Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  ‘I thought there was something on hand,’ said he, smiling. ‘Now for it!’

  ‘Roger Hamley has been here this afternoon to bid us good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye! is he gone? I didn’t know he was going so soon!’ exclaimed Mr. Gibson.

  ‘Yes: never mind, that’s not it.’

  ‘But tell me; has he left this neighbourhood? I wanted to have seen him.’

  ‘Yes, yes. He left love and regret, and all that sort of thing for you. Now let me get on with my story: he found Cynthia alone, proposed to her, and was accepted.’

  ‘Cynthia? Roger proposed to her, and she accepted him?’ repeated Mr. Gibson, slowly.

  ‘Yes, to be sure. Why not? you speak as if it was something so very surprising.’

  ‘Did I? But I am surprised. He’s a very fine young fellow, and I wish Cynthia joy; but do you like it? It will have to be a very long engagement.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said she, in a knowing manner.

  ‘At any rate he will be away for two years,’ said Mr. Gibson.

  ‘A great deal may happen in two years,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes! he will have to run many risks, and go into many dangers, and will come back no nearer to the power of maintaining a wife than when he went out.’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ she replied, still in the arch manner of one possessing superior knowledge. ‘A little bird did tell me that Osborne’s life is not so very secure; and then—what will Roger be? Heir to the estate.’

  ‘Who told you that about Osborne?’ said he, facing round upon her, and frightening her with his sudden sternness of voice and manner. It seemed as if absolute fire came out of his long dark sombre eyes. ‘Who told you, I say?’

  She made a faint rally back into her former playfulness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘What were they?’ he asked.

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

  ‘Well. Anything more?’

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

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

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

  ‘Then you own you did listen?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Yes, of course, you.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Cynthia looked extremely annoyed.

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

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

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

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

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