The Unknown Ajax Read online

  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 fetched, 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 he spoke, and giving her a hug. ‘Much too soon!’ she asseverated.

  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.’

  Fourteen

  Any fears lurking in Anthea’s mind that the Major’s premature declaration might be productive of some awkwardness between them were very swiftly put to rout. Except for a certain warmth in his eyes, when they rested on her, she could detect no change in his demeanour. She was devoutly thankful, for she knew that her grandfather was closely watching the progress of a courtship he had instigated.

  It was perhaps fortunate that his lordship’s attention should have been diverted by the repercussions of quite another sort of courtship. The blacksmith, a brawny individual, imbued with what his lordship considered revolutionary notions, had not only taken exception to Claud’s elegant trifling with his daughter, but had seized the opportunity afforded by that rather too accommodating damsel to pay off an old score against his lordship. To Claud’s startled dismay, the elder Ackleton waylaid my lord when he was riding home through the village, and lodged an accusation against his least favourite grandson, referring to him darkly as a serpent, who had stung his daughter, and hinting (without, however, much conviction) at reprisals of an obscure but dreadful nature. My lord, whose native shrewdness had earned for him the reputation in the neighbourhood of being a deep old file, was neither credulous of the story, nor alarmed by the threats. He might be eighty years of age, and considered by his family to be verging on senility, but he was perfectly capable of dealing with far more determined efforts at blackmail, and he disposed of the blacksmith in a few forceful and well-chosen words, which included a recommendation to that disconcerted gentleman to take care the fair Eliza did not end her adventurous career in the nearest Magdalen. Since this interview took place in the middle of the village street it very soon became common property, and was the occasion of much merriment, and many exchanges, when neither the elder Ackleton nor his even more formidable son was within earshot, of damaging rumours about Eliza’s way of life. His lordship was not popular, but the Ackletons were cordially disliked by all but their few cronies, Eliza being thought by the respectable to be a disgrace to the community, and the two male members of the family not only scandalizing decent folk with their hazy but seditious political opinions, but alienating all sorts by their invariable pugnacity when they had had a cup too many. No one was hardy enough to betray the least knowledge of the encounter outside the forge, but the sudden silence that fell on the company in the taproom of the Blue Lion, when the father and son walked in that evening left neither of them in any doubt of what the subject of the interrupted discussion had been. The elder Ackleton, after vainly trying to pick out a quarrel with anyone willing to oblige him, was bowled out by a toothless and decrepit Ancient, who took infuriating advantage of his years and infirmity, and asked the raging blacksmith, with a shrill cackle of mirth, if he had had comely speech with his lordship that morning. Encouraged by a smothered guffaw, he wagged his hoary head and stated his readiness to back the old lord to make the smith and a dozen like him look la-amentable blue.

  The smith, realizing that the weight of public opinion was against him, stayed only to inform the Ancient what his fate would have been had he been some seventy years younger before slamming his tankard down, and departing. It would have been as well if he had taken his son with him, instead of leaving him to drink himself into a pot-valiant condition, in the company of a like-minded young man, whose reckless statements of what he would do if he stood in Ned’s shoes strengthened his resolve to draw Mr Claud Darracott’s cork at the earliest opportunity. By the time an astonishing quantity of heavy wet and several glasses of jackey had been drunk, the propensity of the entire aristocracy and gentry for grinding the faces of the poor under their heels discussed, and the date of a revolution modelled after the French pattern settled, Ned Ackleton was determined to seek out Mr Claud Darracott immediately, and Jim Booley, applauding this bold decision, announced his intention of accompanying him. The landlord, contemptuously watching the manner of their departure, gave it as his opinion that the courage of neither would be sufficient to carry him beyond the gates of Darracott Place. In uttering this prophecy, however, he failed to make allowances for the invigorating effect of companionship. The harbingers of the revolution reached the house itself before Booley realized that it would be improper for him to take any active part in a quarrel which was no concern of his. He began to feel that it might, perhaps, be wiser if Ned were to postpone drawing Mr Claud Darracott’s cork until such time as he should meet him in some rather more suitable locality. But Ned was made of sterner stuff; and although the effects of liquor had to some extent worn off he had ranted himself into a state of mental intoxication which made him even more belligerent. Rejecting with scorn his friend’s uneasy suggestion that it might be wiser to seek an entrance at the scullery-door, he tugged violently at the bell hanging beside the main door, and followed this up by hammering the great iron knocker in a ferocious style that caused Mr Booley to retreat several paces, urgently advising him to adone-do!

  This craven attitude, far from damping Ned’s ardour, whipped up his courage, which had faltered a little for a moment and gave him an added incentive to force his way into the house. Booley should see that he was a man of his word; and Booley was not going to be given a chance to undermine his friend’s prestige by spreading through the village a story of flight at the last moment.

  Charles, the footman, opened the door. Startled by so thunderous a demand for admittance, he did so rather cautiously, which incensed Ned. Commanding him to get out of the way, he barged his way into the house, demanding, in stentorian accents, to be led immediately to Claud, whose character, appearance, and licentious villainy he described in terms which made Charles’s eyes start from their sockets. Charles was of unheroic stature, but he knew his duty, and he was no coward. He did his best to hustle Ned out of the house, and was sent reeling backwards, bringing down a chair in his fall.

  All this commotion brought Chollacombe and James hurrying to the scene. Ned, his appetite whetted, invited them to come on, promising them some home-brewed as a reward, but before either could accept the invitation three more persons entered on the stage. The first was Lord Darracott, who came stalking out of the library, demanding to know what the devil was going on; the second was Major Darracott, in his shirtsleeves; and the third, also in his shirtsleeves, and still holding a billiard-cue in his hand, was the hapless cause of the whole affair.

  Ned put up his fists menacingly as Lord Darracott ad
vanced towards him, but there was something about that tall, gaunt figure which made him give ground, even though he uttered a blustering threat to mill his lordship down if he tried to interfere with him.

  ‘You drunken scum!’ said his lordship, with awful deliberation. ‘How dare you bring your filthy carcase into my house? Outside!’

  Ned spat a foul epithet at him.

  ‘That’s enough! You’ve had your marching orders! I’ll give you precisely fifteen seconds to get yourself through that door.’

  Ned jumped, and looked round, but he was hardly more startled than the rest of the company. No one at Darracott Place had heard the Major speak in that voice before. It brought a gleam into Lord Darracott’s eyes, and a grim smile to his lips, and it made Ned drop his fists instinctively. But just as he was about to retreat he caught sight of Claud, and he threw caution to the winds. Before he could wreak his vengeance on Claud’s willowy person, Major Darracott must be swept from his path. The Major was large, but large men were notoriously slow, and could be bustled. Ned, himself a big man, and with thews of iron, went in with a rush, to mill him down before he could get upon his guard, and was sent crashing to the floor by a nicely delivered punch from something more nearly resembling a sledgehammer than a human fist.

  The Major, standing over him, waited with unruffled calm for him to recover sufficiently from the stupefying effect of this punch to struggle to his feet again. When Ned got upon his hands and knees he apparently judged it to be necessary to assist him to leave the premises, which he did in an expeditious fashion that struck terror into the heart of Mr Booley, faithfully awaiting the return of his friend from his punitive expedition.

  The Major, having hurled the unbidden guest forth, turned, and came back into the hall, nodding to James, who was holding open the door, and saying with his customary amiability: ‘That’s all: shut the door now!’

  Lord Darracott, surveying him with something approaching approval, said: ‘I’m obliged to you!’ and went back into the library.

  He was better pleased than he chose to betray, for without supposing that there was anything very remarkable in the Major’s ability to floor Ned Ackleton he liked the neatness with which he had done it, and was agreeably surprised to see that for all his great size Hugo could move with unexpected swiftness. When Vincent presently came in he described the episode to him, saying: ‘Well, he’s not such a clumsy oaf as I’d thought: I’ll say that for him. Showed to advantage. Good foot-work, too.’

  Vincent was not much impressed, but he congratulated Hugo on his exploit with an air of exaggerated admiration. ‘I wish I had been privileged to witness the encounter,’ he said. ‘I hear you rattled in, game as a pebble, coz; stopped your opponent’s plunge in first-rate style; and ended by throwing in a classic hit.’

  ‘Wonderful, it was!’ replied Hugo, shaking his head. ‘Ay, you missed a high treat! He was no more than half-sprung, mind you, and not very much more than a couple of stone lighter than I am, so I did well, didn’t I?’

  That drew a reluctant laugh from Vincent. ‘My grandfather seems to think so. I’m told the fellow is much fancied as a fighter in these parts, but I collect you’re not yourself a novice?’

  ‘I can box,’ Hugo admitted, ‘but it’s not often I do. I’m too big.’

  Everyone was pleased with Hugo’s conduct except the Ackletons, both of whom were popularly held to be planning a hideous revenge; and Claud, who had no doubt on whom such a revenge would be wreaked, considered that Hugo would have done better to have detained Ned at Darracott Place until he could have been induced to have listened to reason. Claud knew himself to be innocent of the charge brought against him, and great was his indignation when he discovered that his grandfather not only believed in his innocence on no grounds at all, but thought the worse of him for it. In high dudgeon he declared his intention of leaving Darracott Place immediately, and might actually have done so had not his lordship said, crashing his fist down on the table before him, that, by God, he should do no such thing!

  ‘No grandson of mine shall turn-tail while I’m in the saddle!’ he announced. ‘I wouldn’t let you shab off, you pudding-hearted fribble, if you had given that light-skirt a slip on the shoulder!’

  What Lady Aurelia thought about it no one knew, for she never mentioned the matter, and nothing could be learned from her countenance or her demeanour. One or two jibes addressed to her by Lord Darracott were met with such blank stares of incomprehension that even he seemed to be daunted; and Mrs Darracott confessed to her daughter that she for one doubted whether her ladyship knew anything at all about the affair.

  Several days passed before Hugo paid his second nocturnal visit to the Dower House, wet weather making the sky too cloudy for observation. But on the first clear evening he strolled up the path to the wicket-gate into the shrubbery shortly before midnight, a cigar between his teeth. The gate shrieked on its rusty hinges; the beaten track that led to the house was sodden; and the leaves of the bushes were very wet, damping the Major’s coat as he brushed past them.

  A slight reconnaissance showed him that the shrubbery was intersected by several paths, once, no doubt, when the hedges were clipped, and gravel strewn underfoot, furnishing the inhabitants of the Dower House with an agreeable promenade on windy days. The hedges had not been trimmed for years, however, and the place had become a wilderness, the various paths so overgrown as sometimes to be difficult to follow. The Major, making his way out of it to the path at the side of the house, thought it would afford an excellent retreat for any ghost finding itself hard-pressed.

  The moon was not yet half-full, and its light was a little fitful, clouds occasionally obscuring its face; but it was possible to make out the way, and even to discern objects at some distance. The house showed no light at any window, so it was to be inferred that Spurstow was either in bed and asleep or had put up the shutters in the kitchen-quarters as well as everywhere else in the house. Having walked round the building, Hugo trod across the rank grass that had once been a shaven lawn and took up his position in the shadow of a tree standing on the edge of the carriage-drive.

  He had not very long to wait. The wind that fretted the treetops was hardly more than a whisper, but the stillness was broken after a short time by the screech of an owl in the woods, followed almost immediately by a long drawn-out wail that rose to a shriek, and died away in a sobbing moan, eerie in the night-silence. The next instant a vague, misty figure appeared round the angle of the house, and flitted into the shrubbery.

  The Major, unperturbed by these manifestations, threw away the butt of his cigar, and strode towards the shrubbery. A hasty movement behind him made him check, and turn quickly, searching with narrowed eyes the deep shadows cast by the bushes by the gates. Someone, who had been concealed by these, had started forward. The Major saw the moonlight gleam on the barrel of a pistol, and, a moment later, recognized Lieutenant Ottershaw. Ottershaw, paying no heed to him, began to run across the grass, with the obvious intention of plunging into the shrubbery, but two long strides brought the Major between him and his goal, and obliged him to check.

  ‘Nay, lad, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ Hugo said placidly.

  ‘Did you see?’ Ottershaw shot at him. ‘After that ghastly – that damned scream – someone in a sheet! Well, I’m going to discover who it was!’

  ‘I saw,’ Hugo said. ‘But happen you’d best take care what you’re about. You can’t go ghost-hunting in a private garden, you know.’

  ‘That was no ghost!’ Ottershaw said violently. ‘You know that, sir! I watched you: you never so much as jumped when that scream sounded! If you’d believed it was a ghost –’

  ‘Oh, no! I didn’t, of course.’

  ‘No! And why did you come here if it wasn’t to discover who’s playing tricks to keep people away from this place? I don’t believe you’re in it, but –’

  ‘In what?’ interpo
sed Hugo.

  The Lieutenant hesitated. ‘In what I know to be an attempt to drive me off!’ he answered rather defiantly. ‘I’ve had my suspicions of this house ever since I came here, and I’m as sure as any man may be that it’s one of the smugglers’ chief storehouses!’

  ‘No, I’m not in anything like that,’ said Hugo.

  ‘No, sir, I never supposed you could be. But –’

  ‘If I were you, I’d put up that pistol, Mr Ottershaw,’ said Hugo. ‘Were you meaning to challenge the ghost with it? You’d catch cold if you did, you know. It’s no crime that I ever heard of to caper about rigged up as a boggard.’

  The Lieutenant did restore the pistol to its holster, but he was angry, and said very stiffly: ‘Very well, sir! But I will tell you plainly that I believe that – apparition! – to have been none other than Mr Richmond Darracott!’

  ‘Ay, so do I,’ agreed Hugo.

  Ottershaw peered up at his face, trying in the uncertain light to read its expression. He sounded a little nonplussed. ‘You think that?’

  ‘Why, yes!’ Hugo said. ‘I think he’s trying to make a Maygame of you, and, if you want to know, I also think there’s little he’d like better than for you to hold him up. Eh, lad, don’t be so daft! It would be all over the country before the cat could lick her ear! Your commander wouldn’t thank you for making a laughing-stock of yourself, and if you were to interfere with our Richmond the dust you’d raise would be nothing to the dust his lordship would kick up!’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware of that!’ replied Ottershaw bitterly. ‘I look for nothing but obstruction from that quarter! I may say – from any member of your family, sir! I’d risk being made a laughing-stock if I could catch Richmond Darracott at his tricks – as I might have done, but for you!’