The next morning rose in a blaze of sunshine as though everything in
heaven and earth conjoined to make Duke’s day of rejoicing brilliant and
happy. It was the day of all others for a fête out of doors, and the
hero of the occasion greatly regretted the marquee in which the dinner
was to take place, and where, no doubt, the heat would be suffocating.
That, and the still more terrible fact that he would have to make a
speech, were the only clouds upon Duke’s firmament. They kept him in a
subdued state of felicity during the morning, in the course of which he
retired often into private corners both indoors and out of doors to
study a small manuscript which had been concocted in the schoolroom with
the help of Letty and Mar, and therefore was the result of the joint
youthful genius of the house. Letitia had on several occasions indicated
to her son what he ought to say, and would have written his speech for
him with more or less success, as she was in the habit of doing for
John. But Duke had not relished his mother’s aid. He had told her with
great dignity that there was some things which a man ought to do for
himself, and that his speech at his birthday dinner was certainly one of
them--a general proposition which could not be opposed in the abstract,
and to which the fear of raising a still stronger opposition prevented
Letitia from replying that in her son’s special circumstances a birthday
speech was a very difficult business, and required most wary walking.
Nothing could be more true, or more impossible to say to a hot-headed
boy, who was utterly unconscious of the schemes and hopes for his
aggrandisement which filled his mother’s brain. And had she suggested to
him the management of that difficult subject which would have satisfied
herself, Duke she knew was capable of rushing wildly to the other side
and contradicting everything she wished. The young trio in the
schoolroom were quite unconscious of these wishes--even Mar, though he
would betray occasionally, as he had done to Agnes, the instinct which
revealed to him the precariousness of his own position, and the foregone
conclusion in respect to him which existed in so many minds, was not
always under the weight of that thought--and the boy did not think of
himself at all when he helped in the concoction of Duke’s speech. All
the most eloquent sentences were Mar’s--that one in particular about the
attractions of the world, and the spirit of adventure, and how, though
there was so much that drove him to more exciting pursuits, the needle
in his heart (which was an uncomfortable metaphor but did not trouble
these young critics) always pointed to home. Mar’s pale face flushed
with pleasure when he read out this paragraph, the last words of which
were drowned in the applauses of his companions. “Why, that’s poetry,”
said Letty with a tear in her eye. “It’s much too grand for me,” said
Duke, “it’s splendid, old fellow!” and the mingled pleasure of the
author applauded and of the excitement of composition brought a flush
all over the delicate boy, and forced the water to his eyes too. Mar was
very manly, and would rather have died than cry like a girl--but it was
too easy to bring the water to his eyes.
And who can describe the excitement which was in all their minds when
the moment of fate arrived? There were some parts of Duke’s speech which
had been added in secret conclave between him and his sister, and of
which even Mar knew nothing. The full brightness of the afternoon was
still shining outside when the ladies of the family and their guests
came into the marquee to hear the speeches, and the climax of the
festivities was reached. When Mary came in, wearing as she always did in
a modified form the dress of her widowhood, there was a breath of
something like applause--a cheer subdued into a sort of sigh of sympathy
and regard; for Mary was one of those women who are always popular,
however little or much they may do to deserve it. It was perhaps only
natural that Mrs. John, who had reigned at the Park for eleven years,
whereas Mary’s interrupted sovereignty, during most part of which she
was absent, scarcely exceeded half that period, should not like this
expression of preference. But she did the wisest thing she could do in
the circumstances, and appropriated as much as she could of it by
drawing Mary’s arm through her own, and leading her up to the chief
place. Lady Frogmore nodded and smiled to all her old acquaintances, the
tenants whom she knew, as she walked up through the subdued light of the
tent to the head of the table; and she touched Duke on the shoulder as
she passed him with a caressing and encouraging gesture. Agnes, who came
after, with a poignant sense of the boy’s trouble, and of the wrong he
suffered, and of the strange position altogether, laid her hand on Mar’s
shoulder as she passed with a consolatory touch. To Agnes it seemed all
one gigantic wrong--the event and the occasion, the presence of these
men, as ready to cheer one as another, to applaud whoever came before
them. What right had Duke to come of age? What right had he to have a
dinner given for him, to receive congratulations, as if he were a
prince? Nothing satisfied Agnes, not even the natural fact of his
twenty-first birthday! He seemed to take something from Mar even in
reaching the age of twenty-one.
And to see him on his feet returning thanks with a flush which was half
panic and half excitement, the first immense internal commotion of a boy
joining the world of men, which so far as he knew was all sympathy, and
taking his place as a man among the rest for the first time! Every eye
was turned towards Duke, every ear intent on what was really the event
of the evening, the manner in which the young master should acquit
himself. Duke was undeniably the young master to all there. They knew
little or nothing of the young Frogmore. He was never seen either at
meet or coverside--a delicate boy fond of his book, it was said, half
with respect, half with contempt, when he was spoken of at all. John and
his sturdy boys filled a large place in the county, and nobody thought
of the young heir. So that Duke held by a sort of prescriptive right the
place and title of the young master. And he was a favorite. The farmers’
faces responded. They turned to him with the pleasure which men have in
seeing a young fellow appear and take up the lines which, had they been
consulted, they would have marked out for him. He was altogether of
their own kind, and known to every one. It had even been murmured among
the better informed what a pity it was that Master Duke was not in fact
the heir! But a number more did even not think of this, and took him for
granted easily. And how he did talk to be sure! About the world being
all open to a young man, and full of attractions; how he himself would
like to go to Africa after big game, and to India like the young
princes, and in a general way everywhere to see the world, but how the
needle in his heart (it was thought a wonderful metaphor among the
country people) always turned trembling to home. Duke gave Mar, who sat
by him, a little slap on the shoulder, when he brought out this fine
sentiment, which was received with deafening applause.
He wandered a little (it was thought by Letty, who was especially
watchful, as this was the part where her own composition came in) after
this, forgetting the connection of the sentences, which Letty longed to
be near enough to suggest to him. But suddenly there came a change in
Duke’s voice. He had become aware that he had lost the thread, and that
as he stumbled about among the half-forgotten words he was losing the
attention of his auditors also. And with a wisdom worthy of a more
experienced orator, Duke sacrificed a part of his discourse bravely to
the success of the rest. There was something that must be said. With a
thrill of alarm lest he should not recollect exactly how Letty had put
it, yet with an exhilarating consciousness that he knew at heart the
sense of what he had to say, Duke flung back his head and plunged into
that most important subject of all.
“There is one thing, however, gentlemen, that I must say (‘before I
conclude,’ murmured Letty, under her breath). You have all given me the
most glorious reception (received me with an enthusiasm I can never
forget), and I must thank you for it with all my heart. But at the same
time I must remind all my friends that after all I am not the true Simon
Pure. (‘Hear, hear,’ said Letty, he had remembered the word.) You
congratulate me, and you cheer what I say to you, and you look all so
friendly and so kind that I--I could almost cry if I were not ashamed,”
said Duke, with an outburst which was certainly his own, and which
brought a storm of applause, “but at the same time, gentlemen, I must
remind you,” he resumed, “that all the honor you do me is mine at second
hand (Letty clapped her hands noiselessly to encourage and reward her
brother), and that the real person who is the principal among us is my
cousin, Marmaduke, Lord Frogmore. He mustn’t think, and nobody must
think, that I am thrusting myself into his place. He is a great deal
younger than I am, and he doesn’t show so much as he ought. But I can
tell you,” cried Duke, once more abandoning Letty, and bursting into
original compositions, “that if ever there was a little brick in the
world, it’s Mar--I mean Frogmore. And, gentlemen, now you’ve done me
all the honors, I want you to drink his health and a happy coming of age
to him. I give you Lord Frogmore.”
The rest of his speech was almost lost in the roar of the cheers which
so many robust pairs of lungs sent forth that the marquee trembled as in
a gale of wind. The farmers got up on their feet, they held up their
glasses. They shouted, “Bravo, Mr. Duke,” along with the unaccustomed
name that he had put into their lips. Someone burst out into “For he’s a
jolly good fellow,” which rung out like a storm, with renewed cries of
“Master Duke.” Duke himself was still more near crying than he had
represented himself as being--far more near crying than was at all
becoming to a man of one and twenty. He laughed instead to save himself,
and almost roughly turning to his cousin, forced Mar upon his feet to
reply. The faces of the three ladies at the head of the table were at
this moment the strangest study. Letitia was almost green with passion
and vexation, affecting to smile, but producing only the most galvanized
and affected contortion which ever moved human lips. Mary leant back in
her chair, white as alabaster, her breath coming with difficulty. Agnes
was crimson with excitement, happiness and unexpected pride, mingled
with shame. She had grudged that boy his coming of age--_that_ boy, God
bless him! so generous, so genuine, so true in his impulse of justice
and right dealing. It has been whispered that she took up that foolish
chorus, and sang with the men, “He’s a jolly good fellow,” she the
primmest and gravest of old maids. She forgot even Mar and the position
into which the boy was thus placed in her gratitude and enthusiasm for
Duke. Duke, to whom she, for her part, had not done justice, whom she
had not esteemed as she ought.
Mar, however, was forced on his feet, and stood up supporting himself on
the table, his weakly length, notwithstanding the stoop in his
shoulders, giving him a sort of ascendancy over all around him. Mar’s
pale countenance was flushed, he was so moved by the strange commotion
in his veins and the unlooked for position into which he was thrust, and
this first demand ever made on his boyish courage and powers, that for a
moment he could not open his mouth, but looked dumbly round upon the
great circle of encouraging faces like an affrighted animal, a
large-eyed deer or dog, not knowing what was going to be done to him.
His large eyes were full of tears, through which he saw the people round
him as through a mist, yet took in everything, his uncle’s look of
sympathy, Letty’s anxious face, who sat with her hands clasped together
and her lips moving, as if she would breathe into him what to say. It
passed through his mind that this was so like Letty, always wanting to
tell you what to say: and in the dizzy height of his excitement he half
laughed at this within himself. And then he felt Duke hurting his hand,
crushing it as he leant upon the table. The boy woke up and began, with
a voice so seldom accustomed to hear itself speak:--
“You are very, very good to drink my health. I haven’t very much health
of my own, perhaps wishing for it will make it better. Thank you very
much for that. I never knew that Duke meant to mention me. I am nobody
beside him. He is a man, and as strong as a horse, and can do anything.
I wish with all my heart I was only his little brother, and that he was
Lord Frogmore. You may laugh,” cried the boy, warming at the sound, “but
it is true. I have often thought, when they said I would not live, that
I wished it, for then Duke would have all----”
“One moment, my lord,” said one of the listeners, “if someone laughed it
was to hear you call yourself his little brother--and you so tall; but
there’s nobody here but hopes you will live and be like your father
before you. The best landlord that ever was.”
“I will, if I live,” cried Mar, swinging out his long thin arm with the
eloquence of nature, in the midst of the quick loud chorus of assent
that burst from everybody near. “I will! If there is one thing I care
for in the world it’s that. If I live I will; and if I don’t live Duke
will, so that, anyhow, this family will do its best, and God will help
us. I thank you all very much,” he said, after a pause. “I don’t know
how to say it. I thank you for being kind to me for my father’s sake--”
He made another pause. “And for Duke’s sake, who has spoken up for me
more than himself. And if he turns out your landlord after all, I shan’t
grudge it him for one----” Mar stood still a moment, wavering upon his
long feeble limbs--and then, with a smile, burst out into the foolish
chorus, that imbecility of shy enthusiasm which is all that an English
crowd can find to say. There was an effort made to take it up, hindered
by something in the throats of the performers at first, then bursting
out in a hoarse roar, mingled with broken laughter and blowing of noses
and some unconcealed tears.
When in the general excitement it was possible to think of anything else
than the speeches and the very unusual entertainment provided for the
Frogmore tenantry by the Frogmore boys, there was a little stir at the
head of the table, and it became apparent that Lady Frogmore had
fainted. She was scarcely paler than she had been before, scarcely more
motionless, but her sister, who had forgotten Mary for the moment, when
she turned to her had found her unconscious. Indeed, for the first
moment, Agnes had believed that she had lain back and died in the
extraordinary sensation of this first revelation of her son. But this
was not so.