A little overcome, Kate stammered: “You are very good, Aunt! I hope you may be right, because it has seemed to me that—that by trying to keep Torquil out of the sullens I could—in some sort—repay you for your—your kindness to me!”
“Dear child!” Lady Broome said, in a voice of velvet, and stretching out a hand to clasp one of Kate’s. “If that was your aim, you have succeeded! He is in far better frame! Dr Delabole has been telling me that there has been a marked improvement since he had the benefit of your companionship.”
Kate swallowed, and said rather faintly: “Has there, ma’am?”
“Yes, indeed there has been!” Lady Broome assured her. “There is a want of disposition in him, and he still has odd humours, but I now have every hope that he will drive a better trade—because his ardent desire is to please you!”
Kate could only stare at her. It did not seem to her that Torquil had any desire to please anyone but himself; and she was unable to repress the thought that if his mother thought him improved since her arrival at Staplewood his previous state must have been parlous indeed.
Lady Broome smiled at her, pressing her hand. “He has a great regard for you, you know! I have come to believe that you would be just the wife for him!”
Kate gasped. “Are you joking me, ma’am?”
“No, indeed I am not! I should welcome such an alliance. Have you never thought of it?”
“Good God, no!”
“But why not?”
Utterly taken aback, Kate said, groping for words: “I’m too old—it would be quite unsuitable! Dear Aunt Minerva, forgive me, but—but you must be all about in your head!”
“Oh, no, I’m not, I promise you! I think it will be best for Torquil to marry a woman who is older than himself; and as for unsuitable, what, pray, do you mean, Kate?”
“I mean that I’m a penniless nobody!”
Lady Broome raised her brows. “You are certainly penniless, my dear, but scarcely a nobody! You are a Malvern, as I am myself, and if Sir Timothy thought me fit to be his wife you must surely be fit to become his son’s wife!”
“Yes, if I were younger, or he older! If we loved one another!”
“Oh, love!—” said Lady Broome, shrugging her shoulders. “It isn’t necessary for a successful marriage, my dear, but you may be sure that Torquil is in love with you!”
Fudge!” exclaimed Kate wrathfully. “Oh, I beg your pardon, ma’am, but it is fudge! Why, he was fancying himself in love with Miss Templecombe when I first came here!”
“I am thankful that you drove her out of his head! She would not have done for him!”
“No, very likely not, but the thing is that he is by far too young to be fixing his interest! Good God, ma’am, he hasn’t been granted the opportunity to meet any—any eligible girls! When he is older—when his health is established—and you permit him to leave Staplewood—”
“I shall not do so.” The words, granite-hard, fell heavily, and all at once, seeing the grim set to her aunt’s mouth, and the stern resolution in her eyes, Kate was afraid, and almost shrank from her. But the revealing moment was swiftly gone: Lady Broome laughed softly, and said: “He is too handsome, and too big a matrimonial prize! Every matchmaking mother in London would be on the scramble for him, and he would fall a victim to the first designing female who set her cap at him! No, no, I mean to see him safely riveted before I set him loose upon the town! Does that seem unfeeling? Believe me, I know him too well to run any risks! His constitution will always be delicate, I fear, and a few weeks racketing about London would knock him up, just as his father was knocked-up. That is why I wish him to marry a woman of sense, not a giddy girl.”
Kate said carefully: “Yes, ma’am, you must hope that he will do so, but not for some years yet, surely! He is only nineteen, and young for his years, I think. I have been acquainted with many boys of his age, and although some of them were what my father called callow halflings they were none of them so—so childish as Torquil!”
“Exactly so!” said Lady Broome. “Other boys are sent to school, and find their feet. It was not possible to expose Torquil to the rigours of school-life. He was the sickliest child, and at one time I despaired of rearing him. But I did rear him, thanks to Dr Delabole’s skill and understanding, and he is now going on prosperously. But he is excitable, and easily led. I don’t scruple to tell you, my dear, that I dread what might be the result if he were allowed to run free. I believe, however, that if he were married, it would give him the ballast he lacks. And that,” she said, with a smile, “would be a weight off my mind, Kate!”
“Aunt Minerva!” said Kate, drawing a long breath, “I collect that you think I should be able to give him ballast, but I do beg you to believe that you are mistaken!”
“Oh, no!” replied her ladyship. “I’m not mistaken!”
“But I don’t wish to marry him!” Kate blurted out. “Such a notion never entered my head!”
Lady Broome rose, and began to draw the curtains round the bed. “Well, dear child, now that I have put it into your head, consider it! You are four-and-twenty, and have no expectations. You may not be in love with Torquil—I do not require that you should be—but you don’t dislike him, I trust, and if you marry him your future will be assured. More than that: you will be a woman of consequence, for it is not a small thing to be the wife of Broome of Staplewood. Think it over, Kate!”
She bent and kissed Kate’s cheek, and then dosed the curtains, blew out the candle, and went away, leaving Kate in a state of considerable perturbation.
She had never been more thunderstruck, for she knew how large were her aunt’s ambitions, and had supposed that she had set her heart on Torquil’s contracting a brilliant alliance. It was not impossible. He had position, wealth, and an extraordinarily beautiful face; and when he was in a complaisant mood he could be charming. It was unfortunate that he was put out of humour so easily, and was subject to fits of dejection, but these were faults which he could overcome, and no doubt would, as his health improved. Shrewdly assessing Lady Broome, she had supposed that a love of power, rather than of persons, was the motive behind her refusal to countenance his fleeting infatuation for Dolly Templecombe, and her determination to keep him at Staplewood for as long as she could. She was far from being a doting parent: she showed her niece more affection that she showed her son; and although she took meticulous care of him there had been times when Kate could have believed that she held him in aversion. She certainly despised him. Perhaps that was to be expected in a woman who enjoyed excellent health, and had hoped to provide Staplewood with a worthy heir. Kate, herself warmhearted, could not enter into such feelings, but she could dimly perceive that they might exist, just as she could perceive that there might well be jealousy without love. Lady Broome wanted to keep Torquil under her thumb, and would strongly oppose the influence of a wife. Kate could understand that, and had supposed that she might expect to retain her influence for several years. Yet here she was, proposing for him a most ineligible marriage when he was no better than a schoolboy.
Then, as Kate lay cudgelling her brain to discover a solution to the problem, it flashed suddenly into her head that by marrying Torquil to her own niece she might hope to keep him in subjection, and to continue to reign at Staplewood after Sir Timothy’s death. It seemed fantastic, but the more Kate thought about it the more possible it became, except that Lady Broome, who was no fool, could hardly imagine that her niece was a bread-and-butter miss with no mind of her own. It then occurred to her that she was deeply indebted to her aunt, and she recalled that Mr Philip Broome had spoken to her of obligations, and sacrifices, and had assured her of his support. She sat up with a jerk, and sat frowning into the darkness. She wondered if this was what he had meant. Recollecting his sardonic manner, and the cold contempt in his eyes when he had looked at her upon his first coming to Staplewood, she realized that he must have assumed that she had lent herself to Lady Broome’s dark schemes. Angry tears started to her eyes,. and she was shaken by a sob of sheer rage, and a strong desire to slap his face. How dared he suppose her to be such an abandoned, mercenary creature? Admittedly, he had very soon changed his mind, but he apparently thought she might yield to the temptation of a title, riches, and security. Well, Mr Philip Broome should shortly be made to repent of having so basely misjudged her; while as for needing his help in the matter, she was very well able to help herself. She gave her pillow a savage thump, and was just about to lie down again when another thought occurred to her: why, if he did not hope to succeed his uncle, was he opposed to Torquil’s marriage? Sooner or later, Torquil was certain to marry, unless he died. He was unlikely to die of his various aches and ills, but he might meet with a fatal accident. Kate gave a shiver, and whispered fiercely: “No!” because the idea that Mr Philip Broome would do his young cousin a mischief was totally unacceptable to her. Torquil had talked in a very theatrical way about the fatal accidents which had so nearly befallen him, but it had not taken her long to realize that no reliance could be placed on what Torquil said. A very little reflection, moreover, had shown her how ridiculous his accusations were: even had Philip loosened a coping-stone, wired a fence, or sawn through the branch of a tree, it was improbable that any of these accidents would have killed him. He might have broken his neck at the wired fence, but, in fact, he had cleared it, and when he fell out of the elm tree he had come off with a few bruises. As for the coping-stone, although he said it had fallen in front of him, missing him by inches, Kate thought it had probably fallen nowhere near him. She had a comical vision of Mr Philip Broome inexpertly setting booby-traps, and claiming as his victims some quite unoffending persons, and chuckled.