The Unknown Ajax (44 page)

“Let him go his length, my girl!” he replied. “The farther the better! Do you think I mean to stop him tieing the noose round his own neck? I don’t, pea-goose!” Sergeant Hoole stepped forward, laying a hand on the Lieutenant’s arm. “Sir!” he uttered imploringly. “Begging your pardon, but—”

Ottershaw shook him off. He had gone too far to draw back, and the voice within his brain that urged him not to let these Darracotts outjockey him was growing every second more insistent. Rather pale, but with his jaw out-thrust, he said: “If Mr. Richmond Darracott is unhurt, why should he hesitate to remove his coat, so that I may be convinced by the evidence of my own eyes that it is so?”

Hugo, who had bent over Claud, adjusting the sling that supported his left arm, straightened himself, saying: “Oh, for God’s sake, take your coat off, Richmond, and your waistcoat too! Let’s be done with this business!”

Richmond might be pale, but his eyes, tremendously alive, gave the lie to the drawn look on his face, not a trace of fear in them. He gave a gleeful chuckle, and pointed a derisive finger at the Major. “Who said I couldn’t bamboozle the Exciseman? Who said he was too fly to the time of day to be hoaxed by a silly schoolboy? I’ve done it! Vincent, do you know what Hugo—”

“I’m going to say something more, when you’re sober enough to attend to me,” said Hugo, somewhat grimly. “Happen you won’t find that so amusing! In the meantime, we’ve had more than enough of your hoax, so take your coat off, and let me have no argument about it!” Richmond’s laughter was quenched. He looked resentfully at his large cousin, saying sulkily: “I don’t know why I need do as you say. I don’t care for what you think. Nothing to do with you!”

“Help him off with it, Vincent!” said Hugo curtly.

At this point Claud, who had opened his eyes some few minutes previously, demanded, in bewildered accents: “What the devil does that fellow want with Richmond’s coat? Dash it, he is mad!”

“Don’t fatch!” said Hugo. “He thinks it’s Richmond that was shot, and not you at all, so the easiest way to prove him wrong—”

“Thinks—thinks I wasn’t shot?” gasped Claud, galvanized into struggling up on to his right elbow. “Oh, so that’s what you think, is it, you murderous lunatic? Then let me tell you—” “You young fool, keep still! Claud—!” exclaimed Hugo, taking two hasty strides to the head of the sofa, as Claud, with every sign of one exerting a superhuman effort, dragged himself up from the cushions, panting, and making unavailing attempts to speak. “Nay then, lad! Gently now!” he begged, his arms round Claud. “You’ll do yourself an injury, you silly lad! You mustn’t—”

“Don’t you talk to me!” raged Claud, between laboured breaths. “If you think—Ow—!” The anguish throbbing in this sharp cry was so real that even Vincent was startled, while Anthea could almost have exclaimed Bravo! Ottershaw, who had been paying no heed to him, but keeping his eyes fixed on Richmond, just about to let Vincent pull off his coat, turned involuntarily.

“Hugo, you—you—!”

“Nay, lad, it’s your own fault!” protested Hugo. “Stop wriggling about like—” “You put your great, clumsy hand right on—Oh—ah—ugh—!” moaned Claud, reduced again to extremis.

“Brandy, Polyphant!” Hugo said, his anxious gaze on Claud’s face. He shifted him slightly, and stretched out an imperative hand. “Or the salts! Anything, only give it to me quickly!” A tiny, perfectly spontaneous shriek escaped Anthea.

“Hugo—! Your hand!” she stammered, her dilating eyes riveted to it. “Good God!” ejaculated Vincent involuntarily.

Hugo looked round, surprised at Anthea, and then at his own bloodstained palm. “Oh, my God!” he uttered, swiftly glancing down at Claud’s back, which only he was in a position to see.

“Sir—!” exclaimed Polyphant reproachfully, and darted forward to snatch up some lint from the pile on the floor. “No, no, let me, sir! I beg pardon, but pray don’t—Just hold him, if you please! Oh, dear, oh, dear!

Miss Anthea, the longest strip of linen you can find—or knot two together—anything! Don’t move, Mr. Claud! I implore you, sir, don’t move!”

Since no one in the room had seen the Major pick up several of the blood-soaked swabs from the bowl still standing on the chair beside the sofa, and close his hand on them, it was hardly surprising that the sight of his horridly reddened palm should have come as a shock to the rest of his family. Had Lieutenant Ottershaw not been far too much shocked himself to think of studying the expressions on the faces of his companions, one glance must have satisfied him that the Darracotts were honestly horrified. Anthea was the first to recover her wits, and to rush to the sofa, scolding distractedly; Vincent was swift to follow suit. Both blamed Hugo for having handled the drooping Claud with abominable clumsiness; my lord joined in, directing his menaces, however, towards Lieutenant Ottershaw, for being the real cause of this fresh disaster; and the Sergeant, prompted by real dismay, and a very lively dread of the consequences, seized the opportunity provided by all this commotion to represent to Ottershaw, with all the eloquence at his command, that any more attempts to exacerbate the Darracotts would only bring them both to ruin.

It was at this moment that Lady Aurelia entered the room, and, halting on the threshold, demanded, in a voice which, without being raised to any vulgar pitch, easily penetrated the hubbub: “What, may I ask, is the meaning of this extraordinary scene?” Such was the effect of her commanding eye, and air of supreme assurance, that Lieutenant Ottershaw found himself to his subsequent fury, adding his voice to those of Anthea and Vincent, in an attempt to present her ladyship with the explanation she desired. She seemed to grasp the gist of what was told her with all the rapidity of a powerful intelligence; and, considerably before the various accounts had been brought to their conclusions, paralysed the company by uttering, in icy yet ominous accents: “Be silent, if you please! I have heard enough!”

She then swept forward to the sofa, Anthea, Vincent, and the Major giving way instinctively before her, and bent over Claud, feeling his brow, and his wrist. Magnificently ignoring everyone else, she exchanged a few words with Polyphant, who had remained devoutly at the head of the sofa; and, upon Claud’s venturing to open his eyes sufficiently to cast a doubtful, slightly nervous glance up at her, said with calm kindness: “You will keep perfectly still, my son: do you understand me? You have no need to trouble yourself about anything, for Mama is here, and will make you better directly.”

She then turned, and looked round the room, with all the lofty contempt natural to the descendant of eleven Earls, all of whom, if not otherwise distinguished, had been remarkable for the high-handed and very successful way with which they had dealt with inferior persons, and overridden all opposition to their domestic decrees. No one saw these august personages range themselves at Lady Aurelia’s back, but (as her appreciative elder son afterwards asserted) no one could doubt that they had all of them hurried to the support of so worthy a daughter.

“I do not know,” she stated, in a tone of dispassionate censure, “why I have been obliged to come downstairs to discover for myself the precise nature of Claud’s injury, but I do not attempt to conceal from you that I am excessively displeased. Your conduct, Vincent, I consider particularly reprehensible, for it was on the understanding that you would instantly apprise me of it, if you found your brother’s injury to be of a serious character, that I allowed myself to be persuaded to remain upstairs. Neither you nor Anthea, whom I must deem to have been gravely at fault, are so stupid as to have supposed that the accident was of a trifling nature. I shall say no more to you, Hugo, than that I trust you will in future refrain from making well-meaning but foolish attempts to conceal from some other female in my position the very dangerous state in which one of her children may be lying. Pray do not answer me! I have neither the time nor the desire to listen to excuses or apologies. You will all of you, with the exception of Polyphant, be so good as to leave this room immediately. Vincent, since I apprehend that Richmond is disgracefully inebriated, you will please assist him to his bed-chamber. I do not presume to dictate to you, my lord, but since there is nothing for you to do here I am persuaded you will be very much more comfortable in your library.” Her eyes next fell on Lieutenant Ottershaw, and after considering him for a moment or two in a way that made the Sergeant feel profoundly thankful that her gaze had swept past him, said, without the slightest change of intonation: “You, I believe, are the author of this outrage. I collect that you are in the service of the Board of Customs, I shall be obliged to you if you will furnish me with your name, and style.”

The Lieutenant’s colour was considerably heightened, but he replied with commendable readiness: “My name is Ottershaw, ma’am—Thomas Ottershaw, and I am a Riding-officer of the Customs’ Land-Guard. Allow me to assure your ladyship that, while I do not seek to disclaim responsibility for whatever injury Mr. Darracott has suffered, my explicit order was that no shot was to be fired, other than a warning shot over the head of any person failing to obey a summons to halt in the King’s name. I regret very much that an accident should have occurred, but I must take leave to inform your ladyship of the circumstance which led—” “Pray say no more!” she interrupted. “I am neither deaf nor slow of understanding, and since I was present when you made known to his lordship the precise nature of your errand any further explanation would be superfluous. Let me make it plain to you that whatever may be my opinion of the accusation you than made, I am not concerned with my nephew’s affairs, but with the attack upon my son. I have nothing further to add, except that I shall immediately lay the matter before my husband. No doubt he will know what action to take. As a mere female, I cannot consider myself competent to deal with such an affair. I will not detain you any longer. If you have anything further to do in this house, pray desire Major Darracott to conduct you to some other room!”

With these measured words, she turned to Polyphant, and began to question him on the exact nature of Claud’s injury, wholly ignoring her stunned audience. The Major, a phlegmatic man, was the first to recover from the shattering effect of this encounter with a mere female, and he acted with great promptitude and good sense, saying meekly: “Yes, ma’am! I will do so immediately,” and thrusting the Lieutenant out of the room. Sergeant Hoole, holding the door for them, needed no urging to follow, the manner of his exit suggesting that only a rigid adherence to discipline restrained him from preceding his superiors.

No one moved or spoke for several moments, the actors in the conspiracy remaining as though frozen, nearly all of them looking towards the door, intently listening. Then Lord Darracott sank into a chair beside the fire, and with shaking hands grasped its arms, his countenance grey, and his eyes staring straight before him, fixed and sightless. Lady Aurelia glanced at him, and then away from him, as though averting her gaze from some indecent spectacle. As Claud sat up, saying: “Well, thank the lord that’s over!” she lifted a warning finger, and said: “Do not abandon your position until we are assured that those men have departed! Since you have all of you chosen to pursue a line of conduct as criminal as it is grossly improper, I must beg you to maintain the imposture!”

Claud sank back obediently, but said: “Dash it, Mama, if you think we chose—! Besides, I should like to know what you were doing! Well, what I mean is—”

“I know exactly what you mean, Claud. Pray do not imagine that my participation in this disgraceful affair in any way alters my sentiments!” said her ladyship severely. “You are quite superb, Mama,” said Vincent. “May I make you my heartfelt compliments on a performance that will ever command my admiration? Your entrance I can only describe as a clincher.”

“I have the greatest objection to cant terms,” responded her ladyship. “I trust I may have expedited the departure of the Preventive officer, but I must suppose, from what I have seen of your powers of what I can only call deception, that you would have done very well without my intervention.”

“Hugo did it,” Anthea said, with a wavering smile. “It was all Hugo. We didn’t know what to do. Even Vincent didn’t. We just—did what Hugo told us.” She dashed a hand across her eyes, adding: “It was the pageant of Ajax! Not that I mean the others weren’t wonderful too, particularly Claud! Claud, that shriek you gave almost persuaded me to believe you had suffered a spasm of anguish!”

“Oh, it did, did it?” said Claud bitterly. “I should rather think it might! Hugo jabbed a pin into me!” He eyed his relatives with disfavour. “Yes, I daresay you think it’s devilish funny, but when I see Hugo next—Well, dash it, I knew what he wanted me to do, because he told me, when he pretended to be arranging this damned sling, and there was no need to stick pins into me! When I think of the things I’ve had to do this night, let alone being smeared all over with young Richmond’s blood—Yes, and how much longer have I got to lie here, swaddled up in bandages which are dashed uncomfortable, besides—”

“You have my sympathy, brother, but Mama is, as usual, right. It will not do for any of us to be caught off our guard. I have no real apprehension—the hideous experiences of the past hour have taught me that our cousin’s bovine countenance is, to say the least of it, misleading—but we will take no eleventh-hour risks. I wonder what glib lies he is telling that unfortunate Exciseman now?”

“It is a very distressing reflection that any gentleman of birth—and particularly one whose military rank is distinguished—should have been obliged to lend himself to so disreputable a business,” pronounced her ladyship, with undiminished severity. “It is, however, to his credit that he appears at least to know what is his duty to his Family, and although I am far from approving of his conduct I cannot deny that I regard his arrival at Darracott Place as the greatest piece of good fortune that has befallen the Family for very many years. As to whether the Family is deserving of its good fortune—that is a subject upon which I prefer to remain silent!”