The Duke unconsciously raised his eyebrows in surprise.
He had been eyeing the very attractive wife of the Lord Lieutenant, who had married for the second time and her dark hair and flashing eyes had caught his attention.
But, as the Marchioness moved ahead of him with the Ambassador, Aldora was at his side and there was nothing he could do but offer her his arm.
“Too bad!” she said beneath her breath.
He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was well aware of what he was thinking.
The Duke, however, had no intention of lowering himself by being rude whatever Aldora might say.
As soon as he had exchanged a few pleasantries with his hostess for the conventional amount of time, he turned to Aldora, hoping if she was going to be offensive that nobody else at the table would be aware of it.
Instead he found her deep in conversation with the gentleman on her other side, who was the local Master of Foxhounds.
He was aware that they were discussing horses and, in fact, having a spirited argument about them.
The Master of Foxhounds saw that the Duke’s face was turned in his direction and said,
“Come and support me! I am on losing ground with Lady Aldora who, although I hate to admit it, knows more about horses than I do. She also has revolutionary ideas about the way we draw our covers.”
Now the Duke was really aroused and found himself deeply involved in the argument.
He deliberately took the opposite view to Aldora, but he realised, although it was infuriating to be forced to admit it to himself, that she was right.
After dinner when the gentlemen joined the ladies the Marchioness said,
“Don’t sit down at a card table, Ingram, because I want to talk to you.”
The Duke realised that there were even numbers without him and with Aldora playing the piano everybody was accounted for.
The Marchioness then slipped her arm through his and drew him from the drawing room into a very comfortable sitting room adjacent to it, which was particularly her own.
There were flowers everywhere including a profusion of rosebuds, which filled the hearth.
The long windows were open into the garden and, as the Duke felt rather tired, he was glad that he did not have to play bridge or make stilted conversation.
The Marchioness indicated with her hand a large and comfortable sofa and, as he sank down into it, she brought him a glass of brandy and he took it from her with a smile.
“A very successful party!” he remarked.
“Thank you, but it was a pity that Fenella had to leave early,” she said. “However that gives me an opportunity to talk to you now and, as tomorrow night we are to dine with the Lord Lieutenant, it may be more difficult.”
The Duke sipped his brandy.
Then, as if she had dropped a bombshell at his feet, the Marchioness said quietly,
“I want to talk to you about Aldora!”
The Duke stiffened.
In spite of Aldora’s warning he had thought, since Fenella was in the party and until this evening the Marchioness had never made any effort to bring them together, that what the girl had told him was merely nonsense.
He was convinced that she was crazy on this point, if on nothing else.
“I don’t suppose you are aware,” the Marchioness was saying, “that Aldora is the Goddaughter of the Queen?”
The Duke murmured something appropriate and his hostess continued,
“It has also worried me that when she is twenty-one she comes into a very considerable fortune of her own, which was left to her by another Godparent who died five years ago.”
She glanced at the Duke to make sure that he was listening.
“Aldora is very different from my other two daughters and, although it may seem incredible in so young a girl, she is brilliantly clever, so that we have never quite known what to do about her.”
The Duke stared at the Marchioness as if he could not believe what he was hearing.
“Brilliantly clever?” he repeated.
“She already speaks six languages,” the Marchioness replied, “and is now intent upon learning Russian. Apart from which she has a grasp of Politics and world affairs that, as I have told her often enough, is almost a pretention in so young a girl.”
She gave a little laugh before she went on,
“It leads to awkward moments with Emissaries from other countries, and for that matter our own, for the simple reason that she always appears to know more than they do!”
It flashed through the Duke’s mind that perhaps the Marchioness, where her youngest daughter was concerned, was as deranged as he suspected Aldora of being.
Then he remembered that he had never heard anyone talk of the Marchioness without emphasising how intelligent she was, which accounted for her very powerful influence at Court.
He knew that she was waiting for him to make some sort of comment and he murmured,
“You have certainly surprised me!”
As he spoke, he was painfully aware of what was coming and wondered how he could possibly circumvent it.
Before he could find words to do so, the Marchioness carried on,
“When I talked to the dear Queen about Aldora, she told me that she had already thought of a solution to my problem and it concerns you!”
“Concerns me?” the Duke managed to say with a well-simulated note of surprise in his voice.
“Although it is strictly confidential to the Members of the India Office at the moment,” the Marchioness said, “the Viceroy Lord Northbrook is resigning and Her Majesty feels that in the very difficult relationship that exists between India and Afghanistan there could be nobody better qualified to deal with what might easily become a confrontation than yourself!”
The Duke was so astonished that he could only stare at the Marchioness as if he could not believe what she had just said.
Then as she waited he asked,
“Are you seriously suggesting that Her Majesty intends to offer me the position of Viceroy of India?”
“That is what she is thinking of doing,” the Marchioness replied, “but, of course, as you are well aware, it is almost obligatory for the Viceroy to be married. Her Majesty therefore thinks that, considering how clever Aldora is, she would in the circumstances prove exactly the right person to fulfil the duties of such a position.”
For the first time in his life the Duke was literally bereft of speech.
He had never in his wildest dreams imagined himself as Viceroy of India.
He was fully aware that it was the most important position that any man could achieve, since the Viceroy was in practice equal, if not superior, to any European King and with a great deal more power than most of them.
He would be ruling over many hundred million people and, although he must consult the India Committee in London, he would have the final word in everything that occurred in that great country.
It flashed through his mind that no man could have a greater compliment paid to him than to be offered such a position.
With his genius for organisation he felt that he would be able to do the task well and what was more he would enjoy facing the many difficulties that would present themselves and perhaps would achieve a success such as no other Viceroy, and certainly not Lord Northbrook, had been able to do.
Then, almost as if a cascade of water had been poured over him to sweep away the elation he was feeling, he knew that he would also be forced to accept Aldora as his wife.
It was not only that the Viceroy was expected to be married, although most of them were able to choose their own wives, it was that the Queen and the Marchioness together had made quite certain that the pill was there, even if it was deftly covered with jam.
He would either be the Viceroy with Aldora as his wife or he would remain at home a bachelor and somebody else would be appointed to go to India and take Lord Northbrook’s place.
The Duke was intelligent enough to realise that there
was no use arguing and he had the feeling that it would be impossible to prevaricate.
It was a question of either accepting or refusing.
He put down the glass he was holding in his hand and rose to his feet to walk to the open window.
Outside there was the same magic of the moon and the stars, the silver of the lake and the fragrance of the flowers coming from the garden.
India was far away, England was here, and he already had a position in the country that was second to none but the Members of the Royal Family.
And yet he had been offered the most intriguing, the most exciting and he was well aware the most difficult task in which to be successful in the whole world.
There was no other position to equal it. It was equivalent, he thought, to winning every Classic race that had ever been run, if he was to succeed against such formidable odds.
“Viceroy of India!”
He felt as if the Marchioness held out the prospect before his eyes, glittering like an enormous diamond that dazzled and mesmerised anybody who looked at it.
Then he saw Aldora, her eyes squinting, her mouth contorted, warning him that this would happen and that he must refuse to marry her because she hated and despised him.
In what he felt was a weak voice, because it was difficult to make it firm and positive, the Duke asked,
“Have you spoken to your daughter about this and asked her if she would be prepared to marry me?”
He turned as he spoke and saw the Marchioness’s eyes flicker, which told him that she had some idea of her daughter’s feelings.
There was a perceptible pause before she replied,
“Aldora is very young and despite her brains is, in many ways, innocent of the world. But she will, of course, marry who I tell her to!”
The Duke thought that her last sentence was spoken a little too quickly to be convincing.
“I think before I give you an answer to take to Her Majesty,” he said a little pompously, “perhaps I should talk to Lady Aldora and ask her if she is agreeable. Any Viceroy would find his work doubly hard if his wife were not in accordance with what he was doing.”
The Marchioness looked down at the rings on her fingers as if she had not seen them before.
Then she said,
“Very well. I will send Aldora in here to talk to you, but she is a strange girl and I don’t pretend to understand her. However I cannot believe that with your proverbial charm, dear Ingram, any woman, young or old, would refuse you anything!”
She was deliberately flattering him, but she was also being quite sincere.
The Duke had the uncomfortable feeling that the Marchioness did not only not understand her daughter but did not know her at all well.
She rose to her feet.
“I need not add,” she said, “what a pleasure it will be to have you as my son-in-law and also to see you in a position in which I know you will excel.”
She gave a very sweet smile as she added,
“India’s gain will be our loss, for we shall miss you very much. However in five years you may be able to do more for our great Empire of which we are so proud than any one man has ever done before.”
It was a very pretty speech and the Duke appreciated it.
Moving towards the Marchioness he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“You have always been very kind to me,” he said, “and perhaps the only compensation for surrendering my bachelorhood will be that I shall be related to you!”
The Marchioness smiled.
“Thank you, Ingram,” she said, “and it is something I shall enjoy tremendously!”
She did not say any more, but went from the room and the Duke returned to the window to stand gazing out again into the night.
He knew that India had been dangled in front of his eyes like a glittering bauble.
At the same time, because he was so well read and made himself au fait with everything that was happening in the Empire, he knew that there were dozens of problems that he would have to find a solution for.
But especially there was the one that the Marchioness had referred to and which had been handled in such a disastrous fashion by Lord Northbrook two years earlier.
What it amounted to was that Sher Ali, one of the many sons of the previous ruler, had won for himself, with no help from the British, an uneasy throne as Amir of Kabul, the Capital of Afghanistan.
The Afghans were a proud and independent people and Sher Ali did not want to have anything to do with either Russia or England, both of whom were manoeuvring secretly to extend their influence over his country.
When the Russians crept closer and became more menacing, Sher Ali thought that he would be wise to place himself under the protection of one or other of the great Powers.
He trusted the British more than the Russians and he sent a special envoy to Lord Northbrook and offered him a Treaty by which in return for his allegiance to the British they would guarantee him money, recognise his favourite younger son as his heir and would additionally in the event of a Russian invasion come to his assistance.
Gladstone’s Government, however, instructed Lord Northbrook to refuse the suggestion and to berate Sher Ali for trying to disinherit his elder son.
This made Sher Ali immediately favour the Russians. The Duke was aware that the moment Mr. Disraeli became Prime Minister he was extremely perturbed about this error of judgment, which was certain eventually to cost a great number of British lives on the treacherous and dangerous North-West Frontier.
Everything the Duke had read about the situation now came flooding back into his mind and he found himself thinking how he would handle Sher Ali in the future and how diplomatic overtures towards him should start immediately.
He was so deeply involved in thinking out what was the best approach that it was quite a shock when the sitting room door opened and Aldora came in.
He saw by the expression on her face and the fury in her eyes what he was to expect.
As she closed the door behind her, she did not wait for the Duke to speak but walked towards him saying,
“Why am I sent to you or need I ask? Have you told Mama that you have no intention of marrying me?”
The question seemed to ring out in the room and the Duke replied,
“I want to talk to you, Aldora.”
“There is nothing to talk about. I have told you I hate and despise you! I loathe the way you behave with women and I would rather die than marry you!”
“Don’t be so dramatic!” the Duke urged her sharply. “I want to tell you what has been suggested. I think it will interest you.”
“Nothing interests me that concerns you!” Aldora retorted. “I know without your telling me that you have agreed to Mama’s suggestion and that you expect me to recognise what an advantage it would be for me to be your wife. But let me make it quite clear – I will not marry you, not if you drag me screaming to the altar!”
“For goodness’ sake!” the Duke exclaimed. “Let me tell you what your mother has said to me and then let’s discuss it rationally.”
“There is nothing to discuss – nothing to talk about!” Aldora replied. “I hate you and the sooner you get that into your head the better!”
As she spoke, almost spitting the words at him, she ran past him out into the garden.
For a moment he saw her gown silhouetted against the shadows and the moonlight was silver on her hair.
Then she had disappeared and the Duke was alone.
He could not think what he could do or how he could cope with the situation.
Then he knew, and the fact infuriated him, that he was powerless.
‘The Marchioness will have to talk to her own daughter!’ he told himself. ‘She certainly has no intention of listening to me!’
He finished his glass of brandy and then went slowly back into the drawing room where everybody was playing cards.
The Marchioness was talking to one of her guests, but was obviously worried.
He saw her frown and knew that she understood and in her usual tactful way she arranged for him to take a seat at the table where the previous player wished to leave because he had a long way to go before he reached his home.
It was an hour later before the party broke up and everybody had said ‘goodbye’ to their hostess.
The Duke was the last and she asked him in a low voice,
“What happened?”
“Your daughter would not listen to me!” the Duke replied. “I think in fact you were aware before I arrived that she has what seems to be an unreasonable dislike of me.”
The Marchioness sighed.
“I was rather afraid of that.”
“Well, there is nothing I can do,” the Duke said in a tone of exasperation. “Perhaps you could talk to her and make her see sense.”
“I will certainly try,” the Marchioness replied, “but I do find my daughters very much more difficult than my son.”
She walked across the hall and up the stairs and the Duke went to the library to collect a newspaper to read in bed before he followed her.
*
He had just climbed into bed and holding the newspaper in his hand, even though he was thinking of India, when there came a knock at his door.
The Duke was surprised because he was just beginning to feel sleepy, despite the fact that he had so much to think about.
Two nights with Fenella, followed by morning rides and long days of racing had begun to take their toll.
Automatically he called, ‘come in!’ and the door opened and to his astonishment the Marchioness stood there.
She came into the room and closed the door behind her.
As he stared at her, realising that she was wearing a negligee and her hair was covered by a little lace cap, she said,
“Aldora has run away and I don’t know what to do about it!”
The Duke sat up in bed.
“Run away?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
The Marchioness sat down on a nearby chair.
“When I went to bed,” she said, “I lay thinking about Aldora and decided that it would be best if I spoke to her at once. I therefore went to her room to find that she had changed from her evening gown, which was lying on the floor, and I am certain put on her riding habit.”
The Storms Of Love Page 6