Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life. Coleridge Christabel Rose
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.
Chapter Five
Speculations
That hot autumn day was destined, little as she knew it, to be a crisis in Katharine Kingsworth’s life. She was very far from expecting that anything should happen to her, as she sauntered along by the garden wall, eating her peaches, and wondering what to do when she had finished them. She was accustomed to have her time pretty well filled up with her studies; but the absence of object and of emulation had made these of late very wearisome to her, and her mother had half unconsciously relaxed the rein, having indeed nearly come to the end of her own powers. Carefully as she learned and taught, the want of contact with other minds deprived her own of its freshness. Katharine at nineteen was sick of reading history and doing sums, and of talking French one day and German the next. She did not like drawing, and her musical taste was of a commonplace kind, and could not flourish “itself its own delight.”
She loved her mother; but she was afraid of her, and conscious of failing to satisfy her, and the impatient desire of Change hid from her all the pleasure of association and long habit.
“I wonder if mamma means this to go on for ever,” she thought. “Am I to live here till I am as old as she is? Surely other girls have more variety. I don’t know much about it – but I begin to think our lives are odd as well as disagreeable. Surely we could go again and see Uncle Kingsworth – or go and stay somewhere else? We could– why don’t we? Are we rich, I wonder?”
The childishness of a mind which had never had anything to measure itself with, and the unvarying ascendancy of a most resolute will, had so acted that Katharine had never distinctly put these questions to herself before. Often as she had murmured, she had never resisted, nor realised the possibility of resistance. Often as she had declared that her life was hateful to her, she had no more expected that it would change than that the sun would come out because she complained when it was raining.
Katharine was impetuous; but if she had any of her mother’s strength of purpose it was as yet undeveloped. Yet all sorts of impulses and desires were awakening within her, and gradually driving her to a settled purpose – namely, to question her mother as to her reasons for living at Applehurst, and her intentions for the future.
It would be difficult to realise how tremendous a step this seemed to Katharine. To have an opinion of her own and grumble about it, was one thing – to act upon it, quite another – still she got up from her knees by the lavender bush, which she had been cutting while indulging in these meditations, and walked slowly into the house. Katharine never remembered coming into her mother’s presence in her life without a certain sense of awe and of expectation of criticism, and now as she opened the drawing-room door, her heart beat fast, and her colour, always bright enough, burnt all over her forehead and neck.
It was a pretty pleasant drawing-room; with an unmistakable air of refinement and cultivation; plenty of books and tokens of occupation, while all the furniture was handsome and in good order.
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