The Unknown Ajax (35 page)

“Never fear!” said Hugo, an appreciative twinkle in his eye. “I’ll be travelling post, and it’s no matter to me how many times I break the journey: I won’t let the lad be knocked-up!” Balked at this point, his lordship delivered himself of a diatribe against posting-houses, all of which, he appeared to believe made it their invariable custom to seek, by every means at their disposal, to render their patrons’ visit not only uncomfortable, but generally fatal. Listening in great astonishment to these strictures, Claud was moved to protest. “No, no, sir!” he said earnestly. “Assure you—! Not a word of truth in it! Daresay it may have been like that in your day, but it ain’t so now! Ask anyone! No reason at all to think young Richmond would be put between damp sheets, or given bad fish to eat! What’s more, if you ask me, it would take more than a journey by stagecoach, let alone one in a post-chaise-and-four, to knock him up!”

“I don’t ask you—fribble!” snapped his lordship, rounding on him, with the speed of a whiplash. “You may keep your tongue between your teeth!”

“Yes, sir—happy to!” uttered Claud dismayed. “No wish to offend you! Thought you might like to be set right!”

“Thought I might like to be set right?”

“No, no! Spoke without thinking!” said Claud hastily. “I know you don’t!” “There’s no need for any fratching about it,” interposed Hugo. “I’d be glad of the lad’s company, I’ll see he takes no harm, I think he’d enjoy it, and that’s all there is to it.” His deep, unperturbed voice seemed to exercise a soothing effect upon Lord Darracott. After glaring at Claud for a moment he turned away from him, to inform Hugo, disagreeably, but in a milder tone, that Richmond would find nothing whatsoever to interest him in such a place as Huddersfield. Driven out of this position, as he very soon was, he once more lost his temper, and said, gripping the arms of his chair: “Very well, sir, if you will have it, you may! The less Richmond sees of you the better I shall be pleased! I’ve had trouble enough with him without wishing for more! Before you came here, to set him off again, he was in a fair way to forgetting a crack-brained notion he took into his head that nothing would do for him but to join the army. I knew it was merely a silly, boy’s fancy he’d soon recover from, but I’m not running the risk of letting you stir him up, so don’t think it!”

Hugo stood looking down at him impassively; but it was Vincent who spoke. He had been listening with an expression on his face of sardonic amusement, but at this point he said, unexpectedly: “I fear, sir, that such an attempt on my cousin’s part would be a work of supererogation. To judge by the confidences made to me when I took Richmond to Sevenoaks he has by no means forgotten that crack-brained notion. He was, in fact, a dead bore on the subject.”

Lord Darracott stared at him. “He was, was he? Well, if he hasn’t recovered yet, he will presently! I’ll never give my consent, do you hear me? Good God, that weakly boy? As well kill him outright!”

Forgetting caution, Claud said incredulously: “What, is Richmond weakly? I’d never have thought it! Well, what I mean is, he don’t seem to me to be happy unless he’s careering all over the county on one of his wild horses, or walking for miles after a few wretched pigeons, or tossing about in that boat of his! I should think the army would suit him down to the ground, for they always seem to be drilling, or manoeuvring, or doing something dashed unrestful, and that’s just what Richmond is—unrestful!”

“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!”