Cousin Kate

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘Badger found him,’ he replied, and lifted a hand that was not quite steady to cover his eyes for a brief moment. He let it fall again, and said harshly: ‘We were too late – both of us –’

  ‘Dead?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, dead,’ he answered.

  Twenty-one

  Mrs Nidd, nearly dropping her cup, gasped: ‘Oh, my goodness gracious me!’ but Kate said, as though she had been expecting it: ‘Did he drown himself, Philip?’

  He nodded. ‘Badger saw him. I think he knew that it was too late to save him, but he plunged in off the bridge, and got his body to the shore. When I reached the lake he was holding him in his arms, and – Well, never mind! The poor old chap is all to pieces: said he was the only person who had ever loved Torquil, which is true, I suppose, though why he should have loved him God only knows! Torquil treated him like a dog.’ He paused, regarding Kate with sudden intensity. ‘Why did you say that? Did you know he had drowned himself ?’

  She made a helpless gesture. ‘No. I don’t know, but when Sarah told me that Badger was searching the woods for him – it flashed across my mind that he once told me – oh, on my very first day here, when he took me down to the bridge! – that he often thought how pleasant it would be to drown. I didn’t think he meant it, but he did, poor Torquil, he did!’

  Her voice broke, and she turned away, battling with her tears. Philip said slowly: ‘I believe he did think it pleasant. There’s no sign that he struggled to save himself: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look more peaceful. If I had been here – if I had known what he meant to do – I must have stopped him, but – I say this in all seriousness, Kate – I’m thankful that I was not here. For him, this is a most merciful end. When you’ve seen him – oh, no, don’t shudder! There’s nothing to distress you! – I believe you won’t feel his death a tragedy.’

  She blew her nose, and said, trying to speak cheerfully: ‘No, I know it isn’t a tragedy. Not his death! But I can’t help thinking of his life, Philip! How lonely he was, and how unhappy!’

  ‘He wasn’t always unhappy, my darling. When he was a little chap he was the most engaging scamp – tumbling in and out of mischief. I was used to think that he must be lonely, but I’ve come to realize that perhaps it was only when he grew older that he felt the want of companionship.’

  ‘And truer words than that, sir, you’ll never speak!’ said Sarah. ‘Children don’t miss what they’ve never had, so you don’t want to grieve over what’s past, Miss Kate! You think of what the poor boy’s future would have been, and thank God he’s been saved from it! Where have you laid him, Mr Philip?’

  ‘On his own bed. I carried him in through the West Wing entrance, and helped Badger to strip him, and put him into his nightshirt.’ A twisted smile just touched his stern mouth. He looked at Kate, and said: ‘You might suppose him to be peacefully sleeping: no more than that.’

  She wiped away her tears, and went to him, saying simply: ‘Take me to see him, Philip. I – I should like to see him once more.’

  He caught her hand, and kissed it. ‘I will take you, but first I must have a word with Mrs Nidd about your journey. My darling, I had meant to have gone with you, but I can’t leave my uncle at this present. I believe you wouldn’t wish me to. After the inquests, and the funerals, I shall come to you, and with a special licence in my pocket, I warn you! Mrs Nidd, will you take these bills? There should be enough to pay all the expenses of the journey. You will be later in starting than I had planned, but you should be able to reach Woburn tonight. Direct the post-boys to set you down at the George, and mention my name: I have frequently stayed there. Be sure to engage a private parlour! If anything should happen to delay you on the road, break the journey at Newport-Pagnell: there are two very tolerable houses there, the Swan and the Sergeant. I fancy –’

  He was interrupted. Kate, who had been listening to these instructions with a blank look of incomprehension on her face, said, in bewilderment: ‘But what are you talking about, Philip? There can be no question of my going to London! How could you think I would leave Staplewood at such a moment?’

  He kissed her hand again, and held it in a strong clasp. ‘Bless you, my little love!’ he said, in a much moved voice. ‘But I wish you to go. I know how hateful Staplewood must have become to you, and I know, too, just how unpleasant – how harrowing – it is going to be, until this appalling business is over. I want to get you safely away before we are plunged into all the degrading consequences of two such deaths. Mrs Nidd, I know you will support me!’

  ‘Well, no, Mr Philip!’ responded Sarah apologetically. ‘In fact, if Miss Kate had said other than what she has said I’d have given her a thundering scold! She’ll be marrying you for better or worse, sir, and if she has the worse before she’s riveted to you, she’ll be luckier than most! A pretty thing it would be if she was to sherry off with me when you’ve got a peck of troubles hung round your neck! Yes, and if that’s the sort of hen-hearted girl you think she is it has me in a puzzle to know why you offered for her! A rare pickle you’d find yourself in if she was to scour off !’

  He looked to be very much taken aback, but the ready laughter sprang to Kate’s eyes, and she said: ‘That’s very true! You may be able to deal with Gaston, but not with Mrs Thorne, believe me! You would be excessively uncomfortable if you had no one here to keep house for you – and, which is much more important, so would Sir Timothy be! So you may put those bills back in your pocket, sir – and stop insulting me!’ She lifted his hand, which was still clasping hers, and laid her cheek against it. ‘Poor Philip!’ she said softly. ‘I know, my dear, I know! Pray don’t ask me to go away!’

  His hand tightened round hers; Mrs Nidd said: ‘If you’ll pardon the liberty, sir, the person I’d be glad to see the back of is the doctor, for I can’t abide him, and nor can’t Miss Kate! A regular Captain Sharp, that’s what he is, and the way you rattled him off was a pleasure to listen to! Let alone he’s been living as high as a coach-horse here, shot-free, if he hasn’t been feathering his nest you may call me a widgeon!’

  That drew a smile from him. He said: ‘I shouldn’t dare!’

  ‘Are you going to send him away, Philip?’

  ‘Not immediately. He is quite as anxious to make himself scarce as you are to see his back, Mrs Nidd, but I’ve made it plain to him that I’ve no intention of permitting him to leave Staplewood until after the inquests. His evidence – if he says what he has himself suggested he should say! – will be of the first importance. My uncle is not a religious man, but I don’t think he could bear it if the verdict at the inquest made it impossible for us to bury Torquil in the Churchyard, amongst his ancestors. Delabole has it in his power to convince the jury that when Torquil took his own life he was not in the possession of his senses. He can do that, and he will do it.’ He paused, and after hesitating for a moment, said, with the glimmer of a smile: ‘He is a rogue, and a toadeater – everything that is most contemptible! But he was never unkind to Torquil! Oh, he infuriated him with his tactlessness – and got Turkish treatment for it! – but he might, without hindrance, have subjected Torquil to the sort of harsh usage which must have made the unfortunate boy fear him. That he didn’t do so – and God knows Torquil gave him cause enough! – must stand to his credit. I think he was genuinely fond of Torquil, and I am pretty certain that Minerva’s charming scheme to marry the boy to you, Kate, frightened him. But once having fallen under her domination he lacked the courage to break free from her shackles. He has no more pluck than a dunghill cock, but –’ He paused, and said ruefully: ‘He took good care of my uncle. I’ve no doubt Minerva paid him handsomely to do so, for it was all to her advantage to keep Sir Timothy alive, but – well, I must be grateful to him for that at least! That my uncle’s health is so much improved – there was a time, you know, when I lived in hourly dread of hearing that he was dead – stands very much to his credit – and
I find I can’t forget that.’

  It was Kate who broke the silence that succeeded these words. She said quietly: ‘Have you told Sir Timothy, Philip?’

  He shook his head. ‘Tenby says he is resting: asleep, he thinks. I shall tell him when he wakes. If I can’t persuade you to leave Staplewood, Kate, I must pay off the post-boys: the chaise has been standing in the yard ever since my return. Wait for me: I shan’t be many minutes.’

  He went away; and Kate, glancing at the bowl of pink roses on the table by the window, went to it, and drew out one half-opened bloom, and wiped its stalk with her handkerchief. It was in her hand when he came back, and she was holding it when she stood beside him, looking down at Torquil’s still form. Her other hand was clasping Philip’s, but as she gazed at that beautiful face, from which every trace of peevishness had vanished, she drew it out of his slackened hold, and brushed it across her brimming eyes, and said, under her breath: ‘Yes. He is just asleep, and dreaming so happily! so peacefully! Thank you for bringing me to see him: this is how I shall always remember him.’

  She bent over the dead boy, and slid the stem of the rose under his folded hands, and gently kissed his cold brow. Then she turned back to Philip, and he took her out of the room, his arm round her waist.

  Neither spoke, until they had left the West Wing, and were walking down the gallery that led from it, past Lady Broome’s bedchamber, past Kate’s, to the upper hall, when Kate said sadly: ‘No one could grieve over his death, but, oh, Philip, that is how he might have looked when he was alive, if his brain hadn’t been so dreadfully afflicted!’

  He answered only by the tightening of his arm round her waist; but when they reached the head of one of the wings of the Great Staircase, he paused, and kissed her, and said: ‘I must go down to my uncle. My poor darling, you’re looking so tired! Will you rest on your bed before dinner? I wish you will!’

  She smiled, but with an effort. ‘You do think me a poor honey, don’t you? I’ll go to my room, but I don’t promise to rest on my bed: there’s too much to think of, and I don’t seem to have had time yet to – to regulate my mind. Philip, shall we be obliged to live here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered heavily. ‘Perhaps I shall be able to make some arrangement. If either of his sisters were alive – but they are both dead! Or if the mutton-head Minerva engaged as bailiff could be trusted to manage the estate –’

  ‘But he can’t, can he? And – and even if he were the best bailiff imaginable he couldn’t bear Sir Timothy company, could he? Philip, if your uncle wishes you to remain here, don’t let the thought of me weigh with you! Do as you think you must! I don’t doubt I shall accustom myself !’ She summoned up a gallant smile, and added: ‘I must accustom myself, for now that Torquil is dead Staplewood will one day belong to you, won’t it? I know you never wanted it, and I don’t mean to try to hoax you into thinking that I do: it has never been a home to me, and – and just at the moment it is horrible to me! But if you took me to your own home, leaving your uncle in this huge, awful house with only servants to take care of him, I don’t think I should ever be happy. I should be thinking all the time that I had failed quite miserably in my duty, and picturing Sir Timothy here, quite alone, with only his memories – and so many of them unhappy memories! And you would too, Philip! You might even regret that you had married me!’

  ‘Never that!’ he said. ‘I always hoped – but even if Torquil were alive, soon or late I must, I suppose, have been confronted with the same problem. O God, what a nightmare it is!’

  She drew his head down, and tenderly kissed his cheek. ‘Yes, it is a nightmare, but Sarah says things are never quite as bad as one thinks they will be. And also she says it is a great mistake to cross bridges until one reaches them, so – so don’t let us look beyond tomorrow! Go down now to Sir Timothy, my dear one! I’d come with you if I didn’t know that he would liefer by far learn what has happened from you alone. I hope – oh, I pray that the shock may not cause him to suffer another, and fatal heart attack!’

  Not daring to trust herself to say more, she went quickly to her room, and entered it without looking back.

  She found Sarah there, unpacking her portmanteau. After one shrewd glance at her, Sarah pushed her into a chair by the window, saying: ‘Now, you sit there, like a good girl, Miss Kate! I don’t want you under my feet!’

  Kate smiled rather wanly, but attempted no argument. She was thankful to sink into the chair, and to lean back, closing her eyes. Sarah continued to bustle about, casting one or two measuring glances at Kate, but saying nothing until Kate presently opened her eyes, and straightened herself, sighing deeply. She then adjured her not to let herself fall into the doldrums. ‘For if you don’t show Mr Philip a cheerful face, Miss Kate, you’d have done as well, and better, to have left this place, like he wished you to do.’ She went to Kate, and began to chafe one of her hands. ‘You want to look on the bright side, love!’ she said. ‘I don’t say it’s easy, nor that it’s very bright, but things could have been worse! The poor young gentleman won’t ever be shut up now, and if the doctor can be trusted to tell the Coroner, frank and open, that he wasn’t in his right mind when he choked his mother to death, and flung himself into the lake –’

  ‘Oh, if only I could be sure he wasn’t in his right mind!’ Kate cried. ‘But I think he was, Sarah! That’s what has upset me so much. Oh, Delabole will say he wasn’t: I’m not afraid of that! Perhaps – if my aunt had told him he was mad, he lost his senses, but when he saw that he had killed her – they came back to him. He wasn’t out of his mind when he drowned himself. Whether he was afraid of the consequences, or – or afraid that he was mad, I don’t know. But I can’t help remembering that he said once, when we were discussing dreams, that sometimes he dreamed he was being chased by a monster, and sometimes that he had done something dreadful. My aunt interrupted him, and I thought no more about it until today. And then I remembered it, and the look on his face – an uneasy, scared look, Sarah! Do you think – do you think he was secretly afraid that he had done something dreadful? When he saw the carpenter nailing bars across his window, did it confirm his fear? If that was so – oh, poor Torquil, poor Torquil, what agony of mind he must have suffered!’

  ‘Now, that’s quite enough!’ said Sarah, in a scolding tone. ‘You can’t know what he thought, nor what her ladyship said to him, and you never will, so there’s not a bit of good to be gained by dwelling on it! If he suffered, it wasn’t for very long – not if Mr Philip was speaking the truth when he said that he looked happy. Didn’t you think he looked happy, Miss Kate?’

  Kate nodded, wiping her eyes. ‘Yes. He’s smiling – as though he had at last found something he had been trying to find for a long, long time.’

  ‘Well, that’s all you’ve got to remember, love. There, you stay quiet till it’s time I made you tidy for dinner! You’re worn out, and no wonder.’

  Kate sighed, and closed her eyes again. But presently she opened them, and said, rather drearily: ‘We shall have to live here, you know. We can’t leave Sir Timothy alone in this dreadful house. And when he dies, it will be Philip’s, and he doesn’t want it, Sarah! And I don’t want it either! It has never been home to me, and now it has become horrible! And everyone will think I married Philip because I was determined to become Lady Broome!’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder at it if you find you’re wrong,’ said Sarah. ‘I was talking to Mr Pennymore last night, and by what he said it seems her ladyship wasn’t at all well-liked by Sir Timothy’s old friends. Well, it stands to reason they wouldn’t like her, when she kept them away from him! She said it was on account of his always being so poorly, but Mr Pennymore says that it’s his belief – and Tenby’s too! – that it would do Sir Timothy good to see a few people. Just dropping in to have a crack with him, not waiting to be invited to a party! And what’s more he told me that Staplewood hasn’t been a home to him ever si
nce her ladyship made it into a show-place. It’ll be your task, Miss Kate, to make it a home again, and to make visitors welcome, what’s more! As for its being horrible to you, it’s only to be expected you should think so at first, but you can take it from me, dearie, that you’ll get over that. Well, goodness, if everyone felt they couldn’t bear to live in their houses, because something tragic had happened in them, half the big houses in the country would be standing empty!’

  Kate smiled, and got up. ‘What should I do without you, Sarah?’ she said. ‘You have so much sense ! I beg your pardon for flying into alt: I’ll try not to be so stupid again. I think the – the things that have happened today have been rather too much for me. I shall be better tomorrow!’

  Sarah gave her a resounding kiss. ‘That’s my good girl!’ she said. She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and said: ‘If that’s Ellen, I’ll send her away!’ She went to the door and opened it, saying as she did so: ‘I’ll attend to Miss – Oh, it’s you, sir! Yes, you can come in!’

  ‘Philip?’ Kate cried eagerly. ‘Come in, come in! How is Sir Timothy? Did you tell him what had happened?’

  ‘I wasn’t obliged to tell him that Minerva was dead. He had guessed it. As soon as I went into his room, he asked me if she was dead, and when I said yes, he sighed, and said that he had feared she must be. Then he said: “Poor soul!” as though she had been a mere acquaintance. But when I told him that there was worse news for him to hear, I saw him brace himself. There was a painful look of anxiety in his eyes, and he lifted his hand, as if to silence me. Then he let it fall, and spoke just one word – Torquil?’

  Kate caught her breath. ‘Philip, you don’t mean – Good God, did he know that Torquil was mad?’