The Unknown Ajax (27 page)

Ferring grinned shyly at him, and said that he would do his best to give satisfaction. By the time he had laid out the Major’s evening-dress, hauled off his boots, helped him out of his coat, and rendered him as much assistance in dressing as he would accept, he had registered a silent vow to exert himself to the utmost in his determination to make himself indispensable to a master who seemed to him to approach very nearly to the ideal. When he went down to the Servants’ Hall he was blissfully looking forward to an honourable and comfortable future; and when his formidable uncle yielded precedence to him at the table, his cup almost overflowed. He was a modest young man, and would willingly have taken the lowliest place, but when Mrs. Flitwick invited him to a seat beside her, opposite no less a personage than Grooby, his lordship’s own valet, he realized that he had leapt magically into a position of consequence, and his elation was only tempered by regret that his mother was not present to see his triumph.

He would have been distressed had he known what heart-burnings his elevation had caused his uncle to suffer, for he was deeply grateful to him. It had not occurred to Crimplesham, when he recommended Ferring to the Major, that he was placing his nephew above himself, and when the odious Polyphant had maliciously pointed this circumstance out to him his first impulse had been to claim precedence over Ferring on the score of their relationship. But however lax they might be in the dining-room, in the Hall the hierarchy was strictly observed. There could be no question that the heir’s valet ranked above Mr. Vincent’s and Crimplesham was a stickler on points of etiquette. Moreover, although he had no doubt that Ferring would yield precedence to him, he had also no doubt that he would yield it to Polyphant too. Having weighed the matter carefully, he decided that the most dignified course for him to pursue, and the one that would most annoy his rival, would be to insist on Ferring’s going before him, with a smile that would indicate at once appreciation of a humorous situation, and sublime indifference to his own position at the board. Having carried out this programme, he had the consolation of knowing that he had not only annoyed Polyphant, but had disappointed him as well. This was satisfactory, and even more so was the very proper way Ferring responded to several spiteful remarks addressed to him by Polyphant. He was civil, as became his years, but his smile was abstracted, conveying the irritating impression that his mind was otherwise. This happened to be the exact truth, but as Crimplesham did not know it, he continued to be very well pleased with him, and even suspected that the boy had more intelligence than he had hitherto supposed. By the end of the week, Ferring had completely identified himself with the Major’s interests, and had consolidated his position by winning the qualified approval of John Joseph, who informed his master somewhat grudgingly that the lad was better nor like, and (although born south of the Trent, which was to be deplored) certainly preferable to the Major’s late batman, a hapless creature, to whom John Joseph referred as that gauming, clouterly gobbin we had wi’ us in Spain.

The Major let this pass. He was seated on a horseblock, smoking a cigarillo, a circumstance that prompted John Joseph to inform him that it was a favourite perch of Miss Anthy’s. “Ee, she’s a floutersome lass!” he said, with a dry chuckle, and a wag of his grizzled head. “Eyeable, too,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Hugo.

The Major let this pass too, his countenance immovable. After a pause, John Joseph asked bluntly: “What’s tha bahn to do, Mester Hugo? Tha knows I’m not one to frump, but chance it happens tha’s framing to bide here I winna be so very well suited.”

“No, I’m thinking I might set up for myself at the Dower House,” said the Major. “Nay then! By what that slamtrash that lives there tells me, it’s flue-f of boggarts!” “Oh, so he’s been telling you ghost-stories too, has he? Tell me now, John Joseph, what do you think of him?”

“He’s a reet hellion!” replied John Joseph promptly. “Ee, Master Hugo, what gaes on here? Seek a meedless set they are in these parts as I never saw! Ay, and not to take pack-thread, sir, t’gaffer up yonder—” He jerked his thumb in direction of the house—“nigh as bad as the rest! Sithee, tha knows t’Blue Lion, Mester Hugo?”

Hugo nodded. “Yes, I know it: it’s the inn in the village. Well?”

“I’ve been there whiles, playing off my dust, and neighbouring wi’ t’tapper. Seemingly there’s some kind of scuggery afoot at that Dower House.”

“Smuggling?”

“Ay, that’s what I think mysen, nor it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s nowt ’ud surprise me in these flappy, slibber-slabber south-country folk! I’d be reet fain to be shut of every Jack rag of ’em! Hooseever, that’s not to be, so no use naffing, Mester Hugo, if tha’s shaping to wink at smuggling, like t’rest o’ t’gentry hereabouts—”

“Don’t be a clodhead, John Joseph! Are the Preventives still suspicious of Spurstow? I know they had dragoons watching the Dower House, but I was told they never had sight or sound of run goods being carried into it.”

“Nor they hadn’t, sir, but when t’new young gadger came into these ungodly parts he got it into his head, seemingly, that uncustomed goods were being brung up from t’coast and stored in t’Dower House. They run t’boats in pick-nights, and mun store t’goods until t’moon’s up. They carry ’em on to London then. By what t’tapper’s let fall—and a reet clash-me-saunter he is when he gets to be nazy, which he does at-after he’s swallowed nobbut a driver’s pint!—there’s hidden ways hereabouts. Leastways, that’s what they call ’em, but they’re nobbut t’owd roads, sunk-like.”

“Is there a watch kept on moonlight nights, to see if anything is taken out of the house?” “Nay, that ’ud be sackless, Mester Hugo! Hark-ye-but, if there’s nowt carried in there’ll be nowt carried out! There’s nobbut a half-squadron o’ dragoons quartered twixt here and t’North Forleand, besides t’gadgers—and noan so many of them, by what I learn—and there’s plenty of other places need a watch kept on ’em. But I’ll tell you summat, sir!” He paused, nodding. Hugo waited patiently, and after a few moments, during which he seemed to be chewing the cud of his own reflections, John Joseph said: “T’young Riding-officer’s more frack than t

’owd one, and since t’last run, when him and them dragoons was made April-gowks of, chasing after nobbut a few loads o’ faggots, Peasmarsh way, while t’run was carried off, it were rumoured, not so very far from here, I’ll take my accidavy he’s got his eye fixed on Spurstow again. Happen he’s not so sickened on watching the Dower House as he makes out, for there’s them as is ready to swear they seen him up t’lane now-and-now. There’s been no dragoons stationed thereabouts this while back, and no manner o’ good gin there had been, for Clotton—him as is his lordship’s head groom—tells me they’d got so that they took every bush for a boggart, and reet laughable it was one night when a couple of ’em—nobbut ignorant lads!—came sticklebutt into t’Blue Lion, frining and faffling that there was a flaysome thing jangling round t’Dower House, and wailing fit to freeze t’blood in a body’s veins. At-after that t’sergeant went up there, wi’ another chap, neither of ’em being flaid o’boggarts.” He smiled dourly. “They say in t’village t’sergeant weren’t very well suited wi’ what he saw and heard. Hooseever, he challenged t’boggart, but it vanished into t’shrubbery, and he didna care to gae after it, chance it happened Spurstow went frumping to t’owd lord that he’d been trespassing.”

“Spurstow himself, with a sheet draped round him!” said Hugo, “Well, I thought as much.” “Nay, hold thee a minute, Mester Hugo! Tha’s out there: it weren’t Spurstow. That’s sure, because Spurstow stuck his head out o’ t’window, calling out to know who was there, and tha knows there’s no road he could have got back into t’house from t’shrubbery without t’sergeant would have seen him, let alone he’d no time to do it.”

“Oh!” said Hugo slowly. He was silent for a minute, and then looked thoughtfully at John Joseph, and said: “Keep your eyes and your ears open, will you, John Joseph?” “Ay—and my tongue between my teeth. Happen it’s nobbut a silly lad playing tricks, Mester Hugo.”

“Happens it is,” Hugo agreed. “I think I’ll go up to the Dower House myself one night.” John Joseph grunted. “Tha’ll need to bide a spirt, till t’moon’s up a bit. I’ll gae wi’ ye.” “The devil you’ll not! Do you think I’m afraid of ghosts?”

“Nay, it’s no ghost, sir!”

“I’ll go alone, thank you, John Joseph.”

Several days elapsed before the waxing moon afforded enough light to make a midnight visit to the grounds of the Dower House practicable, and when the Major did go he saw nothing more alarming than Spurstow, who came out of the house (he said) to discover who was prowling about the gardens. As the Major had strolled all round the house in full view of its windows, and knew that even in the dim light his great size made him easily recognizable, he doubted this statement, but he replied in his pleasant way that he was sorry if he had alarmed Spurstow. “I came up to see this ghost of yours, but it seems to be shy of me.”

“You shouldn’t ought to listen to what they’ll tell you in the village, sir. It’s all foolishment! Leastways, I’ve never seen it!” Spurstow said, in a surly tone.

“I’ll go bail you haven’t!” replied the Major, amused.

He mentioned his expedition to none but Anthea. She regarded him in frank admiration, exclaiming: “All by yourself? Weren’t you nervous? Just the least bit nervous?” “Nay, I was as brave as a lion!” he assured her.

She laughed, but said: “Well, I must own I think you were! And you didn’t see or hear anything horrid?”

“No, but I wasn’t expected,” he said. “Another time maybe I might see something.” “You mean you believe that there’s no ghost, only Spurstow? If it is so, he’ll never dare to try to hoax you—not when he knows you weren’t afraid to walk all round the house in the middle of the night! What are you hoping to do? To find if smugglers do use the Dower House, or to lay the ghost?”

“Well, I’d like to do that,” he answered.

‘To be sure! Miss Melkinthorpe would wish it laid, of course!” “Who’s she?” asked Hugo, taken off his guard.

She opened her eyes at him. “But, my dear cousin—! Miss Amelia Melkinthorpe!” “Miss Amel—” He broke off abruptly, and Anthea was glad to perceive that he had the grace to blush. “Oh! Her!”

She said, in a shocked voice: “You cannot, surely, have forgotten her?” “Ay, but I had,” he confessed, rubbing his nose. “I’m that road, you see: out of sight, out of mind!”

Miss Darracott realized, with considerable indignation, that the Major had yielded once more to the promptings of his worser self, and said, somewhat ominously: “Indeed?” He nodded, meeting her smouldering gaze with one of his blandest looks. “Ay. Mind you, I wouldn’t forget a lass I’d formed a lasting passion for!” He sighed. “The trouble is I mistook my own heart. Of course, she being so beautiful, it’s no wonder I was carried away.” “I should suppose her to have all Yorkshire at her feet,” said Anthea. “I remember thinking, when you described her to me, that she must be the loveliest creature imaginable! Almost too lovely to be true, in fact. There is something so particularly ravishing about brown eyes, and black curls, isn’t there?”

“Nay!” he said reproachfully. “That was another one! Amelia’s got blue eyes, and golden curls.”

She choked.

“The thing is, she wouldn’t be the right kind of wife for me when I get to be a peer. She wouldn’t wish to leave Huddersfield, either—on account of her mother.” “Her mother,” said Anthea encouragingly, “could come to live with you.” “No, that won’t fit. She’s bedfast,” explained the Major, ever-fertile. Anthea strove with herself.

“Besides, we shouldn’t suit. And there’s no use thinking his lordship would take to her, because he wouldn’t.”

“Surely, cousin, you cannot mean to jilt her?” said Anthea, in accents of reprobation. “Nay, it wouldn’t be seemly,” he agreed. “I’ll just have to dispose of her, as you might say.” “Good God! Murder her?”

“There’s no need to be in a quake,” he said reassuringly. “No one will ever know!” “If only—oh, if only I could do to you what I long to do!” exclaimed Anthea. “If you were but a few inches shorter—!”

He said hopefully: “Nay, don’t let that fatch you, love I It’ll be no trouble at all to lift you up: in fact, there’s nothing I’d like better!”

Furiously blushing, she retorted: “I didn’t mean that I wished to kiss you!” He heaved a despondent sigh. “I was afraid you didn’t,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “I was reet taken-aback, but I thought to myself: Come now, lad! She’d never raise your hopes only to cast you down! So—”

“Cousin Hugo, you are outrageous!” said Anthea, in a shaking voice. Horrified, he replied: “You’re reet; I am, love! I need someone to take me in hand, and that’s the truth! Of course, if Amelia had been a different sort of a lass—more after your style!—she’d have been just the one to undertake me, but—”

“Cousin Hugo!” interrupted Anthea, feeling that it was high time he was brought to book, “you may bamboozle everyone else, but you won’t bamboozle me!” “Do you think I don’t know that, love?” he said, smiling at her in a very disturbing way. “You invented Amelia Melkinthorpe because you were afraid you might find yourself obliged to offer for me!” continued Anthea, prudently ignoring this interpolation. “And if you think—” “Nay, you’re fair and far off, lass!” “Am I? Then perhaps, cousin, you will tell me why you did invent her? Not,” she added scathingly, “that I shall believe a word of it!”

“Are you telling me I’m a liar?” demanded Hugo, insulted. “Yes!” responded Anthea doggedly.

“I thought you were,” said Hugo, relapsing with disconcerting suddenness into dejection. Miss Darracott, realizing with bitter resentment that she was quite unable to control her own voice, averted her gaze, and took her quivering underlip firmly between her teeth. Much encouraged, the abandoned creature before her said confidentially: “It was this road, love! By the time you took me up to the picture-gallery my spirits were so low and oppressed by all the black looks I’d had cast on me, and I was feeling that lonely—eh, I was never more miserable in my life!”