Wives and Daughters (30 page)

‘I’m sure I hope her course of true love will run smooth,’ said Miss Phoebe.

Now Mr. Gibson came in; for his story was not half told, and he did not want them to run away too far with the idea of Molly’s love-affair.

‘Molly knows nothing about it. I haven’t even named it to any one but you two; and to one other friend. I trounced Coxe well, and did my best to keep his attachment—as he calls it—in bounds. But I was sadly puzzled what to do about Molly. Miss Eyre was away, and I couldn’t leave them in the house together without any older woman.’

‘Oh, Mr. Gibson! why did you not send her to us?’ broke in Miss Browning. ‘We would have done anything in our power for you; for your sake, as well as her poor dear mother’s.’

‘Thank you. I know you would, but it wouldn’t have done to have had her in Hollingford, just at the time of Coxe’s effervescence. He’s better now. His appetite has come back with double force, after the fasting he thought it right to exhibit. He had three helpings of black-currant dumpling yesterday’

‘I am sure you are most liberal, Mr. Gibson. Three helpings! And, I dare say, butcher’s meat in proportion?’

‘Oh! I only named it because, with such very young men, it’s generally see-saw between appetite and love, and I thought the third helping a very good sign. But still, you know, what has happened once, may happen again.’

‘I don’t know. Phoebe had an offer of marriage once———’ said Miss Browning.

‘Hush! sister. It might hurt his feelings to have it spoken about.’

‘Nonsense, child! It’s five-and-twenty years ago; and his eldest daughter is married herself.’

‘I own he has not been constant,’ pleaded Miss Phoebe, in her tender, piping voice. ‘All men are not—like you, Mr. Gibson—faithful to the memory of their first-love.’

Mr. Gibson winced. Jeannie was his first love; but her name had never been breathed in Hollingford. His wife—good, pretty, sensible, and beloved as she had been—was not his second; no, nor his third love. And now he was come to make a confidence about his second marriage.

‘Well, well,’ said he; ‘at any rate, I thought I must do something to protect Molly from such affairs while she was so young, and before I had given my sanction. Miss Eyre’s little nephew fell ill of scarlet fever———’

‘Ah! by the by, how careless of me not to inquire. How is the poor little fellow?’

‘Worse—better. It doesn’t signify to what I’ve got to say now; the fact was, Miss Eyre couldn’t come back to my house for some time, and I cannot leave Molly altogether at Hamley.’

‘Ah! I see now why there was that sudden visit to Hamley. Upon my word, it’s quite a romance.’

‘I do like hearing of a love affair,’ murmured Miss Phoebe.

‘Then if you’ll let me get on with my story, you shall hear of mine,’ said Mr. Gibson, quite beyond his patience with their constant interruptions.

‘Yours!’ said Miss Phoebe, faintly.

‘Bless us and save us!’ said Miss Browning, with less sentiment in her tone; ‘what next?’

‘My marriage, I hope,’ said Mr. Gibson, choosing to take her expression of intense surprise literally ‘And that’s what I came to speak to you about.’

A little hope darted up in Miss Phoebe’s breast. She had often said to her sister, in the confidence of curling-time (ladies wore curls in those days), ‘that the only man who could ever bring her to think of matrimony was Mr. Gibson; but that if he ever proposed, she should feel bound to accept him, for poor dear Mary’s sake’; never explaining what exact style of satisfaction she imagined she should give to her dead friend by marrying her late husband. Phoebe played nervously with the strings of her black silk apron. Like the Caliph in the Eastern story, a whole lifetime of possibilities passed through her mind in an instant, of which possibilities the question of questions was, could she leave her sister? Attend, Phoebe, to the present moment, and listen to what is being said before you distress yourself with a perplexity which will never arise.

‘Of course it has been an anxious thing for me to decide who I should ask to be the mistress of my family, the mother of my girl; but I think I’ve decided rightly at last. The lady I have chosen———’

‘Tell us at once who she is, there’s a good man,’ said straightforward Miss Browning.

‘Mrs. Kirkpatrick,’ said the bridegroom-elect.

‘What! the governess at the Towers, that the countess makes so much of?’

‘Yes; she is much valued by them—and deservedly so. She keeps a school now at Ashcombe, and is accustomed to housekeeping. She has brought up the young ladies at the Towers, and has a daughter of her own, therefore it is probable she will have a kind, motherly feeling towards Molly.’

‘She’s a very elegant-looking woman,’ said Miss Phoebe, feeling it incumbent upon her to say something laudatory, by way of concealing the thoughts that had just been passing through her mind. ‘I’ve seen her in the carriage, riding backwards with the countess: a very pretty woman, I should say.’

‘Nonsense, sister,’ said Miss Browning. ‘What has her elegance or prettiness to do with the affair? Did you ever know a widower marry again for such trifles as those? It’s always from a sense of duty of one kind or another—isn’t it, Mr. Gibson? They want a housekeeper; or they want a mother for their children; or they think their last wife would have liked it.’

Perhaps the thought had passed through the elder sister’s mind that Phoebe might have been chosen, for there was a sharp acrimony in her tone; not unfamiliar to Mr. Gibson, but with which he did not choose to cope at this present moment.

‘You must have it your own way, Miss Browning. Settle my motives for me. I don’t pretend to be quite clear about them myself. But I am clear in wishing heartily to keep my old friends, and for them to love my future wife for my sake. I don’t know any two women in the world, except Molly and Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I regard as much as I do you. Besides, I want to ask you if you will let Molly come and stay with you till after my marriage?’

‘You might have asked us before you asked Madame Hamley,’ said Miss Browning, only half mollified. ‘We are your old friends; and we were her mother’s friends, too; though we are not county folk.’

‘That’s unjust,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘And you know it is.’

‘I don’t know. You are always with Lord Hollingford, when you can get at him, much more than you ever are with Mr. Goodenough, or Mr. Smith. And you are always going over to Hamley.’

Miss Browning was not one to give in all at once.

‘I seek Lord Hollingford as I should seek such a man, whatever his rank or position might be: usher to a school, carpenter, shoe-maker, if it were possible for them to have had a similar character of mind developed by similar advantages. Mr. Goodenough is a very clever attorney, with strong local interests and not a thought beyond.’

‘Well, well, don’t go on arguing, it always gives me a headache, as Phoebe knows. I didn’t mean what I said; that’s enough, isn’t it? I’ll retract anything sooner than be reasoned with. Where were we before you began your arguments?’

‘About dear little Molly coming to pay us a visit,’ said Miss Phoebe.

‘I should have asked you at first, only Coxe was so rampant with his love. I didn’t know what he might do, or how troublesome he might be both to Molly and you. But he has cooled down now. Absence has had a very tranquillizing effect, and I think Molly may be in the same town with him without any consequences beyond a few sighs every time she’s brought to his mind by meeting her. And I’ve got another favour to ask of you, so you see it would never do for me to argue with you, Miss Browning, when I ought to be a humble suppliant. Something must be done to the house to make it all ready for the future Mrs. Gibson. It wants painting and papering shamefully, and I should think some new furniture, but I’m sure I don’t know what. Would you be so very kind as to look over the place, and see how far a hundred pounds will go? The dining-room walls must be painted; we’ll keep the drawing-room paper for her choice, and I’ve a little spare money for that room for her to lay out; but all the rest of the house I’ll leave to you, if you’ll only be kind enough to help an old friend.’

This was a commission which exactly gratified Miss Browning’s love of power. The disposal of money involved patronage of tradespeople, such as she had exercised in her father’s lifetime, but had very little chance of showing since his death. Her usual good humour was quite restored by this proof of confidence in her taste and economy, while Miss Phoebe’s imagination dwelt rather on the pleasure of a visit from Molly.

T
ime was speeding on; it was now the middle of August,—if anything was to be done to the house, it must be done at once. Indeed, in several ways Mr. Gibson’s arrangements with Miss Browning had not been made too soon. The squire had heard that Osborne might probably return home for a few days before going abroad; and, though the growing intimacy between Roger and Molly did not alarm him in the least, yet he was possessed by a very hearty panic lest the heir might take a fancy to the surgeon’s daughter; and he was in such a fidget for her to leave the house before Osborne came home, that his wife lived in constant terror lest he should make it too obvious to their visitor.

Every young girl of seventeen or so, who is at all thoughtful, is very apt to make a Pope out of the first person who presents to her a new or larger system of duty than that by which she has been unconsciously guided hitherto. Such a Pope was Roger to Molly; she looked to his opinion, to his authority on almost every subject, yet he had only said one or two things in a terse manner which gave them the force of precepts—stable guides to her conduct—and had shown the natural superiority in wisdom and knowledge which is sure to exist between a highly educated young man of no common intelligence and an ignorant girl of seventeen, who yet was well capable of appreciation. Still, although they were drawn together in this very pleasant relationship, each was imagining some one very different for the future owner of their whole heart—their highest and completest love. Roger looked to find a grand woman, his equal, and his empress; beautiful in person, serene in wisdom, ready for counsel, as was Egeria. Molly’s little wavering maiden fancy dwelt on the unseen Osborne, who was now a troubadour, and now a knight, such as he wrote about in one of his own poems; some one like Osborne, perhaps, rather than Osborne himself, for she shrank from giving a personal form and name to the hero that was to be. The squire was not unwise in wishing her well out of the house before Osborne came home, if he was considering her peace of mind. Yet, when she went away from the Hall he missed her constantly; it had been so pleasant to have her there fulfilling all the pretty offices of a daughter; cheering the meals, so often tête-à-tête betwixt him and Roger, with her innocent wise questions, her lively interest in their talk, her merry replies to his banter.

And Roger missed her too. Sometimes her remarks had probed into his mind, and excited him to the deep thought in which he delighted; at other times he had felt himself a real help to her in her hours of need, and in making her take an interest in books which treated of higher things than the continual fiction and poetry which she had hitherto read. He felt something like an affectionate tutor suddenly deprived of his most promising pupil; he wondered how she would go on without him; whether she would be puzzled and disheartened by the books he had lent her to read; how she and her stepmother would get along together? She occupied his thoughts a good deal those first few days after she left the hall. Mrs. Hamley regretted her more and longer than did the other two. She had given her the place of a daughter in her heart; and now she missed the sweet feminine companionship, the playful caresses, the never-ceasing attentions; the very need of sympathy in her sorrows, that Molly had shown so openly from time to time; all these things had extremely endeared her to the tender-hearted Mrs. Hamley.

Molly, too, felt the change of atmosphere keenly; and she blamed herself for so feeling even more keenly still. But she could not help having a sense of refinement, which had made her appreciate the whole manner of being at the Hall. By her dear old friends the Miss Brownings she was petted and caressed so much that she became ashamed of noticing the coarser and louder tones in which they spoke, the provincialism of their pronunciation, the absence of interest in things, and their greediness of details about persons. They asked her questions which she was puzzled enough to answer about her future stepmother; her loyalty to her father forbidding her to reply fully and truthfully. She was always glad when they began to make inquiries as to every possible affair at the Hall. She had been so happy there; she had liked them all, down to the very dogs, so thoroughly that it was easy work replying: she did not mind telling them everything, even to the style of Mrs. Hamley’s invalid dress; nor what wine the squire drank at dinner. Indeed, talking about these things helped her to recall the happiest time in her life. But one evening, as they were all sitting together after tea in the little upstairs drawing-room, looking into the High Street—Molly discoursing away on the various pleasures of Hamley Hall, and just then telling of all Roger’s wisdom in natural science, and some of the curiosities he had shown her, she was suddenly pulled up by this little speech,—

‘You seem to have seen a great deal of Mr. Roger, Molly!’ said Miss Browning, in a way intended to convey a great deal of meaning to her sister and none at all to Molly. But—

Molly was perfectly aware of Miss Browning’s emphatic tone, though at first she was perplexed as to its cause; while Miss Phoebe was just then too much absorbed in knitting the heel of her stocking to be fully alive to her sister’s words and winks.

‘Yes; he was very kind to me,’ said Molly, slowly, pondering over Miss Browning’s manner, and unwilling to say more until she had satisfied herself to what the question tended.