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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.

“Emmy,” said Kate, suddenly, “there is no need for you to be unhappy any more. Kingsworth ought to be yours, you know, and as soon as I am of age you will have it.”

Emberance, before whom the matter had of course never been discussed, and who was quite ignorant of Mrs Kingsworth’s long-cherished hope, and of all Kate’s recent perplexities, turned round and stared at her in utter amaze. “Why, Kate, are you crazy?” she exclaimed.

“Not at all. Mamma thinks it is yours, and so does Aunt Ellen, and Uncle Kingsworth said I was to make up my own mind. So I have made it up, and now you will have enough money to do whatever you please. Oh, Emmy, I wouldn’t keep it and leave you to want it, for all the world.”

“I won’t agree to such a thing,” cried Emberance, bursting into another flood of tears. “Nothing will persuade me! It is perfectly ridiculous! I hate rights and wrongs. You don’t know what you are saying.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

“I never – never thought of such a thing! I was never jealous of you, Katie, – I always said it was nonsense. I won’t hear of it. There’s a law against it. When people have a thing for seven years it is theirs whoever comes back. People are dead after seven years, you can marry somebody else even?” cried Emberance, incoherently.

“Yes,” said Kate, “it is mine, I know, so I can give it away if I like. I am going to tell Uncle Kingsworth.”

“Katharine! Katharine!”

But Kate ran down stairs, Emberance pursued her, caught her up as she opened the study door, and got the first word as she flew to her uncle.

“Please, uncle, don’t let her do it. Uncle, it is all nonsense; I wouldn’t have it for the world.”

“Uncle Kingsworth, I have decided. I have made up my mind that Emberance must have Kingsworth!”

“Why, girls – why, girls! what in the world does all this mean?” exclaimed the astonished Canon, as he turned round and faced his two nieces; both flushed, and one tearful, and each appealing to him at the same moment.

“Oh, uncle, it is all Kate’s generosity! I wouldn’t hear of it,” cried Emberance.

“It is because I know now that Emberance really wants it, and must be unhappy if she is poor,” said Kate. “And what has brought you to this conclusion?”

“She is engaged, uncle – ”

“Uncle Kingsworth knows,” interposed Emberance, with an effort at dignity. “Mr Mackenzie has lost some money, we have to wait longer than we supposed, – that is all. He can earn his living – and mine – by-and-by.”

“But if she was rich, uncle, Aunt Ellen would let them be married at once. I have decided, I see now that the wrong is real. I couldn’t keep it – and she to be unhappy. Not even if by any chance it may be mine.”

Canon Kingsworth took a hand of each, and looked from one to the other.

“And what do you suppose I mean to do with my money?” he said. “Do you know that you are my heiresses – my next of kin?”

“No,” said Kate, simply.

“Oh, uncle, don’t!” said Emberance; but he saw that she had heard the idea suggested.

“And Emberance has something from her mother and aunt.”

“But you are all alive,” said Kate; “and besides, if it is right – ”

“Right? But that is your mother’s view, my child. It would be ‘right’ if Emberance did not need it.”

“But her needing it has made me see that it mattered about being right,” said Kate gravely.

“I am sure,” said Emberance, “that it would be wrong. Grandpapa did not intend my father to have it all – he never did.”

“No, Emberance, I don’t think he did, and there has always lain my reluctance to your Aunt Mary’s plan. But now listen, both of you. Suppose that Katharine, when she comes of age, were to sell Kingsworth, and divide the money equally, – how would that be?”

Emberance evidently was caught by this idea, though she repeated resolutely, “It is Kate’s, all of it.” While Katharine said, —

“Sell Kingsworth, – ought I? When it was bought back?”

“Well, Katharine, it may be a pity; but it is not especially dear to either of you. It is full of painful memories to your mothers and to me. And, my nieces, having thought much on the vexed question of your rights, I have come to the conclusion that a division is the really equitable plan. You, Katharine, cannot keep it, – you, Emberance, could not take it, without some scruple in your minds. And such an arrangement could be entered into with much less of scandal and publicity than a change between you. Kate would still be a rich woman, and you, Emberance, could fulfil your engagement, if you chose so to bestow yourself, and your portion could make happy the very worthy and disinterested young man, from whom I have just had the pleasure of receiving a letter.”

“From Malcolm, uncle? Did he write to you?”

“Yes; to inform me of his loss of fortune. I saw him, you must know, before he sailed, and I feel a high regard for him.”

“Oh, uncle, – you will say so to mother, – I am so very – very glad,” cried Emberance, clinging to him. “And we can wait. I will not mind it.”

“Well, Katharine,” said the Canon, “does my plan please you?”

“Y-es, yes,” said Kate. “But I should have thought, uncle, that you wouldn’t have considered it respectful to the family.”

“Well, my dear, under present circumstances, I think myself justified in waiving that consideration. Bless me – there’s the luncheon bell. After all, there is nine months for you to consider your conduct in.”

Chapter Eighteen
Of Age

Canon Kingsworth held a long conversation on the same day with Katharine’s mother, in which he endeavoured to win her to his view of the division, – to which she was greatly averse.

“There is no difference in principle,” she said, “between the whole or part. None of it should be Kate’s.”

“Is not your object to heal an old sore, – to make an old wrong right? and will that be so well done by putting Emberance into a place which she on her side could never feel to be indubitably her own, – as by this arrangement which will give her all she needs without imposing on her an intolerable sense of obligation?”

“Oh, let us once be free, and I do not care what she feels about it,” said Mrs Kingsworth vehemently.

“But, apparently, Katharine does.”

Mrs Kingsworth was silent for a moment, then she said, “Emberance has no cause for gratitude or sense of obligation. So far as I am concerned, I have never considered her in the matter. You think I have been hard towards her.”

“No, Mary, I don’t say that. Different natures must learn their lessons in a different way. Your sense of honour has enabled you to carry out your purpose of restoration, while Kate’s kindly feeling and loving nature has taught her to see that your principles are worth putting in practice. But, my dear Mary, would poor James himself, would any one concerned, find it as hard as you have done to think with charity of your husband’s memory?”

“I never have – I know that I never have,” said Mrs Kingsworth, with irrepressible tears. “I cannot forgive him. I could have borne a whole sea of troubles better than the need of despising him, – he disgraced me. But I endeavoured to find the only comfort, and in some measure – I have.”

She paused, and then added slowly and with difficulty, “I know that I have made many mistakes in judgment, – I misunderstood Kate. Perhaps – perhaps I have thought too much of my own pride. – I am very slow to perceive myself in fault – Perhaps George too, if he had lived – I will endeavour to remember how much I myself have fallen short.”

“My dear child,” said the old Canon, drawing her towards him and kissing her brow.

“Katie has been truly unselfish,” she added. “I think – I think she is a good girl, and I am willing to leave her to your guidance in this matter.”

And probably no greater self-conquest was achieved in regard to the whole matter than Mary Kingsworth’s in these last words.

She went presently in search of Katharine, who had just returned from a walk with her cousins, during which both she and Emberance had done their best to appear as if nothing particular was occupying their minds. She was in her room taking off her hat as her mother came behind her, and putting her hands on her shoulders, kissed her brow.

“Katie,” she said, with unusual gentleness, “I have agreed that it will be better to leave the arrangement to your uncle. And, my dear, I think I have done you injustice. You have been hardly tried, and I should have been more thankful for the aid your affection for Emberance has given you. We shall do better together now.”

“Oh, mamma,” cried Kate, clinging to her, “I have been a naughty girl, and thought of nothing but enjoying myself. But mamma, if you knew, – I did try once, I did tell the truth when it was very hard.”

“How, my dear?”

“Major Clare, mamma. I told him that perhaps I meant to give it up to Emberance – and then – he never said any more. I thought I must tell him.”

“Major Clare! Ah, I have been very unlike a mother. My poor little girl – have you had this to bear? such a cruel form of disappointment.”

“I have quite got over it,” said Kate seriously; “I was too young, I think, to know my own mind really.”

A vivid blush dyed her face, and her eyes, which had been frankly lifted, dropped as she spoke – as if some new consciousness came over her.

Mrs Kingsworth lingered, watching her; she thought naturally of Walter and his hopes, and wondered what he would say now the important matter was decided.

But nothing was to be said of it openly, and nothing of course could be done until Katharine came of age in the ensuing January. The hopes which Canon Kingsworth could hold out in his kind and cheering answer to Malcolm Mackenzie’s letter were of the vaguest; and Emberance, still insisting that Kate could settle nothing yet, would have no word said to her mother until the deed was actually done. Nor did Walter consider himself justified in trying to gain her promise until the important birthday was passed.

On the 15th of the next January, at Kingsworth itself, Katharine was to make her final decision, and until then, where were she and her mother to go? Kate professed herself quite willing to return to Applehurst; but she had rather not pass the intervening months at Kingsworth, where every one supposed that her birthday would make her entirely mistress. Mr and Mrs Kingsworth, of Silthorpe, sent them a very warm invitation to visit them in the North; and it was finally agreed that this should be accepted; after which they would go abroad for two or three months, and spend the autumn and winter at Applehurst.

This programme was faithfully carried out. Kate enjoyed Silthorpe, and saw a great deal of Walter, though she made no further attempt to confide in him. He was very kind, and planned all sorts of schemes for her pleasure; but she was a little troubled by the sort of distance between them, and spent much time in secretly wondering whether Walter liked her as much as ever, or if her impulsive childishness on their first acquaintance had not repelled him.

On the other hand she made quick strides in friendship with all his family, and liked them better than any people she had ever seen. She carried a sense of unrest and unsettlement abroad with her, the uncomfortable feeling of a crisis in the air, and afterwards, in the slow weeks at Applehurst, her chief feeling was of longing for the deed to be done. Her own desire was that she and her mother should take a house at Fanchester. There would be society and companionship and a life that would be far pleasanter to live than either Applehurst or Kingsworth.

“If you still wish it, after your birthday, Katie,” said her mother. “It is not a bad plan.”

But no one would help her to lay plans for anything after the fifteenth of January.

“It is like the end of the world. Shall I be anybody at all when to-morrow is over?” she thought to herself as they journeyed towards Kingsworth, whither the Canon and his wife had preceded them by a few days, and where Emberance was to meet them.

It was fine, clear winter weather, frosty and bright. The sea was sparkling in the sunrise when Katharine looked out on it on the morning of her birthday. The blue water, the frosty slopes of the park looked their best and fairest, as the bells of Kingsworth Church rang out a merry peal in honour of Miss Kingsworth’s coming of age. A feeling of unreality came over Kate, it was as if she were going to take a part in a play. She put on her best dress, and went down stairs as the breakfast bell rang. Then there were kisses and congratulations. The Canon gave Kate a pretty necklace, Emberance some girlish piece of handiwork, Rosa and Minnie Clare had sent her a book.

“I forgot to get you a present, Katie,” said her mother. “You must choose afterwards.”

“Afterwards!” thought Kate. “Then there will be an afterwards.”

They sat down to breakfast; the Canon talked politics, and Emberance replied with a manifest sense of the propriety on her part of appearing unconscious of a crisis. Kate spoke now and then. Her mother was absolutely silent.

When the meal was over there was a pause, as if no one quite knew what to do next.

“Well, Katharine,” said the Canon, “you are queen of the day, how are we to spend it?”

“I wish,” said Kate, “that every one should hear what I want to say. If you please, uncle, come into the drawing-room.”

She took the lead, she hardly knew why herself, and as they gathered round the drawing-room fire, she stood a little apart and spoke.

“I wish to sell Kingsworth, and to divide the money that is paid for it with Emberance. I don’t think that it is quite mine or quite hers, and I believe that it is right to divide it, and that it will make us both happier if we do.”

Emberance burst into tears as a sort of hush went through the listening circle.

“Have you taken time to consider this resolution?” asked the Canon.

“Yes, nine months.”

“And you come to it entirely of your own free will, unbiased by my suggestions or your mother’s?”

“Yes, I do. I mean to do it.”

Canon Kingsworth took her by the hand and drew her towards him.

“Why?” he said simply, “why do you mean to do it?”

“Because it will make Emberance happy.”

“That is hardly sufficient motive,” said the Canon, hushing Emberance with a sign.

“Yes,” said Kate, “because when she was unhappy for want of it, it showed me that the unfair settlement really set our lives wrong. And perhaps my father would have made it all right in a day or two more, so I do it instead.”

“But why do you not give Emberance the whole?”

“Because that would make her feel as uncomfortable about it as I do now, and because she – she couldn’t live at Kingsworth.”

“And shall not you regret this place, which you have the means to keep up well? So much of my father’s earnings was spent on Kingsworth, that it came as a barren honour to your grandfather, whose means were still further impoverished afterwards, but your mother’s fortune would make you a rich woman with Kingsworth, Kate, a great lady. Shall you not regret it?”

“Yes,” said Kate, with perfect straightforwardness, “I shall be rather sorry for it, but not enough to matter.”

“She has said her catechism well,” said the Canon. “She knows her own mind and her own motives. Now, Katharine, there is one more question you must answer, that no cloud may ever rest on the future. Has your cousin Emberance ever expressed any regret at her own exclusion, shown you any jealousy, or attempted to influence your feelings?”

“Uncle, how dare you ask such a wicked question?” cried Kate, vehemently. “No, no, no! Emberance has always loved me. Oh, Emmy, you know you never did,” and breaking from her uncle, she ran to Emberance, and threw her arms round her, whispering “Emmy, don’t cry, don’t cry, – you will be happy now.”

“I will speak on my side,” cried Emberance, sobbing, “I would rather have cut my tongue out. So would my mother. I love Kate. I only agree because of what you told me, uncle.”

“Tut, tut,” said the Canon, “the whole point is settled now.”

“Except a purchaser,” said Katharine’s mother. “Will it not be long before we find one?”

“Well,” said the Canon, “to tell you the truth I have heard of a possible purchaser, – of a gentleman who would like to have the place if it were in the market.”

“Who is it? What is his name?” asked Kate, eagerly.

“Why, he is a gentleman of some fortune, and his name, – I don’t think my man of business was very particular about his name. I, of course, could not entertain the proposal, but his name – his name, I think, is James.”

“Mr James, – oh!” said Katharine, “that doesn’t sound interesting.”

“It is a very good name, my dear,” said the Canon, mildly. “Well, then there will be many troublesome legal formalities, but I consider that I have Katharine’s permission to put the matter in train.”

“Yes, uncle,” said Kate, as all being glad to end the interview, there was a general move.

“Canon,” said his wife, “I am ashamed of you.”

“Well, my dear,” said the Canon, “his name is James, you know.”

The two girls went off together; Kate coaxing Emberance to tell her about Malcolm and to make plans for the future, and Emberance falling into a terror, as the idea struck her that her mother would regard Malcolm with more unfavourable eyes than ever, now she was possessed of this fortune. Still she thought that with the powerful backing up of the Canon this difficulty might be overcome, and in truth her uncle had made it his business to ascertain that the New Zealand cousins were solvent, prosperous persons, and that there would be no undue risk in a connection with them. He would write to Malcolm Mackenzie, and give him leave to bring matters to a point. All this had been settled with Emberance in a conversation before they left Fanchester, when she had convinced her uncle that Malcolm and New Zealand were and would be her deliberate and unalterable choice. Meanwhile, Mrs Kingsworth, restless from a sense of relief which she could not realise, and bewildered by the apparent ease with which her long-cherished object had been attained, put on her things, and went out for a walk. A curious desire seized her to look round the place once more, now that it was freed from the sense of wrong-doing, that had made it hateful to her. She had done her best not to look, not to see, when she had been there before; but now she looked about her with an odd sort of curiosity, as she turned her steps for the first time down towards the shore.

“Mamma doesn’t like the rocks,” Kate had been wont to say, perhaps with a sort of fancy that her mother’s age made it natural that she should not care for scrambling. But it was with steps light and active as Katharine’s own that Mrs Kingsworth made her way down to the fatal cove, where she had never been since her husband’s death.

She looked round about her with a sense of awe and of compassion for the two young lives that had there been sacrificed, with an earnest endeavour to lay her hard thoughts to sleep, and to forgive if she could never forget the past. Her eyes filled with tears, she thought thankfully of Kate’s honest generosity, and resolved to try for a better understanding with her for the future, not to misjudge the natural girlish spirits, which had so long passed away from herself.

Suddenly she became aware that she was not alone, but that a fisher-woman was standing beside her, looking at her keenly.

“If you please, ma’am,” the new comer said, “I am Alice Taylor.”

“I do not know what you can have to say to me, Alice,” said Mrs Kingsworth, surprised. “Do not think I should bring up again anything that is past and gone.”

“I want you to say, ma’am, what made you think as I took they earrings,” said Alice, sturdily.

“I do not think I quite remember the details, they were swept out of my memory by the events that followed. Were they not found in the nursery?”

“Yes, ma’am; but it was Eliza put them there. Eliza the housemaid. We quarrelled over a young man, ma’am. My husband he is now, and I did not take your earrings. I didn’t indeed.”

“Well, Alice,” said Mrs Kingsworth after a moment, “if so you have been greatly wronged, and I believe you speak the truth. Would you like me to talk to Mr Clare about you?”

“Well it’s hard to have a bad name, and they earrings stuck by me. But now, ma’am, ’tis I that have something to tell you. When I was sent away that night, I didn’t dare go home to father, and I made up my mind I’d get off in the morning to my aunt at Whitecliff. So I waited about on the shore, just here where we stand, ma’am, and all to once I heard voices above over there, and some one called out, ‘James, come away, we’re close to the cliff. Come away or there’ll be an end.’ Then I heard Mr James’ voice, ‘Which way? Where are we? Stand still.’ And then there was an awful cry and a splash in the water, and I screamed and screeched for help, but no one came, and the fog was too thick to see, and at last I got away round the corner and along the beach to Whitecliff. But I knew what we should hear in the morning.”

“Oh, Alice, we would have paid with our heart’s blood for your story,” cried Mrs Kingsworth. “Then it was pure accident; they would have saved each other if they could! Oh come, come, tell Canon Kingsworth.”

“I was afraid of being took up for the earrings,” said Alice, “and frightened and scared out of my wits, and Mr James was one who had a word for one one day and for another the next, – but now, the tale’s worth something, may be, and I’ll come.”