The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer Page A

heir to a comfortable independence. Nothing then stood between him and the achievement of his goal but a want of genius. Try as he would he could neither create a new quirk of fashion, nor hit upon some original eccentricity which would make him instantly famous. He was obliged to exaggerate the prevailing mode, and to adopt as his own the tricks and mannerisms of other and more ingenious dandies, and somehow these expedients did not quite answer the purpose.
    Vincent, of course, recognized every one of these plagiarisms, but what would have amused him in a young brother no plumper in the pocket than he was himself became a matter for bitter contempt when Claud inherited an easy competence. Vincent, with nothing but his allowance and the erratic generosity of his grandfather to depend on, lived precariously on the edge of Dun Territory. He was a gamester, and his luck had more than once saved him from being run quite off his legs; but he had several times been out-of-town, as the saying was; and he was no stranger to an obliging individual known to every gentleman seeking to raise the wind as Old Tens-in-the-Hundred. Envy and resentment changed his indifference to Claud into rancorous dislike. He was irritated by everything Claud did, whether it was wasting his blunt on the re-lining of his private chaise, or being such a muckworm as to travel behind job-horses. Nothing short of seeing Claud rolled-up would soften his dislike, and of that there was small likelihood: Claud’s fortune was genteel rather than handsome, but he had no taste for gaming or racing, and, like his mother, he knew how to hold household.
    It was an added source of exasperation in Vincent to know that his tongue had no power to wound Claud. Nothing short of being tipped into a ditch stirred Claud to resentment; and if he thought about Vincent at all it was with no other emotion than a sort of mild surprise. None of his brother’s hazardous exploits awoke in his breast a spark of envy or of emulation: he envied Vincent only his splendid shoulders, and the incomparable blacking which made his boots shine like mirrors. Unfortunately both these desirable possessions were beyond his reach. Nature had seen fit to add drooping shoulders to his willowy form; and the secret of the blacking was locked in Crimplesham’s bosom. Buckram and wadding could supply what Nature had withheld, but neither guile nor bribery would ever win from Crimplesham the least clue to his secret.
    If it cost Claud a pang to know that Vincent’s Hessians outshone his own, this was nothing to the rage and the despair that filled his valet’s soul. Nor was the hostility that flourished between the brothers comparable to the feelings of jealousy, hatred, and contempt which filled the hearts of their valets. If Crimplesham excelled in the arts of polishing boots, and keeping buckskins in perfect order, Polyphant’s genius lay in his skill with an iron, and his flair for evolving new and intricate modes of tieing a neckcloth, or dashing styles for his master’s curled and pomaded locks. He believed himself to be by far the more expert valet, and it galled him beyond endurance to know that, while Crimplesham’s one excellence was apparent to all, his own talents must inevitably go to his master’s credit. Few people would suspect any aspirant to high fashion of entrusting the arrangement of his hair, or of his neckcloth, to his valet; none would suppose that any gentleman would black his own boots. By the time Claud hurried into his bedchamber, Polyphant had unpacked his portmanteaux, and had even found time to press the creases from a long-tailed coat of superfine, and a pair of black satin knee-breeches. These Claud eyed with disfavour, uttering a protest: “No, I’ll be damned if I’ll wear that rig here! Dash it, it ain’t the thing, Polyphant!” “No, sir, and well do I know it!” agreed Polyphant, in a feeling voice. “The proper mode, of course, would be pantaloons, since