‘Tell me,—honestly as I know you will if you speak at all,—haven’t I done something to vex you since we were so happy at the Towers together?’
His voice was so kind and true—his manner so winning yet wistful, that Molly would have been thankful to tell him all. She believed that he could have helped her more than any one to understand how she ought to behave rightly; he would have disentangled her fancies,—if only he himself had not lain at the very core and centre of all her perplexity and dismay. How could she tell him of Mrs. Goodenough’s words troubling her maiden modesty? How could she ever repeat what his father had said that morning, and assure him that she, no more than he, wished that their old friendliness should be troubled by the thought of a nearer relationship?
‘No, you never vexed me in my whole life, Roger,’ said she, looking straight at him for the first time for many days.
‘I believe you, because you say so. I have no right to ask further, Molly. Will you give me back one of those flowers, as a pledge of what you have said?’
‘Take whichever you like,’ said she, eagerly offering him the whole nosegay to choose from.
‘No; you must choose, and you must give it me.’
Just then the squire came in. Roger would have been glad if Molly had not gone on so eagerly to ransack the bunch for the choicest flower in his father’s presence; but she exclaimed:
‘Oh, please, Mr. Hamley, do you know which is Roger’s favourite flower?’
‘No. A rose, I dare say. The carriage is at the door, and, Molly, my dear, I don’t want to hurry you, but—’
‘I know. Here, Roger,—here is a rose! I will find papa as soon as ever I get home. How is the little boy?’
‘I’m afraid he’s beginning of some kind of a fever.’
And the squire took her to the carriage, talking all the way of the little boy; Roger following, and hardly heeding what he was doing in the answer he kept asking himself: ‘Too late—or not? Can she ever forget that my first foolish love was given to one so different?’
While she, as the carriage rolled away, kept saying to herself,— ‘We are friends again. I don’t believe he will remember what the dear squire took it into his head to suggest for many days. It is so pleasant to be on the old terms again! and what lovely flowers!’
CHAPTER 60
Roger Hamley’s Confession
Roger had a great deal to think of as he turned away from looking after the carriage as long as it could be seen. The day before, he had believed that Molly had come to view all the symptoms of his growing love for her,—symptoms which he thought had been so patent,—as disgusting inconstancy to the inconstant Cynthia; that she had felt that an attachment which could be so soon transferred to another was not worth having; and that she had desired to mark all this by her changed treatment of him, and so to nip it in the bud. But this morning her old sweet, frank manner had returned—in their last interview, at any rate. He puzzled himself hard to find out what could have distressed her at breakfast-time. He even went so far as to ask Robinson whether Miss Gibson had received any letters that morning; and when he heard that she had had one, he tried to believe that the letter was in some way the cause of her sorrow. So far so good. They were friends again after their unspoken difference; but that was not enough for Roger. He felt every day more and more certain that she, and she alone, could make him happy. He had felt this, and had partly given up all hope, while his father had been urging upon him the very course he most desired to take. No need for ‘trying’ to love her, he said to himself,—that was already done. And yet he was very jealous on her behalf. Was that love worthy of her which had once been given to Cynthia? Was not this affair too much a mocking mimicry of the last—again just on the point of leaving England for a considerable time—if he followed her now to her own home,—in the very drawing-room where he had once offered to Cynthia? And then by a strong resolve he determined on his course. They were friends now, and he kissed the rose that was her pledge of friendship. If he went to Africa, he ran some deadly chances; he knew better what they were now than he had done when he went before. Until his return he would not even attempt to win more of her love than he already had. But once safe home again, no weak fancies as to what might or might not be her answer should prevent his running all chances to gain the woman who was to him the one who excelled all. His was not the poor vanity that thinks more of the possible mortification of a refusal than of the precious jewel of a bride that may be won. Somehow or another, please God to send him back safe, he would put his fate to the touch. And till then he would be patient. He was no longer a boy to rush at the coveted object; he was a man capable of judging and abiding.
Molly sent her father, as soon as she could find him, to the Hall; and then sat down to the old life in the home drawing-room, where she missed Cynthia’s bright presence at every turn. Mrs. Gibson was in rather a querulous mood, which fastened itself upon the injury of Cynthia’s letter being addressed to Molly, and not to herself
‘Considering all the trouble I had with her trousseau, I think she might have written to me.’
‘But she did—her first letter was to you, mamma,’ said Molly, her real thoughts still intent upon the Hall—upon the sick child-upon Roger, and his begging for the flower.
‘Yes, just a first letter, three pages long, with an account of her crossing; while to you she can write about fashions and how the bonnets are worn in Paris, and all sorts of interesting things. But poor mothers must never expect confidential letters, I have found that out.’
‘You may see my letter, mamma,’ said Molly, ‘there is really nothing in it.’
‘And to think of her writing, and crossing to youek who don’t value it, while my poor heart is yearning after my lost child! Really, life is somewhat hard to bear at times.’
Then there was silence-for a while.
‘Do tell me something about your visit, Molly. Is Roger very broken-hearted? Does he talk much about Cynthia?’
‘No. He does not mention her often; hardly ever, I think.’
‘I never thought he had much feeling. If he had had, he would not have let her go so easily.’
‘I don’t see how he could help it. When he came to see her after his return, she was already engaged to Mr. Henderson-he had come down that very day,’ said Molly, with perhaps more heat than the occasion required.
‘My poor head!’ said Mrs. Gibson, putting her hands up to her head. ‘One may see you’ve been stopping with people of robust health, and-excuse my saying it, Molly, of your friends-of unrefined habits, you’ve got to talk in so loud a voice. But do remember my head, Molly. So Roger has quite forgotten Cynthia, has he? Oh! what inconstant creatures men are! He will be falling in love with some grandee next, mark my words! They are making a pet and a lion of him, and he’s just the kind of weak young man to have his head turned by it all; and to propose to some fine lady of rank, who would no more think of marrying him than of marrying her footman.’
‘I don’t think it is likely,’ said Molly, stoutly. ‘Roger is too sensible for anything of the kind.’
‘That’s just the fault I always found with him; sensible and cold-hearted! Now, that’s a kind of character which may be very valuable, but which revolts me. Give me warmth of heart, even with a little of that extravagance of feeling which misleads the judgment, and conducts into romance. Poor Mr. Kirkpatrick! That was just his character. I used to tell him that his love for me was quite romantic. I think I have told you about his walking five miles in the rain to get me a muffin once when I was ill?’
‘Yes!’ said Molly. ‘It was very kind of him.’
‘So imprudent, too! Just what one of your sensible, cold-hearted, commonplace people would never have thought of doing. With his cough and all.’
‘I hope he didn’t suffer for it?’ replied Molly, anxious at any cost to keep off the subject of the Hamleys, upon which she and her stepmother always disagreed, and on which she found it difficult to keep her temper.
‘Yes, indeed, he did! I don’t think he ever got over the cold he caught that day. I wish you had known him, Molly. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if you had been my real daughter, and Cynthia dear papa’s, and Mr. Kirkpatrick and your own dear mother had all lived. People talk a good deal about natural affinities. It would have been a question for a philosopher.’ She began to think on the impossibilities she had suggested.
‘I wonder how the poor little boy is?’ said Molly, after a pause, speaking out her thought.
‘Poor little child! When one thinks how little his prolonged existence is to be desired, one feels that his death would be a boon.’
‘Mamma! what do you mean?’ asked Molly, much shocked. ‘Why, every one cares for his life as the most precious thing! You have never seen him! He is the bonniest, sweetest little fellow that can be! What do you mean?’
‘I should have thought that the squire would have desired a better-born heir than the offspring of a servant,—with all his ideas about descent and blood and family. And I should have thought that it was a little mortifying to Roger-who must naturally have looked upon himself as his brother’s heir-to find a little interloping child, half French, half English, stepping into his shoes!’
‘You don’t know how fond they are of him,—the squire looks upon him as the apple of his eye.’
‘Molly! Molly! pray don’t let me hear you using such vulgar expressions. When shall I teach you true refinement—that refinement which consists in never even thinking a vulgar, commonplace thing! Proverbs and idioms are never used by people of education. “Apple of his eye!” I am really shocked.’
‘Well, mamma, I’m very sorry; but after all, what I wanted to say as strongly as I could was, that the squire loves the little boy as much as his own child; and that Roger-oh! what a shame to think that Roger-’ And she stopped suddenly short, as if she were choked.
‘I don’t wonder at your indignation, my dear!’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘It is just what I should have felt at your age. But one learns the baseness of human nature with advancing years. I was wrong, though, to undeceive you so early—but depend upon it, the thought I alluded to has crossed Roger Hamley’s mind!’
‘All sorts of thoughts cross one’s mind—it depends upon whether one gives them harbour and encouragement,’ said Molly
‘My dear, if you must have the last word, don’t let it be a truism. But let us talk on some more interesting subject. I asked Cynthia to buy me a silk gown in Paris, and I said I would send her word what colour I fixed upon—I think dark blue is the most becoming to my complexion; what do you say?’
Molly agreed, sooner than take the trouble of thinking about the thing at all; she was far too full of her silent review of all the traits in Roger’s character which had lately come under her notice, and that gave the lie direct to her stepmother’s supposition. Just then they heard Mr. Gibson’s step downstairs. But it was some time before he made his entrance into the room where they were sitting.
‘How is little Roger?’ said Molly, eagerly.
‘Beginning with scarlet fever, I’m afraid. It’s well you left when you did, Molly. You’ve never had it. We must stop up all intercourse with the Hall for a time. If there’s one illness I dread, it is this.’
‘But you go and come back to us, papa.’
‘Yes. But I always take plenty of precautions. However, no need to talk about risks that lie in the way of one’s duty. It is unnecessary risks that we must avoid.’
‘Will he have it badly?’ asked Molly
‘I can’t tell. I shall do my best for the wee laddie.’
Whenever Mr. Gibson’s feelings were touched, he was apt to recur to the language of his youth. Molly knew now that he was much interested in the case.
For some days there was imminent danger to the little boy; for some weeks there was a more chronic form of illness to contend with; but when the immediate danger was over and the warm daily interest was past, Molly began to realize that, from the strict quarantine her father evidently thought it necessary to establish between the two houses, she was not likely to see Roger again before his departure for Africa. Oh! if she had but made more of the uncared-for days that she had passed with him at the Hall! Worse than uncared for; days on which she had avoided him; refused to converse freely with him; given him pain by her change of manner; for she had read in his eyes, heard in his voice, that he had been perplexed and pained, and now her imagination dwelt on and exaggerated the expression of his tones and looks.
One evening after dinner, her father said,—
‘As the country-people say, I’ve done a stroke of work to-day Roger Hamley and I have laid our heads together and we’ve made a plan by which Mrs. Osborne and her boy will leave the Hall.’
‘What did I say the other day, Molly?’ said Mrs. Gibson, interrupting, and giving Molly a look of extreme intelligence.
‘And go into lodgings at Jennings’ farm; not four hundred yards from the Park-field gate,’ continued Mr. Gibson.‘The squire and his daughter-in-law have got to be much better friends over the little fellow’s sick-bed; and I think he sees now how impossible it would be for the mother to leave her child, and go and be happy in France, which has been the notion running in his head all this time. To buy her off, in fact. But that one night, when I was very uncertain whether I could bring him through, they took to crying together, and condoling with each other; and it was just like tearing down a curtain that had been between them; they have been rather friends than otherwise ever since. Still, Roger’-(Molly’s cheeks grew warm and her eyes soft and bright; it was such a pleasure to hear his name)-‘and I both agree that his mother knows much better how to manage the boy than his grandfather does. I suppose that was the one good thing she got from that hard-hearted mistress of hers. She certainly has been well trained in the management of children. And it makes her impatient, and annoyed, and unhappy, when she sees the squire giving the child nuts and ale, and all sorts of silly indulgences, and spoiling him in every possible way. Yet she’s a coward, and doesn’t speak out her mind. Now by being in lodgings, and having her own servants—nice pretty rooms they are, too; we went to see them, and Mrs. Jennings promises to attend well to Mrs. Osborne Hamley, and is very much honoured, and all that sort of thing-not ten minutes’ walk from the Hall, too, so that she and the little chap may easily go backwards and forwards as often as they like, and yet she may keep the control over the child’s discipline and diet. In short, I think I’ve done a good day’s work,’ he continued, stretching himself a little; and then with a shake rousing himself, and making ready to go out again, to see a patient who had sent for him in his absence.
‘A good day’s work!’ he repeated to himself as he ran downstairs. ‘I don’t know when I have been so happy!’ For he had not told Molly all that had passed between him and Roger. Roger had begun a fresh subject of conversation just as Mr. Gibson was hastening away from the Hall, after completing the new arrangement for Aimée and her child.
‘You know that I set off next Tuesday, Mr. Gibson, don’t you?’ said Roger, a little abruptly.
‘To be sure. I hope you’ll be as successful in all your scientific objects as you were the last time, and have no sorrows awaiting you when you come back.’
‘Thank you. Yes. I hope so. You don’t think there’s any danger of infection now, do you?’
‘No! If the disease were to spread through the household, I think we should have had some signs of it before now. One is never sure, remember, with scarlet fever.’
Roger was silent for a minute or two. ‘Should you be afraid,’ he said at length, ‘of seeing me at your house?’
‘Thank you; but I think I would rather decline the pleasure of your society there at present. It’s only three weeks or a month since the child began. Besides, I shall be over here again before you go. I’m always on my guard against symptoms of dropsy. I have known it supervene.’
‘Then I shall not see Molly again!’ said Roger, in a tone and with a look of great disappointment.
Mr. Gibson turned his keen, observant eyes upon the young man, and looked at him in as penetrating a manner as if he had been beginning with an unknown illness. Then the doctor and the father compressed his lips and gave vent to a long intelligent whistle. ‘Whew!’ said he.
Roger’s bronzed cheeks took a deeper shade.
‘You will take a message to her from me, won’t you? A message of farewell!’ he pleaded.
‘Not I. I’m not going to be a message-carrier between any young man and young woman. I’ll tell my womenkind I forbade you to come near the house, and that you’re sorry to go away without bidding good-bye. That’s all I shall say.’
‘But you do not disapprove?—I see you guess why. Oh! Mr. Gibson, just speak to me one word of what must be in your heart, though you are pretending not to understand why I would give worlds to see Molly again before I go.’
‘My dear boy!’ said Mr. Gibson, more affected than he liked to show, and laying his hand on Roger’s shoulder. Then he pulled himself up, and said gravely enough,—
‘Mind, Molly is not Cynthia. If she were to care for you, she is not one who could transfer her love to the next comer.’
‘You mean not as readily as I have done,’ replied Roger. ‘I only wish you could know what a different feeling this is to my boyish love for Cynthia.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of you when I spoke; but, however, as I might have remembered afterwards that you were not a model of constancy, let us hear what you have to say for yourself.’
‘Not much. I did love Cynthia very much. Her manners and her beauty bewitched me; but her letters,-short, hurried letters,—sometimes showing that she really hadn’t taken the trouble to read mine through,—I cannot tell you the pain they gave me! Twelve months’ solitude, in frequent danger of one’s life—face to face with death-sometimes ages a man like many years’ experience. Still I longed for the time when I should see her sweet face again, and hear her speak. Then the letter at the Cape!—and still I hoped. But you know how I found her, when I went to have the interview which I trusted might end in the renewal of our relations,-engaged to Mr. Henderson. I saw her walking with him in your garden, coquetting with him about a flower, just as she used to do with me. I can see the pitying look in Molly’s eyes as she watched me; I can see it now. And I could beat myself for being such a blind fool as to- What must she think of me? how she must despise me, choosing the false Duessa.’el
‘Come, come! Cynthia isn’t so bad as that. She’s a very fascinating, faulty creature.’
‘I know! I know! I will never allow any one to say a word against her. If I called her the false Duessa it was because I wanted to express my sense of the difference between her and Molly as strongly as I could. You must allow for a lover’s exaggeration. Besides, all I wanted to say was,-Do you think that Molly, after seeing and knowing that I had loved a person so inferior to herself, could ever be brought to listen to me?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. Only if it’s any comfort to you, I may say what my experience has taught me. Women are queer, unreasoning creatures, and are just as likely as not to love a man who has been throwing away his affection.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ said Roger, interrupting him. ‘I see you mean to give me encouragement. And I had resolved never to give Molly a hint of what I felt till I returned,—and then to try and win her by every means in my power. I determined not to repeat the former scene in the former place,—in your drawing-room,-however, I might be tempted. And perhaps, after all, she avoided me when she was here last.’
‘Now, Roger, I’ve listened to you long enough. If you’ve nothing better to do with your time than to talk about my daughter, I have. When you come back it will be time enough to inquire how far your father would approve of such an engagement.’
‘He himself urged it upon me the other day—but then I was in despair—I thought it was too late.’
‘And what means you are likely to have of maintaining a wife,—I always thought that point was passed too lightly over when you formed your hurried engagement to Cynthia. I’m not mercenary,-Molly has some money independently of me,-that she, by the way, knows nothing of,-not much;—and I can allow her something. But all these things must be left till your return.’
‘Then you sanction my attachment?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by sanctioning it. I can’t help it. I suppose losing one’s daughter is a necessary evil. Still’—seeing the disappointed expression on Roger’s face—‘it is but fair to you to say I’d rather give my child—my only child, remember!-to you, than to any man in the world!’
‘Thank you!’ said Roger, shaking hands with Mr. Gibson, almost against the will of the latter. ‘And I may see her, just once, before I go?’
‘Decidedly not. There I come in as doctor as well as father. No!’
‘But you will take a message, at any rate?’
‘To my wife and to her conjointly. I will not separate them. I will not in the slightest way be a go-between.’
‘Very well,’ said Roger. ‘Tell them both as strongly as you can how I regret your prohibition. I see I must submit. But if I don’t come back, I’ll haunt you for having been so cruel.’
‘Come, I like that. Give me a wise man of science in love! No one beats him in folly. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye. You will see Molly this afternoon!’
‘To be sure. And you will see your father. But I don’t heave such portentous sighs at the thought.’
Mr. Gibson gave Roger’s message to his wife and to Molly that evening at dinner. It was but what the latter had expected, after all her father had said of the very great danger of infection; but now that her expectation came in the shape of a final decision, it took away her appetite. She submitted in silence; but her observant father noticed that after this speech of his, she only played with the food on her plate, and concealed a good deal of it under her knife and fork.
‘Lover versus father!’ thought he, half sadly. ‘Lover wins.’ And he, too, became indifferent to all that remained of his dinner. Mrs. Gibson pattered on; and nobody listened.
The day of Roger’s departure came. Molly tried hard to forget it in working away at a cushion she was preparing as a present to Cynthia ; people did worsted-work in those days. One, two, three. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven; all wrong: she was thinking of something else, and had to un-pick it. It was a rainy day, too; and Mrs. Gibson, who had planned to go out and pay some calls, had to stay indoors. This made her restless and fidgety. She kept going backwards and forwards to different windows in the drawing-room to look at the weather, as if she imagined that while it rained at one window, it might be fine weather at another. ‘Molly-come here! who is that man wrapped up in a cloak,—there,—near the Park wall, under the beech-tree-he has been there this half-hour and more, never stirring, and looking at this house all the time! I think it’s very suspicious.’
Molly looked, and in an instant recognized Roger under all his wraps. Her first instinct was to draw back. The next to come forwards, and say-‘Why, mamma, it’s Roger Hamley! Look now-he’s kissing his hand; he’s wishing us good-bye in the only way he can!’ And she responded to his sign; but she was not sure if he perceived her modest quiet movement, for Mrs. Gibson became immediately so demonstrative that Molly fancied that her eager, foolish pantomimic motions must absorb all his attention.
‘I call this so attentive of him,’ said Mrs. Gibson, in the midst of a volley of kisses of her hand. ‘Really it is quite romantic. It reminds me of former days—but he will be too late! I must send him away; it is half-past twelve!’ And she took out her watch and held it up, tapping it with her forefinger, and occupying the very centre of the window. Molly could only peep here and there, dodging now up, now down, now on this side, now on that of the perpetually-moving arms. She fancied she saw something of a corresponding movement on Roger’s part. At length he went away slowly, slowly, and often looking back, in spite of the tapped watch. Mrs. Gibson at last retreated, and Molly quietly moved into her place to see his figure once more before the turn of the road hid it from her view. He, too, knew where the last glimpse of Mr. Gibson’s house was to be obtained, and once more he turned, and his white handkerchief floated in the air. Molly waved hers high up, with eager longing that it should be seen. And then, he was gone! and Molly returned to her worsted-work, happy, glowing, sad, content, and thinking to herself how sweet is friendship!
When she came to a sense of the present, Mrs. Gibson was saying, 
‘Upon my word, though Roger Hamley has never been a great favourite of mine, this little attention of his has reminded me very forcibly of a very charming young man—a soupirant;em as the French would call him-Lieutenant Harper-you must have heard me speak of him, Molly?’
‘I think I have!’ said Molly, absently
‘Well, you remember how devoted he was to me when I was at Mrs. Duncombe’s, my first situation, and I only seventeen. And when the recruiting party was ordered to another town, poor Mr. Harper came and stood opposite the schoolroom window for nearly an hour, and I know it was his doing that the band played “The girl I left behind me,” when they marched out the next day Poor Mr. Harper! It was before I knew dear Mr. Kirkpatrick! Dear me. How often my poor heart has had to bleed in this life of mine! not but what dear papa is a very worthy man, and makes me very happy. He would spoil me, indeed, if I would let him. Still he is not as rich as Mr. Henderson.’
That last sentence contained the germ of Mrs. Gibson’s present grievance. Having married Cynthia, as her mother put it-taking credit to herself as if she had had the principal part in the achievement—she now became a little envious of her daughter’s good fortune in being the wife of a young, handsome, rich, and moderately fashionable man, who lived in London. She naively expressed her feelings on this subject to her husband one day when she was really not feeling quite well, and when consequently her annoyances were much more present to her mind than her sources of happiness.
‘It is such a pity!’ said she, ‘that I was born when I was. I should so have liked to belong to this generation.’
‘That’s sometimes my own feeling,’ said he. ‘So many new views seem to be opened in science, that I should like, if it were possible, to live till their reality was ascertained, and one saw what they led to. But I don’t suppose that’s your reason, my dear, for wishing to be twenty or thirty years younger.’
‘No, indeed. And I did not put it in that hard unpleasant way; I only said I should like to belong to this generation. To tell the truth, I was thinking of Cynthia. Without vanity, I believe I was as pretty as she is—when I was a girl, I mean; I had not her dark eyelashes, but then my nose was straighter. And now look at the difference! I have to live in a little country town with three servants, and no carriage; and she with her inferior good looks will live in Sussex Place, and keep a man and a brougham, and I don’t know what. But the fact is, in this generation there are so many more rich young men than there were when I was a girl.’
‘Oh, oh! so that’s your reason, is it, my dear? If you had been young now you might have married somebody as well off as Walter?’
‘Yes!’ said she. ‘I think that was my idea. Of course I should have liked him to be you. I always think if you had gone to the bar you might have succeeded better, and lived in London, too. I don’t think Cynthia cares much where she lives, yet you see it has come to her.’
‘What has-London?’
‘Oh, you dear, facetious man. Now that’s just the thing to have captivated a jury. I don’t believe Walter will ever be so clever as you are. Yet he can take Cynthia to Paris, and abroad, and everywhere. I only hope all this indulgence won’t develop the faults in Cynthia’s character. It’s a week since we heard from her, and I did write so particularly to ask her for the autumn fashions before I bought my new bonnet. But riches are a great snare.’
‘Be thankful you are spared temptation, my dear.’
‘No, I’m not. Everybody likes to be tempted. And, after all, it’s very easy to resist temptation, if one wishes.’
‘I don’t find it so easy,’ said her husband.
‘Here’s medicine for you, mamma,’ said Molly, entering with a letter held up in her hand. ‘A letter from Cynthia.’
‘Oh, you dear little messenger of good news! There was one of the heathen deities in Mangnall’s Questions whose office it was to bring news. The letter is dated from Calais. They’re coming home! She’s bought me a shawl and a bonnet. The dear creature! Always thinking of others before herself: good fortune cannot spoil her. They’ve a fortnight left of their holiday! Their house is not quite ready; they’re coming here. Oh, now, Mr. Gibson, we must have the new dinner-service at Watts’s I’ve set my heart on so long! “Home” Cynthia calls this house. I’m sure it has been a home to her, poor darling ! I doubt if there is another man in the world who would have treated his stepdaughter like dear papa! And, Molly, you must have a new gown.
‘Come, come! Remember I belong to the last generation,’ said Mr. Gibson.
‘And Cynthia won’t mind what I wear,’ said Molly, bright with pleasure at the thought of seeing her again.
‘No! but Walter will. He has such a quick eye for dress, and I think I rival papa; if he is a good stepfather, I’m a good stepmother, and I could not bear to see my Molly shabby, and not looking her best. I must have a new gown too. It won’t do to look as if we had nothing but the dresses which we wore at the wedding!’
But Molly stood out against the new gown for herself, and urged that if Cynthia and Walter were to come to visit them often, they had better see them as they really were, in dress, habits, and, appointments. When Mr. Gibson had left the room, Mrs. Gibson softly reproached Molly for her obstinacy.
‘You might have allowed me to beg for a new gown for you, Molly, when you knew how much I admired that figured silk at Brown’s the other day. And now, of course, I can’t be so selfish as to get it for myself, and you to have nothing. You should learn to understand the wishes of other people. Still, on the whole, you are a dear, sweet girl, and I only wish—well, I know what I wish; only dear papa does not like it to be talked about. And now cover me up close, and let me go to sleep, and dream about my dear Cynthia and my new shawl!’
CONCLUDING REMARKS BY THE EDITOR OF THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE
Here the story is broken off, and it can never be finished. What promised to be the crowning work of a life is a memorial of death. A few days longer, and it would have been a triumphal column, crowned with a capital of festal leaves and flowers: now it is another sort of column—one of those sad white pillars which stand broken in the churchyard. 1
But if the work is not quite complete, little remains to be added to it, and that little has been distinctly reflected into our minds. We know that Roger Hamley will marry Molly, and that is what we are most concerned about. Indeed, there was little else to tell. Had the writer lived, she would have sent her hero back to Africa forthwith; and those scientific parts of Africa are a long way from Hamley; and there is not much to choose between a long distance and a long time. How many hours are there in twenty-four when you are all alone in a desert place, a thousand miles from the happiness which might be yours to take—if you were there to take it? How many, when from the sources of the Topinambo your heart flies back ten times a day, like a carrier-pigeon, to the one only source of future good for you, and ten times a day returns with its message undelivered? Many more than are counted on the calendar. So Roger found. The days were weeks that separated him from the time when Molly gave him a certain little flower, and months from the time which divorced him from Cynthia, whom he had begun to doubt before he knew for certain that she was never much worth hoping for. And if such were his days, what was the slow procession of actual weeks and months in those remote and solitary places? They were like years of a stay-at-home life, with liberty and leisure to see that nobody was courting Molly meanwhile. The effect of this was, that long before the term of his engagement was ended all that Cynthia had been to him was departed from Roger’s mind, and all that Molly was and might be to him filled it full.
He returned; but when he saw Molly again he remembered that to her the time of his absence might not have seemed so long, and was oppressed with the old dread that she would think him fickle. Therefore this young gentleman, so self-reliant and so lucid in scientific matters, found it difficult after all to tell Molly how much he hoped she loved him; and might have blundered if he had not thought of beginning by showing her the flower that was plucked from the nosegay How charmingly that scene would have been drawn, had Mrs. Gaskell lived to depict it, we can only imagine: that it would have been charming-especially in what Molly did, and looked, and said—we know
Roger and Molly are married; and if one of them is happier than the other, it is Molly. Her husband has no need to draw upon the little fortune which is to go to poor Osborne’s boy, for he becomes professor at some great scientific institution, and wins his way in the world handsomely. The squire is almost as happy in this marriage as his son. If any one suffers for it, it is Mr. Gibson. But he takes a partner, so as to get a chance of running up to London to stay with Molly for a few days now and then, and ‘to get a little rest from Mrs. Gibson.’ Of what was to happen to Cynthia after her marriage the author was not heard to say much; and, indeed, it does not seem that anything needs to be added. One little anecdote, however, was told of her by Mrs. Gaskell, which is very characteristic. One day, when Cynthia and her husband were on a visit to Hollingford, Mr. Henderson learned for the first time, through an innocent casual remark of Mr. Gibson’s that the famous traveller, Roger Hamley, was known to the family. Cynthia had never happened to mention it. How well that little incident, too, would have been described!
But it is useless to speculate upon what would have been done by the delicate strong hand which can create no more Molly Gibsons—no more Roger Hamleys. We have repeated, in this brief note all that is known of her designs for the story, which would have been completed in another chapter. There is not so much to regret, then, so far as this novel is concerned; indeed, the regrets of those who knew her are less for the loss of the novelist than of the woman—one of the kindest and wisest of her time. But yet, for her own sake as a novelist alone, her untimely death is a matter for deep regret. It is clear in this novel of Wives and Daughters, in the exquisite little story that preceded it, Cousin Phillis,en and in Sylvia’s Lovers,eo that Mrs. Gaskell had within these five years started upon a new career with all the freshness of youth, and with a mind which seemed to have put off its clay and to have been born again. But that ‘put off its clay’ must be taken in a very narrow sense. All minds are tinctured more or less with the ‘muddy vesture’ in which they are contained; but few minds ever showed less of base earth than Mrs. Gaskell’s. It was so at all times; but lately even the original slight tincture seemed to disappear. While you read any one of the last three books we have named, you feel yourself caught out of an abominable wicked world, crawling with selfishness and reeking with base passions, into one where there is much weakness, many mistakes, sufferings long and bitter, but where it is possible for people to live calm and wholesome lives; and, what is more, you feel that this is at least as real a world as the other. The kindly spirit which thinks no ill looks out of her pages irradiate ; and while we read them, we breathe the purer intelligence which prefers to deal with emotions and passions which have a living root in minds within the pale of salvation, and not with those that rot without it. This spirit is more especially declared in Cousin Phillis and Wives and Daughters-their author’s latest works; they seem to show that for her the end of life was not descent amongst the clods of the valley, but ascent into the purer air of the heaven-aspiring hills.
We are saying nothing now of the merely intellectual qualities displayed in these later works. Twenty years to come that may be thought the more important question of the two; in the presence of her grave we cannot think so; but it is true, all the same, that as mere works of art and observation, these later novels of Mrs. Gaskell’s are among the finest of our time. There is a scene in Cousin Phillis—where Holman, making hay with his men, ends the day with a psalm—which is not excelled as a picture in all modern fiction; and the same may be said of that chapter of this last story in which Roger smokes a pipe with the squire after the quarrel with Osborne. There is little in either of these scenes, or in a score of others which succeed each other like gems in a cabinet, which the ordinary novel-maker could ‘seize.’ There is no ‘material’ for him in half a dozen farming men singing hymns in a field, or a discontented old gentleman smoking tobacco with his son. Still less could he avail himself of the miseries of a little girl sent to be happy in a fine house full of fine people; but it is just in such things as these that true genius appears brightest and most unapproachable. It is the same with the personages in Mrs. Gaskell’s works. Cynthia is one of the most difficult characters which have ever been attempted in our time. Perfect art always obscures the difficulties it overcomes; and it is not till we try to follow the processes by which such a character as the Tito of Romola is created, for instance, that we begin to understand what a marvellous piece of work it is. To be sure, Cynthia was not so difficult, nor is it nearly so great a creation as that splendid achievement of art and thought—of the rarest art, of the profoundest thought. But she also belongs to the kind of characters which are conceived only in minds large, clear, harmonious, and just, and which can be portrayed fully and without flaw only by hands obedient to the finest motions of the mind. Viewed in this light, Cynthia is a more important piece of work even than Molly, delicately as she is drawn, and true and harmonious as that picture is also. And what we have said of Cynthia may be said with equal truth of Osborne Hamley. The true delineation of a character like that is as fine a test of art as the painting of a foot or a hand, which also seems so easy, and in which perfection is most rare. In this case the work is perfect. Mrs. Gaskell has drawn a dozen characters more striking than Osborne since she wrote Mary Barton,ep but not one which shows more exquisite finish.
Another thing we may be permitted to notice, because it has a great and general significance. It may be true that this is not exactly the place for criticism, but since we are writing of Osborne Hamley, we cannot resist pointing out a peculiar instance of the subtler conceptions which underlie all really considerable works. Here are Osborne and Roger, two men, who, in every particular that can be seized for description, are totally different creatures. Body and mind they are quite unlike. They have different tastes; they take different ways: they are men of two sorts which, in the society sense, never ‘know’ each other; and yet, never did brotherly blood run more manifest than in the veins of those two. To make that manifest withoutallowing the effort to peep out for a single moment, would be a triumph of art; but it is a ‘touch beyond the reach of art’ to make their likeness in unlikeness so natural a thing that we no more wonder about it than we wonder at seeing the fruit and the bloom on the same bramble: we have always seen them there together in blackberry season, and do not wonder about it nor think about it at all. Inferior writers, even some writers who are highly accounted, would have revelled in the ‘contrast,’ persuaded that they were doing a fine anatomical dramatic thing by bringing it out at every opportunity To the author of Wives and Daughters this sort of anatomy was mere dislocation. She began by having the people of her story born in the usual way, and not built up like the Frankenstein monster; and thus when Squire Hamley took a wife, it was then provided that his two boys should be as naturally one and diverse as the fruit and the bloom on the bramble. ‘It goes without speaking.’ These differences are precisely what might have been expected from the union of Squire Hamley with the town-bred, refined, delicate-minded woman whom he married; and the affection of the young men, their kindness (to use the word in its old and new meanings at once) is nothing but a reproduction of those impalpable threads of love which bound the equally diverse father and mother in bonds faster than the ties of blood.
But we will not permit ourselves to write any more in this vein. It is unnecessary to demonstrate to those who know what is and what is not true literature that Mrs. Gaskell was gifted with some of the choicest faculties bestowed upon mankind; that these grew into greater strength and ripened into greater beauty in the decline of her days; and that she has gifted us with some of the truest, purest works of fiction in the language. And she was herself what her works show her to have been—a wise, good woman.
ENDNOTES
Chapter 1
1 (p. 6) the little town of Hollingford: The town in which Wives and Daughters takes place is based upon Knutsford, a town in Cheshire where Elizabeth Gaskell was raised from the age of thirteen months by her aunt, Hannah Lumb. Elizabeth Stevenson, Gaskell’s mother, had died in London in October 1811. Gaskell’s aunt would take the mother’s place, and Knutsford would become a fertile source for Gaskell’s novels, including Cranford, in which the town of the title was also based upon Knutsford.
2 (p. 6) Five-and-forty years ago: Gaskell is setting the action of the story back in time, with the main action of the novel occurring in the late 1820s through the early 1830s.
3 (p. 6) It was before the passing of the Reform Bill: The novel is set before the 1832 Reform Act, an act that brought a broader share of power to the middle classes and that redistributed parliamentary representation from small electoral boroughs to the nation’s growing industrial centers. It is thought to have saved England from the kind of unrest and revolutionary action that occurred on the Continent. As a result of the act the number of enfranchised men was extended from 435,000 to 813,000-but this was out of an adult male population close to 6 million. Nevertheless, this was a significant piece of reform, mostly because it inaugurated a political shift from power based solely on rank, birth, and land ownership to one based on wealth and capital; it set a precedent that would be followed up on in the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884-1885.
4 (p. 6) Whig family ... Tory family of Cumnor: Gaskell here switches the political parties of these two families, which we will learn are central to the novel. The Cumnors are actually more enlightened and align themselves with the Whigs, a party that in the eighteenth century thought of itself as progressive, having defended constitutional monarchy against Stuart Catholicism. Later in the novel Gaskell refines the political distinctions between the two families by making the Cumnors into Whigs and alluding to the “Toryism” of Squire Hamley. This is an inconsistency in the novel that Gaskell did not have the opportunity to change prior to her death.
5 (p. 7 ) a school of the kind we should call “industrial”: The aims of the school that Gaskell describes are self-serving in that the education it of fered to children of the working class prepared them to be servants. Gaskell’s take on education for the poor “nowadays”—that is, in the 1860s—makes it seem as if standards had changed more than they actually had. It was not until 18 71 that public education was established, and before then elementary education for the lower classes was voluntary and geared toward achieving only the most basic levels in reading, writing, and math.
Chapter 2
1 (p. 1 S) greenhouses and hothouses.... Lady Agnes had a more scientific taste: Lady Agnes’s interest in botany is not meant to be understood as an eccentricity, as the nineteenth-century saw a burgeoning fascination with the study of plants and flowers. Botany from the late eighteenth century was also considered an acceptable intellectual pursuit for young women. Although the study of plants was not only an upper-class endeavor, here the allusion to a “long glittering range” of greenhouses and the fact that Lady Agnes is a collector of plants, including rare orchids, is a clue to the wealth of the Cumnors.
2 (p. 22) Molly had never read the “Three Bears”: “The Three Bears,” of which Molly is ignorant, was and remains a common fairy tale. The question of whether fairy tales should be part of a child’s reading was a fraught one in the nineteenth century; one opinion had it that they were dangerous for children in that fairy tales did not conform to reason or fact. Lord Cumnor goes on to joke about her as “Sleeping Beauty,” of whom Molly also seems ignorant.
3 (p. 24) Lodge’s Portraits: Mrs. Kirkpatrick is showing Molly a work by Edmund Lodge entitled Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain (4 vols., 1821-1834).
Chapter 3
1 (p. 30) muscular Christianity: This belief system, which equated moral and physical fitness, became widely accepted in the 1850s. Introduced by Thomas Arnold, a headmaster of Rugby, it is associated with educational reform. The ideal of muscular Christianity is associated most clearly in the novel with Roger Hamley, whose robust physical self corresponds with a strong moral sense.
2 (p. 30) he must be Scotch: Contemporary readers of the novel would have understood the reference to Mr. Gibson’s “Scotch” background as a suggestion of his superiority as a medical man. During the nineteenth century Edinburgh University in Scotland was the premier place for medical education, so to suggest Gibson was Scottish was to suggest that he may have had superior training during a time when most doctors learned their craft through apprenticeships rather than formal university training.
3 (p. 33) apprentices ... bound by indentures, and paying a handsome premium to learn their business: Apprenticeship remained the way in which most “surgeons” or “apothecaries” became qualified to practice. The length of the apprenticeship, which was a binding contract or indentureship, was typically five to seven years; the apprentice exchanged his labor for room, board, and education.
Chapter 4
1 (p. 41 ) the Heptarchy: The vicar is referring to Squire Hamley’s ancient family, which existed before the Norman Conquest. “The Heptarchy” refers to the seven kingdoms that are said to have existed in England in the seventh and eighth centuries.
2 ,. (p. 44) the fable of the lap-dog and the donkey: In this fable from Aesop, a donkey, who is envious of the petting the lap-dog receives, tries to get similar attention but is beaten instead. Osborne is more like the lap-dog, delicate and much petted, while Roger, though neither beaten nor neglected, is more like the donkey in being larger and less doted on by his mother. The sons are metaphorical opposites: Osborne is associated with culture and refinement, Roger with nature and a constitutional hardiness.
3 (p. 47) the pomfret cakes, and the conserve of hips, and on Sundays he shall have a taste of tamarinds: Mr. Gibson is somewhat making fun of his old acquaintance, who had asked Mr. Gibson to give his son preferential treatment. The father is unhappy that his son’s apprenticeship would include the making of pills (medicine often was manufactured and sold by doctors), but this is an essential task for a young apprentice. Mr. Gibson’s assurance that he will be given pomfret cakes, conserve of hips, and tamarinds is a sardonic one. It sounds as if he is promising that he will have many pleasures—cake, conserves, and tamarind, which was often made into a candy—but the three entities are also related to medicine: Pomfret cakes are licorice lozenges, conserve of hips is not a jam but a pill-manufacturing substance, and tamarind, besides being used in some candies, was also prized in the nineteenth century as a laxative.
Chapter 6
1 (p. 75) time of Queen Anne: Queen Anne reigned from 1702 to 1714; because she had no heirs, Parliament created the Act of Settlement, which made her successors the Hanoverian descendants of King James I of England, events that are understood as the beginning of the modern British state. By asking where the Cumnors were in the time of Queen Anne, Squire Hamley is implying that their status as members of the peerage, or aristocracy, is a new one, in contrast to his own ancient if untitled family. This is an early but important reference to the way in which the Hamleys represent ancient English traditionalism and the Cumnors represent progress and newness.
Chapter 14
1 (p. 160) withes of green flaxe: A biblical allusion (to Judges 16) that Molly does not understand. Samson had allowed Delilah to bind him, but he broke through the bonds easily. Here Lady Harriet is suggesting that Molly will be able to thwart her stepmother’s strictures if she wants to do so. The allusion directly contradicts what Lady Harriet then says out of prudence: “Be a good girl, and suffer yourself to be led.”
Chapter 17
1 (p. 191) he has been spending ever so much money in reclaiming that land... and is very hard pressed himself: Mrs. Hamley is here referring to the improvements that Squire Hamley is making to his estate, a process of land reclamation that includes draining land to make it farmable (and thus able to be rented out). This capital improvement will double the value of the estate, but the expenditure required to implement it is threatened by the debt that Osborne has run up. The work is referred to below as “the draining-works.”
2 (p. 199) like Major Dugald Dalgetty: Mr. Gibson is referring to a character in a novel by Walter Scott, A Legend of Montrose (1819). Major Dugald Dalgetty is a soldier who claims that a soldier should eat whenever the opportunity arises, as he never knows when he will be able to dine again. Gibson’s reference is an indirect criticism of Mrs. Gibson’s running of the household, which he had hoped would be regularized for his comfort when he married.
Chapter 23
1 (p. 259) Catholic emancipation had begun to be talked about by some politicians: Osborne’s wife, Aimee, would be considered an unsuitable wife for Osborne for a number of reasons, including her class status, her national origin, and particularly her religion. Here the narrator is alluding to the fact that when the novel is set (in the late 1820s) the question of “catholic emancipation” was under discussion but had yet to be settled. After the Reformation in England all non-Anglicans were discriminated against in not having the right to vote or hold public office; since 80 percent of Ireland was Catholic, the discrimination against Catholics was deeply felt there. The “Catholic Emancipation Bill” of 1829 encountered wide public disapproval, an opinion that Osborne understands would have been shared by his father. After 1829 Catholics could become members of Parliament and were eligible for most but not all public offices; however, one of the concessions made in the process of enacting the bill was that the land requirement for the right to vote in Ireland was increased, which drastically decreased the electorate in Ireland.
Chapter 24
1 (p. 265) comparative osteology: Osteology is a discipline that studies the structure and arrangement of bones. Comparative osteology—a branch of study central to the evolutionary debates that circulated in the decades prior to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859)-was concerned with the likenesses and dissimilarities among various species (especially apes and humans).
Chapter 26
1 (p. 290) Could it be the duchess?: The people at the ball had been anticipating all evening the arrival of the family from “the Towers” and their guest, a duchess. In particular, as is repeatedly mentioned, they had hoped to catch sight of her “diamonds” and “coronet.” The duchess, who arrives with flowers rather than jewels adorning her person, not only disappoints but offends the ball-goers. In the hierarchy of the nobility, dukes and duchesses ranked the highest; a duchess would wear a small crown to signify that identity. This small crown, and expensive jewels, is what is absent from the duchess’s person, and this, in combination with a choice of dress that seems inappropriately informal, is what leads to the feeling of having been insulted—as if they are not adequate audience for the display of her “diamonds.” Lady Harriet is cunning enough to understand that their guests’ lateness of arrival, and the absence of the distinguishing diamonds, is an affront to an established code of behavior.
Chapter 27
1 (p. 300) meet the author of the paper which had already attracted the attention of the French comparative anatomists: Roger is working at the cutting edge of the emerging field of evolutionary theory The French comparative anatomists the text refers to are central scientific figures of the early nineteenth century They include the aforementioned Georges Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (see footnotes on the preceding pages), as well as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck (1744-1829) was an unrecognized forerunner of evolutionary theory, and Darwin was later to cite Saint-Hilaire’s realizations about homologies among species as important to understanding evolutionary relationships. Cuvier, on the other hand, resisted evolutionary arguments even as he acknowledged that the earth was older than the biblical narrative suggested. His explanation for evidence of change in species (which he took from the fossil record) was “catastrophist”—that is, he believed the difference in species in the rock record indicated that in each age life had been wiped out, to be created anew again.
Chapter 32
1 (p. 350) “Never mind! You shall be married again in England”: Roger’s close inquiry into the details of Osborne’s marriage to Aimée reflects the complicated status of legal marriage in England in the early nineteenth century. Roger’s questions point to his understanding of the law behind the estate’s entail (the contract that binds the estate) and of contemporary marriage law; the Hamley estate will pass only to “heirs-male born in lawful wedlock,” which means the entail requires that Osborne’s marriage be legally binding. The clandestine nature of the marriage that had taken place on the Continent may have been questioned, as Roger is quick to intuit. The Marriage Act of 1836, which followed up on the Clandestine Marriage Act of 1753, had both limited the circumstances under which a valid marriage could occur and extended the sites where a legal marriage could take place. The 1836 law required that a legal marriage take place within a parish church or, barring that, be performed by a licensed member of the Church of England. Provisions were made for non-Anglicans by allowing civil registrars to perform legal marriage, as well as registrars within non-Anglican buildings (including synagogues, dissenting churches, etc.). Roger’s insistence that Osborne and Aimée be married again prior to the child’s birth both in the Roman Catholic chapel where she worships and “at the church of the parish in which she lives as well” tells of his desire to take care of the issue of inheritance; by having Osborne remarry according to the strictest letter of the law Roger ensures that Osborne’s son (should he have one) will be heir to Hamley, whether or not the marriage remains a secret to the Squire. Roger presciently notes below, “The law makes one have foresight in such affairs.”
Chapter 33
1 (p. 365) he had never known any one with an equal capacity for mental labour: This is another reference to the belief system known as “muscular Christianity;” see note 1 to chapter 3.
Chapter 34
1 (p. 371) she was being carried on in earth’s diurnal course, with rocks, and stones and trees: Gaskell here is indirectly citing a poem by Romantic poet William Wordsworth entitled “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal,” written in 1800 and included in Lyrical Ballads. This is the poem that Gaskell incorporates into the prose describing Molly’s feelings upon discovering that Roger loves Cynthia:A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
Chapter 37
1 (p. 411) “0 my Lord! give her the living child, and in no wise slay it”: Molly’s prayer is that of the true mother in the biblical story in which two women claim to be the mother of a child (1 Kings 3:16-28).When King Solomon proposes to cut the baby in two to resolve the dispute, the true mother gives up her claim—and hence proves she truly loves and is the mother of the child. Molly’s prayer indicates that she thinks of herself as the more righteous claimant to Roger’s affection, but that she would willingly sacrifice her love if it would mean ensuring his safe return from Africa.
Chapter 38
1 (p. 415) Robespierre and Bonyparte: Maximilien-Francois-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre was at the center of the “Terror” (1793-1794), the most bloody years of the French Revolution. “Bonyparte” refers to Napoleon Bonaparte, the bellicose emperor of France from 1804 to 1815.
Chapter 39
1 (p. 423) M. de la Palisse ... Il était en vie: Mr. Palisse is dead / in losing his life / A quarter of an hour before his death / he was alive.
2 (p. 426) “gar auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new”: The words are Scottish dialect for “make old clothes look almost as well as new ones.” It is a quotation from a poem entitled “The Cottar’s Saturday Night” (1786), by Scottish poet Robert Burns.
Chapter 41
1 (p. 447) Geographical Society: The Royal Geographical Society was a learned society in London founded in 1830; its stated purpose was the “advancement of geographical science” and the “improvement and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” The history of the society is bound up especially with British nineteenth-century exploration and discovery and its famous figures, including David Livingstone, Richard Burton, and John Hanning Speke; in the later Victorian era, it supported British expansion into Africa. The society’s particular association with Africa stems from having absorbed in 1831 the African Association, a society founded in 1788 by Sir Joseph Banks to promote travel in Africa.
Chapter 45
1 (p. 487) the long vacation: The reference is to the period of time each year in which law business would be suspended, traditionally from July to October.
Chapter 49
1 (p. 523) I’ll go to church and forbid the banns: The “banns” refers to the public announcement at Sunday church services of a couple’s intention to marry; these notices of intention to marry were read for three consecutive Sundays, in order to publicize the intention of the couple and to give anyone who may have an objection—especially a legal one-the opportunity to voice it. The traditional Anglican marriage service includes the phrase “If anyone can show just cause why these two shall not be married, speak now, or forever hold your peace”—a public query, like the banns, on the legal suitable-ness of the couple for marriage. Here Lady Harriet’s assertion that she would go to church to “forbid the banns” must be taken as somewhat “tongue in cheek”; she would presumably have had no legal reason to propose to stop the marriage. That she does use such strong language, even if half in jest, suggests her partiality toward Molly as well as a strong feeling against Mr. Preston. Her reason for disliking Mr. Preston is voiced in chapter 14 but never fully explicated ; she tells Molly, “But, at any rate, you are not to go out walking with that man. I’ve an instinctive aversion to him; not entirely instinctive either; it has some foundation in fact; and I desire you don’t allow him ever to get intimate with you” (p. 163). Before the issue is resolved more clearly (see p. 528), the reader might surmise that when she was younger Lady Harriet was involved in a clandestine flirtation with Preston.
Chapter 50
1 (p. 532) my dividends: Mrs. Gibson’s former brother-in-law manages the money from the inheritance left by Mr. Kirkpatrick, Mrs. Gibson’s first husband. The money he sends her would be interest on a small property; we know it was not enough to make her independent, as she accepted Mr. Gibson so that she might give up teaching.
Chapter 56
1 (p. 598) like the Faithful John of the German story... to keep it from breaking: Cynthia is confusing two fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. Their Kinderund Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Stories, generally known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales; 1812) includes one entitled “The Frog Prince,” which approximates the story Cynthia tells here, with the exception that the servant’s name is Trusty Henry. Another Grimm’s fairy tale is entitled “Faithful John.”
Concluding Remarks [by the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine]
1 (p. 645) Here the story is broken off, and it can never be finished: The final chapter of Wives and Daughters is written by Frederick Greenwood, the editor of the Cornhill Magazine, which was the journal that was publishing Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel in serial form. The final chapter outlines what the reader already has good reason to believe: that Roger will return from Africa, will marry Molly, and will become an important scientific figure. The reason for the editor’s remarks is that Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly, her final novel not quite finished, in November 1865. The novel was published in monthly installments from August 1864 to January 1866, with the final installment written by the editor.
INSPIRED BY WIVES AND DAUGHTERS
Some stories are best told in installments, and some were specifically intended to be told in this way Though written for serial publication in the Cornhill Magazine, Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters is not necessarily such a tale. As Amy M. King describes in the Introduction, Gaskell often defied the commercial demands of serial publication. For example, at one point she rankled at the request of Charles Dickens, who edited her work for one of his magazines, that she end her installments with dramatic plot moments, and in the end she wrote and paced her novels as she, and not her editors, wanted.
In the modern television miniseries, or even serial television dramas, we might find serial publication’s equivalent: the impetus to narrate beyond the confines of individual installments, which results in a format uniquely suited to stringing audiences along with a good yarn. The four-episode Wives and Daughters (1999), produced by ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater and directed by Nicholas Renton, is an exemplar of this updated form of serialization, dramatizing Gaskell’s story of stepmothers, betrothals, and gossip with competence and grace. That the format of choice for the adaptation was a television mini-series, rather than film, is canny, for the effect replicates in part the experience of serialization that the novel’s first readers would have experienced.
While Renton’s film, full as it is with realistic scenery and beautiful, ornate nineteenth-century dress, may not feel to us like an “every-day story” (as Gaskell had originally subtitled her novel), it nonetheless insists that the modern viewer be reminded of an “everyday” that is now past. Moreover, it impresses the modern viewer with its dramatic sweep, convincing performances, and evocative sets, which are well employed in this depiction of the lives of early-nineteenth-century “wives and daughters.” Renton (Far from the Madding Crowd, 1998) enlists a cast that comprises a stable of period-drama regulars, among them Justine Waddell as an often silently expressive Molly Gibson, Bill Paterson as Mr. Gibson, Francesca Annis as Mrs. Gibson, Keeley Hawes as Cynthia Kirkpatrick, Anthony Howell as an earnest Roger Hamley, and Michael Gambon as Squire Hamley
But the secret to this Wives’s success is its screenwriter, Andrew Davies. Primarily known as the author of the Bridget Jones screenplays, Davies has produced an adaptation both faithful to Gaskell’s text (many of the film’s scenes are peppered with lines taken directly from the book) and refreshingly unadorned; the dialogue is crisp and naturalistic rather than overly affected and distracting. Readers looking for the satisfaction of a proper ending to Gaskell’s unfinished novel will delight in the film’s dénouement. Rather than a mournful good-bye at the windowsill reprising the famous engagement scene, Davies has Molly promptly run after Roger; the end is a reunion that gratifyingly relieves hours of carefully crafted tension, which may satisfy readers denied the pleasure of a final installment written by Gaskell.
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work’s history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
Comments
CHARLES DICKENS
You may perhaps have seen an announcement in the papers of my intention to start a new cheap weekly journal of general literature.
I do not know what your literary vows of temperance or abstinence may be, but as I do honestly know that there is no living English writer whose aid I would desire to enlist in preference to the authoress of “Mary Barton” (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me), I venture to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will write a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected pages.
—from a letter to Elizabeth Gaskell (January 31, 1850)
HENRY JAMES
We cannot help thinking that in “Wives and Daughters” the late Mrs. Gaskell has added to the number of those works of fiction-of which we can not perhaps count more than a score as having been produced in our time—which will outlast the duration of their novelty and continue for years to come to be read and relished for a higher order of merits. Besides being the best of the author’s own tales-putting aside “Cranford,” that is, which as a work of quite other pretensions ought not to be weighed against it, and which seems to us manifestly destined in its modest way to become a classic—it is also one of the very best novels of its kind. So delicately, so elaborately, so artistically, so truthfully, and heartily is the story wrought out, that the hours given to its perusal seem like hours actually spent, in the flesh as well as the spirit, among the scenes and people described, in the atmosphere of their motives, feelings, traditions, associations. The gentle skill with which the reader is slowly involved in the tissue of the story; the delicacy of the handwork which has perfected every mesh of the net in which he finds himself ultimately entangled; the lightness of touch which, while he stands all unsuspicious of literary artifice, has stopped every issue into the real world; the admirable, inaudible, invisible exercise of creative power, in short, with which a new and arbitrary world is reared over his heedless head—a world insidiously inclusive of him (such is the assoupissement of his critical sense), complete in every particular, from the divine blue of the summer sky to the June-bugs in the roses, from Cynthia Kirkpatrick and her infinite revelations of human nature to old Mrs. Goodenough and her provincial bad grammar—these marvellous results, we say, are such as to compel the reader’s very warmest admiration, and to make him feel, in his gratitude for this seeming accession of social and moral knowledge, as if he made but a poor return to the author, in testifying, no matter how strongly, to the fact of her genius. -from an unsigned review printed in The Nation (February 22, 1866)
THE SPECTATOR
Mrs. Gaskell’s last book is certainly, Cranford excepted, her best; and absolutely her best if we are to consider a larger and more complex design, somewhat less perfectly worked out, higher than a little gem of exquisite workmanship, but depending exclusively for its art on the humour of a delicate memory, skilful at noting the little symptoms by which warm hearts betray the yoke of narrow interests, and at recalling all the quaint customs of country-town society. Wives and Daughters is not an exciting story; it is a story the character of which is nearer to that of Miss Austen’s tales than to Mary Barton or Ruth. But there is more depth of character, more value for intensity of feeling in it than in anything which Miss Austen ever wrote, though the execution is much less equal than that great novelist’s. The characters of both hero and heroine, for instance, are vague and unimpressive. The sketch of Mr. Gibson, the surgeon, is the nearest to Miss Austen’s style of drawing, and his dry caustic humour and acute reserve remind one sometimes so closely of Mr. Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, that it almost suggests some unconscious lingering of that happy picture in Mrs. Gaskell’s memory ... However, Mr. Gibson is not another Mr. Bennet, but a much less indolent and less selfish man, but he is certainly the character in which Mrs. Gaskell’s art touches most closely that of the most delicate artist of the last generation. There is just the same extent of delineation, the same limited degree of insight permitted into the character, in both cases. Miss Austen never went further. She painted with absolute perfection the upper stratum of feeling, and no more. Mrs. Gaskell often goes deeper; but into the interior of Mr. Gibson’s character she never pretends to see further than Miss Austen herself would have seen. Indeed he is the kind of man who does not see further himself, for he habitually pushes aside trains of thought or feeling that are not immediately practical, and so scarcely knows what he himself thinks or feels on any subject, if no purpose is to be answered by distinctly realizing his own state of mind. Mr. Gibson is seen, like most of Miss Austen’s stronger characters, in but a half-light; for she seldom exhibits more of the natures of any but weak chatterers and fools. Miss Austen herself would scarcely have drawn Mr. Gibson better than Mrs. Gaskell has done....
Yet perhaps the most delicate artistic achievement in the book is the sketch of Mr. Gibson’s second wife, and her daughter Cynthia Kirkpatrick,-especially the fine touches of resemblance which, in spite of the widest difference and even a little unfilial repulsion on the daughter’s part, betray their kinship.... This pretty, selfish, shallow, feeble-minded, vain, worldly, and amiable woman is exquisitely painted from the first scene in which she appears to the last. Her radical and yet unconscious insincerity of character, her incapacity for real affection, and strong wish to please others so far as is consistent with first pleasing herself, her soft purring talk when she is gratified, the delicate flavour of Mrs. Nicklebyish vanity and logic which is infused into her conversation without any caricature, the ambition to be reputed a good step-mother which makes her thwart her stepdaughter in all her favourite tastes in order that Molly may seem to be treated exactly like her own daughter Cynthia, her inability to understand any feeling that is not purely worldly,-and generally the graceful vulgarity of her mind, make a most original picture, as well as one of high pictorial effect. There is a moderation in the sketch of Mrs. Gibson’s selfishness, an entire abstinence from the temptation to pillory her, a consistency in infusing a certain feeble amiability of feeling through all her selfishness, a steadiness in delineating her as, on the whole, not without agreeableness, which, when connected with so utterly contemptible a character, convey a sense of very great self-control as well as skill in the authoress. There is not a conversation in which Mrs. Gibson takes part that is not full of real wealth of humour and insight. All of them illustrate the fine shades of silliness, the finer shades of selfishness, which in delicate combination make up Mrs. Gibson’s character....
On the whole the book has wonderful variety, and, though not exciting reading, satisfies and rests the mind, besides containing some passages of profound pathos. The story ends like a vessel going down in full sail and in sight of port; nor do the endeavours of her editor to weigh up the ship and bring it in, succeed in doing more than demonstrating how completely the life of the passengers was the birth of Mrs. Gaskell’s own vivid imagination. In spite of the deficiency of its closing chapters in consequence of the sudden death of its authoress, Wives and Daughters will take a permanent and a high place in the ranks of English fiction.
-March 17, 1886
CONNOP THIRLWALL
I mourn deeply over the loss of Mrs. Gaskell. To ‘Wives and Daughters’ it is irreparable. I am not in the least comforted by anything that the editor of the Cornhill has said. The few things which he has disclosed as to the sequel of the story, if indeed it is anything more than a guess, instead of allaying, excite one’s curiosity There was matter left for another volume.
-from Letters to a Friend (1881)
Questions 1. How are we meant to understand Mrs. Gibson? Is she a satire of a class-conscious and insensitive wife and mother? Or does the novel admire her in any way? If her values are contemptible, why is she so successful?2. How does Wives and Daughters treat the process of daughters turning into wives? Is Dr. Gibson’s philosophy about educating his daughter vindicated, or does the novel question the wisdom of limiting the education of women? Consider the examples of Mrs. Gibson, Cynthia, and Molly.3. What is the role of class in the “every-day story” that is Wives and Daughters? Do you think that Gaskell believes rank is natural, or that class is an artificial measure of worth? Consider this as you think about the array of characters in the novel in relation to the classes they belong to. Finally, how does the novel understand and rank the merits of Roger Hamley?4. Gaskell never gives us an explicit account of Cynthia’s character, but rather wisely leaves it up to examples. What is the nature of Cynthia’s character? Describe it in all its ambiguities and contradictions.5. Do you agree that Molly is less interesting than Cynthia? How is Cynthia’s happy ending a “generous revenge,” as Henry James puts it, on the idea that Cynthia’s character is hopeless? Does Cynthia act badly toward her various suitors (as Dr. Gibson believes)?6. Gaskell’s methodology is one of a “simple record of the innumerable small facts of the young girl’s daily life.” Can Cynthia be excused of her fickleness and malleable character because of her upbringing? How is Molly’s conduct and morality superior? Is her superiority a result of something other than her upbringing?7. Cynthia seems almost universally fascinating in the novel; most of the men, and even Molly, fall in love with her. Try to pinpoint the nature of Cynthia’s fascination. Is she sexually alluring? What else constitutes her appeal? Do you think the novel critiques Cynthia for the sexual aspect of her character; if so, why?
FOR FURTHER READING
Biographies and Works of Biographical Interest
Easson, Angus. Elizabeth Gaskell. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19 7 9 .
Foster, Shirley. Elizabeth Gaskell:A Literary Life. Basingstoke and New York: Pal-grave Macmillan, 2002.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell. Edited by J. A. V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1966.
. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Edited by Jenny Uglow with revisions by Graham Handley. London: Everyman, 1997.
Gérin, Winifred. Elizabeth Gaskell:A Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.
James, Henry. “Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell.” In Literary Criticism: Volume 1: Essays on Literature, American Writers, and English Writers, edited by Leon Edel. New York: Library of America, 1984.
Uglow, Jenny. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993.
Critical Studies
Craik, W A. Elizabeth Gaskell and the English Provincial Novel. London: Methuen, 1975.
D’Albertis, Deirdre. Dissembling Fictions: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Social Text. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Flint, Kate. Elizabeth Gaskell. Plymouth, UK: Northcote House, 1995.
Langland, Elizabeth. Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Homans, Margaret. Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Lansbury, Coral. Elizabeth Gaskell. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984.
Schor, Hilary M. Scheherezade in the Marketplace: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Stoneman, Patsy. Elizabeth Gaskell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Wright, Terence R. Elizabeth Gaskell “We are not Angels”: Realism, Gender, Values. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press, 1995.
Online Resources
The following is an excellent Web site dedicated to Elizabeth Gaskell: http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/gaskell.html. The site is well-maintained and thorough, with a very good bibliography, links to e-texts of Gaskell’s work, and biographical information. It is the work of Mitsuhara Matsuoka, a scholar from Nagoya University in Japan.
Other Works Cited in the Introduction
David, Deirdre, ed. Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Helsinger, Elizabeth K., Robin Lauterbach Sheets, and William Veeder, eds. The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and America 1837-1883. New York: Garland, 1983.
Richetti, John, ed. The Columbia History of the British Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Tucker, Herbert F., ed. A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
Watt, Ian P. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
a
Scottish or northern English dialect for suffocated, stifled, smothered.
b
Decorative folds of ribbon, fabric, or lace resembling a row of quills.
c
In the order of precedence among titled aristocracy, earl and countess come between viscount and marquis.
d
In England the train was introduced and rapidly spread in the 1830s.
e
Term for Parisian working-class republicans during the French Revolution.
f
Proper name for the common plant known as the sundew.
g
That is, sit wedged between two others in a seat meant for two.
h
Artificial flowers.
i
Outdoor flight of stairs leading up to an entrance.
j
Novel by Samuel Richardson published in 1753-1754; the hero comes to signify gentlemanliness.
k
Rankings of the English titled aristocracy, known as “the peerage.”
l
Physician’s office and examining rooms.
m
Concealed love; from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (act 2, scene 4).
n
Britain was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars against France (1800-1815).
o
The doctrines of the Church of England.
p
“Squire” is a term of regard for the foremost landowner of a borough or community.
q
Slang for having been failed in the final examinations.
r
Booby prize presented to the man coming in last in math.
s
One of the colleges at Cambridge University.
t
Or Punjab; region in British India, now between India and Pakistan.
u
Written in Latin, a prescription consisting of modesty, domestic fidelity, and deference; mix in water and take three times a day.
v
Female allegorical figure of truth, usually understood also as a symbol of the Church of England, in Edward Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590).
w
In Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters who lived on either side of the straits of Messina; in trying to avoid one, sailors often found themselves threatened by the other.
x
Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), a contemporary popular poet.
y
Scholarship; one of two prizes awarded for classics and English poetry.
z
Important, widely read journal (1769-1862) that supported reform.
aa
Walking stick that doubled as a digging implement. ‡Starting in 1784, a tax on houses having seven or more windows.
ab
Novel by Walter Scott, published in 1819, that foreshadows Molly’s capacity for faithfulness.
ac
Natural Sciences would be established as a course of study at Cambridge in 1848.
ad
Alfred the Great (849-899), king of Wessex (871-899), considered the first king of England.
ae
Highly contagious, sometimes fatal disease associated with nineteenth-century childhood mortality.
af
Woe to the vanquished (Latin).
ag
Problem that seems to have no resolution.
ah
From outside (Latin).
ai
Cynthia is a name for the moon, which forebodes the character’s inconstancy in love.
aj
Intimate meeting of two people (French).
ak
Tool for collecting natural specimens in water.
al
That is, between teacher/mentor and student; in Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus departed for the Trojan War, he left his son Telemachus in the care of Mentor.
am
That is, unceremoniously; a colloquial early-nineteenth-century expression.
an
Wrapping paper used to protect objects.
ao
Dates that mark the start of hunting seasons: August 12 for grouse, September 1 for partridge.
ap
To debut—that is, be introduced into society as a marriageable girl.
aq
Popular novelist Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849).
ar
The hero of Walter Scott’s novel of the same name (1819).
as
Flourish or embellishment (French).
at
Warwickshire dialect for unfamiliar and thus unpleasant.
au
Bound by law to pass intact to the male heir; that is, it is a secure inheritance.
av
In a low or soft voice (Italian).
aw
See endnote 1 to chapter 17.
ax
Hidden (French).
ay
Scottish kinship is by marriage as well as blood.
az
That is, a relation as close as if it were a blood relation.
ba
See the Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:22.
bb
Songs (French).
bc
Final examination for an honors B.A. degree.
bd
Wrangler is the top division of honors; senior wrangler is the highest honor.
be
That is, he’ll have a scholarship to remain and study; ironically, this is what Osborne meant to achieve.
bf
Admiring of nothing; indifferent (Latin).
bg
Not timid (Scottish dialect).
bh
Prayer from the Bible, Psalm 31:9.
bi
False or disingenuous shame (French).
bj
That is, the clock at Whitehall in London, famed for its accuracy.
bk
Fretful (Scottish dialect).
bl
From the Bible, Luke 15:12; the words of the prodigal son.
bm
The law courts in London; Osborne is contemplating studying the law.
bn
Become a clergyman in the Church of England.
bo
Slang for Napoleon Bonaparte.
bp
Crapaud is French for “toad”; early slur for the French that later becomes “frog.”
bq
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and Quarterly Review; influential monthly journals.
br
Rustic long pipe for smoking tobacco.
bs
Long poem by Lord Byron, written in 1816.
bt
Somewhat deprecatory term for a female intellectual.
bu
Therefore (Latin).
bv
William Cowper, “The Diverting History of John Gilpin” (1782), an English comic narrative poem.
bw
You will repent if you take a wife, Colin (French).
bx
Inappropriate (French).
by
Mishap (French).
bz
It was the custom to wear new clothing in symbolic celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
ca
Mrs. Gibson reads Burke’s General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom, published by John Burke in London in 1826; known as the Peerage or Burke’s Peerage.
cb
Special trains scheduled for holidays; popular starting in the 1840s.
cc
Strong-mindedness (French).
cd
Piece of jewelry consisting of a loved one’s tiny portrait.
ce
Choice; exquisite (French).
cf
Like a child (French); the duchess wears an inappropriately girlish dress.
cg
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century science of facial expression and features.
ch
The Animal Kingdom (1817), by Georges Cuvier, French pioneer of modern zoology and paleontology.
ci
The Age of Louis XIV (1751), by Voltaire.
cj
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), important French zoologist and comparative anatomist.
ck
See endnote 4 to chapter 1.
cl
Scholar; scientist (French).
cm
Nursery maid.
cn
Colloquial term for the Peerage (see footnote on p. 274).
co
Reference to The Thousand and One Nights, a.k.a. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, in which Alnaschar concocts unreahzed dreams of riches and marrying a wealthy woman.
cp
Star used in navigation.
cq
Cleaning work.
cr
That is, literally.
cs
Letter folded rather than contained in an envelope.
ct
University fellows could not marry.
cu
Eagerness; willingness (French).
cv
See endnote 1 to chapter 17.
cw
Improved technology of using tiles to drain marshy soil.
cx
Fire; stop employing.
cy
From Lycidas (1637). a poem by John Milton.
cz
In London, church courts that handled civil legal business such as wills.
da
Tiny stinging darts sent by the miniature Lilliputians in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726).
db
Lord Bridgewater endowed a prize for essays connecting science and religion.
dc
Allusion to the biblical account of the time Jacob waited and worked for Rachel (Genesis 29).
dd
In such a serious vein (French).
de
In French, tapis is “carpet”; mettre sur le tapis means “to bring up for discussion.”
df
Those who are away are always wrong (French).
dg
The eastern horn of Africa; site of exploration by Europeans in the 1830s.
dh
Important classical writers on natural history.
di
Queen’s counsel.
dj
Armed escorts to judges.
dk
Annual painting exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
dl
Improved type of road surface common starting in the 1820s.
dm
The Malvern Hills are located in the county of Worcestershire in England.
dn
Half-year (French); term at school.
do
Literally, “always partridge” (French); that is, monotonous, always the same.
dp
Inappropriate (French).
dq
Literally, apropos of nothing (French idiom); akin to “out of the blue.”
dr
Chimney sweep; a humble occupation.
ds
Inconsistency; thoughtlessness (French).
dt
Twilight.
du
Awkwardness; clumsiness (French).
dv
Reference to Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605), with Lady Harriet as the knight and Miss Phoebe as the faithful squire.
dw
Talk of the ass and you’ll see its ears (French idiom); akin to “speak of the devil.”
dx
Well dressed; correct in detail (French).
dy
Whipping boy, underdog (French); on the receiving end of annoyances.
dz
The Cape of Good Hope; Roger has traveled the length of eastern Africa.
ea
Language from the Bible, Genesis 27:34: “And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry...” (King James Version; henceforth, KJV).
eb
Bread and milk (French) .
ec
Allusion to the Bible, Job 14:14: “If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come” (KJV).
ed
From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Christabel (1816).
ee
Happy medium (French).
ef
A new railway line, actually opened in 1838.
eg
Barristers, unlike solicitors, could represent clients in the high courts.
eh
Gaius Marius (157-8 B.C.); Roman general turned politician.
ei
Literally, “I do not know what”; that is, “something” (French).
ej
Without heed to consequence (French).
ek
“Crossing” was a frugal custom of writing the second “page” of a letter at a right angle to the first.
el
Allegorical figure of falsehood (the daughter of Deceit and Shame) in Edward Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590).
em
Suitor, admirer (French).
en
First published in the Cornhill Magazine from November 1863 to February 1864.
eo
Gaskell novel published in 1863.
ep
Gaskell’s first novel, published in 1848.
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