The Unknown Ajax

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Polyphant, who had indeed been standing staring at him, gave a start, and recalled his scattered wits. “Yes, sir—to be sure! I fear I was indulging in reflection—I will remove the bowls first, and then Mr. Claud will be comfortable again!”

  “You’ll find the swabs I squeezed in my hand behind the sofa cushions,” Hugo warned him. “Vincent, will you see all these clothes disposed of? I’ve been trying to decide what had best be done with Richmond, and it seems to me that we’ll have to put him to bed in Claud’s room, for that wound of his must be attended to, and since it’s Claud who’s supposed to be the wounded one we mustn’t have any bloodstains anywhere but on his sheets. Now, there’s no need to start shuddering, lad! I’m not asking you to sleep on them!”

  “No, and it wouldn’t be any use if you did ask me to!” Claud informed him, pausing in his struggles to unwind the bandages from round his slim person. “Dashed if I ever met such a fellow as you are!”

  “How seldom it is that I find myself in accord with you, brother!” remarked Vincent. He looked at Hugo, and said, with a wry smile: “You irritate me intensely, you know. I have little doubt that you always will, but if ever I should get into a tight corner I do hope to God you will be at hand to pull me out of it, coz!”

  “Never mind throwing the hammer at me!” replied Hugo, unmoved by this tribute, “if you want to throw it at anyone, throw it at Claud, because he’s the one who saved our groats!” His eyes were on Richmond, and he went to him, saying: “I think I’ll carry you up to bed, lad, before I do aught else.”

  Richmond lifted his head with an effort. The fire had gone out of his eyes, and with the passing of danger the spirit that had upheld him so indomitably had sunk, allowing his physical weakness at last to overcome him. He managed to smile, and to say, in the thread of a voice: “A close-run thing ...! Thank you—so very grateful—so sorry, Hugo—Grandpapa ...”

  Hugo caught him, as he collapsed, and lifted him up in his arms. “Eh, poor lad, I ought to have got him to bed sooner, instead of standing there chattering!” he said remorsefully. “Anthea, run upstairs to see if the coast is clear, will you, love?” He looked at Lady Aurelia. “I take it you warned his mother, ma’am?”

  “Certainly,” she replied. “She was cast into very natural affliction, and dared not come down to this room for fear that her agitation might overcome her, and so betray you all, but I left her in Mrs. Flitwick’s care, and have no doubt that she will be more composed by now.”

  “I’m very much obliged to you, ma’am,” he said. “Breaking it to her was the thing I dreaded most.”

  “An unpleasant task,” she agreed. “I am happy to have been able to relieve you of it, for, however little I may approve of your conduct this evening I must own myself to be deeply grateful to you for all that you have done, and, I may add, very conscious of the magnanimity you have shown.”

  “Nay—!” begged the Major, reddening.

  She said graciously: “You have no need to blush, my dear Hugo. I do not mean to flatter you, and will only say that I have from the beginning of our acquaintance believed you to be a most estimable young man. I have little doubt that when you have overcome your tendency to levity you will do very well at Darracott Place.”

  Fortunately, since Hugo was showing signs of acute embarrassment, Anthea had by this time come back into the room, to report that it was safe to carry Richmond upstairs. Lord Darracott rose stiffly from the chair into which he had sunk, and looked at Hugo, saying, as though the words were forced from him: “I am obliged to you, Hugo.”

  “There’s no need for that, sir,” Hugo replied cheerfully. “The young scamp’s as near to being my brother-in-law as makes no odds—though happen I’d have better not to have said that, because, now I come to think of it, you’ve not accepted my offer yet, have you, love?”

  “More levity?” she murmured.

  He grinned. “You’re reet: I’m past praying for! Come, now, lead the way, lass!” He saw that Lord Darracott was looking at Richmond’s white, unconscious face, and paused for a moment, and said gently: “He’s got spunk, you know, sir.”

  His lordship’s grim mouth twisted. “Yes,” he said, turning away. “He was always—full of pluck. Take him up to his mother!”

  It was some considerable time later that Hugo came downstairs again. Claud had retired to bed, but Lord Darracott and Vincent were still up, seated in the library. As Hugo came into the room, Vincent looked up with a flickering smile. “Well? How is that abominable brat?”

  “Oh, he’s nicely!” Hugo replied. “He won’t be very comfortable till he’s had the bullet dug out of him—and that’s something he won’t enjoy, think on—but it would take more than one bullet to daunt him! I won’t deny that he’s caused a deal of trouble—eh, if ever a lad wanted a good skelping—! But I can’t but like young devils as full of gaiety as he is.”

  “Yes, excellent bottom,” Vincent agreed, getting up, and walking across the room to a side-table. “I owe you an apology, Ajax: you warned me, and I paid no heed. I’m sorry. Had I attended to you, I might have averted the singularly nerve-racking events we have survived this night, thanks, I admit,—and you have no notion how much it costs me to do so!—to your unsuspected genius for—er—diddling the dupes! Accept my compliments, and allow me to offer you some brandy! Unless the very word has, for reasons which I need not, I feel, explain to you, become repulsive to you, I am persuaded you must stand in urgent need of it.”

  Hugo grinned, as he took the glass Vincent was holding out to him, but said quite seriously: “Well, it nattered me at the time that you wouldn’t heed me, but I’m not so sure now that it would have made any difference if you had. The best thing about this business is that, while that cargo was hidden in this passage of ours, it didn’t matter to Richmond how close the hounds were: it was his doing that they were stored there, and nothing anyone could have said would have turned him from what he saw to be his duty. You heard him, Vincent: he said he couldn’t leave his men in the lurch, because it was his scheme, and he was in command. Never mind the rest!—that’s the stuff out of which a damned good officer is made!” He looked down at his grandfather. “You don’t like roundaboutation, sir, and nor do I. I told Ottershaw that Richmond had won your consent to his joining, and I’m looking to you to make my word good. Will you let me purchase a cornetcy for him?”

  There was a long silence. Vincent broke it. “You have no choice, sir.”

  “Do as you will!” his lordship said harshly. “That any grandson of mine could—and, of you all, Richmond!—”

  “It’s no wish to mine to fratch with you over what’s done, and can’t be mended,” interrupted Hugo, “but ask yourself, sir, whose fault it was that a lad of his cut, crazy with disappointment, and hearing nothing but praise of smuggling all his life, was brought to this pass?”

  “I have said you may do as you will! I am not answerable to you for Richmond’s upbringing!”

  “Not to me, but to him, sir.”

  Lord Darracott threw him a strange glance, and lowered his eyes again. After a slight pause, Vincent said: “And so, coz?”

  “If it’s left to me, I’d like to see the boy in the Seventh Hussars. I’ve several good friends in the regiment, who’ll need no urging to keep an eye on a lad who bears my name.”

  “That, cousin,” murmured Vincent, “is the most un-kindest cut of all! Proceed!”

  “Nay, I didn’t mean it so! For the rest, we’ve settled it between us—my aunts and I—that it will be best to get the lad away from here, and Claud too, at first light, before the servants are up and about. It will be easily done, and accounted for: your mother wants her own doctor to deal with Claud, and Richmond goes to help her with him on the journey. John Joseph will drive them to Tonbridge in her ladyship’s own carriage, and see to the hiring of a post-chaise there to carry them on to London. I’ve promised my Aunt Elvira I’ll take her to London myself as soon as I get back from the north, but it won’t do for her t
o join Richmond too soon, for we don’t want to set tongues wagging.”

  “Have you induced her to let him go without her? Good God!”

  “She’ll do nothing to hinder us from doing what’s best for him, little though she may like it. She knows your mother will take good care of him, too.”

  “Your staff work is admirable, coz. Why, by the way, does Richmond go to succour Claud while I remain here?”

  “No one will wonder at that, lad! Claud’s in no state for fratching!”

  “Touché!”Vincent acknowledged, throwing up a hand. “You don’t feel that I ought to drive myself to town in the wake of the chaise, as—er—rearguard?”

  “I don’t,” replied Hugo. “You and I, lad, have got work to do here! Something must be done about that secret passage. If we can do no more, between the pair of us, than block it, as it was when Richmond first saw it, we’ll do that.”

  “What an enchanting prospect!” said Vincent faintly. “How right you are—damn you!”

  Hugo chuckled, but addressed his grandfather. “There’s one thing more, sir. That young good-like naught of yours won’t rest until he’s seen you. He knows well the blow he’s dealt you. He bade me tell you so.”

  Lord Darracott rose from his chair. “I’ll go to him,” he said curtly.

  Hugo moved to the door, to open it for him. His lordship paused for a moment before he went out, passing a hand across his brow. “I suppose you will do what’s necessary. There will be many things—his boat, his horses—I’m too tired tonight, but I’ll discuss it with you tomorrow. Goodnight!”

  “Goodnight, sir,” Hugo replied. He shut the door, and came back into the room. “Happen I’d best do something to put him in a passion tomorrow,” he said thoughtfully. “It won’t do to let him fall into a lethargy.”

  “You will, cousin, you will!” Vincent said, with his mocking smile. “I own, however, that I shall greet the familiar storm-signs with positive relief.”

  Ten minutes later, Anthea was saying much the same thing. “I never thought I could be sorry for Grandpapa,” she told her cousins, “but I am, and, what’s more, I had rather by far have him cross than stunned!”

  “Have no fear!” said Vincent. “Ajax is already considering how best to enrage him.”

  She smiled, but said: “Well, anything would be preferable to having him so quiet and crushed. He didn’t utter one word of reproach to Richmond. But what almost sank me to the floor was his saying to Mama that she had much to forgive him! It was precisely what she had been saying to me, except that she said she never would forgive him, so you may imagine my astonishment when she burst into tears on his chest! As a matter of fact I nearly burst into tears myself.”

  “Dear me, what a lachrymose scene!” remarked Vincent. “I shall go to bed to fortify myself for the inevitable reaction—not to mention the exhausting labours I shall no doubt be expected to undertake in that accursed passage. To think how much I once wanted to discover it, and how much I wish now that it never had been discovered!” He went to the door, and opened it, looking back to say: “My dislike of you is rapidly growing, Ajax: I shouldn’t make the smallest attempt to drag you back from that cliff-edge!”

  “What cliff-edge?” enquired Anthea, as Vincent left the room.

  “Just a joke, lass. Eh, you look tired out!”

  “I am tired out, but I couldn’t go to bed without coming to thank you, Hugo. I—oh, Hugo, I can’t believe yet that it wasn’t a nightmare!” she said, walking straight into his arms, and hugging as much of him as she could.

  He received her with great willingness, enfolding her in a large and comforting embrace, “Well, that’s all it was, think on,” he said. “Now, don’t you start on cry, lass!”

  “I won’t,” she promised. She took his face between her hands, smiling up at him, and saying: “Noble Ajax, you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable!”

  “Nay then, love!” expostulated the Major. “Don’t be so daft!”

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