Джорджетт Хейер - The Unknown Ajax

“I’ve been told that if you’re roused you don’t drop off to sleep again, and I think—not to take packthread, you young gull-catcher!—that that’s humdudgeon!”

Richmond gave a little chuckle. “Oh, no! Not wholly! But there are nights when I don’t sleep much. If you must know, when that happens I can’t lie counting the minutes: I get up, and go out, if there’s moonlight. And sometimes I go out with Jem Hordle, fishing. Well, that’s why I take care no one shall come tapping at my door! If my mother knew, or Grandpapa—Lord, what a clutter there would be! They want to keep me wrapped in lambswool: you know that! As for taking the Seamew out at night—particularly since my uncle and Oliver were drowned—if either of them so much as suspected I did that—oh, I’d be so watched and guarded I should run mad!”

Hugo said nothing for a moment or two, but sat looking down at Richmond with a slight frown in his eyes. The explanation was reasonable, but he thought the boy was on the defensive, watching him from under his lashes, a guarded look on his face, a hint of tauntness about him.

It was Richmond who broke the silence, saying sweetly: “May I try now if I can go to sleep, cousin?”

“I suppose so,” Hugo answered, getting up. He hesitated, and then said: “You’ve told me you’re not meddling in contraband, and I hope that was the truth, because if it wasn’t you won’t be the only one to fall all-a-bits. You’ve listened to a deal of loose talk about free-trading, lad, but if it were to come out that you’d had a hand in such dealings there’s no one who would be more over-powered than your grandfather.”

“Oh, go to the devil!” snapped Richmond, with a spurt of temper. “You needn’t be afraid! Do you mean to tell him that you think I’m a free-trader? I wish I may be present! No, I don’t, though: I hate brangles! As for what I choose to do when I can’t sleep, you’ve no right to scold: you’re not my guardian, or—or even head of the family—yet!”

“Nay, did I do that?” asked Hugo, mildly surprised.

There was an angry flush on Richmond’s cheek, but it faded. He muttered: “No—I beg pardon! But I can’t endure—oh, well, it’s no matter!”

Hugo picked up his candlestick saying, with his slow grin: “Can’t endure to be interfered with, eh? It’s high time you learned discipline, you meedless colt—military discipline! I’m not the head of the family, but happen I’ll help you to that pair of colours, if you don’t bring yourself to ruin before I’ve a chance to do it.”

Richmond smiled wryly. “Thank you! You can’t do it, however. When I’m of age—oh, talking pays no toll! I shall be at Oxford then, I daresay.”

“I doubt it! In the meantime, lad, tread the lineway, and never mind if it’s a bore. I mislike the cut of that Riding-officer. He’s mighty suspicious of you, and though I wouldn’t say he was down to every move on the board, he’s by no means the sapskull you think him.”

A little, confident smile curled Richmond’s mouth. “He’s been outjockeyed again and again—by what I’ve heard.”

“Ay, and he’s not the man to cry craven,” said Hugo significantly. “He don’t love you, Richmond, and if he thought he could bowl you out he’d do it.”

“But he can’t.”

“I hope he can’t, but chance it happens that you find yourself in a hobble, don’t throw your cap after it, but come to me! I’ve been in more than one tight squeeze in my time.”

“Much obliged to you!” Richmond murmured. “It’s midsummer moon with you, you know, but I’m persuaded you mean it kindly! Do go to bed, Hugo! I’m so very sleepy!”

Richmond did not look, on the following morning, as though he could have been as sleepy as he said he was when Hugo left him. He went riding as usual before breakfast, but when his mother and his grandfather saw him each perceived immediately that he was heavy-eyed, and a little pale. He was subjected to a cross-fire of anxious solicitude on the one hand and rigorous interrogation on the other, and bore it with such patience that Hugo marvelled at his restraint. His eyes met Hugo’s once, in a look ridiculously compound of defiance and entreaty. He won no response, but derived considerable reassurance from his large cousin’s expression, which was one of bovine stupidity. Since he did not think that Hugo was at all stupid, he interpreted this as a sign that he had no immediate intention of disclosing the previous night’s events to Lord Darracott, and did not again glance in his direction.

That swift, challenging look had not, however, escaped his sister’s notice, and at the earliest opportunity she commanded Hugo to explain its meaning. Even less than Richmond was she beguiled by his air of childlike incomprehension. She said severely: “And pray don’t stare at me as though you were a moonling!”

“Nay, love, that’s not kind!” protested the Major, much hurt. “I know I’m not needle-witted, but I’m not a moonling!”

“You’re the slyest thing in nature!” his love informed him with great frankness. “But I myself am pretty well up to snuff, so don’t think to tip me a rise, if you please! You’ll make wretched work of it.”

Shocked by this forthright speech, he said: “Eh, you mustn’t talk like that, lass! You’ll be setting folks in a regular bustle! That’s a very ungenteel thing to say: even I know that!”

“Forgive me, cousin!” she begged, primming up her mouth. “I meant, of course, that it is useless to think you can deceive me!”

“That’s much more seemly,” he said approvingly.

“Yes, but I now find myself at a loss to know how to advise you, in polite language, not to draw herrings across the track in the vain hope that you’ll persuade me to run counter!” she retorted.

“Oh, I’d never be able to do that!”

“Well, I’m happy to know you’re awake upon that suit, at all events!” She looked up into his face, smiling a little wistfully. “Don’t quiz me, Hugo! Why did Richmond look at you like that? As if he was afraid of you—afraid you were going to say something he didn’t wish you to! Tell me what it was—pray tell me, Hugo!”

He possessed himself of her hands, and held them clasped together against his chest. Smiling reassuringly down at her, he said: “Now, what’s made you so hot in the spur, love? And just what sort of a queer nabs do you think I am?”

“Oh, no, no, I don’t think that!” she said quickly.

“Well, I’d be a very queer nabs if I’d a secret with Richmond, and blabbed it to you!” he replied. “Nay then! don’t look so fatched! All Richmond was afraid of was that I might say something, in my dumpish way, which he’d as lief wasn’t said before his mother and the old gentleman. And I can’t say I blame him,” he added reflectively. “To hear the pair of them talk you’d think he was eight years old instead of eighteen!”

She nodded. “Yes, I know that. Do I seem a dreadful pea-goose? I daresay I am!”

“You do and-all!” he told her lovingly.

“What a truly detestable creature you are!” she remarked. “I collect Richmond was not tossing restless in his bed, but was not, in fact, in his bed at all, but I promise you I don’t mean to enquire where he was, because from anything I have ever heard one should never, if one wishes to retain the least respect for them, enquire what gentlemen do when they have contrived to escape from their female relatives.”

Charmed by this large-mindedness, the Major said, with simple fervour: “I knew you’d make a champion wife, love!”

“On the contrary! My husband will live under the cat’s foot.”

“I’m very partial to cats,” offered the Major hopefully.

She smiled, but drew her hands away, shaking her head at him. “My own belief is that you are a gazetted flirt!”

“Oh, is it?” he retorted. “If that’s so I’ll be off and ask my Aunt Elvira’s leave to pay my addresses to you without any more ado!”

“I shall warn her to hint you away—not that I have much hope that a mere hint will serve, because you are quite without conduct or delicacy, and altogether a most improper person!”

Cordially agreeing with this reading of his character, the Major ventured to remind her that it was her duty, as seen by her grandfather, to reclaim him.

“I am persuaded it would be a hopeless task,” she replied firmly, “What’s more, I know very well that all this nonsensical talk is what Richmond calls a fling, to lead me away from what I wish to say to you. Don’t joke me any more, but tell me—” She broke off, knitting her brows.

“Tell you what, love?”

“I don’t know. That is, it is so hard to put it into words! Lately—before you came here—I have felt uneasy about Richmond. I can’t precisely tell why, except that he was in such flat despair when Grandpapa ordered him to put the thought of a military career out of his head. He wasn’t sullen, or rebellious—he never is, you know!—but dawdling, and languid, not caring for anything very much, his spirits low, and depressed—Mama was afraid he would fall into a lethargy! And then, all at once, and for no reason that I could perceive, he became alive again. He has a great deal of reserve, but one can always tell by his eyes: they are so very speaking! Mama says that when they are bright it is a sign that he is in good health, but it’s not so—not wholly! When he was a little boy, and in dangerous mischief, they used to look alight, just as I’ve seen them again and again fn these past months. Once, when I went for a sail with him and Jem in the Seamew, a gale blew up, and we had the narrowest of escapes from foundering. I was never so frightened in my life—well, it was the horridest thing!—but Richmond enjoyed it! He had that look: his eyes positively blazing—smiling, too, in the most inhuman way! It was as though he liked fighting the waves, and being in the greatest peril, which Jem afterwards told me we were!”