The Unknown Ajax

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 legshackled, 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!”

Chapter 16

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 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 priority 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! Haifa 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 genera], 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!