Chapter Five.
Speculations.
That hot autumn day was destined, little as she knew it, to be a crisis in Katharine Kingsworth’s life. She was very far from expecting that anything should happen to her, as she sauntered along by the garden wall, eating her peaches, and wondering what to do when she had finished them. She was accustomed to have her time pretty well filled up with her studies; but the absence of object and of emulation had made these of late very wearisome to her, and her mother had half unconsciously relaxed the rein, having indeed nearly come to the end of her own powers. Carefully as she learned and taught, the want of contact with other minds deprived her own of its freshness. Katharine at nineteen was sick of reading history and doing sums, and of talking French one day and German the next. She did not like drawing, and her musical taste was of a commonplace kind, and could not flourish “itself its own delight.”
She loved her mother; but she was afraid of her, and conscious of failing to satisfy her, and the impatient desire of Change hid from her all the pleasure of association and long habit.
“I wonder if mamma means this to go on for ever,” she thought. “Am I to live here till I am as old as she is? Surely other girls have more variety. I don’t know much about it—but I begin to think our lives are odd as well as disagreeable. Surely we could go again and see Uncle Kingsworth—or go and stay somewhere else? We could—why don’t we? Are we rich, I wonder?”
The childishness of a mind which had never had anything to measure itself with, and the unvarying ascendancy of a most resolute will, had so acted that Katharine had never distinctly put these questions to herself before. Often as she had murmured, she had never resisted, nor realised the possibility of resistance. Often as she had declared that her life was hateful to her, she had no more expected that it would change than that the sun would come out because she complained when it was raining.
Katharine was impetuous; but if she had any of her mother’s strength of purpose it was as yet undeveloped. Yet all sorts of impulses and desires were awakening within her, and gradually driving her to a settled purpose—namely, to question her mother as to her reasons for living at Applehurst, and her intentions for the future.
It would be difficult to realise how tremendous a step this seemed to Katharine. To have an opinion of her own and grumble about it, was one thing—to act upon it, quite another—still she got up from her knees by the lavender bush, which she had been cutting while indulging in these meditations, and walked slowly into the house. Katharine never remembered coming into her mother’s presence in her life without a certain sense of awe and of expectation of criticism, and now as she opened the drawing-room door, her heart beat fast, and her colour, always bright enough, burnt all over her forehead and neck.
It was a pretty pleasant drawing-room; with an unmistakable air of refinement and cultivation; plenty of books and tokens of occupation, while all the furniture was handsome and in good order.
Mrs Kingsworth was sitting at a davenport, writing a letter. She was a tall woman, with a figure slender and élancé as that of a girl, delicate, regular features, and a small head adorned with an abundance of smooth, dark hair. Spite of her quiet black dress and cap, she had lost little of her youthfulness, and her eyes were bright, keen, and full of life. Otherwise it was a still set face, with little variety of expression, and spite of some likeness of form and colouring most unlike in character to the changing flushing countenance of the girl beside her.
“Isn’t it time you found some occupation, Katharine?” she said.
There was no displeasure in her tone, but as Katharine stood silent, she said quietly, “Go and practise for an hour, I don’t like to see you doing nothing.”
“What can it matter what I do?” said Katharine impetuously, her quickly roused temper diverting her in a moment from her purpose.
“Only as rational occupation is rather a better thing than idleness,” said Mrs Kingsworth with a touch of satire in her voice.
“I mean—Mamma, I want to know whether we are to live at Applehurst for ever and ever?” cried Katharine, suddenly and without any warning.
“What makes you ask me such a question?” said her mother quickly.
“Because I want an answer to it, mother! because I—I want to go away. I want to know why we never have any change. I should like to go to the sea-side—to have some friends. I hate Applehurst!”
Katharine was so frightened that there were tears in her voice as she spoke. She stood behind her mother’s chair, and twitched her hands together nervously. Mrs Kingsworth looked down at her letter.
“I thought, Katie,” she said, “that I had taught you to look for better things than change and amusement. It would grieve me very much if you had a turn for constant excitement. That is a kind of character which I despise.”
“I think it is very dull here,” said Katharine; “I want to know people. I want to do something different.”
She was fairly crying by this time, and after a minute’s silence her mother went on speaking.
“Do you know, Katharine, what I consider to be more worth living for than anything else?”
“What?” said Katharine surprised.
“The opportunity of doing a noble action,” said Mrs Kingsworth, in a low tone; “so to live and so to think and believe that if a great choice came to one, one would do the right thing, let the consequences be what they might.”
She laid down her pen that her daughter might not see her hand tremble. It was quite as critical a moment to her as to Katharine.
“Yes, but I don’t see what all that has to do with our being shut up in Applehurst!”
“Perhaps not—but you can recognise the principle that life has better aims than amusement. Believe me, no good is worth having which is bought at the expense of the slightest self-reproach.”
“I don’t mean to be cross, mamma,” said Katharine, entirely mistaking her drift, “but if we could go away sometimes—you know I am grown up.”
“Are you?” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Sometimes you are so childish that I can hardly believe it. If I could see that you had more fixed principle, that you really cared for your duty, I might think it more possible to expose you to temptations of which you now know nothing.”
“But, mamma, I don’t want to do anything wrong.”
“I think you do not see the beauty of caring for the highest right.”
Katharine pouted. She was too well trained to be flippant; but her mother’s tone irritated her; so that contrary to the principle in which she had been trained that nothing was ever gained by crying for it, she burst into tears. Mrs Kingsworth looked round at her as she stood sobbing in a vehement girlish fashion, and rubbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief.
“Well,” she said, “you will have a little change. Uncle Kingsworth has written to propose a visit, and I am telling him that we shall expect him here on Monday. If you like,” she added after a pause, “you can tell him your troubles.”
“He might ask us to go again to stay with him,” said Katharine, brightening up.
Her mother made no answer, and the girl slipped away into the garden and sat down on the grass. She felt ruffled and vexed, with an impression that her mother was very unsympathising, and that the sentiments which she had uttered were tiresome, matter-of-course truisms, not worth enforcing. But Uncle Kingsworth was coming, and that was something to look forward to. And before many minutes had passed Mrs Kingsworth heard Katharine run up stairs, humming a tune.
She sat still herself, oppressed with a sense of failure. How could she ever rely on this impatient childish girl to carry out the act of restitution on which her heart was set?
“If she fails I should despise her!” said Mrs Kingsworth to herself with slower tears than Katharine’s rising in her eyes, “yet I suppose her wishes are natural.”
She loved her daughter as much as ever daughter was loved; but she cared infinitely more that Katharine should be good than that she should be happy, and this principle carried out logically in small matters made her the very opposite of a spoiling mother.
Still she was enough disturbed by what had passed to resolve almost for the first time in her life on consulting Canon Kingsworth. Her clear high purpose had crystallised itself in her mind, and had been sufficient for itself—every other influence had been a disturbance from it.
Canon Kingsworth’s rare visits were always a pleasant excitement at Applehurst. The later dinner, the different dress, the turning out of the spare bedroom gave an unwonted feeling of “company” in itself cheerful. Not that there was ever anything to complain of in the household; for though Mrs Kingsworth was not a woman who found pleasure in domestic details, she was accustomed as a matter of course to have everything kept up to a certain mark of propriety and comfort.
But the sound of a man’s voice in the house, the conversation on general topics, the bright sense of outside life was enchanting to Katharine. The Canon was a fine old gentleman—still in full vigour, with abundant white hair and eyes and features of a type which his great-niece inherited. He had a certain respect for her mother and great pity, though not much liking; while she, vigorous and independent as she was, could not help a certain leaning to the only person who still called her “Mary.”
Conversation was general on the evening of the Canon’s arrival, and he took much pains to cultivate Katharine and to draw her out. On former occasions she had been full of eager talk of her lessons or her pets, or of inquiries for things and people seen in her never-to-be-forgotten visit to Fanchester; but to-day she was quiet and demure, so that the next morning after breakfast when she went to practise and Canon Kingsworth was left alone with her mother, he said,—
“Katharine is a very pretty girl; but she wants manner.”
“I am uneasy about Katharine. I do not know how to act for the best,” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly.
“I suppose she begins to desire a little society,” said the Canon.
“Yes, almost to demand it.”
“Well, Mary, you know what I have always thought, that with the best intentions you did Katharine injustice in keeping her in ignorance of her true position.”
“Her true position!” said Mrs Kingsworth under her breath.
“Yes, however obtained, she is the owner of Kingsworth, and in two years’ time her duty will be to do her best for the welfare of the place and the people.”
“Do you not really know, Uncle Kingsworth, what my one aim has been in educating Katharine?” said Mrs Kingsworth, looking up steadily at him.
“I have always supposed that you have educated her in the way which you conscientiously think the best; though as you know, I have not always agreed with your view.”
“I shall tell you the whole truth,” said Mrs Kingsworth with sudden resolution. “I cannot conceive that any one can take another view of the matter. You know that I believe—that I am sure this property was obtained by an act of the greatest possible injustice. An act of meanness! I am bound to say the truth, whoever was the actor.”
“Indeed, Mary, I think those sad suspicions are far better laid to sleep,” said the Canon gravely.
“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “The only reparation is to undo the wrong. Katharine and I cannot have masses said for my husband’s soul; but we can refuse to profit by the sin that he committed. We need not share it. I wish Katharine on the day she comes of age to give up the estate to the rightful heiress, her cousin Emberance. I have tried to show her in all my training the beauty of self-sacrifice, to make the right thing so good in her eyes that she should be ready to prefer it to selfish pleasure. I never meet with a response! I cannot trust in her carrying out my purpose.”
Mrs Kingsworth’s voice had faltered as she went on, and now broke down completely; while the eyes, which she had raised with a certain childlike directness, filled with tears.
Canon Kingsworth took two turns up and down the room before he answered her, and then said slowly and deliberately,—
“I do not consider that Katharine is called upon to make such a renunciation.”
“Not legally, I know,” said Mrs Kingsworth.
“Nor, I think, on any principle. Let us be plain with each other. You think that but for George’s reticence the property would have gone to James. There is no doubt that had my brother been aware that his sons would only leave a girl apiece, he would have left the bulk of it to Walter Kingsworth, his cousin. I think that had he known all the circumstances of James’ marriage, he would not have wholly disinherited him; but I think that enough had passed to prevent him from making an eldest son of him. Indeed the place would have been ruined if he had. James deserved his punishment. Moreover, Mary, no living man will ever know what lies between their memories.”
“James’ deserts do not affect the question. Better give up all than retain part, even unfairly. My husband deceived his father, his daughter shall not enjoy the reward of that deception.”
“But the scandal, the publicity—”
“I do not care for the scandal. The real shame lies in the fact, not in the knowledge of it. Let every one know the part my husband played; sin must bring shame. They will know too that his daughter has no part in the matter.”
“And how could James’ memory come out?”
“I do not care to clear James’ memory, but my own hands and Katharine’s. I do not care what becomes of Kingsworth. Let it go to ruin,—what is that to me?”
“It certainly ought to be something to Katharine,—a Kingsworth herself,” said the Canon, somewhat affronted.
“So,” pursued Mrs Kingsworth, unheeding, “I thought she should have a ready-made life independent of Kingsworth, that her affections should not cling to it. When her hands are free, then I should wish her to have the chance of marrying like other girls, though I hope she will remain single.”
“You would be very much blamed, Mary, if you did not give the child an opportunity of judging for herself.”
“Well,—possibly. You think I ought to take her to Kingsworth now?”
“Yes, and I entreat you to avoid influencing her decision.”
“Well, I promise to leave her to work it out for herself.”
“That is right, Mary. And at any rate show her something of the ordinary life and interests of young ladies. I allow that the circumstances are very unusual, and I think she does owe much consideration towards Emberance. Ask her to stay with you at Kingsworth, she is a charming girl.”
“I have no wish to know anything of Emberance,” said Mrs Kingsworth, hastily, “it is not for her sake I act, but,—well, if you think it might incline Katharine to what I wish.”
“I think the two cousins ought to know each other. Now the question is how far Kate should be told of past events. I should say as little as possible.”
“I shall tell her one day; she is not fit to understand it now,” said Mrs Kingsworth.
“I should like to talk to her,” said the Canon, and accordingly he sought Katharine in the little breakfast room. She was sitting on the music-stool, with one hand on the keys, but the notes were silent, till as she heard footsteps, she started and struck a chord. Her uncle came and stood beside her.
“Katharine,” he said, “I hear that you are tired of Applehurst. Do you know that you have another home?”
“Kingsworth? I know my father lived there. Oh, I should like to see it.”
“Your grandfather left that property by will to you, and your mother now consents to take you there.”
“Oh, uncle,” cried Katharine, flying at him and throwing her arms round his neck, “to go away, to see a new place! Dear, dear uncle, thank you, thank you.”
“Wait a bit, my child, it is not all sunshine. There are some very sad circumstances in our family history which make Kingsworth a mournful place to your mother and to me. Your inheritance is the result of events not only sorrowful but such as we cannot look back on without a feeling of shame. When you go there, there will be something for you to retrieve.”
Katharine looked grave, but with the dutiful solemnity of a child, inwardly every pulse was dancing, and when her uncle left her she stood for a minute, then with a spring and a cry that she could hardly repress, went dancing down the garden-path, clapping her hands together. Canon Kingsworth thought that he could understand her mother’s dissatisfaction.
Chapter Six.
The Other Party.
At the garden-gate of a pretty little house in one of the suburbs of Fanchester, on a sunny evening a few days after Canon Kingsworth’s visit to Applehurst, stood the disinherited heiress, Emberance Kingsworth. Unlike Katharine, she was fully instructed in her rights and in her wrongs; so fully that they were an old story to her, and had lost much of their interest. For life was pleasant enough, pleasanter since her mother and aunts had left off school-keeping; for Emberance did not like teaching, and preferred the various interests of domestic life.
She was very pretty, tall and lithe, with fair fresh colouring, and abundant light-brown hair, well-opened eyes of deep grey, and a certain air of candour and simplicity, serene and single-hearted.
She stood looking down the long suburban road, with its edge of lime trees, its little villas with fanciful gates, breaking the shrubberies of mountain-ash and acacia, lilac and hawthorn, that fronted the road. She made a pretty picture, with the flickering shadows of an acacia tree on her white dress and straw hat, and looked less like an injured heiress brooding over her wrongs, than a happy girl watching wistfully for a possible meeting.
Perhaps her uncle, the Canon, was not exactly the figure that she had expected to see, but as he came in sight down the road, she ran forward to meet him with ready affection.
“Well, my dear,” he said as he kissed her, “I am glad to see you here, for I wanted to have a little chat with you.”
“Did you, uncle?” said Emberance, blushing under her hat, and believing that she guessed the subject of his intended discourse.
“Yes, you are old enough, Emberance, and I hope sensible enough to have some power of judging of your own circumstances.”
“Yes, uncle,” said Emberance. “I think I ought to be allowed to judge a little for myself. Indeed, I could never wish for anything different under any circumstances, and I can’t see what circumstances are likely to arise in my life that could alter matters for me.”
“No,” said the Canon. “I am glad you have not been taught to look far away.”
“Mamma says that I ought to choose from a different circle, but I cannot now. And of course we know that we must wait,” said the girl, timidly, but with firmness.
“Choose? we? wait? hullo!” said the Canon, “what does this mean I should like to know?”
“Oh, uncle,” cried poor Emberance in dismay, “I thought you knew,—I thought you came about it! I thought he told you!”
“I came about something quite different. What is it, my dear? Or must I not pry into young ladies’ secrets?”
Emberance was very fond of her uncle, and after she had recovered her breath and her courage, she began her little story with great straightforwardness.
“It is Malcolm Mackenzie, uncle, and he is going to New Zealand. He has some cousins there, who have a good deal of land. He has a little money, but they say he must come out first and look about him before investing it. He has no one belonging to him to keep him in England. It’s not a bad prospect—for these days, uncle,” said Emberance, with a sort of imploring simplicity, “and his family is just as good as mine. Mother says, however, that there is no knowing how things might change, and that I should never have cared for him if I had seen more people. But I should,—no one can know that but I. It only happened yesterday, uncle, and I told mamma last night. But she says she will not consent to acknowledge an engagement nor to any correspondence. I should be a great deal happier if she would.”
“Well, Emberance, I will hear what your mother has to say about it. You will hardly have any attention to spare for the real object of my visit.”
“Oh, yes, uncle, I shall,” said Emberance, readily.
“You, I believe, have not been kept in ignorance of the circumstances by which your father lost his inheritance?”
“I know that my uncle made my grandfather believe what was not true about him.”
“So we have feared,” said the Canon, “but, my dear, it is right that you should also know that there was very much that was quite true to cause your grandfather anger.”
Emberance coloured as she said in a low voice,—
“Yes, I thought so. But—but that which came after?”
“As to that,” said her uncle solemnly, “there is only One Who knows the truth.”
“Mother says she is sure that—that—he was killed,” said Emberance, faintly.
“She cannot be sure. We know nothing, and have no right to a guess. But, Emberance, my dear, I have always felt that the two who were left orphans on that fatal night, have a special claim on me,—you and your cousin Kate.”
“I do not think we ought to blame Katharine or her mother,” said Emberance with emphasis.
“Her mother, no indeed, Katharine has never been told anything. Her mother has kept her away from Kingsworth, taking grudgingly the least advantage from her inheritance. But they must go there now, and they wish to take you with them. Kate is an odd girl and needs a young companion. Am I doing right in asking you to go for a month or two?”
“I will go,” said Emberance, “if mother will let me. I think, uncle, that though all that dreadful past is a very sad thing in our lives, it would be much better to make a fresh start and forget about it. After all, Kate and I are only girls, it does not matter so much which is the eldest.”
This view, though coinciding with the Canon’s own, surprised him a little as coming from Emberance’s lips; and perhaps she perceived this, for she added a little pleadingly, “One’s wrongs get so tiresome, uncle, and I am very happy as I am.”
The Canon smiled, and left her in the garden as he went in to speak to her mother. Emberance sat down on a bench. Kingsworth and Katharine held but a secondary place in her thoughts just then, and were, as she had said, a very old story.
The old wrong, which had weighed ever since on the mind of the one widow, had been equally fresh in the memory of the other; but instead of a constant remorse, it had been a constant resentment, and in a more commonplace mind had become intensely personal.
Mrs James Kingsworth was not a bad sort of woman; but her loyalty to her dead husband took the form of forgetting and ignoring all his failings, and of laying the utmost stress on all his grievances. Nothing would induce her to believe that Mrs George Kingsworth had not been a party to the old concealment, and she entertained a personal dislike to the girl who stood in her daughter’s place.
She had worked hard and done her best to bring up Emberance well, and as much as possible in accordance with her birth, discouraging the girl from helping and working in the narrow household, sacrificing her own appearance to buy clothes for her, and doing her best to make her a helpless fine lady. But Emberance, like Katharine, was a failure from her mother’s point of view. Her best point was a certain active kindliness, an inveterate sociability and readiness of intercourse and friendliness: which made dependence and exclusiveness utterly alien to her. Another less praiseworthy characteristic was an innate determination to “gang her ain gait.” She liked, too, what was sunshiny and commonplace, and the tragic side of her history bored her. All straits of poverty had long since been over, through a legacy left to her mother and unmarried aunt, and Emberance had had a very prosperous girlhood.
Canon Kingsworth when he left Emberance crossed the little garden and entered by a French window into a pleasant little drawing-room, where sat Mrs Kingsworth, and her sister Miss Bury.
The widow was a pretty woman, fair and fresh like her daughter, but with more regularity of feature; her voice and manner too were bright and pleasant. Miss Bury was a gentler, plainer person, and somewhat of an invalid; but she was the more cultivated person of the two, and had been the mainstay of the former school.
Both ladies rose with alacrity to receive the Canon, the best chair was put forward for him, a cup of tea was sent for, and everything done to honour his visit.
His suggestions were not quite so welcome, at least to Mrs Kingsworth, and it needed all her respect for him to induce her to acquiesce in his proposal that Emberance should visit “her father’s house when in the possession of her enemies.”
“My dear Ellen,” said Miss Bury gently, “I think that is an unwise expression.”
“It is one which is not to the point,” said the Canon gravely.
“Well, uncle,” said Mrs Kingsworth, “I give in to your wish. I think you ought to be consulted about Emberance; but I do consider those who keep my child out of her birthright as her enemies. And now the evil of it is seen. I really think I must confide in you, Uncle Kingsworth.”
“Emberance I believe has done so already. What are the objections to this young gentleman? His personal character?”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Bury; “that is, I might say, irreproachable.”
Mrs Kingsworth admitted as much, and that even the prospect in New Zealand was fair, but after many words her objections resolved themselves into a determination not to allow Emberance to be bound at her age, “when no one knew what might happen.” And to this she held firm, nor, truth to tell, did the Canon greatly care to shake her resolution.
Emberance meanwhile had met her lover in the garden as he came to learn the final decision. He was a tall grave young Scot, manly and decided-looking, and though he was but three years her elder, there was something of awe mingled in the affection with which Emberance looked up in his face and listened to his words.
He was not at all the sort of person that she had ever pictured to herself as a likely choice, for she had been brought up among commonplace influences, and her dreams of the future had been exceedingly commonplace too, and had turned on lovers in quite an ordinary manner. She liked attention, and, as a pretty half-grown girl, had met with a good deal; but she did not intend finally to yield except to an ideal youth, the colour of whose hair, and the expression of whose eyes had been accurately decided upon, while his admiration of herself was to be evident from their first meeting.
Malcolm Mackenzie was rather awkward, and very silent; and Emberance had no idea for a long time that he distinguished her in any way, except by arguing with her and making her feel her observations unaccountably foolish. Nor could he by any stretch of the imagination be called handsome.
Emberance did not know how much pains she took to avoid being considered foolish, till one day Mr Mackenzie overtook her when she was out walking, and with the earnestness and sincerity of the declaration of his feelings which he made, drove the ideal hero for ever out of the remotest corners of Emberance’s memory.
With quite a new humility she forgot all the claims of her pretty face and attractive ways, her little vanities lost their force as she murmured that she was afraid she was very silly, and not nearly good enough to be any one’s choice, certainly not his,—she should be very disappointing to him.
Malcolm Mackenzie had replied that she herself could never disappoint him. If she could only love him as he loved her, only make up her mind to waiting patiently, only be constant and true.
Only! Emberance gave her promise with a little gasp of awe, even when she hoped that a regular engagement might be permitted to guard her constancy, and save her from the temptations that might assail it. She did not hesitate, nor feel any doubt as to her own decision, even her tears at the thought of parting were cheeked in his presence.
“I shall not say that I have done wrong in telling you that I love you,” he said, “because to know your feelings is such a joy to me that I cannot think it can be pain to you. I shall be happy even if I do not hear from you. I shall never doubt you, never fear that you could change. Nor need you.”
“But—things may happen,” murmured Emberance, hardly prepared to emulate this courage, and almost terrified at such entire trust, “and I shall so want to hear of you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said more softly, “letters would be very sweet; but still—we know we love each other, and that is so much to me, that nothing can ever put me out of heart.” Poor Emberance! she felt that this was stern teaching,—a promise, a letter, or a ring, some outward pledge, some little sweetness to soften the long parting would have made all the difference in her eyes. Did she love less, or did she know better than the lad whose utter trust in himself and in her, scorned outward ties and symbols?
Moreover, she had still the hope that her mother would yield, and permit the engagement; but Mrs Kingsworth was firm, and without pledge or promise, beyond the confession of their mutual love, the pair were parted, never to hear from each other again till Emberance was twenty-one, or till Malcolm Mackenzie had a home to offer her. Nor was the affair to be mentioned to any one.
“Because you know, Emmy,” said her mother, “you are not bound in any way.”
Emberance said nothing, but she felt in her secret soul that all the worth of her future life depended on her making good her lover’s trust. It was not bright and easy to have a lover so far out of reach; but even while her tears flowed she felt that Malcolm had left a little of his courage behind him. While he perhaps discovered that silence and separation were hard even to the most high-minded affection.
Chapter Seven.
Friendship.
“Oh, Emberance! I am so glad to have a friend! I never have had any one to talk to, I have thought of you ever since the day I was confirmed. Oh, how I have wished that I could be confirmed every year!”
Katharine Kingsworth was standing in a little breakfast room in the Canon’s house at Fanchester. The grey towers of the cathedral with a background of trees just touched with the vivid tints of autumn, were visible through the window; but Katharine heeded nothing but Emberance, almost devouring her with her round brown eyes, and standing before her at a little distance like a kitten ready to spring.
“It is very nice for cousins to be acquainted,” said Emberance.
“Oh, yes! and I have always been shut up by myself! You’ll teach me all that other girls do, and we will be friends.”
And suddenly the kitten sprang, and throwing her arms round Emberance, hugged her, and kissed her with irresistible warmth.
All the kindliness of Emberance’s nature awoke at the appeal, and all lurking sense of their relative positions yielded at the clasp of Katharine’s hands, and then at the warm touch of her lips.
“I will love you, Katharine,” she said, earnestly, “and friends we will be, I promise.”
The words did not mean nearly so much after all, to Katharine who knew no reason to prevent their friendship, as to the speaker, but they were entirely satisfactory to her, and as she subsided on to the floor at Emberance’s feet, she looked up at her and laughed joyfully.
She seemed so youthful a creature that Emberance felt as if she must go back to old methods of making acquaintance and begin, “How many lessons do you do?”—“Tell me something about yourself,” she said, wishing to find out what Katharine knew of the family history.
“There’s nothing to tell, I have lived all my life shut up at Applehurst. Uncle Kingsworth says mamma came away from Kingsworth because some very sad things happened there. I suppose it was my father dying so young, but that’s a long while ago, and we can begin fresh.”
“Katharine,” interposed Emberance who had been watching the street from the window, “here is my mother, she is coming to call on yours, let us go into the drawing-room.”
“Oh yes, I should like to see a morning call. No one ever called but the Rector and old Miss Evesham, and I want to see Aunt Ellen too.”
Emberance followed her as she jumped up and ran into the drawing-room, with considerably more anxiety as to the result of the interview, to which Mrs James Kingsworth had worked herself up, with much doubt and disinclination.
There she stood in her best attire, greeting her sister-in-law with scrupulous politeness, while she was received with a careful courtesy that was anything but cordial.
In flew Katharine, her blooming face all smiles, right into her aunt’s arms.
“How d’ye do, Aunt Ellen? I’m so glad to see you. I’m so glad to have an aunt. Oh, thank you for letting me have Emberance to stay!”
“I am sure, my dear, it will be a pleasure to Emberance,” said the aunt, won over spite of herself and utterly taken by surprise, while the Canon’s wife noted the contrast with the previous greeting of Emberance and Mrs George Kingsworth, when the latter’s scrupulous cordiality had had so evident a strain in it as to abash the girl altogether.
“We shall indeed feel bound to make your daughter’s visit pleasant to her,” she said. “I am yielding to Katharine’s great wish in going to Kingsworth.”
“Oh,” said Katharine, “so long as we came away from Applehurst, I don’t think I much mind where we go to. Anything for a change.”
The remark was made too eagerly to sound exactly flippant; but Emberance did think it sounded odd; and wondered what she should find in this vehement little creature when the first effervescence had subsided. Katharine’s chatter carried off the difficulties of the visit however, and Mrs James Kingsworth returned home with her distinct feelings of resentment somewhat confused.
A few days were passed at Fanchester, during which Katharine enjoyed the delights of buying herself some new clothes, and as she expressed it, “saw a party,” as the Canon thought it well to give one and show the world his various relations sitting at the same dinner table.
He was a good deal perplexed by Katharine. Her unrestrained eagerness, and her self-absorption somewhat repelled him; while her affectionateness and merriment were pleasant. Everything seemed equally enchanting to her, and he suspected her of want of sense and discrimination, while her mother watched her with painful earnestness. Could self-sacrifice or high principle be expected from a girl who derived actual delight from finding herself with a pair of white kid gloves?
Emberance was a little overpowered by her, but she liked her, and better still, oddly enough, she liked the grave clear-eyed Aunt Mary, who looked so unjoyful, and behaved with such odd, cold graciousness towards herself. On the whole Katharine was sorry when the day came for their journey to Kingsworth, though the travelling charmed her. The Canon and his wife accompanied them, anxious to make the return as little painful as possible for Mrs Kingsworth.
It was a wild wet evening, and as they drove from the station, the roaring of the sea grew louder and louder in their ears; Emberance caught glimpses of it covered with foam at intervals as the second carriage, in which the two girls were, wound up a steep road towards the house through the dusk of the evening.
Katharine peeped and exclaimed at each dim object that they passed, but even she fell silent, and Emberance felt an increasing excitement, as they drove up to the door of a substantial square-built house. In the open doorway stood Mrs George Kingsworth, her black figure defined by the lights behind her. She put aside Katharine as the two girls ran up the steps, and taking Emberance by both hands gave her a sudden silent kiss, then drew back and let them pass in together.
“Is this Kingsworth?” cried the outspoken Kate. “Dear me, it isn’t as pretty as Applehurst.”
Indeed, Kingsworth had few attractions beyond the wide sea view from its windows. It was perched upon the top of the cliffs, and what was called the park was really only a bit of enclosed down with a few stunted trees in it. The house had not been built by the Kingsworths and was hardly important enough to rank as a “country place;” while the rooms were small, low, and old-fashioned. The buying of it back had been a piece of sentiment; which its intrinsic advantages hardly warranted. There was, however, part of a ruined tower on the edge of the cliff, called Kingsworth Castle, and to the old Canon the wild sweep of the wind, the dash of the waves on the rocks, and the cry of the sea birds had a charm which all the quiet of his Cathedral Close could not rival. To him, Kingsworth was home, and now in old age his associations passed over the terrible tragedy that had broken that home to pieces, and went back to happy boyish days, when he had little thought to see his father’s proudly regained possession, the property of a thoughtless girl.
To Mrs Kingsworth the place had never been pleasant. All the unhappy doubts and disappointments of her married life and their terrible culmination, seemed borne back to her with every familiar sound and sight, till she wondered how she should ever bear her stay. The next morning rose bright and sunny after the rain, and the Canon asked the two girls if they would like to walk to the shore with him. Both agreed readily, Emberance with a certain trepidation, since she knew that somewhere among those wild rocks had occurred the mysterious tragedy which had left herself and Katharine fatherless. She had never realised the old story among her busy surroundings; but it came back upon her now with a strange vague sense of horror.
Katharine meanwhile tripped along the narrow path before them, sparkling with eagerness and chattering over every conceivable subject.
She was a pretty creature in her bloom and brightness, and to those better informed there was something pathetic in her unconsciousness.
Canon Kingsworth led them down to the shore, which, save for the promontory where Kingsworth stood, was bleak and uninteresting, stretching away in low chalky cliffs.
The “rocks” were of limestone, and insignificant in size and shape; but below them was a wide expanse of sand. The place had none of the grandeur often seen on the coast, and was impressive only from a certain wild dreariness, unfelt in the sparkling sunshine of the September morning. To Katharine it had all the charm of her first sea view, and she ran about picking up shells and seaweed, and demanding information on them with equal ignorance and eagerness.
The tide being low, they walked round by the sands to Kingsworth village, which was untidy, picturesque, and slatternly. There was a pretty Church, long and low, with a square weather-stained tower: and the Vicarage, which had hitherto been in possession of an old Vicar, who remembered the Canon’s boyhood, had now fallen into other hands, and was filled with a large lively young family named Clare.
Mr Clare met them as they came up the little irregular street, and the Canon introduced himself and his nieces, on which followed an inspection of the Church; the Vicar was perplexed at finding so little to indicate which young lady was his future Lady of the Manor, till he remarked that Mrs Clare and his daughters were intending to call, when Katharine sparkled up and said eagerly, “Oh, yes, please; I hope they will. When will they come?”
“This niece,” said Canon Kingsworth, “has led so solitary a life that companions are a new pleasure to her; but we think it right that she should make acquaintance with her future home.”
Katharine was intensely eager about this promised visit, which seemed to her like the beginning of her new life, and her sudden springs to the window whenever she fancied that she heard the front door bell, and her constant references to the subject annoyed her mother inexpressibly.
Kate had not long to wait; for the next day brought Mrs Clare and her daughters, pleasant lively people, the two girls quite as desirous of the acquaintance as Miss Kingsworth herself could be, though they expressed it with somewhat more reserve. This rosy-cheeked girl rushing into friendship as if she had been fourteen instead of nineteen was not at all the heiress that they had expected.
Emberance was a very great assistance in all the difficulties of the new life. She made herself agreeable to the various families who came to call, and she kept Kate in order, and instructed her in various small pieces of social etiquette, taught her how to arrange her hair and when it was correct to wear gloves, and tried to induce her to regard the dinner parties to which they were duly invited with something like composure.
The Clares were their only near neighbours, and the only people with whom during the next few weeks the girls became in any degree really intimate, and with whom Kate learnt the joys of girlish companionship. And she did enjoy it with an intensity of delight, a want of proportion in her pleasure that sorely perplexed Mrs Kingsworth, who, on her part, deprived her of what might have been a counterbalancing and sobering influence, in forbidding her to visit among the cottages or to take up any of the parish work to which the Clares might have introduced her, and which she would have taken up quite as eagerly as anything else under their auspices. She flew into the drawing-room one day on her return from a visit to the Vicarage, exclaiming,—
“Mamma! there are two of the dearest old women, a red cloak one of them has, and Mrs Clare has asked me to go and read to them, and she says I may take them tea and sugar. She told me to ask you, but of course you will like me to do this, because no one can say it is not useful and sensible.”
Mrs Kingsworth’s face assumed the intensely grave expression, which it wore when she felt that a hard task was laid upon her. She feared that awkward revelations might be made to Katharine in the course of such visits, and not being able to give her this chief reason for a refusal, she fell back on secondary ones.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Katie, but I don’t think you have the necessary experience, and you do not know how much self-denial it costs to be regular in such a duty.”
“But I can’t have experience unless I begin. Mrs Clare says they like something young and cheerful.”
“I am sorry, Kate, but it cannot be. I will explain to Mrs Clare.”
Kate looked vexed for a moment, but she did not dream of resisting, and soon, too soon, as thought her mother, her wayward fancy turned to some fresh object of interest.
So “Kitty,” as her new friends called her, was thus deprived of an important means of forming her character for herself, and also of taking kindly to the increase of Church privileges offered by Mr Clare to his parishioners, and which her mother felt to be a refreshment come back to her from the days of her youth. Kate indeed had no objection to frequent services, as they afforded opportunities of meeting her friends, the one object on which at present her heart was set. She took to them as part of the new and delightful life in which she met with new pleasures. She learned to play lawn-tennis and croquet, went out blackberrying, and boating, and enjoyed herself so intensely in the new young companionship, that she never speculated on past or future.
Emberance found things pleasant enough, but she felt as if there were years of life between herself and her cousin, as she thought of Malcolm Mackenzie’s ship tossing on the waves which never rose without costing her an unreasonable sense of apprehension. She was also much more considerate of Mrs Kingsworth than was Katharine; who never heeded her coldness or her silence, or the slight sarcasms bestowed on her vehement delights, setting it all down as “mamma’s way.”
Chapter Eight.
Society.
It was a still evening late in October. The level rays of the setting sun struck on the Kingsworth rocks till the little cove had almost the warmth of summer. Soft rosy clouds floated over the blue vault and reflected their colour on the rippling water, and on the white wings of the sea birds which hovered between sea and sky.
Katharine Kingsworth was sitting on a smooth dry stone with her feet on the warm sand, the red light brightening her face and hair, and making her little figure in its warm dark dress a picturesque object in the scene.
Katharine was alone and a little thoughtful, though her thoughts were pleasant ones, as she compared her present life with the dulness of Applehurst.
“Kitty is as fresh as if she had spent all her life on a desert island,” one of the Clares had said of her, that morning.
“Well, Applehurst was a desert house if not a desert island,” Kate had replied. “You were all brought up differently. I wonder why—”
Some instinct checked the expression of her wonder on the girl’s lips; but for the first time she realised how unlike her life was to that of other girls, and to feel that the circumstances of it were peculiar.
“Emberance’s father and mine were drowned,” she thought, “so mamma disliked the place for ever afterwards. That might be; but why should she shut me up at Applehurst, and make me so different to other girls? Why does she seem to dislike all my pleasure and to hint that it won’t last. I don’t think she is as kind to me as Mrs Clare is to her daughters; how pleased she was for them to go to the picnic.”
A certain hurt look came across Kate’s bright face as these thoughts passed through her mind.
“When I am twenty-one I shall be able to do as I like,” she thought. “I know that, because Minnie Clare let out that their father said they must not ask me now to give any money to do up the church, as I could not promise it rightly; but I think I shall ask mamma if I may not give them some now.”
A pause in Katharine’s reflections as she watched the gulls dipping into the water and floating upwards again towards the clouds, then—
“I suppose girls who have been all brought up together are much more amusing and know much better what to say than I do. I wonder—I wonder—if Major Clare observed any difference when he walked home with us yesterday from the Vicarage—”
“Why, Kate, are you actually here by yourself?” said Emberance, descending on her from the park above. “That is something unusual.”
“It is rather nice to sit and think a little sometimes,” said Kate.
“Well, I think so; but you never seem to have much to think about,” said Emberance sitting down by her side.
“Why shouldn’t I have as much to think about as you?”
Emberance laughed, a little conscious laugh, and a pretty blush came over her face.
“I don’t think you have, Kitty.”
“I do think,” said Kate, “only there is so much to do. I think what it will be like when I can spend my money as I please. I suppose when I am twenty-one mamma will not be able to prevent me.”
“I suppose not,” said Emberance a little drily.
“But, Emmy, don’t you think it would be just as proper for me to wear a jacket trimmed with fur, as for Miss Deane at Mayford?” said Katharine with great emphasis.
“Of course, why not? Why don’t you get one? That black cloth is rather shabby. I would have a fur jacket if I could afford it directly.”
Katharine looked at her and the colour rose a little in her face.
“Mamma looked at me,” she said, “when I asked her about it, and said in her slow way, ‘It would cost a great deal. Your cousin has not one.’ And then, Emmy, I said, I supposed that I—that mamma had more money than Aunt Ellen—and so—”
“So you might get one. Of course, Kitty, don’t blush about it,” said Emberance kindly. “I shan’t be jealous.”
“But,” said Katharine, “mamma looked at me and the tears came into her eyes, and she said, as if she hated me, ‘So you can enjoy pleasures your cousin does not share,’ and went away.”
“That was very hard on you, Kate,” said Emberance warmly. “Aunt Mary should not have said so. Never mind, let us go in presently and talk about jackets, and I’ll tell her I have some seal-skin trimming at home quite good. I don’t want a new jacket.”
Katharine threw her arms round her cousin and kissed her with an odd sense of gratitude.
“Dear, dear Emmy, I should like you to have one too,” she said. “When I am twenty-one I’ll give you one.”
“Do,” said Emberance laughing, “and trim it with grey fur. What a funny little child you are, Kitty!”
“Emberance,” said Kate suddenly, “I never thought about it before. We are cousins. Why am I rich instead of you?”
“Because grandpapa left Kingsworth to your father and not to mine,” said Emberance turning her head away with a sudden stiffness.
“Why?” said Kate.
“I don’t quite know.”
“Was he the eldest?”
“No,” said Emberance reluctantly.
“Then, mamma thinks it wasn’t fair,” cried Kate with sudden quickness of apprehension.
“Nonsense, Kitty, it is all over and done with now, and can’t be altered. It is no concern of ours, and I am sure I am very happy; let us talk of something else. What did you think of Major Clare?”
“Oh, he was very entertaining, he told me a long story about a tiger, and he is going to give Minnie a necklace made of its teeth. It seems odd that Mr Clare’s brother should be so young. And I like Mr Alfred Deane, too. Do you think they’ll dance with us if we go to the ball?”
“Very likely.”
“Do you like dancing?”
“Oh very much indeed, I hope we shall go,” said Emberance with involuntary heartiness, and then the thought crossed her, that an engaged girl, with a lover at the Antipodes, ought not to be elated at the thought of going to a ball.
But Emberance was very simple and natural, and though the ball would have been finer if her Robin had been there (by the way Malcolm Mackenzie hated dancing,) she could not regard it wholly with indifference.
It had been much under discussion, Mrs Kingsworth having wished to refuse Mrs Deane’s invitation, and Kate naturally being equally in favour of accepting it, and indeed vehemently angry at being deprived of the pleasure. Every day seemed to Mrs Kingsworth to make it plainer that her view of Kate’s selfishness and frivolity was right. Every day the girl seemed to her a less likely person to sacrifice pleasure and self-importance to the highest sense of right; every day she felt that she could not tell her her wishes without the chance of bitter mortification. And so she was cold to Kate, and the girl who was inconsiderate and selfish from want of knowledge of other people’s views, opposed her more and more.
Emberance did not of course know that her aunt meditated a great act of restitution, but she perceived that she regarded her as an injured person, and having always heard her mother call her Aunt Mary a usurper, it came with a great surprise to her to find Aunt Mary of the same opinion. She perceived, too, how Katharine always appeared in a less amiable light to her mother than to any one else, how the frank caresses and innocent gaiety that made her a favourite among her friends, were chilled and repressed by the dread of criticism.
On this occasion as the two girls came back to the house together, Emberance said,—
“You should not be so vehement about gaieties in talking to Aunt Mary, Kitty; she thinks you care for nothing else.”
“But how can I help being vehement when I feel so?” said Katharine, opening her round eyes; “and I do care immensely about the ball.”
“So do I; but still one ought not to be frivolous, and you might show a little more interest in other things.”
“But Emmy,” said Kate, “I don’t think I have found out yet what sort of things I do like.”
Emberance laughed and desisted, a little ashamed of having suggested a prudential motive, when she saw how entirely it failed of being understood.
“I suppose,” she said, “that seeing all the neighbours here, reminds Aunt Mary of old times, and makes her sad. We ought to remember that.”
Kate looked a little impatient.
“That was so very long ago,” she said, as she ran into the house, and opened the drawing-room door.
Mrs Kingsworth was writing a note. “Katharine, I have accepted Mrs Deane’s invitation,” she said.
“Have you? Oh, mamma, that’s lovely of you!” cried Kate. “I never, never could have borne to stay at home.”
“Thank you, Aunt Mary, we did wish very much to go,” said Emberance.
“I suppose you did,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Your uncle thought that I ought to take you, and he wishes to give you your dresses for the occasion.”
“Oh, how very kind!” cried Emberance, with an immediate sense of delightful provision for many a Fanchester gaiety, beyond the special occasion, while Kate danced about the room, without a care for the future.
The white dresses, with white heather and fern leaves, promised to be equally becoming to Kate’s vivid roses and chestnut locks, and to her cousin’s blush-rose fairness and slender grace; and though Emberance was far the handsomer girl of the two, Katharine’s chances were doubtless balanced by her heirship.
“I do hope I shall get some partners,” she said energetically, one day, when the two girls had gone to play lawn-tennis at the Vicarage. “I hope I shall dance every dance.”
“Will you dance with me, Miss Kingsworth?” said Fred Clare, a youth of eighteen, at home, in an interval between school and college.
“Oh, yes,” said Kate, heartily. “I should like to dance the first dance with you, because I can dance easily with you; and perhaps I shall not be able to manage it with strange partners.”
“Fred, Fred, this is too bad,” said his uncle. “You take an unfair advantage of your opportunities. Miss Kingsworth, is Fred to be the only one to obtain a promise beforehand?”
Major Clare was a handsome man of thirty, tall, dark-haired, and sunburnt, fulfilling very fairly a girl’s ideal of an Indian officer. He had a pleasant laugh in his eyes, and a touch of satire not quite so pleasant in his voice; and his elder brother the Vicar, and still more the Vicar’s wife, found him rather an incongruous element in the clerical household. Not that he was otherwise than perfectly decorous and well-conducted, or in the eyes of his relations other than a proper suitor for the heiress of Kingsworth, supposing his inclinations turned that way; but somehow under his influence, lawn-tennis, boating, and other amusements usurped a good deal more than their usual share of the family life. Fred, Minnie, and the younger ones were only too ready to follow his lead, and Rose, the eldest daughter, who was more soberly inclined, was cross because studies and parish work were neglected, and if she maintained some order, diminished the harmony of the family circle. But the Major had no other home, and did not seem at present inclined to dispose of himself elsewhere.
Katharine blushed at his remark, and said with a little restraint,—
“Oh, no, I should be very glad to dance with any one.”
“For how many balls will you retain so much humility?” said Major Clare, laughing. “Let me take advantage of it while it lasts, and ask for two dances.”
Kate assented, but she looked a little uncomfortable, and as a general move towards the lawn-tennis ground enabled her to speak to him apart, she said,—
“Major Clare, I did not mean to ask you to ask me to dance just now.”
Major Clare looked at her with a slight air of amusement. “What has made you think of that?” he said.
“Well, I think Emberance looked at me,” said the candid Kate.
“I should not have thought your cousin’s eyes so formidable.”
Something was added about the charm of simplicity, which Katharine was not quite sure whether she liked or not; but, enough consciousness was awakened to add a touch of excitement to her preparations for her first ball.