Джорджетт Хейер - Cousin Kate

Before the last syllable had left her lips, she was frozen with dismay, because, from somewhere in the wood beyond the lake, she heard a scream of intolerable anguish. It sounded human, and for a moment she was paralysed. Then, acting on impulse, she picked up her skirts, and ran, not away from the sound but towards it, crying: “Torquil, where are you? Torquil!”

No voice answered her; there was no repetition of the dreadful scream she had heard. She stopped, listening with straining ears, and trying to recollect from which direction the scream had come. The silence closed in on her, with not even the twitter of a bird, or the rustle of some small creature in the undergrowth, to break it. She caught her breath on a scared sob, but steeled herself to go on, impelled by the fear that it had been Torquil who had screamed, and who might now be lying insensible somewhere in the wood. She kept on calling to him, but still received no answer, and was just about to run back to the house, to summon help, when she almost stumbled over the mangled corpse of a rabbit. She started back, with an involuntary cry of revulsion, and stood staring down in horror. It was quite dead, but blood was still oozing from it, and she saw that it had been snared, for someone had wrenched the snare out of the ground, and cast it aside.

As she stood, fighting back nausea, she heard hasty footsteps approaching, and the next moment Dr Delabole came into sight round a thicket, gasping for breath, and uttering: “Miss Malvern, where are you? Miss—Oh, there you are! I—I thought I heard you call out for help!” He saw what was holding her gaze riveted, and said: “Oh, tut, tut! Very distressing! quite horrible, indeed! But only a rabbit, you know! Don’t look at it!”

She turned her eyes towards him, and fixed them on his face. “I heard a scream,” she said, shuddering. “A human scream!”

“Yes, yes, they do sound human!” he agreed sympathetically, taking her arm, and gently leading her away. “No doubt a cat got at it, or a fox, or even a weasel!”

“Dr Delabole, it was caught in a snare! I—I saw the snare!”

“Oh, then, that accounts for it! I must own that I myself deprecate the use of snares, but one can’t stop gamekeepers and gardeners from setting them! In nine cases out of ten the rabbits are killed outright—strangled, you know—but every now and then they are not killed, and then they scream, and their screams attract some predator—”

“What cat, or fox, or weasel would remove it from the snare, and—and tear its head off?” she demanded, in a shaking voice.

“Why, none, to be sure, but a fox may well have bitten its head off while it was still in the snare!”

“The snare had been pulled out of the ground. I saw it.”

“Did you? I must confess I didn’t notice it, but it’s very likely! In trying to drag the poor creature away the fox—or even a dog, perhaps!—wrenched the stake up—”

“And then disentangled it from the wire? Dr Delabole, do you take me for a fool? No animal perpetrated that—that horror!”

“No, I fear you may be right,” he said, grimacing. “I suspect you may have surprised some ruffianly louts from the village. Boys can be abominably cruel, you know. But what brought you into the wood, Miss Malvern?”

“I came in search of Torquil,” she replied. “I thought he might be in the belvedere, and I was going to return to the house when I heard that scream.”

“Came in search of Torquil?” he repeated. “My dear young lady, Torquil has been in his room for the past hour!”

“But I heard my aunt asking Pennymore if he had not yet come in!”

“Did you?” He hesitated, glancing ruefully down at her. “Well—er—she asked me that too, and I am afraid I—er—prevaricated! Between ourselves. Miss Malvern, her ladyship is inclined to fret Torquil! You know what he is!—down as a hammer, up like a watch-boy, as the saying is! He came in, riding grub, and shut himself up in his room, positively snarling at me that he didn’t wish to talk to anyone! So I—er—fobbed her ladyship off! I trust you won’t mention the matter to her! She would give me a fine scold!”

“You may rely on my discretion, sir.”

“I was persuaded I could. And, if I were you, I would not mention to anyone the distressing incident that took place in the wood. Such things are best forgotten—though very regrettable, of course!”

“I don’t think I could ever forget it, sir, but I certainly shan’t talk about it! It turns me sick!”

“Most understandable! No sight for a delicately nurtured female’s eyes!”

“No sight for anyone’s eyes, sir!” she said fiercely.

“Very true! I was myself most profoundly affected! I can only be thankful that Torquil didn’t see it: it would have quite overset him, for he is very squeamish, you know—very squeamish indeed!”

They had crossed the bridge by this time, and she felt she could well have dispensed with his company. He insisted on accompanying her to the house, however, and would have brought a dose of sal volatile to her room had she not been resolute in declining it. He recommended her to lie down on her bed before dinner, and promised to make her excuses if her aunt should ask where she was. She thanked him, and tried to feel grateful, but without much success.

Kate was so much shaken by her gruesome experience that it was some time before she could compose herself; but after half an hour her limbs ceased to tremble, and she was able to drag her mind from the slain rabbit. She had felt at first that she could not bear to go down to dinner, but a period of calm reflection restored her to her usual good sense. Whatever excuses Dr Delabole might make for her, her absence from the dinner-table must inevitably bring Lady Broome to her room, and Lady Broome, she knew, would ask shrewd questions. She had little appetite, but still less did she want to talk about what she had seen.

She was agreeably surprised when she entered the Long Drawing—room to find that Torquil had apparently recovered from his sulks, and was in high good humour, talking with remarkable affability to his mother. Kate had expected to be told that he was laid low with a headache, for this was in general the sequel to one of his bursts of temper; but in the event it was Sir Timothy who was the absentee. After slamming the door on Dr Delabole, it seemed that Torquil had cast himself on his bed, and had fallen into a deep, natural sleep, which had wonderfully refreshed him. His brow was unclouded; his eyes were neither overbright, nor heavy with drowsiness; and there was a delicate colour in his cheeks. He looked to be in a state of purring content, and so well-disposed towards his fellow-men that instead of resenting the doctor’s intrusions into his conversation with Lady Broome he invited them, calling upon Delabole to support him on a disputed point. He seemed to have banished from his mind his quarrel with Kate; and when Pennymore came to announce that dinner was served, and Lady Broome rose from her chair, he exclaimed: “But where is Philip? Shall we not wait for him?”

“No, we are a sadly diminished party tonight,” responded Lady Broome, disposing her shawl about her shoulders. “Philip is dining at Freshford House.”

“Oh, no!” protested Torquil. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I wanted to have my revenge on him!”

“As Philip didn’t see fit to inform me of his intention until noon, and you have been sound asleep for hours, there was no opportunity to tell you of it,” said Lady Broome composedly. “You will be obliged to revenge yourself on Kate instead.”

“That would be no revenge, madam!” he objected. “I can give Kate thirty, and beat her every time!” He threw a challenging look at Kate, and laughed. “Can’t I, coz?”

“At billiards you can,” she agreed. “I notice, however, that you dare not challenge me to a rubber of piquet!”

“No, no, I hate cards! I’ll tell you what, though! I’ll challenge you to a game of Fox and Geese!”

“Why, what’s that?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s a famous game! Don’t you know it? I was used to play it with Philip, when I was in the schoolroom, but from some cause or another I gave it up—I daresay it got to be a bore. You have a board, with seventeen geese and one fox, and the game is for the geese to entrap the fox, and for the fox to seize as many geese as he can, so that he can’t be caught. Mama, where is the board. Don’t tell me it was thrown away!”

“My dear, I don’t know what became of it!”

Fortunately, since he showed signs of falling into a pet, Kate recollected that she had seen a board, marked in the shape of a cross, in the cabinet that contained the chess and the backgammon boards, and was able to unearth it. When she held it up for his inspection, inquiring: “Is this it?” he exclaimed delightedly: “Yes, that’s it! If you can’t find the pieces, we can use draughts—though it would be a pity not to play with the set Philip made for one of my birthdays! He carved them out of wood, and painted them: white geese, and a red fox, carrying his brush high! One of the geese had the most comical expression, and two of them were shockingly lop-sided. Let me look!”

He fell on his knees in front of the cabinet, and began to pull out the various boxes it contained; but Lady Broome intervened, saying: “After dinner, my son!”

“Yes, very well! but I must find the pieces first!” he said.

“No, you must not!” said Kate firmly, pulling him to his feet. “I know how it would be, if you did find them! You would begin to teach me how to play, and the end of it would be that I shouldn’t get any dinner at all! Come along!”