Cousin Kate Read online

Observing the look of anxiety on his face, Sarah had mopped her eyes, and implanted a smacking kiss on his cheek, saying: “And a good, kind husband you are, Joe, and if there was more as faithful as what you proved yourself to be the world would be a better place!”

  Colouring darkly, Mr Nidd had uttered an inarticulate protest, but this rare tribute from his sharp-tongued spouse had been well earned. Falling deeply in love with a much younger Sarah, who had been on the eve of accompanying her mistress and her nursling to Portugal, and had rejected his offer, he had indeed remained faithful. Seven years later (“Just like Jacob!” had said Kate, urging her nurse to the altar), when Sarah had come back to England with her widowed master and his daughter, he had renewed his suit, and his constancy had been rewarded: Miss Sarah Publow had changed her name to Nidd, and had lost no time at all in assuming the control of her husband’s family, and vastly improving their fortunes. Within a year, she had bullied and cajoled her aged father-in-law into spending his jealously hoarded savings on the acquisition of the inn which now provided the firm with spacious headquarters, and had transformed it from a single carrier into an establishment which, if it did not yet rival Pickford’s, was in a fair way to providing Pickford’s with some healthy competition. Her husband adored her; his father, while losing no opportunity to get the better of her, had been known to inform his cronies at the Cock, when mellowed by a sufficient quantity of what he inelegantly termed belly-juice, that she was a sure card; his sisters wavered between ineffective resentment of her managing disposition, and a comfortable dependence on her willingness to assist them in any difficulty; and his nephews, all as inarticulate as he was himself, said simply that you wouldn’t get a more bang-up dinner anywhere than what Aunt Sarey would give you.

  Even Miss Malvern, for all her four-and-twenty years, turned instinctively to her in times of trouble, and was insensibly reassured by her air of competence. Tucked now into bed, told that there was no need to get into high fidgets, and adjured to go to sleep, she thought, snuggling into the feathered softness, that perhaps she had allowed herself to become too despondent, and that Sarah really did know best.

  But Sarah, stumping downstairs again to the kitchen, was feeling far from competent; and although the dinner she presently set before her husband, her father-in-law, one of her nephews, and two of the lads employed in the stables, in no way betrayed her inward perturbation, she ate very little of her own portion, and was a trifle short in her responses to the remarks addressed to her. This circumstance did not escape the notice of Mr Nidd Senior, or of Mr Nidd Junior, but when the younger Nidd, a simple-minded soul, began anxiously to ask if anything were amiss his more astute sire cut him short, adjuring him not to be a jobbernoll, and inquiring affably of Sarah if it wasn’t Miss Kate he’d seen crossing the yard a while back. “Which I hopes it was,” he said, mopping up the gravy on his plate with a large lump of bread, “for she’s been first-oars with me from the moment I clapped eyes on her, and she’s heartily welcome. A prettier gal I never did see, and nothing niffy-naffy about her! Sweet as a nut, she is, but for all she don’t hold up her nose at folks like us she’s a proper lady, and don’t you forget it, young Ted!” he concluded, rounding suddenly on his grandson with such ferocity that the hapless youth dropped his knife. “If you was to behave disrespectful to her, I’d lay your back open!”

  Such was the awe in which his descendants held him that Young Ted, a brawny giant, saw nothing absurd in this threat, but informed him, in stammering haste, that nothing was further from his intentions than to treat Miss Kate with disrespect. He accepted this assurance, but caused the two hirelings to quake by saying: “And as for you, you’ll keep out of her way! Couple of clod-crushers!”

  At this point, Sarah intervened, telling her father-in-law that there was no call for him to rake the poor lads down, and providing them with generous portions of apple-pie. She spoke sharply, but she was not unappreciative of the tribute he had paid her darling; and when the younger members of the party had withdrawn, and Mr Nidd had bade her empty her budget, she said in a much milder tone: “Well, I don’t means to fall into the dismals, but I am in a worry, Father: that I can’t deny.”

  “Ah!” said Mr Nidd. “On account of Miss Kate. I suspicioned as much. What brought her back to Lunnon in such a crack? Not but what you don’t have to tell me, because I ain’t a cod’s head! Someone’s tried to give her a slip on the shoulder, which is what I thought would happen, for it stands to reason a spanking beauty like she is, which is allowed by them as should have known better to go jauntering round the country unbefriended, is bound to find herself in the briars.”

  “Yes! And well I know it!” cried Sarah, stung by this palpable dig at herself. “But what could I do, when her mind was made up, and she was as poor as a Church rat? I thought she’d be safe with that Mrs Astley!”

  “That’s where you was a woolly-crown, my girl,” said Mr Nidd, with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Because if Mrs Astley’s husband is a rabshackle—”

  “It wasn’t him!” interrupted Sarah, very much flushed. “He behaved very proper to Miss Kate! It was Mrs Astley’s brother! And he don’t seem to have been a rabshackle, though he’d no business to go trying to kiss Miss Kate! He made her an offer!”

  “Now, that,” said Mr Nidd, “is something like! What Miss Kate wants is a husband!”

  “You needn’t think I don’t know that, Father! If this young Grittleton had taken her fancy I’d have thanked God on my knees, for all she’d have been demeaning herself, she being above the Astleys’ cut, but she didn’t. A moon-calf is what she says he is.”

  “Well, such ain’t a particle of use to her,” said Mr Nidd, abandoning interest in young Grittleton. “What is she meaning to do now, Sarey?”

  “Hire herself out as a common abigail!” replied Sarah bitterly.

  At this disclosure, the younger Mr Nidd looked very much shocked, and said that she must not be allowed to do it. He added diffidently: “If she’d lower herself to live here, with you to take care of her, we’d be proud to have her, wouldn’t we Father?”

  “It’s no matter what we’d be: it wouldn’t fit!” responded Mr Nidd unhesitatingly. “If you’d ever had any wits I’d be wondering where they’d gone a-begging! How I come to have a son that was no better than a chawbacon is something I’ll never know, not if I live to be a hundred!”

  “No! Nor I’ll never know how you came to have a son with such a good heart!” snapped Sarah, rising instantly to Joe’s defence. A mumbled remonstrance from him caused her to pat his hand, and to say in a mollified tone: “I’m sure I don’t want to offend you, Father, but I won’t have you miscalling Joe. Not but what he’s right, Joe: it wouldn’t fit! But how to stop her doing what’s beneath her I don’t know! Perhaps your father does, so long-headed as he is!”

  “You can lay your life I do!” said Mr Nidd, a gleam of triumph in his eye. To think I’ve a longer head than you, Sarey! What Miss Kate’s got to have is a home with her own kin.”

  “Ay! she did ought to have that!” agreed his son, much struck by this display of wisdom.

  “I said it when the Major took and died, and I’ll say it again,” pursued Mr Nidd. “Her relations ought to be wrote to. And don’t you pitch me any gammon about her not having none, like you did afore, Sarey, because it’s hornswoggle! We all got kin of some sort.”

  “Yes,” said Sarah slowly. “But there’s none left on my mistress’ side but her sister, and if she’d lift a finger to help Miss Kate she’s mightily changed since I knew her! What’s more, Miss Kate wouldn’t have anything to say to that set, nor I wouldn’t wish her to, the way they behaved to her mama! I don’t say she hasn’t maybe got some cousins, but I don’t know who they are, or where they live, or anything about them. And as for the Major, I never heard tell of any relations other than his half-sister, and he paid no more heed to her than she did to him. She married a titled gentleman that had a place called Staplewood, which made the Major laugh out when
he read about it, telling my mistress that there was never anyone more ambitious than his sister, and the only thing that surprised him was that she was content with a baronet, instead of having set her cap at a duke, or a marquis, or some such. Still, I fancy he must be a high-up baronet, because the Major said: “Well done, Minerva! Broome of Staplewood, no less!” And my mistress told me that it was a very old family, that had lived at this Staplewood since I don’t know when, and all as proud as peacocks. But I don’t know where it may be, nor it wouldn’t signify if I did, for the Major said his sister had risen quite beyond his touch now, and if he got more than a common bow from her, if ever they was to meet again, he’d have nothing more to do than bless himself for his good fortune, supposing he didn’t suffer a palsy-stroke!” Her eyes filled. She wiped away the sudden tears, saying: “He was always so full of fun and gig, poor dear gentleman! Whenever I think of the way—But it’s no manner of use thinking of what’s done, and can’t be undone! The thing is that it isn’t to be expected that she’d do anything to help Miss Kate, when she’d got to be too proud to behave civil to her own brother. Besides, I don’t know where she lives!”

  “That don’t signify,” said Mr Nidd impatiently. “There’s books as will tell you where the nobles and the landed gentry lives! Ah, and there’s directories, too! What I’m thinking is that a starched-up lady wouldn’t wish for her niece to be hiring herself out like Miss Kate means to—Now, what’s the matter with you, Joe?”

  The younger Mr Nidd, who had been sitting with his brow furrowed in painful cogitation, opening his mouth as if to speak, and shutting it again, gulped, and answered diffidently that he rather thought he did know.

  “Know what?” demanded his progenitor irascibly.

  “Staplewood”, produced Joe. “Ay, that was it! Market Harborough! Leastways, it ain’t there, but nearby, seemingly. Because the orders was to set the pack-case down at the Angel. Likely they would ha’ sent in a cart, or a farm-wagon, maybe, to fetch it. I disremember what it was, but I got it in my head is was a big pack-case, such as you could put a pianny into—though I don’t know it was a pianny, mind!”

  “No, and it don’t make any odds if it was a kitchen stove!” said Mr Nidd. “All we want to know—”

  “You’ve hit it, Dad!” uttered Joe, his frown banished by a broad grin. “If you aren’t a one!” he said, in affectionate admiration. “A Bodley Range, tha’s what it was! It come back to me the moment you said stove!”

  Mr Nidd cast his eyes upwards in entreaty. “Don’t heed him, Sarey!” he begged. “He always was a knock-in-the-cradle, and he always will be! What you got to do is to write a letter to Miss Kate’s aunt, telling her as how Miss Kate’s left properly in the basket, and meaning to get herself hired as a housemaid, or a shopwoman, very likely. You want to tell her who you are, and how the Major was took off sudden, which she maybe don’t know, but mind you don’t run on like a fiddlestick! If you was to cross your lines, it’s ten to one she wouldn’t be able to read ’em; and if you was to take a second sheet she’d have to pay for it, which is a thing that might get up her back, same as it would anyone’s.”

  “But, Father!” protested Sarah. “I don’t know if it would do any good!”

  “No, and no more I don’t neither,” conceded Mr Nidd graciously. “There’s no saying, howsever, but what it might, and if it don’t it won’t do no harm. You do like I tell you, my girl, and don’t start in to argufy! I’ll allow you got more rum-gumption than most females, but you ain’t got so much in your nous-box as what I have, and don’t you think it!”

  Chapter II

  The letter was written, and (under the direction of Mr Nidd, a severe critic) rewritten, but not without misgiving. Sarah knew very well how much Miss Kate would dislike it, and she was thereafter torn between the hope that it would win response from Lady Broome, and the dread that it would bring her under Miss Kate’s displeasure. However, her father-in-law read her a lecture on the evil consequences of shrinking from one’s duty, stood over her while she folded the single sheet, sealed it with a wafer, and laboriously inscribed it to Lady Broome, and then wrested it away from her, telling her that if Miss Kate nabbed the rust he would talk to her himself.

  “I hope and trust you’ll do no such thing, Father!” said Sarah, who viewed with disapproval, and a certain amount of apprehension, his predilection for Kate’s society.

  “Don’t you get into a fuss!” recommended Mr Nidd. “There’s no call for neither of us to say a word to her until you gets an answer to this letter; and if you don’t get one she won’t never know anything about it! And you don’t need to worrit yourself every time her and me has a poker-talk!” he added, with asperity. “Her and me goes on very comfortable together.”

  “Yes, Father, I know!” Sarah said hastily. “But you do say such things!”

  “I’ll be bound she don’t hear no worse from me than what she’s heard from them soldiers of her pa’s!” retorted Mr Nidd.

  This being unarguable, Sarah subsided, and when she begged Kate not to encourage him to intrude upon her, boring her with his pittle-pattle, Kate merely laughed, and replied that she much enjoyed his visits to the parlour. “I like him!” her reluctant endeavour to obtain another governess’ situation, was meeting with rebuffs. Too Young! was what prospective employers said, but Sarah knew that Too Pretty! was what they meant, particularly those whose families included sons of marriageable age. And you couldn’t blame them, thought Sarah, thrown into deeper gloom, for anyone prettier, or with more taking ways, than Miss Kate would be hard to find. Not only Mr Nidd’s three grandsons, but the stable-boys too, and even Old Tom, who was notoriously cross-grained, and had charge of the stables, made cakes of themselves about her! “What,” demanded Sarah of her sympathetic but speechless spouse, “is to become of her, if her aunt don’t pay any heed to my letter? That’s what I want to know!”

  No answer, beyond a doubtful shake of the head, was forthcoming, but the question was rendered supererogatory, some ten days later, by the arrival, in an ordinary hack, of Lady Broome.

  Mr Nidd, enjoying the spring sunshine at his favourite post of vantage on the balcony, observed the approach of this vehicle with only mild interest; but when a tall, fashionably dressed lady stepped down from it, and sought in her reticule with one elegantly gloved hand for her purse, he cast aside the shawl which was protecting his aged legs from quite a sharp wind, and nipped with surprising agility into the house, to give Sarah forewarning of the arrival of Miss Kate’s aunt.

  Emerging from the kitchen, with a rolling-pin in her hand and her arms generously floured, Sarah gasped: “Never?”

  “Well, we ain’t looking for no duchess to come a-visiting us, so if it ain’t a duchess it’s my Lady Broome!” replied Mr Nidd tartly. “Bustle about, my girl! She’s paying off the jarvey, but she don’t look to me like one as’ll stand higgling over the fare, so you’d do well to stir your stumps!”

  The advice was unnecessary: Sarah was already in the kitchen again, stripping off her apron; and, within a few moments of hearing the knocker, she was opening the door to her visitor, looking as trim as wax, and in very tolerable command of herself.

  An imposing figure confronted her, that of a tall, handsome woman, wearing a velvet pelisse, bordered with sable, and carrying a huge sable muff. A close hat, of bronze-green velvet to match her pelisse, and trimmed with a single curled ostrich plume, was set upon a head of exquisitely dressed dark hair; her gloves were of fine kid; and her velvet half-boots, like her hat, exactly matched her pelisse. Her countenance was arresting, dominated by a pair of brilliant eyes, in colour between blue and grey, and set under strongly marked brows. Her features were very regular, the contour of her face being marred only by the slight heaviness of her lower jaw, and rather too square a chin. She looked to be about forty years of age; and, at first glance, Sarah found her intimidating. Her smile, however, was pleasant, and her manners, while plainly those of a lady of quality, were neither high nor im
posing, but at once kind and gracious. She said, with a faint smile, and in a voice more deeply pitched than the average: “Good morning! I am Lady Broome. And you, I think, must be Miss Sarah Nidd. Or should it be Mrs Nidd?”

  “Mrs Nidd,” if your ladyship pleases,” said Sarah, dropping a curtsy.

  “I beg your pardon! I have come—as you have guessed—in response to your letter, for which I am very much obliged to you. I was unaware of my brother’s death, or of the uncomfortable circumstances in which my poor little niece’ finds herself. May I see her?”

  “Yes, indeed, my lady!” replied Sarah, holding the door wide, and dropping another curtsy. “That is, she isn’t here, not just at the moment, but I expect her to be back any minute. If your ladyship would condescend to step upstairs to the parlour, you will be quite private there, for only Miss Kate uses it.”

  “Thank you. And if you will bear me company I am persuaded you will be able to tell me a great deal about which I might hesitate to question Miss Kate, for fear of embarrassing her. You must know that since my brother’s unhappy estrangement from the family we lost sight of each other: indeed, I was barely acquainted with him, for there was a considerable disparity of age between us. You wrote of his death as of recent date: I collect it was not the result of a military action?”

  “No, my lady,” Sarah replied, leading her up the stairs, and throwing open the parlour door. “He’d sold out, which, at the time I was glad of, thinking it was time, and more, that he settled down. On account of Miss Kate, my lady—but I should have known better!”

  “He did not, in fact?” said Lady Broome, sitting down in one of the chairs which flanked the fireplace, and indicating, with a smile and a gesture, that Sarah should follow her example.

  Sarah obeyed, but with a little reluctance, choosing the extreme edge of the chair to sit on. “No, my lady, he didn’t. And it’s my belief he never would have, even if he’d won a fortune, like he said he would, because he was a gamester, ma’am, and I’ve often heard it said that such can’t be cured. He was knocked down by a common tax-cart, and hit his head on the kerbstone, being not—not tosticated, but—but muddled!”