Stunned by this disclosure, it was several moments before his lordship was able to command his voice enough to utter: ‘A man of substance?’
‘Ay, he was well to pass,’ replied the Major. ‘You might say that he addled a mort of brass in his day, tewing and toiling – which he did to the end, think on! It wasn’t often you wouldn’t have found him at the mill, wearing his brat, even when he’d got to be one of the stiffest men in the whole of the West Riding. His brass wasn’t come-by easily, either,’ he added. ‘It was make and scrape with him before he’d addled enough to get agate – not that he was what we call sneck-drawn, in the north. It was just that he knew how to hold household, like any good Yorkshireman.’ He paused, perceiving that my lord was staring at him in mingled incredulity and wrath, and added, in a tone of kindly explanation: ‘That wasn’t the way he made his fortune, of course: it was only the start of it. He was flue-full of mother-wit: the longestheaded man I ever knew, and with a longsight to match it, what’s more! Fly shuttles were invented before he was born, of course, but it wasn’t until he was five years old that the first of the power-looms was put into use – and precious few liking it overly much! He saw it when he was a piecener himself: he told me once that that was the start of his life. Seemingly, he had never any other notion in his head from that time on but what was tied up with machines. He was one of the first to buy Cartwright’s loom – not the one they use now: that didn’t come till a matter of a dozen years later; but a queer old machine you’d think even-down antiquated today. All that was long before I was born or thought of: by the time I was out of short coats such things weren’t considered newfangled any more, and the mill, which the better part of Huddersfield said Granddad had run mad to build, was doing fine!’ He smiled, and said apologetically: ‘Nay, I might as well talk Spanish to you, sir, mightn’t I?’ His smile broadened to a grin. ‘And if any wool-man could hear me explaining the trade to you he’d laugh himself into stitches, think on! You could floor me with any one of a dozen questions, for all I know is little more than I picked up, running about the mill when my grandfather’s back was turned. The thing was that in the old days there was no such thing as a mill, where the packs went in at one door, as you might say, and came out of another as cloths – serges, kerseymeres, freizes, and the like. Cartwright set up a factory in Doncaster, where weaving and spinning both were done; but Granddad went one better nor that – levelling at the moon, they used to say – until they saw that old, ramshackle mill growing and growing! Today, the name of Bray is known to the trade the world over.’
This intelligence did not appear to afford Lord Darracott the smallest gratification. He said, in the voice of one goaded to exasperation: ‘I know nothing about mills, and care less! Answer me this, sir! Is it true, what your uncle writes me – that you inherited a fortune from Bray?’
‘Well,’ replied the Major cautiously, ‘I don’t know just what you’d call a fortune, sir. I’d say myself I was pretty well-inlaid.’
‘Don’t come any niffy-naffy, shabby-genteel airs over me!’ barked his lordship. ‘Tell me without any damned round-aboutation how much you’re worth!’
The Major rubbed his nose. ‘Nay, that’s what I can’t do!’ he confessed.
‘You can’t, eh? I guessed as much! Trust Matthew to exaggerate out of all recognition! Why can’t you?’
‘I don’t know myself, sir,’ said Hugo, making a clean breast of it.
‘What the devil do you mean by that, idiot?’ demanded his lordship. ‘Presumably you know what your grandfather left you!’
‘Oh, I know what his private fortune was, reet enough!’ said Hugo. ‘It’s invested mostly in the Funds, and brings in between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds a year; but that’s not the whole of it. I’ve a sizeable share in the mill over and above that. I can’t tell you what that may be worth to me. Times have been bad lately, what with Luddite riots, and the depression that followed close on the Peace. The harvests were bad last year, too: my uncle Jonas Henry wrote me that in Yorkshire wheat rose to above a guinea the bushel. However, things seem to be on the mend now, so –’
‘Are you telling me that Bray cut up to the tune of half a million?’ said my lord, in a strange voice.
‘It would be about that figure – apart from the mill,’ Hugo agreed.
Lord Darracott was shaken by a sudden gust of rage: ‘How dared you, sir, deceive me?’ he exclaimed.
‘Nay then! I never did so,’ Hugo reminded him. ‘It was in this very room that I told you I’d plenty of brass.’
‘I remember! I supposed you to be referring to prize-money – as you knew!’
Hugo smiled down at him. ‘And I told you that my other grandfather had left his brass to me. You said I might do what I pleased with my granddad’s savings, but that you wanted to hear no more of them or him. So I didn’t tell you any more, for, to own the truth, sir, I was better suited, at that time, to keep my tongue between my teeth until I’d had time to look about me. What’s more,’ he added reminiscently, ‘I wasn’t ettling to remain here above a sennight – particularly when you told me you had it all settled I was to wed my cousin Anthea. Eh, it was a wonder I didn’t take to my heels there and then!’
Lord Darracott stared at him, his lips tightly gripped together, and his eyes smouldering. He did not speak, but after a moment went to the wing-chair on one side of the fireplace, and sat down, his hands grasping its arms. The Major sat down too, saying: ‘Happen it’s as well my uncle wrote to you, for it’s time we reached an understanding. It chances that I’d a letter myself by today’s post, from Uncle Jonas Henry.’ He chuckled. ‘Seemingly he’s as throng as he can be, and a trifle hackled with me for loitering here. I shall have to post off to Huddersfield next week, sir – and a bear-garden jaw I’ll get when I arrive there, if I know Jonas Henry!’
Lord Darracott said, with an effort: ‘Have the goodness to tell me whether you mean to return, or to stay there!’
‘Nay, that’s for you to say, sir.’
The fierce old eyes flashed. ‘It appears I have no hold over you!’
The Major considered him, not unsympathetically. ‘Well, that’s true enough, of course, but don’t fatch yourself over it, sir! If you’re thinking of the brass, I’ll tell you to your head it makes no difference: you’d have had no hold over me any road. But all the brass in the world wouldn’t help me to cross this threshold if you didn’t choose to let me.’
His lordship gave a contemptuous snort of unmirthful laughter, but said in a milder tone: ‘Well, what do you mean to do?’
‘Unless you dislike it, I’d choose, once I’ve settled my affairs, and talked things over with Jonas Henry – I’m by way of being his sleeping partner, you see – to come back. I’d be very well suited if you’d let me have the Dower House. That’s assuming you wish me to take up my quarters here. If not – well, there’s my grandfather’s house above Huddersfield, or I might buy a house in the Shires, perhaps. Time enough to decide what I’ll do – and maybe it won’t be for me to decide, either.’
Lord Darracott looked intently at him. ‘Am I to understand you mean to marry Anthea?’
‘If she’ll have me,’ said the Major simply.
‘She should be flattered! In these hurly-burly times I don’t doubt your fortune will make you acceptable to any female. I dare swear every matchmaking mother in town will cast out lures to you: you have only to throw the handkerchief,’ said my lord sardonically.
‘Well, as I’m doing no throwing of handkerchiefs we’ll never know if you’re right. Myself, I shouldn’t think it, but there’s no sense in breaking squares over what won’t come to pass. If my cousin won’t have me – eh, that doesn’t bear thinking about!’
‘H’m! You seem to have become wondrous great with her!’ remarked his lordship. ‘Does she know what your circumstances are?’
‘Well, I told her, but she didn’t believe a
word of it,’ replied Hugo. ‘And what she’s going to say when she finds I wasn’t trying to bamboozle her has me in the devil of a quake!’ he confessed.
His lordship returned no answer to this, but said presently, keeping his eyes fixed on the Major’s face: ‘What’s your purpose in wishing to live here while I’m above ground?’
‘Much what yours was, when you sent for me sir. Since I must succeed you, it will be as well your people should know me, and I them. I’ve the devil of a lot to learn, too, about the management of estates, for that’s something that’s never come in my way.’ He paused, returning my lord’s gaze very steadily. ‘All to one, they’re in a bad shape, sir, so happen it’s a good thing I’ve plenty of brass.’
‘Ah!’ My lord’s hands clenched on the arms of his chair. ‘We come to it at last, do we? I don’t need you to tell me my land’s in bad heart! I know better by far than you what is crying out to be done, and what it would cost to do it! But if you think to make yourself master here in my time, you may take your brass, as you call it, to hell with you!’
‘Nay, that’s foolishness, sir!’ Hugo remonstrated. ‘I’ve no wish to be master here, for I’d make wretched work of it, as ignorant as I am. But soon or late it will be my fortune that sets matters to rights, and I’d liefer it was soon. If I put money into the place, I’ll not be kept in the dark about any question that properly concerns me, so it’s likely we’ll fratch now-and-now; but I’ll be no more master than Glossop is. I’d be the junior partner.’
‘I’ll brook no interference from you or anyone with what’s my own!’ declared his lordship. ‘You’d like to make me your pensioner, wouldn’t you? I’ll see you damned first!’
‘There’s nothing I’d like less,’ replied Hugo. ‘And what you do with your own is none of my business. But what’s done with settled estates you won’t deny is very much my business.’ He saw his grandfather stiffen; and said, smiling a trifle wryly: ‘You bade me talk without roundaboutation, sir! I’m not such a dummy that I can’t see for myself that there have been things done the trustees never knew of, for they’d not have consented to what’s nothing more nor less than waste.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ demanded his lordship.
Hugo shook his head. ‘Lord, no, sir! I don’t doubt it was forced on you. I’m neither threatening, nor asking questions. I’ll set things to rights – and keep ’em so! That’s all.’
‘It is, is it?’ said his lordship, eyeing him with grim humour. ‘I begin to think that you’re a damned, encroaching, managing fellow, Hugh!’
Hugo chuckled. ‘Ay, but happen you’ll grow accustomed to me, for you need someone to manage for you, other than your bailiff.’ He got up, and stood for a moment or two, looking down with a lurking twinkle at his lordship’s brooding countenance. ‘You sent for me to lick me into shape, sir, because you couldn’t stomach the thought that a regular rum ’un would step into your shoes, if naught was done to teach him how to support the character of a gentleman. Well, it may be that I’m not quite such a Jack Pudding as I let you think. I own, it was a ramshackle thing to do, but when I saw how there wasn’t one amongst you that didn’t believe I’d been reared in a hovel I could no more resist trying how much I could make you swallow than I could stop drawing breath! But by what road you thought I came by a commission in such a regiment as mine, if I’d been an unlettered rustic, the lord only knows! I was no more bookish than Richmond, but I got my schooling at Harrow, sir! However, when it comes to the management of large estates, I’m no better than a raw recruit – and that’s what I’m hoping you mean to teach me.’
A gleam shone in his lordship’s eyes. ‘At the end of which time you’ll be ruling the roast, I collect!’
‘Nay, if I’m here at all I’ll be leg-shackled, and no spirit left in me!’ replied the Major. ‘Never you fear, sir! A terrible shrew she is, the lass I’ve set my heart on!’
Sixteen
The first person to learn the news was Vincent, entering the library not ten minutes after Hugo had left it. His mood was far from sunny; and when his grandfather told him bluntly that so far from being a penniless weaver’s brat his cousin was the grandson of a wealthy mill owner, and plump enough in the pocket to be able to buy an Abbey, he stared at him for a full minute, his eyes glittering, and his mouth thin with bitterness. When he at last spoke, it was with his usual languor, but in a voice that had a cutting edge to it. ‘So!’ he said. He drew out his snuff-box, and took a pinch. ‘I felicitate you, sir!’
Lord Darracott gave a sardonic grunt, but said: ‘So you may! He’s prepared to drop his blunt to bring the place about.’
Vincent flicked a grain of snuff from his sleeve. ‘Handsome of him! Does he happen to have the smallest notion how much blunt he will be obliged to drop to restore the Darracott fortune, I wonder?’
‘He seems to have a good many more notions than I knew!’ replied his lordship harshly. ‘He may or he may not have that one, and he’s not likely to care: he won’t easily break his back! He’s worth half a million at the least computation.’
‘Half a million – !’ Vincent ejaculated. His mouth smiled unpleasantly. ‘That mongrel cur, Ajax!’
His lordship laughed shortly. ‘Ironic, ain’t it? Damn his effrontery! He as good as told me I’d rendered myself open to an action at law!’
‘You do not surprise me at all, sir: I always thought you were over-sanguine in believing he could be brought up to the rig.’
‘Oh, he was within his rights!’ said his lordship unexpectedly. ‘It put me out of temper, but I’m not sure I don’t like him the better for showing fight. He needn’t think he’s going to rule the roast, however!’
‘I devoutly trust you may be able to hold your own, sir, but I must confess that I find it difficult to perceive how, if he pays for it, he is to be prevented from ruling the roast.’
‘You’ll perceive how soon enough, if I have any inching attempts made to unsaddle me!’ said his lordship tartly. ‘To do him justice, he told me he’d no such intention. Said he’d prefer to be my junior partner, if you please!’
‘Timeo Danaos…!’ Vincent murmured.
‘Don’t be a fool! He may have hoaxed us all, impudent dog! but he’s no shuffler. It’s a pity he was ever born, but I’ll say this for him: he’s the only one amongst you that ain’t a blood-sucker!’ He added, on a note of satisfaction: ‘He means to marry Anthea, too, so that takes her off my hands.’
‘Yes, that has been very obvious,’ answered Vincent. ‘I must certainly be the first to congratulate her on her good fortune!’
Since he encountered her in the hall, on her return from a carriage-drive with Mrs Darracott, he was not only the first to congratulate her on her good fortune, but the first to inform her of it. She lifted her brows, asking him what he meant. He replied, with exaggerated surprise: ‘But, my dearest cousin, what could I possibly mean? How could you think I should be backward in offering you my felicitations on your forthcoming marriage?’
Her smile was quite as satirical as his. ‘Am I about to be married? I did not know it.’
‘Then I have been not backward but premature, which is much worse – quite unworthy of me, indeed! Between such old friends as we are, however, the convenances need not be too strictly regarded. Dear Anthea, don’t, I do most earnestly counsel you, let such a prize slip through your fingers! Believe me, once he shows his front in town there will be girls past counting on the catch for him! I would not, on any account, play fast and loose, though I feel sure you do it charmingly. One does not – if one is a Darracott! – play fast and loose with a fortune!’
She began to look genuinely amused. ‘Ah, I understand you now! When do you mean to stop allowing Hugo to hoax you? I was used to think you the most knowing one in the family, too!’
‘Did you, my sweet? That comforts me, for I was used to think so myself, until I discovered that I must yield pr
iority to you.’
‘Vincent, what are you talking about?’ she asked patiently.
‘Why, Hugo’s fortune, of course!’ he said, opening his eyes at her.
She burst out laughing. ‘He hasn’t got a fortune! Vincent, you goose!’
‘What a day of surprises this is!’ he remarked. ‘Do you know, I never dreamed you were possessed of such large ideas? For myself, I should be content with a quarter of a million pounds!’
‘I should think you might indeed be! You don’t imagine, surely, that Hugo has a quarter of a million pounds?’
‘No, no, nothing so paltry! Half a million at the least!’
She was still amused, but a puzzled frown gathered on her brow. ‘I hope you mean to tell me why you are trying to gammon me!’ she said. ‘In general, I understand you pretty well, but this fling is quite beyond me. If Hugo told you he had a huge fortune –’
‘I shouldn’t have believed him, of course,’ he interrupted. ‘The news, dear Anthea, came from my father, and I can’t feel that he was gammoning us. It would be quite unlike him, you know.’
The smile had vanished from her lips; she stared incredulously, growing a little pale. ‘It’s not true!’
‘Oh, weren’t you aware of it? I am disappointed: I was thinking you the only provident member of the family! Yes: half a million, in the Funds. Quite a genteel fortune! Then there is his share in the mill – not, perhaps so genteel, but I daresay you won’t despise it.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ she exclaimed impetuously. ‘My uncle must have been mistaken – or are you trying to roast me!’
He looked at her, his brows raised. ‘Do you know, I begin to think you really were unaware of your good fortune?’ he said.
She returned no answer, but stood perfectly still, an expression of shocked dismay in her eyes. He laughed, and sauntered away; and for a full minute she remained at the foot of the staircase, one gloved hand tightly gripping the carved baluster. Recovering slightly from her stupor, she set her foot on the first stair, and then, on a sudden impulse, turned back, determined to find the Major immediately, and to confront him with what she still suspected to be a hoax.
The Unknown Ajax Page 26