Chapter Fifteen
Love Lane
Emberance, meanwhile, had been welcomed home with great warmth by her mother and aunt, who had both missed her cheerful young presence, and set herself energetically to take up all her broken threads, and resume the little duties that had been interrupted by her long visit. Emberance taught at a Sunday school, and helped to manage a lending library, and a working party, besides ruling despotically over the caps and other ornaments of her mother and aunt, and being a leading spirit at a choral class in the neighbourhood.
She felt dull when she first came back; but she had too much sense and too much management of herself to fret and dawdle like poor Kate; there was no use, she thought, in thinking more of Malcolm than could be helped.
Her mother was disappointed at finding her so unaltered. She had vaguely hoped that “something might happen” to her daughter during her long absence, and when she could not gather that Emberance had received any offers, and seemed to take up her old life just where she left it, she hazarded a hint.
“At any rate, Emberance, I suppose the society you met at Kingsworth was very superior to the Fanchester set, – of course excepting the cathedral.”
“Well, yes, – in some ways perhaps; but we went out very little.”
“I dare say the young men were of a different stamp from any you could meet here?”
“They were more in the style of Mr Mackenzie,” said Emberance with a flush, which was a literal falsehood, however true in spirit; for neither Walter Kingsworth, nor Major Clare, nor Alfred Deane were at all in the style of her grave young Scot.
“Ah, you might forget that romance, for young Mackenzie is never likely to do much – ”
“How do you know, mother, – have you heard?” cried Emberance eagerly.
“Yes, his aunt was telling me the other day that he found it a bad speculation, – more capital was required than he could ever hope for.”
Emberance said nothing. She believed that the report was made the worst of for her benefit, and she did not think her Malcolm would give in so easily; but it cost her some hot stinging tears.
Oh, why – why did things go so ill with her? She wished most heartily that she was by Malcolm’s side, scrubbing the floor and cooking the dinner, while he felled trees and drove up cattle. She knew that she could have borne anything cheerfully then, but to wait and have her life spoiled, and no hope of sharing his – Emberance cried and chafed, and, for the first time, wished that she was heiress of Kingsworth. What good was the place to Kitty?
Emberance however rebuked herself for these thoughts by reflecting how wicked Malcolm would have thought them. Nor had she nearly so much time as Kate to indulge in sorrowful musings; for besides all her ordinary business, the Canon had her a good deal at his house, and, as her mother expressed it, “took very gratifying notice of her.”
She had originally met Malcolm Mackenzie at the house of his uncle, who was the principal doctor in Fanchester, and scraps of intelligence of a kind that was not very reassuring reached her from this source. Malcolm had arrived, and had written, but could not say that he saw his way much yet. He was afraid his little capital would not go very far, – still it was early days to despond, and he hoped for the best. If one thing failed, he should try another. Emberance knew that these discouraging facts were purposely brought to the hearing of the penniless girl with whom Malcolm had foolishly entangled himself. She felt miserable, and tried to distract her mind by enjoying to the utmost all her little gaieties; with the result of causing Mrs Mackenzie to write to her nephew that “Emberance Kingsworth was looking particularly well, and was much admired. She was a bit of a fine lady, and more than a bit of a flirt. It is very well for you, my dear boy, that there is no real engagement, – a most unfit girl for a settler’s wife.” And this assurance in more complimentary forms met Emberance very often.
She had been out one day for a walk with some of her girl friends, and coming back with them just at dusk, with the intention of giving them a cup of tea, she found the household in rather an unusual state of excitement.
“Well, Emmy,” her mother said, “it is a great pity that you were out. A friend of yours has been here to see you.”
“A friend of mine?” said Emberance, as she inquired into the state of the teapot. “Oh, Lily Wood, I suppose, she was coming to stay with her aunt.”
“No, my dear,” said Miss Bury, “one of your friends from Kingsworth.”
“Not Katie come already? I can’t guess, mamma; I hate guessing.”
“Well, my dear, it was Major Clare. He said that he was going to return shortly to his brother’s, and would be glad to take any message or parcel for you. A most agreeable person.”
There was a kind of consciousness in her mother’s manner which annoyed Emberance extremely. She was greatly surprised at Major Clare’s visit, and set it down to a possible desire to reopen relations with Katharine.
“I dare say he might like to have a message to take to Kingsworth,” she said in a tone intended to convey to her friends and to her mother that his interest was in another direction. “Where is he staying?” she added; “how did he come here?”
“He was staying, he said, in the neighbourhood, and would call again. Such pleasing manners!”
The Major had evidently created a favourable impression, and Emberance could not help being secretly flattered that he had sought her out, even with a view to renew his relations with Katharine.
The Major did call again, and Emberance also met him at Canon Kingsworth’s. He was very agreeable, and said very little about Kate, rather renewing that sort of manner which in the early days of Kingsworth had made Emberance doubt of his real intentions. She perceived that all her relations, including the Canon, regarded his appearance as significant; and indeed that excellent old gentleman would probably not have regarded a young lady’s change of mind towards a not very eligible suitor as a matter of great regret. And Emberance knew herself to be charming, the Major confirmed in her that sweet sense of the power of attraction, which is more intoxicating to a girl than the knowledge of beauty or any other personal advantage. It would take too long to tell all the little incidents, all the words, and half the glances that carried a vain man a little further than he had intended, and went far to turn the head of a vain girl.
Emberance looked prettier and took more trouble with her dress than usual during this important fortnight. But if she had a vain head she had an honest heart, and Major Clare’s former attentions to Katharine could not be forgotten. It was flattering to be preferred to her heiress-cousin; but still he had won Kate’s affections first, and Emberance never really contemplated his urging any serious suit upon her. Only it was pleasant to be known as the object of his attentions.
“I am a foolish, horrid girl,” thought Emberance, “and it is a mean thing to care about, but that’s all, and I am sure they are all mistaken in fancying he has any serious intentions. Besides, as if I would listen to any one but Malcolm. I never, never will.”
She was walking by herself home from the High Street, where she had gone to buy some little bit of finery, and down the lane that led by a short cut to the suburban district where she lived. It was only a dull lane, narrow and dirty, with a wall on one side and a close-clipped hedge on the other; but Emberance always chose it because it was here that she and Malcolm had met on the day when he had told her of his love and of his poverty, and asked her if she could bear to wait while he made his home, if she could put up with the weariness and the waiting that fell to the lot of a poor man’s betrothed.
“Oh, I can!” Emberance had answered warmly, and Love Lane or Hatchard’s Lane, as it was called, according to the tastes of the speaker, always brought her promise to her mind. She stopped a minute in her walk, and looked over the hedge across the cabbages in Hatchard’s market garden, and said to herself, —
“I’m not bearing it, I’m trying to escape it. I am giving in just as mother always said I should. And all because I like to feel that a man like Major Clare admires me. And I can’t even tell Malcolm that I am sorry.”
Tears filled her eyes and dimmed the long rows of cabbages. Emberance said a little prayer to herself, and made up her mind. She would stick to her true love and to her true self. Not bound indeed! Did not her conscience bind her?
“Ah, Miss Kingsworth, good morning. I am just coming from your house. Mrs Kingsworth gave me a hope of meeting you.”
Emberance turned with a violent blush to see Major Clare standing beside her.
“Is this a favourite walk of yours?” he said as she gave him a confused greeting.
“Yes,” said Emberance, “it is.”
“From a fine sense of natural beauty?” said Major Clare, lightly.
“No,” said Emberance, as bluntly as Kate could have, spoken. “It’s not pretty. But I don’t care about that.”
“Indeed, there are times when outward beauty makes very little difference to us!”
“Yes,” said Emberance, “but it would not do for me to think very much about places being pretty, – or particularly comfortable, because, – because I’m not likely to live in pretty or comfortable places.”
“Why, how so?” said Major Clare, surprised.
“Because,” said Emberance, looking straight before her, “a girl who hopes to be a settler’s wife mustn’t care about comforts. I am engaged to be married, Major Clare. I —I prefer to tell my friends about it, but mother would rather nothing was said, as we expect to wait for a long time first. But my uncle knows it, and Katharine.”
She made her little speech in a ladylike and dignified manner, though her face was crimson, and she wished that the old wall would tumble down and hide her.
Of course her motive in the confidence could not but be apparent enough, hard as she had tried to hide it; and Major Clare felt a pang of intense vexation as he felt that a second time his tale had been stopped before it was uttered. But he kept his counsel.
“Indeed! allow me to congratulate you,” he said lightly. “You have kept your secret well, Miss Kingsworth; no one would have guessed it.”
“I was desired to keep it,” said Emberance, ashamed. “Please do not mention it in Fanchester.”
“Of course,” said Major Clare, “I feel your confidence an honour, – most undeserved, I am sure, and unexpected.”
Emberance hated the Major more intensely as they walked down the remaining bit of Love Lane together than she had ever hated any one in her life. He had carried off the rebuff cleverly, and had stung her too keenly to allow her to perceive that he was stung also.
They wished each other good morning cheerfully and courteously, and parted at the lane’s end. Emberance hurried home feeling rather small and foolish; but with a sense of relief predominating. She was duly asked if she had met the Major, and after a little preamble her mother said, —
“It is very pleasant to meet any one who is so discriminating. He is well acquainted with all our family history, and takes a very proper view of it.”
“Mamma, what have you been saying to him?” cried Emberance vehemently and rather disrespectfully.
“Nothing, I assure you, that he did not know before. He only expressed his sympathy with us, and said that your unconsciousness of any wrong couldn’t hide how well you were fitted – in short, one couldn’t help seeing that he thought you would make a much better heiress than Kate.”
Emberance stood for a moment with her hat in her hand.
“Then,” she said, with much emphasis, “he is worse than any villain in a book.”
She walked away without further explanation, and Major Clare vanished from the lives of Emberance and Katharine Kingsworth.
He returned to India still unmarried, – still faithful, his brother said, to his first love. And perhaps he was so, but his efforts to replace her, and his love of producing an impression had made a crisis in the life and in the character of the two Kingsworth cousins.
Chapter Sixteen
Cousins
In the early spring Kate and her mother came to Fanchester to pay the Canon a long visit, after which their plans were uncertain; Kate wanted to go abroad, and Mrs Kingsworth had a great longing for a few quiet weeks at Applehurst. “But,” thought Kate, “once there we shall never get out again.”
She was a good deal more like other young ladies than at the time of her former visit, and no longer went into ecstasies over kid gloves and evening parties, she was also less abrupt in manner, and had learned from Emberance to occupy herself with ordinary girlish pursuits, so that she seemed less idle. She was prettier too, and less exuberantly youthful.
On the very evening of their arrival Mrs Kingsworth sought a private interview with the Canon, and told him how Katharine had volunteered her willingness to give up the estate; but had declined to give a definite promise that she would do so.
“It was a great relief to me – a very great relief,” Mrs Kingsworth said, rather as if the relief had been difficult to realise.
“So,” said the old Canon, “Kate comes of age, does she not, next January? Mrs James will enjoy reigning at Kingsworth, eh, Mary?”
“You do not think I care for that!” said Mary indignantly, and with rising colour. “It is nothing to me what becomes of it. Indeed I believe Emberance is much better without it.”
“She might sell it,” suggested the Canon.
“She might, but I suppose you would all think that wrong,” said Mrs Kingsworth; “you would not think it wise to speak to Katie?”
“Well, yes. I think, on a favourable opportunity, I will,” said the Canon; but he made no promises as to what he would say to her.
He observed with pleasure the warmth of the greeting between the cousins, and contrived that Kate should be allowed to go and spend the day with her aunt.
It was not till she had been more than a week at Fanchester, that he entered on the subject; when he took her into his handsome library, full of dignified and learned literature, and comfortable as befitted the age and position of its owner. He politely recommended to her a great chair, which would have been nearly large enough for her to sleep in. Katharine perched herself upon the edge of it, and took the sleek and solemn tabby cat, who shared the Canon’s learned repose, on her knee.
“Uncle, why do you call this cat Archibald?” she said.
“Why, my dear, when he was a kitten, now some years ago, your aunt tied a bell round his neck; and by one of those changes which make the history of nicknames very interesting and curious, the name which should properly have belonged to her was applied to the cat himself. And Archibald he remains. Perhaps he will allow you to call him Archie.”
“I should not think of taking such a liberty. He is so dignified and thinks so well of himself! I wonder what he would say to Emmy’s white kitten. Isn’t Aunt Ellen’s a pretty house? I think it must be so cheerful to live in a row of villas!”
“Your expectations of Kingsworth have been a little disappointed, I fancy.”
Katharine coloured deeply.
“No,” she said with some reserve. “I like Kingsworth well enough, much better than Applehurst; but I should like living anywhere else just as well.”
“You do not find yourself growing attached to it?”
“N-o,” said Kate, “I don’t think I do. I suppose mamma has been talking to you,” she added, “I do not mind giving up Kingsworth, there would be no more trouble about it then.”
“My dear,” said the Canon, “you do not quite know what you are talking about. It is true that you will be well provided for in any case by your mother’s fortune, and Kingsworth does not make you a great heiress; but it gives you a position of which you will think more at twenty-five than at twenty-one and more again at five and thirty. No doubt it will bring you trouble and responsibility; but dread of these is not the reason which weighs with your mother.”
“Uncle Kingsworth,” said Kate frankly, though with some confusion, “I don’t see how I shall know better what to do when I am twenty-one than I do now. I wish to do right, and it can’t be wrong to obey mamma and do what she wishes. I do not feel as she does, I don’t think we understand enough about it to feel sure that Kingsworth should be Emberance’s, and – Cousin Walter Kingsworth said he should give it up in my place.”
“He did – did he? When did he have the chance of expressing an opinion?”
“I thought, being a cousin, I might ask him, and I supposed he would know.”
“Then, my dear, if your mother wishes it, and a person whom you trust approves of it, and you do not feel the sacrifice beyond your powers, what holds you back?”
Katharine hesitated, her brow contracted and an expression of strained attention came into her eyes. She could hardly grasp her own thought, to express it was still more difficult.
“You said, I must judge for my own self,” she said.
“And your own judgment is different.”
“Uncle,” said Kate with a trembling voice, “I have thought and considered, and I have tried not to be childish. I should like, oh so much! to get rid of it, and be like other girls; but – but it seems to have been put on me to – to – make up for papa. And when there is no other reason clear except the trouble of it, oh, uncle! I should not really be what mamma calls worthy if I gave it up, and told every one my father did wrong, when perhaps he did not. That’s my own judgment, uncle, my own conscience, but – but – I wish – I wish I did not feel so, with all my heart.”
“Then, my dear child, your own conscience is the light that you must follow. You are a good girl, Kate, and your mother’s own daughter after all. Keep your principle, even if in the future you change your conclusion. Let nothing tempt you to do what you think may be wrong, and in the end no doubt you will arrive at a right decision.”
Katharine sighed, her uncle had not helped her to get rid of her responsibilities; but she was pleased by his appreciation of her motives, and in her heart knew that he was right. She liked, too, being at Fanchester, and even her mother, whose habit of seclusion had been broken, was much happier than on the former occasion, and suffered less from the shyness of which at her years and in her position, she was so exceedingly ashamed. The Canon also invited Walter Kingsworth and one of his sisters to come and pay him a visit; and the elder branch of the family must have been very anxious to renew intercourse with the younger; for not only did business offer no impediment to Walter’s acceptance of the invitation, but his father came down with them to Fanchester and paid his respects to his old cousin the Canon, to whom he bore a sufficiently strong likeness to delight the younger ones, who all fell into a fervour of family feeling, and traced their pedigrees, and discovered their common ancestors, with the greatest delight. Kate began to respect Kingsworth much more seriously. Eva, the North-country cousin, was clever and romantic, and actually concocted a copy of verses, on a certain Walter who had been engaged in a Jacobite plot, and had gone to prison sooner than reveal the hiding-place of his fellow-conspirators, which verses ended with an aspiration that they might all be worthy of their heroic ancestor. Katharine, full of excitement, seized on the poem, and rushed to her mother, to expatiate on Eva’s wonderful talents, and to tell the story of the high-minded Walter. Mrs Kingsworth listened with an odd sort of smile, and presently unlocked a box which had been sent for from Applehurst, to search for some missing business papers, took out an old sketch-book, and displayed a pen-and-ink drawing of a cavalier, with a Kingsworth nose, submitting to be handcuffed by some very truculent looking soldiers in cocked-hats and pigtails.
“Mamma! did you draw that? You! Did you know about our ancestor?” cried Kate, open-mouthed.
“Oh yes, my dear, I was very fond of drawing when I was young. I was glad to marry into a family with a hero in it,” she added half to herself.
“Let me show it to Eva! Why, she drew a picture of Richard Coeur-de-Lion in prison!”
Eva duly admired the drawing, and showed her own; and behold there was a crack in the ice. The new games, introduced by the Silthorpe cousins, in which drawing, verse-making, and odds and ends of knowledge came into play, proved old ones to Mrs Kingsworth. She was drawn into the circle of young people, and became a leading spirit; with twice as many ideas as Emberance, and four times as much faculty as Kate, she could laugh and argue and hold her own amid the merry clatter, and when Kate listened amazed she recollected that an attempt to teach her some of these little amusements had been scouted as “making play into lessons.” How handsome her mother looked as she puzzled them all or triumphantly penetrated their puzzles.
“Take my word for it, my dear fellow,” said Mr Kingsworth to his son, on one occasion, “Mrs George Kingsworth is worth all the young ladies together.”
Of course Walter took the line of laughing at the heroism and crying down the heroes; but he by no means avoided either the games or the discussions, and Kate and he became more and more friendly and cousinly, till she began to derive opinions from him and think they were her own, while Major Clare was driven into a very small corner of her mind indeed. She soon learned to take a proper interest in the cathedral, and would have been very much surprised to be reminded of her original preference for a shop.
It was impossible that she should forget her former attempt at consulting Walter, and though he avoided the subject, her perceptions were not acute enough to discover this. One afternoon as they walked up and down the Canon’s garden, admiring the spring green of the trees against the grey walls that shut them in, she said, —
“I have thought about Kingsworth every day since that time last year; but I cannot decide the matter yet.”
“I wish Kingsworth did not belong to you, Katharine, that you had no concern with it,” said Walter, abruptly.
“Ah – why? You think – it ought not to belong to me?”
“No, no,” he said, hurriedly. “I do not think that.”
“Of course,” said Kate, “it is all wrong any way. Sir Walter and all our ancestors would be dreadfully grieved that it should not be inherited by the rightful heir.”
“If Emberance – ”
“But I don’t mean Emberance,” interposed Kate. “I mean you. You are our ancestor’s heir. What would they say to the place coming to a girl like me, or to Emmy either?”
“That is romantic nonsense,” said Walter almost fiercely, and colouring to his hair roots, “I have no more to do with it than I have with Mayford, than I have with the deanery of Fanchester. I wish there was no such place, I wish the sea would swallow it up, it’s a – a stumbling-block, and an incumbrance. I wish it was in South Africa!”
“Dear me, Walter,” said Kate, “I don’t see why you should hate it so. I don’t care about it much myself; but I have liked it better since I heard about our ancestors, it seems more worth while to do right about it. I know you think I ought to give it to Emberance.”
“I wish – I wish – I can’t advise you, Kate, I – I – There’s Eva – isn’t it tea-time?”
He turned away and left her abruptly: while she, surprised at his manner, began to seek for some explanation of it. Why should he hate Kingsworth? Why should he refuse to tell her what he thought to be her duty? Kate did not hit even in a guess on the right explanation; her frank pleasant intercourse with Walter was so unlike her past experience of any one’s attentions, but it did occur to her that he might possibly admire Emberance. Kate did not like the notion, it made her uncomfortable, yet it inclined her more to the sacrifice than anything which had yet passed. If Emmy had it, and married Walter, how right, according to all principles, everything would come. The real old head of the family, and the rightful heiress would reign, while she having had her day and her disappointment, would act the beneficent genius and – retire.
But then, Emberance had another love, and – and “I don’t think,” said honest Kate to herself, “that I do feel quite like having had my day. I was very young, and – I believe I shall get over it! I – I think I have!”
But Mrs Kingsworth, from the drawing-room window, had watched the pair strolling up and down, and a new idea occurred to her that fell like a cold chill on her reviving interests. If this pleasant, clever, well-bred young man, was, after all, not disinterested. If he had an eye to Kate and to Kingsworth, how completely her daughter’s wavering mind would be set in the wrong direction, how right it would all be made to seem while justice was as far as ever from being done.
“I ought to go out and join them,” she thought, then she wavered, afraid of raising a suspicion, and feeling awkward and doubtful.
“Oh dear! I’m not fit to be any girl’s mother,” she thought, despairingly. “Well, now they have parted, and Walter is coming in.”
Walter came up stairs and into the drawing-room – he took up a book and threw it down again – read the paper upside down, and fidgeted about the room; while she could not think of a word to say to him. Suddenly he came towards her, and threw himself into a chair near the sofa where she was sitting.
“Mrs Kingsworth! I – I have made up my mind to confide in you. I am in a great perplexity. I – I love your daughter, most – most thoroughly – but the circumstances, how can I – I of all men – appear before her in the light of a fortune-hunter? Kingsworth raises a barrier between us. Yet I cannot, there are reasons, insuperable reasons, why I cannot persuade her to deprive herself of it. I – I must go away from her till her birthday is past, and she has decided without me. I – you are so sincere a person that I feel sure you will recognise my sincerity.”
Mrs Kingsworth, in spite of her momentary suspicions, was utterly taken by surprise at finding them so quickly realised.
“Katharine?” she said, “but since when, have you learnt so to regard her?”
“Since when? Since the first moment I saw her, since I saw her confidence and simplicity, her – herself! I am well aware,” he added, restraining himself and speaking in a different tone, “that under any circumstances, even without Kingsworth, Katharine’s claims are high, but my father is a rich man and liberal; I think I could have ventured to address her on something like equal terms, but for Kingsworth.”
“What is your view about Kingsworth?” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “What is your opinion as to Kate’s duty?”
“To you perhaps I may say, that I would not keep it with a doubtful right. It would make me uncomfortable. But there is no such clear distinction of right and wrong in the matter as to justify any one in urging such a view on her. I would give much that Emberance had inherited it, and that I could have met Katharine under other circumstances. But now,” he added, “I want your advice, if you will give me any.”
“I should like Katharine to marry you,” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly. “I do not think you care for Kingsworth. If she gives it up, I think you would make her happy. But you know it is no great fortune, it would hardly justify a man in living without a profession.”
“Oh no,” said Walter hastily, and blushing vividly. “I am aware of that. But it is – a desirable possession.”
“If it were a diamond ring, or a kingdom, I should feel the same about it!” said Mrs Kingsworth. “It has come to us through ill-doing.”
“But – what shall I do? I cannot urge her to yield what she may afterwards learn the value of, and – it is a question on which I cannot enter. Besides, she – she is entirely indifferent and unconscious; it would take time to win her, if ever I could. Have I a chance? What is my best hope?”
He looked very wistful and melancholy, having evidently for the moment forgotten Kingsworth in Katharine.
Mrs Kingsworth looked interested and perplexed. “I do not know,” she said, “I do not know Katharine’s feelings. I think she is fond of you; but, sometimes I have doubted her having much power of attachment.”
“Why – she is full of feeling!” exclaimed the lover indignantly.
“Is she? I think she puzzles me. But I do see that she must be left to her own decision. Perhaps,” she added with an odd sort of dignity, “we had better renew this conversation after she is of age, and till then, let things go on as usual.”
“It is perhaps the best way,” said Walter. “Then you do not send me away, till next week, till my visit is over.”
“No, I do not see why I should. And you know she has almost promised me to decide as we wish.”
Walter was more grateful for the unconscious evidence of trust shown in that “we,” than for a thousand protestations. Mrs Kingsworth continued after a little pause, “and probably, if her feelings are in your favour, your view will unconsciously influence her.”
Walter could hardly help a smile at the musing simplicity of the tone; but he gratefully thanked Mrs Kingsworth for her confidence, and stayed. His father, after a long talk with the Canon, went home the next day, making a détour to look at Kingsworth as he went.