The Gilded Chair: A Novel

by Melville Davisson Post

"I do not mean the elder Duke of Dorset," replied the Marchesa, "I am quite aware of his death within the year. I am speaking of the new Duke."

The innkeeper came with difficulty from that subject with which his guns were shotted, and, like all persons of his class, when turned abruptly to the consideration of another, he went back to some familiar point, from which to approach, in easy stages, the immediate inquiry.

"The estates of the Duke of Dorset," he began, "are on the south coast, and are the largest in England. The old Duke was a great man, my Lady, a great man. He wanted to make every foreigner who brought anything over here, pay the government something for the right to sell it. I think that was it; I heard him speak to the merchants of Glasgow about it. It was a great speech, my Lady—I seemed to understand it then," and he scratched his head. "He would have done it, too, everybody says, if something hadn't broken in him one afternoon when he was with the King down at Ascot. But he never married. You know, my Lady, every once in a while, there is a Duke of Dorset who does not marry. They say that long ago, one of them saw a heathen goddess in a bewitched city by the sea, but something happened, and he never got her."

"That is very sad," said the Marehesa, "a fairy story should turn out better."

"But that is not the end of the story, my Lady," continued the innkeeper. "Right along after that, every other Duke has seen her, and won't have any mortal woman for a wife." The Marehesa was amused. "So fine a devotion," she said, "ought to receive some compensation from heaven."

"And so it does, my Lady," cried the innkeeper, "and so it does. The brother's son who comes into the title, is always exactly like the old childless Duke—just as though he were reborn somehow." Then a light came beaming into his face. "My Lady!" he cried, like one arrived suddenly upon a splendid recollection. "I have a print of the old Duke just over the fireplace in the kitchen; I will fetch it. Janet, the cook, says that the new Duke is exactly like him."

The Marehesa stopped him. "No," she said, "I would not for the world disturb the decorations of your kitchen."

The thwarted host returned, rubbing his chin. A moment or two he puzzled, then he ventured another hesitating service.

"If it please your Ladyship, I will ask Janet, the cook, about the new Duke of Dorset. Janet reads all about them every Sunday in the Gentle Lady, and she sticks a pin in the map to remind her where the nicest ones are."

Before the smiling guest could interfere with a further negative, the obliging host had departed in search of that higher authority, presiding thus learnedly among his pots. The Marchesa, left to her devices, looked about for the first time at the innkeeper's precious prints. But she looked leisurely, without an attaching interest, until she chanced upon a little wood engraving of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, half hidden behind a luster bowl on the sideboard. She arose, took up the print, and returning to her chair, set it down on the cloth beside her. She was in leisurely contemplation of this picture when the innkeeper returned, sunning, from his interview with Janet. On the forty-three steps of his stairway the good man unfortunately lost the details of Janet's diction, but he came forth triumphant with the substance of her story.