Cousin Kate

Chapter XII

On arrival at Market Harborough, Mr Philip Broome drove to the Angel, and left Kate in a private parlour there while he went off to the Cock, to fetch Mr Nidd. She would have gone with him, but he told her that Mr Nidd had forbidden him to bring her to what he had described as a mere sluicery. “He says it wouldn’t be fitting, and I daresay he’s right—even if he wrongs it in calling it a mere sluicery! As I recall, it is a respectable inn, situated not far from the post-road. However, it doesn’t cater for the gentry, so I think you will be more comfortable here.”

She agreed to it, and sat down by the window to await his return. Twenty minutes later, she saw him crossing the street, with Mr Nidd trotting along beside him, and realized, with deep appreciation, that Mr Nidd was indeed looking as spruce as an onion, in his Sunday coat and smalls, a natty waistcoat, and a rigidly starched collar, whose points, she guessed, were causing him considerable discomfort. She wished Sarah might have been present to have been gratified by the sight of him, for not all her efforts had hitherto prevailed upon him to wear a collar, except for Church-going, and great occasions. His favourite form of neckwear was a large, spotted silk handkerchief, which he knotted round his throat with great taste and artistry.

In another few minutes, she was welcoming him with out-stretched hands, and exclaiming: “Oh, Mr Nidd, how happy it makes me to see you again!”

Much gratified, he said: “That makes a pair of us, miss! And very kind I take it that you should say so! Now, wait a bit while I put me hat down careful somewhere! It’s a new ’un, and I don’t want it spoiled!”

Phlip took it out of his hand, and set it down with meticulous care upon a side table. Mr Nidd, watching this with a jealous eye, was pleased to approve, and said he was much obliged. He then received Kate’s hands in a reverent clasp, but reproved her for demeaning herself. “Because there ain’t no call for you to treat me as if I was a lord, missy, and, what’s more, you didn’t ought to!”

“I’m not acquainted with a lord,” countered Kate, “and I shouldn’t hold out my hands to him if I were! Dear Mr Nidd, if you knew how much I have yearned for news of you all!—How is Sarah? Could you not have brought her with you?”

“No, and nor I wasn’t wishful to, miss!” said Mr Nidd, with sudden malevolence. “Sarey’s cut her stick!”

“Cut her stick?” repeated Kate uncomprehendingly.

“Loped off!” pronounced Mr Nidd, in bitter accents. “Ah! For all she cares, I could be living on pig swill! Which I pretty well was!” he added, with a darkling look.

“Mr Nidd, she cannot have done so! Do you mean that she has quarrelled with Joe, and left him? Oh, no! Impossible!”

“Properly speaking, it was him as left her,” replied Mr Nidd, in a reluctantly fair-minded way. “Not but what it was only in the way of business, mind! Joe’s gone off with Young Ted to Swansea, with a wagon-load of furniture, which a gentleman as is moving house hired him to convey, being as a friend of his had highly recommended Josiah Nidd & Son, Carriers, to him.”

“What a stroke of good fortune!” said Kate. “Except, of course, that it means, I suppose, that he will be absent for several weeks. But I can’t believe that Sarah wished him to refuse such an advantageous engagement!”

“No,” admitted Mr Nidd. “All Sarey wished was for Joe to drive a harder bargain, which I’m bound to say he did do—though not as hard a one as I’d have driven, mind! So off he went, leaving Sarey to keep house for me and Will, which would have been all right and tight if she’d done it, but she didn’t, Miss Kate! What I say is, she ain’t got no call to go trapesing off to nurse them dratted brats of Polly’s!”

“Oh, dear! Are they ill, then? But you know you shouldn’t call your grandchildren dratted brats, Mr Nidd!”

“Nor I wouldn’t, if it wasn’t true!” he replied, with spirit. “I speaks of people as I find ’em miss, and why the good Lord see fit to saddle me with a set of grandchildren that ain’t worth two rows of gingerbread I don’t know, and never will! They’ve got the measles, Miss Kate—all six of ’em! And what must Polly do, clumsy fussock that she is, but tumble down the stairs with a tray of chiney, and break four plates, two bowls, and her leg! I got no patience with it!”

Kate could not help laughing, but she said: “What a disaster! No wonder Sarah went to the rescue! And you know very well you wouldn’t have wished her not to have done so! What’s more, you won’t make me believe she didn’t make provision for you and Will!”

“If you call it making provision for me to hire Old Tom’s Rib to cook me dinner for me, Miss Kate, all I’ve got to say is that you can’t have eaten anything that rabbit-pole woman ever spoiled! Which, of course, you haven’t. Meself, I’d as lief sit down to a dish of pig swill!”

At this point, Mr Philip Broome, who had been silently enjoying Mr Nidd’s embittered discourse, intervened with an offer of refreshment. “Forgive me, but before I leave you to be private with Miss Malvern, what would you wish me to order for you, Mr Nidd? Sherry, or beer? I’ve never sampled the sherry here, but I can vouch for the beer!”

“Thanking you kindly, sir, beer’s my tipple. Not that I ain’t partial to a glass of sherry in season,” he added grandly, if a trifle obscurely.

Philip lifted an eyebrow at Kate. “And you, cousin?”

“I should like some lemonade, if it might be had.”

He nodded, and left the room. “I’ve took a fancy to that young fellow,” said Mr Nidd decidedly. “He ain’t a buck of the first head, nor he ain’t as fine as a star, but to my way of thinking, Miss Kate, he’s true blue! He’ll never stain!”

To her annoyance, Kate felt herself blushing, and knew that Mr Nidd was watching her closely out of his aged but remarkably sharp eyes. With as much nonchalance as she could assume, she replied: “Yes, indeed: Mr Philip Broome is most truly the gentleman! But tell me, Mr Nidd—”

“Now, hold hard, miss!” begged Mr Nidd. “I’m one as likes to have everything made clear, and what I don’t know, and didn’t care to take the liberty of asking him, is what relation he is to the Bart? He ain’t the Bart’s son, that’s sure, because, according to what you wrote to Sarey, the Bart’s son has got an outlandish name, which I don’t hold with. And what’s more, Miss Kate, you said the Bart’s son was the most beautiful young man you’d ever clapped eyes on, and if you was meaning this young fellow, it don’t fit! Not but what he’s as good-looking as any man need to be—ah, and would strip to advantage, too!”

“He is Sir Timothy’s nephew,” answered Kate briefly. “It is my turn to ask questions now, Mr Nidd! Is it true that Sarah has received only one of my letters to her?”

“Gospel true, miss!” asseverated Mr Nidd. “That was the scratch of a note you wrote to her when you first arrived at this Staplewood, and it relieved Sarey’s mind considerable, because you told her how kind your aunt was, and the Bart, and what a beautiful place it was, and how happy you was to be here, which got up her spirits wonderful. Properly hipped she was, after you’d gone off! She took an unaccountable dislike to her ladyship, but I’m blessed if I know why! Happy as a grig she was when she read your letter, until she got into the dumps again because she never had no answer to the letter she wrote you, nor so much as a line from you from that day to this.”

“Mr Nidd,” said Kate, in a rigidly controlled voice, “I have never had a letter from Sarah. I have written to her repeatedly, begging her to reply, but never has she done so. When Mr Broome told me that you had come to Market Harborough the most terrible apprehension seized me that you had come to tell me Sarah was ill, or—or dead!”

The effect of this disclosure on the patriarch was profound. After hearing Kate out in great astonishment, he wrapped himself in a cloak of silence, and, when she started to speak again, raised a forbidding hand, and said: “I got to think!”

In the middle of his ruminations, the waiter came in with a tray, which he set down on the table. Having offered Kate, with a low bow, a glass of lemonade, he carried a tankard over to Mr Nidd, and gave it to him with a much lower bow, intended to convey condescension, contempt, and derision. Fully alive to the implications of this covert insolence, Mr Nidd, taking the tankard with a brief thank’ee, recommended him to wipe his nose on a handkerchief instead of on the knees of his smalls, and told him to take himself off. After thus routing the adversary, he refreshed himself with a copious draught from the tankard, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and said portentously: “It’s a good thing I’ve come, Miss Kate, that’s what it is! Yes, and so Sarey will have to own! If I’ve told her once she ought to come herself to see how you was going on, I’ve told her a dozen times! But would she do it? Oh, no! She took a maggot into her head that you wouldn’t want her to come here, poking her nose in, now that you was living with your grand relations, and nothing me nor Joe said made her think different!”

“Oh, no, no!” Kate cried distressfully. “How could she have thought such a thing of me?”

“It’s no manner of use asking me that, miss, because there’s no saying what notions a nidgetty female will take into her head—even the best of ’em! “Well,” I says to her, “it ain’t like Miss Kate to act bumptious, and more shame to you, Sarey, for thinking it!” Then she started napping her bib, and saying that she didn’t think no such thing, and nobody could wonder at you being so took up with your relations that you was forgetful of your old nurse. “Well,” I says, sharp-like, “I don’t wonder at it, because I ain’t bottleheaded enough to believe it!” Then she sobs fit to bust her laces, and says as how I don’t understand! Which was true enough! “I can’t explain!” she says. “That’s easy seen!” I told her. But argufying with a ticklish female don’t do a bit of good, so I gave over. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like it, nor think it was natural. “Something havey-cavey about this,” I says to myself: so when Sarey took herself off to Polly’s house I bought a new hat, and a shirt with winkers, packed up me traps, and came to Market Harborough on the stage-coach.”

“But—do you mean that Sarah doesn’t know?” asked Kate, dismayed. “Mr Nidd, you shouldn’t have come here without telling her! Only think how anxious she must be!”

He looked a little guilty, but replied in a very lofty way that he had left a message with Tom’s wife that if anyone were to inquire for him she was to say that he had gone into the country to visit a friend. “Which ain’t gammon,” he assured Kate, “because the buffer at the Cock is an old friend of mine. Regular bosom-birds we was used to be, afore I retired. Many’s the time I’ve fetched up at the Cock with a wagon-load of goods, and greased the tapster’s boy in the fist to make up his bed in the wagon, in case there might happen to be a prig, sneaking on the lurk. So don’t you worry your pretty head about that, Miss Kate! You got troubles of your own!”

“Indeed I haven’t!” said Kate quickly. “My aunt is kindness itself, I assure you!”

“It’s my belief,” said Mr Nidd, eyeing her narrowly, “that you’re being put upon, miss!”

“No, no, I promise you that isn’t true! Aunt Minerva treats me as if I were her daughter—only I hope she would allow a daughter to be more useful to her than I am! Whenever I beg her to give me some task to perform, the best she can think of is to ask me to cut and arrange flowers!”

Mr Nidd looked to be unconvinced. “Well, I got a notion you’re moped, miss!” he said. “I may be wrong, but I disremember when I last had the wrong sow by the ear. I daresay I never did, because I’ve got a deal of rumgumption, and always did have—whatever Sarey may tell you to the contrary!”

“I know you have, Mr Nidd, but if you think I look moped you’ve made a mistake this time! To own the truth, I’m bored! From not having enough to do! And the worst of it is that I can’t persuade my aunt that I am yearning for occupation. You know, I have never been used to lead a life of indolence.”

“No, and nor you ain’t been used to enjoying yourself neither!” he retorted. “Many’s the time Sarey has got to fretting and fuming because you don’t go to balls, and routs, and suchlike as a young lady should, and the only thing which plucked her up when you didn’t write was thinking as you was probably too taken up with parties to have a minute to spare! Now, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re bored with parties already, Miss Kate!”

“No, but I haven’t been to many parties, Mr Nidd!” she replied ruefully.

“You’re bamming me!” he exclaimed.

“I’m not, I promise you! The thing is, you see, that Sir Timothy’s health does not permit him to go to parties, or—or even to entertain people at Staplewood. My aunt gave a dinner-party for his particular friends, when I first came here, but it wasn’t very amusing. You mustn’t suppose me to be complaining, but when Sarah pictures me in a whirl of gaiety she is fair and far out!”

“You don’t say, miss! Well, I’m bound to say that’s got me properly pitch-kettled, that has! No pleasuring at all? You’d have thought that it wouldn’t disturb the Bart if she was to invite a few young people to supper, and one of them small balls, got up sudden! By what I’m told, the Bart’s got his own rooms, and commonly shuts hisself up in them for the best part of the day, so I don’t see as how a snug party of that nature need worrit him! No, and I don’t see neither why her ladyship don’t make it her business to arrange it! How old is this son of hers?”

“Torquil is nineteen, but he—”

“So that’s what his name is, is it? Unnatural, I call it, and it’s to be hoped he don’t talk ill!” interrupted Mr Nidd, cackling at his own wit.

Kate, according it a dutiful smile, said: “Unforunately, Torquil suffers from a—a delicate constitution, and the least excitement brings on one of his terrible headaches. It is an object with my aunt to keep him as quiet as possible.”

“What, him too?” said Air Nidd incredulously. “Seems to me, miss, that we’d ha’ done as well, me and Sarey, to have sent you to a pest-house! I never did, not in all my puff!”

She laughed. “Neither Sir Timothy nor Torquil suffers from an infectious complaint, Mr Nidd!”

“Dutch comfort, Miss Kate! Next you’ll be telling me that the newy’s in queer stirrups!”

“Indeed I shan’t tell you anything of the sort!” said Kate indignantly.

“Nor I wouldn’t credit it if you did! I can see with my own ogles that he’s in prime twig! But, lordy, this’ll make Sarey look blue! You know what she is, miss: no sooner did she read your letter, saying as how your cousin was the most beautiful young man you’d ever beheld, than she got to thinking what a good thing it would be if you and he was to make a match of it. Which there’s no denying it would be, if he was quite stout. But if he’s ticklish in the wind it won’t do, Miss Kate!”

She said earnestly: “Mr Nidd, pray don’t encourage Sarah to think there is the least possibility of my marrying Torquil! It is too absurd! Sarah must have forgotten that I am four-and-twenty! There are five years between Torquil and me—and I haven’t the smallest inclination to set my cap at him! He is certainly beautiful, but I can conceive of few worse fates than to be married to him! He is nothing more than a spoiled schoolboy, and his temper is shocking! Pray let us be done with that nonsense!”

“I’m agreeable, miss,” said Mr Nidd, affably, “Not but what it’ll come as a disappointment to Sarey, because there’s no denying that it would have been a spanking thing for you. However, what can’t be cured must be endured, and it’s as plain as a pack-saddle that the newy’s nutty on you! Now, if he was to offer for you—”

“I should be very much surprised!” Kate interrupted. “I’m not on the catch for a husband, Mr Nidd, and I shall be much obliged to you if you won’t make plans for me! Let us rather talk about your own affairs! I do, most solemnly, beg that you will go back to London! I don’t mean that I’m not deeply grateful to you for having come to Market Harborough, for I am—more grateful than I can tell you!—but Sarah must by this time be in a perfect stew! And if I were to dash off a note to her, you could take it to her, couldn’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Kate, and I could take it to the Post Office too. I got a notion I won’t go back yet, because I ain’t easy in my mind, and I’m not wishful to leave you here! It sticks in my gullet that you ain’t had any of Sarey’s letters, nor she any of yours, barring the first of ’em. It don’t smell right to me, missy, and that’s the truth!”

“It—it doesn’t—smell right to me either,” confessed Kate. “But until I have spoken to my aunt about it, I—I would liefer not discuss it! If it was she who was responsible, she must have had some good reason, even—even if I can’t think what it can have been.”

“No, nor me neither!” said Mr Nidd acidly. “And, if you ask me, she’ll find herself in a proper hank, when she starts in to explain what her reason was! Don’t you try to sell yourself a bargain, miss, because you ain’t a paperskull, no more than what I am, and you know well she can’t have had a good reason! Mark me if she ain’t playing an undergame!”

Kate got up, and went to the window, and began to twist the blind-cord round her finger. “I know, but—”

“The best thing you can do, miss, is to come back to Sarah!” said Mr Nidd. “Lor’, wouldn’t she jump out of her skin with joy! Yes, and what’s more, if she knew you was with us again she’d come home herself, ah, and in an ant’s foot, too! Then p’raps we’d get some wittles fit to eat! All you got to do, miss, is to pack your traps, and leave it to me to settle the rest. You wouldn’t object to traveling on the stage, would you? I’d take good care of you.”

Kate turned her head to bestow upon him a warm, smiling look. “I know you would, Mr Nidd—bless you! But I couldn’t, after all her kindness, leave my aunt in such a way! It would be beyond everything! I think I know why she—why she tried to stop me corresponding with Sarah. You see, she doesn’t want me to leave Staplewood, and I expect she must know that I couldn’t do so if I became estranged from Sarah. I’ve said from the start that I should leave, after the summer, and I’ve remained firm in that resolve. It was very wrong, of course, to tamper with my correspondence, but—but she is a woman who has been used to have her own way in everything, and—and once I’ve—well, brought her to book!—I’m persuaded she won’t do so any more. Now that I’ve seen you, and know that Sarah hasn’t given me up, I can be easy again, and be sure that if I found myself obliged to leave Staplewood, I shouldn’t find that Sarah had closed your doors against me! Dear Mr Nidd, your visit has been the greatest comfort to me, but I do, most earnestly, beg that you will go back to London!”

As she spoke, the door opened, and she looked quickly over her shoulder, to see that Mr Philip Broome had entered the room. He said: “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Cousin Kate, but we stand in imminent danger of being scandalously late for dinner! Unless we set forward immediately, we shall fall under Minerva’s displeasure.”

“Oh, good God, that would never do!” she exclaimed, with would-be lightness. “Have I enough time to scribble a note to Mrs Nidd? I have been asking Mr Nidd if he will be so good as to take it to her, and I promise I won’t keep you waiting above ten minutes!”

“By all means,” he said, casting a glance round the room, and discovering a writing-table. He strode over to it, and pulled open two of its drawers. “Wonderful! Not only paper, but wafers as well, and a pen! And even ink in the standish! In general, when one wishes to write a letter in a posting-house, one finds that there is only a kind of mud at the bottom of the standishes. If you care to sit down here, Kate, I’ll take Mr Nidd down to inspect my horses. You will join us in the yard at your convenience.”

She agreed gratefully to this suggestion; and although it was evident that Mr Nidd was much inclined to dig his heels in, he yielded, after staring pugnaciously at him, to the unmistakeable message in Mr Philip Broome’s eyes, accompanied as it was by the flicker of the smile of a conspirator.

But as soon as Philip had closed the door, he said that he had told Miss Kate that he would be happy to take her letter to the Post Office, but he hadn’t made up his mind to go home, not by a long chalk he hadn’t.

Leading the way down the stairs, Philip said, over his shoulder: “Does she wish you to do so?”

“Yes, she does, sir, and it goes against the pluck with me to do it!” said Mr Nidd, in a brooding tone. “I wouldn’t wish to offend you, Mr Broome, sir, but I been telling Miss Kate that the thing for her to do is to come back with me to London!”

“I shouldn’t think she agreed to that,” Philip commented.

“No, sir, she didn’t,” said Mr Nidd, nipping ahead to hold open the door into the yard. “After you, sir, if you please!—No, she said that she couldn’t leave her aunt in a bang, as you might say, being as how her ladyship had been so kind to her. Which, begging your pardon, I take leave to doubt!”

“True enough. Her ladyship has been more than kind to her.”

“Well, if you say so, sir!—” replied Mr Nidd dubiously. “I didn’t cut my eye-teeth yesterday, nor yet the day before, and you don’t have to tell me you don’t cut no shams, because I knew from the moment I clapped my ogles on you that it was pound-dealing with you, or nothing! But, Mr Broome, sir, I’ll take the liberty of telling you to your head that I ain’t easy in my mind! It don’t smell right to me, somehow!”

Philip did not immediately answer, but after a short pause he said: “Does it make you easier when I tell you that if any danger were to threaten Miss Malvern—which I don’t anticipate!—I should instantly bundle her into a chaise, and restore her to her nurse?”

“You would?” Mr Nidd said, regarding him with obvious approval.

“Most certainly!”

“Well, that’s different, of course!” said Mr Nidd graciously. “If you mean to look after Miss Kate, there’s no call for me to kick my heels here!”

“Thank you!” said Philip, holding out his hand, and smiling. “We’ll shake hands on that, Mr. Nidd!”

“Thanking you, sir!” said Mr Nidd ineffably.

Kate, emerging from the house several minutes later, was relieved to find that her aged well-wisher had apparently formed the intention of departing for London on the following morning. He received from her a hastily written note to Sarah, and stowed it away in his pocket, promising to deliver it as soon as he reached the Metropolis. It was plain that he had been making shrewd, but, on the whole, appreciative comments on the well-matched bays which had just been harnessed to Mr Philip Broome’s curricle; and, on bidding Kate a fond farewell, he was moved to say that he knew he was leaving her in good hands. She hardly knew what to reply to this, but murmured something unintelligible, her colour much heightened, and could only be grateful to Philip for not prolonging the embarrassing moment. As he swept from the yard into the main street, he said conversationally: “A truly estimable old gentleman! A downy one, too! He says it don’t smell right to him. Precisely my own opinion!”

“You did not tell him so?” she asked anxiously. “Oh, no! All I did was to assure him that you were in no danger, and that if it became imperative on you to leave Staplewood I would convey you to London, and hand you over to Mrs Nidd. Why, by the way, did you refuse to go with him?”

“How could I do so?” she demanded. “Whatever my aunt has done, she doesn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily! Good God, Cousin Philip, the clothes I am wearing at this moment I owe to her generosity! Besides,—”

“Yes?” he said, as she broke off. “That isn’t all your reason, is it?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not quite all. You see, before my aunt took me away from Sarah, I had been staying with her for far too long a time—much longer than I had anticipated. I know what a charge I must have been, though she was very angry when I ventured to say so, and told me that if I dared to offer her money for my board she would never forgive me. So I can’t go back to her until I’ve secured a post. When I left Wisbech I thought I should have been able to do so immediately, but—but it turned out otherwise. None of the ladies who were advertising for governesses hired me. Either they wanted an accomplished female, able to instruct her pupils in the harp, and the piano, and the Italian tongue, or they said I was too young. It was the most mortifying experience! I became utterly despondent, and began to wonder whether I might not be able to turn the only talent I possess to good’account.”

’And what is your only talent?” he asked.

’Oh, dressmaking! I did think of seeking a post as abigail to a lady of fashion, but Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. She said it wouldn’t do for me—”

“She was right!”

“Yes, I think perhaps she was: I can’t imagine when a modish abigail finds the time to go to bed! So then I hit upon the idea of seeking employment in a dressmaker’s establishment, but Mr Nidd was strongly opposed to it.”

“I said he was a downy one,” observed Philip.

“Yes, but I still think I might try my hand at it, if all else fails. He says that unless one can afford to set up for oneself, or at .least to buy a share in a flourishing business, there is no possibility of making one’s fortune in the dressmaking line.”

“None at all, I imagine.”

“You can’t tell that!” she objected. “For my part, I shouldn’t wonder at it if you are both wrong. Consider! Even if I had to serve an apprenticeship in the workroom, and subsist for a time on a pittance, I should be bound to rise rapidly to a more elevated position, because I can do more than sew: I can design! I truly can, sir! I have been used to make all my own dresses, and no one has yet called me a dowd! On the contrary ! Mrs Astley’s odious mother said that she marvelled at my extravagance, and would like to know where I found the money to purchase such expensive gowns!” She chuckled. “And the joke was that when she said that, I was wearing a coloured muslin dress which cost exactly eighteen shillings! It was perfectly plain except for a knot of ribbons at the waist, but of excellent cut and style, which, of course, was what misled her. I don’t mean to boast, but doesn’t that show you?”

“I should have to see the garment before I ventured to give my opinion,” he said, his countenance grave, but his voice a trifle unsteady.

She burst out laughing. “What a shocking Banbury man you are, sir! How dare you poke fun at me? Did I sound like a bounce?”

He shook his head gloomily. “Every feeling was offended!” he assured her.

She laughed more than ever, but said: “Seriously, sir—”

“Seriously, Kate, Mr Nidd is right: it won’t fadge!”

She sighed. “Perhaps it might not. Lately I have been wondering if I could not obtain a situation with an old lady. I daresay you know the sort of thing I mean: as companion, or housekeeper, or even the two combined. It would be dreadfully dull, I expect, but at least Sarah wouldn’t kick up a dust, and say it wasn’t a genteel occupation.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t consider being a companion-housekeeper to a gentleman?” he suggested.

“I shouldn’t think so. Sarah would think it most improper, and it would be, you know. Unless he was a very old gentleman. Why, do you know of a gentleman who wants a companion-housekeeper?”

“As it chances, I do. But not a very old one, I’m afraid! I mean he isn’t bedridden, or queer in his attic, or anything of that nature. Not a dotard?

“I certainly shouldn’t consider such a post in a dotard’s house!” she said, amused. “In fact, unless I were offered a handsome wage, which, I own, would tempt me, I don’t mean to consider it at all! An old lady is the thing for me!”

“You cannot have given enough thought to it, Kate! Old ladies are always as cross as crabs!”

“What nonsense!” she said scornfully. “I have known several who were most amiable! And no female is commonly afflicted with gout, which most old gentlemen are, I find. It makes them insupportably cross!”

“The gentleman I have in mind is not afflicted with gout, and I am persuaded you would find him amiable, and—and compliant.”

“Indeed?” said Kate, stiffening. “And how old is this gentleman, sir?”

“Nine-and-twenty. But very nearly thirty!” he replied.

Since she knew this to be his own age, she could not doubt that he meant himself, and was making her an offer. But what kind of an offer it was remained a matter of painful doubt. He knew her to be friendless and penniless, and it was possible that he was offering her a carte blanche, meaning to set her up as his mistress; it seemed very unlikely that he wished to marry her, for (as she dismally reminded herself) she had nothing but a pretty face to recommend her. She felt suddenly that if that was what he meant it would be more than she could bear; and realized that it would be one more illusion shattered. She had not allowed herself to hope that he would offer marriage, for she knew herself to be ineligible; she was not even sure that he loved her. He had certainly revised his first, unfavourable estimate of her character; and when he looked at her she could fancy there was a warm, appreciative light in his eyes. But he was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve: indeed, if it was possible to detect a fault in him, thought Kate, sternly resolved to do so, he had too much reserve. Not, of course, a stupid sort of indifference, but a coolness of manner, which made it hard to know what he was thinking.

Doggedly determined not to betray herself, she said, in a light voice, which she hoped expressed contemptuous amusement: “I won’t pretend to play the dunce, sir. I assume that you are talking about yourself. I don’t find it diverting!”

“I was talking about myself, and I am extremely glad you don’t find it diverting!” he said, with some asperity.

Her heart began to beat uncomfortably fast, and she could feel the colour mounting into her cheeks. She turned her face away, saying: “This is quite improper, sir! I told my aunt that you showed no disposition to flirt with me, and I believed it!”

“So I should hope! For God’s sake, Kate!—I’m not fluting with you! I’m trying to tell you that I love you!”

“Oh!” uttered Kate faintly.

Mr Philip Broome, indignant at being given so little encouragement, said in a goaded voice: “Now say you’re much obliged to me!”

“I don’t know that I am,” responded Kate, almost inaudibly. “I—I don’t know what you mean!”

With all the air of a deeply reticent man forced to declare his sentiments, he said: “Exactly what I said! I LOVE YOU!”

“You needn’t shout! I’m not deaf!” retorted Kate, with spirit.

“I was afraid you might be! I could hardly have put it more plainly! And all you can say is Oh! As though it was a matter of no consequence to you! If you feel that you can’t return my—my regard, tell me so! I’ve dared to hope, but I was prepared to have my offer rejected, and although it would be a severe blow, I trust I have enough conduct not to embarrass you by persisting!”

“You—you haven’t made me an offer!” said Kate. She added hurriedly, and in considerable confusion: “I don’t in the least wish you to! I mean, I would far, far liefer you didn’t if you are trying to—Oh, dear, how very awkward this is! Mr Broome, pray don’t offer me a carte blanche!”

“A carte blanche?” he exclaimed, apparently stunned.

By this time she was crimson-cheeked. She stammered: “Is—isn’t that the right term?”

“No, it is not the right term!” he said savagely, drawing his horses in to the side of the lane, and pulling them to a halt. “What kind of a loose-screw do you take me for? Offer a carte blanche to a delicately bred girl in your circumstances? You must think I’m an ugly customer!”

“Oh, no, no! Indeed I don’t!”

He possesed himself of her hands, and held them in a hard grip. “I am proposing to you, Kate! Will you marry me?”

Her hands instinctively clung to his; a happiness she had never known before flooded her being; but she said foolishly: “Oh, no! Don’t! You can’t have considered—Oh, dear, how improper this is!”

Mr Philip Broome, after one swift glance round, dragged her roughly into his arms and kissed her. For a delirious moment Kate yielded, but every precept that Sarah had drummed into her head shrieked to her that she was violating every canon of propriety, and behaving without delicacy or conduct. She made a desperate attempt to thrust him away, uttering an inarticulate protest. He released her with unexpected alacrity, ejaculating: “I might have known it!” and set his horses in motion again. “That’s what comes of proposing in a curricle! Straighten your bonnet, Kate, for the Lord’s sake!”

She had suffered a severe shock at being so brusquely repulsed, but she now saw that Mr Philip Broome had not experienced a change of heart. A couple of people had come round a sharp bend in the lane, and were advancing slowly towards them. From their attire, Kate judged them to be members of the fanning fraternity; and from the circumstances of the young man’s arm being round the girl’s waist, and his head bent fondly over hers, it seemed safe to assume that they were a courting couple. They were wholly absorbed in each other, and cast no more than cursory, incurious glances at the curricle.

“Phew!” whistled Philip, as soon as the curricle was out of earshot. “It’s to be hoped they didn’t see!”

“Yes, it is!” Kate agreed warmly. “And if they did, it serves me right for behaving like a—like a straw-damsel!

“