Kate stared at her in patent surprise. ‘Good God, ma’am, how should it have been?’
‘One young female in a household composed of gentlemen? Fie on you!’ said Lady Broome playfully.
‘But one of the gentlemen was Sir Timothy,’ Kate reminded her.
Lady Broome laughed. ‘To be sure! I wish he may have known that he was a deputy-chaperon, but I doubt it! One would have supposed that Philip would have seen the propriety of removing himself when his hostess was taken ill – though why I should have supposed it I don’t know! He has never yet shown the smallest consideration for anyone but himself. When does he mean to take himself off ? Has he said anything about it?’
‘Not to my knowledge, ma’am.’ Kate rose as she spoke, and went to draw one of the heavy brocade curtains a little way across the window. She looked over her shoulder, and asked: ‘Is that better, ma’am?’
‘Dear Kate!’ sighed her ladyship. ‘Always so thoughtful, so quick to perceive a need! The sun was dazzling me a trifle. Do you know, ever since you came to Staplewood, you have made me forget that I have no daughter? You are so exactly what I should have wished my daughter to be like! Indeed, I find myself thinking that you are my daughter – and so, I know well, does Sir Timothy! You have even been managing all the household affairs, to the manner born, Delabole tells me!’
Considerably embarrassed, Kate stammered: ‘There has been very little to manage, ma’am! I only wish there had been more! I am conscious – deeply conscious! – of – of how much I owe to your kindness!’
‘Yet you will not do the only thing I have ever asked of you!’ said Lady Broome, with a melancholy smile.
Kate had been about to return to her chair, but at these words she checked, and stiffened. She said, in a constrained voice: ‘If you mean, ma’am, as I believe you do, that I won’t marry Torquil, I beg you will say no more! It is too much to ask of me!’
‘Is it? I told you to think it over, Kate, but I’m afraid you haven’t done so. You have only perceived the evils of such a marriage: not its advantages. Believe me, these are very real! You are no longer a girl, dreaming of romance: you must surely be considering your future, for you don’t want for sense. Sit down!’
‘Aunt Minerva, pray say no more!’ Kate begged.
‘Don’t argue with me, girl!’ Lady Broome said, with a flash of temper. ‘Sit down!’ She controlled herself with a visible effort, and forced up a smile. ‘Come! I have something to tell you – something I have never told anyone, not even Delabole!’ She waited until Kate had reluctantly resumed her seat, and then held out a coaxing hand. ‘Don’t hold off from me!’ she said caressingly. ‘That would quite break my heart, for I have come to love you dearly, you know.’ Her fingers closed round Kate’s hand, and held it. ‘There! that’s better! You are the only comfort left to me, child – the only hope! Do you think me a happy woman? I’m not. Life has used me harshly, I think: everything I most wanted has been denied me! I wonder what sins I can have committed to have made fate punish me so cruelly?’
‘Oh, don’t say so, dear ma’am!’ Kate interrupted. ‘You are not yourself ! This is nothing but a sick fancy!’
Lady Broome sighed, and shook her head. ‘No, alas, it is the truth. I have put a brave face on it, but I’ve failed in everything I set out to do. I hope you will never know how bitter a thing that is.’
‘Now, how can I tell you civilly that you are talking nonsense?’ said Kate, in a rallying tone. ‘If the effect of my visit is to cast you into dejection I shall be in hot water with Dr Delabole, and Sidlaw too, and very likely I shall be forbidden to come near you again! Tell me, if you please, if you failed when you set out to make Staplewood beautiful?’
‘Ah, you don’t understand!’ said Lady Broome. ‘I only did so because I realized, when I was obliged to give up all that I most enjoyed, that unless I could discover something of interest to keep me occupied I should mope myself to death. You must remember that I was still a young woman when I knew that I must bring Sir Timothy here, not for a visit merely, but for the rest of his life. That was a severe blow. I have grown accustomed, but in those days I detested the country. Your father told you how ambitious I was, but I don’t think he knew that my most passionate ambition was not to marry a Duke, but to escape from the intolerable boredom of my home! My father – your grandfather, my love – was not of a sociable disposition. In fact, he was excessively untoward, and he had my unfortunate mother quite under his thumb. Had it not been for his sister, I should have found myself buckled to the Squire’s son before I had been allowed even a glimpse of London! She, however, offered to bring me out, and to frank me for one Season. She was married to a man of birth and property, and moved in the first circles. She had married her daughters to men of fortune and consideration, and said she would do the same by me. But she reckoned without my lack of dowry.’
Kate blinked. ‘But surely, ma’am – ! I mean, when my grandfather cut Papa out of his Will, you must have been heiress to all his property!’
‘I was, but he was never wealthy, and he suffered some bad reverses on ’Change. I was used to think him a shocking pinch-penny, until my mother explained matters to me. Well, that’s past history: I’ve told you only that you may understand why I married Sir Timothy. I had many admirers, but the only offers I received were from men I could not like well enough to marry. My aunt said I was a great deal too nice, and I knew she wouldn’t invite me to spend a second Season in Mount Street: indeed, she told me that if I threw away my chances she would wash her hands of me. And I knew that if I went back to my home at the end of the Season I should never see London again. I can tell you, I was in such despair that I could almost have brought myself to marry any man who could give me position, and the means to live up to it! But then Sir Timothy proposed to me, and I became engaged to him.’ She saw that this story was winning no response, and pressed Kate’s hand, saying with a faint smile: ‘Ah, you are thinking that I was very mercenary, are you not? I wish you had known Sir Timothy twenty years ago: one of the most charming men imaginable! So handsome, too! He fell in love with me as soon as he saw me. It was at the Opera. He came up to my aunt’s box, and begged for an introduction.’
‘And you, ma’am? Did you fall in love with him?’
‘No, no! I liked him very well, but I had no notion then that he would one day propose to me. He is twenty years older than I am, you know, and in those days that seemed very old indeed to me. I respected him, however, and gladly accepted his offer. My aunt told me that it was indelicate of me to show joy at my engagement, but Sir Timothy didn’t think so: it made him very happy, for he was afraid that he might be too old to make me happy. The Broomes said he was infatuated. His sister Maria – an odious woman! – told him that he would soon become a cuckold if he married a girl young enough to have been his daughter. So vulgar! I have always been glad that she didn’t die until she had been forced to acknowledge that she had wickedly misjudged me. But they all disliked me, and Philip, of course, positively hated me! He was the most disagreeable boy: as self-important then as he is today! But we were married in spite of them, and I became most sincerely attached to Sir Timothy. He wanted an heir, and when Torquil was born he thought nothing too good for me. His first wife had not cared for London, so the Broome town-house had been disposed of, but because I loved London he bought a house in Berkeley Square for me. Oh, how happy I was – for just three years! London, for the Season; then Brighton; then back to London again, for a few weeks; then visits to our particular friends – large house-parties, you understand! Theatricals were all the rage: I recall going to the Priory, at Stanmore, when Lady Cahir took the chief part in Who’s the Dupe, a most diverting farce, and very well played. Then we had parties here, always during the hunting-season. I once held one over Christmas: that was a triumph indeed! And –’
‘But where was Torquil?’ Kate interrupted. ‘Did you take him wi
th you?’
‘Good God, no! I did keep him in London for a time, but it did not agree with him: he was always ailing, and Sir Timothy became so nervous that he would lose him – the children of his first marriage all died, as I daresay you’ve been told – that I sent him here, with his nurse.’
‘I wonder you could bear to part with him!’ Kate said, before she could stop herself.
‘My dear child, I make no secret of the fact that I am not one of those women who dote on infants! To own the truth, I find them repulsive! They are for ever screaming, or dribbling, or being sick! Besides, his nurse managed him far better than I could – even had I not been much too busy to make the attempt. To be a successful hostess takes up one’s time and energy, I promise you. And I was successful. And then it ended.’
She stopped, leaving Kate at a loss for something sympathetic to say. Having no social ambition herself, and with the unfading memory of her mother, who could never bear to be parted from either her husband or her child, it was difficult for her to appreciate what her enforced abandonment of a life of high fashion had meant to her aunt. That it had meant a great deal to her was patent in her face. Lady Broome was looking into the past with fixed, embittered eyes, and her mouth set rigidly. In desperation, Kate faltered: ‘It must have been very hard for you, ma’am.’
Her words recalled Lady Broome from her abstraction. She brought her eyes round to Kate’s face, and said ‘Hard…!’ A contemptuous little laugh shook her. ‘No, you don’t understand, do you?’
‘You see, I don’t think I should enjoy the sort of life you’ve described,’ Kate excused herself. ‘So I can’t enter into your feelings. But I do understand that – that coming here to live – giving up all that you liked so much – must have been a sacrifice.’
‘No one has ever known what it cost me, not even Sidlaw! Whatever my faults, I’ve never been one of those women who weep and whine, and fall into lethargies, throwing everyone into gloom with their die-away airs! And no one – not even Maria! – could accuse me of failing in my duty to my sick husband! I sold the town-house; I took on my shoulders all the business which Sir Timothy was too enfeebled to attend to; and devoted myself to Staplewood, knowing how much he loved it! I hadn’t cared, until then, to acquaint myself with its history, but to please him I began to study the Broome records, and to bring them into order. I had supposed that it would be a drudgery, but I became fascinated. I believe I know more about the Broomes than Sir Timothy does – and I sometimes think I care more! But there was one thing he cared for, and had never disclosed to me. It wasn’t until I found the genealogical tree – at the bottom of a chest, full of old letters, and accounts, and forgotten deeds! – that I realized that for two hundred years Staplewood, and the title, had descended from father to son in unbroken sequence. How many families can boast of that? I understood then why Sir Timothy was so anxious every time Torquil contracted some childish ailment, and I became determined – determined! – that it should be no fault of mine if he descended, like the children of Sir Timothy’s first marriage, into an early grave.’
Kate, who had listened to this speech in gathering dismay, began to feel sick, but clutched at the straw offered by the rapt, almost fanatical, light that shone in Lady Broome’s eyes, and the little triumphant smile which curled her lips. The doctor, she thought, had been right when he had warned her that her aunt was by no means restored to health: she was obviously feverish. She said: ‘Well, he hasn’t done so, has he? So that is another object you haven’t failed to achieve! Dear aunt, you have let yourself be blue-devilled by nothing more than the dejection which – so I am told! – is the aftermath of a fever! I think I should leave you now: Dr Delabole warned me that you are not as well as you think, and I see that he was right! The thoughts are tangled in your head: what a shocking thing it would be if I believed some of the things you’ve said! I don’t, of course: I haven’t much experience of illness, but I do know that people who are recovering from a severe bout of fever are not to be held accountable for anything they may say when they are feeling low, and oppressed.’
She would have risen, as she spoke, but Lady Broome startled her by jerking herself upright on the day-bed, and saying, in a voice of barely repressed exasperation: ‘Oh, don’t talk as if you were the ninnyhammer I know you’re not! Sit still!’ She cast aside the light shawl which covered her legs, and got up, and began to pace the room with a nervous energy that seriously alarmed Kate. After a pause, during which she managed to bring her sudden spurt of temper under control, she said, with what Kate felt to be determined calm: ‘I had not meant to come to a point with you so soon, but what happened on the day that I was taken ill has forced it on me. Kate, if you feel that you owe me anything – if you feel a particle of affection for me! – marry Torquil, before it becomes known all over the county that he’s insane! Staplewood must – shall! – have an heir in the direct line!’ Her eyes, unnaturally burning, perceived the sudden blanching of Kate’s countenance, her widening stare of horror. Misreading these signs, she exclaimed: ‘What, have you lived at Staplewood for so many weeks and remained blind to the truth? You’re not a green girl! You’re not a fool! Don’t tell me you have never suspected that Torquil is mad!’
Deathly pale, Kate flinched, and threw up a hand, as though to ward off a blow. She said numbly: ‘I thought – oh, I was certain! – that you didn’t know!’
‘I?’ said Lady Broome incredulously. ‘Good God, Kate, why do you suppose that I brought Delabole to live here? Why have I kept Torquil in the old nursery wing? Why have I never allowed him to go beyond the gates without his groom, or to consort with any of the boys and girls of his own age? Why do you imagine that Badger was at hand when he tried to shoot you?’
Kate shook her bowed head, and uttered, almost inaudibly: ‘He didn’t try to shoot me. It was the dog. Torquil gave the gun to me as soon as I told him to.’
This seemed to give Lady Broome pause. The angry light died out of her eyes; she said, after a moment’s cold consideration: ‘If you say so, I believe it. It proves how right I was when I judged you to be a suitable wife for him. I have observed you closely, and I’ve seen how good your influence has been. He likes you, and you’ve made him respect you: it may be that marriage might arrest the progress of his insanity; it may even be that you are the cause – oh, quite unwittingly! – of its increase during the past weeks. Delabole is of the opinion that his – how shall I put it? – his manhood, first roused by the Templecombe child’s empty prettiness, grew stronger when I brought you to live at Staplewood, and has excited his brain. You’ve held him at a distance, and he has found relief in – committing certain acts of violence.’
Kate looked up quickly, an appalled question in her eyes. Lady Broome smiled with a sort of indulgent contempt. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said, faintly amused. ‘I know about the rabbit you found. I know everything that Torquil does. I have known for years – ever since I first realized that there was more to his fits of ungovernable rage than mere childish naughtiness. What I suffered – the despair – the chagrin – when the knowledge was forced on me that the taint had reappeared in my son – my only son! – I can’t describe to you! He inherited his sickly constitution from Sir Timothy, but his madness came to him through me! Oh, don’t look so alarmed! it didn’t come through the Malverns, but through my mother! One of her great-uncles had to be confined: it was kept so secret that very few people knew about it, and it didn’t appear either in my grandfather’s or my father’s generation. Or in mine! I had never dreamed that it would visit my son! It was only when Torquil’s nurse spoke to me – told me that she was puzzled by him – that I began to suspect the truth. I dismissed her at the earliest opportunity that offered, as you may suppose! I said that he was too old for a nurse, and appointed Badger to attend to him. He had previously been employed to wait on my predecessor’s nursery, and had been dreading dismissal from the moment Sir Timothy married me. Fortunat
ely, as it chanced, Sir Timothy’s rather exaggerated notions of his obligations to his dependants made him insist on Badger’s continuing at Staplewood; and, still more fortunately, Badger became deeply attached to Torquil. I daresay he was sincere, since Torquil, when he grew out of infancy, was an amazingly pretty little boy, you know! Of course, I’ve been obliged to pay both him and Whalley to keep their lips buttoned, but I never grudge the price of faithful service. Delabole, too! I knew he could be bought! I sent for him when Torquil had the small-pox. Dr Ogbourne had previously attended the family, but I knew that he was beginning to be suspicious, and I seized that chance to be rid of him. I hoped, at that time, that I might be mistaken, and that Torquil’s disturbing fits of violence did indeed arise from ill-health, but as time went on I knew that his brain was sick, as well as his body. That was the most crushing blow of all I had suffered. I felt at first that my one remaining ambition had been shattered. But I don’t readily despair, and I thought that if he survived, if I could keep him quietly at Staplewood, guard against any excitement, never let him go beyond the gates alone, and, above all, establish my mastery of him, his malady might be cured, or, at the worst, remain in abeyance. I saw that it would be necessary to maintain a constant watch over him, for although there were periods – sometimes lasting for weeks – when he was perfectly docile, one never knew when something would upset him, and bring on one of his attacks of mania. I soon learned, however, that these almost always occurred at the time of the full moon: they still do, but there have lately been signs that this can no longer be depended on. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to control him. I can do so, and perhaps you can; but the day is coming when it will be necessary to confine him more closely. It will be too late then to give him a wife, and all my care, all the sacrifices I have made, all the stratagems I’ve been forced to employ to hide his lunacy from everyone but those few I can trust, will have been wasted! That, Kate, is why I depend on you to fulfil the only hope I have left!’