Cousin Kate Read online

  “I’m so glad,” responded Kate, making an attempt to withdraw her hand. His fingers closed on it with surprising strength. She was obliged to request him to let her go. “Even if you do like me!” she said, quizzing him.

  The cloud descended again; he almost flung her hand away, muttering: “You don’t like me!”

  “Well, I find you excessively uncivil,” she owned. “However, I daresay you are subject to fits of the sullens, and, of course, I don’t know what may have occurred to put you out of temper.”

  For a moment it seemed as if he was furious; then, as he looked at her, the cloud lifted, and he exclaimed: “Oh, your eyes are laughing! Yes, I do like you. I’ll beg your pardon, if you wish it.”

  “Torquil, Torquil!” said Dr Delabole, in an admonishing voice. “I am afraid, Miss Malvern, you find us in one of our twitty moods, eh, my boy?”

  She could not help feeling that this was a tactless thing to have said; but before she could speak Sir Timothy, with her aunt leaning on his arm, had come into the room, and Lady Broome had exclaimed: “Oh, you are before me! Torquil, my son!” She moved forward, in a cloud of puce satin and gauze, holding out her hands to him. He took one, and punctiliously kissed it; and she laid the other upon his shoulder, compelling him (as it seemed to Kate) to salute her cheek. Retaining her clasp on his hand, she led him up to Kate, saying: “I will have no formality! Kate, my love, you will allow me to present you to your Cousin Torquil! Torquil, Cousin Kate!”

  Kate promptly sank into a deep curtsy, to which he responded with a flourishing bow, uttering: “Cousin Kate!”

  “Cousin Torquil!”

  “Dinner is served, my lady,” announced Pennymore.

  “Sir Timothy, will you escort Kate?” directed her ladyship. “She has yet to learn her way about!”

  “It will be a pleasure!” said Sir Timothy, offering his arm with a courtly gesture. “A bewildering house, isn’t it? I have often thought so. I should warn you, perhaps, that the food comes quite cold to table, the kitchens being most inconveniently placed.”

  Kate gave a gurgle of laughter, but Lady Broome, overhearing the remark, said: “Nonsense, Sir Timothy! When I have been at such pains to introduce chafing dishes!”

  “So you have, Minerva, so you have!” he replied apologetically.

  The dining-room, which was reached by way of the picture gallery, the Grand Stairway, a broad corridor, and an anteroom, was an immense apartment on the entrance floor of the mansion, panelled in black oak, and hung with crimson damask. Several rather dark portraits did little to lighten it, all the light being shed from four branching chandeliers, which were set at intervals on the long, rather narrow table, on either side of a massive silver epergne. The chairs were Jacobean, with tall backs, upholstered in crimson brocade; and in the gloom that lay beyond the light Kate could dimly perceive a large sideboard.

  “Not very homelike?” murmured Sir Timothy.

  “Not like any home I was ever in, sir,” she replied demurely.

  Torquil, overhearing this as he took his seat beside her, said: “Bravo! Cousin Kate, Mama, has just said that this is not like any home she was ever in!”

  Kate flushed vividly, and cast an apologetic look at Lady Broome, who, however, smiled at her, and said: “Well, I don’t suppose it is, my son. Your cousin has spent her life following the drum, remember! She never knew my home. What have you before you, Sir Timothy? Ah, a cod’s head! Give Kate some, but don’t, I do implore you, place an eye upon her plate! Considered by many to be a high relish, but not by me!”

  “Or by me!” said Torquil, shuddering. “I shall have some soup, Mama.”

  “Which leaves the cod’s eyes to me, and to Sir Timothy!” said Dr Delabole. “We don’t despise them, I promise you!”

  Since he was seated opposite her, Kate was now at leisure to observe him more particularly. He was a large man, with a bland smile, and sufficiently well-looking to make the epithet handsome, frequently used to describe him, not wholly inapposite. He had very white hands, and his mouse-coloured hair was brushed into a fashionable Brutus; and while there was nothing in his attire to support the theory, he gave an impression of modishness. Perhaps, thought Kate, because his shirt-points, though of moderate height, were so exquisitely starched, and his neckcloth arranged with great nicety.

  The cod’s head was removed with a loin of veal; and the soup with a Beef Tremblant and Roots. Between them, side dishes were set on the table: pigeons a la Crapaudine, petits pates, a matelot of eels, and a fricassee of chicken. Kate, partaking sparingly of the veal, in the foreknowledge that she would be expected to do justice to the second course, watched, with awe, Dr Delabole, who had already consumed a large portion of cod, help himself to two pigeons, and eat both, with considerable gusto.

  The second course consisted of a green goose, two rabbits, a dressed crab, some broccoli, some spinach, and an apple-pie. It occurred forcibly to Kate that Lady Browne’s housekeeping was on a large scale. She was not so much impressed as shocked, for as one who knew that one skinny fowl could, skilfully cooked, provide a satisfying meal for three hungry persons, and—who had seldom had more than a few shillings to spend on dinner, this lavishness was horrifying. Torquil had eaten two mouthfuls of the crab before pushing his plate away, peevishly saying that the crab was inedible, and toying with his apple-pie; Sir Timothy, delicately carving a minute portion of rabbit for himself, had allowed her to place a spoonful of spinach on his plate, and then had left it untouched; Lady Broome, having pressed Dr Delabole to permit her to give him some of the goose, took a small slice herself; and Kate, resisting all coaxing attempts to make her sample the goose, ended the repast with the apple-pie and custard. Throughout the meal, Lady Broome maintained a flow of small talk, and Dr Delabole one of anecdote. Sir Timothy, his world-weary eyes on Kate’s face, talked to her of the Peninsular Campaign, to which she responded, at first shyly, and then, when he touched on battles that came within her adult memory, with animation. She drew a soft laugh from him when she described conditions in the Pyrenees, “when even Headquarters, which were at Lesaca, were—were odious!”

  Torquil said curiously: “Were you there?”

  “No, not at Lesaca,” she replied, turning her head towards him, and smiling in her friendly way.

  “Oh, I meant in the Peninsula!”

  “Why, yes! You may say that I was bred in Portugal! Though, owing to the fact that I was only a child at the time, and was left with Mama and my nurse in Lisbon, I can’t tell you anything about the retreat to Corunna. Indeed, the first campaign of which I have the smallest recollection is that of 1811, when Lord Wellington advanced from the Lines of Torres Vedras, and drove all before him, as far as to Madrid!”

  “How much I envy you!”

  “Do you? It was very uncomfortable, you know! And sometimes rather dangerous.”

  “I shouldn’t care for that,” he said, throwing a challenging look at his mother. “I bear a charmed life!”

  “You talk a great deal of nonsense, my son,” she said shortly, rising, and going to the door. One of the footmen opened it for her and she passed out of the room, followed by Kate, whose instinct bade her thank the man, but whose judgement forbade her to do so. She achieved a compromise between self-importance and the sort of familiarity she knew her aunt would deprecate, and smiled warmly up at him. He maintained his air of rigid immobility, but later rendered himself odious to his peers by saying that he knew Quality when he saw it, and it didn’t depend on a fortune, not by a long chalk it didn’t, whatever ill-informed persons might suppose. “Sir Timothy’s Quality,” he said, pointing his knife at his immediate’ superior, and speaking a trifle thickly, “which you won’t deny! And for why? Because he ain’t so stiff-rumped that he won’t thank you civil if you was to perform a service for him! And his lady ain’t! For why? Because she’s so top-lofty she don’t so much as notice any of us servants! And that Dr Delabole ain’t Quality either, for he notices us too much! But Miss Kate is!
”

  Meanwhile, Kate, unaware of this encomium, had followed her aunt to the Yellow saloon, and was listening to her exposition of her son’s character. According to Lady Broome, he had been (owing to his sickly childhood) too much indulged, to which circumstance must be attributed his every fault. “You won’t heed him, I know, when he talks in that wild way,” she said, with a slight smile. “I sometimes think that he would have made a very good actor—though whence he derives his histrionic talent I confess I haven’t the remotest guess!”

  “Oh, no! I shan’t heed him,” replied Kate cheerfully. Any more than I heeded my father’s subalterns!”

  “Dear child!” purred her ladyship. “You have such superior sense! Torquil, I fear, has none at all, so you will be an excellent companion for him. I should explain to you, perhaps, that although it was found to be impossible to send him to school, I felt that it would be improper to admit him into our social life, and so set up an establishment for him in the West Wing, where he resides—or has resided, up to the present time—with Dr Delabole, and his valet, our faithful Badger.”

  A wrinkle appeared on Kate’s brow; she ventured to ask how old Torquil was. She was told, Nineteen, and looked surprised.

  “You are thinking,” said her ladyship smoothly, “that he should be at Oxford. Unfortunately, his health is still too precarious to make it advisable to send him up.”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking that, ma’am. But—but he is a man grown, and it does seem a little odd that he should be kept in the nursery!” said Kate frankly.

  Lady Broome laughed. “Oh, dear me, no! Not the nursery! What a notion to take into your head! The thing is that having been reared in the West Wing he chooses to remain there—using it as a retreat, when he is out of humour. He is subject to moods, as I don’t doubt you will have noticed, and the least excitement brings on one of his distressing migraines. These prostrate him, and there is nothing for it but to put him to bed, and to keep him in absolute quiet. Impossible, of course, if his room were in the main part of the house.”

  Never having had experience of sickly young men, Kate accepted this, and said no more. When the gentlemen had come into the room, the backgammon table was set out, and Sir Timothy asked her if she played the game. She responded drolly: “Why, yes, sir! I have been used to play with my father, and consider myself to be quite a dab at it!”

  He chuckled. “Come and pit your skill against mine!” he invited. “Did you also play piquet with your father?”

  “Frequently, sir!”

  “We’ll try that too. Delabole is no match for me, and Torquil holds all such sports in abomination. In which he takes after his mother, who can’t tell a spade from a club! Eh, Minerva?”

  She smiled at him, but rather in the manner of a woman who found little to interest her in the prattling of a Child; and signed to Dr Delabole to sit beside her on one of the sofas. Him she engaged in low-voiced converse, while Torquil sat down at the piano, and strummed idly. Glancing up momentarily from her game, Kate was forcibly struck by the intense melancholy of his expression. His eyes were sombre, his mouth took on a tragic droop; but before she could speculate on this her attention was recalled by Sir Timothy, who said demurely: “I don’t think you should accept a double, should you, Kate?”

  Chapter IV

  The following morning was spent by Kate in exploration. Torquil was her guide, and since he seemed to have thrown off the blue devils, an agreeable one. He conducted her all over the house, not excluding his own wing of it, and entertained her with his version of its history. “And here,” he said solemnly, throwing open a door, “we have the Muniment Room! Why don’t you bow profoundly? I warn you, my mama will expect you to do so! She has been at such pains to collect our records, and to store them here! I don’t think Papa ever troubled himself to do so—or to have a Muniment Room—but pray don’t tell her I said so!” He cast her a sidelong look, out of eyes brimming with laughter. “Isn’t it odd that she, who was not born a Broome, should care so much more for them than Papa? She was ably assisted by Matthew—oh, Dr Delabole! I call him Matthew—who has also catalogued the library. Have you seen enough? Shall I take you out into the gardens?”

  “Yes, please, but let me get a shawl first.”

  He accompanied her to her bedchamber, and stood in the doorway, leaning his shoulders against the wall, his hands dug into his pockets, while she changed her slippers for a pair of half-boots, and wrapped a shawl round herself. His attitude was one of careless grace; his dress negligent, with the unstarched points of his shirt-collar drooping over a loosely knotted handkerchief, and a shooting-jacket worn open over a fancy waistcoat. A lock of his gleaming hair fell across his brow, and prompted Kate to say, with a twinkle: “You do study the picturesque, don’t you? One might take you for a poet!”

  “I am a poet,” he replied coldly.

  “No, are you? Then that accounts for it!”

  “Accounts for what?”

  “The windswept look, of course. Oh, don’t poker up! Did no one ever banter you before?”

  It seemed, for a moment, as though he had taken offence; but then he laughed, rather reluctantly, and said: “No, never. Is that what you mean to do, cousin?”

  “Well, I don’t precisely mean to, but I daresay I shall. You must remember that I have lived amongst soldiers! Very young officers, you know, are for ever cutting jokes, and poking fun at each other, and anyone making a figure of himself must be prepared to stand the roast! Come, let us go: I am quite ready!”

  He muttered something which she did not catch, but she did not ask him to repeat it, feeling that he must be left to recover his temper. Not until they had left the house did she speak again, and then, perceiving a bed of spring flowers, she exclaimed: “Oh, how charming! Your mama told me that she had made the gardens her particular concern. Pray take me all over them! If it isn’t a dead bore?”

  “Oh, everything is a dead bore!” he said, shrugging up his shoulders. “Being a Broome—being the heir—being alive! Do you ever wish you had never been born?”

  Suspecting him of dramatizing himself, she answered, after consideration: “No. I always think, when things are at their worst, that tomorrow will be better. And it very often is—as when your mother, finding me, if not quite destitute, at any rate at my wits’ end, invited me to stay with her. So don’t despair, Torquil!”

  She ended by impulsively pressing his thin hand, and smiling up into his suddenly haggard face. He stared hungrily down at her for a moment, before shaking off her hand, and saying harshly: “Well, let us take a look at the Italian garden—and the rose-garden—and the knot-garden—and the belvedere—if that’s what you wish! Oh, and the herb-garden, and the shrubbery! Not that you will see much in them at this season! But you won’t care for that, I daresay!”

  She stood her ground, saying calmly: “But I do care. Take me, if you please, to the belvedere, which I have already seen from the window of my room, and which seems to command a view of the lake!”

  Their eyes battled for mastery. Hers won, their coolness quenching the flame in his; but the effort to withstand his scorching gaze left her shaken. Before she could bring her thoughts into order, the flame had shrunk, and he was making an exaggerated bow, and saying gaily: “As you wish, cousin! This way!”

  She walked in silence beside him down a path which led to the belvedere, and almost shrank from him when, all at once, he stopped, compelling her to do so too by gripping her arm, and swinging her round to face him. “Are you afraid of me, Cousin Kate?” he demanded.

  “Afraid of you? No, why should I be?” she countered.

  “You jumped!”

  “Well, so I should think, when you startled me so much!” she said indignantly. “For goodness’ sake, Torquil, don’t playact! At all events, not to me, for, whatever your entourage may feel, I am quite unimpressed! Now, if you will be so obliging as to let me go, we will proceed on our way to the belvedere!”

  He gave a low chuckle, and rel
eased his painful grip on her arm. “Strong, aren’t I?” He flexed his long fingers, regarding them with an admiring smile. “I could strangle you one-handed, you know. Wouldn’t think it, to look at me, would you?”

  “No, but as I haven’t had occasion to consider the matter there’s nothing wonderful in that!” she retorted, rubbing her arm. His chagrined face stirred her sense of fun; she broke into laughter, and said: “Cry craven, Torquil! You have the wrong sow by the ear: I’m not so easily impressed!”

  That made him echo her laughter. “Kate, Cousin Kate, do you call yourself a sow? I should never dare do so! You are the most unusual girl!”

  “I’ve had an unusual upbringing—and well for you if you don’t call me a sow! Now, do come to the belvedere! My aunt will certainly ask if you showed it to me, and if you are obliged to say that you didn’t, it will be all holiday with you!”

  He threw a quick look over his shoulder, as though he feared to see Lady Broome. “Yes. As you say! Come, let’s run!”

  He caught her hand as he spoke, and forced her to run beside him down the path. She made a snatch at her skirt, but arrived, breathless, laughing, and with a torn flounce, at the belvedere. “Odious boy!” she scolded, pulling her hand out of his. “Just look at what you’ve made me do to my gown! Now I must pin it up!” She opened her reticule, drew out a paper of pins, and, sitting down on the steps, began to repair the damage.

  Watching with great interest, Torquil asked if she always carried pins.

  “Yes, for one never knows when one may need them. There! I hope it will hold until I can stitch it—and that my aunt doesn’t see me with a pinned-up flounce! She would take me for a regular Mab, I daresay. I may now enjoy the view—and, oh, yes, I do enjoy it! How very right your mama was to build a belvedere just here! May I enter it?”

  “Do!” he said cordially.

  She mounted the steps, and found herself in a summer-house, which was furnished with a table, and one chair. A book lay on the table and a standish was set beside it. Kate said: “Is it private, this room? Ought I to be in it?”