through such horrors when he had made his decision and was waiting for the outcome.
Julia comes downstairs, upset that the battle news has taken attention away from her. She is weepy and emotional, and Adam finds himself for the first time getting very irritated with her.. realising that she must always be the centre of attention and that she is in today's language a drama queen. He can see too that she was upset because the party had been Lydia's betrothal event and that she herself was not thought about, but rather Lydia. Adam can see she is upset and tries to soothe her but feels silently rather sorry for Rockhill. She isn't even interested in his good news about making some money and realises fully that the 2 of them had nothing in common and it was good luck that they never married.
Jenny comes in, then with news that Charlotte has a baby son, and is doing well. She and Adam bid farewell to their various guests. Lydia wants to go away with Lady Adversane who has a son in the Army, and her son and husband are going to London, to see if there is any news.. so she goes off and Adam and Jenny have the house to themselves. But Jenny is worried that if Adam had made this money a year ago, he would have been able to marry Julia... Adam tells her that he would not have done so, that he knows now that Julia is not a suitable wife for him and that the 2 of them would have been unhappy. He would have found her too emotional and she would have found him boring and not romantic enough. He tells Jenny that he does love her, that she is a part of his life, and they will always be there to support each other. Julia was just the object of a boyish dream love.
Jenny thinks that he will still always have a fondness for Julia, even though he is now irritated by her, but she is glad that she and he have reached a realistic understanding and can make their marriage work. They have their son Giles, they have their home and work, and life will be unromantic but good.... so she tells him the domestic news that Giles has cut his first tooth......
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