The Duke Comes Home Read online

  “I shall be twenty-one in a month’s time.”

  “Even at that great age,” Mr. Wicker said with a smile, “you cannot live by yourself or as you suggest, earn your own living.”

  “It is really ridiculous, is it not,” Ilina asked, “that although I am well educated and without being conceited very well read, I cannot earn anything with my talents.”

  “Ladies are not expected to earn their own living.”

  “I am sure that most ladies enjoy playing the piano, sketching and entertaining their friends,” Ilina said, “but those comforts are what I cannot afford.”

  Mr. Wicker sighed.

  “I am afraid then you will have to ask the new Duke to look after you. After all that is what is expected of the Head of the Family.”

  Ilina gave a little start.

  “I have not really been thinking of him as the Head of the Family. Do you think when he arrives that the cousins and the other relations I have not seen for years will gather round him and perhaps also make demands on his purse?”

  “If so, I can only hope it is a large one!” Mr. Wicker said a little cynically.

  Ilina jumped up again from the chair where she was sitting.

  “I will not do it! I could not bear to be an encumbrance on anybody else, least of all on somebody whom Papa hated!”

  As she spoke, she could hear him raving wildly from his bed,

  “Do you realise that Roland’s son will reign here in my place and they are both as crooked as corkscrews! Roland I loathe and detest. He always cheated when we were at Eton. I would not be surprised if he was instrumental in having David killed.”

  “Please – Papa,” Ilina had pleaded, “you must not say such things. You know they are not true.”

  “I hate him! I hate them both!” her father had shouted, “and that damned son of his, who has been skulking about in some obscure part of the world and is doubtless riddled with opium and vice, will wear my coronet.”

  As her father had not worn his coronet for more than ten years, Ilina could not understand why this should perturb him.

  But he referred to it again and again and assumed that since Sheridan Bury had lived in the East he took opium and indulged in every sort of exotic vice.

  It was impossible when her father raved on and on not to create a picture in her mind of somebody debauched and horrible in every possible way.

  Although she told herself that it was foolish and entirely lacking in substantiation, she could not help being afraid of what the new Duke would be like.

  She had written to him, when the doctors had told her that it was unlikely her father would last many more months, to ask him to come home.

  It had been very difficult to trace his whereabouts, but finally Mr. Wicker had been in touch with the Bank nearest to the house where Sheridan’s father used to live and they had given him an address in India.

  Ilina told her cousin in her letter that her father was dying and, as he was the heir to the Dukedom, it would be wise for him to come home.

  She had written simply and she hoped pleasantly.

  Because she had made a great effort to be as nice as possible, she had resented the fact that Sheridan Bury had neither answered her letter nor acceded to her suggestion that he should return.

  It was easy enough to excuse him on the ground that he might not have received the letter.

  But as she had addressed it care of the Bank, she could not believe that it would not reach him eventually. Was he in fact not interested in his future prospects?

  Since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, instead of taking as much as three months to reach India, it was now possible for a ship to travel from Bombay to England in just under twenty days.

  Her father had lingered for six months after the doctors’ announcement that there was nothing more they could do for him and now nearly three weeks after his funeral there was still no sign of the new Duke.

  Because it was impossible to sit still Ilina once again walked across the room.

  Then, as she looked up at one of the pictures of her ancestors on the wall, she told herself that it was impossible for her to go away and leave The Abbey.

  How could she abandon everything that was familiar and the only home she had ever known to enter a frightening world where she would be completely alone and practically penniless?

  No, however humiliating it might be, she would stay.

  Then it suddenly struck her that it might not be a matter for her to decide. The question was whether the Duke would want her in the house.

  It was something that had not occurred to her before and she knew that even if he gave her a small yearly allowance she would still not know what to do or where to go and would be terrified of being alone.

  It was really frightening to realise how little she knew about her relations since her father had cut off communication with them.

  She was not even certain which of the older ones were still alive while the only two cousins who had come to the funeral had been old men of her father’s age, who were, as it happened, both widowers.

  The late Duke had married first a woman, who for some reason the doctors could not ascertain, was incapable of producing a child.

  She had died when he was fifty and he had then married a very sweet and lovely person, who had not been married before because her fiancé had died unexpectedly a week before their wedding.

  The two bereaved people had fallen in love with each other and in their own way had been happy even though the bridegroom often had difficulty in controlling his temper and only his wife was capable of coaxing him out of one of his black moods.

  The new Duchess had been thirty-eight when she married and she produced two children, David, the boy who was born a year after their Wedding and then Ilina, who was born a year later.

  The Duke had been so thrilled at having a son that as the servants often said,

  “The sun rises and sets on Master David.”

  Everything centred round David and his whole training and upbringing was for the time when he would take his father’s place and become the sixth Duke.

  Unfortunately soon after the children were born things began to go wrong financially.

  Because the third Duke had been extremely extravagant, there was not as much money available as there might have been although the house was in perfect order with two new wings, which proved eventually to be quite unnecessary, and the stables had been enlarged to take forty horses.

  As to their investments, Ilina thought that while her grandfather might have been ill-advised, her father was obstinate and pig-headed enough to put money into Companies which promised ‘get rich quick’ results, but invariably more often sooner than later went bankrupt.

  Gradually, as the years went by, they grew poorer and poorer while the house went unrepaired and there were very few horses in the huge stables.

  Because, as children they were so happy and their home was both beautiful and entertaining, Ilina had never realised until after her mother’s death how much skimping and pinching she had had to do.

  As far as she and David were concerned, there were always horses of some sort to ride and there was fishing and boating on the lake.

  There were also the woods where David would shoot pigeons and acres of fields in which there were partridge, hares and rabbits, all of which contributed to the larder in The Abbey.

  She could never remember as she looked back on her childhood days when the sun was not shining or a dull moment when she had nothing to do.

  It was only after her mother died just before Ilina’s eighteenth birthday that her whole life changed and she realised that there was no one else to look after her father.

  David was with his Regiment and after the Duke’s accident life suddenly became a nightmare from which there was no escape.

  At the same time the house was there and whatever the difficulties it was still home and still the place that she belonged to and she could not imagine her life witho
ut it.

  Then, as her father moved towards the grave, she began to realise just how old everybody else was.

  The people in the villages that belonged to the estate, whose cottages leaked because there was no money to repair them, were all old and decrepit.

  The young people had all left. Since it was no longer possible to obtain employment at the ‘Big House’ as their fathers and grandfathers had, they had migrated to the nearest towns.

  The farms had run down so that there were few cattle and the Home Farm that supplied the house was in the hands of a very old couple who could hardly manage to provide for themselves let alone their landlord.

  ‘David will be able to change all this,’ Ilina had thought confidently at first.

  Then, when David was killed and her father was no longer sensible or sane, Ilina knew despairingly that the only person who could change anything would be the next Duke.

  As Mr. Wicker had said, everything was entailed.

  Nothing belonged personally to the present Duke in order to preserve the estate for generations that would come after him and she thought that in a way however much she was inconvenienced it was right.

  The portraits that looked down at her were of Burys, who had played their parts in the history of England over the centuries.

  It was almost as if they demanded that the line should be carried on and whatever was accumulated in the house by them or their ancestors before them must remain intact.

  “I wish I could think of some way to help you, Lady Ilina,” Mr. Wicker now said in a voice that made Ilina aware that he was very worried about her.

  “I shall be – all right,” she said bravely.

  Equally every nerve in her body was crying out against the cruelty of her father in leaving her something that did not exist.

  She knew that, if he had declared she should have a few hundreds of pounds a year in his will or even set down the sum that could be hers, the next Duke would honour it automatically.

  That he had made a mockery of her inheritance in bequeathing to her something which, like Fairy Gold, could not be touched by human hands, was so hurtful that at first she could hardly comprehend that it had happened.

  She knew, however, that when she was alone and had time to think it over, she would want to cry.

  “I shall be all right,” she said again, but she was reassuring herself rather than Mr. Wicker.

  Then, as she felt a sudden restriction in her throat and tried to keep back her tears, she gave an exclamation.

  “Mr. Wicker, I have an idea!”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I shall be here when the new Duke arrives, but I shall not let him know who I am.”

  Mr. Wicker looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have to earn money. On that you must agree.”

  “I have told you, Lady Ilina, that it is impossible for you to do so.”

  “Yes, I know, but you must also admit that what I have been spending my time doing could be listed under a number of categories. In the past, when my grandfather was alive, many different people were employed in carrying them all out.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Then listen. First there was a Librarian and a Curator. That was two posts and what they were each paid is set down in the accounts for the period. Next there was an Agent, in fact two, who looked after the estate and you can count that as another post. Then there was the housekeeper rustling I am sure in black silk with the chatelaine at her waist. She too was paid. Under her there were quite a number of housemaids who received some remuneration or other.”

  Ilina drew in her breath and went on,

  “There was also a personal secretary who saw to Grandpapa’s private correspondence, which Mama told me was always very considerable and included many billets-doux from beautiful women because he was so handsome.”

  The Solicitor laughed,

  “That is true. My father always said that the Duke was the best-looking man he had ever seen.”

  “I have not yet finished,” Ilina continued. “Looking up the accounts which were kept meticulously by his secretary, I see that there was a Major Domo who acted as a Groom-of-the-Chambers and The Abbey had two seamstresses, of whom one concentrated entirely on repairs, mending the curtains and upholstery.”

  Ilina paused.

  Then with a smile threw out her arms,

  “All those people, all employed and all paid, all part of the household, you see in one person, Mr. Wicker, me!”

  Mr. Wicker stared at her.

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “I am saying that when the Duke arrives, he is going to find me indispensable at least until he can fill these posts, which are what this house and the estate require.”

  The Solicitor still looked bewildered and Ilina went on,

  “What you have to do is promise me on your honour that you will not reveal to him who I am and, of course, I can make old Mr. and Mrs. Bird agree to do anything I ask.”

  “It’s impossible!” Mr. Wicker said firmly.

  “So impossible that it is what is going to happen,” Ilina said determinedly. “Do you not see, it will save me from humiliation? And even if he decides to get rid of me, if he is a gentleman, the least he will do will be to reimburse me for the years I have spent here.”

  She paused before she added more slowly,

  “Even if he turns out to be as parsimonious as Papa said he was, he will have to give me at least a year’s wages, which is better than nothing.”

  “You cannot do such a thing!” Mr. Wicker objected.

  “I can and I will!” Ilina asserted. “I want to stay at The Abbey, of course I do, but I also do not wish to hold out a begging bowl to the new Duke almost before he has set foot in his new home. I shall inform him that I am indispensable and hope he will find me so.”

  “But Lady Ilina,” Mr. Wicker pleaded, “it would be impossible for you to stay here unchaperoned in such circumstances.”

  Ilina put back her head and laughed.

  “Now you are looking at it from an entirely different angle. It would be much more reprehensible for me to live here with a very distant cousin as myself! But if I am just a senior servant, there is no reason why he should even notice me, except to give me orders, which is exactly what I want.”

  Mr. Wicker looked at her and thought that it would be impossible for any man not to notice her as a woman.

  There was a worried expression on his face as he said,

  “Please listen, Lady Ilina. This is something you should not do and cannot do. Be sensible and tell the new Duke who you are, in which case, as I said before, you should be chaperoned. And in no circumstances must you pretend to be of no consequence.”

  “I cannot understand why that should worry you,” Ilina replied.

  Mr. Wicker realised how innocent and unworldly she was, but he could not for the moment think of how he could put into words what he was thinking.

  Then he told himself that it was very unlikely that the new Duke would be the sort of man who would be interested in what Ilina had called a ‘senior servant’.

  Thinking back Mr. Wicker remembered stories of Noblemen who had pursued defenceless Governesses in large houses or who enjoyed seducing girls from the villages who were foolish enough to think that it was an honour to be noticed by a member of the aristocracy.

  No one knew better than he did how unsophisticated Lady Ilina was, having lived the life of a recluse ever since she had grown up.

  She was telling the truth when she said that she rarely if ever met a man and he was certain the only ones she had met were himself, the doctor and the old Vicar who was doddery and half-blind.

  Thinking his thoughts out loud he carried on,

  “There is no reason for you to assume that the new Duke is not a gentleman. After all as a Bury he is extremely well-born.”

  Ilina smiled.

  “According to the history of the f
amily, there were Burys and Burys and some of them behaved abominably. But as you say, we must just hope that the new Duke is different, although Papa actually tried to convince me that he is the Devil in disguise!”

  Mr. Wicker held up his hands in horror.

  “You cannot risk it. Lady Ilina. Please change your mind and go to one of your relatives.”

  “Which one?” she asked, “and where are they? You know as well as I do that none of them came to the funeral except for those two old cousins. I have a feeling that the great majority of them are dead.”

  “I will make it my duty to put investigations in hand to find them,” Mr. Wicker said, “wherever they may be.”

  “If you do, you will then try to blackmail me into going to live with one of them. Well, I will not do so!”

  There was silence and then she said after a moment,

  “The Abbey is my home and it is all I have left. If Pegasus and I have to go away, then I think I shall either drown myself in the lake or else die of homesickness.”

  She looked up at the picture of her great-great-grandfather that hung on the wall over a desk where her father had always sat and her grandfather and great-grandfather before him.

  ‘I belong here,’ she affirmed silently, ‘and if Mr. Wicker is afraid for me, you will look after me.’

  As she spoke with her eyes on the portrait, which badly needed cleaning, she realised that she was addressing the Duke who had hidden the Nizam’s jewels before he went out to fight for his country and die.

  With a smile on her lips she went on to the portrait,

  ‘The least you could do at this moment is to tell me where you have hidden your treasure. I do not think all down the years since you were alive that there has been anybody who needed it as badly as I do now.’

  The handsome face of the second Duke was, however, impassive and after a moment, almost as if she had expected him to speak, she turned away petulantly to add,

  ‘Well, if you will not help me, I will have to help myself and that is exactly what I intend to do.’

  “He might help you to see sense,” Mr. Wicker came in unhappily.

  “This is sense,” Ilina replied, “because at least here in The Abbey I have a roof over my head, a bed I can sleep on and unless, the new Duke is really poverty-stricken, a crust of bread to gnaw.”