Dollars for the Duke

CHAPTER ONE 1882-1

CHAPTER ONE

1882“I have set out the whole amount, Your Grace, as you asked me to do.”

The accountant put a sheaf of papers down in front of the Duke.

He looked at them and then stiffened, as if he could hardly believe what he read. There was a long silence as he turned over several pages before he said,

“Is it possible, Fossilwaithe, that my father could have run up such a mountain of debts without you or anyone else remonstrating with him?”

“I assure you, Your Grace,” the accountant said respectfully, “both I and my partners spoke to His late Grace on several occasions, but he brushed us aside. Once he even informed me that I was to mind my own business!”

The Duke sighed.

He was quite certain that the accountant was telling him the truth, remembering that his father was always exceedingly impatient when anyone argued, let alone opposed him.

He looked down at the figures again as if he thought that by some miracle they might be changed.

Then he said,

“Well, Fossilwaithe, what do you suggest we do about it?”

He had no idea that the elderly man had been watching him with an expression of compassion in his eyes.

Now he made a little helpless gesture before he said,

“It is a problem that has kept me awake for nights, Your Grace, and quite frankly I do not know the answer.”

The Duke sat back in his chair.

“Let’s put it more bluntly – what have I to sell?”

Again Mr. Fossilwaithe, Senior Partner of the Solicitors firm that had looked after the Otterburn estates for many years appeared to have no ready answer.

As if he felt the situation was intolerable, the Duke rose from his desk and walked across the room to stare out with unseeing eyes over Park Lane towards the green trees in Hyde Park.

Otterburn House in London was large, impressive and a fitting town house for the Dukes whose name it bore. But the present and fourth Duke of Otterburn was currently thinking of The Castle and the huge estates in Buckinghamshire he had inherited unexpectedly and to which he had returned from the East only a month ago.

He had never expected to find himself in the position of being the Duke of Otterburn since he had an elder brother besides a father who had seemed a young man at fifty and likely to live for at least another forty years.

However, the late Duke had been stricken down in what he liked to call his prime by an epidemic that had swept the country last winter, taking its toll of more lives than were usually lost in any one of the small wars in which Britain was regularly engaged in one or another part of the world.

When Seldon Burn heard of his father’s death, he was only just recovering from the blow of learning that his elder brother, of whom he had been extremely fond, had broken his neck out hunting.

The information when it reached him had been much delayed because he was fighting a bitter campaign against the treacherous tribesmen on the boundaries of Afghanistan and he was not in a position to communicate with his father until he returned to Peshawar.

It was there he found waiting for him a telegram to inform him that his father was also dead and that his presence was required in England, as soon as it was possible for him to return.

He easily obtained compassionate leave.

At the same time, as he journeyed back across the hot plains, sometimes by train, sometimes by the slower but much more agreeable means of horseback, he faced the fact that his life in the Army had come to an end.

As a younger son, it had been very clear to him, as he grew into manhood, that he could expect to receive nothing but a small allowance from his father and must make his own way in the world.

Later he had become aware that although his father had lived ever since his grandfather’s death, in a flamboyantly extravagant manner, there were obvious signs that the estates did not pay their way and that debts were accumulating.

It was, however, nothing to do with Seldon and he joined the Army taking part in several skirmishes in parts of the world like the Sudan before he was posted to India and found that there, at any rate, it was a life after his own heart.

Because he was an excellent soldier and a born leader of men, he commanded a company of soldiers who survived the perils of war by being unremittingly courageous and quick-witted.

This accurately described Seldon Burn himself and he soon earned the reputation of being a daring, if slightly unpredictable Officer, on whom the Higher Command could rely in a crisis.

There were always crises on the North-West Frontier and there was always in that part of India an enemy lurking behind every rock and every boulder.

The fact that Seldon and his men could outwit those who were supplied with Russian guns and activated by Russian treachery was a reward in itself.

Yet now as he steamed through the Red Sea and into the Suez Canal, Seldon knew that a chapter of his life was closing and a new and very different one lay ahead.

He was not sure what he felt about becoming the fourth Duke of Otterburn.

When he had last been on leave three years ago, he had discussed the position with his brother.

He had been quietly confident that Lionel, at any rate, would uphold the dignity of the name and somehow manage to repair the damage that their father was doing to their finances.

“The old man is spending money like water,” he told Seldon.

“Where does he get it from?” Seldon enquired curiously.

“God knows! As you well know, he will never discuss his private affairs with me.”

“Does he really need to live in such an extravagant style?” Seldon asked. “I notice that we now have twelve footmen in Buckinghamshire, six in London and the stables are so full of horses that one can hardly put a pin between them!”

“I know,” his brother groaned, “and Papa is determined to extend his racing stable at Newmarket. He has not had a win this year and it infuriates him!”

“And apart from the horses,” Seldon remarked, “there are the pretty women who are the prerogative of every rake!”

The two brothers laughed.

They were both aware that if their father was an extremely handsome man and had an eye for a pretty woman, they certainly did not miss seeing him.

“You should see the latest,” Lionel remarked. “She really shows off the diamonds he gives her to advantage!”

“Who is she?”

“One of the famous Gaiety Girls. She cannot dance, she cannot sing, but she looks like a Goddess, and Papa keeps her cornucopia filled to the brim!”

The brother laughed again.

Then Seldon said more seriously,

“You know, Lionel, it is going to be very hard on you when you do inherit.”

Lionel shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s no use worrying,” he said, “and as Papa is strong and healthy, there is every likelihood that he will outlive both of us!”

Thinking of his brother now, Seldon could remember his saying it carelessl, and yet at the same time, as far as he was concerned, it was to be a prophecy of what actually happened.

Now Lionel, who had never married, was dead, and so was his father and Seldon, who had never expected for one moment that he would become the Duke, was left with a mountain of debts, which were even greater than he had anticipated.

He turned from the window.

“We have to find a solution, Mr, Fossilwaithe.”

“I agree, Your Grace.”

“I suppose there is no chance of our selling this house?”

“It is entailed, my Lord, otherwise your father, if you will forgive the impertinence, would have sold it a long time ago.”

The Duke sat down again at his desk.

“I suppose that applies also to the contents of The Castle, especially the pictures?”

“Almost as if the first Duke, your great grandfather, Your Grace, anticipated that something like this would happen, they too were entailed by him and your grandfather tied up everything else in such a manner that it would be almost impossible to have anything released.”

Mr. Fossilwaithe paused before he added,

“There are of course, five hundred acres on the North-West of the estate which belonged originally to Your Grace’s grandmother.”

The Duke’s eyes lightened.

“What would that fetch on the open market?”

“Not very much, Your Grace. And I think I should remind you that not only are the almshouses situated on that particular land, but also a great number of the cottages occupied by your pensioners.”

The light faded in the Duke’s eyes.

He knew only too well that if he sold the land to speculators or even to other conscientious landlords, the pensioners could be turned off, the almshouses emptied and filled instead with tenants who could pay a reasonable rent.

He stared down at the paper in front of him as if once again he could hardly credit that Mr. Fossilwaithe had not invented such a preposterous figure.

Then he suggested,

“I think the best thing for me to do is to read very carefully through these papers you have brought me and I would also like to study the survey which I understand your firm made of the Otterburn estates when my father died.”

“There is a copy of it at The Castle, Your Grace,” Mr. Fossilwaithe replied, “but I have another here if you would like me to leave it with you.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Fossilwaithe produced the copy.

Then he said respectfully,

“I wish, Your Grace, I could have brought you better news and given Your Grace a more optimistic forecast for the future.”

“You have told me the truth,” the Duke replied, “and I know you will agree that only by knowing exactly where I stand, can I have a chance of finding my way out of this mess.”

There was a sharp note in his voice as he said the last two words and, looking at him, the accountant realised how much he disliked the position he found himself in.

He was, in fact, feeling that because the debts were so astronomical the family name was being dragged through the mire.

“You know, Your Grace,” Mr. Fossilwaithe said quietly, “that my firm will do anything in our power to help you.”

The Duke rose to his feet and held out his hand.

“I am aware of that,” he said, “and I can only thank you for all you have done so far and your tact and understanding in what I know has been a very difficult situation.”

“I thank Your Grace.”

Mr. Fossilwaithe shook the Duke’s hand and bowed himself to the door.

Only when he had gone did the Duke sink back in his chair, almost as if he was exhausted by the mammoth task that lay ahead of him.

It was as if the question, like the beat of a drum, repeated and repeated itself over and over in his mind.

‘What the devil am I going to do?’

He was glad in some ways that it was he who had to cope with the problem rather than Lionel.

Lionel had never been a hard man and would have found it impossible to be as ruthless as the Duke felt that he might have to be.

First The Castle had to be closed.

He was aware that this in itself would horrify his Burn relatives, who had always looked on it as the focal point of their lives.

It was to The Castle they flocked on every possible occasion that called for a gathering of ‘the Clan’.

For weddings, for funerals, for anniversaries, festivals like Christmas and Easter, the christening of their children, discussion of all the problems that they could not solve individually. They stayed at The Castle so that somehow with the help of their other relatives a solution could be found.

The Duke knew that to close The Castle would make them feel as if they were deprived of the central point of their existence.

‘What else can I do? It’s a huge place and needs a fortune spent on it,’ he ruminated sadly.

He had gone to The Castle as soon as he arrived in England and found that his father had redecorated the best rooms regardless of expense in the last five years, but the kitchens, the sculleries and the pantries were a disgrace and the servants’ quarters would not have seemed out of place in a slum.