The Unknown Ajax Read online

  The first of the guests to arrive were Mr Matthew Darracott and Lady Aurelia. They came in their own travelling-carriage, drawn by a single pair of horses; and they reached Darracott Place shortly after noon, having left town the day before, and rested for the night at Tonbridge.

  Of my lord’s four sons, Matthew, the third, was the one who had caused him the least trouble and expense. His youthful peccadilloes had been of a venial nature, committed either in emulation of his elder brothers, or at their instigation. He had been the first to marry; and from the day that he led Lady Aurelia Holt to the altar his career had been at once blameless and successful. It had been a very good match, for although Lady Aurelia was not beautiful her fortune was respectable, and her connections excellent. She had also a forceful personality, and it was not long before Matthew, weaned from the Whiggish heresies in which he had been reared, found himself (under the aegis of his father-in-law) with his foot firmly set on the first rung of the political ladder. His progress thereafter had been steady; and although it seemed unlikely that he would ever achieve the topmost rungs of the ladder it was only during the brief reign of ‘All the Talents’ that he was out of office; and although there were those who did not scruple to stigmatize his continued employment as jobbery, no one could deny that he discharged his duties with painstaking honesty.

  His political apostasy notwithstanding, it might have been expected that so worthy a son would have occupied the chief place in his father’s affection. Unfortunately Lord Darracott was bored by virtue, and contemptuous of those whom he could bully. Matthew had always been the meekest of his sons, and although his marriage had rendered him to some extent independent of his father, he still accorded him a sort of nervous respect, obeying his periodic and imperious summonses with anxious promptitude, and saying yes and amen to his lordship’s every utterance. His reward for this filial piety was to be freely apostrophized as a pudding-heart, with no more pluck in him than a dunghill cock. Since his conduct was largely governed by the precepts of his masterful and rigidly correct wife, my lord was able to add, with perfect truth, that he lived under the sign of the cat’s foot.

  What Lady Aurelia thought of my lord no one knew, for she had been reared in the belief that the head of a family was entitled to every observance of civility. So far as outward appearances went, she was a dutiful daughter-in-law, neither arguing with his lordship, nor encouraging Matthew to rebel against his autocratic commands. Simple-minded persons, such as Mrs Rupert Darracott, were continually astonished by Matthew’s divergence, on all important issues, from his father’s known prejudices; but Lord Darracott was not a simple-minded person, and he was well-aware that however politely Lady Aurelia might defer to him it would be her dictates Matthew would obey in major matters. In consequence, he held her in equal respect and dislike, and never lost an opportunity to plant what he hoped would be a barb in her flesh.

  According to Granville, whose own son had found little favour in his grandfather’s eyes, it was with this amiable intention that my lord encouraged Vincent in a career which his parents were known to think ruinous. More charitable persons suspected that in Vincent my lord saw a reflection of his own youth; but, as Granville once bitterly remarked, it was strange, if that were so, that my lord’s feeling for him fell far short of the doting fondness he lavished on Richmond.

  It must have been apparent to the most casual observer that Matthew Darracott was labouring under a strong sense of ill-usage. He was rather a stout man, not quite as tall as his father, or any of his brothers, and with a chubby countenance. When he was pleased he looked what nature had intended him to be: a placid man with a kindly, easy-going disposition; but when harassed his expression changed to one of peevishness, a frown dragging his brows together, and a pronounced pout giving him very much the look of a thwarted baby.

  As he climbed down from the carriage, he saw that Chollacombe was waiting by the open door of the house. Leaving James, the footman, to assist Lady Aurelia to alight, he trod up the shallow terrace-steps, exclaiming: ‘This is a damned thing, Chollacombe! Where’s my father?’

  ‘His lordship went out with Mr Richmond, sir, and is not yet come in,’ replied the butler.

  ‘Has that fellow – I don’t know what he calls himself! – Has he arrived here?’

  ‘No, sir. You are the first to arrive. As you no doubt know, Mr Matthew, we are expecting Mr Vincent and Mr Claud also, but –’

  ‘Oh, them!’ said Matthew, dismissing his sons with an impatient shrug.

  By this time he had been joined by his wife. She never reproved him in public, and she did not now so much as glance at him, but said majestically: ‘Good-day, Chollacombe. I hope I see you well?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, my lady. Mrs Darracott is in the Green Saloon, I fancy. Perhaps your ladyship would –’

  He broke off, for at that moment Mrs Darracott came hurrying across the hall. ‘Oh, Matthew! My dear Aurelia! How glad I am to see you! I did not expect you would be so early – but so delightful!’

  ‘We lay at Tonbridge,’ said Lady Aurelia, presenting her cheek to her sister-in-law. ‘I do not care to travel above thirty or forty miles at a stretch: it does not agree with my constitution.’

  ‘No, it is very disagreeable!’ agreed Mrs Darracott. ‘The road from Tonbridge, too, is so horridly rough! I am sure –’

  ‘Elvira!’ interrupted Matthew, thrusting his hat into James’s hand, ‘what do you know about this appalling business?’

  ‘Oh, my dear Matthew, nothing! That is, only – But won’t you come into the Green Saloon? Unless you would wish to take off your bonnet and pelisse, Aurelia? I will take you upstairs – not that there is any need to escort you, for you must feel yourself to be quite as much at home as I am.’

  This, however, her ladyship disclaimed, saying graciously that she considered herself a guest in the house, her sister-in-law being its unquestionable mistress. Mrs Darracott, though privately thinking that there was a good deal of question about it, accepted this, and the two ladies went upstairs, leaving Matthew to get what information he could from Chollacombe. But as the butler knew very little more than he did, the only tidings he was able to glean were that the heir was not expected to arrive until the following day, and that my lord was (if Chollacombe might venture to say so) a trifle out of humour.

  ‘Ay, I’ll be bound he is!’ said Matthew. ‘Well, it is enough to put a saint out of temper! What’s more, I shouldn’t wonder at it if the fellow’s an impostor!’

  Chollacombe thought it prudent to return no answer to this; so, after fidgeting about the hall for a few moments, Matthew took himself off, saying that if my lord was out riding with Mr Richmond he might as well go down to the stables to meet him on his return.

  In the event, he reached the main stableyard to find that his father had already returned, and in time to see the two sturdy coach-horses being taken out of the shafts of Matthew’s travelling-carriage. He himself was bestriding a neatish bay cover-hack, but Richmond, as his uncle resentfully perceived, had just dismounted from the back of a high-bred hunter which had probably cost my lord anything from three to five hundred guineas.

  ‘So you’ve arrived, have you?’ said my lord, by way of paternal greeting. ‘I might have known this paltry turn-out was yours! What did you give for that pair of commoners?’

  ‘I don’t recall – but they are not commoners, sir! Pure-bred Welsh, I assure you!’ responded Matthew, nettled.

  ‘Cleveland machiners!’ said his lordship, with a bark of sardonic mirth. ‘You’ve been burnt, my boy! If ever I knew such a slow-top!’ He pointed his whip at Richmond’s hunter. ‘Now, there’s a horse of the right stamp! Breed in every inch of him, perfect fencer, flying or standing!’

  ‘Hardly the right stamp for carriage-work, sir!’ said Matthew. ‘A goodlooking horse, however, and carries a good head.’ He held out his hand to Richmond, adding kindly: ‘Well, my bo