This intelligence did not appear to afford Lord Darracott the smallest gratification. He said, in the voice of one goaded to exasperation: “I know nothing about mills, and care less! Answer me this, sir! Is it true, what your uncle writes me—that you inherited afortune from Bray?”
“Well,” replied the Major cautiously, “I don’t know just what you’d call a fortune, sir. I’d say myself I was pretty well-inlaid.”
“Don’t come any niffy-naffy, shabby-genteel airs over me!” barked his lordship. “Tell me without any damned roundaboutation how much you’re worth!”
The Major rubbed his nose. “Nay, that’s what I can’t do!” he confessed.
“You can’t, eh? I guessed as much! Trust Matthew to exaggerate out of all recognition! Why can’t you?”
“I don’t know myself, sir,” said Hugo, making a clean breast of it.
“What the devil do you mean by that, idiot?” demanded his lordship. “Presumably you know what your grandfather left you!”
“Oh, I know what his private fortune was, reet enough!” said Hugo. “It’s invested mostly in the Funds, and brings in between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds a year; but that’s not the whole of it. I’ve a sizeable share in the mill over and above that. I can’t tell you what they may be worth to me. Times have been bad lately, what with Luddite riots, and the depression that followed close on the Peace. The harvests were bad last year, too: my uncle Jonas Henry wrote me that in Yorkshire wheat rose to above a guinea the bushel. However, things seem to be on the mend now, so—”
“Are you telling me that Bray cut up to the tune of half a million?”said my lord, in a strange voice.
“It would be about that figure—apart from the mill,” Hugo agreed.
Lord Darracott was shaken by a sudden gust of rage: “How dared you, sir, deceive me?” he exclaimed.
“Nay then! I never did so,” Hugo reminded him. “It was in this very room that I told you I’d plenty of brass.”
“I remember! I supposed you to be referring to prize-money—as you knew!”
Hugo smiled down at him. “And I told you that my other grandfather had left his brass to me. You said I might do what I pleased with my granddad’s savings, but that you wanted to hear no more of them or him. So I didn’t tell you any more, for, to own the truth, sir, I was better suited, at that time, to keep my tongue between my teeth until I’d had time to look about me. What’s more,” he added reminiscently, “I wasn’t ettling to remain here above a sennight—particularly when you told me you had it all settled I was to wed my cousin Anthea. Eh, it was a wonder I didn’t take to my heels there and then!”
Lord Darracott stared at him, his lips tightly gripped together, and his eyes smouldering. He did not speak, but after a moment went to the wing-chair on one side of the fireplace, and sat down, his hands grasping its arms. The Major sat down too, saying: “Happen it’s as well my uncle wrote to you, for it’s time we reached an understanding. It chances that I’d a letter myself by today’s post, from Uncle Jonas Henry.” He chuckled. “Seemingly he’s as throng as he can be, and a trifle hackled with me for loitering here. I shall have to post off to Huddersfield next week, sir—and a bear-garden jaw I’ll get when I arrive there, if I know Jonas Henry!”
Lord Darracott said, with an effort: “Have the goodness to tell me whether you mean to return, or to stay there!”
“Nay, that’s for you to say, sir.”
The fierce old eyes flashed. “It appears I have no hold over you!”
The Major considered him, not unsympathetically. “Well, that’s true enough, of course, but don’t fatch yourself over it, sir! If you’re thinking of the brass, I’ll tell you to your head it makes no difference: you’d have had no hold over me any road. But all the brass in the world wouldn’t help me to cross this threshold if you didn’t choose to let me.”
His lordship gave a contemptuous snort of unmirthful laughter, but said in a milder tone: “Well, what do you mean to do?”
“Unless you dislike it, I’d choose, once I’ve settled my affairs, and talked things over with Jonas Henry—I’m by way of being his sleeping partner, you see—to come back. I’d be very well suited if you’d let me have the Dower House. That’s assuming you wish me to take up my quarters here. If not—well, there’s my grandfather’s house above Huddersfield, or I might buy a house in the Shires, perhaps. Time enough to decide what I’ll do—and maybe it won’t be for me to decide, either.”
Lord Darracott looked intently at him. “Am I to understand you mean to marry Anthea?”
“If she’ll have me,” said the Major simply.
“She should be flattered! In these hurly-burly times I don’t doubt your fortune will make you acceptable to any female. I dare swear every matchmaking mother in town will cast out lures to you: you have only to throw the handkerchief,” said my lord sardonically.
“Well, as I’m doing no throwing of handkerchiefs we’ll never know if you’re right. Myself, I shouldn’t think it, but there’s no sense in breaking squares over what won’t come to pass. If my cousin won’t have me—eh, that doesn’t bear thinking about!”
“H’m! You seem to have become wondrous great with her!” remarked his lordship. “Does she know what your circumstances are?”
“Well, I told her, but she didn’t believe a word of it,” replied Hugo. “And what she’s going to say when she finds I wasn’t trying to bamboozle her has me in the devil of a quake!” he confessed.
His lordship returned no answer to this, but said presently, keeping his eyes fixed on the Major’s face: “What’s your purpose in wishing to live here while I’m above ground?”
“Much what yours was, when you sent for me, sir. Since I must succeed you, it will be as well your people should know me, and I them. I’ve the devil of a lot to learn, too, about the management of estates, for that’s something that’s never come in my way.” He paused, returning my lord’s gaze very steadily. “All to one, they’re in bad shape, sir, so happen it’s a good thing I’ve plenty of brass.”
“Ah!” My lord’s hands clenched on the arms of his chair. “We come to it at last, do we? I don’t need you to tell me my land’s in bad heart! I know better by far than you what is crying out to be done, and what it would cost to do it! But if you think to make yourself master here in my time, you may take your brass, as you call it, to hell with you!”
“Nay, that’s foolishness, sir!” Hugo remonstrated. “I’ve no wish to be master here, for I’d make wretched work of it, as ignorant as I am. But soon or late it will be my fortune that sets matters to rights, and I’d liefer it was soon. If I put money into the place, I’ll not be kept in the dark about any question that properly concerns me, so it’s likely we’ll fratch now-and-now, but I’ll be no more master than Glossop is. I’d be the junior partner.”