“He is Sir Timothy’s nephew,” answered Kate briefly. “It is my turn to ask questions now, Mr Nidd! Is it true that Sarah has received only one of my letters to her?”
“Gospel true, miss!” asseverated Mr Nidd. “That was the scratch of a note you wrote to her when you first arrived at this Staplewood, and it relieved Sarey’s mind considerable, because you told her how kind your aunt was, and the Bart, and what a beautiful place it was, and how happy you was to be here, which got up her spirits wonderful. Properly hipped she was, after you’d gone off! She took an unaccountable dislike to her ladyship, but I’m blessed if I know why! Happy as a grig she was when she read your letter, until she got into the dumps again because she never had no answer to the letter she wrote you, nor so much as a line from you from that day to this.”
“Mr Nidd,” said Kate, in a rigidly controlled voice, “I have never had a letter from Sarah. I have written to her repeatedly, begging her to reply, but never has she done so. When Mr Broome told me that you had come to Market Harborough the most terrible apprehension seized me that you had come to tell me Sarah was ill, or—or dead!”
The effect of this disclosure on the patriarch was profound. After hearing Kate out in great astonishment, he wrapped himself in a cloak of silence, and, when she started to speak again, raised a forbidding hand, and said: “I got to think!”
In the middle of his ruminations, the waiter came in with a tray, which he set down on the table. Having offered Kate, with a low bow, a glass of lemonade, he carried a tankard over to Mr Nidd, and gave it to him with a much lower bow, intended to convey condescension, contempt, and derision. Fully alive to the implications of this covert insolence, Mr Nidd, taking the tankard with a brief thank’ee, recommended him to wipe his nose on a handkerchief instead of on the knees of his smalls, and told him to take himself off. After thus routing the adversary, he refreshed himself with a copious draught from the tankard, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and said portentously: “It’s a good thing I’ve come, Miss Kate, that’s what it is! Yes, and so Sarey will have to own! If I’ve told her once she ought to come herself to see how you was going on, I’ve told her a dozen times! But would she do it? Oh, no! She took a maggot into her head that you wouldn’t want her to come here, poking her nose in, now that you was living with your grand relations, and nothing me nor Joe said made her think different!”
“Oh, no, no!” Kate cried distressfully. “How could she have thought such a thing of me?”
“It’s no manner of use asking me that, miss, because there’s no saying what notions a nidgetty female will take into her head—even the best of ’em! “Well,” I says to her, “it ain’t like Miss Kate to act bumptious, and more shame to you, Sarey, for thinking it!” Then she started napping her bib, and saying that she didn’t think no such thing, and nobody could wonder at you being so took up with your relations that you was forgetful of your old nurse. “Well,” I says, sharp-like, “I don’t wonder at it, because I ain’t bottleheaded enough to believe it!” Then she sobs fit to bust her laces, and says as how I don’t understand! Which was true enough! “I can’t explain!” she says. “That’s easy seen!” I told her. But argufying with a ticklish female don’t do a bit of good, so I gave over. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like it, nor think it was natural. “Something havey-cavey about this,” I says to myself: so when Sarey took herself off to Polly’s house I bought a new hat, and a shirt with winkers, packed up me traps, and came to Market Harborough on the stage-coach.”
“But—do you mean that Sarah doesn’t know?” asked Kate, dismayed. “Mr Nidd, you shouldn’t have come here without telling her! Only think how anxious she must be!”
He looked a little guilty, but replied in a very lofty way that he had left a message with Tom’s wife that if anyone were to inquire for him she was to say that he had gone into the country to visit a friend. “Which ain’t gammon,” he assured Kate, “because the buffer at the Cock is an old friend of mine. Regular bosom-birds we was used to be, afore I retired. Many’s the time I’ve fetched up at the Cock with a wagon-load of goods, and greased the tapster’s boy in the fist to make up his bed in the wagon, in case there might happen to be a prig, sneaking on the lurk. So don’t you worry your pretty head about that, Miss Kate! You got troubles of your own!”
“Indeed I haven’t!” said Kate quickly. “My aunt is kindness itself, I assure you!”
“It’s my belief,” said Mr Nidd, eyeing her narrowly, “that you’re being put upon, miss!”
“No, no, I promise you that isn’t true! Aunt Minerva treats me as if I were her daughter—only I hope she would allow a daughter to be more useful to her than I am! Whenever I beg her to give me some task to perform, the best she can think of is to ask me to cut and arrange flowers!”
Mr Nidd looked to be unconvinced. “Well, I got a notion you’re moped, miss!” he said. “I may be wrong, but I disremember when I last had the wrong sow by the ear. I daresay I never did, because I’ve got a deal of rumgumption, and always did have—whatever Sarey may tell you to the contrary!”
“I know you have, Mr Nidd, but if you think I look moped you’ve made a mistake this time! To own the truth, I’m bored! From not having enough to do! And the worst of it is that I can’t persuade my aunt that I am yearning for occupation. You know, I have never been used to lead a life of indolence.”
“No, and nor you ain’t been used to enjoying yourself neither!” he retorted. “Many’s the time Sarey has got to fretting and fuming because you don’t go to balls, and routs, and suchlike as a young lady should, and the only thing which plucked her up when you didn’t write was thinking as you was probably too taken up with parties to have a minute to spare! Now, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re bored with parties already, Miss Kate!”
“No, but I haven’t been to many parties, Mr Nidd!” she replied ruefully.
“You’re bamming me!” he exclaimed.
“I’m not, I promise you! The thing is, you see, that Sir Timothy’s health does not permit him to go to parties, or—or even to entertain people at Staplewood. My aunt gave a dinner-party for his particular friends, when I first came here, but it wasn’t very amusing. You mustn’t suppose me to be complaining, but when Sarah pictures me in a whirl of gaiety she is fair and far out!”
“You don’t say, miss! Well, I’m bound to say that’s got me properly pitch-kettled, that has! No pleasuring at all? You’d have thought that it wouldn’t disturb the Bart if she was to invite a few young people to supper, and one of them small balls, got up sudden! By what I’m told, the Bart’s got his own rooms, and commonly shuts hisself up in them for the best part of the day, so I don’t see as how a snug party of that nature need worrit him! No, and I don’t see neither why her ladyship don’t make it her business to arrange it! How old is this son of hers?”
“Torquil is nineteen, but he—”
“So that’s what his name is, is it? Unnatural, I call it, and it’s to be hoped he don’t talk ill!” interrupted Mr Nidd, cackling at his own wit.
Kate, according it a dutiful smile, said: “Unforunately, Torquil suffers from a—a delicate constitution, and the least excitement brings on one of his terrible headaches. It is an object with my aunt to keep him as quiet as possible.”
“What, him too?” said Air Nidd incredulously. “Seems to me, miss, that we’d ha’ done as well, me and Sarey, to have sent you to a pest-house! I never did, not in all my puff!”
She laughed. “Neither Sir Timothy nor Torquil suffers from an infectious complaint, Mr Nidd!”
“Dutch comfort, Miss Kate! Next you’ll be telling me that the newy’s in queer stirrups!”
“Indeed I shan’t tell you anything of the sort!” said Kate indignantly.
“Nor I wouldn’t credit it if you did! I can see with my own ogles that he’s in prime twig! But, lordy, this’ll make Sarey look blue! You know what she is, miss: no sooner did she read your letter, saying as how your cous
in was the most beautiful young man you’d ever beheld, than she got to thinking what a good thing it would be if you and he was to make a match of it. Which there’s no denying it would be, if he was quite stout. But if he’s ticklish in the wind it won’t do, Miss Kate!”
She said earnestly: “Mr Nidd, pray don’t encourage Sarah to think there is the least possibility of my marrying Torquil! It is too absurd! Sarah must have forgotten that I am four-and-twenty! There are five years between Torquil and me—and I haven’t the smallest inclination to set my cap at him! He is certainly beautiful, but I can conceive of few worse fates than to be married to him! He is nothing more than a spoiled schoolboy, and his temper is shocking! Pray let us be done with that nonsense!”
“I’m agreeable, miss,” said Mr Nidd, affably, “Not but what it’ll come as a disappointment to Sarey, because there’s no denying that it would have been a spanking thing for you. However, what can’t be cured must be endured, and it’s as plain as a pack-saddle that the newy’s nutty on you! Now, if he was to offer for you—”
“I should be very much surprised!” Kate interrupted. “I’m not on the catch for a husband, Mr Nidd, and I shall be much obliged to you if you won’t make plans for me! Let us rather talk about your own affairs! I do, most solemnly, beg that you will go back to London! I don’t mean that I’m not deeply grateful to you for having come to Market Harborough, for I am—more grateful than I can tell you!—but Sarah must by this time be in a perfect stew! And if I were to dash off a note to her, you could take it to her, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, Miss Kate, and I could take it to the Post Office too. I got a notion I won’t go back yet, because I ain’t easy in my mind, and I’m not wishful to leave you here! It sticks in my gullet that you ain’t had any of Sarey’s letters, nor she any of yours, barring the first of ’em. It don’t smell right to me, missy, and that’s the truth!”
“It—it doesn’t—smell right to me either,” confessed Kate. “But until I have spoken to my aunt about it, I—I would liefer not discuss it! If it was she who was responsible, she must have had some good reason, even—even if I can’t think what it can have been.”
“No, nor me neither!” said Mr Nidd acidly. “And, if you ask me, she’ll find herself in a proper hank, when she starts in to explain what her reason was! Don’t you try to sell yourself a bargain, miss, because you ain’t a paperskull, no more than what I am, and you know well she can’t have had a good reason! Mark me if she ain’t playing an undergame!”
Kate got up, and went to the window, and began to twist the blind-cord round her finger. “I know, but—”
“The best thing you can do, miss, is to come back to Sarah!” said Mr Nidd. “Lor’, wouldn’t she jump out of her skin with joy! Yes, and what’s more, if she knew you was with us again she’d come home herself, ah, and in an ant’s foot, too! Then p’raps we’d get some wittles fit to eat! All you got to do, miss, is to pack your traps, and leave it to me to settle the rest. You wouldn’t object to traveling on the stage, would you? I’d take good care of you.”
Kate turned her head to bestow upon him a warm, smiling look. “I know you would, Mr Nidd—bless you! But I couldn’t, after all her kindness, leave my aunt in such a way! It would be beyond everything! I think I know why she—why she tried to stop me corresponding with Sarah. You see, she doesn’t want me to leave Staplewood, and I expect she must know that I couldn’t do so if I became estranged from Sarah. I’ve said from the start that I should leave, after the summer, and I’ve remained firm in that resolve. It was very wrong, of course, to tamper with my correspondence, but—but she is a woman who has been used to have her own way in everything, and—and once I’ve—well, brought her to book!—I’m persuaded she won’t do so any more. Now that I’ve seen you, and know that Sarah hasn’t given me up, I can be easy again, and be sure that if I found myself obliged to leave Staplewood, I shouldn’t find that Sarah had closed your doors against me! Dear Mr Nidd, your visit has been the greatest comfort to me, but I do, most earnestly, beg that you will go back to London!”
As she spoke, the door opened, and she looked quickly over her shoulder, to see that Mr Philip Broome had entered the room. He said: “I’m sorry to interrupt you, Cousin Kate, but we stand in imminent danger of being scandalously late for dinner! Unless we set forward immediately, we shall fall under Minerva’s displeasure.”
“Oh, good God, that would never do!” she exclaimed, with would-be lightness. “Have I enough time to scribble a note to Mrs Nidd? I have been asking Mr Nidd if he will be so good as to take it to her, and I promise I won’t keep you waiting above ten minutes!”
“By all means,” he said, casting a glance round the room, and discovering a writing-table. He strode over to it, and pulled open two of its drawers. “Wonderful! Not only paper, but wafers as well, and a pen! And even ink in the standish! In general, when one wishes to write a letter in a posting-house, one finds that there is only a kind of mud at the bottom of the standishes. If you care to sit down here, Kate, I’ll take Mr Nidd down to inspect my horses. You will join us in the yard at your convenience.”
She agreed gratefully to this suggestion; and although it was evident that Mr Nidd was much inclined to dig his heels in, he yielded, after staring pugnaciously at him, to the unmistakeable message in Mr Philip Broome’s eyes, accompanied as it was by the flicker of the smile of a conspirator.
But as soon as Philip had closed the door, he said that he had told Miss Kate that he would be happy to take her letter to the Post Office, but he hadn’t made up his mind to go home, not by a long chalk he hadn’t.
Leading the way down the stairs, Philip said, over his shoulder: “Does she wish you to do so?”
“Yes, she does, sir, and it goes against the pluck with me to do it!” said Mr Nidd, in a brooding tone. “I wouldn’t wish to offend you, Mr Broome, sir, but I been telling Miss Kate that the thing for her to do is to come back with me to London!”
“I shouldn’t think she agreed to that,” Philip commented.
“No, sir, she didn’t,” said Mr Nidd, nipping ahead to hold open the door into the yard. “After you, sir, if you please!—No, she said that she couldn’t leave her aunt in a bang, as you might say, being as how her ladyship had been so kind to her. Which, begging your pardon, I take leave to doubt!”
“True enough. Her ladyship has been more than kind to her.”
“Well, if you say so, sir!—” replied Mr Nidd dubiously. “I didn’t cut my eye-teeth yesterday, nor yet the day before, and you don’t have to tell me you don’t cut no shams, because I knew from the moment I clapped my ogles on you that it was pound-dealing with you, or nothing! But, Mr Broome, sir, I’ll take the liberty of telling you to your head that I ain’t easy in my mind! It don’t smell right to me, somehow!”
Philip did not immediately answer, but after a short pause he said: “Does it make you easier when I tell you that if any danger were to threaten Miss Malvern—which I don’t anticipate!—I should instantly bundle her into a chaise, and restore her to her nurse?”
“You would?” Mr Nidd said, regarding him with obvious approval.
“Most certainly!”
“Well, that’s different, of course!” said Mr Nidd graciously. “If you mean to look after Miss Kate, there’s no call for me to kick my heels here!”
“Thank you!” said Philip, holding out his hand, and smiling. “We’ll shake hands on that, Mr. Nidd!”
“Thanking you, sir!” said Mr Nidd ineffably.
Kate, emerging from the house several minutes later, was relieved to find that her aged well-wisher had apparently formed the intention of departing for London on the following morning. He received from her a hastily written note to Sarah, and stowed it away in his pocket, promising to deliver it as soon as he reached the Metropolis. It was plain that he had been making shrewd, but, on the whole, appreciative comments on the well-matched bays which had just been harnessed to Mr Philip Broome’s curricle; and, on bidding Kate a
fond farewell, he was moved to say that he knew he was leaving her in good hands. She hardly knew what to reply to this, but murmured something unintelligible, her colour much heightened, and could only be grateful to Philip for not prolonging the embarrassing moment. As he swept from the yard into the main street, he said conversationally: “A truly estimable old gentleman! A downy one, too! He says it don’t smell right to him. Precisely my own opinion!”
“You did not tell him so?” she asked anxiously. “Oh, no! All I did was to assure him that you were in no danger, and that if it became imperative on you to leave Staplewood I would convey you to London, and hand you over to Mrs Nidd. Why, by the way, did you refuse to go with him?”
“How could I do so?” she demanded. “Whatever my aunt has done, she doesn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily! Good God, Cousin Philip, the clothes I am wearing at this moment I owe to her generosity! Besides,—”
“Yes?” he said, as she broke off. “That isn’t all your reason, is it?”
“No,” she admitted. “Not quite all. You see, before my aunt took me away from Sarah, I had been staying with her for far too long a time—much longer than I had anticipated. I know what a charge I must have been, though she was very angry when I ventured to say so, and told me that if I dared to offer her money for my board she would never forgive me. So I can’t go back to her until I’ve secured a post. When I left Wisbech I thought I should have been able to do so immediately, but—but it turned out otherwise. None of the ladies who were advertising for governesses hired me. Either they wanted an accomplished female, able to instruct her pupils in the harp, and the piano, and the Italian tongue, or they said I was too young. It was the most mortifying experience! I became utterly despondent, and began to wonder whether I might not be able to turn the only talent I possess to good’account.”
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