Their life oscillated between London, Ivescar, and Brakelond. In London Gundred had her factory girls, her hospitals, her educational societies; at Brakelond there were the tenants to be looked after, the Castle and all its immense organism to be managed, the Tory Candidate to be upheld by threats of Gundred’s withdrawal of her custom from all who should so far presume upon the Ballot as to oppose him. At Ivescar there were farms, gardens, parishes to be controlled by Gundred’s masterful eye. For a masterful eye it was. Kingston slid back into himself, never regained his full vital energies, renounced interest in his career, and yielded the reins of government into his wife’s hands. As her sphere widened, and her power increased, Gundred’s unquestionable majesty increased proportionately, until the habit of ruling had grown so strong in her that no one would have presumed to doubt the wisdom or cavil at the commands of that tranquil little despot, whose voice was never raised in anger, whose orders never admitted the possibility of dispute. She arranged the lives of all around her with the serenest certainty, and indomitably shepherded her army of dependents, factory girls, tenants, and servants along the path of righteous happiness. As mistress she was a success; as a hostess the same strenuous qualities, the same self-sufficiency brought her the same success. She could never hold a room by her talk, but she could now listen graciously, and disguise her complete inattention by smiles. Clever people went willingly to her houses in London and the country. Her well-dressed, pleasant presence made a becoming quiet background for their conversation, and, as a housekeeper, she was unsurpassed. She never rivalled their efforts, she never failed to make them feel both clever and comfortable. A brilliant, ambitious woman could never have won the popularity that Gundred’s calm indifference achieved. If not gay, her set was clever and solid, nor did anyone ever discern that it was only her well-bred stupidity that had had the gift of gathering it round her by sheer force of apparent colourlessness and calm.
Gundred loved the power that her position had attained, and, as time went by, Fate also was kind, and gave her that full measure of glory which had been denied to her earlier years. London had ignored the inconspicuous Miss Mortimer, unmarried, and slenderly portioned. But London showed itself very amenable to the charms of Lady Gundred Darnley, conspicuously wealthy, and with Brakelond as well as Ivescar at her back. For the old Duke faded away at last, and Gundred’s father reigned in his stead--a mild and inoffensive reign, which left all real dominion to be exercised by his daughter. For the new Duke, like his predecessor, had slid into a gentle imbecility, and now lived at Brakelond in contented seclusion; Gundred occupied the house as mistress, vigorously took up her father’s responsibilities, and was, to all intents and purposes, the tenth reigning Duchess of March and Brakelond. She never went in to dinner after a Marchioness without feeling that such an order of precedence was altogether paradoxical and out of joint. For was she not herself a Duchess in everything but name?