Cousin Kate

Chapter XIX

Kate left the room feeling stunned. Listening to the incredible things her aunt had said, a ghastly suspicion had crossed her mind that Lady Broome was as mad as her son, but although Lady Broome’s eyes had flashed once or twice in anger there had been no such glitter in them as Kate had learnt to recognize in Torquil’s eyes; and when she had spoken of Torquil’s childhood, and of her fantastic scheme for his future, she had done so without a trace of feeling. Only when she described her own emotions had she shown any feeling: she had not uttered a word of pity for her unhappy son; it had not seemed to occur to her that it was far more his tragedy than hers. To Kate, this, if not madness, was an egoism so monstrous as to be unbelievable.

She caught her breath on a dry sob, and went rather blindly along the gallery to her own room. But just as she opened her door she was arrested by Mr Philip Broome’s voice, reaching her from the Great Hall. It was unusually sharp; he demanded imperatively: “What the devil has been happening?”

“Well, sir, that’s more than I can tell you,” replied a voice Kate knew well. “All I know is that this young gentleman seems to have come, to grief, jumping over the wall alongside your lodge-gates, but there was no making sense out of what any of the folks dithering round him tried to tell me, or they were all too scared to do more than say that the young gentleman had broken his neck. Which he hasn’t, nor anything else, so far as I can discover. He just stunned himself. So I had them lift him into the chaise, and brought him up to the house.”

“Sarah!” Kate shrieked, racing to the head of the stairs, and almost tumbling down them in her haste. “Oh, Sarah! oh, Sarah!”

She flung herself into Mrs Nidd’s arms, her overwrought nerves finding relief in a burst of hysterical sobs. Mrs Nidd gave her a hearty kiss, but spoke bracing words. “No, that’s quite enough, Miss Kate! There’s no need for you to fall into the vapours just because I’ve come to see you. You should know better than to create such a humdurgeon!”

“Take me away, Sarah! Oh, take me away!” Kate gasped imploringly.

“Yes, lovey, but all in good time. You sit down there, like a good girl, or I shall have to be cross with you!”

She thrust Kate into a chair, and turned back to the group gathered about the settle, on which Torquil’s inanimate form had been laid. One of the footmen was standing with a bottle of smelling-salts in his hand, and looking singularly helpless; Pennymore was anxiously watching Mr Philip Broome; and Philip himself was on one knee beside the settle, feeling Torquil’s pulse. “Here, you silly creature!” said Sarah, addressing herself to the footman, and wresting the smelling-bottle away from him. “What do you think I gave you that for?” She pushed him aside, and began to wave the salts under Torquil’s nose. “Nothing broken, is there, sir?”

“I don’t think so,” Philip answered curtly. “His doctor will know. Pennymore, have you sent to fetch Dr Delabole?”

“Yes, sir: James has gone to find him. Mr Philip, it would be as well to move him out of the hall: we don’t want to disturb Sir Timothy!”

“He’s out of earshot: I left him in his bedroom, going to rest before dinner.” He glanced up at Sarah. “The pulse is quite strong: he’ll do! You are Mrs Nidd, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir, I am. Ah, he’s coming round! That makes the second time, and it’s to be hoped he don’t swoon off again, like he did before. Nothing would do for him but to get on his feet, and it’s my belief he was just giddy, and shook up, whatever the lodge-keeper may say to the contrary! Not that I paid the least heed to him, for a bigger jolterhead I never did set !—That’s better, sir! You take it easy over the stones, and you’ll soon be as right as a trivet!”

Torquil, who had opened his eyes, lay blinking hazily for a few moments, but his clouded gaze gradually cleared, and he said thickly: “Oh, it’s you, Philip! I took a toss.”

“So I’ve been informed,” responded his cousin unemotionally. “Keep still!”

“Oh, to hell with you!” Torquil said angrily, struggling up. “I’m in a capital way! Did you think I’d broken my neck? Diddled again, coz!” He pushed Philip roughly aside, and swung his feet to the floor, and looked round the hall. He stared blankly at Sarah, and demanded: “Who the devil are you?”

“I’m Miss Kate’s nurse, Master Torquil, and that’s no way for a young gentleman to talk!” replied Sarah, apparently regarding him as one of her nurslings.

“Oh!” said Torquil doubtfully. A sudden smile swept over his face. “I know! You are Sarah!” he said ingenuously. “Kate’s Sarah! But how the devil—no, how the deuce!—do you come to be here?”

“There’s no need for you to worrit yourself over that, sir. I came to Market Harborough on the night-coach, and hired a chaise to drive me here—and just as well for you I did!” Sarah said severely. “Now, you stay quiet, like a good boy, till the doctor comes!”

“I don’t want him!” Torquil declared, his smile vanishing. “Prosy bag-pudding!” His eyes travelled to his cousin’s face and gleamed defiance. “This will teach them not to keep the gates shut when I tell them to open them!”

“Is there any hope that it may teach you not to overface your horses?” asked Philip. He added softly, with a smile that took the sting out of his words: “Top-lofty young cawker!”

“Oh, damn you, Philip, I’m not!” protested Torquil. “You know I’m not! The clumsy brute must have jumped off his fore! Serve him right if he broke his legs! I hope he did: he’s a commoner! Oh, my God, no!”

This venomous ejaculation was provoked by the sight of Dr Delabole, descending the wide stairway with unusual haste. The doctor said, with fond joviality, as he crossed the hall: “Ah, there was no need for me to be alarmed, I see! I haven’t been summoned to attend a corpse! My dear boy, how came you to do anything so imprudent? I thought you were sleeping, when I myself retired to seek repose!”

“Tipped you the double, didn’t I, Matthew?” mocked Torquil unpleasantly.

“You did indeed!” acknowledged the doctor with unabated amiability. “And very naughty of you it was! However, I shan’t scold you! I fancy you punished yourself!” He was flexing one of Torquil’s legs as he spoke, and said laughingly, as he frustrated an attempt to kick him off his balance: “Well, that’s not broken, at all events! Let me see if you are able to stand on your feet!—Capital! Unless you have fractured a rib or two, which I can’t tell until I have you stripped, there’s nothing amiss with you but a shaking, and a few bruises. I shall ask our good James to carry you up to your room—”

“The devil fly away with you!” interrupted Torquil, taking instant umbrage. “I’m damned if I’ll be carried! Here, James, give me your arm up the stairs!” His eyes alighted on Kate, who had recovered her composure but was still sitting, rather limply, on a very uncomfortable chair placed with its high carved back against the wall. “Lord, coz, are you here?” he said. “I didn’t see you! You’re looking as blue as megrim! Did you think I was dead? No such thing! I’m as right as ram’s horn!”

She straightened her sagging shoulders, and got up. “Well, I’m glad of that, even if you don’t deserve to be!” she said.

At this inopportune moment, a hot and agitated groom burst unceremoniously into the house, pulled up short as soon as he saw Torquil, and uttered devoutly: “Thank Gawd!”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Torquil, his wrath springing up. He shook James off, and advanced, rather shakily, towards the groom. “You insolent hound, how dared you get in my way?”

He found his passage barred by his cousin, and glared up at him, his chest heaving. Philip said sternly: “Go upstairs, Torquil! I’ll deal with Scholes.” He paused, watching Torquil’s long fingers curl, like a hawk’s talons, and dropped his hand on the boy’s shoulder, giving him a friendly shake. “Go on, you gudgeon! Making a show of yourself!”

Torquil’s angry eyes held his for a dangerous moment; then they sank, and he muttered something inaudible, before flinging round on his heel. He staggered, and would have fallen but for Delabole, who caught him as he lurched, and signed to James to carry him up the stairs. Philip turned towards Pennymore, saying calmly: “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much wrong! I fancy the only damage he suffered is to his pride, which is why he’s in such a pelter. You needn’t wait: the doctor will know what to do for him. Or you, William! Scholes, I want a word with you: don’t go!” He held out his hand to Sarah, saying, with a smile: “My uncle having retired to rest, Lady Broome being laid up with influenza, and my young cousin being as graceless as he is foolhardy, it’s left to me to welcome you, Mrs Nidd! Which, believe me, I do! But ought you to have left your excellent father-in-law to the mercies of Old Tom’s Rib?”

“Oh, I never did!” said Sarah, dropping an instinctive curtsy. “If it isn’t like Father to spread it about that I deserted him! I’ll have you know it was his own daughter I went to, sir, and for all he’s a grumble-gizzard he wouldn’t have had me do other!” She perceived that Philip’s hand was still outstretched, and blushed, saying in a flustered way, as she put her own hand into it: “Well, I’m sure, sir!—”

I’m glad you’ve come,” he said, “Kate—er, Miss Malvern!—has been longing to see you. What did happen this afternoon?”

“It’s just as I told you, sir: I was coming out here in a chaise, when all of a sudden the post-boy had to pull up, because there was half a dozen people in the way, including a silly widgeon with a baby, who kept on screaming that the horse had come down on top of her, which, of course, it hadn’t. You don’t have to worry about her, sir, because I gave her a good scold, and told her to be off home. Well, as soon as Mr Torquil came round, I had him lifted into the chaise, for I’ve never had a bit of patience with people who can’t think of anything better to do in a situation like that than to stand about gabbing, and wringing their hands, and I never will have! So then the lodge-keeper opened the gates, and we drove up to the house. That’s when this young fellow’—she nodded at the groom—came galloping up. But there was nothing for him to do for Mr Torquil, so I told him to see what he could do for the horse. It looked to me as if he’d broken one of his forelegs. Had he?”

Scholes, his stricken gaze imploring Mr Philip Broome’s clemency, said miserably: “It’s true, Mr Philip, but as God’s my judge it ain’t my fault! Nor it ain’t Fleet’s fault neither, though he says if he’d have known what Mr Torquil was going to do he’d have opened the gates, no matter what her ladyship’s orders was! If Whalley had been there, it wouldn’t have happened, but knowing as how Mr Torquil was in bed with a touch of the sun, he’d taken my lady’s mare to the village, to be reshod. There was only me and young Ned in the yard, sir, and I was busy grooming your bays, and never dreamed Mr Torquil had come down to the stables, and had ordered Ned to saddle up for him. And, although I fetched the lad a clout, I don’t see as how you can blame him, for, let alone he’s a gormless chawbacon, you couldn’t hardly expect him to start argufying with Mr Torquil. The first I knew of it was when I see Mr Torquil leading his chestnut out. I ran, quick as I could, but he was in the saddle by the time I got to him, and listen to me he would not. He was in one of his hey-go-mad moods, Mr Philip, and maybe I done wrong to catch hold of his bridle, because it made him fly up into the boughs, the way he does when he’s crossed, and he slashed his whip at me. And then the chestnut reared, and the next thing I knew was that I was on the flat of my back, and Mr Torquil going off at full gallop, and young Ned standing there with his mouth half-cocked, and his eyes fairly popping out of his head. So I rode Sir Timothy’s old grey down the avenue, on his halter—and—and the rest is like this lady says, sir! And what her ladyship will say I dursn’t think on!”

“She won’t blame you,” Philip said. “What have you done about the chestnut?”

“I’ve left him with Fleet, but he’ll have to be shot, Mr Philip, no question! Only I dursn’t do it without I’m ordered to!”

“You may say that I ordered you to shoot the poor brute.”

“Yes, sir. Thank’ee, sir. But it’ll go to my heart to do it!” said Scholes. “Such a prime bit of blood and bone as he is! What can have come over Mr Torquil to cram him at the wall, like he must have done, I’ll never know!”

He then withdrew, sadly shaking his head, and Philip, looking at Kate, said grimly: “This, I fancy, is where we kick the beam. It will be all over the county by tomorrow.” He glanced at Mrs Nidd, saying, with a wry smile: “What a moment for your arrival! I feel I ought to beg your pardon!”

“Well, I hope you won’t, sir. It’s for me to beg yours, if my lady is laid up, which I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have come—not until she was in better cue, that is!”

“But I told you, Sarah, in the letter which I gave to you, Phil—Cousin Philip!—asking you to make sure it was taken to the Post Office!” Kate exclaimed.

He regarded her in some amusement. “Yes, but, although the posts are much improved, I hardly think Mrs Nidd could have received a letter sent off yesterday in time to have caught the night-coach to Market Harborough!”

“Good God, was it only two days ago that I wrote it?” said Kate, pressing her hands to her temples. “It seems an age!”

“The only letter I’ve had from you, Miss Kate, barring the first one you wrote, was the scratch of a note Mr Nidd brought me,” said Sarah. “And, to give credit where it’s due, he brought it to Polly’s house as soon as he got off the coach! What’s more, I didn’t hear a word out of him about being fed on pig swill. Pig swill indeed! I don’t say Tom’s wife has got my hand with pastry, but I hope you know me better, Miss Kate, than to suppose I’d leave Father to someone who doesn’t dress meat any better than—than—”

“Than I do!” supplied Kate, with the glimmer of a smile. “But if you haven’t read the letter I wrote two days ago, you can’t know that—that I have become engaged to Mr Philip Broome!”

“I’ve got eyes in my head!” retorted Mrs Nidd, with asperity. “Not but what it was Father nudged me on! You may say what you like, Miss Kate, but Father’s got a deal of rumgumption—for all the twittiness!”

“But I never said that he hadn’t! I have the greatest respect for Mr Nidd!” said Kate demurely.

“So have I,” said Mr Philip Broome. “I thought him a truly estimable old gentleman! What did he tell you, Mrs Nidd?”

“Well, sir, if you’ll pardon the expression, he said the pair of you was smelling of April and May!” replied Sarah apologetically. “He took a great fancy to you, sir—which is a thing he don’t often do!—and I’d like to wish you both very happy, for I can see you’re just the man for Miss Kate! Which I never thought to see, and which makes me as happy as a grig!”

In proof of this statement, she dissolved into tears; but soon recovered, and went upstairs with Kate to make the acquaintance of Mrs Thorne. On the way, Kate hurriedly put her in possession of such facts as it was desirable she should know, to all of which Sarah responded calmly that there was no need for her to trouble herself.

So, indeed, it proved. After a ceremonious beginning, which made Kate quake, perceptible signs of thaw set in: a circumstance attributable on the one hand to Mrs Thorne’s warm praise of Miss Kate; and on the other to the keen, if spurious, interest Mrs Nidd showed in the delicacy of Mrs Thorne’s constitution. When Kate wondered (audibly) whether, perhaps, she ought to inform Sidlaw of Mrs Nidd’s arrival, Mrs Thorne not only said that Miss Sidlaw (for all the airs she gave herself) had nothing to do with any of the household arrangements, but offered to have the bed made up in the small room, adjoining Kate’s. She then made Sarah free of her little parlour, and said that it would be quite like old times to entertain a visitor to dinner in the Room. “Before Sir Timothy took ill,” she said impressively, “there was often above twenty visiting dressers and valets to be catered for. Oh, dear me, yes! But her ladyship has given up entertaining, so you’ll find us a small company, ma’am. There’s only me, and Mr Pennymore, and Tenby. And Miss Sidlaw, of course. But Miss Sidlaw and me are not speaking.”

After this awful pronouncement, she led the way to the little room beside Kate’s, and said she would have Mrs Nidd’s baggage sent up immediately. Then she withdrew, whereupon Kate hugged Sarah convulsively, saying: “Oh, Sarah, I’m so glad you’ve come! You don’t know how glad I am!”

“Well, if I don’t it’s no fault of yours, dearie!” said Sarah, patting her soothingly. “The idea of you coming hurtling down the stairs, screeching “Sarah!” like a regular romp! Whatever must they all have thought of you? A pretty way to behave, Miss Kate! As though I’d never taught you better! Now, just you give over, and tell Sarah what’s the matter!”

Thus adjured, Kate gave a shaky laugh, and took her to her own room, where they would be safe from interruption until Ellen came up to dress her for dinner. “Which won’t be nearly long enough for me to tell you the things I tried to write, in the letter Mr Philip Broome dispatched for me, and found I couldn’t. Sarah, my aunt intercepted my letters to you!”

“Yes,” said Mrs Nidd grimly. “So Father told me! That’s why I came! That, and him saying that things didn’t smell right to him. But what I don’t know is why she should have done so, and Father, for all he thinks himself so long-headed, don’t know either! So what with that, and me being uneasy in my mind ever since her ladyship took you away, Miss Kate, I thought that the sooner I came to see for myself the better!”

“I think it was to make a breach between us. I haven’t asked her: after what passed between us today, it isn’t—it doesn’t seem to me to be important any longer. She—she brought me here to—to marry me to my cousin Torquil, Sarah!”

“Well,” said Sarah, “I won’t deny that when you wrote that he was the most beautiful young man you’d ever seen I did hope you and he would make a match of it, but now that I’ve seen him I do hope you won’t marry him, love—which it stands to reason you can’t, being as how you’ve accepted Mr Philip Broome’s offer—for a more whisky-frisky, nasty-tempered young gentleman I trust I’ll never meet!”

“Oh, Sarah!” Kate whispered, covering her face with her hands. “It’s worse than that! Far, far worse! He—he ain’t in his right mind! And my aunt knows it—has known it for years! She told me so today: that’s why I put you to the blush when I hurtled down the stairs! I was feeling quite overpowered—my mind wholly overset! Philip told me, but I didn’t believe him—I couldn’t believe it possible that my aunt knew! But she did—she did! And the only thing she cares for is that he shall provide Staplewood with an heir! Before he has to be confined! She doesn’t care for poor Torquil—only for Staplewood! Sarah, she is a terrible woman, and I must get away from her! I must!”

“And so you shall, Miss Kate, never fear! It sounds to me as if she’s as queer in her attic as that son of hers is. Well, I didn’t like her, though I’d have been hard put to it to say why, for I’m sure she was very agreeable and condescending. And when I think that it was me writing to her which brought her down on you—which, mind you, I never would have done if Father hadn’t nudged me on!—I’m that sorry and mortified, love, that I don’t know how to ask you to forgive me!”

Kate raised her face, mistily smiling. “There’s nothing to forgive. If you hadn’t written to her, I might never have met Philip, and that would have been more dreadful than all the rest!” She heard the stable-clock striking the hour, and exclaimed: “Good God, it’s five o’clock already! We dine at six, and I must speak to Philip before we’re beset by Delabole! To tell him—ask him—You see, he doesn’t know that I’ve changed my mind—wish to leave Staplewood tomorrow! He has been urging me to let him take me to you at once, but I wouldn’t go while my aunt was unwell, and I thought I could be useful to her! For she has been very kind to me, Sarah! Whatever her motive was, I can’t forget that! But she won’t wish me to remain another day under this roof when she knows that Philip has made me an offer, and I’ve accepted it, and I can’t and I won’t go on deceiving her!”

“Well, if ever I saw you in such a fuss!” ejaculated Sarah. “Give over, Miss Kate, do! She can’t eat you! Not while I’m here she can’t! And from what I’ve seen of him I shouldn’t wonder at it if Mr Philip was very well able to protect you!”

“She hates him,” Kate said, pulling one of her evening-dresses out of the wardrobe, and casting it on to the bed. “She will think me a traitress, and when I remember all the things she has given me—all her kindness!— feel like one! Sarah, I dread telling her!”

“Now, that’s not like you, Miss Kate!” responded Sarah. “No, and it isn’t like you to put off doing what’s unpleasant! You may depend upon it, dearie, that the longer you do that the worse it will be. Besides, it’s not right you should be getting yourself engaged in a havey-cavey way! You should have told her ladyship straight-off!”

“I couldn’t tell her!” Kate said hotly. “She was in a high fever! I wasn’t even permitted to enter her room until today, and I promised Sir Timothy I wouldn’t break it to her until she was well!”

“Oh, so he knows, does he?” said Sarah, pushing her round so that she could unbutton her poplin dress. “Stand still, for goodness sake! How am I to undo your dress if you keep twisting and turning? By what Father heard in Market Harborough, it seems he’s not in very good point?”

“No, indeed he’s not! And that’s another thing that makes me think I ought not to have accepted Philip’s offer! He’s so very much attached to him, and I have the greatest fear that if I marry Philip my aunt won’t permit him to come to Staplewood again. And that would break poor Sir Timothy’s heart, I think.”

“You’ll just have to decide whether to break his heart, or Mr Philip’s, won’t you?” said Sarah.

This eminently practical point of view struck Kate forcibly. She said quickly: “Oh, there can be no question!”

She would have said more, but was interrupted by the arrival of Ellen, almost bursting with curiosity. When Kate made her known to Sarah, she dropped a curtsy, slopping some of the hot water in the can she was carrying. “Oh, yes, miss, Mrs Thorne told me! And, if you please, ma’am, Mrs Thorne said to tell you that your bedchamber is quite ready, and your bag carried up, and all. And Miss Sidlaw says as how you’re to go to her ladyship’s room, please, ma’am!”

Taking the can away from her, Sarah admonished her, though kindly, not to be so clumsy. “And that wasn’t the message you were given, was it?” she said. “I’ll be bound her ladyship never said anything so rough!”

“No, ma’am! I mean, it was Miss Sidlaw! Ever so cross she is! Betty says it’s because Mrs Thorne didn’t tell her you was come, ma’am, nor ask my lady’s leave to make up the bed in the next room, nor anything!”

“Well, never you mind about that!” said Sarah. “I shall go to pay my respects to her ladyship when Miss Kate is dressed.” She then handed the can of hot water to Ellen, recommending her not to waste time prattling, but to pour the water out for Miss Kate to wash her hands, and to take care she didn’t spill any more of it, and turned away to pick up the dress of pale orange Italian crape, and to shake out its folds. Trying in vain to catch her eye, Kate submitted to the ministrations of her youthful abigail, which, owing to the terror into which Sarah’s critical eye cast her, were more than usually clumsy. When it came to combing out Kate’s soft curls, Sarah took the comb firmly away from her, and set about the task of arranging them becomingly herself, bidding Ellen watch closely how she did it. To which Ellen responded slavishly, and dropped another curtsy.

Meeting Kate’s anxious gaze in the looking-glass, Sarah favoured her with a small smile of reassurance, and said, as she adjusted a ringlet: “That’s more the thing! The way you were doing it, my girl, it looked like a birch-broom in a fit!”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Ellen, giggling. “She does look a picture! If you please, will I take you to her ladyship’s room now?”

“No, Miss Kate will show me where it is,” Sarah replied, gently pushing Kate towards the door. “You can stay here, and make everything tidy. And mind you give that poplin dress a good shake before you hang it up! I’ll put Miss Kate to bed, so you needn’t wait up for her!”

“Sarah, you will take care, won’t you?” Kate said urgently, as soon as the door was shut behind them. “I am sick with apprehension! Sidlaw must have told her—” She broke off, and lowered her voice. “Here she is! Don’t tell her anything, Sarah! Don’t trust her!”

“Anyone would think your senses was disordered, Miss Kate!” replied Mrs Nidd. “For goodness sake, stop behaving like a wet-goose, and be off to your dinner!”

Kate threw her a speaking glance, but spoke with commendable calm to Sidlaw, who had by this time reached them, and come to a halt, standing with her hands primly clasped before her, and looking Sarah over with sour disparagement. “Sidlaw, this is my nurse, Mrs Nidd,” said Kate. “Will you have the goodness to conduct her to her ladyship’s room?”

“I was coming to do so, miss,” Sidlaw replied, dropping a stiff curtsy. “I’m sure, Mrs Nidd, if Miss had seen fit to tell me she was expecting a visit from you, I should have seen to it myself that a bedchamber was prepared for you.”

“Well, it would have puzzled her to do that, seeing that she didn’t know I was coming to visit her,” said Mrs Nidd cheerfully. “Not that I would have come, if I’d known her ladyship was poorly, but what’s done can’t be mended, and you won’t find me any trouble! Now, you run along, Miss Kate! I shall be coming to put you to bed later on, so I won’t say goodnight to you.”

There was nothing for Kate to do but to make her way to the Long Drawing-room, which she did, feeling that Sidlaw at least had met her match in Mrs Nidd.

She had hoped to have found Mr Philip Broome waiting for her there, but the room was empty, a circumstance which, in the exacerbated state of her nerves, she was much inclined to think betrayed a lamentable unconcern with what he must surely have known was her anxiety to exchange a few words with him in private. She fidgeted about the room for what seemed to her an interminable time, and was just wondering whether the pre-prandial gathering was taking place in one of the saloons on the entrance floor when she heard his voice in the anteroom. A moment later, he came in, escorting Sir Timothy. At sight of him, her annoyance evaporated; and when his eyes smiled at her across the room her heart melted. She moved forward to greet Sir Timothy, and was adjusting a cushion behind his back when Pennymore came in, carrying a massive silver tray which bore two decanters and five sherry glasses. He set this down on a table by one of the windows, and disclosed fell tidings. Her ladyship had sent a message to him that she was coming down to dinner.

None of the three persons present evinced any very noticeable sign of delight. Kate, in fact, looked aghast; Philip, inscrutable; and Sir Timothy merely said, in his gentle way: “Ah, I am glad she is so much better! Thank you, Pennymore: you needn’t wait.”

Kate seated herself beside him, and inquired whether he had enjoyed his drive that afternoon. His face lit up, and his eyes travelled fondly to his nephew. “Very much indeed,” he answered. “It is a long time since I’ve driven round my lands. A barouche, you know, doesn’t enable one to see over the hedges, which makes traveling in one very dull work. But Philip took me in the tilbury—and was obliged to own that I haven’t quite lost my old driving-skill! Eh, Philip?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know about owning it!” replied Philip. “I never supposed that you had!”

“Then the next time you invite me to drive out with you, let it be in your curricle! I’m told you have a sweet-stepping pair of bays, and I should like to try their paces!”

“Willingly, sir. Do you mean to take the shine out of me?”

“Ah, who knows? I could have done so in my day, but I fear that’s long past. As one grows older, one begins to lose the precision of eye which all first-rate fiddlers have.” He turned to Kate, saying fondly: “And how have you passed the day, my pretty? Pleasantly, I trust? I hear your old nurse has come to visit you: that must have been an agreeable surprise, I daresay. I shall hope to make her acquaintance. Does she mean to make a long stay?”

“No, sir: she is married, you know, and cannot do so,” Kate said. She hesitated, and then said, raising her eyes to his: “She is going to take me back to London—tomorrow, I hope.”

It cost her a pang to see the cheerfulness fade from his face. He seemed to age under her eyes, but, after a moment, he smiled, though mournfully, and said: “I see. I shan’t seek to dissuade you, my dear, but I shall miss you more than I can say.”

She put out her hand, in one of her impulsive gestures, and laid it over one of his thin, fragile ones, clasping it warmly, and saying in an unsteady voice: “And I shall miss you, sir—much more than I can say! If I don’t see you again—thank you a thousand, thousand times for your kindness to me! I shall never forget it—or that you bestowed your blessing on me.”

Philip’s voice cut in on this, sharpened by surprise. “What’s this, Kate? Tomorrow?”

He had walked over to the window, and was standing with one of the decanters in his hand. She turned her head, encountered his searching look, but said only: “If it might be contrived! I think—I think it would be best. Sarah can escort me, you see, so I need not be a charge on you!”

“A charge on me? Moonshine! You may rest assured I shall go with you!”

He would have said more, but was interrupted by the entrance of Dr Delabole, who came in, exuding an odd mixture of goodfellowship and dismay, and shook a finger at Sir Timothy, saying: “Now, you deserve that I should give you a scold, sir, for driving out with Mr Philip without a word to me! In the tilbury, too! Most imprudent of you—but I can see that you are none the worse for it, so I won’t scold you!”

“On the contrary, I am very much better for it,” replied Sir Timothy, with his faint, aloof smile. “Thank you, Philip, yes! A glass of sherry!”

“Nevertheless,” said the doctor, “you must allow me to count your pulse, Sir Timothy! That I must insist on! Just to reassure myself!”

It seemed for a moment as though Sir Timothy was on the point of repulsing him, but as Kate rose to make way for Delabole, he said, in a bored voice: “Certainly—if it affords you amusement!”

Kate, as Delabole bent over Sir Timothy, seized the opportunity to cross the room to Philip’s side, and to whisper: “I must speak to you! But how? Where? Can you arrange for me to leave tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’ll drive to Market Harborough, and hire a chaise in the morning. It can hardly be here before noon, however, which means you must spend a night somewhere along the road—Woburn, probably. What has happened? Have you seen Minerva?”

She nodded, unable to repress a shudder. “Yes. I can’t tell you now!”

“Did you tell her?”

“Not yet. I could not, Philip! Oh, when can I speak to you alone?”

“Come down early to breakfast, and walk out to take the air; I shall be on the terrace. Minerva will see to it that we get no opportunity to be private this evening—did you know that she is joining us?” He glanced over his shoulder, towards the archway which led to the anteroom, and said, under his breath: “Take care! Here she is! Carry this to my uncle!” As she took the glass from him, he added, in quite another voice: “Sherry for you, Doctor? Cousin Kate, I am going to pour you out a glass of Madeira!—Good evening, Minerva! I am happy to see you restored to health! What may I offer you? Sherry, or Madeira?”

“A little Madeira, thank you, Philip. Sir Timothy!”

He rose, and came forward to meet her, punctiliously kissing first her outstretched hand, and then her cheek. “Welcome, my dear!” he said. “I hope you are feeling more the thing? You have been in a very poor way, have you not? Such a fright as you gave us all! Pray don’t do it again!”

“You may be sure I shall try not to do so!” she returned, moving to a chair, and sinking down upon it.

“I wonder if a doctor ever had two such obstreperous patients!” said Delabole, solicitously placing a stool before her. “First there is Sir Timothy, playing truant when my back was turned, and now it is you, my lady, leaving your bedchamber in defiance of my orders! I don’t know what is to be done with you, upon my word, I don’t! And you did not even summon me to lend you the support of my arm! Now, how am I to take that?”

Lady Broome, receiving a glass of Madeira from Kate, and bestowing a smile upon her, replied: “Not amiss, I trust. Mrs Nidd most kindly lent me the support of her arm—my nieces’s nurse, you know, who has come to visit her: a most respectable woman! Kate, dear child, I do hope my people have made her comfortable?”

“Perfectly comfortable, ma’am, thank you,” Kate said, in a colourless tone.

“Ah, good! I told her Thorne would look after her. What a fortunate thing it was that she arrived in time to bring Torquil up to the house in her chaise! She has a great deal of common-sense, and I am vastly indebted to her, as, you may be sure, I told her.”

“Bring Torquil up to the house? Why should she have done so?” asked Sir Timothy, his voice sharpened by anxiety.

“Oh, he took a toss, and was momentarily stunned!” she answered with an indulgent laugh. “Overfacing his horse, of course! So stupid of him! Fleet—you know what these people are, my love!—believed him to be dead, but, in point of fact, he is very little the worse for his tumble!”

“Not a penny the worse!” corroborated the doctor. “Merely bruised, shaken, chastened, and reeking of arnica! So he is dining in his own room this evening—feeling thoroughly shamefaced, I daresay! But no cause for anxiety, Sir Timothy! It may be regarded in the light of a salutary lesson!”

“We must hope so!” said Lady Broome, getting up. “Shall we go down to dinner now? Dr Delabole, will you give me your arm? Philip, you may give yours to your uncle! Which leaves poor Kate without a gentleman to escort her, but she is so much a part of the family that I shan’t apologize to her!”

Dinner pursued what Kate had long since come to regard as its tedious course. Lady Broome maintained a light flow of everyday chit-chat, in which she was ably seconded by the doctor. She was looking a trifle haggard, but she held herself as upright as ever, and when she rose from the table she declined the doctor’s offered assistance.

“Let James give you his arm, my lady!” said Sir Timothy, seeing her stagger, and put out a hand to grasp a chair-back.

She gave a breathless laugh. “Very well—if you insist! How stupid to be so invalidish! It is only my knees, you know! They need exercise!”

But when she reached the head of the Grand Stairway she looked so pale that Kate was alarmed, and begged her to retire to bed. She refused to do this, but after pausing for a few moments, leaning heavily on the footman’s arm, she recovered, and resolutely straightened herself, desiring Kate to summon Sidlaw, and to tell her to bring the cordial Dr Delabole had prescribed to the Long Drawing-room.

It took time to perform this errand, for Sidlaw was not immediately available. A young housemaid came in answer to the bell, and told Kate that Sidlaw was at supper, in the Housekeeper’s Room; and, although she made haste to deliver my lady’s command to her, the servants’ quarters were so inconveniently remote that it was several minutes before Sidlaw came hurrying in. Upon being told that my lady wanted a cordial, she said that she knew how it would be, and had warned her ladyship What would be the outcome of going down to dinner before she was fit to stand on her feet. When she had measured out a dose of the restorative medicine, and Kate would have taken it from her, she said sharply: “Thank you, miss! I prefer to take it to her ladyship myself!” and sailed off, full of zeal and fury.

Not at all sorry that, for the moment at least, she would be spared a tete-a-tete with her aunt, Kate followed her. By the time Lady Broome had swallowed the cordial, and Sidlaw, disregarding her impatience, had fussed over her, drawing a heavy screen behind her chair to protect her from an imaginary draught, placing a cushion behind her head, begging to be allowed to fetch a warmer shawl, and placing her vinaigrette on a small table drawn up beside her chair, the gentlemen, not lingering over their port, had come in. Sidlaw then withdrew, with obvious reluctance, and while the doctor bent solicitously over Lady Broome, Sir Timothy, smiling a little sadly at Kate, murmured: “A last game of backgammon, my child?”

She agreed to it; Philip got the board out of the cabinet, and sat down to watch the game; Lady Broome leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes; and the doctor went away to see how Torquil was going on. He came back in the wake of the tea-tray, with a comfortable account of Torquil, who had eaten a very good dinner, he said, and was now gone to bed. Lady Broome then put an end to the backgammon session by calling Kate to dispense the tea. She seemed to have recovered both her complexion and her strength, but as soon as the footman came to remove the tray she got up, saying that it was time she retired, and adding: “Come, Kate!”

Philip looked quickly at Kate, a question in his eyes. She very slightly shook her head, and, seeing Sir Timothy’s hand stretched out to her, went to him, bending over him, with her free hand on his shoulder, preventing his attempt to rise from his chair. “Pray don’t get up, sir!” she said, smiling wistfully.

He drew her down to kiss her cheek, whispering in her ear: “Come and see me before you go tomorrow, to say goodbye to me!”

“I will,” she promised, under her breath.

“Goodnight, my pretty! Bless you!” he said, releasing her.

Lady Broome, waiting in the archway, watched this scene with placid complaisance, and said, as soon as she had passed through the anteroom: “I believe Sir Timothy does indeed look upon you as the daughter of his old age! He is so fond of you, dear child!”

“I am very fond of him, ma’am,” Kate replied, walking slowly down the broad gallery, with Lady Broome’s hand resting on her arm.

“Are you? I wonder! I am beginning to think, Kate, that, for all your engaging manners, you are not very fond of anyone. Certainly not of me!”

Innate honesty forbade Kate to deny this; she could only say: “You are feeling low, and oppressed, ma’am: don’t let us brangle!”

“I am feeling very low, and more oppressed than ever before in my life—almost at the end of my rope! You will own that I have enough to sink me in despair, even though you refuse to help me! Do you know, I have never asked for help before?”

“Aunt Minerva, I can’t give it to you!” Kate said bluntly. “I thought there was nothing I wouldn’t do to repay your kindness, but when you ask me to marry Torquil you are asking too much! I beg of you, don’t try to persuade me to do so! It is useless—you will only agitate yourself to no purpose!”

They had reached the upper hall; Lady Broome paused there, her light clasp on Kate’s arm tightening into a grip. “Think!” she commanded, a harsh note creeping into her voice. “If the advantages of such a marriage don’t weigh with you, does it weigh with you that by persisting in your refusal you will have condemned Torquil to spend the rest of his life in strict incarceration?” She observed the whitening of Kate’s cheeks, the look of horror in her eyes, and smiled. “Oh, yes!” she said, a purring triumph in her voice. “After today’s exploit, there is left to me only one hope of guarding the secret of his madness. Do you realize that he might have brought his horse down on top of the woman who was leading her child by the hand? Do you know that he rode Scholes down in the stableyard? What, you little ninnyhammer, do you suppose that Scholes, and Fleet, and whoever they were who were passing along the lane at that disastrous moment, are now thinking—and discussing, if I know them? Dr Delabole has done what he could to convince Scholes and Fleet that for Torquil to have spurred his horse into a wall was nothing but the act of a headstrong boy, but he might as well have hung up his axe! Only one thing can now silence the gabble-mongers, and that’s the news that Torquil is about to be married to a girl of birth and character! That must give them pause! In any event, only one thing signifies: that there shall be an heir to Staplewood!”

“Oh!” cried Kate, losing control of herself. “Can you think of nothing but Staplewood? The only thing that signifies! Good God, what does Staplewood matter beside the dreadful fate that hangs over poor Torquil?”

“If Torquil could have been cured by the abandonment of my hopes of seeing my descendants at Staplewood, I suppose I must have abandoned them,” said Lady Broome coldly. “It would have been my duty, and I’ve never yet failed in that I But it can make no difference to him. If I seem unfeeling, you must remember that I have had time to grow accustomed. Nor am I one to grieve endlessly over what can’t be helped. I prefer to make the best I can out of what befalls me.”

“It hasn’t befallen you, ma’am!”

“No: not yet! Perhaps, if I can provide him with a wife, it never will. He may grow calmer when his passions find a natural outlet: Delabole considers it to be possible.”

“Does he consider it beyond possibility that a child of Torquil’s should inherit his malady?” Kate asked, unable to repress the bitter indignation which swelled in her breast.

“It is a risk I must take,” said Lady Broome, sublimely unaware of the effect these words had upon her niece.

Kate managed to pull her arm free; she stepped back a pace, and said, with a tiny contemptuous laugh: “There’s another risk you would have to take, ma’am! Hasn’t it occurred to you that Torquil’s child might be a daughter?”

It was evident that this thought had never disturbed Lady Broome’s incredible dreams. She stared at Kate, as though stunned, and when she spoke it was scarcely above a whisper. “God couldn’t be so cruel!” she uttered.

Kate made a hopeless gesture. “Let me take you to your room, ma’am! It is of no use to continue arguing: it is as though we weren’t speaking the same language! I am leaving you tomorrow, and—and I wish very much to do so without a quarrel with you!” She drew a resolute breath, and braced herself, and found the courage to keep her eyes steady on her aunt’s face. “There is something else I must tell you, ma’am. I would have told when—when it happened, but you were too ill to be troubled with what I know you will dislike—I fear, excessively! I can only beg you to believe that I haven’t wished to deceive you, and that I can’t and won’t leave Staplewood without telling you that Mr Philip Broome proposed to me on the very day you took ill, and that I accepted his offer!”

Lady Broome received this disclosure in a silence more terrible, Kate thought, than any outburst of wrath would have been. She stood motionless, only her eyes alive in her rigid countenance. Between narrowed lids, they stared at Kate with such implacable fury that it was only by a supreme effort of will-power that she stood her ground, and continued to look her aunt boldly in the face. “So Sidlaw was right!” Lady Broome said, quite softly. “You little slut!” She watched the colour rush up into Kate’s cheeks. “You can blush, can you? That certainly surprises me! I wouldn’t believe Sidlaw—I couldn’t believe that a girl who owed the very clothes on her back to me could be so ungrateful—so treacherous—as to encourage the advances of a man whom she knew to be my greatest enemy! He has proposed to you, has he? Are you so sure that he proposed marriage?” I fancy he is not so blind to his interest as you imagine! Philip marry a penniless young woman whom neither her family nor his acknowledge? I won’t say that I wish you may not have a rude wakening from this mawkish dream of yours, for I hope with all my heart that when he grows tired of you, and casts you off, you will remember to your dying day what I offered you, and you were fool enough to refuse!” She paused, but Kate did not speak. Scanning the girl’s white face, an unpleasant smile curled her lips, and she said: “That gives you to think, does it not? I advise you to think more carefully still! Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that he was trying to give you a slip on the shoulder?”

Kate’s lips quivered into an answering smile; she replied: “It did occur to me, ma’am, but I was wrong. All you have said about my circumstances occurred to me too. I daresay you won’t believe me, but I tried to make him see how unequal such a match would be—how much his family must deplore it! But he said that that was a matter of indifference to him. You see—we love each other!”

“Love?” ejaculated Lady Broome scornfully. “Don’t, I beg of you, nauseate me by talking sickly balderdash! Love has nothing to do with marriage, and I promise you it doesn’t endure! No, and it won’t make up to you for losing Staplewood, and the position that could be yours as Lady Broome! Or are you indulging the fancy that Torquil will die young, and that Philip will step into his shoes? Torquil will hold for a long time: I’ll take care of that! He shall have no more opportunities to break his neck! Until I can instal him in an establishment of his own, I mean to see to it that he is never left for one moment alone, or allowed to go near the stables! My great-uncle lived to extreme old age, you know. I believe he was very troublesome at first, but when he became imbecile, which he very shortly did, he was as easy to control as a child. Even his fits of violence abated! I remember my mother telling me that he could be diverted merely by being given some new, foolish plaything! You may rest assured that Torquil shall be provided with a thousand playthings, indulged, cosseted, guarded from every infectious disease—”

“Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw!” Kate broke in, her voice anguished. “For God’s sake, ma’am, stop! You cannot know what you are saying!”

“I know very well what I am saying. I have something more to say to you, Kate! If you marry Philip, he will never again, while I live, set foot inside this house! Don’t think I can’t keep him away! I can, and will! If you are as fond of Sir Timothy as you pretend to be, you won’t separate him from his beloved nephew! That is something I have never done! Remember that!”

She cast a final, scorching glance at Kate, and swept across the hall to the gallery that led to her bedchamber with a firmness of step which belied her previous assumption of debility.

Kate, almost fainting with horror, managed to reach her own room before her knees sank under her, and she collapsed into Mrs Nidd’s arms, gasping: “I must get away! I must! She is so terrible, Sarah! I can’t tell you what she has said to me!”

“Well,” said Mrs Nidd, dealing with this crisis after her own fashion, “as I don’t want to know what she said, that’s no matter! And, as you won’t be troubled with her again after tomorrow, there’s no call for you to be thrown into affliction, Miss Kate! You give over fretting and fuming, and let me undress you, like a good girl!”