"The Aim of a Life" (continued 2)

A pause in Katharine’s reflections as she watched the gulls dipping into the water and floating upwards again towards the clouds, then—

“I suppose girls who have been all brought up together are much more amusing and know much better what to say than I do. I wonder—I wonder—if Major Clare observed any difference when he walked home with us yesterday from the Vicarage—”

“Why, Kate, are you actually here by yourself?” said Emberance, descending on her from the park above. “That is something unusual.”

“It is rather nice to sit and think a little sometimes,” said Kate.

“Well, I think so; but you never seem to have much to think about,” said Emberance sitting down by her side.

“Why shouldn’t I have as much to think about as you?”

Emberance laughed, a little conscious laugh, and a pretty blush came over her face.

“I don’t think you have, Kitty.”

“I do think,” said Kate, “only there is so much to do. I think what it will be like when I can spend my money as I please. I suppose when I am twenty-one mamma will not be able to prevent me.”

“I suppose not,” said Emberance a little drily.

“But, Emmy, don’t you think it would be just as proper for me to wear a jacket trimmed with fur, as for Miss Deane at Mayford?” said Katharine with great emphasis.

“Of course, why not? Why don’t you get one? That black cloth is rather shabby. I would have a fur jacket if I could afford it directly.”

Katharine looked at her and the colour rose a little in her face.

“Mamma looked at me,” she said, “when I asked her about it, and said in her slow way, ‘It would cost a great deal. Your cousin has not one.’ And then, Emmy, I said, I supposed that I—that mamma had more money than Aunt Ellen—and so—”

“So you might get one. Of course, Kitty, don’t blush about it,” said Emberance kindly. “I shan’t be jealous.”

“But,” said Katharine, “mamma looked at me and the tears came into her eyes, and she said, as if she hated me, ‘So you can enjoy pleasures your cousin does not share,’ and went away.”

“That was very hard on you, Kate,” said Emberance warmly. “Aunt Mary should not have said so. Never mind, let us go in presently and talk about jackets, and I’ll tell her I have some seal-skin trimming at home quite good. I don’t want a new jacket.”

Katharine threw her arms round her cousin and kissed her with an odd sense of gratitude.

“Dear, dear Emmy, I should like you to have one too,” she said. “When I am twenty-one I’ll give you one.”

“Do,” said Emberance laughing, “and trim it with grey fur. What a funny little child you are, Kitty!”

“Emberance,” said Kate suddenly, “I never thought about it before. We are cousins. Why am I rich instead of you?”

“Because grandpapa left Kingsworth to your father and not to mine,” said Emberance turning her head away with a sudden stiffness.

“Why?” said Kate.

“I don’t quite know.”

“Was he the eldest?”

“No,” said Emberance reluctantly.

“Then, mamma thinks it wasn’t fair,” cried Kate with sudden quickness of apprehension.

“Nonsense, Kitty, it is all over and done with now, and can’t be altered. It is no concern of ours, and I am sure I am very happy; let us talk of something else. What did you think of Major Clare?”

“Oh, he was very entertaining, he told me a long story about a tiger, and he is going to give Minnie a necklace made of its teeth. It seems odd that Mr Clare’s brother should be so young. And I like Mr Alfred Deane, too. Do you think they’ll dance with us if we go to the ball?”

“Very likely.”

“Do you like dancing?”

“Oh very much indeed, I hope we shall go,” said Emberance with involuntary heartiness, and then the thought crossed her, that an engaged girl, with a lover at the Antipodes, ought not to be elated at the thought of going to a ball.

But Emberance was very simple and natural, and though the ball would have been finer if her Robin had been there (by the way Malcolm Mackenzie hated dancing,) she could not regard it wholly with indifference.

It had been much under discussion, Mrs Kingsworth having wished to refuse Mrs Deane’s invitation, and Kate naturally being equally in favour of accepting it, and indeed vehemently angry at being deprived of the pleasure. Every day seemed to Mrs Kingsworth to make it plainer that her view of Kate’s selfishness and frivolity was right. Every day the girl seemed to her a less likely person to sacrifice pleasure and self-importance to the highest sense of right; every day she felt that she could not tell her her wishes without the chance of bitter mortification. And so she was cold to Kate, and the girl who was inconsiderate and selfish from want of knowledge of other people’s views, opposed her more and more.

Emberance did not of course know that her aunt meditated a great act of restitution, but she perceived that she regarded her as an injured person, and having always heard her mother call her Aunt Mary a usurper, it came with a great surprise to her to find Aunt Mary of the same opinion. She perceived, too, how Katharine always appeared in a less amiable light to her mother than to any one else, how the frank caresses and innocent gaiety that made her a favourite among her friends, were chilled and repressed by the dread of criticism.

On this occasion as the two girls came back to the house together, Emberance said,—

“You should not be so vehement about gaieties in talking to Aunt Mary, Kitty; she thinks you care for nothing else.”

“But how can I help being vehement when I feel so?” said Katharine, opening her round eyes; “and I do care immensely about the ball.”

“So do I; but still one ought not to be frivolous, and you might show a little more interest in other things.”

“But Emmy,” said Kate, “I don’t think I have found out yet what sort of things I do like.”

Emberance laughed and desisted, a little ashamed of having suggested a prudential motive, when she saw how entirely it failed of being understood.

“I suppose,” she said, “that seeing all the neighbours here, reminds Aunt Mary of old times, and makes her sad. We ought to remember that.”

Kate looked a little impatient.

“That was so very long ago,” she said, as she ran into the house, and opened the drawing-room door.

Mrs Kingsworth was writing a note. “Katharine, I have accepted Mrs Deane’s invitation,” she said.

“Have you? Oh, mamma, that’s lovely of you!” cried Kate. “I never, never could have borne to stay at home.”

“Thank you, Aunt Mary, we did wish very much to go,” said Emberance.

“I suppose you did,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Your uncle thought that I ought to take you, and he wishes to give you your dresses for the occasion.”

“Oh, how very kind!” cried Emberance, with an immediate sense of delightful provision for many a Fanchester gaiety, beyond the special occasion, while Kate danced about the room, without a care for the future.

The white dresses, with white heather and fern leaves, promised to be equally becoming to Kate’s vivid roses and chestnut locks, and to her cousin’s blush-rose fairness and slender grace; and though Emberance was far the handsomer girl of the two, Katharine’s chances were doubtless balanced by her heirship.

“I do hope I shall get some partners,” she said energetically, one day, when the two girls had gone to play lawn-tennis at the Vicarage. “I hope I shall dance every dance.”

“Will you dance with me, Miss Kingsworth?” said Fred Clare, a youth of eighteen, at home, in an interval between school and college.

“Oh, yes,” said Kate, heartily. “I should like to dance the first dance with you, because I can dance easily with you; and perhaps I shall not be able to manage it with strange partners.”

“Fred, Fred, this is too bad,” said his uncle. “You take an unfair advantage of your opportunities. Miss Kingsworth, is Fred to be the only one to obtain a promise beforehand?”

Major Clare was a handsome man of thirty, tall, dark-haired, and sunburnt, fulfilling very fairly a girl’s ideal of an Indian officer. He had a pleasant laugh in his eyes, and a touch of satire not quite so pleasant in his voice; and his elder brother the Vicar, and still more the Vicar’s wife, found him rather an incongruous element in the clerical household. Not that he was otherwise than perfectly decorous and well-conducted, or in the eyes of his relations other than a proper suitor for the heiress of Kingsworth, supposing his inclinations turned that way; but somehow under his influence, lawn-tennis, boating, and other amusements usurped a good deal more than their usual share of the family life. Fred, Minnie, and the younger ones were only too ready to follow his lead, and Rose, the eldest daughter, who was more soberly inclined, was cross because studies and parish work were neglected, and if she maintained some order, diminished the harmony of the family circle. But the Major had no other home, and did not seem at present inclined to dispose of himself elsewhere.

Katharine blushed at his remark, and said with a little restraint,—

“Oh, no, I should be very glad to dance with any one.”

“For how many balls will you retain so much humility?” said Major Clare, laughing. “Let me take advantage of it while it lasts, and ask for two dances.”

Kate assented, but she looked a little uncomfortable, and as a general move towards the lawn-tennis ground enabled her to speak to him apart, she said,—

“Major Clare, I did not mean to ask you to ask me to dance just now.”

Major Clare looked at her with a slight air of amusement. “What has made you think of that?” he said.

“Well, I think Emberance looked at me,” said the candid Kate.

“I should not have thought your cousin’s eyes so formidable.”

Something was added about the charm of simplicity, which Katharine was not quite sure whether she liked or not; but, enough consciousness was awakened to add a touch of excitement to her preparations for her first ball.

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.

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.”

“No; I didn’t think about that at all. But I was puzzled and ashamed.”

“No—no,” he said eagerly, “you must not feel as if you were guilty. What chance have you had, a child—and kept ignorant of it all—of feeling the wrong or doing anything to rectify it?”

“Rectify it? How could I? It is all done.”

Walter could have bitten his tongue out for his imprudence.

“Oh, I did not mean to make a suggestion,” he said hurriedly.

“Every one means something they will not say. What? do you mean that I could give it back to Emberance?”

“No—no—I meant nothing. I have no right to say anything of the kind to you.”

“But you can tell me what you would do in my place. Could you give it up? would you give it up?”

“I don’t know. How can I tell how I should act under such a trial?” said Walter, feeling himself in a great scrape.

“But do you think a good person would give it up? Would that make it all right again? Walter, I will know if you think it would be right.”

“Well, yes, for myself—for a perfectly independent agent—I think I should not find much satisfaction in keeping it—I hope not. But a lady—that is perhaps different.”

“Why!” said Kate, to his great surprise, as her mother’s step sounded, “that would be very easy! I did not know that I could!”

Chapter Thirteen.

The Real Sacrifice.

Major Clare sat by the fire in his brother’s study at the Vicarage, smoking a cigar, and reflecting on the course of events. He had gone from home with a half intention of delaying that course of events, and he had returned with another half intention of precipitating it.

With much affection on both sides, he was getting tired of his stay at the Vicarage, and his brother’s family were perhaps beginning to feel that they had suited all their arrangements to him for a long enough time.

“It would be such a good thing for Robert to marry and settle,” and Robert himself thought so too. It was many a long year since that great unsettlement had come to him when things had gone wrong with his first hopes, and he could not have the girl he wanted. He had tried to fall in love several times since, and he was trying now, moved certainly by Kate’s fair fortune, and yet not quite mercenary enough to be indifferent to the want of spontaneous pleasure in his wooing. If either face could have recalled to him that never-forgotten one, it would not have been Kate’s. He had idly wished that the cousins would change places in the beginning of their acquaintance, but he could not allow himself to wish it now; and had indeed fully made up his mind to the piece of good fortune that seemed to have fallen at his feet—only, he was not in a hurry to secure it. Nevertheless it was dull, and he should like to see Kate blush and brighten at the sight of him.

So he discovered that Minnie wanted to go up to Kingsworth, and prepared to escort her thither.

Walter Kingsworth meanwhile had been seized with a fit of compunction and alarm, at the idea he had suggested to the unprepared mind of his cousin; the lawyer and the man of business awoke within him, as he reflected on the responsibility he had incurred in driving to a hasty resolution a girl so inexperienced as Kate.

He reflected on this, it is to be feared, all through the afternoon service to which he accompanied his cousins, and afterwards as they walked along the road till their ways divided, he caught a chance of saying,—

“Miss Kingsworth, you must not suppose I meant to say that any special line of conduct is incumbent on you. So imperfectly knowing the circumstances, how can I judge?”

“You can’t put the idea out of my head, now that you have put it in, cousin Walter,” said Kate, with blunt gravity. “But I shall not be of age for thirteen months, so I have plenty of time to think about it.”

And she did think about it with a new reticence that proved her to be, after all, her mother’s daughter. Slowly she recognised that she must make her own decision, that she did stand alone. She read her uncle’s letter over again, and saw that it was framed so as not to exclude the possibility of any decision. She was still child enough not to care very much about the position she would sacrifice, “for I might make mamma promise not to go back to Applehurst,” she thought, but the view that came to her most forcibly, perhaps from a sort of unconscious opposition to the pressure of her mother’s feelings, was that by declaring herself the false heiress, she might be doing a wrong to her father’s memory. “It would make people sure he had cheated, and perhaps, after all, he did not,” she thought, and then suddenly there came over her hard struggle for wisdom and sense, a thought so sweet, so absorbing, that all her trouble seemed to melt away in the warmth of it. If Major Clare were her lover, then he would know what was right. If she could tell him—poor Kate’s heart went out with a yearning longing desire, and it never struck her then that in honour, he ought to be told of her doubts if ever in real truth he were her lover. Never—till in some novel that she was reading, the plot turned on such a concealment. “Should I be a ‘villain’ if I didn’t tell him that perhaps I mean to give it up?” she thought. “Dear me, I had no idea how easy it was to be wicked! How he would despise me!”

Poor Katharine had not much notion of that other and Higher Counsel, which her uncle’s letter had advised her to seek. She had been taught to be dutiful and reverent; but it did not occur to her that “saying her prayers” would help her in her present trouble, though as she scrupulously asked in the unaltered language of her childhood to be “made good,” and helped to obey her mother, she found perhaps more guidance than she knew.

And then Major Clare came back, and in the glow and brightness of his increased attention, Kate was too happy to think of anything else, definitely or long. Emberance was wide awake now, and scrupulously careful not to interfere, and as Minnie and Rosa Clare were equally on the alert, opportunities did not lack. To go to the Vicarage and help to cover books for the Lending Library was a piece of parochial usefulness that even Mrs Kingsworth could not forbid to her young ladies, and if Uncle Bob did hang about with his newspaper, till he finally discarded it, and pasted and papered, with a firmness and handiness astonishing to the young ladies, it could only be regarded as good nature to his nieces—nay, between dining-room and drawing-room, mixing paste and getting afternoon tea, if a tête-à-tête could have been avoided, at least it did not seem unnatural.

Not unnatural, only intensely important, more important than anything in the world to Kate, and strangely silencing and embarrassing to the Major, as he looked at the little figure kneeling on the hearth-rug, stroking the Vicarage cat, with the firelight reddening and brightening her hair, and the uncertain light or her uncertain feeling, softening her fresh rosy face.

“Well,” said Major Clare, “I never thought to paste my fingers in Rosa’s service.”

“You paste better than any of us.”

“Masculine superiority?”

“I suppose so,” said the straightforward Kate.

“Do you think it has been a very dull day?” said Major Clare, coming nearer, and leaning his arms on the mantelpiece, “though we have been employed in such a dull occupation?”

“I haven’t been dull at all.”

“Nor I. Kate, do you think I have been pasting books to please Rosa?”

“Haven’t you?”

“No, indeed—shall I tell you what brought me? shall I tell you what I hope may be the end of a wandering homeless life?”

She looked up with that in her eyes, which, had he met them, must have brought the scene to a point at once, and given it a very different ending. But he was looking into the fire, and went on with a sort of sense that explanation was her due—went on talking of himself. “There has always been a great want in my life, and I’m grown old. I want to tell you something that a younger fellow would have got out in half the time. Has a battered old soldier any right to think his story would interest you?”

“I don’t think you’re old,” said Kate, abruptly, “but I ought, I want to tell you something first.”

Poor child, in the last word she showed that she understood him, as half with a longing for his counsel, half with a sense of honour towards himself, she said, “You know, I suppose, all the story about my father and Emberance’s.”

“I do not care a straw for old scandals.”

“They’re not scandals, at least mamma says it is true. So I am not sure if when I come of age—I ought not to give it back—I haven’t decided. But they say it is mine only through—a cheat.”

“Who has filled your mind with such a ridiculous scruple?” exclaimed the Major in rather unloverlike tones.

“No one, but I haven’t decided, only if I do decide that Kingsworth ought to belong to Emberance, I shall give it to her. That’s all.”

She spoke with a blunt simplicity, that jarred on Major Clare. If she had been woman enough to care for him, he thought she could not have checked his love tale with her scruple. She paused, half choked with the effort of speaking, and a sudden whirl of temptation seized the Major’s soul—Emberance! Emberance the heiress! What then? What did the child mean? Was there a flaw in her title? He hesitated and was silent, and forgot that the child was a woman after all, though in her very simplicity unable to understand a doubt.

She saw the test that she had never meant for a test, tell its tale. She knew the sacrifice that honour demanded, she knew how she must suffer for her father’s sin.

“He only cared for Kingsworth!” she thought, “he doesn’t love me!” and without giving Major Clare a moment’s time to achieve the self-conquest, on which he would probably have resolved, without letting him adjust his thoughts or his feelings, she sprang up from the hearth-rug.

“You needn’t tell me the rest of your story now. I don’t want to hear any more of it. I shall go to tea,” and she fled from him before he could say a word. She threw away her chance, where an older or more prudent woman would have kept it. The question was if it were worth keeping. He did not rush after her, and catch her, and silence all her doubts with one vehement protest, but he stamped his foot with anger at her impatience and want of confidence, and believed that he would have been true to her had she given him the chance.

Kate rushed into the drawing-room because it was the easiest way of escape from him, and not till she was there in the midst of the group of girls did she become conscious that she was trembling, and almost sobbing, hardly able to make a pretence of composure.

“Where’s Uncle Bob?” said Minnie.

Kate murmured something about the dining-room. Emberance glanced at her, and said,—

“Kitty, we mustn’t stay for tea, it is so dark, let us go home. Come,—come and put your hat on.”

Rosa and Minnie were not so utterly devoid of expectation that “something might have happened,” as to offer any objection to this proposal, and Kate hurried away with scarcely a word of farewell. She sped along the lane, still in silence, and Emberance thought it better not to speak to her, though much at a loss to know what could have passed. Surely no happy emotion could take such a form as this, such bitter sobs could not come of any mere excitement and agitation.

“Kitty, my darling,” she said at length, “what has happened to you?”

Kate turned round on her, and said passionately and bitterly,—

“Nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“No—but oh! I hate myself, and despise myself! I wish I could drown myself,” cried Katharine in her agony. “Have you quarrelled with Major Clare?”

“No!”

“Refused him?”

“No—oh no!” cried Kate, “never, never speak about him any more.”

Her grief was so violent, and in its free expression seemed so childish, that Emberance had no scruple in following her to her room, and in trying to soothe and comfort her; and for some minutes Kate sat with her head on her cousin’s lap, and sobbed as if her heart would break. At last she seemed to gather herself together, ceased crying, and sat up, gazing into the fire with a strange dreary look, as the quivering mouth grew still and set itself into harder lines.

“Emmy,” she said, “I’ve been a silly girl. He doesn’t care for me, he liked Kingsworth.”

“I don’t think you have been at all silly in thinking Major Clare liked you. Any one would have thought so,” said Emberance, warmly.

Kate turned and kissed her, while Emberance went on.

“But how can you tell—how can you possibly tell that he doesn’t really care about you? What makes you think so?”

“I don’t think I can tell you,” said Kate; “but I do know that he meant—meant to marry me because—I was rich. No, I cannot tell you how I found it out.”

“Oh, Kitty, are you sure? I don’t think it can have been all that.”

“Well, it is enough if it was partly that,” said Kate disdainfully, “I will never listen to him any more.” Emberance was puzzled, she could not tell how the discovery had come about, and moreover, she guessed that the facts were more complicated than Kate supposed. She saw that Kate was angry, and sore, and miserable, full of pain and disappointment; but she doubted if the very depths of her heart had been touched, thinking that if so, she would have been more ready to find excuses for her lover.

“Kate,” she said, “sometimes I have felt doubtful whether Major Clare was quite in earnest. I think he is rather a flirt, do you know?”

“No, he is a fortune-hunter,” said Kate, with great decision. She cried again as she spoke. It was a bitter experience even if it might have been bitterer still.

“Mamma is right,” she said, “it is hateful to be rich or to care about it.”

She kept her secret, Emberance could not tell what had passed, and Kate never told her, and never talked about her disappointment any more. She held her tongue, and felt brave and strong in her anger. Her mother hoped that the change in her ways showed that she was reflecting on her position altogether, and Kate said no word, not even when she heard that Major Clare had gone away on another visit. She was too straightforward to have expected him to try again to “deceive her,” as she called it; but as she stood alone, and looked out towards the Vicarage, there came over the poor child all in a minute the weariest feeling of wishing that he had. There came to her a moment, when if Major Clare had been beside her and spoken tenderly to her again, she would not have cared about asking the reason, would not, could not have turned away,—a moment when all her scruples seemed utterly valueless, compared to the love that they had cost her. Kate could not know that the sick pain of that hour of ungratified yearning was a light price to pay for the inheritance of her mother’s honesty which had saved her from her mother’s fate.

Chapter Fourteen.

Mother and Daughter.

Major Clare did not come back to the Vicarage, and Minnie and Rosa ceased to talk much of him to their friend. Katharine never knew with what explanation he had satisfied his family as to the cessation of their intercourse, nor for that matter did his nieces, while “She won’t do, Charley, I can’t work it this time,” had been the brief explanation with which he had disappointed his brother’s hopes on his behalf. The Vicar feared that Miss Kingsworth must be disappointed, and his daughters were sure of it, as they observed the change in Kate’s girlish gaiety. After much debate as to whether matters had gone far enough for a word or two of explanation to be Katharine’s due, Mrs Clare, a kind gentle person, resolved on confiding to Emberance the story of Major Clare’s youthful disappointment, as the kindest way to both parties of accounting for his supposed vacillation, ending with, “You see, my dear, he never can forget poor Alice, who was made to refuse him because of his poor prospects. And then his manners are so engaging.”

“I think,” said the prudent Emberance, with due regard for her cousin’s dignity, “that Katharine found out the nature of Major Clare’s attentions for herself. I don’t think he altered or dropped them. I believe her mind is quite made up. And she is very young. I don’t at all think Aunt Mary would wish her to many yet,” concluded Emberance, as if she had been Kate’s maiden aunt at least.

Mrs Clare, a little embarrassed, murmured something about “a little passing experience,” and Emberance, after some hesitation, decided on telling Kate what had been said.

“Oh yes,” said Kate, quietly, “I know all about that Alice; he told me—once, just down by Widow Sutton’s gate, when we were gathering the last blackberries. He said—other things—I don’t want to repeat them.”

“Dear Kitty, I hope you won’t be very dull and unhappy, after I have gone.”

“I suppose I shall be unhappy,” said Kate, “there’s plenty to make me so.”

She cried a little as she spoke, in a half melancholy, half impatient way.

“But you’ll come after Christmas and stay with Uncle Kingsworth, and then we shall see each other again?”

“Oh yes, and I shall be as tired of Kingsworth as I used to be of Applehurst. Nothing turns out well for mamma and me.”

Indeed, when Emberance, reluctantly enough, went home for Christmas, Katharine felt as if all the unsatisfactoriness of the old Applehurst life had returned, added to the new dreariness that hung over Kingsworth.

Strange puzzle, while the mother sat longing and praying that her child might have strength to sacrifice her worldly prospects to her sense of truth, the daughter felt that the sacrifice had all been made already, and that to push the burden away would be likely to come in the light of a relief.

She had lost her lover, and had in fact discovered that she had never inspired him with any real affection; and life with her mother at Kingsworth seemed but a dreary prospect. She hated the responsibilities in which she was involved, and was altogether vexed, disappointed and unhappy.

But perhaps the very fact that life had opened to her in so many aspects all at once, had prevented one of them from being utterly overpowering. Her feelings had not had time to become full grown, and as she read a story of an utterly heart-broken maiden, she thought to herself,—

“After all, I don’t feel quite like this.”

And happily, it never occurred to Kate that it was a pity that she did not.

She was quite enough to be pitied, poor little thing, under the weight of her troubles, even if her heart was only three quarters broken.

“I think, Katie,” said her mother, one morning when she had been for some time watching her listless attitude, “that you find it as possible to be dull at Kingsworth as at Applehurst.”

“I suppose,” said Kate, “that one may be dull anywhere? Aren’t you ever dull, mamma?”

“No,” said Mrs Kingsworth, “I don’t think I am ever quite what you call dull. Of course I don’t mean to say that I find life always enjoyable.”

“You care more for reading and that sort of thing than I do,” said Kate.

“Yes, Katie, but even a love of intellectual pursuits is not enough by itself. There is only one thing that can keep up one’s interest in life,—that it should be filled by an earnest purpose.”

“You mean trying to be good,” said Kate, with less impatience than her mother’s formal sentences awoke within her in general.

Mrs Kingsworth felt a little rebuked, she hardly knew why.

“Every one is called to some duty,” she said, “I meant the strict fulfilment of that. It is a call to arms.”

There was a slight ring in the mother’s voice that might have seemed more proper to the girl, but then, much as such a view would have astonished Kate, the old Canon was wont to say that “Mary had kept herself shut up till she was just as romantic as a girl of eighteen.” Perhaps her high-mindedness with all its defects had kept her heart young. She went on, her eyes kindling.

“Each soldier has his post, it is dishonour to desert it; we have a post in life, a special duty, if we shrink from it we are deserters, cowards, while the sense that we are at our guard is quite enough to atone for any amount of dulness as you call it, or, I should say, for any sacrifice.”

Kate made no answer, she was conscious of no such glow of self-satisfaction.

“But we cannot fight each other’s battles,” continued Mrs Kingsworth, “and sometimes a good soldier has to see the breach that he would have given his life to defend left open by another.”

She spoke in her usual concentrated earnest manner, and Kate having now the clue to these utterances was seized with a sudden impulse of impatience, and forgot her own determination not to commit herself, and the Canon’s advice to use her own unbiassed judgment.

“I am sure, mamma,” she said, hastily, “if you mean that you want me very much to give up Kingsworth, I don’t care a fig about it. I had much rather be quit of it now, and go away and have an easy mind to enjoy myself. I’m sure I wish it was buried in the sea!”

Mrs Kingsworth could hardly believe her ears, she started from her seat, with fleeting colour and throbbing heart. Could it be that the burden of years would be let slip at last?

“Kate, you mean it!” she said, breathlessly.

“Yes,” said Katharine, with the petulant languor of her fretted spirits. “I don’t care about it, I had much rather not have all the trouble of looking after the poor people.”

“You mean that you will make restitution—give it back to Emberance?”

“I’m sure I would if there was an end of all the bother about it!”

Mrs Kingsworth sat down again in silence. Was it true? was it possible? Was her long purpose coming to its fulfilment? Was the desire of her life fulfilled at last? Would she really soon lie down to sleep and feel that the burden had rolled away, that the great deed was done?

Katharine sat pulling at a knot in her silk. She was a little flushed and frowning, but not looking much as if she had come to the crucial moment of her life.

“You see it all now?” said her mother.

“I don’t know—I had much rather get rid of it all. That is, if it isn’t wrong.”

“Wrong?”

Kate was silent; she knew quite well that in yielding to her impatience of her mother’s hints, to her dread of the associations of her brief love story, and to the general weariness of her unsatisfactory life, she had acted entirely against the spirit of her uncle’s letter, and had relapsed into the childish love of ease and submission to her mother’s ascendancy, out of which she had been dimly struggling.

“There is no use in my saying anything till I’m twenty-one,” she said.

“But you will not retract, Katharine, you will not fall again into temptation? Give me your promise—surely I may ask for that now.”

“No, mamma,” said Kate, “I won’t promise. I’d rather get rid of it, a great deal, especially if you promise me not to go back to Applehurst. But all the same, I had better not promise, for that would be the same thing as doing it now. I’ll wait till I’m one-and-twenty.”

“But you wish now to restore it?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure it has been no good to me,” said Kate, and gathering up her work, she left the room.

Then Mrs Kingsworth rose and walked about, too restless to sit still. How often had she pictured to herself the bliss of this moment, the finding herself at one with her daughter, the cessation of the perpetual doubt of the girl’s worthiness, the joy of the united act of restitution, the peace of the ill-gotten wealth laid down. And now was it the newness of the relief, or what? she could not be sensible of this unwonted rapture, nor realise that Katharine was not a disappointment.