Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (epub ebook reader .TXT) 📕

CHAPTER XIX

The Duke of Omnium

 

The Duke of Omnium was, as we have said, a bachelor. Not the less on

that account did he on certain rare gala days entertain the beauty

of the county at his magnificent rural seat, or the female fashion

of London in Belgrave Square; but on this occasion the dinner at

Gatherum Castle—for such was the name of his mansion—was to be

confined to the lords of the creation. It was to be one of those days

on which he collected round his board all the notables of the county,

in order that his popularity might not wane, or the established glory

of his hospitable house become dim.

 

On such an occasion it was not probable that Lord de Courcy would be

one of the guests. The party, indeed, who went from Courcy Castle was

not large, and consisted of the Honourable George, Mr Moffat, and

Frank Gresham. They went in a tax-cart, with a tandem horse, driven

very knowingly by George de Courcy; and the fourth seat on the back

of the vehicle was occupied by a servant, who was to look after the

horses at Gatherum.

 

The Honourable George drove either well or luckily, for he reached

the duke’s house in safety; but he drove very fast. Poor Miss

Dunstable! what would have been her lot had anything but good

happened to that vehicle, so richly freighted with her three lovers!

They did not quarrel as to the prize, and all reached Gatherum Castle

in good humour with each other.

 

The castle was new building of white stone, lately erected at an

enormous cost by one of the first architects of the day. It was an

immense pile, and seemed to cover ground enough for a moderate-sized

town. But, nevertheless, report said that when it was completed,

the noble owner found that he had no rooms to live in; and that, on

this account, when disposed to study his own comfort, he resided in

a house of perhaps one-tenth the size, built by his grandfather in

another county.

 

Gatherum Castle would probably be called Italian in its style of

architecture; though it may, I think, be doubted whether any such

edifice, or anything like it, was ever seen in any part of Italy.

It was a vast edifice; irregular in height—or it appeared to be

so—having long wings on each side too high to be passed over by the

eye as mere adjuncts to the mansion, and a portico so large as to

make the house behind it look like another building of a greater

altitude. This portico was supported by Ionic columns, and was in

itself doubtless a beautiful structure. It was approached by a

flight of steps, very broad and very grand; but, as an approach by a

flight of steps hardly suits an Englishman’s house, to the immediate

entrance of which it is necessary that his carriage should drive,

there was another front door in one of the wings which was commonly

used. A carriage, however, could on very stupendously grand

occasions—the visits, for instance, of queens and kings, and royal

dukes—be brought up under the portico; as the steps had been so

constructed as to admit of a road, with a rather stiff ascent, being

made close in front of the wing up into the very porch.

 

Opening from the porch was the grand hall, which extended up to the

top of the house. It was magnificent, indeed; being decorated with

many-coloured marbles, and hung round with various trophies of the

house of Omnium; banners were there, and armour; the sculptured busts

of many noble progenitors; full-length figures in marble of those

who had been especially prominent; and every monument of glory that

wealth, long years, and great achievements could bring together. If

only a man could but live in his hall and be for ever happy there!

But the Duke of Omnium could not live happily in his hall; and the

fact was, that the architect, in contriving this magnificent entrance

for his own honour and fame, had destroyed the duke’s house as

regards most of the ordinary purposes of residence.

 

Nevertheless, Gatherum Castle is a very noble pile; and, standing as

it does on an eminence, has a very fine effect when seen from many a

distant knoll and verdant-wooded hill.

 

At seven o’clock Mr de Courcy and his friends got down from their

drag at the smaller door—for this was no day on which to mount up

under the portico; nor was that any suitable vehicle to have been

entitled to such honour. Frank felt some excitement a little stronger

than that usual to him at such moments, for he had never yet been in

company with the Duke of Omnium; and he rather puzzled himself to

think on what points he would talk to the man who was the largest

landowner in that county in which he himself had so great an

interest. He, however, made up his mind that he would allow the duke

to choose his own subjects; merely reserving to himself the right of

pointing out how deficient in gorse covers was West Barsetshire—that

being the duke’s division.

 

They were soon divested of their coats and hats, and,

without entering on the magnificence of the great hall, were

conducted through rather a narrow passage into rather a small

drawing-room—small, that is, in proportion to the number of

gentlemen there assembled. There might be about thirty, and Frank was

inclined to think that they were almost crowded. A man came forward

to greet them when their names were announced; but our hero at once

knew that he was not the duke; for this man was fat and short,

whereas the duke was thin and tall.

 

There was a great hubbub going on; for everybody seemed to be talking

to his neighbour; or, in default of a neighbour, to himself. It

was clear that the exalted rank of their host had put very little

constraint on his guests’ tongues, for they chatted away with as much

freedom as farmers at an ordinary.

 

“Which is the duke?” at last Frank contrived to whisper to his

cousin.

 

“Oh;—he’s not here,” said George; “I suppose he’ll be in presently.

I believe he never shows till just before dinner.”

 

Frank, of course, had nothing further to say; but he already began to

feel himself a little snubbed: he thought that the duke, duke though

he was, when he asked people to dinner should be there to tell them

that he was glad to see them.

 

More people flashed into the room, and Frank found himself rather

closely wedged in with a stout clergyman of his acquaintance. He was

not badly off, for Mr Athill was a friend of his own, who had held a

living near Greshamsbury. Lately, however, at the lamented decease

of Dr Stanhope—who had died of apoplexy at his villa in Italy—Mr

Athill had been presented with the better preferment of Eiderdown,

and had, therefore, removed to another part of the county. He was

somewhat of a bon-vivant, and a man who thoroughly understood

dinner-parties; and with much good nature he took Frank under his

special protection.

 

“You stick to me, Mr Gresham,” he said, “when we go into the

dining-room. I’m an old hand at the duke’s dinners, and know how to

make a friend comfortable as well as myself.”

 

“But why doesn’t the duke come in?” demanded Frank.

 

“He’ll be here as soon as dinner is ready,” said Mr Athill. “Or,

rather, the dinner will be ready as soon as he is here. I don’t care,

therefore, how soon he comes.”

 

Frank did not understand this, but he had nothing to do but to wait

and see how things went.

 

He was beginning to be impatient, for the room was now nearly full,

and it seemed evident that no other guests were coming; when suddenly

a bell rang, and a gong was sounded, and at the same instant a door

that had not yet been used flew open, and a very plainly dressed,

plain, tall man entered the room. Frank at once knew that he was at

last in the presence of the Duke of Omnium.

 

But his grace, late as he was in commencing the duties as host,

seemed in no hurry to make up for lost time. He quietly stood on the

rug, with his back to the empty grate, and spoke one or two words in

a very low voice to one or two gentlemen who stood nearest to him.

The crowd, in the meanwhile, became suddenly silent. Frank, when he

found that the duke did not come and speak to him, felt that he ought

to go and speak to the duke; but no one else did so, and when he

whispered his surprise to Mr Athill, that gentleman told him that

this was the duke’s practice on all such occasions.

 

“Fothergill,” said the duke—and it was the only word he had yet

spoken out loud—“I believe we are ready for dinner.” Now Mr

Fothergill was the duke’s land-agent, and he it was who had greeted

Frank and his friends at their entrance.

 

Immediately the gong was again sounded, and another door leading out

of the drawing-room into the dining-room was opened. The duke led the

way, and then the guests followed. “Stick close to me, Mr Gresham,”

said Athill, “we’ll get about the middle of the table, where we shall

be cosy—and on the other side of the room, out of this dreadful

draught—I know the place well, Mr Gresham; stick to me.”

 

Mr Athill, who was a pleasant, chatty companion, had hardly seated

himself, and was talking to Frank as quickly as he could, when Mr

Fothergill, who sat at the bottom of the table, asked him to say

grace. It seemed to be quite out of the question that the duke should

take any trouble with his guests whatever. Mr Athill consequently

dropped the word he was speaking, and uttered a prayer—if it was a

prayer—that they might all have grateful hearts for that which God

was about to give them.

 

If it was a prayer! As far as my own experience goes, such utterances

are seldom prayers, seldom can be prayers. And if not prayers, what

then? To me it is unintelligible that the full tide of glibbest

chatter can be stopped at a moment in the midst of profuse good

living, and the Giver thanked becomingly in words of heartfelt

praise. Setting aside for the moment what one daily hears and sees,

may not one declare that a change so sudden is not within the compass

of the human mind? But then, to such reasoning one cannot but add

what one does hear and see; one cannot but judge of the ceremony by

the manner in which one sees it performed—uttered, that is—and

listened to. Clergymen there are—one meets them now and then—who

endeavour to give to the dinner-table grace some of the solemnity of

a church ritual, and what is the effect? Much the same as though one

were to be interrupted for a minute in the midst of one of our church

liturgies to hear a drinking-song.

 

And it will be argued, that a man need be less thankful because, at

the moment of receiving, he utters no thanksgiving? or will it be

thought that a man is made thankful because what is called a grace is

uttered after dinner? It can hardly be imagined that any one will so

argue, or so think.

 

Dinner-graces are, probably, the last