Dollars for the Duke, page 6
On one thing he was determined, if he enjoyed the good things of life, was that they should share them with him.
He was almost startled when just before the Vandevilts sailed for England, Lady Edith quizzed him,
“Mrs. Vandevilt is anxious to know where you intend to take Magnolia for a honeymoon.”
“A honeymoon?” the Duke had repeated blankly.
“You will have to have one,” Lady Edith said, “and people will be astonished if you do not go abroad.”
“I had not thought about it. There seemed to be so much to do here.”
“You could go to the South of France, where your father’s villa would certainly be a good place to start from.”
“His villa?” the Duke questioned.
“Surely Mr. Fossilwaithe has told you that two years before he died your father bought a villa near Nice at a small place called Beaulieu. It is, I believe, very attractive. He certainly spent a great deal of money enlarging it.”
“I had no idea of this.”
The Duke vaguely remembered that on the long list of expenses there had been an item for something in France, but he had not examined it very closely because of the amount of money owed in other directions.
On Lady Edith’s insistence, he sent for Mr. Fossilwaithe who told him to his surprise that not only had his father bought a villa, but there was also a yacht moored nearby in the harbour at Villefranche.
His father’s yacht, which was kept fully manned, was an expensive item that had somehow been ignored amongst the other extravagances!
As soon as he learned of these new possessions, the Duke had related his findings to Lady Edith and added,
“I intend to sell both the villa and the yacht.”
Lady Edith had given a cry of protest.
“For Heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, “not until after the honeymoon!”
“Why?”
“For the simple reason that the South of France is exactly where Mrs. Vandevilt would wish you to start your married life so that she can enjoy saying, ‘my daughter, the Duchess, is spending her honeymoon in the South of France, where my son-in-law has a villa and, of course, there is a yacht which will carry them when they are bored to romantic places like the Greek Islands’.”
Lady Edith not only mimicked Mrs. Vandevilt’s voice, but also her American accent and despite himself, the Duke laughed.
He was just about to say that he had no intention of spending a honeymoon of that sort with a woman he had never even seen and he already despised.
Then he thought that he personally would enjoy being the possessor of a yacht, if only for a short time.
Later he felt that it would be easier to endure the silences that he expected would exist between himself and his wife at mealtimes, the dreariness of dinners in restaurants or worse still when they were alone in an empty dining room.
“Of course,” he said aloud, “Mrs. Vandevilt and her daughter must not be disappointed. Find out the size and ambience of this villa, and you had better ask Fossilwaithe the tonnage of the yacht, which I forgot to do.”
As Lady Edith expected, Mrs. Vandevilt had written back quite enthusiastically by return about the suitability of such a honeymoon and added that she was buying her daughter many new clothes, some with quite a nautical appearance that she could wear on board the yacht.
Lady Edith, as she read the letter, could only think it was a good thing that the Duke would not read the gossip columns in the American newspapers which she was certain would grab at every juicy tit-bit that concerned the Vandevilt, Otterburn wedding.
When Lady Edith went upstairs, the Duke left The Castle by a garden door and walked down towards the lake.
Whenever he found himself having to discuss his wedding, he always felt desperately in need of air, almost as if his lungs were choking.
It had been a warm day, but now there was a sharpness in the air, which was just what the Duke wanted.
He wanted to feel something cold and astringent as an antidote to the feeling that he was being suffocated by all the exotic and expensive objects that money could buy.
Then he thought savagely that he positively liked the discomforts of The Castle – the plumbing that needed improving, the parts of it, although they were not seen, where the walls were crumbling, the damp and stained ceilings.
He knew the gardens required a lot of money spent on them and told himself that as soon as they went back to the jungle-like wildness the better.
Then he remembered that old Briggs who had served his father and grandfather for over forty years would be retiring in a month or two and he was glad he would be able to give him a decent pension and a comfortable cottage where he could spend the remainder of his life
‘I am being damned ungrateful,’ he chided himself.
At the same time it seemed humiliating and pretentious.
His cousin Edith had been right when she said he was idealistic about women. But his ideals had not concerned him until now because they had played a very small part in the life he had had in the Army.
Then he thought that when he married he would treat his wife with respect, which was in itself a kind of chivalry. And he believed that every woman should be protected, cosseted and directed by a man.
That meant, of course, if he put it into plain English, that she should be entirely dependent on him.
But an American who was extremely rich would be very different from an Englishwoman who had to ask her husband for ‘pin money’, and be effusively grateful for everything he spent on her.
‘I suppose at Christmas and on birthdays I shall be buying my wife presents with her own money,’ he thought bitterly. ‘I will drink her health in the wine she has paid for and arrange some sort of treat that will be a quite impossible extravagance unless we open her purse to pay for it.’
He felt as if he had reached the point where he wanted to hit something.
It was no use saying that from the moment he married Magnolia Vandevilt her money became his, as the law decreed.
He knew he would always be conscious that, if he remonstrated or disagreed with her on any subject, she would always be able to say,
‘It is my money which is enabling you to live in your castle, my money which is paying for the servants who run it and the horses you ride and my money which provides the entertainment for your friends.’
These were the same thoughts that had bedevilled him insistently day and night and the Duke, knowing that he must relieve his feelings one way or another turned round and walked sharply back towards the stables.
He knew that only by riding both himself and his horse to the point of exhaustion would he be able to sleep tonight.
*
In the bedroom at the Savoy, which overlooked the Embankment and the Thames, that had a fairy-like quality about it now that the lights were just beginning to gleam in houses on the other side of the water, Magnolia, holding her father’s hand tightly in hers. asked,
“How do you feel, Papa?”
“Not too bad,” her father replied. “I think the surgeon that Lady Edith brought here has made my leg much more comfortable and he says it is not a very bad fracture.”
“I am so glad, Papa. How could such a terrible thing have happened to you?”
“I must say I have always prided myself on my sea-legs,” Mr. Vandevilt said, “and who could suspect in that gale that a spar or whatever the thing was, would hit me and be able to do so much damage?”
He smiled before he added,
“Perhaps it is a punishment for thinking I was such an experienced traveller that I could even defy the weather!”
Magnolia’s fingers tightened on his.
“Papa, I cannot be – married without – you there.”
“I was afraid you would say that, my dearest,” he replied, “but there is no point in upsetting your mother, or indeed, as Lady Edith has pointed out, all the arrangements that have been made at The Castle.”
There was a little pause.
Then Magnolia said in a voice he could hardly hear,
“I-I cannot – face the – Duke without – you.”
Mr. Vandevilt put his free hand in a consoling manner over his daughter’s.
“We have been through this before, my dearest,” he said. “I promise you things will not be as bad as you expect and you have promised me you will try to do what is right.”
“I – will try – Papa, but it is not – going to be – easy.”
“I think you should look on this as a challenge. Something you must tackle and win!”
Magnolia gave a deep sigh.
“I love you, Papa! If only we could have a few more years – together.”
She bent her head as she spoke and therefore did not see the sudden pain in her father’s eyes.
Apart from his pictures, his daughter was the only thing that mattered in his life, the only thing he really loved. He knew that if she would miss him, he would feel as if he had lost a part of himself.
Yet there was nothing he could do but persuade her to marry the man her mother had chosen for her and pray that she would not suffer in the same way as other women had suffered in arranged marriages.
Because he had been to France so often, he was aware that among his French friends their marriages were generally a mariage de convenance, based on an advantage for both parties.
What was more, in a great number of cases they turned out extremely successful and produced if not the perfect idealistic love that Magnolia wanted, at least a companionable contentment which lasted for life in a Society where Social and religious convention did not allow divorce.
Not that there was any question of Magnolia being able to obtain a divorce in England, as it was possible to in America.
There was no point in saying so, but divorce, Mr. Vandevilt knew, would in the case of the Duke, have to be approved by Parliament and a scandal was something he would never contemplate in any circumstances.
Because he wanted to comfort Magnolia and at the same time give her the courage he knew she would need, he said,
“Listen to me, my dearest. When we have talked on subjects like Oriental religions and especially Buddhism, we have both agreed that what you give to life is what you get back.”
Magnolia raised her head to look at him and when he saw that she was listening he went on,
“If you want love, you have to give love, if you hate, then you receive hatred. That is an unwritten law which exists the world over in every nation, in every culture, in every creed.”
“I know what you are trying to say to me, Papa,” Magnolia replied. “You are asking me to love a faceless man who desires only my money. I am giving him what he wants. Surely there is no need to offer him any more?”
There was a little smile on Mr. Vandevilt’s lips as he replied,
“That would be a very logical argument, my darling, if I did not know that you are deliberately trying to evade the point I am making. Let me put it very plainly – try to make your husband love you, then perhaps you will find it easy to love him in return.”
He knew from the expression on Magnolia’s face that it was something she thought would never happen and she shrank from the implications of it.
Because he was afraid to press her any further, he only added,
“Love is a strange thing. It comes sometimes when you least expect it or it grows from a small forgotten seed into something large and overwhelming. But remember this, love is what we all want, what we all need in our lives, and love, when you do find it, is worth all the pain, the sacrifice and the agony that you have suffered.”
His voice was very deep and moving.
Then as Magnolia did not answer he realised that she was crying.
CHAPTER FOUR
As the private train sped towards London, the Duke thought that he had never spent a more unpleasant and uncomfortable day.
He had not expected to enjoy his wedding, at the same time he had not anticipated it would be an occasion that made him continually grit his teeth with sheer fury.
It all started the night before when a groom had driven over from Lord Farringdon’s house with a note to say that the Vandevilt plans had been changed.
Mr. Vandevilt would after all be arriving with his wife and daughter in a private train which it had been arranged would stop at the nearest halt to Lord Farringdon’s estate.
The note also informed the Duke that dinner would have to be later than had been intended since the party escorted by Lord Farringdon could not arrive until nearly nine o’clock.
The Duke found this irritating as it meant that other relatives who were staying in the neighbourhood could not be informed of the change of hour. They would therefore arrive at The Castle just before eight and there would be a long wait before the American party appeared.
Lady Edith suspected that the reason for the change of plan was that Magnolia would not come without her father, but she did not say so
She was, however, relieved that the Duke would meet Mr. Vandevilt and hopefully find him as charming as she did, instead of being subjected exclusively to the overwhelming personality of his wife.
But even this plan went awry.
The strain of the journey caused Mr. Vandevilt so much pain that it was impossible once he had arrived at Lord Farringdon’s house for him to make the effort to drive for nearly an hour to The Castle and be present at a large dinner comprised of strangers.
Therefore, to Lady Edith’s consternation and the Duke’s annoyance, both Mr. Vandevilt and his daughter stayed away from the family dinner party.
“It certainly is a case of Hamlet without the Prince,” Lady Edith remarked wryly to one or two of the Burn relatives who had more sense of humour than the others.
But, she knew as soon as Mrs. Vandevilt walked into The Castle that, as she had expected, the Duke’s hackles rose.
Owing to the upset and undoubtedly because she was slightly on the defensive, Mrs. Vandevilt was at her very worst.
The fact that she looked in her own way magnificent did not soften the impression she made on the Burn family who, as the Duke suspected, had come prepared to criticise the bride.
Wearing a gown that had obviously cost a fortune, the design of which had originated in Paris, Mrs. Vandevilt had made the mistake of wishing to appear impressive without realising that her appearance would seem to the conventional English ostentatious if not outrageous.
The gown she wore would have been more suitable in a ballroom or on the stage of a theatre and she wore enormous diamonds that glittered in her hair, round her neck and outlined the low-cut bodice of her gown.
Her wrists were weighed down with bracelets, the rings on her fingers were dazzling and to the Duke she exemplified everything for which he had sold his title and – himself.
There was, however, nothing he could do but make a superhuman effort to be pleasant to his future mother in-law and try not to be aware that her sharp eyes were taking in every detail in The Castle that required money to be spent on it.
The evening, as far as his other guests were concerned, passed off well, owing the Duke thought afterwards, to the fact that while they were waiting for Lord Farringdon’s party to arrive the amount of champagne they consumed was considerable.
When finally at what seemed a very late hour dinner was over and the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, relatives who lived some distance from The Castle started to make their farewells.
“I shall be looking forward to meeting your future wife tomorrow, Seldon,” they all said in one way or another to the Duke.
He thought there was a slight note of commiseration in their voices, which he instantly resented.
Lady Edith could have related how overwhelming Mrs. Vandevilt had been when the ladies had retired to the drawing room while the gentlemen drank their port.
Instead of being quietly pleasant to the older women in the family, she had gone out of her way to impress them by boasting of her husband’s wealth and possessions, of the unassailable Social position the Vandevilts held in New York and the fortune that Magnolia was bringing into their family.
She left them in no doubt who would provide the money to pay for the repairs to The Castle and to the estate and redeem the debts incurred by the late Duke.
His prodigality was something of which not only his son but also his relatives were deeply ashamed, and the fact that a stranger was confronting them, as it were, with the bills made it worse.
Only when the front door had closed behind Mrs. Vandevilt and she was carried away from The Castle in Lord Farringdon’s carriage, did Lady Edith draw a deep sigh of relief.
She knew, however, by the expression on the Duke’s face what he was feeling and she had no intention of discussing it with him.
“I am tired and tomorrow will be another tiring day,” she said. “I am going straight to bed. Goodnight, Seldon.”
“Goodnight, Edith!”
He had walked away without another word and she had known by his voice that the depression encompassing him was like a black cloud.
He sat for a long time in the library before finally going up to bed and even then he thought it unlikely he would sleep.
He had actually fallen into a doze and his troubles had receded for the moment into an indecisive mist, when he was awoken by the sound of voices, hammering and the movement of people.
For a moment it flashed through his mind that burglars were attempting to steal the presents.
Then he was aware that no self-respecting burglar would create enough noise to draw attention to himself and remembered vaguely that Lady Edith had said that the private train which had brought the Vandevilts down from London had also carried the presents, which would be arriving early in the morning at The Castle.
The Duke looked at the clock by his bed and saw that it was not yet five o’clock. Mrs. Vandevilt’s employees, he thought, started work earlier than their English counterparts.
When finally he rose finding it impossible to rest with such a commotion going on, let alone sleep, he found to his astonishment that a positive army of men was invading The Castle and a gang of workmen was erecting in the garden something that looked like a huge crown of flowers.
