The Unknown Ajax Read online

  ‘Nay, that ’ud be sackless, Mester Hugo! Hark-ye-but, if there’s nowt carried in there’ll be nowt carried out! There’s nobbut a half-squadron o’ dragoons quartered twixt here and t’North Forleand, besides t’gadgers – and noan so many of them, by what I learn – and there’s plenty of other places need a watch kept on ’em. But I’ll tell you summat, sir!’

  He paused, nodding. Hugo waited patiently, and after a few moments, during which he seemed to be chewing the cud of his own reflections, John Joseph said: ‘T’young Riding-officer’s more frack than t’owd one, and since t’last run, when him and them dragoons was made April-gowks of, chasing after nobbut a few loads o’ faggots, Peasmarsh way, while t’run was carried off, it were rumoured, not so very far from here, I’ll take my accidavy he’s got his eye fixed on Spurstow again. Happen he’s not so sickened on watching the Dower House as he makes out, for there’s them as is ready to swear they seen him up t’lane now-and-now. There’s been no dragoons stationed thereabouts this while back, and no manner o’ good gin there had been, for Clotton – him as is his lordship’s head groom – tells me they’d got so that they took every bush for a boggart, and reet laughable it was one night when a couple of ’em – nobbut ignorant lads! – came sticklebutt into t’Blue Lion, frining and faffling that there was a flaysome thing jangling round t’Dower House, and wailing fit to freeze t’blood in a body’s veins. At-after that t’sergeant went up there, wi’ another chap, neither of ’em being flaid o’ boggarts.’ He smiled dourly. ‘They say in t’village t’sergeant weren’t very well suited wi’ what he saw and heard. Hooseever, he challenged t’boggart, but it vanished into t’shrubbery, and he didna care to gae after it, chance it happened Spurstow went frumping to t’owd lord that he’d been trespassing.’

  ‘Spurstow himself, with a sheet draped round him!’ said Hugo. ‘Well, I thought as much.’

  ‘Nay, hold thee a minute, Mester Hugo! Tha’s out there: it weren’t Spurstow. That’s sure, because Spurstow stuck his head out o’ t’window, calling out to know who was there, and tha knows there’s no road he could have got back into t’house from t’shrubbery without t’sergeant would have seen him, let alone he’d no time to do it.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Hugo slowly. He was silent for a minute, and then looked thoughtfully at John Joseph, and said: ‘Keep your eyes and your ears open, will you, John Joseph?’

  ‘Ay – and my tongue between my teeth. Happen it’s nobbut a silly lad playing tricks, Mester Hugo.’

  ‘Happen it is,’ Hugo agreed. ‘I think I’ll go up to the Dower House myself one night.’

  John Joseph grunted. ‘Tha’ll need to bide a spirt, till t’moon’s up a bit. I’ll gae wi’ ye.’

  ‘The devil you’ll not! Do you think I’m afraid of ghosts?’

  ‘Nay, it’s no ghost, sir!’

  ‘I’ll go alone, thank you, John Joseph.’

  Several days elapsed before the waxing moon afforded enough light to make a midnight visit to the grounds of the Dower House practicable, and when the Major did go he saw nothing more alarming than Spurstow, who came out of the house (he said) to discover who was prowling about the gardens. As the Major had strolled all round the house in full view of its windows, and knew that even in the dim light his great size made him easily recognizable, he doubted this statement, but he replied in his pleasant way that he was sorry if he had alarmed Spurstow. ‘I came up to see this ghost of yours, but it seems to be shy of me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t ought to listen to what they’ll tell you in the village, sir. It’s all foolishment! Leastways, I’ve never seen it!’ Spurstow said, in a surly tone.

  ‘I’ll go bail you haven’t!’ replied the Major, amused.

  He mentioned his expedition to none but Anthea. She regarded him in frank admiration, exclaiming: ‘All by yourself? Weren’t you nervous? Just the least bit nervous?’

  ‘Nay, I was as brave as a lion!’ he assured her.

  She laughed, but said: ‘Well, I must own I think you were! And you didn’t see or hear anything horrid?’

  ‘No, but I wasn’t expected,’ he said. ‘Another time maybe I might see something.’

  ‘You mean you believe that there’s no ghost, only Spurstow? If it is so, he’ll never dare to try to hoax you – not when he knows you weren’t afraid to walk all round the house in the middle of the night! What are you hoping to do? To find if smugglers do use the Dower House, or to lay the ghost?’

  ‘Well, I’d like to do that,’ he answered.

  ‘To be sure! Miss Melkinthorpe would wish it laid, of course!’

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Hugo, taken off his guard.

  She opened her eyes at him. ‘But, my dear cousin – ! Miss Amelia Melkinthorpe!’

  ‘Miss Amel –’ He broke off abruptly, and Anthea was glad to perceive that he had the grace to blush. ‘Oh! Her!’

  She said, in a shocked voice: ‘You cannot, surely, have forgotten her?’

  ‘Ay, but I had,’ he confessed, rubbing his nose. ‘I’m that road, you see: out of sight, out of mind!’

  Miss Darracott realized, with considerable indignation, that the Major had yielded once more to the promptings of his worser self, and said, somewhat ominously: ‘Indeed?’

  He nodded, meeting her smouldering gaze with one of his blandest looks. ‘Ay. Mind you, I wouldn’t forget a lass I’d formed a lasting passion for!’ He sighed. ‘The trouble is I mistook my own heart. Of course, she being so beautiful, it’s no wonder I was carried away.’

  ‘I should suppose her to have all Yorkshire at her feet,’ said Anthea. ‘I remember thinking, when you described her to me, that she must be the loveliest creature imaginable! Almost too lovely to be true, in fact. There is something so particularly ravishing about brown eyes, and black curls, isn’t there?’

  ‘Nay!’ he said reproachfully. ‘That was another one! Amelia’s got blue eyes, and golden curls.’

  She choked.

  ‘The thing is, she wouldn’t be the right kind of wife for me when I get to be a peer. She wouldn’t wish to leave Huddersfield, either – on account of her mother.’

  ‘Her mother,’ said Anthea encouragingly, ‘could come to live with you.’

  ‘No, that wouldn’t fit. She’s bedfast,’ explained the Major, ever-fertile.

  Anthea strove with herself.

  ‘Besides, we shouldn’t suit. And there’s no use thinking his lordship would take to her, because he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Surely, cousin, you cannot mean to jilt her?’ said Anthea, in accents of reprobation.

  ‘Nay, it wouldn’t be seemly,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll just have to dispose of her, as you might say.’

  ‘Good God! Murder her?’

  ‘There’s no need to be in a quake,’ he said reassuringly. ‘No one will ever know.’

  ‘If only – oh, if only I could do to you what I long to do!’ exclaimed Anthea. ‘If you were but a few inches shorter – !’

  He said hopefully: ‘Nay, don’t let that fatch you, love! It’ll be no trouble at all to lift you up: in fact, there’s nothing I’d like better!’

  Furiously blushing, she retorted: ‘I didn’t mean that I wished to kiss you!’

  He heaved a despondent sigh. ‘I was afraid you didn’t,’ he said, sadly shaking his head. ‘I was reet taken-aback, but I thought to myself: Come now, lad! She’d never raise your hopes only to cast you down! So –’

  ‘Cousin Hugo, you are outrageous!’ said Anthea, in a shaking voice.

  Horrified, he replied: ‘You’re reet; I am, love! I need someone to take me in hand, and that’s the truth! Of course, if Amelia had been a different sort of a lass – more after your style! – she’d have been just the one to undertake me, but –’

  ‘Cousin Hugo!’ interrupted Anthea, feeling that it was high time he was brought to book, ‘you may bamboozle everyone els