Cousin Kate Read online

  Here he was checked by Dr Delabole, who was just entering the room, and who barred his passage, laying a restraining hand on his arm, and saying: ‘Whither away, Torquil? Now, what has happened to put you all on end? Come, come, my boy, this won’t do! You will bring on one of your distressing migraines, and I shall be obliged to physic you!’

  ‘Come back to the table, my son!’ commanded Lady Broome sternly. ‘You are behaving like a child, and must be treated like one, unless you mend your ways! Pick up your chair!’

  He gave a dry sob, and turned, white and wild-eyed, and stared at her for a hard-breathing moment. As Kate had seen once before, his eyes sank under Lady Broome’s quelling gaze. Kate leaned sideways to pick up his chair, and patted it invitingly, smiling at him. ‘Come and sit down again!’ she coaxed.

  His smouldering eyes travelled slowly to her face, searching it suspiciously. Finding nothing in it but friendly sympathy, he yielded to her invitation, muttering: ‘Very well! To oblige you, coz!’

  ‘You shall be rewarded with one of my scones,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll butter it for you.’

  He said nothing, either then, or when she handed it to him, but he ate it. Lady Broome, turning her attention to Philip, engaged him in conversation, while Kate talked in a soothing under-voice to Torquil, and the doctor applied himself, with his usual appetite, to his breakfast.

  Encountering Philip an hour later, in the hall, Kate would have passed him with no more than a nod, but he stopped her, and asked her where she was going. She replied: ‘To cut some fresh roses, sir. This hot weather has made the ones I gathered yesterday hang their heads, and they refuse to be revived.’

  ‘I’ll accompany you, if I may – to carry the basket!’ he said, taking it from her hand. ‘Where is Torquil?’

  ‘I think he has ridden out with Whalley.’

  ‘Unfortunate Whalley!’

  She was silent.

  ‘You seem to possess the knack of managing him, cousin,’ he said, as they crossed the lawn towards the rose-garden. ‘My felicitations!’

  ‘I don’t know that. I have had some experience in the management of spoiled children.’

  ‘So that was true, was it? When I saw you, I supposed it to be one of Gurney’s Banbury stories.’

  She looked round at him in surprise. ‘Did Mr Templecombe tell you that I had been a governess?’ He nodded. ‘I wonder why he should have done so?’

  ‘He thought I might be interested. I was.’

  Her surprise grew. ‘I can’t conceive why you should have been!’

  ‘Can’t you?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘No. Unless –’

  ‘Unless what?’ he asked, as she hesitated.

  She still hesitated, but presently confessed, with a tiny chuckle: ‘Well, I was going to say, unless you wondered how it was possible for my aunt to own an indigent relative! The thing was that she didn’t know I existed, until a month ago.’

  ‘I take leave to doubt that.’

  ‘No, indeed it’s true! You see, my father quarrelled with his family when Aunt Minerva was still in the schoolroom, and – and – they cut the connection!’

  ‘And what brought it to Minerva’s knowledge that you did exist?’

  ‘My old nurse wrote to her, informing her of my circumstances.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And then my aunt swept down upon me,’ continued Kate, not perceiving his curling lip. ‘I was never nearer to pulling caps with poor Sarah! But she did it all for the best, and so it has turned out. For my aunt invited me to stay here, and has overwhelmed me with kindness.’ She paused, and then said, with a little difficulty: ‘I collect you don’t like her, but you must not say so to me, if you please!’

  He regarded her frowningly. ‘Oh, no, I won’t say so!’ He stood aside for her to pass through the archway cut in the yew hedge that enclosed the rose-garden. ‘You have made conquests of them all, Cousin Kate – even of my uncle!’

  ‘I am sure I have done no such thing.’

  ‘But indeed you have. I hear your praises sung on all sides.’

  ‘I expect I should be excessively gratified – if I believed you!’ she retorted, laying the two roses she had cut into the basket, and moving on.

  ‘You may believe me – and accept my compliments!’

  She turned to confront him, a spark of anger in her eyes. ‘That goes beyond the line of pleasing, sir! I am well aware that you’ve taken me in dislike, so pray don’t try to flummery me!’

  ‘I beg your pardon! But I don’t think I have taken you in dislike. I own that I came prepared to do so, but you puzzle me, you know: you are rather unexpected!’

  ‘Well, I know of no reason why you should say so, unless you expected to find I was inching my way into your uncle’s good graces to – to batten on him! Was that it?’

  ‘No. Not entirely.’

  ‘Not –’ She uttered an indignant gasp, and then, suddenly, laughed, and said: ‘I suppose it does look like that! Let me assure you that it isn’t like that, sir!’

  ‘In that case, I am sorry for you,’ he said. He glanced over his shoulder, and smiled sardonically. ‘Yes, I thought it wouldn’t be long before Minerva came to discover what I have been saying to you.’ He waited until Lady Broome had come up to join them, and then greeted her with the utmost affability. ‘Do join us, Minerva! I’ve been attempting to flummery Cousin Kate, and without the least success.’

  ‘Absurd creature! Kate, my love, when you have finished picking roses, I want you to come and help me in the house. Dear me, how oppressively hot it is out here! And you without a hat! You will become sadly tanned! Nothing is more injurious to the complexion than to expose it to strong sunshine! There are some who say that contact with all fresh air is destructive of female charms – the natural enemy of a smooth skin. But that I don’t agree with, though a wind is certainly to be avoided. I myself always wear a veil, or carry a parasol, as I am doing now.’

  ‘And who shall blame you, ma’am?’ said Philip. ‘It throws a most becoming light on to your face!’

  ‘Are you now trying to flummery me, Philip? You are wasting your time!’

  ‘No, merely paying a tribute to your unerring taste in choosing a pink parasol.’

  She cast him an unloving look. ‘You would say, I collect, that my face needs to be protected from the unflattering daylight?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say anything of the sort,’ he replied. ‘I am not so uncivil, Minerva.’

  She bit her lip, but returned no answer. They strolled together in Kate’s wake, until she had cut enough blooms to replenish her vases. Lady Broome then bore Kate off to the house, and kept her occupied until she knew Philip would be out of the way. Since the tasks she found for Kate to perform were all of a trifling nature, Kate could not but feel that she had purposely interrupted a tête-à-tête, and wondered why.

  Except for one or two flickers of lightning, and some distant rumbles, the storm held off all day, but it broke in the middle of the night. Kate was jerked awake by the first crash, which sounded to be directly over the house. Almost before its echoes had died away, she heard another sound, and this time, she was sure, inside the house. It was even more alarming than the storm, because it was a cry of terror. She sat up, thrusting back the curtains of the bed, and listened intently, her heart thudding in her breast. She could hear nothing, but the sudden silence was not reassuring. She winced as the thunder crashed again, but slid out of her bed, and caught up her shawl. Hastily wrapping this round herself, she groped her way to the door, intending to open it, so that she could hear more clearly. She cautiously turned the handle, but the door remained shut. She had been locked in.

  In unreasoning panic she tugged at the handle, and beat with clenched fists on the panels. The noise was drowned by another clap of thunder,
which drove her back to her bed, blundering into the furniture, and feeling blindly for the table which stood beside it. Her fingers at last found the tinder-box, but they were trembling so much that it was some time before she succeeded in striking the spark. She relit her candle, but even as the little tongue of flame dimly illuminated the room her panic abated, and was succeeded by anger. She climbed into bed again, and sat hugging her knees, trying to find the answer to two insoluble problems: who had locked her in? and why? The more she cudgelled her brain the less could she hit upon any possible theory. She began to feel stupid, and, as the storm seemed to be receding into the distance, blew out the candle, and lay down.

  When she next woke, it was morning, and the pale sunlight, seeping into the room through the chinks in the blinds, made the night’s alarms ridiculous. She could almost believe that she had dreamt the whole, until her eyes alighted on the chair she had overturned, and she realized that her toes were bruised. She slid out of bed, and went to try the door again. It opened easily, but she noticed, for the first time, that there was no key in its lock. She went thoughtfully back to bed, determined to demand an explanation of her aunt.

  But Lady Broome, listening to her with raised brows, merely said: ‘My dear child, if you wish to lock yourself in, a strict search shall be made for the key! But why do you wish to do so? Who, do you imagine, has designs on your virtue?’

  ‘No, no, ma’am, you mistake! What I wish is not to be locked in!’

  Lady Broome regarded her in some amusement, but said, with perfect gravity: ‘Certainly not! But were you, in sober fact, locked in?’

  Kate flushed. ‘Do you think I’m cutting a sham, ma’am?’

  ‘No, dear child, of course I don’t!’ replied her ladyship. ‘Merely of having allowed your mind to be quite overcome by the storm! Extraordinarily violent, wasn’t it? That first clap, Dr Delabole tells me, made Torquil start up with a positive shriek!’

  ‘Then it was he who uttered that cry of terror!’ Kate exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, did you hear it?’ said Lady Broome smoothly. ‘He hates storms even more than you do! They bring on some of his worst migraines. Indeed, he is quite prostrate today!’

  ‘Is he? I am sorry,’ said Kate mechanically. ‘But – but – my mind was not overset, ma’am! It wasn’t the storm which made me get up, but that cry! And I couldn’t open the door!’

  ‘Couldn’t you, my love?’ said Lady Broome.

  ‘No! I couldn’t!’ stated Kate emphatically. ‘I can see that you don’t believe me, Aunt Minerva, but –’

  ‘Dearest, I believe you implicitly! Your mind was all chaos! You were rudely awakened by that first clap; you heard Torquil cry out; you tumbled, half-asleep, out of bed; you tried to pull open your door, and failed! So you went back to bed. But when you woke for the second time, and again tried to open your door, you found that you could easily do so! Well – what interpretation would you wish me to put on that, my love, except the very obvious one that your senses were disordered?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kate, feeling remarkably foolish.

  But when she recalled the cry she had heard she did not think that Torquil had made it. He had a boy’s voice, and when he raised it it was rather shrill; what she had heard was unmistakeably a man’s voice. She said nothing, however, because Mr Philip Broome walked in at that moment, saying: ‘Good-morning, Minerva – Cousin Kate! The storm did a good deal of damage: several tiles blown from the roof, a tree down, and enough wreckage in the gardens to keep Risby and his minions busy for days. Where’s Torquil?’

  ‘He has one of his migraines,’ answered Lady Broome. ‘Storms always affect him in that way, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t, but I can readily believe it.’

  Kate looked at him in some surprise. ‘Why, are you so affected, sir?’

  ‘No. I slept through it. Did you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t, but it hasn’t given me a headache. But then I am not subject to headaches.’

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have said that!’ he told her reproachfully. ‘You made a headache your excuse for not playing backgammon with me the other evening.’

  The twinkle in her eyes acknowledged a hit, but she replied without hesitation: ‘You are very right: it was uncivil of me to have said it, sir!’

  He smiled. ‘Well done, Cousin Kate! A homestall!’

  Dr Delabole, entering the room in time to overhear this, asked playfully: ‘And what, may one venture to ask, is a homestall, Mr Philip?’

  One of the few adjuncts of the dandy which Mr Philip Broome affected was the quizzing-glass. He used it to depress pretension. He now raised it to his eye, and through it dispassionately observed the doctor, allowing his gaze to travel slowly from Dr Delabole’s feet to his head: a process which the doctor found to be strangely unnerving. After keeping it levelled for a few moments, he let it fall, and replied suavely: ‘Position, or place, sir – according to the dictionaries.’ He waited for the effect of this snub to be felt, and then said: ‘May one – in one’s turn – venture to ask how your patient does?’

  ‘Do you refer to Sir Timothy, Mr Philip?’ countered the doctor, making a gallant recovery. ‘Not very brisk, I regret to say. His constitution, you know –’

  ‘No, I refer to my cousin Torquil,’ said Philip, ruthlessly interrupting him. ‘Lady Broome has just informed me that he is quite knocked-up by the storm, which has brought on one of his distressing migraines.’

  ‘Alas, too true!’ said the doctor, mournfully shaking his head. ‘One had hoped – But we know too little, as yet, about the effects of atmospheric electricity upon the system! I have been obliged to administer a sedative. Not, I confess, a thing one would wish to do, in the case of so young a patient, but when a blister applied to the head, and cataplasms to the feet, had failed to produce any alleviation of what you so justly term his distressing migraines, sir, I considered it proper to administer a paregoric draught. He is now asleep, but will, I trust, wake up in better cue.’

  ‘Even if he should be rather drowsy. And how, doctor, is the faithful Badger?’ enquired Philip affably.

  ‘Badger?’ repeated the doctor, apparently bewildered.

  ‘Yes, Badger! I caught sight of him this morning, and he looked to be in very queer stirrups – almost as though he had been engaging in cross and jostle work, and had come off the worse for it.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the doctor, laughing. ‘One learns not to ask embarrassing questions of our good Badger when he has enjoyed leave of absence! If he has a fault, it is that he is rather too ready to sport his canvas when he has had a cup too much!’

  ‘Indeed! He was never used to be so. Now that I come to think of it, I can’t recall that I ever saw him above his bend either,’ said Philip reminiscently. He smiled limpidly at the doctor, and said with even more affability: ‘He was used to look after me, when I was a boy, you know. Or perhaps you don’t: it was before your time.’

  Dr Delabole gave Kate the impression of one who was fighting with his back to the wall. She glanced quickly at him, wondering if his smile was a little less urbane, or whether she was indulging her imagination. It broadened as she looked at him, and he replied, with a creditable assumption of amusement: ‘But that was many years ago, sir! Badger is not a young man, and I fear he does now, occasionally, feel in need of – er – stimulants!’

  At this point, Lady Broome intervened, saying in a tone of displeasure: ‘I hope you mean to tell me, Philip, what concern of yours are Badger’s failings – or the failings of any other member of my household?’

  ‘Do you, ma’am?’ he replied, measuring her.

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, if you wish to stand upon points, no! it is not a matter of interest to me. Dr Delabole, I should like to have a word with you: will you come to my room, if you please? Kate, dear child, pray have the goodness to tell Mrs Thorne to bri
ng her accounts to me presently!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Kate, slightly taken aback.

  ‘That was really quite unworthy of her,’ remarked Philip, when Lady Broome had swept from the parlour, followed by the doctor. ‘I can’t think that Mrs Thorne needs to be reminded – if this is Minerva’s day for settling the accounts! I can see, from your expressive countenance, that it isn’t – and also that you mean to give me a heavy set-down.’

  ‘No: merely to go upon my errand – thus putting it out of your power to cut at my aunt behind her back!’ flashed Kate.

  She left the room as she spoke, but twenty minutes later she encountered him on the terrace, looking up at the roof. He said, as though nothing had occurred to provoke her: ‘That chimney must have been hit. It’s badly cracked.’

  Her eyes followed the direction of his pointing finger. ‘Is it safe?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably not. I must warn my uncle to have it looked to.’

  ‘Yes, pray do!’ she said earnestly. ‘If it fell, it might kill someone! Then you would be blamed, wouldn’t you?’

  He looked frowningly at her for a moment, then his brow cleared. ‘Oh, are you thinking of the coping-stone which once fell in front of Torquil? It gave him a sad fright, and since he was at outs with me at the time he set the accident at my door – though how he thought I could have contrived it God only knows! Or why I should have wished to do him an injury. Does he still remember it?’

  ‘Yes. That is, when he is in one of his distempered moods he does. I daresay you must know how he loves to play-act! I believe it is not an uncommon fault in boys who are romantically inclined. In general, they are the heroes of their dreams. Torquil isn’t. At least, he is not a conquering hero! He likes to think that he is persecuted. And I must say,’ she added frankly, ‘I think he is! I don’t scruple to tell you, sir, that I consider Dr Delabole a persecution in himself ! You know, one can’t blame Torquil for holding him in abhorrence! He always says the wrong thing! You did me the honour to say that I seem to have the knack of managing Torquil: well, I think I have! At all events, he is never as horridly rude to me as he is to everyone else! Naturally, I understand how anxious my aunt must be, because his health is so indifferent, but I do feel that he might be better if he were allowed more freedom, and – and more congenial companionship!’