Cousin Kate

Chapter XX

A night spent in tossing from side to side, with brief intervals of sleep rendered hideous by menacing dreams, did little to restore Kate; and when she slipped out of the house to join Mr Philip Broome on the terrace next morning, she looked so wan and heavy-eyed that he said savagely, as he caught her into his arms: “I ought not to have let you face her alone! Oh, my poor darling, why did you shake your head at me? What did she say to upset you so much?”

She clung to him, trying to overcome her agitation, and said, in a strangled voice: “You were right, Philip, and I wouldn’t believe the things you said of her! I thought it was prejudice! But you were right!”

He had to bend his head to catch her words, for they were uttered into his shoulder, but he did catch them, and, although his face darkened wrathfully, his voice was quite calm when he said: “Yes: I know. You shall tell me all about it, but not here! It is rather too public a place. Shall we go down to the shrubbery, dear love?”

He did not wait for an answer, but drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the terrace steps. She went without demur, too shaken to consider, or to care, who might be watching them. His coolness, the strong clasp of his hand on hers, steadied her, and by the time they had reached the rustic bench where they had sat together so short a time before, she had managed to regain her composure, and was even able to conjure up a wavering smile as she said, rather huskily: “I beg your pardon! Sarah warned me that there is no more certain way of making a gentleman cry off than to treat him to a fit of the vapours—and particularly before breakfast! I didn’t mean to do it, and indeed it isn’t a habit of mine, Philip!”

“In that case, I won’t cry off!” he said. “Don’t sit down! The dew hasn’t dried yet!” As he spoke, he stripped off his well-fitting coat, and folded it, and placed it on the bench for her to sit upon. In reply to her expostulation that he would take cold, and her efforts to spread the coat that they might both sit on it, he thrust her down on to the bench, and seated himself beside her, putting a sustaining arm round her, and informing her that no one could possibly take cold on such a hot morning, and that he defied any amount of dew to penetrate his buckskins. After that, he kissed her, long and lovingly, told her not to be a goose, and gently pressed her head down on his shoulder. “Tell me!” he said.

So Kate, nestling gratefully within his embrace, her cheek against his waistcoat of striped toilinette, told him, rather haltingly, but quite calmly, all that Lady Broome had said in each of the painful sessions she had endured with her. His brow blackened as he listened, but he heard her in silence, until she disclosed that her aunt meant to incacerate Torquil in a house remote from Staplewood, when his hard-held control broke, and he exclaimed: “Oh, my God, no!” She couldn’t do such a thing! It would be enough to send him completely out of his mind! What, banish him from the only home he has ever known, place Delabole, whom he detests, in charge of him, appoint strangers to take care of him?—No, no, Kate! She would never do so! Even I can’t believe her capable of such inhumanity! I agree that he mustn’t be allowed to roam at large; I know that it may become necessary to confine him, but that day hasn’t come yet! If I had my way, I’d send Delabole packing, and engage a man, not only experienced in the care of those whose minds are unbalanced, but one able to endear himself to the poor lad—divert him—God knows it’s not difficult!”

“Such a man wouldn’t lend himself to the deception my aunt demands,” Kate said sadly. “Nothing signifies to her but to keep it secret that Torquil has fits of insanity. That’s what overset me. Suddenly I saw that she was monstrous. Sarah thinks her as mad as Torquil, but it came to me, as I listened to the appalling things she said, that she has never, in all her life, considered anyone but herself, or doubted that everything she does is good, and wise—beyond criticism! Sir Timothy said to me that she has many good qualities, but is a stranger to the tender emotions. It is most terribly true, Philip! She did not utter one word of pity for Torquil: it is her tragedy, not his! He has destroyed her last ambition, and that puts him beyond pardon. She doesn’t love him, you see. I don’t think she loves anyone but herself. She will send him away—and tell Sir Timothy that a change of air has been recommended for him!”

“Oh, no, she will not!” Philip said, at his grimmest. “If she does indeed mean to do anything so cruel, she’ll find she has reckoned without me! I’ve never spoken of Torquil’s state to my uncle, but much as I love him I won’t see Torquil sacrificed to spare him pain!”

“Philip, Philip, you won’t be able to tell him! That is almost the worst of all! My aunt has told me that if you marry me you will never come to Staplewood again, while she is ruthless!” she is alive to prevent you! And she will prevent you! She—

“So am I ruthless!” he said, his eyes very bright and hard. “By God, I should be glad to cross swords with her! Don’t look so troubled, my precious! That, at least, was an empty threat! Minerva has no power to keep me away from Staplewood. My uncle may be weak, but he won’t support her on that issue! And when he dies she will discover that her despotic rule is at an end. She doesn’t know it—I daresay the thought has never so much as crossed her mind!—but although my uncle has provided for a handsome jointure, his Will strips her of power. It makes me, not her, Torquil’s guardian, and his principal trustee—and you may be sure, Kate, that I shan’t allow her to send him away from Staplewood—or to bully and browbeat him!” He got up. “I must go now, if I am to have a chaise here by noon. You won’t see Minerva; she’s not coming down to breakfast. Go up to your room as soon as you have eaten your own breakfast: I fancy Mrs Nidd can be relied upon to keep Minerva at bay!” He shrugged himself into his coat, and took her hands, and kissed them. “Keep up your heart, my darling! When we sit down to dinner, we shall be forty or fifty miles from Staplewood. Remember that, if you find yourself sinking into dejection! But you won’t: you’re too much of a right one!”

“No, no, I won’t!” she promised. Her fingers clung to his, detaining him. “But I have been thinking, Philip! If you were to drive Sarah and me to Market Harborough, we could travel on the stage, and—and not be such a shocking charge on you! It is such an unnecessary expense! I know that the rates for a post-chaise are wickedly high, and—”

She was silenced by having a kiss planted firmly on her mouth. Mr Philip Broome said, with menacing severity, that if she had any more bird-witted suggestions to make, he advised her to keep them under her tongue; and, when she showed a disposition to argue with him, added, in a very ineffable way, that it did not suit his consequence to permit his promised wife to travel on the common stage.

That made her laugh; and when he left her, striding off in the direction of the stables, she walked back to the house in much improved spirits, and was able to greet Pennymore, whom she encountered in the Great Hall, with something very like her customary cheerfulness; and even to say in an airy voice that she had been lured into the garden because it was such a beautiful day. To which he responded: “Yes, miss! Very understandable!” with such a twinkle in his eye that the unruly colour surged into her cheeks. He then said that as Mr Philip had done him the honour to admit him into his confidence he would like to take the liberty of wishing her happiness. “In which, miss,” he informed her, with a fatherly smile, “Tenby desires to be included, Sir Timothy having told him last night of your Approaching Nuptials. Not that it came as a surprise to either of us! You will find only Mr Torquil and the doctor in the breakfast-parlour, Miss Kate, and I shall bring your tea to you directly.”

Waiting only until the telltale blush had faded, Kate proceeded to the breakfast-parlour. The doctor rose at her entrance, and came forward to hand her to a seat at the table, full of forced joviality, but looking as though he too had passed a sleepless night. Torquil, who had apparently recovered from his fall, was in a boastful, defiant mood, ready to come to cuffs with anyone unwise enough to criticize his horsemanship. He instantly challenged Kate to do so, demanding belligerently if she had anything to say on the subject. When she answered calmly: “Oh, no! How should I?” he uttered a crack of laughter, and said: “Just as well!”

“Torquil, Torquil!” said the doctor reprovingly.

“Oh, stop gabbing!” snapped Torquil, casting at him a look of venomous dislike. “I’ll tell you what, coz! We’ll have a game of quoits after breakfast before it gets too hot!”

“I’m sorry, Torquil: I’m afraid I can’t,” she replied. “I am leaving Staplewood today, and I must pack my trunk.”

“Leaving?” he ejaculated. “But you can’t leave! I won’t let you! I’ll tell Mama—Kate, why?”

“But, Torquil, I didn’t come here to live, you know!” she said, smiling at him. “Indeed, I think I have remained for an unconscionable time! It’s very kind of you to wish me to stay, but I have been thinking for some weeks that it is high time I left Staplewood—only it has had me in a puzzle how to do so without putting your mama to the expense and inconvenience of providing me with an escort to London, which isn’t at all needful, but which I know she would insist on doing. But now that my nurse has come to visit me the difficulty is solved. I shall go back to London with her. I wasn’t expecting her, so I have been as much taken by surprise as you are.”

He startled her by thrusting his chair back, and almost flinging himself on his knees beside her, grasping her hands, and saying in an anguished voice: “Oh, Kate, don’t go! Don’t go! You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, and if you leave me I shall have no one!”

The doctor rose rather quickly, but, encountering a fiery look from Kate, remained by his chair. Torquil, his head bowed over Kate’s hands, had burst into sobs. She glanced pitifully down at him, but spoke to Delabole. “Please go away, sir!” she said quietly. “You are quite crushing my hands, Torquil: pray don’t hold them so tightly!”

He released them immediately, saying between his sobs: “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! Kate, you know I wouldn’t hurt you! I like you! You’re so kindl’

He sank his head into her lap, hysterically weeping; and the doctor, sighing deeply, but apparently satisfied that his mood was not violent, unobtrusively withdrew from the room. Kate laid a hand on Torquil’s gleaming gold locks, gently stroking them. Her heart was wrung, but she said soothingly: “Of course I know you wouldn’t hurt me! Don’t cry! You will make me cry too if you don’t stop, and you wouldn’t wish that, would you?”

He raised his head, staring wildly up at her. “You are going because you think I tried to shoot you! But I didn’t, Kate, I swear to you I didn’t!”

“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, patting his hand. “To be sure, I was very cross with you at the time for being so careless, but that’s all forgotten!”

“It’s Mama!” he said suddenly. “She is sending you away! Because you won’t marry me! O God, how I hate her!”

His voice shook with passion, and she sent a swift glance towards the door, guessing that the doctor’s ear was glued to it, and afraid that he might precipitate a crisis by coming back into the room. He did not, however, and she said, preserving her calm: “You mustn’t say that, Torquil. Moreover, your mama is quite as anxious for me to remain at Staplewood as you are. Get up, my dear, and sit here, beside me!

That’s better! Now own that you don’t in the very least wish to be married to me!” Her smiling eyes quizzed him, and drew an answering gleam from his. Encouraged, she began to talk to him about things which were of interest to him. He seemed to be listening to her, but plunged her back into despondency by interrupting suddenly with the announcement that he wished he were dead. She tried to divert his thoughts, but unavailingly; a cloud had descended on his brow, his eyes brooded sombrely, and his beautiful mouth took on a tragic droop.

She left him presently, knowing that, however much he might like her, she had no power to raise his spirits. She had not dared to disclose to him that she was about to be married to his cousin, for she feared that this might fan into a flame the embers of his inculcated hatred of Philip, always smouldering beneath the surface of his affection. His mood was one of profound melancholy, but she thought that it needed only a touch to send him into one of his fits of ungovernable rage.

She was looking deeply troubled when she entered her bedchamber, a circumstance that prompted Sarah, expertly folding one of the evening-dresses Lady Broome had bestowed on her niece, to say briskly: “If Father was to see you, Miss Kate, he’d say you was looking like a strained hair in a can! You’ve got no call to be so down pin, love—not unless you’ve been breaking straws with Mr Philip, which I don’t think!”

“No, indeed!” Kate answered. “I don’t think I could!”

“Ah!” said Sarah darkly. “Time will show! Where has he gone off to?”

“Market Harborough, to hire a chaise to carry us to London. Don’t put that dress in my trunk! I am not taking it. Only the dresses I brought with me!”

“Well, Miss Kate, you know best, but it does seem a shame to let a beautiful silk like this go begging!” said Sarah, sighing regretfully. “It isn’t as if it could be of any use to her ladyship. Still, I daresay Mr Philip will purchase another for you, because the way he’s wasting the ready is downright sinful! Not but what I’m looking forward to traveling in a post-chaise, and I don’t deny it! It’s something I’ve never done before, though we did come up to London in the Mail coach when we landed at Portsmouth—and a rare set-out that was!”

Kate laughed. “When Papa sent the baggage by carrier, and it was a week before it reached us? What a long time ago it seems!”

“Well, it is a long time. And if my Joe had brought the baggage it wouldn’t have taken him a week! Where shall I put these dresses, Miss Kate? It won’t do to leave them hanging in the wardrobe, where, as like as not, they’ll be pulled out one by one of the housemaids. I wouldn’t put it past that saucy little minx, Phoebe, or whatever she calls herself, to try them on!”

After a little discussion, it was decided to pack them carefully in the chest-of-drawers, which was done, not without argument, Kate being determined to do her share of the work, and Sarah being equally determined that she should sit in a chair, and direct operations. But, as she paid no attention to anything Kate said, Kate soon abandoned the chair, and began to fold the dresses herself. This earned her a scold, Sarah exclaiming: “Good gracious, Miss Kate! that’s no way to pack muslin! Just look how you’ve creased it!”

She plucked the garment out of Kate’s hands as she spoke, and was shaking it vigorously when a piercing scream almost caused her to drop it. She and Kate stood staring at one another for a startled moment. The scream was not repeated, but just as Sarah began to say: “Well, whatever next!” an even more unnerving sound reached them: someone downstairs was uttering wail upon wail of despair.

Deathly pale, in the grip of fear, Kate tore open the door, and ran out into the gallery, listening, with dilating eyes and thudding heart. She gasped: “It’s Sidlaw! Oh, what can have happened? What can have happened?”

She picked up her skirts, and raced down the broad stairs, almost colliding in the hall with Pennymore, also hurrying to discover what had happened, and looking quite as pale as she was. The door into Lady Broome’s drawing-room stood open. Within the room, an appalling sight met Kate’s shrinking gaze. Lady Broome was lying on the floor, her face strangely blue, her tongue protruding, and her eyes, starting from their sockets, fixed in a stare of fury. Beside her, Sidlaw was kneeling, rocking herself to and fro, and sobbing over and over again between her wails: “I warned her! I warned her! Oh, my beautiful! Oh, my dear lady!”

Sarah, thrusting her way through the servants who had begun to congregate in the hall, some frightened, some in the expectation of excitement, shut the door in their faces, pushed Kate aside, and knelt down beside Lady Broome, while Sidlaw continued to wail and sob. Seeing that Pennymore was trembling so much that he was obliged to cling to a chair-back for support, Kate slipped out of the room, and, singling the second footman out from the small crowd of servants, quietly told him to find Dr Delabole, and to inform him that he was wanted immediately in my lady’s drawing-room. She then dismissed the other servants, saying that my lady had had a seizure, and went back into the drawing-room, to find that Sarah had risen from her knees, and was trying to induce Sidlaw to abate her lamentations.

Pennymore, who was looking as if he might faint, said hoarsely: “Stop her, Mrs Nidd, stop her! The Master will hear her! Oh, my God, what are we going to do?”

Kate, feeling that if she allowed herself to look at Lady Broome’s distorted countenance she too would faint, kept her eyes resolutely averted, and her voice under strict control. “I have sent William to fetch the doctor. I think you should find Tenby, and—and tell him that her ladyship has had a—a seizure. That is what I have said to the others. Tenby will know what to do if Sir Timothy should be upset.”

“Yes, miss, I’ll go at once,” Pennymore replied mechanically, and went shakily out of the room.

Sidlaw’s wails had changed to wild laughter. Sarah looked quickly round the room, saw a vase of roses standing on the desk, snatched it up, pulled the flowers out of it, and dashed the water into Sidlaw’s face.

“Sarah, is she—is she dead?” Kate whispered, as Sidlaw’s hysteria ceased into a gasp of shock.

Sarah nodded, and said authoritatively: “Help me to get this demented creature into a chair, miss! Come now, Miss Sidlaw, don’t start screeching again, there’s a dear! You sit down here, and pull yourself together!”

Huddled in the chair, Sidlaw said: “He’s killed her! I knew it would happen! I knew it! She wouldn’t listen, she wouldn’t ever listen to me!” Her distraught gaze fell on Kate; she pointed a shaking finger at her, and said shrilly: “It lies at your door! You wicked, ungrateful hussy, you murdered her!”

A ringing slap from Sarah made her utter a whimper, and cower away. “That’s enough!” said Sarah sternly. “One more word out of you and that’s only a taste of what you’ll get from me! You should be ashamed of yourself! A woman of your age behaving like a totty-headed chit of a girl with more hair than wit!”

Sidlaw said fiercely, glaring up at her: “I know what I know!”

“Yes!” retorted Sarah. “And I know what I know, you spiteful toad! And, what’s more, I’ll tell you I know, if you dare to say another word against Miss Kate! Don’t you heed her, Miss Kate! She’s clean out of her senses!”

Kate, who had fallen back, and was standing by the window, grasping a fold of the heavy curtains for support, shuddered, and said, in an anguished voice: “Don’t, Sarah! Don’t!”

An interruption was created by the doctor, who came into the room, breathing hard and fast, as though he had been running. There was fear in his eyes, and when they alighted on Lady Broome’s body a green tinge came into his face, and he uttered a groan. Only a perfunctory examination was needed to convince him that she had gone beyond his aid. As he drew down the lids over Lady Broome’s dreadfully staring eyes, the fear in his own grew, and he was obliged to swallow convulsively, and to moisten his lips before he managed to say: “There’s nothing I can do. She’s dead. I wanted to remain with her, but she wouldn’t permit me to do so! She could always control him! I have never known her to fail! She did so this morning! I assure you, she checked his—his fury immediately! When I left this room, he was sitting in that chair, just as She had commanded him to do! I never dreamed—oh, dear, oh, dear, she must have told him!—I warned her to take care—I have frequently warned her that he was growing beyond her control! What a tragedy! What a terrible tragedy!”

He fell to wringing his white hands, whereupon Sarah, who had been regarding him with disfavour, said: “If I may take the liberty of suggesting it, sir, I’ll be obliged to you if you’d raise her so that I can pull the shawl from underneath her, and cover her with it!”

“Yes, yes! you are very right!” he said distractedly. “I am so much shocked I can’t collect my wits! So many years I’ve known her! It is enough to unman anyone! Ah, poor lady! if only you hadn’t sent me away!”

He tenderly lifted the dead woman’s shoulders, and Sarah swiftly pulled the shawl of rose-coloured Norwich silk from under her, and would have spread it over the body had not Sidlaw darted out of her chair and snatched it from her hands, declaring that no one but herself should touch her dear mistress. She then burst into a flood of tears, casting herself over the body in an abandonment of hysterical grief.

The doctor implored her to be calm, but she was beyond listening to anything he said, and he was obliged to lift her forcibly to her feet, and to keep his arms round her to prevent her from collapsing. “What’s to be done? I must give this poor woman a composer—she cannot be permitted to disturb Sir Timothy! I ought to go to him—prepare his mind to withstand this great shock! But her ladyship can’t be left here, on the floor! I declare, I don’t know which way to turn!”

“Well, sir,” said Sarah, always practical, “seeing that you can’t help her ladyship, and no one’s come to fetch you to Sir Timothy, the best thing you can do is to get Miss Sidlaw up to her own bedchamber, and give her a dose of something to quieten her down. I’ll undress her, and put her to bed, don’t you worry!”

He agreed to this, and half led, half carried the weeping Sidlaw out of the room. Sarah, pausing only to beg Kate to go and sit in one of the adjoining saloons until she could come back to her, followed him, and Kate found herself alone.

The appalling implications of Lady Broome’s violent death had at one moment almost overpowered her, but her fainting spirit revived when she was confronted with the need to exert herself. She glanced at the still form, lying under a silken shawl of incongruously cheerful colour, her face very set, and then went out into the hall. Pennymore was awaiting her there, and straightened himself, looking at her in a dazed way. “Her ladyship is dead,” Kate said gently. “I expect you knew that. Does Sir Timothy know?”

“No, miss. I couldn’t take it upon myself to tell him, and no more could Tenby. Tenby told him what you said, and that the doctor was with her ladyship. Tenby says he’s anxious, but quite calm. It’s for Mr Philip to break it to him, Miss Kate. He’ll know best how to do it and—how much to tell him,” he added, in a lowered tone.

“Yes,” Kate said. “I think—I hope he will soon be home again. Meanwhile, we can’t leave her ladyship lying on the floor, can we?”

“No, miss, it’s not seemly. Where were you wishing to lay her?”

“In her own room, I think. If you agree, will you send James and William to carry her body upstairs? I’ll go up now to prepare the bed.”

“Yes, miss, I’ll fetch them to you at once. I ought to have thought of it myself, but I’m not as young as I was, Miss Kate, and the shock seems to have chased the wits out of my head. I hope you’ll excuse it!”

He hurried away, and Kate went up the stairs. She found a knot of housemaids in the upper hall, discussing the event in excited whispers, and by the time she had succeeded in dissuading the head-housemaid from calling the attention of her subordinates to the accuracy of Mrs Thorne’s prophetic dream; checked, with a few well-chosen words, the gusty sobs of a stout damsel who seemed to believe that to refrain from bursting into tears at the death of a mistress with whom she had rarely come into contact would be a social solecism; and dispersed them all about their various businesses, there was barely enough time left to strip Lady Broome’s great four-poster bed of its flaring patchwork quilt, its blankets, and all but one of its pillows, before slow and heavy footsteps approaching along the gallery made her bundle Ellen who; scared but mercifully dry-eyed, had volunteered her assistance, into the adjoining dressing-room, and to shut the door on her, and to lock it.

The two footmen came in, bearing Lady Broome’s corpse. They were both quite young men, but while James was evidently a good deal shaken, William, a more stolid character, wore an expressionless mask; and, when Kate said in a low voice: “Lay her on the bed!” he nodded, adjuring his trembling colleague to go easy.

The body was still covered by the silk shawl, and when Kate had dismissed the footmen it was a few moments before she could bring herself to remove it, and to spread a sheet in its place. She tried not to look at her aunt’s unrecognizable countenance, or at the livid bruises on her throat, but when she had shrouded the body from head to foot, she was obliged to sit down for a few moments to recover her composure; and when she left the room she was very pale, and her hands were trembling slightly. She removed the key from inside the door, and inserted it on the outside, and turned it. After a moment’s hesitation she removed it from the lock, for fear that some member of the household, impelled by morbid curiosity, might creep in, and draw back the sheet from that ghastly face.

She was about to go downstairs again when sounds of lamentation reached her. She had no difficulty in recognizing Mrs Thorne’s voice, and she had never been closer to turning tail. Mrs Thorne had succumbed to the vapours, and that seemed to add the final touch to the nightmare. Gathering her resolution, she went quietly to the housekeeper’s small parlour, where she found Mrs Thorne lying back in a chair, as rigid as a wooden doll, and two of the maids, one waving burnt feathers under her nose, and the other fanning her zealously but ineffectively with a tambour-frame. Restraining an impulse to box this foolish damsel’s ears, and to shake the housekeeper till the teeth rattled in her head, Kate set about the wearing task of restoring Mrs Thorne to some semblance of calm. This she did by first getting rid of the maids, and next by agreeing that Mrs Thorne undoubtedly possessed the gift of second sight, and expressing awe, admiration, and wonder. This had a beneficial effect; Mrs Thorne forgot to maintain her rigid pose, and recounted for Kate’s edification, and with a wealth of irrelevant detail, the various occasions when she had prophesied disaster. By the time she had reduced Kate almost to screaming point, she was herself so much recovered that it needed only a judicious amount of flattery, and the intelligence that Sidlaw had collapsed, and had had to be carried to bed in raging hysterics, to bring her to her feet, saying that she was sure, she was very sorry for Miss Sidlaw, but would have supposed she might have thought of something better to do than to add to all the commotion by kicking up such a dust. She herself, she said, for all she hadn’t been my lady’s nurse, was just as much attached to her, poor soul, and had much more sensibility than Miss Sidlaw, but would scorn to give way to her feelings in such a nasty, vulgar way, but would continue to perform her duties, even though it killed her. Kate thanked her, said she didn’t know what any of them would do without her, and escaped. And just as she was thinking that at least she had managed to avert the danger of Mrs Thorne’s taking to her bed, with an attack of her celebrated Spasms, she remembered another member of the household whose sensibilities were even more exquisite than Mrs Thorne’s. She felt a strong inclination to sit down on the nearest chair, and to relieve her overcharged emotions by bursting into tears; but instead of this, she turned towards the back stairs, and went resolutely to brave Gaston in his stronghold.

The big kitchen seemed to her to be crowded with persons whom she had never set eyes on before, all talking at once; but her unprecedented arrival on the scene struck even Gaston dumb with amazement. The menials who waited on him might stand open-mouthed and goggling, but Gallic address soon rescued him from his own astonishment, and he came forward, bowing deeply, and commanding the kitchen porter, whom he referred to in a very lofty style as a marmiton, to set a chair for mademoiselle. He begged her to inform him in what way he could serve her, for to serve her, he said gallantly, would be for him the greatest pleasure imaginable. So Kate, assuming the mien of a helpless innocent, said that she knew she could depend upon him to support her through this dreadful brouhaha, and what, she demanded of him, could he suggest in the guise of a dinner to set before a bereaved family, none of whose members, he would understand, would be able to support the sight of roast joints, or the raised pies which he cooked to such perfection. Gaston, even more susceptible than Mrs Thorne to flattery, rose magnificently to the challenge, bidding her to rest tranquil, and leave all to him: he would prepare a dinner—very small, but very choice—that would animate even the capricious appetite of Monsieur Torquil.

Kate got up rather quickly, managed to smile, and to thank Gaston, and hurried away, down the stone-paved passage to the Great Hall. In the need to prevent the disintegration of the household she had not had time to think of Torquil, but the chef’s words brought home to her the full horror of her aunt’s death, and filled her with icy dread. She went through the Gothic door into the Great Hall, and found Mrs Nidd there, about to mount the stairs.

Mrs Nidd exclaimed: “There you are, Miss Kate! I’ve been looking for you all over! Wherever have you been hiding yourself, dearie?”

“I’ve been in the kitchen. Sarah, where is Torquil?”

“Well, that’s more than I can tell you,” said Sarah. “It seems that man of his—Badger, is it?—is searching for him in the woods. By what Mr Pennymore tells me, one of the footmen caught sight of him, making for the woods like one demented, which, of course, the poor lad is! Now, don’t get into a fret! You’ve kept up wonderful till now, love, and acted just as you should, and like I knew you would, and you’ve got to remember that he won’t go to the gallows for strangling his ma, like he would if he was sane, but only be shut up safe somewhere, where he can’t harm himself, or anyone else. And it’s my belief, Miss Kate, that if ever a woman deserved to be strangled, she did! Now, you come into this room, which they call the Blue saloon, though why they do I’m sure I don’t know, for the only bit of blue in it is in the curtains, and not so very much of it there either! Mr Pennymore has this instant brought in a tea-tray, and a dish of little cakes so light you’ll never know you’re eating them. No, I know you don’t think you could swallow anything, dearie, but you’ll find you can, and you’ve got to keep up your strength, you know!”

Having propelled Kate gently but inexorably into the Blue saloon, she pushed her into a chair, and began to pour out the tea. Kate sank her head into her hands, and Mrs Nidd, observing how her fingers writhed amongst her soft curls, went on talking, in a comfortable way which Kate found vaguely soothing. She was able presently to drink a little tea, and even to nibble a small cake, but that her mind was preoccupied she showed by breaking into Sarah’s description of the fecklessness of Joe’s sister Polly, saying abruptly: “Sarah, why did he do it? Why? I know he hated her, but he was so much in awe of her that she had only to look at him to bring him into submission! Sarah, what did she say to him to goad him into strangling her? She can’t—oh, she can’t have told him that he was mad, and must be shut up!”

“It’s no use asking me what she said to him, Miss Kate, because I wasn’t there, but after what you told me last night I wouldn’t wonder at it if that’s what she did tell him. I got into a chat with Mrs Thorne when you was at dinner, and from the things she said—not that she meant to cry her ladyship down, mind!—it was as plain as a pack-saddle that her ladyship was so full of her own consequence, and so set on getting her own way, no matter what it cost her, that when she found she couldn’t, for all her plots and coaxings—like she did when you told her you wouldn’t marry Mr Torquil!—there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do, just for sheer, wicked spite! I can tell you this, love!—she was a regular bad one, and you don’t need to waste a crumb of sympathy on her! If you ask me, this precious Staplewood of hers will be a happier place now she’s dead! And don’t tell me she was kind to you! She wasn’t so very kind when she knew she couldn’t make you marry Mr Torquil! No, and it wasn’t kind of her to try to trap an innocent girl like you are into marrying a poor, mad boy that would strangle you as soon as look at you! Whenever I think of that it makes me fairly boil! Oh, well! they say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—though why you shouldn’t I’m sure I don’t know!—so I’d best keep my lips buttoned, for speak good of her I could not! Drink up your tea, dearie!”

“Why did he go to her drawing-room?” Kate said, unheeding. “He never does so! Did she send for him? To scold him for trying to jump that wall yesterday? But she doesn’t scold him for the—the crazy things he does!”

“Well, according to what the doctor said, Mr Torquil found the carpenter nailing bars across the window of his bedchamber, which her ladyship had given him orders to do, without a word to anyone,” replied Sarah bluntly. “So Mr Torquil flew right up into the boughs, and rushed off in such a bang that the doctor couldn’t stop him, to ask his ma what she meant by it. It seems the doctor went after him, and he says he wouldn’t have left her ladyship alone with Mr Torquil if she hadn’t ordered him to do so, and if he hadn’t thought that she could handle Mr Torquil, like she always had done. He says that she told Mr Torquil to sit down, and that Mr Torquil obeyed her, so that he never thought she was in the least danger. He doesn’t know what happened after that, no more than anyone else does, but he did say, if you remember, Miss Kate, that she must have told him, but what she must have told him he did not say!”

Kate, who had been listening to this speech with a puzzled frown knitting her brows, said incredulously: “Good God! Did Dr Delabole tell you all this, Sarah?”

“Oh, no, he didn’t tell it to me!” said Sarah, refilling her cup. “He told it to Mr Philip, in this very room, but I was here, you see—just downstairs after getting that archwife into her bed, and seeing her drop off to sleep! Well, I’ve got no sort of fancy for the doctor, but I’m bound to own I couldn’t help compassionating him! Very rough Mr Philip was with him, raking him down till it was no wonder he had him quaking like a blancmange!”

Kate started up. “Is Philip here?” she cried eagerly. “Oh, Sarah, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You sit down, Miss Kate, and finish your tea!” said Sarah severely. “He is back, but he’s gone out to search for Mr Torquil, and it won’t do anyone a mite of good for you to run out searching for him! Don’t you fret! He’ll be here soon enough!”

As though in corroboration of this statement, he came into the room at that moment. He was looking pale, and his face was set grimly, his eyes very hard, and two deep clefts between his brows. In a shaking voice, Kate said: “Have you found him? Have you found him, Philip?”

“Badger found him,” he replied, and lifted a hand that was not quite steady to cover his eyes for a brief moment. He let it fall again, and said harshly: “We were too late—both of us—”

“Dead?” she whispered.

“Yes, dead,” he answered.