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Kingsworth: or, The Aim of a Life
Kingsworth; or, The Aim of a Life
Chapter One
The Heirs of Kingsworth
Kingsworth was a moderate-sized old-fashioned house, standing amid bare undulating downs above a low line of chalky cliffs and looking over the sea. It was enclosed in a piece of barren down, which young half-grown trees were struggling to turn into a park – trees that the wind blew all in one direction, and forced into strange shapes and attitudes. Almost on the edge of the cliff was a bit of ruined tower, and down below the slope or the park and sheltered by the hill from the wind was a little village, untidy rather than picturesque.
The rooms in Kingsworth House were small and dark; the situation, save in sparkling sunshine, was bleak and dreary; yet its possession had been the aim of a whole life’s work – and would be a matter of infinite importance to those whose fortunes these pages are intended to follow.
Kingsworth House had once been Kingsworth Castle, when the ruined tower had been whole and inhabited, and the family traditions were both ancient and honourable. But early in the 18th century, between political changes and personal extravagance Walter Kingsworth was ruined, and the family place sold to a stranger. He left two sons, who set to work in various ways to earn their living. The younger went into trade; in due time his family made their fortune, and his grandson fulfilled a long-standing ambition and bought back the family place. Their old house had been pulled down and the present one built by the intermediate owners; but the Kingsworths of Kingsworth came back very naturally to their place in the county, the rich merchant’s son closed his connection with the business that had made his father’s fortune – and the two young men, the purchaser’s grandsons, who were lounging about in the little dark library one windy sunny March morning, had no thought but that their family place was an inalienable inheritance.
With the elder branch of the Kingsworths they had only a little occasional intercourse, as these were settled far away in the North at a place called Silthorpe, where they were solicitors of good standing, and with a large business. The Kingsworths were fair fresh-coloured people, with dark eyes and aquiline noses. They were slightly made and mostly of middle height, and were proud of their resemblance to the family type. James, the elder of those two brothers, was the handsomer, and George the more thoughtful looking of the two. He was writing a letter; while his brother, turning over the newspaper, looking out of window, and idly stirring the fire, seemed rather at a loss for some amusement.
“I declare, George,” he said, presently, “I am lost in admiration of your good luck.”
“Well,” said George, good-humouredly, “if you think I am lucky I am the last person to deny it. I am – successful.”
“That you should have succeeded in engaging yourself to an heiress! a lady, and a very handsome girl into the bargain. Why – if I could have done such a thing, then I should have won pardon for all my offences, retrieved my character for good sense, got my debts paid – ”
“With the heiress’s money?”
“No, no, don’t you suppose my father would pay them twenty times over if I had done such a clever thing as to get engaged to Miss Lacy?”
“You don’t seem to give my father much reason to think there is any use in paying them,” said George, gravely.