The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance

by Richard Dowling

The seventh Duke had managed to get through his income, but it was by means which the ninth would not follow. He did not believe in keeping up five or six huge establishments, as though a great noble lived in each, and for no other reason than that they might be lent to friends. He was safe from the temptation of lending his houses to any of his old friends, for not one of all the people he knew could afford the mere tips to the servants.

Anyway, it was a very pleasant thing to sit there at ease, smoking the very best cigar, looking at the broad river, and knowing that one's pockets were full of money, and that the moment these pockets were empty they might be filled again and again and again as often as one liked.

A cab was called for him, and he drove the whole way to Long Acre. It was dusk as he came, and that was a mercy, for he passed through repulsive ways and repulsive people. But still the surroundings had no power to depress him; and although he did feel a sense of relief when he found himself crossing Waterloo Bridge, he was not sorry for his drive. When a man of good constitution and equable mind is happy and on excellent terms with himself and the world, there is something cheering and invigorating in the contemplation of large masses' of people, no matter of what social standing those people may be.

When he got to Long Acre it was dark. He ran up the long-familiar stairs, and found himself in the old rooms. They had, by his order, been altered greatly since he had last seen them. All the old furniture had been removed, and what had been his sitting room had been converted into a dining-room, and what had been his bedroom into a smoking-room. Two more rooms at the opposite side of the landing had been taken by him. The smaller of these was lined with hat and coat pegs, and the larger discharged the joint offices of larder, wine-cellar, and butler's pantry. In the last room sat two waiters. A third servant took charge of the hat-pegs, and a fourth attended to the door downstairs. None of the men wore livery.

No one had come yet, and the host went into the smoking-room and sat down. He did not expect any man to be punctually there at nine o'clock, and some he did not expect until after the theatres. He had asked about twenty artists--actors, authors, musicians; and although he had got replies from only five, he fully expected all would come. He knew Bohemia seldom troubles itself to answer letters of that kind; it usually hates writing letters, but it comes. All those whom he had invited were old friends; and as he felt quite sure they were men enough to visit him in sickness or in strait, he was equally sure they were not cads enough to stay away in his prosperity.

He now sat thinking of all the dear old faces he should see, and all the kindly hands he should touch, before daylight. He was thinking of the words he should use in the little speech he intended making at some time of that evening.

He should tell them that, when he lived in these very rooms, a few weeks ago, the brougham of the seventh duke had been injured in Piccadilly while he (the speaker) was walking in Piccadilly; that the brougham was brought for repairs to Mr. Whiteshaw, the coach builder, who occupied the lower portion of that house in which they now found themselves; and that Mr. Whiteshaw had remarked to him the identity between the family name of the duke and his own. How he had thought nothing at all of that matter then; and how, if any carriage of the seventh or eighth duke now lay below, it was his (the speaker's), as the seventh duke left all his personal property, except a few money legacies to servants, to his son, the eighth duke, who died intestate, and whose heir-at-law he (the speaker) was.

He would tell them that he never should be able to forget that strange coincidence about the brougham; and that, in order to mark it so that it might always be suggested to their memories, if their memory of this night grew dim, he would arrange that the Cheyne brougham, that day injured, should for ever be kept downstairs; and that the old friends of Charles Augustus Cheyne should always be able to meet one another, and often meet himself, up there where they now sat; and that his object in asking them to come and drink a glass of wine with him and smoke a pipe with him this evening was that they, might found the Anerly Club, in honour of the discovery made by Graham at that village. He would propose their first president should be Edward Graham. He would give them the rooms and pay four servants. All other details they might arrange among themselves, except two: first, that all the men who were now there, or had been asked, to come and could not, should be members of that club, without power to add to their number.

When he came to consider the second condition, he arranged not only the substance of what he had to say, but the words as well.

"And, second, I intend making the bond between this club and me the closest of any but one. I desire that the one bond, which shall be closer than that with this club, may be associated with it, and that you will once give me the privilege of breaking my first condition, that is, when I am married, and propose that my wife may be made an honorary member."