it! At least there must be full confession.”
“Stop, Mary, what is it that you want to confess? Remember you know nothing.”
“I know that Mr Kingsworth did not get that letter. I know that my child has her cousin’s right. If he – if George had no time to do justice, I must do it for him.”
“Recognise and receive her kindly, that is the first thing to do.”
That was a strange interview between the two young widows, widowed so suddenly and so recently, that neither bore any token in her dress of her condition – both suffering under the same loss; both with the same comfort left to them.
Mary approached with reverence for her sister-in-law’s grief, with a sense, keen in her soul, of standing in her place – but the other was shy and hard; till the mention of her husband’s name broke down her reserve, and she sobbed out her misery at his loss, in such evident ignorance of his character and himself, that any attempt to explain the state of the case, any apology offered, only seemed an additional injury. Mary made her statement, notwithstanding all the tears with which it was met.
“This letter was not given to our father-in-law. He never knew the truth about your marriage. I can but ask you to forgive,” she said, with a bitter proud humility. “I am afraid that your husband’s errors were not put in the best light before his father.”
“My husband’s errors! How dare any one say he had errors! If he had, I will never hear a whisper of them now! now that I have lost him,” sobbed Ellen Kingsworth, while Mary stood silenced by a view of wifely duty so unlike her own.
Ellen turned away from her with manifest suspicion and dislike, and Mary having relieved her conscience was too much absorbed in her own shame and dread – in the terrible fear of she knew not what, to show sufficient tenderness to overcome the repulsion.
In a day or two, however, Mrs James Kingsworth’s mother, Mrs Bury, arrived on the scene: a gentle ladylike woman, who had worked hard at school-keeping for her living, and who avowed that her daughter’s secret marriage had been made without her knowledge, and afterwards concealed greatly against her will.
She expressed much less surprise than Ellen had done at the disinheritance of her son-in-law, of whom she evidently had formed no good opinion, refused at first with some quiet pride the offers of assistance for Emberance’s education, saying that she and her daughter were far from being unable to support her; but perceiving how earnestly and sincerely the Kingsworths wished to make this arrangement, she replied that it was an acknowledgment of her daughter’s position, and as such she accepted the allowance offered – a small one – for the affairs of Kingsworth had been much hampered by James’ debts. Katharine Kingsworth must owe to her long minority, or to her mother’s wealth, the means of supporting her inheritance.
These matters settled, and the sad double funeral over, Mrs James Kingsworth and her mother and child went away from Kingsworth, doubtless with much sense of injury and disappointment; while Mary was left, feeling as if a burden had been laid upon her, that would crush the brightness out of her life for ever – the brightness, not the energy nor the resolution. She looked forward through the years, and set one aim before her – to undo the injustice which she believed her husband to have done, and to free her child from her unlawful possessions.
How she succeeded, the sequel will tell.
Chapter Four
Applehurst
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
