Pride and the Poor Princess

Chapter One 1924The Duke of Buckminster was sitting in the Saloon of his yacht reading an English newspaper that was nearly a week old. Sir Harold Nuneaton walked in and looked at him in surprise. “I thought you were on deck, Buck,” he said, “enjoying the beauties of the spires and domes of Constantinople.” “I saw them before the war, Harry,” the Duke replied, “and I can’t believe that they have altered that much.” Harry Nuneaton laughed. “They will be the only thing in Turkey that has not changed,” he said. “I hear that Mustafa Kemal has turned the whole place upside down, especially with his insistence on liberating women from the traditional shackles of Islam.” “That will certainly be revolutionary.” The Duke spoke in a somewhat uninterested voice and Harry Nuneaton crossed the Saloon to sit down beside him in one of the deep comfortable armchairs that could only have been chosen by a man who appreciated luxury. “What’s the matter, Buck?” he asked. “I thought you have seemed a bit off-colour these last few days.” The Duke did not answer for a moment. Then he threw the copy of The Times he was reading on the floor. “It’s nothing serious,” he replied. “It’s just that I am finding life rather dull after all the excitement of the war.” Harry Nuneaton was not surprised. If anyone had had a glamorous and exciting war it was the Duke. In charge of an Armoured Car Unit attached to the Royal Naval Air Service, the Duke had been sent to the Western Desert to assist the British Imperial Troops. His armour-plated Rolls Royces had taken part in the strangest and most adventurous battles of the war. They had rescued prisoners who were being starved and ill-treated by one of the enemy Sheiks and they had reinforced small groups who had been detached from the main Armies. In fact they had performed such valiant service that Whitehall became deeply interested in what had originally been an experiment that many Generals had been extremely sceptical about. In fact they had discovered through the Duke’s brilliant leadership that the years he and his Officers had spent in risking death in motor cars, motor boats and aeroplanes could in an emergency pay amazing dividends in their support of the more traditional methods of warfare. “If anyone deserved a decoration for gallantry,” a General commanding the Desert Forces had said to Harry Nuneaton after the war, “it is Buckminster. He would never give up – it’s not a phrase that exists in his personal vocabulary.” That Harry Nuneaton knew was true. At the same time he realised that while the war had given the Duke an incentive that had been lacking in his luxurious life before it began, now it was ended he was rather like a ship without a rudder. One of the richest men in England, he had no reason to exert himself except in looking after his huge estates and producing an heir to carry on the ancient title. The Dukedom was comparatively new, having been awarded to his grandfather by Queen Victoria for his services in building up the Empire, but the Earls of Minster went back to the sixteenth century and their name was interwoven in the history of Great Britain. What the Duke was finding now in a mundane world was that Government was in the hands of small-minded politicians and there was no place for a Duke, however intelligent he might be. He therefore sank back into the Social life that had centred around him before 1914 and he found himself giving the same parties with the same lavishness at the same time of year for the same reasons as he had done ever since he had inherited the Dukedom at the age of twenty-one. The only thing that had changed were the women who amused him, because those who had captured his fancy before the war were now too old. At thirty-five the Duke was finding even the pretty faces, the tinkling voices and the inevitable flattery that every woman accorded him could with repetition become boring. Women were attracted to him not only because of his title. Well over six foot tall, broad-shouldered and extremely good-looking, he would, his men friends often thought, have been devastating even had he been a nobody. But with the aura of his wealth and rank he had become a commanding figure who dominated London Society and of course the gossip columns. It was understandable that ‘the Buckminster Set’, as it was called, should be of intense interest to those who eagerly opened the more popular newspapers to learn what they were doing day by day. As Lord Northcliffe had said to his editors, “Get names into the newspaper and the more aristocratic the better!” There was therefore hardly a day when the Duke of Buckminster’s name did not appear in the Press and no magazine that did not carry a photograph of him. Looking at his face, Harry Nuneaton realised that the lines of cynicism which had begun to show even before the war were now becoming more and more prominent. There was also a dry mocking note in his voice to be heard not occasionally, but almost continually and, what to Harry was more significant, a hard look in his grey eyes that was very different from how they had looked during the war. Harry Nuneaton, although three years older than the Duke, had been with him almost continuously during the four long years of hostilities. They had suffered the same hardships, the same unpleasant moments of intense danger and the same feelings of horror at the atrocities that had been perpetrated both by the Germans and by the tribesmen of the Middle East. The Turks had also been cruel to a fallen enemy, which did not surprise him and, because they had both condemned the way they had treated their prisoners, Harry was surprised that the Duke was visiting Constantinople while their experiences were still fresh in their memories. It was in fact Dolly who had been determined that the yacht should take them up the Sea of Marmara to what had always been called ‘The Pearl of the East’. Harry, who had not been there before, was quite certain that it would prove to be nothing of the sort, but Dolly had been very determined and, as the Duke still found her alluring, although Harry fancied he was beginning to tire a little, she had got her way. “Why I really want to visit Constantinople,” she said frankly, “is to see if I can buy some of the marvellous Russian sables or better still the incredible jewels that I hear those who escaped from the Bolsheviks have been selling in the bazaars.” What she meant was that if they were obtainable, the Duke would buy them for her and Harry, who knew the value of the gems he had already given her, had asked with a twist of his lips, “Still collecting, Dolly? I should have thought you might have enough by this time!” She had not been annoyed at his impertinence and had merely laughed. “What woman ever has enough jewels?” she enquired. “And, as you are aware, Buck can afford it.” Harry had to admit that jewels became her. She was extremely beautiful in the new modern way that had little in common with the tall Junoesque beauties who had dominated the scene at the beginning of the century. With her fair fluffy hair, large blue eyes and a perfect pink-and-white complexion, Dolly symbolised the beauty that the men in the trenches had yearned for and prayed that they would remain alive to find when the war was over. She had a natural gaiety that made everything she said and did seem a joke. Her feet were made for dancing and her slim body, again very unlike that of the previous generation, seemed more like a boy’s than a girl’s. But she was entirely feminine and had developed the desire and the intention to make a man pay and pay for her favours, being certain in her own mind, although she was too clever to say so, that men only appreciated what was expensive and hard to obtain. Having an ambitious mother who arranged a brilliant marriage for her at eighteen, Dolly at twenty-four as the Countess of Chatham became the leader of a smart young married set that adorned the nightclubs of London and Paris. When she was clever enough to captivate the attention of the Duke of Buckminster, it was a triumph that vibrated through the dancing world and made the Dowagers, who still had some sense of propriety, shake their heads. “Dolly Chatham and Buckminster!” they said disapprovingly to each other. “No good will come of that!” Six months later they were asking what Robert was doing to allow his wife to get herself talked about in such an outrageous fashion. The Earl as it happened was not particularly interested. Rather like the Duke he was finding peace a bore and the duty of continually squiring a very beautiful wife to parties and nightclubs where she invariably danced with other men was not to his taste. As he could no longer kill Germans, he had gone out to Africa to shoot big game and, if he was aware of the endless talk and speculation about his wife and the Duke, it did not trouble him. Perhaps it was just a desire for more jewellery that had made Dolly suggest that they should go yachting at Easter or perhaps like Harry she had become aware that Buck was straining a little at the leash and if she wished to keep him she would have to strive to amuse him. The Duke was quite amenable to leaving London and going in search of the sun. He also wanted to try out his new yacht, which was the largest in commission since the war and on which he had spent much time not only improving the design, but also adding many gadgets of his own invention. She had been named The Siren and there was a great deal of speculation in the gossip press as to which particular woman he had in mind. Whoever she might have been when he first chose the name, there was no doubt that Dolly had appropriated both the title of the yacht and the position of hostess on this voyage. She had chosen the other guests with care. Lord and Lady Radstock were both close friends of the Duke and Nancy Radstock was her greatest friend – so far as it was possible for her to have a woman friend at all. Nancy had the advantage from Dolly’s point of view of being no rival when it came to looks and yet she was always welcomed by the Duke because she was so amusing. She made him laugh and she prevented there being any awkward moments by her quick wit. She also unashamedly announced that she wanted to spend as much of her life as possible with the Duke in any part of the world he wished to be, simply because she preferred luxury to the awful effort of keeping up appearances on ‘poor George’s income’. “I am not pretty enough to be a gold-digger,” she would say disarmingly, “so I have to be a sponger. You don’t mind, do you, Buck, dear?” The Duke would laugh at such honesty and occasionally give her small presents for which she would be effusively grateful and sensible enough not to be jealous of the enormous amount he expended on Dolly. It was well known amongst the Duke’s friends that he was generous only when it suited him. In other ways he could be quite tight-fisted. Harry had always thought this was due to his conviction that because he was so wealthy almost everybody was out to trick him in some way. It infuriated him that there should be one price for him and another for more ordinary people. Because from an early age he had determined not to be made a fool, he scrutinised every bill and was known to dismiss any employee who attempted in any way, however trivial, to cheat him. It had been sensible when he first inherited, but now it had become an obsession and Harry had begun to think that his hardness and cynicism was ruining what was otherwise a very lovable character.