The Unknown Ajax

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Will you hold your tongue?” said his lordship violently.

  “It goes against the grain with me to agree with Claud,” drawled Vincent, “but honesty compels me to own that there is much in what he says, sir.”

  “So you’re in this, are you?” said his lordship, dangerously. “What the devil do you imagine it has to do with you?”

  “Nothing at all, sir: I am merely curious. Forgive me if the question is impertinent, but have you any other reason than Richmond’s supposed sickliness for holding a military career in abhorrence?”

  “One of them should be obvious to you!” flashed his lordship. “I had a son who embraced a military career!”

  “Well, if that don’t cap the globe!” gasped Claud. “No, dash it, sir—!”

  “Nay, I’ve a broad back! Sneck up!” said Hugo, rather amused.

  “Really, I had no intention of being so maladroit!” sighed Vincent. “I fancy—but I am wretchedly ignorant on the subject of military customs!—that it is seldom that junior officers ally themselves with the daughters of—er—wealthy mill owners.” He smiled wryly at his grandfather. “Now, don’t, I implore you, sir, put me under the obligation of apologizing to Hugo for drawing down your fire upon his head, for I should dislike it excessively! Is it permissible to ask what you do mean to do with Richmond?”

  “No! Nor need you trouble yourself over the boy!” said his lordship curtly. “I’ll take care of his future!”

  “I am sure you will,” said Vincent. “But the thought that he might perhaps—er—take care of it himself, does just faintly occur to me.”

  “Richmond is under age! By the time he’s twenty-one he will have forgotten he ever so much as thought of the army! Depend upon it, it’s nothing more than a trumpery, boy’s wish to peacock about in a jack-a-dandy Hussar regiment! I knew that as soon as he blurted out that it was a Hussar regiment he had in his mind. Well, I’m not squandering a thousand pounds, or whatever the sum is, on a cornetcy which the silly boy would wish to God he’d never asked me for by the time he’d spent a month in the army!”

  “It would be very expensive,” agreed Vincent. “We have one amongst us, however, so full of—er—juice, as to be able to stand the nonsense, if he chose to do it.” He turned his head to survey Hugo. “Would you choose to do it?” he enquired.

  It was not the moment Hugo would have selected for the broaching of so ticklish a subject, but he nodded. The result was much what he had foreseen. Lord Darracott’s wrath boiled over. It was to Hugo that he addressed himself, but so menacing was his mien, and so unbridled his tongue, that Claud, fearful that he might become the next target, edged his way to the door and, opening it with great stealth, made good his escape.

  Hugo, reminding Vincent irresistibly of a rock battered by the waves, waited, with an unmoved countenance, for his lordship’s eloquence to expend itself. All he said, at the end of a comprehensive denunciation, was: “Well, it wouldn’t be seemly if I were to start a flight with you, sir, so happen I’d best say goodnight! I’d buy a cornetcy for Richmond tomorrow, if I were his guardian, but as I’m not there’s no reason that I can see why you should be at the housetop.” He then smiled amiably upon his seething grandsire, nodded to Vincent, and went unhurriedly out of the room.

  Lord Darracott, exhausted by his passion, remained silent for several minutes, leaning back in his chair; but presently, as his breathing grew steadier, he turned his head to look at Vincent, still seated at his graceful ease on the sofa. “Since you’ve elected to remain here, you may tell me, you treacherous young hound, what the devil you meant by turning against me!” he said, in a rather spent voice. “How dared you, sir?”

  “My dear sir, I have numerous vices, but no one has yet accused me of running shy!” replied Vincent coolly. “Nor have I turned against you. Far from it, in fact!”

  “Don’t lie to me! You know very well what my sentiments are on that subject! Why did you encourage that—that upstart to think his damned fortune gave him the right to meddle with Richmond?”

  “I was maladroit, wasn’t I? I can only set it down to inexperience: I can’t recall that I ever before attempted to play the role of disinterested benevolence. I own I made sad work of it, but do acquit me, sir, of encouraging the elephant Ajax! My opinion of his intellect is not high, but he is not so blockish as to suppose that it is within his power to meddle with Richmond’s future.”

  “So you were being benevolent, were you?” said his lordship, on a jeering note. “And since when have you cared the snap of your fingers for Richmond’s future?”

  A slight frown appeared between Vincent’s brows. “I don’t know that I do care for it, sir. I have a certain amount of affection for him, but, I confess, it wouldn’t prompt me to concern myself in his affairs if I could be perfectly sure that frustrating the only ambition he appears to have would not lead to trouble.”

  “Balderdash!” said his lordship impatiently. “What put that rubbishing notion into your head?”

  “It was put there by your damned upstart, and pray don’t imagine that I accepted it readily! No one is more violently irritated by him than I am, believe me, sir!”

  “I might have guessed it was he! Much he knows about it!”

  Vincent’s frown deepened. “Yes, that was more or less what I told him, but the disagreeable truth is that I have a reluctant suspicion that he may be right. He could scarcely have attained his present rank, one presumes, without acquiring considerable experience of striplings of Richmond’s age.”

  “He knows nothing whatsoever about Richmond, whatever he may know of any other boy! I should like to know what trouble he thinks could possibly befall my grandson!” said his lordship contemptuously. “Damme, I thought you’d more wit than to be nose-led by Hugh! I know his cut! I’d be willing to lay you any odds that his notion of trouble is the sort of scrape I don’t doubt Richmond will tumble into, just as you did, and I did, and every one of my sons did! It won’t worry me, but I haven’t any shabby-genteel moralities, as you may be sure he has! Damn his infernal impudence! I’ll have him know that Richmond’s a gentleman! Ay, and a grandson to be proud of, too! There’s not one of you that can match him for pluck, for he don’t know what fear is! He has the best disposition of any of you, too, and the best looks! Let me hear no more from you! Hugh to think he knows the boy better than I do—! By God, it passes the bounds of effrontery!”

  “Certainly,” said Vincent. “But I am afraid I have expressed myself inaccurately. It is only fair that I should tell you that Hugo cast no slur on Richmond’s character. The trouble he has in mind is the sort of dangerous—mischief—a green and headstrong boy might plunge into because he was bored, reckless—as we all know Richmond is!—and too much disappointed to care what risks he ran.” He glanced frowningly at Lord Darracott, and then lowered his eyes to the snuff box he was holding. “Rather a surprising youth, Richmond,” he said slowly. “I collect you didn’t know that he hasn’t by any means forgotten his ambition; I certainly didn’t, until I took him to watch that fight. I can only suppose that he was a trifle carried away, for he has never before favoured me with his confidence. I am quite sure he later regretted it, which makes me wonder how much any of us know about him.”

  “Well, don’t wonder any more!” said his lordship brusquely. “Why the devil should he confide in you? I know all I need to about him, and I’ll thank you to mind your own business!”

  Vincent shrugged, and got up. “As you wish, sir. I am clearly unequal to the rôle I so foolishly assumed, but I do hope it may be chalked up somewhere to my credit that I did at least attempt it.”

  “Oh, don’t talk such fustian!” exclaimed his lordship irritably. “Go away before I lose my patience with you!”

  “Consider me gone, sir!” Vincent replied.

  He went out of the room as he spoke, and walked slowly across the hall to the staircase. Before he had reached it, Hugh came into the house through the still unbolted main door. At sight of him, a
shade of annoyance came into Vincent’s eyes, but he said lightly: “Ah, still indulging your lamentable taste for cigars, I collect!” He hesitated, and then, as Hugo said nothing, added, with a wry grimace: “I am afraid, coz, that I did more harm than good—or, at any rate, that you think so!”

  “I do,” said Hugo, just a trifle grimly. “And I’m wondering which of the two it was that you meant to do.”

  “Strange as it may seem to you—it seems very strange to me!—my intentions were admirable. I actually had not the smallest desire to set you at outs with my grandfather, and even less to thrust a spoke into your wheel, which is what I can’t deny I have done.”

  “There’s little chance he’ll let Richmond go with me to Yorkshire, if that’s what you mean,” answered Hugo.

  “It is precisely what I mean. I perceive that I shall be obliged, after all, to offer you an apology.”

  “Nay, I’ll make shift to do without it. Will you keep your eye on that lad while I’m away?” said Hugo bluntly.

  “Yes, coz, I will—if only to prove you wrong in your suspicion! By the way, I wouldn’t, if I were you, mention it to my grandfather!”

  “That’s the last thing I’ll do!” said Hugo.

  “Very prudent! Goodnight!” said Vincent, beginning to mount the stairway. At the first landing, he paused, and looked down at Hugo, saying smoothly: “I wonder how it was that we contrived, before your arrival, to rub along tolerably well, and certainly without falling into disaster? I must confess myself to be wholly at a stand to account for it.”

  “Well, that’s something that has me in a puzzle too!” retorted Hugo, a sudden grin putting the unusual gravity of his countenance to flight.

  Vincent raised his brows in faint surprise. “Your trick, cousin!” he acknowledged, and went on up the stairs.

  By the time a somewhat depleted breakfast-party met next morning, everyone at Darracott Place knew that the previous day had ended with a Scene of no common order, for those, like Richmond, whose rooms were so remote from the library as to put them out of the reach of even such a powerful voice as Lord Darracott’s had the pleasing intelligence conveyed to them with their cups of chocolate and cans of hot water. Mrs. Darracott, whose room was situated immediately above the library, carried the news to Lady Aurelia, together with a moving description of the nervous spasms which had subsequently made it impossible for her to close her eyes all night. Her appearance bore such eloquent testimony in support of her story that Lady Aurelia, though herself made of sterner stuff, said kindly: “Very disagreeable!”

  “No one seems to know what provoked Lord Darracott, but my woman had it from Charles that Hugo slammed out of the house in a terrible rage—though that I do not believe, because I must have heard the door slam had he done so, and in any event Chollacombe told me himself that Hugo merely went out to smoke a cigar, which he always does—not that I knew it, and I own I wish he would not, for I cannot like smoking, even if it’s dear Hugo! However, that has nothing to do with it, and for my part I don’t believe that Hugo was in a rage, for there was never a sweeter-tempered, more truly amiable creature born, and when one considers—but I shall not speak of that, for I am sure we have talked it over often enough, and enter into each other’s sentiments exactly! But what makes me quite ill with apprehension, Aurelia, is that there seems to be no doubt at all that it was Hugo Lord Darracott quarrelled with! But why? What, I ask you, can Hugo possibly have done or said to provoke my lord? There were just the three of them; when we had gone up to bed, and it can’t have been Claud, because James told Mrs. Flitwick that he came out of the library long before the end of the quarrel; and it can’t have been Vincent, because he stayed with my lord, after Hugo had left the room, and after my lord stopped shouting. So it must have been dear Hugo! And what utterly sinks my spirits is that my woman met Grooby coming away from Lord Darracott’s room this morning, and knew, the instant she set eyes on him, that things are as bad as they could possibly be, instead of having blown over, as very often they do, and my lord in the worst of humours! So I sent for some coffee, and a slice of bread-and-butter, to my bed-chamber, not that I could swallow a morsel, for nothing will prevail upon me to go down to the breakfast-room while everyone is at outs! But,”concluded the widow, with sudden resolution, “if Lord Darracott has dared to endanger my only daughter’s happiness, he will have Me to reckon with, for where my children are concerned I can be as brave as a Lioness, Aurelia, even at the breakfast-table!”

  Lady Aurelia, whose invariable custom it was to partake of a far more substantial breakfast in bed, saw nothing to object to in this, and nodded her head. After considering the matter she pronounced, in a very regal way: “I will see Claud.”

  But Claud, summoned to his august parent’s room before he had finished dressing, was far too peevish to be of any material assistance. Attired in a dressing-gown of rich silk, he was much more concerned with the style of neckcloth most proper to be worn with a frock-coat, and a daring waistcoat of Polyphant’s design, than with a quarrel from which he had managed to escape, and only wished to forget. He was inclined to be indignant with his mother for having sent for him on frivolous grounds; and, finding that she was determined to get to the bottom of what seemed to him a very trivial affair, extricated himself without hesitation or compunction by advising her to apply to Vincent for information, since he was the instigator of the quarrel. Before he could make good his retreat, however, he was incensed and appalled by a command to go immediately to Vincent’s room, and to inform him that his mama desired to have speech with him before he went down to breakfast. Since it was the time-honoured practice of the brothers to sacrifice each other in such situations as now confronted Claud, it was not fear of Vincent’s wrath at finding himself betrayed which prompted Claud to despatch Polyphant on the errand, but the knowledge that not even a messenger bearing gifts of great price would meet with anything but the rudest of receptions from Vincent at this hour of the morning.

  The events of the previous evening having put Vincent in the worst of tempers, it was in anything but a propitious mood that he presently visited Lady Aurelia, nor did the measured speech with which she favoured him soften his humour. Her ladyship, disclaiming any desire either to know the gist of the quarrel, or to listen to excuses, informed him, without passion or waste of words, that if his cousin and his grandfather were set at loggerheads through his agency he would fall under her deepest displeasure. That, she said, was all she wished to say to him; and as Vincent was well-aware that her fortune, and not his father’s humbler portion, was the source of his own allowance, it was quite unnecessary for her to say more. Pale with anger, he bowed stiffly, and replied in a voice of ice: “I do not propose to burden you, ma’am, with an account of what occurred last night, nor can I deny that some unfortunate words of mine were the cause of my grandfather’s attack on my cousin. It was not, however, my intention to instigate a quarrel, as I trust I made plain to my cousin. I have only to add that you need be under no apprehension that my dislike of Hugo would, under any circumstances, prompt me to make mischief between him and my grandfather.”

  “Your character, Vincent, is in many ways unsatisfactory, but I have never found you untruthful,” said her ladyship. “I have no hesitation in accepting your assurance, therefore. Pray close the door carefully behind you! the catch is defective.”

  After this, it was not surprising that Vincent, instead of putting in an appearance at the breakfast-table, strode off to the stables, and worked off the worst of his spleen by riding at a slapping pace to Rye, where the George provided him with a belated but excellent breakfast.

  The breakfast-party at Darracott Place was thus reduced to four persons, Anthea having left the room before Claud entered it. Conversation did not flourish. Lord Darracott wore a forbidding scowl, and, beyond nodding curtly to Richmond, paid no attention to anyone; Richmond, as yet uninitiated into the cause of the quarrel, was looking anxious, and scarcely spoke; Claud, after one glance at his gran
dfather, confined his utterances to what was strictly necessary and Hugo, finding his companions disinclined for conversation, placidly consumed his customary and sustaining meal.

  It was not until he was about to rise from the table that Lord Darracott broke his silence. Addressing himself to Richmond, he demanded to know how long it was since he had visited his tutor. Without waiting for an answer, he said that Richmond had been idle for weeks, and must now resume regular hours of study.

  “Yes, Grandpapa. But am I not to go with Hugo?” Richmond asked.

  “No, certainly not! You need not look glum, for you would find nothing to interest you in Huddersfield, and a great deal to disgust you!”

  “The mills would interest me,” Richmond said. “I know how sheep are sheared, but I don’t know what is done to the fleeces to turn them into cloth, but Hugo says I may see every bit of it, if I like. Pray let me, go, Grandpapa!”

  “I said no, and I meant it!” interrupted his lordship, more peremptorily than it was his custom to speak to Richmond. “I am astonished that you could wish to interest yourself in a cloth mill! You have nothing to do with mills, or any other such things, and you will oblige me by not mentioning the subject again!” He then turned towards Hugo, and said: “As for you, I do not know what your purpose is in travelling to Yorkshire, but I trust you mean to dispose of whatever may be your interest in your grandfather’s business. It is extremely repugnant to me to think that a Darracott, and my heir, should owe any part of his subsistence to it!”

  He did not wait for an answer, which was fortunate, since Hugo showed no sign of giving him one, but stalked out of the room.

  Claud, who had listened to him in open-mouthed astonishment, exclaimed: “Dashed if I don’t think he’s begun to get queer in his attic! Well, what I mean is, hubble-bubble! I don’t set up as one of these clever coves, but I’ve got more sense in my knowledge-box than to say such an addlebrained thing as that! Seems to me it don’t make a ha’porth of difference whether you keep the dashed mill, or whether you don’t, because that’s where all your gingerbread came from, whichever way you look at it. And don’t you tell me it’s repugnant to him to have you coming down with the derbies, because all I’ve got to say to that is, Gammon!”