The Unknown Ajax

by Georgette Heyer

  She ran him presently to earth in one of the smaller saloons, engaged in writing a soothing reply to his partner’s letter. ‘So here you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have been searching all over for you! You will please explain to me, at once, how Vincent came by this – this cock-and-bull story he has just told me!’

  He looked round, his pen in his hand, and said admiringly: ‘Eh, you do look pretty, love!’

  Since the flower-trimmed silk bonnet tied under her chin with a broad satin ribbon was of her own making, this tribute would, at any other time, have been very acceptable. At the present moment, however, she had no thought to spare for such frivolities, and retorted with asperity: ‘Never mind how I look! Vincent says – Hugo, it isn’t true, is it? You haven’t a large fortune, have you?’

  ‘Nay, lass!’ he said, in a tone of pained remonstrance. ‘I told you I had!’

  She gazed at him, flushed and horrified. ‘I thought you were funning! I never dreamed – ! Oh, how could you?’ she said passionately.

  He laid the pen down, and got up, and went towards her. ‘Oh, it was none of my doing!’ he assured her. ‘Granddad addled it, and, having no other chick or child, he just left it to me.’

  ‘Half a million pounds?’ she said, in tones of revulsion.

  ‘Something like that,’ he nodded.

  ‘Oh, how – how horrible!’ she uttered, putting out her hands to thrust him away.

  ‘Nay, love, I thought you’d be pleased!’ he expostulated.

  ‘Pleased?’

  ‘Of course I did! Why, you told me yourself you meant to marry a man of large fortune! Mind, I was a trifle shocked to find you were so mercenary, but –’

  ‘You knew very well I was joking you! I would never have said such a thing if I’d had the least notion– Oh, how abominable you are!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘Now, how was I to know that? The way you stood there, telling me only a house in the best part of town would do for you, and saying I was sneck-drawn to be thinking of hiring one instead of buying it – well, I was fairly taken-aback!’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Then I marvel at it that you still wished to offer for me!’ she said, quite unable to refrain from retort.

  ‘Well,’ he confessed, looking sheepish. ‘I’d gone so far I couldn’t for the life of me see how to hedge off.’

  After a moment’s severe struggle with herself, Miss Darracott said bitterly: ‘I should have known better! I might have guessed you were only waiting for the chance to say something outrageous! Well, you can hedge off now, sir!’

  ‘It’s too late, lass,’ he said, with a heavy sigh. ‘I’d have everyone saying I’d conducted myself reet shabbily.’

  ‘That needn’t trouble you! I will engage to make it very plain to all that I refused your obliging offer! As for people saying you had behaved shabbily, what, pray, do you think they would say of me, if I married you? Cream-pot love is what they’d say! Vincent is doing so already! He – he thinks I knew the truth from the start, and – and set my cap at you, just because I wished to be wealthy! And I don’t!’ declared Miss Darracott, much agitated.

  Perceiving that she was having great difficulty in finding her handkerchief in the recesses of her reticule, the Major very kindly gave her his own. She took it, casting a wet but darkling glance at him, angrily dried her eyes, and informed him, in a slightly husky voice that she never cried but when she was enraged.

  ‘If ever I met such a naggy lass!’ observed the Major, recovering his handkerchief, and contriving, at the same time, to put his arm round her. ‘Now, don’t cry, love! We can soon set things to rights! How much money would you like to have?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd!’ begged Anthea, making a half-hearted effort to push him away. ‘What I should like is of no consequence whatsoever!’

  ‘Ay, but it is. It won’t do for me to get rid of my fortune without knowing how much of it you want me to keep,’ he said reasonably.

  ‘Get rid of it?’ She lifted her head to stare at him. ‘Would you – if I asked you to?’

  He smiled down at her. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be a particle of use to me if you didn’t marry me. The only thing that fatches me a trifle is that I’ve promised my grandfather to let him have what’s needed to set this place in order. Of course, I could make him a present of it, to play at ducks and rakes with, which I don’t doubt he would: but setting aside that it would drive me daft to see him doing it, if I’ve to step into his shoes one day it’ll be just as well if I’m able to stand the nonsense. Besides, I’ll have to support an establishment of my own – and it’s no use asking me to set you up in a weaver’s cottage, love, because there’s reason in all things, and I won’t do it! It would be well enough if I were a small man, but to be obliged to duck my head every time I went through the doorway wouldn’t suit me at all. What’s more,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I’d be bound to fill the place up more than you’d like.’

  ‘Are you never serious?’ asked Anthea despairingly.

  ‘I was trying to hit on a way out the difficulty,’ he explained, injured.

  ‘You were trying to make me laugh – and don’t waste your breath denying it!’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a laugh exactly,’ said the Major diffidently. ‘It’s more of a gurgle, if you know what I mean. Yes, that’s it!’

  ‘Any female who was so idiotish as to marry you would be driven to madness within one week!’ declared Anthea.

  ‘I know she would,’ he agreed. ‘That’s why I’ll not live in a cottage with you, love.’

  ‘Hugo, this is no laughing matter!’ she said. ‘I feel quite dreadfully about it!’

  ‘I can see you do, but why you should has me in a puzzle. If you’re nattered by what Vincent says –’

  ‘What Vincent says is what everyone else will say, or, at any rate, think!’ she interrupted. ‘I daresay I should myself. They’ll say I caught you before you’d had time to meet other, and far more eligible, females! Indeed, I shouldn’t wonder at it if they said you had been entrapped into marrying me – which is perfectly true, because Grandpapa sent for you with that end in view! Hugo, you might marry anyone! I think you should go to town, and – and look about you! At least no one could say then that you were allowed no opportunity to make your own choice.’

  ‘Nay, I can’t do that!’ he said hastily. ‘It would be downright foolhardy, and that’s something we Light Bobs don’t hold with. I’m not going next or nigh London till I’m safely wed.’

  ‘Now what are you going to say?’ asked Anthea, in a resigned tone.

  ‘I see I’ll have to make a clean breast of it,’ said the Major, with every sign of shamefaced reluctance. ‘The thing is, love, that my grandfather tells me that the instant I show my front in town I’ll have all the matchmaking mothers hunting me down. I wouldn’t know what to do, for I’m not accustomed to that sort of thing, never having had lures cast out to me before, besides being a bashful kind of a man. It wouldn’t be cousinly of you to abandon me. In fact,’ he added, rapidly developing a strong sense of ill-usage, ‘it would be reet cruel, seeing how I put myself in your hands, just as I was bid.’

  ‘I would give much to see you fleeing in terror from a matchmaking mother,’ remarked Anthea wistfully. ‘Or, indeed, from anyone. But as you are utterly brazen –’

  ‘Nay!’

  ‘…and much in need of a set-down –’

  ‘I’m not in need of that, lass, for I’m getting one,’ he interpolated ruefully.

  ‘No, no! – At least– Oh, dear, I daresay it sounds foolish to you, and I know I told you I was mercenary, but I’m not Hugo! Only think how it would appear to everyone! As though I had been determined before ever I saw you not to let your odious fortune slip through my hands!’

  He patted her consolingly. ‘You needn’t worry about that, love. When people see you wearing the same bonnet for year
s on end they’ll never think you married me for my fortune.’

  ‘As nothing would induce me to wear the same bonnet for years on end –’

  ‘You’ll have to,’ he said simply. ‘I’m a terrible nip-farthing. Sare-baned, we call it. It’ll take a deal of coaxing to get as much as a groat out of me. I hadn’t meant to tell you, but I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you, and if you were thinking I’m not one to cut up stiff over the bills, or –’

  ‘If you knew what I was thinking you’d never hold up your head again!’ she told him. ‘You seem to forget that you wished to purchase the moon for me!’

  ‘Nay, I don’t forget that! The thing is I can’t purchase it, so there was no harm in saying it. Now, if I’d said I’d like to give you a diamond necklace, or some such thing, you might have taken me up on it. I remembered that just in time to stop myself,’ he explained, apparently priding himself on his forethought.

  ‘I should like very much to have a diamond necklace,’ said Anthea pensively.

  ‘Wouldn’t a paste one do as well?’ he asked, in a voice of great uneasiness.

  She had been so sure that he would fall into the trap that she was taken, for an instant, off her guard, and looked up at him with such a startled expression on her face that his deep chuckle escaped him, and he lifted her quite off her feet, and kissed her.

  Scandalized by such impropriety, Miss Darracott commanded him to set her down immediately, on pain of never being spoken to by her again. This threat cowed him into obedience, and Miss Darracott, considerably flushed and ruffled, was just about to favour him with her opinion of his conduct when Claud walked into the room, thus saving his large cousin from annihilation.

  Claud had come in search of him, the news of his affluence having by this time reached him. He could scarcely have been more delighted had he himself suddenly inherited a fortune, for he instantly perceived that now more than ever would Hugo need a guiding hand, particularly in the choice of a suitable town residence, and its furnishing. He had a great turn for such matters, and had, indeed, so unerring an eye for colour, and such exquisite taste in decoration, that his advice was frequently sought by ladies of high fashion who desired to bestow a new touch on their drawing-rooms. Since he lived modestly in two rooms in Duke Street, there was little scope for his genius in his own abode: a circumstance which made him look forward with intense pleasure to the prospect of being able to lavish his skill not merely on a drawing-room or a saloon, but on an entire house, from attics to basement. ‘It’ll be something like!’ he assured Hugo. ‘Just you leave it to me, old fellow! No need for you to worry yourself over it! You dub up the possibles, and I’ll lay ’em out to the best advantage. Yes, and don’t, on any account, enter into a treaty for a house behind my back! You’d be diddled, as sure as check, because it stands to reason you can’t know your way about in London. Anthea don’t know either, so it’s no use thinking you can leave it to her. As likely as not she’d land you in Russell Square, all amongst the Cits and the bankers, or Upper Grosvenor Street, miles from anywhere.’

  This was a little too much for Miss Darracott. ‘Have no fear!’ she said coldly. ‘Indeed, I can’t conceive why you should suppose I should wish to choose a house for Hugo!’

  ‘Dash it, you’re going to marry him, aren’t you?’ said Claud. ‘We all know that!’

  ‘You know nothing of the sort!’ she declared hotly. ‘The only thing you know is that Grandpapa desires it, and if you imagine that I care a rush for –’

  ‘No, dash it!’ interrupted Claud. ‘Never thought about the old gentleman at all! Well, what I mean is, it’s as plain as a pikestaff! You can’t go about smelling of April and May, the pair of you, and then expect to gull people into thinking you don’t mean to get riveted! A pretty set of gudgeons you must think we are!’

  ‘That’s dished me!’ said the Major fatalistically.

  ‘I’ll tell you what!’ said Claud, engrossed in his vicarious schemes, ‘we’ll take a bolt to the village next week, and see what’s to be had! No reason why you and my Aunt Elvira shouldn’t come too, Anthea. You can put up at –’

  ‘Nay, we’ll do no such thing!’ intervened Hugo, in some haste. ‘I’m off to Huddersfield next week.’

  Anthea, making a dignified exit, looked back involuntarily. ‘Going away! Oh – oh, are you? Will you be making a long stay in Yorkshire?’

  ‘Not a day longer than I must,’ replied Hugo, smiling at her so warmly that she felt herself blushing, and retired in shaken order.

  In all but one quarter, the news of Hugo’s wealth was very well received, Ferring, in particular, becoming so puffed-up that his uncle felt obliged to snub him severely. My lord came to dinner in a mood of unprecedented amiability; and Mrs Darracott told her affronted daughter that fortune was the one thing needed to make dear Hugo wholly acceptable.

  ‘Mama, how can you!’ exclaimed Anthea.

  ‘Well, my love, it is a great piece of nonsense to pretend that life is not very much more comfortable when one can command its elegancies, and always be beforehand with the world, because it is!’ replied Mrs Darracott, with one of her disconcerting flashes of common-sense. ‘I liked Hugo from the outset, but although I very soon perceived that he was just the man to make you happy, I could not wish you to marry him when I believed it meant that you would be obliged to live here, dependent on your grandfather! But he has been telling me about his scheme to furbish up the Dower House, if you should not dislike it – and I can’t think why you should, dearest, for he says the ghost is nothing more than Spurstow, trying to keep everyone away, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least, for I always disliked that man, and even if there is a ghost it cannot possibly be more disagreeable to live with than your grandfather! I should not find it so, at all events, and only think, Anthea! dear Hugo wishes me to live there too! Of course I said I should not, but I was very much affected: indeed, I cried a little!’ She paused, to dry the tears that were again rolling down her cheeks. ‘He couldn’t have been kinder if he had been my own son!’ she disclosed. ‘You must not suppose I wasn’t devoted to your poor Papa, my dear, but no one could call him a dependable man, and oh, what a comfort it is to one to have a creature like Hugo to turn to! Say what you will, my love, there is something about very big, quiet men! So ridiculous, too!’ she added, with a rather shaky laugh. ‘He says if you won’t marry him he will want me more than ever to live at the Dower House, to keep house for him! I was obliged to laugh, though naturally I gave him a scold for talking such nonsense. And although I wouldn’t press you for the world, my dearest child, I did tell him that nothing could make me happier than to see you married to him – and it is of no use to take a pet, because if you are not in love with him, all I can say is that you are a most shocking flirt, which I should be sorry to think of any child of mine! And as for not marrying him because he is much wealthier than we knew, I never heard anything so absurd in my life!’

  Miss Darracott made no attempt to defend herself; but, revolted by the knowledge that the better part of her family was apparently waiting in hourly expectation of receiving the news of her betrothal, she roundly informed her suitor next day that nothing would induce her to gratify a set of persons whom she very improperly described as vulgar, prying busybodies.

  The Major received this declaration with perfect equanimity, even going so far as to say that he would be very well suited to postpone the announcement of the engagement until (as he phrased it) they were shut of his Uncle Matthew’s family. ‘That won’t be long after I get back from Huddersfield, from what my Aunt Aurelia was saying t’other evening. I’ll have to go there, love, because when I was recalled, before Waterloo, I’d no time to do more than pitch all my affairs back into Jonas Henry’s lap, as you might say. Ay, and that puts me in mind of another thing! He hired Axby House from me when my grandfather died, and I’ve a notion he’d be glad if I’d sell it to him outright. Now, tell me, lo
ve: shall I do it, or have you a fancy for it?’

  ‘I think you should do exactly as you wish.’

  ‘Nay, love!’ expostulated the Major.

  ‘I only meant that – well, how could I have a fancy for a house I’ve never seen?’ said Anthea. ‘Though I own I should like to see the place where you were born.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t born at Axby House, so that settles it,’ said the Major cheerfully. ‘Tell me another thing! Do you think Richmond would care to go with me?’

  She looked quickly at him. ‘Richmond! Why, Hugo?’

  He said, with one of his most innocent stares: ‘Just for company. Happen he’d be interested to see something more of the country than he’s yet had the chance to.’

  ‘I should think he would like very much to go, but I do not think that that’s what you have in your head,’ she said shrewdly. ‘I know you don’t mean to tell me what it is, so I shan’t waste my breath in trying to persuade you to do so. I only wish you may prevail upon Grandpapa to let Richmond go with you, but I very much doubt that you will. He is suspicious of you, Hugo: did you know that? He is afraid you may foster Richmond’s military ambition.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I know that, and he’s in the right of it, think on! I’m going to do more than that, odd-come-shortly – and that’s another reason, love, why you should marry me!’

  This was an opening not to be ignored. ‘You mean, I collect,’ said Anthea thoughtfully, ‘that you won’t help Richmond unless I do marry you.’

  ‘No, love,’ responded the Major gently, ‘I’m not holding a pistol to your head. I’ll do what I can for Richmond in any event, but I’d be standing in a far better position if I were his brother-in-law, and not merely one of his cousins.’