“I think he has ridden out with Whalley.”

“Unfortunate Whalley!”

She was silent.

“You seem to possess the knack of managing him, cousin,” he said, as they crossed the lawn towards the rose-garden. “My felicitations!”

“I don’t know that. I have had some experience in the management of spoiled children.”

“So that was true, was it? When I saw you, I supposed it to be one of Gurney’s Banbury stories.”

She looked round at him in surprise. “Did Mr Templecombe tell you that I had been a governess?” He nodded. “I wonder why he should have done so?”

“He thought I might be interested. I was.”

Her surprise grew. “I can’t conceive why you should have been!”

“Can’t you?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“No. Unless—”

“Unless what?” he asked, as she hesitated.

She still hesitated, but presently confessed,, with a tiny chuckle: “Well, I was going to say, unless you wondered how it was possible for my aunt to own an indigent relative! The thing was that she didn’t know I existed, until a month ago.”

“I take leave to doubt that.”

“No, indeed it’s true! You see, my father quarrelled with his family when Aunt Minerva was still in the schoolroom, and—and—they cut the connection!”

“And what brought it to Minerva’s knowledge that you did exist?”

“My old nurse wrote to her, informing her of my circumstances.”

“I see.”

“And then my aunt swept down upon me,” continued Kate, not perceiving his curling lip. “I was never nearer to pulling caps with poor Sarah! But she did it all for the best, and so it has turned out. For my aunt invited me to stay here, and has overwhelmed me with kindness.” She paused, and then said, with a little difficulty: “I collect you don’t like her, but you must not say so to me, if you please!”

He regarded her frowningly. “Oh, no, I won’t say so!” He stood aside for her to pass through the archway cut in the yew hedge that enclosed the rose-garden. “You have made conquests of them all, Cousin Kate—even of my uncle!”

“I am sure I have done no such thing.”

“But indeed you have. I hear your praises sung on all sides.”

“I expect I should be excessively gratified—if I believed you!” she retorted, laying the two roses she had cut into the basket, and moving on.

“You may believe me—and accept my compliments!”

She turned to confront him, a spark of anger in her eyes. “That goes beyond the line of pleasing, sir! I am well aware that you’ve taken me in dislike, so pray don’t try to flummery me!”

“I beg your pardon! But I don’t think I have taken you in dislike. I own that I came prepared to do so, but you puzzle me, you know: you are rather unexpected!”

“Well, I know of no reason why you should say so, unless you expected to find I was inching my way into your uncle’s good graces to—to batten on him! Was that it?”

“No. Not entirely.”

“Not—” She uttered an indignant gasp, and then, suddenly, laughed, and said: “I suppose it does look like that! Let me assure you that it isn’t like that, sir!”

“In that case, I am sorry for you,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, and smiled sardonically. “Yes, I thought it wouldn’t be long before Minerva came to discover what I have been saying to you.” He waited until Lady Broome had come up to join them, and then greeted her with the utmost affability. “Do join us, Minerva! I’ve been attempting to flummery Cousin Kate, and without the least success.”

“Absurd creature! Kate, my love, when you have finished picking roses, I want you to come and help me in the house. Dear me, how oppressively hot it is out here! And you without a hat! You will become sadly tanned! Nothing is more injurious to the complexion than to expose it to strong sunshine! There are some who say that contact with all fresh air is destructive of female charms—the natural enemy of a smooth skin. But that I don’t agree with, though a wind is certainly to be avoided. I myself always wear a veil, or carry a parasol, as I am doing now.”

“And who shall blame you, ma’am?” said Philip. “It throws a most becoming light on to your face!”

“Are you now trying to flummery me, Philip? You are wasting your time!”

“No, merely paying a tribute to your unerring taste in choosing a pink parasol.”

She cast him an unloving look. “You would say, I collect, that my face needs to be protected from the unflattering daylight?”

“I shouldn’t say anything of the sort,” he replied. “I am not so uncivil, Minerva.”

She bit her lip, but returned no answer. They strolled together in Kate’s wake, until she had cut enough blooms to replenish her vases. Lady Broome then bore Kate off to the house, and kept her occupied until she knew Philip would be out of the way. Since the tasks she found for Kate to perform were all of a trifling nature, Kate could not but feel that she had purposely interrupted a tete-a-tete, and wondered why.

Except for one or two flickers of lightning, and some distant rumbles, the storm held off all day, but it broke in the middle of the night. Kate was jerked awake by the first crash, which sounded to be directly over the house. Almost before its echoes had died away, she heard another sound, and this time, she was sure, inside the house. It was even more alarming than the storm, because it was a cry of terror. She sat up, thrusting back the curtains of the bed, and listened intently, her heart thudding in her breast. She could hear nothing, but the sudden silence was not reassuring. She winced as the thunder crashed again, but slid out of her bed, and caught up her shawl. Hastily wrapping this round herself, she groped her way to the door, intending to open it, so that she could hear more clearly. She cautiously turned the handle, but the door remained shut. She had been locked in.

In unreasoning panic she tugged at the handle, and beat with clenched fists on the panels. The noise was drowned by another clap of thunder, which drove her back to her bed, blundering into the furniture, and feeling blindly for the table which stood beside it. Her fingers at last found the tinder-box, but they were trembling so much that it was some time before she succeeded in striking the spark. She relit her candle, but even as the little tongue of flame dimly illumined the room her panic abated, and was succeeded by anger. She climbed into bed again, and sat hugging her knees, trying to find the answer to two insoluble problems: who had locked her in? and why? The more she cudgelled her brain the less could she hit upon any possible theory. She began to feel stupid, and, as the storm seemed to be receding into the distance, blew out the candle, and lay down.

When she next woke, it was morning, and the pale sunlight, seeping into the room through the chinks in the blinds, made the night’s alarms ridiculous. She could almost believe that she had dreamt the whole, until her eyes alighted on the chair she had overturned, and she realized that her toes were bruised. She slid out of bed, and went to try the door again. It opened easily, but she noticed, for the first time, that there was no key in its lock. She went thoughtfully back to bed, determined to demand an explanation of her aunt.

But Lady Broome, listening to her with raised brows, merely said: “My dear child, if you wish to lock yourself in, a strict search shall be made for the key! But why do you wish to do so? Who, do you imagine, has designs on your virtue?”

“No, no, ma’am, you mistake! What I wish is not to be locked in!”

Lady Broome regarded her in some amusement, but said, with perfect gravity: “Certainly not! But were you, in sober fact, locked in?”

Kate flushed. “Do you think I’m cutting a sham, ma’am?”

“No, dear child, of course I don’t!” replied her ladyship. “Merely of having allowed your mind to be quite overcome by the storm! Extraordinarily violent, wasn’t it? That first clap, Dr Delabole tells me, made Torquil start up with a positive shriek!”

“Then it was he who uttered that cry of terror!” Kate exclaimed.

“Yes, did you hear it?” said Lady Broome smoothly. “He hates storms even more than you do! They bring on some of his worst migraines. Indeed, he is quite prostate today!”

“Is he? I am sorry,” said Kate mechanically. “But—but—my mind was not overset, ma’am! It wasn’t the storm which made me get up, but that cry! And I couldn’t open the door!”

“Couldn’t you, my love?” said Lady Broome.

“No! I couldn’t!” stated Kate emphatically. “I can see that you don’t believe me, Aunt Minerva, but—”

“Dearest, I believe you implicitly! Your mind was all chaos! You were rudely awakened by that first clap; you heard Torquil cry out; you tumbled, half-asleep, out of bed; you tried to pull open your door, and failed! So you went back to bed. But when you woke for the second time, and again tried to open your door, you found that you could easily do so! Well—what interpretation would you wish me to put on that, my love, except the very obvious one that your senses were disordered?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate, feeling remarkably foolish.

But when she recalled the cry she had heard she did not think that Torquil had made it. He had a boy’s voice, and when he raised it it was rather shrill; what she had heard was unmistakably a man’s voice. She said nothing, however, because Mr Philip Broome walked in at that moment, saying: “Good morning, Minerva—Cousin Kate! The storm did a good deal of damage: several tiles blown from the roof, a tree down, and enough wreckage in the gardens to keep Risby and his minions busy for days. Where’s Torquil?”