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.”