Wives and Daughters (19 page)

‘Who did people think papa would marry? That time—long ago—soon after mamma died?’

She dropped her voice very soft and low, as she spoke the last words. The squire turned round upon her, and looked at her face, he knew not why. It was very grave, a little pale, but her steady eyes almost commanded some kind of answer.

‘Whew,’ said he, whistling to gain time; not that he had anything definite to say, for no one had ever had any reason to join Mr. Gibson’sname with any known lady: it was only a loose conjecture that had been hazarded on the probabilities—a young widower, with a little girl.

‘I never heard of any one—his name was never coupled with any lady’s—‘twas only in the nature of things that he should marry again; he may do it yet, for aught I know, and I don’t think it would be a bad move either. I told him so, the last time but one he was here.’

‘And what did he say?’ asked breathless Molly.

‘Oh! he only smiled and said nothing. You shouldn’t take up words so seriously, my dear. Very likely he may never think of marrying again, and if he did, it would be a very good thing both for him and for you!’

Molly muttered something, as if to herself, but the squire might have heard it if he had chosen. As it was, he wisely turned the current of the conversation.

‘Look at that!’ he said, as they suddenly came upon the mere, or large pond. There was a small island in the middle of the glassy water, on which grew tall trees, dark Scotch firs in the centre, silvery shimmering willows close to the water’s edge. ‘We must get you punted over there, some of these days. I’m not fond of using the boat at this time of the year, because the young birds are still in the nests among the reeds and water-plants; but we’ll go. There are coots and grebes.’

‘Oh, look, there’s a swan!’

‘Yes; there are two pair of them here. And in those trees there’s both a rookery and a heronry; the herons ought to be here by now, for they’re off to the sea in August, but I have not seen one yet. Stay! is not that one—that fellow on a stone, with his long neck bent down, looking into the water?’

‘Yes! I think so. I have never seen a heron, only pictures of them.’

‘They and the rooks are always at war, which does not do for such near neighbours. If both herons leave the nest they are building, the rooks come and tear it to pieces; and once Roger showed me a long straggling fellow of a heron, with a flight of rooks after him, with no friendly purpose in their minds, I’ll be bound. Roger knows a deal of natural history, and finds out queer things sometimes. He’d have been off a dozen times during this walk of ours, if he’d been here: his eyes are always wandering about, and see twenty things where I only see one. Why! I’ve known him bolt into a copse because he saw something fifteen yards off—some plant, maybe, which he’d tell me was very rare, though I should say I’d seen its marrow at every turn in the woods; and, if we came upon such a thing as this,’ touching a delicate film of a cobweb upon a leaf with his stick, as he spoke, ‘why, he could tell you what insect or spider made it, and if it lived in rotten fir-wood, or in a cranny of good sound timber, or deep down in the ground, or up in the sky, or anywhere. It’s a pity they don’t take honours in Natural History at Cambridge.
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Roger would be safe enough if they did.’

‘Mr. Osborne Hamley is very clever, is he not?’ Molly asked, timidly.

‘Oh, yes. Osborne’s a bit of a genius. His mother looks for great things from Osborne. I’m rather proud of him myself. He’ll get a Trinity fellowship, if they play him fair. As I was saying at the magistrates’ meeting yesterday, “I’ve got a son who will make a noise at Cambridge, or I’m very much mistaken.” Now, isn’t it a queer quip of Nature,’ continued the squire, turning his honest face towards Molly, as if he was going to impart a new idea to her, ‘that I, a Hamley of Hamley, straight in descent from nobody knows where—the Heptarchy, they say—What’s the date of the Heptarchy?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Molly, startled at being thus appealed to.

‘Well! it was some time before King Alfred,
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because he was the King of all England, you know; but, as I was saying, here am I, of as good and as old a descent as any man in England, and I doubt if a stranger, to look at me, would take me for a gentleman, with my red face, great hands and feet, and thick figure, fourteen stone, and never less than twelve even when I was a young man; and there’s Osborne, who takes after his mother, who couldn’t tell her great-grandfather from Adam, bless her; and Osborne has a girl’s delicate face, and a slight make, and hands and feet as small as a lady’s. He takes after madam’s side, who, as I said, can’t tell who was their grandfather. Now, Roger is like me, a Hamley of Hamley, and no one who sees him in the street will ever think that red-brown, big-boned, clumsy chap is of gentle blood. Yet all those Cumnor people you make such ado of in Hollingford, are mere muck of yesterday. I was talking to madam the other day about Osborne’s marrying a daughter of Lord Hollingford‘s—that’s to say, if he had a daughter—he’s only got boys, as it happens; but I’m not sure if I should consent to it. I really am not sure; for you see Osborne will have had a first-rate education, and his family dates from the Heptarchy, while I should be glad to know where the Cumnor folk were in the time of Queen Anne?
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He walked on, pondering the question of whether he could have given his consent to this impossible marriage; and after some time, and when Molly had quite forgotten the subject to which he alluded, he broke out with—‘No! I’m sure I should have looked higher. So, perhaps, it’s as well my Lord Hollingford has only boys.’

After a while, he thanked Molly for her companionship, with old-fashioned courtesy; and told her that he thought, by this time, madam would be up and dressed, and glad to have her young visitor with her. He pointed out the deep purple house, with its stone facings, as it was seen at some distance between the trees, and watched her protectingly on her way along the field-paths.

‘That’s a nice girl of Gibson’s,’ quoth he to himself. ‘But what a tight hold the wench got of the notion of his marrying again! One had need be on one’s guard as to what one says before her. To think of her never having thought of the chance of a step-mother. To be sure, a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!’

I
f Squire Hamley had been unable to tell Molly who had ever been thought of as her father’s second wife, fate was all this time preparing an answer of a pretty positive kind to her wondering curiosity. But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with much the same kind of unconsidered trifles. The first ‘trifle’ of an event was the disturbance which Jenny (Mr. Gibson’s cook) chose to make at Bethia’s being dismissed. Bethia was a distant relation and protégée of Jenny’s, and she chose to say it was Mr. Coxe the tempter who ought to have ‘been sent packing,’ not Bethia the tempted, the victim. In this view there was quite enough plausibility to make Mr. Gibson feel that he had been rather unjust. He had, however, taken care to provide Bethia with another situation, to the full as good as that which she held in his family. Jenny, nevertheless, chose to give warning; and though Mr. Gibson knew full well from former experience that her warnings were words, not deeds, he hated the discomfort, the uncertainty—the entire disagreeableness of meeting a woman at any time in his house who wore a grievance and an injury upon her face as legibly as Jenny took care to do.

Down into the middle of this small domestic trouble came another, and one of greater consequence. Miss Eyre had gone with her old mother, and her orphan nephews and nieces, to the seaside, during Molly’s absence, which was only intended at first to last for a fortnight. After about ten days of this time had elapsed, Mr. Gibson received a beautifully written, beautifully worded, admirably folded, and most neatly sealed letter from Miss Eyre. Her eldest nephew had fallen ill of scarlet fever,
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and there was every probability that the younger children would be attacked by the same complaint. It was distressing enough for poor Miss Eyre—this additional expense, this anxiety—the long detention from home which the illness involved. But she said not a word of any inconvenience to herself; she only apologized with humble sincerity for her inability to return at the appointed time to her charge in Mr. Gibson’s family; meekly adding, that perhaps it was as well, for Molly had never had the scarlet fever, and even if Miss Eyre had been able to leave the orphan children to return to her employment, it might not have been a safe or a prudent step.

‘To be sure not,’ said Mr. Gibson, tearing the letter in two, and throwing it into the hearth, where he soon saw it burnt to ashes. ‘I wish I’d a five-pound house and not a woman within ten miles of me. I might have some peace then.’ Apparently, he forgot Mr. Coxe’s powers of making mischief; but indeed he might have traced that evil back to the unconscious Molly. The martyr-cook’s entrance to take away the breakfast things, which she announced by a heavy sigh, roused Mr. Gibson from thought to action.

‘Molly must stay a little longer at Hamley,’ he resolved. ‘They’ve often asked for her, and now they’ll have enough of her, I think. But I can’t have her back here just yet; and so the best I can do for her is to leave her where she is. Mrs. Hamley seems very fond of her, and the child is looking happy, and stronger in health. I’ll ride round by Hamley to-day at any rate, and see how the land lies.’

He found Mrs. Hamley lying on a sofa placed under the shadow of the great cedar-tree on the lawn. Molly was flitting about her, gardening away under her directions; tying up the long sea-green stalks of bright budded carnations, snipping off dead roses.

‘Oh! here’s papa!’ she cried out, joyfully, as he rode up to the white paling which separated the trim lawn and trimmer flower-garden from the rough park-like ground in front of the house.

‘Come in—come here—through the drawing-room window,’ said Mrs. Hamley, raising herself on her elbow. ‘We’ve got a rose-tree to show you, that Molly has budded all by herself. We are both so proud of it.’

So Mr. Gibson rode round to the stables, left his horse there, and made his way through the house to the open-air summer-parlour under the cedar-tree, where there were chairs, table, books, and tangled work. Somehow, he rather disliked asking for Molly to prolong her visit; so he determined to swallow his bitter first, and then take the pleasure of the delicious day, the sweet repose, the murmurous, scented air. Molly stood by him, her hand on his shoulder. He sat opposite to Mrs. Hamley.

‘I’ve come here to-day to ask for a favour,’ he began.

‘Granted before you name it. Am not I a bold woman?’

He smiled and bowed, but went straight on with his speech.

‘Miss Eyre, who has been Molly’s governess, I suppose I must call her, for many years, writes to-day to say that one of the little nephews she took with her to Newport while Molly was staying here, has caught the scarlet fever.’

‘I guess your request. I make it before you do. I beg for dear little Molly to stay on here. Of course Miss Eyre can’t come back to you; and of course Molly must stay here!’

‘Thank you; thank you very much. That was my request.’

Molly’s hand stole down to his, and nestled in that firm compact grasp.

‘Papa!—Mrs. Hamley!—I know you’ll both understand me—but mayn’t I go home? I am very happy here; but—oh papa! I think I should like to be at home with you best.’

An uncomfortable suspicion flashed across his mind. He pulled her round, and looked straight and piercingly into her innocent face. Her colour came at his unwonted scrutiny, but her sweet eyes were filled with wonder rather than with any feeling which he dreaded to find. For an instant he had doubted whether young red-headed Mr. Coxe’s love might not have called out a response in his daughter’s breast; but he was quite clear now.

‘Molly, you’re rude to begin with. I don’t know how you’re to make your peace with Mrs. Hamley, I’m sure. And in the next place, do you think you’re wiser than I am; or that I don’t want you at home, if all other things were conformable? Stay where you are and be thankful.’

Molly knew him well enough to be certain that the prolongation of her visit at Hamley was quite a decided affair in his mind; and then she was smitten with a sense of ingratitude. She left her father, and went to Mrs. Hamley, and bent over her and kissed her; but she did not speak. Mrs. Hamley took hold of her hand, and made room on the sofa for her.

‘I was going to have asked for a longer visit the next time you came, Mr. Gibson. We are such happy friends, are not we, Molly? and now that this good little nephew of Miss Eyre’s———’

‘I wish he was whipped,’ said Mr. Gibson.

‘—has given us such a capital reason, I shall keep Molly for a real long visitation. You must come over and see us very often. There’s a room here for you always, you know; and I don’t see why you should not start on your rounds from Hamley every morning, just as well as from Hollingford.’

‘Thank you. If you hadn’t been so kind to my little girl, I might be tempted to say something rude in answer to your last speech.’

‘Pray say it. You won’t be easy till you have given it out, I know.’

‘Mrs. Hamley has found out from whom I get my rudeness,’ said Molly, triumphantly. ‘It’s an hereditary quality.’

‘I was going to say, that proposal of yours that I should sleep at Hamley was just like a woman’s idea—all kindness, and no common sense. How in the world would my patients find me out, seven miles from my accustomed place? They’d be sure to send for some other doctor, and I should be ruined in a month.’

‘Could not they send on here? A messenger costs very little.’

‘Fancy old Goody Henbury struggling up to my surgery, groaning at every step, and then being told to just step on seven miles farther! Or take the other end of society:—I don’t think my Lady Cumnor’s smart groom would thank me for having to ride on to Hamley every time his mistress wants me.’