“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!”