‘Oh, yes, I think so. They’ve had a dinner-party; and one night, when mamma was at Lady Cumnor’s, Cynthia went to the play with her cousins.’
‘Upon my word! and all in one week? I do call that dissipation. Why, Thursday would be taken up with the journey, and Friday with resting, and Sunday is Sunday all the world over; and they must have written on Tuesday. Well! I hope Cynthia won’t find Hollingford dull, that’s all, when she comes back.’
‘I don’t think it’s likely,’ said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sat oddly on her kindly innocent face. ‘You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, don’t you, Molly?’
‘Mr. Preston!’ said Molly, flushing up with surprise. ‘No! not much. He’s been at Ashcombe all winter, you know! He has but just come back to settle here. What should make you think so?’
‘Oh! a little bird told us,’ said Miss Browning. Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant? But it was a very favourite form of fiction with the Miss Brownings, and to Miss Phoebe it was the very acme of wit.
‘The little bird was flying about one day in Heath Lane, and it saw Mr. Preston and a young lady—we won’t say who—walking together in a very friendly manner, that is to say, he was on horseback; but the path is raised above the road just where there is the little wooden bridge over the brook
_______
’
‘Perhaps Molly is in the secret, and we ought not to ask her about it,’ said Miss Phoebe, seeing Molly’s extreme discomfiture and annoyance.
‘It can be no great secret,’ said Miss Browning, dropping the little-bird formula, and assuming an air of dignified reproval at Miss Phoebe’s interruption, ‘for Miss Hornblower says Mr. Preston owns to being engaged
________
’
‘At any rate, it is not to Cynthia, that I know positively,’ said Molly, with some vehemence. ‘And pray put a stop to any such reports; you don’t know what mischief they may do. I do so hate that kind of chatter!’ It was not very respectful of Molly to speak in this way, to be sure, but she thought only of Roger; and the distress any such reports might cause, should he ever hear of them (in the centre of Africa!) made her colour up scarlet with vexation.
‘Heighty-teighty! Miss Molly! don’t you remember that I am old enough to be your mother, and that it is not pretty behaviour to speak so to us—to me! “Chatter” to be sure. Really, Molly—’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Molly, only half-penitent.
‘I dare say you did not mean to speak so to sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, trying to make peace.
Molly did not answer all at once. She wanted to explain how much mischief might be done by such reports.
‘But don’t you see,’ she went on, still flushed by vexation, ‘how bad it is to talk of such things in such a way? Supposing one of them cared for some one else, and that might happen, you know; Mr. Preston, for instance, may be engaged to some one else?
‘Molly! I pity the woman! Indeed I do. I have a very poor opinion of Mr. Preston,’ said Miss Browning, in a warning tone of voice; for a new idea had come into her head.
‘Well, but the woman, or young lady, would not like to hear such reports about Mr. Preston.’
‘Perhaps not. But for all that, take my word for it, he’s a great flirt, and young ladies had better not have much to do with him.’
‘I dare say it was all accident their meeting in Heath Lane,’ said Miss Phoebe.
‘I know nothing about it,’ said Molly, ‘and I dare say I have been impertinent, only please don’t talk about it any more. I have my reasons for asking you.’ She got up, for by the striking of the church clock she had just found out that it was later than she had thought, and she knew that her father would be at home by this time. She bent down and kissed Miss Browning’s grave and passive face.
‘How you are growing, Molly!’ said Miss Phoebe, anxious to cover over her sister’s displeasure. “‘As tall and as straight as a poplar-tree!” as the old song says.’
‘Grow in grace, Molly, as well as in good looks!’ said Miss Browning, watching her out of the room. As soon as she was fairly gone, Miss Browning got up and shut the door quite securely, and then sitting down near her sister, she said, in a low voice, ‘Phoebe, it was Molly herself that was with Mr. Preston in Heath Lane that day when Mrs. Goodenough saw them together!’
‘Gracious goodness me!’ exclaimed Miss Phoebe, receiving it at once as gospel. ‘How do you know?’
‘By putting two and two together. Didn’t you notice how red Molly went, and then pale, and how she said she knew for a fact that Mr. Preston and Cynthia Kirkpatrick were not engaged?’
‘Perhaps not engaged; but Mrs. Goodenough saw them loitering together, all by their own two selves—’
‘Mrs. Goodenough only crossed Heath Lane at the Shire Oak, as she was riding in her phaeton,’ said Miss Browning sententiously. ‘We all. know what a coward she is in a carriage, so that most likely she had only half her wits about her, and her eyes are none of the best when she is standing steady on the ground. Molly and Cynthia have got their new plaid shawls just alike, and they trim their bonnets alike, and Molly is grown as tall as Cynthia since Christmas. I was always afraid she’d be short and stumpy, but she’s now as tall and slender as any one need be. I’ll answer for it, Mrs. Goodenough saw Molly, and took her for Cynthia.’
When Miss Browning ‘answered for it’ Miss Phoebe gave up doubting. She sat some time in silence revolving her thoughts. Then she said:
‘It wouldn’t be such a very bad match after all, sister.’ She spoke very meekly, awaiting her sister’s sanction to her opinion.
‘Phoebe, it would be a bad match for Mary Pearson’s daughter. If I had known what I know now we’d never have had him to tea last September.’
‘ Why, what do you know?’ asked Miss Phoebe.
‘Miss Hornblower told me many things; some that I don’t think you ought to hear, Phoebe. He was engaged to a very pretty Miss Gregson, at Henwick, where he comes from; and her father made inquiries, and heard so much that was bad about him, that he made his daughter break off the match, and she’s dead since!’
‘How shocking!’ said Miss Phoebe, duly impressed.
‘Besides, he plays at billiards, and he bets at races, and some people do say he keeps race-horses.’
‘But is not it strange that the earl keeps him on as his agent?’
‘No! perhaps not. He’s very clever about land, and very sharp in all law affairs; and my lord isn’t bound to take notice—if indeed he knows—of the manner in which Mr. Preston talks when he has taken too much wine.’
‘Taken too much wine! Oh, sister, is he a drunkard? and we have had him to tea!’
‘I didn’t say he was a drunkard, Phoebe,’ said Miss Browning, pettishly. ‘A man may take too much wine occasionally, without being a drunkard. Don’t let me hear you using such coarse words, Phoebe!’
Miss Phoebe was silent for a time after this rebuke.
Presently she said, ‘I do hope it wasn’t Molly Gibson.’
‘You may hope as much as you like, but I’m pretty sure it was. However, we’d better say nothing about it to Mrs. Goodenough; she has got Cynthia into her head, and there let her rest. Time enough to set reports afloat about Molly when we know there’s some truth in them. Mr. Preston might do for Cynthia, who’s been brought up in France, though she has such pretty manners; but it may have made her not particular. He must not, and he shall not, have Molly, if I go into church and forbid the banns myself; but I’m afraid—I’m afraid there’s something between her and him. We must keep on the lookout, Phoebe. I’ll be her guardian angel, in spite of herself.’
CHAPTER 41
Gathering Clouds
M
rs. Gibson came back full of rose-coloured accounts of London. Lady Cumnor had been gracious and affectionate, ‘so touched by my going up to see her so soon after her return to England,’ Lady Harriet charming and devoted to her old governess, Lord Cumnor ‘just like his dear usual hearty self’; and as for the Kirkpatricks, no Lord Chancellor’s house was ever grander than theirs, and the silk gown of the Q.C. had floated over housemaids and footmen. Cynthia, too, was so much admired; and as for her dress, Mrs. Kirkpatrick had showered down ball-dresses and wreaths, and pretty bonnets and mantles, like a fairy godmother. Mr. Gibson’s poor present of ten pounds shrank into very small dimensions compared with all this munificence.
‘And they’re so fond of her, I don’t know when we shall have her back,’ was Mrs. Gibson’s winding-up sentence. ‘And now, Molly, what have you and papa been doing? Very gay, you sounded in your letter. I had not time to read it in London; so I put it in my pocket, and read it in the coach coming home. But, my dear child, you do look so old-fashioned with your gown made all tight, and your hair all tumbling about in curls. Curls are quite gone out. We must do your hair differently,’ she continued, trying to smooth Molly’s black waves into straightness.
‘I sent Cynthia an African letter,’ said Molly, timidly, ‘did you hear anything of what was in it?’
‘Oh, yes, poor child! It made her very uneasy, I think; she said she did not feel inclined to go to Mr. Rawson’s ball, which was on that night, and for which Mrs. Kirkpatrick had given her the ball-dress. But there was really nothing for her to fidget herself about. Roger only said he had had another touch of fever, but was better when he wrote. He says every European has to be acclimatized by fever in that part of Abyssinia where he is.’
‘And did she go?’ asked Molly.
‘Yes, to be sure. It is not an engagement; and if it were, it is not acknowledged. Fancy her going and saying, “A young man that I know has been ill for a few days in Africa, two months ago, therefore I don’t want to go to the ball to-night.” It would have seemed like affectation of sentiment; and if there’s one thing I hate it is that.’
‘She would hardly enjoy herself,’ said Molly.
‘Oh, yes, but she did. Her dress was white gauze, trimmed with lilacs, and she really did look—a mother may be allowed a little natural partiality—most lovely. And she danced every dance, although she was quite a stranger. I am sure she enjoyed herself, from her manner of talking about it next morning.’
‘I wonder if the squire knows.’
‘Knows what? Oh, yes, to be sure! You mean about Roger. I dare say he doesn’t, and there is no need to tell him, for I’ve no doubt it is all right now.’ And she went out of the room to finish her unpacking.
Molly let her work fall, and sighed. ‘It will be a year the day after to-morrow since he came here to propose our going to Hurst Wood, and mamma was so vexed at his calling before lunch. I wonder if Cynthia remembers it as well as I do. And now, perhaps———Oh! Roger, Roger! I wish—I pray that you were safe home again! How could we all bear it, if—’
She covered her face with her hands, and tried to stop thinking. Suddenly she got up, as if stung by a venomous fancy.
‘I don’t believe she loves him as she ought, or she could not—could not have gone and danced. What shall I do if she does not? What shall I do? I can bear anything but that.’
But she found the long suspense as to his health hard enough to endure. They were not likely to hear from him for a month at least, and before that time had elapsed Cynthia would be at home again. Molly learnt to long for her return before a fortnight of her absence was over. She had had no idea that perpetual
tête-à-têtes
with Mrs. Gibson could, by any possibility, be so tiresome as she found them. Perhaps Molly’s state of delicate health, consequent upon her rapid growth during the last few months, made her irritable; but really often she had to get up and leave the room to calm herself down after listening to a long series of words, more frequently plaintive or discontented in tone than cheerful, and which at the end conveyed no distinct impression of either the speaker’s thought or feeling. Whenever anything had gone wrong, whenever Mr. Gibson had coolly persevered in anything to which she had objected; whenever the cook had made a mistake about the dinner, or the housemaid broken any little frangible article; whenever Molly’s hair was not done to her liking, or her dress did not become her, or the smell of dinner pervaded the house, or the wrong callers came, or the right callers did not come—in fact, whenever anything went wrong, poor Mr. Kirkpatrick was regretted and mourned over, nay, almost blamed, as if, had he only given himself the trouble of living, he could have helped it.
‘When I look back to those happy days, it seems to me as if I had never valued them as I ought. To be sure—youth, love—what did we care for poverty! I remember dear Mr. Kirkpatrick walking five miles into Stratford to buy me a muffin because I had such a fancy for one after Cynthia was born. I don’t mean to complain of dear papa—but I don’t think—but, perhaps I ought not to say it to you. If Mr. Kirkpatrick had but taken care of that cough of his; but he was so obstinate! Men always are, I think. And it really was selfish of him. Only I dare say he did not consider the forlorn state in which I should be left. It came harder upon me than upon most people, because I always was of such an affectionate sensitive nature. I remember a little poem of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s, in which he compared my heart to a harp-string, vibrating to the slightest breeze.’
‘I thought harpstrings required a pretty strong finger to make them sound,’ said Molly.
‘My dear child, you’ve no more poetry in you than your father. And as for your hair! it’s worse than ever. Can’t you drench it in water to take those untidy twists and twirls out of it?’
‘It only makes it curl more and more when it gets dry,’ said Molly, sudden tears coming into her eyes as a recollection came before her like a picture seen long ago and forgotten for years—a young mother washing and dressing her little girl; placing the half-naked darling on her knee, and twining the wet rings of dark hair fondly round her fingers, and then, in an ecstasy of fondness, kissing the little curly head.