Wives and Daughters (78 page)

‘I did not mean to offend you, but I meant just to give Molly a hint. She understands what I mean.’

‘I’m sure I do not,’ said Molly, boldly. ‘I haven’t a notion what you meant, if you were alluding to anything more than you said straight out—that you do not wish me to marry any one who hasn’t a good character, and that, as you were a friend of mamma’s, you would prevent my marrying a man with a bad character, by every means in your power. I’m not thinking of marrying; I don’t want to marry anybody at all; but if I did, and he were not a good man, I should thank you for coming and warning me of it.’

‘I shall not stand on warning you, Molly. I shall forbid the banns in church, if need be,’ said Miss Browning, half convinced of the dear transparent truth of what Molly had said; blushing all over, it is true, but with her steady eyes fixed on Miss Browning’s face while she spoke.

‘Do!’ said Molly.

‘Well, well, I won’t say any more. Perhaps I was mistaken. We won’t say any more about it. But remember what I have said, Molly; there’s no harm in that, at any rate. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Mrs. Gibson. As stepmothers go, I think you try and do your duty. Good morning. Good-bye to you both, and God bless you.’

If Miss Browning thought that her final blessing would secure peace in the room she was leaving, she was very much mistaken; Mrs. Gibson burst out with—

‘Try and do my duty, indeed! I should be much obliged to you, Molly, if you would take care not to behave in such a manner as to bring down upon me such impertinence as I have just been receiving from Miss Browning.’

‘But I don’t know what made her talk as she did, mamma,’ said Molly.

‘I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t care either. But I know that I never was spoken to as if I was trying to do my duty before—“trying” indeed! everybody always knew that I did it, without talking about it before my face in that rude manner. I’ve that deep feeling about duty that I think it ought only to be talked about in church, and in such sacred places as that; not to have a common caller startling one with it, even though she was an early friend of your mother’s. And as if I didn’t look after you quite as much as I look after Cynthia! Why, it was only yesterday I went up into Cynthia’s room and found her reading a letter that she put away in a hurry as soon as I came in, and I didn’t even ask her who it was from, and I’m sure I should have made you tell me.’

Very likely. Mrs. Gibson shrank from any conflicts with Cynthia, pretty sure that she would be worsted in the end; while Molly generally submitted sooner than have any struggle for her own will.

Just then Cynthia came in.

‘What’s the matter?’ said she quickly, seeing that something was wrong.

‘Why, Molly has been doing something which has set that impertinent Miss Browning off into lecturing me on trying to do my duty! If your poor father had but lived, Cynthia, I should never have been spoken to as I have been. “A stepmother trying to do her duty, indeed!” That was Miss Browning’s expression.’

Any allusion to her father took from Cynthia all desire of irony. She came forward, and again asked Molly what was the matter.

Molly, herself ruffled, made answer—

‘Miss Browning seemed to think I was likely to marry some one whose character was objectionable—’

‘You, Molly?’ said Cynthia.

‘Yes-she once before spoke to me—I suspect she has got some notion about Mr. Preston in her head—’

Cynthia sat down quite suddenly. Molly went on: ‘And she spoke as if mamma did not look enough after me—I think she was rather provoking—’

‘Not rather, but very—very impertinent,’ said Mrs. Gibson, a little soothed by Molly’s recognition of her grievance.

‘What could have put it into her head?’ said Cynthia, very quietly, taking her sewing as she spoke.

‘I don’t know,’ said her mother, replying to the question after her own fashion. ‘I’m sure I don’t always approve of Mr. Preston; but even if it was him she was thinking about, he’s far more agreeable than she is; and I had much rather have him coming to call than an old maid like her, any day.’

‘I don’t know that it was Mr. Preston she was thinking about,’ said Molly. ‘It was only a guess. When you were both in London she spoke about him—I thought she had heard something about you and him, Cynthia.’ Unseen by her mother, Cynthia looked up at Molly, her eyes full of prohibition, her cheeks full of angry colour. Molly stopped short suddenly. After that look she was surprised at the quietness with which Cynthia said, almost immediately—

‘Well, after all, it is only your fancy that she was alluding to Mr. Preston, so perhaps we had better not say any more about him; and as for her advice to mamma to look after you better, Miss Molly, I’ll stand bail for your good behaviour; for both mamma and I know you’re the last person to do any foolish things in that way. And now don’t let us talk any more about it. I was coming to tell you that Hannah Brand’s little boy has been badly burnt, and his sister is downstairs asking for old linen.’

Mrs. Gibson was always kind to poor people, and she immediately got up and went to her stores to search for the article wanted.

Cynthia turned quietly round to Molly.

‘Molly, pray don’t ever allude to anything between me and Mr. Preston—not to mamma, nor to any one. Never do! I’ve a reason for it—don’t say anything more about it, ever.’

Mrs. Gibson came back at this moment, and Molly had to stop short again on the brink of Cynthia’s confidence; uncertain indeed this time whether she would have been told anything more, and only sure that she had annoyed Cynthia a good deal.

But the time was approaching when she would know all.

T
he autumn drifted away through all its seasons. The golden corn-harvest, the walks through the stubble fields, and rambles into hazel-copses in search of nuts; the stripping of the apple-orchards of their ruddy fruit, amid the joyous cries and shouts of watching children; and the gorgeous tulip-like colouring of the later time had now come on with the shortening days. There was comparative silence in the land, excepting for the distant shots, and the whirr of the partridges as they rose up from the field.

Ever since Miss Browning’s unlucky conversation things had been ajar in the Gibsons’ house. Cynthia seemed to keep every one out at (mental) arm‘s-length; and particularly avoided any private talks with Molly. Mrs. Gibson, still cherishing a grudge against Miss Browning for her implied accusation of not looking enough after Molly, chose to exercise a most wearying supervision over the poor girl. It was, ‘Where have you been, child?‘ ‘Who did you see?‘ ‘Who was that letter from?‘ ‘Why were you so long out when you had only to go to so-and-so?’ just as if Molly had really been detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse. She answered every question asked of her with the simple truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs. Gibson might be able to say that she looked well after her stepdaughter), chafed her inexpressibly. Very often she did not go out at all, sooner than have to give a plan of her intended proceedings, when perhaps she had no plan whatever—only thought of wandering out at her own sweet will, and of taking pleasure in the bright solemn fading of the year. It was a very heavy time for Molly—zest and life had fled, and left so many of the old delights mere shells of seeming. She thought it was that her youth had fled; at nineteen! Cynthia was no longer the same, somehow: and perhaps Cynthia’s change would injure her in the distant Roger’s opinion. Her stepmother seemed almost kind in comparison with Cynthia’s withdrawal of her heart; Mrs. Gibson worried her, to be sure, with all these forms of watching over her; but in every other way, she, at any rate, was the same. Yet Cynthia herself seemed anxious and careworn, though she would not speak of her anxieties to Molly. And then the poor girl in her goodness would blame herself for feeling Cynthia’s change of manner; for as Molly said to herself, ‘If it is hard work for me to help always fretting after Roger, and wondering where he is, and how he is, what must it be for her?’

One day Mr. Gibson came in, bright and swift.

‘Molly,’ said he, ‘where Cynthia?’

‘Gone out to do some errands—’

‘Well, it’s a pity—but never mind. Put on your bonnet and cloak as fast as you can. I’ve had to borrow old Simpson’s dog-cart—there would have been room both for you and Cynthia; but as it is, you must walk back alone. I’ll drive you as far on the Barford road as I can, and then you must jump down. I can’t take you on to Broad-hurst’s, I may be kept there for hours.’

Mrs. Gibson was out of the room; out of the house it might be, for all Molly cared, now she had her father’s leave and command. Her bonnet and cloak were on in two minutes, and she was sitting by her father’s side, the back seat shut up, and the light weight going swiftly and merrily bumping over the stone-paved lanes.

‘Oh, this is charming!’ said Molly, after a toss-up on her seat from a tremendous bump.

‘For youth, but not for crabbed age,’ said Mr. Gibson. ‘My bones are getting rheumatic, and would rather go smoothly over macadamized streets.’
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‘That’s treason to this lovely view and this fine pure air, papa. Only I don’t believe you.’

‘Thank you. As you are so complimentary, I think I shall put you down at the foot of this hill; we have passed the second milestone from Hollingford.’

‘Oh, let me just go up to the top! I know we can see the blue range of the Malverns
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from it, and Dorrimer Hall among the woods; the horse will want a minute’s rest, and then I will get down without a word.’

She went up to the top of the hill; and there they sat still a minute or two, enjoying the view, without much speaking. The woods were golden; the old house of purple-red brick, with its twisted chimneys, rose up from among them facing on to green lawns, and a placid lake; beyond again were the Malvern Hills.

‘Now jump down, lassie, and make the best of your way home before it gets dark. You’ll find the cut over Croston Heath shorter than the road we’ve come by.’

To go to Croston Heath, Molly had to go down a narrow lane overshadowed by trees, with picturesque old cottages dotted here and there on the steep sandy banks; and then there came a small wood, and then there was a brook to be crossed on a plank-bridge, and up the steeper fields on the opposite side were cut steps in the turfy path; which ended, she was on Croston Heath, a wide-stretching common skirted by labourers’ dwellings, past which a near road to Hollingford lay.

The loneliest part of the road was the first—the lane, the wood, the little bridge, and the clambering through the upland fields. But Molly cared little for loneliness. She went along the lane under the overarching elm-branches, from which, here and there, a yellow leaf came floating down upon her very dress; past the last cottage, where a little child had tumbled down the sloping bank, and was publishing the accident with frightened cries. Molly stooped to pick it up, and, taking it in her arms in a manner which caused intense surprise to take the place of alarm in its little breast, she carried it up the rough flag steps towards the cottage which she supposed to be its home. The mother came running in from the garden behind the house, still holding the late damsons she had been gathering in her apron; but, on seeing her, the little creature held out its arms to go to her, and she dropped her damsons all about as she took it, and began to soothe it as it cried afresh, interspersing her lulling with thanks to Molly. She called her by her name; and on Molly asking the woman how she came to know it, she replied that she had been a servant of Mrs. Goodenough before her marriage, and so was ‘bound to know Dr. Gibson’s daughter by sight.’ After the exchange of two or three more words, Molly ran down into the lane, and pursued her way, stopping here and there to gather a nosegay of such leaves as struck her for their brilliant colouring. She entered the wood. As she turned a corner in the lonely path, she heard a passionate voice of distress; and in an instant she recognized Cynthia’s tones. She stood still and looked around. There were some thick holly-bushes shining out dark-green in the midst of the amber and scarlet foliage. If any one was there, it must be behind these. So Molly left the path, and went straight, plunging through the brown tangled growth of ferns and underwood, and turned the holly bushes. There stood Mr. Preston and Cynthia; he holding her hands tight, each looking as if just silenced in some vehement talk by the rustle of Molly’s footsteps.

For an instant no one spoke. Then Cynthia said—

‘Oh, Molly, Molly, come and judge between us!’

Mr. Preston let go Cynthia’s hands slowly, with a look that was more of a sneer than a smile; and yet he, too, had been strongly agitated, whatever was the subject in dispute. Molly came forward and took Cynthia’s arm, her eyes steadily fixed on Mr. Preston’s face. It was fine to see the fearlessness of her perfect innocence. He could not bear her look, and said to Cynthia—

‘The subject of our conversation does not well admit of a third person’s presence. As Miss Gibson seems to wish for your company now, I must beg you to fix some other time and place where we can finish our discussion.’

‘I will go if Cynthia wishes me,’ said Molly.

‘No, no; stay—I want you to stay—I want you to hear it all—I wish I had told you sooner.’

‘You mean that you regret that she has not been made aware of our engagement—that you promised long ago to be my wife. Pray remember that it was you who made me promise secrecy, not I you!’

‘I don’t believe him, Cynthia. Don’t, don’t cry if you can help it; I don’t believe him.’

‘Cynthia,’ said he, suddenly changing his tone to fervid tenderness, ‘pray, pray do not go on so; you can’t think how it distresses me!’ He stepped forward to try and take her hand and soothe her; but she shrank away from him, and sobbed the more irrepressibly. She felt Molly’s presence so much to be a protection that now she dared to let herself go, and weaken herself by giving way to her emotion.