Cousin Kate Read online

  ‘Yes, please, but let me get a shawl first.’

  He accompanied her to her bedchamber, and stood in the doorway, leaning his shoulders against the wall, his hands dug into his pockets, while she changed her slippers for a pair of half-boots, and wrapped a shawl round herself. His attitude was one of careless grace; his dress negligent, with the unstarched points of his shirt-collar drooping over a loosely knotted handkerchief, and a shooting-jacket worn open over a fancy waistcoat. A lock of his gleaming hair fell across his brow, and prompted Kate to say, with a twinkle: ‘You do study the picturesque, don’t you? One might take you for a poet!’

  ‘I am a poet,’ he replied coldly.

  ‘No, are you? Then that accounts for it!’

  ‘Accounts for what?’

  ‘The windswept look, of course. Oh, don’t poker up! Did no one ever banter you before?’

  It seemed, for a moment, as though he had taken offence; but then he laughed, rather reluctantly, and said: ‘No, never. Is that what you mean to do, cousin?’

  ‘Well, I don’t precisely mean to, but I daresay I shall. You must remember that I have lived amongst soldiers! Very young officers, you know, are for ever cutting jokes, and poking fun at each other, and anyone making a figure of himself must be prepared to stand the roast! Come, let us go: I am quite ready!’

  He muttered something which she did not catch, but she did not ask him to repeat it, feeling that he must be left to recover his temper. Not until they had left the house did she speak again, and then, perceiving a bed of spring flowers, she exclaimed: ‘Oh, how charming! Your mama told me that she had made the gardens her particular concern. Pray take me all over them! If it isn’t a dead bore?’

  ‘Oh, everything is a dead bore!’ he said, shrugging up his shoulders. ‘Being a Broome – being the heir – being alive! Do you ever wish you had never been born?’

  Suspecting him of dramatizing himself, she answered, after consideration: ‘No. I always think, when things are at their worst, that tomorrow will be better. And it very often is – as when your mother, finding me, if not quite destitute, at any rate at my wits’ end, invited me to stay with her. So don’t despair, Torquil!’

  She ended by impulsively pressing his thin hand, and smiling up into his suddenly haggard face. He stared hungrily down at her for a moment, before shaking off her hand, and saying harshly: ‘Well, let us take a look at the Italian garden – and the rose-garden – and the knot-garden – and the belvedere – if that’s what you wish! Oh, and the herb-garden, and the shrubbery! Not that you will see much in them at this season! But you won’t care for that, I daresay!’

  She stood her ground, saying calmly: ‘But I do care. Take me, if you please, to the belvedere, which I have already seen from the window of my room, and which seems to command a view of the lake!’

  Their eyes battled for mastery. Hers won, their coolness quenching the flame in his; but the effort to withstand his scorching gaze left her shaken. Before she could bring her thoughts into order, the flame had shrunk, and he was making an exaggerated bow, and saying gaily: ‘As you wish, cousin! This way!’

  She walked in silence beside him down a path which led to the belvedere, and almost shrank from him when, all at once, he stopped, compelling her to do so too by gripping her arm, and swinging her round to face him. ‘Are you afraid of me, Cousin Kate?’ he demanded.

  ‘Afraid of you? No, why should I be?’ she countered.

  ‘You jumped!’

  ‘Well, so I should think, when you startled me so much!’ she said indignantly. ‘For goodness’ sake, Torquil, don’t play-act! At all events, not to me, for, whatever your entourage may feel, I am quite unimpressed! Now, if you will be so obliging as to let me go, we will proceed on our way to the belvedere!’

  He gave a low chuckle, and released his painful grip on her arm. ‘Strong, aren’t I?’ He flexed his long fingers, regarding them with an admiring smile. ‘I could strangle you one-handed, you know. Wouldn’t think it, to look at me, would you?’

  ‘No, but as I haven’t had occasion to consider the matter there’s nothing wonderful in that!’ she retorted, rubbing her arm. His chagrined face stirred her sense of fun; she broke into laughter, and said: ‘Cry craven, Torquil! You have the wrong sow by the ear: I’m not so easily impressed!’

  That made him echo her laughter. ‘Kate, Cousin Kate, do you call yourself a sow? I should never dare do so! You are the most unusual girl!’

  ‘I’ve had an unusual upbringing – and well for you if you don’t call me a sow! Now, do come to the belvedere! My aunt will certainly ask if you showed it to me, and if you are obliged to say that you didn’t, it will be all holiday with you!’

  He threw a quick look over his shoulder, as though he feared to see Lady Broome. ‘Yes. As you say! Come, let’s run!’

  He caught her hand as he spoke, and forced her to run beside him down the path. She made a snatch at her skirt, but arrived, breathless, laughing, and with a torn flounce, at the belvedere. ‘Odious boy!’ she scolded, pulling her hand out of his. ‘Just look at what you’ve made me do to my gown! Now I must pin it up!’ She opened her ridicule, drew out a paper of pins, and, sitting down on the steps, began to repair the damage.

  Watching with great interest, Torquil asked if she always carried pins.

  ‘Yes, for one never knows when one may need them. There! I hope it will hold until I can stitch it – and that my aunt doesn’t see me with a pinned-up flounce! She would take me for a regular Mab, I daresay. I may now enjoy the view – and, oh, yes, I do enjoy it! How very right your mama was to build a belvedere just here! May I enter it?’

  ‘Do!’ he said cordially.

  She mounted the steps, and found herself in a summer-house, which was furnished with a table, and one chair. A book lay on the table and a standish was set beside it. Kate said: ‘Is it private, this room? Ought I to be in it?’

  ‘Oh, yes! I don’t care.’

  ‘You may not, but perhaps your mama might!’

  ‘Why? She doesn’t sit here!’

  ‘Is it yours, then? I’m very much obliged to you for letting me see it.’ She moved to the front of the round tower, and stood resting her hands on the stone ledge, looking out between the slender pillars to the lake below, and to the trees and the flowering shrubs beyond the lake. ‘It is very beautiful,’ she said, in a troubled tone. ‘Very beautiful, and yet very sad. Why should still water be so melancholy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t find it so. Come down to the bridge! There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream – only it isn’t a brook! Just a deep lake!’

  She followed him down the steps to the stone bridge which was flung across the narrow end of the lake. He went ahead of her to the middle of the bridge, and stood there, leaning his arms on the parapet, and watching her with a mocking smile. ‘Come along!’ he coaxed. ‘I won’t throw you in!’

  She laughed. ‘No, won’t you?’

  ‘Not if you don’t wish it!’

  ‘I most certainly do not wish it!’

  ‘Don’t you? Not at all? I often think how pleasant it would be to drown.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be in the least pleasant!’ she said severely. ‘Are you trying to make my flesh creep? I warn you, I have a very matter-of-fact mind, and shall put you to a non-plus! What lies beyond the lake?’

  ‘Oh, the Home Wood! Do you care to walk in it?’

  ‘Yes, of all things! If we have time? What is the time?’

  ‘I haven’t a notion. Does it signify?’

  ‘I was thinking of my aunt.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She may need me to do something for her!’

  ‘Mama? Good God, she doesn’t need anyone to do things for her!’ he said impatiently. ‘Besides, she told me to ta