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.