Cousin Kate Read online

  Scholes, his stricken gaze imploring Mr Philip Broome’s clemency, said miserably: ‘It’s true, Mr Philip, but as God’s my judge it ain’t my fault! Nor it ain’t Fleet’s fault neither, though he says if he’d have known what Mr Torquil was going to do he’d have opened the gates, no matter what her ladyship’s orders was! If Whalley had of been there, it wouldn’t have happened, but knowing as how Mr Torquil was in bed with a touch of the sun, he’d taken my lady’s mare to the village, to be reshod. There was only me and young Ned in the yard, sir, and I was busy grooming your bays, and never dreamed Mr Torquil had come down to the stables, and had ordered Ned to saddle up for him. And, although I fetched the lad a clout, I don’t see as how you can blame him, for, let alone he’s a gormless chawbacon, you couldn’t hardly expect him to start argufying with Mr Torquil. The first I knew of it was when I see Mr Torquil leading his chestnut out. I ran, quick as I could, but he was in the saddle by the time I got to him, and listen to me he would not. He was in one of his hey-go-mad moods, Mr Philip, and maybe I done wrong to catch hold of his bridle, because it made him fly up into the boughs, the way he does when he’s crossed, and he slashed his whip at me. And then the chestnut reared, and the next thing I knew was that I was on the flat of my back, and Mr Torquil going off at full gallop, and young Ned standing there with his mouth half-cocked, and his eyes fairly popping out of his head. So I rode Sir Timothy’s old gray down the avenue, on his halter – and – and the rest is like this lady says, sir! And what her ladyship will say I dursn’t think on!’

  ‘She won’t blame you,’ Philip said. ‘What have you done about the chestnut?’

  ‘I’ve left him with Fleet, but he’ll have to be shot, Mr Philip, no question! Only I dursn’t do it without I’m ordered to!’

  ‘You may say that I ordered you to shoot the poor brute.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank’ee, sir. But it’ll go to my heart to do it!’ said Scholes. ‘Such a prime bit of blood and bone as he is! What can have come over Mr Torquil to cram him at the wall, like he must have done, I’ll never know!’

  He then withdrew, sadly shaking his head, and Philip, looking at Kate, said grimly: ‘This, I fancy, is where we kick the beam. It will be all over the county by tomorrow.’ He glanced at Mrs Nidd, saying, with a wry smile: ‘What a moment for your arrival! I feel I ought to beg your pardon!’

  ‘Well, I hope you won’t, sir. It’s for me to beg yours, if my lady is laid up, which I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have come – not until she was in better cue, that is!’

  ‘But I told you, Sarah, in the letter which I gave to you, Phil – Cousin Philip! – asking you to make sure it was taken to the Post Office!’ Kate exclaimed.

  He regarded her in some amusement. ‘Yes, but, although the posts are much improved, I hardly think Mrs Nidd could have received a letter sent off yesterday in time to have caught the night-coach to Market Harborough!’

  ‘Good God, was it only two days ago that I wrote it?’ said Kate, pressing her hands to her temples. ‘It seems an age!’

  ‘The only letter I’ve had from you, Miss Kate, barring the first one you wrote, was the scratch of a note Mr Nidd brought me,’ said Sarah. ‘And, to give credit where it’s due, he brought it to Polly’s house as soon as he got off the coach! What’s more, I didn’t hear a word out of him about being fed on pig-swill ! Pig-swill indeed! I don’t say Tom’s wife has got my hand with pastry, but I hope you know me better, Miss Kate, than to suppose I’d leave Father to someone who doesn’t dress meat any better than – than –’

  ‘Than I do!’ supplied Kate, with the glimmer of a smile. ‘But if you haven’t read the letter I wrote two days ago, you can’t know that – that I have become engaged to Mr Philip Broome!’

  ‘I’ve got eyes in my head!’ retorted Mrs Nidd, with asperity. ‘Not but what it was Father nudged me on! You may say what you like, Miss Kate, but Father’s got a deal of rumgumption – for all his twittiness!’

  ‘But I never said that he hadn’t! I have the greatest respect for Mr Nidd!’ said Kate demurely.

  ‘So have I,’ said Mr Philip Broome. ‘I thought him a truly estimable old gentleman! What did he tell you, Mrs Nidd?’

  ‘Well, sir, if you’ll pardon the expression, he said the pair of you was smelling of April and May!’ replied Sarah apologetically. ‘He took a great fancy to you, sir – which is a thing he don’t often do! – and I’d like to wish you both very happy, for I can see you’re just the man for Miss Kate! Which I never thought to see, and which makes me as happy as a grig!’

  In proof of this statement, she dissolved into tears; but soon recovered, and went upstairs with Kate to make the acquaintance of Mrs Thorne. On the way, Kate hurriedly put her in possession of such facts as it was desirable she should know, to all of which Sarah responded calmly that there was no need for her to trouble herself.

  So, indeed, it proved. After a ceremonious beginning, which made Kate quake, perceptible signs of thaw set in: a circumstance attributable on the one hand to Mrs Thorne’s warm praise of Miss Kate; and on the other to the keen, if spurious, interest Mrs Nidd showed in the delicacy of Mrs Thorne’s constitution. When Kate wondered (audibly) whether, perhaps, she ought to inform Sidlaw of Mrs Nidd’s arrival, Mrs Thorne not only said that Miss Sidlaw (for all the airs she gave herself) had nothing to do with any of the household arrangements, but offered to have the bed made up in the small room adjoining Kate’s. She then made Sarah free of her little parlour, and said that it would be quite like old times to entertain a visitor to dinner in the Room. ‘Before Sir Timothy took ill,’ she said impressively, ‘there was often above twenty visiting dressers and valets to be catered for. Oh, dear me, yes! But her ladyship has given up entertaining, so you’ll find us a small company, ma’am. There’s only me, and Mr Pennymore, and Tenby. And Miss Sidlaw, of course. But Miss Sidlaw and me are not speaking.’

  After this awful pronouncement, she led the way to the little room beside Kate’s, and said she would have Mrs Nidd’s baggage sent up immediately. Then she withdrew, whereupon Kate hugged Sarah convulsively, saying: ‘Oh, Sarah, I’m so glad you’ve come! You don’t know how glad I am!’

  ‘Well, if I don’t it’s no fault of yours, dearie!’ said Sarah, patting her soothingly. ‘The idea of you coming hurtling down the stairs, screeching “Sarah!” like a regular romp! Whatever must they all have thought of you? A pretty way to behave, Miss Kate! As though I’d never taught you better! Now, just you give over, and tell Sarah what’s the matter!’

  Thus adjured, Kate gave a shaky laugh, and took her to her own room, where they would be safe from interruption until Ellen came up to dress her for dinner. ‘Which won’t be nearly long enough for me to tell you the things I tried to write, in the letter Mr Philip Broome despatched for me, and found I couldn’t. Sarah, my aunt intercepted my letters to you!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Nidd grimly. ‘So Father told me! That’s why I came! That, and him saying that things didn’t smell right to him. But what I don’t know is why she should have done so, and Father, for all he thinks himself so long-headed, don’t know either! So what with that, and me being uneasy in my mind ever since her ladyship took you away, Miss Kate, I thought that the sooner I came to see for myself the better!’

  ‘I think it was to make a breach between us. I haven’t asked her: after what passed between us today, it isn’t – it doesn’t seem to me to be important any longer. She – she brought me here to – to marry me to my cousin Torquil, Sarah!’

  ‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘I won’t deny that when you wrote that he was the most beautiful young man you’d ever seen I did hope you and he would make a match of it, but now that I’ve seen him I do hope you won’t marry him, love – which it stands to reason you can’t, being as how you’ve accepted Mr Philip Broome’s offer – for a more whisky-frisky, nasty-tempered young gentleman I trust I’ll never meet!’