Читать книгу The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance - Dowling Richard - Страница 8

The bodily and mental conditions of the Marquis of Southwold, which forbade him living ashore any length of time, were many and almost insurmountable. The greatest doctors had of course been consulted, but without being able to afford any relief. They had called his lordship's symptoms by a number of very learned names, seldom heard in the medical profession. They could go no further than that. They had tried every resource of their art, and had failed. Men at the top of the profession can afford to confess failure much better than their brethren of a less degree. When the greatest doctors declare a patient must die soon, the sooner that patient dies the better for conventional decency.

The doctors had not said that Lord Southwold must die soon; but they had declared him incurable, and advised him to try the sea. He tried the sea, and the remedy was most successful. On shore his eyes were tender and dim, his limbs dumb and nerveless, his appetite failed, and his spirits sank almost to melancholia. But no sooner did he go on board a ship than all these symptoms began to abate. His eyes grew stronger, his sight improved, the lassitude lessened, he could eat with relish, and his spirits gradually returned.

The Marquis of Southwold was now a man of thirty-eight years of age, tall, lank, long-cheeked, and without the hereditary bow-legs. His features were vague and expressionless. He had a remarkably large mouth, and dull faded grey eyes. There was upon his face always the look of pain past rather than pain present. His face was that of one who was fading out, rather than of one who suffered any violent assault. He was more languid and subdued than his father; but, like him too, he was very taciturn.

His health was good while on board the yacht, although she only lay at anchor in Silver Bay, beneath the ducal castle. Thus, for a large portion of the year, his grace's schooner-yacht, the Seabird lay at anchor in Silver Bay. The bay was excellently suited to the requirements of the ailing nobleman: for it was protected from the wind by high lands on three sides, and from the rolling sea of the German Ocean by a barrier of rocks, extending more than halfway across the bay from the northern side. The best anchorage was just under the shelter of this jagged barrier of rocks. Here, even in the most severe gales from the east, the water was always smooth. The holding ground was also excellent; and the rocks, as they rose twenty, thirty, forty feet high, protected the hull of the schooner from the force of the wind.

The entrance to this bay was safe and easy. It was about a quarter of a mile wide, and quite free from rocks. The largest vessel afloat would have water enough in any part of that opening, from a point twenty fathoms from the end of the bar to a point twenty fathoms from the opposite shore of the bay. The only great danger was if, in tacking in or out in heavy weather, anything should give way; for it was necessary to reach in or out on the one tack, there being no room for tacking in the passage itself in a strong wind and high sea.

Of course, if Lord Southwold wished for a steam-yacht, he might have the finest that could be designed. But he could not endure a steamer. It was almost worse for him than being on shore. The air is never brisk aboard a steamboat, and then the vibration jarred upon him horribly.

He was not an enterprising sailor, and did not court adventure. He did not love the sea for its perils, or for the chance it affords of enjoying the sense of struggling successfully against an enemy. He looked on dwelling afloat as a birthright, or birthwrong, against which there was no good in growling. His father allowed him twenty thousand a year pocket-money. He would have given up his twenty thousand a year and his right of succession to the title and vast estates, if he might have a thousand a year and the constitution of a navvy. It is not utterly impossible that a navvy may become a duke, but it is utterly impossible that a man with such a constitution as his could enjoy the health of a navvy.

He found it impossible to spend his pocket-money, and he hated the notion of it accumulating at his banker's. When he had a large balance, it always seemed as if it were placed there as the wages of his bodily infirmities. He hated money as honourable men hate debt. When he found a balance of ten or twelve thousand at his banker's, he could, he knew, draw it out and drop it over the side of the yacht. But that would be wilful waste. He might have given it in charity; but he had so little contact with the world that he had hardly any sense of the necessity for charity, except through reading, which is a cold and formal way of kindling one's sympathy. He might have gambled; but he had hardly ever attended a race or coursing match. They very rarely had a guest at the Castle or on board the yacht; and he did not care for cards, even if guests were more numerous. He led an isolated and dreary life; but he had experience of hardly any other. He could not with comfort, live more than a few days ashore, or with safety more than a couple of weeks.