The Unknown Ajax

Chapter 8

There was not very much time left for as minute an inspection of Richmond’s boat as its owner would have liked. He would certainly have made the whole party late for dinner had he found a kindred spirit in Hugo; but Hugo, although he uttered suitable comments when the vessel’s various perfections were pointed out to him, knew little about boats or sailing, and was quite ready to leave the shore as soon as Anthea grew impatient. Richmond was again disappointed. It would have been unreasonable to have expected a man brought up in an inland town to be as knowledgeable as he was himself, but he detected a lack of enthusiasm in his cousin which was hard to understand, until Hugo disclosed that whenever he went to sea he was sick. Richmond, like most excellent sailors, was much inclined to think seasickness largely imaginative: no one need be ill who did not think he would be. He responded with a sympathy as spurious as Hugo’s admiration of the Seamew’s lines, and tried not to think the worse of him.

Hugo was not deceived. When he set off for home with Anthea, Richmond having left them to visit his boatman in Camber, he shook his head, saying sadly: “I’ve sunk myself beneath reproach.”

Anthea laughed. “Yes, but you may easily make a recover, you know! You have only to unbutton a trifle, and tell him about your adventures in the Peninsula, to win his worship,”

“Nay, I’m no figure for worship!”

“You are a soldier, however, and he’s army-mad. Do you dislike talking about your campaigns? I wished you would have told us more, but it seemed as if you didn’t care to.”

“I’ll tell him anything he wants to know, but it wouldn’t be the right thing for me to do, when your mother and his lordship don’t wish it.”

“I wondered if that was why you said so little. Grandpapa you need not heed; and Mama—well, I think you shouldn’t heed her either! Poor love, she would be quite dismayed if Richmond should succeed in winning Grandpapa over, but she would soon become reconciled, I promise you. She has the happiest disposition! For myself, I believe nothing else will do for Richmond. I wish it were not so, but we have none of us the right to push him into some occupation he doesn’t care for! You said that yourself, cousin!”

“Ay, so I did, but that’s just my opinion. If his lordship asked me for it, I’d give it to him, but he won’t, and I’ve no business to encourage Richmond to go against him, nor to offer advice that’s not wanted.” He smiled ruefully, and added: “It’s bad enough for him to have me foisted on to him without my meddling in what’s no concern of mine! A fine trimming he would give me, if I was to be so presumptuous, and small blame to him! From what I can see, Vincent is the only one he might listen to. If the lad wants someone to help him, why doesn’t he ask Vincent? Seemingly Vincent’s fond of him, so it’s likely he’d be willing to try what he could do.”

“Nothing is more unlikely!” replied Anthea. “Vincent, my dear Hugo, is fond of no one but himself. As for thinking that he would run the risk of offending Grandpapa, merely to oblige Richmond, he would stare at such a notion!”

He offered no comment on this, but said, after a short pause: “It queers me to know why Richmond’s so set on the army. I should have thought he’d be mad for the navy, with his liking for sailing.”

“Yes, so should I,” she agreed. “But it has always been the army with him, and if you ask him why he doesn’t wish to become a sailor he says that it’s a nonsensical question, and that being partial to sailing is not at all the same as wishing to embrace the navy as a profession.”

“Happen he’s right. Though to hear him talk about that boat of his—What did he call it? a yawl?”

“Yes, or a yacht, though she’s too big for a yacht, I think.”

“What did he want with a boat that size?” asked Hugo curiously. “I should have thought a little one he could handle himself would have been more to his taste.”

“I daresay it would, in some ways, but it wouldn’t have been to^: Grandpapa’s taste,” she explained. “And I must do him the justice to own that if he gave Richmond a yacht at all he was right to give him one he couldn’t handle alone! I don’t mean he doesn’t know how, but you can never tell when he will take it into his head to run some foolish risk. You see, he enjoys doing dangerous things. You can’t think what agonies of apprehension we have had to suffer!”

“Ay, no doubt he’d be prime for any lark, and the more risk the better. It would be well if he were put into harness.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Yet sometimes I wonder—you see, he has never been in harness, as you call it. Papa died when he was very young, and Grandpapa has always indulged him so much that there has never been anyone to say him nay. He had two tutors, but only the first of them tried to make him obedient. His reign was consequently short, and his successor, speedily perceiving how things were, prudently acquiesced in all Grandpapa’s ideas. It was a fortunate circumstance that Richmond liked him well enough not to wish for another in his place, so he was never so naughty with him as he had been with Mr. Crewe. I’m afraid he didn’t learn very much, however!”

“Well, I was never bookish myself,” Hugo said. “It’s a pity the lad wasn’t bridled when he was a little chap, but there’s no need that I can see for you to be much worried. His lordship may indulge him, but he snaps out his orders to him just as he does to everyone else. I’d say myself that the lad is remarkably docile: there’s many that would kick in his shoes.”

“Richmond never argues with Grandpapa. He—yes, I suppose he is docile. He always does what Grandpapa wishes, and it is perfectly true, what Mama says: that he is sweet-tempered, never gets into a miff, or the sulks! Only—you may think he has yielded, but all the time, I believe, he means to have his own way, and, in general, he gets it!”

“Then maybe he’ll get his way, over this business of a pair of colours,” said Hugo, in a comfortably matter-of-fact voice.

She shook her head, “Not over that. He told me so himself. He said that there was nothing he could do or say to make Grandpapa change his mind. I wish—” She stopped, surprised and a little vexed to find herself talking so unguardedly to one who was a stranger. “But I must not run on! If we don’t make haste, cousin, we shall have a peal rung over us for being late for dinner!”

She urged her mare into a canter, and the Major followed suit, saying, however: “Ay, so we shall. What’s more, there’s no knowing but what I might repeat what you say to me.”

She blushed vividly. “Oh—! No, I’m persuaded you would not!”

“You can’t tell that. If I was to have a fit of gabbing—”

“I should be much astonished!” she retorted. “You are not precisely garrulous, you know!”

“The thing is that I have to mind my tongue,” he explained. “It’s what you might call a handicap to conversation.”

“Ah, to be sure! How stupid of me! But you have been minding it so well that I must be forgiven for not remembering how hard it is for you to speak the King’s English!”

“Ay!” he said, with simple pride. “I have and-all, haven’t I? I was taking pains, you see.”

They had reached one of the gates that led into the park, and she waited for him to open it for her, eyeing him with a little speculation and a good deal of amusement. “Just as you did when you first arrived! You managed beautifully, and for such a long time, too! You deserve the greatest credit, for, I assure you, no one would have guessed you came from Yorkshire until we were halfway through dinner, when you suffered a sudden relapse—and grew rapidly worse.”

He heaved a dejected sigh. “Came all-a-bits, didn’t I? It’s that road with me when I’m scared.”

“But you contrived to conceal that from us,” said Anthea encouragingly. “You didn’t look to be in the least scared.”

“You don’t know how I looked: you never lifted your eyes from your plate!” he retorted.

“Nevertheless I was very well able to see how you looked,” she said firmly. “I must tell you that you don’t look scared now, though I realize, of course, that you must be. You haven’t caught sight of a—a flay-boggard, have you?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I’m thinking what a hirdum-durdum there’ll be if the old gentleman is kept waiting for his dinner. It has me in fair sweat, so just you leave quizzing me, lass, and come through this gate!”

She obeyed, but said: “What did you call me?”

“It slipped out!” he said hastily. He shut the gate, and added, with all the air of one extricating himself neatly from a difficult situation: “We always call a cousin lass in Yorkshire—if she’s a female. Of course, it would be lad, if I was talking to Richmond.”

“That,” said Anthea, with severity, “is a shocking bouncer, sir!”

“You’re reet: it is!” he said, stricken.

She could not help laughing, but she said, as they fell into a canter again: “Instead of trying to bamboozle me, cousin, you had better consider how to get out of the fix you’re in. You cannot talk broad Yorkshire for ever!”

“Nay, it wouldn’t be seemly,” he agreed. “I’ll have to get shut of it, won’t I?”

“Exactly so!”

“Happen our Claud will bring the thing off!” he said hopefully.

Since her feelings threatened to overcome her, it was perhaps fortunate that a peremptory hail at that moment interrupted them. Lord Darracott, accompanied by Vincent, was also riding home through the park. He came at a brisk trot, as erect in the saddle as his grandson, and demanded to be told where Anthea and Hugo had been. His manner would not have led the uninitiated to suppose that his humour was benign, but Anthea saw at once that he was pleased; and whatever timidity assailed Hugo at having questions barked at him he seemed well able to conceal. Not all of his answers were satisfactory, since he knew very little about the subjects that were of paramount importance to landowners; but although his ignorance made Lord Darracott impatient, and he asked several questions which were naive enough to exasperate his irascible progenitor, his lordship was not wholly dissatisfied. Indeed, it was generally felt, when he later announced that something might yet be made of Hugh, that he had begun to look upon his heir with an almost approving eye.

Escaping from his rigorous grandparent, the Major went upstairs to change his dress. Sounds of altercation assailed his ears as he approached his bedchamber, and when he reached it, and stood in the open doorway, he found that it had suffered an invasion.

Two gentlemen of the same calling, but of different cut, were confronting one another in a manner strongly suggestive of tomcats about to join battle. Each wore the habit of a private servant, but whereas the elder of the two, a middle-aged man of stocky build and rigid countenance, was meticulous in his avoidance of any ornament or touch of colour to relieve the sobriety of his raiment, the younger not only sported a pin in his neckcloth, but added an even more daring note to his appearance by wearing a striped waist-coat which only the most indulgent of masters would have tolerated. As the Major paused, in some astonishment, on the threshold, he said, in mincing accents: “Vastly obliging of you, Mr. Crimplesham, I am sure! Quite a condescension indeed!”

“Do not name it, Mr. Polyphant!” begged Crimplesham. “We are all put on this earth to help one another, and knowing as I do what a labour it is to you to get a gloss on to a pair of boots—something that passes for a gloss, I should say—it quite went to my heart to think of you wearing yourself out over a task that wouldn’t take up more than a couple of minutes of my time. It is just a knack, Mr. Polyphant, which some of us have and others don’t.”

“And very right you were to cultivate it, Mr. Crimplesham! I vow and declare I would have done the same if I’d had only the one talent!” said Polyphant. “For, as I have often and often remarked, an over-polished boot may present a flash appearance, but it does draw the eye away from badly got-up linen!”

“As to that, Mr. Polyphant, I’m sure I can’t say, but nothing, I do promise you, will distract the attention from a spot of iron-mould on a neckcloth!”

“I will have you know, Mr. Crimplesham,” said Polyphant, trembling violently, “that it was a spot of soup!”

“Well, Mr. Polyphant, you should know best, and whatever it was no one feels for your mortification more than I do, for, as I said to Mr. Chollacombe, when the matter was being talked of in the Room, if I had been so careless as to let Mr. Vincent Darracott go down to dinner wearing a neckcloth that wasn’t perfectly fresh I could never have held up my head again.”

“When Mr. Claud Darracott left my hands, Mr. Crimplesham, that neckcloth was spotless!” declared Polyphant, pale with fury. “If Mr. Chollacombe says other, which I do not credit, being as only a perjured snake would utter those lying words—”

“What the devil are you doing in my quarters?” demanded the Major, bringing the altercation to an abrupt end.

This deep-voiced interruption was productive of a sudden transformation. The disputants turned quickly towards the door, guilt and dismay in their countenances, but only for an instant was the Major permitted a glimpse of these, or any other, emotions. Before he had advanced one step into the room, all trace of human passion had vanished, and he was confronted by two very correct gentlemen’s gentlemen, who received him with calm and dignity, and, after bowing in a manner that paid deference to his quality without diminishing their own consequence, deftly relieved him of his hat, his whip, and his gloves.

“If you will permit me, sir!” said Crimplesham, nipping the hat from the Major’s hand. “Having been informed that you have not brought your man with you, I ventured, sir, to give your boots a touch, young Wellow, though a painstaking lad, being but a rustic, and quite ignorant of the requirements of military gentlemen.”

“If you will permit me, sir!” said Polyphant, possessing himself of the whip and the gloves. “You will pardon the intrusion, sir, I trust, being as my master, Mr. Claud Darracott, desired me to offer my services to you.”

“I’m much obliged to you both, but I don’t need either of you,” said the Major, pleasantly, but in a tone that was unmistakeably dismissive.

There was nothing for his would-be attendants to do but to bow in acceptance of his decree, and leave the room. Crimplesham held the door, and made a polite gesture to his rival to precede him. Before he had time to consider what devilish stratagem might lie beneath the courtesy from one whose position in the hierarchy of the servants’ hall was superior to his own, Polyphant had tripped out of the room, bestowing on Crimplesham, as he passed him, a gracious bow, and a smile of such condescension as was calculated to arouse the bitterest passions in his breast.

But herein he showed himself to be of lesser calibre than Crimplesham, who returned his smile with one of quiet triumph, and gently closed the door on his heels.

“Shall I pull off your boots before I go, sir?” he asked, coming back into the centre of the room, and drawing forward a chair for the Major to sit in. “Wellow, I fancy, is laying out Mr. Richmond’s evening-dress, and you would hardly wish to make use of the jack.”

The Major, having, indeed, no desire to use the jack, submitted, wondering, as he watched Crimplesham take a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on, what was at the back of this very superior valet’s determination to wait on him.

Two circumstances had in fact combined to overcome Crimplesham’s regard for his own dignity: he had a score to pay off, and a nephew to establish suitably. Of these, the first operated the more powerfully upon him, but it was only the second which he disclosed to the Major. Whatever might be the differences between himself and his master, no living soul would ever learn from his lips that the smallest disharmony marred their relationship. To complain, as less lofty valets might, that his employer was exacting, impatient, often impossible to please, and always inconsiderate, would serve only to lower his own consequence. The truth was that he was frequently at silent loggerheads with Vincent, who neither tried nor wished to endear himself to his servants. When a suitable opportunity offered, Crimplesham had every intention of changing masters; but this was not a step to be taken lightly. Vacancies in the ranks of those who ministered to the leaders of high fashion occurred infrequently, and nothing could more fatally damage a valet’s reputation than to leave the service of a noted Corinthian for that of a kinder but less worthy master. Vincent was as thankless as he was exacting, but he did Crimplesham great credit, and through him Crimplesham was steadily acquiring the renown he craved. He had not yet attained the ultimate peak, when (he allowed himself to hope) aspirants to fashion would employ every sort of wile to lure him away from his master; but he was already well-known for his unequalled skill with a boot. The fantasies Vincent performed on his neckcloths sprang from his own genius, but the high gloss on his Hessians that excited the envy of his acquaintance he owed to Crimplesham, and not willingly would he part with him. Crimplesham was perfectly well aware of that, so when any serious affront was offered him he was able to punish Vincent without fear of dismissal. He was not in Vincent’s confidence, but he had no doubt at all that it would very much annoy him to learn that his cousin’s footwear had received treatment at the hands of his own expert.

“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 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 seen 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-sacrificing 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 remorsefully. “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 Hugh 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 recognised 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 very 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 tidesman 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.

“Some things are common knowledge, sir.”

“Yes, and everyone knows that at many of the regular ports they bring the cargoes in as openly as you please, and how much is declared and how much is slipped through is just a matter of—oh, arrangement between the Revenue officer and the captains of the vessels!” said Richmond.

“Nay, lad, what difference does that make?” said Hugo. “Dishonesty amongst the Preventives doesn’t alter the case.”

“Of course it doesn’t!” Matthew said, rather shortly. “Freetrading is to be deplored—no one denies that!—but while the duties remain at their present level, particularly on such commodities as tea and tobacco and spirits, the temptation to evade—”

“While duties remain at their present level,” interrupted his lordship grimly, “the Board of Customs will get precious little support for its land-guard. Land-guard! Much hope they have of stopping the trade! By God, it puts me out of all patience when I heard that more and more money is being squandered on so-called Prevention! Now we are to have special coastguards, or some such tomfoolery! I’ll lay you any odds the rascals will run the goods in under their noses.”

“Oh, I should think undoubtedly,” agreed Vincent. “I am not personally acquainted with any of the Gentlemen—at least, not to my knowledge—but I have the greatest admiration for persons so full of spunk. I am unhappily aware that they have more pluck than I have.”

Richmond laughed, but Matthew said in a displeased voice: “I wish you will not talk in that nonsensical style! A very odd idea of you Hugh will have!”

“Oh, no, do you think so, Papa? Have you an odd idea of me, cousin? Or any idea of me?”

Hugo shook his head. “Nay, I’m not judging you,” he said gently.

Matthew stared at him for a moment, and then gave a reluctant laugh. “Well, there’s for you, Vincent!”

“As you say, sir. Something in the nature of a half-armed stop. Do enlighten my ignorance, cousin! Does your very proper dislike of the Gentlemen arise from—er—an innate respectability, or from some particular cause, connected, perhaps, with the wool-trade?”

“There’s no owling done now!” Richmond objected.

“What’s owling?” asked Claud, with a flicker of interest.

“Oh, smuggling wool out of the country! But that was when there was a law against exporting wool, and ages ago, wasn’t it, Grandpapa? There used to be a great deal of it done all along the coast.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Hugo. “There were two things smuggled out of the country, and into France, while we were at war with Boney, that did more harm than owling.”

“Why, what?” demanded Richmond, frowning.

“Guineas and information. Did you never hear tell of the guinea boats that were built in Calais? It was before your time, and before mine too, but it was English gold that kept the First Empire above hatches. Boney used to encourage English smugglers. He came by a deal of information that didn’t make our task any the easier.”

Richmond looked rather daunted; but Lord Darracott said testily: “No doubt! Possibly we too came by information through the same channel. Do you imagine yourself to be the only person here who thinks smuggling a bad thing? We all think it! It sprang from a damned bad cause, and until that’s removed it will go on, and so it may for anything I’ll do to stop it! Don’t you talk to me about the rights and wrongs of it! Bad laws were made to be broken!”

He stopped, his hands clenching on the arms of his chair, for a chuckle had escaped Hugo. Vincent put up his glass, and eyed his cousin through it. “I do trust you mean to share the joke with us?” he said.

“I was just thinking what a pudder we’d be in, if every Jack rag of us set about breaking all the laws we weren’t suited with,” explained Hugo, broadly grinning. “Donnybrook Fair would be nothing to it, that road!”