“It ’ud take a tidy few,” agreed Hugo, grinning.
“Why this desire to inspect a ruin?” enquired Vincent. “Pride of prospective possession, or do you perhaps mean to restore it, in due course?”
“Nay, I don’t know,” Hugo said vaguely.
“Obviously you don’t. The cost of restoring it—a singularly useless thing to do, by the by!—would very soon run you off your legs.”
“Happen you’re reet,” said Hugo amicably. “I’m just by way of being interested in out first-ends. It’s early days to be making plays.”
“Just so!” said Vincent, with so much meaning in his voice that Richmond intervened quickly, asking Hugo if he had seen the Van Dyck.
“He means the portrait of the first Ralph Darracott,” explained Vincent smoothly.
“An unnecessary piece of information, Vincent!” said Anthea.
“Ay, so it is,” nodded Hugo. “Now, wait a piece, while I cast my mind back! Ay, I have it! That was the picture of the gentleman with the long curls. What’s more,” he added, with naive pride in this feat of memory, “it’s the one my cousin told me I must look at particularly. Van Dyck would be the man who painted it. I’ve heard of him before, think on.”
Richmond hurried into speech. “I don’t know much about pictures myself, or care for them, but I like Ralph!. He was a great gun! Most of our ancestors were either ramshackle fellows, or dead bores. Did Anthea tell you about the second Ralph? Not that she knows the half of it! If ever there was a loose fish—! A regular thatch-gallows!”
“Yes!” Anthea interrupted. “And isn’t it mortifying to reflect on the number of Darracotts who look like him? You favour the first Ralph, and so did Oliver, a little; but Uncle Granville, and Papa, and Aunt Caroline, and Grandpapa himself are clearly descended from Ralph II, while as for Vincent—”
“—you have only to place a powdered wig on his head and no one would know them apart,” supplied Vincent. “Thank you, my love! I must derive what consolation I may from the knowledge that at least I resemble one of my forebears!”
At this point a welcome interruption occurred. Claud, hearing voices in the hall, came out of one of the saloons, and, addressing himself to Hugo, said severely: “Been looking for you all over!”
“What’s amiss?” Hugo asked.
“Just what I expected!” said Claud. “Didn’t I tell you the odds were my grandfather would blame me if you was to vex him? Dash it if he hasn’t told me he shall hold me responsible for you!”
“Ee, that’s bad!” said Hugo, shaking his head. “If I were you, I’d make off back to London as fast as ever I could, lad.”
Claud looked a little doubtful. “Well, I could do that,” he admitted. “A least—No, it wouldn’t fadge. Don’t want my father to take a pet, and he would, because he don’t want to offend the old man. There’s another thing, too.”
He paused, and it was evident from his darkling brow that he was brooding over a serious affront. His brother, halfway up the stairs, stood looking down at him contemptuously. “Don’t keep us in suspense!” he begged. “What inducement has been held out to you?”
“He didn’t hold out any inducement. No inducement he could hold out. I haven’t swallowed a spider! I don’t haunt Pontius Pilate’s doorstep! I don’t have to hang on my grandfather’s sleeve!” He perceived that Vincent had turned and was about to descend the stairs again, and temporized. “Well, what I mean is, I haven’t yet! No saying when I might have to, of course!”
“Fighting shy, brother?” said Vincent.
“I’m not fighting at all,” replied Claud frankly. “I don’t say I wouldn’t like to see someone plant you a facer because I would, but I don’t care for boxing myself, never did! Besides, I’m not up to your weight”
“Remember that, and don’t crow so loudly, little dunghill-cock!” said Vincent, resuming his progress upstairs,
“One of these days,” said Claud, as soon as Vincent was out of earshot, “somebody will do Vincent a mischief!”
“Gammon!” retorted Richmond. “It was you who stirred the coals, not Vincent! Cutting at him like that!”
“Well, I’ve been vexed to death!” said Claud. “I don’t mind it when my grandfather comes the ugly. I don’t mind his cursing me. I don’t mind it when he says I’ve got no brains. I don’t mind his calling me a fribble, or a popinjay, or a Bartholomew baby. But when he tells me I look like a demi-beau—a demi-beau!—”
“Claud!” breathed Anthea, deeply shocked. “He did not say that?”
“Oh, yes, he did! To my face! Said he didn’t want Hugh tricked out to look like me, too. Said I could mend Hugh’s speech, but he wouldn’t have me teaching him to look like a counter-coxcomb! That to me! He must be queer in his attic!”
“Depend upon it, that’s it!” she said. “If I were you I wouldn’t stay another day where you have been so insulted!”
“Well, I am going to stay!” replied Claud. “I’ll make him eat it, dashed if I won’t! He wants Hugo to model himself on Vincent. A nice cake Hugo would make of himself if he started aping the Corinthian set!”
“I would and-all,” said Hugo, who was listening to this with his shoulders propped against the wall, his arms folded across his great chest, and an appreciative grin on his face.
“Of course you would! You can’t wear a Bird’s Eye Wipe, and fifteen capes, and a Bit-of-Blood hat unless you’re a top-sawyer, and you ain’t! Told us you weren’t! What’s more, you couldn’t wear a coat like that one of Vincent’s even if you were, because you’re a dashed sight too big already. You’d have all the street-urchins clamouring to know where the Fair was going to be held. You put yourself in my hands! I’llturn you out in new trim—show you the proper mode—all in print—no finery, but up to the nines!”
Hugo shook his head. “Nay,” he said mournfully, “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, lad.”
“Dashed if I don’t have a touch at it! Yes, and don’t say nay, or call me lad!”
“Nay then!” expostulated Hugo, opening his innocent eyes wide.
Chapter 7
If the Major nursed a hope that his elegant cousin’s determination to give him a new touch would not survive his wrath, he was soon obliged to abandon it. A crusading spirit had entered Claud’s bosom, and before the day was out he had succeeded in cornering the Major, whom he found writing a letter in one of the smaller saloons. He had given much thought to a difficult problem, and he had decided that the first step must be a bolt to the village, where he would himself superintend the choice of hats, boots, gloves, knee-smalls, neckcloths, waistcoat, and shirts, and summon his own tailor to bring his pattern-card to his lodging in Duke Street. Gathering from this programme that a bolt to the village signified a visit to the Metropolis, the Major declined the . He was of the opinion that Lord Darracott would up extremely stiff if such a plan were even mooted.
“Thought of that too,” countered Claud. “Say you have the toothache! I’ll offer to drive to London with you, and take you to a good tooth-drawer. No need to tell the old gentleman I’m going to rig you out in style.”
The Major said that he thought his lordship had too much know to be bamboozled, and Claud made the disheartening discovery that his pupil was as obstinate as he was amiable, and so woodheaded that although he listened to what was said to him he seemed to be incapable of taking it in. He agreed that to present a good appearance was of the first importance; when it was pointed out to him that the points of his shirt-collars were so moderate as to be positively dowdy he said he had been afraid that was so from the start; when told that Nugee or Stultz would turn him out in smarter style than Scott, he nodded; but whenever he had been worked up to the point (as Claud thought) of making the necessary alterations to his attire it became apparent that either he had not been attending, or had failed to grasp, the meaning of what had been said to him.