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The primitive population around Greencombe had never seen the duke, or any of his family, who preferred to reside at Hereward Hold, in Devonshire, or their town-house in Piccadilly, leaving their small Sussex place in charge of a land-steward and a few old servants. They had never even heard of the marriage of the duke in Paris, much less the flight of the duchess, or the duel with Volaski.
"Well, since you place yourself so implicitly in my hands, I must justify your faith as well as your mother's by doing the very best I can for you. There is a very worthy man, the Vicar of Greencombe, on one of my estates, down in Sussex, near the sea. He is a ripe scholar, a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, and occasionally augments his moderate salary by preparing youth for college.
On the third day after his arrival in London, he went down to Greencombe, a small family estate in a secluded part of Sussex, near the sea. Here he hid himself and his humiliations from the world.
The duke sold Greencombe, and placed the purchase-money in the hands of Sir Lemuel Levison and Co., Bankers, Lombard Street, London, to be invested for the benefit of his ward, John Scott.
This neglect of his poor people at Greencombe had hitherto been a matter of compunction to the conscientious soul of the duke, but he now was satisfied with the course of conduct which had left them in total ignorance of himself and his unhappy domestic history.
He told the duchess that day at dinner that a ward had been left to his guardianship, that this ward was, in fact, the son of a near relation, and bore the family name, which made it the more incumbent upon him to accept the charge; and, finally, that he had sent the boy down to Dr. Simpson, at the Greencombe Vicarage, to read for the university.
Simpson, the Vicar of Greencombe, had returned a favorable answer to his letter, and would be happy to receive Mr. Scott in his family.
I will give you a letter of introduction to Dr. Simpson, which you may go down and deliver at your own leisure. If you choose to spend a week longer in London to see what is to be seen, why do so, of course. If not, you can run down to Greencombe to-day or to-morrow. It is about two hours' journey by the London and South Coast Railroad from the London Bridge Station."
The duke and his fine servants were received with mingled deference, gladness and embarrassment by the aged and rustic couple who acted as land-steward and housekeeper at Greencombe, and who now bestirred themselves to make their unexpected master and his attendants comfortable.
'If I were to give my body to be burned, it could not benefit you in the least toward recovering your position; but I will do all I can. I will sell Greencombe, which is my own entailed property, and I will place the money with my banker, Levison, to your account. I have a pleasant little shooting-box at the foot of Ben Lone. We never go to it. You must have the run of it during the vacations.
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