Chapter 21
“I must admit, I do appreciate your company at this time, Hector,” James said when he greeted his friend in the drawing room of Sandford Hall.
Hector, who had become a regular visitor to Sandford in the three years since James had last been over into the east of the county, fit in very nicely and always made himself comfortable.
On hearing that the Duke of Sandford, who had been ailing for some time, had taken a turn for the worse, Hector made his way over to Sandford Hall without invitation. He simply appeared that morning with a small trunk of belongings, his valet, and his driver.
“Well, I know that you would do the same to me if Pater were on his last legs,” Hector said with a rueful grin. “I know you do not see eye to eye with your father and have not done these last three years, probably never have done if the truth is known, still he is your father, and I do not underestimate the effect of losing him.” Although Hector was rarely serious, whenever he was, he always made the greatest sense.
“The only thing which unsettles me in all of this is the fact that I am to become the Duke very soon. I have never been thrilled by the prospect, but I am bound to say that I now have no appetite for it whatsoever. I daresay it is because I cannot escape the idea that I am going to be filling my father’s shoes.”
“Filling his shoes does not make you the same as him, James. It is a title; it is a job of sorts, I suppose. But that is all you inherit, my dear fellow. You do not inherit his character flaws, his idiosyncrasies, his propensity for spite. It is just a title, and it is yours, and I am sure that you will do it very well indeed.”
“Is it too early for a brandy?” James said and checked his pocket watch.
“Oh, now that is my line. I know these are strange times, but I must insist you come up with lines of your own.” Hector grinned and settled down in the armchair. “But a brandy would be very welcome if you have a mind to pour me one.”
“What would I have done these last twenty years without Hector Hanover?” James laughed.
“Goodness me; is it twenty years since we were boys at Eton?”
“It most certainly is. A little more, I think.”
“How much has changed, and how much has stayed the same.”
“Our friendship has certainly remained the same, and I can only be grateful for that.”
“Well, some things are timeless, my dear chap. Some things do not need modernization, do they?”
“I will drink to that,” James said and handed his friend the large brandy before settling down in the chair opposite.
In truth, James really was glad that Hector had arrived unbidden. Whilst it was true that there was certainly no love lost between James and his father, it really did feel like the strangest of times.
The old Duke’s health had been deteriorating slowly and steadily in the last three years, owing largely to the fact that he drank too much, ate too much, and would not listen to his physician on either count.
The fatter he had become, the more his heart had struggled to keep him going. Finally, his heart was on the verge of giving up altogether, and the physician had assured James that it truly could not be more than a matter of days, if that, before the old Duke of Sandford passed away.
“I suppose I shall be my own man now at last,” James said almost to himself.
“Yes, you will be free from your father’s attempts to marry you off, not to mention the fact that Charlotte and dear old Lucas shall be safe from whatever it was he had threatened to expose them for.”
“It is funny, but that was the very first thing to enter my mind when the physician said that my father’s time had come. I could not help thinking that at least he could do no more harm.”
“I rather think you will never forgive him, will you?” Hector said solemnly.
“No, I am afraid I shall not.” He paused for a moment and tipped his head back to look up at the intricate, artistic plasterwork of the ceiling. “You know, I had determined these last three years that when my father lay on his deathbed, I would taunt him with the idea that I would run the Duchy into the ground. I would let the tenant farms go to rack and ruin; I would let Sandford Hall crumble and decay, and I would drink away every penny from the coffers, all the while remaining unmarried and childless, providing no heir.”
“And now?” Hector said cautiously.
“I would be lying if I did not tell you I am still tempted. You see, my father always treated my mother and me as if we were no more than appendages, not real people with lives and feelings, the same hopes and dreams as others. I know that he made my mother feel helpless on so many occasions and, in the end, he did exactly the same to me, did he not?”
“Yes, I suppose he did.”
“And that feeling of exasperation that comes along with it, knowing you are helpless and knowing there is nothing you can do about it, nothing you can do or say to change the matter, eats away at your soul day in and day out. And that feeling has not lessened these last three years.”
“But I daresay it is to come to an end quite naturally, without any intervention from you.” Hector cast his eyes upwards towards the ceiling as if to indicate the man dying in his sick bed above.
“Yes, it is. And yet I still cannot escape the feeling that my father ought to know that feeling of helplessness, even if it is only once, and even it if it is only for a few moments before the end comes.”
“I will not lie to you and say that the Duke does not deserve it, for I truly believe that he does. But it is not the Duke who concerns me this day, James, but my oldest friend. You are not a cruel man, and you never have been; that is what sets you apart from your father, what makes you so very different. I truly believe that if you go ahead with such a plan, you will live to regret it, and you do not deserve that. Such an act would change you, James, and not for the better. There is an opportunity now for you to return to the man you once were.”
“You think me so very changed, then?”
“These last three years you have lost the light that once shone from you, my dear chap. You have lost your humour, and I for one have missed your incredible wit, for you keep it hidden these days.”
“I daresay I have missed it also,” James said solemnly. “But I did not lose it on account of my father. I lost it because I lost her, you see. And without her, I cannot see my old spirit returning.”
“There is nothing to say that you have lost her forever,” Hector said solicitously. “After all, my cousin has never married, nor has she ventured down the path of courtship at all since you were last in the east of the county. You need not be a stranger to Hanover Hall anymore either, need you?”
“There is truth in what you say, Hector. But I am afraid that your truth does not account for the scorn of a beautiful young woman who would quite rightly feel I turned my back on her. I have no guarantee at all, do I?”
“There are no guarantees in this life, my friend.”
“Indeed, there are not.”
At that moment, the door opened, and there stood one of the maids looking awkward and nervous.
“What is it, Daisy?” James said in a kindly tone and smiled at the young girl in a bid to reduce her discomfort.
“Forgive me, Lord Harrington, but the physician has asked me to call you up to His Grace’s room.”
“Thank you kindly, Daisy,” James said and rose to his feet. “I shall make my way there now.”
He nodded as the maid curtsied and disappeared from the room.
“I shall be here waiting for you, James,” Hector said with a nod. “And I know you to be the better man.”
“Thank you.”
James took the stairs two at a time, sensing the sudden urgency in the situation. He felt nervous and a little as if he was in a dream rather than reality.
How many times he had longed for this moment. How many times in the last three years he had wished that his father would fall face-down into his plate as he stuffed his mouth with bacon and kidneys day after day.
And yet now that the time had come, James suddenly felt his animosity drain away from him. A life was about to end, even if it belonged to a man he neither loved nor even liked. But still it was a life, and despite his own disagreements with the way it had been lived, its ending still deserved decorum and respect. All lives should end that way.
He took a deep breath outside his father’s chamber door before entering. The old Duke looked almost the same as ever he did, his large belly clearly defined beneath the layers of sheets and blankets, his round face as red as always, and his faded yellow hair seeming no more unkempt than it ordinarily did.
And yet there was an aura about the man, a sense that filled the room and spoke of his impending departure from this mortal coil.
“I did not know if you would come,” Richard Harrington said in a quiet voice, the only obvious change in him.
“Of course, I came,” James said and pushed a small wooden chair closer to the bed before sitting down on it. “I would not leave you alone in these moments.”
James turned to the maid who was hovering in the room and smiled at her, nodding his agreement for her to leave the room, to leave father and son alone at last.
“After everything I have done, still you are here. You really are your mother’s son,” he said, but the tone was not disparaging as it had always been. “And finally, I am grateful for that, for your mother raised you well. She raised you not to leave an old man alone dying after all, regardless of what he had done to you.”
“Well, I suppose it is done now.” James could hardly believe that he felt emotional, that he felt a creeping sense of loss.
He knew at that moment that he would not let Hector down; he would not say the spiteful words he had planned and practiced every day of the last three years. And not only for his own sake as Hector had suggested, but his father’s.
He knew he did not have the right to send a man to his grave with such worries in his heart, however many worries that man had caused other people. To do it would be to somehow condone his father’s behaviour. Surely to act in the same way was to be the same, and he would not do that.
“We have butted heads these last three years, have we not?” the old Duke went on weakly.
“Yes, we have.”
“I do not blame you. I mean, I do not blame you for refusing to marry, not after what I did.”
James could hardly believe what he was hearing. It was true that he had spent the last three years in stoic belligerence, refusing the company of any young lady his father suggested, or if accepting it, doing so for his own sport, to make the young lady in question and his father feel as uncomfortable as possible.
More than once, his father had threatened that if he did not marry soon, he would go ahead with his original threat to expose Lord Lucas Cunningham for fathering an illegitimate child with a servant. But James had had enough of threats and had simply told him to go ahead and carry it out and watch James walk away from the Duchy forever.
James issued a threat of his own, a threat to leave the country and live on the continent and let the Duchy fall into whatever hands it may.
The result was a kind of stalemate that had lasted for three years.
“I tried to tell you, Father, that I would never love anybody else, and it was true,” James said, speaking softly, determined not to argue with his father in those last moments.
“I know, Son. But I suppose I dug in my heels; I had pushed the thing too far, and my pride would not let me go back against it.”
“Well, as I said before, it is done.”
“I do not expect your forgiveness, but I shall tell you now what I should have told you before. That you should find her and marry her. I know you are free to do that anyway now. You will be the Duke within the hour; I am sure of it. But I should like you to know in these last moments that I am sorry for what I did to you, and it would please me to know that you would get what you desired in the end.”
“Then I shall do my best to try to win her affections once again,” James said and felt suddenly emotional.
Of all the things he had expected of this day, reconciliation had not formed a part of it. He felt sad that things had not improved between them sooner, that it had taken his father’s dying for this moment to come.
“But you must have a care, James,” the Duke said, and suddenly his breathing became extremely laboured. “You cannot trust Charles Holt. If you dismiss him from this place as I am sure you are bound to do when you are the Duke, he will seek his revenge. He will carry through my threat; I am sure of it.”
“I shall heed what you say, Father. You have told me now, and you need not worry about it any further.”
“I am sorry that I was not a better father to you. But I suppose it is only facing one’s death which raises questions about the way one has lived his life. I wonder if it is the same for all men.” His breathing became even more laboured, and the reddish complexion began to turn grey.
“I think it is the same for us all, Father.” James blinked hard, feeling the desperate sadness of the situation.
There was so much now that could not be changed, but at least his father had recognized it, had apologized for it. It would not take back all that he had done; in truth, it would not take back a bit of it, but James had a sense that he could now close the door on that; that he could move on with life only looking forward, never looking back.
Perhaps that was as much as could ever have been done.
The old Duke did not speak again but breathed heavily for almost an hour. Intermittently, his breath stopped completely, and each time, James thought that he had gone. But then the breathing would begin again, and James simply reached out and took his father’s hand and waited for the end.
Before the sun went down on that day, the old Duke of Sandford took his last breath, and his son, contrary to everything he had ever thought would happen in that last moment, cried.