Джорджетт Хейер - The Unknown Ajax

Nothing could have made a greater hit with my lord. Himself a man of iron nerve, he was at once surprised and exultant to discover in the weakling of the family a fearlessness that matched his own. There was no more talk of puling brats or miserable squeeze-crabs: thenceforward little Richmond figured in his grandfather’s conversation as a right one, game as a pebble; and my lord, who had suffered scarcely a day’s illness in his life, very soon became more morbidly anxious about the state of his darling’s health than was Richmond’s fond mama. Poor Mrs. Darracott, labouring for six years under the stigma of being a doting idiot who cosseted her whelp to death, suddenly, and to her considerable bewilderment, underwent a transformation, changing, almost overnight, into an unnatural parent to whose callous neglect every one of her son’s ailments could be attributed. She bore the slur with fortitude, too thankful for my lord’s change of heart to resent the injustice to herself. She had dreaded the day when she would be forced to send her delicate son to Eton, but when that day dawned it had been my lord, not she, who had decreed that Richmond must be educated at home. At the time, Anthea, four years older than her brother, had been as glad as she that Richmond was not to be subjected to the rigours of boarding-school; it was not until several years had passed that she realized, looking back, that by the time he was eleven Richmond had largely outgrown his delicacy of constitution. Today, a little more than eighteen years old, he was certainly a thin youth, but he seemed to have no other weakness than a tendency towards insomnia. As a child, the slightest stir in his room had jerked him wide-awake, and this idiosyncrasy had remained with him, causing him to choose for his own a bedchamber as far removed from the main body of the house as was possible; to bolt his door; and to forbid his solicitous family to come near him once he had retired for the night. None of them ever did so, but it was only Anthea who suspected that the prohibition sprang from a strong dislike of being teased by offers of hot bricks, drops of laudanum, supporting broths, or saline draughts, rather than from an inability to drop off to sleep again once he had been roused. No one, she thought (but privately), who suffered from disturbed nights could be as energetic as Richmond.

He was certainly looking heavy-eyed this evening, yawning from time to time, as he flicked over the pages of the journal; but as he had begun to bring his hunters into condition, and had spent the morning at trotting exercise, following this up by soundly beating his sister in several games of battledore-and-shuttlecock, before going off to shoot rabbits in a turnip-field, it would have been surprising had he not looked weary at the end of the day.

He glanced up presently from the journal, as a thought occurred to him, and said, with a gleam of decidedly impish amusement: “I wouldn’t be in that fellow’s shoes for a fortune, would you?”

“Our unknown cousin? No, indeed I wouldn’t! If he’s not up to the rig, Grandpapa will behave abominably, and we shall all be put to the blush. What do you think he will be like, Richmond? It seems to me that if he’s a military man he can’t be very vulgar. Unless—Good God, he isn’t just a common soldier, is he?”

“Rifleman. No, of course he—Lord, I never thought of that!” said Richmond, in an awed tone. He grinned appreciatively. “Well, if that is the way of it it will mean the devil to pay, won’t it? I wonder if my uncle knows what Grandpapa has in store, or whether—Vincent, too! I’ll tell you what Anthea, I don’t give a fig for Uncle Matthew, but I think it’s a curst shame that Vincent should be cut out by this mushroom!”

She did not answer, for at that moment Mrs. Darracott came back into the room.

It was instantly apparent to her children that Mrs. Darracott had not been summoned by her father-in-law to discuss such trivialities as the arrangements to be made for the reception of his heir. She was looking slightly dazed; but when Anthea asked her if my lord had been unkind, she replied in a flustered way: “No, no! Nothing like that! Well, that is to say—Except for—Not that I regarded it, for it was nothing out of the ordinary, and I hope I know better than to take a pet over a trifle. I must own, too, that I can’t be astonished at his being vexed to death over this business. It is excessively awkward! However, he doesn’t lay the blame at my door: you mustn’t think that!”

“I should think not indeed!” exclaimed Anthea between amusement and indignation. “How could he possibly do so?”

“No, very true, my love!” agreed Mrs. Darracott. “I thought that myself, but it did put me on the fidgets when Richmond said he wanted to see me, because, in general, you know, things I never even heard about turn out to be my fault. However, as I say, it wasn’t so today. Now, where did I put my thimble? I must finish darning that shocking rent before your aunt arrives tomorrow.”

“No, that you shan’t!” declared Anthea, removing the work-box out of her mother’s reach. “You are big with news, Mama!”

“I am—sure I haven’t the least guess why you should think so. And you shouldn’t say things like that! It is most improper!”

“But not by half as improper as to try to bamboozle your children! Now, Mama, you know you can’t do it! What has Grandpapa disclosed to you? Instantly tell us!”

“Nothing at all!” asserted the widow, looking ridiculously guilty. “Good gracious, as though he ever told me anything! How can you be so absurd?”

“Now, that is trying it on much too rare and thick!” said Richmond accusingly.

“Foolish boy! You are as bad as your sister, and what your poor papa would think of you both, if he could hear you, I’m sure I don’t know! And you ought to be in bed, Richmond! You look worn to a bone!”

At this, her masterful offspring converged upon her, Anthea sinking down on to a stool at her feet, and Richmond perching on the arm of her chair.

“And we don’t know what poor Papa would think of you for shamming it so, dearest!” said Anthea. “Grandpapa has told you all about the weaver’s son. Confess!”

“No, no, I promise you he hasn’t! He told me nothing about him—well, nothing to the purpose! Only when I ventured to ask him if it had not been a great shock to him to learn of the young man’s existence, he said he had known of it for ever. My dears, would you have believed it? It seems that poor Hugh wrote to tell your grandfather of this Hugh’s birth, twenty-seven years ago! And not a word has he uttered to a soul until today! Unless, of course, he disclosed the truth to Granville, but I am positive he never did so, for your Aunt Anne and I were the closest of friends, and she must have told me, if she had known anything about it. Oh dear, poor soul, I wonder how she does? I wonder how it will answer, living with her daughter and her son-in-law? To be sure, Sir John Caldbeck seemed a most amiable man, and I daresay anything was preferable to Anne than continuing here—though I always used to think that Grandpapa was by far more civil to her than—”

“Yes, Mama,” interrupted Anthea. “But all this is fair and far off, you know! So Grandpapa has known from the start how it was, has he? We needn’t marvel that he said nothing about it while my Uncle Granville and Oliver were alive, but how can he have allowed my Uncle Matthew to suppose all these months that he was now the heir to the barony? It is a great deal too bad, besides being quite crackbrained! Did he hope the young man might be dead? He can’t, surely, have forgotten him!”

“Well, I fancy, from something he said to me just now, that he had the intention of disinheriting him, if it might be done, only from some cause or another—but I don’t precisely understand about settlements, so—or do I mean any entail? No, I don’t think it was that, and naturally I shouldn’t dream of asking your grandfather to explain, for nothing provokes him more than to be asked questions, though why it should I can’t conjecture!”

“I didn’t know one could cut out the heir of one’s title,” objected Richmond.

“It seems to be established that Grandpapa, at all events, cannot,” said Anthea.

“Sequestration!” suddenly and triumphantly exclaimed Mrs. Darracott. “That was the word! I thought very likely it would come back to me, for very often things, do, and sometimes, which always seems extraordinary to me, in the middle of the night! Well, that was it, only it can’t be done, and so Grandpapa feels that there is nothing for it but to make the best of this young man.”

“Did he say that, Mama?” asked Anthea incredulously.

“Yes, he did,” nodded Mrs. Darracott. “Well, it was what he meant!”

“But what did he say?”demanded Richmond.

“Oh, I can’t recall exactly what he said! Only he seems to think he might go off at any moment, though why he should I can’t imagine, for I never knew anyone so hearty! In feet, it wouldn’t surprise me if he—Well, never mind that! Dear me, I have forgotten what I was about to say!”

“It wouldn’t surprise you if he outlived us all,” supplied Anthea helpfully.

“Certainly not!” stated Mrs. Darracott, blushing, “Such a thought never entered my head!”

“Lord, what a rapper!” remarked Richmond, palliating this undutiful criticism by hugging her briefly. “You’re trying to cut a wheedle, but if you think you can turn us up sweet, you’re a goose, Mama!”

“Richmond!”

“How many more times is Mama to tell you not to speak to her so saucily?” interpolated Anthea severely.