Cousin Kate Read online

  ‘Yes, indeed, my lady, and so you may be!’ said the doctor. ‘That puts me in mind of a strange occurrence which befell me many years ago, when I was sojourning in Derbyshire.’

  Torquil muttered: ‘O God!’ but Lady Broome invited the doctor to continue, and cast a quelling look at her son, which made him give a smothered giggle.

  By the time the doctor had come to the end of his anecdote, the second course had been set on the table, and Torquil was pressing Kate, in dumb show, to eat a cheesecake. She shook her head, whereupon he exclaimed, interrupting the doctor, that she must be ill, since she had eaten almost nothing; and she said in a hurry that she would have a little of the jelly. ‘But are you ill?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘No, no! Just – just not hungry!’ she assured him, touched by his solicitude.

  He smiled engagingly upon her. ‘Oh, I’m so happy to hear you say so! I was afraid you meant to cry off from our game!’ he said ingenuously.

  She choked, but managed to gasp: ‘Not at all!’

  Lady Broome came to her rescue, reproving Torquil for breaking in so rudely on the doctor’s story. ‘And let me tell you, my son, that to draw attention to Kate’s loss of appetite is even more uncivil! She is feeling the heat, as I am myself – but I notice that you don’t remark on my loss of appetite! Dear child, if you have finished, shall we go upstairs?’

  Kate had not finished, but she thankfully abandoned the jelly, and followed her ladyship from the room. On their way up the Grand Stair, Lady Broome said: ‘Dr Delabole informs me that you had an unpleasant experience this afternoon, in the wood. Very disagreeable, and it is no wonder that it made you feel squeamish, but it doesn’t do to refine too much upon such things, my love. People who live in the country are for ever killing something! There is really very little difference between the unlettered yokel who sets snares for rabbits, and the gentleman who shoots pheasants, except that one is a poacher, of course. I must tell the head-keeper to be on the watch.’

  Kate returned no answer. She could only suppose that Dr Delabole had not revealed the gruesome details to her aunt; and, recalling his advice to her not to mention the episode, she thought that this was very probable: Lady Broome could scarcely have dismissed the matter so coolly had she known the full sum of it, nor could she have expected Kate to banish it from her mind. But when they reached the Long Drawing-room again, she recommended Kate to prosecute a search for the missing fox and geese, saying, with an expressive smile: ‘We shall have no peace unless they are found! The game might quite as well be played with draughts, but you know what Torquil is, once he takes an idea into his head!’

  Fortunately, Kate discovered the pieces in a box at the back of the cabinet; and by the time Torquil and Dr Delabole came into the room, she had set the board out on a small table, and was arranging the geese on it. Torquil cried delightedly: ‘Oh, you’ve found them! Capital! But that’s not the way to set them out, coz! I’ll show you!’

  She was very willing to learn the game, but had it not been for Dr Delabole, who drew up a chair at her elbow, and quietly instructed her, she must have been hopelessly bewildered by Torquil’s exposition. The rules of the game were simple, but the play called for some skill. Having been beaten twice, in the least possible number of moves, she began to master the tactics, and was soon forcing Torquil to exercise his considerable ingenuity to win. When the tea-tray was brought in, and Lady Broome called a halt, she would have put the pieces away, but Torquil begged for just one more game, and she readily agreed – subject to Lady Broome’s approval. It was the gayest evening of any she had yet spent at Staplewood.

  Lady Broome said: ‘Very well, but come and drink your tea first, both of you! I am persuaded that you at least must be in need of it, Kate! Such squeaks of dismay as you’ve been uttering, and such crows of triumph!’

  ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, ma’am. Have we been very noisy?’ Kate said penitently. ‘It is the most ridiculous game, but excessively exciting! When I find the fox about to pounce on one of my geese, I can’t help but squeak! But as for crowing, that was Torquil, and very unhandsome it was of him! I had no occasion to crow!’

  ‘Oh, what a bouncer!’ mocked Torquil. ‘You cornered me once, and if that wasn’t a crow that you gave I never heard one!’

  ‘Well, it’s my turn to be the fox this time,’ said Kate merrily. ‘And your turn to squeak! See if I don’t snap up your geese!’

  The final game was prolonged; Torquil won it, and said virtuously: ‘Observe that I’m not crowing, coz!’

  She laughed. ‘That’s worse! Gracious, how exhausted I am!’

  Dr Delabole took her wrist, and shook his head solemnly: ‘A tumultuous pulse!’ he pronounced. ‘I shall prescribe warm tar-water – excellent for a fever!’

  ‘Ugh!’ shuddered Kate. ‘It sounds horrid!’

  ‘All medicines are horrid!’ stated Torquil.

  ‘Very true,’ agreed Lady Broome, casting a cloth over her embroidery frame, and rising to her feet. ‘However, I hardly think we shall have to dose Kate with tar-water, or anything else! My dear, if you are ready, shall we go up to bed? It is growing late.’

  ‘Of course I am ready, ma’am! I wish I may not have been keeping you up: you should have told us to stop playing! Goodnight, sir – goodnight, cousin! If you hear a shriek in the night, you will know that I have had your nightmare, and have wakened just as I was about to be caught!’

  She waved her hand to him, and went away with Lady Broome. She said, halfway along the gallery: ‘How well Torquil looks tonight! I shouldn’t wonder at it if that long, natural sleep did him all the good in the world. He had an appetite, too. Do you know, ma’am, it’s the first time since I came here that he has wanted his dinner? What a pity it is that he suffers so often from insomnia, and has to be given composers! Surely they must be very bad for him? I mean,’ she added, remembering the snubs she had received, ‘that it is a pity he can’t sleep without them!’

  ‘A great pity,’ agreed her ladyship. ‘But I hope he may be in a way to be better.’ She paused outside the door of Kate’s bedchamber, but instead of bidding her goodnight she said: ‘I shall come and tuck you up presently, so don’t fall asleep! I want to talk to you.’

  She then went to her own room, leaving Kate considerably surprised, and quite at a loss to guess what they were going to talk about.

  A very sleepy abigail was awaiting her. She had tried to dissuade Ellen from waiting to put her to bed, but without success. Ellen had looked shocked, and had said that she knew her duty. ‘It isn’t your duty if I don’t desire you to undress me,’ had argued Kate. But Ellen had said that it was her duty, and that her ladyship would be very angry if she failed in it. ‘Well, her ladyship won’t know!’

  ‘Oh, yes, miss, she will – begging your pardon! Miss Sidlaw would tell her, and I’d be turned off ! Oh, pray, miss, don’t say I must go to bed before you do!’

  Since Ellen was plainly on the verge of tears, Kate was obliged to give way. She reflected that although no great hardship was suffered by Ellen or Sidlaw at Staplewood, where early hours were the rule, the life of a fashionable lady’s dresser must be arduous indeed. Perhaps a governess’s lot was preferable: she might have very much more to do during the day, but at least she was allowed to sleep at night.

  She had just tied on her nightcap when Lady Broome tapped at the door. She jumped into bed, telling Ellen to admit her ladyship, and then go to bed, and sat up amongst the pillows, hugging her knees.

  Lady Broome had taken off her dress, and was wearing an elegant dressing-gown of lavender satin, lavishly trimmed with lace and ribbons. Kate exclaimed involuntarily: ‘Oh, how pretty! How well it becomes you, ma’am! Ellen, set a chair for her ladyship before you go, if you please! I shan’t want you again tonight.’

  ‘Yes, the purple shades do become me,’ said Lady Broome, sitting down beside the b