The Unknown Ajax

“Ay, I know I would,” he agreed. “A dog’s life I’d lead, with you riding rough-shod over me, as I don’t doubt you would, seeing that you’re such a shrew, but—”

“Exactly so! So why, pray, do you wish to be married to me?” said Anthea, pouncing on opportunity.

“Eh, lass, I thought you knew!” he answered, his eyes round with surprise. “To please his lordship, of course!”

Miss Darracott’s feelings threatened to overcome her. None of the rejoinders that rose to her lips seemed adequate to the occasion; she stared up in seething impotence at her tormentor; saw that he was watching her with an appreciative and extremely reprehensible twinkle in his eyes; and decided that the only way to deal with him was to pay him back in his own coin. So she said, with really very creditable calm: “I need scarcely tell you that that is an object with me too, but try as I will I can’t bring myself to the sticking-point.”

“Come now, love, never say that!” he responded, in heartening accents. “To be sure, there’s a lot of me to swallow but you’re too game to be beaten on any suit!”

She shook her head. “There’s not enough of you to swallow,” she said. “I must tell you that my disposition, besides being shrewish, is mercenary. I am determined to marry a man of fortune. Large fortune!”

“Oh, I’ve plenty of brass!” he assured her.

“I am only interested in gold,” she said loftily. “Furthermore, I have no fancy for living in the Dower House.”

“Well, I can offer you a house in Yorkshire, if you think you could fancy that. I was meaning to see it, but —”

“Have you really a house in Yorkshire?” she asked suspiciously.

“Of course I have!”

“There’s no of course about it!” she said, with asperity. “You tell such shocking whiskers that not the slightest dependence can be placed on anything you say! Where is this house?”

“On the edge of the moor, by Huddersfield. That’s the trouble. When my grandfather gave up the old house, next to the mill, and we went to live at Axby House, it was right in the country, but the town’s been growing and growing, and it will grow still faster now the war’s over, and more and more machines are being invented, and put to use. I hardly recognized the place when I came home at the end of the war in the Peninsula. I don’t think you’d like it, love.”

“No, not at all. I should want a house in London—in the best part, of course!”

“Oh, we’ll have that!”he replied cheerfully.

“We shan’t have anything of the sort—I mean, we shouldn’t—because my Uncle Matthew has the town-house!”

“Well, there’s more than one house to be had in town!”

“Dear me, yes! How could I be so stupid? I might have known you meant to purchase a handsome establishment!”

“I was thinking of hiring one, myself.”

“No, no, only think how shabby! Next you will say that you don’t intend to have more than one house in the country!”

“Nay, I shan’t say that! I want one in Leicestershire.”

“Oh, in that case there’s no more to be said, for I’ve set my heart on one in the moon!”

“You don’t mean that, love! Nay then, you can’t have thought!” he expostulated. “It’s much too far from town!”

An involuntary laugh escaped her, but she said: “I might have known you’d have an answer! Do you think we have now talked enough nonsense?”

“I’m not talking nonsense, lass. I’d give you the whole moon if I could, and throw in the stars for good measure,” he said, taking her hand, and kissing it. “You couldn’t be content with less?”

“You—you are talking nonsense!” she said, feeling suddenly breathless, and more than a little startled. She was inexperienced in the art of flirtation, but it had certainly occurred to her on various occasions that in this her large cousin had the advantage of her. His methods (judged by such knowledge as she had acquired during one London Season) were original, but that he might be entertaining serious intentions she had not consciously considered. Nor had she looked into her own heart. She had accepted him, after her first mistrust, as a delightfully easy companion who had kept her in a ripple of amusement: not the hero of her vague imaginings, but a simple solid creature, wholly to be trusted. She now realized, with a sense of shock, that this enormous and apparently guileless intruder had taken the grossest advantage of her innocence, advancing by imperceptible but rapid stages from the position of a stranger to be treated with circumspection to that of the close friend in whom she could safely confide, and who was, for some obscure reason, indispensable to her comfort. Any belief she might have had in the existence of the beautiful Miss Melkinthorpe had admittedly been of short duration, but the thought of marrying the Major herself had not, until this moment, entered her head. It was clearly necessary to temporize. Withdrawing her hand from his, she said, in a rallying tone: “Recollect that we have been acquainted for less than a month! You cannot, cousin, have fallen—formed an attachment in so short a time!”

“Nay, love, don’t be so daft!” he expostulated. “There’s no sense in saying I can’t do what I have done!”

Miss Darracott, an intelligent girl, now perceived that in harbouring for as much as an instant the notion of marrying a man who fell so lamentably short of the ideal lover she was an irreclaimable ninnyhammer. Ideal lovers might differ in certain respects, but in whatever mould were cast not one of them was so unhandsome as to make it extremely difficult for one not to giggle at their utterances. This hopelessly overgrown and unromantic idiot must be given a firm set-down. Resolutely lifting her eyes to his face, and summoning to her aid a smile which was (she hoped) satirical, but not so unkind as to wound him, she said: “You are being quite absurd, my dear cousin! Pray say no more!”

“Never?”

She transferred her gaze to the topmost button of his coat. If anything had been wanting to convince her that he was quite unworthy of her regard, he had supplied it by putting a pistol to her head in this unchivalrous way. She wished very much that she had not committed the imprudence of looking up into his face, but how, she wondered indignantly, could she have guessed that anyone so incurably frivolous would look so anxious? Any female of sensibility must shrink from inflicting pain upon a fellow-creature, but how did one depress pretension without hurting the sinner, or rendering him unnecessarily despondent?

On the whole, she could only be thankful that the Major, apparently realizing that he had fallen into error, spared her the necessity of answering him. He said ruefully: “If ever there was a cod’s head, his name is Hugo Darracott! Don’t look so fatched, love! Forget I said it! I know it was too soon!”

Grateful to him for his quick understanding of her dilemma, Miss Darracott decided, with rare forbearance, to overlook the impropriety of his putting his arm round her, as she spoke, and giving her a hug. “Much too soon!” she answered.

His arm tightened momentarily; he dropped a kiss on the top of her head, but this she was also able to ignore, for he then said, in a thoughtful voice which conveyed to her the reassuring intelligence that he had reverted to his usual manner: “Now, where will I come by a book on etiquette! You wouldn’t know if his lordship’s got one in the library, would you, love?”

Her colour somewhat heightened, she disengaged herself from his embrace, saying: “No, but I shouldn’t think so. He has one about ranks and dignities and orders of precedency; is that what you mean?”

“Nay, that’s no use to me! I want one that’ll tell me how to behave correctly.”

“I am well aware that you are trying to roast me,” said Anthea, resigned to this fate, “and also that you don’t stand in any need of a book on etiquette—though one on propriety wouldn’t come amiss!”

“I’m not trying to roast you!” declared Hugo. “I want to know how long you must be acquainted with a lass before it’s polite to propose to her!”