Джорджетт Хейер - The Unknown Ajax

“Nay, I don’t like it,” Hugo said. “I’d rather blow a cloud which is a habit I got into in Spain.”

“It is not a habit you will indulge in here!” said Lord Darracott. “Smoking is a filthy and a disgusting misuse of tobacco: intolerable!”

“Well, I was never one to beat squares,” said Hugo equably. “I’ll smoke my cigars in the garden, and that road we won’t fratch.”

“Won’t do what?” asked Claud, interested.

“Fratch—quarrel! It’s what we say in Yorkshire,” explained Hugo.

“Possibly not in the first circles, however, so don’t copy it, Claud,” said Vincent coldly. “Permit me to point out to you; cousin, that you are chased,”

Hugo, finding the port at his elbow, begged pardon, filled his glass, and passed the decanter on, his demeanour one of unruffled amiability.

Breakfast at Darracott Place was not served until eleven o’clock, early risers being obliged to sustain nature until that hour on a cup of chocolate and a slice of bread-and-butter, brought to their bedchambers. The custom was not an unusual one; in many country houses of ton, noon was the appointed hour for the first meal of the day; but to a soldier, accustomed to much earlier hours, it was both strange and unacceptable. Major Darracott, awaking betimes from a night of untroubled repose, thrust back the curtains that shrouded the four-poster in which he lay, and pulled his watch from under the pillows. The tidings it conveyed were unwelcome enough to make him utter a despairing groan, and sink back, resolutely closing his eyes in an attempt to recapture sleep. After spending half-an-hour in this barren endeavour, he abandoned it, linked his hands under his head, and lay for a time with his eyes fixed abstractedly on the line of light seeping through the join of the curtains drawn across the windows, and his mind roving over the events of the previous evening. What he thought of them no spy could have guessed, for even in solitude his countenance afforded no clue to whatever thoughts might be revolving behind the blankness in his eyes. There was something rather bovine about its immobility: Vincent had already told his grandfather that he lived in momentary expectation of seeing his ox-like cousin chew the cud.

It had been a daunting evening, judging by any standards. When the gentlemen had risen from the dining-table, Vincent had challenged Richmond to a game of billiards, and Richmond, instantly accepting the challenge, had gone off with him, his quick flush betraying his gratification. The rest of the male company had gone upstairs to join the ladies in the long drawing-room, his lordship having apparently decided that even an evening spent amongst females was preferable to one spent alone, or closeted with his son in the library. Only two females were discovered in the drawing-room. Mrs. Darracott, inviting Hugo to a chair beside her own, explained, a little nervously, that Anthea had the headache, and had gone to bed. It seemed for an instant as though my lord would have uttered some blistering censure, but although his brow was black he refrained, with what was plainly an effort, from making any comment. Seating himself in a wing-chair, he fell into conversation with his son, while Lady Aurelia, who had abandoned her tatting for some tapestry-work, handed Claud a tangle of coloured wools, and desired him, with much the air of one providing a child with a simple puzzle, to unravel the various strands. He was perfectly ready to oblige her, and even, having subjected her work to a critical scrutiny, to offer her some very good advice on the accomplishment of the design.

Mrs. Darracott, meanwhile, was doing what lay within her power to make Hugo feel at home, considerably hampered by the knowledge that his lordship, lending only half an ear to Matthew, was listening to all that was said.

What my lord had learned by this means had not been very much, but one piece of information he had gleaned which had put him into a better temper: Hugo seemed to have no maternal relations living—or, at all events, none of whom he took account. His grandfather, he told Mrs. Darracott, in reply to her sympathetic question, had been dead for several years; he supposed, rather vaguely, that there were those who could call cousins with him, but the connection must of necessity be remote. No, he didn’t think he had ever met them; the only member of his mother’s family whom he remembered was Great-aunt Susan, who had been used to live with them when he was a child. She had been a spinster, but he thought Grandfather had had other sisters.

Lord Darracott was so much cheered by this that he had presently asked Hugo if he played chess. Upon Hugo’s replying doubtfully that he knew what the moves were but hadn’t played since he was a boy, he had said bluntly: “You couldn’t give me a game, then. What can you play? Piquet? Backgammon?”

“Ay, or whist,” offered Hugo.

“Play whist, do you?” said his lordship. “Very well, I’ll try you in a rubber or two. Aurelia, you won’t object to making up a table? Ring the bell, Hugh!”

The Major, with an uneasy apprehension that the form of whist played by a number of generally impecunious young officers belonging to a regiment that boasted very few bucks and blades of Society was likely to fall considerably short of his lordship’s standard, tried to draw back from the engagement; but his suggestion that he should watch, while Mrs. Darracott, or Claud, took his place, found no favour at all. His lordship said that Mrs. Darracott was fit for nothing but casino, and that he would be damned if he played with Claud, who had no head for cards, or, indeed, anything else. So Hugo had been obliged to take his seat at the card-table, with his grandfather for partner. They played only for chicken-stakes, and it was not long before Hugo found that his apprehension had been well-grounded. He was forced to endure many sharp scolds for stupidity; and later, when the billiard-players came into the drawing-room, the severe imposition of having his hand overlooked by Vincent. He seized the earliest opportunity of relinquishing his seat to Vincent. No opposition had been raised, my lord merely saying “Well, you’re no card-player!” and recommending him to watch his cousin’s play. He had preferred, however, to slip away when my lord’s attention was devoted to the play of a difficult hand, and to enjoy the solace of one of his cigars on the terrace. Here he had presently been joined by Richmond. “I thought you had come out to blow a cloud!” Richmond had said.

“Now, if you’re framing to squeak beef on me—!” he had responded.

Richmond had chuckled. “You’d be in the suds, cousin! So would I be, if you were to squeak beef on me! Grandpapa thinks I’ve gone to bed. He wouldn’t like it above half if he knew—That is, he don’t want me to ask you about the war in the Peninsula, or—But never mind that! I wanted to tell you—you might not know—he—he doesn’t understand!”He had raised his handsome young face, pallid in the moonlight, and had blurted out: “About the Light Division, I mean! He—he only thinks of the Guards, and the Cavalry! He may say—oh, I don’t know, but pray don’t take it amiss!”

“Nay,” Hugo had said reassuringly. “I won’t take it amiss! Why should I? I’ve nothing to say against the Gentlemen’s Sons, or the Cavalry either—some of ’em!”

“No. Well, I wanted just to warn you!” Richmond had confided. “He’s quite antiquated, you know, and, of course, he does ride devilish rusty—though not with me, so perhaps I ought not to say it, only—”

“There’s no need for you to be fatched, lad: my Grandfather Bray was just such a cobby old fellow!”

“Oh!” Richmond had sounded rather taken aback. “Was he? I mean—Yes, I see! But there’s Vincent, too, and—” He paused, knitting his brows. “I don’t know why he was in such a bad skin tonight, but in general he—he is a bang-up fellow, you know! What they call Top-of-the-Trees! A regular out-and-outer! You should see him with a four-in-hand!”

“Happen I will.”

“Yes, of course. Do you drive yourself, cousin?”

“Nay, I’m no Nonesuch!”

Richmond had been disappointed, but he had said quickly: “No, you haven’t had the opportunity—” He had broken off short, and although no colour could live in the moonlight, Hugo had known that a vivid flush had flooded his cheeks. He had stammered: “I don’t mean—I meant only that you have been doing other things! Things m-more worth the doing! I wish you will tell me, if it isn’t a dead bore, about your campaigns!”

Yes, Hugo thought, reviewing that interlude, a nice lad, young Richmond; but what such an ardent colt was doing hobbled at Darracott Place was a puzzle. If ever a lad was mad after a pair of colours! He had said that his grandfather had set his face against the granting of this desire, but he didn’t look to be the sort of lad to submit docilely to the decree of even so absolute an autocrat as old Darracott. If my lord didn’t take care, thought Hugo, casting off the bedclothes, and swinging his feet to the ground, he would have the lad chin-deep in mischief.

Dismissing Richmond from his mind, he strode to the window, and pulled back the curtains, and stood for a minute or two, leaning his hands on the sill, and looking out. The sprawling house was built on a slight elevation, in parkland which stretched for a considerable distance to the south and east, but merged rapidly into thick woods on the northern and western fronts. Below Hugo’s window, a part of the gardens, which appeared to be extensive though not in very trim order, lay between the house and the park; and the Military Canal and, beyond it, the Weiland Marsh stretched into a distance still shrouded in morning mist The day was fresh but fair; it beckoned compellingly; and within a very short space of time Hugo, fortified by a thick ham sandwich and a pint of Kentish ale, supplied to him by a pleasantly fluttered kitchenmaid, had set out for an exploratory ramble round the park.