Cousin Kate

Chapter XXI

Mrs Nidd, nearly dropping her cup, gasped: “Oh, my goodness gracious me!” but Kate said, as though she had been expecting it: “Did he drown himself, Philip?”

He nodded. “Badger saw him. I think he knew that it was too late to save him, but he plunged in off the bridge, and got his body to the shore. When I reached the lake he was holding him in his arms, and—Well, never mind! The poor old chap is all to pieces: said he was the only person who had ever loved Torquil, which is true, I suppose, though why he should have loved him God only knows! Torquil treated him like a dog.” He paused, regarding Kate with sudden intensity. “Why did you say that? Did you know he had drowned himself?”

She made a helpless gesture. “No. I don’t know, but when Sarah told me that Badger was searching the woods for him—it flashed across my mind that he once told me—oh, on my very first day here, when he took me down to the bridge!—that he often thought how pleasant it would be to drown. I didn’t think he meant it, but he did, poor Torquil, he did!”

Her voice broke, and she turned away, battling with her tears. Philip said slowly: “I believe he did think it pleasant. There’s no sign that he struggled to save himself: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look more peaceful. If I had been here—if I had known what he meant to do—I must have stopped him, but—I say this in all seriousness, Kate—I’m thankful that I was not here. For him, this is a most merciful end. When you’ve seen him—oh, no, don’t shudder! There’s nothing to distress you!—I believe you won’t feel his death a tragedy.”

She blew her nose, and said, trying to speak cheerfully: “No, I know it isn’t a tragedy. Not his death! But I can’t help thinking of his life, Philip! How lonely he was, and how unhappy!”

“He wasn’t always unhappy, my darling. When he was a little chap he was the most engaging scamp—tumbling in and out of mischief. I was used to think that he must be lonely, but I’ve come to realize that perhaps it was only when he grew older that he felt the want of companionship.”

“And truer words than that, sir, you’ll never speak!” said Sarah. “Children don’t miss what they’ve never had, so you don’t want to grieve over what’s past, Miss Kate! You think of what the poor boy’s future would have been, and thank God he’s been saved from it! Where have you laid him, Mr Philip?”

“On his own bed. I carried him in through the West Wing entrance, and helped Badger to strip him, and put him into his nightshirt.” A twisted smile just touched his stern mouth. He looked at Kate, and said; “You might suppose him to be peacefully sleeping: no more than that.”

She wiped away her tears, and went to him, saying simply: “Take me to see him, Philip. I—I should like to see him once more.”

He caught her hand, and kissed it. “I will take you, but first I must have a word with Mrs Nidd about your journey. My darling, I had meant to have gone with you, but I can’t leave my uncle at this present. I believe you wouldn’t wish me to. After the inquests, and the funerals, I shall come to you, and with a special license in my pocket, I warn you! Mrs Nidd, will you take these bills? There should be enough to pay all the expenses of the journey. You will be later in starting than I had planned, but you should be able to reach Woburn tonight. Direct the post-boys to set you down at the George, and mention my name: I have frequently stayed there. Be sure to engage a private parlour! If anything should happen to delay you on the road, break the journey at Newport-Pagnell: there are two very tolerable houses there, the Swan and the Sergeant. I fancy—”

He was interrupted. Kate, who had been listening to these instructions with a blank look of incomprehension on her face, said, in bewilderment: “But what are you talking about, Philip? There can be no question of my going to London! How could you think I would leave Staplewood at such a moment?”

He kissed her hand again, and held it in a strong clasp. “Bless you, my little love!” he said, in a much moved voice. “But I wish you to go. I know how hateful Staplewood must have become to you, and I know, too, just how unpleasant—how harrowing—it is going to be, until this appalling business is over. I want to get you safely away before we are plunged into all the degrading consequences of two such deaths. Mrs Nidd, I know you will support me!”

“Well, no, Mr Philip!” responded Sarah apologetically. “In fact, if Miss Kate had said other than what she has said I’d have given her a thundering scold! She’ll be marrying you for better or worse, sir, and if she has the worse before she’s riveted to you, she’ll be luckier than most! A pretty thing it would be if she was to sherry off with me when you’ve got a peck of troubles hung round your neck! Yes, and if that’s the sort of hen-hearted girl you think she is it has me in a puzzle to know why you offered for her! A rare pickle you’d find yourself in if she was to scour off!”

He looked to be very much taken aback, but the ready laughter sprang to Kate’s eyes, and she said: “That’s very true! You may be able to deal with Gaston, but not with Mrs Thorne, believe me! You would be excessively uncomfortable if you had no one here to keep house for you—and, which is much more important, so would Sir Timothy be! So you may put those bills back in your pocket, sir—and stop insulting me!” She lifted his hand, which was still clasping hers, and laid her cheek against it. “Poor Philip!” she said softly. “I know, my dear, I know! Pray don’t ask me to go away!”

His hand tightened round hers; Mrs Nidd said: “If you’ll pardon the liberty, sir, the person I’d be glad to see the back of is the doctor, for I can’t abide him, and nor can’t Miss Kate! A regular Captain Sharp, that’s what he is, and the way you rattled him off was a pleasure to listen to! Let alone he’s been living as high as a coach-horse here, shot-free. If he hasn’t been feathering his nest you may call me a widgeon!”

That drew a smile from him. He said: “I shouldn’t dare!”

“Are you going to send him away, Philip?”

“Not immediately. He is quite as anxious to make himself scarce as you are to see his back, Mrs Nidd, but I’ve made it plain to him that I’ve no intention of permitting him to leave Staplewood until after the inquests. His evidence—if he says what he has himself suggested he should say!—will be of the first importance. My uncle is not a religious man, but I don’t think he could bear it if the verdict at the inquest made it impossible for us to bury Torquil in the Churchyard, amongst his ancestors. Delabole has it in his power to convince the jury that when Torquil took his own life he was not in the possession of his senses. He can do that, and he will do it.” He paused, and after hesitating for a moment, said, with the glimmer of a smile: “He is a rogue, and a toad-eater—everything that is most contemptible! But he was never unkind to Torquil! Oh, he infuriated him with his tactlessness—and got Turkish treatment for it!—but he might, without hindrance, have subjected Torquil to the sort of harsh usage which must have made the unfortunate boy fear him. That he didn’t do so—and God knows Torquil gave him cause enough!—must stand to his credit. I think he was genuinely fond of Torquil, and I am pretty certain that Minerva’s charming scheme to marry the boy to you, Kate, frightened him. But once having fallen under her domination he lacked the courage to break free from her shackles. He has no more pluck than a dunghill cock, but—” He paused, and said ruefully: “He took good care of my uncle. I’ve no doubt Minerva paid him handsomely to do so, for it was all to her advantage to keep Sir Timothy alive, but—well, I must be grateful to him for that at least! That my uncle’s health is so much improved—there was a time, you know, when I lived in hourly dread of hearing that he was dead—stands very much to his credit and I find I can’t forget that.”

It was Kate who broke the silence that succeeded these words. She said quietly: “Have you told Sir Timothy, Philip?”

He shook his head. “Tenby says he is resting: asleep, he thinks. I shall tell him when he wakes. If I can’t persuade you to leave Staplewood, Kate, I must pay off the post-boys: the chaise has been standing in the yard ever since my return. Wait for me: I shan’t be many minutes.”

He went away; and Kate, glancing at the bowl of pink roses on the table by the window, went to it, and drew out one half-opened bloom, and wiped its stalk with her handkerchief. It was in her hand when he came back, and she was holding it when she stood beside him, looking down at Torquil’s still form. Her other hand was clasping Philip’s, but as she gazed at that beautiful face, from which every trace of peevishness had vanished, she drew it out of his slackened hold, and brushed it across her brimming eyes, and said, under her breath: “Yes. He is just asleep, and dreaming so happily! so peacefully! Thank you for bringing me to see him: this is how I shall always remember him.”

She bent over the dead boy, and slid the stem of the rose under his folded hands, and gently kissed his cold brow. Then she turned back to Philip, and he took her out of the room, his arm round her waist.

Neither spoke, until they had left the West Wing, and were walking down the gallery that led from it, past Lady Broome’s bedchamber, past Kate’s, to the upper hall, when Kate said sadly: “No one could grieve over his death, but, oh, Philip, that is how he might have looked when he was alive, if his brain hadn’t been so dreadfully afflicted!”

He answered only by the tightening of his arm round her waist; but when they reached the head of one of the wings of the Grand Stairway, he paused, and kissed her, and said: “I must go down to my uncle. My poor darling, you’re looking so tired! Will you rest on your bed before dinner? I wish you will!”

She smiled, but with an effort. “You do think me a poor honey, don’t you? I’ll go to my room, but I don’t promise to rest on my bed: there’s too much to think of, and I don’t seem to have had time yet to—to regulate my mind. Philip, shall we be obliged to live here?”

“I don’t know,” he answered heavily. “Perhaps I shall be able to make some arrangement. If either of his sisters were alive—but they are both dead! Or if the mutton-head Minerva engaged as bailiff could be trusted to manage the estate—”

“But he can’t, can he? And—and even if he were the best bailiff imaginable he couldn’t bear Sir Timothy company, could he? Philip, if your uncle wishes you to remain here, don’t let the thought of me weigh with you! Do as you think you must! I don’t doubt I shall accustom myself!” She summoned up a gallant smile, and added: “I must accustom myself, for now that Torquil is dead Staplewood will one day belong to you, won’t it? I know you never wanted it, and I don’t mean to try to hoax you into thinking that I do: it has never been a home to me, and—and just at the moment it is horrible to me! But if you took me to your own home, leaving your uncle in this huge, awful house with only servants to take care of him, I don’t think I should ever be happy. I should be thinking all the time that I had failed quite miserably in my duty, and picturing Sir Timothy here, quite alone, with only his memories—and so many of them unhappy memories! And you would too, Philip! You might even regret that you had married me!”

“Never that!” he said. “I always hoped—but even if Torquil were alive, soon or late I must, I suppose, have been confronted with the same problem. O God, what a nightmare it is!”

She drew his head down, and tenderly kissed his cheek. “Yes, it is a nightmare, but Sarah says things are never quite as bad as one thinks they will be. And also she says it is a great mistake to cross bridges until one reaches them, so—so don’t let us look beyond tomorrow! Go down now to Sir Timothy, my dear one! I’d come with you if I didn’t know that he would liefer by far learn what has happened from you alone. I hope—oh, I pray that the shock may not cause him to suffer another, and fatal heart-attack!”

Not daring to trust herself to say more, she went quickly to her room, and entered it without looking back.

She found Sarah there, unpacking her portmanteau. After one shrewd glance at her, Sarah pushed her into a chair by the window, saying: “Now, you sit there, like a good girl, Miss Kate! I don’t want you under my feet!”

Kate smiled rather wanly, but attempted no argument. She was thankful to sink into the chair, and to lean back, closing her eyes. Sarah continued to bustle about, casting one or two measuring glances at Kate, but saying nothing until Kate presently opened her eyes, and straightened herself, sighing deeply. She then adjured her not to let herself fall into the doldrums. “For if you don’t show Mr Philip a cheerful face, Miss Kate, you’d have done as well, and better, to have left this place, like he wished you to do.” She went to Kate, and began to chafe one of her hands. “You want to look on the bright side, love!” she said. “I don’t say it’s easy, nor that it’s very bright, but things could have been worse! The poor young gentleman won’t ever be shut up now, and if the doctor can be trusted to tell the Coroner, frank and open, that he wasn’t in his right mind when he choked his mother to death, and flung himself into the lake—”

“Oh, if only I could be sure he wasn’t in his right mind!” Kate cried. “But I think he was, Sarah! That’s what has upset me so much. Oh, Delabole will say he wasn’t: I’m not afraid of that! Perhaps—if my aunt had told him he was mad, he lost his senses, but when he saw that he had killed her they came back to him. He wasn’t out of his mind when he drowned himself. Whether he was afraid of the consequences, or—or afraid that he was mad, I don’t know. But I can’t help remembering that he said once, when we were discussing dreams, that sometimes he dreamed he was being chased by a monster, and sometimes that he had done something dreadful. My aunt interrupted him, and I thought no more about it until today. And then I remembered it, and the look on his face—an uneasy, scared look, Sarah! Do you think—do you think he was secretly afraid that he had done something dreadful? When he saw the carpenter nailing bars across his window, did it confirm his fear? If that was so—oh, poor Torquil, poor Torquil, what agony of mind he must have suffered!”

“Now, that’s quite enough!” said Sarah, in a scolding tone. “You can’t know what he thought, nor what her ladyship said to him, and you never will, so there’s not a bit of good to be gained by dwelling on it! If he suffered, it wasn’t for very long—not if Mr Philip was speaking the truth when he said that he looked happy. Didn’t you think he looked happy, Miss Kate?”

Kate nodded, wiping her eyes. “Yes. He’s smiling—as though he had at last found something he had been trying to find for a long, long time.”

“Well, that’s all you’ve got to remember, love. There, you stay quiet till it’s time I made you tidy for dinner! You’re worn out, and no wonder.”

Kate sighed, and closed her eyes again. But presently she opened them, and said, rather drearily: “We shall have to live here, you know. We can’t leave Sir Timothy alone in this dreadful house. And when he dies, it will be Philip’s, and he doesn’t want it, Sarah! And I don’t want it either! It has never been home to me, and now it has become horrible! And everyone will think I married Philip because I was determined to become Lady Broome!”

“I shouldn’t wonder at it if you find you’re wrong,” said Sarah. “I was talking to Mr Pennymore last night, and by what he said it seems her ladyship wasn’t at all well-liked by Sir Timothy’s old friends. Well, it stands to reason they wouldn’t like her, when she kept them away from him! She said it was on account of his always being so poorly, but Mr Pennymore says that it’s his belief—and Tenby’s too!—that it would do Sir Timothy good to see a few people. Just dropping in to have a crack with him, not waiting to be invited to a party! And what’s more he told me that Staplewood hasn’t been a home to him ever since her ladyship made it into a show-place. It’ll be your task, Miss Kate, to make it a home again, and to make visitors welcome, what’s more! As for its being horrible to you, it’s only to be expected you should think so at first, but you can take it from me, dearie, that you’ll get over that. Well, goodness, if everyone felt they couldn’t bear to live in their houses, because something tragic had happened in them, half the big houses in the country would be standing empty!”

Kate smiled, and got up. “What should I do without you, Sarah?” she said. “You have so much sense! I beg your pardon for flying into alt: I’ll try not to be so stupid again. I think the—the things that have happened today have been rather too much for me. I shall be better tomorrow!”

Sarah gave her a resounding kiss. “That’s my good girl!” she said. She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and said: “If that’s Ellen, I’ll send her away!” She went to the door and opened it, saying as she did so: “I’ll attend to Miss—Oh, it’s you, sir! Yes, you can come in!”

“Philip?” Kate cried eagerly. “Come in, come in! How is Sir Timothy? Did you tell him what had happened?”

“I wasn’t obliged to tell him that Minerva was dead. He had guessed it. As soon as I went into his room, he asked me if she was dead, and when I said yes, he sighed, and said that he had feared she must be. Then he said: “Poor soul!” as though she had been a mere acquaintance. But when I told him that there was worse news for him to hear, I saw him brace himself. There was a painful look of anxiety in his eyes, and he lifted his hand, as if to silence me. Then he let it fall, and spoke just oneword—Torquil?”

Kate caught her breath. “Philip, you don’t mean—Good God, did he know that Torquil was mad?”

“Suspected it. He told me that he had asked Delabole for the truth more than a year ago. Delabole reassured him, just as he tried to reassure me. Delabole is very plausible, you know. I think my uncle wanted to believe him, perhaps because he felt helpless, perhaps because the thought that his only son was not of sound mind was so repugnant that he couldn’t bring himself to face it.” He stopped, and said, after a moment: “You know how it is with him—I told you once! His nature is too gentle—too yielding! He can never have been a match for Minerva, and after his health broke down he only wished to be left in peace.”

“I know, I know!” Kate said quickly. “And, indeed, Philip, it is hard to see what he could have done for Torquil, when his health is so precarious, and my aunt was determined that she, and she only, should rule the roast here!”

He smiled gratefully at her, and said: “You do understand, and I needn’t beg you not to think harshly of him.”

“No, that you need not! I couldn’t think harshly of him! But go on! Did he guess that Torquil had murdered his mother? Or had what Tenby told him prepared his mind for the shock?”

“No, I don’t think so. If that had been so, he must have known that Torquil had strangled her, and he didn’t know that. When I told him that Torquil had strangled her, in a fit of mania, he changed colour—looked so ghastly that I obliged him to swallow some of his cordial. He was greatly distressed—far more than by the news that Minerva was dead! He said—oh, in an aching voice!—“Poor boy! poor, unhappy boy!” Then, when he had a little recovered, he asked me if I realized what it must mean: that Torquil would have to be put away in some asylum. That was what upset him more than all the rest. When I told him that Torquil was dead, too, he was merely thankful. He said, very frankly, that he had never been able to care for Torquil, as he had cared for little Julian, but that to have been obliged to condemn him to spend the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum would have left him with nothing more to do than to have put a period to his own life. Then, after a little while, he asked me if you were still here, and when I told him, yes, and that you had refused to leave Staplewood, he instantly became more cheerful, and said that you were the silver lining to a very black cloud, and that he need no longer be afraid that he wouldn’t see you again. When I left him, he was quite happily making plans for our wedding! He seems to have set his heart on leading you to the altar, and bestowing your hand on me himself—here, in the Church, as soon after the funerals as may be possible. I told him that I couldn’t answer for you, and if you dislike the idea you mustn’t hesitate to tell me so. It would be a private ceremony, of course: just ourselves, my uncle, Mrs Nidd to support you, and, if I can lure him back from his London dissipations, Gurney Templecombe to support me. Would you like it, or would you prefer to be married in London?”

“Oh, I should much, much prefer to be married here!” she exclaimed, flushing with pleasure. “And for Sir Timothy to give me away! How kind, how very kind of him!”

He turned his head to look at Sarah, a question in his eyes.

“The decision must rest with you, Mrs Nidd. It won’t do for Kate to remain at Staplewood without you to lend her countenance: I know the sort of scandal-broth that all the tattle-boxes brew! Can you stay with us until you’ve seen us buckled, or am I asking too much of you? I know you have your own home to manage, and perhaps your husband might object to it, if you were to extend your stay? Not to mention your father-in-law!”

“Joe knows Miss Kate must come first,” responded Sarah. “And as for Father, I don’t doubt he’ll cut up stiff, and make a great grievance out of it, but you don’t need to worry about him, sir! He don’t mean all he says: he’s just naturally full of crotchets! I’ll write a letter to Joe, explaining how it is.”

“Thank you!” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m very much obliged to you! Kate, my uncle wishes us both to dine with him, in his own room: may I tell him that we’ll do so?”

“Yes, indeed, you may!” Kate answered. I—I was dreading having to sit down to dinner in that huge, sombre room, trying to be civil to Dr Delabole! It is so much cosier in Sir Timothy’s room!”

“Dr Delabole,” he said, “will be eating his dinner in the breakfast-parlour! But you are very right: the dining-room was never used, in my aunt’s day, except for large parties. If we find ourselves obliged to take up our quarters here, I shall ask my uncle if we may revert to the old custom of dining in the Red saloon when we are alone.”

“In the meantime, Mr Philip,” interpolated Sarah, edging him towards the door, “I’ll thank you to go away! If Sir Timothy wishes Miss Kate to dine with him, she must change her dress! And if you’ll pardon me for venturing to give you the word with no bark on it, I’ll prefer your room to your company, sir!”

He laughed, but said: “Must she change her dress? She looks very becoming to me!”

“Well, if you think she looks very becoming, with her hair in a tangle, and her dress all creased and rumpled, you must be nutty on her!” retorted Sarah acidly. “She looks like a hoyden, and let her go down to your uncle like that I will not—not if you was to ask me on your bended knees! Get along with you, do, Mr Philip!”

She then thrust him out of the room, firmly shutting the door on him, and uttered, in accents of loathing: “Men!” However, she added grudgingly, as she passed Kate’s wardrobe under rapid review: “Not but what it looks to me as though Sir Timothy knows a point more than the devil, as the saying goes. That’s a very shrewd notion of his, Miss Kate! Once it gets to be known that it was him gave you to Mr Philip, in Church—and it will get to be known, make no mistake about that!—you’ll have everybody that is anybody coming to pay you morning visits. And as long as you don’t get to thinking yourself first in consequence, and setting people’s bristles up by condescending to them, which Mr Pennymore has told me your aunt was used to do, you needn’t fear they won’t like you. So just you sit down there, Miss Kate, while I brush your hair for you, and see if you can’t pluck up a bit!”

“I’ll try,” Kate said, sighing. “But—oh, Sarah, it seems so fantastic that you should be dressing me for dinner when my aunt and Torquil are—are lying dead! It—it is almost indecent to wish to swallow a mouthful!”

“And when, miss, according to your calculations, will it be decent for you to eat your dinner again, like a Christian?” demanded Sarah somewhat tartly.

That made Kate laugh, and did much to lighten the oppression that weighed down her spirits. When she went down the Grand Stairway, she found Pennymore hovering in the hall, with the very evident intention of conducting her into Sir Timothy’s room. He smiled benignly upon her, saying that, if she would not think it presumptuous of him, he would venture to make so bold as to say that the sight of her would do Sir Timothy all the good in the world. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen him take such a fancy to anyone as he has to you, miss, and Tenby says the same. If you’ll come this way, you’ll find him and Mr Philip waiting for you.”

He preceded her to Sir Timothy’s room, but although he opened the door for her, and bowed her in, a discernment which she recognized as being extremely nice made him forbear to announce her. She went in unheralded, smiled shyly at Philip, who had risen quickly, and had taken two steps forward to meet her, but went past him, to bend over Sir Timothy, softly kissing his cheek.

He took her hand, and patted it. “Well, my pretty!” he said fondly. “So here you are! Pour her out a glass of Madeira, Philip! Sit down beside me, my dear! I’m afraid you have had a very uncomfortable day.”

She could not help feeling, as she recalled the events of the day, that this was a masterpiece of understatement, and she replied, rather faintly: “Yes, sir. It—it has been a little uncomfortable !”

He went on patting her hand. “Pennymore has been telling me that he doesn’t know what we could have done without you. Thank you, my dear! Your nurse, too! You must bring her to see me tomorrow: she sounds to be a most excellent woman, and I should wish to express my gratitude to her. That’s right, Philip! Pull up that little table, and set the glass on it! He and I have been discussing the future, Kate, and although it would make me very happy if you were to make Staplewood your home, you mustn’t do so if you feel the least disinclination! I shall go on very well, and I daresay you will come to visit me, so that I shall have that to look forward to.” He glanced across at Philip, with a melancholy smile. “I know you prefer the house your father built, my boy. Perhaps you will sell Staplewood, when it is yours: I shall be dead, so I shan’t know.”

“No, sir: I shan’t do that,” Philip said.

“Well, I can’t deny that I shall like to think that when I’ve cocked up my toes there will still be a Broome at Staplewood,” said Sir Timothy, more cheerfully. “You will have to decide both of you, whether you will come to live here immediately, or wait until I’m dead. I shan’t last for many more years, and I no longer have the health or the strength to manage my estates. You could do it, and I think it would be wise of you not to put off what I feel sure you think of as the evil day! However, I don’t mean to press you, and we won’t talk of it any more tonight.” He smiled at Kate. “Drink up your wine, my pretty! I think we won’t discuss anything that has happened today. We shall eat our dinner, and after that I shall challenge you to a rubber of piquet…’