White Lilac

Chapter One 1846-1

Chapter One 1846“The fog’s gettin’ worse, Your Grace!”

The groom spoke apprehensively, but the Duke made no reply, having obviously noticed it himself.

He had been forced to drive more slowly every mile and he now thought it would be wise to find somewhere to stay the night rather than press on to the Marquis of Buxworth’s house where he was expected.

If there was one thing the Duke really disliked, it was having his plans altered at the last moment and if he had his own way he would have driven on, fog or no fog, until he had reached his destination.

It was this sort of determination that had made him the most outstanding athlete of his year.

First at Harrow, where he had run a mile in four minutes thirty-six seconds, then at Oxford where he had excelled as an oarsman, while since he had grown up he had won one athletic record after another.

He had climbed the Matterhorn, he had represented England in all the fencing competitions in Europe, winning every time. His horses had carried off the majority of the classic races, while in amateur steeplechases and point-to-points he was invariably past the winning post ahead of every other competitor.

Apart from all this, he was a notable game shot, whether on safari or shooting pheasants and partridges, so that his friends had long ago given up competing with him.

He saw that his vast estates in various parts of the country ran as smoothly as a well-oiled machine, which was due to the organisation and direction coming from the top, which was, of course, himself.

He often thought that there were few challenges left to him, but his life was so full and busy that he had no time to think about his past achievements, but had to concentrate on a day-to-day programme that would exhaust most men.

At the same time he never achieved anything at the expense of his horses or any other animals that he was using for his own pleasure.

He thought now that, although he had no wish to stay the night in some uncomfortable posting inn, his horses should not be forced to travel any further in what he knew the groom beside him was thinking of as a ‘pea-souper’.

Aloud he said,

“If I am not mistaken, Hanson, there is an inn of some sort not far from here.”

It was a long time since he had been on this particular road, but like everything else about him, his memory was phenomenal.

When a few minutes later, they saw the flicker of distant lights coming hazily through the fog, he knew that he had not been mistaken.

The inn was rather better equipped than the Duke had anticipated and since visitors who stayed the night were an exception he was able to engage the best bedroom for himself and insist that he also paid for the rooms on either side of it to remain empty.

In the past, especially in posting inns, it had annoyed him when the occupants next door had either coughed all night or else stumbled into the furniture because they had enjoyed too much to drink.

The publican looked slightly surprised at such a request, but was only too delighted to rent the rooms to a gentleman who was so obviously warm in the pocket.

When the Duke also asked for a private parlour, it was made available.

Having ensured that his groom was catered for as well as his outstanding team of horses, he settled down to order what he required for dinner.

It was unfortunate that the brake, which had been following him, was apparently lost in the fog.

There was just a chance that it would turn up later and find him, but he would not have been prepared to bet any money on it.

Because the brake was being drawn by six horses and driven by his Head Groom, who was an extremely cautious man, the Duke was certain that they would have stopped long before now.

They were doubtless in a larger and better class inn than the one in which he was now obliged to stay.

There was, however, nothing he could do but accept that he would not as usual have his own fine linen sheets which his valet could make up his bed with.

Nor would there be the special mats for his feet beside the bed and the washstand.

There was another groom travelling in the brake who was a better cook than Hanson, who was accompanying him.

However Hanson could always be relied upon in an emergency and the Duke, looking at the menu the publican had produced, chose what he thought might be edible if Hanson supervised the cooking of it.

“I’ll do the best I can for you, Your Grace,” Hanson said, after he had stabled the horses, “but I’m not pretendin’ I’m as good a cook as young Henry. He be a natural, as one might say, in the kitchen, for all that I’d trust him with any horse your Grace owns.”

The Duke looked up from the menu to say sharply,

“Sir! Remember, I have registered as Sir Ervan Trecarron.”

“Yes, of course, Your – sir!”

When the Duke was travelling, he invariably used one of his lesser titles, finding that often people were so overcome at entertaining the celebrated Duke of Marazion that it became embarrassing.

He would also sometimes find himself the target of those who wished to get something out of him.

It was far easier therefore to be anonymous and it was actually what he preferred.

“I’ll get to the kitchen now, Sir Ervan,” Hanson said, “and I’ve taken your trunk upstairs.”

He paused to ask anxiously,

“You’re quite certain yer can manage by yourself, sir?”

The Duke smiled.

“Quite certain, thank you Hanson!”

He was thinking as he spoke how on his travels in the Far East and in Africa he had managed perfectly well without the assistance of a valet or anyone else except an often illiterate native.

In fact in the wilds he preferred to look after himself, finding that English servants required far too much attention and invariably grumbled at anything new and unusual.

Now he rose to his full height of six foot two inches and stood for a moment in front of the log fire blazing in the open fireplace, before walking up the creaking oak stairs to his bedroom on the first floor.

It was quite a large room and, as Hanson had already ordered the fire that was burning in the grate, the cold and damp outside did not penetrate into the low-ceilinged oak-beamed room.

The Duke’s sharp eyes took in the fact that the room was surprisingly clean.

He was glad that unlike his experience of many other posting inns, he need not be afraid that the sheets on the bed would be dirty or the blankets verminous.

Hanson, with the help of the publican, had already brought up the trunk that had been strapped to the back of his phaeton just in case he was separated from the brake and the rest of his luggage.

Now he could see that it had been opened for him so that he could take out what he required.

Because he had been driving for many hours, the Duke took off his smart but slightly dusty clothes and washed in the warm water that had been placed in a can on the washstand.

He would have liked a bath, but he was quite certain it would cause so much commotion in the inn that in consequence his dinner would be much delayed, as would that of any other traveller staying there.

He had no idea if there were other guests in the inn because he had walked straight into his private parlour on his arrival and not left it until he came upstairs.

Having washed thoroughly, thinking as he did so that everything might have been very much worse than it actually was, he took his evening clothes out of the trunk.

He then dressed himself competently and far more quickly than if his valet had assisted him.

Actually, although he knew it would cause deep resentment if he said so, he preferred to look after himself.

Before he inherited the title, he had spent many months at a time in outlandish places where even the most elementary comforts were hard to come by.

Being alone constituted one of the challenges he enjoyed.

Yet he thought tonight the fog, which had prevented him from reaching the Marquis of Buxworth, was not so much a challenge as an obstacle and nuisance he had not anticipated.

He was quite certain that the Marquis, who had written an effusive letter of invitation to stay with him, would have arranged a dinner party in his honour and would be extremely disappointed at his non-appearance.

There was, however, nothing he could do about that, so the Duke dismissed it from his mind and taking from his trunk a book he had been reading before he left home, walked down the stairs and back to the parlour.

He found, as he expected, that the claret he had ordered before he went upstairs was standing on the hearth in front of the fire and should, he thought, by now be at exactly the right temperature.

He poured himself a glass, which he found quite palatable, and settled into an armchair to await dinner.

He opened his book at about halfway through the volume where he had left a marker, but found himself thinking of the purpose of his journey.

Would it really prove as fruitful as Captain Daltry had tried to make him believe?

Daltry had certainly been optimistically, wildly, enthusiastic about the whole project and the Duke had found himself being almost carried away by the older man’s persuasion.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime, it is really!” Daltry had said. “I brought the offer first to Your Grace for the simple reason that I know of no one to whom I would rather do a good turn, having been one of your whole-hearted admirers for many years!”

It was the sort of compliment the Duke was used to hearing and he merely smiled faintly and waited for Captain Daltry to get down to what he thought of to himself as ‘brass tacks’.

What it came to was that Daltry was selling a coal mine on behalf of a friend of his.

As he pointed out to the Duke not once but a dozen times, a coal mine was obviously something every great landowner should possess in the future.

Railways were being planned all over the country and coal would therefore be more in demand than it had ever been in the past.

As Captain Daltry pointed out, so many of the Duke’s contemporaries already had a coal mine under their land and would undoubtedly reap the benefit of a demand that was increasing not only year by year but almost month by month.

Steamships had already revolutionised the means of transport by sea and now, Captain Daltry said, with the coming of the trains, horses would soon become completely out-of-date.

“Not where I am concerned,” the Duke exclaimed.

He had already travelled on a train and thought that it was uncomfortable, noisy and dirty, but he was intelligent enough to realise that it would undoubtedly become the regular means of conveyance in the future.

At the same time the more he thought of trains the more he wanted to cling to his horses.

Almost as a gesture of defiance he was increasing the size of his stables and the number of horses he kept on the main roads over which he frequently travelled.

But despite all that, he was interested in what Daltry had to tell him, although he did not particularly care for the man himself.

He had, of course, taken the precaution of finding out more about him, even though a member whom the Duke had known for many years had introduced them in one of his Clubs.

He learnt that Daltry had served in India before leaving his Regiment and that country without any suspicion of stigma against him, although it was hard to find anybody at home who knew him well.

‘Daltry! Daltry!’ several men said reflectively when the Duke asked about him. ‘Yes, of course, I have met him on a number of occasions, on the Racecourse, at the Club. Seems pleasant enough, but I don’t know much about the fellow!’

They all said more or less the same thing, but it did not tell the Duke what he wanted to know.