Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life

Chapter Sixteen

Cousins

In the early spring Kate and her mother came to Fanchester to pay the Canon a long visit, after which their plans were uncertain; Kate wanted to go abroad, and Mrs Kingsworth had a great longing for a few quiet weeks at Applehurst. “But,” thought Kate, “once there we shall never get out again.”

She was a good deal more like other young ladies than at the time of her former visit, and no longer went into ecstasies over kid gloves and evening parties, she was also less abrupt in manner, and had learned from Emberance to occupy herself with ordinary girlish pursuits, so that she seemed less idle. She was prettier too, and less exuberantly youthful.

On the very evening of their arrival Mrs Kingsworth sought a private interview with the Canon, and told him how Katharine had volunteered her willingness to give up the estate; but had declined to give a definite promise that she would do so.

“It was a great relief to me – a very great relief,” Mrs Kingsworth said, rather as if the relief had been difficult to realise.

“So,” said the old Canon, “Kate comes of age, does she not, next January? Mrs James will enjoy reigning at Kingsworth, eh, Mary?”

“You do not think I care for that!” said Mary indignantly, and with rising colour. “It is nothing to me what becomes of it. Indeed I believe Emberance is much better without it.”

“She might sell it,” suggested the Canon.

“She might, but I suppose you would all think that wrong,” said Mrs Kingsworth; “you would not think it wise to speak to Katie?”

“Well, yes. I think, on a favourable opportunity, I will,” said the Canon; but he made no promises as to what he would say to her.

He observed with pleasure the warmth of the greeting between the cousins, and contrived that Kate should be allowed to go and spend the day with her aunt.

It was not till she had been more than a week at Fanchester, that he entered on the subject; when he took her into his handsome library, full of dignified and learned literature, and comfortable as befitted the age and position of its owner. He politely recommended to her a great chair, which would have been nearly large enough for her to sleep in. Katharine perched herself upon the edge of it, and took the sleek and solemn tabby cat, who shared the Canon’s learned repose, on her knee.

“Uncle, why do you call this cat Archibald?” she said.

“Why, my dear, when he was a kitten, now some years ago, your aunt tied a bell round his neck; and by one of those changes which make the history of nicknames very interesting and curious, the name which should properly have belonged to her was applied to the cat himself. And Archibald he remains. Perhaps he will allow you to call him Archie.”

“I should not think of taking such a liberty. He is so dignified and thinks so well of himself! I wonder what he would say to Emmy’s white kitten. Isn’t Aunt Ellen’s a pretty house? I think it must be so cheerful to live in a row of villas!”

“Your expectations of Kingsworth have been a little disappointed, I fancy.”

Katharine coloured deeply.

“No,” she said with some reserve. “I like Kingsworth well enough, much better than Applehurst; but I should like living anywhere else just as well.”

“You do not find yourself growing attached to it?”

“N-o,” said Kate, “I don’t think I do. I suppose mamma has been talking to you,” she added, “I do not mind giving up Kingsworth, there would be no more trouble about it then.”

“My dear,” said the Canon, “you do not quite know what you are talking about. It is true that you will be well provided for in any case by your mother’s fortune, and Kingsworth does not make you a great heiress; but it gives you a position of which you will think more at twenty-five than at twenty-one and more again at five and thirty. No doubt it will bring you trouble and responsibility; but dread of these is not the reason which weighs with your mother.”

“Uncle Kingsworth,” said Kate frankly, though with some confusion, “I don’t see how I shall know better what to do when I am twenty-one than I do now. I wish to do right, and it can’t be wrong to obey mamma and do what she wishes. I do not feel as she does, I don’t think we understand enough about it to feel sure that Kingsworth should be Emberance’s, and – Cousin Walter Kingsworth said he should give it up in my place.”

“He did – did he? When did he have the chance of expressing an opinion?”

“I thought, being a cousin, I might ask him, and I supposed he would know.”

“Then, my dear, if your mother wishes it, and a person whom you trust approves of it, and you do not feel the sacrifice beyond your powers, what holds you back?”

Katharine hesitated, her brow contracted and an expression of strained attention came into her eyes. She could hardly grasp her own thought, to express it was still more difficult.

“You said, I must judge for my own self,” she said.

“And your own judgment is different.”

“Uncle,” said Kate with a trembling voice, “I have thought and considered, and I have tried not to be childish. I should like, oh so much! to get rid of it, and be like other girls; but – but it seems to have been put on me to – to – make up for papa. And when there is no other reason clear except the trouble of it, oh, uncle! I should not really be what mamma calls worthy if I gave it up, and told every one my father did wrong, when perhaps he did not. That’s my own judgment, uncle, my own conscience, but – but – I wish – I wish I did not feel so, with all my heart.”

“Then, my dear child, your own conscience is the light that you must follow. You are a good girl, Kate, and your mother’s own daughter after all. Keep your principle, even if in the future you change your conclusion. Let nothing tempt you to do what you think may be wrong, and in the end no doubt you will arrive at a right decision.”

Katharine sighed, her uncle had not helped her to get rid of her responsibilities; but she was pleased by his appreciation of her motives, and in her heart knew that he was right. She liked, too, being at Fanchester, and even her mother, whose habit of seclusion had been broken, was much happier than on the former occasion, and suffered less from the shyness of which at her years and in her position, she was so exceedingly ashamed. The Canon also invited Walter Kingsworth and one of his sisters to come and pay him a visit; and the elder branch of the family must have been very anxious to renew intercourse with the younger; for not only did business offer no impediment to Walter’s acceptance of the invitation, but his father came down with them to Fanchester and paid his respects to his old cousin the Canon, to whom he bore a sufficiently strong likeness to delight the younger ones, who all fell into a fervour of family feeling, and traced their pedigrees, and discovered their common ancestors, with the greatest delight. Kate began to respect Kingsworth much more seriously. Eva, the North-country cousin, was clever and romantic, and actually concocted a copy of verses, on a certain Walter who had been engaged in a Jacobite plot, and had gone to prison sooner than reveal the hiding-place of his fellow-conspirators, which verses ended with an aspiration that they might all be worthy of their heroic ancestor. Katharine, full of excitement, seized on the poem, and rushed to her mother, to expatiate on Eva’s wonderful talents, and to tell the story of the high-minded Walter. Mrs Kingsworth listened with an odd sort of smile, and presently unlocked a box which had been sent for from Applehurst, to search for some missing business papers, took out an old sketch-book, and displayed a pen-and-ink drawing of a cavalier, with a Kingsworth nose, submitting to be handcuffed by some very truculent looking soldiers in cocked-hats and pigtails.

“Mamma! did you draw that? You! Did you know about our ancestor?” cried Kate, open-mouthed.

“Oh yes, my dear, I was very fond of drawing when I was young. I was glad to marry into a family with a hero in it,” she added half to herself.

“Let me show it to Eva! Why, she drew a picture of Richard Coeur-de-Lion in prison!”

Eva duly admired the drawing, and showed her own; and behold there was a crack in the ice. The new games, introduced by the Silthorpe cousins, in which drawing, verse-making, and odds and ends of knowledge came into play, proved old ones to Mrs Kingsworth. She was drawn into the circle of young people, and became a leading spirit; with twice as many ideas as Emberance, and four times as much faculty as Kate, she could laugh and argue and hold her own amid the merry clatter, and when Kate listened amazed she recollected that an attempt to teach her some of these little amusements had been scouted as “making play into lessons.” How handsome her mother looked as she puzzled them all or triumphantly penetrated their puzzles.

“Take my word for it, my dear fellow,” said Mr Kingsworth to his son, on one occasion, “Mrs George Kingsworth is worth all the young ladies together.”

Of course Walter took the line of laughing at the heroism and crying down the heroes; but he by no means avoided either the games or the discussions, and Kate and he became more and more friendly and cousinly, till she began to derive opinions from him and think they were her own, while Major Clare was driven into a very small corner of her mind indeed. She soon learned to take a proper interest in the cathedral, and would have been very much surprised to be reminded of her original preference for a shop.

It was impossible that she should forget her former attempt at consulting Walter, and though he avoided the subject, her perceptions were not acute enough to discover this. One afternoon as they walked up and down the Canon’s garden, admiring the spring green of the trees against the grey walls that shut them in, she said, —

“I have thought about Kingsworth every day since that time last year; but I cannot decide the matter yet.”

“I wish Kingsworth did not belong to you, Katharine, that you had no concern with it,” said Walter, abruptly.

“Ah – why? You think – it ought not to belong to me?”

“No, no,” he said, hurriedly. “I do not think that.”

“Of course,” said Kate, “it is all wrong any way. Sir Walter and all our ancestors would be dreadfully grieved that it should not be inherited by the rightful heir.”

“If Emberance – ”

“But I don’t mean Emberance,” interposed Kate. “I mean you. You are our ancestor’s heir. What would they say to the place coming to a girl like me, or to Emmy either?”

“That is romantic nonsense,” said Walter almost fiercely, and colouring to his hair roots, “I have no more to do with it than I have with Mayford, than I have with the deanery of Fanchester. I wish there was no such place, I wish the sea would swallow it up, it’s a – a stumbling-block, and an incumbrance. I wish it was in South Africa!”

“Dear me, Walter,” said Kate, “I don’t see why you should hate it so. I don’t care about it much myself; but I have liked it better since I heard about our ancestors, it seems more worth while to do right about it. I know you think I ought to give it to Emberance.”

“I wish – I wish – I can’t advise you, Kate, I – I – There’s Eva – isn’t it tea-time?”

He turned away and left her abruptly: while she, surprised at his manner, began to seek for some explanation of it. Why should he hate Kingsworth? Why should he refuse to tell her what he thought to be her duty? Kate did not hit even in a guess on the right explanation; her frank pleasant intercourse with Walter was so unlike her past experience of any one’s attentions, but it did occur to her that he might possibly admire Emberance. Kate did not like the notion, it made her uncomfortable, yet it inclined her more to the sacrifice than anything which had yet passed. If Emmy had it, and married Walter, how right, according to all principles, everything would come. The real old head of the family, and the rightful heiress would reign, while she having had her day and her disappointment, would act the beneficent genius and – retire.

But then, Emberance had another love, and – and “I don’t think,” said honest Kate to herself, “that I do feel quite like having had my day. I was very young, and – I believe I shall get over it! I – I think I have!”

But Mrs Kingsworth, from the drawing-room window, had watched the pair strolling up and down, and a new idea occurred to her that fell like a cold chill on her reviving interests. If this pleasant, clever, well-bred young man, was, after all, not disinterested. If he had an eye to Kate and to Kingsworth, how completely her daughter’s wavering mind would be set in the wrong direction, how right it would all be made to seem while justice was as far as ever from being done.

“I ought to go out and join them,” she thought, then she wavered, afraid of raising a suspicion, and feeling awkward and doubtful.

“Oh dear! I’m not fit to be any girl’s mother,” she thought, despairingly. “Well, now they have parted, and Walter is coming in.”

Walter came up stairs and into the drawing-room – he took up a book and threw it down again – read the paper upside down, and fidgeted about the room; while she could not think of a word to say to him. Suddenly he came towards her, and threw himself into a chair near the sofa where she was sitting.

“Mrs Kingsworth! I – I have made up my mind to confide in you. I am in a great perplexity. I – I love your daughter, most – most thoroughly – but the circumstances, how can I – I of all men – appear before her in the light of a fortune-hunter? Kingsworth raises a barrier between us. Yet I cannot, there are reasons, insuperable reasons, why I cannot persuade her to deprive herself of it. I – I must go away from her till her birthday is past, and she has decided without me. I – you are so sincere a person that I feel sure you will recognise my sincerity.”

Mrs Kingsworth, in spite of her momentary suspicions, was utterly taken by surprise at finding them so quickly realised.

“Katharine?” she said, “but since when, have you learnt so to regard her?”

“Since when? Since the first moment I saw her, since I saw her confidence and simplicity, her – herself! I am well aware,” he added, restraining himself and speaking in a different tone, “that under any circumstances, even without Kingsworth, Katharine’s claims are high, but my father is a rich man and liberal; I think I could have ventured to address her on something like equal terms, but for Kingsworth.”

“What is your view about Kingsworth?” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “What is your opinion as to Kate’s duty?”

“To you perhaps I may say, that I would not keep it with a doubtful right. It would make me uncomfortable. But there is no such clear distinction of right and wrong in the matter as to justify any one in urging such a view on her. I would give much that Emberance had inherited it, and that I could have met Katharine under other circumstances. But now,” he added, “I want your advice, if you will give me any.”

“I should like Katharine to marry you,” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “I do not think you care for Kingsworth. If she gives it up, I think you would make her happy. But you know it is no great fortune, it would hardly justify a man in living without a profession.”

“Oh no,” said Walter hastily, and blushing vividly. “I am aware of that. But it is – a desirable possession.”

“If it were a diamond ring, or a kingdom, I should feel the same about it!” said Mrs Kingsworth. “It has come to us through ill-doing.”

“But – what shall I do? I cannot urge her to yield what she may afterwards learn the value of, and – it is a question on which I cannot enter. Besides, she – she is entirely indifferent and unconscious; it would take time to win her, if ever I could. Have I a chance? What is my best hope?”

He looked very wistful and melancholy, having evidently for the moment forgotten Kingsworth in Katharine.

Mrs Kingsworth looked interested and perplexed. “I do not know,” she said, “I do not know Katharine’s feelings. I think she is fond of you; but, sometimes I have doubted her having much power of attachment.”

“Why – she is full of feeling!” exclaimed the lover indignantly.

“Is she? I think she puzzles me. But I do see that she must be left to her own decision. Perhaps,” she added with an odd sort of dignity, “we had better renew this conversation after she is of age, and till then, let things go on as usual.”

“It is perhaps the best way,” said Walter. “Then you do not send me away, till next week, till my visit is over.”

“No, I do not see why I should. And you know she has almost promised me to decide as we wish.”

Walter was more grateful for the unconscious evidence of trust shown in that “we,” than for a thousand protestations. Mrs Kingsworth continued after a little pause, “and probably, if her feelings are in your favour, your view will unconsciously influence her.”

Walter could hardly help a smile at the musing simplicity of the tone; but he gratefully thanked Mrs Kingsworth for her confidence, and stayed. His father, after a long talk with the Canon, went home the next day, making a détour to look at Kingsworth as he went.

Chapter Seventeen

A New Motive

“Why, Emmy! what is the matter? You look as if you were unhappy,” said Katharine, with all her usual frankness.

Emberance had come to spend the day in the Close, and when Kate had gone with her up stairs to take off her hat, the absence of her usual liveliness and the heavy look of her pretty eyes had prompted this abrupt inquiry.

“Well, I am rather unhappy; things go very wrong!” and Emberance after a momentary struggle for cheerfulness, broke down into tears. Katharine hugged her, and tried to comfort her.

“I suppose – Is it about your – that one who didn’t mind, you know, Emberance?” she said bashfully. “You only told me a little about it then.”

“I was forbidden to tell,” said Emberance, “but everything is altered now, and I will tell you all about it. You know I shall be of age on the ninth of June, and then I hoped that mamma would have consented to acknowledge the engagement, and that Malcolm and I might write to each other. Indeed, she consented to his writing when I was of age and re-stating his prospects. But – last mail, his aunt, Mrs Mackenzie, heard from him, and he had received very bad news. The bank, in which all his little property was invested, had failed, so instead of being able next year to buy a place and go into partnership with his cousins in New Zealand as he hoped, there is nothing for it but to work on for such pay as he can get, and it may be years and years before there is any chance for us. Mother promised to allow the engagement when I came of age, and the marriage as soon as the partnership proved successful. But now it is all over, – and oh dear, I – I do want to see him so much!”

“But you don’t mind his being poor,” said Kate eagerly.

“No, no! I shall be true and faithful for ever and ever. But he wrote that I must be told, for when he asked me, he had fair prospects, and now he has none, – and there is no tie between us, he shall not think me faithless if I give him up. Oh, I wish we had been married first and lost the money afterwards. Now I shall never know where he is – and it just means that all chance is over.”

“If you could only go out and surprise him,” said Kate.

“Oh, that is folly! If he can’t keep himself he can’t keep me. And mamma would not consent – so how could I get there? Oh, dear, the years are so long, and he will be so disappointed. It is so far away!” sobbed Emberance incoherently, feeling, poor girl, that the trial demanded of her was almost more than she was capable of enduring.

Katharine stood silent, with her hand on Emberance’s shoulder. Her bright colour paled a little, and the sudden thought that came into her mind did not as usual find its way at once to her lips.

Here was the motive power, here the proof that the old wrong was working mischief, and that “even between two girls” it did signify which was the rich one. That which as her mother put it had seemed an abstraction and a dream, suddenly faced her as a reality of life. Suddenly she felt how she might have been regarded by Emberance, and how pure and free and kind had been the love which Emberance had actually shown her.

“Don’t cry,” she said, “perhaps something will happen yet. And, Emmy, any way you will always know that you hadn’t any money when Mr Mackenzie loved you first.”

“Ah, no, but money does make things possible. I don’t love him less because he is poor. You don’t know life, Kitty.”

“Don’t I? You’ll never have to think he loved you because you were rich,” said Kate gravely.

“Oh, there is the quarter striking! I am not fit to be seen,” said Emberance, starting up.

“Well, stay here for a bit I am going to speak to mamma,” said Kate, leaving her.

She had quite made up her mind. All at once the spur had been given; but as she paused outside her mother’s door, she leant back against the wall with a sudden awful sense of the irrevocable. She was going to burn her ships, going to give her word, and for the first time she was frightened at the sense of what her word could do, not merely worried and puzzled, but awestruck, suddenly conscious of all the importance of her decision. And with a strange self-revelation, suddenly she knew that she did care for Kingsworth, that she should care for it always, that it was in her to love it and to honour it as Emberance never would, that she need not be silly and frivolous and full of her own pleasures, but such as the heiress of Kingsworth should be.

So it was not in childish weary impatience, not even with a sudden rush of impetuous feeling, but with a sense of awe and resolution that she opened her mother’s door and went into her room.

Mrs Kingsworth was writing a note, and Katharine, as she came in and stood behind her recalled the day when she had vehemently entreated for a little pleasure, a little amusement, a little widening in her narrow life – life looked large enough to her eyes now.

“Mamma,” she said, and something in her voice made her mother turn round with – for once – a natural maternal thought, – Was it Walter? “Mamma, I give you my promise, I will give up Kingsworth to Emberance.”

“Katharine!”

“I want to tell you,” said Kate, standing away from her, and speaking fast, “I see myself now, that the arrangement being wrong makes a real difference. I thought, that while we were not quite sure we ought to believe in my father.”

“Kate, I am sure,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Doubts are only a pretence.”

“I thought,” pursued Katharine, “that – that it didn’t matter to either of us. But it does. Emmy is very unhappy; she is engaged to Mr Mackenzie; and he has no money now, so Aunt Ellen forbids her even to write to him. But if she has Kingsworth it will all come right. So I do see that it is wrong for me to keep Kingsworth. I cannot – now I know she wants to be rich – I mean, now I know that her life is spoilt because she is poor.”

“My dear, dear child!” Mrs Kingsworth took her in her arms and kissed her fondly; but even she felt startled and awestruck. “I was sure that you would wake up to the sense of the wrong,” she said softly.

“I couldn’t let Emberance be unhappy, if I could help it,” said Katharine.

“As to that,” replied her mother, “I cannot judge. Her engagement may or may not be desirable. Probably neither she nor her mother are quite fitted for the position. But be that as it may, you will be free from blame.”

“But it is to make her happy that I do it,” said Kate. “When I see that being poor makes her miserable it makes the wrong-doing seem alive and real instead of dead and done for. However, mamma, I have settled it, and promised, so you won’t have to be unhappy any more. Perhaps I ought to have minded more about that,” she added, more meekly than usual.

“No, no, Katie, my feelings were no motive to urge you. I, I shall be very thankful soon.”

Katharine turned away, and went back to Emberance, who was bathing her eyes and smoothing her hair, only anxious to obliterate the traces of her late agitation.