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Updated: July 15, 2025
"I suppose you like being at Duddon?" he asked her abruptly, without answering her question. She clasped her hands fervently. "It's like heaven! They're so good to us." "No doubt!" the tone was sarcastic. "Well, let them provide for you. Who gave you those clothes? Lady Tatham?" She nodded. Her lip trembled. Her startled eyes looked at him piteously. "You've been living at Lucca?"
Duddon could afford to risk a dowry; and what maiden in distress could wish for a better Perseus than the splendid young man who was the general favourite of the neighbourhood? As to the hatred of Melrose which gave zest to the tale of his daughter, it was becoming a fury.
Victoria very soon perceived that a crisis had come and gone. She had been accustomed for a while before they went to Scotland to send about once a week a basket of flowers and fruit from the famous gardens of Duddon, with her "kind regards" to Mrs. Penfold.
The old chiming clock set in the garden-front of Duddon had not long struck ten. Cyril Boden had just gone to bed. Victoria sat with her feet on the fender in Tatham's study still discussing with him Felicia's astonishing performance of the afternoon.
"That's the girl I saw here last time," mused Boden, nursing his knee "lovely creature with some mind in her face. So she's refused Harry and Duddon?" "Which no doubt will commend her to you!" said Victoria, not without a certain bristling of her feathers. "It does," said Boden quietly. "Upon my word, it was a fine thing to do." "Just because we happen to be rich?"
His clothes indeed were a matter of tender anxiety in the Duddon household, and Tatham's valet and Victoria's maids did him many small services, some of which he repaid with a smile and a word priceless to the recipient; and some he was never aware of.
She must hear of it immediately, and from those who would judge and perhaps denounce him. Nevertheless, as he dismounted at the Tower, neither the burden of Mainstairs, nor the fear of Lydia's disapproval, nor the agitation of the news from Duddon, had moved him one jot from his purpose.
Yet he knew well that whenever Boden came to recruit at Duddon, he spent half of his time among the fell-farms and cottages. His mind was invincibly human, greedy of common life and incident, whether in London or among the dales.
They passed out of the darkness, and into the darkness again, their frowning, unlovely faces, their ragged clothes and stooping gait, illuminated for an instant. Victoria had tried that very week, at her son's instance, to try and persuade the father to take a small farm on the Duddon estate, Tatham offering to lend him capital. And Brand had refused.
Yet all the time she was thinking of Harry and Lydia Penfold; trying to plan the winter, and what she was to do. It was dark, with a rising moon when she got back to Duddon. The butler, an old servant, was watching for her in the hall. She noticed disturbance in his manner. "There are two ladies, my lady, in the drawing-room." "Two ladies! Hurst!" The tone was reproachful.
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