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.”