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 see how unequal such a match would be—how much his family must deplore it! But he said that that was a matter of indifference to him. You see—we love each other!”

“Love?” ejaculated Lady Broome scornfully. “Don’t, I beg of you, nauseate me by talking sickly balderdash! Love has nothing to do with marriage, and I promise you it doesn’t endure! No, and it won’t make up to you for losing Staplewood, and the position that could be yours as Lady Broome! Or are you indulging the fancy that Torquil will die young, and that Philip will step into his shoes? Torquil will hold for a long time: I’ll take care of that! He shall have no more opportunities to break his neck! Until I can instal him in an establishment of his own, I mean to see to it that he is never left for one moment alone, or allowed to go near the stables! My great-uncle lived to extreme old age, you know. I believe he was very troublesome at first, but when he became imbecile, which he very shortly did, he was as easy to control as a child. Even his fits of violence abated! I remember my mother telling me that he could be diverted merely by being given some new, foolish plaything! You may rest assured that Torquil shall be provided with a thousand playthings, indulged, cosseted, guarded from every infectious disease—”

“Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw!” Kate broke in, her voice anguished. “For God’s sake, ma’am, stop! You cannot know what you are saying!”

“I know very well what I am saying. I have something more to say to you, Kate! If you marry Philip, he will never again, while I live, set foot inside this house! Don’t think I can’t keep him away! I can, and will! If you are as fond of Sir Timothy as you pretend to be, you won’t separate him from his beloved nephew! That is something I have never done! Remember that!”

She cast a final, scorching glance at Kate, and swept across the hall to the gallery that led to her bedchamber with a firmness of step which belied her previous assumption of debility.

Kate, almost fainting with horror, managed to reach her own room before her knees sank under her, and she collapsed into Mrs Nidd’s arms, gasping: “I must get away! I must! She is so terrible, Sarah! I can’t tell you what she has said to me!”

“Well,” said Mrs Nidd, dealing with this crisis after her own fashion, “as I don’t want to know what she said, that’s no matter! And, as you won’t be troubled with her again after tomorrow, there’s no call for you to be thrown into affliction, Miss Kate! You give over fretting and fuming, and let me undress you, like a good girl!”


Chapter XX

A night spent in tossing from side to side, with brief intervals of sleep rendered hideous by menacing dreams, did little to restore Kate; and when she slipped out of the house to join Mr Philip Broome on the terrace next morning, she looked so wan and heavy-eyed that he said savagely, as he caught her into his arms: “I ought not to have let you face her alone! Oh, my poor darling, why did you shake your head at me? What did she say to upset you so much?”

She clung to him, trying to overcome her agitation, and said, in a strangled voice: “You were right, Philip, and I wouldn’t believe the things you said of her! I thought it was prejudice! But you were right!”

He had to bend his head to catch her words, for they were uttered into his shoulder, but he did catch them, and, although his face darkened wrathfully, his voice was quite calm when he said: “Yes: I know. You shall tell me all about it, but not here! It is rather too public a place. Shall we go down to the shrubbery, dear love?”

He did not wait for an answer, but drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the terrace steps. She went without demur, too shaken to consider, or to care, who might be watching them. His coolness, the strong clasp of his hand on hers, steadied her, and by the time they had reached the rustic bench where they had sat together so short a time before, she had managed to regain her composure, and was even able to conjure up a wavering smile as she said, rather huskily: “I beg your pardon! Sarah warned me that there is no more certain way of making a gentleman cry off than to treat him to a fit of the vapours—and particularly before breakfast! I didn’t mean to do it, and indeed it isn’t a habit of mine, Philip!”

“In that case, I won’t cry off!” he said. “Don’t sit down! The dew hasn’t dried yet!” As he spoke, he stripped off his well-fitting coat, and folded it, and placed it on the bench for her to sit upon. In reply to her expostulation that he would take cold, and her efforts to spread the coat that they might both sit on it, he thrust her down on to the bench, and seated himself beside her, putting a sustaining arm round her, and informing her that no one could possibly take cold on such a hot morning, and that he defied any amount of dew to penetrate his buckskins. After that, he kissed her, long and lovingly, told her not to be a goose, and gently pressed her head down on his shoulder. “Tell me!” he said.

So Kate, nestling gratefully within his embrace, her cheek against his waistcoat of striped toilinette, told him, rather haltingly, but quite calmly, all that Lady Broome had said in each of the painful sessions she had endured with her. His brow blackened as he listened, but he heard her in silence, until she disclosed that her aunt meant to incacerate Torquil in a house remote from Staplewood, when his hard-held control broke, and he exclaimed: “Oh, my God, no!” She couldn’t do such a thing! It would be enough to send him completely out of his mind! What, banish him from the only home he has ever known, place Delabole, whom he detests, in charge of him, appoint strangers to take care of him?—No, no, Kate! She would never do so! Even I can’t believe her capable of such inhumanity! I agree that he mustn’t be allowed to roam at large; I know that it may become necessary to confine him, but that day hasn’t come yet! If I had my way, I’d send Delabole packing, and engage a man, not only experienced in the care of those whose minds are unbalanced, but one able to endear himself to the poor lad—divert him—God knows it’s not difficult!”

“Such a man wouldn’t lend himself to the deception my aunt demands,” Kate said sadly. “Nothing signifies to her but to keep it secret that Torquil has fits of insanity. That’s what overset me. Suddenly I saw that she was monstrous. Sarah thinks her as mad as Torquil, but it came to me, as I listened to the appalling things she said, that she has never, in all her life, considered anyone but herself, or doubted that everything she does is good, and wise—beyond criticism! Sir Timothy said to me that she has many good qualities, but is a stranger to the tender emotions. It is most terribly true, Philip! She did not utter one word of pity for Torquil: it is her tragedy, not his! He has destroyed her last ambition, and that puts him beyond pardon. She doesn’t love him, you see. I don’t think she loves anyone but herself. She will send him away—and tell Sir Timothy that a change of air has been recommended for him!”

“Oh, no, she will not!” Philip said, at his grimmest. “If she does indeed mean to do anything so cruel, she’ll find she has reckoned without me! I’ve never spoken of Torquil’s state to my uncle, but much as I love him I won’t see Torquil sacrificed to spare him pain!”

“Philip, Philip, you won’t be able to tell him! That is almost the worst of all! My aunt has told me that if you marry me you will never come to Staplewood again, while she is ruthless!” she is alive to prevent you! And she will prevent you! She—

“So am I ruthless!” he said, his eyes very bright and hard. “By God, I should be glad to cross swords with her! Don’t look so troubled, my precious! That, at least, was an empty threat! Minerva has no power to keep me away from Staplewood. My uncle may be weak, but he won’t support her on that issue! And when he dies she will discover that her despotic rule is at an end. She doesn’t know it—I daresay the thought has never so much as crossed her mind!—but although my uncle has provided for a handsome jointure, his Will strips her of power. It makes me, not her, Torquil’s guardian, and his principal trustee—and you may be sure, Kate, that I shan’t allow her to send him away from Staplewood—or to bully and browbeat him!” He got up. “I must go now, if I am to have a chaise here by noon. You won’t see Minerva; she’s not coming down to breakfast. Go up to your room as soon as you have eaten your own breakfast: I fancy Mrs Nidd can be relied upon to keep Minerva at bay!” He shrugged himself into his coat, and took her hands, and kissed them. “Keep up your heart, my darling! When we sit down to dinner, we shall be forty or fifty miles from Staplewood. Remember that, if you find yourself sinking into dejection! But you won’t: you’re too much of a right one!”