The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance

That morning after the storm, The Wyechester Independent had a long account of the storm and of the wreck of the Seabird, the death of the Duke of Shropshire, and of the heroic conduct of "Mr. Charles Augustus Cheyne, a gentleman who had recently won his spurs in the field of literature, and whose latest achievement fills all England this day with wonder and admiration, and of whom the people of Wyechester are naturally proud, as he owes his parentage on one side to this city."

What, Wyechester proud of her grandson, of the child of her unhappy daughter! Wyechester, the pious cathedral-town of Wyechester, proud of him she had looked upon as a disgrace! It was unkind, ungenerous, unmanly of the author of that article to hint thus even distantly at the disgraceful past. It was not necessary or decent for the writer of that article to unearth a long-buried scandal. It was an outrage on the living and the dead. The man who wrote it was a low creature, and ought to be scouted from all decent society; that is, indeed, if ever he had been in decent society. How had this man found out? It must have been the attorney who gave the information.

While the old woman was giving full scope to her anger, there was a knock at the door. A gentleman desired to see Mrs. Mansfield; he gave the name of Fritson. The servant might show him in.

A stout little man entered the room, and bowed to Mrs. Mansfield, and said briskly:

"Mrs. Mansfield, I believe?"

"Yes, sir, I am Mrs. Mansfield," she said, with great coldness and repelling precision.

He took no notice of her manner.

"My name is Fritson, madam."

"And to what, Mr. – er-eh-Fritson, do I owe the honour of this visit? I have no recollection of having seen you before, sir," she said frigidly.

"You are right, my dear madam."

The old woman drew herself back at the unwarrantable freedom of this man calling her "my dear madam."

The visitor took no notice-in fact, did not observe her manner. He went on:

"We have never met before; and you owe my visit to the flattering fact that you have a grandson, whose name is now a household word in all England."

"Sir!" she said, rising angrily.

He did not see her anger.

"I have come, my dear madam, to know if you will be good enough to furnish me with additional particulars about your grandson, about his youth, and so on-in short a brief biography. I represent The Wyechester Independent and one of the most influential metropolitan dailies. Any facts you will be good enough to give me will not, you may be certain, suffer in my hands. I will do the best I can to make them light and readable. Any anecdote of your grandson's prowess as, say, a boxer or a cricketer, while a boy, would be peculiarly acceptable, particularly if there was a touch of magnanimity about it. One of the fruits of my long experience is that nothing appeals so universally to the British public as magnanimous muscle."

The old woman stood pale and without the power of speech while he made this long harangue. When he paused she raised her arm, and, pointing with a long thin yellow finger at the door, said huskily:

"Go, sir; go at once!" She could say no more.

He bounded to his feet in amazement. He had no intention to hurt or offend. Nothing was farther from his thoughts. He had been simply heedless, full of his own mind, unobservant.

"I am sure I beg your pardon," he said, in a tone of sincere apology. "I had no intention of causing you any annoyance. I thought you might like to make the Independent and the Metropolitan Vindicator the medium-"

"Go, sir, go! You are committing an outrage. Go!"

"Believe me, madam," he began, backing towards the door.

"I do not want to hear any more. Go, sir!"

"But, my dear madam, you must allow me to explain-"

"If you do not leave at once I shall send my servant for the police!"

The reporter had reached the door by this time, and as Mrs. Mansfield ceased speaking, he bowed and retired, comforting himself with the assurance that she was mad.

When she was alone she sank down and covered her face with her hands, too much exhausted to think.

For upwards of an hour she did not move; then she took away her hands from before her face, arose, and, with resolute step, crossed the room to where her desk stood on a small table in the pier. With resolute hands she opened the desk, and took out that old bundle which had been sent to her by her dying child by the same messenger that had brought the boy four-and-thirty years ago.

Yes, she would destroy this hateful relic of disgrace and dishonour. She would burn it down to the last atom. Nothing of it, nothing of that perfidious daughter, should survive.

She sat down and broke the seals, and cut the moulding cord, and released what was inside. This proved to be a large leather pocket-book.

The first thing that met her eye was the copy of a certificate of marriage between Charles Augustus Cheyne and Harriet Mansfield at Anerly Church. She searched in the pocket-book and found a small sealed packet, bearing, in a man's writing, these words: "Not to be opened for three years." The date was the same as that on the copy of the marriage-certificate.

With trembling hands the old woman cut the silk and broke the seal. She found nothing but a letter on an old-fashioned sheet of letter-paper, which, on its right-hand corner, bore a coronet surrounded by strawberry leaves.

END OF PART I

PART II.

THE DUKE OF SHROPSHIRE

CHAPTER I.

THE TWO CHEYNES

Dr. RowlandThought, chief physician of Barnardstown, the nearest place of any importance to Silverview, reached the Castle almost as soon as the new Duke of Shropshire and Cheyne. The groom had brought him to the place in a dog-cart.

Dr. Rowland had the reputation of being one of the most intelligent and skilful doctors in the provinces. He had early made his reputation and position, in spite of mean personal appearance, untidiness in dress, and indifference to some nice points in the profession. He had unquestionably genius, and cared nothing for routine or for canons that were not salutary. His first remarkable case had been that of a man whom two of the great formal doctors of Barnardstown had left at night, saying he could not last till morning. This man happened to be a wealthy eccentric bachelor, who lived in a lonely house a little way out of the town. The sick man's servant, Johnson, had been at one time a patient of Rowland's, and entertained the highest respect for Rowland's skill; and it so happened that on the night the sick man was despaired of Dr. Rowland met Johnson. The latter told the former that the great medical men had come and gone, and said his master could by no possibility get through the night. Johnson implored Rowland to see his master. The latter agreed; and next morning the patient was better. In three weeks the man was up and about, and one of his first acts was to give Johnson and Rowland a hundred pounds each, observing that if Johnson had not called in Rowland, Rowland would not have been able to do him any good. After this the two old formal doctors refused to meet Rowland in consultation, which determination in no way discomposed the young man, who replied, caustically, that if he might only come in by himself when they had failed, and be paid by results, he should have a very large and lucrative practice. When asked by what means he had cured the dying man, he had answered: "Gumption, a jug of hot water, and a tin of mustard."

His next cure was that of an old woman whom two other grave and reverend members of the profession had declared beyond help. When he was asked what drugs he had employed in this case, he answered: "Brandy and beef-tea. I wonder the venerables did not do some good there, for you didn't want any gumption in that case."

After this the elder and more regular members of the profession gave up declaring their despair; and although they adhered to their resolution of not meeting Dr. Rowland in consultation, the younger practitioners of the town had no objection to avail themselves of his aid in extreme cases. He was, however, peculiar in more ways than this. He would not take any regular practice. He would not tie himself down to routine work. He had no patience with hypochondriacs, and positively refused to attend trifling cases. "I like to let these old dunderheads ripen a case for me. When they have goaded a patient into a really bad state, then I don't mind tucking up my sleeves and giving them a lesson."

These and many more things he did and said were not professional, but they got him a name in the neighbourhood for being the best man in an emergency. Accordingly, when the Duke's groom asked the steward whom he should fetch, the steward answered, "Rowland."

Dr. Rowland was not only low in stature and untidy in dress, but many other physical details were against him. He had round shoulders and thin legs. He had a yellow shining skin. His nose was too long and too prominent for his face, and his eyes had an uncandid and suspicious look in them. But he diagnosed almost instinctively, knew medicine well, and acted with the promptness of a good general.

The doctor examined first the Duke. He knew the constitution of his grace, and although he had never before attended him, he felt at once that the case was one of extreme gravity. He acted with decision, but he refused to bear the whole responsibility.

"The case is serious, very serious. I don't think anyone can be of use; no one certainly but Granby. Of that I am quite sure. Telegraph for Granby. I'll stop here until he comes."

Accordingly a telegram was sent to the celebrated West-End doctor, Sir Francis Granby, asking the great baronet to come and see the great duke who lay ill.

"And now," said Dr. Rowland, "for the other man. What's the matter with him?"

He was shown into the room where Cheyne lay. He had learned that Cheyne was unknown at the Castle, and not a guest in the ordinary meaning of the word. When Rowland had examined the second patient, he said:

"Nothing wrong with you beyond a few cuts and bruises. You will be all right in a few days. In the meantime you must keep quiet; that's all you want, and some tepid water, a sponge and lint."

Although Sir Francis Granby was one of the most gifted and distinguished of the West-End doctors, it was not every day he was called to go special to a duke with four hundred thousand a-year. It was not every day he enjoyed the advantage of pocketing a thousand-pound fee. It was not every day he had the opportunity of meeting that erratic genius Oliver Rowland; for though the baronet was many years older than the country doctor, he had a great respect for his junior.

"It is all up with him, Granby," said Rowland, when the two were alone after examining the new Duke.

"A very bad case. You found out what was the matter at once?"

"God bless my soul, yes! It is as plain as the nose on your face. I knew you'd find it out, too. That's the reason I sent for you."

"And yet it is obscure, very obscure. I have met only three cases of the kind before. Have you met one?"

"No, not one. Nothing can be done."

"Nothing. He cannot last long."

The burly London baronet shook his head.

"Not a week?"

"Not half that, I think. Is there not another man hurt here? Do you wish me to see him?"

"Oh, he's all right. Only knocked about a bit by wind and water. Cuts and bruises, and nothing more, except exhaustion. He's a kind of hero, you know. Swam out with a rope. Wonderfully fine physique. He must be an uncommonly powerful man. He was the means of saving all the lives that were saved. What a funny thing that only the Duke and the Marquis should have been lost!"

"Funny, Rowland! What a ghastly notion of fun you must have to call the loss of the two most valuable lives in the yacht funny!"

"Valuable! In what way were these lives valuable? They were not valuable even to the men themselves. One was a hopeless invalid and the other was as morose as Boreas. One of them did, it is true, occasionally vote in the House of Lords, but only to oppose all useful measures of reform. The other had not become even one of that most useless body of men in England, members of the House of Commons."

"Rowland! Rowland! this will never do!"

"Who wants it to do? Not I, any way. I don't want myself to do. Wanting to do is one of the common and mean aspirations. It is the father of hypocrisy, and servility, and lies, and all the degrading vices of the time-server; it is the foul pollution upon which the parasites of success fatten and fester."

"Well, well, Rowland. Long ago, before you had grown quite so violent, I used to recommend you to come up to London; but now I would not think of doing so."

"Of course not; nor would I think of going, nor did I ever think of going. London is the grave of independence and self-respect. You cannot be yourself there. You must be the creature of somebody else or the tool of a clique. Give me the hillside and freedom-"

"And five hundred a-year if you are lucky, instead of London and fifteen thousand a-year-"

"And bowing and scraping, and heeling and toeing, and my-lording and my-ladying-"

"Well, well, well," said the great city physician; "I shall never be able to convert you. You are the only man I know in the country who I am sure ought to be in town."

"And you are the only man in town who I know ought to be in the country."

"In very few places in the country will you get such madeira as this," said Sir Francis, in order to change the conversation.

"And nowhere in the town," said Rowland warmly. "No one thinks of keeping good wines in town to be guttled down by foreigners, adventurers, fraudulent speculators, and beggared noblemen. No, no. If your country gentleman has a brand of which he is particularly proud or fond, he keeps it down in the country, where he and his real friends, who come to him on cordial invitations, can discuss it gravely, un-distracted by the bore of comparative strangers, and the noise and smoke of the city. Good wine, Granby, should never be drunk when there is another house within a mile, or with men you have not known twenty years."

"Well, well, well;" which was the great man's formula for dismissing a subject. "Let it be-let it be. Suppose you drop the Duke and his wines. What do you think of your other patient? Don't you think he'd make a very good soldier?"

"Good heavens, Granby, the town has turned your brain! Make a soldier of him! A soldier of a man with such a torso, and limbs, and muscles! Won't the puny and the deformed do you for soldiers? Isn't anything good enough to pull a rifle-trigger or be shot at? Your parade soldiers, all puffed and padded, are good enough to please the vanity of the eye; but their puffs and pads are all in their own way. They don't help them to chase a man or kill a man. They are stuck on them for no more reason than women wore crinolines. Why should we try to get the finest men of all the nation into an institution or force which boasts of being ready to expose these men to sudden death at any moment-a duty which, by-the-way, they are very seldom called upon to fulfil?"

"Rowland, I now go farther than ever I went with you about London: I must strongly recommend you not to go there."

"Of course not; I told you I should never suit it or it me. But I'll tell you what our friend the burly patient would make, Granby-he'd make a magnificent coal-porter, or corn-porter, or backwoodsman."

"Well, well, well, you are hard on the young man. But we cannot agree on several points that have arisen; but on two we are agreed: that the Duke cannot live more than a few days, and that nothing can be done?"

"Yes."

"And that the other man will be all right with care in a very short time?"

"Yes, Granby, that's how I read it."

As the great London physician was leaving later, he said to the country doctor: "When shall I see you again, Rowland? We ought to meet now and then."

"Ay, we ought," said Rowland, with the shadow of sadness on his inexpressive face. This was followed by a gleam of pleasure. "Granby, come down here for a week's fishing. I mean come to my place at Barnardstown. There is capital fishing there. I'll give you new-laid eggs and porridge for your breakfast; beef or fowl and ham, with sound claret for your dinner; and a good supper, with excellent beer, and afterwards a rare good glass of Scotch whisky and a cigar."

The great man shook his head ruefully. "I wish I could, Rowland, my friend. It would remind me of younger and more light-hearted days. But it can't be done now. Is there any chance of inducing you to come up to London to stay with us awhile? Do, Rowland!"

"Pooh, pooh, man."

"And when shall we meet again?"

"When some accident befalls the next duke."

"But," said the London baronet, pausing, as he was about to step into the carriage, "I understood that there was no heir to the title?"

"True, true. I forgot that, Granby. Well, good-bye."

"Good-bye, Rowland."

And the two shook hands.

"I wonder what they would think of him?" By they he meant the faculty in London.

"Every day I hate London more and more. Granby and I were made for pals. D- London!" thought Rowland, as he turned back into the house of mourning and pain.

CHAPTER II.

THE DREAD OF STRAWBERRY LEAVES

"What's the matter with you, Marion? You are not going to faint again today?"

"I hope not, aunt."

"Then what is the matter with you, my dear? You are shaking as if you had the ague. You are not able to hold those papers in your hand. Who was that large letter from this morning?"

"Charlie, aunt."

"I thought Charlie was too ill to write?"

"A Doctor Rowland wrote it for him."

"And has Doctor Rowland written for Charles such a dreadful letter, so dreadfully unkind a letter, that it takes your breath and your senses away? Come over here to me, my little girl, and tell me all about it."

"It is not unkind, aunt; it's worse. It is dreadful."

"Now, now, Marion, you must not allow yourself to be carried away by every little thing connected with Charlie. Is he worse?"

"No. He's going on well, the doctor says."

"Well, then, child, come over to me and bring all those papers with you; and first of all read out what the doctor says."

With the look of one overwhelmed with sorrow, May crossed the room, carrying the papers in one hand down by her side, and in the other, holding against her brown-red cheek, a tress of her dark hair, which had escaped the fastening behind her head.

She sat down in her low easy-chair behind her aunt, and, having placed the more voluminous documents on the ground beside her, rested one elbow on an elbow of the chair, and began reading out in a doleful voice:

"Dear Madam,

"I am still in medical attendance on both the Duke of Shropshire and Mr. Cheyne, and I have to report with sorrow that the condition of his grace causes the gravest anxiety. Additional medical assistance has been summoned since the hasty note I wrote you a few days ago; but the universal opinion of the medical men is that his grace is not likely to last many days. An old acquaintance and I take the watching in turns.

"With regard to Mr. Cheyne, I am happy to be able to report that he is going on better than we had anticipated. All signs of fever have left him, and he has now only to pull up strength to be no worse than when he first came to this neighbourhood. You may rest quite assured he shall want nothing that can be got or done for him here. He has communicated to me the understanding which exists between you and him, and has desired me to write as much as I please of my own will, and then asked me to take the rest from his dictation. So far I have written from myself. Before I begin taking down his words I may tell you that I am one of the crustiest of old bachelor doctors; but the story which Mr. Cheyne has to tell you is of so romantic a character that I cannot avoid feeling an interest in it, and that if there is anything I can do in the matter for you I shall be most happy to act.

"Your faithful Servant,"Oliver Rowland."

Then came Cheyne's letter to May, written out for him by Dr. Rowland.

"My dearest May,

"Doctor Rowland will tell you that I am rapidly getting better, and that in a few days I may hope to be able to get up and about. For the first time, this morning they allowed me to look through the letters lying here for me, among which were two from your own good hand, dear, and two more from other sources. These four are all that I need mention now; and of your own you will, for an obvious reason, see why I must confine myself to thanks and good wishes, and telling you how glad I was to hear that you and your kind aunt are so well. I pray you may both continue so.

"And now for the other two.

"One of them is from an old friend of mine of whom you have often heard me speak, and whom you met more than once-Edward Graham, the artist, who, as I told you, has been painting a picture under Anerly Bridge, in Devonshire. This letter is accompanied by a story which goes back to the year before I was born, and tells of a certain marriage in that village between George Temple Cheyne and Harriet Mansfield.

"The second letter is from Mrs. Mansfield of Wyechester, in which she tells me that she is the mother of the Harriet Mansfield married at Anerly, and that I am the only child of that Anerly marriage.

"And now, May dearest, prepare yourself for a most astounding discovery.

"The letter from my grandmother contained several other papers, among them one in my father's and one in my mother's writing. I will not plague you with details, but the facts are simply these:

"My mother met my father by accident, and ran away with him. She thought him a plain gentleman, and for two reasons he wished to keep their marriage private for a while. The first of these was that a rich relative had promised to hand him over a large fortune if he did not marry up to a certain age-an age he had not then reached, though he should reach it in a short time. The second was that a number of men to whom he owed money knew of this, and would have been down on him at once if they suspected him of having married.

"Accordingly the secret was kept, and the married pair went away on the Continent. Here my father caught sound of a rumour that his creditors were on the look-out for him; and, leaving instructions with his wife to remain in Brussels, he went away. She never saw her husband again; and when dying she told the nurse to bring me to my grandmother Mansfield, at Wyechester, at the same time giving in charge to the good woman, for my grandmother, some papers my father had left behind him, with instructions that they were not to be opened until a certain future time. My grandmother provided for me secretly, and had me ultimately put into the publishing house in London.

"It appears my father, on reaching England, being a man always variable and fickle in love, went straight to the village of Anerly, and tried to bribe the clerk to tear out of the register the leaf containing the entry of my father and mother's marriage; but he failed. This part I learn from Graham's story.

"May, I have been a long time preparing you for what is to come. Let it come all at once.

"Now this George Temple Cheyne, my father, was the only brother of the late Duke of Shropshire, and I am first cousin of the present Duke, and heir-presumptive to the titles and estates."

For a moment the woman looked into the girl's eyes. Then Miss Traynor said:

"Marion, dear, read the last bit over again."

The girl did so in a dull, monotonous voice.

"Marion, could it be that his head has been hurt, and he is wandering in his mind?" asked the old lady hopefully.

"But, aunt, the doctor might humour him by writing it down, yet he would hardly send it off to humour him."

"That is very true, Marion; very true," admitted the aunt, ruefully. Then, after a pause, she brightened up wonderfully, and cried in a triumphant voice: "I have it, Marion-I have it! It is a chapter of one of his novels he has sent you by mistake."

"But," said May despairingly, pointing to the documents at her feet, "what are these? I did not read out all the letter, aunt. He tells me, after where I stopped, to go with these things to Macklin and Dowell, his solicitors, ask them to read the papers over, and await further instructions until he comes up to town."