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The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance

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Год написания книги: 2017
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He found it impossible to spend his pocket-money, and he hated the notion of it accumulating at his banker's. When he had a large balance, it always seemed as if it were placed there as the wages of his bodily infirmities. He hated money as honourable men hate debt. When he found a balance of ten or twelve thousand at his banker's, he could, he knew, draw it out and drop it over the side of the yacht. But that would be wilful waste. He might have given it in charity; but he had so little contact with the world that he had hardly any sense of the necessity for charity, except through reading, which is a cold and formal way of kindling one's sympathy. He might have gambled; but he had hardly ever attended a race or coursing match. They very rarely had a guest at the Castle or on board the yacht; and he did not care for cards, even if guests were more numerous. He led an isolated and dreary life; but he had experience of hardly any other. He could not with comfort, live more than a few days ashore, or with safety more than a couple of weeks.

He was now no longer what may be called a young man, and he intended not to marry. His feeling was, that when such as he chanced to be the only representative of his race his race ought to die out. On this point his father had expostulated with him in vain. He never would marry. The vital power of his race was expiring in him-let it die.

When his father died he should be Duke of Shropshire, with three to four hundred thousand a year. What better off should he be then than he now was. No better. He should, in fact, be worse, for he would have lost the only friend and companion he had, his father. He should have to draw more cheques, to see more people, to transact more business. But he should eat nor drink nor lie no better, nor should his health be improved. His capacity for enjoyment would be in no way increased, and there would be a great addition to his labours. His father was hale and hardy, and might live twenty-five years yet; and the heir hoped with all his heart he might die before his father.

He marry! Why should he marry? What woman would care to share the stupid life he was compelled to lead? No woman would be likely to love him for himself, for he knew he was an uninteresting invalid. Thousands of women would marry him because he was the Marquis of Southwold and heir to the great dukedom of Shropshire. That went without saying. But no woman would willingly share his life; and why should he marry a woman who would unwillingly abide by him, or insist upon keeping up fitting state in London and the country while he was a frail despised rover of the sea? No! let the race go, and let the lawyers pocket the spoil-the spoil would be enough to found fifty families-and let the title die. What good would the title be to him? Could he soothe the winds with it, or stop a leak with it, or claw off a lee-shore with it?

Neither the Duke nor the Marquis was an intellectual man. But when one is everlastingly on ship-board he must do something. Common sailors who cannot read cultivate superstition, a knowledge of the weather, and the use of abnormal quantities of tobacco.

A sailor carries away from a book he has read a more accurate notion of what is in it than any other class of man of similar intellectual lights and acquirements. As the sailor who has studied his chart by day can see, when approaching an invisible shore through the trackless darkness of water and night, in his mind's eye the shore and the beacons of the shore that still lie hidden below the horizon, so the sailor who has read a book can see that book by aid of the chart he has made of it when the book has been closed up for ever.

As neither father nor son played the fiddle, or carved ivory, or cared much for shooting at bottles in the water, or hunting the great sea-serpent to earth, if the phrase may be allowed, or discovering the North Pole, or exploring cannibal islands, or going in search of novelty in foreign parts, a great deal of their time was spent in reading and fishing. Fishing at sea is not a very high or exciting art. Indeed, it is an art that is almost independent of the artist. And it is almost necessary to have some other occupation at the same time, so that reading goes hand-in-hand with fishing.

Thus it happened that both the Duke and his son read enormous piles of newspapers and books. The Duke read newspapers chiefly, and political books, and articles in the quarterlies. When a young man he had been active in politics, but now he took only a reflected interest in them. He hated Radicals with a complete and abiding hatred. He would root them out of the country at any cost. They disturbed his cities and boroughs. They were a low lot, and never washed their hands.

The Marquis of Southwold, on the contrary, took little or no interest in politics. As far as he had any political feeling, it was against his order and in favour of the Radicals. This feeling he kept to himself, not because he was afraid to put forward anything opposed to his father's views, but because he did not care to speak on a subject he knew so little about. Personally he had a poor opinion of dukes, but they might in reality be better than Radicals for all he knew to the contrary, for he had met two dukes besides his father, but never a Radical. He knew there was a wide gulf between dukes and Radicals. He had an idea a Radical was a kind of political poet. He didn't think much of poets; he knew little of Radicals; and he was perfectly sure dukes were useless. He had a vague general conviction that politicians who were not dukes were fools or rogues, but he was quite sure dukes were supernumeraries without parts in the play of life.

But if he did not care anything about poetry and politics, he was much interested in fiction. One of the few ways open to him, by which he could now and then reduce by a few pounds the balance at his banker's, was in ordering all the new novels which appeared, and ordering them, not at a library, but from the publisher, through his bookseller. Thus while this arrangement existed, every author who got out a novel was sure of finding at least one buyer.

It so happened that in the same month of June Edward Graham set up his easel to paint that landscape under Anerly Bridge, a novel was published called "The Duke of Fenwick: a Romance. By Charles Augustus Cheyne." According to the ordinary rule, the novel had been published in three volumes before it had fully run through the paper in which it appeared from week to week.

The same week the book was published it found its way down to Silverview Castle, and from the Castle to the yacht Seabird, in the hands of George Temple Cheyne, by courtesy called Marquis of Southwold.

The title naturally attracted the nobleman, who had no faith in dukes. He opened the book and found, by a curious coincidence, that the book had been written by a namesake.

"A book by a namesake," thought he; "but by no relative! There never yet was a Cheyne who could write anything more worthy of public notice than 'Trespassers will be prosecuted. Dogs found in these preserves will be shot.'"

But a book by a namesake dealing with a duke was of much more than ordinary interest; so he immediately found the easiest of couches, and lay down under the awning on deck to hear what his namesake had to say about a duke.

Certainly he had never met a duke like his Grace of Fenwick; but then he had met only his own father and two others. The two strange dukes he had met were like the farmers who came to pay his father rent. But then his father was very like a groom or jockey, and yet was not particularly fond of riding or of horses; so that it was, perhaps, not the nature of dukes to look like what they were. His namesake had no thought of drawing any member of the Shropshire family, for his duke was represented as being tall, well-made, and handsome. None of the Shropshire family had been tall, well-made, and handsome. They had all been short and bandy-legged until he had come. He was tall, it was true, and not bandy-legged; but then he was not handsome or well-made.

Stop, there had been his uncle, Lord George Temple Cheyne, who had been tall, well-made, and handsome; but he had died upwards of thirty years ago.

What a strange thing that the two last representatives of the race should have escaped the hereditary bow-legs! What a pity his uncle had not lived! He would have married, no doubt, and then his sons would have come into the title, and the property and the old name might have been carried down generations by men of wholesome make.

"What a ridiculous way that story ended! A violoncello-player turned out to be the real Duke of Fenwick. I wish to goodness he could turn me from being Marquis of Southwold into a man who had only warts on his fingers from the strings of the big fiddle. He wouldn't catch me going back again to the Marquis or Duke of Anything or Anywhere. Not I. I'd very soon pay off that landlord. But stop! How could I pay him off if I had no money? If I was the poor violoncello-player, I shouldn't have any money. But I am always wanting not to have any money; and if I had none when he came, I'd tell him I couldn't pay him then, but that I would the moment I got my next quarter's allowance from the Duke-. But I should be the Duke of Fenwick then, and there would be, as far as I was concerned, no Duke of Shropshire. Who really should I be then? It is the most puzzling thing I ever thought of. What's the good of writing a story that twists a man's head round and round like that, until he doesn't know which is front or which is back-I mean, which is his face or which is his poll? Before I had got rid of tutors they had so twisted my head round and round that, although I have been trying ever since, I have not been able to twist it back again.

"I know why this fellow wrote this book. I know it all now. Cheyne is an assumed name. He knows our name is Cheyne, and that the race dies with me. He knows I am an invalid. He knows-someone told him-I get all the novels which are published; and he has written this one to spite me, and offend my father. Low cad! But I will take good care my father does not see the filthy rubbish. Boy, bring me a marline-spike and a piece of spun-yarn."

The Marquis of Southwold bound up the three volumes of Charles Augustus Cheyne's "The Duke of Fenwick," and having looped to them the marline-spike by way of a sinker, dropped them slowly over the side of the Seabird into the still blue waters of Silver Bay, under the Duke of Shropshire's stately castle.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MARQUIS OF SOUTHWOLD'S LETTER

"Oh, what a way it is up! My wind isn't now what it used to be, when first I met you warm and young, Cheyne, is it? Such confounded stairs!" said Mr. John Wilkinson, a very stout puffy-looking man for thirty-six years of age, and editor and staff of The Coal-Vase Reporter, one of the most prosperous of the minor trade papers in London.

"My wind is as sound as ever," said the Duke of Long Acre, rising; for Wilkinson was not alone.

"Going up and down these breakneck flights once a day would keep a man in training. Cheyne, allow me to introduce my friend Freemantle. He has a great taste for poetry, writes very beautiful poetry indeed, and is most anxious to make your acquaintance. He has just read your book, 'The Duke of Fenwick,' and is delighted with it. I haven't had time to read it yet! but I shall read it this week, and review it in next week's Reporter. "

Cheyne shook hands with Freemantle, set a chair for him, and pushed his new acquaintance down on it in his jovial freehanded manner.

"And how are you, Freemantle?" asked Cheyne, as though they had known one another for many years. Turning to Wilkinson, he said: "Look up a chair for yourself."

"I am quite well, thank you, Mr. Cheyne."

"For Heaven's sake don't Mister me. I am never Mistered by anyone but duns."

"I beg your grace's pardon," said Wilkinson. "May I have the honour of presenting to your grace Mr. Harry Freemantle? Mr. Harry Freemantle, his Grace the Duke of Long Acre."

The two men rose and bowed profoundly to one another. Then Cheyne, again bowing profoundly and causing his head to describe a semicircle parallel to the horizon, said:

"The interesting preliminaries of introduction having been disposed of, his grace left the room to draw the beer out of his four-and-a-half-gallon cask, kept on the landing outside his grace's bedroom."

He returned in a few minutes with a jug and three glasses. When the three men had settled themselves and lighted their pipes, Wilkinson said:

"I hope we are not disturbing you now, Cheyne? You are not busy?"

"No, not a bit. I have just written a reply to a letter I had this morning from the Earl of Sark. He is an old chum of mine, and has read my book. He wants me to go and stay with him for awhile. But I can't-not just now, anyway."

"Well, you see," said Wilkinson, "Freemantle here is very anxious to do something in the way of verse-publishing it, I mean. He has several poems ready for publication. Poetry isn't in my way, Cheyne, so I thought I'd bring him to you."

"May I ask if you expect it to pay?"

"Well, no," said Freemantle, with a candid smile.

"You are independent of it?"

"In a certain sense I am. I am an attorney, and am employed in the office of Baker and Tranter, Bedford Street."

"Oh, that is all right. Is your purpose to publish a volume?"

"No, I do not aim so high as that."

"I am glad to hear it. There aren't more than six men whose volumes pay the mere expenses of printing and publication. Poetry is the most beggarly of all arts now. Living poets of fame and exquisite merit do not make as much by their trade as the humblest Italian artisan employed in casting plaster-of-Paris in Leather Lane. Writing and publishing poetry is an expensive luxury, and the readers of poetry are now a lost tribe."

"I thought of a much more modest attempt than a book. I thought I might be able to get a few little bits of verse into a magazine or two. I have brought a few little bits with me; I should feel very much obliged to you if you will look at them, and tell me what you think of them, and if there is any chance of their getting in anywhere; and if there is, when?"

"Oh, I'll be glad to do you more than that, if they are all right. I'll give you an introduction to an editor or two, whom I think likely to take them. In fact, if they are all right, I think there can be no question of our planting them somewhere."

"I am sure I am very much obliged to you. You were speaking a moment ago of having had a letter from a nobleman who has read your novel."

"Yes, my old friend, my kind old chum, the Earl of Sark."

"Well, if both of you will promise me to keep a secret anything I may say about another nobleman who has read your book, I can tell you something which will interest you a good deal."

The promise asked was given.

"I know I may depend on you both."

"Entirely."

Wilkinson answered for the two.

"Now, you know of the Duke of Shropshire and his son, the Marquis of Southwold? And you know they happen to bear the same name as you, Cheyne?"

"Yes," said the Duke of Long Acre guardedly. If Freemantle had not thus early mentioned the identity of names between the two, no doubt Cheyne would have claimed acquaintance with both; but here was the wretched name springing up again. Should he never get rid of this odious name?

"Well, Baker and Tranter have had a letter from the Marquis of Southwold, saying he has read your novel (Baker and Tranter are the Duke of Shropshire's lawyers), and that he thinks it a most impudent and barefaced outrage upon his father and his house-"

"What!" exclaimed the Duke of Long Acre, in the profoundest astonishment.

"It is a fact. He says the book is all about a dukedom which is on the point of becoming extinct, as in the case of the dukedom of Shropshire. That you have no claim or title to the name of Cheyne-"

"He lies!" cried Cheyne, all the more vehemently because he was not certain.

"And he wants to know if criminal proceedings cannot be taken against you for slander, malicious injury, and assuming a great name, with a view to annoy or-"

"Go on."

"Or possibly extract money."

"Great heavens! What next?"

"Of course, Cheyne, you do not confound mine with any of the opinions expressed in this letter. Indeed, I now think it would have been better if I had not mentioned it at all. And, for more reasons than one, I should not have done so, only that, of course, the whole thing is utterly absurd. Baker and Tranter have written back that, having had the book and the case placed before counsel, counsel and they agree no action of a criminal or civil nature can be taken in the matter. You will, of course, make no use of anything I have told you?"

"What, sir! Do you, too, doubt my word, question my honour?"

He struck the leaf of the table a mighty blow of his right fist. The leaf of the table flew to the ground, torn from the table; the table tilted up; and all the glasses, pipes, books, and papers went flying in wild confusion around the room. Cheyne sprang to his feet with an oath, and stood, pale as death, except his eyes, which were blazing. He looked like a wild beast ready to spring.

The other two men were also standing now.

"No, no, no, old man," said Wilkinson, in a soothing voice; "nothing is farther from the thoughts of anyone here. Why, we know you-old man!"

Wilkinson did not like to call the furious man either your grace or Cheyne now. Mortal offence might be in either.

"For if any man asperses my mother's name or impugns my honour, I shall take him by the hips and pitch him head downward through that window."

He meant what he said; and they both felt sure he could do it.

"Do be quiet, old man!" said Wilkinson. "I am sure either Freemantle or myself would be one of the very first to defend your mother's name or your honour, if anyone here had dared to call either in question. But no one here has dreamed of any such absurdity."

"Then where is this leprous Marquis, who has dared to do both? By-, I'll choke him with the tongue that said these things, as sure as my name is-" His whole frame was convulsed, the muscles of his throat and his face flushed, deepened into purple. He could not speak. The conflict was too terrible. At last he got breath. "Oh God, is it not horrible that a wretch whom Thou has marked with the sign of Thine own displeasure should try to sully spotless names, and spit its unclean venom on wholesome men with wholesome honours? As sure as the same Great Power made you and me, you shall answer to me for this, foot to foot, eye to eye, life to life!"

Without saying another word, he took up his hat, crushed it down on his head, and dashed out of the room, leaving the two men mute, incapable of speech.

Freemantle was the first to recover.

"Don't you think we ought to follow him? He'll do mischief to himself or somebody else, I am afraid. He's a raving maniac at this moment."

"I do not think he will do any mischief."

"I never saw a man look so like as if he meant what he said."

"No doubt. But I have known Cheyne many years, and you have met him for the first time today. All the time I have known him he has been the most peaceful of men."

"Yes; but these peaceful men, when they break out, are always the worst. How infernally unlucky I was to say anything about that letter!"

"But no one could have foreseen the consequences. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have laughed at the whole thing. But you did not know Cheyne is sensitive about his name being the same as that of the Duke of Shropshire."

"I hadn't the slightest idea of anything of the kind."

"Of course not, or you would not have spoken. Cheyne is the very soul of honour, and a very excellent fellow, although he tells lies about knowing peers and big pots of all kinds. He said to you he had just had a letter from the Earl of Sark. Now 111 lay you a level shilling that there is-"

"No such title."

"Oh no! Cheyne isn't such a fool as that. But I'll lay you a level shilling that if you look in a morning paper you'll find the Earl of Sark has been doing or saying something. He has either spoken in the House, or written a letter to the secretary of a club, or laid the foundation-stone of a church, or bought a racer of some note, or done something else that has for the moment lifted him out of the ruck of the peers."

"Then you don't attach any importance to what he said?"

"I think he is very angry now, but that before he has got half a mile he will cool down. How far is it from here to where this Marquis lives?"

"Oh, a long way! A couple of hundred miles or more: two-fifty."

"It would be sheer nonsense to suppose his anger could last half the way. And I believe this Marquis spends most of his life at sea?"

"A good deal of it. He was so knocked up by reading this book that he put out to sea almost at once, he and the Duke."

"Then we may dismiss the matter altogether from our minds. I'll lay you another level shilling he draws no blood over this affair. What a horrible mess he has made of the place! He has spilt all the beer and tobacco. There's no cure for spilt beer, but there is for spilt 'baccy. Let us pick up a fill each and have another pipe before we go."

CHAPTER X.

ROUSING THE LION

But, notwithstanding John Wilkinson's opinion to the contrary, there was not a man in all London so sure of the endurance of his rage as Charles Augustus Cheyne. That letter of the Marquis of Southwold had hit him on two of his sore points, namely, his doubtful parentage and personal honour. It used to be his boast that he never lost his temper, never once in all his life; and even still he might say the same thing. He had not lost his temper; his reason had fled him. He was not in a legal sense insane, but morally he could scarcely be held responsible for his acts.

Ever since he had been old enough to be capable of appreciating feelings of the kind, his most anxious thoughts had been devoted to reducing as much as possible all inquiry respecting his parentage. And here now was the wretched, drivelling, imbecile Marquis not only directing attention to his early history, but putting forth in as many words the horrible suspicion that he, Charles Cheyne, had no right or title to the name he bore! The one great fear of his life had been realised. He had been called an impostor of the most shameful class, and in addition to this, his own honour had been impugned. He had in effect been called a knave, a liar, a cheat, a low-minded bully, who wanted to levy blackmail on unoffending people. It was intolerable, monstrous, unendurable.

Nothing but a personal encounter with the man who had dared to say or insinuate such things would appease him.

He would go to this wretched Marquis of Southwold; he would give the man his name; he would confess his authorship of the book, and then-

Suppose, when he had done all this, the Marquis said nothing; what farther should he do? For had he not promised the man who told him that he would not speak of the nature of that letter? What should he do? How could he bring that wretched man to book? Yet the thing must be done somehow, anyhow.

Then he suffered a revulsion. All his life he had been boasting of his acquaintance with lords, and yet he had never, to his knowledge, spoken to one. Now he was quite resolved to meet and to speak with one, no matter what the risk, no matter what the consequences. He would never allude to the aristocracy in the old way again. He was conscious there was a kind of poetic justice in the fact that a fatal stab to the reputation of his mother and his own honour had been dealt by one of the class with which he claimed intercourse. Henceforth and for ever let that class be to him accursed. Henceforth and for ever he would be a Radical, a Socialist.

But how should he manage to keep his word with Freemantle, and yet be able to taunt Southwold with his calumnies? He could think of only one way. He would go to the Marquis, declare who he was, state he was the author of "The Duke of Fenwick," and await the course events might then take. It was more than likely that the Marquis would say something offensive to him. He would then challenge the heir; and if the latter would not fight him with pistol or sword, if the Marquis declined such a combat, Cheyne would, after warning him, attack him with such weapons as Nature had given him-his hands and his vast strength. He would take the neck of that man in his hands, and strangle him with his thumbs; then they might hang him upon the nearest tree.

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