‘Well, I’m sure, miss – !’ said Sidlaw, bridling. ‘If I’d known you was awake, I would have brought it in to you, but not hearing a sound, and not wishing to wake you out of your first sleep, I thought it best to slip it into the lock on the outside.’
‘Indeed?’ said Kate, still standing with her hand imperatively outstretched.
Sidlaw reluctantly surrendered the key, plunging at the same time into an unconvincing account of having found it earlier in the day, but having forgotten to restore it to Kate’s door until this very moment, when she had suddenly remembered it. ‘I’ve been so taken-up with her ladyship, miss, that I’m sure it’s no wonder the key slipped my memory!’
‘And I expect you found it in a most unexpected place, having hunted for it for weeks!’ said Kate, with false affability, and a glittering smile. ‘I won’t embarrass you by asking where it was. Goodnight!’
She shut the door, not waiting for a response, and audibly locked it, resolving to afford no one the chance of abstracting the key again, but to keep it in her pocket all day.
However, it was a large, oldfashioned key, and when, next morning, she put it into the pocket which hung round her waist, and was reached through a slit in her petticoat, it knocked uncomfortably against her leg whenever she moved, so she was obliged to put it in her reticule instead, until she could find a safe hiding-place for it.
She found only Torquil in the breakfast-parlour, and he seemed to have finished eating, and to be waiting for her to appear, for he had no sooner responded to her cheerful greeting than he said impulsively: ‘You aren’t angry with me, coz, are you?’
More important considerations had thrust so far to the back of her mind the recollection of his conduct on the previous day that she had almost forgotten it, and replied, in surprise: ‘Angry with you? No – why should I be? Oh – ! You mean because you fired at that poor, friendly dog, and missed hitting me by inches? No, I’m not angry, though I own that I was vexed to death at the time! Good-morning, Pennymore!’
‘I knew you wouldn’t be!’ said Torquil, ignoring the butler, who was setting a tea-pot down before Kate, and a dish of the hot scones she liked. ‘Matthew said you were all on end, and ready to come to dagger-drawing with me, but I knew that was a clanker!’
‘Dr Delabole exaggerates, but I was certainly very much shocked,’ she replied, with reserve. ‘The dog was not a stray, but a truant, and hardly more than a puppy: you had no business to be firing at him, you know!’
‘He had no business to be in the park! Besides, I don’t like dogs! And I didn’t miss you by inches! You shouldn’t have moved!’
‘Well, never mind!’ she said placably. ‘Have you heard how your mother does this morning?’
‘No, and I don’t – Oh, yes! Matthew said she had had a restless night, I think: I wasn’t attending particularly! He’s with her now. But that’s not important! I didn’t mean to frighten you yesterday, Kate! And if you were frightened I’m sorry for it! There!’
He uttered this apology with the air of one putting considerable force upon himself, and she was obliged to laugh, which made him look black. However, his brow cleared, and his eyes lost their dangerous sparkle, when she begged him not to ring a peal over her before she had finished her breakfast, and he said, with a little giggle: ‘You are such a funny one, coz! I wish you will marry me! Why won’t you? Don’t you like me?’
‘Not enough to marry you,’ she answered calmly. ‘And, let me tell you, Torquil, if there is one thing I dislike more than quarrelling over the breakfast-cups, it is having offers of marriage made to me over them! You should remember that if I did marry you you would find yourself leg-shackled to a haggish old woman while you were still in your prime!’
‘Yes,’ he said naïvely, ‘but Mama says that if I’m married to you she’ll let me go to London!’
Her eyes danced appreciatively. ‘That is certainly an object,’ she agreed.
‘And you would be Lady Broome, you know, because when my father dies Staplewood will be mine, and the title, too, of course. I shouldn’t think it will be long before he pops off the hooks, either, because he’s pretty well burnt to the socket now.’
She felt no desire to laugh at this speech, which was uttered in a voice of total unconcern; and replied coldly: ‘It so happens that I have no wish to be Lady Broome. Pray don’t say any more on this head! Believe me, you don’t appear to advantage when you speak of your father in that callous style!’
‘Oh, pooh! Why shouldn’t I? I don’t care a rush for him, or he for me!’
The entrance of the doctor put an end to any further remarks of this nature. Pointedly turning her shoulder on Torquil, Kate enquired after her aunt’s condition. Dr Delabole said that he had hoped that her fever might have abated itself by today, but that it had been a particularly violent catching, aggravated by colic. She had suffered a disturbed night, and was still a little feverish, and disinclined to talk. ‘So I think you should not visit her until she feels rather more the thing,’ he said. ‘I have great hope that a change of medicine will put her in better cue. Torquil, my dear boy, do you care to drive with me into Market Harborough to procure it?’
‘Not if you mean to handle the reins!’ said Torquil rudely.
‘No, no!’ said the doctor, laughing indulgently. ‘I shall be happy to sit at my ease while you do the work. I know you are a better whip than I am – almost as good a fiddler as Mr Philip Broome! And where, by the way, is Mr Broome? I didn’t hear him come in last night, so no doubt he has overslept this morning!’
‘Lord, no! he never does so!’ said Torquil. ‘He was getting up from the table when I came into the room! I daresay he’s with my father.’
He then began to argue with the doctor about which horse should be harnessed to which vehicle; and Kate got up, and left the parlour while the respective merits of the whisky and the more fashionable tilbury were still being discussed.
There was no sign of Philip in any of the rooms on the entrance-floor, so that unless he had retired upstairs to the library, he had either gone out, or was indeed sitting with his uncle. Kate, who had been longing to see him ever since she had awakened from an uneasy sleep, felt just a little ill-used. If he was anxious to see her, as surely he should have been, if he was really in love with her, he need not have come down to breakfast at an hour when he must have known she would not be present, she thought, forgetting that it was just possible that he might have wished to avoid meeting her in the presence of Torquil and the doctor. If he had gone out, or was visiting his uncle, it looked very much as if he were avoiding her; which must surely mean that he was trying to find a way of escaping his engagement. Kate, whose overnight lucubrations had led to an uneasy sleep, infested with worrying dreams, was hoping, without realizing it, for reassurance. She did not find it in the library, which was as empty as the saloons; and it was in a despairing mood that she came slowly down the stairs again, trying to persuade herself that it behoved her to make everything easy for Philip by telling him that, after thinking the matter over, she had come to the conclusion that she did not love him enough to marry him.
This melancholy resolve brought tears to her eyes, and although she resolutely wiped them away, she was obliged to keep one hand on the baluster-rail, because her vision was still blurred. It cleared miraculously when she heard herself hailed by Mr Philip Broome, who appeared (as it seemed to her) from nowhere, and came up the stairs two at a time, exclaiming: ‘Kate! I was coming in search of you! What’s this Pennymore has been telling me? No, don’t answer me! We can’t talk on the stairs! Come down to the Red saloon, where we can be private!’
There was nothing at all lover-like, either in this imperious command, or in the ungentle grasp round her wrist; but the depression lifted from Kate’s heart. As he almost dragged her down the stairs, she uttered a protest, which he most uncivilly disregarded, pulling her in
to the saloon, and shutting the door firmly. He then said, searching her face with hard, penetrating eyes: ‘When I stepped out on to the terrace before breakfast, I found the carpenter mending one of the gunroom windows! Is it true that it was Torquil who broke in, yesterday, and stole one of my uncle’s shotguns?’
‘Why, yes!’ she replied, tenderly massaging her wrist. ‘I shall be excessively obliged to you – Cousin Philip! – if you will have the goodness to inform me of your intention when next you mean to manhandle me! You have bruised me to the bone!’
Swift amusement suddenly softened his eyes; he exclaimed: ‘Oh, Kate, you dear rogue! What a plumper! Show me this bruise!’
‘Very likely it won’t be visible until tomorrow,’ she said, with a dignity that admirably concealed the intense pleasure she felt at being called a dear rogue.
‘And still more likely that it will never become visible!’ he retorted, advancing upon her, and possessing himself of both her hands, and holding them in a strong clasp. ‘Stop bantering me, and tell me the truth! Did Torquil, in fact, try to shoot you?’
‘Good God, no! Of course he didn’t!’ she replied. ‘He tried to shoot a dog, and missed both the dog and me, for which I am heartily thankful! He’s not fit to be trusted with guns, as I told him! I was in such a rage! But how did Pennymore know of it? He wasn’t there! No one was there, except Badger, and, later, Dr Delabole!’
‘One of the stable-hands saw you from the avenue, and was trying to summon up the pluck to dash to your help – or so he says! – when the appearance of Badger on the scene relieved him of the necessity to show his mettle. The story had reached Pennymore’s ears by the time you went to bed.’
‘Grossly exaggerated, I make no doubt!’
‘Very likely. Is it true that Torquil threatened to shoot Badger?’
‘With an empty gun! He was only trying to frighten Badger! He gave the gun up to me the instant I told him to do so, and I promise you there is no need for you to be cast into high fidgets!’
‘On the contrary, there is a very urgent need!’ he said. ‘Kate, let me take you away from this place!’ His clasp tightened on her hands. ‘It isn’t safe for you to remain here, believe me!’ He looked down into her upturned face, and deep into her eyes, his own glowing with a light which made her pulses jump. ‘You pretty innocent!’ he said, in a thickened voice, snatching her into his arms, and roughly kissing her. Then, as she burst into tears of relief, he slackened his embrace, and demanded: ‘Why, Kate! Kate, my darling, what’s the matter?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing!’ she sobbed. ‘Only I thought – I was afraid – that you might be regretting it! And although I think you ought to, I couldn’t bear it if you did! And I know you haven’t thought how you would like to be married to a female who has only her nurse to support her at the altar!’
His eyes laughed, but his voice was perfectly grave as he replied: ‘You are very right! I hadn’t thought of it. You wouldn’t care, I suppose, to depend on my support, if your nurse should be unequal to the task?’
She gave a rather watery giggle, and subsided again on to his chest. ‘Don’t make game of me! You know very well what I mean! What would all your relations think?’
‘Of course! That is a serious consideration. I wonder why it should not have occurred to me?’ he said, apparently much struck. ‘Could it have been because what they think doesn’t seem to me to be of consequence?’
‘It is of consequence to me,’ she said, into his coat.
‘Is it? Then there’s only one thing for it! We must be married privately, by special licence!’
‘Oh, Philip, as though that would make it any better! Do, do be serious!’
‘I am being serious, little wet-goose. I am determined to remove you from Staplewood as soon as may be possible; and since neither of us, I hope, is so lost to all sense of propriety as to consider a flight to the Border to be pardonable in any but extremely ramshackle persons – what one might call the baggagery, you know! – I believe my best course will be to convey you to London, to the protection of your nurse, for just so long as it will take me to procure the special licence, and to send an express to my steward, telling him to make all ready for our homecoming. After which, I mean to carry you off to Broome Hall immediately. Oh, Kate, my dear love, you don’t know how much I long to see you there! Or how much I hope that you will like it!’
‘I am very sure I shall,’ she replied, with simple conviction. ‘But it would be quite as ramshackle for me to run away to London with you immediately as to fly with you to the Border, my dear! Consider! Surely you could not wish me to behave with such a want of conduct – so ungratefully? Every feeling must be offended!’
‘You have no cause to be grateful to Minerva!’
‘Oh, yes, I have!’ she said, smiling mischievously up at him. ‘If she hadn’t brought me here I should never have met you, my dear one!’
His arms tightened round her until she felt her ribs to be in danger of cracking, but he said unsteadily: ‘That was not her object, you artful little Sophist!’
‘No, far from it! What was that you called me?’
‘A Sophist, my love – an artful one!’
‘What does it mean?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘One who reasons in a specious way!’ he answered, laughing at her.
‘Oh, I don’t!’ she said indignantly. ‘How can you be so uncivil?’
‘I am not on ceremony with you!’ he retorted.
‘No, so I collect!’ she said, gently disengaging herself. ‘We must discuss this, you know – and without prejudice, if you please! Come and sit down! We shan’t be disturbed: Torquil and Dr Delabole are going to Market Harborough, and you know my aunt is unwell, don’t you? Which is one of my reasons for not dashing away to London in such an unseemly fashion – as though she had been ill-using me, and I had seized the chance offered by her illness to escape! You should know what sort of gossip that would give rise to! Could anything be more unjust? Whatever her motive was in inviting me here, I have received nothing but kindness from her, and I will not leave Staplewood in such haste as must astonish all those who know that I had the intention of remaining here until the end of the summer, and lead to conjectures which might reflect on me, you know, and that you wouldn’t like!’
It was evident, from the arrested expression on his face, that this possibility had not occurred to him. He said emphatically: ‘No!’
‘Of course you wouldn’t! As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t like it myself. I wish you will not stand there frowning down at me! It puts me in a terrible quake!’
He smiled, and came to sit beside her on the sofa, saying: ‘Fibster!’
‘Not at all! You wouldn’t believe how pudding-hearted I can be!’
‘No, that’s true: I wouldn’t! If you were pudding-hearted you wouldn’t remain here!’
‘I’m not afraid of Torquil,’ she said quietly, ‘but I promise you I dread telling my aunt that I am going to marry you, Philip. I must do so: to go away without telling her would be very much too shabby, don’t you agree?’
‘You may leave it to me to tell her!’
‘On no account! That would not only be rag-mannered, but it would make it seem as if my conscience was shockingly guilty. It will be your task to break the news to Sir Timothy.’
‘That’s easy! I mean to do so at once, and I have a strong notion that he will be pleased.’
‘I hope he will be. He invited me to dine with him yesterday, and – and he did me the honour to say that he liked me, and would have wished a daughter to have grown up to resemble me. And I think he was perfectly sincere, because he warned me not to let myself be bullied or cajoled into doing what my heart, and what he called my good sense, told me was wrong. I believe that he did so out of affection, and I know that he shrank from the task. Well, he warned me that I w
as deceiving myself if I supposed that my aunt had brought me to live with her out of compassion. He said that although he didn’t know what it might be he did know that she must have had a motive – and to say that of her must have been excessively distasteful to him.’
He had listened intently to her, an expression of gathering surprise in his face, and he exclaimed: ‘Then he must indeed hold you in affection! I believed I enjoyed as much of his confidence as anyone, but he wouldn’t have been so frank in talking to me. I have sometimes wondered whether he is frank with himself – allows himself to take notice of what is unpleasant. It is painful to see how much he shrinks from facing anything that – oh, that must disturb his peace! He was not always so, Kate! If you had known him when my Aunt Anne was alive – in the days of his happiness – ! I suppose his can never have been a strong character, but – but even though I can’t now respect him, I can never forget how much I owe to him, or cease to love him! I wish I could explain to you – make you understand –’
She was a good deal moved, and checked him, laying a hand over his hard-clenched ones, and saying gently: ‘I do understand. I have seen what you describe: his character is not strong, but he is very lovable. I have loved him almost from the moment of first seeing him, and I can readily understand what your feelings must be, and – and why you hold my aunt in such dislike, and your own aunt in such veneration. He told me how it had been: he said she was an angel.’
He nodded, biting his lip. ‘She wasn’t a beauty, or a clever woman, but so good ! In those days, Staplewood was my home, not a – a show-place! And my uncle cared for it as he no longer does! I daresay Minerva improved the gardens, but what he cared for, before his health broke down, was his land ! I have been riding about the estate lately, and I can tell you this, Kate: my own land is in better heart! Minerva talks glibly enough, but she knows nothing about agriculture, and thinks, because the fellow that became bailiff when old Whatley was pensioned off flatters her, that he’s first-rate. Well, he ain’t! My uncle must know it, for it’s only a few months since he gave up hacking round the estate, but he seems not to care!’