The Foundling Read online

  ‘You are the head of the family, Gilly,’ Lord Lionel said. ‘You must learn to assert yourself. I have done all that a man may to train and educate you for the position you must occupy, but you are by far too diffident.’

  Mr Romsey shook his head reminiscently. ‘Indeed, there are few young men to-day who can boast of my lord Duke’s advantages,’ he said. ‘But I for one feel sure, sir, that he will prove himself worthy of your unremitting solicitude.’

  The Duke thought of the period of his boyhood, spent largely at his house near Bath, so that he might derive the benefit of the waters there; of three trammelled years at Oxford; of two more trammelled years upon the Continent, with a military gentleman added to his entourage, to teach him horse-manage, and manly sports; and suddenly he made up his mind to assert himself, even if only in a small matter. He pushed back his chair, and said: ‘Shall we join my aunt now?’

  ‘Really, Gilly, you must see that I have not yet finished my glass!’ said Lord Lionel. ‘Do not, I beg of you, get into a scrambling way of doing things! You should always make sure that the company is ready to rise before you give the signal.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said the Duke, abandoning the attempt to assert himself.

  Two

  When the gentlemen at last joined the ladies, they found them established before the fire in the Crimson Saloon, one of a handsome suite of reception rooms on the first floor. Lady Lionel had sent for some working-candles, and her embroidery-frame, upon which latter Miss Scamblesby was engaged in setting stitches in various coloured silks. Her ladyship rarely occupied herself with anything more fatiguing than the knotting of a fringe, but by constantly desiring to have her embroidery brought to her, choosing the silks, and criticising the design, she was easily able to persuade herself that she was an indefatigable worker, and would receive compliments upon her skill with perfect complaisance.

  Mr Romsey went over to Miss Scamblesby’s side, to observe what progress she had made; and while Lady Lionel informed him for perhaps the tenth time that the work was destined to form an altar-cloth for the Chapel, her husband gave Gilly the letter from his younger uncle, and waited expectantly for it to be handed over to him when Gilly had finished his perusal of it.

  Gilly read it in some little surprise. Lord Henry, who was of a saving turn of mind, had managed to avoid the cost of an enclosure by compressing the intelligence he wished to convey on a single, crossed sheet. He wrote to inform his nephew of a very desirable connection he was about to form, through the betrothal of his eldest daughter to a scion of a distinguished family. He contrived to squeeze a number of details into his single sheet, and ended by expressing the hope that the proposed alliance would meet with his nephew’s approval.

  The Duke gave up this letter to Lord Lionel in a mechanical way, and his lordship, casting his eye over it, said: ‘Ha! I suspected as much! Yelverton’s son, eh? Pretty well for a chit not out of the schoolroom!’

  ‘I cannot conceive why he should write to tell me of it,’ remarked the Duke.

  Lord Lionel looked up from the letter to direct an admonishing frown at him. ‘Naturally he would do so! It is a very proper letter. You will write your felicitations, of course, and say that you are very well pleased with the connection.’

  ‘But he will not care a button whether I am pleased or not,’ objected the Duke, with a touch of impatience.

  ‘Pray do not let me have these odd humours!’ begged his lordship irascibly. ‘One would suppose you do not attend to anything that is said to you, Sale! I have been telling you for ever that you are the head of the family, and must learn to take your place as such, and now you talk rubbishing stuff to me of your uncle’s not caring a button for your approval! If you are so lost to the sense of what is due to your position, you must perceive that he is not! A very pretty letter he has written you: expresses himself just as he ought! I must say, I had not thought he would have contrived such an eligible match for that girl – not but what it is not precisely what I should have cared for myself.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Gilly, taking his letter again. ‘My cousin is not yet seventeen, and I am sure Alfred Thirsk must be forty if he is a day.’

  ‘Well, well, that need not signify!’ said Lord Lionel. ‘The thing is that I have never fancied that brood of Yelverton’s. There is a damned vulgar streak in them all: came into the family when the old man – Yelverton’s father, I mean: you would not recall! – married some rich Cit’s heiress. However, it is none of my business!’

  The Duke said a little impishly: ‘Very true, sir, but if it is mine I think I should inform my uncle that I do not like the match. Poor Charlotte! I am sure she cannot wish for it!’

  Lord Lionel audibly drew a breath. In the voice of one restraining himself with a strong effort, he said: ‘You will not, I trust, be guilty of such a piece of impertinence, Sale! Pray, what should a young man of your age know about the matter?’

  ‘But you told me, sir, that I must learn to assert myself,’ said the Duke meekly.

  ‘Let me assure you, Gilly, that that kind of nonsense is beyond the line of being pleasing!’ said Lord Lionel sternly. ‘You must be perfectly well aware that this very proper letter of your uncle’s is the merest formality, and not to be taken as an excuse for you to be putting yourself forward in a very unbecoming way! A fine state of affairs it would be if a man of your uncle’s age and experience is to be told how he is to manage his household by a young jackanapes of a nephew! You will write to him as I have directed, and mind you write it fair, and not in one of your scrawls! You had better let me see the letter before it is sealed.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said the Duke.

  Perceiving that he had quite banished the smile from his nephew’s eyes, Lord Lionel relented, saying in a kindlier tone: ‘There is no need to be cast into a fit of dejection because I am obliged to give you a scold, boy. There, we shall say no more about it! Give the letter to your aunt to read, and come into the library with me. I have something I wish to say to you.’

  The Duke looked extremely apprehensive on hearing these ominous words, but he obediently handed over the letter to Lady Lionel, and followed his uncle downstairs to the library on the entrance floor. Since the candles had already been lit, and the fire made up, it was apparent to him that this interview had been premeditated. Insensibly he braced himself to meet it with becoming fortitude, wishing that he dared light one of the cigarillos which his cousin Gideon had very reprehensively bestowed on him. But as Lord Lionel objected strongly to the vice of smoking, both on the score of its being a vulgar, dirty habit, and of its being excessively injurious to the lungs, he did not dare.

  ‘Sit down, Gilly!’ said Lord Lionel, treading over to the fire, and taking up his favourite position before it.

  This command was less unnerving than earlier ones (delivered in ferocious accents) to stand up straight and put his hands behind his back, but the prospect of having to sit in a low chair while his uncle loomed over him was almost equally daunting. The Duke’s apprehensive look deepened, and although he did sit down, it was with obvious reluctance.

  Lord Lionel, who did not include the taking of snuff amongst the vulgar and dirty habits engendered by the use of tobacco, helped himself to a generous pinch, and shut his box with a snap. ‘You know, Gilly,’ he said, ‘that letter of your uncle’s comes remarkably pat.’

  The Duke’s eyes lifted quickly to his face. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Yes, my boy. You will be of full age in less than a year now, and it is high time we were thinking of settling your affairs comfortably.’

  The Duke was aware of a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He kept his eyes fixed on his uncle’s face. ‘Yes, sir?’

  For once in his life, Lord Lionel seemed disinclined to come speedily to the point of his discourse. He opened his snuff-box again, and said: ‘I have always tried to do my bes