‘Well, well, we’ll not talk of such gloomy things, and you shall have some sweet emulsion to disguise the taste of the bitters I shall be obliged to fall back upon.’
‘Please, don’t. If you but knew how I dislike emulsions and disguises! I do want bitters—and if I sometimes—if I’m obliged to—if I’m not truthful myself, I do like truth in others—at least, sometimes.’ She ended her sentence with another smile, but it was rather faint and watery.
Now the first person out of the house to notice Cynthia’s change of look and manner was Roger Hamley—and yet he did not see her until, under the influence of the nauseous mixture, she was beginning to recover. But his eyes were scarcely off her during the first five minutes he was in the room. All the time he was trying to talk to Mrs. Gibson in reply to her civil platitudes, he was studying Cynthia, and at the first convenient pause he came and stood before Molly, so as to interpose his person between her and the rest of the room; for some visitors had come in subsequent to his entrance.
‘Molly, how ill your sister is looking! What is it? Has she had advice? You must forgive me, but so often those who live together in the same house don’t observe the first approaches of illness.’
Now Molly’s love for Cynthia was fast and unwavering, but if anything tried it, it was the habit Roger had fallen into of always calling Cynthia Molly’s sister in speaking to the latter. From any one else it would have been a matter of indifference to her, and hardly to be noticed; it vexed both ear and heart when Roger used the expression; and there was a curtness of manner as well as of words in her reply.
‘Oh! she was over-tired by the ball. Papa has seen her, and says she will be all right very soon.’
‘I wonder if she wants change of air?’ said Roger, meditatively. ‘I wish—I do wish we could have her at the Hall; you and your mother too, of course. But I don’t see how it would be possible—or else how charming it would be!’
Molly felt as if a visit to the Hall under such circumstances would be altogether so different an affair to all her former ones, that she could hardly tell if she should like it or not.
Roger went on—
‘You got our flowers in time, did you not? Ah! you don’t know how often I thought of you that evening! And you enjoyed it too, didn’t you?—you had plenty of agreeable partners, and all that makes a first ball delightful? I heard that your sister danced every dance.’
‘It was very pleasant,’ said Molly, quietly. ‘But after all, I’m not sure if I want to go to another just yet; there seems to be so much trouble connected with a ball.’
‘Ah! you are thinking of your sister, and her not being well?’
‘No, I was not,’ said Molly, rather bluntly. ‘I was thinking of the dress, and the dressing, and the weariness the next day’
He might think her unfeeling if he liked; she felt as if she had only too much feeling just then, for it was bringing on her a strange contraction of heart. But he was too inherently good himself to put any harsh construction on her speech. Just before he went away, while he was ostensibly holding her hand and wishing her good-bye, he said to her in a voice too low to be generally heard—
‘Is there anything I could do for your sister? We have plenty of books, as you know, if she cares for reading.’ Then, receiving no affirmative look or word from Molly in reply to this suggestion, he went on—‘Or flowers? she likes flowers. Oh! and our forced strawberries are just ready—I will bring some over to-morrow.’
‘I am sure she will like them,’ said Molly.
For some reason or other, unknown to the Gibsons, a longer interval than usual occurred between Osborne’s visits, while Roger came almost every day, always with some fresh offering by which he openly sought to relieve Cynthia’s indisposition as far as it lay in his power. Her manner to him was so gentle and gracious that Mrs. Gibson became alarmed, lest, in spite of his “uncouthness” (as she was pleased to term it), he might come to be preferred to Osborne, who was so strangely neglecting his own interests, in Mrs. Gibson’s opinion. In her quiet way, she contrived to pass many slights upon Roger; but the darts rebounded from his generous nature that could not have imagined her motives, and fastened themselves on Molly. She had often been called naughty and passionate when she was a child; and she thought now that she began to understand that she really had a violent temper. What seemed neither to hurt Roger nor annoy Cynthia made Molly’s blood boil; and now she had once discovered Mrs. Gibson’s wish to make Roger’s visits shorter and less frequent, she was always on the watch for indications of this desire. She read her stepmother’s heart when the latter made allusions to the squire’s weakness, now that Osborne was absent from the Hall, and that Roger was so often away among his friends during the day—
‘Mr. Gibson and I should be so delighted if you could have stopped to dinner; but, of course, we cannot be so selfish as to ask you to stay when we remember how your father would be left alone. We were saying yesterday we wondered how he bore his solitude, poor old gentleman!’
Or, as soon as Roger came with his bunch of early roses, it was desirable for Cynthia to go and rest in her own room, while Molly had to accompany Mrs. Gibson on some improvised errand or call. Still, Roger, whose object was to give pleasure to Cynthia, and who had, from his boyhood, been always certain of Mr. Gibson’s friendly regard, was slow to perceive that he was not wanted. If he did not see Cynthia, that was his loss; at any rate, he heard how she was, and left her some little thing which he believed she would like, and was willing to risk the chance of his own gratification by calling four or five times in the hope of seeing her once. At last there came a day when Mrs. Gibson went beyond her usual negative snubbiness, and when, in some unwonted fit of crossness, for she was a very placid-tempered person in general, she was guilty of positive rudeness.
Cynthia was very much better. Tonics had ministered to a mind diseased, though she hated to acknowledge it; her pretty bloom and much of her light-heartedness had come back, and there was no cause remaining for anxiety. Mrs. Gibson was sitting at her embroidery in the drawing-room, and the two girls were at the window, Cynthia laughing at Molly’s earnest endeavours to imitate the French accent in which the former had been reading a page of Voltaire. For the duty, or the farce, of settling to ‘improving reading’ in the mornings was still kept up, although Lord Hollingford, the unconscious suggester of the idea, had gone back to town without making any of the efforts to see Molly again that Mrs. Gibson anticipated on the night of the ball. That Alnaschar vision
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had fallen to the ground. It was as yet early morning; a delicious, fresh, lovely June day, the air redolent with the scents of flower-growth and bloom; and half the time the girls had been ostensibly employed in the French reading they had been leaning out of the open window trying to reach a cluster of climbing roses. They had secured them at last, and the buds lay on Cynthia’s lap, but many of the petals had fallen off; so, though the perfume lingered about the window-seat, the full beauty of the flowers had passed away. Mrs. Gibson had once or twice reproved them for the merry noise they were making, which hindered her in the business of counting the stitches in her pattern; and she had set herself a certain quantity to do that morning before going out, and was of that nature which attaches infinite importance to fulfilling small resolutions, made about indifferent trifles without any reason whatever.
‘Mr. Roger Hamley,’ was announced. ‘So tiresome!’ said Mrs. Gibson, almost in his hearing, as she pushed away her embroidery frame. She put out her cold, motionless hand to him, with a half-murmured word of welcome, still eyeing her lost embroidery. He took no apparent notice, and passed on to the window.
‘How delicious!’ said he. ‘No need for any more Hamley roses now yours are out.’
‘I agree with you,’ said Mrs. Gibson, replying to him before either Cynthia or Molly could speak, though he addressed his words to them. ‘You have been very kind in bringing us flowers so long; but now our own are out we need not trouble you any more.’
He looked at her with a little surprise clouding his honest face; it was perhaps more at the tone than the words. Mrs. Gibson, however, had been bold enough to strike the first blow, and she determined to go on as opportunity offered. Molly would perhaps have been more pained if she had not seen Cynthia’s colour rise. She waited for her to speak, if need were; for she knew that Roger’s defence, if defence were required, might be safely entrusted to Cynthia’s ready wit.
He put out his hand for the shattered cluster of roses that lay in Cynthia’s lap.
‘At any rate,’ said he, ‘my trouble—if Mrs. Gibson considers it has been a trouble to me—will be overpaid, if I may have this.’
‘Old lamps for new,’ said Cynthia, smiling as she gave it to him. ‘I wish one could always buy nosegays such as you have brought us, as cheaply.’
‘You forget the waste of time that, I think, we must reckon as part of the payment,’ said her mother. ‘Really, Mr. Hamley, we must learn to shut our doors on you if you come so often, and at such early hours! I settle myself to my own employment regularly after breakfast till lunch-time; and it is my wish to keep Cynthia and Molly to a course of improving reading and study—so desirable for young people of their age, if they are to become intelligent, companionable women; but with early visitors it is quite impossible to observe any regularity of habits.’
All this was said in that sweet, false tone which of late had gone through Molly like the scraping of a slate-pencil on a slate. Roger’s face changed. His ruddy colour grew paler for a moment, and he looked grave and not pleased. In another moment the wonted frankness of expression returned. Why should not he, he asked himself, believe her? it was early to call; it did interrupt regular occupation. So he spoke, and said—
‘I believe I have been very thoughtless—I’ll not come so early again; but I had some excuse to-day; my brother told me you had made a plan for going to see Hurstwood when the roses were out, and they are earlier than usual this year—I’ve been round to see. He spoke of a long day there, going before lunch——’
‘The plan was made with Mr. Osborne Hamley. I could not think of going without him!’ said Mrs. Gibson, coldly.
‘I had a letter from him this morning, in which he named your wish, and he says he fears he cannot be at home till they are out of flower. I dare say they are not much to see in reality, but the day is so lovely I thought that the plan of going to Hurstwood would be a charming excuse for being out of doors.’
‘Thank you. How kind you are! and so good, too, in sacrificing your natural desire to be with your father as much as possible.’
‘I am glad to say my father is so much better than he was in the winter that he spends much of his time out of doors in his fields. He has been accustomed to go about alone, and I—we think that as great a return to his former habits as he can be induced to make is the best for him.’
‘And when do you return to Cambridge?’
There was some hesitation in Roger’s manner as he replied—
‘It is uncertain. You probably know that I am a fellow of Trinity now. I hardly yet know what my future plans may be; I am thinking of going up to London soon.’
‘Ah! London is the true place for a young man,’ said Mrs. Gibson, with decision, as if she had reflected a good deal on the question. ‘If it were not that we really are so busy this morning, I should have been tempted to make an exception to our general rule; one more exception, for your early visits have made us make too many already. Perhaps, however, we may see you again before you go?’
‘Certainly I shall come,’ replied he, rising to take his leave, and still holding the demolished roses in his hand. Then, addressing himself more especially to Cynthia, he added, ‘My stay in London will not exceed a fortnight or so—is there anything I can do for you—or you?’ turning a little to Molly.
‘No, thank you very much,’ said Cynthia, very sweetly, and then, acting on a sudden impulse, she leant out of the window, and gathered him some half-opened roses. ‘You deserve these; do throw that poor shabby bunch away.’
His eyes brightened, his cheeks glowed. He took the offered buds, but did not throw away the other bunch.
‘At any rate, I may come after lunch is over, and the afternoons and evenings will be the most delicious time of day a month hence.’ He said this to both Molly and Cynthia, but in his heart he addressed it to the latter.
Mrs. Gibson affected not to hear what he was saying, but held out her limp hand once more to him.
‘I suppose we shall see you when you return; and pray tell your brother how we are longing to have a visit from him again.’
When he had left the room, Molly’s heart was quite full. She had watched his face, and read something of his feelings: his disappointment at their non-acquiescence in his plan of a day’s pleasure in Hurstwood, the delayed conviction that his presence was not welcome to the wife of his old friend, which had come so slowly upon him—perhaps, after all, these things touched Molly more keenly than they did him. His bright look when Cynthia gave him the rose-buds indicated a gush of sudden delight more vivid than the pain he had shown by his previous increase of gravity
‘I can’t think why he will come at such untimely hours,’ said Mrs. Gibson, as soon as she heard him fairly out of the house. ‘It’s different from Osborne; we are so much more intimate with him; he came and made friends with us all the time this stupid brother of his was muddling his brain with mathematics at Cambridge. Fellow of Trinity, indeed! I wish he would learn to stay there, and not come intruding here, and assuming that because I asked Osborne to join in a picnic it was all the same to me which brother came.’
‘In short, mamma, one man may steal a horse, but another must not look over the hedge,’ said Cynthia pouting a little.
‘And the two brothers have always been treated so exactly alike by their friends, and there has been such a strong friendship between them, that it is no wonder Roger thinks he may be welcome where Osborne is allowed to come at all hours,’ continued Molly, in high dudgeon. ‘Roger’s “muddled brains,” indeed! Roger, “stupid”!’