Wives and Daughters (90 page)

‘No more I had,’ said Lady Harriet, with a smile of winning frankness: the first smile she had accorded to Mr. Preston for many a long day; ever since the time, years ago, when, presuming on his handsomeness, he had assumed a tone of gallant familiarity with Lady Harriet, and paid her personal compliments as he would have done to an equal.

‘But he will excuse me, I hope,’ continued she, still in that gracious manner which made him feel that he now held a much higher place in her esteem than he had had at the beginning of their interview, ‘when he learns that the busy tongues of the Hollingford ladies have been speaking of my friend, Miss Gibson, in the most unwarrantable manner; drawing unjustifiable inferences from the facts of that intercourse with Mr. Preston, the nature of which he has just conferred such a real obligation on me by explaining.’

‘I think I need hardly request Lady Harriet to consider this explanation of mine as confidential,’ said Mr. Preston.

‘Of course, of course!’ said the earl; ‘every one will understand that.’ And he rode home, and told his wife and Lady Cuxhaven the whole conversation between Lady Harriet and Mr. Preston; in the strictest confidence, of course. Lady Harriet had to stand a good many strictures on manners and proper dignity for a few days after this. However, she consoled herself by calling on the Gibsons; and, finding that Mrs. Gibson (who was still an invalid) was asleep at the time, she experienced no difficulty in carrying off the unconscious Molly for a walk, which Lady Harriet so contrived that they twice passed through all the length of the principal street of the town, loitered at Grinstead’s for half an hour, and wound up by Lady Harriet’s calling on the Miss Brownings, who, to her regret, were not at home.

‘Perhaps it’s as well,’ said she, after a minute’s consideration. ‘I’ll leave my card, and put your name down underneath it, Molly’

Molly was a little puzzled by the manner in which she had been taken possession of, like an inanimate chattel, for all the afternoon, and exclaimed—

‘Please, Lady Harriet—I never leave cards; I have not got any, and on the Miss Brownings, of all people; why, I am in and out whenever I like.’

‘Never mind, little one. To-day you shall do everything properly, and according to full etiquette.’

‘And now tell Mrs. Gibson to come out to the Towers for a long day; we will send the carriage for her whenever she will let us know that she is strong enough to come. Indeed, she had better come for a few days; at this time of the year it doesn’t do for an invalid to be out in the evenings, even in a carriage.’ So spoke Lady Harriet, standing on the white doorsteps at Miss Brownings‘, and holding Molly’s hand while she wished her good-bye. ‘You’ll tell her, dear, that I came partly to see her—but that finding her asleep, I ran off with you, and don’t forget about her coming to stay with us for change of air—mamma will like it, I’m sure—and the carriage, and all that. And now good-bye, we’ve done a good day’s work! And better than you’re aware of,’ continued she, still addressing Molly, though the latter was quite out of hearing.

‘Hollingford is not the place I take it to be, if it doesn’t veer round in Miss Gibson’s favour after my to-day’s trotting of that child about.’

M
rs. Gibson was slow in recovering her strength after the influenza, and before she was well enough to accept Lady Harriet’s invitation to the Towers, Cynthia came home from London. If Molly had thought her manner of departure was scarcely as affectionate and considerate as it might have been,—if such a thought had crossed Molly’s fancy for an instant, she was repentant for it as soon as ever Cynthia returned, and the girls met together face to face, with all the old familiar affection, going upstairs to the drawing-room with their arms round each other’s waists, and sitting there together hand in hand. Cynthia’s whole manner was more quiet than it had been, when the weight of her unpleasant secret rested on her mind, and made her alternately despondent or flighty.

‘After all,’ said Cynthia, ‘there’s a look of home about these rooms which is very pleasant. But I wish I could see you looking stronger, mamma! that’s the only unpleasant thing. Molly, why didn’t you send for me?’

‘I wanted to do,’ began Molly.

‘But I wouldn’t let her,’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘You were much better in London than here, for you could have done me no good; and your letters were very agreeable to read; and now Helen is better, and I’m nearly well, and you’ve come home just at the right time, for everybody is full of the Charity Ball.’

‘But we are not going this year, mamma,’ said Cynthia, decidedly. ‘It’s on the 25th, isn’t it? and I’m sure you’ll never be well enough to take us.’

‘You really seem determined to make me out worse than I am, child,’ said Mrs. Gibson, rather querulously, she being one of those who, when their malady is only trifling, exaggerate it, but when it is really of some consequence, are unwilling to sacrifice any pleasures by acknowledging it. It was well for her in this instance that her husband had wisdom and authority enough to forbid her going to this ball, on which she had set her heart; but the consequence of his prohibition was an increase of domestic plaintiveness and low spirits, which seemed to tell on Cynthia—the bright gay Cynthia—herself; and it was often hard work for Molly to keep up the spirits of two other people as well as her own. Ill health might account for Mrs. Gibson’s despondency, but why was Cynthia so silent, not to say so sighing? Molly was puzzled to account for it, and all the more perplexed because from time to time Cynthia kept calling upon her for praise for some unknown and mysterious virtue that she had practised; and Molly was young enough to believe that, after any exercise of virtue, the spirits rose, cheered up by an approving conscience. Such was not the case with Cynthia, however. She sometimes said such things as these, when she had been particularly inert and desponding: —

‘Ah, Molly, you must let my goodness lie fallow for a while! It has borne such a wonderful crop this year. I have been so pretty-behaved—if you knew all!’ Or, ‘Really, Molly, my virtue must come down from the clouds! It was strained to the utmost in London—and I find it is like a kite—after soaring aloft for some time, it suddenly comes down, and gets tangled in all sorts of briers and brambles; which things are an allegory, unless you can bring yourself to believe in my extraordinary goodness while I was away—giving me a sort of right to fall foul of all mamma’s briers and brambles now.’

But Molly had had some experience of Cynthia’s whim of perpetually hinting at a mystery which she did not mean to reveal, in the Mr. Preston days, and, although she was occasionally piqued into curiosity, Cynthia’s allusions at something more in the background fell in general on rather deaf ears. One day the mystery burst its shell, and came out in the shape of an offer made to Cynthia by Mr. Henderson—and refused. Under all the circumstances, Molly could not appreciate the heroic goodness so often alluded to. The revelation of the secret at last took place in this way. Mrs. Gibson breakfasted in bed; she had done so ever since she had had the influenza; and, consequently, her own private letters always went up on her breakfast-tray. One morning she came into the drawing-room earlier than usual, with an open letter in her hand.

‘I’ve had a letter from aunt Kirkpatrick, Cynthia. She sends me my dividends,
¹
—your uncle is so busy. But what does she mean by this, Cynthia?’ (holding out the letter to her, with a certain paragraph indicated by her finger.) Cynthia put her netting on one side, and looked at the writing. Suddenly her face turned scarlet, and then became of a deadly white. She looked at Molly, as if to gain courage from the strong serene countenance.

‘It means—mamma, I may as well tell you at once—Mr. Henderson offered to me while I was in London, and I refused him.’

‘Refused him—and you never told me, but let me hear it by chance! Really, Cynthia, I think you’re very unkind. And pray what made you refuse Mr. Henderson? Such a fine young man—and such a gentleman! Your uncle told me he had a very good private fortune besides.’

‘Mamma, do you forget that I have promised to marry Roger Hamley?’ said Cynthia quietly.

‘No! of course I don’t—how can I, with Molly always dinning the word “engagement” into my ears? But really, when one considers all the uncertainties,—and after all it was not a distinct promise, —he seemed almost as if he might have looked forward to something of this sort.’

‘Of what sort, mamma?’ said Cynthia sharply.

‘Why, of a more eligible offer. He must have known you might change your mind, and meet with some one you liked better: so little as you had seen of the world.’ Cynthia made an impatient movement, as if to stop her mother.

‘I never said I liked him better,—how can you talk so, mamma? I’m going to marry Roger, and there’s an end of it. I will not be spoken to about it again.’ She got up and left the room.

‘Going to marry Roger! That’s all very fine. But who is to guarantee his coming back alive! And if he does, what have they to marry upon, I should like to know? I don’t wish her to have accepted Mr. Henderson, though I am sure she liked him; and true love ought to have its course, and not be thwarted; but she need not have quite finally refused him until—well, until we had seen how matters turn out. Such an invalid as I am, too! It has given me quite a palpitation at the heart. I do call it quite unfeeling of Cynthia.’

‘Certainly,’—began Molly; but then she remembered that her stepmother was far from strong, and unable to bear a protest in favour of the right course without irritation. So she changed her speech into a suggestion of remedies for palpitation; and curbed her impatience to speak out her indignation at the contemplated falsehood to Roger. But when they were alone, and Cynthia began upon the subject, Molly was less merciful. Cynthia said,—

‘Well, Molly, and now you know all! I’ve been longing to tell you—and yet somehow I could not.’

‘I suppose it was a repetition of Mr. Coxe?’ said Molly, gravely. ‘You were agreeable,—and he took it for something more.’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Cynthia. ‘I mean I don’t know if I was agreeable or not. He was very kind—very pleasant—but I didn’t expect it all to end as it did. However, it’s of no use thinking of it.’

‘No!’ said Molly, simply; for to her mind the pleasantest and kindest person in the world put in comparison with Roger was as nothing; he stood by himself Cynthia’s next words—and they did not come very soon—were on quite a different subject, and spoken in rather a pettish tone. Nor did she allude again in jesting sadness to her late efforts at virtue.

In a little while Mrs. Gibson was able to accept the often-repeated invitation from the Towers to go and stay there for a day or two. Lady Harriet told her that it would be a kindness to Lady Cumnor, to come and bear her company in the life of seclusion the latter was still compelled to lead; and Mrs. Gibson was flattered and gratified with a dim unconscious sense of being really wanted, not merely deluding herself into a pleasing fiction. Lady Cumnor was in that state of convalescence common to many invalids. The spring of life had begun again to flow, and with the flow returned the old desires and projects and plans, which had all become mere matters of indifference during the worst part of her illness. But as yet her bodily strength was not sufficient to be an agent to her energetic mind, and the difficulty of driving the ill-matched pair of body and will—the one weak and languid, the other strong and stern,—made her ladyship often very irritable. Mrs. Gibson herself was not quite strong enough for a
‘souffre-douleur’;
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and the visit to the Towers was not, on the whole, quite so happy a one as she had anticipated. Lady Cuxhaven and Lady Harriet, each aware of their mother’s state of health and temper, but only alluding to it as slightly as was absolutely necessary in their conversations with each other, took care not to leave ‘Clare’ too long with Lady Cumnor; but several times when one or the other went to relieve guard they found Clare in tears, and Lady Cumnor holding forth on some point on which she had been meditating during the silent hours of her illness, and on which she seemed to consider herself born to set the world to rights. Mrs. Gibson was always apt to consider these remarks as addressed with a personal direction at some error of her own, and defended the fault in question with a sense of property in it, whatever it might happen to be. The second and the last day of her stay at the Towers, Lady Harriet came in, and found her mother haranguing in an excited tone of voice, and Clare looking submissive and miserable and oppressed.

‘What’s the matter, dear mamma? Are not you tiring yourself with talking?’

‘No, not at all! I was only speaking of the folly of people dressing above their station. I began by telling Clare of the fashions of my grandmother’s days, when every class had a sort of costume of its own—and servants did not ape tradespeople, nor tradespeople professional men, and so on,—and what must the foolish woman do but begin to justify her own dress, as if I had been accusing her, or even thinking about her at all. Such nonsense! Really, Clare, your husband has spoilt you sadly, if you can’t listen to any one without thinking they are alluding to you. People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.’

‘I was told, Lady Cumnor, that this silk was reduced in price. I bought it at Waterloo House after the season was over,’ said Mrs. Gibson, touching the very handsome gown she wore, in deprecation of Lady Cumnor’s angry voice, and blundering on to the very source of irritation.

‘Again, Clare! How often must I tell you I had no thought of you or your gowns, or whether they cost much or little; your husband has to pay for them, and it is his concern if you spend more on your dress than you ought to do.’