Читать книгу: «Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life», страница 6
Chapter Eleven
Coming to an Understanding
Emberance meanwhile had her own troubles. Not that her thoughts took the same line as Katharine’s; she had never vexed herself about her supposed wrongs, and was much too fond of Kate to begin to do so now. But her love story was a trial to her, and in a very unromantic way. She was a young lively girl, with bright spirits and the readiest interest in all the affairs of life, not raised by character or education above the ordinary temptations of gay young girlhood. At the same time she loved Malcolm Mackenzie honestly and truly, she looked forward to marrying him and to quitting friends and country for his sake, and could she have enjoyed all the little pleasures of her engagement, have received Malcolm’s letters, and have talked about him to Kate, she would hardly have felt the strain of it. But she longed for tidings of Malcolm, she thought about it, she was vaguely unhappy when the sea was rough, read all the information about New Zealand that she could find, and often felt that she never could be happy till the silence between them was ended. And yet she was young and bright, and everything around her was enjoyable, would have been so enjoyable, if the thought of Malcolm had not come to damp it. It seemed so hard that she could not feel free to be happy, that for years and years there must be a shadow on the comfortable commonplace days, filled with little cares and little pleasures that otherwise would have satisfied her so well.
Perhaps the trial would not have taken this form in a more elevated nature, nor was it quite the reason for which Malcolm Mackenzie pitied his far-off love when he thought of all the sorrows of separation; but it was quite compatible in Emberance with a most honest affection for him. She was to go home in time for Christmas, and at home would be much more likely to pick up fragments of intelligence. As to encouraging other admirers, Emberance knew her duty too well to think of such a thing, and of course the little attentions that young men paid were of no serious consequence; still Emberance was not unaware that just for the purposes of a dance or a game of tennis, an idle chat or occasional joke, she and not Kate had the superior attraction. Even Major Clare – and here Emberance’s little bit of self-sufficient fancy was interrupted by a sudden sense of the change in Kate’s ways and manner – she had been sitting over her pretty fancy-work one morning in the drawing-room at Kingsworth, letting her thoughts have their way according as the tossing waves suggested one set of images or the spire of the village church another.
Was Kate really beginning to care for the Major’s dark face, with its nonchalant expression, and quaint dark eyes, and was he at all serious in the constant attention that he was beginning to pay her? Emberance had knowledge enough of the world to think that if so certain side words and glances towards herself had better have been omitted. She was well aware, too, that Katharine had other attractions beside her beaux yeux. Not for any little triumph of her own vanity would she have disturbed “anything real” on its way to Kate; but she was shrewd, and had her doubts of the reality, while Kate’s blushes and consciousness attracted the more attention from her ordinary open and unsentimental manner.
Emberance wondered as she sat and worked, whether such an idea had ever occurred to Mrs Kingsworth. She looked up and watched her aunt as she sat reading – Kate had been sent into another room to perform the hour’s practice which her mother still required of her – and thought that she would try delicately to find out. “Christmas will soon be here, Aunt Mary,” she said, “I am afraid I am much too sorry to go home.”
“My dear, I wish I could keep you over Christmas,” said Mrs Kingsworth, with more warmth than usual. “I don’t know what Katie will do without you. She always pined for a companion, and I am glad she is gratified at last.”
“I shall miss her very much,” said Emberance. “But after all she won’t be quite solitary. There are the Clares, and she likes Minnie very much.”
“Yes, the Clares are ladylike girls, but there are difficulties in close intimacies with strangers.”
“I think,” said Emberance, feeling very doubtful of her ground, “that Kate gets on well with every one. Mr and Miss Deane like her as well as the Clares do, and Minnie was telling me the other day that if ever they made plans for an expedition without us, her uncle was sure to manage for us to be included.”
“Her uncle! Major Clare? Indeed!” said Mrs Kingsworth.
She made no further remark at the moment, but after a pause, during which she turned over no leaf of her book, she said, —
“Major Clare’s leave is a very long one?”
“Yes, he has some months of it yet left, I believe,” returned Emberance. “He met with an accident, you know, and that is why he came home.”
Mrs Kingsworth said no more. The idea that Kate’s future conduct would be hampered by a marriage engagement was a very old one to her; but under the immediate pressure of adjusting her conduct to the difficulties of the situation it had passed out of her mind. Now it returned, and gave a sudden start to her resolution. Fear of disappointment had hitherto held her silent, fear of consequences now urged her to speak. Kate should know all, and her mother would know of what stuff the girl was made at last.
Without saying a word to Emberance, she rose from her seat and went in search of her daughter.
The morning-room in which Kate was had been Mrs Kingsworth’s favourite sitting-room long ago, and was as cheerful a room as any in the house, with white panels and a carved cornice, and long windows that looked towards the village. Kate liked it, and would fain have sat there every day, but it had too many associations for Mrs Kingsworth to endure it.
Kate had left off playing and was standing at the long narrow window looking down the road. Her eyes were absent and dreamy, her figure still; there was a look of repose about her, a content in quiet and inaction that was a new thing. Her rosy cheeks deepened a little in colour and her lips smiled, as much a contrast to the intense purpose in her mother’s pale, clear-cut face, as her blue dress with its girlish fashionable cut, was to the black, soberly made garments which Mrs Kingsworth would never lay aside.
“Katharine.”
“Yes, mamma.”
Kate started, and looked guilty, probably expecting to be reproved for idling.
“I have practised for an hour,” she said.
Mrs Kingsworth sat down and laid her hands together in her lap.
“I have something to say to you,” she began. “I have made up my mind to tell you certain facts which have been hitherto concealed from you.”
Kate looked startled and attentive, and her mother continued.
“You will feel quite sure, Katie, that what I tell you is absolutely true?”
“Oh, yes,” said Kate, surprised at such a question.
“It will be so. I shall not think it right to soften facts because of our relation to those concerned.”
“I want to hear,” said Kate, with a throbbing heart. “Your uncle James,” said Mrs Kingsworth, “was, of course, your grandfather’s natural heir. He was not a well-principled person, and displeased him by debts and other bad habits. My husband was of a steadier nature, and was his father’s favourite. After my marriage I found that in many ways he was James’ enemy, and made the worst of him to his father, whose preference he valued, I believe, from mercenary motives.”
“Mamma!” gasped Kate, with a frightened sob, “Oh, he could not – ”
“I know that he did. James married secretly, and your grandfather conceived the idea that his choice was very discreditable.”
“What – Aunt Ellen?”
“Yes. Your father, though well aware that she was respectably connected and well-conducted, concealed the fact, so that your grandfather, under a false impression, made his will in George’s favour, – in your father’s favour. Do you understand?”
Kate’s answer was unexpected.
“Mother, – how do you know?” she said abruptly, with a sort of instinctive defiance.
“Because after your grandfather’s sudden death, James accused my husband of having received an explanatory letter to lay before his father. I found that letter and read it.”
“Did you ask him?”
“No, Kate, he and his brother were beyond the reach of questions then. Now you know why Kingsworth is hateful to me, and why I have no pleasure in any of the advantages it brings you.”
Poor Kate was stunned and startled, conscious chiefly of the instinctive effort to check a flood of tears.
“But Uncle James was a wicked man,” she said vehemently.
“How does that alter it? Let him have been ever so wicked or ever so weak, he was wronged, he and his child, by your father.”
“Emberance!”
“Emberance. You stand in her place.”
Mrs Kingsworth’s tones were quiet and distinct, she looked intently at Kate, the characters of the old actors in the drama were nothing to her compared to how her child would come out of this terrible test.
Katharine’s shocked, sobbing agitation could not be pitiful to her, it was so welcome as a sign of feeling.
“I don’t believe my father meant it. Oh, mamma, you shouldn’t have thought he meant it,” said the girl at last.
“Kate,” said Mrs Kingsworth, “love never blinded my eyes, and I cannot sacrifice principles to persons. The facts are as I have told you. This property is yours only through a dishonourable action. But for that Emberance would be the heiress of Kingsworth, and you, as my daughter, would still be far enough removed from any chance of poverty.”
“Mamma, do people know!” sobbed Kate at last. – “Do the Clares. – Do people know?”
“I imagine that there was an impression of some scandal: but as there was no question of your father’s legal right, the neighbourhood could only accept the facts. But Kate,” Mrs Kingsworth continued, with more hurry of manner. “I never cared much for what people think. To respect those near to me, is to me the one thing needful. When I found of what my husband was capable, all the charm of life was gone for me. I have tried very hard to bring up my daughter pure from such a taint. You are a free agent, your actions are your own, but oh, Katie! what is there to compare to right and truth?”
The tears gathered in Mrs Kingsworth’s dark eyes, she could hardly command her voice, her whole frame trembled as she felt how inadequate her carefully governed words were to describe the anguish that had come to the proud high-minded girl in the discovery that she had thrown away the love of her youth, the sense of stain and injury that had clung to her ever since, till in her lonely musings the offence against her sense of honour, her conscience had shut out all pity for the offender.
Now she loyally kept her promise to the Canon not to make any suggestion to her daughter, but she felt as if her very life hung on the turn Katharine’s thoughts might take, on what she might say next. But Kate had not come to the point of perceiving that any particular line of action could be expected of her. Her vague misgivings were painfully realised, yet having often experienced her mother’s severe judgment, she took refuge in a sort of instinctive doubt of the truth of her impressions.
“Did – did Uncle James make friends with papa before they were drowned?” she faltered.
“No one can tell,” said Mrs Kingsworth, solemnly. “They went out in the foggy evening, and in the morning they were found at the foot of the rocks, – together. We must live, Kate, under the shadow of that awful doubt. But if the sense of sharing the sin were gone, that I could bear.”
“Mamma, mamma, oh, what can it mean? Oh, I cannot bear, – I cannot bear – ”
She started up to run out of the room, but the shock and the horror were too much for her. She turned helpless and dizzy, and fell half-fainting into her mother’s arms. Mrs Kingsworth was startled into a sudden sense of the present. She called for help, took Kate to her room, and tended her carefully till she was better.
“My poor child,” she said with unusual gentleness, “I did not mean to startle you so much. I forgot the newness of it.”
But Kate turned away from her and hid her face. “Let me alone, mamma,” was all she said, “let me alone.”
Mrs Kingsworth turned away and left the room. She experienced the sort of relief that follows on having reached a long-dreaded crisis. The point in her life had come, and as is often the case, neither of the alternatives which she had expected had taken place. Kate had not shown herself careless and indifferent, nor had she seen at once what Mrs Kingsworth thought of supreme importance, her own share in the responsibility. Would she take refuge in perverse disbelief?
Poor Katharine was hardly conscious of distinct thoughts at all. The horrible tragedy at which her mother had hinted shocked and terrified her. How fearful an ending to the two lives. Under the suspicion of this more terrible crime she could not realise any responsibility for her father’s wrong-doing. The puzzles of her life were all explained now. Her girlhood had passed as in an enchanted sleep, shut in from cares and interests and responsibilities. Now she awoke with the sudden shock, the spell of her unthinking childhood was rudely broken, and the real Katharine came, as it were, to life.
She did not feel her inheritance a burden, nor think herself, at least in those first moments, responsible for her father’s sin. She did not think of ridding herself of her ill-gotten riches, but as the first shock subsided a little it did occur to her that Emberance was wronged. “It ought to be hers,” she said vaguely to herself, and then the thought was swept away by a sense of anger with her mother, “who was so sure papa had been wicked – who did not care if people knew it – oh, did Major Clare know it?” Kate hid her face in her hands and sobbed aloud.
Chapter Twelve
Responsibility
The stir and the running up and down stairs caused by Katharine’s illness at length attracted Emberance’s attention, and she came out of the drawing-room to see what was the matter just as Mrs Kingsworth came down stairs.
“Kate has not been quite well,” she said. “I have been talking to her on very painful subjects, and she has been greatly upset.”
“May I go to her?” said Emberance eagerly.
“Oh, yes; she may be more willing to express her own view of the matter to you than to me. But she showed real feeling.”
Emberance ran up stairs into her cousin’s room. Kate was lying on her back, with her hands twisted together and pressed against her forehead. She was sobbing and overcome with a passion of misery quite beyond her control.
“Oh, Katie, my darling, what is it? Don’t cry so terribly. Tell me what it all means,” cried Emberance, with warm kisses.
Kate threw her arms round her, and buried her face in her neck, till the violent agitation subsided a little, and Kate murmured, “Oh, Emmy, is it true about the drowning? Have you known it – always?”
“We don’t know anything, you know, Katie,” said Emberance gently, “only that there was an accident.”
“But mamma thinks – oh, I don’t know what she thinks.”
“Uncle Kingsworth told me once that it was better not to think about it at all. He said that we had no right to entertain dreadful suspicions of either.”
Emberance spoke very gravely: but with a matter-of-course quietness that was the greatest possible contrast to Kate’s excited horror.
“I shall never forget it! never get it out of my mind! Emmy, does every one know?”
“I suppose they know as much as we do,” said Emberance.
Katharine was silent for a moment, then burst out again. “But Uncle James was wicked – ah, I forgot he is your father – oh it is all dreadful, every way.”
“You see, Kate,” said Emberance, “the way I have got to look on it is this. I expect that neither my father nor yours were exactly – good. Of course it would be much better and happier if we could look back on them as other girls do; but as we can’t, and as it isn’t our fault in any way, why should we let it spoil our lives altogether? We have got our mothers and – and other people to care about, and it’s not our fault.”
“But – mother says that you ought to have all the money, that it ought not to be mine. How could I help that?”
“As to that,” said Emberance resolutely, “I was always determined that all those fancies should not spoil my life. I got quite tired of the subject long ago. Grandfather Kingsworth had a perfect right to do what he liked with the place; and if my father had had it, why Kitty, I don’t think there would have been much left now, and that’s the truth. I am very happy, and so may you be. Don’t think about it at all.”
Emberance’s common sense sounded flat to Katharine’s excited spirits; but the words were consolatory, for she had by no means realised that she could alter the past arrangement by any act of hers. She turned away, and while she coloured to her ears, whispered, “But Emmy, would any one – ever – like girls, with such a story belonging to them?”
“Yes!” cried Emberance, “they would! They do, Kitty. It didn’t make any difference.”
Kate looked up surprised and curious, and Emberance blushed in her turn and laughed. “I mustn’t tell,” she said, “but there wasn’t any occasion to be an heiress, it all came right, and so it will – would – for you.”
“I know now why you don’t mind. I shouldn’t either,” said Kate slowly, after a pause.
She did not ask any more questions, and her agitation subsided; while to her mother’s intense disappointment, she said nothing more of what had passed. She was, however, much altered, and was meek and quiet, clinging much to Emberance during the next few days, and evidently needing her caressing kindness. For Kate had no idea that she had any character for independence to keep up; and as her brusquerie had been perfectly natural, so, with her changed mood was her increased softness.
It so happened that both Major Clare and his nieces were away for a few days; so that the Kingsworths were left much to themselves, and Kate formed and acted on a resolution. She was hardly conscious that she did not fully trust her mother’s views of the past; but she proved that she had some idea of independent judgment and action by writing to her uncle Canon Kingsworth a little letter that much surprised the kind old man. She said, —
“My dear Uncle, —
“Mamma has told me lately all that passed about this property, and also all that she believes about the death of my father and uncle. I think I ought to know all that really happened, that I may know what to think. Will you please tell me?
“I am your loving and dutiful niece,” (Kate had been brought up to old-fashioned respectfulness.)
“Katharine Kingsworth.”
This letter cost the Canon much consideration, and at first he thought that he would answer it in person; but finally decided that the safest way was to leave Kate’s mind to work the matter out for itself, without exposing himself to questions that he might not know how to answer. So after a day or two of suspense, Katharine received the following answer.
“My dear Katharine, —
“I feel deeply for the pain which you are now suffering, and which I am afraid I can in no way lessen; for sin brings sorrow in its train even upon one so innocent as yourself. Your mother has told you doubtless the actual facts, and I earnestly recommend you to draw from them no further inferences; but for your satisfaction I will repeat what passed.
“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.”
