The Duke's Daughter; and, The Fugitives; vol. 2/3

THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER AND THE FUGITIVES
“Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?” “I do.” — Much Ado about Nothing.
BY MRS OLIPHANT IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. II. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXC



The reader accustomed to the amenities of the highest social circles, such as those which we are now compelled temporarily to leave, will no doubt sensibly feel the shock of the descent from the mansion of the Duke, and his sublime society, to a sphere and condition of life far removed from these summits of existence. It is seldom that life can be carried on solely upon those high levels; the necessities of every day call for the aid of the more humbly born and placed, so that not even dukes can suffice to themselves. We must then, without further apology, proceed at once to a room as different as it is possible to conceive from the halls of Billings—a small sitting-room in a small rectory-house in the heart of London, belonging to one of the old parish churches which have been abandoned there by the tide of habitation and life. The church was close by, a fine one in its way, one of Wren’s churches, adapted for a large Protestant congregation more solicitous about the sermon than is usual nowadays—but left now without any congregation at all. The rectory, a house of very moderate dimensions, jammed in among warehouses and offices, had little air and less light in the gloomy November days. The Rector and his wife had just returned from their yearly holiday, and it was not a cheerful thing to come back to the fog, and the damp, and the gas-lamps, and all the din of the great carts that lumbered round the corner continually, and loaded and unloaded themselves within two steps of the clergyman’s door. How was he to write his sermons or meditate over his work in the midst of these noises? his wife often asked indignantly. But, to be sure, the fifty people or so who quite crowded St Alban’s when they all turned out, were not very critical. Down in these regions there is not a Little Bethel always handy, and the inhabitants must take what they can get and be thankful: which it would be a good thing, Mrs Marston thought, if they could be oftener obliged in other places to do.