‘Seems?’ he interrupted, keeping his hand over hers.
She met his eyes, a little shyly, and found that they were smiling, inviting confidence. Without knowing why she did so, she said impulsively: ‘I don’t think she’s fond of anyone! It makes me far from easy. I can’t explain!’
‘You need not: I know what you mean. Minerva has overwhelmed you with gifts – you called her generosity crushing, but you wouldn’t feel crushed if you believed she held you in affection, would you?’
‘Ah, you do understand! I should be grateful, but not crushed!’ She sighed, and said ruefully: ‘I thought there was nothing I wouldn’t do to show my gratitude, but I can’t marry Torquil! It is quite out of the question. When my aunt suggested it to me, I thought she must be out of her mind!’
It was a moment or two before he answered her. He began to speak, and then shut his mouth hard, as though he were exercising considerable restraint. Finally, he said, in a brusque voice: ‘No. Obsessed!’
She nodded. ‘I know that: Staplewood and the succession! But that’s not it!’
‘You are mistaken.’
‘No, I don’t think I am. She seems to be determined to keep Torquil under her thumb: not just now, but always! And I fancy she believes that if he married me she could do it, that I shouldn’t interfere, or try to take him away, or – or usurp her position.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘It is a shocking thing to think of anyone, but what else can I think?’ said Kate. ‘You see, my father told me how very ambitious she is, so I supposed that she must be hoping that Torquil would make a splendid match. But, of course, if he married a girl of the first stare it is not to be expected that she could keep her here, in – in subjection, is it? Well, even if the girl were willing to allow my aunt to rule the roost, she might not be willing to be buried here all the year round!’
‘Most unlikely. But there is more to it than that, Kate: such a girl would not be, as you are, alone in the world. She would have parents, perhaps brothers and sisters, certainly more distant relations – uncles, aunts, cousins.’
‘If it comes to that,’ said Kate, ‘I have distant relations too! I am not acquainted with them, but –’
‘Exactly so!’ he said. ‘But they are not concerned with your welfare!’
‘Oh, no! I daresay most of them don’t know I exist!
‘It is precisely that circumstance which, in Minerva’s eyes, makes you a desirable wife for Torquil.’
He spoke with deliberation, and her eyes widened a little, searching his face. The vague uneasiness which troubled her deepened; she said carefully: ‘I collect that you think that my aunt might try to – to constrain me – to force me to marry Torquil, but I promise you it isn’t so! It was only a suggestion! I have told her that I shall never do so, and, although she has begged me to think it over, I am persuaded she realizes that I shan’t change my mind.’
As though urged by some inner impulse, he grasped both her hands, and held them in a compelling grip, saying harshly: ‘Kate, go away from this place! On no account must you marry Torquil!’
‘Well, of course I must not!’ she returned, slightly amused. ‘Even if I weren’t too old for him, he isn’t fit to be married!’
‘Why do you say that?’ he asked quickly.
‘Good God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Surely you must be aware that he hasn’t yet outgrown the schoolboy? He hasn’t learnt to control his temper, for one thing! The least check makes him ride rusty. As for forming a lasting attachment, fiddle! I daresay it may be years before he does so. At the moment he is inclined to fancy himself in love with me, but he was fancying himself in love with Miss Templecombe when I first came here, and it was only when he heard of her engagement that he transferred his affections to me. Would you care to lay odds against his transferring them yet again if some reasonably pretty girl were to appear in the neighbourhood? Of course you would not!’
He released her hands. ‘Of course I would not,’ he agreed, and sat heavily frowning at the ground between his forearms, which he had laid along his spread legs, his hands clasped between his knees.
In some perplexity Kate looked at his down-bent head, and said: ‘You don’t wish Torquil to be married, do you, sir?’ She waited for a reply, but he only shook his head. She continued: ‘Why not? I can readily understand that you would not wish him to marry an adventuress, but I have the oddest feeling that you would oppose his marriage to anyone. You have told me that you don’t covet his inheritance, and I believe you don’t indeed. But I cannot feel that you hold him dear, so – so why, Mr Broome?’
He glanced up at that, wryly smiling, and said: ‘Oh, no! I refuse to be Mr Broome – Cousin Kate!’
‘You know very well that I am not your cousin!’ she said.
‘I know that you refused to acknowledge the relationship! What was it you said? – at the worst you could only be a connection of mine! Excessively rag-mannered I thought you!’
She gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘You must own that you earned it!’
‘Oh, I do!’ he answered.
‘That is a great concession,’ she said. ‘I am very conscious of it – Cousin Philip! But I would have you know that I cut my wisdoms a long time ago, and I am well-aware that you are fobbing me off. You have not answered my question.’
‘I can’t answer it. If I were to disclose to you, or to anyone, my reason for opposing Torquil’s marriage – No, I can’t do it! I am not even perfectly sure that there is a reason.’ He rose jerkily. ‘Come! we have sat here for long enough, Kate! Minerva will be wondering what can have become of you.’
She privately thought this unlikely, but when she encountered her aunt presently, Lady Broome said: ‘Oh, there you are! Dear child, I have been looking for you all over!’
Surprised, Kate said: ‘But you told me, ma’am, that you were going to be engaged with the bailiff ! I’ve been in the shrubbery.’
‘Yes, so Sidlaw informed me. With Mr Philip Broome!’
‘Yes, certainly. Did Sidlaw inform you of that too, ma’am?’ asked Kate, a trifle ruffled.
‘To be sure she did! Oh, don’t take a pet, my love! She only told me because I asked her if she had seen you anywhere! Such a scold as she gave me for letting you wander about alone!’
‘Good heavens! What harm did she imagine could befall me? Besides, I wasn’t alone: Mr Broome was with me, and she knew that, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, dearest, and of course she didn’t imagine any harm would befall you! But she is very prudish, and she thought it right to nudge me on to warn you not to permit Philip to sit with you in the shrubbery!’
‘I should think she must be quite Gothic,’ said Kate, beginning to be very angry indeed.
Lady Broome laughed, and grimaced. ‘Indeed she is! But she was right in this instance: it isn’t the thing for a young female to jaunter about with a single gentleman, you know!’
‘I am afraid I don’t know it, Aunt Minerva,’ said Kate, in a dangerously quiet voice. ‘I have yet to learn that there is the smallest impropriety in walking, sitting, or even jauntering about with a single gentleman. And I cannot help wondering why, if you don’t think it the thing, you encourage me to go out with Torquil.’
‘That is a little different, my dear: Torquil is your cousin, and – as you have said! – only a boy. Philip is another matter, and is not, I fancy, to be trusted to keep the line.’
‘Is it possible that you suspect me of flirting with Mr Broome?’ enquired Kate. ‘Let me assure you that I haven’t the faintest wish to flirt with him!’
‘Or with anyone, I hope!’ said Lady Broome playfully.
‘Oh, as to that, there’s no saying!’ replied Kate coolly.
‘Naughty puss!’ said her ladyship, pinching her cheek. ‘I perceive that Sidlaw was right when she gave me a scold for not
looking after you better!’
‘Not at all!’ returned Kate. ‘I’m not a green girl, or a romp, and I am very well able to look after myself. And if she thought Mr Philip Broome was in the petticoat line she must be a great goosecap! Pray set her anxious mind at rest, dear ma’am! He shows no disposition to flirt with me!’
‘Oh, tut-tut!’ said Lady Broome. ‘Don’t pull caps with me, you foolish child! You are not so very old, you know, and even though you are neither a green girl nor a romp, you are not yet as much up to snuff as you think you are. A pretty thing it would be if I didn’t look after you! There, give me a kiss to show me that I’m forgiven!’
Melting, Kate embraced her warmly. ‘As though there were anything to forgive!’ she said, not without difficulty, for the words stuck in her throat.
The entrance into the hall of Pennymore, bearing the post-bag, relieved her embarrassment. Lady Broome took it from him; and, with a kindly smile, told Kate to run upstairs to put off her hat. A nuncheon, she said, had been set out in the Blue saloon; and, unless Kate wished to wound the cook’s sensibilities, she would partake of it, because he had baked a Savoy Cake for her especial delectation.
Kate did go upstairs to remove her hat; but when she came out of her bedchamber she did not immediately go to the Blue saloon, but to her aunt’s drawing-room instead, where she found Lady Broome at her writing-table, already busy with her correspondence. She said haltingly: ‘I suppose there are no letters for me, ma’am?’
‘No, my dear, none,’ replied Lady Broome, not raising her eyes from the letter she was reading.
Kate went quietly away, heavy-hearted.
Eleven
On the following afternoon, Lady Broome, in response to an urgent entreaty from Kate to set her some task to perform, sent her down to the lodge, with what Kate knew to be a frivolous message. She accepted it without comment, realizing that her aunt was a trifle out of sorts, and set off down the avenue reflecting that if ever she had yearned for a life of indolence the weeks she had spent at Staplewood had cured her. Her only duties were trivial, and occupied perhaps an hour in the day. For the rest of the time she was at liberty to amuse herself as best she might. She could read, write, walk, busy herself with stitchery, play at battledore and shuttlecock with Torquil, or loiter her time away. She had the run of the library, and, after skipping her way through a number of old novels, she embarked on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with the laudable object of widening her knowledge. She had just begun to read the second volume, but it could not have been said that she viewed the prospect of reading four more volumes with enthusiasm. Riding during the summer months was mere hacking along country lanes; she had exhausted all the possibilities of walks taken within the grounds of Staplewood; and when she wished to go on an exploratory ramble beyond the grounds she was frustrated by Lady Broome’s insistence on her being accompanied by one of the footmen on such expeditions. As for stitchery, once she had mended a rent in her dress, and darned her stockings, she was at a stand. She could fashion a dress, but she had no turn for embroidery, which was the only kind of stitchery her aunt recognized as a genteel occupation for ladies of mode. Games of battledore and shuttlecock with Torquil were more a penance than a pleasure, for not only was he an indifferent player but an extremely bad-tempered one as well, frequently hurling his battledore from him in disgust, tearing the feathers from the shuttlecock, or walking off the court in a fury.
The worst of it was, as she had speedily realized, that there was nothing for her to do at Staplewood. Lady Broome had told her that she would find a great deal to do, but this was far from the truth: what there was to do was done by the servants, and very well done. Lady Broome had said that she relied upon Kate to overlook the staff, and to see that nothing was neglected; but Kate had been quick to realize that this was an improvised duty, and one which her aunt had no intention of delegating.
To Kate, accustomed all her life to be busy, this lazy, cushioned existence, at first delightful, soon became intolerable, but the mischief was that her aunt could not believe that she really did yearn for employment. In bringing Kate to Staplewood, and lapping her in expensive luxury, she expected her to revel in it; and since Kate was too well-mannered to betray her discontent and did indeed enjoy the comfort of Staplewood – she continued in this misapprehension, and thought that Kate’s entreaties to be given work to do emanated from a very proper desire to requite her generosity.
Having delivered the message at the lodge, Kate went back to the house, leaving the avenue, and making a detour through the park. It was wooded, and here and there Lady Broome had caused to be planted clumps of rhododendrons and azaleas, which were just now in bloom, lending splashes of brilliant colour to the landscape, and filling the air with their scent. There could be no doubt that she knew how to create beauty. Kate had at first supposed that a landscape gardener had been employed to lay out the gardens, and to open prospects in the most felicitous way imaginable, but Lady Broome, laughing such a notion to scorn, had assured her that she had planned the whole, and had seen it carried out under her direction. It was yet another example of her genius for organization; and when Kate was held spell-bound by one of the enchanting vistas she was easily able to understand her aunt’s love of Staplewood, into which she had thrown so much inventiveness. Kate had been shown the original plans of the gardens, and she knew that until her aunt’s reign the gardens had been formal, the park too thickly wooded, with too many bushes, and too few prospects. Lady Broome had improved these out of recognition. She had improved the house, too, changing it from an overcrowded store of furniture and pictures, good, bad, and indifferent, into a stately show-place, where nothing offended the eye. But Kate could not feel that she had been as successful in the house as she had been in the gardens, for, in creating a show-place, she had destroyed a home.
She was thinking about this when her attention was caught by the sudden appearance on the scene of a dog, which appeared to be the result of a misalliance between a hound and a setter. He came bounding into view from behind a clump of azaleas but halted in his tracks at sight of her, and stood, looking the picture of guilt, with one paw raised, and his tail clipped between his legs, posed for instant flight. He had barely outgrown his puppyhood, and when Kate laughed, and invited him to come to her, he obeyed with all the alacrity of a dog of exuberantly friendly disposition, and gambolled round her, uttering encouraging barks.
The sight of him brought it forcibly home to Kate that, with the exception of Sir Timothy’s aged and obese spaniel bitch, which only left the East Wing when led out by Sir Timothy’s valet for a circumscribed airing, he was the first dog she had seen at Staplewood. It had not previously occurred to her that this was a strange circumstance, but as she patted and stroked the trespasser it did occur to her.
Frustrating his attempts to lick her face, she said laughingly: ‘Well, sir, and what are you doing here, pray? It’s my belief that you’ve been hunting! Oh, you bad dog!’
The stranger at once acknowledged the truth of this accusation, and deprecated its severity by flattening his ears, and furiously wagging his lowered tail. Kate laughed again, and said: ‘What is more, you know very well you have no business here! Be off with you!’
He dashed off immediately, and she thought she was rid of him, until he reappeared, some minutes later, bringing her a peace-offering in the shape of a withered tree-branch, which he dragged along the ground, and proudly laid at her feet.
‘If you imagine,’ Kate said, ‘that I am going to throw that for you to retrieve you very much mistake the matter! It’s a game I should weary of long before you did! Besides, I know I ought not to encourage you. No, sir! Go home!’
After inviting her to relent, retreating a little way from the branch, and all the time watching it with cocked ears and wagging tail, making short dashes at it, and urging her to participate in his favourite sport by a few yelping barks, he se
emed to realize that it was useless to persist, and once more bounded off.
Kate proceeded on her way, wishing that there were dogs at Staplewood which she could take for walks, and recalling, with a reminiscent smile, the three obstreperous dogs owned by the Astleys which had added so much excitement (and embarrassment) to the walks she had taken with the children. In the midst of these reflections she was startled by a gruff voice, which suddenly commanded her to stand and deliver. She looked quickly round, not so much alarmed as vexed, for she had no difficulty in recognizing Torquil’s voice, disguised though it was. It was precisely the sort of schoolboy trick he was all too fond of playing, and she found it unamusing. ‘For heaven’s sake, Torquil!’ she exclaimed. ‘Must you be so childish?’
He emerged from behind a bush, brandishing a double-barrelled shotgun, and saying gleefully: ‘I frightened you, didn’t I, coz?’
‘No, but you are frightening me now!’ Kate said, eyeing the shotgun with misgiving. ‘Don’t point that thing at me! Is it loaded?’
‘Of course it is! And I did frighten you! You jumped nearly out of your skin!’
He shouldered the gun as he spoke, which relieved Kate’s more immediate apprehensions, but she demanded in a sharp voice how he had managed to come by it. ‘I broke in through the gunroom window when the servants were at dinner!’ he replied triumphantly. ‘No one heard me! I stuffed my pockets with cartridges too. I’m up to everything, ain’t I? If Mama won’t let anyone teach me, I’ll teach myself !’
‘Torquil, indeed you must not!’ she said. ‘Do, pray, put it back! If you are so set on learning to shoot I’m persuaded your Mama will relent! I’ll try what I can do to convince her that it is only right that you should be permitted to! This isn’t the way to learn, I promise you! What you should do is to have a target set up, well out of range of the house and the gardens, so that Aunt Minerva need not be disturbed by the bangs.’