The Unknown Ajax Read online

  He smiled, but said: ‘I daresay it would. I haven’t been here many days yet, but I know already that I couldn’t live with his lordship, and I don’t mean to try. And that puts me in mind of something! Who lives in the Dower House?’

  ‘No one, at present. No one but Spurstow, that is. He was Great-aunt Matty’s butler, and when she died Grandpapa said he might remain at the Dower House, to look after it until it should be inhabited again.’

  ‘And who was Great-aunt Matty?’ he enquired.

  ‘Oh, she was Grandpapa’s sister! When Grandpapa was married, she and our great-grandmother removed to the Dower House. Great-grandmama died before I was born, and Aunt Matty continued there until she died – oh, nearly two years ago now! She was very eccentric, and she looked exactly like a witch, and was used to mutter to herself. Richmond and I were terrified of her, when we were children, but fortunately she hated to be visited, so that it was only very occasionally that we were obliged to go to the Dower House. She always sat in one room, and kept the blinds drawn in the others, and had dozens of the most odious cats. It used to be one of Richmond’s worst nightmares, that he was shut up in that dark house, with cats’ eyes staring at him wherever he looked, and poor Jane Darracott’s ghost creeping up behind him!’

  ‘I’d forgotten the ghost. Is that why the house stands empty?’

  ‘Well, yes, in a way it is. My Uncle Granville wished to live there, after Aunt Matty died, but Aunt Anne said that she would as lief do anything in the world as set foot inside the house. She’s very fanciful, suffers nervous disorders – distempered freaks, Grandpapa calls them! But I believe the real cause of the scheme’s coming to nothing was that the house was found to be in shocking repair, and, of course, Grandpapa refused to waste any money on it. When Grandpapa practises economy it is always at the expense of his family, never his own! Are you thinking that you might live there? I warn you, it is rat-ridden, ghost-ridden, and damp into the bargain! Spurstow says the roof leaks in several places.’

  ‘It sounds champion!’ he remarked. ‘Don’t tell me it hasn’t dry rot as well, for I wouldn’t believe you!’

  ‘Very likely, I should think.’ She threw him a mischievous glance. ‘And, to add to your comfort, there is said to be an underground passage, leading from the cellars to the Place, in which (could you but find it) you would discover the bones of several persons who were so unfortunate as to have fallen out with one – or possibly more – of our ancestors.’

  ‘That adds a cosy touch,’ he agreed. ‘Ralph II?’

  ‘No, we were obliged to abandon that notion,’ she said regretfully. ‘It seems to be established that the passage was walled up long before his time. However, the son of the Darracott who came over with the Conqueror we understand to have been a shockingly loose screw, so we are much inclined to think it was he who hid the bodies of his enemies in it.’

  ‘Ay, a passage would be just the place anyone would choose,’ he nodded. ‘And, if you’ve done trying to make an April-gowk out of me, I’d be glad to know why you’re so set on holding me off from the house?’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, I’m not! I merely thought it right to warn you!’

  ‘Eh, that was kind!’ he said appreciatively. ‘Of course, I’d be wasting my time if I tried to find the passage, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Well, we wasted ours, when we were children,’ she admitted, ‘but if you mean to say that you don’t believe there is a passage I shall take it in very bad part. Its existence is one of our more cherished traditions! There’s a reference to it somewhere in our archives. Unfortunately, no hint of its precise locality is vouchsafed, and when Oliver ventured to suggest to Grandpapa that we might discover it with the aid of a pickaxe or two, the notion, from some cause or another, found no favour with him! He did own that in ancient times there had been a passage, but although we – that is, Oliver, and Caro, and Eliza, and Vincent, and Claud, and I – thought it could be put to excellent use, he quite failed to enter into our sentiments!’

  ‘I’m not so sure that I blame him!’

  She gurgled. ‘I wish you might have seen his face when Claud and I said that it was his duty to find the bones of our murdered foes, and give them decent burial! You see, we were the youngest, and we became wholly confused by the tales the others made up! I think the bones were Oliver’s contribution to the legend, and to this day I’m not perfectly sure how much belongs to the original legend, and how much was added by the boys. I must say I wish you may persuade Grandpapa to let you have the Dower House (though I fear you won’t!), so that you might do a little excavation, and confirm our ancient tradition! I’ll take you to see it tomorrow, if you would like it.’

  The Dower House was situated only some four hundred yards to the north-east of Darracott Place, from which it was hidden by a belt of trees, and a tangle of overgrown bushes. A carriage-drive gave access to it from a narrow lane, but Anthea took the Major there by way of a footpath through the wood, and entered the garden at the side of the house. A ditch surmounted by a blackthorn hedge enclosed the grounds, which seemed, at first glance, to consist almost wholly of a shrubbery run riot. Holding open a wicket-gate, which squeaked on its rusty hinges, Hugo glanced round, remarking that it looked a likely place for a ghost. Anthea, disentangling the fringe of her shawl from the encroaching hedge, agreed to this, and at once took him to see what she called the fatal window. It was at the back of the house, and faced south-east, on to what Hugo took to be a wilderness but which was, she assured him, a delightful pleasure-garden. ‘If you look closely, you will see that there are several rose-beds, and a sun-dial,’ she said severely. ‘The lawn, perhaps, needs mowing.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ said Hugo, eyeing the rank grass with disfavour. ‘Myself, I’d have it ploughed up and re-sown, but I daresay it’s in keeping with the rest as it is.’

  ‘Well, I warned you how it would be. That is the window. The room was originally the best bedchamber, but after the accident – if it wasn’t a murder – none of the subsequent tenants cared to sleep in it, so it was reserved for the accommodation of guests.’

  ‘Ay, it would be. It must go to his lordship’s heart to think he hasn’t a haunted room at the Place: I don’t doubt I’d have found myself in it if there had been one. Is this where the lady walks?’

  ‘Oh, she walks all round the house, and in it, too, according to some! Very few of Aunt Matty’s servants ever stayed for long with her, but I never heard that they saw the ghost. They used to complain that they heard strange noises, but I fancy they wouldn’t have made anything of that if they hadn’t been warned by the villagers. None of them would dream of coming near the house after dark, of course.’

  She led the way, as she spoke, towards the front of the house. Here the trees grew so close to the building that a branch of one giant elm almost brushed the roof, seeing which, Hugo said decidedly: ‘I’d have that down for a start. Eh, but it’s a fine old house!’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ Anthea replied, with a certain lack of enthusiasm. ‘It is older than the Place, I know, and said to be a good example of that style of ancient stone-building, but it has always seemed to me a dreadfully gloomy house.’

  ‘If all that ivy were stripped away, and the bushes uprooted, and some of the trees felled, it wouldn’t be gloomy. I allow there’s no prospect on this side, but there should be as good a one, or better, as there is from the Place, on the garden side, once a clearance was made.’

  ‘Is that what you would do?’

  He nodded. ‘I would, if I meant to live here. I’ve a strong notion that we have only to let in some light and air to lay that ghost of yours.’

  ‘But this is iconoclasm!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lay the Darracott spectre? For shame! Have you no respect for tradition?’

  He looked quizzically down at her. ‘Nay, that’s a matter of upbringing,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t reared to respect Darracott tradition. Come to t