The Duke Comes Home Read online

  There was silence and there was a sneering smile on the Duke lips, which told Ilina that he was waiting for her to protest and plead with him knowing that he would refuse to listen.

  Then she said very quietly, as if she spoke from a long distance,

  “And when you have the – satisfaction of knowing that you have – destroyed something beautiful, historic and – magnificent which for the moment is – yours and yours alone, will you then be – happy?”

  “I shall know that what I have done is poetic justice!”

  “For you – alone,” Ilina whispered.

  “For me and what is left of the family.”

  “For me will be only the – darkness and – misery of knowing that I have failed.”

  “What do you mean failed?” the Duke questioned.

  Ilina was silent for a moment.

  And then she said,

  “When you came here yesterday, I hated you first because you had been so long in responding to my invitation and secondly because you were so indifferent – ”

  “You hated me?” the Duke interrupted.

  “I have come to hate you more and more every minute since you have been here,” Ilina said quietly, “because I knew that everything that meant so much to the – family and which has survived for – three hundred years meant – nothing to you.”

  She turned and raised her head to look at the portrait of the second Duke as she went on,

  “I did not however – imagine that you could think of anything so – wicked as to renounce your whole responsibility and abandon it – as you intend to do.”

  Her voice faltered but she carried on,

  “I must have known instinctively that it was at the – back of your mind. That is why I hated you, as I hate you now! And, if there are any Burys left, they and their children and their children’s children will – curse you.”

  She rose as she spoke and walked towards the window to stand with her back to him fighting against the tears that threatened to blind her eyes.

  Then she heard him say in a rather different tone of voice,

  “But, of course, Ilina, I still have to consider the problem of what to do with you.”

  She turned round.

  “If you are offering me charity, Cousin Sheridan, don’t waste your breath! I would rather starve or die than accept anything from you. You may throw me out of the house, but I will sleep in the woods or under a hayrick – and stay here.”

  Her voice broke, but she continued fiercely,

  “Although you may think I am insane and that I am letting my – imagination run away with me, I know that those who have lived here in the past and my – brother David, who – should have been – here in your place, will help me.”

  She drew herself up so that she seemed immeasurably taller than she really was, as she then said very slowly,

  “I shall somehow save The Abbey from decay and whatever you may do – however wicked your intentions towards it – I know in my heart that one day – another and better Bury than you will live here and he will be – worthy of our name!”

  As Ilina finished speaking, she walked across the room, opened the door and went out, closing it almost unnaturally quietly behind her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Ilina left the study, the Duke sat back in his chair and stared at the portraits of the two Dukes that he could see on the walls in front of him.

  He was thinking that at last he had been able to say what had been on his mind ever since he could remember.

  He had always imagined that, when he did tell the Burys exactly what he thought of them, there would be a much larger audience then one young girl who had stared at him with a stricken expression in her eyes.

  When he was a small boy he had longed to see the family house that had appeared to be always on his father’s lips, but whenever it was mentioned it brought a look of pain to his mother’s face.

  One day when he was about eight he had said to his father,

  “I want to see Tetbury Abbey, Papa. Can we go over there? How far is it?”

  His father had been silent for a moment before he had replied,

  “It’s a place you may never see, Sheridan, but if you do, spit on it on my behalf!”

  It was some years later, he thought looking back, that he had begun to understand how bitterly his father resented the way that he had been treated by the fifth Duke, who was a cousin several times removed.

  It was his mother who had told him that the two men, who were about the same age, had been at Eton together and their dislike of one another had started there mostly on the side of Lionel Bury, as he then was, who was jealous.

  Roland Bury was a difficult man, but a great sportsman and when there was the question of either him or his cousin Lionel being picked for the First Eleven at cricket and he had been chosen, the animosity between him and Lionel had become almost violent.

  The choice of his cousin had been such a blow to Lionel that from that moment he had never spoken to him again while they were at school.

  When they grew up, there was a kind of armed truce between them and Roland Bury had attended one or two family gatherings at The Abbey being aware that the Duke looked at him with the same dislike as he had when they were at school.

  Then another incident had made their feud as fiery and as vitriolic as it had been at Eton.

  This time it was when Lionel had accused his cousin of bumping and boring in a steeplechase.

  It was subsequently proved that his accusations were quite unjustified, but by that time the two men had been so excessively rude to each other that there was no chance of a reconciliation.

  In fact the Duke unjustly called Roland a blackguard and a crook and informed him through his Solicitors that, if he attempted at any time to enter The Abbey, he would be thrown out by the servants.

  Roland Bury had considered bringing a lawsuit against his cousin for slander, but his wife persuaded him that such an action would bring discredit on the family name, adding that she was sure that time was a great healer.

  It was, as far as the two cousins were concerned, nothing of the sort and the Duke continued to decry Roland on every possible occasion.

  To make things worse he informed him again through his Solicitors that not only was he barred from entering The Abbey but so was his son and any other member of his household.

  His choice of words was so rude that Roland was again only restrained by his wife from bringing a case against him, but his bitterness and resentment was something that could not be hidden from his son.

  Because Sheridan was aware that his father, whom he loved, was suffering, he hated his relatives who could be so unjust and on no good grounds.

  Because the Burys had been a closely knit family under the previous Duke and The Abbey had always been open to any of them at any time, Roland received a great deal of sympathy from his other relatives.

  Also since the Duke was a quarrelsome man, many of them too were soon at loggerheads with him and had their own grievances to air.

  It was not surprising therefore that Sheridan grew up feeling that the Head of the Family was an ogre whose wickedness reflected on those who should have been depending on him for leadership and help.

  As the years passed, while the Duke became impoverished, Roland Bury found himself, if not really poor, definitely in the position where he had to count what he spent and make economies in his way of living.

  It was then that his son decided that, if he could not live in England in the style he would have wished, owning like his father, the best racehorses and enjoying the gaieties of London, he would go abroad.

  He went off in an exploratory manner at first, undecided as to what he should do or how he should do it, thinking that somehow he would prove that he at any rate could manage without the Bury family and when the time came could confront them on equal terms.

  He was well aware that, while his father and the rest of the older generation railed against the Duke, th
ey were still because it was ingrained in them, rather like sheep without a shepherd.

  Ever since they were children The Abbey had been the focal point where they all gravitated to automatically because it was part of their blood.

  In the new world that Sheridan found in the East no one was particularly interested in Dukes and it was not thought degrading for a man born a gentleman to work.

  Because he was exceedingly intelligent, he soon realised that what was needed where he was now living was organising ability and leadership.

  He therefore set himself out to make a fortune and at the same time, although it seemed ridiculous, if he attained his goal, to achieve the possibility of avenging himself on the man who had made his father so unhappy.

  “Why does The Abbey matter so much to Papa?” he had asked his mother one evening at dinner when Roland Bury had proclaimed furiously against the treachery of the Duke.

  “It is difficult to make you understand, since you have never been there, how beautiful The Abbey is,” his mother had replied. “And it is a monument to the achievements and the heroism of a family that has held it for over three hundred years.”

  She saw that her son was listening and had continued,

  “When I first married your father, I found it impossible to understand why they should be so proud and in a way so conceited about themselves.”

  She gave a little laugh.

  “It took me a long time to realise that it was not a personal conceit but a pride in their ancestors which made them genuinely believe in their hearts that the Burys were finer people than anybody else.”

  “Is that true, Mama?”

  “It is something your father, I think, would not admit,” his mother had answered, “but I know, because I love him, that it is what he believes. You can understand therefore how deeply he feels being cut off from The Abbey.”

  She paused as if trying to put her thoughts into order and then went on,

  “In the past the Head of the Family always led them as if he was a General being followed onto the battlefield by the soldiers of his own Regiment.”

  “So it was the Burys against the world?”

  “Exactly,” his mother had replied. “And they were quite confident that they were invincible.”

  “Papa is very important here,” Sheridan reasoned.

  “But not as important as the Duke and our house, although it is very charming, can never hope to rival The Abbey.”

  There was no answer to this and Sheridan would lie awake sometimes in the heat of India or Siam and find himself thinking of the many tales that his father had told him about The Abbey.

  He would imagine that he was bathing in the cool lake, lying in the shadow of a great tree in the Park, riding over the meadowland or, when it was snowing, finding the white world round The Abbey a complete enchantment.

  He also remembered his father talking about shooting round the woods and watching the partridges rise out of the stubble.

  He wondered if it was more enjoyable, just because it was at The Abbey, than shooting a tiger or stalking some elusive chamois in the rocky heights of the Himalayas.

  The Abbey! Always The Abbey.

  Inevitably his thoughts would come back to the Duke, who had barred his father from the Garden of Eden that he was by birth entitled to.

  Now, he told himself, he would have his revenge.

  The house would be boarded up with its treasures inside it and gradually the rats and mice would gnaw their way into the great State rooms and make their nests in the sofas and chairs.

  Cobwebs would festoon the crystal chandeliers and the carved gold pelmets that had been specially designed for each room.

  Dust would cover the floors and the great beds and, as the years passed, the pictures of the Dukes would fall out of their frames.

  He knew, if he was honest with himself, that when Ilina took him round the house, he had been overwhelmed by the treasures it contained.

  The pictures for instance comprised a much bigger and more impressive collection than he had expected.

  The china, brought mostly from France by one Duke, was in itself so notable that he knew it would be hard to rival it anywhere in the world.

  The snuffboxes encrusted with jewels, which had been bought or presented to the first Duke, besides over one hundred clocks that he apparently had had a special partiality for, were fantastic.

  There was inlaid furniture with cabinets, chairs and tables of almost every period and one room furnished at the time of King Charles II was a poem of love knots and gold angels holding up crowns, while above them the ceiling depicted Aphrodite surrounded by cupids carrying garlands of roses.

  ‘No one will ever see these things again as long as I am alive,’ the Duke told himself.

  He decided that he would make sure that his orders were not interfered with and, once the house was boarded up, no one would ever be permitted to enter it again.

  Because he thought that he would take a last look at its treasures before he turned the house into a tomb, he rose from the chair and walked slowly from the study into the library with its shelves loaded with numerous books, which stretched from floor to ceiling.

  There was a balcony that was reached by a small carved brass staircase and Ilina had told him that the books on the balcony were all concerned with the Bury family.

  The Duke looked up at them and wondered if as a last gesture he should have them taken out into the garden to be burned.

  A bonfire, he thought, would be very symbolic of his feelings and unless, which he doubted, every book was duplicated in some other library then even the records of the Burys would perish and soon be forgotten.

  Then he told himself that first it would take a long time to remove them all and carry them out and there was no one else in the house capable of doing it except himself and Singh.

  Secondly the bonfire would be really rather pointless without a crowd to watch the books going up in flames.

  He felt, as he had felt for years, that he wanted literally to fight somebody over the way he had been treated by the Duke.

  But the only person whom he could shock and horrify by his behaviour was Ilina, who was hardly in sporting terms up to his weight.

  Quite suddenly it seemed to the Duke that he was not as elated as he expected to be at the fruition of his plans that he had waited so long for.

  “I have won! I have won!” he called out aloud.

  But the huge library seemed unimpressed and he walked out of the room and along to the Picture Gallery.

  He had been to a Reception at Buckingham Palace before leaving England and he had thought that the pictures there, which had been collected by King George IV, were very fine.

  Yet there was no doubt that the pictures in The Abbey equalled or even excelled them.

  It was his mother who had taught him to understand art in all its forms and especially to appreciate fine paintings.

  His father had sent him to Rome in his holidays from Eton and to Florence when he was at Oxford University.

  When he looked at the collection of paintings that had been accumulated by the Burys over the generations, he knew that any Museum or Gallery would be proud to receive even one of them.

  Far away at the back of his mind his conscience asked him if he was justified in denying to the world something that could never really belong to one individual but rather to every man and woman who appreciated beauty.

  Then he told himself harshly that he would not be tempted to forgo his revenge and, leaving the Picture Gallery he walked into the Armoury.

  This, he felt, was far more to his liking.

  Here were weapons that had been used in battle including duelling pistols that various Burys had avenged an insult with and guns of every sort that they had pursued game with in England and in other parts of the world.

  ‘It might have been more effective if I could have challenged the late Duke to a duel,’ he mused. ‘That is how feuds are settled in Italy and when
the offender is dead then undoubtedly right triumphs.’

  But Ilina had told him that her father had been a helpless cripple before he died and the Duke supposed that the man he should have fought would have been David his son.

  But David had died fighting for his country, as scores of Burys had done over the centuries, which was the reason why he was here.

  ‘I expect he was as detestable as his father,’ he thought defiantly and strode on.

  When it grew near to dinnertime, he wondered if Ilina would plead with him once again to save the house and the estate.

  This would be his opportunity to explain to her exactly why he was so determined to have his revenge and the reasons why it was entirely and absolutely justified.

  As Singh was helping him change for dinner, he was unusually silent because he was thinking over how he would present his case to her.

  He would make her realise that the shocking way that his mother and father had been treated could be avenged, if not in blood, then only by the annihilation of The Abbey.

  When he went downstairs to find that there was nobody in the study, he began to wonder what Ilina was feeling and if he had upset her so much that she would refuse to dine with him.

  “Dinner ready, Master,” Singh announced from the door.

  “Where is Miss Ashley?” the Duke asked sharply. “Or rather Lady Ilina, which is her real name.”

  “Maid say Lady Sahib not come back,” Singh replied.

  “Not back?” the Duke asked. “Where has she gone?”

  “Gone riding, Master.”

  It was what he might have expected, the Duke thought, that she would turn to her horse for comfort.

  He had not been in Ilina’s company without being aware of the almost human love that existed between her and Pegasus.

  That she rode superbly went without saying, but there was also something else, which the Duke knew he had seen only in the East, where men could charm not only snakes but animals of every description because in some uncanny way of their own they communicated with them.