Pennymore, who was looking as if he might faint, said hoarsely: ‘Stop her, Mrs Nidd, stop her! The Master will hear her! Oh, my God, what are we going to do?’
Kate, feeling that if she allowed herself to look at Lady Broome’s distorted countenance she too would faint, kept her eyes resolutely averted, and her voice under strict control. ‘I have sent William to fetch the doctor. I think you should find Tenby, and – and tell him that her ladyship has had a – a seizure. That is what I have said to the others. Tenby will know what to do if Sir Timothy should be upset.’
‘Yes, miss. I’ll go at once,’ Pennymore replied mechanically, and went shakily out of the room.
Sidlaw’s wails had changed to wild laughter. Sarah looked quickly round the room, saw a vase of roses standing on the desk, snatched it up, pulled the flowers out of it, and dashed the water into Sidlaw’s face.
‘Sarah, is she – is she dead ?’ Kate whispered, as Sidlaw’s hysteria ceased into a gasp of shock.
Sarah nodded, and said authoritatively: ‘Help me to get this demented creature into a chair, miss! Come now, Miss Sidlaw, don’t start screeching again, there’s a dear! You sit down here, and pull yourself together!’
Huddled in the chair, Sidlaw said: ‘He’s killed her! I knew it would happen! I knew it! She wouldn’t listen, she wouldn’t ever listen to me!’ Her distraught gaze fell on Kate; she pointed a shaking finger at her, and said shrilly: ‘It lies at your door! You wicked, ungrateful hussy, you murdered her!’
A ringing slap from Sarah made her utter a whimper, and cower away. ‘That’s enough!’ said Sarah sternly. ‘One more word out of you and that’s only a taste of what you’ll get from me! You should be ashamed of yourself ! A woman of your age behaving like a totty-headed chit of a girl with more hair than wit!’
Sidlaw said fiercely, glaring up at her: ‘I know what I know!’
‘Yes!’ retorted Sarah. ‘And I know what I know, you spiteful toad! And, what’s more, I’ll tell you I know, if you dare to say another word against Miss Kate! Don’t you heed her, Miss Kate! She’s clean out of her senses!’
Kate, who had fallen back, and was standing by the window, grasping a fold of the heavy curtains for support, shuddered, and said, in an anguished voice: ‘Don’t, Sarah! don’t!’
An interruption was created by the doctor, who came into the room, breathing hard and fast, as though he had been running. There was fear in his eyes, and when they alighted on Lady Broome’s body a green tinge came into his face, and he uttered a groan. Only a perfunctory examination was needed to convince him that she had gone beyond his aid. As he drew down the lids over Lady Broome’s dreadfully staring eyes, the fear in his own grew, and he was obliged to swallow convulsively, and to moisten his lips before he managed to say: ‘There’s nothing I can do. She’s dead. I wanted to remain with her, but she wouldn’t permit me to do so! She could always control him! I have never known her to fail! She did so this morning! I assure you, she checked his – his fury immediately! When I left this room, he was sitting in that chair, just as she had commanded him to do! I never dreamed – oh, dear, oh, dear, she must have told him – ! I warned her to take care – I have frequently warned her that he was growing beyond her control! What a tragedy! What a terrible tragedy!’
He fell to wringing his white hands, whereupon Sarah, who had been regarding him with disfavour, said: ‘If I may take the liberty of suggesting it, sir, I’ll be obliged to you if you’d raise her so that I can pull the shawl from underneath her, and cover her with it!’
‘Yes, yes! you are very right!’ he said distractedly. ‘I am so much shocked I can’t collect my wits! So many years I’ve known her! It is enough to unman anyone! Ah, poor lady! if only you hadn’t sent me away!’
He tenderly lifted the dead woman’s shoulders, and Sarah swiftly pulled the shawl of rose-coloured Norwich silk from under her, and would have spread it over the body had not Sidlaw darted out of her chair and snatched it from her hands, declaring that no one but herself should touch her dear mistress. She then burst into a flood of tears, casting herself over the body in an abandonment of hysterical grief.
The doctor implored her to be calm, but she was beyond listening to anything he said, and he was obliged to lift her forcibly to her feet, and to keep his arms round her to prevent her from collapsing. ‘What’s to be done? I must give this poor woman a composer – she cannot be permitted to disturb Sir Timothy! I ought to go to him – prepare his mind to withstand this great shock! But her ladyship can’t be left here, on the floor! I declare, I don’t know which way to turn!’
‘Well, sir,’ said Sarah, always practical, ‘seeing that you can’t help her ladyship, and no one’s come to fetch you to Sir Timothy, the best thing you can do is to get Miss Sidlaw up to her own bedchamber, and give her a dose of something to quieten her down. I’ll undress her, and put her to bed, don’t you worry!’
He agreed to this, and half led, half carried the weeping Sidlaw out of the room. Sarah, pausing only to beg Kate to go and sit in one of the adjoining saloons until she could come back to her, followed him, and Kate found herself alone.
The appalling implications of Lady Broome’s violent death had at one moment almost overpowered her, but her fainting spirit revived when she was confronted with the need to exert herself. She glanced at the still form, lying under a silken shawl of incongruously cheerful colour, her face very set, and then went out into the hall. Pennymore was awaiting her there, and straightened himself, looking at her in a dazed way. ‘Her ladyship is dead,’ Kate said gently. ‘I expect you knew that. Does Sir Timothy know?’
‘No, miss. I couldn’t take it upon myself to tell him, and no more could Tenby. Tenby told him what you said, and that the doctor was with her ladyship. Tenby says he’s anxious, but quite calm. It’s for Mr Philip to break it to him, Miss Kate. He’ll know best how to do it, and – how much to tell him,’ he added, in a lowered tone.
‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘I think – I hope he will soon be home again. Meanwhile, we can’t leave her ladyship lying on the floor, can we?’
‘No, miss, it’s not seemly. Where were you wishing to lay her?’
‘In her own room, I think. If you agree, will you send James and William to carry her body upstairs? I’ll go up now to prepare the bed.’
‘Yes, miss, I’ll fetch them to you at once. I ought to have thought of it myself, but I’m not as young as I was, Miss Kate, and the shock seems to have chased the wits out of my head. I hope you’ll excuse it!’
He hurried away, and Kate went up the stairs. She found a knot of housemaids in the upper hall, discussing the event in excited whispers, and by the time she had succeeded in dissuading the head-housemaid from calling the attention of her subordinates to the accuracy of Mrs Thorne’s prophetic dream; checked, with a few well-chosen words, the gusty sobs of a stout damsel who seemed to believe that to refrain from bursting into tears at the death of a mistress with whom she had rarely come into contact would be a social solecism; and dispersed them all about their various businesses, there was barely enough time left to her to strip Lady Broome’s great four-poster bed of its flaring patchword quilt, its blankets, and all but one of its pillows, before slow and heavy footsteps approaching along the gallery made her bundle Ellen, who, scared but mercifully dry-eyed, had volunteered her assistance, into the adjoining dressing-room, and to shut the door on her, and to lock it.
The two footmen came in, bearing Lady Broome’s corpse. They were both quite young men, but while James was evidently a good deal shaken, William, a more stolid character, wore an expressionless mask; and, when Kate said in a low voice: ‘Lay her on the bed!’ he nodded, adjuring his trembling colleague to go easy.
The body was still covered by the silk shawl, and when Kate had dismissed the footmen it was a few moments before she could bring herself to remove it, and to spread a sheet in its place.
She tried not to look at her aunt’s unrecognizable countenance, or at the livid bruises on her throat, but when she had shrouded the body from head to foot, she was obliged to sit down for a few moments to recover her composure; and when she left the room she was very pale, and her hands were trembling slightly. She removed the key from inside the door, and inserted it on the outside, and turned it. After a moment’s hesitation she removed it from the lock, for fear that some member of the household, impelled by morbid curiosity, might creep in, and draw back the sheet from that ghastly face.
She was about to go downstairs again when sounds of lamentation reached her. She had no difficulty in recognizing Mrs Thorne’s voice, and she had never been closer to turning tail. Mrs Thorne had succumbed to the vapours, and that seemed to add the final touch to the nightmare. Gathering her resolution, she went quietly to the housekeeper’s small parlour, where she found Mrs Thorne lying back in a chair, as rigid as a wooden doll, and two of the maids, one waving burnt feathers under her nose, and the other fanning her zealously but ineffectively with a tambour-frame. Restraining an impulse to box this foolish damsel’s ears, and to shake the housekeeper till the teeth rattled in her head, Kate set about the wearing task of restoring Mrs Thorne to some semblance of calm. This she did by first getting rid of the maids, and next by agreeing that Mrs Thorne undoubtedly possessed the gift of second sight, and expressing awe, admiration, and wonder. This had a beneficial effect; Mrs Thorne forgot to maintain her rigid pose, and recounted for Kate’s edification, and with a wealth of irrelevant detail, the various occasions when she had prophesied disaster. By the time she had reduced Kate almost to screaming-point, she was herself so much recovered that it needed only a judicious amount of flattery, and the intelligence that Sidlaw had collapsed, and had had to be carried to bed in raging hysterics, to bring her to her feet, saying that she was sure she was very sorry for Miss Sidlaw, but would have supposed she might have thought of something better to do than to add to all the commotion by kicking up such a dust. She herself, she said, for all she hadn’t been my lady’s nurse, was just as much attached to her, poor soul, and had much more sensibility than Miss Sidlaw, but would scorn to give way to her feelings in such a nasty, vulgar way, but would continue to perform her duties, even though it killed her. Kate thanked her, said she didn’t know what any of them would do without her, and escaped. And just as she was thinking that at least she had managed to avert the danger of Mrs Thorne’s taking to her bed, with an attack of her celebrated Spasms, she remembered another member of the household whose sensibilities were even more exquisite than Mrs Thorne’s. She felt a strong inclination to sit down on the nearest chair, and to relieve her overcharged emotions by bursting into tears; but instead of this, she turned towards the backstairs, and went resolutely to brave Gaston in his stronghold.
The big kitchen seemed to her to be crowded with persons whom she had never set eyes on before, all talking at once; but her unprecedented arrival on the scene struck even Gaston dumb with amazement. The menials who waited on him might stand open-mouthed and goggling, but Gallic address soon rescued him from his own astonishment, and he came forward, bowing deeply, and commanding the kitchen porter, whom he referred to in a very lofty style as a marmiton, to set a chair for mademoiselle. He begged her to inform him in what way he could serve her, for to serve her, he said gallantly, would be for him the greatest pleasure imaginable. So Kate, assuming the mien of a helpless innocent, said that she knew she could depend upon him to support her through this dreadful brouhaha, and what, she demanded of him, could he suggest in the guise of a dinner to set before a bereaved family, none of whose members, he would understand, would be able to support the sight of roast joints, or the raised pies which he cooked to such perfection. Gaston, even more susceptible than Mrs Thorne to flattery, rose magnificently to the challenge, bidding her to rest tranquil, and leave all to him: he would prepare a dinner – very small, but very choice – that would animate even the capricious appetite of Monsieur Torquil.
Kate got up rather quickly, managed to smile, and to thank Gaston, and hurried away, down the stone-paved passage to the Great Hall. In the need to prevent the disintegration of the household she had not had time to think of Torquil, but the chef’s words brought home to her the full horror of her aunt’s death, and filled her with icy dread. She went through the Gothic door into the Great Hall, and found Mrs Nidd there, about to mount the stairs.
Mrs Nidd exclaimed: ‘There you are, Miss Kate! I’ve been looking for you all over! Wherever have you been hiding yourself, dearie?’
‘I’ve been in the kitchen. Sarah, where is Torquil ?’
‘Well, that’s more than I can tell you,’ said Sarah. ‘It seems that man of his – Badger, is it? – is searching for him in the woods. By what Mr Pennymore tells me, one of the footmen caught sight of him, making for the woods like one demented – which, of course, the poor lad is! Now, don’t get into a fret! you’ve kept up wonderful till now, love, and acted just as you should, and like I knew you would, and you’ve got to remember that he won’t go to the gallows for strangling his ma, like he would if he was sane, but only be shut up safe somewhere, where he can’t harm himself, or anyone else. And it’s my belief, Miss Kate, that if ever a woman deserved to be strangled, she did! Now, you come into this room, which they call the Blue saloon, though why they do I’m sure I don’t know, for the only bit of blue in it is in the curtains, and not so very much of it there either! Mr Pennymore has this instant brought in a tea-tray, and a dish of little cakes so light you’ll never know you’re eating them. No, I know you don’t think you could swallow anything, dearie, but you’ll find you can, and you’ve got to keep up your strength, you know!’
Having propelled Kate gently but inexorably into the Blue saloon, she pushed her into a chair, and began to pour out the tea. Kate sank her head into her hands, and Mrs Nidd, observing how her fingers writhed amongst her soft curls, went on talking, in a comfortable way which Kate found vaguely soothing. She was able presently to drink a little tea, and even to nibble a small cake, but that her mind was preoccupied she showed by breaking into Sarah’s description of the recklessness of Joe’s sister Polly, saying abruptly: ‘Sarah, why did he do it? Why? I know he hated her, but he was so much in awe of her that she had only to look at him to bring him into submission! Sarah, what did she say to him to goad him into strangling her? She can’t – oh, she can’t have told him that he was mad, and must be shut up!’
‘It’s no use asking me what she said to him, Miss Kate, because I wasn’t there, but after what you told me last night I wouldn’t wonder at it if that’s what she did tell him. I got into a chat with Mrs Thorne when you was at dinner, and from the things she said – not that she meant to cry her ladyship down, mind! – it was as plain as a pack-saddle that her ladyship was so full of her own consequence, and so set on getting her own way, no matter what it cost her, that when she found she couldn’t, for all her plots and coaxings – like she did when you told her you wouldn’t marry Mr Torquil! – there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do, just for sheer, wicked spite! I can tell you this, love! – she was a regular bad one, and you don’t need to waste a crumb of sympathy on her! If you ask me, this precious Staplewood of hers will be a happier place now she’s dead! And don’t tell me she was kind to you! She wasn’t so very kind when she knew she couldn’t make you marry Mr Torquil! No, and it wasn’t kind of her to try to trap an innocent girl like you are into marrying a poor, mad boy that would strangle you as soon as look at you! Whenever I think of that it makes me fairly boil! Oh, well! they say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead – though why you shouldn’t I’m sure I don’t know! – so I’d best keep my lips buttoned, for speak good of her I could not! Drink up your tea, dearie!’
‘Why did he go to her drawing-room?’ Kate said, unheeding. ‘He never does so! Did she send for him? To scold him for trying to jump that wall yesterday? But she doesn’t scold him for the �
�� the crazy things he does!’
‘Well, according to what the doctor said, Mr Torquil found the carpenter nailing bars across the window of his bedchamber, which her ladyship had given him orders to do, without a word to anyone,’ replied Sarah bluntly. ‘So Mr Torquil flew right up into the boughs, and rushed off in such a bang that the doctor couldn’t stop him, to ask his ma what she meant by it. It seems the doctor went after him, and he says he wouldn’t have left her ladyship alone with Mr Torquil if she hadn’t ordered him to do so, and if he hadn’t thought that she could handle Mr Torquil, like she always had done. He says that she told Mr Torquil to sit down, and that Mr Torquil obeyed her, so that he never thought she was in the least danger. He doesn’t know what happened after that, no more than anyone else does, but he did say, if you remember, Miss Kate, that she must have told him, but what she must have told him he did not say!’
Kate, who had been listening to this speech with a puzzled frown knitting her brows, said incredulously: ‘Good God! Did Dr Delabole tell you all this, Sarah?’
‘Oh, no, he didn’t tell it to me !’ said Sarah, refilling her cup. ‘He told it to Mr Philip, in this very room, but I was here, you see – just downstairs after getting that archwife into her bed, and seeing her drop off to sleep! Well, I’ve got no sort of fancy for the doctor, but I’m bound to own I couldn’t help compassionating him! Very rough Mr Philip was with him, raking him down till it was no wonder he had him quaking like a blancmanger!’
Kate started up. ‘Is Philip here?’ she cried eagerly. ‘Oh, Sarah, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You sit down, Miss Kate, and finish your tea!’ said Sarah severely. ‘He is back, but he’s gone out to search for Mr Torquil, and it won’t do anyone a mite of good for you to run out searching for him ! Don’t you fret! he’ll be here soon enough!’
As though in corroboration of this statement, he came into the room at that moment. He was looking pale, and his face was set grimly, his eyes very hard, and two deep clefts between his brows. In a shaking voice, Kate said: ‘Have you found him? Have you found him, Philip?’
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