The Unknown Ajax Read online

  ‘I should say myself that the poor fellow suffered from a colicky disorder,’ replied Hugo. ‘He has the look of it. Sallow as a Nabob!’

  She laughed, and led him on into an antechamber. ‘Very likely! We are now approaching the Queen’s Bedchamber. You will notice her cipher over the bedstead. The hangings are all original, but pray don’t touch them! The silk is quite rotten.’

  The Major stood looking round at faded and tarnished magnificence. ‘Eh, but it’s a shame!’ he said. ‘Why has it all been let go to ruin? It queers me that a man as proud as his lordship shouldn’t keep his house in better order!’

  ‘Well, it won’t queer you when you are rather better acquainted with him,’ she replied. ‘His pride is of a peculiar order, and is not in the least diminished by debts or encumbered estates. Did you suppose yourself to be inheriting fortune as well as title? You will be sadly disappointed!’

  ‘I can see that. But that colt your brother has wasn’t bought for a song, and here’s the old gentleman wishing to make me an allowance!’

  She stared at him. ‘He must do that, of course. As for Richmond’s colt, there’s always money to pay for what he has set his heart on. Vincent is another who can in general get what he wants from Grandpapa. Next to Richmond, he is Grandpapa’s favourite. Have you looked your fill at our past grandeur? We have now only to go through the room allotted to the maids-of-honour – quite unremarkable, as you perceive – and we have reached the picture-gallery. There is a stairway at the far end which was originally the principal open. The present Grand Stairway is of later date.’

  ‘If ever I saw such a rabbit-warren!’ he remarked.

  ‘Exactly so, but I advise you not to say that within Grandpapa’s hearing.’ She walked over to the first of six large window-embrasures, and stood looking out through the latticed panes, with her back turned to the Major. ‘Before I show you our forebears, cousin, there is something I wish to say. No, not that: something I feel myself obliged to say! You may think it odd of me – even improper! – but I have a notion you are not quite as stupid as you would like us to believe. I daresay you may understand why it is that I find myself in the very awkward position of being forced to put myself, and you too, to the blush. I know Grandpapa well enough to be tolerably certain that he has ordered you to make me an offer.’ She turned her head as she spoke, her colour a little heightened, but her eyes meeting the Major’s squarely. ‘If he has not already done so, he will. But I think he has. Am I right?’

  ‘He didn’t precisely do that,’ replied Hugo cautiously.

  ‘He will. I hope you will summon up the courage to refuse to obey that particular command. Pray believe that nothing would induce me to obey it! If that seems to you uncivil, I beg your pardon, but –’

  ‘Nay, I’m reet glad to hear you say it!’ he responded ingenuously.

  Her eyes narrowed in sudden amusement. ‘I was persuaded you would be. I must warn you, however, that there will be – oh, the devil to pay, and every sort of pressure brought to bear on you – ! You don’t know! He has ways of forcing us all to knock under: you may find yourself in a fix over it!’

  ‘I may do that,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I’ll be far if I make you an offer at his or any other man’s bidding!’ He added hastily, as she broke into laughter, ‘The thing is, I’m by way of being promised already! Othergates, of course, it would be different.’

  ‘Good God! Did you tell Grandpapa so?’

  ‘I’ve not told him yet,’ owned Hugo sheepishly.

  ‘You were afraid to!’

  ‘Nay, it was just that it wasn’t, seemingly, the reet moment for telling him!’ he protested.

  She was looking scornful. ‘It never will be the right moment. You were afraid!’

  ‘Well, you weren’t so very brave yourself, not to tell him you wouldn’t marry me,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I was!’ she retorted. ‘I would have told him so the instant I knew what he meant to do! I didn’t do so because – oh, you don’t understand! For me the case is quite otherwise!’

  ‘Ay, it would be,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well, it is, so you need not speak in that detestable way! Whenever I come to cuffs with Grandpapa it’s Mama who suffers for it, and she has enough to bear without being blamed for my sins! That’s why I asked you not to offer for me, so that Grandpapa couldn’t say it was my fault, or bully Mama into urging me to accept you. Heaven knows your shoulders are big enough, but I see you are just like all the rest, and dare not square up to him!’

  The huge creature before her, looking the picture of guilt, said feebly: ‘It wasn’t that-a-way. The thing is, I’m in a bit of a hobble. It wouldn’t do for me to tell my grandfather I was promised, not before I was sure of it myself.’

  ‘But aren’t you sure of it?’ she asked, a good deal astonished.

  ‘Well,’ he temporized, once more rubbing his nose, ‘I am and I’m not. There’s been nothing official, as you might say. It’s – it’s been kept secret betwixt the pair of us. It was just before the last campaign, you see, and I was recalled in such a bang that there was no time to do aught but get my baggage together, and be off. What’s more there was no knowing but what I might have been killed, so it was thought best to keep it secret. And I haven’t been home since.’

  ‘Good God, have you been engaged for two years?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Better nor that,’ he said. ‘It was in the spring of ’15 that it happened, and now we’re in September. It seems to me I ought to make sure she hasn’t changed her mind before I speak to the old gentleman, and so far I haven’t been home.’

  ‘But she must have written to you!’

  ‘Er – no,’ said Hugo, much discomposed. ‘She – well, there were reasons why she couldn’t do that!’

  A dreadful suspicion occurred to Anthea. ‘Cousin, do you mean – is she a – a lady of Quality?’

  The Major shook a miserable head.

  ‘Can’t she write?’ Anthea asked, in a hushed voice.

  ‘No,’ confessed the Major.

  Feeling a trifle weak, Anthea sat down on the window-seat. ‘Cousin, this is – this is positively terrible! You can have no notion – ! What’s to be done?’

  ‘If you think I ought to tell the old gentleman –’

  ‘No, no!’ she said quickly. ‘On no account in the world! Of course, I see now why you didn’t say you wouldn’t offer for me! He would have been bound to have asked you why not, and – I beg your pardon for being so uncivil about that! No one could be brave enough to make that disclosure to him! But what are you going to do?’

  The Major had the grace to look a little conscience-stricken. He said vaguely that he hadn’t yet made up his mind.

  ‘I can’t think how you dared to come here at all,’ said Anthea, knitting her brows. ‘To be sure, you didn’t know what Grandpapa was like, but you must have known that he would never tolerate that sort of marriage! In fact, it was because he is afraid that you might wish to marry someone he would think unworthy that he made this odious scheme to marry you to me. Cousin, you’re not in a hobble! you’re in the suds!’

  The Major, who, by this time, had had the satisfaction of seeing that his judgment had not been at fault when he had decided that animation would greatly improve Miss Darracott, ventured to approach her, and to sit down. ‘I am and-all!’ he agreed ruefully.

  ‘He won’t receive her, you know,’ Anthea said. ‘It is useless to think he might come about. He never forgave your father, and he was his favourite son.’

  ‘Nay, I wouldn’t bring her here.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but you can’t expect the poor girl to wait for years and years to be married!’ objected Anthea. ‘Besides, surely you would not like that yourself! If you’re thinking that Grandpapa may die soon, I must tell you that I don’t think there’s the least chance of it: he’s old, but not at a