Kate was betrayed into retorting: “Considering you have just heard a much more shocking expression on my lips, you can’t have felt surprised! What a complete hand you are, Cousin Philip!”
“And what an abominable little gypsy you are, Cousin Kate!” he said affably. “Let us be serious for a minute! You’re talking the most outrageous fustian I ever listened to in my life, you know—and that does surprise me, because you’re not at all addlebrained! If your relations don’t own you, so much the better! They sound to me a very disagreeable set of persons. As to mine, I have no closer relations than my Uncle Timothy, and you can’t suppose that he would oppose the match! I almost wish he would, if it were within his power to cut me out of the succession. I daresay my more remote relations don’t care a pin what I do: I know I don’t give a pin for their opinions! Finally, my little pea-goose, I understand your circumstances a great deal better than you seem to understand mine! I’m not a rich man, Kate. I can’t offer you the consequence of a large country estate, a mansion in Berkeley Square, and a handsome fortune. I am possessed of what I have been used to consider a comfortable independence. My wife will be able to command the elegancies of life, but not its extravagances. Broome Hall doesn’t compare with Staplewood, you know. I should describe it as commodious rather than stately, and my fortune won’t run to a town house—at least, not a permanent one.”
He spoke apologetically, and was obviously sincere. Kate’s ever-lively sense of humour got the better of her, and she said, in the voice of one suffering a severe disappointment: “Not?”
“Not!” said Philip firmly. “You would have to be content with a furnished house for a few weeks during the Season!”
Kate sighed audibly. “Well,” she said, making a reluctant concession, “as long as it is in the best part of town!—”
“I thought,” said Philip, glancing appreciatively down into her dancing eyes, “that we were going to be serious, my sweet wit-cracker?”
“Yes, so did I, and so I would have been, if you hadn’t talked such fustian! Dear sir, when my father was serving, we lived for the most part in billets, which ranged from a very dirty, draughty cottage on the Spanish and Portuguese border, to rooms in a palatial, and even more draughty, chateau, north of Toulouse. When Papa sold out, and we settled in London, we lived in lodgings which varied with Papa’s fortunes. To be sure, at the outset, when it was high tide with him, we had an elegant set of rooms in Clarges Street; but we ended in far from elegant rooms in Thames Street. Poor Papa could never manage to be beforehand with the world for more than a few weeks at a stretch. You see, he was a gamester, and whenever he had a run of luck nothing would do for him but to—er—waste the ready as fast as he could! I can’t tell you how many times he has come home, and emptied guineas into my lap, or how many expensive trinkets he has given me! He had a great many faults, but no one could accuse him of being clutchfisted. He was the most generous man imaginable, and a great dear, but not—not at all reliable!”
“Something of this I have learnt from Minerva. Did he leave you in debt, my poor child?”
“Oh, yes, but nothing to signify!” said Kate sunnily. “Not gaming debts! He was very punctilious in all matters of play and pay. I sold my trinkets, and one or two other things, to pay the tradesmen’s bills, and came off all right.”
“But without sixpence to scratch with?” he suggested.
She smiled. “True! But I had the good fortune to please Mrs Astley, and she hired me to be governess to her children. And Sarah was there, in the background, ready to shelter me at a moment’s notice. I wish you might see the house she persuaded Mr Nidd to buy for his wagons, and horses, and stable hands! It is close to the Bull and Mouth, in the City, and was used to be an inn. It is the quaintest, most delightful place imaginable! It had fallen into a shocking state of disrepair, but Mr Nidd and Joe furbished it up, and turned one side of the yard into a snug home for the family. When I left Mrs Astley, I lived with the Nidds until my aunt came to sweep me off to Staplewood. They were so kind to me, Joe, and his father, and the grandsons!” Her eyes filled, and she was obliged to flick away the sudden tears. She continued hurriedly: “I was spoiled to death there, and enjoyed myself excessively! I know my aunt finds it impossible to believe that I could have enjoyed it, but—but she wasn’t reared as I was, and I must own that she is very high in the instep!”
“What you mean is, insufferably top-lofty!” interpolated Philip ruthlessly.
She was obliged to acknowledge the truth of this stricture, and could not resist confiding to him, with her infectious chuckle: “When she found me in chat with the coachman here, she said she hoped I hadn’t a taste for low company! But I’m afraid I have, though I didn’t dare to tell her so!”
“So have I!” he said, hugely entertained. “I see that we were made for one another! How soon will you marry me?”
“I don’t know! I haven’t had time to think! And should you not consider before you make me an offer?”
“I did consider, very profoundly, and I have already made you an offer.”
“Yes, but you haven’t been acquainted with me for very long, and I don’t think you did consider profoundly.”
“Well, you’re beside the hedge, my sweet! You don’t suppose that a man of my years, and settled habits, proposes marriage without consideration, do you?”
She answered seriously, wrinkling her brow: “Yes, I think I do. There have been many cases of gentlemen, much older than you, proposing on the spur of the moment. And afterwards regretting it.”
“Very true!” he said, rather grimly. “I know of one such case myself. But you are the only woman I’ve known with whom I wish to spend the rest of my life, Kate. I could never regret it, and I mean to see to it that you don’t regret it either! When will you marry me?”
Before she could answer him, they were both startled by a stentorian shout behind them. Kate turned quickly, but Philip had no difficulty in recognizing Mr Templecombe’s voice. “The devil fly away with Gurney!” he said wrathfully. “Am I never to enjoy a moment’s privacy with you?”
“Well, you can’t expect to be private with me in a curricle!” Kate pointed out.
“No, and I can’t expect to be private with you at Staplewood either!” he said, checking his horses. “Minerva takes good care of that!”
“There’s always the shrubbery,” she reminded him demurely.
“Oh, no, there is not! Expecting every minute to see Minerva coming in search of you, and with two gardeners liable to look over the hedge at any minute!—Well, Gurney, what do you want?”
Mr Templecombe, who was riding a good-looking covert-hack, reined in alongside the curricle, pulled off his hat, and bowed to Kate. “How do you do, ma’am? Happy to renew my acquaintance with you! Hoped I might have the pleasure of meeting you again, but you haven’t been out riding lately, have you?”
“No, it has been rather too hot,” she explained, smiling at him. “How is your sister? I hope you, and Lady Templecombe, are pleased with her engagement? I wished to send her my felicitations, but thought our acquaintance too slight to warrant my doing so.”
“I don’t know that—never much of a one for the conventions, y’know!—but she’ll be very much obliged to you, that I can vouch for! Took a great fancy to you! As for Amesbury, I should rather think I am pleased! He’s a great gun: known him all my life! Wouldn’t you agree that he’s a great gun, Philip?”
“Yes, an excellent fellow,” said Philip. “What do you want to say to me, Gurney? I can’t stay: we are going to be late for dinner as it is!”
“I’ll go along with you as far as to your gates,” said Mr Templecombe obligingly. “Only wished to warn you that I’m going on a bolt to the Metropolis tomorrow, and don’t know when I shall be back. So you can’t come to stay with me, dear boy! A curst bore, but there’s no getting out of it! M’mother’s beginning to cut up a trifle stiff: says it’s my duty to show my front! Says I ought to bear in mind that I’m the head of the family. Says it presents a very off appearance when I don’t show. I daresay she’s right. She’s holding a dress-party, and says I positively must be there.”