The Unknown Ajax (4 page)

That was all that was needed to send Richmond into shouts of laughter. His sister, in general a girl with a lively sense of the ridiculous, found herself easily able to withstand the infection of his laughter. She waited in ominous silence until his mirth abated, and then, transferring her gaze from him to her mother, asked with careful restraint: “Does it ever occur to you, Mama, that my grandfather is a lunatic?”

“Frequently!” Mrs. Darracott assured her. “That is—oh, dear, what am I saying? Of course not! Perhaps he is a trifle eccentric!”

“Eccentric! He’s a mediaeval bedlamite!” said Anthea, not mincing matters. “Upon my word, this is beyond everything!”

“I was afraid you would not quite like it,” agreed her mother unhappily. “Now, Richmond—! You will be in whoops if you don’t take care! Foolish boy! There is nothing to laugh at!” “Let him go into whoops, Mama! They may choke him!”

Mrs. Darracott was shocked by this unfeeling speech, but thought it wisest, after one glance at Anthea’s stormy face, to beg Richmond to go away. He did go, but it was a moment or two before Anthea’s wrath abated. She had jumped up from the footstool, and now look several turns about the room in a hasty, impetuous way which filled Mrs. Darracott with foreboding. However, she soon recovered her temper, and, although still incensed, was presently able to laugh at herself. “I should know better than to fly up into the boughs for anything that detestable old man could say or do! I beg your pardon, Mama, but it puts me in such a rage when he behaves as though he were the Grand Turk, and we a parcel of slaves—! So I am to marry the weaver’s son, am I? I collect that I have nothing to say in, the matter: has the weaver’s son? Has he been informed of the fate that awaits him?” “Oh, no! That is—I did venture to suggest to your grandfather—But he said—you know his way!—that the poor young man would do as he was bid!”

“And he will!” said Anthea. “That’s to say, he’ll try! Wretched, wretched man! I pity him with all my heart! He will be miserably ill-at-ease, miserably out of place, , and will arrive to find himself under fire! Grandpapa will overawe him within five minutes! Mama, it is infamous! Did you tell my grandfather that I shouldn’t consent to such a scheme?” “Well—well, I didn’t say that, precisely!” confessed Mrs. Darracott, in acute discomfort. “To own the truth, my love, I was so much taken-aback that—”

“Then I will, and immediately!” declared Anthea, going towards the door. She was halted by a small, anguished shriek. “Anthea, I forbid you—I implore you!—He would be so angry! He will say that he told me not to say one word to you about it, and he did!”

Anthea could not be impervious to this appeal. She paused; and, pursuing her advantage, Mrs. Darracott said: “My dearest, you have so much good sense! I know you will consider carefully before you—Not that I would urge you to marry him if you felt you couldn’t like him! I promise you I would never, never—But what will you do, Anthea? Oh, my dearest child, I’m cast into despair whenever I think of it! You are two-and-twenty, and how can you hope to receive a respectable offer, when you never meet anyone but the Family, or go anywhere, or—And here is your grandfather saying that you frittered away your chances when he was so obliging as to frank you to a London Season, and so you must now be content with a husband of his choosing!”

“During my one Season,” said Anthea, in a level tone, “I received two offers of marriage. One came from a widower, old enough, I conjecture, to have been my father. The other was from young Oversley, who, besides being next door to a moonling, had the fixed intention of continuing under his parents’ roof. Between Grandpapa and Lady Aberford I am persuaded there wasn’t the difference of a hair! I haven’t watched the trials you’ve been made to endure only to stumble into the same snare, Mama!”

“No, and heaven knows, dear child, I must be the last person alive to wish to see you in such a situation,” sighed Mrs. Darracott.

“I could, I think, have developed a tendre for Jack Froyle,” said Anthea reflectively. “But he, you know, was obliged to hang out for a rich wife, and thanks to the improvidence for which the Darracotts are so justly famed my portion can’t be called anything but paltry. Does Grandpapa consider that circumstance when he talks of the chances I have frittered away?” “No, he doesn’t!” replied Mrs. Darracott, with unaccustomed bitterness. “But I do, and it utterly sinks my spirits! That’s why I can’t help thinking that perhaps you ought not to set your face against this scheme of your grandfather’s. Not until you have met your cousin, at all events, my love! Of course, if he should prove to be impossible—only, you know, his is a Darracott on one side!”

“The side I should like the least!” said Anthea.

“Yes, but—but you would be established!” Mrs. Darracott pointed out. “Even if the young man is a coxcomb, which I do pray he is not, your position as Lady Darracott would be one of the first respectability. Anthea, I cannot bear to see you dwindle into an old maid!” Anthea could not help laughing at this impassioned utterance, but Mrs. Darracott was perfectly serious, saying very earnestly: “How can you help but do so when no eligible gentleman ever sees you? Dear Anne was used to say that when Elizabeth and Caroline were off her hands she would invite you to stay in London, because she entered into all my sentiments on that head; but now that your uncle Granville is dead, and she has gone away into Gloucestershire, it would be useless to depend on her. Aurelia has still two daughters of her own to bring out, and although I could write to my brother—”

“On no account in the world!” exclaimed Anthea. “My uncle is the most amiable soul alive, but I would far rather dwindle into an old maid than stay for as much as two days with my aunt Sarah! Besides, I don’t think she could be prevailed upon to invite me.” “No, nor do I: she is the most disagreeable woman! So what, I ask you, is to become of you? When Grandpapa dies we shall be obliged to leave Darracott Place, you know. We shall be reduced to seeking lodgings, very likely in some dreadful back-slum, and eat black-pudding, and turn our dresses, and—”

A peal of laughter interrupted this dismal catalogue. “Stop, stop, Mama, before you fall into an incurable fit of the blue-devils! We shall do nothing of the sort! With your skill in dressmaking, and my turn for making elegant reticules, we shall set up as mantua-makers. In Bath, perhaps, on Milsom Street: not a large establishment, but an excessively modish one. Shall we call it Darracott’s, to enrage the Family, or would it be more tonnish to call ourselves Elvira? Yes, I’m persuaded we should make a hit as Elvira! Within a year every woman of fashion will patronize us, because we shall charge the most exorbitant prices, which will convince the world that we must be top-of-the-trees!”

Mrs. Darracott, while deprecating such a nonsensical idea, could not help being strongly attracted by it. Anthea encouraged her to enlarge upon the daydream; and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her volatile parent restored to her usual optimism. Not until they retired to bed was the unknown cousin again mentioned. He came into Mrs. Darracott’s mind as she picked up her candle, and she ventured to beg Anthea not to speak of the matter to her grandfather. She was much relieved when Anthea, kissing her, and giving her shoulder a reassuring pat, replied: “No, I shan’t say anything to Grandpapa. I am sure it would be quite useless!”

Mrs. Darracott, much cheered, was able then to go to bed with a quiet mind. She was too deeply occupied with household cares on the following morning to have a thought to spare for any other problems than which bedchamber it would be proper to allot to the heir; how best to hide from Lady Aurelia that there was not a linen sheet in the house which had not been darned; and whether the undergroom would be able to purchase in Rye enough lobsters to make, when elegantly dressed, a handsome side-dish for the second course at dinner that day. She, and Mrs. Flitwick too, would have been glad to know for how many days my lord had invited five guests to stay at Darracott Place, but neither considered for as much as a minute the eligibility of applying to him for information on this head. Nothing but a rough answer could be expected. My lord would be unable to understand what difference it could make to anyone. He would also be unable to understand why the addition of five persons to his household should make any appreciable difference to the cost of maintaining his establishment. As he would, at the same time, cut up very stiff indeed if fewer than seven or eight dishes were provided for each course, the task of catering to his satisfaction was one of the labours of Hercules. “For, ma’am,” (as Mrs. Flitwick sapiently observed) “I dare not for my life tell Godney to use the mutton in a nice haricot, or toss up some oysters in an escallop: his lordship will want everything to be of the best.”

It soon transpired that there was one thing which his lordship did not want to be of the best. When Mrs. Darracott asked him if he wished Poor Granville’s bedchamber to be prepared for the reception of his successor, his reply was explosive and unequivocal, and carried the rider that the weaver’s brat would think himself palatially housed if put to sleep in one of the attics.

The first of the guests to arrive were Mr. Matthew Darracott and Lady Aurelia. They came in their own travelling-carriage, drawn by a single pair of horses; and they reached Darracott Place shortly after noon, having left town the day before, and rested for the night at Tonbridge.

Of my lord’s four sons, Matthew, the third, was the one who had caused him the least trouble and expense. His youthful peccadilloes had been of a venial nature, committed either in emulation of his elder brothers, or at their instigation. He had been the first to marry; and from the day that he led Lady Aurelia Holt to the altar his career had been at once blameless and successful. It had been a very good match, for although Lady Aurelia was not beautiful her fortune was respectable, and her connections excellent. She had also a forceful personality, and it was not long before Matthew, weaned from the Whiggish heresies in which he had been reared, found himself (under the aegis of his father-in-law) with his foot firmly set on the first rung of the political ladder. His progress thereafter had been steady; and although it seemed unlikely that he would ever achieve the topmost rungs of the ladder, it was only during the brief reign of “All the Talents” that he was out of office; and although there were those who did not scruple to stigmatize his continued employment as jobbery, no one could deny that he discharged his duties with painstaking honesty. His political apostasy notwithstanding, it might have been expected that so worthy a son would have occupied the chief place in his father’s affection. Unfortunately Lord Darracott was bored by virtue, and contemptuous of those whom he could bully. Matthew had always been the meekest of his sons, and although his marriage had rendered him to some extent independent of his father, he still accorded him a sort of nervous respect, obeying his periodic and imperious summonses with anxious promptitude, and saying yes and amen to his lordship’s every utterance. His reward for this filial piety was to be freely apostrophized as a pudding-heart, with no more pluck in him than a dunghill cock. Since his conduct was largely governed by the precepts of his masterful and rigidly correct wife, my lord was able to add, with perfect truth, that he lived under the sign of the cat’s foot.

What Lady Aurelia thought of my lord no one knew, for she had been reared in the belief that the head of a family was entitled to every observance of civility. So far as outward appearances went, she was a dutiful daughter-in-law, neither arguing with his lordship, nor encouraging Matthew to rebel against his autocratic commands. Simple-minded persons, such as Mrs. Rupert Darracott, were continually astonished by Matthew’s divergence, on all important issues, from his father’

s known prejudices; but Lord Darracott was not a simple-minded person, and he was well-aware that however politely Lady Aurelia might defer to him, it would be her dictates Matthew would obey in major matters. In consequence, he held her in equal respect and dislike, and never lost an opportunity to plant what he hoped would be a barb in her flesh. According to Granville, whose own son had found little favour in his grandfather’s eyes, it was with this amiable intention that my lord encouraged Vincent in a career which his parents were known to think ruinous. More charitable persons suspected that in Vincent my lord saw a reflection of his own youth; but, as Granville once bitterly remarked, it was strange, if that were so, that my lord’s feeling for him fell far short of the doting fondness he lavished on Richmond.

It must have been apparent to the most casual observer that Matthew Darracott was labouring under a strong sense of ill-usage. He was rather a stout man, not quite as tall as his father, or any of his brothers, and with a chubby countenance. When he was pleased he looked what nature had intended him to be: a placid man with a kindly, easy-going disposition; but when harassed his expression changed to one of peevishness, a frown dragging his brows together, and a pronounced pout giving him very much the look of a thwarted baby.

As he climbed down from the carriage, he saw that Chollacombe was waiting by the open door of the house. Leaving James, the footman, to assist Lady Aurelia to alight, he trod up the shallow terrace-steps, exclaiming: “This is a damned thing, Chollacombe! Where’s my father?”

“His lordship went out with Mr. Richmond, sir, and is not yet come in,” replied the butler. “Has that fellow—I don’t know what he calls himself!—Has he arrived here?” “No, sir. You are the first to arrive. As you no doubt know, Mr. Matthew, we are expecting Mr. Vincent and Mr. Claud also, but—”

“Oh, them!” said Matthew, dismissing his sons with an impatient shrug. By this time he had been joined by his wife. She never reproved him in public, and she did not now so much as glance at him, but said majestically: “Good-day, Chollacombe. I hope I see you well?”