Wives and Daughters

‘Why? can you deny it? Is it not the truth?’

‘I ask you again, Hyacinth, who told you that Osborne Hamley’s life is in more danger than mine—or yours?’

‘Oh, don’t speak in that frightening way. My life is not in danger, I’m sure; nor yours either, love, I hope.’

He gave an impatient movement, and knocked a wineglass off the table. For the moment she felt grateful for the diversion, and busied herself in picking up the fragments: ‘bits of glass were so dangerous,’ she said. But she was startled by a voice of command, such as she had never yet heard from her husband.

‘Never mind the glass. I ask you again, Hyacinth, who told you anything about Osborne Hamley’s state of health?’

‘I am sure I wish no harm to him, and I dare say he is in very good health, as you say,’ whispered she, at last.

‘Who told——?’ began he again, sterner than ever.

‘Well, if you will know, and will make such a fuss about it,’ said she, driven to extremity, ‘it was you yourself—you or Dr. Nicholls, I am sure I forget which.’

‘I never spoke to you on the subject, and I don’t believe Nicholls did. You’d better tell me at once what you are alluding to, for I’m resolved I’ll have it out before we leave this room.’

‘I wish I’d never married again,’ she said, now fairly crying, and looking round the room, as if in vain search for a mouse-hole in which to hide herself. Then, as if the sight of the door into the store-room gave her courage, she turned and faced him.

‘You should not talk your medical secrets so loud, then, if you don’t want people to hear them. I had to go into the store-room that day Dr. Nicholls was here; cook wanted a jar of preserve, and stopped me just as I was going out—I am sure it was for no pleasure of mine, for I was sadly afraid of stickying my gloves—it was all that you might have a comfortable dinner.’

She looked as if she was going to cry again, but he gravely motioned her to go on, merely saying,—

‘Well! you overheard our conversation, I suppose?’

‘Not much,’ she answered eagerly, almost relieved by being thus helped out in her forced confession. ‘Only a sentence or two.’

‘What were they?’ he asked.

‘Why, you had just been saying something and Dr. Nicholls said, “If he has got aneurism of the aorta his days are numbered.” ’

‘Well. Anything more?’

‘Yes; you said, “I hope to God I may be mistaken; but there is a pretty clear indication of symptoms, in my opinion.” ’

‘How do you know we were speaking of Osborne Hamley?’ he asked; perhaps in hopes of throwing her off the scent. But as soon as she perceived that he was descending to her level of subterfuge, she took courage, and said in quite a different tone to the cowed one which she had been using.

‘Oh! I know. I heard his name mentioned by you both before I began to listen.’

‘Then you own you did listen?’

‘Yes,’ said she, hesitating a little now.

‘And pray how do you come to remember so exactly the name of the disease spoken of?’

‘Because I went——now don’t he angry, I really can’t see any harm in what I did———’

‘There, don’t deprecate anger. You went———’

‘Into the surgery, and looked it out. Why might not I?’

Mr. Gibson did not answer—did not look at her. His face was very pale, and both forehead and lips were contracted. At length he roused himself, sighed, and said,—

‘Well! I suppose as one brews one must bake?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ pouted she.

‘Perhaps not,’ he replied. ‘I suppose that it was what you heard on that occasion that made you change your behaviour to Roger Hamley? I’ve noticed how much more civil you were to him of late.’

‘If you mean that I have ever got to like him as much as Osborne, you are very much mistaken; no, not even though he has offered to Cynthia, and is to be my son-in-law.’

‘Let me know the whole affair. You overheard,—I will own that it was Osborne about whom we were speaking, though I shall have something to say about that presently—and then, if I understand you rightly, you changed your behaviour to Roger, and made him more welcome to this house than you had ever done before, regarding him as proximate heir to the Hamley estates?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “proximate”.’

‘Go into the surgery, and look into the dictionary then,’ said he, losing his temper for the first time during the conversation.

‘I knew,’ said she, through sobs and tears, ‘that Roger had taken a fancy to Cynthia; any one might see that; and as long as Roger was only a younger son, with no profession, and nothing but his fellowship, I thought it right to discourage him, as any one would who had a grain of common sense in them; for a clumsier, more common, awkward, stupid fellow I never saw—to be called county, I mean.’

‘Take care; you’ll have to eat your words presently when you come to fancy he’ll have Hamley some day.’

‘No, I shan’t,’ said she, not perceiving his exact drift. ‘You are vexed now because it is not Molly he’s in love with; and I call it very unjust and unfair to my poor fatherless girl. I am sure I have always tried to further Molly’s interests as if she was my own daughter.’

Mr. Gibson was too indifferent to this accusation to take any notice of it. He returned to what was of far more importance to him.

‘The point I want to be clear about is this. Did you or did you not alter your behaviour to Roger in consequence of what you overheard of my professional conversation with Dr. Nicholls? Have you not favoured his suit to Cynthia since then, on the understanding gathered from that conversation that he stood a good chance of inheriting Hamley?’

‘I suppose I have,’ said she, sulkily. ‘And if I did, I can’t see any harm in it, that I should be questioned as if I were in a witness-box. He was in love with Cynthia long before that conversation, and she liked him so much. It was not for me to cross the path of true love. I don’t see how you would have a mother love her child if she may not turn accidental circumstances to her advantage. Perhaps Cynthia might have died if she had been crossed in love; her poor father was consumptive.’

‘Don’t you know that all professional conversations are confidential? That it would be the most dishonourable thing possible for me to betray secrets which I learn in the exercise of my profession?’

‘Yes, of course, you.’

‘Well! and are not you and I one in all these respects? You cannot do a dishonourable act without my being inculpated in the disgrace. If it would be a deep disgrace for me to betray a professional secret, what would it be for me to trade on that knowledge?’

He was trying hard to be patient; but the offence was of that class which galled him insupportably.

‘I don’t know what you mean by trading. Trading in a daughter’s affections is the last thing I should do; and I should have thought you would be rather glad than otherwise to get Cynthia well married, and off your hands.’

Mr. Gibson got up, and walked about the room, his hands in his pockets. Once or twice he began to speak, but he stopped impatiently short without going on.

‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ he said at length. ‘You either can’t or won’t see what I mean. I’m glad enough to have Cynthia here. I have given her a true welcome, and I sincerely hope she will find this house as much a home as my own daughter does. But for the future I must look out of my doors, and double-lock the approaches if I am so foolish as to———However, that’s past and gone; and it remains with me to prevent its recurrence as far as I can for the future. Now let us hear the present state of affairs.’

‘I don’t think I ought to tell you anything about it. It is a secret, just as much as your mysteries are.’

‘Very well; you have told me enough for me to act upon, which I most certainly shall do. It was only the other day I promised the squire to let him know if I suspected anything—any love-affair, or entanglement, much less an engagement—between either of his sons and our girls.’

‘But this is not an engagement; he would not let it be so; if you would only listen to me, I could tell you all. Only I do hope you won’t go and tell the squire and everybody. Cynthia did so beg that it might not be known. It is only my unfortunate frankness that has led me into this scrape. I never could keep a secret from those whom I love.’

‘I must tell the squire. I shall not mention it to any one else. And do you quite think it was consistent with your general frankness to have overheard what you did, and never to have mentioned it to me? I could have told you then that Dr. Nicholls’s opinion was decidedly opposed to mine, and that he believed that the disturbance about which I consulted him on Osborne’s behalf was merely temporary. Dr. Nicholls would tell you that Osborne is as likely as any man to live and marry and beget children.’

If there was any skill used by Mr. Gibson so to word this speech as to conceal his own opinion, Mrs. Gibson was not sharp enough to find it out. She was dismayed, and Mr. Gibson enjoyed her dismay; it restored him to something like his usual frame of mind.

‘Let us review this misfortune, for I see you consider it as such,’ said he.

‘No, not quite a misfortune,’ said she. ‘But certainly if I had known Dr. Nicholls’s opinion——’ she hesitated.

‘You see the advantage of always consulting me,’ he continued gravely. ‘Here is Cynthia engaged——’

‘Not engaged, I told you before. He would not allow it to be considered an engagement on her part.’

‘Well, entangled in a love-affair with a lad of three-and-twenty, with nothing beyond his fellowship and a chance of inheriting an encumbered estate; no profession even, abroad for two years, and I must go and tell his father all about it to-morrow’

‘Oh, dear, pray say that, if he dislikes it, he has only to express his opinion.’

‘I don’t think you can act without Cynthia in the affair. And, if I am not mistaken, Cynthia will have a pretty stout will of her own on the subject.’

‘Oh, I don’t think she cares for him very much; she is not one to be always falling in love, and she does not take things very deeply to heart. But of course one would not do anything abruptly; two years’ absence gives one plenty of time to turn oneself in.’

‘But a little time ago we were threatened with consumption and an early death if Cynthia’s affections were thwarted.’

‘Oh, you dear creature, how you remember all my silly words! It might be; you know poor dear Mr. Kirkpatrick was consumptive, and Cynthia may have inherited it, and a great sorrow might bring out the latent seeds. At times I am so fearful. But I dare say it is not probable, for I don’t think she takes things very deeply to heart.’

‘Then I am quite at liberty to give up the affair, acting as Cynthia’s proxy, if the squire disapproves of it?’

Poor Mrs. Gibson was in a strait at this question.

‘No!’ she said at last. ‘We cannot give it up. I am sure Cynthia would not; especially if she thought others were acting for her. And he really is very much in love. I wish he were in Osborne’s place.’

‘Shall I tell you what I should do?’ said Mr. Gibson, in real earnest. ‘However it may be brought about, here are two young people in love with each other. One is as fine a young fellow as ever breathed; the other a very pretty, lively, agreeable girl. The father of the young man must be told, and it is most likely he will bluster and oppose; for there is no doubt it is an imprudent affair as far as money goes. But let them be steady and patient, and a better lot need await no young woman. I only wish it were Molly’s good fortune to meet with such another.’

‘I will try for her; I will indeed,’ said Mrs. Gibson, relieved by his change of tone.

‘No, don’t. That’s one thing I forbid. I’ll have no “trying” for Molly.’

‘Well, don’t be angry, dear! Do you know I was quite afraid you were going to lose your temper at one time.’

‘It would have been of no use!’ said he, gloomily, getting up as if to close the sitting. His wife was only too glad to make her escape. The conjugal interview had not been satisfactory to either. Mr. Gibson had been compelled to face and acknowledge the fact that the wife he had chosen had a very different standard of conduct from that which he had upheld all his life, and had hoped to have seen inculcated in his daughter. He was more irritated than he chose to show; for there was so much of self-reproach in his irritation that he kept it to himself, brooded over it, and allowed a feeling of suspicious dissatisfaction with his wife to grow up in his mind, which extended itself by and by to the innocent Cynthia, and caused his manner to both mother and daughter to assume a certain curt severity, which took the latter, at any rate, with extreme surprise. But on the present occasion he followed his wife up to the drawing-room, and gravely congratulated the astonished Cynthia.

‘Has mamma told you?’ said she, shooting an indignant glance at her mother. ‘It is hardly an engagement; and we all pledged ourselves to keep it a secret, mamma among the rest!’

‘But, my dearest Cynthia, you could not expect—you could not have wished me to keep a secret from my husband?’ pleaded Mrs. Gibson.

‘No, perhaps not. At any rate, sir,’ said Cynthia, turning towards him with graceful frankness, ‘I am glad you should know it. You have always been a most kind friend to me, and I dare say I should have told you myself, but I did not want it named; if you please, it must still be a secret. In fact, it is hardly an engagement—he’ (she blushed and sparkled a little at the euphemism, which implied that there was but one ‘he’ present in her thoughts at the moment) ‘would not allow me to bind myself by any promise until his return!’

Mr. Gibson looked gravely at her, irresponsive to her winning looks, which at the moment reminded him too forcibly of her mother’s ways. Then he took her hand, and said, seriously enough,—

‘I hope you are worthy of him, Cynthia, for you have indeed drawn a prize. I have never known a truer or warmer heart than Roger’s; and I have known him boy and man.’

Molly felt as if she could have thanked her father aloud for this testimony to the value of him who was gone away. But Cynthia pouted a little before she smiled up in his face.

‘You are not complimentary, are you, Mr. Gibson?’ said she. ‘He thinks me worthy, I suppose; and if you have so high an opinion of him, you ought to respect his judgment of me.’ If she hoped to provoke a compliment she was disappointed, for Mr. Gibson let go her hand in an absent manner, and sat down in an easy chair by the fire, gazing at the wood embers as if hoping to read the future in them. Molly saw Cynthia’s eyes filled with tears, and followed her to the other end of the room, where she had gone to seek some working materials.

‘Dear Cynthia,’ was all she said; but she pressed her hand while trying to assist in the search.

‘Oh, Molly, I am so fond of your father; what makes him speak so to me to-night?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Molly; ‘perhaps he’s tired.’

They were recalled from further conversation by Mr. Gibson. He had roused himself from his reverie, and was now addressing Cynthia.

‘I hope you will not consider it a breach of confidence, Cynthia, but I must tell the squire of—of what has taken place to-day between you and his son. I have bound myself by a promise to him. He was afraid—it’s as well to tell you the truth—he was afraid’ (an emphasis on this last word) ‘of something of this kind between his sons and one of you two girls. It was only the other day I assured him there was nothing of the kind on foot; and I told him then I would inform him at once if I saw any symptoms.’

Cynthia looked extremely annoyed.

‘It was the one thing I stipulated for—secrecy’

‘But why?’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘I can understand your not wishing to have it made public under the present circumstances. But the nearest friends on both sides! Surely you can have no objection to that?’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Cynthia; ‘I would not have had any one know if I could have helped it.’

‘I am almost certain Roger will tell his father.’

‘No, he won’t,’ said Cynthia; ‘I made him promise, and I think he is one to respect a promise’—with a glance at her mother, who, feeling herself in disgrace with both husband and child, was keeping a judicious silence.

‘Well, at any rate, the story would come with so much better a grace from him that I shall give him the chance; I won’t go over to the Hall till the end of the week; he may have written and told his father before then.’

Cynthia held her tongue for a little while. Then she said, with tearful pettishness,—

‘A man’s promise is to override a woman’s wish, then, is it?’

‘I don’t see any reason why it should not.’

‘Will you trust in my reasons when I tell you it will cause me a great deal of distress if it gets known?’ She said this in so pleading a voice, that if Mr. Gibson had not been thoroughly displeased and annoyed by his previous conversation with her mother, he must have yielded to her. As it was, he said, coldly,—‘Telling Roger’s father is not making it public. I don’t like this exaggerated desire for such secrecy, Cynthia. It seems to me as if something more than is apparent was concealed behind it.’

‘Come, Molly,’ said Cynthia, suddenly; ‘let us sing that duet I’ve been teaching you; it’s better than talking as we are doing.’

It was a little lively French duet. Molly sang it carelessly, with heaviness at her heart; but Cynthia sang it with spirit and apparent merriment; only she broke down in hysterics at last, and flew upstairs to her own room. Molly, heeding nothing else—neither her father nor Mrs. Gibson’s words—followed her, and found the door of her bedroom locked, and for all reply to her entreaties to be allowed to come in, she heard Cynthia sobbing and crying.

It was more than a week after the incidents last recorded before Mr. Gibson found himself at liberty to call on the squire; and he heartily hoped that long before then, Roger’s letter might have arrived from Paris, telling his father the whole story. But he saw at the first glance that the squire had heard nothing unusual to disturb his equanimity. He was looking better than he had done for months past; the light of hope was in his eyes, his face seemed of a healthy ruddy colour, gained partly by his resumption of outdoor employment in the superintendence of the works, and partly because the happiness he had lately had through Roger’s means caused his blood to flow with regular vigour. He had felt Roger’s going away, it is true; but whenever the sorrow of parting with him pressed too heavily upon him, he filled his pipe, and smoked it out over a long, slow, deliberate re-perusal of Lord Hollingford’s letter, every word of which he knew by heart; but expressions in which he made a pretence to himself of doubting, that he might have an excuse for looking at his son’s praises once again. The first greetings over, Mr. Gibson plunged into his subject.

‘Any news from Roger yet?’

‘Oh, yes; here’s his letter,’ said the squire, producing his black leather case in which Roger’s missive had been placed along with the other very heterogeneous contents.

Mr. Gibson read it, hardly seeing the words after he had by one rapid glance assured himself that there was no mention of Cynthia in it.

‘Hum! I see he doesn’t name one very important event that has befallen him since he left you,’ said Mr. Gibson, seizing on the first words that came. ‘I believe I’m committing a breach of confidence on one side; but I’m going to keep the promise I made the last time I was here. I find there is something—something of the kind you apprehended—you understand—between him and my stepdaughter, Cynthia Kirkpatrick. He called at our house to wish us good-bye, while waiting for the London coach, found her alone, and spoke to her. They don’t call it an engagement, but of course it is one.’

‘Give me back the letter,’ said the squire, in a constrained kind of voice. Then he read it again, as if he had not previously mastered its contents, and as if there might be some sentence or sentences he had overlooked.

‘No!’ he said at last, with a sigh. ‘He tells me nothing about it. Lads may play at confidences with their fathers, but they keep a deal back.’ The squire appeared more disappointed at not having heard of this straight from Roger than displeased at the fact itself, Mr. Gibson thought. But he let him take his time.

‘He’s not the eldest son,’ continued the squire, talking as it were to himself. ‘But it’s not the match I should have planned for him. How came you, sir,’ said he, firing round on Mr. Gibson, suddenly—‘to say when you were last here, that there was nothing between my sons and either of your girls? Why, this must have been going on all the time!’

‘I’m afraid it was. But I was as ignorant about it as the babe unborn. I only heard of it on the evening of the day of Roger’s departure.’

‘And that’s a week ago, sir. What’s kept you quiet ever since?’

‘I thought that Roger would tell you himself.’

‘That shows you’ve no sons. More than half their life is unknown to their fathers. Why, Osborne there, we live together—that’s to say, we have our meals together, and we sleep under the same roof—and yet—Well! well! life is as God has made it. You say it’s not an engagement yet? But I wonder what I’m doing? Hoping for my lad’s disappointment in the folly he’s set his heart on—and just when he’s been helping me. Is it a folly, or is it not? I ask you, Gibson, for you must know this girl. She hasn’t much money, I suppose?’

‘About thirty pounds a year, at my pleasure during her mother’s life.’

‘Whew! It’s well he’s not Osborne. They’ll have to wait. What family is she of? None of ’em in trade, I reckon, from her being so poor?’

‘I believe her father was grandson of a certain Sir Gerald Kirkpatrick. Her mother tells me it is an old baronetcy. I know nothing of such things.’

‘That’s something. I do know something of such things, as you are pleased to call them. I like honourable blood.’

Mr. Gibson could not help saying, ‘But I’m afraid that only one-eighth of Cynthia’s blood is honourable; I know nothing further of her relations excepting the fact that her father was a curate.’

‘Professional. That’s a step above trade at any rate. How old is she?’

‘Eighteen or nineteen.’

‘Pretty?’

‘Yes, I think so; most people do; but it is all a matter of taste. Come, squire, judge for yourself Ride over and take lunch with us any day you like. I may not be in; but her mother will be there, and you can make acquaintance with your son’s future wife.’

This was going too fast, however; presuming too much on the quietness with which the squire had been questioning him. Mr. Hamley drew back within his shell, and spoke in a surly manner as he replied,—

‘Roger’s “future wife”! he’ll be wiser by the time he comes home. Two years among the black folks will have put more sense in him.’

‘Possible, but not probable, I should say,’ replied Mr. Gibson. ‘Black folk are not remarkable for their powers of reasoning, I believe, so that they haven’t much chance of altering his opinion by argument, even if they understood each other’s language; and certainly if he shares my taste, their peculiarity of complexion will only make him appreciate white skins the more.’

‘But you said it was no engagement,’ growled the squire. ‘If he thinks better of it, you won’t keep him to it, will you?’

‘If he wishes to break it off, I shall certainly advise Cynthia to be equally willing, that’s all I can say. And I see no reason for discussing the affair further at present. I have told you how matters stand because I promised you I would, if I saw anything of this kind going on. But in the present condition of things, we can neither make nor mar; we can only wait.’ And he took up his hat to go. But the squire was discontented.

‘Don’t go, Gibson. Don’t take offence at what I’ve said, though I’m sure I don’t know why you should. What is the girl like in herself?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mr. Gibson. But he did; only he was vexed, and did not choose to understand.

‘Is she—well, is she like your Molly?—sweet-tempered and sensible—with her gloves always mended, and neat about the feet, and ready to do anything one asks her just as if doing it was the very thing she liked best in the world?’

Mr. Gibson’s face relaxed now, and he could understand all the squire’s broken sentences and unexplained meanings.

‘She is much prettier than Molly to begin with, and has very winning ways. She is always well-dressed and smart-looking, and I know she has not much to spend on her clothes, and always does what she is asked to do, and is ready enough with her pretty, lively answers. I don’t think I ever saw her out of temper; but then I’m not sure if she takes things keenly to heart, and a certain obtuseness of feeling goes a great way towards a character for good temper, I’ve observed. Altogether, I think Cynthia is one in a hundred.’

The squire meditated a little. ‘Your Molly is one in a thousand, to my mind. But then you see she comes of no family at all—and I don’t suppose she’ll have a chance of much money.’ This he said as if he were thinking aloud, and without reference to Mr. Gibson, but it nettled the latter, and he replied somewhat impatiently—

‘Well, but as there is no question of Molly in this business, I don’t see the use of bringing her name in, and considering either her family or her fortune.’

‘No, to be sure not,’ said the squire, rousing up. ‘My wits had gone far afield, and I’ll own I was only thinking what a pity it was she wouldn’t do for Osborne. But of course it’s out of the question—out of the question.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gibson, ‘and if you will excuse me, squire, I really must go now, and then you’ll be at liberty to send your wits afield uninterrupted.’ This time he was at the door before the squire called him back. He stood impatiently hitting his top-boots with his riding-whip, waiting for the interminable last words.

‘I say, Gibson, we’re old friends, and you’re a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I didn’t hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won’t say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn’t me. However, we’ll pass that over. Suppose you bring her, and this girl Cynthia (which is as outlandish a Christian name as I’d wish to hear), and little Molly out here to lunch some day—I’m more at my ease in my own house—and I’m more sure to be civil, too. We need say nothing about Roger—neither the lass nor me—and you keep your wife’s tongue quiet, if you can. It will only be like a compliment to you on your marriage, you know—and no one must take it for anything more. Mind, no allusion or mention of Roger, and this piece of folly. I shall see the girl then, and I can judge her for myself; for, as you say, that will be the best plan. Osborne will be here too; and he’s always in his element talking to women. I sometimes think he’s half a woman himself, he spends so much money and is so unreasonable.’

The squire was pleased with his own speech and his own thought, and smiled a little as he finished speaking. Mr. Gibson was both pleased and amused; and he smiled too, anxious as he was to be gone. The next Thursday was soon fixed upon as the day on which Mr. Gibson was to bring his womenkind out to the Hall. He thought that on the whole the interview had gone off a good deal better than he expected and felt rather proud of the invitation of which he was the bearer. Therefore Mrs. Gibson’s manner of receiving it was an annoyance to him. She meanwhile had been considering herself as an injured woman ever since the evening of the day of Roger’s departure; what business had any one had to speak as if the chances of Osborne’s life being prolonged were infinitely small, if in fact the matter was uncertain? She liked Osborne extremely, much better than Roger; and would gladly have schemed to secure him for Cynthia, if she had not shrunk from the notion of her daughter’s becoming a widow. For if Mrs. Gibson had ever felt anything acutely it was the death of Mr. Kirkpatrick; and, amiably callous as she was in most things, she recoiled from exposing her daughter wilfully to the same kind of suffering which she herself had experienced. But if she had only known Dr. Nicholls’s opinion she would never have favoured Roger’s suit; never. And then Mr. Gibson himself; why was he so cold and reserved in his treatment of her since that night of explanation? She had done nothing wrong; yet she was treated as though she were in disgrace. And everything about the house was flat just now. She even missed the little excitement of Roger’s visits, and the watching of his attentions to Cynthia. Cynthia too was silent enough; and as for Molly, she was absolutely dull and out of spirits, a state of mind so annoying to Mrs. Gibson just now, that she vented some of her discontent upon the poor girl, from whom she feared neither complaint nor repartee.

CHAPTER 36

Domestic Diplomacy

The evening of the day on which Mr. Gibson had been to see the squire, the three women were alone in the drawing-room, for Mr. Gibson had had a long round and was not as yet come in. They had had to wait dinner for him; and for some time after his return there was nothing done or said but what related to the necessary business of eating. Mr. Gibson was, perhaps, as well satisfied with his day’s work as any of the four; for this visit to the squire had been weighing on his mind ever since he heard of the state of things between Roger and Cynthia. He did not like the having to go and tell of a love-affair so soon after he had declared his belief that no such thing existed; it was a confession of fallibility which is distasteful to most men. If the squire had not been of so unsuspicious and simple a nature, he might have drawn his own conclusions from the apparent concealment of facts, and felt doubtful of Mr. Gibson’s perfect honesty in the business; but being what he was, there was no danger of such unjust misapprehension. Still, Mr. Gibson knew the hot, hasty temper he had to deal with, and had expected more violence of language than he really encountered; and the last arrangement, by which Cynthia, her mother, and Molly—who, as Mr. Gibson thought to himself, and smiled at the thought, was sure to be a peacemaker, and a sweetener of intercourse—were to go to the Hall and make acquaintance with the squire, appeared like a great success to Mr. Gibson, for achieving which he took not a little credit to himself Altogether, he was more cheerful and bland than he had been for many days; and when he came up into the drawing-room for a few minutes after dinner, before going out again to see his town-patients, he whistled a little under his breath, as he stood with his back to the fire, looking at Cynthia, and thinking that he had not done her justice when describing her to the squire. Now this soft, almost tuneless whistling, was to Mr. Gibson what purring is to a cat. He could no more have done it with an anxious case on his mind, or when he was annoyed by human folly, or when he was hungry, than he could have flown through the air. Molly knew all this by instinct, and was happy without being aware of it, as soon as she heard the low whistle, which was no music after all. But Mrs. Gibson did not like this trick of her husband’s; it was not refined, she thought, not even ‘artistic’; if she could have called it by this fine word it would have compensated her for the want of refinement. To-night it was particularly irritating to her nerves; but since her conversation with Mr. Gibson about Cynthia’s engagement, she had not felt herself in a sufficiently good position to complain.

Mr. Gibson began—‘Well, Cynthia; I’ve seen the squire to-day, and made a clean breast of it.’

Cynthia looked up quickly, questioning with her eyes; Molly stopped her netting to listen; no one spoke.

‘You’re all to go there on Thursday to lunch; he asked you all, and I promised for you.’

Still no reply; natural, perhaps, but very flat.

‘You’ll be glad of that, Cynthia, shan’t you?’ asked Mr. Gibson. ‘It may be a little formidable, but I hope it will be the beginning of a good understanding between you.’

‘Thank you!’ said she, with an effort. ‘But—but won’t it make it public? I do so wish not to have it known, or talked about, not till he comes back or close upon the marriage.’

‘I don’t see how it should make it public,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘My wife goes to lunch with my friend, and takes her daughters with her—there’s nothing in that, is there?’

‘I am not sure that I shall go,’ put in Mrs. Gibson. She did not know why she said it, for she fully intended to go all the time; but having said it, she was bound to stick to it for awhile; and, with such a husband as hers, the hard necessity was sure to fall upon her of having to find a reason for her saying. Then it came quick and sharp.

‘Why not?’ said he, turning round upon her.

‘Oh, because—because I think he ought to have called on Cynthia first; I’ve that sort of sensitiveness I can’t bear to think of her being slighted because she is poor.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘I do assure you, no slight whatever was intended. He does not wish to speak about the engagement to any one—not even to Osborne—that’s your wish, too, is it not, Cynthia? Nor does he intend to mention it to any of you when you go there; but, naturally enough, he wants to make acquaintance with his future daughter-in-law If he deviated so much from his usual course as to come calling here ^________’

‘I am sure I don’t want him to come calling here,’ said Mrs. Gibson, interrupting. ‘He was not so very agreeable the only time he did come. But I am that sort of a character that I cannot put up with any neglect of persons I love, just because they are not smiled upon by fortune.’ She sighed a little ostentatiously as she ended her sentence.

‘Well, then, you won’t go!’ said Mr. Gibson, provoked, but not wishing to have a long discussion, especially as he felt his temper going.

‘Do you wish it, Cynthia?’ said Mrs. Gibson, anxious for an excuse to yield.

But her daughter was quite aware of this motive for the question, and replied quietly—‘Not particularly, mamma. I am quite willing to refuse the invitation.’

‘It is already accepted,’ said Mr. Gibson, almost ready to vow that he would never again meddle in any affair in which women were concerned, which would effectually shut him out from all love-affairs for the future. He had been touched by the squire’s relenting, pleased with what he had thought would give others pleasure, and this was the end of it!

‘Oh, do go, Cynthia!’ said Molly, pleading with her eyes as well as her words. ‘Do; I am sure you will like the squire; and it is such a pretty place, and he’ll be so much disappointed.’

‘I should not like to give up my dignity,’ said Cynthia, demurely. ‘And you heard what mamma said!’

It was very malicious of her. She fully intended to go, and was equally sure that her mother was already planning her dress for the occasion in her own mind. Mr. Gibson, however, who, surgeon though he was, had never learnt to anatomize a woman’s heart, took it all literally, and was excessively angry both with Cynthia and her mother; so angry that he did not dare to trust himself to speak. He went quickly to the door, intending to leave the room; but his wife’s voice arrested him; she said—

‘My dear, do you wish me to go? If you do, I will put my own feelings on one side.’

‘Of course I do!’ he said, short and stern, and left the room.

‘Then I’ll go!’ said she, in the voice of a victim—those words were meant for him, but he hardly heard them. ‘And we’ll have a fly from the “George,” and get a livery-coat for Thomas, which I’ve long been wanting, only dear Mr. Gibson did not like it, but on an occasion like this I’m sure he won’t mind; and Thomas shall go on the box, and———’

‘But, mamma, I’ve my feelings too,’ said Cynthia.

‘Nonsense, child! when all is so nicely arranged too.’

So they went on the day appointed. Mr. Gibson was aware of the change of plans, and that they were going after all; but he was so much annoyed by the manner in which his wife had received an invitation which had appeared to him so much kinder than he had expected from his previous knowledge of the squire, and his wishes on the subject of his son’s marriage, that Mrs. Gibson heard neither interest nor curiosity expressed by her husband as to the visit itself, or the reception they met with. Cynthia’s indifference as to whether the invitation was accepted or not had displeased Mr. Gibson. He was not up to her ways with her mother, and did not understand how much of this said indifference had been assumed in order to countervent Mrs. Gibson’s affectation and false sentiment. But for all his annoyance on the subject, he was, in fact, very curious to know how the visit had gone off, and took the first opportunity of being alone with Molly to question her about the lunch of the day before at Hamley Hall.

‘And so you went to Hamley yesterday after all?’

‘Yes; I thought you would have come. The squire seemed quite to expect you.’

‘I thought of going there at first; but I changed my mind like other people. I don’t see why women are to have a monopoly of changeableness. Well! how did it go off? Pleasantly, I suppose, for both your mother and Cynthia were in high spirits last night.’

‘Yes. The dear old squire was in his best dress and on his best behaviour, and was so prettily attentive to Cynthia, and she looked so lovely, walking about with him, and listening to all his talk about the garden and farm. Mamma was tired, and stopped indoors, so they got on very well, and saw a great deal of each other.’

‘And my little girl trotted behind?’

‘Oh, yes. You know I was almost at home, and besides—of course——’ Molly went very red, and left the sentence unfinished.

‘Do you think she’s worthy of him?’ asked her father, just as if she had completed her speech.

‘Of Roger, papa? oh, who is? But she is very sweet, and very, very charming.’

‘Very charming, if you will, but somehow I don’t quite understand her. Why does she want all this secrecy? Why was she not more eager to go and pay her duty to Roger’s father? She took it as coolly as if I’d asked her to go to church!’

‘I don’t think she did take it coolly; I believe I don’t quite understand her either, but I love her dearly all the same.’

‘Umph; I like to understand people thoroughly; but I know it’s not necessary to women. D’ye really think she’s worthy of him?’

‘Oh, papa’—said Molly, and then she stopped; she wanted to speak in favour of Cynthia, but somehow she could form no reply that pleased her to this repeated inquiry. He did not seem much to care if he got an answer or not, for he went on with his own thoughts, and the result was that he asked Molly if Cynthia had heard from Roger.

‘Yes; on Wednesday morning.’

‘Did she show it to you? But of course not. Besides, I read the squire’s letter, which told all about him.’

Now Cynthia, rather to Molly’s surprise, had told her that she might read the letter if she liked, and Molly had shrunk from availing herself of the permission, for Roger’s sake. She thought that he would probably have poured out his heart to the one sole person, and that it was not fair to listen, as it were, to his confidences.

‘Was Osborne at home?’ asked Mr. Gibson. ‘The squire said he did not think he would have come back; but the young fellow is so uncertain———’

‘No, he was still from home.’ Then Molly blushed all over crimson, for it suddenly struck her that Osborne was probably with his wife—that mysterious wife, of whose existence she was cognizant, but of whom she knew so little, and of whom her father knew nothing. Mr. Gibson noticed the blush with anxiety. What did it mean? It was troublesome enough to find that one of the squire’s precious sons had fallen in love within the prohibited ranks; and what would not have to be said and done if anything fresh were to come out between Osborne and Molly. He spoke out at once to relieve himself of this new apprehension.

‘Molly, I was taken by surprise by this affair between Cynthia and Roger Hamley—if there’s anything more on the tapis^de let me know at once, honestly and openly. I know it’s an awkward question for you to reply to; but I would not ask it unless I had good reasons.’ He took her hand as he spoke. She looked up at him with clear, truthful eyes, which filled with tears as she spoke. She did not know why the tears came; perhaps it was because she was not so strong as formerly.

‘If you mean that you’re afraid that Osborne thinks of me as Roger thinks of Cynthia, papa, you are quite mistaken. Osborne and I are friends and nothing more, and never can be anything more. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘It’s quite enough little one. It’s a great relief. I don’t want to have my Molly carried off by any young man just yet; I should miss her sadly.’ He could not help saying this in the fulness of his heart just then, but he was surprised at the effect these few tender words produced. Molly threw her arms round his neck, and began to sob bitterly, her head lying on his shoulder. ‘There, there!’ said he, patting her on the back, and leading her to the sofa, ‘that will do. I get quite enough of tears in the day, shed for real causes, not to want them at home, where, I hope, they are shed for no cause at all. There’s nothing really the matter, is there, my dear?’ he continued, holding her a little away from him that he might look in her face. She smiled at him through her tears; and he did not see the look of sadness which returned to her face after he had left her.

‘Nothing, dear, dear papa—nothing now. It is such a comfort to have you all to myself—it makes me happy.’

Mr. Gibson knew all implied in these words, and felt that there was no effectual help for the state of things which had arisen from his own act. It was better for them both that they should not speak out more fully. So he kissed her, and said—

‘That’s right, dear! I can leave you in comfort now, and indeed, I’ve stayed too long already gossiping. Go out and have a walk—take Cynthia with you, if you like. I must be off. Good-bye, little one.’

His commonplace words acted like an astringent on Molly’s relaxed feelings. He intended that they should do so; it was the truest kindness to her; but he walked away from her with a sharp pang at his heart, which he turned into numbness as soon as he could by throwing himself violently into the affairs and cares of others.

CHAPTER 37

A Fluke, and What Came of It

The honour and glory of having a lover of her own was soon to fall to Molly’s share; though, to be sure, it was a little deduction to the honour that the man who came with the full intention of proposing to her, ended by making Cynthia an offer. It was Mr. Coxe, who came back to Hollingford to follow out the purpose he had announced to Mr. Gibson nearly two years before, of inducing Molly to become his wife as soon as he should have succeeded to his uncle’s estate. He was now rich, though still a red-haired, young man. He came to the ‘George’ Inn, bringing his horses and his groom; not that he was going to ride much, but that he thought that such outward signs of his riches might help on his suit; and he was so justly modest in his estimation of himself that he believed that he needed all extraneous aid. He piqued himself on his constancy; and indeed, considering that he had been so much restrained by his duty, his affection, and his expectations to his crabbed old uncle, that he had not been able to go much into society, and very rarely indeed into the company of young ladies, such fidelity to Molly was very meritorious, at least in his own eyes. Mr. Gibson too was touched by it, and made it a point of honour to give him a fair field, all the time sincerely hoping that Molly would not be such a goose as to lend a willing ear to a youth who could never remember the difference between apophysis and epiphysis. He thought it as well not to tell his wife more of Mr. Coxe’s antecedents than that he had been a former pupil; who had relinquished (all that he knew of, understood) the medical profession because an old uncle had left him enough of money to be idle. Mrs. Gibson, who felt that she had somehow lost her place in her husband’s favour, took it into her head that she could reinstate herself if she was successful in finding a good match for his daughter Molly. She knew that he had forbidden her to try for this end, as distinctly as words could express a meaning; but her own words so seldom did express her meaning, or if they did, she held to her opinions so loosely, that she had no idea but that it was the same with other people. Accordingly she gave Mr. Coxe a very sweet and gracious welcome.

‘It is such a pleasure to me to make acquaintance with the former pupils of my husband. He has spoken to me so often of you that I quite feel as if you were one of the family, as indeed I am sure that Mr. Gibson considers you.’

Mr. Coxe felt much flattered, and took the words as a happy omen for his love-affair. ‘Is Miss Gibson in?’ asked he, blushing violently. ‘I knew her formerly, that is to say, I lived in the same house with her, for more than two years, and it would be a great pleasure to—to——’

‘Certainly, I am sure she will be so glad to see you. I sent her and Cynthia—you don’t know my daughter Cynthia, I think, Mr. Coxe? she and Molly are such great friends—out for a brisk walk this frosty day, but I think they will soon come back.’ She went on saying agreeable nothings to the young man, who received her attentions with a certain complacency, but was all the time much more engaged in listening to the well-remembered click at the front door,—the shutting it to again with household care, and the sound of the familiar bounding footstep on the stair. At last they came. Cynthia entered first, bright and blooming, fresh colour in her cheeks and lips, fresh brilliance in her eyes. She looked startled at the sight of a stranger, and for an instant she stopped short at the door, as if taken by surprise. Then in came Molly softly behind her, smiling, happy, dimpled; but not such a glowing beauty as Cynthia.

‘Oh, Mr. Coxe, is it you?’ said she, going up to him with an outstretched hand, and greeting him with simple friendliness.

‘Yes; it seems such a long time since I saw you. You are so much grown—so much—well, I suppose I must not say what,’ he replied, speaking hurriedly, and holding her hand all the time, rather to her discomfiture. Then Mrs. Gibson introduced her daughter, and the two girls spoke of the enjoyment of their walk. Mr. Coxe marred his cause in that very first interview, if indeed he ever could have had any chance, by his precipitancy in showing his feelings, and Mrs. Gibson helped him to mar it by trying to assist him. Molly lost her open friendliness of manner, and began to shrink away from him in a way which he thought was a very ungrateful return for all his faithfulness to her these two years past; and after all she was not the wonderful beauty his fancy or his love had painted her. That Miss Kirkpatrick was far more beautiful and much easier of access. For Cynthia put on all her pretty airs, her look of intent interest in what any one was saying to her, let the subject be what it would, as if it was the thing she cared the most about in the whole world; her unspoken deference; in short, all the unconscious ways she possessed by instinct of tickling the vanity of men. So while Molly quietly repelled him, Cynthia drew him to her by her soft attractive ways; and his constancy fell before her charms. He was thankful that he had not gone too far with Molly, and grateful to Mr. Gibson for having prohibited all declarations two years ago. For Cynthia, and Cynthia alone, could make him happy. After a fortnight’s time, during which he had entirely veered round in his allegiance, he thought it desirable to speak to Mr. Gibson. He did so with a certain sense of exultation in his own correct behaviour in the affair, but at the same time feeling rather ashamed of the confession of his own changeableness which was naturally involved. Now it had so happened that Mr. Gibson had been unusually little at home during the fortnight that Mr. Coxe had ostensibly lodged at the ‘George,’ but in reality had spent the greater part of his time at Mr. Gibson’s—so that he had seen very little of his former pupil, and on the whole he had thought him improved, especially after Molly’s manner had made her father pretty sure that Mr. Coxe stood no chance in that quarter. But Mr. Gibson was quite ignorant of the attraction which Cynthia had had for the young man. If he had perceived it he would have nipped it in the bud pretty quickly, for he had no notion of any girl, even though only partially engaged to one man, receiving offers from others, if a little plain speaking could prevent it. Mr. Coxe had asked for a private interview; they were sitting in the old surgery, now called the consulting-room, but still retaining so much of its former self as to be the last place in which Mr. Coxe could feel himself at ease. He was red up to the very roots of his red hair, and kept turning his glossy new hat round and round in his fingers, unable to find out the proper way of beginning his sentence, so at length he plunged in, grammar or no grammar:

‘Mr. Gibson, I dare say you’ll be surprised, I’m sure I am, at—at what I want to say; but I think it’s the part of an honourable man, as you said yourself, sir, a year or two ago, to—to speak to the father first, and as you, sir, stand in the place of a father to Miss Kirkpatrick, I should like to express my feelings, my hopes, or perhaps I should say wishes, in short———’

‘Miss Kirkpatrick?’ said Mr. Gibson, a good deal surprised.

‘Yes, sir!’ continued Mr. Coxe, rushing on now he had got so far. ‘I know it may appear inconstant and changeable, but I do assure you, I came here with a heart as faithful to your daughter as ever beat in a man’s bosom. I most fully intended to offer myself and all that I had to her acceptance before I left; but really, sir, if you had seen her manner to me every time I endeavoured to press my suit a little—it was more than coy, it was absolutely repellent; there could be no mistaking it—while Miss Kirkpatrick———’ he looked modestly down, and smoothed the nap of his hat, smiling a little while he did so.

‘While Miss Kirkpatrick———?’ repeated Mr. Gibson, in such a stern voice, that Mr. Coxe, landed esquire as he was now, felt as much discomfited as he used to do when he was an apprentice, and Mr. Gibson had spoken to him in a similar manner.

‘I was only going to say, sir, that so far as one can judge from manner, and willingness to listen, and apparent pleasure in my visits—al—together, I think I may venture to hope that Miss Kirkpatrick is not quite indifferent to me—and I would wait—you have no objection, have you, sir, to my speaking to her, I mean?’ said Mr. Coxe a little anxious at the expression on Mr. Gibson’s face. ‘I do assure you I haven’t a chance with Miss Gibson,’ he continued, not knowing what to say, and fancying that his inconstancy was rankling in Mr. Gibson’s mind.

‘No! I don’t suppose you have. Don’t go and fancy it is that which is annoying me. You’re mistaken about Miss Kirkpatrick, however. I don’t believe she could ever have meant to give you encouragement! ’

Mr. Coxe’s face grew perceptibly paler. His feelings, if evanescent, were evidently strong.

‘I think, sir, if you could have seen her—I don’t consider myself vain, and manner is so difficult to describe. At any rate, you can have no objection to my taking my chance, and speaking to her.’

‘Of course, if you won’t be convinced otherwise, I can have no objection. But if you’ll take my advice, you will spare yourself the pain of a refusal. I may, perhaps, be trenching on confidence, but I think I ought to tell you that her affections are otherwise engaged.’

‘It cannot be!’ said Mr. Coxe. ‘Mr. Gibson, there must be some mistake. I have gone as far as I dared in expressing my feelings, and her manner has been most gracious. I don’t think she could have misunderstood my meaning. Perhaps she has changed her mind? It is possible that, after consideration, she has learnt to prefer another, is it not?’

‘By “another” you mean yourself, I suppose. I can believe in such inconstancy’ (he could not help, in his own mind, giving a slight sneer at the instance before him), ‘but I should be very sorry to think that Miss Kirkpatrick could be guilty of it.’

‘But she may—it is a chance. Will you allow me to see her?’

‘Certainly, my poor fellow’—for, intermingled with a little contempt, was a good deal of respect for the simplicity, the unworldliness, the strength of feeling, even though the feeling was evanescent.—‘I will send her to you directly.’

‘Thank you, sir. God bless you for a kind friend.’

Mr. Gibson went upstairs to the drawing-room, where he was pretty sure he should find Cynthia. There she was, as bright and careless as usual, making up a bonnet for her mother, and chattering to Molly as she worked.

‘Cynthia, you will oblige me by going down into my consulting-room at once. Mr. Coxe wants to speak to you!’

‘Mr. Coxe?’ said Cynthia. ‘What can he want with me?’

Evidendy, she answered her own question as soon as it was asked, for she coloured, and avoided meeting Mr. Gibson’s severe, uncompromising look. As soon as she had left the room, Mr. Gibson sat down, and took up a new Edinburgh lying on the table, as an excuse for conversation. Was there anything in the article that made him say, after a minute or two, to Molly, who sat silent and wondering—

‘Molly, you must never trifle with the love of an honest man. You don’t know what pain you may give.’

Presently Cynthia came back into the drawing-room, looking very much confused. Most likely she would not have returned if she had known that Mr. Gibson was still there; but it was such an unheard-of thing for him to be sitting in that room in the middle of the day, reading or making pretence to read, that she had never thought of his remaining. He looked up at her the moment she came in, so that there was nothing for it but putting a bold face on it, and going back to her work.

‘Is Mr. Coxe still downstairs?’ asked Mr. Gibson.

‘No. He is gone. He asked me to give you both his kind regards. I believe he is leaving this afternoon.’ Cynthia tried to make her manner as commonplace as possible; but she did not look up, and her voice trembled a little.

Mr. Gibson went on looking at his book for a few minutes; but Cynthia felt that more was coming, and only wished it would come quickly, for the severe silence was very hard to bear. It came at last.

‘I trust this will never occur again, Cynthia!’ said he, in grave displeasure. ‘I should not feel satisfied with the conduct of any girl, however free, who could receive marked attentions from a young man with complacency, and so lead him on to make an offer which she never meant to accept. But what must I think of a young woman in your position, engaged, yet “accepting most graciously”—for that was the way Coxe expressed it—the overtures of another man? Do you consider what unnecessary pain you have given him by your thoughtless behaviour? I call it thoughtless, but it is the mildest epithet I can apply to it. I beg that such a thing may not occur again, or I shall be obliged to characterize it more severely.’

Molly could not imagine what ‘more severely’ could be, for her father’s manner appeared to her almost cruel in its sternness. Cynthia coloured up extremely, then, went pale, and at length raised her beautiful appealing eyes full of tears to Mr. Gibson. He was touched by that look, but he resolved immediately not to be mollified by any of her physical charms of expression, but to keep to his sober judgment of her conduct.

‘Please, Mr. Gibson, hear my side of the story before you speak so hardly to me. I did not mean to—to flirt. I merely meant to make myself agreeable—I can’t help doing that—and that goose of a Mr. Coxe seems to have fancied I meant to give him encouragement.’

‘Do you mean that you were not aware that he was falling in love with you?’ Mr. Gibson was melting into a readiness to be convinced by that sweet voice and pleading face.

‘Well, I suppose I must speak truly’ Cynthia blushed and smiled—ever so little—but it was a smile, and it hardened Mr. Gibson’s heart again. ‘I did think once or twice that he was becoming a little more complimentary than the occasion required; but I hate throwing cold water on people, and I never thought he could take it into his silly head to fancy himself seriously in love, and to make such a fuss at the last, after only a fortnight’s acquaintance.’

‘You seem to have been pretty well aware of his silliness (I should rather call it simplicity). Don’t you think you should have remembered that it might lead him to exaggerate what you were doing and saying into encouragement?’

‘Perhaps. I dare say I’m all wrong, and he’s all right,’ said Cynthia, piqued and pouting. ‘We used to say in France, that “les absens ont toujours tort,”^df but really it seems as if here——’ she stopped. She was unwilling to be impertinent to a man whom she respected and liked. She took up another point of her defence, and rather made matters worse. ‘Besides, Roger would not allow me to consider myself as finally engaged to him; I would willingly have done it, but he would not let me.’

‘Nonsense. Don’t let us go on talking about it, Cynthia! I’ve said all I mean to say. I believe that you were only thoughtless, as I told you before. But don’t let it happen again.’ He left the room at once to put a stop to the conversation, the continuance of which would serve no useful purpose, and perhaps end by irritating him.

‘Not guilty, but we recommend the prisoner not to do it again. It’s pretty much that, isn’t it, Molly?’ said Cynthia, letting her tears fall down, even while she smiled. ‘I do believe your father might make a good woman of me yet, if he would only take the pains, and wasn’t quite so severe. And to think of that stupid little fellow making all this mischief! He pretended to take it to heart, as if he had loved me for years instead of only for days. I dare say only for hours if the truth were told.’

‘I was afraid he was becoming very fond of you,’ said Molly; ‘at least it struck me once or twice; but I knew he could not stay long, and I thought it would only make you uncomfortable if I said anything about it. But now I wish I had!’

‘It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference,’ replied Cynthia. ‘I knew he liked me, and I like to be liked; it’s born in me to try to make every one I come near fond of me; but then they shouldn’t carry it too far, for it becomes very troublesome if they do. I shall hate red-haired people for the rest of my life. To think of such a man as that being the cause of your father’s displeasure with me!’

Molly had a question at her tongue’s end that she longed to put; she knew it was indiscreet, but at last out it came almost against her will.

‘Shall you tell Roger about it?’

Cynthia replied, ‘I’ve not thought about it—no! I don’t think I shall—there’s no need. Perhaps, if we are ever married———’

‘Ever married!’ said Molly, under her breath. But Cynthia took no notice of the exclamation until she had finished the sentence which it interrupted.

‘———and I can see his face and know his mood, I may tell it him then; but not in writing, and when he is absent; it might annoy him.’

‘I am afraid it would make him uncomfortable,’ said Molly, simply. ‘And yet it must be so pleasant to be able to tell him everything—all your difficulties and troubles.’

‘Yes; only I don’t worry him with these things; it is better to write him merry letters, and cheer him up among the black folk. You repeated “Ever married,” a little while ago; do you know, Molly, I don’t think I ever shall be married to him? I don’t know why, but I have a strong presentiment, so it’s just as well not to tell him all my secrets, for it would be awkward for him to know them if it never came off!’

Molly dropped her work, and sat silent, looking into the future; at length she said, ‘I think it would break his heart, Cynthia!’

‘Nonsense. Why, I’m sure that Mr. Coxe came here with the intention of falling in love with you—you need not blush so violently. I’m sure you saw it as plainly as I did, only you made yourself disagreeable, and I took pity on him, and consoled his wounded vanity.’

‘Can you—do you dare to compare Roger Hamley to Mr. Coxe?’ asked Molly, indignantly.

‘No, no, I don’t!’ said Cynthia in a moment. ‘They are as different as men can be. Don’t be so dreadfully serious over everything, Molly. You look as oppressed with sad reproach, as if I had been passing on to you the scolding your father gave me.’

‘Because I don’t think you value Roger as you ought, Cynthia!’ said Molly stoutly, for it required a good deal of courage to force herself to say this, although she could not tell why she shrank so from speaking.

‘Yes, I do! It’s not in my nature to go into ecstasies, and I don’t suppose I shall ever be what people, call “in love.” But I am glad he loves me, and I like to make him happy, and I think him the best and most agreeable man I know, always excepting your father when he isn’t angry with me. What can I say more, Molly? would you like me to say I think him handsome?’

‘I know most people think him plain, but———’

‘Well, I’m of the opinion of most people then, and small blame to them. But I like his face—oh, ten thousand times better than Mr. Preston’s handsomeness!’ For the first time during the conversation Cynthia seemed thoroughly in earnest. Why Mr. Preston was introduced neither she nor Molly knew; it came up and out by a sudden impulse; but a fierce look came into the eyes, and the soft lips contracted themselves as Cynthia named his name. Molly had noticed this look before, always at the mention of this one person.

‘Cynthia, what makes you dislike Mr. Preston so much?’

‘Don’t you? Why do you ask me? and yet, Molly,’ said she, suddenly relaxing into depression, not merely in tone and look, but in the droop of her limbs—‘Molly, what should you think of me if I married him after all?’

‘Married him! Has he ever asked you?’ But Cynthia, instead of replying to this question, went on, uttering her own thoughts.

‘More unlikely things have happened. Have you never heard of strong wills mesmerizing weaker ones into submission? One of the girls at Madame Lefebre’s went out as a governess to a Russian family, who lived near Moscow. I sometimes think I’ll write to her to find me a situation in Russia, just to get out of the daily chance of seeing that man!’

‘But sometimes you seem quite intimate with him, and talk to him——’

‘How can I help it?’ said Cynthia, impatiently. Then recovering herself, she added: ‘We knew him so well at Ashcombe, and he’s not a man to be easily thrown off, I can tell you. I must be civil to him; it’s not from liking, and he knows it is not, for I’ve told him so. However, we won’t talk about him. I don’t know how we came to do it, I’m sure: the mere fact of his existence, and of his being within half a mile of us, is bad enough. Oh! I wish Roger was at home, and rich, and could marry me at once, and carry me away from that man! If I’d thought of it, I really believe I would have taken poor red-haired Mr. Coxe.’

‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Molly. ‘I dislike Mr. Preston, but I should never think of taking such violent steps as you speak of, to get away from the neighbourhood in which he lives.’

‘No, because you are a reasonable little darling,’ said Cynthia, resuming her usual manner, and coming up to Molly, and kissing her. ‘At least you’ll acknowledge I’m a good hater!’

‘Yes. But still I don’t understand it.’

‘Oh, never mind! There are old complications with our affairs at Ashcombe. Money matters are at the root of it all. Horrid poverty—do let us talk of something else! Or, better still, let me go and finish my letter to Roger, or I shall be too late for the African mail!’

‘Is it not gone? Oh, I ought to have reminded you! It will be too late. Did you not see the notice at the post office that letters ought to be in London on the morning of the 10th instead of the evening? Oh, I am so sorry!’

‘So am I, but it can’t be helped. It is to be hoped it will be the greater treat when he does get it. I’ve a far greater weight on my heart, because your father seems so displeased with me. I was fond of him, and now he is making me quite a coward. You see, Molly,’ continued she, a little piteously, ‘I’ve never lived with people with such a high standard of conduct before; and I don’t quite know how to behave.’

‘You must learn,’ said Molly, tenderly. ‘You’ll find Roger quite as strict in his notions of right and wrong.’

‘Ah, but he’s in love with me!’ said Cynthia, with a pretty consciousness of her power. Molly turned away her head, and was silent; it was of no use combating the truth, and she tried rather not to feel it—not to feel, poor girl, that she too had a great weight on her heart, into the cause of which she shrank from examining. That whole winter long she had felt as if her sun was all shrouded over with grey mist, and could no longer shine brightly for her. She wakened up in the morning with a dull sense of something being wrong—the world was out of joint, and, if she were born to set it right, she did not know how to do it. Blind herself as she would, she could not help perceiving that her father was not satisfied with the wife he had chosen. For a long time Molly had been surprised at his apparent contentment; sometimes she had been unselfish enough to be glad that he was satisfied; but still more frequently nature would have its way, and she was almost irritated at what she considered his blindness. Something, however, had changed him now: something that had arisen at the time of Cynthia’s engagement; he had become nervously sensitive to his wife’s failings, and his whole manner had grown dry and sarcastic, not merely to her, but sometimes to Cynthia, and even—but this very rarely—to Molly herself. He was not a man to go into passions, or ebullitions of feeling: they would have relieved him, even while degrading him in his own eyes; but he became hard, and occasionally bitter, in his speeches and ways. Molly now learnt to long after the vanished blindness in which her father had passed the first year of his marriage; yet there were no outrageous infractions of domestic peace. Some people might say that Mr. Gibson ‘accepted the inevitable’; he told himself in more homely phrase ‘that it was no use crying over spilt milk’ and he, from principle, avoided all actual dissensions with his wife, preferring to cut short a discussion by a sarcasm, or by leaving the room. Moreover, Mrs. Gibson had a very tolerable temper of her own, and her cat-like nature purred and delighted in smooth ways, and pleasant quietness. She had no great facility for understanding sarcasm; it is true it disturbed her, but as she was not quick at deciphering any depth of meaning, and felt it to be unpleasant to think about it, she forgot it as soon as possible. Yet she saw she was often in some kind of disfavour with her husband, and it made her uneasy. She resembled Cynthia in this: she liked to be liked; and she wanted to regain the esteem which she did not perceive she had lost for ever. Molly sometimes took her stepmother’s part in secret; she felt as if she herself could never have borne her father’s hard speeches so patiently; they would have cut her to the heart, and she must either have demanded an explanation, and probed the sore to the bottom, or sat down despairing and miserable. Instead of which Mrs. Gibson, after her husband had left the room, on these occasions would say in a manner more bewildered than hurt—

‘I think dear papa seems a little put out to-day; we must see that he has a dinner that he likes when he comes home. I have often perceived that everything depends on making a man comfortable in his own house.’

And thus she went on, groping about to find the means of reinstating herself in his good graces—really trying, according to her lights, till Molly was often compelled to pity her in spite of herself, and although she saw that her stepmother was the cause of her father’s increased astringency of disposition. For indeed he had got into that kind of exaggerated susceptibility with regard to his wife’s faults which may be best typified by the state of bodily irritation that is produced by the constant recurrence of any particular noise: those who are brought within hearing of it are apt to be always on the watch for the repetition, if they are once made to notice it, and are in an irritable state of nerves.

So that poor Molly had not passed a cheerful winter, independently of any private sorrows that she might have in her own heart. She did not look well, either: she was gradually falling into low health, rather than bad health. Her heart beat more feebly and slower, the vivifying stimulant of hope—even unacknowledged hope—was gone out of her life. It seemed as if there was not, and never could be in this world, any help for the dumb discordancy between her father and his wife. Day after day, month after month, year after year, would Molly have to sympathize with her father, and pity her stepmother, feeling acutely for both, and certainly more than Mrs. Gibson felt for herself Molly could not imagine how she had at one time wished for her father’s eyes to be opened, and how she could ever have fancied that, if they were, he would be able to change things in Mrs. Gibson’s character. It was all hopeless, and the only attempt at a remedy was to think about it as little as possible. Then Cynthia’s ways and manners about Roger gave Molly a great deal of uneasiness. She did not believe that Cynthia cared enough for him; at any rate, not with the sort of love that she herself would have bestowed, if she had been so happy—no, that was not it—if she had been in Cynthia’s place. She felt as if she would have gone to him both hands held out, full and brimming over with tenderness, and been grateful for every word of precious confidence bestowed on her. Yet Cynthia received his letters with a kind of carelessness, and read them with a strange indifference, while Molly sat at her feet, so to speak, looking up with eyes as wistful as a dog’s waiting for crumbs, and such chance beneficences.

She tried to be patient on these occasions, but at last she must ask—‘Where is he, Cynthia? What does he say?’ By this time Cynthia had put down the letter on the table by her, smiling a little from time to time, as she remembered the loving compliments it contained.

‘Where? Oh, I did not look exactly—somewhere in Abyssinia—Huon. I can’t read the word, and it doesn’t much signify, for it would give me no idea.’

‘Is he well?’ asked greedy Molly.

‘Yes, now. He has had a slight touch of fever, he says; but it’s all over now, and he hopes he is getting acclimatized.’

‘Of fever!—and who took care of him? he would want nursing—and so far from home. Oh, Cynthia!’

‘Oh, I don’t fancy he had any nursing, poor fellow. One doesn’t expect nursing, and hospitals, and doctors in Abyssinia;^dg but he had plenty of quinine with him, and I suppose that is the best specific. At any rate he says he is quite well now!’

Molly sat silent for a minute or two.

‘What is the date of the letter, Cynthia?’

‘I didn’t look. December the—December the 10th.’

‘That’s nearly two months ago,’ said Molly.

‘Yes; but I determined I would not worry myself with useless anxiety, when he went away. If anything did—go wrong, you know,’ said Cynthia, using a euphemism for death, as most people do (it is an ugly word to speak plain out in the midst of life), ‘it would be all over before I even heard of his illness, and I could be of no use to him—could I, Molly?’

‘No. I dare say it is all very true; only I should think the squire could not take it so easily.’

‘I always write him a little note when I hear from Roger, but I don’t think I’ll name this touch of fever—shall I, Molly?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Molly. ‘People say one ought, but I almost wish I hadn’t heard it. Please, does he say anything else that I may hear?’

‘Oh, lovers’ letters are so silly, and I think this is sillier than usual,’ said Cynthia, looking over her letter again. ‘Here’s a piece you may read, from that line to that,’ indicating two places. ‘I haven’t read it myself, for it looked dullish—all about Aristotle and Pliny^dh and I want to get this bonnet-cap made up before we go out to pay our calls.’

Molly took the letter, the thought crossing her mind that he had touched it, had had his hands upon it, in those far distant desert lands, where he might be lost to sight and to any human knowledge of his fate; even now her pretty brown fingers almost caressed the flimsy paper with their delicacy of touch as she read. She saw references made to books, which, with a little trouble, would be accessible to her here in Hollingford. Perhaps the details and the references would make the letter dull and dry to some people, but not to her, thanks to his former teaching and the interest he had excited in her for his pursuits. But, as he said in apology, what had he to write about in that savage land, but his love, and his researches, and travels? There was no society, no gaiety, no new books to write about, no gossip in Abyssinian wilds.

Molly was not in strong health, and perhaps this made her a little fanciful; but certain it is that her thoughts by day and her dreams by night were haunted by the idea of Roger lying ill and untended in those savage lands. Her constant prayer, ‘O my Lord! give her the living child, and in no wise slay it,’¹ came from a heart as true as that of the real mother in King Solomon’s judgment. ‘Let him live, let him live, even though I may never set eyes upon him again. Have pity upon his father! Grant that he may come home safe, and live happily with her whom he loves so tenderly—so tenderly, O God.’ And then she would burst into tears, and drop asleep at last, sobbing.

CHAPTER 38

Mr. Kirkpatrick, Q.C.

Cynthia was always the same with Molly: kind, sweettempered, ready to help, professing a great deal of love for her, and probably feeling as much as she did for any one in the world. But Molly had reached to this superficial residence in her father’s house; and if she had been of a depth of affection and intimacy in the first few weeks of Cynthia’s nature prone to analyse the character of one whom she loved dearly, she might have perceived that, with all Cynthia’s apparent frankness, there were certain limits beyond which her confidence did not go; where her reserve began, and her real self was shrouded in mystery For instance, her relations with Mr. Preston were often very puzzling to Molly. She was sure that there had been a much greater intimacy between them formerly at Ashcombe, and that the remembrance of this was often very galling and irritating to Cynthia, who was evidently desirous of forgetting it as he was anxious to make her remember it. But why this intimacy had ceased, why Cynthia disliked him so extremely now, and many other unexplained circumstances connected with these two facts, were Cynthia’s secrets; and she effectually baffled all Molly’s innocent attempts during the first glow of her friendship for Cynthia, to learn the girlish antecedents of her companion’s life. Every now and then Molly came to a dead wall, beyond which she could not pass—at least with the delicate instruments which were all she chose to use. Perhaps Cynthia might have told all there was to tell to a more forcible curiosity, which knew how to improve every slip of the tongue and every fit of temper to its own gratification. But Molly’s was the interest of affection, not the coarser of knowing everything for a little excitement; and as soon as she saw that Cynthia did not wish to tell her anything about that period of her life, Molly left off referring to it. But if Cynthia had preserved a sweet tranquillity of manner and an unvarying kindness for Molly during the winter of which there is question, at present she was the only person to whom the beauty’s ways were unchanged. Mr. Gibson’s influence had been good for her as long as she saw that he liked her; she had tried to keep as high a place in his good opinion as she could, and had curbed many a little sarcasm against her mother, and many a twisting of the absolute truth when he was by. Now there was a constant uneasiness about her which made her more cowardly than before; and even her partisan, Molly, could not help being aware of the distinct equivocations she occasionally used when anything in Mr. Gibson’s words or behaviour pressed her too hard. Her repartees to her mother were less frequent than they had been, but there was often the unusual phenomenon of pettishness in her behaviour to her. These changes in humour and disposition, here described all at once, were in themselves a series of delicate alterations of relative conduct spread over many months—many winter months of long evenings and bad weather, which bring out discords of character, as a dash of cold water brings out the fading colours of an old fresco.

During much of this time Mr. Preston had been at Ashcombe; for Lord Cumnor had not been able to find an agent whom he liked to replace Mr. Preston; and while the inferior situation remained vacant Mr. Preston had undertaken to do the duties of both. Mrs. Goodenough had had a serious illness; and the little society at Hollingford did not care to meet while one of their habitual set was scarcely out of danger. So there had been very little visiting; and though Miss Browning said that the absence of the temptations of society was very agreeable to cultivated minds, after the dissipations of the previous autumn, when there were parties every week to welcome Mr. Preston, yet Miss Phoebe let out in confidence that she and her sister had fallen into the habit of going to bed at nine o‘clock, for they found cribbage night after night, from five o’clock till ten, rather too much of a good thing. To tell the truth, that winter, if peaceful, was monotonous in Hollingford; and the whole circle of gentility there was delighted to be stirred up in March by the intelligence that Mr. Kirkpatrick, the newly-made Q.C.,^di was coming on a visit of a couple of days to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Gibson. Mrs. Goodenough’s room was the very centre of gossip; gossip had been her daily bread through her life, gossip was meat and wine to her now.

‘Dear-ah-me!’ said the old lady, rousing herself so as to sit upright in her easy chair, and propping herself with her hands on the arms; ‘who would ha’ thought she’d such grand relations! Why, Mr. Ashton told me once that a Queen’s counsel was as like to be a judge as a kitten is like to be a cat. And to think of her being as good as sister to a judge! I saw one oncst; and I know I thought as I shouldn’t wish for a better winter-cloak than his old robes would make me, if I could only find out where I could get ’em second-hand. And I know she’d her silk gowns turned and dyed and cleaned, and, for aught I know, turned again, while she lived at Ashcombe. Keeping a school, too, and so near akin to this Queen’s counsel all the time! Well, to be sure, it was not much of a school—only ten young ladies at the best o’ times; so perhaps he never heard of it.’

‘I’ve been wondering what they’ll give him to dinner,’ said Miss Browning. ‘It is an unlucky time for visitors; no game to be had, and lamb so late this year, and chicken hardly to be had for love or money.’

‘He’ll have to put up with calf’s head, that he will,’ said Mrs. Goodenough, solemnly. ‘If I’d ha’ got my usual health I’d copy out a receipt of my grandmother’s for a rolled calf’s head, and send it to Mrs. Gibson—the doctor has been very kind to me all through this illness—I wish my daughter in Combermere would send me some autumn chickens—I’d pass ‘em on to the doctor, that I would; but she’s been a killing of ’em all, and a sending of them to me, and the last she sent she wrote me word was the last.’

‘I wonder if they’ll give a party for him!’ suggested Miss Phoebe. ‘I should like to see a Queen’s counsel for once in my life. I have seen javelin-men,^dj but that’s the greatest thing in the legal line I ever came across.’

‘They’ll ask Mr. Ashton, of course,’ said Miss Browning. ‘The three black graces, Law, Physic, and Divinity, as the song calls them. Whenever there’s a second course, there’s always the clergyman of the parish invited in any family of gentility.’

‘I wonder if he’s married!’ said Mrs. Goodenough. Miss Phoebe had been feeling the same wonder, but had not thought it maidenly to express it, even to her sister, who was the source of knowledge, having met Mrs. Gibson in the street on her way to Mrs. Goodenough’s.

‘Yes, he’s married, and must have several children, for Mrs. Gibson said that Cynthia Kirkpatrick had paid them a visit in London, to have lessons with her cousins. And she said that his wife was a most accomplished woman, and of good family, though she brought him no fortune.’

‘It’s a very creditable connexion, I’m sure; it’s only a wonder to me as how we’ve heard so little talk of it before’ said Mrs. Goodenough. ‘At the first look of the thing, I shouldn’t ha’ thought Mrs. Gibson was one to hide away her fine relations under a bushel; indeed, for that matter, we’re all of us fond o’ turning the best breadth o’ the gown to the front. I remember speaking o’ breadths, how I’ve undone my skirts many a time and oft to put a stain or a grease-spot next to poor Mr. Goodenough. He’d a soft kind of heart when first we was married and he said, says he, “Patty, link thy right arm into my left one, then thou‘lt be nearer to my heart”; and so we kept up the habit, when, poor man, he’d a deal more to think on than romancing on which side his heart lay; so as I said, I always put my damaged breadths on the right hand, and when we walked arm in arm, as we always did, no one was never the wiser.’

‘I should not be surprised if he invited Cynthia to pay him another visit in London,’ said Miss Browning. ‘If he did it when he was poor, he’s twenty times more likely to do it now he’s a Queen’s counsel.’

‘Aye, work it by the rule o’ three, and she stands a good chance. I only hope it won’t turn her head; going up visiting in London at her age. Why, I was fifty before ever I went!’

‘But she has been in France; she’s quite a travelled young lady,’ said Miss Phoebe.

Mrs. Goodenough shook her head for a whole minute before she gave vent to her opinion.

‘It’s a risk,’ said she, ‘a great risk. I don’t like saying so to the doctor, but I shouldn’t like having my daughter, if I was him, so cheek-by-jowl with a girl as was brought up in the country where Robespierre and Bonyparte was born.’¹

‘But Buonaparte was a Corsican,’ said Miss Browning, who was much farther advanced both in knowledge and in liberality of opinions than Mrs. Goodenough. ‘And there’s a great opportunity for cultivation of the mind afforded by intercourse with foreign countries. I always admire Cynthia’s grace of manner, never too shy to speak, yet never putting herself forwards; she’s quite a help to a party; and if she has a few airs and graces, why, they’re, natural at her age! Now as for dear Molly, there’s a kind of awkwardness about her—she broke one of our best china cups last time she was at a party at our house, and spilt the coffee on the new carpet; and then she got so confused that she hardly did anything but sit in a corner and hold her tongue all the rest of the evening.’

‘She was so sorry for what she had done, sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, in a gentle tone of reproach; she was always faithful to Molly.

‘Well, and did I say she wasn’t? but was there any need for her to be stupid all the evening after?’

‘But you were rather sharp—rather displeased———’

‘And I think it my duty to be sharp, aye, and cross too, when I see young folks careless. And when I see my duty clear I do it; I’m not one to shrink from it, and they ought to be grateful to me. It’s not every one that will take the trouble of reproving them, as Mrs. Goodenough knows. I’m very fond of Molly Gibson, very, for her own sake and for her mother’s too; I’m not sure if I don’t think she’s worth half a dozen Cynthias, but for all that she shouldn’t break my best china teacup, and then sit doing nothing for her livelihood all the rest of the evening.’

By this time Mrs. Goodenough gave evident signs of being tired; Molly’s misdemeanours and Miss Browning’s broken teacup were not as exciting subjects of conversation as Mrs. Gibson’s newly-discovered good luck in having a successful London lawyer for a relation.

Mr. Kirkpatrick had been like many other men, struggling on in his profession, and encumbered with a large family of his own; he was ready to do a good turn for his connexions, if it occasioned him no loss of time, and if (which was, perhaps, a primary condition) he remembered their existence. Cynthia’s visit to Doughty Street nine or ten years ago had not made much impression upon him after he had once suggested its feasibility to his good-natured wife. He was even rather startled every now and then by the appearance of a pretty little girl amongst his own children, as they trooped in to dessert and had to remind himself who she was. But as it was his custom to leave the table almost immediately and to retreat into a small back room called his study, to immerse himself in papers for the rest of the evening, the child had not made much impression upon him; and probably the next time he remembered her existence was when Mrs. Kirkpatrick wrote to him to beg him to receive Cynthia for a night on her way to school at Boulogne. The same request was repeated on her return; but it so happened that he had not seen her either time; and only dimly remembered some remarks which his wife had made on one of these occasions, that it seemed to her rather hazardous to send so young a girl so long a journey without making more provision for her safety than Mrs. Kirkpatrick had done. He knew that his wife would fill up all deficiencies in this respect as if Cynthia had been her own daughter; and thought no more about her until he received an invitation to attend Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s wedding with Mr. Gibson, the highly esteemed surgeon of Hollingford, &c. &c.—an attention which irritated instead of pleasing him. ‘Does the woman think I have nothing to do but run about the country in search of brides and bridegrooms, when this great case of Houghton v. Houghton is coming on, and I haven’t a moment to spare?’ he asked of his wife.

‘Perhaps she never heard of it,’ suggested Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

‘Nonsense! the case has been in the paper for days.’

‘But she mayn’t know you are engaged in it.’

‘She mayn’t,’ said he, meditatively—such ignorance was possible.

But now the great case of Houghton v. Houghton was a thing of the past; the hard struggle was over, the comparative tableland of Q.C.-dom gained, and Mr. Kirkpatrick had leisure for family feeling and recollection. One day in the Easter vacation he found himself near Hollingford; he had a Sunday to spare, and he wrote to offer himself as a visitor to the Gibsons from Friday to Monday, expressing strongly (what he really felt, in a less degree) his wish to make Mr. Gibson’s acquaintance. Mr. Gibson, though often overwhelmed with professional business, was always hospitable; and moreover, it was always a pleasure to him to get out of the somewhat confined mental atmosphere which he had breathed over and over again, and have a whiff of fresh air: a glimpse of what was passing in the great world beyond his daily limits of thought and action. So he was ready to give a cordial welcome to his unknown relation. Mrs. Gibson was in a flutter of sentimental delight, which she fancied was family action, but which might not have been quite so effervescent if Mr. Kirkpatrick had remained in his former position of struggling lawyer, with seven children, living in Doughty Street.

When the two gentlemen met they were attracted towards each other by a similarity of character, with just enough difference in their opinions to make the experience of each, on which such opinions were based, valuable to the other. To Mrs. Gibson, although the bond between them counted for very little in their intercourse, Mr. Kirkpatrick paid very polite attention; and was, in fact, very glad that she had done so well for herself as to marry a sensible and agreeable man, who was able to keep her in comfort, and to behave to her daughter in so liberal a manner. Molly struck him as a delicate-looking girl, who might be very pretty if she had a greater look of health and animation; indeed, looking at her critically, there were beautiful points about her face—long soft grey eyes, black curling eyelashes, rarely-showing dimples, perfect teeth; but there was a languor over all, a slow depression of manner, which contrasted unfavourably with the brightly-coloured Cynthia, sparkling, quick, graceful, and witty. As Mr. Kirkpatrick expressed it afterwards to his wife, he was quite in love with that girl; and Cynthia, as ready to captivate strangers as any little girl of three or four, rose to the occasion, forgot all her cares and despondencies, remembered no longer her regret at having lost something of Mr. Gibson’s good opinion, and listened eagerly and made soft replies, intermixed with naive sallies of droll humour, till Mr. Kirkpatrick was quite captivated. He left Hollingford, almost surprised to have performed a duty and found it a pleasure. For Mrs. Gibson and Molly he had a general friendly feeling; but he did not care if he never saw them again. But for Mr. Gibson he had a warm respect, a strong personal liking, which he should be glad to have ripen into a friendship, if there was time for it in this bustling world. And he fully resolved to see more of Cynthia; his wife must know her; they must have her up to stay with them in London, and show her something of the world. But, on returning home, Mr. Kirkpatrick found so much work awaiting him that he had to lock up embryo friendships and kindly plans in some safe closet of his mind, and gave himself up, body and soul, to the immediate work of his profession. But, in May, he found time to take his wife to the Academy Exhibition,^dk and some portrait there striking him as being like Cynthia, he told his wife more about her and his visit to Hollingford than he had ever had leisure to do before; and the result was that on the next day a letter was sent off to Mrs. Gibson, inviting Cynthia to pay a visit to her cousins in London, and reminding her of many little circumstances that had occurred when she was with them as a child, so as to carry on the clue of friendship from that time to the present.

On its receipt this letter was greeted in various ways by the four people who sat round the breakfast-table. Mrs. Gibson read it to herself first. Then without telling what its contents were, so that her auditors were quite in the dark as to what her remarks applied, she said—

‘I think they might have remembered that I am a generation nearer to them than she is, but nobody thinks of family affection nowadays; and I liked him so much, and bought a new cookery-book, all to make it pleasant and agreeable and what he was used to.’ She said all this in a plaintive, aggrieved tone of voice; but as no one knew to what she was referring, it was difficult to offer her consolation. Her husband was the first to speak.

‘If you want us to sympathize with you, tell us what is the nature of your woe.’

‘Why, I dare say it’s what he means as a very kind attention, only I think I ought to have been asked before Cynthia,’ said she, reading the letter over again.

‘Who’s he? and what’s meant for a “kind attention”?’

‘Mr. Kirkpatrick, to be sure. This letter is from him; and he wants Cynthia to go and pay them a visit, and never says anything about you or me, my dear. And I’m sure we did our best to make it pleasant; and he should have asked us first, I think.’

‘As I could not possibly have gone, it makes very little difference to me.’

‘But I could have gone; and, at any rate, he should have paid us the compliment: it’s only a proper mark of respect, you know. So ungrateful, too, when I gave up my dressing-room on purpose for him!’

‘And I dressed for dinner every day he was here, if we are each to recapitulate all our sacrifices on his behalf. But for all that I didn’t expect to be invited to his house. I shall be only too glad if he will come again to mine.’

‘I’ve a great mind not to let Cynthia go,’ said Mrs. Gibson, reflectively.

‘I can’t go, mamma,’ said Cynthia, colouring. ‘My gowns are all so shabby, and my old bonnet must do for the summer.’

‘Well, but you can buy a new one; and I’m sure it is high time you should get yourself another silk gown. You must have been saving up a great deal, for I don’t know when you’ve had any new clothes.’

Cynthia began to say something, but stopped short. She went on buttering her toast, but she held it in her hand without eating it; without looking up either, as, after a minute or two of silence, she spoke again—

‘I cannot go. I should like it very much; but I really cannot go. Please, mamma, write at once, and refuse it.’

‘Nonsense, child! When a man in Mr. Kirkpatrick’s position comes forward to offer a favour, it does not do to decline it without giving a sufficient reason. So kind of him as it is, too!’

‘Suppose you offer to go instead of me?’ proposed Cynthia.

‘No, no! that won’t do,’ said Mr. Gibson, decidedly. ‘You can’t transfer invitations in that way. But really this excuse about your clothes does appear to be very trivial, Cynthia, if you have no other reason to give.’

‘It is a real, true reason to me,’ said Cynthia, looking up at him as she spoke. ‘You must let me judge for myself It would not do to go there in a state of shabbiness, for even in Doughty Street, I remember, my aunt was very particular about dress; and now that Margaret and Helen are grown up, and they visit so much—pray don’t say anything more about it, for I know it would not do.’

‘What have you done with all your money, I wonder?’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘You’ve twenty pounds a year, thanks to Mr. Gibson and me; and I’m sure you haven’t spent more than ten.’

‘I hadn’t many things when I came back from France,’ said Cynthia, in a low voice, and evidently troubled by all this questioning. ‘Pray let it be decided at once; I can’t go, and there’s an end of it.’ She got up, and left the room rather suddenly.

‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘Do you, Molly?’

‘No. I know she doesn’t like spending money on her dress, and is very careful.’ Molly said this much, and then was afraid she had made mischief.

‘But then she must have got the money somewhere. It always has struck me that if you have not extravagant habits, and do not live up to your income, you must have a certain sum to lay by at the end of the year. Have I not often said so, Mr. Gibson?’

‘Probably.’

‘Well, then apply the same reasoning to Cynthia’s case; and then, I ask, what has become of the money?’

‘I cannot tell,’ said Molly, seeing that she was appealed to. ‘She may have given it away to some one who wants it.’

Mr. Gibson put down his newspaper.

‘It’s very clear that she has neither got the dress nor the money necessary for this London visit, and that she doesn’t want any more inquiries to be made on the subject. She likes mysteries, in fact, and I detest them. Still, I think it’s a desirable thing for her to keep up the acquaintance, or friendship, or whatever it is to be called, with her father’s family; and I shall gladly give her ten pounds; and if that’s not enough, why, either you must help her out, or she must do without some superfluous article of dress or another.’

‘I’m sure there never was such a kind, dear, generous man as you are, Mr. Gibson,’ said his wife. ‘To think of your being a stepfather! and so good to my poor fatherless girl! But, Molly my dear, I think you’ll acknowledge that you too are very fortunate in your stepmother. Are you not, love? And what happy tête-à-têtes we shall have together when Cynthia goes to London! I’m not sure if I don’t get on better with you even than with her, though she is my own child; for, as dear papa says so truly, there is a love of mystery about her; and if I hate anything, it is the slightest concealment or reserve. Ten pounds! Why, it will quite set her up, buy her a couple of gowns and a new bonnet, and I don’t know what all! Dear Mr. Gibson, how generous you are!’

Something very like ‘Pshaw!’ was growled out from behind the newspaper.

‘May I go and tell her?’ said Molly, rising up.

‘Yes, do, love. Tell her it would be so ungrateful to refuse; and tell her that your father wishes her to go; and tell her, too, that it would be quite wrong not to avail herself of an opening which may by and by be extended to the rest of the family. I am sure if they ask me—which certainly they ought to do—I won’t say before they asked Cynthia, because I never think of myself, and am really the most forgiving person in the world, in forgiving slights;—but when they do ask me, which they are sure to do, I shall never be content till, by putting in a little hint here and a little hint there, I’ve induced them to send you an invitation. A month or two in London would do you so much good, Molly.’

Molly had left the room before this speech was ended, and Mr. Gibson was occupied with his newspaper; but Mrs. Gibson finished it to herself very much to her own satisfaction; for, after all, it was better to have some one of the family going on the visit, though she might not be the right person, than to refuse it altogether, and never to have the opportunity of saying anything about it. As Mr. Gibson was so kind to Cynthia, she too would be kind to Molly, and dress her becomingly, and invite young men to the house; do all the things, in fact, which Molly and her father did not want to have done, and throw the old stumbling-blocks in the way of their unrestrained intercourse, which was the one thing they desired to have, free and open, and without the constant dread of her jealousy.

CHAPTER 39

Secret Thoughts Ooze Out

Molly found Cynthia in the drawing-room, standing in the bow-window, looking out on the garden. She started as Molly came up to her.

‘Oh, Molly; said she, putting her arms out towards her, ‘I am always so glad to have you with me!’

It was outbursts of affection such as these that always called Molly back, if she had been ever so unconsciously wavering in her allegiance to Cynthia. She had been wishing downstairs that Cynthia would be less reserved, and not have so many secrets; but now it seemed almost like treason to have wanted her to be anything but what she was. Never had any one more than Cynthia the power spoken of by Goldsmith when he wrote—He threw off his friends like a huntsman his pack,

For he knew when he liked he could whistle them back.

‘Do you know, I think you’ll be glad to hear what I’ve got to tell you,’ said Molly. ‘I think you would really like to go to London; shouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, but it’s of no use liking,’ said Cynthia. ‘Don’t you begin about it, Molly, for the thing is settled; and I can’t tell you why, but I can’t go.’

‘It is only the money, dear. And papa has been so kind about it. He wants you to go; he thinks you ought to keep up relationships; and he is going to give you ten pounds.’

‘How kind he is!’ said Cynthia. ‘But I ought not to take it. I wish I had known you years ago; I should have been different to what I am.’

‘Never mind that! We like you as you are; we don’t want you different. You’ll really hurt papa if you don’t take it. Why do you hesitate? Do you think Roger won’t like it?’

‘Roger! no, I wasn’t thinking about him! Why should he care? I shall be there and back again before he even hears about it.’

‘Then you will go?’ said Molly.

Cynthia thought for a minute or two. ‘Yes, I will,’ said she, at length. ‘I dare say it’s not wise; but it will be pleasant and I’ll go. Where is Mr. Gibson? I want to thank him. Oh, how kind he is! Molly, you’re a lucky girl!’

‘I?’ said Molly, quite startled at being told this; for she had been feeling as if so many things were going wrong, almost as if they would never go right again.

‘There he is!’ said Cynthia. ‘I hear him in the hall!’ And down she flew, and laying her hands on Mr. Gibson’s arm, she thanked him with such warm impulsiveness, and in so pretty and caressing a manner, that something of his old feeling of personal liking for her returned, and he forgot for a time the causes of disapproval he had against her.

‘There, there!’ said he, ‘that’s enough, my dear! It’s quite right you should keep up with your relations; there’s nothing more to be said about it.’

‘I do think your father is the most charming man I know,’ said Cynthia, on her return to Molly; ‘and it’s that which always makes me so afraid of losing his good opinion, and fret so when I think he is displeased with me. And now let us think all about this London visit. It will be delightful, won’t it? I can make ten pounds go ever so far; and in some ways it will be such a comfort to get out of Hollingford.’

‘Will it?’ said Molly, rather wistfully.

‘Oh, yes! You know I don’t mean that it will be a comfort to leave you; that will be anything but a comfort. But, after all, a country town is a country town, and London is London. You need not smile at my truisms; I’ve always had a sympathy with M. de la Palisse—sang she, in so gay a manner that she puzzled Molly, as she often did, by her change of mood from the gloomy decision with which she had refused to accept the invitation only half an hour ago. She suddenly took Molly round the waist, and began waltzing about the room with her, to the imminent danger of the various little tables, loaded with ’objets d’art’ (as Mrs. Gibson delighted to call them) with which the drawing-room was crowded. She avoided them, however, with her usual skill; but they both stood still at last, surprised at Mrs. Gibson’s surprise, as she stood at the door, looking at the whirl going on before her.M. de la Palisse est mort

En perdant sa vie;Un quart d‘heure avant sa mort

Il était en vie,’¹

‘Upon my word, I only hope you are not going crazy, both of you! What’s all this about, pray?’

‘Only because I’m so glad I’m going to London, mamma,’ said Cynthia, demurely.

‘I’m not sure if it’s quite the thing for an engaged young lady to be so much beside herself at the prospect of gaiety In my time, our great pleasure in our lovers’ absence was in thinking about them.’

‘I should have thought that would have given you pain, because you would have had to remember that they were away, which ought to have made you unhappy. Now, to tell you the truth, just at the moment I had forgotten all about Roger. I hope it wasn’t very wrong. Osborne looks as if he did all my share as well as his own of the fretting after Roger. How ill he looked yesterday!’

‘Yes,’ said Molly; ‘I didn’t know if any one besides me had noticed it. I was quite shocked.’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Gibson, ‘I’m afraid that young man won’t live long—very much afraid,’ and she shook her head ominously.

‘Oh, what will happen if he dies!’ exclaimed Molly, suddenly sitting down, and thinking of that strange, mysterious wife who never made her appearance, whose very existence was never spoken about—and Roger away too!

‘Well, it would be very sad, of course, and we should all feel it very much, I’ve no doubt; for I’ve always been very fond of Osborne; in fact, before Roger became, as it were, my own flesh and blood, I liked Osborne better: but we must not forget the living, dear Molly’ (for Molly’s eyes were filling with tears at the dismal thoughts presented to her). ‘Our dear good Roger would, I am sure, do all in his power to fill Osborne’s place in any way; and his marriage need not be so long delayed.’

‘Don’t speak of that in the same breath as Osborne’s life, mamma,’ said Cynthia, hastily.

‘Why, my dear, it is a very natural thought. For poor Roger’s sake, you know, one wishes it not to be so very, very long an engagement; and I was only answering Molly’s question, after all. One can’t help following out one’s thoughts. People must die, you know—young, as well as old.’

‘If I ever suspected Roger of following out his thoughts in a similar way,’ said Cynthia, ‘I’d never speak to him again.’

‘As if he would!’ said Molly, warm in her turn. ‘You know he never would; and you shouldn’t suppose it of him, Cynthia—no, not even for a moment!’

‘I can’t see the great harm of it all, for my part,’ said Mrs. Gibson, plaintively. ‘A young man strikes us all as looking very ill—and I’m sure I’m sorry for it; but illness very often leads to death. Surely you agree with me there, and what’s the harm of saying so? Then Molly asks what will happen if he dies; and I try to answer her question. I don’t like talking or thinking of death any more than any one else; but I should think myself wanting in strength of mind if I could not look forward to the consequences of death. I really think we’re commanded to do so, somewhere in the Bible or the Prayer-book.’

‘Do you look forward to the consequences of my death, mamma?’ asked Cynthia.

‘You really are the most unfeeling girl I ever met with,’ said Mrs. Gibson, really hurt. ‘I wish I could give you a little of my own sensitiveness, for I have too much for my happiness. Don’t let us speak of Osborne’s looks again; ten to one it was only some temporary over-fatigue, or some anxiety about Roger, or perhaps a little fit of indigestion. I was very foolish to attribute it to anything more serious, and dear papa might be displeased if he knew I had done so. Medical men don’t like other people to be making conjectures about health; they consider it as trenching on their own particular province, and very proper, I’m sure. Now let us consider about your dress, Cynthia; I could not understand how you had spent your money, and made so little show with it.’

‘Mamma! it may sound very cross, but I must tell Molly and you, and everybody, once for all, that as I don’t want and didn’t ask for more than my allowance, I’m not going to answer any questions about what I do with it.’ She did not say this with any want of respect; but she said it with quiet determination, which subdued her mother for the time; though often afterwards, when Mrs. Gibson and Molly were alone, the former would start the wonder as to what Cynthia could possibly have done with her money, and hunt each poor conjecture through woods and valleys of doubt, till she was wearied out; and the exciting sport was given up for the day. At present, however, she confined herself to the practical matter in hand; and the genius for millinery and dress, inherent in both mother and daughter, soon settled a great many knotty points of contrivance and taste, and then they all three set to work to ‘ gar auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new.’²

Cynthia’s relations with the squire had been very stationary ever since the visit she had paid to the Hall the previous autumn. He had received them all at that time with hospitable politeness, and he had been more charmed with Cynthia than he liked to acknowledge to himself when he thought the visit all over afterwards.

‘She’s a pretty lass, sure enough,’ thought he, ‘and has pretty ways about her too, and likes to learn from older people; which is a good sign; but, somehow, I don’t like madam her mother; but still she is her mother, and the girl is her daughter; yet she spoke to her once or twice as I shouldn’t ha’ liked our little Fanny to have spoken, if it had pleased God for her to ha’ lived. No, it’s not the right way, and it may be a bit old-fashioned, but I like the right way. And then again she took possession o’ me, as I may say, and little Molly had to run after us in the garden walks that are too narrow for three, just like a little four-legged doggie; and the other was so full of listening to me, she never turned round for to speak a word to Molly. I don’t mean to say they’re not fond of each other, and that’s in Roger’s sweetheart’s favour; and it’s very ungrateful in me to go and find fault with a lass who was so civil to me, and had such a pretty way with her of hanging on every word that fell from my lips. Well! a deal may come and go in two years! and the lad says nothing to me about it. I’ll be as deep as him, and take no more notice of the affair till he comes home and tells me himself.’

So although the squire was always delighted to receive the little notes which Cynthia sent to him every time she heard from Roger, and although this attention on her part was melting the heart he tried to harden, he controlled himself into writing her the briefest acknowledgments. His words were strong in meaning, but formal in expression; she herself did not think much about them, being satisfied to do the kind actions that called them forth. But her mother criticized them and pondered them. She thought she had hit on the truth when she had decided in her own mind that it was a very old-fashioned style, and that he and his house and his furniture all wanted some of the brightening up and polishing which they were sure to receive, when—she never quite liked to finish the sentence definitely, although she kept repeating to herself that ‘there was no harm in it.’

To return to the squire. Occupied as he now was, he recovered his former health, and something of his former cheerfulness. If Osborne had met him halfway, it is probable that the old bond between father and son might have been renewed; but Osborne either was really an invalid, or had sunk into invalid habits, and made no effort to rally. If his father urged him to go out—nay, once or twice he gulped down his pride, and asked Osborne to accompany him—Osborne would go to the window and find out some flaw or speck in the wind or weather, and make that an excuse for stopping in the house over his books. He would saunter out on the sunny side of the house in a manner that the squire considered as both indolent and unmanly. Yet if there was a prospect of his leaving home, which he did pretty often about this time, he was seized with a hectic energy; the clouds in the sky, the easterly wind, the dampness of the air, were nothing to him then; and as the squire did not know the real secret cause of this anxiety to be gone, he took it into his head that it arose from Osborne’s dislike to Hamley and to the monotony of his father’s society.

‘It was a mistake,’ thought the squire. ‘I see it now. I was never great at making friends myself; I always thought those Oxford and Cambridge men turned up their noses at me for a country booby, and I’d get the start and have none o’ them. But when the boys went to Rugby and Cambridge, I should ha’ let them have had their own friends about ’em, even though they might ha’ looked down on me; it was the worst they could ha’ done to me, and now what few friends I had, have fallen off from me, by death or somehow, and it is but dreary work for a young man, I grant it. But he might try not to show it so plain to me as he does. I’m getting case-hardened, but it does cut me to the quick sometimes—it does. And he so fond of his dad as he was once! If I can but get the land drained I’ll make him an allowance, and let him go to London, or where he likes. Maybe he’ll do better this time, or maybe he’ll go to the dogs altogether; but perhaps it will make him think a bit kindly of the old father at home—I should like him to do that, I should!’

It is possible that Osborne might have been induced to tell his father of his marriage during their long solitary intercourse, if the squire, in an unlucky moment, had not given him his confidence about Roger’s engagement with Cynthia. It was on one wet Sunday afternoon, when the father and son were sitting together in the large empty drawing-room: Osborne had not been to church in the morning; the squire had, and he was now trying hard to read one of Blair’s sermons. They had dined early; they always did on Sundays; and either that or the sermon, or the hopeless wetness of the day, made the afternoon seem interminably long to the squire. He had certain unwritten rules for the regulation of his conduct on Sundays. Cold meat, sermon-reading, no smoking till after evening prayers, as little thought as possible as to the state of the land and the condition of the crops, and as much respectable sitting indoors in his best clothes as was consistent with going to church twice a day, and saying the responses louder than the clerk. To-day it had rained so unceasingly that he had remitted the afternoon church; but oh, even with the luxury of a nap, how long it seemed before he saw the Hall servants trudging homewards, along the field-path, a covey of umbrellas! He had been standing at the window for the last half-hour, his hands in his pockets, and his mouth often contracting itself into the traditional sin of a whistle, but as often checked into sudden gravity—ending, nine times out of ten, in a yawn. He looked askance at Osborne, who was sitting near the fire absorbed in a book. The poor squire was something like the little boy in the child’s story, who asks all sorts of birds and beasts to come and play with him; and, in every case, receives the sober answer, that they are too busy to have leisure for trivial amusements. The father wanted the son to put down his book, and talk to him: it was so wet, so dull, and a little conversation would so wile away the time! But Osborne, with his back to the window where his father was standing, saw nothing of all this, and went on reading. He had assented to his father’s remark that it was a very wet afternoon, but had not carried on the subject into all the varieties of truisms of which it was susceptible. Something more rousing must be started, and this the squire felt. The recollection of the affair between Roger and Cynthia came into his head, and, without giving it a moment’s consideration, he began—

‘Osborne! Do you know anything about this—this attachment of Roger’s?’

Quite successful. Osborne laid down his book in a moment, and turned round to his father.

‘Roger! an attachment! No! I never heard of it—I can hardly believe it—that is to say, I suppose it is to——’

And then he stopped; for he thought he had no right to betray his own conjecture that the object was Cynthia Kirkpatrick.

‘Yes. He is, though. Can you guess who to? Nobody that I particularly like—not a connexion to my mind—yet she’s a very pretty girl; and I suppose I was to blame in the first instance.’

‘Is it——?’

‘It’s no use beating about the bush. I’ve gone so far, I may as well tell you all. It’s Miss Kirkpatrick, Gibson’s stepdaughter. But it’s not an engagement, mind you——’

‘I’m very glad—I hope she likes Roger back again——’

‘Like—it’s only too good a connexion for her not to like it: if Roger is of the same mind when he comes home, I’ll be bound she’ll be only too happy!’

‘I wonder Roger never told me,’ said Osborne, a little hurt, now he began to consider himself.

‘He never told me either,’ said the squire. ‘It was Gibson who came here, and made a clean breast of it, like a man of honour. I’d been saying to him I could not have either of you two lads taking up with his lasses. I’ll own it was you I was afraid of—it’s bad enough with Roger, and maybe will come to nothing after all; but if it had been you, I’d ha’ broken with Gibson and every mother’s son of ’em, sooner than have let it go on; and so I told Gibson.’

‘I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but, once for all, I claim the right of choosing my wife for myself, subject to no man’s interference,’ said Osborne, hotly.

‘Then you’ll keep your wife with no man’s interference, that’s all; for ne’er a penny will you get from me, my lad, unless you marry to please me a little, as well as yourself a great deal. That’s all I ask of you. I’m not particular as to beauty, or as to cleverness, and piano-playing, and that sort of thing; if Roger marries this girl, we shall have enough of that in the family. I should not much mind her being a bit older than you, but she must be well-born, and the more money she brings the better for the old place.’

‘I say again, father, I choose my wife for myself, and I don’t admit any man’s right of dictation.’

‘Well, well!’ said the squire, getting a little angry in turn. ‘If I’m not to be father in this matter, thou shan’t be son. Go against me in what I’ve set my heart on, and you’ll find there’s the devil to pay, that’s all. But don’t let us get angry, it’s Sunday afternoon for one thing, and it’s a sin; and besides that, I’ve not finished my story.’

For Osborne had taken up his book again, and under pretence of reading, was fuming to himself He hardly put it away even at his father’s request.

‘As I was saying, Gibson said, when first we spoke about it, that there was nothing on foot between any of you four, and that if there was, he would let me know; so by and by he comes and tells me of this.’

‘Of what—I don’t understand how far it has gone?’

There was a tone in Osborne’s voice the squire did not quite like; and he began answering rather angrily.

‘Of this, to be sure—of what I’m telling you—of Roger going and making love to this girl, that day he left, after he had gone away from here, and was waiting for the “Umpire” in Hollingford. One would think you quite stupid at times, Osborne.’

‘I can only say that these details are quite new to me; you never mentioned them before, I assure you.’

‘Well; never mind whether I did or not. I’m sure I said Roger was attached to Miss Kirkpatrick, and be hanged to her; and you might have understood all the rest as a matter of course.’

‘Possibly,’ said Osborne, politely. ‘May I ask if Miss Kirkpatrick, who appeared to me to be a very nice girl, responds to Roger’s affection?’

‘Fast enough, I’ll be bound,’ said the squire, sulkily. ‘A Hamley of Hamley is not to be had every day. Now, I’ll tell you what, Osborne, you’re the only marriageable one left in the market, and I want to hoist the old family up again. Don’t go against me in this; it really will break my heart if you do.’

‘Father, don’t talk so,’ said Osborne. ‘I will do anything I can to oblige you, except^________’

‘Except the only thing I’ve set my heart on your doing?’

‘Well, well, let it alone for the present. There’s no question of my marrying just at this moment. I’m out of health, and I’m not up to going into society, and meeting young ladies and all that sort of thing, even if I had an opening into fitting society.’

‘You should have an opening fast enough. There’ll be more money coming in in a year or two, please God. And as for your health, why, what’s to make you well, if you cower over the fire all day, and shudder away from a good honest tankard as if it were poison?’

‘So it is to me,’ said Osborne, languidly, playing with his book as if he wanted to end the conversation and take it up again. The squire saw the movements, and understood them.

‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’ll go and have a talk with Will about poor old Black Bess. It’s Sunday work enough, asking after a dumb animal’s aches and pains.’

But after his father had left the room Osborne did not take up his book again. He laid it down on the table by him, leant back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand. He was in a state of health which made him despondent about many things, though, least of all, about what was most in danger. The long concealment of his marriage from his father made the disclosure of it far, far more difficult than it would have been at first. Unsupported by Roger, how could he explain it all to one so passionate as the squire? how tell of the temptation, the stolen marriage, the consequent happiness, and alas! the consequent suffering?—for Osborne had suffered, and did suffer, greatly in the untoward circumstances in which he had placed himself. He saw no way out of it all, excepting by the one strong stroke of which he felt himself incapable. So with a heavy heart he addressed himself to his book again. Everything seemed to come in his way, and he was not strong enough in character to overcome obstacles. The only overt step he took in consequence of what he had heard from his father, was to ride over to Hollingford the first fine day after he had received the news, and go to see Cynthia and the Gibsons. He had not been there for a long time; bad weather and languor combined had prevented him. He found them full of preparations and discussions about Cynthia’s visit to London; and she herself not at all in the sentimental mood proper to respond to his delicate intimations of how glad he was in his brother’s joy. Indeed, it was so long after the time, that Cynthia scarcely perceived that to him the intelligence was recent, and that the first bloom of his emotions had not yet passed away. With her head a little on one side, she was contemplating the effect of a knot of ribbons, when he began, in a low whisper, and leaning forward towards her as he spoke—‘Cynthia—I may call you Cynthia now, mayn’t I?—I’m so glad of this news; I’ve only just heard of it, but I’m so glad!’

‘What news do you mean?’ She had her suspicions; but she was annoyed to think that from one person her secret was passing to another and another, till, in fact, it was becoming no secret at all. Still, Cynthia could always conceal her annoyance when she chose. ‘Why are you to begin calling me Cynthia now?’ she went on, smiling. ‘The terrible word has slipped out from between your lips before, do you know?’

This light way of taking his tender congratulation did not quite please Osborne, who was in a sentimental mood, and for a minute or so he remained silent. Then, having finished making her bow of ribbon, she turned to him, and continued in a quick low voice, anxious to take advantage of a tête-à-tête between her mother and Molly—

‘I think I can guess why you made that pretty little speech just now? But do you know you ought not to have been told? And, moreover, things are not quite arrived at the solemnity, of—of—well—an engagement. He would not have it so. Now, I shan’t say any more; and you must not. Pray remember you ought not to have known; it is my own secret, and I particularly wished it not to be spoken about; and I don’t like it’s being so talked about. Oh, the leaking of water through one small hole!’

And then she plunged into the talk of the other two, making the conversation general. Osborne was rather discomfited at the non-success of his congratulations; he had pictured to himself the unbosoming of a lovesick girl, full of rapture, and glad of a sympathizing confidant. He little knew Cynthia’s nature. The more she suspected that she was called upon for a display of emotion, the less would she show; and her emotions were generally under the control of her will. He had made an effort to come and see her; and now he leant back in his chair, weary and a little dispirited.

‘You poor dear young man,’ said Mrs. Gibson, coming up to him with her soft, soothing manner; ‘how tired you look! Do take some of that eau-de-Cologne and bathe your forehead. This spring weather overcomes me too. “Primavera” I think the Italians call it. But it is very tiring for delicate constitutions, as much from its associations as from its variableness of temperature. It makes me sigh perpetually; but then I am so sensitive. Dear Lady Cumnor always used to say I was like a thermometer. You’ve heard how ill she has been?’

‘No,’ said Osborne, not very much caring either.

‘Oh, yes, she is better now; but the anxiety about her has tried me so: detained here by what are, of course, my duties, but far away from all intelligence, and not knowing what the next post might bring.’

‘Where was she then?’ asked Osborne, becoming a little more sympathetic.

‘At Spa. Such a distance off! Three days’ post! Can’t you conceive the trial? Living with her as I did for years; bound up in the family as I was.’

‘But Lady Harriet said, in her last letter, that they hoped she would be stronger than she had been for years,’ said Molly, innocently.

‘Yes—Lady Harriet—of course—every one who knows Lady Harriet knows that she is of too sanguine a temperament for her statements to be perfectly relied on. Altogether—strangers are often deluded by Lady Harriet—she has an off-hand manner which takes them in; but she does not mean half she says.’

‘We will hope she does in this instance,’ said Cynthia, shortly. ‘They are in London now, and Lady Cumnor has not suffered from the journey.’

‘They say so,’ said Mrs. Gibson, shaking her head, and laying an emphasis on the word ‘saγ.’ ‘I am perhaps over-anxious, but I wish—I wish I could see and judge for myself It would be the only way of calming my anxiety. I almost think I shall go up with you, Cynthia, for a day or two, just to see her with my own eyes. I don’t quite like your travelling alone either. We will think about it, and you shall write to Mr. Kirkpatrick, and propose it, if we determine upon it. You can tell him of my anxiety; and it will be only sharing your bed for a couple of nights.’

CHAPTER 40

Molly Gibson Breathes Freely

That was the way in which Mrs. Gibson first broached her intention accompanying Cynthia up to London for a few days’ visit. She had a trick of producing the first sketch of any new plan before an outsider to the family circle; so that the first emotions of others, if they disapproved of her projects, had to be repressed, until the idea had become familiar to them. To Molly it seemed too charming a proposal ever to come to pass. She had never allowed herself to recognize the restraint she was under in her stepmother’s presence; but all at once she found it out when her heart danced at the idea of three whole days—for that it would be at the least—of perfect freedom of intercourse with her father; of old times come back again; of meals without perpetual fidgetiness after details of ceremony and correctness of attendance.

‘We’ll have bread and cheese for dinner, and eat it on our knees; we’ll make up for having had to eat sloppy puddings with a fork instead of a spoon all this time, by putting our knives in our mouths till we cut ourselves. Papa shall pour his tea into his saucer if he’s in a hurry; and if I’m thirsty I’ll take the slop-basin. And oh, if I could but get, buy, borrow, or steal any kind of an old horse; my grey skirt isn’t new, but it will do;—that would be too delightful. After all, I think I can be happy again; for months and months it has seemed as if I had got too old ever to feel pleasure, much less happiness again.’

So thought Molly. Yet she blushed, as if with guilt, when Cynthia, reading her thoughts, said to her one day—

‘Molly, you’re very glad to get rid of us, are not you?’

‘Not of you, Cynthia; at least, I don’t think I am. Only, if you but knew how I love papa, and how I used to see a great deal more of him than I ever do now——’

‘Ah! I often think what interlopers we must seem, and are in fact——’

‘I don’t feel you as such. You, at any rate, have been a new delight to me—a sister; and I never knew how charming such a relationship could be.’

‘But mamma?’ said Cynthia, half-suspiciously, half-sorrowfully.

‘She is papa’s wife,’ said Molly, quietly. ‘I don’t mean to say I am not often very sorry to feel I am no longer first with him; but it was’—the violent colour flushed into her face till even her eyes burnt, and she suddenly found herself on the point of crying; the weeping ash-tree, the misery, the slow dropping comfort, and the comforter came all so vividly before her—‘it was Roger!’—she went on looking up at Cynthia, as she overcame her slight hesitation at mentioning his name—‘Roger, who told me how I ought to take papa’s marriage, when I was first startled and grieved at the news. Oh, Cynthia, what a great thing it is to be loved by him!’

Cynthia blushed, and looked fluttered and pleased.

‘Yes, I suppose it is. At the same time, Molly, I’m afraid he’ll expect me to be always as good as he fancies me now, and I shall have to walk on tiptoe all the rest of my life.’

‘But you are good, Cynthia,’ put in Molly.

‘No, I’m not. You’re just as much mistaken as he is; and some day I shall go down in your opinions with a run, just like the hall clock the other day when the spring broke.’

‘I think he’ll love you just as much,’ said Molly.

‘Could you? Would you be my friend if—if it turned out even that I had done very wrong things? Would you remember how very difficult it has sometimes been to me to act rightly?’ (She took hold of Molly’s hand as she spoke.) ‘We won’t speak of mamma, for your sake as much as mine or hers; but you must see she is not one to help a girl with much good advice, or good^______ Oh, Molly, you don’t know how I was neglected just at a time when I wanted friends most. Mamma does not know it; it is not in her to know what I might have been if I had only fallen into wise, good hands. But I know it; and what’s more,’ continued she, suddenly ashamed of her unusual exhibition of feeling, ‘I try not to care, which I dare say is really the worst of all; but I could worry myself to death if I once took to serious thinking.’

‘I wish I could help you, or even understand you,’ said Molly, after a moment or two of sad perplexity.

‘You can help me,’ said Cynthia, changing her manner abruptly. ‘I can trim bonnets, and make head-dresses; but somehow my hands can’t fold up gowns and collars, like your deftlike fingers. Please will you help me to pack? That’s a real, tangible piece of kindness, and not sentimental consolation for sentimental distresses, which are, perhaps, imaginary after all.’

In general, it is the people that are left behind stationary, who give way to low spirits at any parting; the travellers, however bitterly they may feel the separation, find something in the change of scene to soften regret in the very first hour of separation. But as Molly walked home with her father from seeing Mrs. Gibson and Cynthia off to London by the ‘Umpire’ coach, she almost danced along the street.

‘Now, papa!’ said she, ‘I’m going to have you all to myself for a whole week. You must be very obedient.’

‘Don’t be tyrannical, then. You are walking me out of breath, and we are cutting Mrs. Goodenough, in our hurry.’

So they crossed over the street to speak to Mrs. Goodenough.

‘We’ve just been seeing my wife and her daughter off to London. Mrs. Gibson has gone up for a week!’

‘Deary, deary, to London, and only for a week! Why, I can remember its being a three days’ journey! It will be very lonesome for you, Miss Molly, without your young companion!’

‘Yes!’ said Molly, suddenly feeling as if she ought to have taken this view of the case. ‘I shall miss Cynthia very much.’

‘And you, Mr. Gibson; why, it will be like being a widower once again! You must come and drink tea with me some evening. We must try and cheer you up a bit amongst us. Shall it be Tuesday?’

In spite of the sharp pinch which Molly gave to his arm, Mr. Gibson accepted the invitation, much to the gratification of the old lady.

‘Papa, how could you go and waste one of our evenings! We have but six in all, and now but five; and I had so reckoned on our doing all sorts of things together.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, I don’t know: everything that is unrefined and ungenteel,’ added she, slyly looking up into her father’s face.

His eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was perfectly grave. ‘I’m not going to be corrupted. With toil and labour I’ve reached a very fair height of refinement. I won’t be pulled down again.’

‘Yes, you will, papa. We’ll have bread and cheese for lunch this very day. And you shall wear your slippers in the drawing-room every evening you’ll stay quietly at home; and oh, papa, don’t you think I could ride Nora Creina? I’ve been looking out the old grey skirt, and I think I could make myself tidy.’

‘Where is the side-saddle to come from?’

‘To be sure the old one won’t fit that great Irish mare. But I’m not particular, papa. I think I could manage somehow.’

‘Thank you. But I’m not quite going to return into barbarism. It may be a depraved taste, but I should like to see my daughter properly mounted.’

‘Think of riding together down the lanes—why, the dog-roses must be all out in flower, and the honeysuckles, and the hay—how I should like to see Merriman’s farm again! Papa, do let me have one ride with you! Please do. I am sure we can manage it somehow.’

And ‘somehow’ it was managed. ‘Somehow’ all Molly’s wishes came to pass; there was only one little drawback to this week of holiday and happy intercourse with her father. Everybody would ask them out to tea. They were quite like bride and bridegroom; for the fact was, that the late dinners which Mrs. Gibson had introduced into her own house, were a great inconvenience in the calculations of the small tea-drinkings at Hollingford. How ask people to tea at six, who dined at that hour? How, when they refused cake and sandwiches at half-past eight, how induce other people who were really hungry to commit a vulgarity before those calm and scornful eyes? So there had been a great lull of invitations for the Gibsons to Hollingford tea-parties. Mrs. Gibson, whose object was to squeeze herself into ‘county society,’ had taken this being left out of the smaller festivities with great equanimity; but Molly missed the kind homeliness of the parties to which she had gone from time to time as long as she could remember; and though, as each three-cornered note was brought in, she grumbled a little over the loss of another charming evening with her father, she really was glad to go again in the old way among old friends. Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe were especially compassionate towards her in her loneliness. If they had had their will she would have dined there every day; and she had to call upon them very frequently in order to prevent their being hurt at her declining the dinners. Mrs. Gibson wrote twice during her week’s absence to her husband. That piece of news was quite satisfactory to the Miss Brownings, who had of late held themselves a great deal aloof from a house where they chose to suppose that their presence was not wanted. In their winter evenings they had often talked over Mr. Gibson’s household, and, having little besides conjecture to go upon, they found the subject interminable, as they could vary the possibilities every day. One of their wonders was how Mr. and Mrs. Gibson really got on together; another was whether Mrs. Gibson was extravagant or not. Now two letters during the week of her absence showed what was in those days considered a very proper amount of conjugal affection. Yet not too much—at elevenpence-halfpenny postage. A third letter would have been extravagant. Sister looked to sister with an approving nod as Molly named the second letter, which arrived in Hollingford the very day before Mrs. Gibson was to return. They had settled between themselves that two letters would show the right amount of good feeling and proper understanding in the Gibson family: more would have been extravagant; only one would have been a mere matter of duty. There had been rather a question between Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe as to which person the second letter (supposing it came) was to be addressed to. It would be very conjugal to write twice to Mr. Gibson; and yet it would be very pretty if Molly came in for her share.

‘You’ve had another letter, you say, my dear?’ asked Miss Browning. ‘I daresay Mrs. Gibson has written to you this time?’

‘It is a large sheet, and Cynthia has written on one half to me, and all the rest is to papa.’

‘A very nice arrangement, I’m sure. And what does Cynthia say? Is she enjoying herself?’

‘Oh, yes, I think so. They’ve had a dinner-party; and one night, when mamma was at Lady Cumnor’s, Cynthia went to the play with her cousins.’

‘Upon my word! and all in one week? I do call that dissipation. Why, Thursday would be taken up with the journey, and Friday with resting, and Sunday is Sunday all the world over; and they must have written on Tuesday. Well! I hope Cynthia won’t find Hollingford dull, that’s all, when she comes back.’

‘I don’t think it’s likely,’ said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sat oddly on her kindly innocent face. ‘You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, don’t you, Molly?’

‘Mr. Preston!’ said Molly, flushing up with surprise. ‘No! not much. He’s been at Ashcombe all winter, you know! He has but just come back to settle here. What should make you think so?’

‘Oh! a little bird told us,’ said Miss Browning. Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant? But it was a very favourite form of fiction with the Miss Brownings, and to Miss Phoebe it was the very acme of wit.

‘The little bird was flying about one day in Heath Lane, and it saw Mr. Preston and a young lady—we won’t say who—walking together in a very friendly manner, that is to say, he was on horseback; but the path is raised above the road just where there is the little wooden bridge over the brook^_______’

‘Perhaps Molly is in the secret, and we ought not to ask her about it,’ said Miss Phoebe, seeing Molly’s extreme discomfiture and annoyance.

‘It can be no great secret,’ said Miss Browning, dropping the little-bird formula, and assuming an air of dignified reproval at Miss Phoebe’s interruption, ‘for Miss Hornblower says Mr. Preston owns to being engaged^________’

‘At any rate, it is not to Cynthia, that I know positively,’ said Molly, with some vehemence. ‘And pray put a stop to any such reports; you don’t know what mischief they may do. I do so hate that kind of chatter!’ It was not very respectful of Molly to speak in this way, to be sure, but she thought only of Roger; and the distress any such reports might cause, should he ever hear of them (in the centre of Africa!) made her colour up scarlet with vexation.

‘Heighty-teighty! Miss Molly! don’t you remember that I am old enough to be your mother, and that it is not pretty behaviour to speak so to us—to me! “Chatter” to be sure. Really, Molly—’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Molly, only half-penitent.

‘I dare say you did not mean to speak so to sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, trying to make peace.

Molly did not answer all at once. She wanted to explain how much mischief might be done by such reports.

‘But don’t you see,’ she went on, still flushed by vexation, ‘how bad it is to talk of such things in such a way? Supposing one of them cared for some one else, and that might happen, you know; Mr. Preston, for instance, may be engaged to some one else?

‘Molly! I pity the woman! Indeed I do. I have a very poor opinion of Mr. Preston,’ said Miss Browning, in a warning tone of voice; for a new idea had come into her head.

‘Well, but the woman, or young lady, would not like to hear such reports about Mr. Preston.’

‘Perhaps not. But for all that, take my word for it, he’s a great flirt, and young ladies had better not have much to do with him.’

‘I dare say it was all accident their meeting in Heath Lane,’ said Miss Phoebe.

‘I know nothing about it,’ said Molly, ‘and I dare say I have been impertinent, only please don’t talk about it any more. I have my reasons for asking you.’ She got up, for by the striking of the church clock she had just found out that it was later than she had thought, and she knew that her father would be at home by this time. She bent down and kissed Miss Browning’s grave and passive face.

‘How you are growing, Molly!’ said Miss Phoebe, anxious to cover over her sister’s displeasure. “‘As tall and as straight as a poplar-tree!” as the old song says.’

‘Grow in grace, Molly, as well as in good looks!’ said Miss Browning, watching her out of the room. As soon as she was fairly gone, Miss Browning got up and shut the door quite securely, and then sitting down near her sister, she said, in a low voice, ‘Phoebe, it was Molly herself that was with Mr. Preston in Heath Lane that day when Mrs. Goodenough saw them together!’

‘Gracious goodness me!’ exclaimed Miss Phoebe, receiving it at once as gospel. ‘How do you know?’

‘By putting two and two together. Didn’t you notice how red Molly went, and then pale, and how she said she knew for a fact that Mr. Preston and Cynthia Kirkpatrick were not engaged?’

‘Perhaps not engaged; but Mrs. Goodenough saw them loitering together, all by their own two selves—’

‘Mrs. Goodenough only crossed Heath Lane at the Shire Oak, as she was riding in her phaeton,’ said Miss Browning sententiously. ‘We all. know what a coward she is in a carriage, so that most likely she had only half her wits about her, and her eyes are none of the best when she is standing steady on the ground. Molly and Cynthia have got their new plaid shawls just alike, and they trim their bonnets alike, and Molly is grown as tall as Cynthia since Christmas. I was always afraid she’d be short and stumpy, but she’s now as tall and slender as any one need be. I’ll answer for it, Mrs. Goodenough saw Molly, and took her for Cynthia.’

When Miss Browning ‘answered for it’ Miss Phoebe gave up doubting. She sat some time in silence revolving her thoughts. Then she said:

‘It wouldn’t be such a very bad match after all, sister.’ She spoke very meekly, awaiting her sister’s sanction to her opinion.

‘Phoebe, it would be a bad match for Mary Pearson’s daughter. If I had known what I know now we’d never have had him to tea last September.’

‘ Why, what do you know?’ asked Miss Phoebe.

‘Miss Hornblower told me many things; some that I don’t think you ought to hear, Phoebe. He was engaged to a very pretty Miss Gregson, at Henwick, where he comes from; and her father made inquiries, and heard so much that was bad about him, that he made his daughter break off the match, and she’s dead since!’

‘How shocking!’ said Miss Phoebe, duly impressed.

‘Besides, he plays at billiards, and he bets at races, and some people do say he keeps race-horses.’

‘But is not it strange that the earl keeps him on as his agent?’

‘No! perhaps not. He’s very clever about land, and very sharp in all law affairs; and my lord isn’t bound to take notice—if indeed he knows—of the manner in which Mr. Preston talks when he has taken too much wine.’

‘Taken too much wine! Oh, sister, is he a drunkard? and we have had him to tea!’

‘I didn’t say he was a drunkard, Phoebe,’ said Miss Browning, pettishly. ‘A man may take too much wine occasionally, without being a drunkard. Don’t let me hear you using such coarse words, Phoebe!’

Miss Phoebe was silent for a time after this rebuke.

Presently she said, ‘I do hope it wasn’t Molly Gibson.’

‘You may hope as much as you like, but I’m pretty sure it was. However, we’d better say nothing about it to Mrs. Goodenough; she has got Cynthia into her head, and there let her rest. Time enough to set reports afloat about Molly when we know there’s some truth in them. Mr. Preston might do for Cynthia, who’s been brought up in France, though she has such pretty manners; but it may have made her not particular. He must not, and he shall not, have Molly, if I go into church and forbid the banns myself; but I’m afraid—I’m afraid there’s something between her and him. We must keep on the lookout, Phoebe. I’ll be her guardian angel, in spite of herself.’

CHAPTER 41

Gathering Clouds

Mrs. Gibson came back full of rose-coloured accounts of London. Lady Cumnor had been gracious and affectionate, ‘so touched by my going up to see her so soon after her return to England,’ Lady Harriet charming and devoted to her old governess, Lord Cumnor ‘just like his dear usual hearty self’; and as for the Kirkpatricks, no Lord Chancellor’s house was ever grander than theirs, and the silk gown of the Q.C. had floated over housemaids and footmen. Cynthia, too, was so much admired; and as for her dress, Mrs. Kirkpatrick had showered down ball-dresses and wreaths, and pretty bonnets and mantles, like a fairy godmother. Mr. Gibson’s poor present of ten pounds shrank into very small dimensions compared with all this munificence.

‘And they’re so fond of her, I don’t know when we shall have her back,’ was Mrs. Gibson’s winding-up sentence. ‘And now, Molly, what have you and papa been doing? Very gay, you sounded in your letter. I had not time to read it in London; so I put it in my pocket, and read it in the coach coming home. But, my dear child, you do look so old-fashioned with your gown made all tight, and your hair all tumbling about in curls. Curls are quite gone out. We must do your hair differently,’ she continued, trying to smooth Molly’s black waves into straightness.

‘I sent Cynthia an African letter,’ said Molly, timidly, ‘did you hear anything of what was in it?’

‘Oh, yes, poor child! It made her very uneasy, I think; she said she did not feel inclined to go to Mr. Rawson’s ball, which was on that night, and for which Mrs. Kirkpatrick had given her the ball-dress. But there was really nothing for her to fidget herself about. Roger only said he had had another touch of fever, but was better when he wrote. He says every European has to be acclimatized by fever in that part of Abyssinia where he is.’

‘And did she go?’ asked Molly.

‘Yes, to be sure. It is not an engagement; and if it were, it is not acknowledged. Fancy her going and saying, “A young man that I know has been ill for a few days in Africa, two months ago, therefore I don’t want to go to the ball to-night.” It would have seemed like affectation of sentiment; and if there’s one thing I hate it is that.’

‘She would hardly enjoy herself,’ said Molly.

‘Oh, yes, but she did. Her dress was white gauze, trimmed with lilacs, and she really did look—a mother may be allowed a little natural partiality—most lovely. And she danced every dance, although she was quite a stranger. I am sure she enjoyed herself, from her manner of talking about it next morning.’

‘I wonder if the squire knows.’

‘Knows what? Oh, yes, to be sure! You mean about Roger. I dare say he doesn’t, and there is no need to tell him, for I’ve no doubt it is all right now.’ And she went out of the room to finish her unpacking.

Molly let her work fall, and sighed. ‘It will be a year the day after to-morrow since he came here to propose our going to Hurst Wood, and mamma was so vexed at his calling before lunch. I wonder if Cynthia remembers it as well as I do. And now, perhaps———Oh! Roger, Roger! I wish—I pray that you were safe home again! How could we all bear it, if—’

She covered her face with her hands, and tried to stop thinking. Suddenly she got up, as if stung by a venomous fancy.

‘I don’t believe she loves him as she ought, or she could not—could not have gone and danced. What shall I do if she does not? What shall I do? I can bear anything but that.’

But she found the long suspense as to his health hard enough to endure. They were not likely to hear from him for a month at least, and before that time had elapsed Cynthia would be at home again. Molly learnt to long for her return before a fortnight of her absence was over. She had had no idea that perpetual tête-à-têtes with Mrs. Gibson could, by any possibility, be so tiresome as she found them. Perhaps Molly’s state of delicate health, consequent upon her rapid growth during the last few months, made her irritable; but really often she had to get up and leave the room to calm herself down after listening to a long series of words, more frequently plaintive or discontented in tone than cheerful, and which at the end conveyed no distinct impression of either the speaker’s thought or feeling. Whenever anything had gone wrong, whenever Mr. Gibson had coolly persevered in anything to which she had objected; whenever the cook had made a mistake about the dinner, or the housemaid broken any little frangible article; whenever Molly’s hair was not done to her liking, or her dress did not become her, or the smell of dinner pervaded the house, or the wrong callers came, or the right callers did not come—in fact, whenever anything went wrong, poor Mr. Kirkpatrick was regretted and mourned over, nay, almost blamed, as if, had he only given himself the trouble of living, he could have helped it.

‘When I look back to those happy days, it seems to me as if I had never valued them as I ought. To be sure—youth, love—what did we care for poverty! I remember dear Mr. Kirkpatrick walking five miles into Stratford to buy me a muffin because I had such a fancy for one after Cynthia was born. I don’t mean to complain of dear papa—but I don’t think—but, perhaps I ought not to say it to you. If Mr. Kirkpatrick had but taken care of that cough of his; but he was so obstinate! Men always are, I think. And it really was selfish of him. Only I dare say he did not consider the forlorn state in which I should be left. It came harder upon me than upon most people, because I always was of such an affectionate sensitive nature. I remember a little poem of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s, in which he compared my heart to a harp-string, vibrating to the slightest breeze.’

‘I thought harpstrings required a pretty strong finger to make them sound,’ said Molly.

‘My dear child, you’ve no more poetry in you than your father. And as for your hair! it’s worse than ever. Can’t you drench it in water to take those untidy twists and twirls out of it?’

‘It only makes it curl more and more when it gets dry,’ said Molly, sudden tears coming into her eyes as a recollection came before her like a picture seen long ago and forgotten for years—a young mother washing and dressing her little girl; placing the half-naked darling on her knee, and twining the wet rings of dark hair fondly round her fingers, and then, in an ecstasy of fondness, kissing the little curly head.

The receipt of Cynthia’s letters made very agreeable events. She did not write often, but her letters were tolerably long when they did come, and very sprightly in tone. There was constant mention made of many new names, which conveyed no idea to Molly, though Mrs. Gibson would try and enlighten her by running commentaries like the following:—

‘Mrs. Green! ah, that’s Mr. Jones’s pretty cousin, who lives in Russell Square with the fat husband. They keep their carriage; but I’m not sure if it is not Mr. Green who is Mrs. Jones’s cousin. We can ask Cynthia when she comes home. Mr. Henderson! to be sure—a young man with black whiskers, a pupil of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s formerly—or was he a pupil of Mr. Murray’s? I know they said he had read law with somebody. Ah, yes! they are the people who called the day after Mr. Rawson’s ball, and who admired Cynthia so much, without knowing I was her mother. She was very handsomely dressed indeed, in black satin; and the son had a glass eye, but he was a young man of good property. Coleman! yes, that was the name.’

No more news of Roger until some time after Cynthia had returned from her London visit. She came back looking fresher and prettier than ever, beautifully dressed, thanks to her own good taste and her cousins’ generosity, full of amusing details of the gay life she had been enjoying, yet not at all out of spirits at having left it behind her. She brought home all sorts of pretty and dainty devices for Molly; a neck ribbon made up in the newest fashion, a pattern for a tippet, a delicate pair of tight gloves, embroidered as Molly had never seen gloves embroidered before, and many another little sign of remembrance during her absence. Yet, somehow or other, Molly felt that Cynthia was changed in her relation to her. Molly was aware that she had never had Cynthia’s full confidence, for with all her apparent frankness and naiveté of manner, Cynthia was extremely reserved and reticent. She knew this much of herself, and had often laughed about it to Molly, and the latter had by this time found out the truth of her friend’s assertion. But Molly did not trouble herself much about it. She too knew that there were many thoughts and feelings that flitted through her mind which she should never think of telling to any one, except perhaps—if they were ever very much thrown together—to her father. She knew that Cynthia withheld from her more than thoughts and feelings—that she withheld facts. But then, as Molly reflected, these facts might involve details of struggle and suffering—might relate to her mother’s neglect—and altogether be of so painful a character that it would be well if Cynthia could forget her childhood altogether, instead of fixing it in her mind by the relation of her grievances and troubles. So it was not now by any want of confidence that Molly felt distanced as it were. It was because Cynthia rather avoided than sought her companionship; because her eyes shunned the straight, serious loving look of Molly’s; because there were certain subjects on which she evidently disliked speaking, not particularly interesting things as far as Molly could perceive, but it almost seemed as if they lay on the road to points to be avoided. Molly felt a sort of sighing pleasure in noticing Cynthia’s changed manner of talking about Roger. She spoke of him tenderly now; ‘poor Roger,’ as she called him; and Molly thought that she must be referring to the illness which he had mentioned in his last letter. One morning in the first week after Cynthia’s return home, just as he was going out, Mr. Gibson ran up into the drawing-room, booted and spurred, and hastily laid an open pamphlet down before her; pointing out a particular passage with his finger, but not speaking a word before he rapidly quitted the room. His eyes were sparkling, and had an amused as well as pleased expression. All this Molly noticed, as well as Cynthia’s flush of colour as she read what was thus pointed out to her. Then she pushed it a little on one side, not closing the book, however, and went on with her work.

‘What is it? may I see it?’ asked Molly, stretching out her hand for the pamphlet, which lay within her reach. But she did not take it until Cynthia had said—

‘Certainly; I don’t suppose there are any great secrets in a scientific journal, full of reports of meetings.’ And she gave the book a little push towards Molly.

‘Oh, Cynthia!’ said Molly, catching her breath as she read, ‘are you not proud?’ For it was an account of an annual gathering of the Geographical Society,¹ and Lord Hollingford had read a letter he had received from Roger Hamley, dated from Arracuoba, a district in Africa, hitherto unvisited by any intelligent European traveller; and about which Mr. Hamley sent many curious particulars. The reading of this letter had been received with the greatest interest, and several subsequent speakers had paid the writer very high compliments.

But Molly might have known Cynthia better than to expect an answer responsive to the feelings that prompted her question. Let Cynthia be ever so proud, ever so glad, or so grateful, or even indignant, remorseful, grievous or sorry, the very fact that she was expected by another to entertain any of these emotions, would have been enough to prevent her expressing them.

‘I’m afraid I’m not as much struck by the wonder of the thing as you are, Molly. Besides, it is not news to me; at least, not entirely. I heard about the meeting before I left London; it was a good deal talked about in my uncle’s set; to be sure, I didn’t hear all the fine things they say of him there—but there, you know, that’s a mere fashion of speaking, which means nothing; somebody is bound to pay compliments when a lord takes the trouble to read one of his letters aloud.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Molly. ‘You know you don’t believe what you are saying, Cynthia.’

Cynthia gave that pretty little jerk of her shoulders, which was her equivalent for a French shrug, but did not lift up her head from her sewing. Molly began to read the report over again.

‘Why, Cynthia!’ she said, ‘you might have been there; ladies were there. It says “many ladies were present.” Oh, couldn’t you have managed to go? If your uncle’s set cared about these things, wouldn’t some of them have taken you?’

‘Perhaps, if I had asked them. But I think they would have been rather astonished at my sudden turn for science.’

‘You might have told your uncle how matters really stood; he would not have talked about it if you had wished him not, I am sure, and he could have helped you.’

‘Once for all, Molly,’ said Cynthia, now laying down her work, and speaking with quick authority, ‘do learn to understand that it is, and always has been my wish, not to have the relation which Roger and I bear to each other, mentioned or talked about. When the right time comes, I will make it known to my uncle, and to everybody whom it may concern; but I am not going to make mischief, and get myself into trouble even for the sake of hearing compliments paid to him—by letting it out before the time. If I’m pushed to it, I’d sooner break it off altogether at once, and have done with it. I can’t be worse off than I am now.’ Her angry tone had changed into a kind of desponding complaint before she had ended her sentence. Molly looked at her with dismay.

‘I can’t understand you, Cynthia,’ she said at length.

‘No; I dare say you can’t,’ said Cynthia, looking at her with tears in her eyes, and very tenderly, as if in atonement for her late vehemence. ‘I am afraid—I hope you never will.’

In a moment, Molly’s arms were round her. ‘Oh, Cynthia,’ she murmured, ‘have I been plaguing you? Have I vexed you? Don’t say you’re afraid of my knowing you. Of course you’ve your faults, everybody has, but I think I love you the better for them.’

‘I don’t know that I am so very bad,’ said Cynthia, smiling a little through the tears that Molly’s words and caresses had forced to overflow from her eyes. ‘But I’ve got into scrapes. I’m in a scrape now. I do sometimes believe I shall always be in scrapes, and if they ever come to light, I shall seem to be worse than I really am; and I know your father will throw me off, and I—no, I won’t be afraid that you will, Molly.’

‘I’m sure I won’t. Are they—do you think—how would Roger take it?’ asked Molly, very timidly.

‘I don’t know. I hope he will never hear of it. I don’t see why he should, for in a little while I shall be quite clear again. It all came about without my ever thinking I was doing wrong. I’ve a great mind to tell you all about it, Molly.’

Molly did not like to urge it, though she longed to know, and to see if she could not offer help; but while Cynthia was hesitating and, perhaps, to say the truth, rather regretting that she had even made this slight advance towards bestowing her confidence, Mrs. Gibson came in, full of some manner of altering a gown of hers, so as to make it into the fashion of the day, as she had seen it during her visit to London. Cynthia seemed to forget her tears and her troubles, and to throw her own soul into millinery.

Cynthia’s correspondence went on pretty briskly with her London cousins, according to the usual rate of correspondence in those days. Indeed, Mrs. Gibson was occasionally inclined to complain of the frequency of Helen Kirkpatrick’s letters; for before the penny post came in, the recipient had to pay the postage of letters; and elevenpence-halfpenny three times a week came, according to Mrs. Gibson’s mode of reckoning when annoyed, to a sum ‘between three and four shillings.’ But these complaints were only for the family; they saw the wrong side of the tapestry. Hollingford in general, Miss Brownings in particular, heard of ‘dear Helen’s enthusiastic friendship for Cynthia,’ and of‘the real pleasure it was to receive such constant news—relays of news indeed—from London. It was almost as good as living there!’

‘A great deal better, I should think,’ said Miss Browning with some severity. For she had got many of her notions of the metropolis from the British Essayists, where town is so often represented as the centre of dissipation, corrupting country wives and squires’ daughters, and unfitting them for all their duties by the constant whirl of its not always innocent pleasures. London was a sort of moral pitch, which few could touch and not be defiled. Miss Browning had been on the watch for the signs of deterioration in Cynthia’s character ever since her return home. But, except in a greater number of pretty and becoming articles of dress, there was no great change for the worse to be perceived. Cynthia had been ‘in the world,’ had ‘beheld the glare and glitter and dazzling display of London,’ yet had come back to Hollingford as ready as ever to place a chair for Miss Browning, or to gather flowers for a nosegay for Miss Phoebe, or to mend her own clothes. But all this was set down to the merits of Cynthia, not to the credit of London-town.

‘As far as I can judge of London,’ said Miss Browning, sententiously continuing her tirade against the place, ‘it’s no better than a pickpocket and a robber dressed up in the spoils of honest folk. I should like to know where my Lord Hollingford was bred, and Mr. Roger Hamley. Your good husband lent me that report of the meeting, Mrs. Gibson, where so much was said about them both, and he was as proud of their praises as if he had been akin to them, and Phoebe read it aloud to me, for the print was too small for my eyes; she was a good deal perplexed with all the new names of places, but I said she’d better skip them, for we had never heard of them before and probably should never hear of them again, but she read out the fine things they said of my lord, and Mr. Roger, and I put it to you, where were they born and bred? Why, within eight miles of Hollingford; it might have been Molly there or me; it’s all a chance; and then they go and talk about the pleasures of intellectual society in London, and the distinguished people up there that it is such an advantage to know, and all the time I know it’s only shops and the play that’s the real attraction. But that’s neither here nor there. We all put our best foot foremost, and if we have a reason to give that looks sensible we speak it out like men, and never say anything about the silliness we are hugging to our heart. But I ask you again, where does this fine society come from, and these wise men, and these distinguished travellers? Why, out of country parishes like this! London picks ’em all up, and decks herself with them, and then calls out to the folks she’s robbed, and says, “Come and see how fine I am.” Fine, indeed! I’ve no patience with London: Cynthia is much better out of it; and I’m not sure, if I were you, Mrs. Gibson, if I wouldn’t stop up those London letters: they’ll only be unsettling her.’

‘But perhaps she may live in London some of these days, Miss Browning,’ simpered Mrs. Gibson.

‘Time enough then to be thinking of London. I wish her an honest country husband with enough to live upon, and a little to lay by, and a good character to boot. Mind that, Molly,’ said she, firing round upon the startled Molly; ‘I wish Cynthia a husband with a good character; but she’s got a mother to look after her; you’ve none, and when your mother was alive she was a dear friend of mine; so I’m not going to let you throw yourself away upon any one whose life isn’t clear and aboveboard, you may depend upon it!’

This last speech fell like a bomb into the quiet little drawing-room, it was delivered with such vehemence. Miss Browning, in her secret heart, meant it as a warning against the intimacy she believed that Molly had formed with Mr. Preston; but as it happened that Molly had never dreamed of any such intimacy, the girl could not imagine why such severity of speech should be addressed to her. Mrs. Gibson, who always took up the points of every word or action where they touched her own self (and called it sensitiveness), broke the silence that followed Miss Browning’s speech by saying, plaintively—

‘I’m sure, Miss Browning, you are very much mistaken if you think that any mother could take more care of Molly than I do. I don’t—I can’t think there is any need for any one to interfere to protect her, and I have not an idea why you have been talking in this way, just as if we were all wrong, and you were all right. It hurts my feelings, indeed it does; for Molly can tell you there is not a thing or a favour that Cynthia has, that she has not. And as for not taking care of her, why, if she were to go up to London to-morrow, I should make a point of going with her to see after her; and I never did it for Cynthia when she was at school in France; and her bedroom is furnished just like Cynthia‘s, and I let her wear my red shawl whenever she likes; she might have it oftener if she would. I can’t think what you mean, Miss Browning.’

‘I did not mean to offend you, but I meant just to give Molly a hint. She understands what I mean.’

‘I’m sure I do not,’ said Molly, boldly. ‘I haven’t a notion what you meant, if you were alluding to anything more than you said straight out—that you do not wish me to marry any one who hasn’t a good character, and that, as you were a friend of mamma’s, you would prevent my marrying a man with a bad character, by every means in your power. I’m not thinking of marrying; I don’t want to marry anybody at all; but if I did, and he were not a good man, I should thank you for coming and warning me of it.’

‘I shall not stand on warning you, Molly. I shall forbid the banns in church, if need be,’ said Miss Browning, half convinced of the dear transparent truth of what Molly had said; blushing all over, it is true, but with her steady eyes fixed on Miss Browning’s face while she spoke.

‘Do!’ said Molly.

‘Well, well, I won’t say any more. Perhaps I was mistaken. We won’t say any more about it. But remember what I have said, Molly; there’s no harm in that, at any rate. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Mrs. Gibson. As stepmothers go, I think you try and do your duty. Good morning. Good-bye to you both, and God bless you.’

If Miss Browning thought that her final blessing would secure peace in the room she was leaving, she was very much mistaken; Mrs. Gibson burst out with—

‘Try and do my duty, indeed! I should be much obliged to you, Molly, if you would take care not to behave in such a manner as to bring down upon me such impertinence as I have just been receiving from Miss Browning.’

‘But I don’t know what made her talk as she did, mamma,’ said Molly.

‘I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t care either. But I know that I never was spoken to as if I was trying to do my duty before—“trying” indeed! everybody always knew that I did it, without talking about it before my face in that rude manner. I’ve that deep feeling about duty that I think it ought only to be talked about in church, and in such sacred places as that; not to have a common caller startling one with it, even though she was an early friend of your mother’s. And as if I didn’t look after you quite as much as I look after Cynthia! Why, it was only yesterday I went up into Cynthia’s room and found her reading a letter that she put away in a hurry as soon as I came in, and I didn’t even ask her who it was from, and I’m sure I should have made you tell me.’

Very likely. Mrs. Gibson shrank from any conflicts with Cynthia, pretty sure that she would be worsted in the end; while Molly generally submitted sooner than have any struggle for her own will.

Just then Cynthia came in.

‘What’s the matter?’ said she quickly, seeing that something was wrong.

‘Why, Molly has been doing something which has set that impertinent Miss Browning off into lecturing me on trying to do my duty! If your poor father had but lived, Cynthia, I should never have been spoken to as I have been. “A stepmother trying to do her duty, indeed!” That was Miss Browning’s expression.’

Any allusion to her father took from Cynthia all desire of irony. She came forward, and again asked Molly what was the matter.

Molly, herself ruffled, made answer—

‘Miss Browning seemed to think I was likely to marry some one whose character was objectionable—’

‘You, Molly?’ said Cynthia.

‘Yes-she once before spoke to me—I suspect she has got some notion about Mr. Preston in her head—’

Cynthia sat down quite suddenly. Molly went on: ‘And she spoke as if mamma did not look enough after me—I think she was rather provoking—’

‘Not rather, but very—very impertinent,’ said Mrs. Gibson, a little soothed by Molly’s recognition of her grievance.

‘What could have put it into her head?’ said Cynthia, very quietly, taking her sewing as she spoke.

‘I don’t know,’ said her mother, replying to the question after her own fashion. ‘I’m sure I don’t always approve of Mr. Preston; but even if it was him she was thinking about, he’s far more agreeable than she is; and I had much rather have him coming to call than an old maid like her, any day.’

‘I don’t know that it was Mr. Preston she was thinking about,’ said Molly. ‘It was only a guess. When you were both in London she spoke about him—I thought she had heard something about you and him, Cynthia.’ Unseen by her mother, Cynthia looked up at Molly, her eyes full of prohibition, her cheeks full of angry colour. Molly stopped short suddenly. After that look she was surprised at the quietness with which Cynthia said, almost immediately—

‘Well, after all, it is only your fancy that she was alluding to Mr. Preston, so perhaps we had better not say any more about him; and as for her advice to mamma to look after you better, Miss Molly, I’ll stand bail for your good behaviour; for both mamma and I know you’re the last person to do any foolish things in that way. And now don’t let us talk any more about it. I was coming to tell you that Hannah Brand’s little boy has been badly burnt, and his sister is downstairs asking for old linen.’

Mrs. Gibson was always kind to poor people, and she immediately got up and went to her stores to search for the article wanted.

Cynthia turned quietly round to Molly.

‘Molly, pray don’t ever allude to anything between me and Mr. Preston—not to mamma, nor to any one. Never do! I’ve a reason for it—don’t say anything more about it, ever.’

Mrs. Gibson came back at this moment, and Molly had to stop short again on the brink of Cynthia’s confidence; uncertain indeed this time whether she would have been told anything more, and only sure that she had annoyed Cynthia a good deal.

But the time was approaching when she would know all.

CHAPTER 42

The Storm Bursts

The autumn drifted away through all its seasons. The golden corn-harvest, the walks through the stubble fields, and rambles into hazel-copses in search of nuts; the stripping of the apple-orchards of their ruddy fruit, amid the joyous cries and shouts of watching children; and the gorgeous tulip-like colouring of the later time had now come on with the shortening days. There was comparative silence in the land, excepting for the distant shots, and the whirr of the partridges as they rose up from the field.

Ever since Miss Browning’s unlucky conversation things had been ajar in the Gibsons’ house. Cynthia seemed to keep every one out at (mental) arm‘s-length; and particularly avoided any private talks with Molly. Mrs. Gibson, still cherishing a grudge against Miss Browning for her implied accusation of not looking enough after Molly, chose to exercise a most wearying supervision over the poor girl. It was, ‘Where have you been, child?‘ ‘Who did you see?‘ ‘Who was that letter from?‘ ‘Why were you so long out when you had only to go to so-and-so?’ just as if Molly had really been detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse. She answered every question asked of her with the simple truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs. Gibson might be able to say that she looked well after her stepdaughter), chafed her inexpressibly. Very often she did not go out at all, sooner than have to give a plan of her intended proceedings, when perhaps she had no plan whatever—only thought of wandering out at her own sweet will, and of taking pleasure in the bright solemn fading of the year. It was a very heavy time for Molly—zest and life had fled, and left so many of the old delights mere shells of seeming. She thought it was that her youth had fled; at nineteen! Cynthia was no longer the same, somehow: and perhaps Cynthia’s change would injure her in the distant Roger’s opinion. Her stepmother seemed almost kind in comparison with Cynthia’s withdrawal of her heart; Mrs. Gibson worried her, to be sure, with all these forms of watching over her; but in every other way, she, at any rate, was the same. Yet Cynthia herself seemed anxious and careworn, though she would not speak of her anxieties to Molly. And then the poor girl in her goodness would blame herself for feeling Cynthia’s change of manner; for as Molly said to herself, ‘If it is hard work for me to help always fretting after Roger, and wondering where he is, and how he is, what must it be for her?’

One day Mr. Gibson came in, bright and swift.

‘Molly,’ said he, ‘where Cynthia?’

‘Gone out to do some errands—’

‘Well, it’s a pity—but never mind. Put on your bonnet and cloak as fast as you can. I’ve had to borrow old Simpson’s dog-cart—there would have been room both for you and Cynthia; but as it is, you must walk back alone. I’ll drive you as far on the Barford road as I can, and then you must jump down. I can’t take you on to Broad-hurst’s, I may be kept there for hours.’

Mrs. Gibson was out of the room; out of the house it might be, for all Molly cared, now she had her father’s leave and command. Her bonnet and cloak were on in two minutes, and she was sitting by her father’s side, the back seat shut up, and the light weight going swiftly and merrily bumping over the stone-paved lanes.

‘Oh, this is charming!’ said Molly, after a toss-up on her seat from a tremendous bump.

‘For youth, but not for crabbed age,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘My bones are getting rheumatic, and would rather go smoothly over macadamized streets.’^dl

‘That’s treason to this lovely view and this fine pure air, papa. Only I don’t believe you.’

‘Thank you. As you are so complimentary, I think I shall put you down at the foot of this hill; we have passed the second milestone from Hollingford.’

‘Oh, let me just go up to the top! I know we can see the blue range of the Malverns^dm from it, and Dorrimer Hall among the woods; the horse will want a minute’s rest, and then I will get down without a word.’

She went up to the top of the hill; and there they sat still a minute or two, enjoying the view, without much speaking. The woods were golden; the old house of purple-red brick, with its twisted chimneys, rose up from among them facing on to green lawns, and a placid lake; beyond again were the Malvern Hills.

‘Now jump down, lassie, and make the best of your way home before it gets dark. You’ll find the cut over Croston Heath shorter than the road we’ve come by.’

To go to Croston Heath, Molly had to go down a narrow lane overshadowed by trees, with picturesque old cottages dotted here and there on the steep sandy banks; and then there came a small wood, and then there was a brook to be crossed on a plank-bridge, and up the steeper fields on the opposite side were cut steps in the turfy path; which ended, she was on Croston Heath, a wide-stretching common skirted by labourers’ dwellings, past which a near road to Hollingford lay.

The loneliest part of the road was the first—the lane, the wood, the little bridge, and the clambering through the upland fields. But Molly cared little for loneliness. She went along the lane under the overarching elm-branches, from which, here and there, a yellow leaf came floating down upon her very dress; past the last cottage, where a little child had tumbled down the sloping bank, and was publishing the accident with frightened cries. Molly stooped to pick it up, and, taking it in her arms in a manner which caused intense surprise to take the place of alarm in its little breast, she carried it up the rough flag steps towards the cottage which she supposed to be its home. The mother came running in from the garden behind the house, still holding the late damsons she had been gathering in her apron; but, on seeing her, the little creature held out its arms to go to her, and she dropped her damsons all about as she took it, and began to soothe it as it cried afresh, interspersing her lulling with thanks to Molly. She called her by her name; and on Molly asking the woman how she came to know it, she replied that she had been a servant of Mrs. Goodenough before her marriage, and so was ‘bound to know Dr. Gibson’s daughter by sight.’ After the exchange of two or three more words, Molly ran down into the lane, and pursued her way, stopping here and there to gather a nosegay of such leaves as struck her for their brilliant colouring. She entered the wood. As she turned a corner in the lonely path, she heard a passionate voice of distress; and in an instant she recognized Cynthia’s tones. She stood still and looked around. There were some thick holly-bushes shining out dark-green in the midst of the amber and scarlet foliage. If any one was there, it must be behind these. So Molly left the path, and went straight, plunging through the brown tangled growth of ferns and underwood, and turned the holly bushes. There stood Mr. Preston and Cynthia; he holding her hands tight, each looking as if just silenced in some vehement talk by the rustle of Molly’s footsteps.

For an instant no one spoke. Then Cynthia said—

‘Oh, Molly, Molly, come and judge between us!’

Mr. Preston let go Cynthia’s hands slowly, with a look that was more of a sneer than a smile; and yet he, too, had been strongly agitated, whatever was the subject in dispute. Molly came forward and took Cynthia’s arm, her eyes steadily fixed on Mr. Preston’s face. It was fine to see the fearlessness of her perfect innocence. He could not bear her look, and said to Cynthia—

‘The subject of our conversation does not well admit of a third person’s presence. As Miss Gibson seems to wish for your company now, I must beg you to fix some other time and place where we can finish our discussion.’

‘I will go if Cynthia wishes me,’ said Molly.

‘No, no; stay—I want you to stay—I want you to hear it all—I wish I had told you sooner.’

‘You mean that you regret that she has not been made aware of our engagement—that you promised long ago to be my wife. Pray remember that it was you who made me promise secrecy, not I you!’

‘I don’t believe him, Cynthia. Don’t, don’t cry if you can help it; I don’t believe him.’

‘Cynthia,’ said he, suddenly changing his tone to fervid tenderness, ‘pray, pray do not go on so; you can’t think how it distresses me!’ He stepped forward to try and take her hand and soothe her; but she shrank away from him, and sobbed the more irrepressibly. She felt Molly’s presence so much to be a protection that now she dared to let herself go, and weaken herself by giving way to her emotion.

‘Go away!’ said Molly. ‘Don’t you see you make her worse?’ But he did not stir; he was looking at Cynthia so intently that he did not seem even to hear her. ‘Go,’ said Molly, vehemently, ‘if it really distresses you to see her cry. Don’t you see, it’s you who are the cause of it?’

‘I will go if Cynthia tells me,’ said he at length.

‘Oh, Molly, I don’t know what to do,’ said Cynthia, taking down her hands from her tear-stained face, and appealing to Molly, and sobbing worse than ever; in fact, she became hysterical, and though she tried to speak coherently, no intelligible words would come.

‘Run to that cottage in the trees, and fetch her a cup of water,’ said Molly. He hesitated a little.

‘Why don’t you go?’ said Molly, impatiently.

‘I have not done speaking to her; you will not leave before I come back?’

‘No. Don’t you see she can’t move in this state?’

He went quickly, if reluctantly.

Cynthia was some time before she could check her sobs enough to speak. At length she said—

‘Molly, I do hate him!’

‘But what did he mean by saying you were engaged to him? Don’t cry, dear, but tell me; if I can help you I will, but I can’t imagine what it all really is.’

‘It is too long a story to tell now, and I’m not strong enough. Look! he is coming back. As soon as I can, let us get home.’

‘With all my heart,’ said Molly.

He brought the water, and Cynthia drank, and was restored to calmness.

‘Now,’ said Molly, ‘we had better go home as fast as you can manage it; it is getting dark quickly.’

If she hoped to carry Cynthia off so easily she was mistaken. Mr. Preston was resolute on this point. He said—

‘I think, since Miss Gibson has made herself acquainted with this much, we had better let her know the whole truth—that you are engaged to marry me as soon as you are twenty; otherwise your being here with me, and by appointment too, may appear strange—even equivocal—to her.’

‘As I know that Cynthia is engaged to another man, you can hardly expect me to believe what you say, Mr. Preston.’

‘Oh, Molly,’ said Cynthia, trembling all over, but trying to be calm, ‘I am not engaged—neither to the person you mean, nor to Mr. Preston.’

Mr. Preston forced a smile. ‘I think I have some letters that would convince Miss Gibson of the truth of what I have said; and which will convince Mr. Osborne Hamley, if necessary—I conclude it is to him she is alluding.’

‘I am quite puzzled by you both,’ said Molly. ‘The only thing I do know is, that we ought not to be standing here at this time of the evening, and that Cynthia and I shall go home directly. If you want to talk to Miss Kirkpatrick, Mr. Preston, why don’t you come to my father’s house, and ask to see her openly, and like a gentleman?’

‘I am perfectly willing,’ said he; ‘I shall only be too glad to explain to Mr. Gibson on what terms I stand in relation to her. If I have not done it sooner, it is because I have yielded to her wishes.’

‘Pray, pray don’t, Molly—you don’t know all—you don’t know anything about it; you mean well and kindly, I know, but you are only making mischief I am quite well enough to walk, do let us go; I will tell you all about it when we are at home.’ She took Molly’s arm and tried to hasten her away; but Mr. Preston followed, talking as he walked by their side.

‘I do not know what you will say at home; but can you deny that you are my promised wife? Can you deny that it has only been at your earnest request that I have kept the engagement secret so long?’ He was unwise—Cynthia stopped, and turned at bay.

‘Since you will have it out—since I must speak here, I own that what you say is literally true; that when I was a neglected girl of sixteen, you—whom I believed to be a friend, lent me money at my need, and made me give you a promise of marriage.’

‘Made you!’ said he, laying an emphasis on the first word.

Cynthia turned scarlet. ‘Made is not the right word. I confess I liked you then—you were almost my only friend—and, if it had been a question of immediate marriage, I dare say I should never have objected. But I know you better now; and you have persecuted me so of late, that I tell you once for all (as I have told you before, till I am sick of the very words), that nothing shall ever make me marry you. Nothing! I see there’s no chance of escaping exposure and, I dare say, losing my character, and, I know, losing all the few friends I have.’

‘Never me,’ said Molly, touched by the wailing tone of despair that Cynthia was falling into.

‘It is hard,’ said Mr. Preston. ‘You may believe all the bad things you like about me, Cynthia, but I don’t think you can doubt my real, passionate, disinterested love for you.’

‘I do doubt it,’ said Cynthia, breaking out with fresh energy. ‘Ah! when I think of the self-denying affection I have seen—I have known—affection that thought of others before itself—’

Mr. Preston broke in at the pause she made. She was afraid of revealing too much to him.

‘You do not call it love which has been willing to wait for years—to be silent while silence was desired—to suffer jealousy and to bear neglect, relying on the solemn promise of a girl of sixteen—for solemn say flimsy, when that girl grows older. Cynthia, I have loved you, and I do love you, and I can’t give you up. If you will but keep your word, and marry me, I’ll swear I’ll make you love me in return.’

‘Oh, I wish—I wish I’d never borrowed that unlucky money, it was the beginning of it all. Oh, Molly, I have saved and scrimped to repay it, and he won’t take it now; I thought if I could but repay it, it would set me free.’

‘You seem to imply you sold yourself for twenty pounds,’ he said. They were nearly on the common now, close to the protection of the cottages, in very hearing of their inmates; if neither of the other two thought of this, Molly did, and resolved in her mind to call in at one of them, and ask for the labourer’s protection home; at any rate his presence must put a stop to this miserable altercation.

‘I did not sell myself; I liked you then. But oh, how I do hate you now!’ cried Cynthia, unable to contain her words.

He bowed and turned back, vanishing rapidly down the field staircase. At any rate that was a relief Yet the two girls hastened on, as if he was still pursuing them. Once, when Molly said something to Cynthia, the latter replied—

‘Molly, if you pity me—if you love me—don’t say anything more just now. We shall have to look as if nothing had happened when we get home. Come to my room when we go upstairs to bed, and I’ll tell you all. I know you’ll blame me terribly, but I will tell you all.’

So Molly did not say another word till they reached home; and then, comparatively at ease, inasmuch as no one perceived how late was their return to the house, each of the girls went up into their separate rooms, to rest and calm themselves before dressing for the necessary family gathering at dinner. Molly felt as if she were so miserably shaken that she could not have gone down at all, if her own interests only had been at stake. She sat by her dressing-table, holding her head in her hands, her candles unlighted, and the room in soft darkness, trying to still her beating heart, and to recall all she had heard, and what would be its bearing on the lives of those whom she loved. Roger. Oh, Roger!—far away in mysterious darkness of distance—loving as he did—(ah, that was love! That was the love to which Cynthia had referred, as worthy of the name!) and the object of his love claimed by another—false to one she must be! How could it be? What would he think and feel if ever he came to know it? It was of no use trying to imagine his pain—that could do no good. What lay before Molly was, to try and extricate Cynthia, if she could help her by thought, or advice, or action; not to weaken herself by letting her fancy run into pictures of possible, probable suffering.

When she went into the drawing-room before dinner, she found Cynthia and her mother by themselves. There were candles in the room, but they were not lighted, for the wood-fire blazed merrily and fitfully, and they were awaiting Mr. Gibson’s return, which might be expected at any minute. Cynthia sat in the shade, so it was only by her sensitive ear that Molly could judge of her state of composure. Mrs. Gibson was telling some of her day’s adventures—whom she had found at home in the calls she had been making; who had been out; and the small pieces of news she had heard. To Molly’s quick sympathy Cynthia’s voice sounded languid and weary, but she made all the proper replies, and expressed the proper interest at the right places, and Molly came to the rescue, chiming in, with an effort, it is true; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to notice slight shades or differences in manner. When Mr. Gibson returned, the relative positions of the parties were altered. It was Cynthia now who raised herself into liveliness, partly from a consciousness that he would have noticed any depression, and partly because Cynthia was one of those natural coquettes, who, from their cradle to their grave, instinctively bring out all their prettiest airs and graces in order to stand well with any man, young or old, who may happen to be present. She listened to his remarks and stories with all the sweet intentness of happier days, till Molly, silent and wondering, could hardly believe that the Cynthia before her was the same girl as she who was sobbing and crying as if her heart would break, but two hours before. It is true she looked pale and heavy-eyed, but that was the only sign she gave of her past trouble, which yet must be a present care, thought Molly. After dinner, Mr. Gibson went out to his town patients; Mrs. Gibson subsided into her armchair holding a sheet of The Times before her, behind which she took a quiet and lady-like doze. Cynthia had a book in one hand; with the other she shaded her eyes from the light. Molly alone could neither read, nor sleep, nor work. She sat in the seat in the bow-window; the blind was not drawn down, for there was no danger of their being overlooked. She gazed into the soft outer darkness, and found herself striving to discern the outlines of objects—the cottage at the end of the garden—the great beech-tree with the seat round it—the wire arches, up which the summer roses had clambered; each came out faint and dim against the dusky velvet of the atmosphere. Presently tea came, and there was the usual nightly bustle. The table was cleared, Mrs. Gibson roused herself, and made the same remark about dear papa that she had done at the same hour for weeks past. Cynthia too did not look different from usual. And yet what a hidden mystery did her calmness hide! thought Molly. At length came bedtime, and the customary little speeches. Both Molly and Cynthia went to their own rooms without exchanging a word. When Molly was in hers she had forgotten whether she was to go to Cynthia, or Cynthia to come to her. She took off her gown and put on her dressing-gown, and stood and waited, and even sat down for a minute or two: but Cynthia did not come, so Molly went and knocked at the opposite door, which, to her surprise, she found shut. When she entered the room Cynthia sat by her dressing-table, just as she came up from the drawing-room. She had been leaning her head on her arms, and seemed almost to have forgotten the tryst she had made with Molly, for she looked up as if startled, and her face did seem full of worry and distress; in her solitude she made no more exertion, but gave way to thoughts of care.