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Chapter Nine
The Ball

“Yes, Miss Deane, I have always had a great curiosity to see, what to speak romantically I may call the home of my ancestors; but I did not know that I should meet any connections here.”

“But that is too delightful. A disinherited prince in real life!”

“No, no, Miss Deane, I am afraid ‘disinheritance’ is not quite to the point.”

The speaker was a tall young man of four or five and twenty, whose roundish dark eyes and hooked nose were sufficiently of the Kingsworth type to satisfy any one on the look-out for a family likeness, while his good looks and pleasant open expression were enough to account for the interest which Miss Deane was expressing in his presence at the ball; the large rooms at Mayford were all gay with lights and flowers, as the company began to assemble from all the country round, for the Deanes were popular people, and the ball a large one.

“Not disinherited? Then who are you, Mr Kingsworth? And how does this little cousin come into possession?”

“Kingsworth belonged to our family, and the entail was cut off and the place sold some time in the last century by the owner who had ruined himself on the turf. He, however, left two sons, who set to work in various ways to earn their own living, and from the elder of these I am descended. We have been solicitors ever since my grandfather’s time, and that Kingsworth ever belonged to us is a mere tradition. The younger son’s family went into trade and made, I suppose, a large fortune, for you know they bought Kingsworth back. Perhaps there was some old quarrel, we have never had any intercourse with them; but you see, I can’t exactly call myself disinherited.”

“Well, no; but still you come of course with indescribable feelings to see the birthplace of your race?”

Mr Kingsworth shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “When your cousin kindly gave me Mrs Deane’s invitation, he offered Kingsworth as an inducement, and I liked the idea of seeing it. I once called on the old Canon when I went to Fanchester, and he told me that the other branch was represented by a young lady. Is she here now?”

“She is just coming in. That is Mrs George Kingsworth, her mother, that is her cousin Emberance, and the little one is Katharine.”

“One of my sisters is called Emberance,” said Mr Kingsworth in a tone of surprise.

“Ah, you see the links are not quite broken. Come, and I will introduce you to your cousins.”

Neither Katharine nor her mother had ever realised the existence of these north-country Kingsworths; but Emberance, far better informed in all the family traditions, knew who he was at once, and expressed a proper amount of pleasure at meeting him.

Mrs Kingsworth, when the circumstances had been explained to her, felt a curious sense of perplexity at the discovery of an elder heir. She was obliged to repeat the story over again mentally to divest herself of the feeling that his appearance had in some way rendered the contention futile between the rights of Emberance and Katharine. She recollected a saying of the Canon’s which at the time had given her great umbrage.

“After all, Mary, one girl is much the same as another, it is not as if there were a boy in the case.”

“Right is right for girl or boy,” she had answered truly enough.

She looked round at the gay scene almost as unfamiliar to her as to her child, for her girlhood had been short and quietly spent, and she felt that it was all distasteful and out of tune. Her stately beauty in her black velvet dress and white cap was more unusual and met with more comment than the charms of the two pretty girls who accompanied her, but she was ill at ease and shy after her long seclusion, unready with smiles and small talk, hardly knowing how to receive graciously the praises of Kate, or congratulations on her return, and noticing keenly every trifling indication which showed the heiress to be superior in importance to her cousin. These perplexities spoiled all a mother’s natural pleasures in her child’s enjoyment and success, she forgot to count Kate’s partners, and never thought to observe which were her favourite ones. Indeed so preoccupied was she that it never occurred to her to put herself in Katharine’s place or to realise the possibilities of a young girl’s entrance into society.

Kate meanwhile enjoyed herself without a misgiving, and did not suffer from any lack of partners. She was dimly aware that she liked dancing with Major Clare better than with any one else, and was pleased to think that he liked dancing with her. His sentiments were more defined. He wished to marry, and thought that Miss Kingsworth of Kingsworth was a very suitable choice, and he liked Kate herself and admired her appearance; but her brusquerie and self-absorption had hitherto deprived her simplicity of the softness which might have given it the charm it lacked. She was not in the least fascinating. Emberance could “play up to him” far better in any little passage of arms or exchange of jokes, and instinctively he knew that quiet and well behaved as she was, she cared far more both to please and to give pleasure.

But the little consciousness towards himself that was coming upon Katharine gave her more attraction; and the ball helped matters some way forward.

Walter Kingsworth meanwhile thought that he had met two very pleasant cousins, a few degrees of distance more or less did not make much difference when once the title was acceded, and he was not ill pleased to be told by Mrs Deane that both he and Katharine were like the Canon.

“Uncle Kingsworth says,” said Kate, “that he is an owl, and I am an owlet.”

“Ah,” said the new cousin, “my brothers and schoolfellows used to be in the habit of hooting at me, which I thought an insult; but now I shall plume myself on the resemblance.”

“Shall you?” said Kate. “I don’t know that it is so very comfortable to be a Kingsworth. But it is nice to have relations. I have enjoyed myself much more since I knew Emberance. Are you going to stay at Mayford?”

“For a few days, for some pheasant-shooting. May I come and see Kingsworth?”

“Oh, yes! But it isn’t pretty. It is not as nice as many other houses. I think even Applehurst was nicer in itself. But then, there was no one to speak to, and as to going to a ball, I never dreamed of such a thing. I am very glad we came to Kingsworth.”

“I shall like to see it, pretty or ugly,” said her cousin as the music struck up again and Kate’s partner came to claim her.

“And why do you like Kingsworth better than Applehurst?” said Major Clare, as they came – rather quickly – to a pause in the waltz. Kate’s waltzing was not first-rate.

“Oh – because of friends,” said Kate. “I was always by myself at Applehurst. Now I have Emberance, and even when she goes home, I shall have Rose and Minnie. And I don’t like seclusion; society is much pleasanter.”

“Are Rose and Minnie the only new friends who make Kingsworth pleasant to you?” said the Major, in rather a sentimental tone and with some curiosity to see how she would avail herself of this opening. She said “No,” quite simply and plainly, but her eyes drooped and she blushed vividly.

“I am glad of that,” said Major Clare. “I want to be among the new friends that make Kingsworth pleasant to you. Because, you see, having friends at the great house has made my stay here quite a different thing for me. I used to think Kingsworth such a dull place, but now I have our walks, and games, and expeditions, they don’t fail in interest. Do you remember that day, etc, etc,” till all sorts of new feelings, new ideas, and new possibilities were throbbing in Katharine’s heart, and changing the child into a woman.

Emberance meanwhile had had a very successful evening and had thoroughly enjoyed both the dancing and the success. For Emberance knew what a girl’s laurels are, and when they fell to her own share, she liked to crown her brows with them, even while she honestly called Malcolm Mackenzie to mind and hoped to herself that he was happy too.

But she was not nearly so much excited or so full of the ball afterwards as Kate, having indeed seen a few others, and Mrs Kingsworth sighed to think that her girl should be so much more frivolous than was common.

A little more tact and observation would have shown her that something which was not frivolous was beginning to mingle in the pleasant trifling intercourse of daily life. She had not herself seen very much of Major Clare, and hearing him spoken of as the Vicar’s brother, had never realised how completely he was the companion of his nieces and their friends. She had lived so secluded a life and was of so unpractical a nature herself, that while she anxiously speculated whether Kate was not too fond of dancing and of dress, she never guessed that the dress was beginning to be worn and the dance to be valued for something more than itself.

No one could accuse Kate of contempt for simple pleasures, and she was quite as eager about an expedition for gathering blackberries, a day or two afterwards, as she had been about going to the ball itself.

“If you will only let us come and help you to make the jam, Minnie,” she said, “I think that would be the greatest fun of all.”

“I am afraid we are not domestic enough to make it ourselves,” said Minnie.

“Don’t you? Emmy does. She makes jam every summer.”

Emberance would not have herself made this announcement; but she had the tact to answer readily.

“Yes, and very hot work you would find it, Kitty, if you really had it to do. Picking the blackberries is much pleasanter.”

“Everything in its turn,” said Kate, as she walked along the lane in the bright autumn sunlight, swinging her basket on her arm.

They had turned away from the sea, and the view offered nothing but commonplace fields and hedgerows, bounded by low chalky downs, but with the blue sky over head, and the rich autumn tinting of the hedges, the blackberry lane afforded a pretty setting for the group of young people, as they walked along laughing and chattering, Kate running ahead, and playing with the dogs, while Emberance followed more soberly in the rear, with the handsome picturesque Major by her side.

“Such fresh enjoyment is rare,” he said, rather sentimentally. “How long can it last?”

“Katharine has never had any troubles, and she is naturally lively,” returned Emberance.

“It is pretty to look at – but doesn’t it place a creature rather out of one’s sympathy, like a bird or a fairy? It is so very long since any outward circumstances could afford that sort of rapture.”

“Yes!” returned Emberance, with a sigh for New Zealand, and then her conscience smote her, for, after all, was she not enjoying herself very much?

She blushed and then continued laughing:

“But you know, Major Clare, we are simple-minded country girls, and we do enjoy picking blackberries. Of course, it can’t be expected that you should feel excitement at anything short of a tiger hunt.”

“You don’t know how much better I like the blackberrying.”

“Have you actually exhausted tiger hunts? Do see if pricking your fingers in that very thorny bramble will afford you a fresh sensation.”

Emberance could talk, and she was very pretty, much prettier, the Major thought, than her heiress-cousin, and her honest desire to behave as a young lady with a secret engagement should, combining with her natural taste for little attentions, gave her a kind of consciousness that was pleasing to him. But it was but a faint and languid satisfaction, and he presently turned away in search of Kate in the hope that her naïveté might afford him a more lively one.

She was picking – and eating – blackberries with all her might, comparing her basket with her companions’, scratching her fingers, and tearing her gown with the most entire enjoyment.

Major Clare was a very lazy picker, but he strolled up to her side, and contributed a few blackberries to her basket, asking her if she found the amusement begin to pall upon her.

“Oh, no!” said Kate. “Besides Mrs Clare wants at least fourteen pounds of jam, she has only got six now, so there are a great many more to gather.”

“Oh, I perceive you look on it from a business point of view.”

“Why! we shouldn’t come to gather blackberries if they were of no use! Of course it’s great fun into the bargain.”

“I am afraid I don’t appreciate the blackberry jam after it is made.”

“Oh no,” returned Kate, seriously. “I don’t suppose you do. Because of course you are accustomed to all sorts of wonderful fruits in India. And in the same way after hunting elephants, and tigers, and having picnics in jangles, I dare say it seems very dull to gather blackberries. That’s quite natural.”

“But suppose,” said Major Clare, repeating his remark to Emberance, but somehow moved to do so in a more serious manner, by the entire good faith of Kate’s excuse for him – “suppose one had outlived the tiger hunts, etc, and that they too had ceased to have any power to charm? Could you understand a sort of general indifference, not to say disgust?”

Kate looked full at him for a moment, with her round brown eyes quite blank. Then they deepened and softened.

“But then you would be unhappy,” she said.

“Well?”

“I mean, something must have happened to make you unhappy.”

She turned her eyes away and blushed. The idea pained her, she hardly knew why.

“You evidently don’t take in the meaning of being blasé.”

“Oh yes,” said Kate, “it is when people are wicked and have worn out simple pleasures.”

Major Clare laughed.

“Miss Kingsworth,” he said, “I am talking a great deal of nonsense to you. I do like picking blackberries – sometimes even now.”

“Of course,” said Kate, “my mother does not enjoy things as I do. But then she is unhappy because my father was drowned.”

“I hope with all my heart,” said the Major, “that you will never have cause to be unhappy. And I hardly think experience will show you the way to be always bored.”

“Why no,” said Kate, “because I think if people can’t take an interest in something they must be very stupid themselves.”

“And if they affect not to take an interest? – ”

“Well, I don’t see why any one should do that!”

“No? Is your basket full? Are you going to have another blackberrying to-morrow?”

They had another blackberrying in a few days’ time, but the weather had changed, the frost had touched the fruit, and the downs looked cold and grey. But Kate was slow in forgetting that last gathering, for Major Clare told her a long story of a great fern-hunting in the days of his youth, before he had grown tired of picnics; and of certain early hopes which had been cruelly blighted.

He had never expected to enjoy those English country pleasures again.

Did Katharine think there could be a second spring of youth and enjoyment?

Poor Katharine!

Chapter Ten
Under the Rocks

Walter Kingsworth was speedily enlightened by his hosts as to the present state of affairs in the reigning branch of the Kingsworth family, how the wrong young lady was the heiress, how the change of succession had been made, with a hint of the scandal that had accompanied it, and of the tragedy that had followed it. The whole history interested Walter extremely. He belonged to a prosperous and prosaic family, and had led a very prosperous and prosaic existence, with no doubts as to his future, and no particular discontents as to his present. His father was very well off, and held a very good position in the north-country town, round which his business was situated, but beyond being perfectly well aware of the fact, that his family was as good as that of any of his clients, he had not troubled himself much about his far-away kinsfolk in the south. Walter, however, was not insensible to the charms of a connection with an old tower and a family seat, and although he had ridiculed the “disinherited” view of his position, it was not quite with a stranger’s feeling that he set forth soon after the ball, to see the neighbourhood, and call at Kingsworth.

He had three or four miles to walk, through russet hedges, thick with hips and haws, and then over bleak and open downs till he came to the little fishing village running back into the shore in its green cove. It had a poverty-stricken look, and he was just reflecting that the Church and the little old school-house stood much in need of modern improvements, when he was joined by the Vicar, who was glad to tell a few of his grievances, and to express his hope that the young heiress might grow up to take an interest in the people who were all her tenants, and for whose welfare she was more or less responsible. He took Walter into the Church and showed him the monument of one of the last common ancestors of himself and Katharine, – a worthy in a full-bottomed wig, leaning on a funeral urn. After which there was a gap in the Kingsworth memorials, till they came to a tablet recording the death of Walter Kingsworth, and then one on which was written, “Found drowned, James and George Kingsworth. Aged 28 and 26 years. November 15th, 18 – .”

“Ah,” said the Vicar, “that was a terrible tragedy, – and the shadow of it hangs over them still. I do not know a more joyless face than Mrs Kingsworth’s, and there is a stern unwillingness to identify herself with the place, which is very noticeable.”

“Yes, she is not gracious,” said Walter. “Poor thing! I do not wonder that she shrinks from the place. Where did the – accident happen?”

“The bodies were found at the foot of the rocks in that little cove below Kingsworth Park.”

“I think I’ll walk round that way and see it,” said Walter Kingsworth with an odd sort of interest. And having parted from Mr Clare, he took his way round the point that divided the village from the tiny cove above which Kingsworth house was built.

The tide was low, and there was a wide expanse of sand between him and the rippling sunlit waves, indeed it was only in very high tides that the water covered the rocks at all, and in the cove there was generally a strip of white sand, warm and bright in the sunshine, while the grass stretched away towards the house above. The air was soft and pleasant; great woolly clouds floated over the sky and cast long shadows on the down and on the sand. Walter Kingsworth, musing on the wild story of past sin and sorrow with which the place was connected, positively started as he saw Katharine tripping down the narrow pathway that led into the cove. She looked wonderfully fresh and full of life, with her brightly coloured hair and cheeks, and the gay smile with which she came forward to greet him.

Walter was a person whose ideas were apt to be absorbing, and he could hardly free himself from the strong impression that was on him. No words about the ball or his intended call came into his head, and he said abruptly, —

“Are you fond of this place, Miss Kingsworth, – this cove I mean?” he added.

“I don’t know,” said Kate. “I think I am rather fond of coming here. I like the sea. I never saw it till we came to Kingsworth, – but I like to look out far away, and see it glitter.”

“I suppose most people like the sea,” said Walter.

“Do they? My mother does not. She never walks on the shore. But then – well, you are my cousin, are you not? I suppose it would not be wrong to talk to you about anything belonging to the family, would it?” Katharine spoke abruptly and eagerly. And Walter replied warmly, —

“Indeed I am proud to be your cousin, and you may talk quite safely to me.”

This eager, round-eyed girl, with her sweet voice and abrupt manner gave him quite a new sensation.

Katharine stood a little apart from him, making holes with her parasol in the sand. “When we lived at Applehurst,” she said, “I never used to think about anything except how dull it was. But since we came here – I feel puzzled. Emberance doesn’t like to talk about the family. But it was here, wasn’t it – that my father and hers were drowned?”

“So I have been told,” said the young man with a gravity and reverence that impressed Kate, for she lowered her own voice and said, —

“It is because I want to know what really happened that I talk to you.”

“But I cannot tell you more than you know,” said Walter, “how your father and your uncle were found drowned together. No one was there – so no one can know how it was.”

“That was after my grandfather died?” said Kate, as if pondering.

“Yes, – I suppose so.”

Kate was silent for a minute, – then she said, as if slightly disappointed, “Of course, if I come to think of it, you are not likely to be able to tell me anything about it. Perhaps I ought not to have asked you. Shall we come up to the house?”

Walter assented, he could not fathom what was passing in her mind; but her quick changes of mood interested him.

He paid rather a stiff visit at Kingsworth. Mrs Kingsworth had an unreadiness of manner that was embarrassing. In truth her mind was never with the matter in hand, and just now she was full of speculation as to what would have been her feelings if this fine young man had been her son, and his disinheritance the sacrifice she contemplated. Kate, too, was silent, and Emberance had to bear the burden of the conversation, till Walter took his leave, saying that he hoped circumstances might again bring him into the neighbourhood, and that the two branches of the family might not again be so entirely separated.

“Mamma,” said Kate, when he was gone, “we have some girl-cousins too at Silthorpe. Couldn’t we ask them to stay here some time?”

“It is a great stretch to call them cousins, Katie,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “I don’t see quite how we could do so.”

Kate pouted a little, thinking to herself that her mother always opposed her wishes, and finding that Emberance was deep in a piece of fancy-work and unwilling to leave it, set off to finish her walk by herself.

There was no absolute embargo on solitary rambles, and though Kate well knew that her mother did not like her to walk alone in the village, in her present mood she did not feel inclined to regard an unspoken prohibition.

She turned away from the path towards the Vicarage; with a shy unwillingness to be met there by herself; yet her thoughts as she walked along were not wrapped in the sunny haze proper to a young maiden just awaking to a sense of preference given and received. Kate did not dream, she thought and speculated on her own life. Only her thoughts were confused and formless. “What was wrong? Why did no one answer her questions? And what questions after all did she want to ask?”

She had turned down a lane that led away from the sea; and having no special object in pursuing her walk, was about to turn back, when she was overtaken by one of the fisher-women who sold fish about the neighbourhood. There was nothing very characteristic or picturesque about the class, they wore the ordinary dress of labouring women, except that their petticoats were very short, and they were generally as rough and ignorant as might be expected of the inhabitants of a place which had enjoyed so few advantages as Kingsworth.

This one was a handsome woman, with a keen intelligent face, and bright eyes looking out from under her flattened bonnet.

“Good morning to you, my lady,” she said.

“Good morning,” said Kate graciously, – she had grasped enough of her rôle to know that graciousness was her people’s due.

“Fine weather, miss, for the time of year. Is it Miss Katharine then that I’m talking to?”

“Yes,” said Kate. “And what is your name? I don’t know any one, as I was never here till last September.”

“Alice Taylor’s my name, if you please, miss. But begging your pardon, Miss Katharine, you was here eighteen years ago, as I ought to know, as I was your nursemaid.”

“Were you?” said Kate warmly. “Did you live with my mother? Where do you live now? I am sure then I might come and see you.”

“Well, you see, miss, there’s evil tongues everywhere, and poor servants even have their enemies. But I was as innocent as the babe unborn, of what I was accused of, and perhaps there were some that had reason to be sorry for what they did,” she concluded spitefully with a glance at Kate.

“Were you accused of doing wrong?” said Kate.

“Ah, never mind, my dear young lady, it’s all too long ago to go back to. And so Mr James’s daughter is staying here. She’s a fine young lady. Who would have thought when Mr James came of age how things would be?”

“What did they do when he came of age?” said Kate, with an odd sense of fascinated curiosity.

“Dear me, miss, there was such rejoicings! Dinner for all the place, and compliments to your great-grandfather who won the place back again to the family, and Mr James so handsome and condescending like. Mr George, he was always a quiet one.”

“That was my father?”

“Yes, miss, but he being the younger wasn’t thought so much of – you’ll excuse my saying so.”

There was something in the tone which Katharine instinctively felt to be an impertinence, and as they came to a turn of the road she said, —

“Well, good morning, Mrs Taylor. I believe I ought to go home. I’ll ask mamma if I may come and see you.”

“Thank you, miss; good morning,” said Mrs Taylor civilly enough.

Katharine hurried home, full of her new subject. “Oh, mamma,” she cried, “I have met a woman who says she was my nurse! Alice was her name – and now she is Mrs Taylor. She says she was suspected of doing something wrong; but that it was not true. Do you remember her?”

“Your nurse,” said Mrs Kingsworth briefly, “turned out dishonest. She took a pair of my gold earrings, and was dismissed.”

“But, mamma, she says that she was accused falsely. Won’t you go and hear what she has to say?”

“My dear, after all these years it would be impossible to renew the subject. Besides, she did take the earrings. I forget the details now; but there was no doubt of it at the time. She was not a desirable person.”

“I think she was angry with us about it,” said Kate.

“Possibly. She had no right to speak to you at all.” Kate did not feel inclined to repeat all Alice Taylor’s remarks, and indeed was more easily silenced than usual; but the incident added its quota to the weight on her mind. She felt quite sure that Alice Taylor believed her to be the wrong woman in the wrong place.