The Unknown Ajax Read online

  She ran him presently to earth in one of the smaller saloons, engaged in writing a soothing reply to his partner’s letter. ‘So here you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have been searching all over for you! You will please explain to me, at once, how Vincent came by this – this cock-and-bull story he has just told me!’

  He looked round, his pen in his hand, and said admiringly: ‘Eh, you do look pretty, love!’

  Since the flower-trimmed silk bonnet tied under her chin with a broad satin ribbon was of her own making, this tribute would, at any other time, have been very acceptable. At the present moment, however, she had no thought to spare for such frivolities, and retorted with asperity: ‘Never mind how I look! Vincent says – Hugo, it isn’t true, is it? You haven’t a large fortune, have you?’

  ‘Nay, lass!’ he said, in a tone of pained remonstrance. ‘I told you I had!’

  She gazed at him, flushed and horrified. ‘I thought you were funning! I never dreamed – ! Oh, how could you?’ she said passionately.

  He laid the pen down, and got up, and went towards her. ‘Oh, it was none of my doing!’ he assured her. ‘Granddad addled it, and, having no other chick or child, he just left it to me.’

  ‘Half a million pounds?’ she said, in tones of revulsion.

  ‘Something like that,’ he nodded.

  ‘Oh, how – how horrible!’ she uttered, putting out her hands to thrust him away.

  ‘Nay, love, I thought you’d be pleased!’ he expostulated.

  ‘Pleased?’

  ‘Of course I did! Why, you told me yourself you meant to marry a man of large fortune! Mind, I was a trifle shocked to find you were so mercenary, but –’

  ‘You knew very well I was joking you! I would never have said such a thing if I’d had the least notion– Oh, how abominable you are!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Now, how was I to know that? The way you stood there, telling me only a house in the best part of town would do for you, and saying I was sneck-drawn to be thinking of hiring one instead of buying it – well, I was fairly taken-aback!’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Then I marvel at it that you still wished to offer for me!’ she said, quite unable to refrain from retort.

  ‘Well,’ he confessed, looking sheepish. ‘I’d gone so far I couldn’t for the life of me see how to hedge off.’

  After a moment’s severe struggle with herself, Miss Darracott said bitterly: ‘I should have known better! I might have guessed you were only waiting for the chance to say something outrageous! Well, you can hedge off now, sir!’

  ‘It’s too late, lass,’ he said, with a heavy sigh. ‘I’d have everyone saying I’d conducted myself reet shabbily.’

  ‘That needn’t trouble you! I will engage to make it very plain to all that I refused your obliging offer! As for people saying you had behaved shabbily, what, pray, do you think they would say of me, if I married you? Cream-pot love is what they’d say! Vincent is doing so already! He – he thinks I knew the truth from the start, and – and set my cap at you, just because I wished to be wealthy! And I don’t!’ declared Miss Darracott, much agitated.

  Perceiving that she was having great difficulty in finding her handkerchief in the recesses of her reticule, the Major very kindly gave her his own. She took it, casting a wet but darkling glance at him, angrily dried her eyes, and informed him, in a slightly husky voice that she never cried but when she was enraged.

  ‘If ever I met such a naggy lass!’ observed the Major, recovering his handkerchief, and contriving, at the same time, to put his arm round her. ‘Now, don’t cry, love! We can soon set things to rights! How much money would you like to have?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd!’ begged Anthea, making a half-hearted effort to push him away. ‘What I should like is of no consequence whatsoever!’

  ‘Ay, but it is. It won’t do for me to get rid of my fortune without knowing how much of it you want me to keep,’ he said reasonably.

  ‘Get rid of it?’ She lifted her head to stare at him. ‘Would you – if I asked you to?’

  He smiled down at her. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be a particle of use to me if you didn’t marry me. The only thing that fatches me a trifle is that I’ve promised my grandfather to let him have what’s needed to set this place in order. Of course, I could make him a present of it, to play at ducks and rakes with, which I don’t doubt he would: but setting aside that it would drive me daft to see him doing it, if I’ve to step into his shoes one day it’ll be just as well if I’m able to stand the nonsense. Besides, I’ll have to support an establishment of my own – and it’s no use asking me to set you up in a weaver’s cottage, love, because there’s reason in all things, and I won’t do it! It would be well enough if I were a small man, but to be obliged to duck my head every time I went through the doorway wouldn’t suit me at all. What’s more,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I’d be bound to fill the place up more than you’d like.’

  ‘Are you never serious?’ asked Anthea despairingly.

  ‘I was trying to hit on a way out the difficulty,’ he explained, injured.

  ‘You were trying to make me laugh – and don’t waste your breath denying it!’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a laugh exactly,’ said the Major diffidently. ‘It’s more of a gurgle, if you know what I mean. Yes, that’s it!’

  ‘Any female who was so idiotish as to marry you would be driven to madness within one week!’ declared Anthea.

  ‘I know she would,’ he agreed. ‘That’s why I’ll not live in a cottage with you, love.’

  ‘Hugo, this is no laughing matter!’ she said. ‘I feel quite dreadfully about it!’

  ‘I can see you do, but why you should has me in a puzzle. If you’re nattered by what Vincent says –’

  ‘What Vincent says is what everyone else will say, or, at any rate, think!’ she interrupted. ‘I daresay I should myself. They’ll say I caught you before you’d had time to meet other, and far more eligible, females! Indeed, I shouldn’t wonder at it if they said you had been entrapped into marrying me – which is perfectly true, because Grandpapa sent for you with that end in view! Hugo, you might marry anyone! I think you should go to town, and – and look about you! At least no one could say then that you were allowed no opportunity to make your own choice.’

  ‘Nay, I can’t do that!’ he said hastily. ‘It would be downright foolhardy, and that’s something we Light Bobs don’t hold with. I’m not going next or nigh London till I’m safely wed.’

  ‘Now what are you going to say?’ asked Anthea, in a resigned tone.

  ‘I see I’ll have to make a clean breast of it,’ said the Major, with every sign of shamefaced reluctance. ‘The thing is, love, that my grandfather tells me that the instant I show my front in town I’ll have all the matchmaking mothers hunting me down. I wouldn’t know what to do, for I’m not accustomed to that sort of thing, never having had lures cast out to me before, besides being a bashful kind of a man. It wouldn’t be cousinly of you to abandon me. In fact,’ he added, rapidly developing a strong sense of ill-usage, ‘it would be reet cruel, seeing how I put myself in your hands, just as I was bid.’

  ‘I would give much to see you fleeing in terror from a matchmaking mother,’ remarked Anthea wistfully. ‘Or, indeed, from anyone. But as you are utterly brazen –’

  ‘Nay!’

  ‘…and much in need of a set-down –’

  ‘I’m not in need of that, lass, for I’m getting one,’ he interpolated ruefully.

  ‘No, no! – At least– Oh, dear, I daresay it sounds foolish to you, and I know I told you I was mercenary, but I’m not Hugo! Only think how it would appear to everyone! As though I had been determined before ever I saw you not to let your odious fortune slip through my hands!’

  He patted her consolingly. ‘You needn’t worry about that, love. When people see you wearing the same bonnet for year