Wives and Daughters (63 page)

‘Thank you,’ said Molly: and she left Mrs. Gibson in careless uncertainty as to whether her offer would be accepted or not.

Lady Harriet was sorry to miss Molly, as she was fond of the girl; but as she perfectly agreed with Mrs. Gibson’s truism about ‘constancy’ and ‘old friends,’ she saw no occasion for saying any more about the affair, but sat down in a little low chair with her feet on the fender. This said fender was made of bright, bright steel, and was strictly tabooed to all household and plebeian feet; indeed the position if they assumed it, was considered low-bred and vulgar.

‘That’s right, dear Lady Harriet! you can’t think what a pleasure it is to me to welcome you at my own fireside, into my humble home.’

‘Humble! now, Clare, that’s a little bit of nonsense, begging your pardon. I don’t call this pretty little drawing-room a bit of a “humble home.” It is as full of comforts, and of pretty things too, as any room of its size can be.’

‘Ah! how small you must feel it! even I had to reconcile myself to it at first.’

‘Well! perhaps your schoolroom was larger, but remember how bare it was, how empty of anything but deal tables, and forms, and mats. Oh, indeed, Clare, I quite agree with mamma, who always says you have done very well for yourself; and Mr. Gibson too! What an agreeable, well-informed man!’

‘Yes, he is,’ said his wife, slowly, as if she did not like to relinquish her role of a victim to circumstances quite immediately. ‘He is very agreeable, very; only we see so little of him; and of course he comes home tired and hungry, and not inclined to talk to his own family, and apt to go to sleep.’

‘Come, come!’ said Lady Harriet, ‘I’m going to have my turn now. We’ve had the complaint of a doctor’s wife, now hear the moans of a peer’s daughter. Our house is so overrun with visitors; and literally to-day I have come to you for a little solitude.’

‘Solitude!’ exclaimed Mrs. Gibson. ‘Would you rather be alone?’ slightly aggrieved.

‘No, you dear silly woman; my solitude requires a listener, to whom I may say, “how sweet is solitude.” But I am tired of the responsibility of entertaining. Papa is so openhearted, he asks every friend he meets with to come and pay us a visit. Mamma is really a great invalid, but she does not choose to give up her reputation for good health, having always considered illness a want of self-control. So she gets wearied and worried by a crowd of people who are all of them open-mouthed for amusement of some kind; just like a brood of fledglings in a nest; so I have to be parent-bird, and pop morsels into their yellow leathery bills, to find them swallowed down before I can think of where to find the next. Oh, it’s “entertaining” in the largest, literalest, most dreariest sense of the word. So I have told a few lies this morning, and come off here for quietness and the comfort of complaining!’

Lady Harriet threw herself back in her chair, and yawned; Mrs. Gibson took one of her ladyship’s hands in a soft sympathizing manner, and murmured,—

‘Poor Lady Harriet!’ and then she purred affectionately.

After a pause Lady Harriet started up and said—‘I used to take you as my arbiter of morals when I was a little girl. Tell me, do you think it wrong to tell lies?’

‘Oh, my dear! how can you ask such questions?—of course it is, very wrong,—very wicked indeed, I think I may say. But I know you were only joking when you said you had told lies.’

‘No, indeed, I wasn’t. I told as plump, fat lies as you would wish to hear. I said I “was obliged to go into Hollingford on business,” when the truth was there was no obligation in the matter, only an insupportable desire of being free from my visitors for an hour or two, and my only business was to come here, and yawn, and complain, and lounge at my leisure. I really think I’m unhappy at having told a story, as children express it.’

‘But, my dear Lady Harriet,’ said Mrs. Gibson, a little puzzled as to the exact meaning of the words that were trembling on her tongue, ‘I am sure you thought that you meant what you said when you said it.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ put in Lady Harriet.

‘And besides, if you didn’t, it was the fault of the tiresome people who drove you into such straits—yes, it was certainly their fault, not yours—and then you know the conventions of society—ah, what trammels they are!’

Lady Harriet was silent for a minute or two; then she said,—‘Tell me, Clare; you’ve told lies sometimes, haven’t you?’

‘Lady Harriet! I think you might have known me better; but I know you don’t mean it, dear.’

‘Yes, I do.You must have told white lies, at any rate. How did you feel after them?’

‘I should have been miserable if I ever had. I should have died of self-reproach. “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” has always seemed to me such a fine passage. But then I have so much that is unbending in my nature, and in our sphere of life there are so few temptations; if we are humble we are also simple, and unshackled by etiquette.’

‘Then you blame me very much? If somebody else will blame me, I shan’t be so unhappy at what I said this morning.’

‘I am sure I never blamed you, not in my innermost heart, dear Lady Harriet. Blame you, indeed! That would be presumption in me.’

‘I think I shall set up a confessor! and it shan’t be you, Clare, for you have always been only too indulgent to me.’

After a pause she said,—‘Can you give me some lunch, Clare? I don’t mean to go home till three. My “business” will take me till then, as the people at the Towers are duly informed.’

‘Certainly. I shall be delighted! but you know we are very simple in our habits.’

‘Oh, I only want a little bread-and-butter, and perhaps a slice of cold meat—you must not give yourself any trouble, Clare—perhaps you dine now? let me sit down just like one of your family.’

‘Yes, you shall. I won’t make any alteration;—it will be so pleasant to have you sharing our family meal, dear Lady Harriet. But we dine late, we only lunch now. How low the fire is getting; I really am forgetting everything in the pleasure of this tête-à-tête!’

So she rang twice; with great distinctness, and with a long pause between the rings. Maria brought in coals.

But the signal was as well understood by Cynthia as the ‘Hall of Apollo’ was by the servants of Lucullus. The brace of partridges that were to have been for the late dinner were instantly put down to the fire; and the prettiest china brought out, and the table decked with flowers and fruit, arranged with all Cynthia’s usual dexterity and taste. So that when the meal was announced, and Lady Harriet entered the room, she could not but think her hostess’s apologies had been quite unnecessary; and be more and more convinced that Clare had done very well for herself. Cynthia now joined the party, pretty and elegant as she always was; but somehow she did not take Lady Harriet’s fancy; she only noticed her on account of her being her mother’s daughter. Her presence made the conversation more general, and Lady Harriet gave out several pieces of news, none of them of any great importance to her, but as what had been talked about by the circle of visitors assembled at the Towers.

‘Lord Hollingford ought to have been with us,’ she said, amongst other things; ‘but he is obliged, or fancies himself obliged, which is all the same thing, to stay in town about this Crichton legacy!’

‘A legacy? To Lord Hollingford? I am so glad!’

‘Don’t be in a hurry to be glad! It’s nothing for him but trouble. Didn’t you hear of that rich eccentric Mr. Crichton, who died some time ago, and—fired by the example of Lord Bridgewater,
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I suppose—left a sum of money in the hands of trustees, of whom my brother is one, to send out a man with a thousand fine qualifications, to make a scientific voyage, with a view to bringing back specimens of the fauna of distant lands, and so forming the nucleus of a museum which is to be called the Crichton Museum, and so perpetuate the founder’s name. Such various forms does man’s vanity take! Sometimes it simulates philanthropy; sometimes a love of science!’

‘It seems to me a very laudable and useful object, I am sure,’ said Mrs. Gibson, safely.

‘I dare say it is, taking it from the public-good view. But it’s rather tiresome to us privately, for it keeps Hollingford in town—or between it and Cambridge—and each place as dull and empty as can be, just when we want him down at the Towers. The thing ought to have been decided long ago, and there’s some danger of the legacy lapsing. The two other trustees have run away to the Continent, feeling, as they say, the utmost confidence in him, but in reality shirking their responsibilities. However, I believe he likes it, so I ought not to grumble. He thinks he is going to be very successful in the choice of this man—and he belongs to this county, too,—young Hamley of Hamley, if he can only get his college to let him go, for he is a fellow of Trinity, senior wrangler or something; and they’re not so foolish as to send their crack man to be eaten up by lions and tigers!’

‘It must be Roger Hamley!’ exclaimed Cynthia, her eyes brightening, and her cheeks flushing.

‘He’s not the eldest son; he can scarcely be called Hamley of Hamley!’ said Mrs. Gibson.

‘Hollingford’s man is a fellow of Trinity, as I said before.’

‘Then it is Mr. Roger Hamley,’ said Cynthia; ‘and he’s up in London about some business! What news for Molly when she comes home!’

‘Why, what has Molly to do with it?’ asked Lady Harriet. ‘Is
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?’ and she looked into Mrs. Gibson’s face for an answer. Mrs. Gibson in reply gave an intelligent and very expressive glance at Cynthia, who, however, did not perceive it.

‘Oh, no! not at all,’ and Mrs. Gibson nodded a little at her daughter, as much as to say, ‘If any one, that.’

Lady Harriet began to look at the pretty Miss Kirkpatrick with fresh interest; her brother had spoken in such a manner of this young Mr. Hamley that every one connected with the phoenix was worthy of observation. Then, as if the mention of Molly’s name had brought her afresh into her mind, Lady Harriet said,—‘And where is Molly all this time? I should like to see my little mentor. I hear she is very much grown since those days.’

‘Oh! when she once gets gossiping with the Miss Brownings, she never knows when to come home,’ said Mrs. Gibson.

‘The Miss Brownings? Oh! I’m so glad you named them! I’m very fond of them. Pecksy and Flapsy; I may call them so in Molly’s absence. I’ll go and see them before I go home, and then perhaps I shall see my dear little Molly too. Do you know, Clare, I’ve quite taken a fancy to that girl!’

So Mrs. Gibson, after all her precautions, had to submit to Lady Harriet’s leaving her half an hour earlier than she otherwise would have done in order to ‘make herself common’ (as Mrs. Gibson expressed it) by calling on the Miss Brownings.

But Molly had left before Lady Harriet arrived.

Molly went the long walk to the Holly Farm to order the damsons, out of a kind of penitence. She had felt conscious of anger at being sent out of the house by such a palpable manoeuvre as that which her stepmother had employed. Of course she did not meet Cynthia, so she went alone along the pretty lanes, with grassy sides and high-hedge banks not at all in the style of modern agriculture. At first she made herself uncomfortable with questioning herself as to how far it was right to leave unnoticed the small domestic failings—the webs, the distortions of truth which had prevailed in their household ever since her father’s second marriage. She knew that very often she longed to protest, but did not do it, from the desire of sparing her father any discord; and she saw by his face that he, too, was occasionally aware of certain things that gave him pain, as showing that his wife’s standard of conduct was not as high as he would have liked. It was a wonder to Molly whether this silence was right or wrong. With a girl’s want of toleration, and want of experience to teach her the force of circumstances, and of temptation, she had often been on the point of telling her stepmother some forcible home truths. But, possibly, her father’s example of silence, and often some piece of kindness on Mrs. Gibson’s part (for after her way, and when in a good temper, she was very kind to Molly), made her hold her tongue.

That night at dinner, Mrs. Gibson repeated the conversation between herself and Lady Harriet, giving it a very strong individual colouring, as was her wont, and telling nearly the whole of what had passed, although implying that there was a great deal said which was so purely confidential, that she was bound in honour not to repeat it. Her three auditors listened to her without interrupting her much—indeed, without bestowing extreme attention on what she was saying, until she came to the fact of Lord Hollingford’s absence in London, and the reason for it.

‘Roger Hamley going off on a scientific expedition!’ exclaimed Mr. Gibson, suddenly awakened into vivacity.

‘Yes. At least it is not settled finally; but as Lord Hollingford is the only trustee who takes any interest—and being Lord Cumnor’s son—it is next to certain.’

‘I think I must have a voice in the matter,’ said Mr. Gibson; and he relapsed into silence, keeping his ears open, however, henceforward.

‘How long will he be away?’ asked Cynthia. ‘We shall miss him sadly.’

Molly’s lips formed an acquiescing ‘yes’ to this remark, but no sound was heard. There was a buzzing in her ears as if the others were going on with the conversation, but the words they uttered seemed indistinct and blurred; they were merely conjectures, and did not interfere with the one great piece of news. To the rest of the party she appeared to be eating her dinner as usual, and, if she was silent, there was one listener the more to Mrs. Gibson’s stream of prattle, and Mr. Gibson’s and Cynthia’s remarks.

I
t was a day or two afterwards, that Mr. Gibson made time to ride round by Hamley, desirous to learn more exact particulars of this scheme for Roger than he could obtain from any extraneous source, and rather puzzled to know whether he should interfere in the project or not. The state of the case was this:—Osborne’s symptoms were, in Mr. Gibson’s opinion, signs of his having a fatal disease. Dr. Nicholls had differed from him on this head, and Mr. Gibson knew that the old physician had had long experience, and was considered very skilful in the profession. Still he believed that he himself was right, and, if so, the complaint was one which might continue for years in the same state as at present, or might end the young man’s life in an hour—a minute. Supposing that Mr. Gibson was right, would it be well for Roger to be away where no sudden calls for his presence could reach him—away for two years? Yet if the affair was concluded, the interference of a medical man might accelerate the very evil to be feared; and after all Dr. Nicholls might be right, and the symptoms might proceed from some other cause. Might? Yes. Probably did? No. Mr. Gibson could not bring himself to say yes to this latter form of sentence. So he rode on, meditating; his reins slack, his head a little bent. It was one of those still and lovely autumn days when the red and yellow leaves are hanging-pegs to dewy, brilliant gossamer-webs; when the hedges are full of trailing brambles, loaded with ripe blackberries; when the air is full of the farewell whistles and pipes of birds, clear and short—not the long full-throated warbles of spring; when the whirr of the partridge’s wing is heard in the stubble-fields, as the sharp hoof-blows fall on the paved lanes; when here and there a leaf floats and flutters down to the ground, although there is not a single breath of wind. The country surgeon felt the beauty of the seasons perhaps more than most men. He saw more of it by day, by night, in storm and sunshine, or in the still, soft cloudy weather. He never spoke about what he felt on the subject; indeed, he did not put his feelings into words, even to himself But if his mood ever approached to the sentimental it was on such days as this. He rode into the stable-yard, gave his horse to a man, and went into the house by a side entrance. In the passage he met the squire.