The Unknown Ajax Read online

  ‘Oh, have you changed your mind?’ asked Vincent, levelling his quizzing-glass at Anthea. A provocative smile curled his lip; he said silkily: ‘Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus, my sweet life?’

  Her eyes blazed, and Hugo, considerably surprised, intervened, saying in his deep, slow voice: ‘Nay then! Don’t fratch over me! I don’t know what I’m to carry, but I’m agreeable to be called an elephant: it won’t be for the first time! They call me Gog Darracott in the regiment, but when I was a lad it was more often tha great lump! There’s no need for any fuss and clart on my account: I’ve a broad back.’

  ‘It must at all events be acknowledged that you have an amiable temper,’ said Matthew, pushing back his chair. ‘You will excuse me, Elvira, if you please! I must go up to see how her ladyship does. She passed an indifferent night, and has the head-ache this morning.’

  Mrs Darracott replied suitably, and Matthew left the room. He was shortly followed by Lord Darracott, who went away, commanding Hugo not to keep him waiting. Hugh, who had just received his third cup of tea from Mrs Darracott, said that he would follow him when he had finished his breakfast, a reply which struck Claud as being so foolhardy that he was moved to utter an earnest warning. ‘Better go at once!’ he said. ‘No sense in putting him in a bad skin, coz! Very likely to regret it!’

  ‘Nay, what could he do to me?’ said Hugo, dropping sugar into his cup.

  ‘That you will discover,’ said Vincent dryly. ‘You will also discover the pains and penalties that attach to the position of heir.’

  ‘Happen I’ve discovered a few already,’ drawled Hugo.

  Claud coughed delicately. ‘Rather fancy you mean perhaps, coz!’

  ‘Ay, so I do!’ agreed Hugo. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’

  ‘The spectacle of Claud entering upon his new duties, though not unamusing, is not one which I can support at this hour of the day,’ said Vincent. ‘Do you mind postponing any further tuition until I have withdrawn from the room?’

  ‘Ah!’ retorted Claud, with an odious smirk. ‘You’re piqued because m’grandfather didn’t ask you to hint Hugh into the proper mode!’

  This quite failed to ruffle Vincent. ‘He did,’ he answered. ‘I was persuaded, however, that it would prove to be a task beyond my poor power, and declined the office.’ He saw that, while his target remained unmoved, Richmond was looking at him with a troubled frown between his eyes. He smiled slightly at the boy, and said, as he rose from the table: ‘What I am going to do is to teach Richmond how to point his leaders.’

  Richmond had been shocked by Vincent’s conduct, but this was an invitation not to be resisted. His brow cleared; he jumped up, exclaiming: ‘No! Do you mean it? You’re not hoaxing me, are you?’

  ‘No, but perhaps I should have said I mean to try to teach you.’

  ‘Brute!’ Richmond said, laughing. He thought he saw how to turn this cut to good account, and said ingenuously: ‘Vincent is always out of reason cross before breakfast, Cousin Hugo! Snaps all our noses off!’

  ‘Well, if you ask me,’ said Claud, as soon as the door was shut again, ‘he’s got a devilish nasty tongue in his head any hour of the day! Takes after the old gentleman.’ He looked at his large cousin, and shook his head. ‘You may think it’s a fine thing to be the heir: got a strong notion m’father liked it pretty well, too. All I can say is, I’m dashed glad I’m not. Y’know, coz, if you’ve finished your tea, I’d as lief you went off to see what m’grandfather wants. There’s no saying but what he may blame me for it if you keep him waiting.’

  Thus adjured, Hugh went in search of Lord Darracott, and found him (after peeping into three empty saloons) seated at his desk in the library. There was a pen in his hand, but the ink had dried on it, and he was staring absently out of the big bay window. He turned his head when he heard the door open, and said: ‘Oh, so here you are! Shut the door, and come over here! You can take that chair, if it will bear you!’

  It creaked, but gave no sign of immediate collapse under Hugo’s weight, so he disposed himself comfortably in it, crossed one booted leg over the other, and awaited his grandfather’s pleasure with every outward semblance of placidity.

  For several moments his lordship said nothing; but sat looking at him morosely. ‘You don’t favour your father!’ he said at last.

  ‘No,’ agreed the Major.

  ‘Well, I daresay you’re none the worse for that! You are his son: there’s no doubt about it!’ He put down his pen, and pushed aside the papers on his desk, something in the gesture seeming to indicate that with them he was pushing aside his memories. ‘Got to make the best of it!’ he said. ‘When I’m booked, you’ll step into my shoes. I don’t mean to wrap up in clean linen, and I’ll tell you to your head that that’s not what I wanted, or ever dreamed would come to pass!’

  ‘No,’ said the Major again, sympathetically. ‘It’s been a facer to the both of us.’

  Lord Darracott stared at him. ‘A facer for me, but a honey-fall for you, young man!’

  The Major preserved a stolid silence.

  ‘And don’t tell me you’d as lief not step into your uncle’s shoes!’ said Lord Darracott. ‘You’ll find me a hard man to bridge, so cut no wheedles for my edification!’ He paused, but the Major still had nothing to say. His lordship gave a short laugh. ‘If you thought you’d turn me up sweet by writing that flim-flam to Lissett you mistook your man! I detest maw-worms, and that’s what you sounded like to me! I do you the justice to say you haven’t the look of a maw-worm, so maybe it was your notion of civility. Let me have no more of it!’ He waited again for any answer the Major might like to make, but, getting none, snapped: ‘Well, have you a tongue in your head?’

  ‘I have,’ responded Hugo, ‘but I was never one to give my head for washing.’

  ‘You’re not such a fool as you look,’ commented his lordship. ‘Whether you’ve enough sense to learn what every other Darracott has known from the cradle we shall see. That’s why I sent for you.’

  ‘It’s why I came, think on,’ said Hugo reflectively. ‘My father being killed almost before I was out of long coats, there was no one to tell me anything about my family, and barring I’d a lord for grandfather I didn’t know anything.’

  ‘You’re blaming me, are you? Very well! If I had known that there would ever have been the smallest need for you to know anything about me, or mine, I should have sent for you when your father died, and had you reared under my eye.’

  ‘Happen my mother would have had something to say to that,’ remarked Hugo.

  ‘There’s nothing to be gained by discussing the matter now. When your father married against my wish he cut himself off from his family. I don’t scruple to tell you, for you must be well aware of it, that in marrying a weaver’s daughter – however virtuous she may have been! – he did what he knew must ruin him with me!’

  ‘Ay, they were pluck to the backbone, the pair of ’em,’ nodded Hugo. ‘What with you on the one hand, and Granddad on t’other, they must have had good bottom, seemingly.’ He smiled affably upon his lordship. ‘I never heard that they regretted it, though Granddad always held to it that no good would come of the match. Like to like and Nan to Nicholas was his motto.’

  ‘Are you telling me, sir, that the fellow objected to his daughter’s marrying my son?’ demanded Lord Darracott.

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t at all suited with it!’ replied Hugo. ‘Let alone my father was Quality-make, he was too much of a care-for-nobody for Granddad: caper-witted, he called him. Shutful with his brass, too, which used to put Granddad, by what I’m told, into a rare passion. But Granddad’s bark was worse than his bite, and he came round to the marriage in the end. It’s a pity you never met him: you’d have agreed together better nor you think.’

  Lord Darracott, almost stunned, sought in vain for words with which to dispel this illusion. Before he could find them, Hugo had ad