On the following afternoon, Lady Broome, in response to an urgent entreaty from Kate to set her some task to perform, sent her down to the lodge, with what Kate knew to be a frivolous message. She accepted it without comment, realizing that her aunt was a trifle out of sorts, and set off down the avenue reflecting that if ever she had yearned for a life of indolence the weeks she had spent at Staplewood had cured her. Her only duties were trivial, and occupied perhaps an hour in the day. For the rest of the time she was at liberty to amuse herself as best she might. She could read, write, walk, busy herself with stitchery, play at battledore and shuttlecock with Torquil, or loiter her time away. She had the run of the library, and, after skipping her way through a number of old novels, she embarked on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with the laudable object of widening her knowledge. She had just begun to read the second volume, but it could not have been said that she viewed the prospect of reading four more volumes with enthusiasm. Riding during the summer months was mere hacking along country lanes; she had exhausted all the possibilities of walks taken within the grounds of Staplewood; and when she wished to go on an exploratory ramble beyond the grounds she was frustrated by Lady Broome’s insistence on her being accompanied by one of the footmen on such expeditions. As for stitchery, once she had mended a rent in her dress, and darned her stockings, she was at a stand. She could fashion a dress, but she had no turn for embroidery, which was the only kind of stitchery her aunt recognized as a genteel occupation for ladies of mode. Games of battledore and shuttlecock with Torquil were more a penance than a pleasure, for not only was he an indifferent player but an extremely bad-tempered one as well, frequently hurling his battledore from him in disgust, tearing the feathers from the shuttlecock, or walking off the court in a fury.

The worst of it was, as she had speedily realized, that there was nothing for her to do at Staplewood. Lady Broome had told her that she would find a great deal to do, but this was far from the truth: what there was to do was done by the servants, and very well done. Lady Broome had said that she relied upon Kate to overlook the staff, and to see that nothing was neglected; but Kate had been quick to realize that this was an improvised duty, and one which her aunt had no intention of delegating.

To Kate, accustomed all her life to be busy, this lazy, cushioned existence, at first delightful, soon became intolerable, but the mischief was that her aunt could not believe that she really did yearn for employment. In bringing Kate to Staplewood, and lapping her in expensive luxury, she expected her to revel in it; and since Kate was too well mannered to betray her discontent and did indeed enjoy the comfort of Staplewood—she continued in this misapprehension, and thought that Kate’s entreaties to be given work to do emanated from a very proper desire to requite her generosity.

Having delivered the message at the lodge, Kate went back to the house, leaving the avenue, and making a detour through the park. It was wooded, and here and there Lady Broome had caused to be planted clumps of rhododendrons and azaleas, which were just now in bloom, lending splashes of brilliant colour to the landscape, and filling the air with their scent. There could be no doubt that she knew how to create beauty. Kate had at first supposed that a landscape gardener had been employed to lay out the gardens, and to open prospects in the most felicitous way imaginable, but Lady Broome, laughing such a notion to scorn, had assured her that she had planned the whole, and had seen it carried out under her direction. It was yet another example of her genius for organization; and when Kate was held spellbound by one of the enchanting vistas she was easily able to understand her aunt’s love of Staplewood, into which she had thrown so much inventiveness. Kate had been shown the original plans of the gardens, and she knew that until her aunt’s reign the gardens had been formal, the park too thickly wooded, with too many bushes, and too few prospects. Lady Broome had improved these out of recognition. She had improved the house, too, changing it from an overcrowded store of furniture and pictures, good, bad, and indifferent, into a stately show-place, where nothing offended the eye. But Kate could not feel that she had been as successful in the house as she had been in the gardens, for, in creating a show-place, she had destroyed a home.

She was thinking about this when her attention was caught by the sudden appearance on the scene of a dog, which appeared to be the result of a misalliance between a hound and a setter. He came bounding into view from behind a clump of azaleas but halted in his tracks at the sight of her, and stood, looking the picture of guilt, with one paw raised, and his tail clipped between his legs, posed for instant flight. He had barely outgrown his puppyhood, and when Kate laughed, and invited him to come to her, he obeyed with all the alacrity of a dog of exuberantly friendly disposition, and gambolled round her, uttering encouraging barks.

The sight of him brought it forcibly home to Kate that, with the exception of Sir Timothy’s aged and obese spaniel bitch, which only left the East Wing when led out by Sir Timothy’s valet for a circumscribed airing, he was the first dog she had seen at Staplewood. It had not previously occurred to her that this was a strange circumstance, but as she patted and stroked the trespasser it did occur to her.

Frustrating his attempts to lick her face, she said laughingly: “Well, sir, and what are you doing here, pray? It’s my belief that you’ve been hunting! Oh, you bad dog!”

The stranger at once acknowledged the truth of this accusation, and deprecated its severity, by flattening his ears, and furiously wagging his lowered tail. Kate laughed again, and said: “What is more, you know very well you have no business here! Be off with you!”

He dashed off immediately, and she thought she was rid of him, until he reappeared, some minutes later, bringing her a peace-offering in the shape of a withered tree branch, which he dragged along the ground, and proudly laid at her feet.

“If you imagine,” Kate said, “that I am going to throw that for you to retrieve you very much mistake the matter! It’s a game I should weary of long before you did! Besides, I know I ought not to encourage you. No, sir! Go home!”

After inviting her to relent, retreating a little way from the branch, and all the time watching it with cocked ears and wagging tail, making short dashes at it, and urging her to participate in his favourite sport by a few yelping barks, he seemed to realize that it was useless to persist, and once more bounded off.

Kate proceeded on her way, wishing that there were dogs at Staplewood which she could take for walks, and recalling, with a reminiscent smile, the three obstreperous dogs owned by the Astleys which had added so much excitement (and embarrassment) to the walks she had taken with the children. In the midst of these reflections she was startled by a gruff voice, which suddenly commanded her to stand and deliver. She looked quickly round, not so much alarmed as vexed, for she had no difficulty in recognizing Torquil’s voice, disguised though it was. It was precisely the sort of schoolboy trick he was all too fond of playing, and she found it unamusing. “For heaven’s sake, Torquil!” she exclaimed. “Must you be so childish?”

He emerged from behind a bush, brandishing a double-barrelled shotgun, and saying gleefully: “I frightened you, didn’t I, coz?”

“No, but you are frightening me now!” Kate said, eyeing the shotgun with misgiving. “Don’t point that thing at me! Is it loaded?”

“Of course it is! And I did frighten you! You jumped nearly out of your skin!”

He shouldered the gun as he spoke, which relieved Kate’s more immediate apprehensions, but she demanded in a sharp voice how he had managed to come by it. “I broke in through the gun room window when the servants were at dinner!” he replied triumphantly. “No one heard me! I stuffed my pockets with cartridges, too. I’m up to everything, ain’t I? If Mama won’t let anyone teach me, I’ll teach myself!”

“Torquil, indeed you must not!” she said. “Do, pray, put it back! If you are so set on learning to shoot I’m persuaded your Mama will relent! I’ll try what I can do to convince her that it is only right that you should be permitted to! This isn’t the way to learn, I promise you! What you should do is to have a target set up, well out of range of the house and the gardens, so that Aunt Minerva need not be disturbed by the bangs.”

“No!” he said, his eyes gleaming, and a rather unpleasant smile curling his beautiful lips. “I’m going to keep it, and I know where, too! Disturbed by the bangs, indeed! That’s a loud one! Doing it rather too brown, my dear mama!”

“Torquil, you should not speak so of your mother!” Kate said earnestly. “It is most improper! Besides, how can you tell that she is not speaking the truth? Many people have the greatest dread of sudden noises, you know—and not hen-hearted people either!”

She was interrupted by her unknown acquaintance, who once more bounded up to her, this time with the desiccated remains of a very dead mole, which he spat at her feet, plainly feeling that it must be acceptable to her. “Ugh!” she exclaimed. “What a horrid animal you are! No, I don’t want it!”

“Where did that dog come from?” asked Torquil shrilly.

“I haven’t the least idea. I suspect him of playing truant. He has been trying to induce me to play with him!”