“Oh, I meant in the Peninsula!”
“Why, yes! You may say that I was bred in Portugal! Though, owing to the fact that I was only a child at the time, and was left with Mama and my nurse in Lisbon, I can’t tell you anything about the retreat to Corunna. Indeed, the first campaign of which I have the smallest recollection is that of 1811, when Lord Wellington advanced from the Lines of Torres Vedras, and drove all before him, as far as to Madrid!”
“How much I envy you!”
“Do you? It was very uncomfortable, you know! And sometimes rather dangerous.”
“I shouldn’t care for that,” he said, throwing a challenging look at his mother. “I bear a charmed life!”
“You talk a great deal of nonsense, my son,” she said shortly, rising, and going to the door. One of the footmen opened it for her and she passed out of the room, followed by Kate, whose instinct bade her thank the man, but whose judgement forbade her to do so. She achieved a compromise between self-importance and the sort of familiarity she knew her aunt would deprecate, and smiled warmly up at him. He maintained his air of rigid immobility, but later rendered himself odious to his peers by saying that he knew Quality when he saw it, and it didn’t depend on a fortune, not by a long chalk it didn’t, whatever ill-informed persons might suppose. “Sir Timothy’s Quality,” he said, pointing his knife at his immediate’ superior, and speaking a trifle thickly, “which you won’t deny! And for why? Because he ain’t so stiff-rumped that he won’t thank you civil if you was to perform a service for him! And his lady ain’t! For why? Because she’s so top-lofty she don’t so much as notice any of us servants! And that Dr Delabole ain’t Quality either, for he notices us too much! But Miss Kate is!”
Meanwhile, Kate, unaware of this encomium, had followed her aunt to the Yellow saloon, and was listening to her exposition of her son’s character. According to Lady Broome, he had been (owing to his sickly childhood) too much indulged, to which circumstance must be attributed his every fault. “You won’t heed him, I know, when he talks in that wild way,” she said, with a slight smile. “I sometimes think that he would have made a very good actor—though whence he derives his histrionic talent I confess I haven’t the remotest guess!”
“Oh, no! I shan’t heed him,” replied Kate cheerfully. Any more than I heeded my father’s subalterns!”
“Dear child!” purred her ladyship. “You have such superior sense! Torquil, I fear, has none at all, so you will be an excellent companion for him. I should explain to you, perhaps, that although it was found to be impossible to send him to school, I felt that it would be improper to admit him into our social life, and so set up an establishment for him in the West Wing, where he resides—or has resided, up to the present time—with Dr Delabole, and his valet, our faithful Badger.”
A wrinkle appeared on Kate’s brow; she ventured to ask how old Torquil was. She was told, Nineteen, and looked surprised.
“You are thinking,” said her ladyship smoothly, “that he should be at Oxford. Unfortunately, his health is still too precarious to make it advisable to send him up.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking that, ma’am. But—but he is a man grown, and it does seem a little odd that he should be kept in the nursery!” said Kate frankly.
Lady Broome laughed. “Oh, dear me, no! Not the nursery! What a notion to take into your head! The thing is that having been reared in the West Wing he chooses to remain there—using it as a retreat, when he is out of humour. He is subject to moods, as I don’t doubt you will have noticed, and the least excitement brings on one of his distressing migraines. These prostrate him, and there is nothing for it but to put him to bed, and to keep him in absolute quiet. Impossible, of course, if his room were in the main part of the house.”
Never having had experience of sickly young men, Kate accepted this, and said no more. When the gentlemen had come into the room, the backgammon table was set out, and Sir Timothy asked her if she played the game. She responded drolly: “Why, yes, sir! I have been used to play with my father, and consider myself to be quite a dab at it!”
He chuckled. “Come and pit your skill against mine!” he invited. “Did you also play piquet with your father?”
“Frequently, sir!”
“We’ll try that too. Delabole is no match for me, and Torquil holds all such sports in abomination. In which he takes after his mother, who can’t tell a spade from a club! Eh, Minerva?”
She smiled at him, but rather in the manner of a woman who found little to interest her in the prattling of a Child; and signed to Dr Delabole to sit beside her on one of the sofas. Him she engaged in low-voiced converse, while Torquil sat down at the piano, and strummed idly. Glancing up momentarily from her game, Kate was forcibly struck by the intense melancholy of his expression. His eyes were sombre, his mouth took on a tragic droop; but before she could speculate on this her attention was recalled by Sir Timothy, who said demurely: “I don’t think you should accept a double, should you, Kate?”
Chapter IV
The following morning was spent by Kate in exploration. Torquil was her guide, and since he seemed to have thrown off the blue devils, an agreeable one. He conducted her all over the house, not excluding his own wing of it, and entertained her with his version of its history. “And here,” he said solemnly, throwing open a door, “we have the Muniment Room! Why don’t you bow profoundly? I warn you, my mama will expect you to do so! She has been at such pains to collect our records, and to store them here! I don’t think Papa ever troubled himself to do so—or to have a Muniment Room—but pray don’t tell her I said so!” He cast her a sidelong look, out of eyes brimming with laughter. “Isn’t it odd that she, who was not born a Broome, should care so much more for them than Papa? She was ably assisted by Matthew—oh, Dr Delabole! I call him Matthew—who has also catalogued the library. Have you seen enough? Shall I take you out into the gardens?”
“Yes, please, but let me get a shawl first.”
He accompanied her to her bedchamber, and stood in the doorway, leaning his shoulders against the wall, his hands dug into his pockets, while she changed her slippers for a pair of half-boots, and wrapped a shawl round herself. His attitude was one of careless grace; his dress negligent, with the unstarched points of his shirt-collar drooping over a loosely knotted handkerchief, and a shooting-jacket worn open over a fancy waistcoat. A lock of his gleaming hair fell across his brow, and prompted Kate to say, with a twinkle: “You do study the picturesque, don’t you? One might take you for a poet!”
“I am a poet,” he replied coldly.
“No, are you? Then that accounts for it!”
“Accounts for what?”
“The windswept look, of course. Oh, don’t poker up! Did no one ever banter you before?”
It seemed, for a moment, as though he had taken offence; but then he laughed, rather reluctantly, and said: “No, never. Is that what you mean to do, cousin?”
“Well, I don’t precisely mean to, but I daresay I shall. You must remember that I have lived amongst soldiers! Very young officers, you know, are for ever cutting jokes, and poking fun at each other, and anyone making a figure of himself must be prepared to stand the roast! Come, let us go: I am quite ready!”
He muttered something which she did not catch, but she did not ask him to repeat it, feeling that he must be left to recover his temper. Not until they had left the house did she speak again, and then, perceiving a bed of spring flowers, she exclaimed: “Oh, how charming! Your mama told me that she had made the gardens her particular concern. Pray take me all over them! If it isn’t a dead bore?”
“Oh, everything is a dead bore!” he said, shrugging up his shoulders. “Being a Broome—being the heir—being alive! Do you ever wish you had never been born?”