Chattering thanks and promises to call on his rescuer in a few days, James Duke returned to his homeland on this first day of February. In a sopping freeze he managed a cab to take him to the Pine Tree Inn. Waiting for his trunk to arrive he stood as close as he could to the fire drinking boiling tea. At last the trunk was hauled up to his room and trembling, he pulled on his warmest clothes — wool, wool, good English wool.
• • •
It was exceedingly cold in Boston; snow fell an inch or two every day for a week until all was muffled and silent, roofs, carriages, and still the snow came. Two days after his arrival, and with a drumbeat headache, James Duke walked to the offices of Trumbull & Tendrill slipping on icy cobblestones.
The clerk who let him in and took his hat gave him two swift startled looks before his habitual air of indifference returned, an empty expression that classified the people he met as side chairs or pen wipers. It was the same with the advocate Hugh Trumbull, whose mouth fell open and then closed. His wrinkled face suddenly creaked into a smile. He might have been English, thought James, taking in the fashionable double-breasted coat with notable lapels. Half-laughing in welcome, Trumbull made James comfortable in a chair near the snapping fire. The clerk brought in tumblers of hot rum toddy.
“You quite shook me! It’s uncanny how you resemble your late father.” Trumbull drank off half his glass of rum and waved his hand at the window, where the flying snow half-obliterated the street and the buildings across the way. “Would you believe that I have killed deer from this window?” he asked. “Of course it was many years ago and deer are now scarce. Now, sir,” he said, “to business,” and over the next hour laid out the details of Sedley Duke’s will.
• • •
Elated and confused James Duke returned to the Pine Tree with a weight of keys in his pocket. In essence, Sedley Duke had regretted his long hatred and left half of his rich estate to James, including his dwelling house north of Tremont Street complete with six acres of garden land, a fruit orchard, twenty acres of fresh meadow, a twelve-stall stable, two carriages and six matched pair of horses, nearly two million acres of forest in Maine (passed to Sedley from Charles Duke’s old partner, Forgeron), a collection of Indian relics, a stuffed crocodile, eight silver platters, four and twenty pewter plates, a turtle-shell hafted knife, a library of eighty-four books, two hogsheads of Portuguese vinho, eight barrels of rum, two waistcoats embroidered with bucolic scenes, five turkey carpets, six warehouses of lumber, twenty-seven acres of salt marsh, part interests in several ships, potash manufactories, a shingle factory, Ohio timberlands, bank accounts and stocks. And more that he could not remember.
Trumbull had enjoyed detailing the provisions of the will. “The servants are staying on at the house and hope that you will retain them. You may remember that your father called the property Black Swan and populated his pond with those birds. Sixty-odd years ago it was all rough, gloomy forest, and now we see handsome estates. I would advise you to keep the servants as they understand the peculiarities and virtues of the place and will make the transition to Boston pleasanter for you.”
James sat with his mouth open, hardly believing what he was hearing.
“Mrs. Trumbull and I hope you will do us the favor of dinner with us a week hence? Some of your cousins will be in attendance and we thought you might wish to meet them away from the offices.”
“Sir,” said James, “sir…”
• • •
His head aching fiercely and his throat a raw ribbon of fire, he took to his bed at the Pine Tree for the next four days and lay swooning and dreaming of the delights that lay before him. He would move to the house as soon as he was well, and then pay a call on the Winthrop Brandons and thank Mistress Brandon properly with a gift. But he was embarrassed to have been pulled from the water by a woman. He should have saved her. And should he wait until the Trumbulls’ dinner party or immediately pay a call on Cousin Freegrace Duke, who certainly knew of James’s unexpected fortune? No doubt he would try to wheedle it away to himself and the other Dukes or at least to the failing business coffers, for the gang of backwoodsmen had likely put the company in disarray. Perhaps Sedley Duke had been the white sheep in a black flock.
• • •
He directed the hired coachman to his father’s — now his — house. They rolled up a curved drive to a house of rosy brick with a black lacquer door set off by pedimented windows. He counted eight smoking chimneys. A grey-haired woman wearing a grey linsey-woolsey dress opened the door and her eyes widened as she took him in. She curtsied and said, in a welcome English voice, that she was Mrs. Tubjoy, “Mr. Sedley’s housekeeper, sir. And now in your service. We all welcome you.”
As he stepped into the entrance hall he was dashed into his childhood as though seated on a swing that someone had suddenly given a great shove. He knew every inch of this place. There was the complex mahogany staircase rising into the dim upper hall, there a gleaming carpet rod and there — there — the terrible hall stand, ten feet high, intensely authoritarian. This piece of furniture with its blotched looking glass, its hat hooks and cloak holders was the ceremonial guard of the house. Every day when Sedley came home he had placed his umbrella in the crooked holder, hung his tall black hat on the hook, his greatcoat on another and, divested of his city exterior, passed into the world of “home.” He went into his library and drank whiskey until the housemaid rang the bell for dinner. Young James and Sedley sat at opposite ends of the sixteen-foot table with never a word spoken. He shook the memory loose.
In the hall behind Mrs. Tubjoy stood half a dozen servants. He caught vainly at their names; the beardless grinning boy was Tom, the cook, Louisa. Two men brought his trunk and Captain Gunn’s small table into the hall. Mrs. Tubjoy said, “I am sure you wish to see the house, and after a little refreshment, rest until dinner? Follow me, sir, if you please.
“Perhaps you will wish to take your late father’s room, Mr. James?” she asked, opening a heavy mahogany door. The room was large, the windows were large and gave a view of great-trunked oaks.
Mrs. Tubjoy said, “Forgive my familiarity, Mr. James, but you strongly resemble my late employer.”
“Yes, Mr. Trumbull said so as well. But I cannot help it. I never saw the late Mr. Duke — my father — from the time I was a boy. So I did not know of the resemblance.” The monstrous bed was mahogany with a fringed green canopy, the posts carved into dolphins and mermaids. He detected a faded scent of cigar smoke, wool, leather polish and horsiness. As he leaned over the bed to examine the monogram on the pillow slip, another smell, altogether rancid and disgusting, rose from the mattress.
“Those coiled hair mattresses must be changed every few years,” said Mrs. Tubjoy, seeing his flared nostrils.
“I am happy you mention this, Mrs. Tubjoy,” he said. “Shall we not have all the old mattresses burned and replace them with best new?”
On the third floor they entered a room he liked immediately. It was moderate in size but with a large fireplace. In front of the fireplace stood two companionable wing chairs upholstered in faded red brocade. He admired the sun-softened color and suddenly remembered the table with the ivory inlaid ship that Captain Gunn had grudged him.
“Mrs. Tubjoy, could the boy bring my small table in the entryway up at once?”
“Of course. I’ll see to it,” she said and she glided from the room and down the stairs, grey and silent.
• • •
Alone, he examined the room. The furnishings were of rosewood rather than mahogany, and the bed had plain posts; there was neither canopy nor carved dolphins. He liked the brilliant turkey carpets on the floor and opened a small cabinet — it was empty, and he liked the emptiness. Above the washstand hung a large and slightly clouded mirror and he saw himself in it, the dimmed image of a man who appeared resolute, strong, with no sign that he was unworthy. The windows looked out over the oaks toward a shining strip of sea invisible from his father’s room.