The Unknown Ajax Read online

  Stunned by this disclosure, it was several moments before his lordship was able to command his voice enough to utter: ‘A man of substance?’

  ‘Ay, he was well to pass,’ replied the Major. ‘You might say that he addled a mort of brass in his day, tewing and toiling – which he did to the end, think on! It wasn’t often you wouldn’t have found him at the mill, wearing his brat, even when he’d got to be one of the stiffest men in the whole of the West Riding. His brass wasn’t come-by easily, either,’ he added. ‘It was make and scrape with him before he’d addled enough to get agate – not that he was what we call sneck-drawn, in the north. It was just that he knew how to hold household, like any good Yorkshireman.’ He paused, perceiving that my lord was staring at him in mingled incredulity and wrath, and added, in a tone of kindly explanation: ‘That wasn’t the way he made his fortune, of course: it was only the start of it. He was flue-full of mother-wit: the longestheaded man I ever knew, and with a longsight to match it, what’s more! Fly shuttles were invented before he was born, of course, but it wasn’t until he was five years old that the first of the power-looms was put into use – and precious few liking it overly much! He saw it when he was a piecener himself: he told me once that that was the start of his life. Seemingly, he had never any other notion in his head from that time on but what was tied up with machines. He was one of the first to buy Cartwright’s loom – not the one they use now: that didn’t come till a matter of a dozen years later; but a queer old machine you’d think even-down antiquated today. All that was long before I was born or thought of: by the time I was out of short coats such things weren’t considered newfangled any more, and the mill, which the better part of Huddersfield said Granddad had run mad to build, was doing fine!’ He smiled, and said apologetically: ‘Nay, I might as well talk Spanish to you, sir, mightn’t I?’ His smile broadened to a grin. ‘And if any wool-man could hear me explaining the trade to you he’d laugh himself into stitches, think on! You could floor me with any one of a dozen questions, for all I know is little more than I picked up, running about the mill when my grandfather’s back was turned. The thing was that in the old days there was no such thing as a mill, where the packs went in at one door, as you might say, and came out of another as cloths – serges, kerseymeres, freizes, and the like. Cartwright set up a factory in Doncaster, where weaving and spinning both were done; but Granddad went one better nor that – levelling at the moon, they used to say – until they saw that old, ramshackle mill growing and growing! Today, the name of Bray is known to the trade the world over.’

  This intelligence did not appear to afford Lord Darracott the smallest gratification. He said, in the voice of one goaded to exasperation: ‘I know nothing about mills, and care less! Answer me this, sir! Is it true, what your uncle writes me – that you inherited a fortune from Bray?’

  ‘Well,’ replied the Major cautiously, ‘I don’t know just what you’d call a fortune, sir. I’d say myself I was pretty well-inlaid.’

  ‘Don’t come any niffy-naffy, shabby-genteel airs over me!’ barked his lordship. ‘Tell me without any damned round-aboutation how much you’re worth!’

  The Major rubbed his nose. ‘Nay, that’s what I can’t do!’ he confessed.

  ‘You can’t, eh? I guessed as much! Trust Matthew to exaggerate out of all recognition! Why can’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know myself, sir,’ said Hugo, making a clean breast of it.

  ‘What the devil do you mean by that, idiot?’ demanded his lordship. ‘Presumably you know what your grandfather left you!’

  ‘Oh, I know what his private fortune was, reet enough!’ said Hugo. ‘It’s invested mostly in the Funds, and brings in between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds a year; but that’s not the whole of it. I’ve a sizeable share in the mill over and above that. I can’t tell you what that may be worth to me. Times have been bad lately, what with Luddite riots, and the depression that followed close on the Peace. The harvests were bad last year, too: my uncle Jonas Henry wrote me that in Yorkshire wheat rose to above a guinea the bushel. However, things seem to be on the mend now, so –’

  ‘Are you telling me that Bray cut up to the tune of half a million?’ said my lord, in a strange voice.

  ‘It would be about that figure – apart from the mill,’ Hugo agreed.

  Lord Darracott was shaken by a sudden gust of rage: ‘How dared you, sir, deceive me?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Nay then! I never did so,’ Hugo reminded him. ‘It was in this very room that I told you I’d plenty of brass.’

  ‘I remember! I supposed you to be referring to prize-money – as you knew!’

  Hugo smiled down at him. ‘And I told you that my other grandfather had left his brass to me. You said I might do what I pleased with my granddad’s savings, but that you wanted to hear no more of them or him. So I didn’t tell you any more, for, to own the truth, sir, I was better suited, at that time, to keep my tongue between my teeth until I’d had time to look about me. What’s more,’ he added reminiscently, ‘I wasn’t ettling to remain here above a sennight – particularly when you told me you had it all settled I was to wed my cousin Anthea. Eh, it was a wonder I didn’t take to my heels there and then!’

  Lord Darracott stared at him, his lips tightly gripped together, and his eyes smouldering. He did not speak, but after a moment went to the wing-chair on one side of the fireplace, and sat down, his hands grasping its arms. The Major sat down too, saying: ‘Happen it’s as well my uncle wrote to you, for it’s time we reached an understanding. It chances that I’d a letter myself by today’s post, from Uncle Jonas Henry.’ He chuckled. ‘Seemingly he’s as throng as he can be, and a trifle hackled with me for loitering here. I shall have to post off to Huddersfield next week, sir – and a bear-garden jaw I’ll get when I arrive there, if I know Jonas Henry!’

  Lord Darracott said, with an effort: ‘Have the goodness to tell me whether you mean to return, or to stay there!’

  ‘Nay, that’s for you to say, sir.’

  The fierce old eyes flashed. ‘It appears I have no hold over you!’

  The Major considered him, not unsympathetically. ‘Well, that’s true enough, of course, but don’t fatch yourself over it, sir! If you’re thinking of the brass, I’ll tell you to your head it makes no difference: you’d have had no hold over me any road. But all the brass in the world wouldn’t help me to cross this threshold if you didn’t choose to let me.’

  His lordship gave a contemptuous snort of unmirthful laughter, but said in a milder tone: ‘Well, what do you mean to do?’

  ‘Unless you dislike it, I’d choose, once I’ve settled my affairs, and talked things over with Jonas Henry – I’m by way of being his sleeping partner, you see – to come back. I’d be very well suited if you’d let me have the Dower House. That’s assuming you wish me to take up my quarters here. If not – well, there’s my grandfather’s house above Huddersfield, or I might buy a house in the Shires, perhaps. Time enough to decide what I’ll do – and maybe it won’t be for me to decide, either.’

  Lord Darracott looked intently at him. ‘Am I to understand you mean to marry Anthea?’

  ‘If she’ll have me,’ said the Major simply.

  ‘She should be flattered! In these hurly-burly times I don’t doubt your fortune will make you acceptable to any female. I dare swear every matchmaking mother in town will cast out lures to you: you have only to throw the handkerchief,’ said my lord sardonically.

  ‘Well, as I’m doing no throwing of handkerchiefs we’ll never know if you’re right. Myself, I shouldn’t think it, but there’s no sense in breaking squares over what won’t come to pass. If my cousin won’t have me – eh, that doesn’t bear thinking about!’

  ‘H’m! You seem to have become wondrous great with her!’ remarked his lordship. ‘Does she know what your circumstances are?’

  ‘Well, I told her, but she didn’t believe a