‘I wish I might never hear of her again. I do. She’s been the bane of my Roger, that’s what she has. I have not slept half the night, and it’s all her fault. Why, there’s my boy saying now that he has no heart for ever marrying, poor lad! I wish it had been you, Molly, my lads had taken a fancy for. I told Roger so t’other day, and I said that for all you were beneath what I ever thought to see them marry, — well — it’s of no use — it’s too late, now, as he said. Only never let me hear that baggage’s name again, that’s all. And no offence to you, either, lassie. I know you love the wench; but if you’ll take an old man’s word, you’re worth a score of her. I wish young men would think so too,’ he muttered as he went to the side-table to carve the ham, while Molly poured out the tea — her heart very hot all the time, and effectually silenced for a space. It was with the greatest difficulty that she could keep tears of mortification from falling. She felt altogether in a wrong position in that house, which had been like a home to her until this last visit. What with Mrs. Goodenough’s remarks, and now this speech of the squire’s, implying — at least to her susceptible imagination — that his father had proposed her as a wife to Roger, and that she had been rejected, she was more glad than she could express, or even think, that she was going home this very morning. Roger came in from his walk while she was in this state of feeling. He saw in an instant that something had distressed Molly; and he longed to have the old friendly right of asking her what it was. But she had effectually kept him at too great a distance during the last few days for him to feel at liberty to speak to her in the old straightforward brotherly way; especially now, when he perceived her efforts to conceal her feelings, and the way in which she drank her tea in feverish haste, and accepted bread only to crumble it about her plate, untouched. It was all that he could do to make talk under these circumstances; but he backed up her efforts as well as he could until Aimee came down, grave and anxious; her boy had not had a good night, and did not seem well; he had fallen into a feverish sleep now, or she could not have left him. Immediately the whole table was in a ferment. The squire pushed away his plate, and could eat no more; Roger was trying to extract a detail or a fact out of Aimee, who began to give way to tears. Molly quickly proposed that the carriage, which had been ordered to take her home at eleven, should come round immediately — she had everything ready packed up, she said, — and bring back her father at once. By leaving directly, she said it was probable they might catch him after he had returned from his morning visits in the town, and before he had set off on his more distant round. Her proposal was agreed to, and she went upstairs to put on her things. She came down all ready into the drawing-room, expecting to find Aimee and the squire there; but during her absence word had been brought to the anxious mother and grandfather that the child had wakened up in a panic, and both had rushed up to their darling. But Roger was in the drawing-room awaiting Molly, with a large bunch of the choicest flowers.
‘Look, Molly!’ said he, as she was on the point of leaving the room again, on finding him there alone. ‘I gathered these flowers for you before breakfast.’ He came to meet her reluctant advance.
‘Thank you!’ said she. ‘You are very kind. I am very much obliged to you.’
‘Then you must do something for me,’ said he, determined not to notice the restraint of her manner, and making the rearrangement of the flowers which she held a sort of link between them, so that she could not follow her impulse, and leave the room. — ’Tell me, — honestly as I know you will if you speak at all, — have not I done something to vex you since we were so happy at the Towers together?’
His voice was so kind and true, — his manner so winning yet wistful, that Molly would have been thankful to tell him all; she believed that he could have helped her more than any one to understand how she ought to behave rightly; he would have disentangled her fancies, — if only he himself had not lain at the very core and centre of all her perplexity and dismay. How could she tell him of Mrs. Goodenough’s words troubling her maiden modesty? How could she ever repeat what his father had said that morning, and assure him that she, no more than he, wished that their old friendliness should be troubled by the thought of a nearer relationship?
‘No, you never vexed me in my whole life, Roger,’ said she, looking straight at him for the first time for many days.
‘I believe you, because you say so. I have no right to ask further. Molly, will you give me back one of those flowers, as a pledge of what you have said?’
‘Take whichever you like,’ said she, eagerly offering him the whole nosegay to choose from.
‘No; you must choose, and you must give it me.’
Just then the squire came in. Roger would have been glad if Molly had not gone on so eagerly to ransack the bunch for the choicest flower in his father’s presence; but she exclaimed, —
‘Oh, please, Mr. Hamley, do you know which is Roger’s favourite flower?’
‘No. A rose, I daresay. The carriage is at the door, and, Molly my dear, I don’t want to hurry you, but — ’
‘I know. Here, Roger, — here is a rose!
(‘And red as a rose was she.’)
I will find papa as soon as ever I get home. How is the little boy?’
‘I’m afraid he’s beginning of some kind of a fever.’
And the squire took her to the carriage, talking all the way of the little boy; Roger following, and hardly heeding what he was doing in the answer to the question he kept asking himself: ‘Too late — or not? Can she ever forget that my first foolish love was given to one so different?’
While she, as the carriage rolled away, kept saying to herself, — ’We are friends again. I don’t believe he will remember what the dear squire took it into his head to suggest, for many days. It is so pleasant to be on the old terms again; and what lovely flowers!’
CHAPTER LX
ROGER HAMLEY’S CONFESSION
Roger had a great deal to think of as he turned away from looking after the carriage as long as it could be seen. The day before, he had believed that Molly had come to view all the symptoms of his growing love for her, — symptoms which he thought had been so patent, — as disgusting inconstancy to the inconstant Cynthia; that she had felt that an attachment which could be so soon transferred to another was not worth having; and that she had desired to mark all this by her changed treatment of him, and so to nip it in the bud. But this morning her old sweet, frank manner had returned — in their last interview, at any rate. He puzzled himself hard to find out what could have distressed her at breakfast-time. He even went so far as to ask Robinson whether Miss Gibson had received any letters that morning; and when he heard that she had had one, he tried to believe that the letter was in some way the cause of her sorrow. So far so good. They were friends again after their unspoken difference; but that was not enough for Roger. He felt every day more and more certain that she, and she alone, could make him happy. He had felt this, and had partly given up all hope, while his father had been urging upon him the very course he most desired to take. No need for ‘trying’ to love her, he said to himself, — that was already done. And yet he was very jealous on her behalf. Was that love worthy of her which had once been given to Cynthia? Was not this affair too much a mocking mimicry of the last? Again just on the point of leaving England for a considerable time! If he followed her now to her own home, — in the very drawing-room where he had once offered to Cynthia! And then by a strong resolve he determined on this course. They were friends now, and he kissed the rose that was her pledge of friendship. If he went to Africa, he ran some deadly chances; he knew better what they were now than he had done when he went before. Until his return he would not even attempt to win more of her love than he already had. But once safe home again, no weak fancies as to what might or might not be her answer should prevent his running all chances to gain the woman who was to him the one who excelled all. His was not the poor vanity that thinks more of the possible mortification of a refusal than of the
precious jewel of a bride that may be won. Somehow or another, please God to send him back safe, he would put his fate to the touch. And till then he would be patient. He was no longer a boy to rush at the coveted object; he was a man capable of judging and abiding.
Molly sent her father, as soon as she could find him, to the Hall; and then sate down to the old life in the home drawing-room, where she missed Cynthia’s bright presence at every turn. Mrs. Gibson was in rather a querulous mood, which fastened itself upon the injury of Cynthia’s letter being addressed to Molly, and not to herself.
‘Considering all the trouble I had with her trousseau, I think she might have written to me.’
‘But she did — her first letter was to you, mamma,’ said Molly, her real thoughts still intent upon the Hall — upon the sick child — upon Roger, and his begging for the flower.
‘Yes, just a first letter, three pages long, with an account of her crossing; while to you she can write about fashions, and how the bonnets are worn in Paris, and all sorts of interesting things. But poor mothers must never expect confidential letters, I have found that out.’
‘You may see my letter, mamma,’ said Molly, ‘there is really nothing in it.’
‘And to think of her writing, and crossing to you who don’t value it, while my poor heart is yearning after my lost child! Really life is somewhat hard to bear at times.’
Then there was a silence — for a while.
‘Do tell me something about your visit, Molly. Is Roger very heartbroken? Does he talk much about Cynthia?’
‘No. He does not mention her often; hardly ever, I think.’
‘I never thought he had much feeling. If he had had, he would not have let her go so easily.’
‘I don’t see how he could help it. When he came to see her after his return, she was already engaged to Mr. Henderson — he had come down that very day,’ said Molly, with perhaps more heat than the occasion required.
‘My poor head!’ said Mrs. Gibson, putting her hands up to her head. ‘One may see you’ve been stopping with people of robust health, and — excuse my saying it, Molly, of your friends — of unrefined habits, you’ve got to talk in so loud a voice. But do remember my head, Molly. So Roger has quite forgotten Cynthia, has he? Oh! what inconstant creatures men are! He will be falling in love with some grandee next, mark my words! They are making a pet and a lion of him, and he’s just the kind of weak young man to have his head turned by it all; and to propose to some fine lady of rank, who would no more think of marrying him than of marrying her footman.’
‘I don’t think it is likely,’ said Molly, stoutly. ‘Roger is too sensible for anything of the kind.’
‘That’s just the fault I always found with him; sensible and cold- hearted! Now, that’s a kind of character which may be very valuable, but which revolts me. Give me warmth of heart, even with a little of that extravagance of feeling which misleads the judgment, and conducts into romance. Poor Mr. Kirkpatrick! That was just his character. I used to tell him that his love for me was quite romantic. I think I have told you about his walking five miles in the rain to get me a muffin once when I was ill?’
‘Yes!’ said Molly. ‘It was very kind of him.’
‘So imprudent, too! Just what one of your sensible, cold-hearted, commonplace people would never have thought of doing. With his cough and all.’
‘I hope he didn’t suffer for it?’ replied Molly, anxious at any cost to keep off the subject of the Hamleys, upon which she and her stepmother always disagreed, and on which she found it difficult to keep her temper.
‘Yes, indeed, he did! I don’t think he ever got over the cold he caught that day. I wish you had known him, Molly. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if you had been my real daughter, and Cynthia dear papa’s, and Mr. Kirkpatrick and your own dear mother had all lived. People talk a good deal about natural affinities. It would have been a question for a philosopher.’ She began to think on the impossibilities she had suggested.
‘I wonder how the poor little boy is?’ said Molly, after a pause, speaking out her thoughts.
‘Poor little child! When one thinks how little his prolonged existence is to be desired, one feels that his death would be a boon.’
‘Mamma! what do you mean?’ asked Molly, much shocked. ‘Why every one cares for his life as the most precious thing! You have never seen him! He is the bonniest, sweetest little fellow that can be! What do you mean?’
‘I should have thought that the squire would have desired a better-born heir than the offspring of a servant, — with all his ideas about descent, and blood, and family. And I should have thought that it was a little mortifying to Roger — who must naturally have looked upon himself as his brother’s heir — to find a little interloping child, half French, half English, stepping into his shoes!’
‘You don’t know how fond they are of him, — the squire looks upon him as the apple of his eye.’
‘Molly! Molly! pray don’t let me hear you using such vulgar expressions. When shall I teach you true refinement — that refinement which consists in never even thinking a vulgar, commonplace thing? Proverbs and idioms are never used by people of education. “Apple of his eye!” I am really shocked.’
‘Well, mamma, I’m very sorry; but after all, what I wanted to say as strongly as I could was, that the squire loves the little boy as much as his own child; and that Roger — oh! what a shame to think that Roger — ’ And she stopped suddenly short, as if she were choked.
‘I don’t wonder at your indignation, my dear!’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘It is just what I should have felt at your age. But one learns the baseness of human nature with advancing years. I was wrong, though, to undeceive you so early — but depend upon it, the thought I alluded to has crossed Roger Hamley’s mind!’
‘All sorts of thoughts cross one’s mind — it depends upon whether one gives them harbour and encouragement,’ said Molly.
‘My dear, if you must have the last word, don’t let it be a truism. But let us talk on some more interesting subject. I asked Cynthia to buy me a silk gown in Paris, and I said I would send her word what colour I fixed upon — I think dark blue is the most becoming to my complexion; what do you say?’
Molly agreed, sooner than take the trouble of thinking about the thing at all; she was far too full of her silent review of all the traits in Roger’s character which had lately come under her notice, and that gave the lie direct to her stepmother’s supposition. Just then they heard Mr. Gibson’s step downstairs. But it was some time before he made his entrance into the room where they were sitting.
‘How is little Roger?’ said Molly, eagerly.
‘Beginning with scarlet fever, I’m afraid. It’s well you left when you did, Molly. You’ve never had it. We must stop up all intercourse with the Hall for a time. If there’s one illness I dread, it is this.’
‘But you go and come back to us, papa.’
‘Yes. But I always take plenty of precautions. However, no need to talk about risks that lie in the way of one’s duty. It is unnecessary risks that we must avoid.’
‘Will he have it badly?’ asked Molly.
‘I can’t tell. I shall do my best for the wee laddie.’
Whenever Mr. Gibson’s feelings were touched, he was apt to recur to the language of his youth. Molly knew now that he was much interested in the case.
For some days there was imminent danger to the little boy; for some weeks there was a more chronic form of illness to contend with; but when the immediate danger was over and the warm daily interest was past, Molly began to realize that, from the strict quarantine her father evidently thought it necessary to establish between the two houses, she was not likely to see Roger again before his departure for Africa. Oh! if she had but made more of the uncared-for days that she had passed with him at the Hall! Worse than uncared for; days on which she had avoided him; refused to converse freely with him; given him pain by her change of manner; for she had read in his eyes, heard in his
voice, that he had been perplexed and pained, and now her imagination dwelt on and exaggerated the expression of his tones and looks.
One evening after dinner, her father said, —
‘As the country-people say, I’ve done a stroke of work to-day. Roger Hamley and I have laid our heads together, and we have made a plan by which Mrs. Osborne and her boy will leave the Hall.’
‘What did I say the other day, Molly?’ said Mrs. Gibson, interrupting, and giving Molly a look of extreme intelligence.
‘And go into lodgings at Jennings’ farm; not four hundred yards from the Park-field gate,’ continued Mr. Gibson. ‘The squire and his daughter-in-law have got to be much better friends over the little fellow’s sick-bed; and I think he sees now how impossible it would be for the mother to leave her child, and go and be happy in France, which has been the notion running in his head all this time. To buy her off, in fact. But that one night, when I was very uncertain whether I could bring him through, they took to crying together, and condoling with each other; and it was just like tearing down a curtain that had been between them; they have been rather friends than otherwise ever since. Still Roger’ — (Molly’s cheeks grew warm and her eyes soft and bright; it was such a pleasure to hear his name) — ’and I both agree that his mother knows much better how to manage the boy than his grandfather does. I suppose that was the one good thing she got from that hardhearted mistress of hers. She certainly has been well trained in the management of children. And it makes her impatient, and annoyed, and unhappy, when she sees the squire giving the child nuts and ale, and all sorts of silly indulgences, and spoiling him in every possible way. Yet she’s a coward, and doesn’t speak out her mind. Now by being in lodgings, and having her own servants — nice pretty rooms they are, too; we went to see them, and Mrs. Jennings promises to attend well to Mrs Osborne Hamley, and is very much honoured, and all that sort of thing — not ten minutes’ walk from the Hall, too, so that she and the little chap may easily go backwards and forwards as often as they like, and yet she may keep the control over her child’s discipline and diet. In short, I think I’ve done a good day’s work,’ he continued, stretching himself a little; and then with a shake rousing himself, and making ready to go out again; to see a patient who had sent for him in his absence.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 302
