Chapter 25 – Duty
Robert returned to his parent's compartment and found them holding hands, which they abruptly released. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, smoking makes me cough."
Violet craftily straightened her skirt where Richard's hand had been roaming. "Is it too much to ask to knock, son?" She pursed her lips. "Or have you forgotten good manners?"
"Sorry, mama. I just had the most frightful discussion with an Irishman about money. Another bloody capitalist hell-bent on tearing everything apart and all for money! Damn them all!" He paused. "Please excuse me father; mother. I was upset." He picked up his book and was soon immersed in river life. He started Chapter 30.
IT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and very frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land, flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in places, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work gone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means and a weakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one; - hundreds of miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feet deep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles without farm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that the keeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance to discharge his trust, - and often in desperate weather. Yet I was told that the work is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and not always by men, sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent. The Government furnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lighting and tending. A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once a month.
"Back to that book I see," muttered Richard. "Have you given any thought to whom, ahem, I mean, which, erhm, girl…" His voice failed.
Violet sighed. Must she always do the nasty parts? Her elbow jabbed Richard and he went on.
"What I mean, Downton, is have you thought about actively looking for someone to… marry?" Richard asked. "There any number of your friends who have sisters or cousins, school mates and so forth, who know…"
"Oh for God's sake, Richard!" Violet hissed. "Must you beat about the bush?" She opened a handbag and extracted a sheaf of papers. Then brandishing them at her son like a sword, she went on more civilly. "Your father and I have put together this list… do look at it."
Robert snapped his book closed. Feeling rather like one of Twain's beleaguered light keepers on the flooded river, took in a great lungful to do his duty. "Right."
Violet looked sharply at her husband and seeing no support for her actions rushed forward. "I have tried to sort these into some sensible order. Each of these ladies has a position, come from good families, and..."
"Have money?" blurted out her son.
"There is that, as well," Violet replied. "Do look at the list. You know some of them."
Robert took the stack of paper and wished it was a straight razor so he might slit his wrists and end this interminable game. His parents were desperate, he knew that for the money situation was dire! What he knew about matters of running the estate was small, yet his father had been showing the accounts to him then now and again. The family had stood firm for hundreds of years and was it all to go to wrack and ruin because he might fail in his duty?
He knew about duty. It had been pounded into him at school. Britain was built on duty. Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar, Cardigan leading the Light Brigade into hellish artillery fire in the Crimea, Cornwallis bravely surrendering to the bloody Colonials at Yorktown – they knew duty. They knew fire and shot, drawn sabers and spears. In Zululand the redcoats had been chopped to pieces, yet they held in the Natal and prevailed at Ulundi in 1879.
He sighed. Those men and boys had sacrificed; all of them. He was being offered a far less gruesome duty – that of the marriage bed to someone whom he might not know and perhaps would even dislike – but who had money. Mammon. He preferred not to worship the god of money and wealth. Rather he wished to skirt the monster and survive the encounter, hopefully with his principles somewhat upheld.
His father looked at him grumpily. "I could simply order you to marry, you know and you would."
Robert nodded. "But you wouldn't, would you?"
"No," said Richard. He reached across the compartment and tapped the sheets written in mother's fine hand. "Now read, boy," he said not unkindly.
The first name leapt off the page. "Honoria Casting - Dumpford? You're not serious?"
"She is tall and stately. Her family is a very old one…"
"Old yes, mama! She must be all of thirty."
Violet pursed her lips. "She's twenty eight, if you must know."
Robert's face fell. "And has the neck of a giraffe. And who's this next one?"
Violet crossed her arms. "That would be Lady Mims. Widowed at an early age. No children, lovely properties."
"And is shorter than her girth," he said sourly.
"She is simply big-boned, Robert. Her house in Exeter is simply fabulous…"
Robert sniffed and turned the pages. "Lydia Bamford? Blind as a bloody bat!"
Violet bristled. "You have met."
"Rather squeaky voice, if you must know. Hurt my ears when she did speak. Good dancer though. A blonde too."
Richard glanced at his wife as he knew letting the boy see this list was a mistake. He smirked. "So who would you have? Someone you don't know? Someone your mother and I know nothing of? Not in society?"
Robert fell silent as he read on. He knew most of these girls. They ran the gamut. Cold and aloof to chattering nincompoops. Their appearance, as far as he recalled was just as varied. Some were – pleasant – to look at; others not so much. There were one or two he had been almost sweet on for a time. "I see you've put Sir Julian Ward's daughter here."
Violet brightened. "Yes. I did. You know her, danced three times at her mother's ball last year, when she came out. Lovely girl, even though her father is not of the gentry."
Robert remembered Lucasta Ward as a charming and delicate creature, all of five feet tall. She had glorious hair, long eyelashes over green eyes, and carried herself with a bird-like stance as she danced. Yes, by God, he did remember her and quite well. She had lured him into the garden on a pretext and had kissed him soundly behind a hedge. He had been quite shocked. Yes it was delightful, for all the mere seconds it had lasted. She had smelled of rosewater and powder and his shock at her forwardness had quite taken him back. "So why is she last on the list?" he asked.
Violet looked away. "Her family has money, but there are stories. You know the sort."
"Mother, are we now to deal in rumors and innuendos in this quest?'
"Robert, unless you wish to be dogged by scandal, you had better listen at least once to those sorts of stories. I had it on somewhat good authority, that although Julian may have been knighted, since the girl's mother is now dead, that he has been hard pressed to… control… the girl."
"So why is her name here?" Robert thundered.
"Robert, the girl will inherit nearly five millions Pounds and Sir Julian is not in good health, or so my sources tell me. It was amazing what one can hear when your ladies' maid has her own sources of research," his mother finished firmly. "Lucasta will be twenty in a few months' time and her father may not have that much time left."
"Available in other words?" sniffed Robert.
"Just as you are, son," said Violet with some finality. "And with her mother gone… well you'd have no back biting mother-in-law puttering about the grounds, now would you? And perhaps no father-in-law either?"
Robert sighed. He felt flood waters rising from his waist and now up to his neck. He took a deep breath of air. "I suppose…"
"Yes?" asked his father who had remained mostly silent 'til now.
Robert thought of those far off light keepers struggling along the river in flood to save boats and property from going aground. He feared that he must do his duty, such as it was. "We could…"
"Yes?" asked his mother.
Robert ducked his head. Life, like a river, was full of twists and turns; rapids, snags, and sandbars. He hoped this was no whirlpool to suck him down to be drowned. "Arrange a visit, would you?"
Violet relaxed and she smiled. "I shall post a letter, then." She rose, leaned over and kissed his head. "Thank you, Robert. You are a good boy. I always knew it."
Robert nodded, but when he should have thought of the somewhat rash and petite Lucasta Ward, for some very strange reason thought of the tall American girl that he had glimpsed in Paris.