Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

inform you, are sadly travel-stained, and it wants but half an hour to dinner! Come, my love!'
    Kate, meekly mounting the Grand Stairway in her aunt's wake, paused on the half-landing to look back. Below her lay the Great Hall, stone-paved, and hung with tapestries. A log fire smouldered in the wide stone hearth, which was flanked by armoured figures, and surmounted by an arrangement of ancient weapons. A highly polished refectory table supported a pewter dish; an oak coffer with brass hinges and locks, burnished till they shone, stood against one wall; an oak armoire against another; several high-backed chairs, also of oak, completed the furniture; the tall windows were hung with faded tapestry; and the Grand Stairway was of black oak, uncarpeted. Kate, critically surveying the scene below her, found that her aunt was watching her, the corners of her mouth lilting upward.
    'Well?' said Lady Broome. 'What do you think of it?'
    'It isn't very gay, is it?' replied Kate honestly. 'Or even very cosy! No, I don't mean cosy, precisely - homelike!'
    A chuckle from Sir Timothy brought her eyes to his face, a most mischievous twinkle in them. Lady Broome's triumphant smile vanished; she put up her brows, saying: 'Cosy? Homelike? Not, perhaps, to our modern notions, but the Elizabethans would have found it so, I assure you.'
    'Ah, no, my love!' gently interpolated Sir Timothy. 'The Elizabethans, whose taste was not to be compared with yours, would have covered the beams with paint, you know. My father had it stripped off when I was a boy.' He added, dispassionately considering the tapestries: 'And the hangings must have been very bright before the colours faded, and the gold threads became tarnished. Eheu jugaces !'
    'My dear Sir Timothy, how absurd you are!' said Lady Broome, with an indulgent laugh. 'Don't heed him, Kate! He delights in bantering me, because I care more for these things than he does.'
    She swept on up the stairs, and across the hall to a broad gallery, down which she led Kate. Opening one of the doors which gave access to it, she said archly, over her shoulder: 'Now, pray don't tell me that you think this room unhome-like! I have taken such pains to make it pretty for you!'
    'No, indeed!' exclaimed Kate, turning pink with pleasure. 'I never saw a prettier room, ma'am! Thank you ! A fire, too! Well, if this is the way you mean to use me you will never be rid of me! What can I do to repay so much kindness? I hope you will tell me!'
    'Oh, you will find a great deal to do! But I don't wish to be rid of you. Good evening, Ellen! This is Miss Kate, whom you are to wait upon. What have you put out for her to wear this evening?'
    The young housemaid rose from her knees by Kate's trunk, and bobbed a curtsy. 'If you please, my lady, the white muslin, trimmed with a double pleating of blue ribbon,' she said nervously. 'Being as it came first to hand!'
    'Well, show it to me!' commanded Lady Broome, with a touch of impatience. She nodded at Kate. 'A country girl! I hope you won't find her very stupid and clumsy.' She surveyed the dress Ellen was holding up. 'Yes, that will do very well. Put it down, and go and desire Sidlaw to give you the package I gave into her charge!'
    'Yes, my lady!' said Ellen, curtsying herself out of the room.
    'It is almost impossible to get London servants to come into the country,' remarked Lady Broome. 'When we gave up the London house I did make the experiment, but it didn't answer. They were for ever complaining that it was lonely, or that they dared not walk through the park after dark! Such nonsense! By the by, I do hope you are not nervous, my dear?'
    'Oh, no, not a bit!' replied Kate cheerfully. 'After all, I'm not at all likely to be snatched up by a party of guerrilleros, am I?'
    'Extremely unlikely! Yes, that is the package, Ellen, but there is no need to enter the room as though you had been shot from a gun. My love, this is a shawl for you to put round your shoulders: I hope you will like