Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life

“Your uncle James was a great trial to your grandfather, and I know that he had long considered him unworthy of the position of his eldest son. But so far as we know, he finally decided on disinheriting him from a misconception of your Aunt Ellen’s character and circumstances, and this misconception your father failed to remove when it lay in his power to do so. But remember, the time was so short that he may have been only waiting for a favourable opportunity. On the day of your grandfather’s funeral there was a painful dispute between your uncle and your father, and they left the house separately and in deep anger. As you know, they were found close together at the foot of the cliff, and it is your duty as a daughter to imagine no more than you know. They died together, and may God in His mercy pardon the sins of both! This terrible sorrow has been less painful to your mother than the sense of the wrong committed. With regard to your own position and heirship it is perfectly safe and legal, and at the present moment it is your duty so to train yourself that when you come of age you may fitly perform the duties to which you are called, whatever you then find that they may be. I mean that you are called upon in an especial manner to be just and unselfish, and to regard the position of owner of Kingsworth as a trust for the welfare of those dependent on the place, to keep your heart from worldliness, and to consider the trials from which your mother has suffered. You have been, perhaps, more than usually childish for your years; it behoves you now to learn to use your own judgment, and to act according to the dictates of your own conscience. May God bless you, my dear little girl, and give you that loyalty of spirit and charity of judgment which you so sorely need. So prays your loving uncle, —

“George Kingsworth.”

Katharine read this letter alone in her own room, and its solemn call to self-reliance and self-discipline fell on her heart with a dreadful weight. She did not understand it. She had failed to grasp the meaning of the wistful looks her mother cast on her out of the dark stern eyes from which she had always shrunk, she did not realise even yet that a great restoration was or would be in her power. If she had she would have been ready enough to fling away the burden and to forget the pain. Is that all? she might have said, if any one had told her so to atone for her father’s sins, if that would have given back the freedom of her spirit. Comfort and competence and all the little pleasures that were so sweet to her would be as much within her power as ever, and that sacrifice if she could have realised the possibility of it, would have seemed just then no sacrifice at all, a fact of which the old Canon had perhaps had some suspicion.

She read her letter over again, and her mind fastened on the sentence in which he seemed to suggest the possibility of her father’s intentions having been all straightforward. “Mother might believe that,” she thought. “If it were so why should she trouble?”

“I won’t. I’ll forget it!” said Kate suddenly to herself, and she put the Canon’s letter into her pocket, and running down stairs, began to chatter eagerly to Emberance about the trimming of a new dress. Emberance was very glad to have her cheerful, and as she could not see the use of fretting for Kate any more than for herself, seconded her with great readiness.

Mrs Kingsworth heard her laughing, and marvelled. Nothing but her solemn promise to the Canon would have induced her to abstain from influencing Kate, or at least from stating her own view of the matter, but she would have suffered any evil sooner than break her word, so she contented herself by influencing Kate in another way, by praying for her. She never cast her prayers but in one form, that Kate might give up the estate to Emberance, and into that petition she threw her whole soul; but it surely might be that her earnest desire for her child’s honour and honesty would work its own fulfilment, if not precisely in the way she believed to be the only possible one.

Walter Kingsworth meanwhile had returned to Silthorpe with his head full of his family history. He described Kingsworth to his father and mother, discovered a likeness in his favourite sister Eva to Katharine, and declared that he thought the complete separation of the two branches of the family to be a great mistake.

“Mrs George Kingsworth has lived in such complete retirement ever since her husband’s death that no intercourse would have been possible,” said his mother.

“When the place was in the market,” said his father, “our branch of the family were not in circumstances to be able to buy it, though it went very cheap. And indeed it is not much of a property, and a very poor house. There is scarcely any land beyond the village.”

“You have seen it then, father?” said Walter.

“Oh, yes. I went over there when it was standing empty eighteen years ago, and when the story of the drowning of the brothers was fresh. I made a few inquiries.”

“And did you discover anything?”

“No, there was nothing to discover. I think the family were too ready to take up an attitude of mystery about it. Mrs George is a peculiar woman.”

“She is very handsome, and distinguished-looking,” said Walter.

“Ah, I never saw her. The long minority must have greatly improved the estate, which had suffered from James debts; but the land is poor, and the cottages on it much out of order.”

Walter was a good deal struck by his father’s knowledge of the circumstances of the family when he had himself supposed that the old relationship was entirely forgotten. But then Mr Kingsworth’s opinions and affairs were often a source of surprise, as he was extremely reserved, and practised quiet shrewd habits of observation which often bore unexpected fruit. Walter’s visit revived the subject in the minds of the family, and his sisters Eva and Maud and the little Emberance were full of curiosity about the south-country cousins. They were lively, clever girls, highly educated and full of schemes and occupations, and they thought Walter had made very little use of his opportunities of observation in not discovering whether Kate was literary or artistic, parochial or strong-minded.

“You can only say that she has round eyes,” said Eva, one morning at breakfast, when the subject came up again, some weeks after Walter’s visit to the south.

“I only saw her twice,” said Walter. “I shouldn’t think her ‘line’ was strongly developed as yet.”

“Walter may have another opportunity of judging if he likes,” said his father. “That Horton business, Walter – some one is required to be on the spot. Should you care to find yourself at Blackchurch? – it is only a few miles from Kingsworth.”

“I shall be very glad to go if you think it necessary,” said Walter, indifferently.

And he went, though somehow his sisters could extract no more enthusiasm from him on the subject of the south-country cousins. But when he came to Blackchurch he speedily made his arrival known to Mrs Deane, and received from her an invitation to a dinner party, to which Mrs Kingsworth had consented to take the girls, though she wondered at Katharine’s willingness to go to it. Mrs Kingsworth dressed as for a necessary and wearisome duty, Kate with an eager effort to escape from present pain, and Emberance with a certain lingering pleasure in an amount of luxury and amusement which the narrower circle and more pressing duties of home would soon render impossible to her.

To their great surprise their first sight on entering Mrs Deane’s drawing-room was Walter Kingsworth’s bright eyes and kind frank face.

“My father had some business in this neighbourhood, and kindly discovered that my presence was essential to the proper performance of it,” he said gaily, as he shook hands with them. “I did not at all object to the arrangement.”

Kate was very glad to see him, the sense of kinship was strong within her, and as she was both too much preoccupied and too simple to have any consciousness with regard to him, she was openly glad that he took her in to dinner, and was soon talking freely to him about his home and his sisters.

It struck Emberance, as she sat opposite, that there was a little more than cousinly eagerness in Walter’s manner, the dawning of an interest in the bright friendly open-faced girl, which might grow and deepen.

In truth, Walter was aware of liking Kate exceedingly, and was thinking that she had grown prettier and more interesting since his last visit, with feeling and expression that made her brown eyes less like a bird’s and more like a woman’s. He speculated too upon the blush with which she answered some question about Major Clare’s absence, and decided within himself that that blasé man of the world was entirely unworthy of a fresh-hearted innocent girl like Katharine. He remembered her confidence down on the rocks, and felt that he would like much to obtain a renewal of it. As he was not now staying with the Deanes his movements were free; and on Sunday he came to Church at Kingsworth, observing with pleasure that Major Clare’s place in the vicarage pew was still vacant. As he had walked four or five miles, it occurred even to Mrs Kingsworth to ask him to lunch, and while in the brightness of a mild winter Sunday they walked home across the park, Kate too remembered her childish impulse of confiding her fears to her “relation,” and felt how much more difficult words would be now on a subject that had grown so extremely serious. Yet she should like to know how the situation would strike Walter. The Canon did not, she thought, write freely to her; she could not, except under great stress of feeling, discuss the matter with Emberance, and of her mother’s stern, clear view she had an instinctive dread.

Emberance had promised to take Miss Clare’s class at the Sunday school in the afternoon – a piece of usefulness forbidden to Kate, and when she was gone silence and stiffness fell on the little party. Natural disposition and the long habit of seclusion alike made entertaining a stranger almost intolerable to Mrs Kingsworth, and all her rigid views of chaperonage did not prevent her from going to dress for afternoon service, some ten minutes before there was any occasion to do so.

Both Kate and Walter were full of the same thought, and they had not been alone five minutes before something was said of the rocks, where they met before, then a conscious silence, then an impetuous speech from Kate.

“I know all about it now!”

“Then,” said Walter, “you see that I could not answer your questions. I have been afraid so often since that you thought me cold and unfeeling.”

“No; I didn’t think about that at all. But I was puzzled and ashamed.”

“No – no,” he said eagerly, “you must not feel as if you were guilty. What chance have you had, a child – and kept ignorant of it all – of feeling the wrong or doing anything to rectify it?”

“Rectify it? How could I? It is all done.”

Walter could have bitten his tongue out for his imprudence.

“Oh, I did not mean to make a suggestion,” he said hurriedly.

“Every one means something they will not say. What? do you mean that I could give it back to Emberance?”

“No – no – I meant nothing. I have no right to say anything of the kind to you.”

“But you can tell me what you would do in my place. Could you give it up? would you give it up?”

“I don’t know. How can I tell how I should act under such a trial?” said Walter, feeling himself in a great scrape.

“But do you think a good person would give it up? Would that make it all right again? Walter, I will know if you think it would be right.”

“Well, yes, for myself – for a perfectly independent agent – I think I should not find much satisfaction in keeping it – I hope not. But a lady – that is perhaps different.”

“Why!” said Kate, to his great surprise, as her mother’s step sounded, “that would be very easy! I did not know that I could!”

Chapter Thirteen

The Real Sacrifice

Major Clare sat by the fire in his brother’s study at the Vicarage, smoking a cigar, and reflecting on the course of events. He had gone from home with a half intention of delaying that course of events, and he had returned with another half intention of precipitating it.

With much affection on both sides, he was getting tired of his stay at the Vicarage, and his brother’s family were perhaps beginning to feel that they had suited all their arrangements to him for a long enough time.

“It would be such a good thing for Robert to marry and settle,” and Robert himself thought so too. It was many a long year since that great unsettlement had come to him when things had gone wrong with his first hopes, and he could not have the girl he wanted. He had tried to fall in love several times since, and he was trying now, moved certainly by Kate’s fair fortune, and yet not quite mercenary enough to be indifferent to the want of spontaneous pleasure in his wooing. If either face could have recalled to him that never-forgotten one, it would not have been Kate’s. He had idly wished that the cousins would change places in the beginning of their acquaintance, but he could not allow himself to wish it now; and had indeed fully made up his mind to the piece of good fortune that seemed to have fallen at his feet – only, he was not in a hurry to secure it. Nevertheless it was dull, and he should like to see Kate blush and brighten at the sight of him.

So he discovered that Minnie wanted to go up to Kingsworth, and prepared to escort her thither.

Walter Kingsworth meanwhile had been seized with a fit of compunction and alarm, at the idea he had suggested to the unprepared mind of his cousin; the lawyer and the man of business awoke within him, as he reflected on the responsibility he had incurred in driving to a hasty resolution a girl so inexperienced as Kate.

He reflected on this, it is to be feared, all through the afternoon service to which he accompanied his cousins, and afterwards as they walked along the road till their ways divided, he caught a chance of saying, —

“Miss Kingsworth, you must not suppose I meant to say that any special line of conduct is incumbent on you. So imperfectly knowing the circumstances, how can I judge?”

“You can’t put the idea out of my head, now that you have put it in, cousin Walter,” said Kate, with blunt gravity. “But I shall not be of age for thirteen months, so I have plenty of time to think about it.”

And she did think about it with a new reticence that proved her to be, after all, her mother’s daughter. Slowly she recognised that she must make her own decision, that she did stand alone. She read her uncle’s letter over again, and saw that it was framed so as not to exclude the possibility of any decision. She was still child enough not to care very much about the position she would sacrifice, “for I might make mamma promise not to go back to Applehurst,” she thought, but the view that came to her most forcibly, perhaps from a sort of unconscious opposition to the pressure of her mother’s feelings, was that by declaring herself the false heiress, she might be doing a wrong to her father’s memory. “It would make people sure he had cheated, and perhaps, after all, he did not,” she thought, and then suddenly there came over her hard struggle for wisdom and sense, a thought so sweet, so absorbing, that all her trouble seemed to melt away in the warmth of it. If Major Clare were her lover, then he would know what was right. If she could tell him– poor Kate’s heart went out with a yearning longing desire, and it never struck her then that in honour, he ought to be told of her doubts if ever in real truth he were her lover. Never – till in some novel that she was reading, the plot turned on such a concealment. “Should I be a ‘villain’ if I didn’t tell him that perhaps I mean to give it up?” she thought. “Dear me, I had no idea how easy it was to be wicked! How he would despise me!”

Poor Katharine had not much notion of that other and Higher Counsel, which her uncle’s letter had advised her to seek. She had been taught to be dutiful and reverent; but it did not occur to her that “saying her prayers” would help her in her present trouble, though as she scrupulously asked in the unaltered language of her childhood to be “made good,” and helped to obey her mother, she found perhaps more guidance than she knew.

And then Major Clare came back, and in the glow and brightness of his increased attention, Kate was too happy to think of anything else, definitely or long. Emberance was wide awake now, and scrupulously careful not to interfere, and as Minnie and Rosa Clare were equally on the alert, opportunities did not lack. To go to the Vicarage and help to cover books for the Lending Library was a piece of parochial usefulness that even Mrs Kingsworth could not forbid to her young ladies, and if Uncle Bob did hang about with his newspaper, till he finally discarded it, and pasted and papered, with a firmness and handiness astonishing to the young ladies, it could only be regarded as good nature to his nieces – nay, between dining-room and drawing-room, mixing paste and getting afternoon tea, if a tête-à-tête could have been avoided, at least it did not seem unnatural.

Not unnatural, only intensely important, more important than anything in the world to Kate, and strangely silencing and embarrassing to the Major, as he looked at the little figure kneeling on the hearth-rug, stroking the Vicarage cat, with the firelight reddening and brightening her hair, and the uncertain light or her uncertain feeling, softening her fresh rosy face.

“Well,” said Major Clare, “I never thought to paste my fingers in Rosa’s service.”

“You paste better than any of us.”

“Masculine superiority?”

“I suppose so,” said the straightforward Kate.

“Do you think it has been a very dull day?” said Major Clare, coming nearer, and leaning his arms on the mantelpiece, “though we have been employed in such a dull occupation?”

“I haven’t been dull at all.”

“Nor I. Kate, do you think I have been pasting books to please Rosa?”

“Haven’t you?”

“No, indeed – shall I tell you what brought me? shall I tell you what I hope may be the end of a wandering homeless life?”

She looked up with that in her eyes, which, had he met them, must have brought the scene to a point at once, and given it a very different ending. But he was looking into the fire, and went on with a sort of sense that explanation was her due – went on talking of himself. “There has always been a great want in my life, and I’m grown old. I want to tell you something that a younger fellow would have got out in half the time. Has a battered old soldier any right to think his story would interest you?”

“I don’t think you’re old,” said Kate, abruptly, “but I ought, I want to tell you something first.”

Poor child, in the last word she showed that she understood him, as half with a longing for his counsel, half with a sense of honour towards himself, she said, “You know, I suppose, all the story about my father and Emberance’s.”

“I do not care a straw for old scandals.”

“They’re not scandals, at least mamma says it is true. So I am not sure if when I come of age – I ought not to give it back – I haven’t decided. But they say it is mine only through – a cheat.”

“Who has filled your mind with such a ridiculous scruple?” exclaimed the Major in rather unloverlike tones.

“No one, but I haven’t decided, only if I do decide that Kingsworth ought to belong to Emberance, I shall give it to her. That’s all.”

She spoke with a blunt simplicity, that jarred on Major Clare. If she had been woman enough to care for him, he thought she could not have checked his love tale with her scruple. She paused, half choked with the effort of speaking, and a sudden whirl of temptation seized the Major’s soul – Emberance! Emberance the heiress! What then? What did the child mean? Was there a flaw in her title? He hesitated and was silent, and forgot that the child was a woman after all, though in her very simplicity unable to understand a doubt.

She saw the test that she had never meant for a test, tell its tale. She knew the sacrifice that honour demanded, she knew how she must suffer for her father’s sin.

“He only cared for Kingsworth!” she thought, “he doesn’t love me!” and without giving Major Clare a moment’s time to achieve the self-conquest, on which he would probably have resolved, without letting him adjust his thoughts or his feelings, she sprang up from the hearth-rug.

“You needn’t tell me the rest of your story now. I don’t want to hear any more of it. I shall go to tea,” and she fled from him before he could say a word. She threw away her chance, where an older or more prudent woman would have kept it. The question was if it were worth keeping. He did not rush after her, and catch her, and silence all her doubts with one vehement protest, but he stamped his foot with anger at her impatience and want of confidence, and believed that he would have been true to her had she given him the chance.

Kate rushed into the drawing-room because it was the easiest way of escape from him, and not till she was there in the midst of the group of girls did she become conscious that she was trembling, and almost sobbing, hardly able to make a pretence of composure.

“Where’s Uncle Bob?” said Minnie.

Kate murmured something about the dining-room. Emberance glanced at her, and said, —

“Kitty, we mustn’t stay for tea, it is so dark, let us go home. Come, – come and put your hat on.”

Rosa and Minnie were not so utterly devoid of expectation that “something might have happened,” as to offer any objection to this proposal, and Kate hurried away with scarcely a word of farewell. She sped along the lane, still in silence, and Emberance thought it better not to speak to her, though much at a loss to know what could have passed. Surely no happy emotion could take such a form as this, such bitter sobs could not come of any mere excitement and agitation.

“Kitty, my darling,” she said at length, “what has happened to you?”

Kate turned round on her, and said passionately and bitterly, —

“Nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“No – but oh! I hate myself, and despise myself! I wish I could drown myself,” cried Katharine in her agony. “Have you quarrelled with Major Clare?”

“No!”

“Refused him?”

“No – oh no!” cried Kate, “never, never speak about him any more.”

Her grief was so violent, and in its free expression seemed so childish, that Emberance had no scruple in following her to her room, and in trying to soothe and comfort her; and for some minutes Kate sat with her head on her cousin’s lap, and sobbed as if her heart would break. At last she seemed to gather herself together, ceased crying, and sat up, gazing into the fire with a strange dreary look, as the quivering mouth grew still and set itself into harder lines.

“Emmy,” she said, “I’ve been a silly girl. He doesn’t care for me, he liked Kingsworth.”

“I don’t think you have been at all silly in thinking Major Clare liked you. Any one would have thought so,” said Emberance, warmly.

Kate turned and kissed her, while Emberance went on.

“But how can you tell – how can you possibly tell that he doesn’t really care about you? What makes you think so?”

“I don’t think I can tell you,” said Kate; “but I do know that he meant – meant to marry me because – I was rich. No, I cannot tell you how I found it out.”

“Oh, Kitty, are you sure? I don’t think it can have been all that.”

“Well, it is enough if it was partly that,” said Kate disdainfully, “I will never listen to him any more.” Emberance was puzzled, she could not tell how the discovery had come about, and moreover, she guessed that the facts were more complicated than Kate supposed. She saw that Kate was angry, and sore, and miserable, full of pain and disappointment; but she doubted if the very depths of her heart had been touched, thinking that if so, she would have been more ready to find excuses for her lover.

“Kate,” she said, “sometimes I have felt doubtful whether Major Clare was quite in earnest. I think he is rather a flirt, do you know?”

“No, he is a fortune-hunter,” said Kate, with great decision. She cried again as she spoke. It was a bitter experience even if it might have been bitterer still.