Down in a valley from which the softly outlined, richly wooded hills
sloped away on every side, shut out by copse and orchard from church and
village, lay an old red-brick house. High walls closed in its gardens,
and within and without them the fruit trees bloomed and bore as the
seasons came round. The ruddy moss-grown walls and the house itself
shone white and radiant with spring blossoms, or supported the richly
coloured freight of autumn fruit, while the copse woods and the orchards
surged away over the hills, and never a roof or spire broke their
solitude. The very road that led to the iron gate, so rarely opened,
was noiseless and grass-grown; the soft moss gathered on the
garden-paths, spite of their trim keeping; in the high summer, even the
birds were silent. Year by year the same flowers either grew up or were
planted in the quaintly cut beds; year by year the fruit dropped on the
ground, and was picked up lest it should be an eyesore, not because any
one wanted it for profit or for pleasure. Never elsewhere did the trees
bend beneath such a weight of fruitage, surely no other roses and
clematis flowered so profusely, no other turf was so soft and green, as
if no strange foot ever trod it, no rough hand ever came near to pluck
the brilliant blossoms. The scream of a railway whistle, even the roll
of a carriage hardly ever disturbed the silence; the stock-doves cooed,
and the starlings cried unstartled by any passing footsteps. The
gardeners, moving deliberately to and fro, seemed too leisurable to
disturb the feeling of quiet.
Suddenly, between the hanging creepers, a side door opened, and a girl
darted hastily out, ran across the soft turf, and began to pace up and
down the broad walks beneath the sunny fruit-laden walls, with rapid
impatient steps.
She spoilt the picture. This was no dreamy maiden, idle and peaceful,
to complete the charm of the garden scene; but a creature impatient and
incongruous, evidently suffering under an access of temper or of
trouble, probably of both, for she snatched off a twig as she passed and
pulled it in pieces, and her bright hazel eyes were full of angry tears.
She was small and rather short, with the sort of birdlike air, always
given by a delicately hooked nose, and round dark eyes set rather close
together. Her hair of a reddish chestnut was crisp and rough, her skin
brilliantly fair and rosy, and her teeth white, and just perceptible
beneath the short upper lip. A pretty healthy face, but fierce,
restless, and haughty.
"Oh, how I hate it! I wish--I wish--There it is, I don't know what to
wish for--except an earthquake that would knock the place to bits. I
will not bear it a day longer--"
"Miss Kitty, here are some nice ripe peaches, should you like to eat a
few," said the old gardener, approaching her, "or a Jargonelle pear?"
"I'm tired of pears and peaches!" said the girl ungraciously; "what is
the good of so much fruit?"
"There's some lavender ready to cut, Miss Katharine, then,--young ladies
like to be doing something."
"I'll tell you what I'll do then, Dickson," said Katharine, "just leave
that ladder against the wall, and I'll climb up and look _over_,--
perhaps I could see the church spire, or a waggon,--or a new cow. That
would be something."
"La! missy,--young ladies shouldn't climb ladders!"
"You never were a young lady, Dickson," said Katharine, laughing, while
her foot still twitched impatiently.
"La! no, Miss Katharine, that I never was,--I've been man and boy this
seventy year."
"Then you don't know how much nicer it is to be anything else!" said
Katharine. "But the peaches _are_ nice, thank you," she added, taking
one, "though this place is to life, what peaches are to roast mutton--
cloying."
She laughed again as she spoke, subsiding into the ordinary discontent
of a well accustomed grievance. For it was no new thing for Katharine
Kingsworth to wish herself anywhere but at Applehurst. Had she known
how good a right she had to another home and to other interests, she
might have been still less willing to endure her seclusion. But though
she did not know her own family history, the sad fact that had prompted
her mother, while still a young woman, to bury herself and her child at
Applehurst was well-known to several people.
When that stern resolution had come to the new made widow, as she looked
round on Kingsworth, and thought of the terrible doubt in which her
husband's fate was involved, thought of the way in which the country
round must regard her daughter's inheritance, a great horror of the
place weighed on her. The Canon and Mr Macclesfield, the family man of
business, might manage the estate as they liked,--she would never live
there, never go there, and Katharine should not grow up where every one
looked askance at her.
It was a vehement, one-sided resolution, and Canon Kingsworth did not
approve of it; but as, of course, Katharine's minority had never been
contemplated, the will named no personal guardians for her, and he could
not, if he would, have taken her from her mother's charge. Applehurst
belonged to Mrs Kingsworth herself, and thither she betook herself with
her year-old baby, and there, with one short interval, she had remained
ever since. Katharine was now a woman, and even her mother began to
feel that something more was due to her.
Mrs Kingsworth was a woman of very strong principles and perhaps not
very tender feelings. She was clever, high-spirited, and very handsome,
when as Mary Lacy she had married George Kingsworth, and had he been
worthy of her, might have softened into an excellent woman. But when
she discovered his falsity, neither her love nor his terrible death
threw any softening veil over her disappointment. She shuddered at her
own disgrace yet more than at his, and every association connected with
him was hateful to her. She was really perfectly unworldly, and she did
not care at all for the wealth and position that had tempted him.
She took Katharine away, determined to rear her up in high, stern
principles, and never to allow her to become accustomed to the life of
an heiress. Let her be happy and know that she could be happy without
Kingsworth, and on the day she was twenty-one let her give it back to
her cousin Emberance.
This was the clue to Mrs Kingsworth's conduct, this was the hope, nay,
the resolve of her life, and therefore she brought up Katharine to be
independent of luxuries and of society, therefore she secluded her from
all intercourse with those of her own rank, fearing lest any marriage
engagement might tie her hands, or any preference warp her judgment,
before the day when she could legally free herself from the weight of
her wealth.
Mrs Kingsworth, like many another parent, did not calculate on the
unknown factors in the problem,--the will and the character of her own
child.
Katharine grew up a merry, healthy child, sufficiently intelligent, but
without the love of books, which her mother had hoped to see, with all
natural instincts strong in her, and with an ardent desire to have other
little girls to play with.
"Mamma, tell me how you used to go and drink tea with your
cousins,"--"Mamma, do ask a little girl to come and stay here,"--"Mamma,
I should like to go to Mrs Leicester's school," were among her earliest
aspirations.
Her mother was clever and well-informed enough to educate her well, but
solitary study was uninteresting to so sociable a being, and the girl
was devoid of the daydreaming faculty, which while it would have given
form to her desires, might have whiled away many a dreary hour. As it
was, the poor child jarred her mother with every taste and turn that she
developed.
High-mindedness was to be cultivated by a careful and sparing selection
of poetry and romance; but this provoking Katharine at twelve years old
borrowed the kitchen-maids Sunday-school prizes, and preferred them to
the "Lady of the Lake."
She thought her mother's heroes tiresome, and with that curious
instinctive resistance of strong-willed childhood to any set purpose of
influence, could not be induced to care for the glorious tales of
self-sacrifice and noble poverty which still made her mother's blood
thrill and her eyes brighten.
She was very carefully instructed in religious matters, and duly every
Sunday attended service at Applehurst, a tiny country church with a very
old-fashioned childless vicar, and one very quiet Sunday service. When
Katharine was sixteen, the one event of her life took place, and her
mother took her for three days to Fanchester, the cathedral city, where
Canon Kingsworth lived, to be confirmed.
The vicar had nominally prepared her, her mother had endeavoured
earnestly to influence her. Surely the first sight of the glorious
cathedral, the solemn service, would awaken in the girl that tone of
mind in which she now seemed so deficient.
But to Katharine the railway journey, the town, the people were a dream,
or rather, a reality of delight.
"We will take Katharine over the cathedral to-day, that it may not be
quite strange to her to-morrow," said the Canon's wife on the first
morning.
"Oh please--please--but I shall see that to-morrow. Oh, Aunt
Kingsworth, let me go and buy something in a shop. Let me see the
streets first!"
And though she was obedient and decorous, it was evident that she could
not think or feel in such a world of enchanting novelty. She could only
look and enjoy.
After the Confirmation was over, her uncle delayed a few minutes and
presently came in, bringing with him across the narrow close one of the
white-veiled girls, who had just been confirmed.
"Mary," he said briefly, "this is Emberance Kingsworth. Katharine, this
is your cousin."
"Oh, have I got a cousin?" cried Katharine vehemently, as she rushed at
Emberance and reached up to kiss her. For Emberance was a tall, slim
creature, with large soft eyes and a blushing face.
She looked with a certain shrinking at the new relations, though she
returned the kiss.
"Miss Kingsworth is pleased to find a new cousin," said a lady who was
present.
"Miss _Katharine_," said her mother, turning round on the speaker, "my
niece is Miss Kingsworth if you please."
The interview was not allowed to last long, and Emberance was sent back
to join her schoolfellows, but Katharine never forgot it,--nor indeed
her visit to Fanchester.
She knew what she wanted now, and chafed when she did not get it. And
month by month and year by year she and her mother grew further apart,
and only Katharine's childish, undeveloped nature kept her feelings
within bounds.