“I will write to Drakovics at once,” said Usk, and he did.
CHAPTER II.
FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW.
A year had passed, and the situation in Thracia remained unchanged. The search for a king initiated by M. Drakovics had not yet proved successful, but the Provisional Government was still in office, and the Thracians lived and throve under a regimen of what their enemies called autocracy washed down by draughts of rhetoric. M. Drakovics alone, against whose life two further attempts had been made, looked out ahead with troubled eyes, and yearned for the tall Englishman who had seemed likely to prove such an efficient coadjutor in his task of governing.
In England, however, the year had not been barren of changes. General Lord Caerleon slept with his fathers in the family burying-place in Llandiarmid Abbey, and Viscount Usk’s place in the House of Commons knew him no more. Misfortune seemed to dog this young man’s footsteps. Once again he had obtained leave to bring in his Bill, but it had been deliberately talked out by the Labour members in revenge for his voting against them on one of their pet questions. There was thus no help for him, and on his father’s death he was compelled to vacate his seat, and seek the serene retirement of the Upper House. Moreover, the constituents whom he was so sorry to leave did not display on this occasion the fixity of purpose with which he had always credited them, for they rejected with ignominy the candidate who inherited his principles, and chose as their representative an agitator who promised to bring in a Bill to divide the Llandiarmid domain among them in the shape of allotments.
Nor was this all, for before very long he found that even the possession of a historic house and innumerable heirlooms was not an unmixed privilege. The marquisate was by no means a rich one, for its inheritors had all indulged a reprehensible taste for investing their spare cash in works of art instead of more easily convertible securities, and the succession duty on these bade fair to ruin their unfortunate possessor. The owner of land which would not let, and of pictures which he could not sell, he found himself forced to raise the necessary money by means of mortgages on his unmanageable property, when all other means had failed. The interest on these mortgages was another important consideration, and when, after settling matters as far as possible, the new Marquis and his brother met one evening in the great hall at Llandiarmid to talk things over, the outlook was far from cheerful.
“It’s quite evident that we can’t keep up this place, Cyril,” said Caerleon. “If I could let it for a year or so, and get the house in town off my hands, I think we might just tide over the present difficulty.”
“Surely it would be enough to sell Caerleon House,” said Cyril, lazily, but with some surprise in his tone, as he sat with his arms behind his head and looked at his brother. “No one will expect you to entertain much here while you are in mourning, so you can lie low for a year or two and keep down expenses.”
“It’s not only of the actual expenses of the place this year that I am thinking,” said Caerleon, “but of the future. I want to put things right for you, Cyril, and to do that I must save.”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about me,” said Cyril, lightly. “I have always fallen on my feet hitherto, and I suppose you’ll find me a crust and a shake-down in your diggings, wherever they are.”
It had been a shock to Caerleon to discover, from some words his father had let fall on his deathbed, that he had made no special provision for Cyril, leaving him almost entirely dependent on his elder brother, and that this omission was due to design, and not to forgetfulness.