“Ay, no doubt she must be dreading your departure! I hadn’t thought of that, but I promise you I pity her with all my heart! She is thrown into high fidgets by no more than a rough word from my father. If she could school herself to be a little less in alt she would go on better with him, but her understanding I have never thought superior. I only wish you may not find it a bore to be continually with her!”
“You may be easy on that head. We have the habit of easy intercourse, and if she has little force of mind she is always so good-natured and attentive that you need entertain no fears that I shall not be comfortable.”
With these words, Lady Aurelia picked up her book again, and Matthew, interpreting this as a sign that the audience was at an end, imprinted a salute upon her cheek, and took himself off to his own room.
Hugo, meanwhile, had been strolling up and down the terrace, and enjoying the solace of one of his forbidden cigars. His countenance was thoughtful; and when he presently sat down on the parapet there was the hint of a crease between his brows. He remained there for some little time, staring abstractedly before him; but presently some small sound caught his attention, and he turned his head to look searchingly across the shadowed garden below. The moonlight was faint, obscured by broken clouds, but he was able to discern a vague figure striding across the lawn towards the house. He remained motionless, and in another minute or two recognized Vincent. It was not until Vincent had reached the foot of the shallow stone steps that he perceived his cousin. He paused, looking up, and said: “Ah! Ajax! Taking the air, or is it possible you were waiting for me?”
“Just blowing a cloud,” replied Hugo, lifting his hand to show the butt of the cigar between his fingers.
“A filthy habit—if you don’t object to my saying so?”
“Nay, why should I?”
Vincent mounted the steps leisurely. “Who am I to instruct you? I daresay you know why you should
“Oh, yes, I know that!” Hugo said serenely.
“Your compliance is only equalled by your amiability—and I find both insupportable.”
“There’s no need to tell me that. I’m sorry for it, but happen you’d find me insupportable whatever I did.”
“Almost undoubtedly. I find virtue a dead bore. I have very little myself. I don’t know how it is, but the virtuous are invariably dull, which I can’t bring myself to pardon.”
Hugo’s deep chuckle sounded. “Nay then! You’re trying to hoax me! To think of you calling me virtuous! You’ll have me blushing like a lass!” He pitched the butt of his cigar into one of the flowerbeds below. When he turned again towards Vincent he spoke in a different tone, and with less than his usual drawl. “Sithee, Vincent! Squaring with me won’t help either of us. I’d be very well suited if you were in my shoes, but there’s no way of bringing that about, and naught for either of us to do but make the best of it.”
“Yes, you wrote as much to my grandfather, didn’t you?” Vincent said. “A mistake! It didn’t turn him up sweet at all. He’s a hard man to gammon, and that, you know, was doing it much too brown.”
Hugo heaved a despairing sigh. “You’re as daft as he is! I can understand that you should think it a grand thing to inherit all this, for you’ve known it your life long, and I don’t doubt it’s home to you. It’s not home to me, and why any of you should have got it stuck in your heads that I’d want to be saddled with a place that’s falling to ruin I’ll be damned if I know!”
“To
“Nay, I didn’t mean to offend you! It’s a fine old house, but it’s like everything else I’ve seen: there’s been no brass spent on it for many a day, and it’ll take a mountain of brass to set it to rights. As for the land, I’ve a notion there’s something more than brass needed, and that’s better management. I can see I’ll have a hard job on, and one to which I wasn’t bred. Eh, it’s more like a millstone tied round my neck than a honey-fall!”
“And the title, of course, means nothing to you!”
“I’d as lief be without it,” admitted Hugo.
“Humdudgeon! Are you really such a Jack Adam’s as to think I’ll swallow that?”
“Suit yourself!” Hugo answered. “If that’s the way it is with you, there’s no good talking.”
“None whatsoever—for you would certainly be unable to understand what it means to be Darracott of Darracott Place! You do not appear to me even to understand that I dislike you!”
“Oh, I understand that!” Hugo said, with another chuckle. “If there were any cliffs here you’d be ettling to push me over the edge, wouldn’t you?”
“The temptation would be almost irresistible, but I hardly think I should go to those lengths. Let us say that if you tottered on the verge I shouldn’t pull you back from it!” Vincent retorted.
“It ’ud be a daft thing for you to do, think on,” said Hugo reflectively. “You’d go over with me, choose how!”
Chapter 10
Major Darracott spent the next week acquainting himself as best he might with his future inheritance. He received no assistance and very little encouragement from his grandfather, his tentative suggestion that my lord enlighten his ignorance being met with a crushing snub. My lord had not enjoyed the novel experience of being left without a word to say, nor was he accustomed to meet with disagreement in the bosom of his family. His sons and his grandsons, and even his spirited granddaughter, had learnt the wisdom of refraining from argument, in general receiving his more dogmatic utterances in silence, and never forcing him into the position of being obliged to defend the indefensible. Such divergent opinions as they might have held remained unuttered, under which arrangement they were at liberty, for anything his lordship cared, to differ from him as much as they chose. It had come, therefore, as a shock to him when Hugo (an upstart, as near to being misbegotten as made no odds), instead of keeping to himself his shabby-genteel notions of morality had not only owned to them without hesitation when challenged, but had had the effrontery to maintain them in the teeth of his grandfather’s disapprobation. That he had taken little part in the resultant argument in no way alleviated my lord’s anger. What he had said had served to compel Matthew, uneasily conscious of his office, to support him. My lord was indifferent to Claud’s revolt, but Matthew’s defection had infuriated him. Forgetting that it was not Hugo, but Vincent, who had tossed the bone of dissension into their midst, he saw Hugo as an impudent make-bait, too full of north-country bumptiousness to realize that he had nothing to do but to hold his peace amongst the relatives who had magnanimously admitted him to a place within their ranks. Far from conducting himself with becoming humility he had, in his maddeningly simple way, exposed the weakness of his grandfather’s case; and, to crown his iniquity, he had recognized and laughed at the absurdity of an aphorism hastily uttered as a clincher to a losing argument.
The hostility which the Major’s style in the saddle had done something to diminish flamed up again; and when he expressed a desire to be instructed in the extent and management of the estates, he was seen as an encroaching mushroom, a burr, and ah irreclaimable commoner, and was informed that his cousin Anthea would tell him as much as it was needful for him to know. My lord added that if he thought he would be allowed to put a finger in a pie not yet his own, he would soon learn his mistake.
It had not been Anthea’s intention to gratify her grand-sire by devoting any appreciable part of her time to the entertainment or the education of Major Darracott. She had not disliked her one expedition in his company: indeed, she had enjoyed it, for she had discovered him to be likeable and amusing. But she had detected in him a certain audacity which set her on her guard, and made her determined to keep him (in a perfectly friendly way) at arm’s length. Had he tried to advance himself in her good graces, or to coax her to ride with him, she would have hardened her heart, and abandoned him to Claud; but the Major committed neither of these imprudences. When Mrs. Darracott, her earlier scruples forgotten, suggested that Anthea should take him to see some view, or picturesque village, he said that he did not wish to be a nuisance to his cousin, who must not feel it to be her duty to entertain him when, no doubt, she had many more important tasks on hand.
Unlike her mother, who thought the Major’s meekness very touching, Anthea regarded him with a good deal of suspicion. She could detect nothing but humble deference in his smile, but she was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that he was either meek or biddable. His countenance was certainly good-humoured, and his blue eyes guileless, but about his firm-lipped mouth and decided chin there was not a trace of weakness or of humility; and although he was unassertive, making no attempt to force his way into the family circle, or to take an uninvited part
