White Lilac

Chapter One 1846-2

At least there had been no hints that Daltry was not completely open and ‘above board’ and certainly the papers he had left him to read about the coal mine were businesslike and gained the approval of the Duke’s secretary.

Because he never bought a ‘pig in a poke’, the Duke was determined to see the coal mine for himself and gain some first-hand information about it before he put down his money.

“Surely there is no need to do that, Your Grace?” Captain Daltry had asked. “As you see, I have brought you the report of several experts in that particular field and I myself have visited the mine on three separate occasions and been extremely impressed by its possibilities for the future.”

“I agree with you. It certainly sounds excellent in every way,” the Duke answered pleasantly. “At the same time I would rather enjoy a visit to Lincolnshire and I have several friends in the neighbourhood who I might stay with.”

He had the feeling, although he could not be sure, that Captain Daltry thought it a waste of time, but if he did he was far too tactful to say so.

“I will, of course, be only too willing to show Your Grace the mine, and anything else you wish to see,” he finally said. “The surrounding country is pleasant and the houses and villages you would also acquire in the deal are in reasonable repair. You might have to spend some money on them, but not much.”

Satisfied, the Duke had looked up some of his friends who lived in that part of the country and, amongst them, with whom he intended to stay the first night, was the Marquis of Buxworth.

A good deal older than the Duke, the Marquis had been a close friend of his father’s.

Consequently, when he wrote to ask if he could stay, the Marquis had written back saying nothing would give him greater pleasure than to welcome the son of his old friend.

The Duke then arranged that he should have a bed on the way home with Lord d’Arcy Armitage, who was a member of several of his Clubs and also a fierce competitor on the Racecourse.

With Lord d’Arcy Armitage the conversation regarding horses, if nothing else, would be extremely interesting and the Duke was certain that he would enjoy himself.

He had made no mention of the reason for his visit to either of his chosen hosts.

Captain Daltry had already warned him that he was getting in, as he put it, ‘on the ground floor’ before anybody else knew the mine was even up for sale.

“It belonged to an old country Squire who recently died and his son has no idea of its potential value and is obviously not interested in the countryside, preferring to spend his time in London.”

Captain Daltry paused before he added,

“That is why Your Grace will be able to buy the mine far below its true value. You will have to spend only a little money on new machinery and will undoubtedly have to employ more people than are engaged there at the moment. But that is something which should be kept at all costs from becoming public knowledge.”

It had flashed through the Duke’s mind that he disliked subterfuge of any sort and preferred a straightforward deal rather than to take advantage of somebody who was foolish enough to be ignorant of the mine’s true value.

As if Captain Daltry knew what he was feeling, he continued,

“Young Newall is an extremely foolish young man who has already dissipated most of the money his father left him and, if Your Grace does not buy the land and the mine, it will doubtless go to some unpleasant speculator, who will exploit the people working in it and extract every lump of coal greedily and without safety precautions at the expense of those who work for him”

This was something the Duke knew had been exposed in a report published in 1842, which had shocked and horrified the British public.

Since then safety in the mines had been much improved, but there were still unscrupulous landlords who were more interested in money than in lives.

There were in consequence regular casualties below ground that could have been avoided with proper forethought.

He himself took the greatest care of the people who worked for him on all his estates and thought that he would certainly see that his coal mine was properly supervised.

He knew at the same time that Daltry was cleverly persuading him by using arguments that he knew would specially appeal to him.

After arranging to meet Daltry and his advisors at the mine a week later, he had started to make plans immediately for the journey.

However, when he went to visit his mother, she had a very different idea as to why he should be going into a part of the country she could never remember him visiting before.

“Can it be possible, Ervan?” she asked. “That my prayers have at last been answered and you intend to find yourself a wife?”

The Duke looked at her in astonishment.

“Why should you think that, Mama?”

“You told me that you will be visiting the Marquis of Buxworth, who I hear, has a pretty daughter of exactly the right age.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘exactly the right age’, Mama,” the Duke said defensively.

“I have always thought,” his mother explained a little dreamily, “that a man, especially one like you, Ervan, should be a good deal older than his wife.”

Her eyes were reminiscent as she went on,

“Your father was twelve years older than I was and look how happy we were! I remember the first time I saw him, thinking that he was so handsome that he might have been a God from Mount Olympus and felt the same about him until his dying day!”

The way the Duchess spoke was very moving and the Duke replied,

“Papa was very lucky to find you, Mama. But so far, I have never yet met a woman to whom I could for a moment, contemplate being married, so I remain a bachelor.”

“I am very well aware of that!” the Duchess retorted sharply. “But, darling, you must be aware that you make a very attractive fourth Duke and everybody admires you, but you should not forget that there must be a fifth and sixth and a great number more after that.”

The Duke laughed.

“You sound, Mama, as though I already have one foot in the grave, but I can only say, as I have not yet reached my twenty-ninth birthday, that there is plenty of time.”

The Duchess sighed.

“That is always your answer and I suppose in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time you will be saying the same thing!”

The Duke laughed again.

“That is being very pessimistic, Mama, but perhaps I shall find the ideal wife on a peak of the Himalayas, sailing up the sss or standing on top of the Acropolis in Athens!”

He nearly added,

“Or at the bottom of a coal mine!”

Then he thought that not only would his mother think it very unfunny but also he would have revealed to her the purpose of his journey North, which he was anxious to keep secret.

The Duchess was an inveterate gossip and the Duke knew that everything he said to her, especially where it concerned marriage, would be repeated to all her special friends and would ripple out like a stone thrown into the middle of a still pond.

“I cannot quite understand – ” the Duchess was saying.

“What can you not understand, Mama?”

“Why, with all your charm and in view of all the glamorous women you have met and who have pursued you relentlessly, you have never yet fallen in love.”

“I would not go so far as to say that, Mama!” the Duke countered with a twist to his lips.

“I am talking about proper love,” the Duchess said sharply, “not those affaires de coeur that I hear far too much about!”

“You should not listen!” the Duke replied automatically.

At the same time he was reflecting that anything he did was immediately related to his mother.

He often thought that almost before he had begun what she called an ‘affaire de coeur’ she was aware of it and was kept informed of every move even, he told himself, every kiss, almost before it happened.

He sat down beside the sofa where his mother was reclining and took her hand in his.

“I love you, Mama,” he said, “and although I want to please you, I can only say that the reason why I am not married is entirely your fault!”

“My fault?” she asked. “When I have begged you almost on my knees to find yourself a wife!”

“I know, Mama, but when I compare the women I meet with you, I know that they will not only disappoint me but would undoubtedly bore me stiff within a few months.”

Although the Duke was flattering his mother, which she greatly enjoyed, there was a great deal of truth in what he was saying.

The Duchess had not only been one of the most beautiful members of Society when she married his father but she had also become a legend in her own lifetime.

Royalty, Statesmen, politicians, everybody, important or unimportant, adored the Duchess of Marazion.

She had a charm that made every man who met her, her slave and, although it seemed unbelievable women equally adored her.

Looking back, the Duke thought that the reason was that it was impossible to be jealous or envious of a woman so warm-hearted who gave so much of herself to everybody she met.

And she had so obviously been so happy with her husband that wherever they were they seemed to exude happiness and make it infectious.

What the Duchess possessed, which was different from most other people, was the capacity to make whoever she was speaking to feel that they were not only the most important person present but also believe that they were interesting and intelligent.

The dullest man blossomed into a wit when the Duchess talked to him, the plainest woman would sparkle and in her own way take on a beauty she had never had before.

It was a quality that the Duke had never found in anybody else and he thought that his mother was truly unique and it would be impossible for him ever to find a woman who could compare with her.

Inevitably after the first physical rapture his affaires de coeur quickly began to fade and become a bore.

Now looking at him, the Duchess thought almost despairingly that she understood exactly what he was saying.

Like his father before him, he was looking for perfection, something incomparable, in the same way that he so often set himself a challenge.

“I knew that you were different from any other woman I had ever met,” the third Duke had said to the young daughter of an impoverished Baronet he had met out riding.

His future bride had been riding with remarkable expertise a spirited horse provided by her host of the Hunt ball, which was far better bred than anything her father could afford.

The excitement of it had brought a flush to her white skin and her eyes were sparkling.

Although her habit was old and not particularly well cut, to the Duke, seeing her for the first time, she was the embodiment of everything that was beautiful, everything he had dreamt of.

It had been genuinely love at first sight, and yet almost unbelievably the girl, who was literally Cinderella had hesitated before she had accepted him.

“You are too grand, too important,” she had said when he proposed to her in a shabby untidy room of the Manor House where she lived with her father with only two very old servants to look after them.

“What does that matter when I love you?” the Duke had asked, “And I know you love me!”

“How do you know that?”

“I can see it in your eyes,” he had said simply, “and I can feel your vibrations responding to mine as they did the first moment I spoke to you when we were out hunting.”

“Without an introduction!” she had added with a smile.

“How could it possibly matter whether we were introduced or not?” the Duke had replied. “When I recognised you the moment I looked at you?”

She knew what he was saying because she had felt the same.