She gave a gurgle of laughter. “You must own that you earned it!”
“Oh, I do!” he answered.
“That is a great concession,” he said. “I am very conscious of it—Cousin Philip! But I would have you know that I cut my wisdoms a long time ago, and I am well aware that you are fobbing me off. You have not answered my question.”
“I can’t answer it. If I were to disclose to you, or to anyone, my reason for opposing Torquil’s marriage—No, I can’t do it! I am not even perfectly sure that there is a reason.” He rose jerkily. “Come! we have sat here for long enough, Kate! Minerva will be wondering what can have become of you.”
She privately thought this unlikely, but when she encountered her aunt presently, Lady Broome said: “Oh, there you are! Dear child, I have been looking for you all over!”
Surprised, Kate said: “But you told me, ma’am, that you were going to be engaged with the bailiff! I’ve been in the shrubbery.”
“Yes, so Sidlaw informed me. With Mr Philip Broome!”
“Yes, certainly. Did Sidlaw inform you of that too, ma’am?” asked Kate, a trifle ruffled.
“To be sure she did! Oh, don’t take a pet, my love! She only told me because I asked her if she had seen you anywhere! Such a scold as she gave me for letting you wander about alone!”
“Good heavens! What harm did she imagine could befall me? Besides, I wasn’t alone: Mr Broome was with me, and she knew that, didn’t she?”
“Yes, dearest, and of course she didn’t imagine any harm would befall you! But she is very prudish, and she thought it right to nudge me on to warn you not to permit Philip to sit with you in the shrubbery!”
“I should think she must be quite Gothic,” said Kate, beginning to be very angry indeed.
Lady Broome laughed, and grimaced. “Indeed she is! But she was right in this instance: it isn’t the thing for a young female to jaunter about with a single gentleman, you know!”
“I am afraid I don’t know it, Aunt Minerva,” said Kate, in a dangerously quiet voice. “I have yet to learn that there is the smallest impropriety in walking, sitting, or even jauntering about with a single gentleman. And I cannot help wondering why, if you don’t think it the thing, you encourage me to go out with Torquil.”
“That is a little different, my dear: Torquil is your cousin, and—as you have said—only a boy. Philip is another matter, and is not, I fancy, to be trusted to keep the line.”
“Is it possible that you suspect me of flirting with Mr Broome?” inquired Kate. “Let me assure you that I haven’t the faintest wish to flirt with him!”
“Or with anyone, I hope!” said Lady Broome playfully.
“Oh, as to that, there’s no saying!” replied Kate coolly.
“Naughty puss!” said her ladyship, pinching her cheek. “I perceive that Sidlaw was right when she gave me a scold for not looking after you better!”
“Not at all!” returned Kate. “I’m not a green girl, or a romp, and I am very well able to look after myself. And if she thought Mr Philip Broome was in the petticoat line she must be a great goose-cap! Pray set her anxious mind at rest, dear ma’am! He shows no disposition to flirt with me!”
“Oh, tut-tut!” said Lady Broome. “Don’t pull caps with me, you foolish child! You are not so very old, you know, and even though you are neither a green girl nor a romp, you are not yet as much up to snuff as you think you are. A pretty thing it would be if I didn’t look after you! There, give me a kiss to show me that I’m forgiven!”
Melting, Kate embraced her warmly. “As though there were anything to forgive!” she said, not without difficulty, for the words stuck in her throat.
The entrance into the hall of Pennymore, bearing the post-bag, relieved her embarrassment. Lady Broome took it from him; and, with a kindly smile, told Kate to run upstairs to put off her hat. A nuncheon, she said, had been set out in the Blue saloon; and, unless Kate wished to wound the cook’s sensibilities, she would partake of it, because he had baked a Savoy Cake for her especial delectation.
Kate did go upstairs to remove her hat; but when she came out of her bedchamber she did not immediately go to the Blue saloon, but to her aunt’s drawing-room instead, where she found Lady Broome at her writing-table, already busy with her correspondence. She said haltingly: “I suppose there are no letters for me, ma’am?”
“No, my dear, none,” replied Lady Broome, not raising her eyes from the letter she was reading.
Kate went quietly away, heavy-hearted.
Chapter XI
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.