Cousin Kate Read online

  ‘Your own, for instance?’

  ‘Yes, in default of better. He seems to have no friends. No one to laugh him out of his crotchets! I told him once, joking him, that he studied the picturesque in his attire, and instead of laughing, he took offence! He looked as if he would have been happy to have murdered me, which showed clearly that he was unused to being roasted. Which he wouldn’t have been, had it been possible to have sent him to school, would he?’

  ‘No, but it was not possible.’

  ‘Oh, I know that! But although he may behave like a spoiled child he is now a man grown, and I can’t but feel that it is most unwise to keep him in leading-strings.’ She recollected herself, and said: ‘But I shouldn’t say so!’ She saw that he was frowning, and added cheerfully: ‘It is a mistake to refine too much on the odd humours of adolescents, particularly of those who don’t enjoy robust health. I daresay he will outgrow his aches and ails, and become perfectly stout.’

  ‘I wish you may be right, but I fear you are not,’ he replied, rather harshly. ‘I think him worse than he was three months ago.’ He glanced down at her, a satirical gleam in his eye. ‘And I don’t think, Cousin Kate, that you will be able to manage him for long!’

  Eight

  When Torquil emerged from seclusion, he looked jaded to death, and was in a mood of black depression. Kate was shocked, and needed no prompting from Lady Broome to try to raise him from his dejection. But she did venture to suggest that a change of scene would be of more benefit to him than her company.

  Lady Broome vetoed this. She spoke in glib terms of his excitability, and the irritation of his nerves; she said that it suited him best to go on in a jog-trot way. Kate could not deny his excitability, or the imbalance of his spirits, but when she hinted that boredom and constant surveillance were at the root of the trouble, she received a crushing snub. ‘My dear Kate,’ said her ladyship, ‘I’ve no doubt you mean well, but you must really allow me to understand Torquil’s constitution better than you do! You seem sometimes to forget that I am his mother.’

  There was no more to be said. Kate begged pardon, rather stiffly, and went off to tell Torquil that she had failed in her mission. As she had approached Lady Broome at his instigation, and knew that he believed her to have considerable influence with his mother, she was not surprised that he should sink instantly into gloom.

  ‘I see what it is!’ he declared, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘I shall be kept here all my life!’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Kate, in heartening accents. ‘You will come of age in another two years, and then you may do as you choose.’

  ‘You don’t know my mother!’ he said bitterly. ‘She’ll never let me go! Never!’

  ‘Yes, she will. Even if she wished to keep you here, she couldn’t do so!’

  ‘I hate her!’ he whispered. ‘O God, how I hate her!’

  Kate was horrified, but she managed to speak calmly. ‘You must not say so, Torquil. You know it is untrue! How could you hate your mother? She may be over-anxious, but you can’t doubt that she has your welfare at heart!’

  ‘No, she hasn’t! She only cares for the Broome heritage!’ he said savagely. ‘Well, I am a Broome, which she isn’t, and I don’t care a straw for it! Sometimes I think I’ll run away, but I haven’t any money! She’d get me back, as sure as check! She’ll drive me to put a period to my life!’

  This was very much too melodramatic for Kate, and she nearly lost patience, and did, in fact, say, with some severity: ‘When you talk like that, Torquil, you make it hard for me to sympathize with you! And – which is perhaps more to the point! – it lends a great deal of weight to what your mother says of you!’

  ‘What does she say of me?’ he demanded, searching her face with hungry eyes.

  ‘That you are too excitable. And it is true, you know! Either you are aux anges, or blue-devilled! If you wish for enlargement, keep a stricter guard on your temper! Don’t – don’t fly into a pelter for trifling reasons! Show your mother that you have overcome the – the inequality of your spirits, and I am persuaded she won’t keep you here against your will!’ She laid a quietening hand over his clasped ones, which writhed together, and said coaxingly: ‘You know, Torquil, your constitution is not yet as robust as she could wish, and she knows, if you do not, that it needs very little to put you quite out of curl.’

  He looked intently at her, and startled her by saying: ‘How pretty you are! How kind ! I like you so much, Kate!’

  ‘Well, I’m very much obliged to you, but what has that to say to anything? I wish you won’t fly off at a tangent!’

  ‘I thought I wanted to marry Dolly,’ he said, disregarding her words. ‘Now I think I’d rather marry you.’

  ‘Oh, do you, indeed? Well, you can’t marry me!’

  ‘Why can’t I?’

  ‘For a number of excellent reasons!’ she replied tartly. ‘One is that I am much too old for you; another that it would be a most unsuitable alliance; and a third is that I don’t wish to marry you! Don’t take an affront into your head! I like you very well, but if you mean to fancy yourself in love with me I shall take you in strong aversion – for it is only fancy, Torquil!’

  Without paying the least heed to her, he said abruptly: ‘I’ll recite one of my poems to you, shall I?’

  ‘Certainly! pray do!’ she invited cordially.

  He sat staring ahead of him for several moments, and then struck his fist against his knee, and exclaimed pettishly: ‘No, I won’t! You wouldn’t appreciate it!’

  ‘No, very likely I shouldn’t. Let us go for a walk instead!’

  ‘I don’t wish to go for a walk! Where’s my cousin?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably with Sir Timothy.’

  ‘Ay!’ he said, his eyes kindling. ‘Bamboozling my father with his coaxing ways!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ she said impatiently. ‘He hasn’t any coaxing ways! Merely, he feels an affection for Sir Timothy which you, Torquil, do not!’

  ‘What cause have I to feel affection for my father?’ he demanded. ‘Always – always! – he yields to Mama! Or to Philip! Oh, yes, certainly to Philip! And you may depend upon it that Philip won’t recommend him to let me go!’

  She was silent, not knowing what to say, because when she had asked Philip if he did not agree that Torquil would be better if allowed rather more freedom, he had shaken his head, and had said decidedly: ‘No, I don’t!’

  Stung, she had said: ‘I can’t conceive what you have to gain by supporting my aunt in her determination to keep the poor boy cooped up here!’

  ‘I have nothing to gain but one single object!’ He broke off suddenly, and added curtly: ‘Which does not concern you!’ Perceiving from her heightened colour and smouldering eyes that he had nettled her, he had laughed, and had said: ‘Oh, don’t nab the rust, Cousin Kate! What I have to gain doesn’t concern me either!’

  In high dudgeon, she had turned on her heel, and left him. Thinking over his words, she could make nothing of them. She was reluctant to believe that he harboured designs against Torquil’s life; and, even if he did, it was impossible to see how these could be furthered by Torquil’s continued residence at Staplewood, as closely guarded as he was.

  She was thinking of this passage when Torquil’s voice intruded upon her reverie. ‘Have I nicked it, coz?’ he asked jeeringly. ‘Have you spoken to Philip on this subject? What a goose-cap you are! I know what answer he gave you!’ He sprang up, his face contorted. ‘I tell you I am surrounded by enemies!’ he said violently.

  ‘Are you?’ she enquired politely. ‘I trust you don’t number me amongst them?’

  ‘How can I tell? Sometimes I think – No! No, I don’t! Not you! But everyone else – Matthew, Philip, Badger, Whalley, my mother – even my father! They are all in a string!’

  ‘Oh, fiddle!’ she sna