“Oh, fiddle!” she snapped, losing patience. “I wonder you will talk such moonshine, Torquil! You must know it don’t impress me!”
He muttered something under his breath. She did not hear what it was, but guessed it to be an objurgation, for he was looking furious, and plunged away from her, almost running across the lawn towards the lake. She made no attempt to stop him, but remained where she was, seated on a rustic bench below the terrace and thinking that there was perhaps something to be said for those who considered him to be too excitable to be allowed to run loose.
Presently she was joined by Mr Philip Broome, who came down the steps from the terrace, and, upon catching sight of her, walked towards the bench, saying, with a smile: “Ruining your complexion, Cousin Kate?”
“Oh, it was ruined long ago, in the Peninsula!” she said lightly.
“A demonstrably false observation!” he said, seating himself beside her. “No, don’t go! I want to talk to you.”
“Do you? Why?” she asked, looking surprised.
“Because you interest me and I find I don’t know very much about you.”
“Well, there isn’t very much to know. And it wouldn’t be any concern of yours if there were!” she said, with relish.
His eyes gleamed appreciatively. “Giving me my own again, cousin?”
She could not help laughing. “I couldn’t resist, sir! If I was impertinent I beg your pardon, but you needn’t have snubbed me so roughly!”
“I didn’t mean to. You said you couldn’t perceive what my object is in supporting Minerva—”
“And you told me it was no concern of mine!”
“Accept my apologies! I’ll tell you now that my only concern is to spare my uncle anxiety, and—possibly—grief. He is old, and very frail, and he has borne a great deal of trouble in his life. He was passionately devoted to his first wife, but she was of sickly constitution. Two of her children were stillborn, and the other three didn’t survive infancy. He wanted a son, you know: any man must want a son to succeed him! That’s why he married Minerva. Oh, I don’t say that he wasn’t petticoat-led! Minerva was a very beautiful girl, but she had only a small fortune. I was a child at the time, but—don’t eat me!—the on-dit was that although everyone admired her no one of rank offered for her. So she married my uncle, and presented him with—Torquil.”
She had listened to him in attentive silence, the echo of her father’s words in her ears, and for a moment she did not speak. Then she said hesitantly: “I am aware, of course, that Torquil is a disappointment to him. It could hardly be otherwise, for I suppose that no man wants a son who has to be kept in cotton, or—or who surfers from distempered freaks. But he may improve—indeed, my aunt tells me that he has improved! I collect that you think he might indulge in excesses, if he were allowed more freedom, and so cause Sir Timothy distress?”
“I think—” He checked himself, and said curtly: “Never mind that! How old are you, Kate?”
“I’m four-and-twenty—and that’s not a question you should ask of any female past the first blush of her youth, sir!”
“Yes, from things you have said I’d gathered as much. But when I first saw you I took you for a girl just emerged from the schoolroom.”
“Well, that was no less than the truth—only I was the governess, not the pupil! And I wish with all my heart that I didn’t look like a schoolgirl! Whenever I apply for a post I’m told that I’m too young!”
“I imagine you might be!” he said, amused. “I know your father is dead, but your mother?—”
“I am an orphan, sir.”
“I see. But you have other relations, surely?”
“Only Aunt Minerva. At least, I believe I have numerous relations, but I’ve never met any of them, and I don’t wish to! They behaved very shabbily to my mother, and quite cast her off when she eloped with Papa.”
“But you have friends?”
She sighed. “I’ve lost sight of all our friends in the regiment, and—and circumstances have prevented me from making new ones. I have my old nurse, however. And my aunt, of course.” She thought that he might suppose her to be repining, and added brightly: “She has proved herself to be very much my friend, you know! You don’t like her, but when she came to invite me to stay here I was almost in despair, and thinking of hiring myself out as an abigail! Only Sarah wouldn’t hear of it, which was why she wrote to my aunt. And although my aunt is so high in the instep—I mean,” she corrected herself hastily, “although you might suppose her to place herself on too high a form she has been so kind to me that I feel I can never repay her.”
“In fact, you are alone in the world,” he said. “I begin to understand: that is an unhappy situation for a girl.”
“Yes, but I am not a girl,” she pointed out. “You must not suppose, because I said I was in despair, that I am not very well able to take care of myself, for I promise you that I am! I told you once before that I didn’t come to batten on my aunt, but I think you didn’t believe me.”
“No, I didn’t, but I’ve changed my mind. Or, rather, I can’t blame you for succumbing to temptation. In your circumstances—which must, if you are obliged to earn your bread, be uncomfortably straitened—it would have been hard to have refused the offer of a home.”
“Well,” she said frankly, “it was hard! Indeed, my aunt made it almost impossible for me to refuse her invitation. She said I might at least spend the summer at Staplewood. It seemed absurd not to do so, particularly when she said that she could use her influence to procure an eligible situation for me. So I came, meaning to make myself useful. But she gives me nothing to do but the most trifling tasks, showers gifts upon me, and when I protest, says that it was always her wish to have a daughter, and that if I want to please her I’ll accept them.”
“Gammon!” said Philip. “I’m sorry if I offend you, but there’s no other word for it. Minerva never had any such wish!”
“No, I don’t think she had, but you will own that it is kind of her to say so. It is to put me at my ease, of course.”
“Has it occurred to you, Kate, that she is placing you under an obligation?”
“Oh, yes, indeed it has, and it is crushing me!” she said earnestly. “If only there were some way of requiting her—not arranging flowers, or entertaining Sir Timothy, or bearing Torquil company, but a big thing! Something that was vital to her, or—or even something that entailed a sacrifice! But there isn’t anything that I can discover.”
There was a pause, during which he frowned down at his well-kept fingernails. At length he said slowly: “If she were to demand it of you, would you be prepared to make a sacrifice of yourself?”
“Yes, of course I should! At least, I hope I should!” She looked sharply at him. “Why, do you know of something? Pray tell me!”
Again there was a pause, while he seemed to deliberate. Then he said: “No, I can’t tell you, Kate. I suspect that there may be, but while all is conjecture I prefer to keep my tongue. But this I will say to you!—You are not entirely friendless! You have a friend in me, and you may call upon me at any time. Believe me, I shan’t play the wag!”
She laughed at this. “Does that mean that you won’t fight shy? From what I have seen of you, sir, I am fully persuaded that you wouldn’t! You would come—come bang up to the mark—is that right?—and positively enjoy sporting your canvas! I make no apology for employing boxing cant: you cannot have forgotten that I was reared in Army circles!”
“No,” he agreed, his eyes warm with amusement. “I haven’t forgotten that! Has anyone ever told you, Cousin Kate, that you are—wholly entrancing?”
“Since you ask me, sir,” she replied, with great calm, “yes—several persons!”
“And yet you are still unmarried!”
“Very true! It is a mortifying reflection,” she said, mournfully shaking her head.
“Cousin Kate, you are a rogue!”
“Yes, that’s another mortifying reflection,” she agreed. She turne
d her head to study him, and asked involuntarily: “I wish you will tell me, sir! Why does Torquil hate you so much? Why does he think you the author of the various accidents which have befallen him? He believes you to covet his inheritance, but you don’t, do you?”
“No: there is nothing I covet less! I have an estate of my own, in Rutlandshire: my father bought it, and I wouldn’t willingly exchange it for all Staplewood’s grandeurs.” His face softened. “I hope I may, one day, be able to show it to you, Kate! I think—no, I am certain—that you would be pleased with it! My father, foreseeing all the possibilities which attached to it, caused the original farmhouse to be demolished, and built upon the site a neat, commodious manor, which has been my home since his retirement, nearly ten years ago. Between us, we set about the task of improving the property. But he died before he could see the results of our efforts. My mother survived him by less than a twelvemonth, since when I have lived there alone—but too busy to be lonely! I farm my land, you know, and hunt with the Cottesmore. We pride ourselves on our hounds! They may not be so quick in the open as the Quorn, but they are the best of any on the line. They must needs be good hunters, for our country is very deep and rough. But you mustn’t encourage me to bore on about hounds and hunting!”
“No, indeed you don’t bore me!” she assured him. “I have hunted myself, in Portugal, and in Spain. Not, of course, with the Duke’s pack, but several officers hunted their own hounds, and permitted me to join them now and then. I’m told that the country doesn’t compare with the Shires, but I don’t think you could call it humbug country, for all that!”
“I am very sure I couldn’t! You must be a notable horsewoman, Kate!”
“Well, I don’t think I’m contemptible, but I must own that I took a great many tumbles!” she said merrily. “Do you hunt here?”
“Oh, yes, with the Pytchley! That is to say, I was used to when I was younger. While my father was employed abroad, this was my home. My uncle mounted me on my first pony, and inducted me into all the niceties of the sport—and even burdened himself with me in the field when I was a clumsy schoolboy! I must have been a dead bore to him, but he never let me guess it.”
“You have a great regard for him, haven’t you?” she said gently.
“A very great regard. He was a second father to me.”
“It must be a grief to you to see him failing, as I fear he is.”
“Yes. When I recall what he once was—But that serves no purpose! He abandoned the struggle a long time ago, and is content now to let Minerva rule the roost.”
She could not deny the truth of this, so she was silent for a minute or two before turning the subject. “Does Torquil know that you don’t covet Staplewood?” she asked him.
“Yes, in his more rational moments,” he replied. “At such times, he doesn’t hate me in the least. So far as he is capable of being fond of anyone, he is fond of me, I believe.”
“Then why—Is he perhaps jealous of you? Because Sir Timothy loves you? Because he thinks Sir Timothy wishes you to succeed him?”
“My uncle doesn’t wish that.”
“But Torquil might think so, might he not?”
He shrugged. “Possibly.” He looked round. “Where, by the way, is Torquil? I had thought he was with you.”
“He was, but I pinched at him, and he flung away in rage. I daresay he is in the woods, or in the belvedere.”
“Take care what you are about!” he warned her. “Torquil can be violent!”
“Oh, yes, I know he can!” she answered blithely. “He often puts me in mind of one of my late charges—a veritable demon, who became violent the instant his will was crossed! However, I managed him tolerably well, and, even though you don’t think so, I believe I can manage Torquil. At all events, I haven’t failed yet!” She got up. “I must go and see if my aunt has any errands for me to run.”
He too got up, and possessed himself of her hand. “Very well, but don’t forget what I have been saying to you! If you should want help, you may count upon me!”
“Thank you—I’m much obliged to you, but I can’t imagine why I should want help. In any event, you won’t be at hand, will you?”
“No more than thirty miles away: Broome Manor is near Oakham. But I am not returning there immediately. When I leave Staplewood I shall probably go to stay with Templecombe for a few days. Which reminds me I’m dining with him this evening: I must tell Minerva.”
Lady Broome received this news with cold civility, but confided to Kate that she considered it pretty cool of Philip to treat the house as though it were his own. “I shall be thankful when he takes himself off altogether,” she said. “I don’t know how it is, but he always contrives to set everyone at odds. Now he has upset Torquil!”
“I’m afraid I did that, ma’am,” said Kate guiltily. “I gave him a scold, for talking dramatic nonsense, and he went off in a huff.”
“Oh! Well, I daresay he was very provoking, but young men, my dear, don’t care to be scolded, and certainly not by young women! You should learn to button your lip.”
Feeling that this, the second, rebuke she had received that day, was unjust, Kate merely said, in a colourless tone: “Yes, ma’am: I will endeavour to do so.”
“Foolish child!” said her ladyship, pinching her chin, and laughing. “Pokering up because I venture to give you a hint! Must I apologize?”
“Oh, Aunt Minerva, no!” Kate exclaimed remorsefully. “It is rather for me to apologize!”
She felt even more remorseful when she later overheard Lady Broome asking Pennymore if Mr Torquil had not yet come in; and slipped out of the house to look for him. It seemed to be the least she could do to atone for having upset him. She caught a glimpse of Mr Philip Broome driving himself down the avenue in his natty curricle, and had just enough time to admire his forward-stepping pair before the trees hid him from her sight. She was conscious of envy, because he was escaping from Staplewood, but banished so impious a thought, and trod swiftly across the lawn, in the direction of the belvedere.
But when she reached it she found that it was empty. She went down on to the bridge, and paused there, wondering whether to search through the woods, or to go back to the house. Instead of doing either, she called: “Torquil! Torquil!”
Before the last syllable had left her lips, she was frozen with dismay, because, from somewhere in the wood beyond the lake, she heard a scream of intolerable anguish. It sounded human, and for a moment she was paralysed. Then, acting on impulse, she picked up her skirts, and ran, not away from the sound but towards it, crying: “Torquil, where are you? Torquil!”
No voice answered her; there was no repetition of the dreadful scream she had heard. She stopped, listening with straining ears, and trying to recollect from which direction the scream had come. The silence closed in on her, with not even the twitter of a bird, or the rustle of some small creature in the undergrowth, to break it. She caught her breath on a scared sob, but steeled herself to go on, impelled by the fear that it had been Torquil who had screamed, and who might now be lying insensible somewhere in the wood. She kept on calling to him, but still received no answer, and was just about to run back to the house, to summon help, when she almost stumbled over the mangled corpse of a rabbit. She started back, with an involuntary cry of revulsion, and stood staring down in horror. It was quite dead, but blood was still oozing from it, and she saw that it had been snared, for someone had wrenched the snare out of the ground, and cast it aside.
As she stood, fighting back nausea, she heard hasty footsteps approaching, and the next moment Dr Delabole came into sight round a thicket, gasping for breath, and uttering: “Miss Malvern, where are you? Miss—Oh, there you are! I—I thought I heard you call out for help!” He saw what was holding her gaze riveted, and said: “Oh, tut, tut! Very distressing! quite horrible, indeed! But only a rabbit, you know! Don’t look at it!”
She turned her eyes towards him, and fixed them on his face. “I heard a scream,” she said, shudd
ering. “A human scream!”
“Yes, yes, they do sound human!” he agreed sympathetically, taking her arm, and gently leading her away. “No doubt a cat got at it, or a fox, or even a weasel!”
“Dr Delabole, it was caught in a snare! I—I saw the snare!”
“Oh, then, that accounts for it! I must own that I myself deprecate the use of snares, but one can’t stop gamekeepers and gardeners from setting them! In nine cases out of ten the rabbits are killed outright—strangled, you know—but every now and then they are not killed, and then they scream, and their screams attract some predator—”
“What cat, or fox, or weasel would remove it from the snare, and—and tear its head off?” she demanded, in a shaking voice.
“Why, none, to be sure, but a fox may well have bitten its head off while it was still in the snare!”
“The snare had been pulled out of the ground. I saw it.”
“Did you? I must confess I didn’t notice it, but it’s very likely! In trying to drag the poor creature away the fox—or even a dog, perhaps!—wrenched the stake up—”
“And then disentangled it from the wire? Dr Delabole, do you take me for a fool? No animal perpetrated that—that horror!”
“No, I fear you may be right,” he said, grimacing. “I suspect you may have surprised some ruffianly louts from the village. Boys can be abominably cruel, you know. But what brought you into the wood, Miss Malvern?”
“I came in search of Torquil,” she replied. “I thought he might be in the belvedere, and I was going to return to the house when I heard that scream.”
“Came in search of Torquil?” he repeated. “My dear young lady, Torquil has been in his room for the past hour!”
“But I heard my aunt asking Pennymore if he had not yet come in!”
“Did you?” He hesitated, glancing ruefully down at her. “Well—er—she asked me that too, and I am afraid I—er—prevaricated! Between ourselves. Miss Malvern, her ladyship is inclined to fret Torquil! You know what he is!—down as a hammer, up like a watch-boy, as the saying is! He came in, riding grub, and shut himself up in his room, positively snarling at me that he didn’t wish to talk to anyone! So I—er—fobbed her ladyship off! I trust you won’t mention the matter to her! She would give me a fine scold!”
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