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“One servant couldn’t care for such a large house even if it hadn’t been…”
“A rubbish collection? I think Uncle Percival must have actually been mad. People called him eccentric, but this is…” James peered down the cluttered hallway. “No wonder he refused all my visits.”
“Did you try to visit him?” Cecelia asked.
“Of course.”
“Huh.”
“Is that so surprising?” asked James.
“Well, yes, because you don’t care for anyone but yourself.”
“Don’t start up this old refrain.”
“It’s the truth.”
“More a matter of opinion and definition,” James replied.
She waved this aside. “You will have to do better now that you are the head of your family.”
“A meaningless label. I shall have to bring some order.” He grimaced at the stacks of newspapers. “But no more than that.”
“A great deal more,” said Cecelia. “You have a duty…”
“As Uncle Percival did?” James gestured at their surroundings.
“His failure is all the more reason for you to shoulder your responsibilities.”
“I don’t think so.”
Cecelia put her hands on her hips, just as she had done at nine years old. “Under our system the bulk of the money and all of the property in the great families passes to one man, in this case you. You are obliged to manage it for the good of the whole.” She looked doubtful suddenly. “If there is any money.”
“There is,” he replied. This had been a continual sore point during the years of the trust. And after, in fact. His father had not left a fortune. “Quite a bit of it seemingly. I had a visit from a rather sour banker. Uncle Percival was a miser as well as a…” James gestured at the mess. “A connoisseur of detritus. But if you think I will tolerate the whining of indigent relatives, you are deluded.” He had made do when he was far from wealthy. Others could follow suit.
“You must take care of your people.”
She was interrupted by a rustle of newsprint. “I daresay there are rats,” James said.
“Do you think to frighten me? You never could.”
This was true. And he had really tried a few times in his youth.
“I am consumed by morbid curiosity,” Cecelia added as she slipped down the hall. James followed. Her attendants came straggling after, the maid looking uneasy at the thought of rodents.
They found other rooms as jumbled as the first two. Indeed, the muddle seemed to worsen toward the rear of the house. “Is that a spinning wheel?” Cecelia exclaimed at one point. “Why would a duke want such a thing?”
“It appears he was unable to resist acquiring any object that he came across,” replied James.
“But where would he come across a spinning wheel?”
“In a tenant’s cottage?”
“Do you suppose he bought it from them?”
“I have no idea.” James pushed aside a hanging swag of cloth. Dust billowed out and set them all coughing. He stifled a curse.
At last they came into what might have been a library. James thought he could see bookshelves behind the piles of refuse. There was a desk, he realized, with a chair pulled up to it. He hadn’t noticed at first because it was buried under mountains of documents. At one side sat a large wicker basket brimming with correspondence.
