‘I don’t see what preparation is necessary; but you know best, my dear. When can we arrange for you and Molly to meet?’
Just then a servant came in, and the pair started apart.
‘Her ladyship is awake, and wishes to see Mr. Gibson.’
They both followed the man upstairs; Mrs. Kirkpatrick trying hard to look as if nothing had happened, for she particularly wished ‘to prepare’ Lady Cumnor; that is to say, to give her version of Mr. Gibson’s extreme urgency, and her own coy unwillingness.
But Lady Cumnor had observant eyes in sickness as well as in health. She had gone to sleep with the recollection of the passage in her husband’s letter full in her mind, and, perhaps, it gave a direction to her wakening ideas.
‘I’m glad you’re not gone, Mr. Gibson. I wanted to tell you——— What’s the matter with you both? What have you been saying to Clare? I’m sure something has happened.’
There was nothing for it, in Mr. Gibson’s opinion, but to make a clean breast of it, and tell her ladyship all. He turned round, and took hold of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s hand, and said out straight, ‘I have been asking Mrs. Kirkpatrick to be my wife, and to be a mother to my child; and she has consented. I hardly know how to thank her enough in words.’
‘Umph! I don’t see any objection. I dare say you’ll be very happy. I’m very glad of it! Here! shake hands with me, both of you.’ Then laughing a little, she added, ‘It does not seem to me that any exertion has been required on my part.’
Mr. Gibson looked perplexed at these words. Mrs. Kirkpatrick reddened.
‘Did she not tell you? Oh, then, I must. It’s too good a joke to be lost, especially as everything has ended so well. When Lord Cumnor’s letter came this morning—this very morning, I gave it to Clare to read aloud to me, and I saw she suddenly came to a full stop, where no full stop could be, and I thought it was something about Agnes, so I took the letter and read—stay! I’ll read the sentence to you. Where’s the letter, Clare? Oh! don’t trouble yourself, here it is. “How are Clare and Gibson getting on? You despised my advice to help on that affair, but I really think a little matchmaking would be a very pleasant amusement, now that you are shut up in the house; and I cannot conceive any marriage more suitable.” You see, you have my lord’s full approbation. But I must write, and tell him you have managed your own affairs without any interference of mine. Now we’ll just have a medical talk, Mr. Gibson, and then you and Clare shall finish your tête-à-tête.’aj
They were neither of them quite as desirous of further conversation together as they had been before the passage out of Lord Cumnor’s letter had been read aloud. Mr. Gibson tried not to think about it, for he was aware that if he dwelt upon it, he might get to fancy all sorts of things as to the conversation which had ended in his offer. But Lady Cumnor was imperious now, as always.
‘Come, no nonsense. I always made my girls go and have tête-à-têteswith the men who were to be their husbands, whether they would or no: there’s a great deal to be talked over before every marriage, and you two are certainly old enough to be above affectation. Go away with you.’
So there was nothing for it but for them to return to the library; Mrs. Kirkpatrick pouting a little, and Mr. Gibson feeling more like his own cool, sarcastic self, by many degrees, than he had done when last in that room.
She began, half crying—
‘I cannot tell what poor Kirkpatrick would say if he knew what I have done. He did so dislike the notion of second marriages, poor fellow’
‘Let us hope that he doesn’t know, then; or that, if he does, he is wiser—I mean, that he sees how second marriages may be most desirable and expedient in some cases.’
Altogether, this second tête-à-tête, done to command, was not so satisfactory as the first; and Mr. Gibson was quite alive to the necessity of proceeding on his round to see his patients, before very much time had elapsed.
‘We shall shake down into uniformity before long, I’ve no doubt,’ said he to himself, as he rode away. ‘It’s hardly to be expected that our thoughts should run in the same groove all at once. Nor should I like it,’ he added. ‘It would be very flat and stagnant to have only an echo of one’s own opinions from one’s wife. Heigho! I must tell Molly about it: dear little woman, I wonder how she’ll take it? It’s done, in a great measure, for her good.’ And then he lost himself in recapitulating Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s good qualities, and the advantages to be gained to his daughter from the step he had just taken.
It was too late to go round by Hamley that afternoon. The Towers and the Towers’ round lay just in the opposite direction to Hamley. So it was the next morning before Mr. Gibson arrived at the hall, timing his visit as well as he could so as to have half an hour’s private talk with Molly before Mrs. Hamley came down into the drawing-room. He thought that his daughter would require sympathy after receiving the intelligence he had to communicate; and he knew there was no one more fit to give it than Mrs. Hamley.
It was a brilliantly hot summer’s morning; men in their shirt-sleeves were in the fields getting in the early harvest of oats; as Mr. Gibson rode slowly along, he could see them over the tall hedgerows, and even hear the soothing measured sound of the fall of the long swathes, as they were mown. The labourers seemed too hot to talk; the dog, guarding their coats and cans, lay panting loudly on the other side of the elm, under which Mr. Gibson stopped for an instant to survey the scene, and gain a little delay before the interview that he wished was well over. In another minute he had snapped at himself for his weakness, and put spurs to his horse. He came up to the hall at a good sharp trot; it was earlier than the usual time of his visits, and no one was expecting him; all the stable-men were in the fields, but that signified little to Mr. Gibson; he walked his horse about for five minutes or so before taking him into the stable, and loosened his girths, examining him with perhaps unnecessary exactitude. He went into the house by a private door, and made his way into the drawing-room, half expecting, however, that Molly would be in the garden. She had been there, but it was too hot and dazzling now for her to remain out of doors, and she had come in by the open window of the drawing-room. Oppressed with the heat, she had fallen asleep in an easy-chair, her bonnet and open book upon her knee, one arm hanging listlessly down. She looked very soft, and young, and childlike; and a gush of love sprang into her father’s heart as he gazed at her.
‘Molly!’ said he, gently, taking the little brown hand that was hanging down, and holding it in his own. ‘Molly!’
She opened her eyes, that for one moment had no recognition in them. Then the light came brilliantly into them and she sprang up, and threw her arms round his neck, exclaiming,—
‘Oh, papa, my dear, dear papa! What made you come while I was asleep? I lose the pleasure of watching for you.’
Mr. Gibson turned a little paler than he had been before. He still held her hand, and drew her to a seat by him on a sofa, without speaking. There was no need; she was chattering away.
‘I was up so early! It is so charming to be out here in the fresh morning air. I think that made me sleepy. But isn’t it a gloriously hot day? I wonder if the Italian skies they talk about can be bluer than that—that little bit you see just between the oaks—there!’
She pulled her hand away, and used both it and the other to turn her father’s head, so that he should exactly see the very bit she meant. She was rather struck by his unusual silence.
‘Have you heard from Miss Eyre, papa? How are they all? And this fever that is about? Do you know, papa, I don’t think you are looking well? You want me at home to take care of you. How soon may I come home?’
‘Don’t I look well? That must be all your fancy, goosey. I feel uncommonly well; and I ought to look well, for———I have a piece of news for you, little woman.’ (He felt that he was doing his business very awkwardly, but he was determined to plunge on.) ‘Can you guess it?’
‘How should I?’ said she; but her tone was changed, and she was evidently uneasy, as with the pres
age of an instinct.
‘Why, you see, my love,’ said he, again taking her hand, ‘that you are in a very awkward position—a girl growing up in such a family as mine—young men—which was a piece of confounded stupidity on my part. And I am obliged to be away so much.’
‘But there is Miss Eyre,’ said she, sick with the strengthening indefinite presage of what was to come. ‘Dear Miss Eyre, I want nothing but her and you.’
‘Still there are times like the present when Miss Eyre cannot be with you; her home is not with us; she has other duties. I’ve been in great perplexity for some time; but at last I’ve taken a step which will, I hope, make us both happier.’
‘You’re going to be married again,’ said she, helping him out, with a quiet dry voice, and gently drawing her hand out of his.
‘Yes. To Mrs. Kirkpatrick—you remember her? They call her Clare at the Towers. You recollect how kind she was to you that day you were left there?’
She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike, indignation—whatever it was that was boiling up in her breast—should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was drifting out to the infinite sea alone.
Mr. Gibson saw that her silence was unnatural, and half-guessed at the cause of it. But he knew that she must have time to reconcile herself to the idea, and still believed that it would be for her eventual happiness. He had, besides, the relief of feeling that the secret was told, the confidence made, which he had been dreading for the last twenty-four hours. He went on recapitulating all the advantages of the marriage; he knew them off by heart, now.
‘She’s a very suitable age for me. I don’t know how old she is exactly, but she must be nearly forty. I shouldn’t have wished to marry any one younger. She’s highly respected by Lord and Lady Cumnor and their family, which is of itself a character. She has very agreeable and polished manners—of course, from the circles she has been thrown into—and you and I, goosey, are apt to be a little brusque, or so; we must brush up our manners now.’
No remark from her on this little bit of playfulness. He went on,—
‘She has been accustomed to housekeeping—economical housekeeping, too—for of late years she has had a school at Ashcombe, and has had, of course, to arrange all things for a large family. And last, but not least, she has a daughter—about your age, Molly—who, of course, will come and live with us, and be a nice companion—a sister—for you.’
Still she was silent. At length she said,—
‘So I was sent out of the house that all this might be quietly arranged in my absence?’
Out of the bitterness of her heart she spoke, but she was roused out of her assumed impassiveness by the effect produced. Her father started up, and quickly left the room, saying something to himself—what, she could not hear, though she ran after him, followed him through dark stone passages, into the glare of the stable-yard, into the stables—
‘Oh, papa, papa—I’m not myself—I don’t know what to say about this hateful—detestable——’
He led his horse out. She did not know if he heard her words. Just as he mounted, he turned round upon her with a grey grim face—
‘I think it’s better for both of us for me to go away now. We may say things difficult to forget. We are both much agitated. By to-morrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over, and seen that the principal—one great motive, I mean—was your good. You may tell Mrs. Hamley—I meant to have told her myself I will come again to-morrow Good-bye, Molly.’
For many minutes after he had ridden away—long after the sound of his horse’s hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the home-meadows, had died away—Molly stood there, shading her eyes, and looking at the empty space of air in which his form had last appeared. Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three times, after long intervals, she drew a miserable sigh, which was caught up into a sob. She turned away at last, but could not go into the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her father had looked and spoken—and left her.
She went out through a side-door-it was the way by which the gardeners passed when they took the manure into the garden—and the walk to which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs and evergreens and overarching trees. No one would know what became of her—and, with the ingratitude of misery, she added to herself, no one would care. Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children, her close home interests—she was very good and kind, but there was a bitter grief in Molly’s heart, with which the stranger could not intermeddle. She went quickly on to the bourne which she had fixed for herself—a seat almost surrounded by the drooping leaves of a weeping-ash—a seat on the long broad terrace-walk on the other side of the wood, that overlooked the pleasant slope of the meadows beyond. The walk had probably been made to command this sunny, peaceful landscape, with trees and a church spire, two or three red-tiled roofs of old cottages, and a purple bit of rising ground in the distance; and at some previous date, when there might have been a large family of Hamleys residing at the Hall, ladies in hoops, and gentlemen in bag-wigs with swords by their sides, might have filled up the breadth of the terrace, as they sauntered, smiling, along. But no one ever cared to saunter there now. It was a deserted walk. The squire or his sons might cross it in passing to a little gate that led to the meadow beyond; but no one loitered there. Molly almost thought that no one knew of the hidden seat under the ash-tree but herself; for there were not more gardeners employed upon the grounds than were necessary to keep the kitchen-gardens and such of the ornamental part as was frequented by the family, or in sight of the house, in good order.
When she had once got to the seat, she broke out with suppressed passion of grief She did not care to analyze the sources of her tears and sobs—her father was going to be married again—her father was angry with her; she had done very wrong—he had gone away displeased; she had lost his love; he was going to be married—away from her—away from his child—his little daughter—forgetting her own dear, dear mother. So she thought in a tumultuous kind of way, sobbing till she was wearied out, and had to gain strength by being quiet for a time, to break forth into her passion of tears afresh. She had cast herself on the ground—that natural throne for violent sorrow—and leant up against the old moss-grown seat; sometimes burying her face in her hands; sometimes clasping them together, as if by the tight painful grasp of her fingers she could deaden mental suffering.
She did not see Roger Hamley returning from the meadows, nor hear the click of the little white gate. He had been out dredging in ponds and ditches, and had his wet sling-net,ak with its imprisoned treasures of nastiness, over his shoulder. He was coming home to lunch, having always a fine midday appetite, though he pretended to despise the meal in theory. But he knew that his mother liked his companionship then; she depended much upon her luncheon, and was seldom downstairs and visible to her family much before the time. So he overcame his theory, for the sake of his mother, and had his reward in the hearty relish with which he kept her company in eating.
He did not see Molly as he crossed the terrace-walk on his way homewards. He had gone about twenty yards along the small wood-path at right angles to the terrace, when, looking among the grass and wild plants under the trees, he spied out one which was rare, one which he had been long wishing to find in flower, and saw it at last, with those bright keen eyes of his. Down went his net, skilfully twisted so as to retain its contents while it lay amid the herbage, and he himself went with light and well-planted footsteps in search of the treasure. He was so great a lover of nature that, without any thought, but habitually, he always avoided treading unnecessarily on any plant; who knew what long-sought growth or insect might develop itself in that which now appeared but insignificant?
His steps led him in the direct
ion of the ash-tree seat, much less screened from observation on this side than on the terrace. He stopped; he saw a light-coloured dress on the ground—somebody half-lying on the seat, so still just then, he wondered if the person, whoever it was, had fallen ill or fainted. He paused to watch. In a minute or two the sobs broke out again—the words. It was Miss Gibson crying in a broken voice,—
‘Oh, papa, papa! if you would but come back!’
For a minute or two he thought it would be kinder to leave her fancying herself unobserved; he had even made a retrograde step or two, on tip-toe; but then he heard the miserable sobbing again. It was farther than his mother could walk, or else, be the sorrow what it would, she was the natural comforter of this girl, her visitor. However, whether it was right or wrong, delicate or obtrusive, when he heard the sad voice talking again, in such tones of uncomforted, lonely misery, he turned back, and went to the green tent under the ash-tree. She started up when he came thus close to her; she tried to check her sobs, and instinctively smoothed her wet tangled hair back with her hands.
He looked down upon her with grave, kind sympathy, but he did not know exactly what to say.
‘Is it lunch-time?’ said she, trying to believe that he did not see the traces of her tears and the disturbance of her features—that he had not seen her lying, sobbing her heart out there.
‘I don’t know. I was going home to lunch. But—you must let me say it—I couldn’t go on when I saw your distress. Has anything happened? —anything in which I can help you, I mean; for, of course, I’ve no right to make the inquiry, if it is any private sorrow, in which I can be of no use.’
She had exhausted herself so much with crying, that she felt as if she could neither stand nor walk just yet. She sat down on the seat, and sighed, and turned so pale, he thought she was going to faint.
‘Wait a moment,’ said he, quite unnecessarily, for she could not have stirred; and he was off like a shot to some spring of water that he knew of in the wood, and in a minute or two he returned with careful steps, bringing a little in a broad green leaf, turned into an impromptu cup. Little as it was, it did her good.
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