The Unknown Ajax Read online

  ‘A beautiful pair, sir,’ he said, tenderly setting them down. ‘Hoby, of course, as anyone that knows a boot can see at a glance. It quite goes to one’s heart to see them mishandled. Not that Wellow doesn’t do his best, according to his lights, but I fear he will never rise above Bayly’s Blacking.’

  ‘What do you use?’ enquired Hugo. ‘Champagne? Above my touch!’

  ‘I have a recipe of my own, sir,’ replied Crimplesham, putting him in his place. ‘The care of a gentleman’s boots is quite an Art, as I don’t doubt you are aware.’ He picked up one of the stretchers and inserted it carefully into the boot. ‘You are, if I may be permitted to say it, sir, particular as to your boots. It occurs to me – but possibly you have made your arrangements already!’

  For a surprised moment Hugo wondered whether Crimplesham was about to offer him his services, but in this he showed his ignorance of the world of ton: had he been the heir to a dukedom Crimplesham would not for an instant have contemplated an engagement so prejudicial to his career. Nothing that even the great Robinson, who had been Mr Brummell’s valet, could do would avail to turn a man of the Major’s size and powerful build into a Tulip of Fashion.

  ‘If you haven’t yet engaged a valet, sir, I venture to think that I might be able to put my hand on just such a one as might suit you,’ Crimplesham said. ‘A nephew of my own, sir, whose name occurs to me because he has previously been employed by a military gentleman like yourself. A conscientious young man, sir, and one for whom I can vouch. Should you desire to interview him I should be happy to arrange it – without, of course, wishing to put myself forward unbecomingly.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ promised Hugo, adding, as a discreet knock sounded on the door: ‘Yes, come in!’

  The door opened to admit Polyphant, profuse in apologies for intruding upon the Major, but imperfectly concealing the jubilation that filled his soul. Mr Vincent had rung his bell three times, he explained, with spurious concern, and was now demanding to have Crimplesham sent instantly to his room. ‘So I ventured to come to inform him of it, sir, feeling sure you would pardon me. Very put-out, Mr Vincent is, though, of course, I explained to him that Crimplesham was assisting you with your toilet, sir!’

  ‘Well, you’d better make haste and go to him,’ Hugo advised Crimplesham. ‘You can tell him I kept you.’

  ‘It will not be necessary, sir,’ replied Crimplesham calmly. He rose unhurriedly from his knees, and carried the top-boots over to the wall, setting them down very precisely. ‘You need not wait, Polyphant,’ he said, to that gentleman’s speechless fury. ‘Since you have been so kind as to bring me Mr Vincent’s message, perhaps you will inform him that I shall be with him directly.’ He met Polyphant’s goggling stare with a faint, bland smile before nodding dismissal to him, and turning away.

  It was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. A severe struggle took place in Polyphant’s breast before his more primitive self yielded to the dictates of propriety, and he withdrew again from the room.

  Crimplesham then satisfied himself that the Major’s evening attire was correctly laid out for him, begged him to give his shoes a final rub with a handkerchief, to remove any possible fingermarks, and bowed himself out in good order.

  This episode had more than one repercussion, for not only did it make Vincent late for dinner, which all concerned in it had foreseen, but it very much vexed Claud, and decided Hugo to lose no more time in engaging a valet of his own.

  Claud, learning from Polyphant that Crimplesham’s services had been preferred, was deeply mortified, and took a pet, for which, as he was all too ready to explain, there was every justification. He had taken on himself the onerous task of giving his cousin a new touch; he had devoted the whole of one afternoon to the problem of how best to achieve a respectable result when confronted by a subject who refused to purchase a new coat; and when, having reached the decision that a more modish style in neckcloths would make a vast improvement to Hugo’s appearance, he had gone his length, giving up several of his own neckcloths for Hugo’s use, and changing his dress for dinner hours too early, so that Polyphant might be free to instruct Hugo in the art of arranging these, his only reward had been to have his self-sacrifice flung in his face.

  ‘Nay, I never did that!’ protested Hugo.

  ‘Flung in my face!’ repeated Claud. ‘I dashed well exhausted myself trying to think how to do the trick. Yes, and I was ready to go through stitch with it, even when I realized I should have to lend you some of my own neckcloths, because yours are all too paltry! I made Polyphant take three of my new muslin ones, so that he could turn you out in a Mathematical tie, for it can’t be done with a cloth less than two foot wide, and I know dashed well you’ve nothing except what serves for that miserable Osbaldeston which you keep on wearing! And even so,’ he added, somewhat inconsequently, but with immense bitterness, ‘it couldn’t have been anything but a shabby affair, because your shirt-points ain’t high enough.’

  ‘Happen it’s all for the best!’ suggested Hugo.

  ‘I’ll be damned if it is! And don’t say happen when you mean perhaps! Best, indeed! When you’ve put Polyphant into the hips, sending him off and letting that impudent fellow of Vincent’s wait on you!’

  That made the Major laugh. ‘Nay, that’s doing it much too brown! You’re not going to tell me that that niminy-piminy fribble was pining to waste his talents on me!’

  ‘I should rather think not!’ retorted Claud. ‘Why, it took me the better part of an hour to coax him into it! And the chances are I shouldn’t have done it then if I hadn’t hit on the idea of telling him it didn’t signify, because not even he could make you look elegant! Naturally that put him on his mettle. Well, he saw what a triumph it would be! I’m not surprised he’s got a fit of the blue-devils, but I’ll tell you this, coz! – I resent it! You may think it a chuck-farthing matter, but that’s just what it ain’t! When Polyphant gets moped there’s no saying what he may do. Why, the last time he fell into a fit of dejection he handed me a Joliffe Shallow to wear in the Park! I’ve a dashed good mind to wash my hands of you!’

  ‘Perhaps you should,’ agreed Hugo sympathetically. ‘It’s plain I’m a hopeless case. You know, I warned you you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

  But a gleam had come into Claud’s lack-lustre eye. His frown lifted; he ejaculated: ‘By Jupiter, I will, though! Well, what I mean is, it can be done! Just proved it!’

  ‘Who has?’ asked Hugo, all at sea.

  ‘You have! You said perhaps! Said it to the manner born, what’s more! In the very nick of time, because I don’t mind telling you I’d lost heart. Well, if it don’t all go to show!’

  ‘Ee, I was always a great gowk!’ said Hugo, suffering another bad relapse.

  When Vincent entered the saloon it was ten minutes past six, and he was greeted, inevitably, by a demand from his grandfather to know what the devil had been keeping him. There was a deep cleft between his brows, but he replied languidly: ‘Accept my apologies, sir! I regret infinitely that I have been obliged to keep you waiting, but I cannot – I really cannot! – be expected to scramble into my clothes, under any circumstances whatsoever. Certainly not to suit my cousin’s convenience, which, I must own, is not an object with me.’

  ‘I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about!’ said his lordship irritably. ‘I’ll thank you to –’

  ‘Nay, but I do,’ intervened Hugo guiltily. ‘I’m reet sorry, lad!’

  ‘Not reet, and not lad!’ begged Claud.

  ‘You have your uses, brother,’ observed Vincent.

  ‘Now, that will do!’ said Matthew sharply. ‘Let us have one evening free from bickering between you two!’

  ‘You are mistaken, sir: I am profoundly grateful to Claud.’

  ‘Profoundly ill-tempered!’ said Matthew.

  ‘It’s my blame,’ said Hugo remor
sefully. ‘You can’t wonder at his being kickish, for he’s been ringing and ringing for his man, and all the time the silly fellow was letting me keep him by me to pull off my boots.’

  ‘What, the great Crimplesham?’ cried Richmond incredulously. ‘No! What the deuce can have possessed him?’

  ‘Overweening conceit, I imagine: a desire to impress me with his skill in creating something out of nothing.’ Vincent’s hard, insolent eyes flickered over Hugo’s person. ‘Vaulting ambition…!’

  ‘You are offensive, Vincent,’ said Anthea, in a low voice, and with a look of contempt. ‘If you had as much elegance of mind as of person – !’

  ‘Impossible, dearest cousin!’ he retorted.

  ‘It is a severe mortification to reflect how often I am put to the blush by your want of conduct, Vincent,’ said Lady Aurelia, in a tone of dispassionate censure.

  ‘You are too unkind, Mama! My dear Hugh, pray make the fullest use of Crimplesham! Your need, after all, is greater than mine. How could I be so selfish as to grudge him to you?’

  ‘Nay, I don’t know,’ drawled Hugo amiably.

  Lord Darracott put a summary end to the discussion, as Chollacombe came into the room to announce dinner. ‘I’ve had enough of this damned folly!’ he said. ‘One of you – you, Richmond! – may write to Lissett for me by tomorrow’s post, and tell him to send down a valet for your cousin. Let me hear no more about it!’

  ‘I’m much obliged to you,’ said Hugo mildly, ‘but there is no need for our Richmond to trouble himself.’ Lord Darracott paused on his way to the door to glare at him. ‘I say you are to have a valet, and a valet you will have!’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that, sir!’ replied Hugo. ‘It’s just that I’ve a fancy to engage one for myself.’

  ‘You should have done so before you came here!’

  ‘I should, of course,’ Hugo agreed.

  ‘You’re a fool!’ snapped his lordship. ‘Where do you imagine you will find one here?’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll give Crimplesham’s nephew a trial,’ said Hugo. ‘That is, if my cousin Vincent’s got no objection.’

  ‘It is a matter of indifference to me,’ shrugged Vincent.

  It was not, however, a matter of indifference to Claud. Waiting only until his grandfather had walked out of the room behind the ladies of the party, he said indignantly: ‘Well, if that’s not the outside of enough! Crimplesham’s nephew!’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong with him?’ enquired Hugo.

  ‘Everything’s wrong with him! For one thing, we don’t know anything about the fellow, and for another thing, Polyphant won’t like it. Yes, and now I come to think of it I’m dashed if I like it! Here am I, fagging myself to death with thinking how to bring you up to the knocker, lending you some of my best neckcloths, let alone Polyphant to put you in the way of arranging them, and first you set Polyphant’s back up by sending him off, and allowing Crimplesham to help you to dress, and now you’ve settled to hire a valet without a word to me! Dashed well tipping me a rise!’

  ‘No, no, I never settled it until a minute ago!’ protested Hugo. ‘Now, don’t flusk at me! I’m engaging in no flights with you, or anyone, if I can avoid it. Come in to dinner before the old gentleman starts putting himself in a passion!’

  They entered the dining-room in time to forestall this disaster. My lord, just about to take his seat at the head of the table, had indeed turned his frowning eyes towards the door, but he made no comment. To Mrs Darracott’s relief, he seemed to be in one of his more mellow moods, which was surprising, since he had undergone the unusual experience of having his will crossed. She had quaked for Hugo, knowing how intolerant of opposition my lord was; she had even shaken her head warningly at him, but the poor young man had not grasped the meaning of her signal, merely smiling at her in a childlike way that showed how far he was from appreciating the perils of his situation. It was a thousand pities, she thought, that he should be so very slow-witted, and so prone to allow his origins to show themselves in his speech, for in all other respects he seemed to be an excellent person. Mrs Darracott, in fact, was developing a marked kindness for the hapless heir. Her mettlesome daughter might say what she chose in condemnation of what she called his want of spirit, but for her part Mrs Darracott had no fault to find with an amiable temper and a docile disposition. In her view there were already far too many persons at Darracott Place endowed with spirit. No good had ever yet come from thwarting the head of the house, she thought, remembering with an inward shudder the devastating battles that had been fought when Granville and Rupert had been alive. Nor would any good that she could perceive come from Hugo’s joining issue with Vincent. In wit, he was no match for Vincent; and if it came to blows (as she had the liveliest apprehension that it would) the resulting situation, whichever of them won the encounter, would be such as she preferred not to contemplate.

  It was surprising that my lord had allowed Hugo to countermand his order to Richmond, for although the matter might have been thought too trivial for argument his autocracy was becoming every day more absolute, and his temper more irritable. Lady Aurelia said that these were signs of senility, but Mrs Darracott was unable to draw much comfort from this pronouncement. His lordship was certainly eighty years of age, but anyone less senile would have been hard to find. His energy would have shamed many a younger man; and no one, seeing him ride in after a hard day’s hunting, would have supposed him to be a day over fifty.

  Perhaps it was Hugo’s horsemanship which had saved him from having his nose snapped off. My lord had watched him riding home across the park with Anthea, and there was no doubt that he had been agreeably surprised, for he had told Matthew that at all events the fellow had an excellent seat, and (unless he much mistook the matter) good, even hands. Mrs Darracott recognized this as praise of a high order, and ventured to indulge the hope that Hugo was beginning to insinuate himself into his grandsire’s good graces. She saw my lord look at Hugo several times as he sat talking to Anthea; it would have been too much to have said that there was kindness in his expression, but she fancied that there was a certain measure of approval.

  Unfortunately this was short-lived. With the withdrawal of the ladies, and the removal of the cloth from the table, Hugo’s fortunes fell once more into eclipse. ‘I can let you have some cognac, if you want it,’ my lord said to Matthew, who had moved round the table to take his wife’s vacated chair. ‘Tell Chollacombe to put some up for you!’

  ‘Take care, sir!’ said Vincent warningly. ‘I feel reasonably sure that what you are offering my father paid no duty at any port.’

  ‘Of course it didn’t!’ replied his lordship. ‘Do you take me for a slow-top?’

  ‘Far from it!’ smiled Vincent. ‘You are awake upon every suit, sir. I apprehend, however, that there is an enemy in our midst.’ He turned his head to look at Hugo, a mocking challenge in his eyes. ‘You are opposed to the trade, are you not, coz?’

  It was Richmond who betrayed discomfiture, not Hugo. Richmond flushed hotly, and kept his eyes lowered, wishing that he had not confided in Vincent; Hugo replied cheerfully: ‘If you mean the free trade, yes: I am.’

  Lord Darracott, bending a fierce stare upon him, barked: ‘Oh, you are, are you? And what the devil do you think you know about it?’

  ‘Not much,’ Hugo answered.

  ‘Then keep your tongue between your teeth!’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that reet enough!’ Hugo said reassuringly. He bestowed an affable smile upon Vincent, and added: ‘Chance it happens you were thinking I might inform against you –’

  ‘Inform!’ exclaimed Matthew. ‘Good God, what maggot have you got into your head? You don’t, I trust, imagine that your grandfather – any of us! – is in league with smugglers?’

  ‘Nay, I’d never think such a thing of you, sir!’ said Hugo, shocked.

  Matthew’s colour mounted a little. ‘You may be ve
ry sure– My department has nothing to do with the Customs: I daresay I know as little about smuggling as you do!’

  ‘Now, don’t you start shamming it!’ interrupted his father. ‘I’m not in league with the free-traders, and I’m not in league with the tidesmen either, but by God, sir, if I had to choose between ’em I’d support the Gentlemen! That’s the name they go by here: more worthy of it, too, than these damned Excisemen! A shuffling set! Maw-worms, most of ’em, feathering their nests! I can tell you this; for every petty seizure that’s made there are a dozen cargoes winked at!’

  ‘Oh, well, no, Father!’ said Matthew uneasily. ‘It’s not as bad as that! I don’t deny that there have been cases, perhaps– The pay is bad, and the rewards not large enough, you see, Hugh.’

  ‘I thought you knew nothing about it?’ jeered his lordship.