The Unknown Ajax

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘How did you acquit yourself?’ Anthea asked her brother. ‘Was your teacher odious or kind?’

  ‘Oh, odious!’ replied Richmond, laughing. ‘I’m a mere whipster, with no more precision of eye than a farm-hand, but at least I didn’t overturn the phaeton!’

  Vincent, whose penetrating glance little escaped, put up his glass, and levelled it at the hem of Anthea’s dress. ‘It seems unlikely,’ he said, ‘but one might almost be led to infer that you had been sweeping the carpets, dear Anthea, or even clearing ash out of the grates.’

  She looked down, and gave an exclamation of annoyance. ‘How vexatious! I thought I had taken such pains to hold my skirt up, too! No, we have not yet been reduced quite to that: I have been showing the East Wing to our cousin here, and the floors are filthy.’

  ‘The East Wing?’ said Richmond. ‘What the devil for? There’s nothing to be seen there!’

  ‘Oh, Grandpapa desired me to take him to the picture-gallery, and when we had reached the end of it I thought it a good opportunity to show him the original part of the house. He certainly ought to see it, but I’m sorry I did take him there now, for I must change my dress again.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say you dragged poor Cousin Hugo all over that tumbledown barrack?’

  ‘No, of course not. I let him see the parlours, that’s all – and quite enough to bring on a fit of the dismals, wasn’t it, cousin?’

  ‘Well, it’s melancholy to see the place falling into ruin,’ Hugo admitted. ‘Still, I’d like to go all over it one day.’

  ‘You had better not,’ Richmond advised him. ‘The last time I went to rummage amongst the lumber for something I wanted I nearly put my leg through a rotten floor-board in one of the attics. At all events, don’t venture without me! I’ll show you over, if you’re set on it. Then, if you go through the floor, and break a limb, I can summon all the able-bodied men on the estate to come and carry you to your room!’

  ‘It ’ud take a tidy few,’ agreed Hugo, grinning.

  ‘Why this desire to inspect a ruin?’ enquired Vincent. ‘Pride of prospective possession, or do you perhaps mean to restore it, in due course?’

  ‘Nay, I don’t know,’ said Hugo vaguely.

  ‘Obviously you don’t. The cost of restoring it – a singularly useless thing to do, by the by! – would very soon run you off your legs.’

  ‘Happen you’re reet,’ said Hugo amicably. ‘I’m just by way of being interested in our first-ends. It’s early days to be making plans.’

  ‘Just so!’ said Vincent, with so much meaning in his voice that Richmond intervened quickly, asking Hugo if he had seen the Van Dyck.

  ‘He means the portrait of the first Ralph Darracott,’ explained Vincent smoothly.

  ‘An unnecessary piece of information, Vincent!’ said Anthea.

  ‘Ay, so it is,’ nodded Hugo. ‘Now, wait a piece, while I cast my mind back! Ay, I have it! That was the picture of the gentleman with the long curls. What’s more,’ he added, with naïve pride in this feat of memory, ‘it’s the one my cousin told me I must look at particularly. Van Dyck would be the man who painted it. I’ve heard of him before, think on.’

  Richmond hurried into speech. ‘I don’t know much about pictures myself, or care for them, but I like Ralph I. He was a great gun! Most of our ancestors were either ramshackle fellows, or dead bores. Did Anthea tell you about the second Ralph? Not that she knows the half of it! If ever there was a loose fish – ! A regular thatchgallows!’

  ‘Yes!’ Anthea interrupted. ‘And isn’t it mortifying to reflect on the number of Darracotts who look like him? You favour the first Ralph, and so did Oliver, a little; but Uncle Granville, and Papa, and Aunt Caroline, and Grandpapa himself are clearly descended from Ralph II, while as for Vincent –’

  ‘– you have only to place a powdered wig on his head and no one would know them apart,’ supplied Vincent. ‘Thank you, my love! I must derive what consolation I may from the knowledge that at least I resemble one of my forebears!’

  At this point a welcome interruption occurred. Claud, hearing voices in the hall, came out of one of the saloons, and, addressing himself to Hugo, said severely: ‘Been looking for you all over!’

  ‘What’s amiss?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Just what I expected!’ said Claud. ‘Didn’t I tell you the odds were my grandfather would blame me if you was to vex him? Dash it if he hasn’t told me he shall hold me responsible for you!’

  ‘Ee, that’s bad!’ said Hugo, shaking his head. ‘If I were you, I’d make off back to London as fast as ever I could, lad.’

  Claud looked a little doubtful. ‘Well, I could do that,’ he admitted. ‘At least– No, it wouldn’t fadge. Don’t want my father to take a pet, and he would, because he don’t want to offend the old man. There’s another thing, too.’

  He paused, and it was evident from his darkling brow that he was brooding over a serious affront. His brother, halfway up the stairs, stood looking down at him contemptuously. ‘Don’t keep us in suspense!’ he begged. ‘What inducement has been held out to you?’

  ‘He didn’t hold out any inducement. No inducement he could hold out. I haven’t swallowed a spider! I don’t haunt Pontius Pilate’s doorstep! I don’t have to hang on my grandfather’s sleeve!’ He perceived that Vincent had turned, and was about to descend the stairs again, and temporized. ‘Well, what I mean is, I haven’t yet! No saying when I might have to, of course!’

  ‘Fighting shy, brother?’ said Vincent.

  ‘I’m not fighting at all,’ replied Claud frankly. ‘I don’t say I wouldn’t like to see someone plant you a facer, because I would, but I don’t care for boxing myself, never did! Besides, I’m not up to your weight.’

  ‘Remember that, and don’t crow so loudly, little dunghillcock!’ said Vincent, resuming his progress upstairs.

  ‘One of these days,’ said Claud, as soon as Vincent was out of earshot, ‘somebody will do Vincent a mischief!’

  ‘Gammon!’ retorted Richmond. ‘It was you who stirred the coals, not Vincent! Cutting at him like that!’

  ‘Well, I’ve been vexed to death!’ said Claud. ‘I don’t mind it when my grandfather comes the ugly. I don’t mind his cursing me. I don’t mind it when he says I’ve got no brains. I don’t mind his calling me a fribble, or a popinjay, or a Bartholomew baby. But when he tells me I look like a demi-beau – a demi-beau! –’

  ‘Claud!’ breathed Anthea, deeply shocked. ‘He did not say that?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he did! To my face! Said he didn’t want Hugh tricked out to look like me, too. Said I could mend Hugh’s speech, but he wouldn’t have me teaching him to look like a counter-coxcomb! That to me! He must be queer in his attic!’

  ‘Depend upon it, that’s it!’ she said. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t stay another day where you have been so insulted!’

  ‘Well, I am going to stay!’ replied Claud. ‘I’ll make him eat it, dashed if I won’t! He wants Hugo to model himself on Vincent. A nice cake Hugo would make of himself if he started aping the Corinthian set!’

  ‘I would and-all,’ said Hugo, who was listening to this with his shoulders propped against the wall, his arms folded across his great chest, and an appreciative grin on his face.

  ‘Of course you would! You can’t wear a Bird’s Eye Wipe, and fifteen capes, and a Bit-of-Blood hat unless you’re a top-sawyer, and you ain’t! Told us you weren’t! What’s more, you couldn’t wear a coat like that one of Vincent’s even if you were, because you’re a dashed sight too big already. You’d have all the street-urchins clamouring to know where the Fair was going to be held. You put yourself in my hands! I’ll turn you out in new trim – show you the proper mode – all in print – no finery, but up to the nines!’

  Hugo shook his head. ‘Nay,’ he said mournfully, ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, lad.’

&n
bsp; ‘Dashed if I don’t have a touch at it! Yes, and don’t say nay, or call me lad!’

  ‘Nay then!’ expostulated Hugo, opening his innocent eyes wide.

  Seven

  If the Major nursed a hope that his elegant cousin’s determination to give him a new touch would not survive his wrath he was soon obliged to abandon it. A crusading spirit had entered Claud’s bosom, and before the day was out he had succeeded in cornering the Major, whom he found writing a letter in one of the smaller saloons. He had given much thought to a difficult problem, and he had decided that the first step must be a bolt to the village, where he would himself superintend the choice of hats, boots, gloves, knee-smalls, neckcloths, waistcoats, and shirts; and summon his own tailor to bring his pattern-card to his lodging in Duke Street. Gathering from this programme that a bolt to the village signified a visit to the Metropolis, the Major declined the treat. He was of the opinion that Lord Darracott would cut up extremely stiff if such a plan were even mooted.

  ‘Thought of that too,’ countered Claud. ‘Say you have the toothache! I’ll offer to drive to London with you, and take you to a good tooth-drawer. No need to tell the old gentleman I’m going to rig you out in style.’

  The Major said that he thought his lordship had too much know to be bamboozled; and Claud made the disheartening discovery that his pupil was as obstinate as he was amiable, and so woodheaded that although he listened to what was said to him he seemed to be incapable of taking it in. He agreed that to present a good appearance was of the first importance; when it was pointed out to him that the points of his shirt-collars were so moderate as to be positively dowdy he said he had been afraid that was so from the start; when told that Nugee or Stultz would turn him out in smarter style than Scott, he nodded; but whenever he had been worked up to the point (as Claud thought) of making the necessary alterations to his attire it became apparent that either he had not been attending, or had failed to grasp the meaning of what had been said to him.

  ‘Cast your ogles over me!’ Claud adjured. ‘Don’t want to boast, but I assure you this rig of mine is precise to a pin!’

  ‘Ay, you’re as fine as fivepence,’ said Hugo, obediently looking him over.

  ‘Well, I flatter myself this coat is an excellent hit. I don’t say it would do for you, because you haven’t the figure for it. Not but what you could wear a Cumberland corset, you know. Just to nip you in at the waist!’

  ‘That ’ud be the thing,’ agreed Hugo.

  ‘No need to broaden the shoulders, but a bit of wadding at the top of the sleeve would give ’em a modish peak.’

  ‘So it would!’

  ‘The sleeves must be gathered at the shoulder, too.’

  ‘Ay, they’d have to be.’

  ‘And the tails made longer. Then, with a set of silver buttons – basket-work, I think; a natty waistcoat, and pantaloons of stockinette – not nankeen, or Angola! – well, you see what I mean, coz?’

  ‘I’d look champion.’

  ‘You’d look as neat as wax,’ said Claud. ‘Or trim as a trencher. Not champion!’

  ‘I’d look as neat as wax,’ said Hugo tractably.

  ‘Take my advice, and let Nugee make your coats! Vincent goes to Schweitzer and Davidson for his sporting toggery, and I rather fancy Weston made the coat he wore last night, but Nugee is the man for my money. Or Stultz. I’ll tell you what! Have a coat from each of ’em!’

  ‘Nay, I’ve enough coats already,’ said Hugo.

  ‘Dash it, haven’t I been telling you for ever that they won’t do?’ demanded Claud, in pardonable exasperation.

  ‘Ay, you have, and I’m fairly nappered I didn’t meet you before I let Scott take my measurements,’ said Hugo sadly.

  A worse set-back was in store for the Pink of the Ton. When he pointed out to the Major that two cloak-bags and a portmanteau could not, by any stretch of the imagination, provide adequate accommodation for the number of shirts any aspirant to fashion must carry with him, he was, in his own phrase, floored by his pupil’s simple rejoinder that he had been informed that when staying in the country he might with perfect propriety make good the deficiencies of bucolic launderers with a Tommy.

  ‘A Tommy?’ gasped Claud, his eyes starting from their sockets. ‘A false shirt-front?’

  ‘Ay, that’s it,’ nodded Hugo. ‘Only in the country, of course!’

  A shudder ran through Claud’s frame. ‘No, no! Well, what I mean is– Dash it, coz! – No!’

  Encountering only a blank stare from the Major, Claud was moved to order Richmond’s man, Wellow, who was looking after Hugo, to render up to him any Tommies he might have found. Wellow naturally repeated this extraordinary command to his own master, with the result that when Richmond rode out with Anthea and Hugo next morning he warmly congratulated Hugo on having successfully bubbled Claud.

  ‘Bubbled Claud? How did I do that?’ asked Hugo.

  ‘No, no, cousin, you won’t bubble me! Telling him you meant to eke out your shirts with Tommies! The silly gudgeon bade Wellow hand ’em over to him. Wellow thought he must be touched, for of course you have none.’

  ‘There, now, I knew there was something I’d forgot to pack!’ said Hugo.

  ‘Yes, and you have also forgotten that since Grooby unpacked your luggage, and Wellow is waiting on you, everyone in the house knows that the Major’s linen is of the finest,’ remarked Anthea.

  ‘Now, that I am glad to hear, because I took care to buy the best,’ confided Hugo.

  She cast a somewhat amused glance at him, but said nothing. Riding on the other side of the big bay, Richmond said diffidently: ‘You don’t mean to let Claud rig you out, do you?’

  ‘Eh, but I’m sorely tempted!’ said Hugo. ‘I’d look gradely! That is, I would if I wore some kind of a corset, and that’s where the water sticks, for I’m one who likes to be comfortable.’

  ‘A corset?’ exclaimed both his companions in chorus.

  ‘To nip me in round the waist,’ he explained.

  ‘Of all the impudence!’ said Richmond. ‘You’ve a better figure than Claud!’ He hesitated, and then said, with a slight stammer: ‘As a matter of fact – if you won’t take it amiss! – my grandfather says you look more the gentleman than Claud does!’

  The Major showed no signs of offence, but he did not seem to be much elated either. ‘Well, if he said our Claud looked like a counter-coxcomb that’s not praising me to the skies,’ he observed.

  ‘Praising one to the skies is not one of Grandpapa’s weaknesses,’ said Anthea. ‘You look what you are, cousin: a soldier! I don’t know how it is, but there is always a certain neatness that distinguishes them.’

  ‘That’s due to Scott,’ he replied. ‘There wasn’t much neatness about me, or any of us, barring poor Cadoux, in my Peninsular days. You’ll hear people talk about our jack-a-dandy green uniforms, but, Lord, you should have seen ’em by the time we got to Madrid!’

  That was quite enough for Richmond, who at once began to ply his cousin with questions about his campaigns. The Major replied to them in his good-natured way, but either because he was not a loquacious person, or because he had been forbidden to encourage Richmond’s interest in military matters, he was not as forthcoming as his young cousin had hoped he might be. Sometimes he was even a little disappointing, for when he was begged to describe the march to Talavera, or the battle of Salamanca, the only things he seemed to remember about the march were one or two ludicrous incidents in which he cut a comical but unheroic figure; and all he had to say about the battle was that the Light Bobs had had very little to do in it. Richmond, persevering, asked him if it had always been his ambition to become a soldier. His own romantic ardour glowed in his eyes, but the Major’s reply was again disappointing. ‘Nay, I never thought of it when I was a lad. All I ever wanted to do was to get under everyone’s feet in the mill, or to run off up to the moors instea
d of minding my book.’

  ‘What made you join?’ enquired Anthea. ‘Was it because your father had been a soldier, perhaps?’

  ‘There wasn’t much else I could do,’ he explained. ‘It was this road, you see: I never framed to be a scholar, so it was no use thinking of the Church, or the Law; and as for tewing in the mill, my grandfather wouldn’t hear of it, because I was a gentleman’s son. So, as I’d no fancy for the navy, it had to be the army.’

  It was evident that this prosaic speech daunted Richmond. He said ‘Oh!’ in a flattened tone, and relapsed for some time into silence.

  He had accompanied the Major and his sister on their ride at Anthea’s request. Lord Darracott had told her at the breakfast-table that she might usefully employ herself in making her cousin acquainted with the Darracott land: an attempt to throw them together so blatant that she could only be thankful that she had had the resolution to declare herself to the Major. More from a desire to be revenged on her grandfather than from reluctance to be tête-à-tête with Hugo, she had instantly invited Richmond to accompany her. In this she had been supported by Mrs Darracott, whose notions of propriety, though constantly outraged by the careless Darracotts, were too nice to allow her to regard with complaisance the spectacle of her daughter’s jauntering about the countryside with a strange man (be he never so much her cousin) for her only escort. Richmond, hoping to be regaled with stirring tales of war, had agreed willingly to go; and although the Major had disappointed him he was too well-mannered a boy to make an excuse to leave the small party, or to betray that he thought talk about boundaries, enclosures, rights-of-way, advowsons, leases, and crops a dead bore. He had never had much interest in such matters, and knew far less about them than his sister; so his contributions to the task of instructing the heir were largely confined to a description of the various forms of sport to be obtained in the neighbourhood.