All in one year Colin had married, become a war hero, and been killed in an air raid on London the very day he had been given leave to see his newborn daughter. Kate’s mother had been killed too, and the baby had been saved only because someone had had the wit to push her in her basket under a kitchen table.
An orphan at the age of nine days, Kate had been brought back to the castle by her grandfather. Wells was all she had known in the way of parents, for her grandmother, Elsie Wells, had died when Colin was born. As for Kate’s mother’s side of the family, nothing was ever said. Kate early learned that there were some things about which one did not speak; questions were not asked for answers would not be forthcoming.
Her grandfather had brought her up well, teaching her what he knew and training her in the old ways; but there had come a time when Sir Richard and Lady Mary — Sir Richard especially — had insisted that Kate have more education than the village school could give, so she had been sent to London. Wells did not approve, but there was nothing he could say or do against Sir Richard. Kate had been glad to go. In London she had learned new ways of usefulness. She could drive the car now when Sir Richard wanted her to; she could help Lady Mary with her correspondence. She was considerably more than a servant, considerably less than a daughter; but the castle was her home.
What her life might have been without the shelter of the castle she could not guess; what her life, and her grandfather’s too, might be if the castle were no longer to be home was something she would not think about.
“You’re working too hard,” Wells said as he sat down heavily in a huge oak chair, King Charles’s chair. He sat nowadays whenever he could, even for a moment.
Kate went on dusting the intricate details of the table, a long slab of polished wood set upon iron legs and claw feet holding balls of crystal.
“Not really,” she said cheerfully. “I like working about, Granddad.”
“You’re as headstrong as your father,” Wells said, but his tone had more pride than criticism in it. “I could do nothing with Colin from the moment he was born. And when he married above his station—”
She interrupted. “Now, Granddad, you’ve told me that over and over, and I’ve far too much on my mind now to listen again to that old story.”
He got to his feet. “You’re Miss Bossy, as usual, and have been since you were born. You take after your dad all right. You’d better get yourself into the hall, or—”
He moved slowly toward the door but Kate flew ahead of him and was in the great hall before be was.
“Good morning, Sir Richard, Grandfather says you called me?”
She saw as she talked that his cup was empty and she took it from the table to the buffet and filled it with hot coffee, hot milk and two lumps of sugar, moving deftly and swiftly, a small alert figure.
“You’ll be late,” Sir Richard grumbled, accepting the service.
“Take off your apron, Kate,” Lady Mary directed.
She took it off. “Yes, my lady. I’m quite ready, as you see — a clean blouse and my tweed skirt. I’ve only to slip on my jacket and brush my hair back.”
“I say you’ll be late,” Sir Richard repeated.
She smiled at him, coaxing, her brown hair curling about her vivid face.
“Sir Richard, dear, I will not be late. I know how long it takes.”
“You always drive too fast, you young rascal—”
“Ah no, I don’t, sir. I’m that careful you wouldn’t believe—”
“You’re what I wouldn’t believe. You do everything too fast.”
“Have I ever had a smash?”
“You’ve never had to drive an American before.”
Kate laughed, “You make it sound as though he weren’t human!”
“I’m not sure of the breed!”
They had been talking as equals, a young woman and an older man, and Sir Richard enjoyed it. She knew from habit, however, exactly when to slip from the role of almost daughter to almost maid, and she did so now.
“Please, Sir Richard, how will I know the American when I see him?”
“How should I know? I’ve never seen him myself.”
Lady Mary interrupted, but mild and detached as usual. “He’ll be the only one who doesn’t look an Englishman, I daresay.”
Kate laughed again, a pleasant ready music, rippling with gaiety. “Perhaps I’ll coax him back on the train again to America! Or, if I don’t like his looks, I’ll tell him about the Duke’s bedroom and properly frighten him.”
Sir Richard put down his cup. “He should be in King John’s room. We must show him our best.”
“Too damp,” Lady Mary said. “There’s that drip in the left corner of the ceiling where the plaster fell. Years ago it was, and it still drips. I can’t think why. Wells, why don’t you know?”
“Nobody has ever known, my lady.”
“Ah well, it can’t matter now, since the castle’s to he sold, it seems — unless some one thinks of something.”
“It’s a crime, my lady — asking your pardon.” Wells said.
Sir Richard pounded his fist on the table. “Kate!”
Kate had been looking from one face to the other, her eyes questioning, her lips parted, and she gave a start at the sound of his voice. “I am gone, sir,” she breathed and was gone.
They were silent again until Wells, faltering at the buffet and clattering nervously the silver dishes, turned to them, trembling with emotion, which he knew they would not allow him to reveal.
“If that’s all, sir, I’d better be getting into the kitchen. The butcher boy will be wanting me. A small roast for tonight, my lady?”
Lady Mary nodded indifferently, and he went away. They had finished eating. Sir Richard lit his pipe and she watched him, meditating, her silvery head held a little to the left. It was she who broke the silence, her voice plaintively firm.
“We haven’t tried everything, you know, Richard — not really, I mean.”
He puffed twice. “Can you think of something? I can’t. Lucky that Webster found those letters in the files! The Blaynes are enormously wealthy. Oil, I believe, or it may be steel, but Americans are full of oil.”
“Hateful stuff! Black smoke in all their cities, I’m told. No wonder they want to hang their paintings here. Will they bring back the two they took away?”
“My dear, they’ll do whatever they like with the two paintings — they paid for them. Otherwise we’d have no bathrooms in the castle. Besides, that was so long ago.”
“Five bathrooms for twenty-seven bedrooms!”
“Better than the maids with rubber tubs and jugs of hot water, as it was when I was a lad. Gad, I’ll never forget the way those rubber tubs could sag and spill the water through the ceiling! I let it happen the morning the Prince of Wales was here and the water came through on this table. I was only seventeen and I very nearly died of shame — wouldn’t come down to breakfast and my father—”
She interrupted with gentle laughter. “Richard, really! You told me about it the first day we met — and how many times since!”