Cousin Kate Read online

  Here he was checked by Dr Delabole, who was just entering the room, and who barred his passage, laying a restraining hand on his arm, and saying: ‘Whither away, Torquil? Now, what has happened to put you all on end? Come, come, my boy, this won’t do! You will bring on one of your distressing migraines, and I shall be obliged to physic you!’

  ‘Come back to the table, my son!’ commanded Lady Broome sternly. ‘You are behaving like a child, and must be treated like one, unless you mend your ways! Pick up your chair!’

  He gave a dry sob, and turned, white and wild-eyed, and stared at her for a hard-breathing moment. As Kate had seen once before, his eyes sank under Lady Broome’s quelling gaze. Kate leaned sideways to pick up his chair, and patted it invitingly, smiling at him. ‘Come and sit down again!’ she coaxed.

  His smouldering eyes travelled slowly to her face, searching it suspiciously. Finding nothing in it but friendly sympathy, he yielded to her invitation, muttering: ‘Very well! To oblige you, coz!’

  ‘You shall be rewarded with one of my scones,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll butter it for you.’

  He said nothing, either then, or when she handed it to him, but he ate it. Lady Broome, turning her attention to Philip, engaged him in conversation, while Kate talked in a soothing under-voice to Torquil, and the doctor applied himself, with his usual appetite, to his breakfast.

  Encountering Philip an hour later, in the hall, Kate would have passed him with no more than a nod, but he stopped her, and asked her where she was going. She replied: ‘To cut some fresh roses, sir. This hot weather has made the ones I gathered yesterday hang their heads, and they refuse to be revived.’

  ‘I’ll accompany you, if I may – to carry the basket!’ he said, taking it from her hand. ‘Where is Torquil?’

  ‘I think he has ridden out with Whalley.’

  ‘Unfortunate Whalley!’

  She was silent.

  ‘You seem to possess the knack of managing him, cousin,’ he said, as they crossed the lawn towards the rose-garden. ‘My felicitations!’

  ‘I don’t know that. I have had some experience in the management of spoiled children.’

  ‘So that was true, was it? When I saw you, I supposed it to be one of Gurney’s Banbury stories.’

  She looked round at him in surprise. ‘Did Mr Templecombe tell you that I had been a governess?’ He nodded. ‘I wonder why he should have done so?’

  ‘He thought I might be interested. I was.’

  Her surprise grew. ‘I can’t conceive why you should have been!’

  ‘Can’t you?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘No. Unless –’

  ‘Unless what?’ he asked, as she hesitated.

  She still hesitated, but presently confessed, with a tiny chuckle: ‘Well, I was going to say, unless you wondered how it was possible for my aunt to own an indigent relative! The thing was that she didn’t know I existed, until a month ago.’

  ‘I take leave to doubt that.’

  ‘No, indeed it’s true! You see, my father quarrelled with his family when Aunt Minerva was still in the schoolroom, and – and – they cut the connection!’

  ‘And what brought it to Minerva’s knowledge that you did exist?’

  ‘My old nurse wrote to her, informing her of my circumstances.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And then my aunt swept down upon me,’ continued Kate, not perceiving his curling lip. ‘I was never nearer to pulling caps with poor Sarah! But she did it all for the best, and so it has turned out. For my aunt invited me to stay here, and has overwhelmed me with kindness.’ She paused, and then said, with a little difficulty: ‘I collect you don’t like her, but you must not say so to me, if you please!’

  He regarded her frowningly. ‘Oh, no, I won’t say so!’ He stood aside for her to pass through the archway cut in the yew hedge that enclosed the rose-garden. ‘You have made conquests of them all, Cousin Kate – even of my uncle!’

  ‘I am sure I have done no such thing.’

  ‘But indeed you have. I hear your praises sung on all sides.’

  ‘I expect I should be excessively gratified – if I believed you!’ she retorted, laying the two roses she had cut into the basket, and moving on.

  ‘You may believe me – and accept my compliments!’

  She turned to confront him, a spark of anger in her eyes. ‘That goes beyond the line of pleasing, sir! I am well aware that you’ve taken me in dislike, so pray don’t try to flummery me!’

  ‘I beg your pardon! But I don’t think I have taken you in dislike. I own that I came prepared to do so, but you puzzle me, you know: you are rather unexpected!’

  ‘Well, I know of no reason why you should say so, unless you expected to find I was inching my way into your uncle’s good graces to – to batten on him! Was that it?’

  ‘No. Not entirely.’

  ‘Not –’ She uttered an indignant gasp, and then, suddenly, laughed, and said: ‘I suppose it does look like that! Let me assure you that it isn’t like that, sir!’

  ‘In that case, I am sorry for you,’ he said. He glanced over his shoulder, and smiled sardonically. ‘Yes, I thought it wouldn’t be long before Minerva came to discover what I have been saying to you.’ He waited until Lady Broome had come up to join them, and then greeted her with the utmost affability. ‘Do join us, Minerva! I’ve been attempting to flummery Cousin Kate, and without the least success.’

  ‘Absurd creature! Kate, my love, when you have finished picking roses, I want you to come and help me in the house. Dear me, how oppressively hot it is out here! And you without a hat! You will become sadly tanned! Nothing is more injurious to the complexion than to expose it to strong sunshine! There are some who say that contact with all fresh air is destructive of female charms – the natural enemy of a smooth skin. But that I don’t agree with, though a wind is certainly to be avoided. I myself always wear a veil, or carry a parasol, as I am doing now.’

  ‘And who shall blame you, ma’am?’ said Philip. ‘It throws a most becoming light on to your face!’

  ‘Are you now trying to flummery me, Philip? You are wasting your time!’

  ‘No, merely paying a tribute to your unerring taste in choosing a pink parasol.’

  She cast him an unloving look. ‘You would say, I collect, that my face needs to be protected from the unflattering daylight?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say anything of the sort,’ he replied. ‘I am not so uncivil, Minerva.’

  She bit her lip, but returned no answer. They strolled together in Kate’s wake, until she had cut enough blooms to replenish her vases. Lady Broome then bore Kate off to the house, and kept her occupied until she knew Philip would be out of the way. Since the tasks she found for Kate to perform were all of a trifling nature, Kate could not but feel that she had purposely interrupted a tête-à-tête, and wondered why.

  Except for one or two flickers of lightning, and some distant rumbles, the storm held off all day, but it broke in the middle of the night. Kate was jerked awake by the first crash, which sounded to be directly over the house. Almost before its echoes had died away, she heard another sound, and this time, she was sure, inside the house. It was even more alarming than the storm, because it was a cry of terror. She sat up, thrusting back the curtains of the bed, and listened intently, her heart thudding in her breast. She could hear nothing, but the sudden silence was not reassuring. She winced as the thunder crashed again, but slid out of her bed, and caught up her shawl. Hastily wrapping this round herself, she groped her way to the door, intending to open it, so that she could hear more clearly. She cautiously turned the handle, but the door remained shut. She had been locked in.

  In unreasoning panic she tugged at the handle, and beat with clenched fists on the panels. The noise was drowned by another clap of thunder,