Джорджетт Хейер: Cousin Kate

“No! Nor I’ll never know how you came to have a son with such a good heart!” snapped Sarah, rising instantly to Joe’s defence. A mumbled remonstrance from him caused her to pat his hand, and to say in a mollified tone: “I’m sure I don’t want to offend you, Father, but I won’t have you miscalling Joe. Not but what he’s right, Joe: it wouldn’t fit! But how to stop her doing what’s beneath her I don’t know! Perhaps your father does, so long-headed as he is!”

“You can lay your life I do!” said Mr Nidd, a gleam of triumph in his eye. To think I’ve a longer head than you, Sarey! What Miss Kate’s got to have is a home with her own kin.”

“Ay! she did ought to have that!” agreed his son, much struck by this display of wisdom.

“I said it when the Major took and died, and I’ll say it again,” pursued Mr Nidd. “Her relations ought to be wrote to. And don’t you pitch me any gammon about her not having none, like you did afore, Sarey, because it’s hornswoggle! We all got kin of some sort.”

“Yes,” said Sarah slowly. “But there’s none left on my mistress’ side but her sister, and if she’d lift a finger to help Miss Kate she’s mightily changed since I knew her! What’s more, Miss Kate wouldn’t have anything to say to that set, nor I wouldn’t wish her to, the way they behaved to her mama! I don’t say she hasn’t maybe got some cousins, but I don’t know who they are, or where they live, or anything about them. And as for the Major, I never heard tell of any relations other than his half-sister, and he paid no more heed to her than she did to him. She married a titled gentleman that had a place called Staplewood, which made the Major laugh out when he read about it, telling my mistress that there was never anyone more ambitious than his sister, and the only thing that surprised him was that she was content with a baronet, instead of having set her cap at a duke, or a marquis, or some such. Still, I fancy he must be a high-up baronet, because the Major said: “Well done, Minerva! Broome of Staplewood, no less!” And my mistress told me that it was a very old family, that had lived at this Staplewood since I don’t know when, and all as proud as peacocks. But I don’t know where it may be, nor it wouldn’t signify if I did, for the Major said his sister had risen quite beyond his touch now, and if he got more than a common bow from her, if ever they was to meet again, he’d have nothing more to do than bless himself for his good fortune, supposing he didn’t suffer a palsy-stroke!” Her eyes filled. She wiped away the sudden tears, saying: “He was always so full of fun and gig, poor dear gentleman! Whenever I think of the way—But it’s no manner of use thinking of what’s done, and can’t be undone! The thing is that it isn’t to be expected that she’d do anything to help Miss Kate, when she’d got to be too proud to behave civil to her own brother. Besides, I don’t know where she lives!”

“That don’t signify,” said Mr Nidd impatiently. “There’s books as will tell you where the nobles and the landed gentry lives! Ah, and there’s directories, too! What I’m thinking is that a starched-up lady wouldn’t wish for her niece to be hiring herself out like Miss Kate means to—Now, what’s the matter with you, Joe?”

The younger Mr Nidd, who had been sitting with his brow furrowed in painful cogitation, opening his mouth as if to speak, and shutting it again, gulped, and answered diffidently that he rather thought he did know.

“Know what?” demanded his progenitor irascibly.

“Staplewood”, produced Joe. “Ay, that was it! Market Harborough! Leastways, it ain’t there, but nearby, seemingly. Because the orders was to set the pack-case down at the Angel. Likely they would ha’ sent in a cart, or a farm-wagon, maybe, to fetch it. I disremember what it was, but I got it in my head is was a big pack-case, such as you could put a pianny into—though I don’t know it was a pianny, mind!”

“No, and it don’t make any odds if it was a kitchen stove!” said Mr Nidd. “All we want to know—”

“You’ve hit it, Dad!” uttered Joe, his frown banished by a broad grin. “If you aren’t a one!” he said, in affectionate admiration. “A Bodley Range, tha’s what it was! It come back to me the moment you said stove !”

Mr Nidd cast his eyes upwards in entreaty. “Don’t heed him, Sarey!” he begged. “He always was a knock-in-the-cradle, and he always will be! What you got to do is to write a letter to Miss Kate’s aunt, telling her as how Miss Kate’s left properly in the basket, and meaning to get herself hired as a housemaid, or a shopwoman, very likely. You want to tell her who you are, and how the Major was took off sudden, which she maybe don’t know, but mind you don’t run on like a fiddlestick! If you was to cross your lines, it’s ten to one she wouldn’t be able to read ’em; and if you was to take a second sheet she’d have to pay for it, which is a thing that might get up her back, same as it would anyone’s.”

“But, Father!” protested Sarah. “I don’t know if it would do any good!”

“No, and no more I don’t neither,” conceded Mr Nidd graciously. “There’s no saying, howsever, but what it might, and if it don’t it won’t do no harm. You do like I tell you, my girl, and don’t start in to argufy! I’ll allow you got more rum-gumption than most females, but you ain’t got so much in your nous-box as what I have, and don’t you think it!”

The letter was written, and (under the direction of Mr Nidd, a severe critic) rewritten, but not without misgiving. Sarah knew very well how much Miss Kate would dislike it, and she was thereafter torn between the hope that it would win response from Lady Broome, and the dread that it would bring her under Miss Kate’s displeasure. However, her father-in-law read her a lecture on the evil consequences of shrinking from one’s duty, stood over her while she folded the single sheet, sealed it with a wafer, and laboriously inscribed it to Lady Broome, and then wrested it away from her, telling her that if Miss Kate nabbed the rust he would talk to her himself.

“I hope and trust you’ll do no such thing, Father!” said Sarah, who viewed with disapproval, and a certain amount of apprehension, his predilection for Kate’s society.

“Don’t you get into a fuss!” recommended Mr Nidd. “There’s no call for neither of us to say a word to her until you gets an answer to this letter; and if you don’t get one she won’t never know anything about it! And you don’t need to worrit yourself every time her and me has a poker-talk!” he added, with asperity. “Her and me goes on very comfortable together.”

“Yes, Father, I know!” Sarah said hastily. “But you do say such things!”

“I’ll be bound she don’t hear no worse from me than what she’s heard from them soldiers of her pa’s!” retorted Mr Nidd.

This being unarguable, Sarah subsided, and when she begged Kate not to encourage him to intrude upon her, boring her with his pittle-pattle, Kate merely laughed, and replied that she much enjoyed his visits to the parlour. “I like him!” her reluctant endeavour to obtain another governess’ situation, was meeting with rebuffs. Too Young ! was what prospective employers said, but Sarah knew that Too Pretty ! was what they meant, particularly those whose families included sons of marriageable age. And you couldn’t blame them, thought Sarah, thrown into deeper gloom, for anyone prettier, or with more taking ways, than Miss Kate would be hard to find. Not only Mr Nidd’s three grandsons, but the stable-boys too, and even Old Tom, who was notoriously cross-grained, and had charge of the stables, made cakes of themselves about her! “What,” demanded Sarah of her sympathetic but speechless spouse, “is to become of her, if her aunt don’t pay any heed to my letter? That’s what I want to know!”