Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

  CHAPTER III.

  MOLLY GIBSON'S CHILDHOOD.

  Sixteen years before this time, all Hollingford had been disturbedto its foundations by the intelligence that Mr. Hall, the skilfuldoctor, who had attended them all their days, was going to takea partner. It was no use reasoning to them on the subject; so Mr.Browning the vicar, Mr. Sheepshanks (Lord Cumnor's agent), and Mr.Hall himself, the masculine reasoners of the little society, leftoff the attempt, feeling that the _Che sara sara_ would prove moresilencing to the murmurs than many arguments. Mr. Hall had told hisfaithful patients that, even with the strongest spectacles, hissight was not to be depended upon and they might have found out forthemselves that his hearing was very defective, although, on thispoint, he obstinately adhered to his own opinion, and was frequentlyheard to regret the carelessness of people's communication nowadays,"like writing on blotting-paper, all the words running into eachother," he would say. And more than once Mr. Hall had had attacksof a suspicious nature,--"rheumatism" he used to call them, but heprescribed for himself as if they had been gout--which had preventedhis immediate attention to imperative summonses. But, blind and deaf,and rheumatic as he might be, he was still Mr. Hall the doctor whocould heal all their ailments--unless they died meanwhile--and he hadno right to speak of growing old, and taking a partner.

  He went very steadily to work all the same; advertising in medicaljournals, reading testimonials, sifting character and qualifications;and just when the elderly maiden ladies of Hollingford thought thatthey had convinced their contemporary that he was as young as ever,he startled them by bringing his new partner, Mr. Gibson, to callupon them, and began "slyly," as these ladies said, to introduce himinto practice. And "who was this Mr. Gibson?" they asked, and echomight answer the question, if she liked, for no one else did. Noone ever in all his life knew anything more of his antecedents thanthe Hollingford people might have found out the first day they sawhim: that he was tall, grave, rather handsome than otherwise; thinenough to be called "a very genteel figure," in those days, beforemuscular Christianity had come into vogue; speaking with a slightScotch accent; and, as one good lady observed, "so very trite inhis conversation," by which she meant sarcastic. As to his birth,parentage, and education,--the favourite conjecture of Hollingfordsociety was, that he was the illegitimate son of a Scotch duke, bya Frenchwoman; and the grounds for this conjecture were these:--Hespoke with a Scotch accent; therefore, he must be Scotch. He hada very genteel appearance, an elegant figure, and was apt--so hisill-wishers said--to give himself airs; therefore, his father musthave been some person of quality; and, that granted, nothing waseasier than to run this supposition up all the notes of the scale ofthe peerage,--baronet, baron, viscount, earl, marquis, duke. Higherthey dared not go, though one old lady, acquainted with Englishhistory, hazarded the remark, that "she believed that one or twoof the Stuarts--hem--had not always been,--ahem--quite correct intheir--conduct; and she fancied such--ahem--things ran in families."But, in popular opinion, Mr. Gibson's father always remained a duke;nothing more.

  Then his mother must have been a Frenchwoman, because his hair wasso black; and he was so sallow; and because he had been in Paris.All this might be true, or might not; nobody ever knew, or found outanything more about him than what Mr. Hall told them, namely, thathis professional qualifications were as high as his moral character,and that both were far above the average, as Mr. Hall had taken painsto ascertain before introducing him to his patients. The popularityof this world is as transient as its glory, as Mr. Hall found outbefore the first year of his partnership was over. He had plenty ofleisure left to him now to nurse his gout and cherish his eyesight.The younger doctor had carried the day; nearly every one sent forMr. Gibson. Even at the great houses--even at the Towers, thatgreatest of all, where Mr. Hall had introduced his new partner withfear and trembling, with untold anxiety as to his behaviour, andthe impression he might make on my lord the Earl, and my lady theCountess, Mr. Gibson was received at the end of a twelvemonth with asmuch welcome respect for his professional skill as Mr. Hall himselfhad ever been. Nay--and this was a little too much for even the kindold doctor's good temper--Mr. Gibson had even been invited once todinner at the Towers, to dine with the great Sir Astley, the head ofthe profession! To be sure, Mr. Hall had been asked as well; but hewas laid up just then with his gout (since he had had a partner therheumatism had been allowed to develope itself), and he had not beenable to go. Poor Mr. Hall never quite got over this mortificationafter it he allowed himself to become dim of sight and hard ofhearing, and kept pretty closely to the house during the two wintersthat remained of his life. He sent for an orphan grand-niece to keephim company in his old age; he, the woman-contemning old bachelor,became thankful for the cheerful presence of the pretty, bonny MaryPearson, who was good and sensible, and nothing more. She formeda close friendship with the daughters of the vicar, Mr. Browning,and Mr. Gibson found time to become very intimate with all three.Hollingford speculated much on which young lady would become Mrs.Gibson, and was rather sorry when the talk about possibilities, andthe gossip about probabilities, with regard to the handsome youngsurgeon's marriage, ended in the most natural manner in the world, byhis marrying his predecessor's niece. The two Miss Brownings showedno signs of going into a consumption on the occasion, althoughtheir looks and manners were carefully watched. On the contrary,they were rather boisterously merry at the wedding, and poor Mrs.Gibson it was that died of consumption, four or five years after hermarriage--three years after the death of her great-uncle, and whenher only child, Molly, was just three years old.

  Mr. Gibson did not speak much about the grief at the loss of hiswife, which it was supposed that he felt. Indeed, he avoided alldemonstrations of sympathy, and got up hastily and left the roomwhen Miss Phoebe Browning first saw him after his loss, and burstinto an uncontrollable flood of tears, which threatened to end inhysterics. Miss Browning declared she never could forgive him for hishard-heartedness on that occasion but a fortnight afterwards shecame to very high words with old Mrs. Goodenough, for gasping out herdoubts whether Mr. Gibson was a man of deep feeling; judging by thenarrowness of his crape hat-band, which ought to have covered hishat, whereas there was at least three inches of beaver to be seen.And, in spite of it all, Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe consideredthemselves as Mr. Gibson's most intimate friends, in right of theirregard for his dead wife, and would fain have taken a quasi-motherlyinterest in his little girl, had she not been guarded by a watchfuldragon in the shape of Betty, her nurse, who was jealous of anyinterference between her and her charge; and especially resentful anddisagreeable towards all those ladies who, by suitable age, rank, orpropinquity, she thought capable of "casting sheep's eyes at master."

  Several years before the opening of this story, Mr. Gibson's positionseemed settled for life, both socially and professionally. He wasa widower, and likely to remain so; his domestic affections werecentred on little Molly, but even to her, in their most privatemoments, he did not give way to much expression of his feelings;his most caressing appellation for her was "Goosey," and he took apleasure in bewildering her infant mind with his badinage. He hadrather a contempt for demonstrative people, arising from his medicalinsight into the consequences to health of uncontrolled feeling. Hedeceived himself into believing that still his reason was lord ofall, because he had never fallen into the habit of expression on anyother than purely intellectual subjects. Molly, however, had her ownintuitions to guide her. Though her papa laughed at her, quizzed her,joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called "really cruel"to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her littlegriefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears, soonereven than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The child grewto understand her father well, and the two had the most delightfulintercourse together--half banter, half seriousness, but altogetherconfidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants; Betty, acook, and a girl who was supposed to be housemaid, but who was underboth the elder two, and had a pretty life of i
t in consequence.Three servants would not have been required if it had not been Mr.Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to take two"pupils" as they were called in the genteel language of Hollingford,"apprentices" as they were in fact--being bound by indentures, andpaying a handsome premium to learn their business. They lived in thehouse, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous, or, as Miss Browningcalled it with some truth, "amphibious" position. They had theirmeals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were felt to be terribly in theway; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could make conversation, andhating the duty of talking under restraint. Yet something within himmade him wince, as if his duties were not rightly performed, when,as the cloth was drawn, the two awkward lads rose up with joyfulalacrity, gave him a nod, which was to be interpreted as a bow,knocked against each other in their endeavours to get out of thedining-room quickly; and then might be heard dashing along a passagewhich led to the surgery, choking with half-suppressed laughter. Yetthe annoyance he felt at this dull sense of imperfectly fulfilledduties only made his sarcasms on their inefficiency, or stupidity, orill manners, more bitter than before.

  Beyond direct professional instruction, he did not know what to dowith the succession of pairs of young men, whose mission seemed tobe, to be plagued by their master consciously, and to plague himunconsciously. Once or twice Mr. Gibson had declined taking a freshpupil, in the hopes of shaking himself free from the incubus, but hisreputation as a clever surgeon had spread so rapidly that his feeswhich he had thought prohibitory, were willingly paid, in order thatthe young man might make a start in life, with the prestige of havingbeen a pupil of Gibson of Hollingford. But as Molly grew to be alittle girl instead of a child, when she was about eight years old,her father perceived the awkwardness of her having her breakfastsand dinners so often alone with the pupils, without his uncertainpresence. To do away with this evil, more than for the actualinstruction she could give, he engaged a respectable woman, thedaughter of a shopkeeper in the town, who had left a destitutefamily, to come every morning before breakfast, and to stay withMolly till he came home at night; or, if he was detained, until thechild's bed-time.

  "Now, Miss Eyre," said he, summing up his instructions the day beforeshe entered upon her office, "remember this: you are to make good teafor the young men, and see that they have their meals comfortably,and--you are five-and-thirty, I think you said?--try and make themtalk,--rationally, I am afraid is beyond your or anybody's power; butmake them talk without stammering or giggling. Don't teach Molly toomuch: she must sew, and read, and write, and do her sums; but I wantto keep her a child, and if I find more learning desirable for her,I'll see about giving it to her myself. After all, I'm not sure thatreading or writing is necessary. Many a good woman gets marriedwith only a cross instead of her name; it's rather a dilutingof mother-wit, to my fancy; but, however, we must yield to theprejudices of society, Miss Eyre, and so you may teach the child toread."

  Miss Eyre listened in silence, perplexed but determined to beobedient to the directions of the doctor, whose kindness she andher family had good cause to know. She made strong tea; she helpedthe young men liberally in Mr. Gibson's absence, as well as in hispresence, and she found the way to unloosen their tongues, whenevertheir master was away, by talking to them on trivial subjects in herpleasant homely way. She taught Molly to read and write, but triedhonestly to keep her back in every other branch of education. It wasonly by fighting and struggling hard, that bit by bit Molly persuadedher father to let her have French and drawing lessons. He was alwaysafraid of her becoming too much educated, though he need not havebeen alarmed; the masters who visited such small country towns asHollingford forty years ago, were no such great proficients in theirarts. Once a week she joined a dancing class in the assembly-roomat the principal inn in the town: the "George;" and, being dauntedby her father in every intellectual attempt, she read every bookthat came in her way, almost with as much delight as if it had beenforbidden. For his station in life, Mr. Gibson had an unusuallygood library; the medical portion of it was inaccessible to Molly,being kept in the surgery, but every other book she had either read,or tried to read. Her summer place of study was that seat in thecherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her frock, that havealready been mentioned as likely to wear Betty's life out. In spiteof this "hidden worm i' th' bud," Betty was to all appearance strong,alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook in Miss Eyre's lot,who was otherwise so happy in having met with a suitable well-paidemployment just when she needed it most. But Betty, though agreeingin theory with her master when he told her of the necessity of havinga governess for his little daughter, was vehemently opposed to anydivision of her authority and influence over the child who had beenher charge, her plague, and her delight ever since Mrs. Gibson'sdeath. She took up her position as censor of all Miss Eyre's sayingsand doings from the very first, and did not for a moment condescendto conceal her disapprobation. In her heart she could not helprespecting the patience and painstaking of the good lady,--fora "lady" Miss Eyre was in the best sense of the word, though inHollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper's daughter. Yet Bettybuzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of a gnat, always readyto find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre's only defence came from thequarter whence it might least have been expected--from her pupil; onwhose fancied behalf, as an oppressed little personage, Betty alwaysbased her attacks. But very early in the day Molly perceived theirinjustice, and soon afterwards she began to respect Miss Eyre for hersilent endurance of what evidently gave her far more pain than Bettyimagined. Mr. Gibson had been a friend in need to her family, so MissEyre restrained her complaints, sooner than annoy him. And she hadher reward. Betty would offer Molly all sorts of small temptations toneglect Miss Eyre's wishes; Molly steadily resisted, and plodded awayat her task of sewing or her difficult sum. Betty made cumbrous jokesat Miss Eyre's expense; Molly looked up with the utmost gravity, asif requesting the explanation of an unintelligible speech; and thereis nothing so quenching to a wag as to be asked to translate hisjest into plain matter-of-fact English, and to show wherein thepoint lies. Occasionally Betty lost her temper entirely, and spokeimpertinently to Miss Eyre; but when this had been done in Molly'spresence, the girl flew out into such a violent passion of wordsin defence of her silent trembling governess, that even Bettyherself was daunted, though she chose to take the child's anger asa good joke, and tried to persuade Miss Eyre herself to join in heramusement.

  "Bless the child! one 'ud think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and shea hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyesaflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened tolook near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in anasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when theyis learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, it's thylook-out, not mine. She's a little vixen, isn't she?" smiling atMiss Eyre, as she finished her speech. But the poor governess saw nohumour in the affair; the comparison of Molly to a hen-sparrow waslost upon her. She was sensitive and conscientious, and knew, fromhome experience, the evils of an ungovernable temper. So she began toreprove Molly for giving way to her passion, and the child thoughtit hard to be blamed for what she considered her just anger againstBetty. But, after all, these were the small grievances of a veryhappy childhood.