‘Cynthia shall beware’—he began; but Molly put her hand before his mouth.
‘Papa, Cynthia must not be accused, or suspected; you will drive her out of your house if you do, she is so proud, and so unprotected, except by you. And Roger,—for Roger’s sake, you will never do or say anything to send Cynthia away, when he has trusted us all to take care of her, and love her in his absence. Oh! I think if she were really wicked, and I did not love her at all, I should feel bound to watch over her, he loves her so dearly. And she is really good at heart, and I do love her dearly. You must not vex or hurt Cynthia, papa,—re—member she is dependent upon you!’
‘I think the world would get on tolerably well, if there were no women in it. They plague the life out of one. You’ve made me forget, amongst you—poor old Job Houghton that I ought to have gone to see an hour ago.’
Molly put up her mouth to be kissed. ‘You’re not angry with me now, papa, are you?’
‘Get out of my way’ (kissing her all the same). ‘If I’m not angry with you, I ought to be; for you’ve caused a great deal of worry, which won’t be over yet awhile, I can tell you.’
For all Molly’s bravery at the time of this conversation, it was she that suffered more than her father. He kept out of the way of hearing gossip; but she was perpetually thrown into the small society of the place. Mrs. Gibson herself had caught cold, and moreover was not tempted by the quiet old-fashioned visiting which was going on just about this time, provoked by the visit of two of Mrs. Dawes’ pretty unrefined nieces, who laughed, and chattered, and ate, and would fain have flirted with Mr. Ashton, the vicar, could he have been brought by any possibility to understand his share in the business. Mr. Preston did not accept the invitations to Hollingford tea-drinkings with the same eager gratitude as he had done a year before: or else the shadow which hung over Molly would not have extended to him, her co-partner in the clandestine meetings which gave such umbrage to the feminine virtue of the town. Molly herself was invited, because it would not do to pass any apparent slight on either Mr. or Mrs. Gibson; but there was a tacit and underhand protest against her being received on the old terms. Every one was civil to her, but no one was cordial; there was a very perceptible film of difference in their behaviour to her from what it was formerly; nothing that had outlines and could be defined. But Molly, for all her clear conscience and her brave heart, felt acutely that she was only tolerated, not welcomed. She caught the buzzing whispers of the two Miss Oakeses, who, when they first met the heroine of the prevailing scandal, looked at her askance, and criticized her pretensions to good looks, with hardly an attempt at undertones. Molly tried to be thankful that her father was not in the mood for visiting. She was even glad that her stepmother was too much of an invalid to come out, when she felt thus slighted, and, as it were, degraded from her place. Miss Browning herself, that true old friend, spoke to her with chilling dignity, and much reserve; for she had never heard a word from Mr. Gibson since the evening when she had put herself to so much pain to tell him of the disagreeable rumours affecting his daughter.
Only Miss Phoebe would seek out Molly with even more than her former tenderness; and this tried Molly’s calmness more than all the slights put together. The soft hand, pressing hers under the table;—the continual appeals to her, so as to bring her back into the conversation—touched Molly almost to shedding tears. Sometimes the poor girl wondered to herself whether this change in the behaviour of her acquaintances was not a mere fancy of hers; whether, if she had never had that conversation with her father, in which she had borne herself so bravely at the time, she should have discovered the difference in their treatment of her. She never told her father how she felt these perpetual small slights: she had chosen to bear the burden of her own free will; nay; more, she had insisted on being allowed to do so; and it was not for her to grieve him now by showing that she shrank from the consequences of her own act. So she never even made an excuse for not going into the small gaieties, or mingling with the society of Hollingford. Only she suddenly let go the stretch of restraint she was living in, when one evening her father told her that he was really anxious about Mrs. Gibson’s cough, and should like Molly to give up a party at Mrs. Goodenough’s, to which they were all three invited, but to which Molly alone was going. Molly’s heart leaped up at the thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was purchased by another’s suffering. However, the remedies prescribed by her husband did Mrs. Gibson good; and she was particularly grateful and caressing to Molly.
‘Really, dear!’ said she, stroking Molly’s head, ‘I think your hair is getting softer, and losing that disagreeable crisp curly feeling.’
Then Molly knew that her stepmother was in high good humour; the smoothness or curliness of her hair was a sure test of the favour in which Mrs. Gibson held her at the moment.
‘I am so sorry to be the cause of detaining you from this little party, but dear papa is so over-anxious about me. I have always been a kind of pet with gentlemen, and poor Mr. Kirkpatrick never knew how to make enough of me. But I think Mr. Gibson is even more foolishly fond: his last words were, “Take care of yourself, Hyacinth”; and then he came back again to say, “If you don’t attend to my directions I won’t answer for the consequences.” I shook my forefinger at him, and said, “Don’t be so anxious, you silly man.” ’
‘I hope we have done everything he told us to do,’ said Molly.
‘Oh, yes! I feel so much better. Do you know, late as it is, I think you might go to Mrs. Goodenough’s yet! Maria could take you, and I should like to see you dressed; when one has been wearing dull warm gowns for a week or two one gets quite a craving for bright colours, and evening dress. So go and get ready, dear, and then perhaps you’ll bring me back some news; for really, shut up as I have been with only papa and you for the last fortnight, I’ve got quite moped and dismal, and I can’t bear to keep young people from the gaieties suitable to their age.’
‘Oh, pray, mamma! I had so much rather not go!’
‘Very well! very well! Only I think it is rather selfish of you, when you see I am so willing to make the sacrifice for your sake.’
‘But you say it is a sacrifice to you, and I don’t want to go.’
‘Very well; did I not say you might stop at home? only pray don’t chop logic; nothing is so fatiguing to a sick person.’
Then they were silent for some time. Mrs. Gibson broke the silence by saying, in a languid voice—
‘Can’t you think of anything amusing to say, Molly?’
Molly pumped up from the depths of her mind a few little trivialities which she had nearly forgotten, but she felt that they were anything but amusing, and so Mrs. Gibson seemed to feel them; for presently she said—
‘I wish Cynthia was at home.’ And Molly felt it as a reproach to her own dullness.
‘Shall I write to her and ask her to come back?’
‘Well, I’m not sure; I wish I knew a great many things. You’ve not heard anything of poor dear Osborne Hamley lately, have you?’
Remembering her father’s charge not to speak of Osborne’s health, Molly made no reply, nor was any needed, for Mrs. Gibson went on thinking aloud—
‘You see, if Mr. Henderson has been as attentive as he was in the spring—and the chances about Roger—I shall be really grieved if anything happens to that young man, uncouth as he is; but it must be owned that Africa is not merely an unhealthy—it is a savage—and even in some parts a cannibal country. I often think of all I’ve read of it in geography books, as I lie awake at night, and if Mr. Henderson is really becoming attached! The future is hidden from us by infinite wisdom, Molly, or else I should like to know it; one would calculate one’s behaviour at the present time so much better if one only knew what events were to come. But I think, on the whole, we had better not alarm Cynthia. If we had only known in time we might have planned for her to have come down with Lord Cumnor and my lady’
‘Are they coming? Is Lady Cumnor well enough to travel?’
‘Yes, to be sure. Or else I should not have considered whether or no Cynthia could have come down with them; it would have sounded very well—more than respectable, and would have given her a position among that lawyer set in London.’
‘Then Lady Cumnor is better?’
‘To be sure. I should have thought papa would have mentioned it to you; but, to be sure, he is always so scrupulously careful not to speak about his patients. Quite right too—quite right and delicate. Why, he hardly ever tells me how they are going on.Yes! the Earl and the Countess, and Lady Harriet and Lord and Lady Cuxhaven, and Lady Agnes; and I’ve ordered a new winter bonnet and a black satin cloak.’
CHAPTER 49
Molly Gibson Finds a Champion
Lady Cumnor had so far recovered from the violence of her attack, and from the consequent operation, as to be able to be removed to the Towers for change of air; and accordingly she was brought thither by her whole family with all the pomp and state becoming an invalid peeress. There was every probability that ‘the family’ would make a longer residence at the Towers than they had done for several years, during which time they had been wanderers hither and thither in search of health. Somehow, after all, it was very pleasant and restful to come to the old ancestral home, and every member of the family enjoyed it in his or her own way; Lord Cumnor most especially. His talent for gossip and his love of small details had scarcely fair play in the hurry of a London life, and were much nipped in the bud during his Continental sojournings, as he neither spoke French fluently, nor understood it easily when spoken. Besides, he was a great proprietor, and liked to know how his land was going on; how his tenants were faring in the world. He liked to hear of their births, marriages, and deaths, and had something of a royal memory for faces. In short, if ever a peer was an old woman, Lord Cumnor was that peer; but he was a very good-natured old woman, and rode about on his stout old cob with his pockets full of half-pence for the children, and little packets of snuff for the old people. Like an old woman, too, he enjoyed an afternoon cup of tea in his wife’s sitting-room, and over his gossip’s beverage he would repeat all that he had learnt in the day. Lady Cumnor was exactly in that state of convalescence when such talk as her lord’s was extremely agreeable to her, but she had contemned the habit of listening to gossip so severely all her life, that she thought it due to consistency to listen first, and enter a supercilious protest afterwards. It had, however, come to be a family habit for all of them to gather together in Lady Cumnor’s room on their return from their daily walks or drives, or rides, and over the fire, sipping their tea at her early meal, to recount the morsels of local intelligence they had heard during the morning. When they had said all that they had to say (and not before), they had always to listen to a short homily from her ladyship on the well-worn texts,—the poorness of conversation about persons,—the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and the degradation of character implied by its repetition. On one of these November evenings they were all assembled in Lady Cumnor’s room. She was lying,—all draped in white and covered up with an Indian shawl,—on a sofa near the fire. Lady Harriet sat on the rug, close before the wood-fire, picking up fallen embers with a pair of dwarf tongs, and piling them on the red and odorous heap in the centre of the hearth. Lady Cuxhaven, notable from girlhood, was using the blind man’s holidaydt to net fruit-nets for the walls at Cuxhaven Park. Lady Cumnor’s woman was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one small wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear much light to her weakened eyes); and the great leafless branches of the trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by the wind that was gathering.
It was always Lady Cumnor’s habit to snub those she loved best. Her husband was perpetually snubbed by her, yet she missed him now that he was later than usual, and professed not to want her tea; but they all knew that it was only because he was not there to hand it to her, and be found fault with for his invariable stupidity in forgetting that she liked to put sugar in before she took any cream. At length he burst in:—
‘I beg your pardon, my lady,—I’m later than I should have been, I know. Why haven’t you had your tea yet?’ he exclaimed, bustling about to get the cup for his wife.
‘You know I never take cream before I’ve sweetened it,’ said she, with even more emphasis on the ‘never’ than usual.
‘To be sure! What a simpleton I am! I think I might have remembered it by this time. You see I met old Sheepshanks, and that’s the reason of it.’
‘Of your handing me the cream before the sugar?’ asked his wife. It was one of her grim jokes.
‘No, no! ha, ha! You’re better this evening, I think, my dear. But, as I was saying, Sheepshanks is such an eternal talker, there’s no getting away from him, and I had no idea it was so late!’
‘Well, I think the least you can do is to tell us something of Mr. Sheepshanks’ conversation now you have torn yourself away from him.’
‘Conversation! did I call it conversation? I don’t think I said much. I listened. He really has always a great deal to say. More than Preston, for instance. And, by the way, he was telling me something about Preston;—old Sheepshanks thinks he’ll be married before long,—he says there’s a great deal of gossip going on about him and Gibson’s daughter. They’ve been caught meeting in the park, and corresponding, and all that kind of thing that is likely to end in a marriage.’
‘I shall be very sorry,’ said Lady Harriet. ‘I always liked that girl; and I can’t bear papa’s model land-agent.’
‘I dare say it’s not true,’ said Lady Cumnor, in a very audible aside to Lady Harriet. ‘Papa picks up stories one day to contradict them the next.’
‘Ah, but this did sound like truth. Sheepshanks said all the old ladies in the town had got hold of it, and were making a great scandal out of it.’
‘I don’t think it does sound quite a nice story. I wonder what Clare could be doing to allow such goings on,’ said Lady Cuxhaven.
‘I think it’s much more likely that Clare’s own daughter—that pretty pawky Miss Kirkpatrick—is the real heroine of this story,’ said Lady Harriet. ‘She always looks like a heroine of genteel comedy; and those young ladies were capable of a good deal of innocent intriguing, if I remember rightly. Now little Molly Gibson has a certain gaucheriedu about her which would disqualify her at once from any clandestine proceedings. Besides, “clandestine”! why, the child is truth itself. Papa, are you sure Mr. Sheepshanks said it was Miss Gibson that was exciting Hollingford scandal? Wasn’t it Miss Kirkpatrick? The notion of her and Mr. Preston making a match of it doesn’t sound so incongruous; but if it’s my little friend Molly, I’ll go to church and forbid the banns.’1
‘Really, Harriet, I can’t think what always makes you take such an interest in all these petty Hollingford affairs.’
‘Mamma, it’s only tit for tat. They take the most lively interest in all our sayings and doings. If I were going to be married, they would want to know every possible particular,—when we first met, what we first said to each other, what I wore, and whether he offered by letter or in person. I’m sure those good Miss Brownings were wonderfully well-informed as to Mary’s methods of managing her nursery, and educating her girls; so it’s only a proper return of the compliment to want to know on our side how they are going on. I’m quite of papa’s faction. I like to hear all the local gossip.’
‘Especially when it is flavoured with a spice of scandal and impropriety, as in this case,’ said Lady Cumnor, with the momentary bitterness of a convalescent invalid. Lady Harriet coloured with annoyance. But then she rallied her courage, and said with more gravity than before;—
‘I am really interested in this story about Molly Gibson, I own. I both like and respect her; and I do not like to hear her name coupled with that of Mr. Preston. I can’t help fancying papa has made some mistake.’
‘No, my dear. I’m sure I’m re
peating what I heard. I’m sorry I said anything about it, if it annoys you or my lady there. Sheepshanks did say Miss Gibson, though, and he went on to say it was a pity the girl had got herself so talked about; for it was the way they had carried on that gave rise to all the chatter. Preston himself was a very fair match for her, and nobody could have objected to it. But I’ll try and find a more agreeable piece of news. Old Margery at the lodge is dead; and they don’t know where to find some one to teach clear-starching at your school; and Robert Hall made forty pounds last year by his apples.’ So they drifted away from Molly and her affairs; only Lady Harriet kept turning what she had heard over in her own mind with interest and wonder.
‘I warned her against him the day of her father’s wedding. And what a straightforward, outspoken topic it was then! I don’t believe it; it’s only one of old Sheepshanks’ stories, half invention and half deafness.’
The next day Lady Harriet rode over to Hollingford, and for the settling of her curiosity she called on the Miss Brownings, and introduced the subject. She would not have spoken about the rumour she had heard to any who were not warm friends of Molly’s. If Mr. Sheepshanks had chosen to allude to it when she had been riding with her father, she could very soon have silenced him by one of the haughty looks she knew full well how to assume. But she felt as if she must know the truth, and accordingly she began thus abruptly to Miss Browning.
‘What is all this I hear about my little friend Molly Gibson and Mr. Preston?’
‘Oh, Lady Harriet! have you heard of it? We are so sorry!’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘I think, begging your ladyship’s pardon, we had better not say any more till we know how much you know,’ said Miss Browning.
‘Nay,’ replied Lady Harriet, laughing a little, ‘I shan’t tell what I know till I am sure you know more. Then we’ll make an exchange if you like.’
‘I’m afraid it’s no laughing matter for poor Molly,’ said Miss Browning, shaking her head. ‘People do say such things!’
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