"Oh, Emberance! I am so glad to have a friend! I never have had any
one to talk to, I have thought of you ever since the day I was
confirmed. Oh, how I have wished that I could be confirmed every year!"
Katharine Kingsworth was standing in a little breakfast room in the
Canon's house at Fanchester. The grey towers of the cathedral with a
background of trees just touched with the vivid tints of autumn, were
visible through the window; but Katharine heeded nothing but Emberance,
almost devouring her with her round brown eyes, and standing before her
at a little distance like a kitten ready to spring.
"It _is_ very nice for cousins to be acquainted," said Emberance.
"Oh, yes! and I have always been shut up by myself! You'll teach me all
that other girls do, and we _will_ be friends."
And suddenly the kitten sprang, and throwing her arms round Emberance,
hugged her, and kissed her with irresistible warmth.
All the kindliness of Emberance's nature awoke at the appeal, and all
lurking sense of their relative positions yielded at the clasp of
Katharine's hands, and then at the warm touch of her lips.
"I _will_ love you, Katharine," she said, earnestly, "and friends we
will be, I promise."
The words did not mean nearly so much after all, to Katharine who knew
no reason to prevent their friendship, as to the speaker, but they were
entirely satisfactory to her, and as she subsided on to the floor at
Emberance's feet, she looked up at her and laughed joyfully.
She seemed so youthful a creature that Emberance felt as if she must go
back to old methods of making acquaintance and begin, "How many lessons
do you do?"--"Tell me something about yourself," she said, wishing to
find out what Katharine knew of the family history.
"There's nothing to tell, I have lived all my life shut up at
Applehurst. Uncle Kingsworth says mamma came away from Kingsworth
because some very sad things happened there. I suppose it was my father
dying so young, but that's a long while ago, and we can begin fresh."
"Katharine," interposed Emberance who had been watching the street from
the window, "here is my mother, she is coming to call on yours, let us
go into the drawing-room."
"Oh yes, I should like to see a morning call. No one ever called but
the Rector and old Miss Evesham, and I want to see Aunt Ellen too."
Emberance followed her as she jumped up and ran into the drawing-room,
with considerably more anxiety as to the result of the interview, to
which Mrs James Kingsworth had worked herself up, with much doubt and
disinclination.
There she stood in her best attire, greeting her sister-in-law with
scrupulous politeness, while she was received with a careful courtesy
that was anything but cordial.
In flew Katharine, her blooming face all smiles, right into her aunt's
arms.
"How d'ye do, Aunt Ellen? I'm so glad to see you. I'm so glad to have
an aunt. Oh, thank you for letting me have Emberance to stay!"
"I am sure, my dear, it will be a pleasure to Emberance," said the aunt,
won over spite of herself and utterly taken by surprise, while the
Canon's wife noted the contrast with the previous greeting of Emberance
and Mrs George Kingsworth, when the latter's scrupulous cordiality had
had so evident a strain in it as to abash the girl altogether.
"We shall indeed feel bound to make your daughter's visit pleasant to
her," she said. "I am yielding to Katharine's great wish in going to
Kingsworth."
"Oh," said Katharine, "so long as we came away from Applehurst, I don't
think I much mind where we go to. Anything for a change."
The remark was made too eagerly to sound exactly flippant; but Emberance
did think it sounded odd; and wondered what she should find in this
vehement little creature when the first effervescence had subsided.
Katharine's chatter carried off the difficulties of the visit however,
and Mrs James Kingsworth returned home with her distinct feelings of
resentment somewhat confused.
A few days were passed at Fanchester, during which Katharine enjoyed the
delights of buying herself some new clothes, and as she expressed it,
"saw a party," as the Canon thought it well to give one and show the
world his various relations sitting at the same dinner table.
He was a good deal perplexed by Katharine. Her unrestrained eagerness,
and her self-absorption somewhat repelled him; while her
affectionateness and merriment were pleasant. Everything seemed equally
enchanting to her, and he suspected her of want of sense and
discrimination, while her mother watched her with painful earnestness.
Could self-sacrifice or high principle be expected from a girl who
derived actual delight from finding herself with a pair of white kid
gloves?
Emberance was a little overpowered by her, but she liked her, and better
still, oddly enough, she liked the grave clear-eyed Aunt Mary, who
looked so unjoyful, and behaved with such odd, cold graciousness towards
herself. On the whole Katharine was sorry when the day came for their
journey to Kingsworth, though the travelling charmed her. The Canon and
his wife accompanied them, anxious to make the return as little painful
as possible for Mrs Kingsworth.
It was a wild wet evening, and as they drove from the station, the
roaring of the sea grew louder and louder in their ears; Emberance
caught glimpses of it covered with foam at intervals as the second
carriage, in which the two girls were, wound up a steep road towards the
house through the dusk of the evening.
Katharine peeped and exclaimed at each dim object that they passed, but
even she fell silent, and Emberance felt an increasing excitement, as
they drove up to the door of a substantial square-built house. In the
open doorway stood Mrs George Kingsworth, her black figure defined by
the lights behind her. She put aside Katharine as the two girls ran up
the steps, and taking Emberance by both hands gave her a sudden silent
kiss, then drew back and let them pass in together.
"Is this Kingsworth?" cried the outspoken Kate. "Dear me, it isn't as
pretty as Applehurst."
Indeed, Kingsworth had few attractions beyond the wide sea view from its
windows. It was perched upon the top of the cliffs, and what was called
the park was really only a bit of enclosed down with a few stunted trees
in it. The house had not been built by the Kingsworths and was hardly
important enough to rank as a "country place;" while the rooms were
small, low, and old-fashioned. The buying of it back had been a piece
of sentiment; which its intrinsic advantages hardly warranted. There
was, however, part of a ruined tower on the edge of the cliff, called
Kingsworth Castle, and to the old Canon the wild sweep of the wind, the
dash of the waves on the rocks, and the cry of the sea birds had a charm
which all the quiet of his Cathedral Close could not rival. To him,
Kingsworth was home, and now in old age his associations passed over the
terrible tragedy that had broken that home to pieces, and went back to
happy boyish days, when he had little thought to see his father's
proudly regained possession, the property of a thoughtless girl.
To Mrs Kingsworth the place had never been pleasant. All the unhappy
doubts and disappointments of her married life and their terrible
culmination, seemed borne back to her with every familiar sound and
sight, till she wondered how she should ever bear her stay. The next
morning rose bright and sunny after the rain, and the Canon asked the
two girls if they would like to walk to the shore with him. Both agreed
readily, Emberance with a certain trepidation, since she knew that
somewhere among those wild rocks had occurred the mysterious tragedy
which had left herself and Katharine fatherless. She had never realised
the old story among her busy surroundings; but it came back upon her now
with a strange vague sense of horror.
Katharine meanwhile tripped along the narrow path before them, sparkling
with eagerness and chattering over every conceivable subject.
She was a pretty creature in her bloom and brightness, and to those
better informed there was something pathetic in her unconsciousness.
Canon Kingsworth led them down to the shore, which, save for the
promontory where Kingsworth stood, was bleak and uninteresting,
stretching away in low chalky cliffs.
The "rocks" were of limestone, and insignificant in size and shape; but
below them was a wide expanse of sand. The place had none of the
grandeur often seen on the coast, and was impressive only from a certain
wild dreariness, unfelt in the sparkling sunshine of the September
morning. To Katharine it had all the charm of her first sea view, and
she ran about picking up shells and seaweed, and demanding information
on them with equal ignorance and eagerness.
The tide being low, they walked round by the sands to Kingsworth
village, which was untidy, picturesque, and slatternly. There was a
pretty Church, long and low, with a square weather-stained tower: and
the Vicarage, which had hitherto been in possession of an old Vicar, who
remembered the Canon's boyhood, had now fallen into other hands, and was
filled with a large lively young family named Clare.
Mr Clare met them as they came up the little irregular street, and the
Canon introduced himself and his nieces, on which followed an inspection
of the Church; the Vicar was perplexed at finding so little to indicate
which young lady was his future Lady of the Manor, till he remarked that
Mrs Clare and his daughters were intending to call, when Katharine
sparkled up and said eagerly, "Oh, yes, please; I hope they will. When
will they come?"
"This niece," said Canon Kingsworth, "has led so solitary a life that
companions are a new pleasure to her; but we think it right that she
should make acquaintance with her future home."
Katharine was intensely eager about this promised visit, which seemed to
her like the beginning of her new life, and her sudden springs to the
window whenever she fancied that she heard the front door bell, and her
constant references to the subject annoyed her mother inexpressibly.
Kate had not long to wait; for the next day brought Mrs Clare and her
daughters, pleasant lively people, the two girls quite as desirous of
the acquaintance as Miss Kingsworth herself could be, though they
expressed it with somewhat more reserve. This rosy-cheeked girl rushing
into friendship as if she had been fourteen instead of nineteen was not
at all the heiress that they had expected.
Emberance was a very great assistance in all the difficulties of the new
life. She made herself agreeable to the various families who came to
call, and she kept Kate in order, and instructed her in various small
pieces of social etiquette, taught her how to arrange her hair and when
it was correct to wear gloves, and tried to induce her to regard the
dinner parties to which they were duly invited with something like
composure.
The Clares were their only near neighbours, and the only people with
whom during the next few weeks the girls became in any degree really
intimate, and with whom Kate learnt the joys of girlish companionship.
And she did enjoy it with an intensity of delight, a want of proportion
in her pleasure that sorely perplexed Mrs Kingsworth, who, on her part,
deprived her of what might have been a counterbalancing and sobering
influence, in forbidding her to visit among the cottages or to take up
any of the parish work to which the Clares might have introduced her,
and which she would have taken up quite as eagerly as anything else
under their auspices. She flew into the drawing-room one day on her
return from a visit to the Vicarage, exclaiming,--
"Mamma! there are two of the dearest old women, a red cloak one of them
has, and Mrs Clare has asked me to go and read to them, and she says I
may take them tea and sugar. She told me to ask you, but of course you
will like me to do this, because no one can say it is not useful and
sensible."
Mrs Kingsworth's face assumed the intensely grave expression, which it
wore when she felt that a hard task was laid upon her. She feared that
awkward revelations might be made to Katharine in the course of such
visits, and not being able to give her this chief reason for a refusal,
she fell back on secondary ones.
"I am sorry to disappoint you, Katie, but I don't think you have the
necessary experience, and you do not know how much self-denial it costs
to be regular in such a duty."
"But I can't have experience unless I begin. Mrs Clare says they like
something young and cheerful."
"I am sorry, Kate, but it cannot be. I will explain to Mrs Clare."
Kate looked vexed for a moment, but she did not dream of resisting, and
soon, too soon, as thought her mother, her wayward fancy turned to some
fresh object of interest.
So "Kitty," as her new friends called her, was thus deprived of an
important means of forming her character for herself, and also of taking
kindly to the increase of Church privileges offered by Mr Clare to his
parishioners, and which her mother felt to be a refreshment come back to
her from the days of her youth. Kate indeed had no objection to
frequent services, as they afforded opportunities of meeting her
friends, the one object on which at present her heart was set. She took
to them as part of the new and delightful life in which she met with new
pleasures. She learned to play lawn-tennis and croquet, went out
blackberrying, and boating, and enjoyed herself so intensely in the new
young companionship, that she never speculated on past or future.
Emberance found things pleasant enough, but she felt as if there were
years of life between herself and her cousin, as she thought of Malcolm
Mackenzie's ship tossing on the waves which never rose without costing
her an unreasonable sense of apprehension. She was also much more
considerate of Mrs Kingsworth than was Katharine; who never heeded her
coldness or her silence, or the slight sarcasms bestowed on her vehement
delights, setting it all down as "mamma's way."