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 illumined 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 prostate 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 unmistakably 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 recover. “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?” inquired 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 righting 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 bring 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 !”
“Your own, for instance?”
“Yes, in default of better. He seems to have no friends. No one to laugh him out of his crotchets! I told him once, joking him, that he studied the picturesque in his attire, and instead of laughing, he took offence! He looked as if he would have been happy to have murdered me, which showed clearly that he was unused to being roasted. Which he wouldn’t have been, had it been possible to have sent him to school, would he?”
“No, but it was not possible.”
“Oh, I know that! But although he may behave like a spoiled child he is now a man grown, and I can’t but feel that it is most unwise to keep him in leading-strings.” She recollected herself, and said: “But I shouldn’t say so!” She saw that he was frowning, and added cheerfully: “It is a mistake to refine too much on the odd humours of adolescents, particularly of those who don’t enjoy robust health. I daresay he will outgrow his aches and ails, and become perfectly stout.”
“I wish you may be right, but I fear you are not,” he replied rather harshly. “I think him worse than he was three months ago.” He glanced down at her, a satirical gleam in his eye. “And I don’t think, Cousin Kate, that you will be able to manage him for long!”
Chapter VIII
When Torquil emerged from seclusion, he looked jaded to death, and was in a mood of black depression. Kate was shocked, and needed no prompting from Lady Broome to try to raise him from his dejection. But she did venture to suggest that a change of scene would be of more benefit to him than her company.
Lady Broome vetoed this. She spoke in glib terms of his excitability, and the irritation of his nerves; she said that it suited him best to go on in a jog-trot way. Kate could not deny his excitability, or the imbalance of his spirits, but when she hinted that boredom and constant surveillance were at the root of the trouble, she received a crushing snub. “My dear Kate,” said her ladyship, “I’ve no doubt you mean well, but you must really allow me to understand Torquil’s constitution better than you do! You seem sometimes to forget that I am his mother.”
There was no more to be said. Kate begged pardon, rather stiffly, and went off to tell Torquil that she had failed in her mission. As she had approached Lady Broome at his instigation, and knew that he believed her to have considerable influence with his mother, she was not surprised that he should sink instantly into gloom.
“I see what it is!” he declared, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I shall be kept here all my life!”
“No, you won’t,” said Kate, in heartening accents. “You will come of age in another two years, and then you may do as you choose.”
“You don’t know my mother!” he said bitterly. “She’ll never let me go! Never!”
“Yes, she will. Even if she wished to keep you here, she couldn’t do so!”
“I hate her!” he whispered. “O God, how I hate her!”
Kate was horrified, but she managed to speak calmly. “You must not say so, Torquil. You know it is untrue! How could you hate your mother? She may be over-anxious, but you can’t doubt that she has your welfare at heart!”
“No, she hasn’t! She only cares for the Broome heritage!” he said savagely. “Well, I am a Broome, which she isn’t, and I don’t care a straw for it! Sometimes I think I’ll run away, but I haven’t any money! She’d get me back, as sure as check! She’ll drive me to put a period to my life!”
This was very much too melodramatic for Kate, and she nearly lost patience, and did, in fact, say, with some severity: “When you talk like that, Torquil, you make it hard for me to sympathize with you! And—which is perhaps more to the point!—it lends a great deal of weight to what your mother says of you!”
“What does she say of me?” he demanded, searching her face with hungry eyes.
“That you are too excitable. And it is true, you know! Either you are aux anges, or blue-devilled! If you wish for enlargement, keep a stricter guard on your temper! Don’t—don’t fly into a pelter for trifling reasons! Show your mother that you have overcome the—the inequality of your spirits, and I am persuaded she won’t keep you here against your will!” She laid a quietening hand over his clasped ones, which writhed together, and said coaxingly: “You know, Torquil, your constitution is not yet as robust as she could wish, and she knows, if you do not, that it needs very little to put you quite out of curl.”
He looked intently at her, and startled her by saying: “How pretty you are! How kind Ilike you so much, Kate!”
“Well, I’m very much obliged to you, but what has that to say to anything? I wish you won’t fly off at a tangent!”
“I thought I wanted to marry Dolly,” he said, disregarding her words. “Now I think I’d rather marry you.”
“Oh, do you, indeed? Well, you can’t marry me!”
“Why can’t I?”
“For a number of excellent reasons!” she replied tartly. “One is that I am much too old for you; another that it would be a most unsuitable alliance; and a third is that I don’t wish to marry you! Don’t take an affront into your head! I like you very well, but if you mean to fancy yourself in love with me I shall take you in strong aversion—for it is only fancy, Torquil!”
Without paying the least heed to her, he said abruptly: “I’ll recite one of my poems to you, shall I?”
“Certainly! pray do!” she invited cordially.
He sat staring ahead of him for several moments, and then struck his fist against his knee, and exclaimed pettishly: “No, I won’t! You wouldn’t appreciate it!”
“No, very likely I shouldn’t. Let us go for a walk instead!”
“I don’t wish to go for a walk! Where’s my cousin?”
“I don’t know. Probably with Sir Timothy.”
“Ay!” he said, his eyes kindling. “Bamboozling my father with his coaxing ways!”
“Nonsense!” she said impatiently. “He hasn’t any coaxing ways! Merely, he feels an affection for Sir Timothy which you, Torquil, do not!”
“What cause have I to feel affection for my father?” he demanded. “Always—always!—he yields to Mama! Or to Philip! Oh, yes, certainly to Philip! And you may depend upon it that Philip won’t recommend him to let me go!”
She was silent, not knowing what to say, because when she had asked Philip if he did not agree that Torquil would be better if allowed rather more freedom, he had shaken his head, and had said decidedly: “No, I don’t!”
Stung, she had said: “I can’t conceive what you have to gain by supporting your aunt in her determination to keep the poor boy cooped up here!”
“I have nothing to gain but one single object!” He broke off suddenly, and added curtly: “Which does not concern you!” Perceiving from her heightened colour and smouldering eyes that he had nettled her, he had laughed, and had said: “Oh, don’t nab the rust, Cousin Kate! What I have to gain doesn’t concern me either!”
In high dudgeon, she had turned on her heel, and left him. Thinking over his words, she could make nothing of them.
She was reluctant to believe that he harboured designs against Torquil’s life; and, even if he did, it was impossible to see how these could be furthered by Torquil’s continued residence at Staplewood, as closely guarded as he was.
She was thinking of this passage when Torquil’s voice intruded upon her reverie. “Have I nicked it, coz?” he asked jeeringly. “Have you spoken to Philip on this subject? What a goose-cap you are! I know what answer he gave you!” He sprang up, his face contorted. “I fell you I am surrounded by enemies!” he said violently.
“Are you?” she inquired politely. “I trust you don’t number me amongst them?”
“How can I tell? Sometimes I think—No! No, I don’t! Not you! But everyone else—Matthew, Philip, Badger, Whalley, my mother—even my father! They are all in a string!”
Cousin Kate Page 11