Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  But Cynthia returned to Hollingford one Tuesday morning, and in answer to her mother’s anxious inquiries on the subject, would only say that Mr. Henderson had not offered again. Why should he? She had refused him once, and he did not know the reason of her refusal, at least one of the reasons. She did not know if she should have taken him if there had been no such person as Roger Hamley in the world. No! Uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick had never heard anything about Roger’s offer—nor had her cousins. She had always declared her wish to keep it a secret, and she had not mentioned it to any one, whatever other people might have done. Underneath this light and careless vein there were other feelings; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to probe beneath the surface. She had set her heart on Mr. Henderson’s marrying Cynthia, very early in their acquaintance; and to know, firstly, that the same wish had entered into his head, and that Roger’s attachment to Cynthia, with its consequences, had been the obstacle; and secondly, that Cynthia herself, with all the opportunities of propinquity which she had lately had, had failed to provoke a repetition of the offer,—was, as Mrs. Gibson said, ‘enough to provoke a saint.’ All the rest of the day she alluded to Cynthia as a disappointing and ungrateful daughter; Molly could not make out why, and resented it for Cynthia, until the latter said, bitterly, ‘Never mind, Molly. Mamma is only vexed because Mr. _______ because I have not come back an engaged young lady.’

  ‘Yes; and I am sure you might have done—there’s the ingratitude! I am not so unjust as to want you to do what you can’t do!’ said Mrs. Gibson, querulously.

  ‘But where’s the ingratitude, mamma? I’m very much tired, and perhaps that makes me stupid; but I cannot see the ingratitude.’ Cynthia spoke very wearily, leaning her head back on the sofa-cushions, as if she did not care to have an answer.

  ‘Why, don’t you see we are doing all we can for you; dressing you well, and sending you to London; and when you might relieve us of the expense of all this, you don’t.’

  ‘No! Cynthia, I will speak,’ said Molly, all crimson with indignation, and pushing away Cynthia’s restraining hand. ‘I am sure papa does not feel, and does not mind, any expense he incurs about his daughters. And I know quite well that he does not wish us to marry, unless_______’ She faltered and stopped.

  ‘Unless what?’ said Mrs. Gibson, half-mocking.

  ‘Unless we love some one very dearly indeed,’ said Molly, in a low, firm tone.

  ‘Well, after this tirade—really rather indelicate, I must say—I have done. I will neither help nor hinder any love-affairs of you two young ladies. In my days we were glad of the advice of our elders.’ And she left the room to put into fulfilment an idea which had just struck her: to write a confidential letter to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, giving her her version of Cynthia’s ‘unfortunate entanglement,’ and ‘delicate sense of honour,’ and hints of her entire indifference to all the masculine portion of the world, Mr. Henderson being dexterously excluded from the category.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Molly, throwing herself back in a chair with a sigh of relief, as Mrs. Gibson left the room; ‘how cross I do get since I’ve been ill! But I couldn’t bear her to speak as if papa grudged you anything.’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t, Molly. You need not defend him on my account. But I’m sorry mamma still looks upon me as “an encumbrance,” as the advertisements in The Times always call us unfortunate children. But I’ve been an encumbrance to her all my life. I’m getting very much into despair about everything, Molly. I shall try my luck in Russia. I’ve heard of a situation as English governess at Moscow, in a family owning whole provinces of land, and serfs by the hundred. I put off writing my letter till I came home; I shall be as much out of the way there as if I was married. Oh, dear! travelling all night isn’t good for the spirits. How’s Mr. Preston?’

  ‘Oh, he has taken Cumnor Grange, three miles away, and he never comes in to the Hollingford tea-parties now. I saw him once in the street, but it’s a question which of us tried the hardest to get out of the other’s way.’

  ‘You’ve not said anything about Roger, yet.’

  ‘No; I didn’t know if you would care to hear. He is very much older-looking; quite a strong grown-up man. And papa says he is much graver. Ask me any questions, if you want to know, but I have only seen him once.’

  ‘I was in hopes he would have left the neighbourhood by this time. Mamma said he was going to travel again.’

  ‘I can’t tell,’ said Molly. ‘I suppose you know,’ she continued, but hesitating a little before she spoke, ‘that he wishes to see you?’

  ‘No! I never heard. I wish he would have been satisfied with my letter. It was as decided as I could make it. If I say I won’t see him, I wonder if his will or mine will be the strongest?’

  ‘His,’ said Molly. ‘But you must see him; you owe it to him. He will never be satisfied without it.’

  ‘Suppose he talks me round into resuming the engagement? I should only break it off again.’

  ‘Surely, you can’t be “talked round,” if your mind is made up. But perhaps it is not really, Cynthia?’ asked she, with a little wistful anxiety betraying itself in her face.

  ‘It is quite made up. I am going to teach little Russian girls; and am never going to marry nobody.’

  ‘You are not serious, Cynthia. And yet it is a very serious thing.’

  But Cynthia went into one of her wild moods, and no more reason or sensible meaning was to be got out of her at the time.

  CHAPTER 56

  ‘Off with the Old Love, and On with the New’

  The next morning saw Mrs. Gibson in a much more contented frame of mind. She had written and posted her letter, and the next thing was to keep Cynthia in what she called a reasonable state, or, in other words, to try and cajole her into docility. But it was so much labour lost. Cynthia had already received a letter from Mr. Henderson before she came down to breakfast,—a declaration of love, a proposal of marriage as clear as words could make it; together with an intimation that, unable to wait for the slow delays of the post, he was going to follow her down to Hollingford, and would arrive at the same time that she had done herself on the previous day. Cynthia said nothing about this letter to anyone. She came late into the breakfast-room, after Mr. and Mrs. Gibson had finished the actual business of the meal; but her unpunctuality was quite accounted for by the fact that she had been travelling all the night before. Molly was not as yet strong enough to get up so early. Cynthia hardly spoke, and did not touch her food. Mr. Gibson went about his daily business, and Cynthia and her mother were left alone.

  ‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Gibson, ‘you are not eating your breakfast as you should do. I am afraid our meals seem very plain and homely to you after those in Hyde Park Street?’

  ‘No,’ said Cynthia; ‘I’m not hungry, that’s all.’

  ‘If we were as rich as your uncle, I should feel it to be both a duty and a pleasure to keep an elegant table; but limited means are a sad clog to one’s wishes. I don’t suppose that, work as he will, Mr. Gibson can earn more than he does at present; while the capabilities of the law are boundless. Lord Chancellor! Titles as well as fortune!’

  Cynthia was almost too much absorbed in her own reflections to reply, but she did say,—

  ‘Hundreds of briefless barristers. Take the other side, mamma.’

  ‘Well; but I have noticed that many of these have private fortunes.’

  ‘Perhaps. Mamma, I expect Mr. Henderson will come and call this morning.’

  ‘Oh, my precious child! But how do you know? My darling Cynthia, am I to congratulate you?’

  ‘No! I suppose I must tell you. I have had a letter this morning from him, and he is coming down by the “Umpire” to-day.’

  ‘But he has offered? He surely must mean to offer, at any rate?’

  Cynthia played with her teaspoon before she replied; then she looked up, like one startled from a dream, and caught the echo of her mother’s question.

  ‘Offered! yes, I suppose he has.’
<
br />   ‘And you accept him? Say “yes,” Cynthia, and make me happy!’

  ‘I shan’t say “yes” to make any one happy except myself, and the Russian scheme has great charms for me.’ She said this to plague her mother, and lessen Mrs. Gibson’s exuberance of joy, it must be confessed; for her mind was pretty well made up. But it did not affect Mrs. Gibson, who affixed even less truth to it than there really was. The idea of a residence in a new, strange country, among new, strange people, was not without allurement to Cynthia.

  ‘You always look nice, dear; but don’t you think you had better put on that pretty lilac silk?’

  ‘I shall not vary a thread or a shred from what I have got on now.’

  ‘You dear, wilful creature! you know you always look lovely in whatever you put on.’ So, kissing her daughter, Mrs. Gibson left the room, intent on the lunch which should impress Mr. Henderson at once with an idea of family refinement.

  Cynthia went upstairs to Molly; she was inclined to tell her about Mr. Henderson, but she found it impossible to introduce the subject naturally, so she left it to time to reveal the future as gradually as it might. Molly was tired with a bad night; and her father, in his flying visit to his darling before going out, had advised her to stay upstairs for the greater part of the morning, and to keep quiet in her own room till after her early dinner, so Time had not a fair chance of telling her what he had in store in his budget. Mrs. Gibson sent an apology to Molly for not paying her her usual morning visit, and told Cynthia to give Mr. Henderson’s probable coming as a reason for her occupation downstairs. But Cynthia did no such thing. She kissed Molly, and sat silently by her, holding her hand; till at length she jumped up, and said, ‘You shall be left alone now, little one. I want you to be very well and very bright this afternoon: so rest now.’ And Cynthia left her, and went to her own room, locked the door, and began to think.

  Some one was thinking about her at the same time, and it was not Mr. Henderson. Roger had heard from Mr. Gibson that Cynthia had come home, and he was resolving to go to her at once, and have one strong, manly attempt to overcome the obstacles, whatever they might be—and of their nature he was not fully aware—that she had conjured up against the continuance of their relation to each other. He left his father—he left them all—and went off into the woods, to be alone until the time came when he might mount his horse and ride over to put his fate to the touch. He was as careful as ever not to interfere with the morning hours that were tabooed to him of old; but waiting was very hard work when he knew that she was so near, and the time so near at hand.

  Yet he rode slowly, compelling himself to quietness and patience when he was once really on the way to her.

  ‘Mrs. Gibson at home? Miss Kirkpatrick?’ he asked of the servant, Maria, who opened the door. She was confused, but he did not notice it.

  ‘I think so—I’m not sure! Will you walk up into the drawing-room, sir? Miss Gibson is there, I know.’

  So he went upstairs, all his nerves on the strain for the coming interview with Cynthia. It was either a relief or a disappointment, he was not sure which, to find only Molly in the room:—Molly, half lying on the couch in the bow-window which commanded the garden; draped in soft white drapery, very white herself, and a laced half-handkerchief tied over her head to save her from any ill effects of the air that blew in through the open window. He was so ready to speak to Cynthia that he hardly knew what to say to any one else.

  ‘I’m afraid you are not so well,’ he said to Molly, who sat up to receive him, and who suddenly began to tremble with emotion.

  ‘I’m a little tired, that’s all,’ said she; and then she was quite silent, hoping that he might go, and yet somehow wishing him to stay. But he took a chair and placed it near her, opposite to the window. He thought that surely Maria would tell Miss Kirkpatrick that she was wanted, and that at any moment he might hear her light quick footstep on the stairs.

  He thought he ought to talk, but he could not think of anything to say. The pink flush came out on Molly’s cheeks; once or twice she was on the point of speaking, but again she thought better of it; and the pauses between their faint disjointed remarks became longer and longer. Suddenly, in one of these pauses, the merry murmur of distant happy voices in the garden came nearer and nearer; Molly looked more and more uneasy and flushed, and in spite of herself kept watching Roger’s face. He could see over her into the garden. A sudden deep colour overspread him, as if his heart had sent its blood out coursing at full gallop. Cynthia and Mr. Henderson had come in sight; he eagerly talking to her, as he bent forward to look into her face; she, her looks half averted in pretty shyness, was evidently coquetting about some flowers, which she either would not give, or would not take. Just then, for the lovers had emerged from the shrubbery into comparatively public life, Maria was seen approaching; apparently she had feminine tact enough to induce Cynthia to leave her present admirer, and to go a few steps to meet her to receive the whispered message that Mr. Roger Hamley was there, and wished to speak to her. Roger could see her startled gesture; she turned back to say something to Mr. Henderson before coming towards the house. Now Roger spoke to Molly—spoke hurriedly, spoke hoarsely.

  ‘Molly, tell me! Is it too late for me to speak to Cynthia? I came on purpose. Who is that man?’

  ‘Mr. Henderson. He only came to-day-but now he is her accepted lover. Oh, Roger, forgive me the pain!’

  ‘Tell her I have been, and am gone. Send out word to her. Don’t let her be interrupted.’

  And Roger ran downstairs at full speed, and Molly heard the passionate clang of the outer door. He had hardly left the house before Cynthia entered the room, pale and resolute.

  ‘Where is he?’ she said, looking around, as if he might yet be hidden.

  ‘Gone!’ said Molly, very faint.

  ‘Gone. Oh, what a relief! It seems to be my fate never to be off with the old lover before I am on with the new, and yet I did write as decidedly as I could. Why, Molly, what’s the matter?’ for now Molly had fainted away utterly. Cynthia flew to the bell, summoned Maria, water, salts, wine, anything; and as soon as Molly, gasping and miserable, became conscious again, she wrote a little pencil-note to Mr. Henderson, bidding him return to the George, whence he had come in the morning, and saying that if he obeyed her at once, he might be allowed to call again in the evening, otherwise she would not see him till the next day. This she sent down by Maria, and the unlucky man never believed but that it was Miss Gibson’s sudden indisposition in the first instance that had deprived him of his charmer’s company. He comforted himself for the long solitary afternoon by writing to tell all his friends of his happiness, and amongst them uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick, who received his letter by the same post as that discreet epistle of Mrs. Gibson’s, which she had carefully arranged to reveal as much as she wished, and no more.

  ‘Was he very terrible?’ asked Cynthia, as she sat with Molly in the stillness of Mrs. Gibson’s dressing-room.

  ‘Oh, Cynthia, it was such pain to see him, he suffered so!’

  ‘I don’t like people of deep feelings,’ said Cynthia, pouting. ‘They don’t suit me. Why couldn’t he let me go without this fuss? I’m not worth his caring for!’

  ‘You’ve the happy gift of making people love you. Remember Mr. Preston,—he too wouldn’t give up hope.’

  ‘Now I won’t have you classing Roger Hamley and Mr. Preston together in the same sentence. One was as much too bad for me as the other is too good. Now I hope that man in the garden is the juste milieu,ee—I’m that myself, for I don’t think I’m vicious, and I know I’m not virtuous.’

  ‘Do you really like him enough to marry him?’ asked Molly, earnestly. ‘Do think, Cynthia. It won’t do to go on throwing your lovers off; you give pain that I’m sure you do not mean to do,—that you cannot understand.’

  ‘Perhaps I can’t. I’m not offended. I never set up for what I am not, and I know I’m not constant. I’ve told Mr. Henderson so—’ She stopped, blushing and smi
ling at the recollection.

  ‘You have! and what did he say?’

  ‘That he liked me just as I was; so you see he’s fairly warned. Only he’s a little afraid, I suppose,—for he wants me to be married very soon, almost directly, in fact. But I don’t know if I shall give way,—you hardly saw him, Molly,—but he’s coming again to-night, and mind, I’ll never forgive you if you don’t think him very charming. I believe I cared for him when he offered all those months ago, but I tried to think I didn’t; only sometimes I really was so unhappy, I thought I must put an iron band round my heart to keep it from breaking, like the Faithful John of the German story,—do you remember, Molly?—how when his master came to his crown and his fortune and his lady-love, after innumerable trials and disgraces, and was driving away from the church where he’d been married in a coach and six, with Faithful John behind, the happy couple heard three cracks in succession, and on inquiring, they were the iron bands round his heart, that Faithful John had worn all during the time of his master’s tribulation, to keep it from breaking.’ 1

  In the evening Mr. Henderson came. Molly had been very curious to see him; and when she saw him she was not sure whether she liked him or not. He was handsome, without being conceited; gentlemanly, without being foolishly fine. He talked easily, and never said a silly thing. He was perfectly well-appointed, yet never seemed to have given a thought to his dress. He was good-tempered and kind; not without some of the cheerful flippancy of repartee which belonged to his age and profession, and which his age and profession are apt to take for wit. But he wanted something in Molly’s eyes—at any rate, in this first interview, and in her heart of hearts she thought him rather commonplace. But of course she said nothing of this to Cynthia, who was evidently as happy as she could be. Mrs. Gibson, too, was in the seventh heaven of ecstasy, and spoke but little; but what she did say, expressed the highest sentiments in the finest language. Mr. Gibson was not with them for long, but while he was there he was evidently studying the unconscious Mr. Henderson with his dark penetrating eyes. Mr. Henderson behaved exactly as he ought to have done to everybody: respectful to Mr. Gibson, deferential to Mrs. Gibson, friendly to Molly, devoted to Cynthia.