Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life

Mrs Kingsworth was sitting at a davenport, writing a letter. She was a tall woman, with a figure slender and élancé as that of a girl, delicate, regular features, and a small head adorned with an abundance of smooth, dark hair. Spite of her quiet black dress and cap, she had lost little of her youthfulness, and her eyes were bright, keen, and full of life. Otherwise it was a still set face, with little variety of expression, and spite of some likeness of form and colouring most unlike in character to the changing flushing countenance of the girl beside her.

“Isn’t it time you found some occupation, Katharine?” she said.

There was no displeasure in her tone, but as Katharine stood silent, she said quietly, “Go and practise for an hour, I don’t like to see you doing nothing.”

“What can it matter what I do?” said Katharine impetuously, her quickly roused temper diverting her in a moment from her purpose.

“Only as rational occupation is rather a better thing than idleness,” said Mrs Kingsworth with a touch of satire in her voice.

“I mean – Mamma, I want to know whether we are to live at Applehurst for ever and ever?” cried Katharine, suddenly and without any warning.

“What makes you ask me such a question?” said her mother quickly.

“Because I want an answer to it, mother! because I – I want to go away. I want to know why we never have any change. I should like to go to the sea-side – to have some friends. I hate Applehurst!”

Katharine was so frightened that there were tears in her voice as she spoke. She stood behind her mother’s chair, and twitched her hands together nervously. Mrs Kingsworth looked down at her letter.

“I thought, Katie,” she said, “that I had taught you to look for better things than change and amusement. It would grieve me very much if you had a turn for constant excitement. That is a kind of character which I despise.”

“I think it is very dull here,” said Katharine; “I want to know people. I want to do something different.”

She was fairly crying by this time, and after a minute’s silence her mother went on speaking.

“Do you know, Katharine, what I consider to be more worth living for than anything else?”

“What?” said Katharine surprised.

“The opportunity of doing a noble action,” said Mrs Kingsworth, in a low tone; “so to live and so to think and believe that if a great choice came to one, one would do the right thing, let the consequences be what they might.”

She laid down her pen that her daughter might not see her hand tremble. It was quite as critical a moment to her as to Katharine.

“Yes, but I don’t see what all that has to do with our being shut up in Applehurst!”

“Perhaps not – but you can recognise the principle that life has better aims than amusement. Believe me, no good is worth having which is bought at the expense of the slightest self-reproach.”

“I don’t mean to be cross, mamma,” said Katharine, entirely mistaking her drift, “but if we could go away sometimes – you know I am grown up.”

“Are you?” said Mrs Kingsworth. “Sometimes you are so childish that I can hardly believe it. If I could see that you had more fixed principle, that you really cared for your duty, I might think it more possible to expose you to temptations of which you now know nothing.”

“But, mamma, I don’t want to do anything wrong.”

“I think you do not see the beauty of caring for the highest right.”

Katharine pouted. She was too well trained to be flippant; but her mother’s tone irritated her; so that contrary to the principle in which she had been trained that nothing was ever gained by crying for it, she burst into tears. Mrs Kingsworth looked round at her as she stood sobbing in a vehement girlish fashion, and rubbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief.

“Well,” she said, “you will have a little change. Uncle Kingsworth has written to propose a visit, and I am telling him that we shall expect him here on Monday. If you like,” she added after a pause, “you can tell him your troubles.”

“He might ask us to go again to stay with him,” said Katharine, brightening up.

Her mother made no answer, and the girl slipped away into the garden and sat down on the grass. She felt ruffled and vexed, with an impression that her mother was very unsympathising, and that the sentiments which she had uttered were tiresome, matter-of-course truisms, not worth enforcing. But Uncle Kingsworth was coming, and that was something to look forward to. And before many minutes had passed Mrs Kingsworth heard Katharine run up stairs, humming a tune.

She sat still herself, oppressed with a sense of failure. How could she ever rely on this impatient childish girl to carry out the act of restitution on which her heart was set?

“If she fails I should despise her!” said Mrs Kingsworth to herself with slower tears than Katharine’s rising in her eyes, “yet I suppose her wishes are natural.”

She loved her daughter as much as ever daughter was loved; but she cared infinitely more that Katharine should be good than that she should be happy, and this principle carried out logically in small matters made her the very opposite of a spoiling mother.

Still she was enough disturbed by what had passed to resolve almost for the first time in her life on consulting Canon Kingsworth. Her clear high purpose had crystallised itself in her mind, and had been sufficient for itself – every other influence had been a disturbance from it.

Canon Kingsworth’s rare visits were always a pleasant excitement at Applehurst. The later dinner, the different dress, the turning out of the spare bedroom gave an unwonted feeling of “company” in itself cheerful. Not that there was ever anything to complain of in the household; for though Mrs Kingsworth was not a woman who found pleasure in domestic details, she was accustomed as a matter of course to have everything kept up to a certain mark of propriety and comfort.

But the sound of a man’s voice in the house, the conversation on general topics, the bright sense of outside life was enchanting to Katharine. The Canon was a fine old gentleman – still in full vigour, with abundant white hair and eyes and features of a type which his great-niece inherited. He had a certain respect for her mother and great pity, though not much liking; while she, vigorous and independent as she was, could not help a certain leaning to the only person who still called her “Mary.”

Conversation was general on the evening of the Canon’s arrival, and he took much pains to cultivate Katharine and to draw her out. On former occasions she had been full of eager talk of her lessons or her pets, or of inquiries for things and people seen in her never-to-be-forgotten visit to Fanchester; but to-day she was quiet and demure, so that the next morning after breakfast when she went to practise and Canon Kingsworth was left alone with her mother, he said, —

“Katharine is a very pretty girl; but she wants manner.”

“I am uneasy about Katharine. I do not know how to act for the best,” said Mrs Kingsworth abruptly.

“I suppose she begins to desire a little society,” said the Canon.

“Yes, almost to demand it.”

“Well, Mary, you know what I have always thought, that with the best intentions you did Katharine injustice in keeping her in ignorance of her true position.”

“Her true position!” said Mrs Kingsworth under her breath.

“Yes, however obtained, she is the owner of Kingsworth, and in two years’ time her duty will be to do her best for the welfare of the place and the people.”

“Do you not really know, Uncle Kingsworth, what my one aim has been in educating Katharine?” said Mrs Kingsworth, looking up steadily at him.

“I have always supposed that you have educated her in the way which you conscientiously think the best; though as you know, I have not always agreed with your view.”

“I shall tell you the whole truth,” said Mrs Kingsworth with sudden resolution. “I cannot conceive that any one can take another view of the matter. You know that I believe – that I am sure this property was obtained by an act of the greatest possible injustice. An act of meanness! I am bound to say the truth, whoever was the actor.”

“Indeed, Mary, I think those sad suspicions are far better laid to sleep,” said the Canon gravely.

“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs Kingsworth. “The only reparation is to undo the wrong. Katharine and I cannot have masses said for my husband’s soul; but we can refuse to profit by the sin that he committed. We need not share it. I wish Katharine on the day she comes of age to give up the estate to the rightful heiress, her cousin Emberance. I have tried to show her in all my training the beauty of self-sacrifice, to make the right thing so good in her eyes that she should be ready to prefer it to selfish pleasure. I never meet with a response! I cannot trust in her carrying out my purpose.”

Mrs Kingsworth’s voice had faltered as she went on, and now broke down completely; while the eyes, which she had raised with a certain childlike directness, filled with tears.

Canon Kingsworth took two turns up and down the room before he answered her, and then said slowly and deliberately, —

“I do not consider that Katharine is called upon to make such a renunciation.”

“Not legally, I know,” said Mrs Kingsworth.

“Nor, I think, on any principle. Let us be plain with each other. You think that but for George’s reticence the property would have gone to James. There is no doubt that had my brother been aware that his sons would only leave a girl apiece, he would have left the bulk of it to Walter Kingsworth, his cousin. I think that had he known all the circumstances of James’ marriage, he would not have wholly disinherited him; but I think that enough had passed to prevent him from making an eldest son of him. Indeed the place would have been ruined if he had. James deserved his punishment. Moreover, Mary, no living man will ever know what lies between their memories.”