Wives and Daughters (13 page)

Miss Eyre listened in silence, perplexed but determined to be obedient to the directions of the doctor, whose kindness she and her family had good cause to know. She made strong tea; she helped the young men liberally in Mr. Gibson’s absence, as well as in his presence, and she found the way to unloosen their tongues, whenever their master was away, by talking to them on trivial subjects in her pleasant homely way. She taught Molly to read and write, but tried honestly to keep her back in every other branch of education. It was only by fighting and struggling hard, that, bit by bit, Molly persuaded her father to let her have French and drawing-lessons. He was always afraid of her becoming too much educated, though he need not have been alarmed; the masters who visited such small country towns as Hollingford forty years ago were no such great proficients in their arts. Once a week she joined a dancing-class in the assembly-room at the principal inn in the town, the ‘Cumnor Arms’; and, being daunted by her father in every intellectual attempt, she read every book that came in her way, almost with as much delight as if it had been forbidden. For his station in life, Mr. Gibson had an unusually good 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 the cherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her frock, that have already been mentioned as likely to wear Betty’s life out. In spite of this ‘hidden worm i’ th’ bud,’
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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-paid employment just when she needed it most. But Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of the necessity of having a governess for his little daughter, was vehemently opposed to any division of her authority and influence over the child who had been her charge, her plague, and her delight ever since Mrs. Gibson’s death. She took up her position as censor of all Miss Eyre’s sayings and doings from the very first, and did not for one moment condescend to conceal her disapprobation in her heart. She could not help respecting the patience and painstaking of the good lady,—for a ‘lady’ Miss Eyre was in the best sense of the word, though in Hollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper’s daughter. Yet Betty buzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of a gnat, always ready to find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre’s only defence came from the quarter whence it might least have been expected—from her pupil; on whose fancied behalf, as an oppressed little personage, Betty always based her attacks. But, very early in the day, Molly perceived their injustice, and soon afterwards she began to respect Miss Eyre for her silent endurance of what evidently gave her far more pain than Betty imagined. Mr. Gibson had been a friend in need to her family, so Miss Eyre restrained her complaints, sooner than annoy him. And she had her reward. Betty would offer Molly all sorts of small temptations to neglect Miss Eyre’s wishes; Molly steadily resisted, and plodded away at her task of sewing or her difficult sum. Betty made cumbrous jokes at Miss Eyre’s expense. Molly looked up with the utmost gravity, as if requesting the explanation of an unintelligible speech; and there is nothing so quenching to a wag as to be asked to translate his jest into plain matter-of-fact English and to show wherein the point lies. Occasionally Betty lost her temper entirely,and spoke impertinently to Miss Eyre; but when this had been done in Molly’s defence, the girl flew out in such a violent passion of words in defence of her silent trembling governess, that even Betty herself was daunted, though she chose to take the child’s anger as a good joke, and tried to persuade Miss Eyre herself to join in her amusement.

‘Bless the child! one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik’st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they is learnt, instead o’ riding on Job Donkin’s hay-cart, it’s thy lookout, not mine. She’s a little vixen, isn’t she?’ smiling at Miss Eyre, as she finished her speech. But the poor governess saw no humour in the affair; the comparison of Molly to a hen-sparrow was lost upon her. She was sensitive and conscientious, and knew, from home experience, the evils of an ungovernable temper. So she began to reprove Molly for giving way to her passion, and the child thought it hard to be blamed for what she considered her just anger against Betty. But, after all, these were the small grievances of a very happy childhood.

M
olly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life, without any greater event than that which has been recorded,—the being left behind at the Towers—until she was nearly seventeen. She had become a visitor at the school, but she had never gone again to the annual festival at the great house; it was easy to find some excuse for keeping away, and the recollection of that day was not a pleasant one on the whole, though she often thought how much she should like to see the gardens again.

Lady Agnes was married; there was only Lady Harriet remaining at home; Lord Hollingford, the eldest son, had lost his wife, and was a good deal more at the Towers since he had become a widower. He was a tall, ungainly man, considered to be as proud as his mother, the countess; but, in fact, he was only shy, and slow at making commonplace speeches. He did not know what to say to people whose daily habits and interests were not the same as his; he would have been very thankful for a handbook of small-talk, and would have learnt off his sentences with good-humoured diligence. He often envied the fluency of his garrulous father, who delighted in talking to everybody, and was perfectly unconscious of the incoherence of his conversation. But, owing to his constitutional reserve and shyness, Lord Hollingford was not a popular man, although his kindness of heart was very great, his simplicity of character extreme, and his scientific acquirements considerable enough to entitle him to much reputation in the European republic of learned men. In this respect Hollingford was proud of him. The inhabitants knew that the great, grave, clumsy heir to its fealty was highly esteemed for his wisdom; and that he had made one or two discoveries, though in what direction they were not quite sure. But it was safe to point him out to strangers visiting the little town, as ‘That’s Lord Hollingford—the famous Lord Hollingford, you know; you must have heard of him, he is so scientific.’ If the strangers knew his name, they also knew his claims to fame; if they did not, ten to one but they would appear as if they did, and so conceal not only their own ignorance, but that of their companions, as to the exact nature of the sources of his reputation.

He was left a widower with two or three boys. They were at a public school; so that their companionship could make the house in which he had passed his married life but little of a home to him, and he consequently spent much of his time at the Towers; where his mother was proud of him, and his father very fond, but ever so little afraid of him. His friends were always welcomed by Lord and Lady Cumnor; the former, indeed, was in the habit of welcoming everybody everywhere; but it was a proof of Lady Cumnor’s real affection for her distinguished son, that she allowed him to ask what she called ‘all sorts of people’ to the Towers. ‘All sorts of people’ meant really those who were distinguished for science and learning, without regard to rank: and it must be confessed, without much regard to polished manners likewise.

Mr. Hall, Mr. Gibson’s predecessor, had always been received with friendly condescension by my lady, who had found him established as the family medical man when first she came to the Towers on her marriage; but she never thought of interfering with his custom of taking his meals, if he needed refreshment, in the housekeeper’s room, not with the housekeeper, bien entendu. The comfortable, clever, stout, and red-faced doctor would very much have preferred this, even if he had had the choice given him (which he never had) of taking his ‘snack,’ as he called it, with my lord and my lady, in the grand dining-room. Of course, if some great surgical gun (like Sir Astley) was brought down from London to bear on the family’s health, it was due to him, as well as to the local medical attendant, to ask Mr. Hall to dinner, in a formal, ceremonious manner, on which occasion Mr. Hall buried his chin in voluminous folds of white muslin, put on his knee-breeches, with bunches of ribbon at the sides, his silk stockings and buckled shoes, and otherwise made himself excessively uncomfortable in his attire, and went forth in state in a post-chaise from the ‘Cumnor Arms,’ consoling himself in the private corner of his heart for the discomfort he was enduring with the idea of how well it would sound the next day in the ears of the squires whom he was in the habit of attending. ‘Yesterday at dinner the earl said,’ or ‘the countess remarked,’ or ‘I was surprised to hear when I was dining at the Towers, yesterday.’ But somehow things had changed since Mr. Gibson had become ‘the doctor’ par excellence at Hollingford. Miss Brownings thought that it was because he had such an elegant figure, and ‘such a distinguished manner’; Mrs. Goodenough, ‘because of his aristocratic connexions’—‘the son of a Scotch duke, my dear, never mind on which side of the blanket’—but the fact was certain; although he might frequently ask Mrs. Brown to give him something to eat in the housekeeper’s room—he had no time for all the fuss and ceremony of luncheon with my lady—he was always welcome to the grandest circle of visitors in the house. He might lunch with a duke any day that he chose—given that a duke was forthcoming at the Towers. His accent was Scotch, not provincial. He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones; and leanness goes a great way to gentility. His complexion was sallow, and his hair black; in those days—the decade after the conclusion of the great continental war,
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to be sallow and black-a-vised was of itself a distinction; he was not jovial (as my lord remarkedwith a sigh, but it was my lady who endorsed the invitations), sparing of his words, intelligent, and slightly sarcastic. Therefore he was perfectly presentable.

His Scotch blood (for that he was of Scottish descent there could be no manner of doubt) gave him just the kind of thistly dignity which made every one feel that they must treat him with respect; so on that head he was assured. The grandeur of being an invited guest to dinner at the Towers from time to time gave him but little pleasure for many years, but it was a form to be gone through in the way of his profession, without any idea of social gratification.

But when Lord Hollingford returned to make the Towers his home, affairs were altered. Mr. Gibson really heard and learnt things that interested him seriously, and that gave fresh flavour to his reading. From time to time he met the leaders of the scientific world; odd-looking, simple-hearted men, very much in earnest about their own particular subjects, and not having much to say on any other. Mr. Gibson found himself capable of appreciating such persons, and also perceived that they valued his appreciation, as it was honestly and intelligently given. Indeed, by and by he began to send contributions of his own to the more scientific of the medical journals, and thus, partly in receiving, partly in giving out information and accurate thought, a new zest was added to his life. There was not much intercourse between Lord Hollingford and himself; the one was too silent and shy, the other too busy, to seek each other’s society with the perseverance required to do away with the social distinction of rank that prevented their frequent meetings. But each was thoroughly pleased to come into contact with the other. Each could rely on the other’s respect and sympathy with a security unknown to many who call themselves friends; and this was a source of happiness to both; to Mr. Gibson the most so, of course; for his range of intelligent and cultivated society was the smaller. Indeed, there was no one equal to himself among the men with whom he associated, and this he had felt as a depressing influence, although he had never recognized the cause of his depression. There was Mr. Ashton, the vicar, who had succeeded Mr. Browning, a thoroughly good and kind-hearted man, but one without an original thought in him; whose habitual courtesy and indolent mind led him to agree to every opinion not palpably heterodox, and to utter platitudes in the most gentlemanly manner. Mr. Gibson had once or twice amused himself by leading the vicar on in his agreeable admissions of arguments ‘as perfectly convincing,’ and of statements as ‘curious but undoubted,’ till he had planted the poor clergyman in a bog of heretical bewilderment. But then Mr. Ashton’s pain and suffering at suddenly finding out into what a theological predicament he had been brought, his real self-reproach at his previous admissions, were so great that Mr. Gibson lost all sense of fun, and hastened back to the Thirty-nine Articles
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with all the good-will in life, as the only means of soothing the vicar’s conscience. On any other subject, except that of orthodoxy, Mr. Gibson could lead him any lengths; but then his ignorance on most of them prevented bland acquiescence from arriving at any results which could startle him. He had some private fortune, and was not married, and lived the life of an indolent and refined bachelor; but though he himself was no very active visitor among his poorer parishioners, he was always willing to relieve their wants in the most liberal, and, considering his habits, occasionally in the most self-denying manner, whenever Mr. Gibson, or any one else, made them clearly known to him. ‘Use my purse as freely as if it was your own, Gibson,’ he was wont to say. ‘I’m such a bad one at going about and making talk to poor folk—I dare say I don’t do enough in that way—but I am most willing to give you anything for any one you may consider in want.’

‘Thank you; I come upon you pretty often, I believe, and make very little scruple about it; but if you’ll allow me to suggest, it is, that you should not try to make talk when you go into the cottages; but just talk.’