The Unknown Ajax Read Online Free Page A

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.
    Chapter 2
    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,