Cousin Kate Read online

  Not by so much as a blink of the eyelids did he betray that he had observed Mr Philip Broome’s improper conduct, but Kate was almost overcome by confusion, and, as soon as Pennymore had withdrawn, took her betrothed severely to task.

  He had gone back to his own seat, on the other side of the table, but he was quite impenitent. ‘Bless you, my pretty widgeon, we’ve nothing to fear from old Pennymore!’ he said.

  ‘What if it hadn’t been Pennymore, but James, or William?’ she demanded. ‘Or the doctor? Or Torquil? A pretty scrape we should have been in!’

  ‘Stop scolding, archwife! Delabole was finishing his breakfast when I started to eat mine; and Torquil – having, according to Delabole’s account, passed a disturbed night finds himself very languid this morning. I imagine that Delabole laced his lemonade, last night, with whatever drug it is that he uses to keep him quiet. He became drowsy, after drinking it; yawning, and complaining that he couldn’t keep his eyes open – for which, I assure you, I was profoundly thankful! I had the devil of a time with him, you know. I think the full moon excites him: he was quite determined to go down to the lake. The only thing to do was to try whether I could tire him out.’

  She asked in quick alarm: ‘Was he violent? I thought he was in – in one of his distempered freaks, before he went down to dinner, but then he seemed to recover, and I did hope – But when Dr Delabole came into the drawing-room, I saw his eyes change – you know how they do?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I know. He wasn’t violent, but within amesace of flying into a passion when Delabole tried, in his hamhanded way, to coax him up to bed. When he got to threatening to climb out of his window, and boasting of the number of times he’d done so in the past, I thought it was time to intervene – before Delabole became sick with apprehension!’

  ‘Intervene? You don’t mean you compelled him to go to bed, do you? I don’t doubt you could, just as my aunt does, but I hope you did not, because it would set him against you. It even sets him against my aunt, when she makes him knuckle down to her, and she is his mother!’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t! Much heed would he have paid! I accused him of trying to play nipshot, to escape having to own he couldn’t beat me twice. That was quite enough for him! He forgot everything else in a burning desire to prove me wrong.’

  She smiled. ‘If he won the first game, you must have been playing very skilfully, I think! You are a far better player than he is!’

  ‘I was playing skilfully,’ he said, with a rather rueful laugh. ‘It takes a deal of skill to miss one’s shots by a hair’s breadth! And even more just to win against a suspicious youngster, let me tell you! All the urging he needed to challenge me to a third game was supplied by Delabole, who again tried – or seemed to try – to induce him to go to bed.’ He drew his snuff-box from his pocket, flicked it open, and took a meditative pinch. ‘Everything he said might have been expressly designed to set up Torquil’s bristles. That was either another example of his hamhandedness, or a very shrewd piece of work. I added my mite by showing reluctance to go on playing, which made young Torquil all the more determined to embark on a third game. He was still full of vigour: the only things he complained of were the heat, and thirst. That was Delabole’s chance to drug him, I fancy. At all events, he soon became sleepy, began to play badly, and ended by flinging his cue down in a rage, and staggering up to bed. Delabole then entertained me with a glib explanation of his behaviour. He would have done better to have kept his tongue! Said he was afraid Torquil had a touch of the sun, if you please! He embroidered the story this morning. I don’t pretend to understand the jargon of his trade – he didn’t intend that I should – but the gist of it was that Torquil’s constitution is still so sickly that the least excitement, or over-exertion, makes him feverish.’ He shut his snuff-box with a snap, and restored it to his pocket, saying, as he flicked away a grain from his coat: ‘He was also at pains to tell me that his extreme reluctance to allow Torquil to go out last night arose not from the fear that the boy would escape from the grounds, but from the fear that he would take cold, if he went from a hot room into the night air.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that is possible,’ said Kate reasonably. ‘People in England seem to dread the night air, and, if Torquil has a weakly constitution, no doubt the doctor is afraid a cold might turn to an inflammation of the lungs, or even a consumptive habit.’

  ‘I should rather say that he has a remarkably strong constitution, to have survived all the illnesses which have attacked him.’

  ‘Has he had a great many illnesses?’

  ‘Oh, everything you can think of, including small-pox!’

  ‘Small-pox! But he’s not marked! He must have had it very slightly!’

  ‘He did, but I don’t advise you to say that to Minerva. She and Sidlaw nursed him, and she made what she said to be his critical condition her excuse for calling in Delabole – and putting an end to Dr Ogbourne’s attendance on the family.’

  ‘Oh, Philip, Philip !’ Kate protested. ‘How can you say such things? If Torquil is prone to catch diseases, no wonder she keeps Dr Delabole at Staplewood! Sir Timothy, too! Oh, it is too unjust – I won’t listen to you!’ She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, and jumped up. ‘Good God, it is nearly eleven, and I said I would see the chef at half-past ten! He wishes to know what are my orders for the day! If I thought this meant anything more than casting an eye over his bill of fare, and approving it, I should develop a headache, and send a message that I was too unwell to see him.’

  She went to the door, but he reached it ahead of her, and barred her passage, laying a detaining hand on her arm. ‘Wait!’ he said. ‘You think me unjust! But at least believe that what I have said to you doesn’t spring from prejudice! If I could be proved to be mistaken, I would own to it gladly – not reluctantly!’

  She smiled tremulously, and said simply: ‘Of course you would. Let me go now! If l keep him waiting any longer, I shall wound Gaston’s sensibilities, and find him once more bent on leaving Staplewood immediately!’

  He released her, and opened the door. His countenance was set in stern lines, but there was a look of deep concern in his eyes. Seeing it, she was impelled to kiss her fingers and to lay them fleetingly on his cheek as she passed him. The sternness vanished; he even smiled; but the concern in his eyes remained.

  Eighteen

  By the time Kate had had a lengthy session with the chef, a lengthier one with the housekeeper, and had been forced to endure the slow garrulity of the head-gardener, it was past noon, and she was feeling very ready for a nuncheon. Few things, she ruefully decided, were more exhausting than being obliged to listen to what amounted to monologues, delivered in a rambling style, and almost wholly devoid of interest. The chef, not content with having his suggested bill of fare for dinner approved, laid several alternatives before her, and enthusiastically described his method of dressing various dishes, even going to the length of disclosing the particular herb he used to give its subtle flavour to a sauce of his own devising. Mrs Thorne, with equal enthusiasm, described, in revolting detail, the various ailments to which she was subject; and Risby, seeing her go into the rose-garden with a basket on her arm, joined her there, watching her proceedings with a jaundiced eye, and prefixing his subsequent remarks with the information that she shouldn’t ought to cut flowers in the heat of the day. He then followed her round, discoursing in a very boring way on the proper care of gardens, with digressions into the different treatment demanded by what appeared, from his discourse, to be plants of extreme delicacy and sensibility. Escaping from him at last, Kate realized that she had been subjected to these floods of eloquence because Lady Broome never encouraged her servants to talk to her of anything beyond the sphere of their duties, not even Mrs Thorne, who had come to Staplewood from the Malvern household, and was slavishly devoted to her. They all stood in awe of her, the only one amongst them to whom she unbent being