On the morning of the funeral, six days later, Christian rose very early, and took coffee in his library shortly after seven. Then, lighting a cigarette, he resumed work upon several drawers full of papers, open on the big table, where it had been left off the previous evening. The details of the task seemed already familiar to him. He scanned one document after another with an informed eye, and put it in its proper pile without hesitation. He made notes suggested by the contents of each, on the pad before him, with a quill pen and corrected the vagaries of this unaccustomed implement, in the matter of blots and inadequate lines, with painstaking patience. There were steel nibs in abundance, and two gold stylographic pens, but he clung resolutely to the embarrassing feather.
After a time he rested from his labors, and rang the bell beside his desk; almost upon the instant Falkner appeared in the doorway.
“If Mr. Westland is up,” said Christian, “you may ask him to join me here.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the smooth-voiced, soft-mannered man replied, and vanished.
The young duke rose, yawned slightly and moved to the window nearest him. It opened, upon examination, and he stepped out on a narrow balcony of stone which skirted the front of the square tower he had quitted. The outlook seemed to be to the northeast, for a patch of sunshine lay upon the outer edge of the balcony at the right. Breathing in delightedly the fresh Maymorning air, he gazed upon the bold prospect of hills receding in lifted terraces high against the remote sky-line. He had not seen just this view from Caermere before—and he said to himself that it was finer than all the others. Above each lateral stretch of purplish-gray granite, to the farthest distance, there ran a band of cool green foliage—the inexpressibly tender green of young birch trees; their thin, chalk-white stems were revealed in delicate tracery against indefinable sylvan shadows.
Through the early stillness, he could hear the faint murmur of the Devon, gurgling in the depths of the ravine between him and the nearest hill. “To-morrow,” he thought, “will begin the true life! All this will be my home—mine! mine! and before anybody is up in the morning I will be down where that river of black water runs, and fish in the deep pools for trout.”
Some one touched his elbow. He turned with a quick nod and smile to greet Dicky Westland. “I am up ages before you, you see,” he said genially. “It was barely daylight when I woke—and I suffered tortures trying to remain in bed even till six. Oh, this is wonderful out here!”
“Awfully jolly place, all round,” commented Dicky. He blinked to exorcise the spirit of sleep and gazed at the prospect with determined enthusiasm. “I haven’t looked about much, but I’ve found out one thing already. There’s a ghost in my room—and I think he must have been a professional pedestrian in life.”
“Splendid!” cried Christian, gaily. “Have you had coffee—or it is tea you people drink, isn’t it? Then shall we get to work? I want the papers out of the way before Emanuel comes. They will all be here between nine and ten. I wanted to send carriages to Craven Arms, but it seemed there were not horses enough, so hired traps are to be brought up from the station.”
“Do you know who are coming?”
“Lord Julius, and Emanuel and his wife; the captain and his wife and brother; Lord Chobham, and Lord Lingfield—I don’t know if any of their women will come—and Lady Cressage. Then there are some solicitors, and perhaps some old acquaintances of my grandfather’s. At all events, Welldon has ordered four carriages and a break. There is to be breakfast at ten, and I shall be glad when it is all over—when everything is over. Do you know?—I have never been to a funeral in my life—and I rather funk it.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad as you always think they’re going to be,” said the secretary, consolingly. “The main thing is the gloves. I never could understand it—but black gloves are invariably about two sizes smaller than ordinary colors. You want to look out for that. But I dare say your man is up to the trick—he looks a knowing party, does Falkner.”
“I fancy I shall give him back to Emanuel,” remarked Christian, thoughtfully.
“He is an excellent servant, but he reminds me too much of Duke Street. Did you notice the old butler yesterday afternoon?—he stood at the head of the steps to meet us—that is old Barlow. I have a great affection for him. I shall have him valet me, I think.”
“Isn’t he rather venerable for the job?” suggested the other. “And wouldn’t it be rather a come-down for a head butler? They’re awfully keen about their distinctions among themselves, you know.”
Christian smiled with placidity. “I think that the man whom I pick out to be nearest me will feel that he has the best place in the household. I shall be very much surprised indeed if that isn’t Barlow’s view. And of course he will have his subordinates. But now let us take Welldon’s statement for the last half of ’95, and the two halves of ’96. Then we can get to the mine. Unless I am greatly mistaken, that is most important. I find that the mining company’s lease falls in early next year. And won’t you ring the bell and have Welldon sent up when he comes?”
Upon mature reflection Christian decided not to descend to meet his guests at breakfast. When he had dismissed the estate agent, Welldon, after a prolonged and very comprehensive interview, he announced this decision to Westland. “You must go down and receive them in my place,” he said.
“I will say that you have a cold,” suggested Dicky.
“By no means,” returned Christian, promptly.
“It is not necessary to enter into details. You receive them—that is all. I have spoken with Barlow; he knows what to do with them in the matter of rooms and so on. I am breakfasting here. And afterward—say at eleven o’clock—I will see some of them here. There is an hour to spare then, before we go to the church. I am not clear about this—which ones to see first. There is that stupid reading of the will after we get back——”
“By George! do they do that still?” interrupted Dicky. “I know they did in Trollope and George Eliot—but I thought it had gone out.”
“It is kept up in old families,” replied Christian, simply. “In this case it is a pure formality, of course. There is no mystery whatever. The will was made in 1859, after the entail was broken, and merely bequeaths everything in general terms to the heir-at-law. My grandfather covenanted, at the same time, to Lord Julius to make no subsequent will save by his advice and consent—so that there can be no complications of any kind. I am thinking whether it would be better to see Lord Julius and Emanuel before the reading of this will or after. Really it makes no difference—perhaps it is better to get it over with. Yes—say to them that I beg they will come to me here at eleven. You might bring them up and then leave us together—or no, they know the way. Let them come up by themselves.”
Through the open window there came the grinding sound of wheels upon the gravel of the drive, around at the east front. At a gesture from the other, Dicky hurried away.
Left to himself, Christian wandered again to the casement, and regarded the spacious view with renewed interest. Falkner entered presently, bearing a large tray, and spread some covered dishes upon a cloth on the library table.
“How many carriages have come?” the master asked from his place at the window.
“Four, Your Grace—and a break with some wreaths and Lord Chobham’s man and a maid—I think it is Lady Cressage’s maid.”
“Who has come—outside the family?”
“Three gentlemen, Your Grace—one of them is Mr. Soman. Barlow thinks they are all solicitors.”
Christian mused briefly upon the presence of Lord Julius’s man of business. Since that first evening of his on English soil, at Brighton, he had not seen this Mr. Soman. He remembered nothing of him, indeed, save his green eyes. And now that he thought of it, even this was not a personal recollection. It was the remark of the girl on the boat, about his having green eyes, which stuck in his memory. He smiled, as he looked idly out on the hills.
The girl on the boat! Was it not strange that his mind should have applied to her this distant and chilling designation? Only a few days ago—it would not be a week till to-morrow—she had seemed to him the most important person in the world. A vision of his future had possessed him, in which she alone had a definite share. How remote it seemed—and how curious!
He recalled, quite impersonally, what he had heard in one way or another about her family. Her father was some sort of underling in the general post office—a clerk or accountant, or something of the kind. There was a son—of course, that would be the brother Cora had spoken of—and the ambition of the family had expended itself in sending this boy to a public school, and to the university. The family had made great sacrifices to do this—and apparently these had been wasted. He had the distinct impression of having been told that the son was a worthless fellow. How often that occurred in England—that everything was done for the son, and nothing at all for the daughters! Then in fairness he reflected that it was even worse in France. Yes, but somehow Frenchwomen had a talent for doing for themselves. They were cleverer than their brothers—more helpful, resourceful—in spite of the fact that the brothers had monopolized the advantages. Images of capable, managing Frenchwomen he had known rose before his mind’s eye; he saw them again accomplishing wonders of work, diligent, wise, sensible, understanding everything that was said or done. Yet, oddly enough, these very paragons of feminine capacity had a fatal unfeminine defect; they did not know how to bring up their sons. Upon that side they were incredibly weak and silly; it was impossible to prevent their making pampered fools of their boys.
Suddenly his vagrant fancies were concentrated upon the question of how Frances Bailey would bring up a boy—a son of her own. It was an absurd query to have raised itself in his mind—and he put it away from him with promptitude. There remained, however, a kind of mental protest lodged on her behalf among his thoughts. He perceived that in his ruminations he had done her an injustice. She was not inferior in capability or courage to any of the self-sufficient Frenchwomen he had been thinking of, and in the matter of intellectual attainments was she not immeasurably superior to them all? The translucent calm of her mind—penetrating, far-reaching, equable as the starlight—how queer that it should be coupled with such a bad temper! She always quarreled with him, and bullied him, when they were together. Even when she was exhibiting to him the sunniest aspects of her mood, there was always a latent defiance of him underneath, ready to spring forth at a word. He remembered how, at the close of their first meeting, she had refused to tell him her name. He saw now that this obstinacy of hers had annoyed him more than he had imagined. For an instant it assumed almost the character of a grievance—but then his attention fastened itself at random upon the remarkable fact that he had seen her only twice in his life. Upon reflection, this did seem very strange indeed. But it was the fact—and in the process of readjusting his impressions of the past six months to fit with it, the figure of her receded in his mind, grew less as she moved away under a canopy of dull yellowish-green, which vaguely identified itself with the trees on the Embankment. She dwindled thus till he thought of her again, with a dim impulse of insistence upon the phrase, as the girl on the boat. The transition to thoughts of other things gave his mind no sort of trou............