valet, on the night of the storm. I saw Badger on the following morning, and he was in bad shape, I can assure you—and mighty anxious to escape questioning. Delabole told me a lying tale about his being quarrelsome in his cups, forgetting that I knew Badger well!”
“Yes, but—here, I say! If Torquil’s violent, why doesn’t Badger cut his stick?”
“He’s devoted to him. No doubt, too, Minerva makes it well worth his while to remain—and to keep his tongue between his teeth!”
Mr Templecombe, his brow furrowed, considered the matter, and presently entered another caveat. “That’s all very well, but what about the rest of ’em? Don’t any of ’em suspect?”
“I don’t know, but I think not yet. Whalley is in Minerva’s pay; Pennymore and Tenby may suspect, but they are deeply attached to my uncle, and wouldn’t for the world say a word to upset him. As for the footmen, and the maids, I fancy they look upon Torquil’s migraines as commonplace. They know that he is subject to them, and they are quite accustomed to being kept away from his room when he is laid-up. Whether he really is still subject to them I don’t know, but strongly doubt. They afford Delabole an excuse for drugging him, and as Torquil doesn’t seem to remember anything that happened during one of his attacks, I daresay it is not too difficult to persuade him that he has been prostrated by migraine. But if his fits of mania become more frequent, as I fear they may, it won’t be possible to conceal from the servants that the balance of his mind is disturbed. Nor will it be possible to allow him as much freedom as he now enjoys.”
“Poor little devil!” said Mr Templecombe. “No wonder he’s dicked in the nob!”
“That’s what I thought, until I realized that Minerva wouldn’t insist on Whalley’s accompanying him whenever he rides out unless she had good reason. She’s no fool! He is never allowed to go beyond the gates without Whalley.”
“Nevertheless he does go beyond them,” said Mr Templecombe dryly. “At least he did once, to my certain knowledge, and for anything I know he may have escaped more than once.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, about six months ago! I heard of it from my people. Mind you, I didn’t make much of it, and nor did anyone else, except that he was thought to be uncommonly wild. He bounded into the Red Lion, in the village, late one evening, boasting about having given ’em all the slip, at Staplewood, and calling for brandy. Well, Cadnam—you know: the landlord—well, he thought he was half-sprung already, but when he tried to fob him off with a glass of port Torquil flew into a passion, and hurled the glass at his head. Seems he had a notion of milling Cadnam down: according to the tale I heard—but I only got it third hand, and I daresay it was pretty garbled, it took a couple of fellows to hold him back. Then Delabole walked in, and they say Torquil quietened down at once, and looked devilish scared. Well, the doctor ain’t popular in the village, and as soon as he’d led the boy off, those who were in the tap enjoyed a good laugh, and said that it served my lady right for keeping the poor lad in leading-strings, and she’d only herself to thank that he’d got into such prime and plummy order the instant the doctor’s eye was off him. As far as I could discover, none of ’em thought any more about it until Badger came into the Red Lion the next evening, and said that that was just how it was. He spun a yarn about Torquil’s having been in a quarrel with his mother, and being ordered up to bed by her and so—and so—and so! If only he’d had enough rumgumption to have buttoned his lip, it’s my belief the affair would have been forgotten in a sennight, but when he went to such pains to assure Cadnam that Torquil was shot in the neck, and to beg him not to mention the matter, for fear of it getting to my lady’s ears—well, that made Cadnam, and a couple of others who were in the tap at the time, think there was something dashed smokey about it, and—oh, you know how fast a rumour spreads in a place like this, Philip!”
“Oh, my God, what a muttonhead! What a damned, well-meaning clunch!” exclaimed Philip bitterly.
“Yes, but there’s nothing to say the boy
“I can guess! That Delabole is Minerva’s lover? I don’t think it’s true, but true or not it was bound to be said,” replied Philip indifferently.
“Yes,” agreed Mr Templecombe. “The thing is she ain’t over and above popular, dear boy! And another thing that has people in a puzzle—well, it has me in a puzzle too!—is why the devil she brought Miss Malvern to Staplewood. Seems an odd start!” Receiving no answer to this, he said, with a shrewd glance at Philip: “Very agreeable girl, ain’t she?”
“Very,” agreed Philip.
“Got a great deal of countenance,” persevered Mr Templecombe.
“Yes.”
“Oh, very well!” said Mr Templecombe, incensed. “If you don’t choose to tell me you’re tail over top in love with her, it’s all one to me! I may not be one of the tightish clever ’uns, but I’ve got eyes in my head, and I know what’s o’clock!”
Chapter XV
Kate lay awake for a long time after she had blown out her candle that night, trying to think what she ought to do; but although she had longed all the evening for the opportunity to consider her problems in the seclusion of her own room, she found herself quite unable to pursue any very consecutive or useful line of thought. When she tried to think dispassionately about Philip’s proposal, and to weigh in the balance the possible advantages to him of the marriage against the certain disadvantages, her mind refused to remain fixed, but strayed into foolish recollections: how he had looked when he had first met her; how his smile transformed his face; what he had said to her in the rose-garden; what he had said in the shrubbery; what he had said in his curricle; and what he had looked like on all these occasions. The mischief was that no sooner had his image imposed itself on her mind’s eye than she was wholly unable to banish it, which was not at all conducive to impartial consideration. She came to the conclusion that she was too tired to think rationally, and tried to go to sleep. When she had tossed and turned for half an hour, she told herself that it was the moonlight which was keeping her awake, and she slid out of bed to draw the blinds across the unshrouded windows. Every night Ellen shut the windows, and drew the blinds; every night, when Ellen had left her, she flung up the windows, and swept back the blinds; and every morning Ellen, who had a deeply inculcated belief in tie baneful influence of the night air, and seemed to be incapable of understanding that her young mistress had become inured to it during the years she had spent in the Peninsula, remonstrated with her, and prophesied all manner of ills which were bound to spring from admitting into the room the noxious night airs. Failing to convince Ellen that she could not sleep in a stuffy room, Kate had adopted the practice of opening her windows when Ellen had carefully closed the curtains round the bed, and withdrawn to her own airless and tiny bedchamber.
The wind had died with the sun, and it was a hot, June night, so still that Kate could almost have supposed that a storm was brewing. But the sky was cloudless, with the moon, approaching the full, sailing serenely in a sky of dark sapphire. Nothing seemed to be stirring abroad: not even an owl hooted; and the nightingales, which had enchanted Kate when she had first come to Staplewood, had been silent for several weeks. Kate stayed for a moment by one of the windows, gazing out upon the moonlit gardens, wondering if Philip had yet returned from Freshford House, and listening for the sound of horses trotting up the avenue. Ghostly in the distance, the stable- clock struck the hour. She listened to it, counting the strokes, and could hardly believe it when it stopped at the eleventh, for it seemed to her that she had been lying awake for hours. She had never felt less like sleeping; and, after one look at the crumpled bedclothes, drew a chair to the window, and sat down, wishing that a breeze would get up to relieve the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. The house was wrapped in silence, as though everyone in it but herself was asleep. She concluded that Lady Broome must be better, until her ears caught the sound of someone coming on tiptoe along the gallery, and guessed that the doctor was on his way to take a last look at his patient. Or had he done so, and was he creeping back to his quarters in the West Wing? It had seemed to her that the footsteps were coming from the direction of her aunt’s bedchamber. A board creaked outside her door, and the
