The Young Duke Read online

  Produced by David Widger

  THE YOUNG DUKE

  By Benjamin Disraeli

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  BOOK I.

  CHAPTER I.

  _Fortune's Favourite_

  GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, DUKE OF ST. JAMES, completed his twenty-firstyear, an event which created almost as great a sensation among thearistocracy of England as the Norman Conquest. A minority of twentyyears had converted a family always amongst the wealthiest of GreatBritain into one of the richest in Europe. The Duke of St. Jamespossessed estates in the north and in the west of England, besides awhole province in Ireland. In London there were a very handsome squareand several streets, all made of bricks, which brought him in yearlymore cash than all the palaces of Vicenza are worth in fee-simple, withthose of the Grand Canal of Venice to boot. As if this were not enough,he was an hereditary patron of internal navigation; and although perhapsin his two palaces, three castles, four halls, and lodges _ad libitum_,there were more fires burnt than in any other establishment in theempire, this was of no consequence, because the coals were his own. Hisrent-roll exhibited a sum total, very neatly written, of two hundredthousand pounds; but this was independent of half a million in thefunds, which we had nearly forgotten, and which remained from theaccumulations occasioned by the unhappy death of his father.

  The late Duke of St. James had one sister, who was married to the Earlof Fitz-pompey. To the great surprise of the world, to the perfectastonishment of the brother-in-law, his Lordship was not appointedguardian to the infant minor. The Earl of Fitz-pompey had always been onthe best possible terms with his Grace: the Countess had, only the yearbefore his death, accepted from his fraternal hand a diamond bracelet;the Lord Viscount St. Maurice, future chief of the house of Fitz-pompey,had the honour not only of being his nephew, but his godson. Who couldaccount, then, for an action so perfectly unaccountable? It was quiteevident that his Grace had no intention of dying.

  The guardian, however, that he did appoint was a Mr. Dacre, a Catholicgentleman of ancient family and large fortune, who had been thecompanion of his travels, and was his neighbour in his county. Mr. Dacrehad not been honoured with the acquaintance of Lord Fitz-pompey previousto the decease of his noble friend; and after that event such anacquaintance would probably not have been productive of agreeablereminiscences; for from the moment of the opening of the fatal willthe name of Dacre was wormwood to the house of St. Maurice. LordFitz-pompey, who, though the brother-in-law of a Whig magnate, was aTory, voted against the Catholics with renewed fervour.

  Shortly after the death of his friend, Mr. Dacre married a beautiful andnoble lady of the house of Howard, who, after having presented him witha daughter, fell ill, and became that common character, a confirmedinvalid. In the present day, and especially among women, one wouldalmost suppose that health was a state of unnatural existence. Theillness of his wife and the non-possession of parliamentary dutiesrendered Mr. Dacre's visits to his town mansion rare, and the mansion intime was let.

  The young Duke, with the exception of an occasional visit to his uncle,Lord Fitz-pompey, passed the early years of his life at Castle Dacre.At seven years of age he was sent to a preparatory school at Richmond,which was entirely devoted to the early culture of the nobility, andwhere the principal, the Reverend Doctor Coronet, was so extremelyexclusive in his system that it was reported that he had once refusedthe son of an Irish peer. Miss Coronet fed her imagination with the hopeof meeting her father's noble pupils in after-life, and in the meantimeread fashionable novels.

  The moment that the young Duke was settled at Richmond, all theintrigues of the Fitz-pompey family were directed to that quarter; andas Mr. Dacre was by nature unsuspicious, and was even desirous thathis ward should cultivate the friendship of his only relatives, the St.Maurice family had the gratification, as they thought, of completelydeceiving him. Lady Fitz-pompey called twice a week at Crest House witha supply of pine-apples or bonbons, and the Rev. Dr. Coronet bowed inadoration. Lady Isabella St. Maurice gave a china cup to Mrs. Coronet,and Lady Augusta a paper-cutter to Miss. The family was secured. Alldiscipline was immediately set at defiance, and the young Duke passedthe greater part of the half-year with his affectionate relations.His Grace, charmed with the bonbons of his aunt and the kisses of hiscousins, which were even sweeter than the sugar-plums; delightedwith the pony of St. Maurice, which immediately became his own; andinebriated by the attentions of his uncle,--who, at eight years of age,treated him, as his Lordship styled it, 'like a man'--contrasted thislife of early excitement with what now appeared the gloom and therestraint of Castle Dacre, and he soon entered into the conspiracy,which had long been hatching, with genuine enthusiasm. He wrote to hisguardian, and obtained permission to spend his vacation with his uncle.Thus, through the united indulgence of Dr. Coronet and Mr. Dacre, theDuke of St. James became a member of the family of St. Maurice.

  No sooner had Lord Fitz-pompey secured the affections of the ward thanhe entirely changed his system towards the guardian. He wrote toMr. Dacre, and in a manner equally kind and dignified courted hisacquaintance. He dilated upon the extraordinary, though extremelynatural, affection which Lady Fitz-pompey entertained for the onlyoffspring of her beloved brother, upon the happiness which the youngDuke enjoyed with his cousins, upon the great and evident advantageswhich his Grace would derive from companions of his own age, of thesingular friendship which he had already formed with St. Maurice; andthen, after paying Mr. Dacre many compliments upon the admirable mannerin which he had already fulfilled the duties of his important office,and urging the lively satisfaction that a visit from their brother'sfriend would confer both upon Lady Fitz-pompey and himself, he requestedpermission for his nephew to renew the visit in which he had been 'sohappy!' The Duke seconded the Earl's diplomatic scrawl in the mostgraceful round-text. The masterly intrigues of Lord Fitz-pompey,assisted by Mrs. Dacre's illness, which daily increased, and whichrendered perfect quiet indispensable, were successful, and the youngDuke arrived at his twelfth year without revisiting Dacre. Every year,however, when Mr. Dacre made a short visit to London, his ward spenta few days in his company, at the house of an old-fashioned Catholicnobleman; a visit which only afforded a dull contrast to the gay societyand constant animation of his uncle's establishment.

  It would seem that fate had determined to counteract the intentionsof the late Duke of St. James, and to achieve those of the Earl ofFitz-pompey. At the moment that the noble minor was about to leave Dr.Coronet for Eton, Mrs. Dacre's state was declared hopeless, except fromthe assistance of an Italian sky, and Mr. Dacre, whose attachment to hislady was romantic, determined to leave England immediately.

  It was with deep regret that he parted from his ward, whom he tenderlyloved; but all considerations merged in the paramount one; and he wasconsoled by the reflection that he was, at least, left to the care ofhis nearest connections. Mr. Dacre was not unaware of the dangersto which his youthful pledge might be exposed by the indiscriminateindulgence of his uncle, but he trusted to the impartial and inviolablesystem of a public school to do much; and he anticipated returning toEngland before his ward was old enough to form those habits which aregenerally so injurious to young nobles. In this hope Mr. Dacre wasdisappointed. Mrs. Dacre lingered, and revived, and lingered, for nearlyeight years; now filling the mind of her husband and her daughter withunreasonable hope, now delivering them to that renewed anguish, thatheart-rending grief, which the attendant upon a declining relative canalone experience, additionally agonizing because it cannot be indulged.Mrs. Dacre died, and the widower and his daughter returned to England.In the meantime, the Duke of St. James had
not been idle.