Cousin Kate

several minutes before Sidlaw came hurrying in. Upon being told that my lady wanted a cordial, she said that she knew how it would be, and had warned her ladyship What would be the outcome of going down to dinner before she was fit to stand on her feet. When she had measured out a dose of the restorative medicine, and Kate would have taken it from her, she said sharply: “Thank you, miss! I prefer to take it to her ladyship myself!” and sailed off, full of zeal and fury.

Not at all sorry that, for the moment at least, she would be spared a tete-a-tete with her aunt, Kate followed her. By the time Lady Broome had swallowed the cordial, and Sidlaw, disregarding her impatience, had fussed over her, drawing a heavy screen behind her chair to protect her from an imaginary draught, placing a cushion behind her head, begging to be allowed to fetch a warmer shawl, and placing her vinaigrette on a small table drawn up beside her chair, the gentlemen, not lingering over their port, had come in. Sidlaw then withdrew, with obvious reluctance, and while the doctor bent solicitously over Lady Broome, Sir Timothy, smiling a little sadly at Kate, murmured: “A last game of backgammon, my child?”

She agreed to it; Philip got the board out of the cabinet, and sat down to watch the game; Lady Broome leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes; and the doctor went away to see how Torquil was going on. He came back in the wake of the tea-tray, with a comfortable account of Torquil, who had eaten a very good dinner, he said, and was now gone to bed. Lady Broome then put an end to the backgammon session by calling Kate to dispense the tea. She seemed to have recovered both her complexion and her strength, but as soon as the footman came to remove the tray she got up, saying that it was time she retired, and adding: “Come, Kate!”

Philip looked quickly at Kate, a question in his eyes. She very slightly shook her head, and, seeing Sir Timothy’s hand stretched out to her, went to him, bending over him, with her free hand on his shoulder, preventing his attempt to rise from his chair. “Pray don’t get up, sir!” she said, smiling wistfully.

He drew her down to kiss her cheek, whispering in her ear: “Come and see me before you go tomorrow, to say goodbye to me!”

“I will,” she promised, under her breath.

“Goodnight, my pretty! Bless you!” he said, releasing her.

Lady Broome, waiting in the archway, watched this scene with placid complaisance, and said, as soon as she had passed through the anteroom: “I believe Sir Timothy does indeed look upon you as the daughter of his old age! He is so fond of you, dear child!”

“I am very fond of him, ma’am,” Kate replied, walking slowly down the broad gallery, with Lady Broome’s hand resting on her arm.

“Are you? I wonder! I am beginning to think, Kate, that, for all your engaging manners, you are not very fond of anyone. Certainly not of me!”

Innate honesty forbade Kate to deny this; she could only say: “You are feeling low, and oppressed, ma’am: don’t let us brangle!”

“I am feeling very low, and more oppressed than ever before in my life—almost at the end of my rope! You will own that I have enough to sink me in despair, even though you refuse to help me! Do you know, I have never asked for help before?”

“Aunt Minerva, I can’t give it to you!” Kate said bluntly. “I thought there was nothing I wouldn’t do to repay your kindness, but when you ask me to marry Torquil you are asking too much! I beg of you, don’t try to persuade me to do so! It is useless—you will only agitate yourself to no purpose!”

They had reached the upper hall; Lady Broome paused there, her light clasp on Kate’s arm tightening into a grip. “Think!” she commanded, a harsh note creeping into her voice. “If the advantages of such a marriage don’t weigh with you, does it weigh with you that by persisting in your refusal you will have condemned Torquil to spend the rest of his life in strict incarceration?” She observed the whitening of Kate’s cheeks, the look of horror in her eyes, and smiled. “Oh, yes!” she said, a purring triumph in her voice. “After today’s exploit, there is left to me only one hope of guarding the secret of his madness. Do you realize that he might have brought his horse down on top of the woman who was leading her child by the hand? Do you know that he rode Scholes down in the stableyard? What, you little ninnyhammer, do you suppose that Scholes, and Fleet, and whoever they were who were passing along the lane at that disastrous moment, are now thinking—and discussing, if I know them? Dr Delabole has done what he could to convince Scholes and Fleet that for Torquil to have spurred his horse into a wall was nothing but the act of a headstrong boy, but he might as well have hung up his axe! Only one thing can now silence the gabble-mongers, and that’s the news that Torquil is about to be married to a girl of birth and character! That must give them pause! In any event, only one thing signifies: that there shall be an heir to Staplewood!”

“Oh!” cried Kate, losing control of herself. “Can you think of nothing but Staplewood? The only thing that signifies! Good God, what does Staplewood matter beside the dreadful fate that hangs over poor Torquil?”

“If Torquil could have been cured by the abandonment of my hopes of seeing my descendants at Staplewood, I suppose I must have abandoned them,” said Lady Broome coldly. “It would have been my duty, and I’ve never yet failed in that I But it can make no difference to him. If I seem unfeeling, you must remember that I have had time to grow accustomed. Nor am I one to grieve endlessly over what can’t be helped. I prefer to make the best I can out of what befalls me.”

“It hasn’t befallen you, ma’am!”

“No: not yet! Perhaps, if I can provide him with a wife, it never will. He may grow calmer when his passions find a natural outlet: Delabole considers it to be possible.”

“Does he consider it beyond possibility that a child of Torquil’s should inherit his malady?” Kate asked, unable to repress the bitter indignation which swelled in her breast.

“It is a risk I must take,” said Lady Broome, sublimely unaware of the effect these words had upon her niece.

Kate managed to pull her arm free; she stepped back a pace, and said, with a tiny contemptuous laugh: “There’s another risk you would have to take, ma’am! Hasn’t it occurred to you that Torquil’s child might be a daughter?”

It was evident that this thought had never disturbed Lady Broome’s incredible dreams. She stared at Kate, as though stunned, and when she spoke it was scarcely above a whisper. “God couldn’t be so cruel!” she uttered.

Kate made a hopeless gesture. “Let me take you to your room, ma’am! It is of no use to continue arguing: it is as though we weren’t speaking the same language! I am leaving you tomorrow, and—and I wish very much to do so without a quarrel with you!” She drew a resolute breath, and braced herself, and found the courage to keep her eyes steady on her aunt’s face. “There is something else I must tell you, ma’am. I would have told when—when it happened, but you were too ill to be troubled with what I know you will dislike—I fear, excessively! I can only beg you to believe that I haven’t wished to deceive you, and that I can’t and won’t leave Staplewood without telling you that Mr Philip Broome proposed to me on the very day you took ill, and that I accepted his offer!”

Lady Broome received this disclosure in a silence more terrible, Kate thought, than any outburst of wrath would have been. She stood motionless, only her eyes alive in her rigid countenance. Between narrowed lids, they stared at Kate with such implacable fury that it was only by a supreme effort of will-power that she stood her ground, and continued to look her aunt boldly in the face. “So Sidlaw was right!” Lady Broome said, quite softly. “You little slut!” She watched the colour rush up into Kate’s cheeks. “You can blush, can you? That certainly surprises me! I wouldn’t believe Sidlaw—I couldn’t believe that a girl who owed the very clothes on her back to me could be so ungrateful—so treacherous—as to encourage the advances of a man whom she knew to be my greatest enemy! He has proposed to you, has he? Are you so sure that he proposed marriage?” I fancy he is not so blind to his interest as you imagine! Philip marry a penniless young woman whom neither her family nor his acknowledge? I won’t say that I wish you may not have a rude wakening from this mawkish dream of yours, for I hope with all my heart that when he grows tired of you, and casts you off, you will remember to your dying day what I offered you, and you were fool enough to refuse!” She paused, but Kate did not speak. Scanning the girl’s white face, an unpleasant smile curled her lips, and she said: “That gives you to think, does it not? I advise you to think more carefully still! Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that he was trying to give you a slip on the shoulder?”

Kate’s lips quivered into an answering smile; she replied: “It did occur to me, ma’am, but I was wrong. All you have said about my circumstances occurred to me too. I daresay you won’t believe me, but I tried to make him