Cousin Kate (33 page)

He was obliged to be satisfied, for she hurried away on the words, and was no-more seen until she put in a belated appearance at the table on which a cold nuncheon had been set out. Mr Philip Broome, who was moodily eating cheese, rose at her entrance, and ejaculated: 'At last! I thought you were never coming back! What the deuce kept you so long?'

'I collect, from that question, that you had no difficulty in persuading the chef to remain at his post!' Kate said, with asperity.

'Very little. I take it your task was not an easy one?'

'No, dear sir, it was not all easy! It was singularly exhausting, in fact!'

'You don't look exhausted,' he said, smiling at her. 'You look to be in high beauty! Did you succeed in reconciling the warring cats?'

'Oh, no, only time will do that!' she said cheerfully. 'The best I could achieve was to flatter each into believing that
her
behaviour was in the nature of a triumph for the other, and that if either of them failed in this hour of trouble the house would fall to pieces, and my aunt suffer a relapse. So now they are not speaking to one another, and I can see that I shall have to be a go-between until they make up their quarrel, or until my aunt is well enough to leave her room.'

He had picked up the carving knife, but at this he put it down again, and demanded to be told for how many more days she meant to remain at Staplewood.

'Well, until I know how my aunt goes on, I can't tell that,' she responded. 'Not many, I hope. But you cannot, in all seriousness, expect me to run away at this moment, when at last I have the opportunity to be of real use to my aunt! You may think it a paltry service indeed, if you found it easy to pacify the chef, I daresay you do - but I promise you it was not at all easy to soothe and remonstrate with two angry women, one of whom thinks herself first in consequence, and the other of whom, though amiable, suffers from every imaginable disorder, and has so much sensibility that the least unpleasantness brings on all her most distressing symptoms. What is in this pie?'

'Venison. I never heard such—'

'How good! I wish you will give me some: I am perfectly ravenous!'

'Kate, how
can
you let that fat, lazy creature bamboozle you?' he expostulated. 'You don't mean to tell me that you swallowed all those plumpers?'

'Every one!' she assured him, with a Chuckle. 'I admired her fortitude, too, for keeping up so bravely, when she has had the influenza,
and
a severe colic, just like my aunt - only worse! It seems to be one of her peculiarities that whenever any one in the house is indisposed she becomes indisposed in exactly the same way. Only
she
never says a word about it.'

'I wish you had allowed me to deal with her!'

'That wouldn't have answered the purpose at all: she would very likely have gone into convulsions! What she needed was sympathy, not a jobation! She had enough of
that
from Sidlaw ! Of course, they are both shockingly jealous, which makes it difficult to bring them about.'

'I thought they were bosom-bows!'

'Yes, so did I, when I first came here, but I soon found it was no such thing. They are in - in defensive alliance against Pennymore and Tenby.' She looked up, no longer funning, and said: 'This is a very unhappy house, isn't it? Not in the least what I had supposed an English home would be like. It is more like three houses, with no love between any of them. Sir Timothy and my aunt are always very civil to each other, but they seem to live as strangers. And Torquil lives apart from either of them. And, although my aunt and Sir Timothy don't quarrel, their servants do! Which makes it uncomfortable - don't you think?'

'It was not always so,' he replied. 'And our home won't be!'

'Oh, no!' she agreed, smiling warmly at him.

He stretched out his hand to her across the table. 'Can't I persuade you to let me take you away tomorrow, Kate?'

She laid her own hand in his, but shook her head. 'Not while my aunt is unwell, and I can be of use here. You could not wish me to do what my conscience tells me is wrong!'

'I wish to have you in safety.'

'I don't think I am in danger. Even when I've put him in a flame, Torquil hasn't offered me any hurt, and he doesn't think I'm one of his enemies.'

'At least promise me one thing!' he said urgently.

She looked speculatively at him, the mischief back in her eyes. 'Are you trying to sell me a bargain?' she inquired.

'No, you suspicious little wretch! I want you only to promise me that you won't go alone with Torquil beyond sight of the house. I think you may be right that
at the moment
he regards you as his friend, but there is no depending on people whose minds are unhinged. Anything might happen to make him turn on you, without warning! A sudden fright, a rash word from you - even an attempt on his part to embrace you! If you were to struggle, I have the greatest fear that he would be unable to resist the temptation to strangle you. I tell you in all serious-ness that you owe it to yourself, far more than to my intervention, which might have come too late, that he didn't strangle you on that day when he had his hands about your throat. You stood perfectly still, and although his -how shall I put it? - his
demon
stirred, it didn't fully wake. What would have happened if I had not come in, I don't know, but I believe you are safe enough as long as there is someone within sight: Torquil is still sane enough to know that the atrocious things he does are wrong, and to fear discovery - to be detected in the act!'

'But he forgets! Does he only pretend to have forgotten?'

'No, I think not,' he said decidedly. 'It may be fanciful, but I have sometimes wondered if he forgets because his mind
refuses
to remember what he has done in one of his mad fits. Do you understand at all?'

She nodded. 'Yes - I think I do. I'll take care. And you will be here, won't you?'

'You may be sure of that. I suspect that Delabole locks the door into the West Wing when he goes to bed, but it's easy enough for an active boy to climb out through any of the windows: I did so, several times, when shut up as a punishment! So I think you should lock your door, just to be on the safe side. And that reminds me! Why, my love, do you carry the key in your reticule?'

She told him how, on the night of the storm, she had been unable to open her door, and had discovered next morning, when she had opened it without the smallest difficulty, that the key was missing from the lock; how her aunt had suggested, in gentle amusement, that when she had leapt out of bed she had been half-asleep; and how she had said that the key should be found.

'But it never was, and it's my belief it was never lost, but in Sidlaw's possession all the time!' Kate said, her eyes kindling. 'I was only just in time, last night, to stop her from locking me in again! She thought I was asleep, of course, but was made to look nohow! Oh, how much I dislike that woman! But why should she do such a thing? Did my aunt order her to? And
still
why? To keep Torquil out? I can't believe it! Even you think it unlikely that he would kill me without provocation, and how much less likely must my aunt think it!'

He had listened to her in attentive silence, a slight frown between his brows, and he now said slowly. I think it more probable that it has been done to keep you in than to keep Torquil out. Has your door been locked every night?'

'I don't know! I've never tried it since that night!' she said. 'I supposed that no one had been able to find it, and I forgot about it.'

'Had you left your room
before
that night?'

'Yes, once, before you came. It was after the dinner-party - oh, weeks ago! I wasn't sleepy, and I sat sewing in my room till my candle began to gutter. I still wasn't sleepy, and I drew back the blinds to look out, wishing that I could take a walk in the garden. Then I saw a man, by the yew hedge, but only for an instant: I think he must have caught sight of me, for he drew back immediately, and he might well have done so, you know, for although the moonlight was faint, it was shining into my window. I thought, of course, that it was a burglar, and ran along the gallery to my aunt's room. She wasn't there, but she came up the stairs at the end of the gallery, just as I was wondering what I should do. She was looking very tired, and it was the first time she ever spoke crossly to me. She told me to go back to bed. She said the figure I had seen was one of the servants. And then Torquil came into the gallery from the West Wing, and I thought he was drunk.' She paused, considering it. 'And I still think he was drunk! He said that he had been in the woods, and that the doctor and Badger were still hunting for him. He was giggling, too, and - oh, chirping merry! He drank a great deal at dinner, and afterwards slipped away. It was uncivil, but one couldn't really blame him; it was
such
an insipid party! Sir Timothy enjoyed it, but my aunt said it was an intolerable bore, and I must own I think it was very silly of her to have included Torquil, particularly when he didn't at all wish to be included.

'Was he amiable?'

'Well, he started in the sulks, but he behaved perfectly properly at dinner.'

'Then I should suppose that he was included in that party to silence the ondits.'

She looked startled. 'Are there any?'

'According to Gurney, people have begun to whisper that there's something odd about him. It isn't surprising.'

'No - I suppose it isn't,' she said sadly. 'But how dreadful if it came to his ears!'

'It isn't likely to. Don't look so harassed, love! Would you care to take a walk with me through the park, or shall I have my horses put to, and tool you round the countryside?'

'Good God, no!' she exclaimed. 'That would give the tattle-boxes something to talk about indeed!'

'What of it?'

'Philip, it would be all over the house, in the twinkling of a bed-post! Sidlaw would tell my aunt, making it appear that I was behaving in a - in a clandestine way! No, don't laugh! She's an arch-intelligencer, you know: 'that's why the other servants hate her. She watched me go into the shrubbery, the day you came and sat beside me there, and she told my aunt, and my aunt spoke to me about the
impropriety
of it. I was never nearer to pulling caps with her! No, and never so thankful, when you set me down yesterday, that no one saw me enter the house! It is bad enough that we are
secretly
betrothed: it is not at all the thing! I couldn't bear it to come to my aunt's ears before I've told her myself that you've offered for me! She would think me so sly!' She saw that his brows had drawn together, and said imploringly: 'Oh, Philip, don't look angry! Pray
try
to understand!'

'I am angry!' he responded harshly, adding, as her eyes widened in dismay: 'Oh, not with you! Never with you, Kate! Only with circumstance! I think it intolerable that we should be obliged to hide our teeth-play the concave-suit! - because of Minerva's illness! But I do understand your scruples. You are very right: neither of us could bear the sort of backstairs gossip, and speculation, which would be provoked by any indiscretion. I must still wish that you would let me remove you from Staplewood - but I'll say no more on that head!' He took her hand, and kissed it. 'Don't be troubled, my sweet! God forbid I should try to persuade you to do anything against your conscience!'

'It would weigh on me all my life if I left my aunt
now!'
she said, searching his face with anxious eyes.

'Very well,' he replied. He hesitated for a moment, and then, as she looked inquiringly at him, shook his head, crookedly smiling. 'No. There's a great deal I could say to you, but it would only set you at outs with me, so I'll keep my tongue. Must I conceal the news from my uncle? I should wish to tell him - and at once.'

Her face brightened. 'Oh, yes, pray do tell him! Then, if he gives his consent, it will make everything right, won't it?'

'His consent, my little love, is not necessary!'

'His approval, then,' she said docilely.

'That's not necessary either, though I should wish him to approve.'

'It is necessary to me,' she said. 'It would be very hard, but I hope I should have the resolution not to marry you, if he should dislike it very much.'

'In that case,' he retorted, walking to the door, 'there will be nothing for it but to abduct you!'

He left her laughing. She went upstairs to find Sidlaw lying in wait for her. Hostility flickered in Sidlaw's eyes, but she spoke with meticulous civility. 'If you please, Miss Kate, may I have a word with you?'

'Certainly! What is it?' Kate said, forcing herself to speak pleasantly.

'I did not venture to intrude on you, miss, when you and Mr Broome were eating a nuncheon, but I should be glad if you would speak to Mrs Thorne, which I do not care to do myself, under the circumstances.'

Repressing an exasperated sigh, Kate asked what she was to speak about, and thereby unleashed a spate of complaints, most of which she judged to be groundless. However, she promised to adjust them; and even to order the chef to make some tapioca jelly, which her ladyship thought she could fancy. She then went to the housekeeper's room, where she was relieved to find that Mrs Thorne was so far restored to health as to have been able to consume a sustaining meal, the remains qf which were to be seen on a tray. She said that she had been trying to keep up her strength.