The Unknown Ajax (2 page)

“What will be awkward? The weaver’s son?”

“Oh, him—! No, poor boy—though of course it will be! I was thinking of your Aunt Aurelia. I am persuaded she will expect to see us in mourning. You know what a high stickler she is for every observance! She will think it very odd of us to be wearing colours—even improper!”

“Not at all!” replied Anthea coolly. “By the time my grandfather has demanded to be told what cause she has to wear mourning for my uncle and my cousin, and has made her the recipient of his views on females rigging themselves out to look like so many crows, she will readily understand why you and I have abstained from that particular observance.” Mrs. Darracott considered this rather dubiously. “Well, yes, but there is no depending on your grandfather. I think we should at least wear black ribbons.”

“Very well, Mama, we will wear whatever you choose—at least, I will do so if you will stop teasing yourself about such fripperies and tell me about the weaver’s son, and the uncle who must not be mentioned.”

“But I don’t know anything!” protested Mrs. Darracott. “Only that he was the next brother to poor Granville, and quite your grandfather’s favourite son. Your papa was used to say that that was what enraged Grandpapa so particularly, though for my part I can’t believe that he held him in the slightest affection! Never, never could I bring myself to disown my son! Not though he married a dozen weaver’s daughters!”

“Oh, I think we should be obliged to disown him if he married a dozen of them, Mama!” Anthea said, laughing. “It would be quite excessive, and so embarrassing! Oh, no, don’t frown at me! It don’t become you, and I won’t fun any more, I promise you! Is that what my uncle did? Married a weaver’s daughter?”

“Well, that’s what I was told,” replied Mrs. Darracott cautiously. “It all happened before I was married to your papa, so I am not perfectly sure. Papa wouldn’t have spoken of it, only that there was a notice of Hugh’s death published in the Gazette, and he was afraid I might see it, and make some remark.”

“When did he die, Mama?”

“Now that I can tell you, for it was the very year I was married, and had just come back from my honeymoon to live here. It was in 1793. He was killed, poor man. I can’t remember the name of the place, but I do know it was in Holland. I daresay we were engaged in a war there, for he was a military man. And I shouldn’t be at all astonished, Anthea, if that is what makes your grandfather so determined Richmond shan’t enter the army. I don’t mean Hugh’s being killed, but if he had not been a military man he would never have been stationed in Yorkshire, and, of course, if he had not been stationed there he would never have met that female, let alone have become so disastrously entangled. I believe she was a very low, vulgar creature, and lived in Huddersfield. I must own that it is not at all what one would wish for one’s son.”

“No, indeed!” Anthea agreed. “What in the world can have possessed him to do such a thing? And he a Darracott!”

“Exactly so, my love! The most imprudent thing, for he cannot have supposed that your grandfather would forgive such a shocking misalliance! When one thinks how he holds up his nose at quite respectable persons, and never visits the Metropolis because he says it has grown to be full of mushrooms, and once-a-week beaux—! I must say, I never knew anyone who set himself on such a high form. And then to have his son marrying a weaver’s daughter! Well!”

“And to be obliged in the end to receive her son as his heir!” said Anthea. “No wonder he has been like a bear at a stake all these months! Did he know, when my uncle and Oliver were drowned, how it was? Was that what made him so out of reason cross? Why has he waited so long before breaking it to us? Why—Oh, how provoking it is to think he won’t tell us, and we dare not ask him!”

“Perhaps he will tell Richmond,” suggested Mrs. Darracott hopefully. “No,” Anthea said, with a decided shake of her head. “Richmond won’t ask him. Richmond never asks him questions he doesn’t wish to answer, any more than he argues with him, or runs counter to him.”

“Dear Richmond!” sighed Mrs. Darracott fondly. “I am sure he must be the best-natured boy in the world!”

“Certainly the best-natured grandson,” said Anthea, a trifle dryly.

“Indeed he is!” agreed her mother. “Sometimes I quite marvel at him, you know, for young men are not in general so tractable and good-humoured. And it is not that he lacks spirit!” “No,” said Anthea. “He doesn’t lack spirit.”

“The thing is,” pursued Mrs. Darracott, “that he has the sweetest disposition imaginable! Only think how good he is to your grandfather, sitting with him every evening, and playing chess, which must be the dullest thing in the world! I wonder, too, how many boys who had set their hearts on a pair of colours would have behaved as beautifully as he did, when your grandfather forbade him to think of such a thing? I don’t scruple to own to you, my love, that I was in a quake for days, dreading, you know, that he might do something foolish and hot-headed. After all, he is a Darracott, and even your uncle Matthew was excessively wild when he was a young man.” She sighed.

“Poor boy! It was a sad blow to him, wasn’t it? It quite wrung my heart to see him so restless, and out of spirits, but thank heaven that is all over now, for I couldn’t have borne it if your grandfather had agreed to let him join! I daresay it was just a boyish fancy—but Richmond has such good sense!”

Anthea looked up, as though she would have spoken; but she apparently thought better of the impulse, and closed her lips again.

“Depend upon it,” said Mrs. Darracott comfortably, “he will never think of it again, once he has gone to Oxford. Oh dear, how we shall miss him! I don’t know what I shall do!” The crease which had appeared between Anthea’s brows deepened. She said, after a moment’s hesitation: “Richmond has no turn for scholarship, Mama. He has failed once, and for my part I think he will fail again, because he doesn’t wish to succeed. And here we are in September, so that he will be more than nineteen by the time he does go to Oxford—if he goes—and he will have spent another year here, with nothing to do but to—” “Nothing of the sort!” interrupted Mrs. Darracott, bristling in defence of her idol. “He will be studying!”

“Oh!” said Anthea, in a colourless voice. She glanced uncertainly at her mother, again hesitated, and then said: “Shall I ring for some working-candles, Mama?” Mrs. Darracott, who was engaged in darning, with exquisite stitches, the torn needlepoint lace flounce to a petticoat, agreed to this; and in a very short space of time both ladies were deedily employed: the elder with her needle, the younger with some cardboard, out of which she was making a reticule, in the shape of an Etruscan vase. This was in accordance with the latest mode; and, if The Mirror of Fashion were to be believed, any ingenious lady could achieve the desired result without the smallest difficulty. “Which confirms me in the melancholy suspicion that I am quite lacking in ingenuity, besides having ten thumbs,” remarked Anthea, laying it aside as Chollacombe brought the tea-tray into the room. “I think it will look very elegant when you have painted it, my love,” said Mrs. Darracott consolingly. She looked up, and saw that Richmond had followed the butler into the room, and her face instantly became wreathed in smiles. “Oh, Richmond! You have come to take tea with us! How charming this is!” A thought occurred to her; her expression underwent a ludicrous change; she said apprehensively: “Does your grandfather mean to join us, dearest?”

He shook his head, but there was a gleam of mischief in his eyes, which did not escape his sister. His mother, less observant, said in a relieved tone: “To be sure, he rarely does so, does he? Thank you, Chollacombe: nothing more! Now, sit down, Richmond, and tell us!” “What, about the weaver’s son? Oh, I can’t! Grandpapa snapped my nose off, so we played backgammon, and I won, and then he said I might take myself off, because he wants to talk to you, Mama!”

“You are a detestable boy!” remarked Anthea. “Mama take care! you will spill that! Depend upon it, he only means to throw a great many orders at your head about the manner in which we are to entertain the heir.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Darracott, recovering her complexion. “Of course! I wonder if I should go to him immediately, or whether—”

“No, you will first drink your tea, Mama,” said Anthea firmly. “Did he tell you nothing about our unknown cousin, Richmond?” “Well, only that he’s a military man, and was in France, with the Army of Occupation, when my uncle Granville was drowned, and that he has written that he will visit us the day after tomorrow.”

“That must have been the letter James brought from the receiving office, then!” exclaimed Mrs. Darracott. “Well, at least he can write! Poor young man! I can’t but pity him, though I perfectly appreciate how provoking it is for us all that he should have been born. Still, even your grandfather can’t blame him for that!”

“For shame, Mama! You are under-rating my grandfather in the most disrespectful way! Of course he can!”

Mrs. Darracott could not help laughing at this, but she shook her head at her too-lively daughter as well, saying that she ought not to speak so saucily of her grandfather. After that she finished drinking her tea, begged Richmond not to go bed before she returned from the ordeal before her, and went away to the library.

Anthea got up to fill her cup again. She glanced down at Richmond, sunk into a deep chair and smothering a yawn. “You look to be three parts asleep. Are you?” “No—yes—I don’t know! I had one of my bad nights, that’s all. Don’t cosset me—and, for God’s sake, don’t say anything to Mama!”

“What a fortunate thing that you’ve warned me!” said Anthea, sitting down in her mother’s vacated chair. “I was just about to run after Mama, before procuring a composer for you.” He grinned at her. “Pitching it too rum!” he murmured. “I wonder what Grandpapa does want to say to Mama?”

“I don’t know, but I hope he may say it with civility! How could you stand there, and let him speak to her as he did at dinner, Richmond?”

“Well, I can’t stop him! What’s more, I’ve more sense than to rip up at him as you did! It only puts Mama in a quake, when she thinks he may fly into a passion with you or me: you should know that!”

“He doesn’t like one the less for squaring up to him,” she said. “I will allow him that virtue: I don’t know that he has any other.”

“He may not like you less, but you’re a female: the cases are different.” “I don’t think so. He liked Papa far more than he liked Uncle Granville or Uncle Matthew, but I can’t tell you how often they were at outs. I daresay you might not remember, but—” “Oh, don’t I just!” he interrupted. “Grandpapa abusing Papa like a pickpocket, Papa as mad as Bedlam, the pair of them brangling and brawling to be heard all over the house—! Not remember? I don’t remember anything half as well! Too well to court the same Turkish treatment that Papa got: you may be sure of that!”

She looked curiously at him. “But you’re not afraid of him, are you?”

“No, I’m not afraid of him, but I detest the sort of riot and rumpus he kicks up when he’s in a rage. Besides, it doesn’t answer: you’ll get nothing out of Grandpapa if you come to cuffs with him. I’ll swear he gives me more than ever he gave Papa!”

She reflected that this was true. Lord Darracott, who grudged every groat he was obliged to spend on anything but his own pleasure, pandered to his favourite grandson’s every extravagant whim. If coaxing did not move him, it was seldom that Richmond failed to bring him round his thumb by falling into a fit of despondency. That was how Richmond had come by the beautiful headstrong colt he had himself broken and trained. He had coaxed in vain. “Do you think I’ll help you to break your neck, boy?” had demanded his lordship. Richmond had not persisted, and even so clear-sighted a critic as his elder sister had been unable to accuse him of sulkiness. He was as docile as ever, as attentive to his grandfather, and quite uncomplaining. But he made it very evident that his spirits were wholly cast down; and within a week his dejection, besides throwing Mrs. Darracott into high fidgets, had won the colt for him. Anything, said Lord Darracott, was better than to have the boy so languid and listless. It had been to cajole him out of silent despair at being told that under no circumstances would my lord buy him a pair of colours that his yacht had been bestowed on him. Suddenly Anthea wondered if the possession of a sailing vessel had been what he had all the time desired. She turned her eyes towards him, and said abruptly: “Do you still wish for a military career, Richmond?”

He had picked up one of the weekly journals from the table at his elbow, and was glancing through it, but he looked up quickly at that, his expressive eyes kindling. “I don’t care for anything else!”

‘Then—”

“You needn’t go on! Why don’t I persist? Why don’t I do this—or that—or the other? Because I know when my grandfather can’t be persuaded by anything I could do or say! That’s why! I’m under age—and if you are thinking that I might run off and take the King’s shilling, it’

s the sort of hubble-bubble notion a female would get into her head! That’s not how I wish to join! I—oh, stop talking about it! I won’t talk about it! It’s over and done with! I daresay I shouldn’t have liked it, after all!”

He turned back to his journal, hunching an impatient shoulder, and Anthea said no more, knowing that it would be useless. She was deeply troubled, however, and not for the first time. He was spoilt, and wilful, but she loved him, and was wise enough to realize that his faults sprang from his upbringing and were to be laid at Lord Darracott’s door. He had been a sickly, undersized baby, succumbing to every childish ailment: not at all the sort of grandson that might have been expected to occupy Lord Darracott’s heart. His lordship, indeed, had paid scant heed to him until it was forcibly borne in upon him that the frail scrap whom he despised was possessed of a demon of intrepidity. But from the day when a terrified groom had carried into the house a baby who screamed: “Put me down, put me down! I can ride him! I can!” and had learned from this trembling individual that his tiny grandson had (by means unknown and unsuspected) got upon the back of one of his own hunters and put this great, rawboned creature at the gate that led out of the stableyard, he had adored Richmond. There had been no bones broken, but the child had been stunned by the inevitable fall, and shockingly bruised. “Let me go!” he had commanded imperiously. “I will ride him, I will, I will, I will!”