“Ay, I’m that road myself,” agreed Hugo cheerfully. “Your man of business was mighty set on arranging the journey for me. He said it was what you’d told him to do, so there’s no sense in blaming him. And not much sense in blaming me either,” he added, on a reflective note. He smiled down at his seething progenitor. “I’m much obliged to you, sir, but there’s no need for you to worry your head over me: I’ve looked after myself for a good few years now.”
“Worry my head—? Richmond! Ring the bell! You, sir! Did you bring your valet, or haven’t you one?”
“Well, no,” confessed the Major apologetically. “I used to have a batman, of course, but, what with one thing and another, I haven’t had time to think about hiring a personal servant since I came home.”
“No valet?”repeated Claud, gazing at him incredulously. “But how do you manage? I mean to say, packing—your boots—your neckcloths—!”
“Hold your tongue!” said his father, in an undervoice.
“If you had been listening,” interpolated Vincent severely, “you would have heard our cousin say that he has been in the habit of looking after himself. Except when he had a batman, that is.”
“Ay, but I’m a poor hand at packing,” said Hugo, shaking his head over this shortcoming.
“How much longer is dinner to be kept waiting?” demanded Lord Darracott. “Ring that damned bell again, Richmond! What the devil does Chollacombe mean by—Oh, you’re there, are you? Have Major Darracott taken up to his room, and tell someone to wait on him! We shall dine in twenty minutes from now!”
Claud was moved to protest, his sympathy roused by the plight of anyone who was expected to dress for dinner in twenty minutes. “Make it an hour, sir! Well, half an hour, though I must say it’s coming it a bit strong to ask the poor fellow to scramble into his clothes in that short time!”
“No, no, twenty minutes will be long enough for me!” said Hugo hastily, a wary eye on his lordship. “If I’m not down then, don’t wait for me!”
Chollacombe, ushering him out of the saloon, and softly closing the door behind him, said: “I will take you up myself, sir. I understand you haven’t brought your valet with you, so his lordship’s man has unpacked your valise!”
“Much obliged to him!” said Hugo, following him to the broad, uncarpeted oak staircase. “It seems as if Mr. Lissett ought to have warned me not to show my front here without a jack-a-dandy London valet at my heels.”
“Yes, sir. Being as his lordship is, as they say, rather a high stickler. Not but what Grooby—that’s his lordship’s man, sir—will be very happy to wait on you. We were very much attached to the Captain, if I may venture to say so.”
“My father? I never knew him: he was killed when I was just three years old. I’m afraid I don’t favour him much.”
“No, sir. Though you do remind me a little of him.”
The butler paused, and then said with great delicacy, as they reached the upper halclass="underline" “I hope you won’t think it a liberty, sir, but if there should be anything you might wish to know—his lordship being a trifle twitty at times, and not one to make allowances—I beg you won’t hesitate to ask me! Quite between ourselves, sir, of course.”
“I won’t,” promised Hugo, a twinkle in his eye.
“It is sometimes hard to know the ways of a house when one is strange to it,” said Chollacombe. “Anybody might make a mistake! Indeed, I well remember that I was obliged to give my Lord Taplow a hint, when he stayed here on one occasion. He was a friend of Mr. Granville’s: quite in the first style of elegance, but he had a habit of unpunctuality which would have put his lordship out sadly. This way, if you please, sir. We have put you in the West Wing.”
“It’s to be hoped I don’t lose myself,” remarked Hugo, following him through an archway into a long gallery. “If ever I saw such a place!”
“It is rather large, sir, but I assure you there are many that are far larger.”
“Nay!” said Hugo astonished.
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir! This is your bedchamber. I should perhaps tell you that Mr. Richmond sleeps at the end of the gallery, and must not on any account be disturbed.”
“Why not?” enquired Hugo.
“Mr. Richmond suffers from insomnia, sir. The least sound brings him broad awake.”
“What, a lad of his age?” exclaimed Hugo.
“Mr. Richmond’s constitution is not strong,” explained Chollacombe, opening the door into a large, wainscoted room, hung with faded blue damask, and commanding a distant view of the sea beyond the Marsh. “This is Grooby, sir. His lordship dines in fifteen minutes, Grooby.”
The valet, an elderly man of somewhat lugubrious mien, bowed to the Major, and said in a voice of settled gloom: “I have everything ready for you, sir. Allow me to assist you to take off your coat!”
“If you want to assist me, pull off my boots!” said Hugo. “And never mind handling them with gloves! If I’m to be ready in fifteen minutes, I shall have to be pretty wick, as we say in Yorkshire.”
Grooby, kneeling before him, as he sat with his legs stretched out, had already drawn one muddied boot half off, but he paused, and looked up, saying earnestly: “Don’t, Master Hugh!”
“Don’t what?” asked Hugo, ripping off his neckcloth, and tossing it aside.
“Say what they do in Yorkshire, sir. Not if you can avoid it! I’m sure I ask your pardon, but you don’t know his lordship like I do, and you want to be careful, sir—very careful!”
The blue eyes looked down at him for an inscrutable moment. “Ay,” Hugo drawled. “Happen you’re reet!”
The valet heaved a despairing sigh, and returned to his task. The boots off, he would have helped Hugo to remove his coat, but Hugo kindly but firmly put him out of the room, saying that he could dress himself more speedily if left alone. He shut the door on Grooby’s protest, let his breath go in a long Phew! and began, very speedily indeed, to strip off his coat and breeches.
When he presently emerged from his room, he found Grooby hovering in the gallery. Grooby said that he had waited to escort him back to the saloon, in case he should have forgotten his way; but it was evident, from the expert eye he ran over his protégé’s attire, that his real purpose was to assure himself that no sartorial solecism had been committed. It was a pity, but not a solecism, that the Major had not provided himself with knee-smalls, but his long-tailed coat was by Scott, and well-enough; his linen was decently starched; and his shoe-strings ironed. He favoured a more modest style than was fashionable, wearing no jewellery, sporting no inordinately high collar, and arranging his neckcloth neatly, but with none of the exquisite folds that, distinguished the tie of a dandy or a Corinthian. Grooby regretted the absence of a quizzing-glass and a fob, but on the whole he was inclined to think that so large a man was right to adopt a plain mode.
The Major entered the saloon one minute before the stipulated time, thereby winning a measure of approval from his grandfather. Lord Darracott’s brows shot up; he said: “Well, at all events you’re not a dawdler! I’ll say that for you. Make your bow to your aunts, and your cousin! Lady Aurelia, Mrs. Darracott, you’ll allow me to present Hugh to you; Anthea, you’ll look after your cousin: show him the way about!”
The Major, receiving a formal bow from a Roman-nosed matron in a turban, and the smallest of stiff curtsies from a tall girl who looked at him with quelling indifference, turned his eyes apprehensively towards the third lady. Mrs. Darracott, her heart wrung (as she afterwards explained to her daughter), smiled at him, and gave him her hand. “How do you do?” she said. “I am so happy to meet you! So vexed, too, that I wasn’t dressed quite in time to welcome you when you arrived. Not but what that might have made it worse for you—I mean, so many strange new relations! I daresay you must be perfectly bewildered.”