Wives and Daughters (32 page)

‘I was afraid a young lady like you might perceive all the incongruities of a bachelor’s home. I am very much obliged to you, Miss Gibson. In general I live pretty much in the room in which we shall dine; and I have a sort of agent’s office in which I keep books and papers, and receive callers on business.’

Then they went in to dinner. Molly thought everything that was served was delicious, and cooked to the point of perfection; but they did not seem to satisfy Mr. Preston, who apologized to his guests several times for the bad cooking of this dish, or the omission of a particular sauce to that; always referring to bachelor’s housekeeping, bachelor’s this and bachelor’s that, till Molly grew quite impatient at the word. Her father’s depression, which was still continuing and rendering him very silent, made her uneasy; yet she wished to conceal it from Mr. Preston; and so she talked away, trying to obviate the sort of personal bearing which their host would give to everything. She did not know when to leave the gentlemen, but her father made a sign to her; and she was conducted back to the yellow drawing-room by Mr. Preston, who made many apologies for leaving her there alone. She enjoyed herself extremely, however, feeling at liberty to prowl about, and examine all the curiosities the room contained. Among other things was a Louis Quinze cabinet with lovely miniatures in enamel let into the fine woodwork. She carried a candle to it, and was looking intently at these faces when her father and Mr. Preston came in. Her father still looked careworn and anxious; he came up and patted her on the back, looked at what she was looking at, and then went off to silence and the fire. Mr. Preston took the candle out of her hand, and threw himself into her interests with an air of ready gallantry.

‘That is said to be Mademoiselle de St. Quentin, a great beauty at the French court. This is Madame du Barri. Do you see any likeness in Mademoiselle de St. Quentin to any one you know?’ He had lowered his voice a little as he asked this question.

‘No!’ said Molly, looking at it again. ‘I never saw any one half so beautiful.’

‘But don’t you see a likeness—in the eyes particularly?’ he asked again, with some impatience.

Molly tried hard to find out a resemblance, and was again unsuccessful.

‘It constantly reminds me of—of Miss Kirkpatrick.’

‘Does it?’ said Molly, eagerly. ‘Oh! I am so glad—I’ve never seen her, so of course I couldn’t find out the likeness. You know her, then, do you? Please tell me all about her.’

He hesitated a moment before speaking. He smiled a little before replying.

‘She’s very beautiful; that of course is understood when I say that this miniature does not come up to her for beauty.’

‘And besides?—Go on, please.’

‘What do you mean by “besides”?’

‘Oh! I suppose she’s very clever and accomplished?’

That was not in the least what Molly wanted to ask; but it was difficult to word the vague vastness of her unspoken inquiry.

‘She is clever naturally; she has picked up accomplishments. But she has such a charm about her, one forgets what she herself is in the halo that surrounds her. You ask me all this, Miss Gibson, and I answer truthfully; or else I should not entertain one young lady with my enthusiastic praises of another.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Molly. ‘Besides, if you wouldn’t do it in general, I think you ought to do it in my case; for you, perhaps, don’t know, but she is coming to live with us when she leaves school, and we are very nearly the same age; so it will be almost like having a sister.’

‘She is to live with you, is she?’ said Mr. Preston, to whom this intelligence was news. ‘And when is she to leave school? I thought she would surely have been at this wedding; but I was told she was not to come. When is she to leave school?’

‘I think it is to be at Easter. You know she’s at Boulogne and it’s a long journey for her to come alone; or else papa wished for her to be at the marriage very much indeed.’

‘And her mother prevented it?—I understand.’

‘No, it wasn’t her mother; it was the French schoolmistress who didn’t think it desirable.’

‘It comes to pretty much the same thing. And she’s to return and live with you after Easter?’

‘I believe so. Is she a grave or a merry person?’

‘Never very grave, as far as I have seen of her. Sparkling would be the word for her, I think. Do you ever write to her? If you do, pray remember me to her, and tell her how we have been talking about her—you and I.’

‘I never write to her,’ said Molly, rather shortly.

Tea came in; and after that they all went to bed. Molly heard her father exclaim at the fire in his bedroom, and Mr. Preston’s reply—

‘I pique myself on my keen relish for all creature comforts, and also on my power of doing without them, if need be. My lord’s woods are ample, and I indulge myself with a fire in my bedroom for nine months in the year; yet I could travel in Iceland without wincing from the cold.’

T
he wedding went off much as such affairs do. Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet drove over from the Towers, so the hour for the ceremony was as late as possible. Lord Cumnor came over to officiate as the bride’s father, and was in more open glee than either bride or bridegroom, or any one else. Lady Harriet came as a sort of amateur bridesmaid, ‘to share Molly’s duties,’ as she called it. They went from the Manor-house in two carriages to the church in the park, Mr. Preston and Mr. Gibson in one, and Molly, to her dismay, shut up with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet in the other. Lady Harriet’s gown of white muslin had seen one or two garden-parties and was not in the freshest order; it had been rather a freak of the young lady’s at the last moment. She was very merry, and very much inclined to talk to Molly, by way of finding out what sort of a little personage Clare was to have for her future daughter. She began:

‘We mustn’t crush this pretty muslin dress of yours. Put it over papa’s knee; he doesn’t mind it in the least.’

‘What, my dear, a white dress!—no, to be sure not. I rather like it. Besides, going to a wedding, who minds anything? It would be different if we were going to a funeral.’

Molly conscientiously strove to find out the meaning of this speech; but before she had done so, Lady Harriet spoke again, going to the point, as she always piqued herself on doing:

‘I dare say it’s something of a trial to you, this second marriage of your father’s; but you’ll find Clare the most amiable of women. She always let me have my own way, and I’ve no doubt she’ll let you have yours.’

‘I mean to try and like her,’ said Molly, in a low voice, trying hard to keep down the tears that would keep rising to her eyes this morning. ‘I’ve seen very little of her yet.’

‘Why, it’s the very best thing for you that could have happened, my dear,’ said Lord Cumnor. ‘You’re growing up into a young lady—and a very pretty young lady, too, if you’ll allow an old man to say so—and who so proper as your father’s wife to bring you out,
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and show you off, and take you to balls, and that kind of thing? I always said this match that is going to come off to-day was the most suitable thing I ever knew; and it’s even a better thing for you than for the people themselves.’

‘Poor child!’ said Lady Harriet, who had caught a sight of Molly’s troubled face, ‘the thought of balls is too much for her just now; but you’ll like having Cynthia Kirkpatrick for a companion, shan’t you, dear?’

‘Very much,’ said Molly, cheering up a little. ‘Do you know her?’

‘Oh, I’ve seen her over and over again when she was a little girl, and once or twice since. She’s the prettiest creature that you ever saw; and with eyes that mean mischief, if I’m not mistaken. But Clare kept her spirit under pretty well when she was staying with us,—afraid of her being troublesome, I fancy.’

Before Molly could shape her next question, they were at the church; and she and Lady Harriet went into a pew near the door to wait for the bride, in whose train they were to proceed to the altar. The earl drove on alone to fetch her from her own house, not a quarter of a mile distant. It was pleasant to her to be led to the hymeneal altar by a belted earl, and pleasant to have his daughter as a volunteer bridesmaid. Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in this flush of small gratifications, and on the brink of matrimony with a man whom she liked, and who would be bound to support her without any exertion of her own, looked beamingly happy and handsome. A little cloud came over her face at the sight of Mr. Preston,—the sweet perpetuity of her smile was rather disturbed as he followed in Mr. Gibson’s wake. But his face never changed; he bowed to her gravely, and then seemed absorbed in the service. Ten minutes and all was over. The bride and bridegroom were driving together to the Manor-house, Mr. Preston was walking thither by a short cut, and Molly was again in the carriage with my lord, rubbing his hands and chuckling, and Lady Harriet, trying to be kind and consolatory, when her silence would have been the best comfort.

Molly found out to her dismay, that the plan was for her to return with Lord Cumnor and Lady Harriet when they went back to the Towers in the evening. In the meantime Lord Cumnor had business to do with Mr. Preston, and after the happy couple had driven off on their week’s holiday tour, she was to be left alone with the formidable Lady Harriet. When they were by themselves after all the others had been thus disposed of, Lady Harriet sat still over the drawing-room fire, holding a screen between it and her face, but gazing intently at Molly for a minute or two. Molly was fully conscious of this prolonged look, and was trying to get up her courage to return the stare, when Lady Harriet suddenly said,—

‘I like you;—you are a little wild creature, and I want to tame you. Come here, and sit on this stool by me. What is your name? or what do they call you?—as North-country people would express it.’

‘Molly Gibson. My real name is Mary.’

‘Molly is a nice, soft-sounding name. People in the last century weren’t afraid of homely names; now we are all so smart and fine: no more “Lady Bettys” now. I almost wonder they haven’t re-christened all the worsted and knitting-cotton that bears her name. Fancy Lady Constantia’s cotton, or Lady Anna-Maria’s worsted.’

‘I didn’t know there was a Lady Betty’s cotton,’ said Molly.

‘That proves you don’t do fancy-work! You’ll find Clare will set you to it, though. She used to set me at piece after piece: knights kneeling to ladies; impossible flowers. But I must do her the justice to add that when I got tired of them she finished them herself I wonder how you’ll get on together?’

‘So do I!’ sighed out Molly, under her breath.

‘I used to think I managed her, till one day an uncomfortable suspicion arose that all the time she had been managing me. Still, it’s easy work to let oneself be managed; at any rate till one wakens up to the consciousness of the process, and then it may become amusing, if one takes it in that light.’

‘I should hate to be managed,’ said Molly, indignantly. ‘I’ll try and do what she wishes for papa’s sake, if she’ll only tell me outright; but I should dislike to be trapped into anything.’

‘Now I,’ said Lady Harriet, ‘am too lazy to avoid traps; and I rather like to remark the cleverness with which they’re set. But then, of course, I know that if I choose to exert myself, I can break through the withes of green flax
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with which they try to bind me. Now, perhaps, you won’t be able.’

‘I don’t quite understand what you mean,’ said Molly.

‘Oh, well—never mind; I dare say it’s as well for you that you shouldn’t. The moral of all I have been saying is, “Be a good girl, and suffer yourself to be led, and you’ll find your new stepmother the sweetest creature imaginable.”You’ll get on capitally with her, I make no doubt. How you’ll get on with her daughter is another affair; but I dare say very well. Now we’ll ring for tea; for I suppose that heavy breakfast is to stand for our lunch.’

Mr. Preston came into the room just at this time, and Molly was a little surprised at Lady Harriet’s cool manner of dismissing him, remembering as she did how Mr. Preston had implied his intimacy with her ladyship the evening before at dinner-time.

‘I cannot bear that sort of person,’ said Lady Harriet, almost before he was out of hearing; ‘giving himself airs of gallantry towards one to whom his simple respect is all his duty. I can talk to one of my father’s labourers with pleasure, while with a man like that underbred fop I am all over thorns and nettles. What is it the Irish call that style of creature? They’ve some capital word for it, I know. What is it?’

‘I don’t know—I never heard it,’ said Molly, a little ashamed of her ignorance.

‘Oh! that shows you’ve never read Miss Edgeworth’s
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tales;—now, have you? If you had, you’d have recollected there was such a word, even if you didn’t remember what it was. If you’ve never read those stories, they would be just the thing to beguile your solitude—vastly improving and moral, and yet quite sufficiently interesting. I’ll lend them to you while you’re all alone.’

‘I’m not alone. I’m not at home, but on a visit to the Miss Brownings.’

‘Then I’ll bring them to you. I know the Miss Brownings; they used to come regularly on the schoolday to the Towers. Pecksy and Flapsy I used to call them. I like the Miss Brownings; one gets enough of respect from them at any rate; and I’ve always wanted to see the kind of ménage of such people. I’ll bring you a whole pile of Miss Edgeworth’s stories, my dear.’

Molly sat quite silent for a minute or two; then she mustered up courage to speak out what was in her mind.

‘Your ladyship’ (the title was the first-fruits of the lesson, as Molly took it, on paying due respect)—‘your ladyship keeps speaking of the sort of—the class of people to which I belong as if it was a kind of strange animal you were talking about; yet you talk so openly to me that———’