“Your old governor, Percy.”
For a moment my unhappy middle-class association made me suppose that the elderly ecclesiastic was my “old Guv’nor,”—my father, the late Duke. But an instant’s reflection proved to me that her Grace meant “tutor” by governor. I am ashamed to say that I now entered into the spirit of the scene, shook the holy man warmly by the hand, and quoted a convenient passage from Horace.
He appeared to fall into the trap, and began to speak of old recollections of my boyhood.
Stately liveried menials now, greatly to my surprise, brought in tea. I was just declining tea (for I expected dinner in a few minutes), when a voice (a sweet low voice) whispered—
“Take some!”
I took some, providentially, as it turned out. Again, I was declining tea-cake, when I could have sworn I heard the same voice (so low that it seemed like the admonition of a passing spirit) say—
“Take some!”
I took some, for I was exceedingly hungry; and then the conversation lapsed, began again vaguely, and lapsed again.
We all know that wretched quarter of an hour, or half hour, which unpunctual guests make us pass in famine and fatigue while they keep dinner waiting. Upon my word, we waited till half-past eleven before dinner was announced. But for the tea, I must have perished; for, like the butler in Sir George Dasent’s novel, “I likes my meals regular.”
The Duchess had obviously forgotten all about dinner. There was a spinning-wheel in the room, and she sat and span like an elderly Fate. When dinner was announced at last, I began to fear it would never end. The menu covered both sides of the card. The Duchess ate little, and “hardly anything was drunk.” At last the ladies left us, about one in the morning. I saw my chance, and began judiciously to “draw” the chaplain. It appeared that the Duchess did not always dine at half-past eleven. The feast was a movable one, from eight o’clock onwards. The Duchess and the establishment had got into these habits during the old Duke’s time. A very strange man the old Duke; rarely got up till eight in the evening, often prolonged breakfast till next day.