The Foundling Read online

  ‘Then there is no hope for you!’ said his cousin.

  Gilly was unhappily inclined to believe him.

  And now it appeared that there was another person to be added to the list of those whose feelings the Duke could not bring himself to wound. He did not know whether his intended bride was fond of him, but she was gentle, and shy, and, if his uncle were to be believed, she was depending upon him to make her a Duchess. The Duke had not been made a member of various clubs, and participated in a London season, without assimilating certain social facts. He had very little doubt that Lady Harriet’s chances of securing him for a husband were being freely betted upon at White’s, and to blast all her hopes, to set her up to be the butt of every ill-natured wit in town, would, he realised, be conduct wholly unbefitting a gentleman.

  His mood of dejection deepened. Lying back in one corner of his chaise, his eyes on the bobbing forms of the postilions, he tried to think about Lady Harriet, and found it difficult. She had been so very correctly brought up, had been of late years so zealously chaperoned, that he could not feel that he knew very much about her. There had been a great deal of intercourse between his family and hers; she had very often stayed at Sale Park, or at Cheyney, his house near Bath; and when they had been children he had liked her very well – better, in fact, than the more assertive children of his acquaintance. He still liked her very well, but the easy intercourse they had once enjoyed had latterly dwindled, perhaps from his own consciousness of the future laid down for them both, perhaps from the lady’s increasing shyness. He had squired her to the Opera, and danced with her at Almack’s; he found it easier to talk to her than to any other lady of his acquaintance; but she was not the bride of his independent choice, and although he had no very clear idea of what this imaginary damsel might be like, he felt sure that she did not resemble poor little Harriet.

  But since he knew, naturally, that he must marry a lady of impeccable lineage, he was forced to own that Harriet would suit him decidedly better than any other marriageable young female of his set. Only it was all very dull; and without having the least ambition to marry to disoblige his family, as the saying was, he did wish that he could have found a wife for himself, and that not a lady whom he had known from his cradle.

  He wondered what it would have been like not to have been born in the purple, but to have been some quite unimportant person – not of too lowly a degree, of course, for that would certainly have been uncomfortable. He might have been obliged to live in Thatch End Cottages, for instance, with a leaking roof; or have been snapped up by the press gang; or even, perhaps (since he had always been undersized), have become the slave of a chimney-sweep. It was undoubtedly better to be the seventh Duke of Sale than a sweep’s apprentice, but he was much inclined to think that to have been plain Mr Dash, of Nowhere in Particular, would have been preferable to either of these callings.

  He began to picture the life of plain Mr Dash, and was still lost in a pleasant, if slightly ill-informed, reverie when his chaise swept into the forecourt of his house in Curzon Street.

  He came down to earth with a thud. Mr Dash inhabited one of those cosy little terrace houses in a quiet quarter of the town, and when he returned to his dwelling after a convivial evening spent with his cronies, playing French hazard, and getting his feet wet, he let himself into his house with his own key, and found no one at all who cared a button where he had been, or what he had been doing. None of his servants had ever known his father. In fact, he had very few servants: just a cook, and a housemaid or two, supposed the Duke, and – stretching a point – possibly a groom to look after his horses. Stewards, butlers, footmen, and valets were encumbrances unknown to Mr Dash. Nor had he any relatives. Or had he one or two cousins? The Duke could not make up his mind on this point, for although the right style of cousin would undoubtedly be a comfort to Mr Dash, cousins carried uncles in their wake, and Mr Dash had no uncles – not even an uncle who lived a very long way from London, and never stirred out of his own house. And, thought the Duke, warming to his theme, Mr Dash had no Chaplain, and no agent; no tradition to uphold; no dignity to maintain.

  It was at this moment that the Duke returned to earth. His chaise had drawn up, and he found himself looking, not at a cosy little house in a terrace, but at the imposing portico of Sale House. As he blinked at it, the great doors were opened by unseen hands, his butler’s portly form appeared; and two footmen and the porter came down the steps to open the door of the chaise, let down the steps, remove the rug from across his Grace’s knees, and assist his Grace to alight. They were followed by Mr Chigwell, the steward, who kept a sharp eye on their movements, and was the first to offer a respectful welcome to his Grace.

  The Duke began to laugh.

  The elder of the two footmen, who figured on Mr Scriven’s account-books as ‘the Duke’s footman’, continued to stand with his arm crooked for his master to lean upon as he descended from the coach, and his face rigidly impassive; but the younger footman found the Duke’s low laughter so infectious that he so far forgot himself as to grin in sympathy. Mr Chigwell, himself a trifle startled, made a mental note of this, and silently rehearsed the words of stern reproof he would presently utter.

  The Duke picked up his ebony cane, ducked his head to avoid knocking his tall, curly-brimmed beaver against the roof of the chaise, and jumped lightly down, ignoring both the steps and the proffered arm. Mr Chigwell and the porter both surged forward to prevent a possible fall, uttering in shocked accents: ‘Your Grace!’

  ‘Oh, don’t, pray!’ besought the Duke, in a shaking voice. ‘You will set me off again!’

  Mr Chigwell bowed politely but in a good deal of bewilderment. He said doubtfully: ‘I am glad to see your Grace in spirits. Will your Grace enter the house? You will be tired after the journey, I make no question. Refreshments have been laid out for your Grace in the Blue Saloon.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Duke.

  He trod up the steps, smiled mechanically at Borrowdale, who bowed him in, and found that three more persons were waiting to welcome him. These were the groom of the chambers, the agent-in-chief, and a stalwart, smartly attired gentleman, who darted forward with his hands held out, exclaiming joyfully: ‘My dear, dear lord! You must let me be amongst the first to bid you welcome to London! How do you do? But I can see for myself that you are in good health!’

  All desire to laugh abruptly left the Duke. He halted dead on the threshold, staring up in dismay into the florid countenance that loomed before him. Then, as he recollected himself, he blushed faintly, and held out his hand, saying, with a little stammer: ‘F-forgive me! I did not know you had been informed of my coming to town. It is excessively obliging in you to have come to meet me, Captain Belper.’

  ‘Why, I could not keep away, my dear lord!’ the Captain said, warmly shaking his hand. ‘I had the news from your good uncle, and excellent news I found it. I have not set eyes on you since I know not when! But come in out of the draught, sir! You see, I do not forget your old weakness! We must have no sore throats to spoil your visit to the Metropolis.’

  ‘Thank you, I am very well,’ the Duke said, disengaging his hand, and turning to bestow it upon the agent.

  Mr Scriven, a middle-aged man in a neat black suit, bowed very low over it, and said that it was a happiness to him to see his Grace. He hoped that everything would be found to be in readiness at Sale House, and begged his Grace to pardon any shortcomings. ‘Your Grace must know that we have not a full staff of servants here at present,’ he said. ‘And I own that I am not perfectly happy in the Chief Confectioner.’ His grave face relaxed into a smile. ‘But your Grace did not give me very long warning of this visit!’

  ‘I am sure I shall do very well,’ said the Duke. ‘I did not mean to put you to a deal of trouble. I daresay I could have been tolerably comfortable without a Chief Confectioner.’

  Everyone realised that the Duke h