‘Your own, for instance?’
‘Yes, in default of better. He seems to have no friends. No one to laugh him out of his crotchets! I told him once, joking him, that he studied the picturesque in his attire, and instead of laughing, he took offence! He looked as if he would have been happy to have murdered me, which showed clearly that he was unused to being roasted. Which he wouldn’t have been, had it been possible to have sent him to school, would he?’
‘No, but it was not possible.’
‘Oh, I know that! But although he may behave like a spoiled child he is now a man grown, and I can’t but feel that it is most unwise to keep him in leading-strings.’ She recollected herself, and said: ‘But I shouldn’t say so!’ She saw that he was frowning, and added cheerfully: ‘It is a mistake to refine too much on the odd humours of adolescents, particularly of those who don’t enjoy robust health. I daresay he will outgrow his aches and ails, and become perfectly stout.’
‘I wish you may be right, but I fear you are not,’ he replied, rather harshly. ‘I think him worse than he was three months ago.’ He glanced down at her, a satirical gleam in his eye. ‘And I don’t think, Cousin Kate, that you will be able to manage him for long!’
Eight
When Torquil emerged from seclusion, he looked jaded to death, and was in a mood of black depression. Kate was shocked, and needed no prompting from Lady Broome to try to raise him from his dejection. But she did venture to suggest that a change of scene would be of more benefit to him than her company.
Lady Broome vetoed this. She spoke in glib terms of his excitability, and the irritation of his nerves; she said that it suited him best to go on in a jog-trot way. Kate could not deny his excitability, or the imbalance of his spirits, but when she hinted that boredom and constant surveillance were at the root of the trouble, she received a crushing snub. ‘My dear Kate,’ said her ladyship, ‘I’ve no doubt you mean well, but you must really allow me to understand Torquil’s constitution better than you do! You seem sometimes to forget that I am his mother.’
There was no more to be said. Kate begged pardon, rather stiffly, and went off to tell Torquil that she had failed in her mission. As she had approached Lady Broome at his instigation, and knew that he believed her to have considerable influence with his mother, she was not surprised that he should sink instantly into gloom.
‘I see what it is!’ he declared, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘I shall be kept here all my life!’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Kate, in heartening accents. ‘You will come of age in another two years, and then you may do as you choose.’
‘You don’t know my mother!’ he said bitterly. ‘She’ll never let me go! Never!’
‘Yes, she will. Even if she wished to keep you here, she couldn’t do so!’
‘I hate her!’ he whispered. ‘O God, how I hate her!’
Kate was horrified, but she managed to speak calmly. ‘You must not say so, Torquil. You know it is untrue! How could you hate your mother? She may be over-anxious, but you can’t doubt that she has your welfare at heart!’
‘No, she hasn’t! She only cares for the Broome heritage!’ he said savagely. ‘Well, I am a Broome, which she isn’t, and I don’t care a straw for it! Sometimes I think I’ll run away, but I haven’t any money! She’d get me back, as sure as check! She’ll drive me to put a period to my life!’
This was very much too melodramatic for Kate, and she nearly lost patience, and did, in fact, say, with some severity: ‘When you talk like that, Torquil, you make it hard for me to sympathize with you! And – which is perhaps more to the point! – it lends a great deal of weight to what your mother says of you!’
‘What does she say of me?’ he demanded, searching her face with hungry eyes.
‘That you are too excitable. And it is true, you know! Either you are aux anges, or blue-devilled! If you wish for enlargement, keep a stricter guard on your temper! Don’t – don’t fly into a pelter for trifling reasons! Show your mother that you have overcome the – the inequality of your spirits, and I am persuaded she won’t keep you here against your will!’ She laid a quietening hand over his clasped ones, which writhed together, and said coaxingly: ‘You know, Torquil, your constitution is not yet as robust as she could wish, and she knows, if you do not, that it needs very little to put you quite out of curl.’
He looked intently at her, and startled her by saying: ‘How pretty you are! How kind ! I like you so much, Kate!’
‘Well, I’m very much obliged to you, but what has that to say to anything? I wish you won’t fly off at a tangent!’
‘I thought I wanted to marry Dolly,’ he said, disregarding her words. ‘Now I think I’d rather marry you.’
‘Oh, do you, indeed? Well, you can’t marry me!’
‘Why can’t I?’
‘For a number of excellent reasons!’ she replied tartly. ‘One is that I am much too old for you; another that it would be a most unsuitable alliance; and a third is that I don’t wish to marry you! Don’t take an affront into your head! I like you very well, but if you mean to fancy yourself in love with me I shall take you in strong aversion – for it is only fancy, Torquil!’
Without paying the least heed to her, he said abruptly: ‘I’ll recite one of my poems to you, shall I?’
‘Certainly! pray do!’ she invited cordially.
He sat staring ahead of him for several moments, and then struck his fist against his knee, and exclaimed pettishly: ‘No, I won’t! You wouldn’t appreciate it!’
‘No, very likely I shouldn’t. Let us go for a walk instead!’
‘I don’t wish to go for a walk! Where’s my cousin?’
‘I don’t know. Probably with Sir Timothy.’
‘Ay!’ he said, his eyes kindling. ‘Bamboozling my father with his coaxing ways!’
‘Nonsense!’ she said impatiently. ‘He hasn’t any coaxing ways! Merely, he feels an affection for Sir Timothy which you, Torquil, do not!’
‘What cause have I to feel affection for my father?’ he demanded. ‘Always – always! – he yields to Mama! Or to Philip! Oh, yes, certainly to Philip! And you may depend upon it that Philip won’t recommend him to let me go!’
She was silent, not knowing what to say, because when she had asked Philip if he did not agree that Torquil would be better if allowed rather more freedom, he had shaken his head, and had said decidedly: ‘No, I don’t!’
Stung, she had said: ‘I can’t conceive what you have to gain by supporting my aunt in her determination to keep the poor boy cooped up here!’
‘I have nothing to gain but one single object!’ He broke off suddenly, and added curtly: ‘Which does not concern you!’ Perceiving from her heightened colour and smouldering eyes that he had nettled her, he had laughed, and had said: ‘Oh, don’t nab the rust, Cousin Kate! What I have to gain doesn’t concern me either!’
In high dudgeon, she had turned on her heel, and left him. Thinking over his words, she could make nothing of them. She was reluctant to believe that he harboured designs against Torquil’s life; and, even if he did, it was impossible to see how these could be furthered by Torquil’s continued residence at Staplewood, as closely guarded as he was.
She was thinking of this passage when Torquil’s voice intruded upon her reverie. ‘Have I nicked it, coz?’ he asked jeeringly. ‘Have you spoken to Philip on this subject? What a goose-cap you are! I know what answer he gave you!’ He sprang up, his face contorted. ‘I tell you I am surrounded by enemies!’ he said violently.
‘Are you?’ she enquired politely. ‘I trust you don’t number me amongst them?’
‘How can I tell? Sometimes I think – No! No, I don’t! Not you! But everyone else – Matthew, Philip, Badger, Whalley, my mother – even my father! They are all in a string!’
‘Oh, fiddle!’ she sna
pped, losing patience. ‘I wonder you will talk such moonshine, Torquil! You must know it don’t impress me!’
He muttered something under his breath. She did not hear what it was, but guessed it to be an objurgation, for he was looking furious, and plunged away from her, almost running across the lawn towards the lake. She made no attempt to stop him, but remained where she was, seated on a rustic bench below the terrace and thinking that there was perhaps something to be said for those who considered him to be too excitable to be allowed to run loose.
Presently she was joined by Mr Philip Broome, who came down the steps from the terrace, and, upon catching sight of her, walked towards the bench, saying, with a smile: ‘Ruining your complexion, Cousin Kate?’
‘Oh, it was ruined long ago, in the Peninsula!’ she said lightly.
‘A demonstrably false observation!’ he said, seating himself beside her. ‘No, don’t go! I want to talk to you.’
‘Do you? Why?’ she asked, looking surprised.
‘Because you interest me and I find I don’t know very much about you.’
‘Well, there isn’t very much to know. And it wouldn’t be any concern of yours if there were!’ she said, with relish.
His eyes gleamed appreciatively. ‘Giving me my own again, cousin?’
She could not help laughing. ‘I couldn’t resist, sir! If I was impertinent I beg your pardon, but you needn’t have snubbed me so roughly!’
‘I didn’t mean to. You said you couldn’t conceive what my object is in supporting Minerva –’
‘And you told me it was no concern of mine!’
‘Accept my apologies! I’ll tell you now that my only concern is to spare my uncle anxiety, and – possibly – grief. He is old, and very frail, and he has borne a great deal of trouble in his life. He was passionately devoted to his first wife, but she was of sickly constitution. Two of her children were still-born, and the other three didn’t survive infancy. He wanted a son, you know: any man must want a son to succeed him! That’s why he married Minerva. Oh, I don’t say that he wasn’t petticoat-led! Minerva was a very beautiful girl, but she had only a small fortune. I was a child at the time, but – don’t eat me! – the on-dit was that although everyone admired her no one of rank offered for her. So she married my uncle, and presented him with – Torquil.’
She had listened to him in attentive silence, the echo of her father’s words in her ears, and for a moment she did not speak. Then she said hesitantly: ‘I am aware, of course, that Torquil is a disappointment to him. It could hardly be otherwise, for I suppose that no man wants a son who has to be kept in cotton, or – or who suffers from distempered freaks. But he may improve – indeed, my aunt tells me that he has improved! I collect that you think he might indulge in excesses, if he were allowed more freedom, and so cause Sir Timothy distress?’
‘I think –’ He checked himself, and said curtly: ‘Never mind that! How old are you, Kate?’
‘I’m four-and-twenty – and that’s not a question you should ask of any female past the first blush of her youth, sir!’
‘Yes, from things you have said I’d gathered as much. But when I first saw you I took you for a girl just emerged from the schoolroom.’
‘Well, that was no less than the truth – only I was the governess, not the pupil! And I wish with all my heart that I didn’t look like a schoolgirl! Whenever I apply for a post I’m told that I’m too young!’
‘I imagine you might be!’ he said, amused. ‘I know your father is dead, but your mother – ?’
‘I am an orphan, sir.’
‘I see. But you have other relations, surely?’
‘Only Aunt Minerva. At least, I believe I have numerous relations, but I’ve never met any of them, and I don’t wish to! They behaved very shabbily to my mother, and quite cast her off when she eloped with Papa.’
‘But you have friends?’
She sighed. ‘I’ve lost sight of all our friends in the Regiment, and – and circumstances have prevented me from making new ones. I have my old nurse, however. And my aunt, of course.’ She thought that he might suppose her to be repining, and added brightly: ‘She has proved herself to be very much my friend, you know! You don’t like her, but when she came to invite me to stay here I was almost in despair, and thinking of hiring myself out as an abigail! Only Sarah wouldn’t hear of it, which was why she wrote to my aunt. And although my aunt is so high in the instep – I mean,’ she corrected herself hastily, ‘although you might suppose her to place herself on too high a form she has been so kind to me that I feel I can never repay her.’
‘In fact, you are alone in the world,’ he said. ‘I begin to understand: that is an unhappy situation for a girl.’
‘Yes, but I am not a girl,’ she pointed out. ‘You must not suppose, because I said I was in despair, that I am not very well able to take care of myself, for I promise you that I am! I told you once before that I didn’t come to batten on my aunt, but I think you didn’t believe me.’
‘No, I didn’t, but I’ve changed my mind. Or, rather, I can’t blame you for succumbing to temptation. In your circumstances – which must, if you are obliged to earn your bread, be uncomfortably straitened – it would have been hard to have refused the offer of a home.’
‘Well,’ she said frankly, ‘it was hard! Indeed, my aunt made it almost impossible for me to refuse her invitation. She said I might at least spend the summer at Staplewood. It seemed absurd not to do so, particularly when she said that she could use her influence to procure an eligible situation for me. So I came, meaning to make myself useful. But she gives me nothing to do but the most trifling tasks, showers gifts upon me, and when I protest, says that it was always her wish to have a daughter, and that if I want to please her I’ll accept them.’
‘Gammon!’ said Philip. ‘I’m sorry if I offend you, but there’s no other word for it. Minerva never had any such wish!’
‘No, I don’t think she had, but you will own that it is kind of her to say so. It is to put me at my ease, of course.’
‘Has it occurred to you, Kate, that she is placing you under an obligation?’
‘Oh, yes, indeed it has, and it is crushing me!’ she said earnestly. ‘If only there were some way of requiting her – not arranging flowers, or entertaining Sir Timothy, or bearing Torquil company, but a big thing! Something that was vital to her, or – or even something that entailed a sacrifice! But there isn’t anything that I can discover.’
There was a pause, during which he frowned down at his well-kept finger-nails. At length he said slowly: ‘If she were to demand it of you, would you be prepared to make a sacrifice of yourself ?’
‘Yes, of course I should! At least, I hope I should!’ She looked sharply at him. ‘Why, do you know of something? Pray tell me!’
Again there was a pause, while he seemed to deliberate. Then he said: ‘No, I can’t tell you, Kate. I suspect that there may be, but while all is conjecture I prefer to keep my tongue. But this I will say to you! – You are not entirely friendless! You have a friend in me, and you may call upon me at any time. Believe me, I shan’t play the wag!’
She laughed at this. ‘Does that mean that you won’t fight shy? From what I have seen of you, sir, I am fully persuaded that you wouldn’t! You would come – come bang up to the mark – is that right? – and positively enjoy sporting your canvas! I make no apology for employing boxing cant: you cannot have forgotten that I was reared in Army circles!’
‘No,’ he agreed, his eyes warm with amusement, ‘I haven’t forgotten that! Has anyone ever told you, Cousin Kate, that you are – wholly entrancing?’
‘Since you ask me, sir,’ she replied, with great calm, ‘yes – several persons!’
‘And yet you are still unmarried!’
‘Very true! It is a mortifying reflection,’ she said, mournfully shak
ing her head.
‘Cousin Kate, you are a rogue!’
‘Yes, that’s another mortifying reflection,’ she agreed. She turned her head to study him, and asked involuntarily: ‘I wish you will tell me, sir! Why does Torquil hate you so much? Why does he think you the author of the various accidents which have befallen him? He believes you to covet his inheritance, but you don’t, do you?’
‘No: there is nothing I covet less! I have an estate of my own, in Rutlandshire: my father bought it, and I wouldn’t willingly exchange it for all Staplewood’s grandeurs.’ His face softened. ‘I hope I may, one day, be able to show it to you, Kate! I think – no, I am certain – that you would be pleased with it! My father, foreseeing all the possibilities which attached to it, caused the original farmhouse to be demolished, and built upon the site a neat, commodious manor, which has been my home since his retirement, nearly ten years ago. Between us, we set about the task of improving the property. But he died before he could see the results of our efforts. My mother survived him by less than a twelvemonth, since when I have lived there alone – but too busy to be lonely! I farm my land, you know, and hunt with the Cottesmore. We pride ourselves on our hounds! They may not be so quick in the open as the Quorn, but they are the best of any on the line. They must needs be good hunters, for our country is very deep and rough. But you mustn’t encourage me to bore on about hounds and hunting!’
‘No, indeed you don’t bore me!’ she assured him. ‘I have hunted myself, in Portugal, and in Spain. Not, of course, with the Duke’s pack, but several officers hunted their own hounds, and permitted me to join them now and then. I’m told that the country doesn’t compare with the Shires, but I don’t think you could call it humbug country, for all that!’