Kate enjoys being at Staplewood at first, as she has always been busy with her duties.. and it is pleasant to be able to relax. Prior to being a governess, she had looked after her father during his time in the army, "following the drum".. buying food, and making arrangements for her father and keeping house for him after he retired from army life.
However, she finds the leisurely life at Staplewood a little boring after the first few weeks and wishes that she had something to do. Her aunt is busy with running the big house, doing charity work and helping to run the estate as the elderly baronet is now too frail to take an active interest in his farms.
Lady Broome is not bored at Staplewood, and can't understand Kate finding it dull. Torquil is also rather bored and restless and does not seem to have any friends in the neighbourhood, and his mother tells Kate that he is socially above the country gentry who lives around them and that the Broome family dont mix with them that much. Kate is a little amused at her aunt's snobbery but is lonely, since Torquil is not much of a companion for her. He is very good looking but he's 5 years her junior, and is frequently sulky and bad tempered. They go riding together but he does not seem to enjoy anything very much.
On a ride, they meet neighbours, the Templecombes, who are going to London soon for the Season. Dolly, the youngest of several daughters is a very pretty girl and Torquil is clearly a little infatuated with her. Gurney, her older brother, seems pleasant and well bred but he does not seem to like Torquil much, Kate writes to Sarah, her nurse and becomes worried when she does not receive a reply but Lady Broome reminds her that Sarah is probably too busy to write back and that she's not much of a writer. Kate feels increasingly isolated since she does not want to stay indefinitely at Staplewood but her aunt seems to take it for granted that she will. However with no job, and without any contact with Sarah, she is not sure where she can go.
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