Wives and Daughters (68 page)

‘And that’s a week ago, sir. What’s kept you quiet ever since?’

‘I thought that Roger would tell you himself.’

‘That shows you’ve no sons. More than half their life is unknown to their fathers. Why, Osborne there, we live together—that’s to say, we have our meals together, and we sleep under the same roof—and yet—Well! well! life is as God has made it. You say it’s not an engagement yet? But I wonder what I’m doing? Hoping for my lad’s disappointment in the folly he’s set his heart on—and just when he’s been helping me. Is it a folly, or is it not? I ask you, Gibson, for you must know this girl. She hasn’t much money, I suppose?’

‘About thirty pounds a year, at my pleasure during her mother’s life.’

‘Whew! It’s well he’s not Osborne. They’ll have to wait. What family is she of? None of ’em in trade, I reckon, from her being so poor?’

‘I believe her father was grandson of a certain Sir Gerald Kirkpatrick. Her mother tells me it is an old baronetcy. I know nothing of such things.’

‘That’s something. I do know something of such things, as you are pleased to call them. I like honourable blood.’

Mr. Gibson could not help saying, ‘But I’m afraid that only one-eighth of Cynthia’s blood is honourable; I know nothing further of her relations excepting the fact that her father was a curate.’

‘Professional. That’s a step above trade at any rate. How old is she?’

‘Eighteen or nineteen.’

‘Pretty?’

‘Yes, I think so; most people do; but it is all a matter of taste. Come, squire, judge for yourself Ride over and take lunch with us any day you like. I may not be in; but her mother will be there, and you can make acquaintance with your son’s future wife.’

This was going too fast, however; presuming too much on the quietness with which the squire had been questioning him. Mr. Hamley drew back within his shell, and spoke in a surly manner as he replied,—

‘Roger’s “future wife”! he’ll be wiser by the time he comes home. Two years among the black folks will have put more sense in him.’

‘Possible, but not probable, I should say,’ replied Mr. Gibson. ‘Black folk are not remarkable for their powers of reasoning, I believe, so that they haven’t much chance of altering his opinion by argument, even if they understood each other’s language; and certainly if he shares my taste, their peculiarity of complexion will only make him appreciate white skins the more.’

‘But you said it was no engagement,’ growled the squire. ‘If he thinks better of it, you won’t keep him to it, will you?’

‘If he wishes to break it off, I shall certainly advise Cynthia to be equally willing, that’s all I can say. And I see no reason for discussing the affair further at present. I have told you how matters stand because I promised you I would, if I saw anything of this kind going on. But in the present condition of things, we can neither make nor mar; we can only wait.’ And he took up his hat to go. But the squire was discontented.

‘Don’t go, Gibson. Don’t take offence at what I’ve said, though I’m sure I don’t know why you should. What is the girl like in herself?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mr. Gibson. But he did; only he was vexed, and did not choose to understand.

‘Is she—well, is she like your Molly?—sweet-tempered and sensible—with her gloves always mended, and neat about the feet, and ready to do anything one asks her just as if doing it was the very thing she liked best in the world?’

Mr. Gibson’s face relaxed now, and he could understand all the squire’s broken sentences and unexplained meanings.

‘She is much prettier than Molly to begin with, and has very winning ways. She is always well-dressed and smart-looking, and I know she has not much to spend on her clothes, and always does what she is asked to do, and is ready enough with her pretty, lively answers. I don’t think I ever saw her out of temper; but then I’m not sure if she takes things keenly to heart, and a certain obtuseness of feeling goes a great way towards a character for good temper, I’ve observed. Altogether, I think Cynthia is one in a hundred.’

The squire meditated a little. ‘Your Molly is one in a thousand, to my mind. But then you see she comes of no family at all—and I don’t suppose she’ll have a chance of much money.’ This he said as if he were thinking aloud, and without reference to Mr. Gibson, but it nettled the latter, and he replied somewhat impatiently—

‘Well, but as there is no question of Molly in this business, I don’t see the use of bringing her name in, and considering either her family or her fortune.’

‘No, to be sure not,’ said the squire, rousing up. ‘My wits had gone far afield, and I’ll own I was only thinking what a pity it was she wouldn’t do for Osborne. But of course it’s out of the question—out of the question.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gibson, ‘and if you will excuse me, squire, I really must go now, and then you’ll be at liberty to send your wits afield uninterrupted.’ This time he was at the door before the squire called him back. He stood impatiently hitting his top-boots with his riding-whip, waiting for the interminable last words.

‘I say, Gibson, we’re old friends, and you’re a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I didn’t hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won’t say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn’t me. However, we’ll pass that over. Suppose you bring her, and this girl Cynthia (which is as outlandish a Christian name as I’d wish to hear), and little Molly out here to lunch some day—I’m more at my ease in my own house—and I’m more sure to be civil, too. We need say nothing about Roger—neither the lass nor me—and you keep your wife’s tongue quiet, if you can. It will only be like a compliment to you on your marriage, you know—and no one must take it for anything more. Mind, no allusion or mention of Roger, and this piece of folly. I shall see the girl then, and I can judge her for myself; for, as you say, that will be the best plan. Osborne will be here too; and he’s always in his element talking to women. I sometimes think he’s half a woman himself, he spends so much money and is so unreasonable.’

The squire was pleased with his own speech and his own thought, and smiled a little as he finished speaking. Mr. Gibson was both pleased and amused; and he smiled too, anxious as he was to be gone. The next Thursday was soon fixed upon as the day on which Mr. Gibson was to bring his womenkind out to the Hall. He thought that on the whole the interview had gone off a good deal better than he expected and felt rather proud of the invitation of which he was the bearer. Therefore Mrs. Gibson’s manner of receiving it was an annoyance to him. She meanwhile had been considering herself as an injured woman ever since the evening of the day of Roger’s departure; what business had any one had to speak as if the chances of Osborne’s life being prolonged were infinitely small, if in fact the matter was uncertain? She liked Osborne extremely, much better than Roger; and would gladly have schemed to secure him for Cynthia, if she had not shrunk from the notion of her daughter’s becoming a widow. For if Mrs. Gibson had ever felt anything acutely it was the death of Mr. Kirkpatrick; and, amiably callous as she was in most things, she recoiled from exposing her daughter wilfully to the same kind of suffering which she herself had experienced. But if she had only known Dr. Nicholls’s opinion she would never have favoured Roger’s suit; never. And then Mr. Gibson himself; why was he so cold and reserved in his treatment of her since that night of explanation? She had done nothing wrong; yet she was treated as though she were in disgrace. And everything about the house was flat just now. She even missed the little excitement of Roger’s visits, and the watching of his attentions to Cynthia. Cynthia too was silent enough; and as for Molly, she was absolutely dull and out of spirits, a state of mind so annoying to Mrs. Gibson just now, that she vented some of her discontent upon the poor girl, from whom she feared neither complaint nor repartee.

T
he evening of the day on which Mr. Gibson had been to see the squire, the three women were alone in the drawing-room, for Mr. Gibson had had a long round and was not as yet come in. They had had to wait dinner for him; and for some time after his return there was nothing done or said but what related to the necessary business of eating. Mr. Gibson was, perhaps, as well satisfied with his day’s work as any of the four; for this visit to the squire had been weighing on his mind ever since he heard of the state of things between Roger and Cynthia. He did not like the having to go and tell of a love-affair so soon after he had declared his belief that no such thing existed; it was a confession of fallibility which is distasteful to most men. If the squire had not been of so unsuspicious and simple a nature, he might have drawn his own conclusions from the apparent concealment of facts, and felt doubtful of Mr. Gibson’s perfect honesty in the business; but being what he was, there was no danger of such unjust misapprehension. Still, Mr. Gibson knew the hot, hasty temper he had to deal with, and had expected more violence of language than he really encountered; and the last arrangement, by which Cynthia, her mother, and Molly—who, as Mr. Gibson thought to himself, and smiled at the thought, was sure to be a peacemaker, and a sweetener of intercourse—were to go to the Hall and make acquaintance with the squire, appeared like a great success to Mr. Gibson, for achieving which he took not a little credit to himself Altogether, he was more cheerful and bland than he had been for many days; and when he came up into the drawing-room for a few minutes after dinner, before going out again to see his town-patients, he whistled a little under his breath, as he stood with his back to the fire, looking at Cynthia, and thinking that he had not done her justice when describing her to the squire. Now this soft, almost tuneless whistling, was to Mr. Gibson what purring is to a cat. He could no more have done it with an anxious case on his mind, or when he was annoyed by human folly, or when he was hungry, than he could have flown through the air. Molly knew all this by instinct, and was happy without being aware of it, as soon as she heard the low whistle, which was no music after all. But Mrs. Gibson did not like this trick of her husband’s; it was not refined, she thought, not even ‘artistic’; if she could have called it by this fine word it would have compensated her for the want of refinement. To-night it was particularly irritating to her nerves; but since her conversation with Mr. Gibson about Cynthia’s engagement, she had not felt herself in a sufficiently good position to complain.

Mr. Gibson began—‘Well, Cynthia; I’ve seen the squire to-day, and made a clean breast of it.’

Cynthia looked up quickly, questioning with her eyes; Molly stopped her netting to listen; no one spoke.

‘You’re all to go there on Thursday to lunch; he asked you all, and I promised for you.’

Still no reply; natural, perhaps, but very flat.

‘You’ll be glad of that, Cynthia, shan’t you?’ asked Mr. Gibson. ‘It may be a little formidable, but I hope it will be the beginning of a good understanding between you.’

‘Thank you!’ said she, with an effort. ‘But—but won’t it make it public? I do so wish not to have it known, or talked about, not till he comes back or close upon the marriage.’

‘I don’t see how it should make it public,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘My wife goes to lunch with my friend, and takes her daughters with her—there’s nothing in that, is there?’

‘I am not sure that I shall go,’ put in Mrs. Gibson. She did not know why she said it, for she fully intended to go all the time; but having said it, she was bound to stick to it for awhile; and, with such a husband as hers, the hard necessity was sure to fall upon her of having to find a reason for her saying. Then it came quick and sharp.

‘Why not?’ said he, turning round upon her.

‘Oh, because—because I think he ought to have called on Cynthia first; I’ve that sort of sensitiveness I can’t bear to think of her being slighted because she is poor.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘I do assure you, no slight whatever was intended. He does not wish to speak about the engagement to any one—not even to Osborne—that’s your wish, too, is it not, Cynthia? Nor does he intend to mention it to any of you when you go there; but, naturally enough, he wants to make acquaintance with his future daughter-in-law If he deviated so much from his usual course as to come calling here
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’

‘I am sure I don’t want him to come calling here,’ said Mrs. Gibson, interrupting. ‘He was not so very agreeable the only time he did come. But I am that sort of a character that I cannot put up with any neglect of persons I love, just because they are not smiled upon by fortune.’ She sighed a little ostentatiously as she ended her sentence.

‘Well, then, you won’t go!’ said Mr. Gibson, provoked, but not wishing to have a long discussion, especially as he felt his temper going.

‘Do you wish it, Cynthia?’ said Mrs. Gibson, anxious for an excuse to yield.

But her daughter was quite aware of this motive for the question, and replied quietly—‘Not particularly, mamma. I am quite willing to refuse the invitation.’

‘It is already accepted,’ said Mr. Gibson, almost ready to vow that he would never again meddle in any affair in which women were concerned, which would effectually shut him out from all love-affairs for the future. He had been touched by the squire’s relenting, pleased with what he had thought would give others pleasure, and this was the end of it!

‘Oh, do go, Cynthia!’ said Molly, pleading with her eyes as well as her words. ‘Do; I am sure you will like the squire; and it is such a pretty place, and he’ll be so much disappointed.’

‘I should not like to give up my dignity,’ said Cynthia, demurely. ‘And you heard what mamma said!’

It was very malicious of her. She fully intended to go, and was equally sure that her mother was already planning her dress for the occasion in her own mind. Mr. Gibson, however, who, surgeon though he was, had never learnt to anatomize a woman’s heart, took it all literally, and was excessively angry both with Cynthia and her mother; so angry that he did not dare to trust himself to speak. He went quickly to the door, intending to leave the room; but his wife’s voice arrested him; she said—