The Unknown Ajax Read online

  ‘I’ll have no such infernal foppery in my house!’ declared his lordship. ‘Good God, that any grandson of mine should find nothing better to do than to spend his time thinking what extravagant folly he can next commit!’

  ‘My dear sir, you are blaming the innocent!’ said Vincent. ‘The guilty person is Thingwall: the Trig-and-Trim dandy, you know. That’s one of his tricks. It is the tragedy of Claud’s life that he has never yet been able to hit upon a new quirk of fashion, but is always obliged to copy other men.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t sneer!’ retorted Claud, flushing. ‘You only started driving pickaxe in the Park because Brading did so!’

  ‘Not at all, brother. Brading followed my lead.’

  ‘That’s enough, that’s enough!’ interposed Matthew, removing the snuff-jar from Claud’s reach, and pushing it towards Hugo. ‘Help yourself, if you like this sort!’

  ‘Nay, I don’t take it,’ Hugo said. ‘I’d rather blow a cloud, which is a habit I got into in Spain.’

  ‘It is not a habit you will indulge in here!’ said Lord Darracott. ‘Smoking is a filthy and a disgusting misuse of tobacco: intolerable!’

  ‘Well, I was never one to beat squares,’ said Hugo equably. ‘I’ll smoke my cigars in the garden, and that road we won’t fratch.’

  ‘Won’t do what?’ asked Claud, interested.

  ‘Fratch – quarrel! It’s what we say in Yorkshire,’ explained Hugo.

  ‘Possibly not in the first circles, however, so don’t copy it, Claud,’ said Vincent coldly. ‘Permit me to point out to you, cousin, that you are chased.’

  Hugo, finding the port at his elbow, begged pardon, filled his glass, and passed the decanter on, his demeanour one of unruffled amiability.

  Five

  Breakfast at Darracott Place was not served until eleven o’clock, early risers being obliged to sustain nature until that hour on a cup of chocolate and a slice of bread-and-butter, brought to their bedchambers. The custom was not an unusual one; in many country houses of ton noon was the appointed hour for the first meal of the day; but to a soldier, accustomed to much earlier hours, it was both strange and unacceptable. Major Darracott, awaking betimes from a night of untroubled repose, thrust back the curtains that shrouded the four-poster in which he lay, and pulled his watch from under the pillows. The tidings it conveyed were unwelcome enough to make him utter a despairing groan, and sink back, resolutely closing his eyes in an attempt to recapture sleep. After spending half-an-hour in this barren endeavour, he abandoned it, linked his hands under his head, and lay for a time with his eyes fixed abstractedly on the line of light seeping through the join of the curtains drawn across the windows, and his mind roving over the events of the previous evening. What he thought of them no spy could have guessed, for even in solitude his countenance afforded no clue to whatever thoughts might be revolving behind the blankness of his eyes. There was something rather bovine about its immobility: Vincent had already told his grandfather that he lived in momentary expectation of seeing his ox-like cousin chew the cud.

  It had been a daunting evening, judged by any standards. When the gentlemen had risen from the dining-table, Vincent had challenged Richmond to a game of billiards, and Richmond, instantly accepting the challenge, had gone off with him, his quick flush betraying his gratification. The rest of the male company had gone upstairs to join the ladies in the long drawing-room, his lordship having apparently decided that even an evening spent amongst females was preferable to one spent alone, or closeted with his son in the library. Only two females were discovered in the drawing-room. Mrs Darracott, inviting Hugo to a chair beside her own, explained, a little nervously, that Anthea had the head-ache, and had gone to bed. It seemed for an instant as though my lord would have uttered some blistering censure, but although his brow was black he refrained, with what was plainly an effort, from making any comment. Seating himself in a wing-chair, he fell into conversation with his son, while Lady Aurelia, who had abandoned her tatting for some tapestry-work, handed Claud a tangle of coloured wools, and desired him, with much the air of one providing a child with a simple puzzle, to unravel the various strands. He was perfectly ready to oblige her, and even, having subjected her work to a critical scrutiny, to offer her some very good advice on the accomplishment of the design.

  Mrs Darracott, meanwhile, was doing what lay within her power to make Hugo feel at home, considerably hampered by the knowledge that his lordship, lending only half an ear to Matthew, was listening to all that was said.

  What my lord had learned by this means had not been very much, but one piece of information he had gleaned which had put him into a better temper: Hugo seemed to have no maternal relations living – or, at all events, none of whom he took account. His grandfather, he told Mrs Darracott, in reply to her sympathetic question, had been dead for several years; he supposed, rather vaguely, that there were those who could call cousins with him, but the connection must of necessity be remote. No, he didn’t think he had ever met them; the only member of his mother’s family whom he remembered was Great-aunt Susan, who had been used to live with them when he was a child. She had been a spinster, but he thought Grandfather had had other sisters.

  Lord Darracott was so much cheered by this that he had presently asked Hugo if he played chess. Upon Hugo’s replying doubtfully that he knew what the moves were but hadn’t played since he was a boy, he had said bluntly: ‘You couldn’t give me a game, then. What can you play? Piquet? Backgammon?’

  ‘Ay, or whist,’ offered Hugo.

  ‘Play whist, do you?’ said his lordship. ‘Very well, I’ll try you in a rubber or two. Aurelia, you won’t object to making up a table? Ring the bell, Hugh!’

  The Major, with an uneasy apprehension that the form of whist played by a number of generally impecunious young officers belonging to a regiment that boasted very few bucks and blades of Society was likely to fall considerably short of his lordship’s standard, tried to draw back from the engagement; but his suggestion that he should watch, while Mrs Darracott, or Claud, took his place, found no favour at all. His lordship said that Mrs Darracott was fit for nothing but casino, and that he would be damned if he played with Claud, who had no head for cards, or, indeed, anything else. So Hugo had been obliged to take his seat at the card-table, with his grandfather for partner. They played only for chicken-stakes, and it was not long before Hugo found that his apprehension had been well-grounded. He was forced to endure many sharp scolds for stupidity; and later, when the billiard-players came into the drawing-room, the severe imposition of having his hand overlooked by Vincent. He seized the earliest opportunity of relinquishing his seat to Vincent. No opposition had been raised, my lord merely saying ‘Well, you’re no card-player!’ and recommending him to watch his cousin’s play. He had preferred, however, to slip away when my lord’s attention was devoted to the play of a difficult hand, and to enjoy the solace of one of his cigars on the terrace. Here he had presently been joined by Richmond. ‘I thought you had come out to blow a cloud!’ Richmond had said.

  ‘Now, if you’re framing to squeak beef on me – !’ he had responded.

  Richmond had chuckled. ‘You’d be in the suds, cousin! So would I be, if you were to squeak beef on me! Grandpapa thinks I’ve gone to bed. He wouldn’t like it above half if he knew– That is, he don’t want me to ask you about the war in the Peninsula, or– But never mind that! I wanted to tell you – you might not know – he – he doesn’t understand!’ He had raised his handsome young face, pallid in the moonlight, and had blurted out: ‘About the Light Division, I mean! He – he only thinks of the Guards, and the Cavalry! He may say – oh, I don’t know, but pray don’t take it amiss!’

  ‘Nay,’ Hugo had said reassuringly. ‘I won’t take it amiss! Why should I? I’ve nothing to say against the Gentlemen’s Sons, or the Cavalry either – some of ’em!’

  ‘No. Well, I wanted just to warn you!’ Ri