There are as many social degrees in the peerage as there are in the middle and lower classes.
There are barons who are greater noblemen than earls, viscounts who are welcomed in a society that some marquises can never hope to enter—it is a question not of wealth or celebrity, but of family relationships and date of creation.
When, however, a man is a duke in England, his state is so lofty, he is so inevitably apart from every one else that these remarks hardly apply at all. Yet even in dukedoms one recognises there are degrees. There are royal dukes, stately figureheads moving in the brilliant light which pours from the throne, and generally a little obscured by its refulgence. These have their own serene place and being.
There are the political dukes, Cabinet-made, who are solemnly caricatured through two generations of Punch, massive, Olympian, and generally asleep on the front benches of the House of Lords.
And every now and then it happens that there are the young dukes.
The fathers of the young dukes have lived to a great age and married late in life. They have died when their sons were little children. For years it seems to the outside public as if certain historic houses are in abeyance. Nothing much is heard of these names, and only Londoners who pay enormous ground rents to this or that Ducal estate office realise what a long minority means.
From time to time paragraphs find their way into the society papers telling of the progress of this or that young dukeling at Eton. The paragraphs become more in evidence when the lad goes to Oxford, and then, like a suddenly-lit lamp, the prince attains his majority.
Paragraphs in weekly papers expand into columns in all the dailies. The public suddenly realises that the Duke of ——, a young man of twenty-one, owns a great slice of London, has an income of from one to two hundred thousand pounds a year, and by the fact of his position is a force in public affairs. For a week every one talks about the darling of fortune. His pictures are in all the journals. His castle in Kent, his palace in Park Lane, his castle in Scotland, his villa at Monte Carlo, are, as it were, thrown open to the inspection of the world. The hereditary jewels are disinterred by popular rumour from the vaults at Coutts' Bank. The Mysore Nagar emerald that the third duke brought from India glitters once more in the fierce light of day. The famous diamond tiara that the second duke bought for his duchess (in the year when his horse "Strawberry Leaf" won the Derby and His Grace eighty thousand pounds) sparkles as never before. Photographers seek, and obtain, permission to visit the famous picture galleries at Duke Dale, and American millionaires gasp with envy as they read of the Velasquez, the three Murillos, the priceless series of Rembrandt genre pictures, and the "Prince in Sable" of Vandyck, owned by a youth who has in all probability never seen any one of them.
The man in the street has his passing throb of envy, and then, being a generous-minded fellow in the main, and deeply imbued with loyalty to all existing and splendid institutions, wishes his lordship luck and promptly forgets all about him.
What the man on the street—a very different sort of person—says, is merely a matter which polite people do not hear, for who heeds a few growls in cellars or curses in a cul-de-sac?
Women are even more generous, as is their dear mission to the world. If your dukeling is a pretty lad, presentable and straight as caught by the obsequious camera, they give him kind thoughts and wonder who the fortunate girl will be. Who shall share the throne of Prince Fortunatus? On whose white and slender neck shall that great Indian emerald give out its sinful Asiatic fire? On whose shining coronet of hair shall rise that crown of diamonds that the brave horse won for the "bad old duke" on Epsom Downs?
And then all the stir and bother is over. Some newer thing engages the public mind. Another stone is thrown into another pool; the ripples upon the first die away, and the waters are tranquil once more.
Prince Fortunatus has ascended his throne, and the echoes of the ceremonial trumpets are over and gone.
* * * * * *
John Augustus Basil FitzTracy was the fifth Duke of Paddington, Earl of Fakenham in Norfolk, and a baronet of the United Kingdom.
His seats were Fakenham Hall, at Fakenham, Castle Trink, N. B., and the old Welsh stronghold, near Conway, known as Carleon, which had come to him from his mother's aunt, old Lady Carleon of Lys.
In regard to his houses, there was, first and foremost, the great square pile in Piccadilly, which was almost as big as the Duke of Devonshire's palace, and was known as Paddington House. There was an old Saxon house near Chipping Norton, in Gloucestershire, which was used as a hunting-box—the late duke always having ridden with the Heythrop. There was also a big blue, pink-and-white villa upon the Promenade des Anglais at Nice—the late duke liked to spend February among the palms and roses of the Riviera, though it was said that the duchess never accompanied him upon these expeditions to the sun-lit shores of the Mediterranean.
The Duke of Paddington was not a great country nobleman. Fakenham was some three thousand acres, and though the shooting was excellent, as is the shooting of all the big houses which surround Sandringham Hall, the place in itself was not particularly noteworthy. Nor did the duke own coal mines, while no railways had enriched him by passing through any of his properties.
The duke's enormous revenues were drawn from London. He and their graces of Westminster and Bedford might well have contended for a new title—Duke of London. If extent of possessions and magnitude of fortune could alone decide such an issue the Duke of Paddington would have won.
A huge slice of the outer West End—anywhere north of Oxford Street—belonged to him.
His income was variously stated, but the only truth about it, upon which every one was agreed, was that it was incredibly large.
There was a certain modest, massive stone building in the Edgware Road where the duke's affairs were conducted. It was known as the FitzTracy Estate Office, forty clerks were regularly employed there, and only old Colonel Simpson, late of the Army Service Corps, and now chief agent to the duke, knew what the actual income was.
Possessor of all this,—and it is but the barest epitome,—the duke was twenty-three years of age, had no near relations, and was just finishing his university career at Oxford.
Everything that the human mind can wish for was his; there was hardly anything in the world, worthy or unworthy, that he could not have by asking for it.
The duke was an undergraduate of St. Paul's College, Oxford. Much smaller than Christ Church, Magdalen, or New College, St. Paul's is, nevertheless, the richest and most aristocratic foundation in the university. It was a preserve of the peerage; no poor men could afford to enter at Paul's, and it was even more difficult for the sons of rich vulgarians to do so.
On one dull, cold morning at the end of the October term the duke came out of his bedroom into the smaller of his two sitting rooms. It was about ten o'clock. He had cut both early chapel or its alternative roll-call—necessities from which even dukes are not exempt if they wish to keep their terms.
The duke wore an old Norfolk jacket and a pair of grey flannel trousers. His feet were thrust into a pair of red leather bath slippers. He was about five feet ten in height, somewhat sturdily built, and deliberate in his movements. His head was thickly covered with very dark red hair. The eyes were grey, and with a certain calm and impassivity about them—the calm of one so highly placed that nothing can easily affect him; one sees it in the eyes of kings and queens. The nose was aquiline, and thin at the nostrils, the nose of an aristocrat; the mouth was large, and pleasant in expression, though by no means always genial. There was, in short, something Olympian about this young man, an air, a manner, an aroma of slight aloofness, a consciousness of his position. It was not aggressive or pronounced, but it was indubitably there.
In the majority of colleges at Oxford undergraduates have only two rooms. In Paul's, more particularly in what were known as the new buildings, men had three, a bedroom, a dining-room or small sitting-room, in which breakfast and lunch were taken, and a larger sitting-room.
The duke came out of his bedroom into the smaller room. It was panelled in white throughout. Let into the panels here and there were first impressions of famous coloured mezzotints by Raphael Smith, Valentine Green, and other masters. They had been brought from the portfolios at Paddington House, and each one was worth three hundred pounds.
The chairs of this room were upholstered in red leather—a true vermilion, and not the ordinary crimson—which went admirably with the white walls and the Persian carpet, brick-dust and peacock blue colour, from Teheran. A glowing fire of cedar logs sent a cheerful warmth into the room, and the flames were reflected in the china and silver of a small round table prepared for breakfast.
Although it was November, there was a great silver dish of fruit, nectarines, and strawberries, grapes and peaches, all produced in the new electric forcing houses which had been installed at the duke's place at Fakenham. There was no apparatus for tea or coffee. In some things the duke was a little unusual. He never drank tea or coffee, but took a glass of thin white wine from Valperga. The tall yellow bottle stood on the table now, and by its side was a fragile glass of gold and purple, blown in Venice three hundred years ago.
The duke crossed the room and the larger one that opened out of it. He pushed open the swing door—the heavy outer "oak" lay flat against the wall—and shouted down the staircase for his "scout."
Despite the ineradicable belief of some popular novelists, there are no bells at Oxford, and duke or commoner must summon his servant in the good old mediæval way.
In a minute the man appeared with breakfast. He had previously brought his master a printed list from the kitchens when he called him. Gardener was an elderly, grey-haired man, clean-shaven, and confidential of manner. He had served many young noblemen on staircase number one, and each and all had found him invaluable. He had feathered his nest well during the years, and was worth every penny of ten thousand pounds. A type produced nowhere in such completeness and perfection as at Oxford or Cambridge, he represented a certain definite social class, a class more hated by the working man than perhaps any other—the polite parasite!
"Beastly weather, Gardener," said the duke in a voice which every one found musical and pleasant, a contented, full-blooded voice.
"It is indeed, sir," said Gardener, as he arranged two silver dishes upon the table—"very dull and cold. I was told that there would be skating on Port Meadow as I came into college this morning."
"Well, I don't think it will tempt me," said the duke. "You understand thoroughly about lunch?"
"Thoroughly, sir, thank you. Do you wish anything else now, sir?"
"Nothing more, Gardener. You can go."
"I thank your grace," said the scout, and left the room. Gardener had brought the art of politeness to a high point. Indeed, he had elevated it to a science. He always made a distinction, thoroughly understood and appreciated by his masters, between himself and the ordinary flunkey or house servant. He called a duke or a marquis "sir" in general address, reserving the title for the moment of leaving the room, thus showing that he did not forget the claims of rank, while he was too well-bred to weary his hearer by undue repetition.
The duke began his breakfast—a chop and a poached egg. The young man was by no means of a luxurious turn of mind as far as his personal tastes were concerned. Simplicity was the keynote of many of his actions. But he was very punctilious that everything about him should be "just so," and had he dined on a dish of lentils he would have liked them cooked by Escoffier.
There was a pile of letters by his plate. He opened them one by one, throwing most of them on to an adjacent chair for his secretary—who called every day at eleven—to answer.
One of the letters bore the cardinal's hat, which is the crest of Christ Church College, and was from the duke's greatest friend in the university, Viscount Hayle.
This was the letter:
"My dear John,—My father and sister arrived to-night, and, as I supposed, they will be delighted to lunch to-morrow. You said at one, didn't you? I have been dining with them at the Randolph, but I have come back to college, as I must read for a couple of hours before I go to bed.
"Yours,
"Gerald."
Gerald, Viscount Hayle, was the only son of the Earl of Camborne, who was a spiritual as well as a temporal peer inasmuch as he was the Bishop of Carlton, the great northern manufacturing centre.
Lord Hayle and the Duke of Paddington had gone up to Oxford in the same term. They were of equal ages, and many of their tastes and opinions were identical, while the remaining differences of temperament and thought only served to accentuate their strong friendship and to give it a wholesome tonic quality.
The duke had met Lord Camborne once only. He had never stayed at the palace, though often pressed to do so by Lord Hayle. Something or other had always intervened to prevent it. The two young men had not known each other during their school days—the duke had been at Eton, his friend at Winchester—and their association had been simply at the university.
Now the bishop, who was a widower, was coming to Oxford for a few days, to be present at a reception to be given to Herr Schmölder, the famous German Biblical scholar, and was bringing his daughter, Lady Constance Camborne, with him.
As he ate his nectarine the duke wondered what sort of a girl Lady Constance was. That she was very lovely he knew from general report, and Gerald also was extremely good-looking. But he wondered if she was like all the other girls he knew, accomplished, charming, sometimes beautiful and always smart, but—stereotyped.
That was just what all society girls were; they always struck him as having been made in exactly the same mould. They said the same sort of things in the same sort of voice. Their thoughts ran in grooves, not necessarily narrow or limited grooves, but identical ones.
Before he had finished breakfast the duke's valet entered. The man was his own private servant, and of course lived out of college, while there was a perpetual feud between him and old Gardener, the scout.
The man carried two large boxes of thin wood in his hands.
"The orchids have come, your grace," he said. "They were sent down from the shop in Piccadilly by an early train in answer to my telegram. I went to the station this morning to get them."
"Oh, very well, Proctor," said the duke. "Thank you. Just open the boxes and I will look at them. Then you can arrange them in the other room. I sha'n't have any flowers on the table at lunch."
In a minute Proctor had opened the boxes and displayed the wealth of strange, spotted blooms within—monstrous exotic flowers, beautiful with a morbid and almost unhealthy beauty.
The duke was a connoisseur of orchids. "Yes, these will do very well," he said. "Now you can take them out."
The man, a slim, clean-shaven young fellow, with dark eyes and a resolute jaw, hesitated a moment as if about to speak.
The duke, who had found a certain pleasure in thinking of his friend's sister and wondering if she would be like her brother, had been lost in a vague but pleasing reverie in fact, looked up sharply. He wanted to be alone again. He wanted to catch up the thread of his thoughts. "Well?" he said. "I think I told you to go, Proctor?"
The valet flushed at his master's tone. Then he seemed to make an effort. "I beg your grace's pardon," he said. "I wish to give you my notice."
The duke stared at his valet. "Why, what on earth do you mean?" he said. "You've only been with me for nine months, and I have found you satisfactory in every way. You have just learnt all my habits and exactly how I like things done. And now you want to leave me! Are you aware, Proctor, that you enjoy a situation that many men would give their ears for?"
"Indeed, your grace, I know that I am fortunate, and that there are many that would envy me."
"Then don't talk any more nonsense. What do I pay you? A hundred and twenty pounds a year, isn't it? Well, then, take another twenty pounds. Now go and arrange the orchids."
"I am very sorry, your grace," Proctor said. "But I do not seek any increase of wages. I respectfully ask you to accept my month's notice."
A certain firmness and determination had come into the valet's voice. It irritated the duke. It was a note to which he was not accustomed. But he tried to keep his temper.
"What are your reasons for wishing to leave me?" he said, asking the direct question for the first time.
"I have been successful with a small invention, your grace. I occupy my spare time with mechanics. It is an improved lock and key, and a firm have taken it up."
"Have they paid you?" said the duke.
"A certain sum down, your grace, and a royalty is to follow on future sales."
"I congratulate you, I'm sure," the duke said, with an unconsciously contemptuous smile, for he shared the not uncommon opinion among certain people that there is something ludicrous in the originality of a servant. "No idea you were such a clever fellow. But I don't see why you should want to leave me. Because you are my servant it won't interfere with you collecting your royalties or whatever they are."
The duke was a kind-hearted young man enough. He did not mean to wound his valet, but he had never been accustomed to think of such people as quite human—human in the sense that he himself was human—and his tone was far more unpleasant than he had any idea of.
The valet flushed up. Then he did an extraordinary thing. He took two five-pound notes from his pocket and placed them upon the table.
"That is a month's wages, your grace," he said, "instead of a month's notice. I am no longer your servant, nor any man's."
As he spoke the whole aspect of the valet changed. He seemed to stand more upright, his eyes had a curious light in them, his lips were parted as one who inhales pure air after being long in a close room.
The duke's face grew pale with anger. "What do you mean by this?" he said in a voice which was a strange mixture of passion and astonishment.
"Exactly what I say, sir," Proctor answered. "That I am no longer in your service. I have done all that is legally necessary to discharge myself. And I have a word to say to you. You are not likely to hear such words addressed to you again, until your class and all it means is swept away for ever. You sneer at me because I have dared to invent something, to produce something, to add something to the world's wealth and the world's comfort. What have you ever done? What have you ever contributed to society? I am a better man than you are, and worth more to society, because I've worked for my living and earned my daily bread, even though fortune made me your body servant. But I'm free now, and, mark what I say, read the signs of the times, if one in your position can have any insight into truth at all! Read the signs of the times, and be sure that before you and I are old men we shall be equal in the eyes of the world as we are unequal now! There aren't going to be any more drones in the hive. Men aren't going to have huge stores of private property any more. You won't be allowed to own land which is the property of every one."
He stopped suddenly in the flood of high-pitched, agitated speech, quivering with excitement, a man transformed and carried away. Was this the suave, quiet fellow who had brushed the clothes and put studs into the shirts? With an involuntary gesture the duke passed his hand before his eyes. He was astounded at this sudden volcanic outburst. Nothing, as Balzac said, is more alarming than the rebellion of a sheep.
But as Proctor's voice died away his excitement seemed to go with it, or at any rate long habit and training checked and mastered it. The man bowed, not without dignity, and when he spoke again his voice was once more the old respectful one. "I beg your grace's pardon," he said, "if I have been disrespectful. There are times when a man loses control of himself, and what is beneath the surface will out. Your grace will find everything in perfect order." He withdrew without another word and passed out of his master's life.
The duke was left staring at the masses of orchids which lay before him on the table.
When Gardener, the scout, entered he found the duke still in the same position—lost in a sort of day-dream.
The duke was reciting his adventure with the valet to his three guests, but he glanced most often at Lady Constance Camborne.
No, the society journals and society talk hadn't exaggerated her beauty a bit—she was far and away the loveliest girl he had ever seen. He knew it directly she came into the room with Lord Hayle and the bishop, the influence of such extraordinary beauty was felt like a physical blow. The girl was of a Saxon type, but with all the colouring accentuated. The hair which crowned the small, patrician head in shining masses was golden. But it was not pale gold, metallic gold, or flaxen. It was a deep, rich gold, an "old gold," and the duke, with a somewhat unaccustomed flight of fancy, compared it in his mind to ripe corn. Her eyebrows were very dark brown, almost black, and the great eyes, with their long black lashes, were dark as a southern night. Under their great coronet of yellow hair, and set in a face whose contour was a pure and perfect oval, with a skin like the inside of a seashell, the contrast was extraordinarily effective. Her beautiful lips had the rare lines of the unbroken Greek bow, and their colour was like wine. She was tall in figure, even as though some marble goddess had stepped down from her pedestal in the Louvre and assumed the garments of the daughters of men. Some people said that, beautiful as she was in every way, her crowning beauty was her hands. She had sat to Pozzi, at Milan, at the great sculptor's earnest request, so that he might perpetuate the glory of her hands for ever. Mr. Swinburne had written a sonnet, shown only to a favoured few and never published, about her hands.
The duke talked on. Outwardly he was calm enough, within his brain was in a turmoil entirely fresh to it, entirely new and unexpected. He heard his own voice mechanically relating the incident of Proctor's rebellion, but he gave hardly a thought to what he said. For all he knew he might have been talking the most absolute nonsense.
He was lost in wonder that one living, moving human being could be so fair!
He felt a sort of unreasoning anger with his friend, Lord Hayle. Why hadn't Gerald introduced him to his sister before? Why had all this time been wasted?—quite forgetting the repeated invitations he had received to stay with the Cambornes.
"Well, what did you do in the end, John?" said Lord Hayle. "Did you kick the fellow out? I should have pitched him down the staircase, by Jove!"
"As a matter of fact, I did nothing at all," said the duke. "I was too surprised. I just sat still and let him talk; I was quite tongue-tied."
"More's the pity," said the young viscount, a lean, sinewy lad, who rowed three in the 'Varsity boat. "I should have made very short work of him."
"Don't be such a savage, Gerald," Lady Constance answered. "It was very rude, of course; but from what the duke says, the man was not exactly what you would call impudent, and he apologised at the end. And nowadays every one has a right to his own opinions. We don't live in the middle ages any longer."
Her voice was like a silver bell, the duke thought, as the girl voiced these somewhat republican sentiments. A silver bell, was it? No, it was like water falling into water, like a flute playing in a wood at a great distance.
"My daughter is quite a Radical, Paddington," said Lord Camborne, with a smile. "She'll grow out of it when she gets a little older. But I found her reading the Fabian Essays the other day; actually the Fabian Essays!"—the bishop said it with a shudder. "And she met John Burns at a ministerial reception, and said he was charming!"
"It's all very well for Constance," said Lord Hayle; "a girl plays at that sort of thing, and if it amuses her it hurts nobody else. However much Connie talks about equality, and all that, she'd never sit down to dinner with the butler. But it's quite another thing when all these chaps are getting elected to Parliament and making all these new laws. If it isn't stopped, no one will be safe. It's getting quite alarming. For my part, I wish a chap like Lord Kitchener could be made Dictator of England for a month. He'd have all the Socialists up against a wall and shoot them in no time. Then things would be right again."
Lord Hayle concluded in his best college debating society manner, and drank a glass of hock and seltzer in a bloodthirsty and determined manner.
The bishop, a tall, portly man, with a singularly fine face and extreme graciousness of manner—he was most popular at Court, and it was said would certainly go to Canterbury when Dr. —— died,—laughed a little at his son's vehemence.
"That would hardly solve the problem," he said. "But it will solve itself. I am quite sure that there is no real reason for alarm. The country is beginning to wake up to the real character of the Socialist leaders. It will no longer listen to them. Men of sense are beginning to perceive that the great fact of inequality as between man and man is everywhere stamped in ineffaceable characters. Men are not equal, and they never will be while talent, and talent alone, produces wealth. Democracy is nothing but a piece of humbug from beginning to end—a transparent attempt to flatter a mass of stupid mediocrity which is too dull to appreciate the language of its hypocritical and time-serving admirers. These contemptible courtiers of the mob no more believe in equality than the ruin-bringing demagogues of ancient Athens did. One only has to watch them to see how eager they are to feather their nests at the expense of all the geese that will stand plucking. Observe how they scheme and contrive to secure official positions so that they may lord it over the general herd of common workers. They have their own little game to play, and beyond their own self-interest they do not care a straw. Knowing that they are unfit to succeed either in commercial or industrial pursuits, they try to extend the sphere of governmental regulation. What for? To supply themselves with congenial jobs where they won't be subject to the keen test of industrial and commercial competition, and will be less likely to be found out for the worthless wind-bags that they are!"
The bishop paused. He had spoken as one having authority; quite in the grand manner, bland, serene, and a little pompous. He half-opened his mouth to continue, looked round to recognise that his audience was a young one, and thought better of it. He drank half a glass of port instead.
The conversation changed to less serious matters, and in another minute or so Gardener entered to say that coffee was ready in the other room.
The "sitter," to use the Oxford slang word, was very large. It was, indeed, one of the finest rooms in the whole of Paul's. Three tall oriel windows lighted it, it was panelled in dark oak, and there was a large open fire-place. It was a man's room. Luxurious as it was in all its furniture appointments and colouring, all was nevertheless strongly masculine. The rows of briar pipes, in their racks, a pile of hunting crops and riding switches in one corner, a tandem horn, the pictures of dogs and horses upon the walls, and three or four gun-cases behind the little black Bord piano, spoke eloquently of male tastes.
Though it is often said, it is generally quite untrue to say, that a man's rooms are an index to his personality. Few people can express themselves in their furniture. The conscious attempt to do so results in over-emphasis and strain. The ideal is either canonised or vulgarised, and the vision within is distorted and lost. At Oxford, especially, very few men succeed in doing more than attaining a convention.
But the duke's rooms really did reflect himself to some extent. They showed a certain freshness of idea and a liking for what was considered and choice. But there was no effeminacy, no over-refinement. They showed simplicity of temperament, and were not complex. Nor was the duke complex.
Lady Constance was peculiarly susceptible to the influences of material and external things. She was extremely quick to gather and weigh impressions—the room interested her, her brother's friend interested her already. She found something in his personality which was attractive.
The whole atmosphere of these ancient Oxford rooms pleased and stimulated her, and she talked brightly and well, revealing a mind with real originality and a gentle and sympathetic wit most rare in girls of her age.
"And what are you going to do in the vacation?" the bishop asked the duke.
"For the first three or four weeks I shall be in town; then I'm going down to Norfolk. I sha'n't stay at Fakenham, Lord Leicester is putting me up; but we are going to shoot over Fakenham. I can't stay all alone in that great place, you know, though I did think of having some men down. However, that was before the Leicesters asked me. Then I am to be at Sandringham for three days for the theatricals. It is the first time I have been there, you know."
"You'll find it delightful," said the bishop. "The King is the best host in England. On the three occasions when I have had the honour of an invitation I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. Where are you staying when you are in town—at Paddington House?"
"Oh, no! That would be worse than Fakenham! Paddington House was let, always, during my minority, but for two years now there have just been a few servants there, but no one living in the house. My agent looks after all that. No, I am engaging some rooms at the Carlton. It's near everywhere. I have a lot of parties to go to, and Claridge's is always so full of German grand dukes!"
"But why not come to us in Grosvenor Street?" said the bishop. "You've never been able to accept any of Gerald's invitations yet. Here is an opportunity. I have to be in town for three or four weeks, at the House of Lords and the Westminster conference of the bishops. You'd much better come to us. We'll do our best to make you comfortable."
"Oh, do come, John!" said Lord Hayle.
"Yes, please come, duke," said Lady Constance.
"It's awfully good of you, Lord Camborne," said the duke; "I shall be delighted to come."
It was a dark and gloomy afternoon—indeed, the electric bulbs in their silver candelabra were all turned on. But suddenly it seemed to the duke that the sun was shining and there was bird music in the air. He looked at Lady Constance. "I shall be delighted to come," he said again.
They chatted on, and presently the duke found himself standing by one of the tall windows talking to his friend's sister. Lord Hayle, himself an enthusiastic amateur of art, was showing his father some of the treasures upon the walls.
"How dreary it is to-day—the weather, I mean,"—said the girl. "There has been a dense fog in town for the last three days, I see by the papers. And through it all the poor unemployed men have been tramping and holding demonstrations without anything to eat. I can't help thinking of the poor things."
The duke had not thought about the unemployed before, but now he made a mental vow to send a big cheque to the Lord Mayor's fund.
"It must be very hard for them," he said vaguely. "I remember meeting one of their processions once when I was walking down Piccadilly."
"The street of your palace!" she answered more brightly. "Devonshire House, Paddington House, and Apsley House, and all the clubs in between! It must be interesting to have a palace in London. I suppose Paddington House is very splendid inside, isn't it? I have never seen more of it than the upper windows and the huge wall in front."
"Well, it is rather gorgeous," he said; "though I never go there, or, at least, hardly ever. But I have a book of photographs here. I will show them to you, Lady Constance, if I may. So far we've succeeded in keeping them out of the illustrated magazines."
"Oh, please do!" she said. "Father, the duke is going to show me some pictures of the rooms of his mysterious great place in Piccadilly."
As she spoke there was a knock upon the door, and the scout came in with a telegram upon a tray.
"I thought I had better bring it at once, sir," he said; "it's marked 'urgent' upon the envelope."
With an apology, the duke opened the flimsy orange-coloured wrapping.
Then he started, his face grew rather paler, and he gave a sudden exclamation. "Good heavens!" he said, "listen to this:
"'Large portion front west wing Paddington House destroyed by explosion an hour ago. Bomb filled with picric acid discovered intact near gateway. The smaller Gainsborough and the Florence vase destroyed. Please come up town immediately.
"'Simpson.'"
There was a dead silence in the room.
Lord Camborne, Lord Hayle, and Lady Constance stared at the duke in amazement as he read the extraordinary telegram from Colonel Simpson. Lady Constance was the first to speak. "And you were just getting the book of photographs!" she said in a bewildered voice, "the photographs of Paddington House, and now——"
"Read the wire again, John," said Lord Hayle.
The duke did so; it was quite clear:
"'Large portion front west wing Paddington House destroyed by explosion an hour ago. Bomb filled with picric acid discovered intact near gateway. The smaller Gainsborough and the Florence vase destroyed. Please come up town immediately.
"'Simpson.'"
"The smaller Gainsborough—that's the famous portrait of Lady Honoria FitzTracy," said Lord Hayle suddenly. "Why, it's the finest example of Gainsborough in existence!"
He grew pale with sympathy as he looked at his friend.
"It isn't in existence any more, apparently," said the duke. "I wish the Florence vase had been saved. My father gave ten thousand pounds for it—not that the money matters—but, you see, it was the only one in the world, except the smaller example in the Vatican."
The bishop broke in with a slight trace of impatience in his voice. "My dear young men," he said, "surely the great question is: Who has perpetrated this abominable outrage? What does it all mean? What steps are being——"
He stopped short. Gardener had entered with another telegram.
"Man arrested on suspicion, known to belong to advanced socialist or anarchist group. Can you catch the fast train up? There is one at six. I will meet you with car.
"Simpson."
"Well, here is a sort of answer," said the duke, handing the telegram to the bishop. "It appears that the thing is another of those kindly and amiable protests which the lower classes make against their betters from time to time."
"Just what I was saying," young Lord Hayle broke in eagerly, "just what I was saying a few minutes ago. It's all the result of educating the lower classes sufficiently to make them discontented and to put these scoundrelly socialists and blackguards into Parliament. They'll be trying Buckingham Palace or Marlborough House next! Probably this is the work of those unemployed gentry whom I heard Constance defending just now."
"It's a bad business," said Lord Camborne gravely; "a very black, bad business indeed. Paddington, you have my sincerest sympathy. I am afraid that in the shock of the news we may have been a little remiss in expressing our grief, but you know, my dear boy, how we all feel for you."
He went up to the duke as he spoke, a grand and stately old man, and shook him warmly by the hand.
"Yes, John," said Lord Hayle, "we really are awfully sorry, old chap."
Lady Constance said nothing, but she looked at her host, and it was enough. He forgot the news, he forgot everything save only the friendship and kindliness in her eyes.
"I suppose you will go up to town by the six o'clock train?" Lord Hayle said.
"I suppose I must, Gerald," the duke replied. "I must go and get leave from the dean later on. I expect I shall have to stay the night. It's not an inviting day for London, is it?"
"Do you know, duke, that I think you are taking it remarkably well," Lady Constance said with a sudden dazzling smile. "I should have been terribly frightened, and then cried my eyes out about the vase and the picture. And as for Hayle—well, I think I can imagine the way Hayle would have behaved."
"Well, of course, I'm horribly angry," the duke said, "and such a thing means a great deal more to society in general than its mere personal aspect to me. But I can't somehow feel it very nearly; it seems remote. I should realize it far more if any one were to steal or break anything in these rooms here—things I constantly touch and see, things I live with. I have so many houses and pictures and things that I never see; they don't seem part of one."
"I can quite understand that," said the bishop; "but that will all be changed some day, please God, before very long. You are only on the threshold of life as yet, you know."
He smiled paternally at the young man, and there was a good deal of meaning in his smile. The duke, not ordinarily sensitive about such things, blushed a little now. He was quite aware to what Lord Camborne referred.
The bishop, astute courtier and diplomatist that he was, marked the blush, pretended not to notice it, and was secretly well pleased. He himself was earl as well as bishop, he was wealthy, he was certain of the Primacy. His daughter, whom he loved and admired more than any other living thing, was a match for any one with her rank and wealth and loveliness. He longed to see her happily married also. At the same time, good man as he was, he was by his very nature and training a worldly man.
If, therefore, the two young people fell in love with each other—well, it would be a very charming arrangement, to say the least of it, Lord Camborne thought. For, far and away above all other fortunate young noblemen, the duke was the greatest parti of the day; he stood alone.
"I've got three hours or more before the train goes," said the duke, "and I can dine on board; there's a car, I know. Now, do let's forget this troublesome business. I'm so sorry, Lady Constance, that it should have happened while you were here. Let's shut out this horrid afternoon."
He spoke with light-hearted emphasis, with gaiety even. Despite what had happened he felt thoroughly happy, his blood ran swiftly in his veins, his pulses throbbed to exhilarating measures. Oh, how beautiful she was! How gracious and lovely!
He went to the windows and pulled the heavy crimson curtains over them, shutting out the wan, grey light of the November afternoon.
He made Gardener bring candles—innumerable candles—to supplement the glow of the electric lights. More logs were cast upon the fire—logs of sawn cedar wood which gave flames of rose-pink and amethyst. The noble room was illuminated as if for a feast.
Lord Hayle entered into the spirit of the thing, con amore. His spirits rose with those of his friend, and his sister also caught the note, while Lord Camborne, smoking a cigar by the fire, watched the three young people with a benevolent smile.
Lady Constance had been sitting by the piano. "Do you play, Lady Constance?" the duke asked.
"She's one of the best amateur pianists I've ever heard," said Lord Hayle.
"Do play something, Lady Constance. What will you give us?"
"It depends on the sort of music you like. Do you like Chopin?"
"I am very fond of Chopin indeed."
"I'll tell you what to play, Connie," said Lord Hayle eagerly. "Play that wonderful nocturne, I forget the number, where the bell comes in. The one with the story about it."
"A story?" said the duke.
"Yes; don't you know it, John? Chopin had just come back from his villa at Majorca—come back to Paris at a time when Georges Sand would have nothing more to do with him. He was living close to Notre Dame. He had a supper by appointment, but began to write his nocturne and forgot all about the time. He was nearing the end when the big bell of the cathedral began to toll midnight. He realised how late it was, and forced himself to finish the thing in a hurry. He wove the twelve great 'clangs' into the theme. It's marvellously romantic and Gothic. One seems to see Victor Hugo's dwarf, Quasimodo, upon the tower, drinking in the midnight air."
Lady Constance sat down at the piano and began the nocturne. The beautiful hands flashed over the keys, whiter than the ivory on which they pressed, her face was grave with the joy of what she was doing.
And as the duke listened the time and place faded utterly away.
The passionate and yet fantastic music pealed out into the room and destroyed its material appeal to the senses. His brain seemed suddenly aware of a larger and more fully-coloured life than he had ever known before, ever thought possible before. He stood upon the threshold of it; it held strange secrets, wonderful chances; there were passionate moments for young blood awaiting!
Here was the agony that lurked in pleasure, the immedicable pain which allured—lights gleamed behind swaying veils.
Clang!
The deep resonance of the iron bell tolled into the dream.
Clang!
The twin towers of Notre Dame were stark and black up in the sky.
Clang!
The dark sky grew rosy, he saw her hands, he saw the light upon her face. It was dark no longer—the bell had tolled away the old day, dawn was at hand, the new day was coming; the dawn of love was rosy in the sky.
* * * * * *
It was four o'clock when the duke's guests went away.
He went with them through the two quadrangles of Paul's to the massive gateway, and saw the three tall figures disappear in the mist with a sense of desolation and loss.
But as he was returning to his rooms to get cap and gown in which to visit the dean of his college, he comforted himself with the reflection that term was almost over.
In a week or so he would be in London, staying in the same house with her! The very thought set his heart beating like a drum!
He was nearly at the door of his staircase when he saw a man coming towards him, evidently about to speak to him. It was a man he recognised, though he had never spoken to him, a man called Burnside.
St. Paul's, as it has been said, was a college in which nearly all the undergraduates were rich men. A man of moderate means could not afford to join it. At the same time, as in the case of all colleges, there were half-a-dozen scholarships open to any one. As these scholarships were large in amount they naturally attracted very poor men. At the present moment there were some six or seven scholars of Paul's, who lived almost entirely upon their scholarships and such tutorial work as they could secure in the vacations. But these men lived a life absolutely apart from the other men of the college. They could afford to subscribe to none of the college clubs, they could not dress like other men, they could not entertain. That they were all certain to get first-classes and develop into distinguished men mattered nothing to the young aristocrats of the college. For them the scholars simply did not exist.
Burnside, the duke had heard somewhere or other, was one of the most promising scholars of his year, but he wore rather shabby black clothes, very thick boots, and a made-up tie; he was quite an unimportant person!
He came up to the duke now, his pale intelligent face flushing a little and a very obvious nervousness animating him.
"Might I speak to you a moment?" he said.
The duke looked at him with that peculiar Oxford stare, which is possibly the most insolent expression known to the physiognomist, a cultivated rudeness which the Oxford "blood" learns to discard very quickly indeed when he "goes down" and enters upon the realities of life.
The duke did not mean anything by his stare, however; it was habit, that was all, and seeing the nervousness of his vis-à-vis was growing painful, his face relaxed. "Oh, all right," he said. "What is it—anything I can do? At any rate, come up to my rooms, it's so confoundedly dismal out here this afternoon."