The Duke Comes Home Read online

“I shall be ready to discuss matters after luncheon with Your Grace and will be waiting here if you need me.”

  She curtseyed and then went from the room while he was still finishing his glass of sherry.

  As soon as the Duke was in the dining room, sitting at the head of the table in a high-backed carved chair that had been occupied by all the Dukes before him, Ilina helped in the background.

  While Bird carried in the claret, she took the soup plate out of the oven and put it on a tray, found the silver spoon marked with the family crest and helped Mrs. Bird pour the soup into the large silver tureen.

  When the omelette was ready and nicely browned on top, Ilina carried it and the vegetables to just outside the dining room door so that old Bird did not have to walk any further than was necessary.

  He had been an excellent butler in his time and she knew that he would make no mistakes in serving the Duke or in keeping his glass filled. But his legs hurt him and if he had to walk about for long, he grew slower and slower.

  Fortunately to go with the omelette there were plenty of new potatoes that she had dug up yesterday and a good portion of green peas.

  Lastly Bird took in the cheese of which there was only a minute portion and Ilina heard him say,

  “I’m afraid, Your Grace, we can’t provide you with the sort of meal that Your Grace is accustomed to. Things have been difficult lately and we can only hope that now Your Grace’s come home everything’ll be very much better.”

  “They could hardly be worse, could they?” the Duke responded in an uncompromising tone.

  “We’ve been hard put to make ends meet, Your Grace,” Bird said, “and her Ladyship worried herself sick after His Grace died when she realised just how bad things were.”

  Listening, Ilina drew in her breath.

  She had forgotten to tell Bird not to speak about her, but she knew that what he was saying was out of loyalty, as if he could not bear the new Duke to blame her for the shortcomings and poverty at The Abbey.

  “I understand that Lady Ilina has gone North,” the Duke remarked.

  Again Ilina held her breath, wondering if she had told Bird what she was supposed to have done.

  Then she could breathe again as he replied,

  “I believe so, Your Grace.”

  Bird had obviously not yet found a bottle of port in the cellar and, when the Duke had finished his cheese, he drank another glass of claret before he rose from the table.

  As he did so, Ilina sped quickly back to the study and was waiting demurely by the window when he entered.

  She dropped him a small curtsey as she said,

  “Do you wish to talk to me now, Your Grace, or would you rather rest?”

  “I have not yet reached to the stage where I have to rest after luncheon,” the Duke said sarcastically, “and I suggest, Miss Ashley, that you now tell me the whole dismal story from start to finish. I presume you have had your luncheon?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She had eaten only a piece of the crust from the cottage loaf that Mrs. Bird had baked that morning while she was waiting for the Duke to finish the omelette.

  She had surmised correctly that there would be nothing left over and there was hardly enough cheese for one person let alone two.

  It also worried her that there was nothing for the Birds, unless there was a little cold rabbit left from yesterday, but she had the idea that this had gone into the soup.

  ‘We cannot go on like this,’ she reflected to herself.

  She knew now that she had to tell the Duke the truth, however unpalatable it might be, and it was up to him to find a solution to the whole desperate situation.

  Without waiting for him to suggest it, she sat down on a chair in front of the desk and began the story of how her grandfather had been very extravagant and had also left a mountain of debts when he died.

  She went on to explain that her father had for the first years after inheriting lived on the interest that came from investments and the rents from the estate.

  She told him how the farmers had been achieving good prices until the Government allowed cheap food to be brought into the country and there were several properties that had been let at quite high rents to people who also kept up the land when they were tenants.

  Then the note in Ilina’s voice made clear the unhappy state of affairs when gradually the tenants left and there was nobody to replace them.

  The farms began to lose money and the Home Farm on which they had relied for their food became more and more ineffective.

  Her father had not worried. He had gone on living as he wanted to, being Master of his own hunt, keeping a large number of horses and he and her mother going to London whenever it pleased them.

  They would open the London house, enjoy a Season and attend several Court functions when her mother wore the family jewels.

  At last her father had been aware that there was no more money for such a way of life and he had had to be more or less content to live in the country.

  Then her mother had died unexpectedly, David had been killed and her father had the accident that had rendered him a cripple.

  From that moment there had been nothing but despair and a poverty that grew worse month by month.

  Only as she finished speaking, did Ilina realise that the Duke was listening to her attentively, his eyes on her face, and he had not spoken a single word since she began.

  She felt suddenly shy while her voice trailed away into silence.

  Still the Duke did not speak and she said almost desperately,

  ‘That is what happened and, if I have described it somewhat dramatically, Your Grace must understand that as I was here and my father was so – close to the Duke – it all seemed as if it was – happening to me as well as to the Bury family.”

  “I suppose I should be grateful for your interest and your sympathy.”

  He did not, however, sound particularly grateful as he went on,

  “And now, as you appear to have made it your problem as well as mine, Miss Ashley, I suggest you tell me what I can do about it.”

  Ilina drew in her breath.

  “If, as I suspect, Your Grace has no money of your own to put things to rights, then as you cannot sell the house and I cannot believe that you wish it to fall to the ground, something has to be done!”

  She paused and went on speaking rapidly,

  “Although it may be very difficult for you, I feel that you will – save the house and the estate somehow.”

  “Why should you think that?”

  She made a gesture with her hands.

  “I don’t know, but perhaps what is needed is a man in charge and someone who is – perhaps in many ways – ruthless.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “I think you will have to be ruthless if you are to preserve The Abbey.”

  She did not look at him as she was speaking, but she then said,

  “If things have to be sold – perhaps some of them illegally because they are entailed – it would not be wrong if it meant that the – house could be saved.”

  The Duke looked at her for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “I am surprised at what you are suggesting, Miss Ashley!”

  “Although it may seem – wrong and wicked – there is nothing else that can be done,” Ilina said in an unhappy little voice. “There are two Van Dykes here that are valuable. There is another picture by – Holbein – which is so beautiful that it would be – heart-breaking to see it go, but it would fetch a big price.”

  The Duke was silent for a moment and then he quizzed her,

  “Are you really proposing that I should sell these things, even if they are entailed?”

  “I know it’s wrong, but there are people who know about such matters, buyers working on behalf of rich American or collectors in Europe, who would buy them secretly – and no one would know. At least not until your son inherited.”

  “Do you think he would be pleased to d
iscover that his father that had crooked him?”

  Ilina started as he asked the question, knowing how often her father had said that both Roland Bury and his son were crooks.

  “B-but what else – can you do?” she asked miserably. “The roof needs repairing and the rain water is – flooding into rooms on the top floor. Quite a number of the panes of glass need replacing in the State rooms and, unless the casements are painted soon, the windows will fall out.”

  The Duke did not speak and she went on,

  “The chimneys have not been swept for years because we could not afford to have it done and in the kitchen, the scullery and the store rooms the plaster is falling off the walls and would fall into the food, if there was any!”

  “You are certainly making out a good case for me to do what is an illegal and, as you admit, a dishonourable act,” the Duke said dryly. “Now let me hear your suggestions, Miss Ashley, which I imagine are just as revolutionary, for the estate.”

  “I have thought and thought about what could be done,” Ilina said, “and, although Mr. Wicker has suggested that there is quite a large amount of timber that can be cut down and sold, that would be only a drop in the ocean.”

  “Is that all?”

  “There are the leaking cottages where the pensioners are housed,” Ilina replied. “The alms houses, which have been abandoned, the orphanage which has existed for two hundred years, but there has been no money to pay a Master and Mistress and the school, which was always paid for by the reigning Duke, is needless to say closed.”

  She drew in her breath before she added,

  “There are two Livings that Parsons have not been appointed to because it has always been the responsibility of the Duke of Tetbury to pay their stipends.”

  There was silence and then the Duke commented,

  “It is certainly a very depressing tale. Frankly, Miss Ashley I had expected on my return, to find everything carrying on in the same way as it had in the past.”

  He hesitated for a moment and then went on to say,

  “It is obvious I must decide what must be done before I return to where I have come from.”

  Ilina looked at him in astonishment.

  “Are – are you – saying,” she asked in a low voice, “that you do – not intend to live here?”

  “Of course!” The Duke answered. “Why should I? I had no wish to be the Duke and I never suspected in my wildest dreams that I would inherit.”

  Ilina could find no answer to this and he went on,

  “I have my own life and my own interests. I am quite happy, I can assure you, Miss Ashley, without encumbering myself with the trappings of aristocracy, which I consider very much out of date and a house and estate that have apparently already gone to rack and ruin.”

  He spoke harshly and Ilina clasped her hands together and said with a little cry of horror,

  “Are you – telling me that you don’t – care about the f-family – or everything that has mattered for three hundred years to the Burys?”

  “Why should I?”

  Because she was so deeply upset by what he was saying, Ilina rose from her chair to stand for a moment looking up at the second Duke in the picture over his head.

  Then she walked to the window to stare out at the sunshine glinting on the lake and shining through the branches of the trees that were just beginning to bloom with the first buds of spring.

  “How can it mean – nothing to you?” she asked in a low voice as if she spoke to herself. “You are a Bury and the blood of your ancestors runs in your veins. They have fought and died for England all down the centuries and for each of them the focal point of their lives has always been The Abbey.”

  She paused before she went on,

  “Every owner has added his own individual style to it. There was Sir Wallace Bury who changed it after the Dissolution of the Monasteries into a private house and made it, as you will find in the history of the family, so delightful a place that Queen Elizabeth herself came from London to see it and stayed for three nights while he fêted her.”

  She was thinking as she carried on slowly,

  “Later it became a refuge for the Royalists and numerous secret passages were built in it so that they could escape from the Roundheads. Lord Bury built a new wing, some of which still remains.”

  She did not look at the Duke, but she felt that he was listening as she said,

  “After that every Bury added some lovely and perfect piece of it so that it has become in my opinion a house made of love. That is what it vibrates to everybody of their blood, so that they cannot fail to hear it call to them. Wherever they may wander over the world, The Abbey is always home.”

  When she finished speaking, Ilina felt the tears prick her eyes and because she was afraid that the Duke would see them and think it strange in somebody who was not of the same blood, she turned round and stood with her back to him.

  She knew as she did so that, because he was surprised at what she had said, his eyes were boring their way into her back.

  “You are certainly very eloquent, Miss Ashley,” he observed at length, “and I suppose I should be touched that you should care so greatly for something that is not yours but mine.”

  She did not speak and after a moment he went on,

  “To me The Abbey has always been a fortress that I was barred from and, as I expect you know, my father was ignored and ostracised first by the late Duke and then by the whole family.”

  “But he still talked about the house and told you what it was like,” Ilina said softly.

  She was remembering he had said that he expected there to be footmen in the hall as his father had told him there had always been.

  The Duke then replied,

  “I suppose, now I think of it, that my father did talk to me about it and he was very proud of his pedigree. What he deeply resented was the attitude of the family towards him.”

  “But you are not – your father!”

  “I too was not accepted and not allowed to visit what you call our ‘home’ until now after thirty-four years when I find myself in possession of it.”

  “I do understand your bitterness,” Ilina remarked, “but please, will you do something?”

  “It depends what you are asking me to do.”

  “Will you try to look at The Abbey and all its problems without prejudice? Will you consider the house not as an encumbrance but as part of you? And remember that what it is asking you to give it is your heart and your mind.”

  She spoke pleadingly and the Duke said,

  “You have greatly surprised me, Miss Ashley, by what you have said and there is no doubt that the house has captivated you! What will you feel when you have to leave?”

  There was silence.

  And then Ilina asked him,

  “Are you – are you telling me you do not – wish me to stay here?”

  “I am merely saying for the moment that I find your affection for my house somewhat touching and because you apparently have given it your heart, I can only agree to try to do what you have asked of me.”

  “You mean that? You really mean it?” Ilina asked eagerly.

  “You have really given me no choice and, as you are apparently the only person who knows anything about the house, the estate, the accounts and, of course, the debts, we had better start at the very beginning.”

  “Where is that?” Ilina asked a little breathlessly.

  The Duke smiled.

  “I think a conducted tour of the house and its contents and, of course, a lecture on the talents, the achievements and the virtues of my illustrious forebears.”

  He was speaking mockingly, but there was not so much acidity or sarcasm in his voice as there had been before.

  Ilina walked towards him.

  “I would like to do that, Your Grace, I would like it very much. But please – will you promise me something?”

  “What is that?”

  “That you will not erect a barrier before we even s
tart between the house – yourself and – the family.”

  There was a poignant pause before she went on,

  “There are very few of them left. They no longer come here, but, if you cared about them, they would come back because they want to and, if they knew that you liked the house, you would mean so much to them.”

  “Now you are threatening me, Miss Ashley,” the Duke protested.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ilina rose very early as she always did and this morning it was more important than usual.

  Yesterday, as they went round the house, the Duke had said very little while she explained which parts had been added by successive holders of the title and how the cloisters had remained incorporated each time the house had been altered.

  Her stories were very entertaining about various eccentric Burys who had lived at The Abbey.

  When at six o’clock she glanced at the clock, thinking that dinner would be in an hour’s time, the Duke remarked,

  “I imagine my servant has arrived by now.”

  “Servant?”

  “I am sure you must have thought it strange that I arrived without any luggage,” the Duke replied.

  Ilina felt that he was rebuking her for what she now realised was an oversight on her part, simply because she had been so surprised to see him.

  It had never entered her head that he would have a servant with him, although now she thought of it, her father, of course, had never travelled without his valet. She could remember when she was young and before they had become so poor how he and her mother went to London with a whole entourage of valets, lady’s maids, secretaries, grooms, coachmen and extra footmen to augment the staff in the London house.

  “I am sorry,” she said humbly, “I cannot think how I could have forgotten that you came empty-handed.”

  As she thought of it, she hoped that the Duke’s servant would not expect old Bird to carry up any trunks or cases and, as if he read her thoughts’ the Duke said,

  “Don’t worry, Singh has looked after me for many years and is a very capable man.”

  When Ilina saw Singh, she was astonished because he was a Sikh and with his white turban and dark beard he looked very strange in The Abbey.

  Equally he was a strong, handsome man and she was to realise from the very beginning how competent he was.