Cousin Kate Read online

  Kate had to be satisfied, but as it did not seem to her that her aunt neglected any detail, and was far from being a sad housekeeper, she found little to do, and was obliged to content herself with such unexacting tasks as gathering and arranging flowers, dusting ornaments, and playing cards with Sir Timothy, whenever his health permitted him to emerge from the seclusion of his own apartments. This, as she discovered, was not often. Dr Delabole was in constant attendance upon him, and watched him without seeming to. She was made aware of this when Sir Timothy suffered a slight seizure one evening, after dinner. Before she had realized it, the doctor, who had been talking to Lady Broome, was at his side, reviving him with strong smelling-salts, and lowering him to a recumbent position. Dismissed with Torquil to the billiard-room, she ventured to ask him what ailed his father, and was considerably daunted by the reply. ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Torquil indifferently. ‘He’s been in queer stirrups ever since I can remember. I believe it’s his heart, but no one ever tells me anything!’

  After this, Kate added a postscript to the letter she had written to Mrs Nidd: My cousin Torquil is the strangest boy, with the face of an angel, and the coldest of dispositions. I don’t know what to make of him.

  This was not the first letter she had written to Mrs Nidd, but so far she had received no response to any of her previous missives. She was beginning to feel worried, and a little hurt. Since Sir Timothy was not a Member of Parliament, she had been unable to get a frank; but it seemed very unlikely that Sarah had repulsed her letters because she grudged the postage; nor, in a city, was she obliged to collect her letters from the receiving office: indeed, Joe Nidd even paid to have his mail delivered early each morning. It seemed even more unlikely that she could be ill: Sarah was never ill. And if she had been taken suddenly ill she would surely have scribbled a few lines, or instructed Joe to do so? When Kate had written her first letter, she had taken it to Lady Broome, and asked diffidently if it might be despatched. Lady Broome had replied: ‘Yes, dear child, of course! Put it on the table in the hall! Pennymore arranges for the letters to be carried to the Post Office in Market Harborough, and it will go with mine.’

  Kate had obeyed these instructions; but when no answer was forthcoming she asked Pennymore if her letters had in fact been taken to the Post Office. He said that if she had placed them on the table in the hall they had certainly been posted; and further disclosed that the incoming post-bag was always delivered to her ladyship, who sorted and distributed the letters it contained, most of which were directed to herself.

  So when Kate had sealed her fourth letter to Sarah, she hesitated for a few moments, and then went in search of her aunt. She found her writing at her desk, and upon being invited, with a kind smile, to tell her aunt what she wanted, said frankly: ‘To own the truth, ma’am, I am in a worry! I haven’t heard from Sarah – from Mrs Nidd! – though I’ve written to her several times. I can’t help wondering whether –’ She stopped, finding herself quite unable to continue, and tried again. ‘I collect, ma’am, that she hasn’t written to me? I mean – you would have given me any letters that were directed to me?’

  ‘But of course!’ said Lady Broome, raising her eyebrows.

  Thrown into a little confusion, Kate said stammeringly: ‘Yes. Well, of c-course you would, ma’am! Only it does seem so odd of Sarah…’

  Lady Broome gave a soft laugh. ‘Does it? You must remember, my dear, that persons of her order find writing a great labour.’

  It was true that Sarah did not write with ease. Kate agreed doubtfully. Lady Broome continued in a smooth tone: ‘If you have given her an account of yourself she knows that you are well, and – I trust! – happy, and she feels, no doubt, that you are off her hands. So much as she must have to do!’ She smiled. ‘After all, you haven’t been here for very long yet, have you? I shouldn’t get into a fidget, if I were you!’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said Kate meekly.

  She turned away, and was about to leave the room when Lady Broome said: ‘By the way, my dear, I am giving a dinner-party tomorrow, so tell Risby to send suitable flowers up to the house in the morning! For the hall, the Crimson saloon, the staircase, the Long Drawing-room, and the anteroom. I suppose we had better have some for the gallery as well.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but I had liefer by far pick them myself ! Risby’s notions of what is suitable are so – so nipcheese!’

  ‘As you wish,’ said her ladyship. ‘Don’t fag yourself to death, however!’

  ‘I won’t!’ promised Kate, laughing.

  She went off, heartened by the prospect of a party to relieve what had begun, very slightly, to be every evening’s boredom. She had been surprised to find her aunt leading almost the life of a recluse at Staplewood, for she had assumed her to be a woman of decided fashion, and knew that she took pleasure in being the great lady of the district. She supposed that Sir Timothy’s ill-health accounted for it, but it did seem to her that a few small parties of young persons need not disturb him, and would have done much to reconcile Torquil to his lot. Then it occurred to her that Torquil had no friends, other than the Templecombes, and she wondered whether there was perhaps a dearth of young people in the neighbourhood. She ventured to ask Lady Broome if this were so, and was told that there were very few of Torquil’s age. ‘He doesn’t make friends easily, and I must own that I am glad of it,’ said her ladyship frankly. ‘He is somewhat above the touch of most of the people who live within our reach. Mere smatterers, my dear, to put it in straight words! Much given to romping parties, too: I daresay you know what I mean. I dislike such affairs, and they would not do for Torquil at all. He is so excitable, and his character is as yet unformed. You must have noticed that he suffers from unequal spirits: either he is in alt, or sunk in dejection! The one state invariably follows hard on the other, and although he is in a way to be very much better, Dr Delabole considers that he should still lead a quiet life.’

  It did not seem to Kate that to be shut off from his contemporaries could be a cure for unequal spirits, and the suspicion crossed her mind that Lady Broome was a possessive parent. But nothing in her behaviour supported this theory. Her manner might be caressing, but she did not hang about her son, and she certainly did not dote upon him, however jealously she might guard his health. Little by little it was being borne in on Kate that, despite her manners and her generosity, Lady Broome was a coldhearted woman, who cared more for position than for any human being. Scolding herself for harbouring so ungenerous a thought, Kate cast about in her mind for the real author of Torquil’s enforced seclusion. She found it easily enough in the person of Dr Delabole. From the first moment of meeting him she had taken him in dislike. He spared no pains to make himself agreeable; he had treated her with every degree of attention; towards Sir Timothy he showed an engaging solicitude; towards Lady Broome a playful friendliness which never passed the line; and yet Kate could not like him. She suspected him of feathering his nest at Sir Timothy’s expense. It then occurred to her that she might be thought to be feathering her own nest at Sir Timothy’s expense, and she was obliged to scold herself for harbouring yet another ungenerous suspicion.

  These ruminations led her inevitably to the reflection that Staplewood was a most extraordinary house, in that its three inmates led quite detached lives. Sir Timothy’s apartments were in one wing of it; Torquil’s in the opposite wing; and Lady Broome might have been said to occupy the central block. Unless Sir Timothy were indisposed, they met at dinner; but only rarely did Lady Broome intrude upon her husband’s privacy, and still more rarely upon her son’s. Kate knew herself to be ignorant of the customs prevailing in large establishments, but this state of affairs struck her at the outset as being very strange, for although, to all outward appearances, Lady Broome was a devoted wife and mother, it seemed odd to Kate that even when Dr Delabole reported Sir Timothy to be rather out of frame, she showed no disposition to remain at his bedside.