MOLLY GIBSON'S WORTH IS DISCOVERED.
Mr. Gibson came in rubbing his hands after his frosty ride. Molly
judged from the look in his eye that he had been fully informed of
the present state of things at the Hall by some one. But he simply
went up to and greeted the Squire, and waited to hear what was said
to him. The Squire was fumbling at the taper on the writing-table,
and before he answered much he lighted it, and signing to his friend
to follow him, he went softly to the sofa and showed him the sleeping
child, taking the utmost care not to arouse it by flare or sound.
"Well! this is a fine young gentleman," said Mr. Gibson, returning
to the fire rather sooner than the Squire expected. "And you've got
the mother here, I understand. Mrs. Osborne Hamley, as we must call
her, poor thing! It's a sad coming home to her; for I hear she knew
nothing of his death." He spoke without exactly addressing any one,
so that either Molly or the Squire might answer as they liked. The
Squire said,--
"Yes! She's felt it a terrible shock. She's upstairs in the best
bedroom. I should like you to see her, Gibson, if she'll let you. We
must do our duty by her, for my poor lad's sake. I wish he could have
seen his boy lying there; I do. I daresay it preyed on him to have to
keep it all to himself. He might ha' known me, though. He might ha'
known my bark was waur than my bite. It's all over now, though; and
God forgive me if I was too sharp. I'm punished now."
Molly grew impatient on the mother's behalf.
"Papa, I feel as if she was very ill; perhaps worse than we think.
Will you go and see her at once?"
Mr. Gibson followed her upstairs, and the Squire came too,
thinking that he would do his duty now, and even feeling some
self-satisfaction at conquering his desire to stay with the child.
They went into the room where she had been taken. She lay quite still
in the same position as at first. Her eyes were open and tearless,
fixed on the wall. Mr. Gibson spoke to her, but she did not answer;
he lifted her hand to feel her pulse; she never noticed.
"Bring me some wine at once, and order some beef-tea," he said to
Molly.
But when he tried to put the wine into her mouth as she lay there on
her side, she made no effort to receive or swallow it, and it ran out
upon the pillow. Mr. Gibson left the room abruptly; Molly chafed the
little inanimate hand; the Squire stood by in dumb dismay, touched in
spite of himself by the death-in-life of one so young, and who must
have been so much beloved.
Mr. Gibson came back two steps at a time; he was carrying the
half-awakened child in his arms. He did not scruple to rouse him into
yet further wakefulness--did not grieve to hear him begin to wail and
cry. His eyes were on the figure upon the bed, which at that sound
quivered all through; and when her child was laid at her back, and
began caressingly to scramble yet closer, Aime turned round, and
took him in her arms, and lulled him and soothed him with the soft
wont of mother's love.
Before she lost this faint consciousness, which was habit or instinct
rather than thought, Mr. Gibson spoke to her in French. The child's
one word of "maman" had given him this clue. It was the language
sure to be most intelligible to her dulled brain; and as it
happened,--only Mr. Gibson did not think of that--it was the language
in which she had been commanded, and had learnt to obey.
Mr. Gibson's tongue was a little stiff at first, but by-and-by he
spoke it with all his old readiness. He extorted from her short
answers at first, then longer ones, and from time to time he plied
her with little drops of wine, until some further nourishment should
be at hand. Molly was struck by her father's low tones of comfort and
sympathy, although she could not follow what was said quickly enough
to catch the meaning of what passed.
By-and-by, however, when her father had done all that he could, and
they were once more downstairs, he told them more about her journey
than they yet knew. The hurry, the sense of acting in defiance of
a prohibition, the over-mastering anxiety, the broken night, and
fatigue of the journey, had ill prepared her for the shock at last,
and Mr. Gibson was seriously alarmed for the consequences. She had
wandered strangely in her replies to him; he had perceived that she
was wandering, and had made great efforts to recall her senses;
but Mr. Gibson foresaw that some bodily illness was coming on,
and stopped late that night, arranging many things with Molly and
the Squire. One--the only--comfort arising from her state was the
probability that she would be entirely unconscious by the morrow--the
day of the funeral. Worn out by the contending emotions of the day,
the Squire seemed now unable to look beyond the wrench and trial of
the next twelve hours. He sate with his head in his hands, declining
to go to bed, refusing to dwell on the thought of his grandchild--not
three hours ago such a darling in his eyes. Mr. Gibson gave some
instructions to one of the maid-servants as to the watch she was to
keep by Mrs. Osborne Hamley, and insisted on Molly's going to bed.
When she pleaded the apparent necessity of her staying up, he said,--
"Now, Molly, look how much less trouble the dear old Squire would
give if he would obey orders. He is only adding to anxiety by
indulging himself. One pardons everything to extreme grief, however.
But you will have enough to do to occupy all your strength for days
to come; and go to bed you must now. I only wish I saw my way as
clearly through other things as I do to your nearest duty. I wish I'd
never let Roger go wandering off; he'll wish it too, poor fellow!
Did I tell you Cynthia is going off in hot haste to her uncle
Kirkpatrick's? I suspect a visit to him will stand in lieu of going
out to Russia as a governess."
"I am sure she was quite serious in wishing for that."
"Yes, yes! at the time. I've no doubt she thought she was sincere
in intending to go. But the great thing was to get out of the
unpleasantness of the present time and place; and uncle Kirkpatrick's
will do this as effectually, and more pleasantly, than a situation at
Nishni-Novgorod in an ice-palace."
He had given Molly's thoughts a turn, which was what he wanted to
do. Molly could not help remembering Mr. Henderson, and his offer,
and all the consequent hints; and wondering, and wishing--what did
she wish? or had she been falling asleep? Before she had quite
ascertained this point she was asleep in reality.
After this, long days passed over in a monotonous round of care; for
no one seemed to think of Molly's leaving the Hall during the woeful
illness that befell Mrs. Osborne Hamley. It was not that her father
allowed her to take much active part in the nursing; the Squire gave
him _carte-blanche_, and he engaged two efficient hospital nurses to
watch over the unconscious Aime; but Molly was needed to receive the
finer directions as to her treatment and diet. It was not that she
was wanted for the care of the little boy; the Squire was too jealous
of the child's exclusive love for that, and one of the housemaids was
employed in the actual physical charge of him; but he needed some one
to listen to his incontinence of language, both when his passionate
regret for his dead son came uppermost, and also when he had
discovered some extraordinary charm in that son's child; and again
when he was oppressed with the uncertainty of Aime's long-continued
illness. Molly was not so good or so bewitching a listener to
ordinary conversation as Cynthia; but where her heart was interested
her sympathy was deep and unfailing. In this case she only wished
that the Squire could really feel that Aime was not the encumbrance
which he evidently considered her to be. Not that he would have
acknowledged the fact, if it had been put before him in plain words.
He fought against the dim consciousness of what was in his mind; he
spoke repeatedly of patience when no one but himself was impatient;
he would often say that when she grew better she must not be allowed
to leave the Hall until she was perfectly strong, when no one was
even contemplating the remotest chance of her leaving her child,
excepting only himself. Molly once or twice asked her father if she
might not speak to the Squire, and represent the hardship of sending
her away--the improbability that she would consent to quit her boy,
and so on; but Mr. Gibson only replied,--
"Wait quietly. Time enough when nature and circumstance have had
their chance, and have failed."
It was well that Molly was such a favourite with the old servants;
for she had frequently to restrain and to control. To be sure, she
had her father's authority to back her; and they were aware that
where her own comfort, ease, or pleasure was concerned she never
interfered, but submitted to their will. If the Squire had known of
the want of attendance to which she submitted with the most perfect
meekness, as far as she herself was the only sufferer, he would have
gone into a towering rage. But Molly hardly thought of it, so anxious
was she to do all she could for others, and to remember the various
charges which her father gave her in his daily visits. Perhaps he
did not spare her enough; she was willing and uncomplaining; but one
day after Mrs. Osborne Hamley had "taken the turn," as the nurses
called it, when she was lying weak as a new-born baby, but with her
faculties all restored, and her fever gone,--when spring buds were
blooming out, and spring birds sang merrily,--Molly answered to her
father's sudden questioning that she felt unaccountably weary; that
her head ached heavily, and that she was aware of a sluggishness of
thought which it required a painful effort to overcome.
"Don't go on," said Mr. Gibson, with a quick pang of anxiety, almost
of remorse. "Lie down here--with your back to the light. I'll come
back and see you before I go." And off he went in search of the
Squire. He had a good long walk before he came upon Mr. Hamley in
a field of spring wheat, where the women were weeding, his little
grandson holding to his finger in the intervals of short walks of
inquiry into the dirtiest places, which was all his sturdy little
limbs could manage.
"Well, Gibson, and how goes the patient? Better? I wish we could
get her out of doors, such a fine day as it is. It would make her
strong as soon as anything. I used to beg my poor lad to come out
more. Maybe, I worried him; but the air is the finest thing for
strengthening that I know of. Though, perhaps, she'll not thrive in
English air as if she'd been born here; and she'll not be quite right
till she gets back to her native place, wherever that is."
"I don't know. I begin to think we shall get her quite round here;
and I don't know that she could be in a better place. But it's not
about her. May I order the carriage for my Molly?" Mr. Gibson's voice
sounded as if he was choking a little as he said these last words.
"To be sure," said the Squire, setting the child down. He had been
holding him in his arms the last few minutes: but now he wanted all
his eyes to look into Mr. Gibson's face. "I say," said he, catching
hold of Mr. Gibson's arm, "what's the matter, man? Don't twitch up
your face like that, but speak!"
"Nothing's the matter," said Mr. Gibson, hastily. "Only I want her at
home, under my own eye;" and he turned away to go to the house. But
the Squire left his field and his weeders, and kept at Mr. Gibson's
side. He wanted to speak, but his heart was so full he did not know
what to say. "I say, Gibson," he got out at last, "your Molly is
liker a child of mine than a stranger; and I reckon we've all on us
been coming too hard upon her. You don't think there's much amiss, do
you?"
"How can I tell?" said Mr. Gibson, almost savagely. But any hastiness
of temper was instinctively understood by the Squire; and he was not
offended, though he did not speak again till they reached the house.
Then he went to order the carriage, and stood by sorrowful enough
while the horses were being put in. He felt as if he should not know
what to do without Molly; he had never known her value, he thought,
till now. But he kept silence on this view of the case; which was a
praiseworthy effort on the part of one who usually let by-standers
see and hear as much of his passing feelings as if he had had a
window in his breast. He stood by while Mr. Gibson helped the
faintly-smiling, tearful Molly into the carriage. Then the Squire
mounted on the step and kissed her hand; but when he tried to thank
her and bless her, he broke down; and as soon as he was once more
safely on the ground, Mr. Gibson cried out to the coachman to drive
on. And so Molly left Hamley Hall. From time to time her father
rode up to the window, and made some little cheerful and apparently
careless remark. When they came within two miles of Hollingford, he
put spurs to his horse, and rode briskly past the carriage windows,
kissing his hand to the occupant as he did so. He went on to prepare
her home for Molly: when she arrived Mrs. Gibson was ready to greet
her. Mr. Gibson had given one or two of his bright, imperative
orders, and Mrs. Gibson was feeling rather lonely "without either of
her two dear girls at home," as she phrased it, to herself as well as
to others.
"Why, my sweet Molly, this is an unexpected pleasure. Only this
morning I said to papa, 'When do you think we shall see our Molly
back?' He did not say much--he never does, you know; but I am sure he
thought directly of giving me this surprise, this pleasure. You're
looking a little--what shall I call it? I remember such a pretty line
of poetry, 'Oh, call her fair, not pale!'--so we'll call you fair."
"You'd better not call her anything, but let her get to her own room
and have a good rest as soon as possible. Haven't you got a trashy
novel or two in the house? That's the literature to send her to
sleep."
He did not leave her till he had seen her laid on a sofa in a
darkened room, with some slight pretence of reading in her hand. Then
he came away, leading his wife, who turned round at the door to kiss
her hand to Molly, and make a little face of unwillingness to be
dragged away.
"Now, Hyacinth," said he, as he took his wife into the drawing-room,
"she will need much care. She has been overworked, and I've been a
fool. That's all. We must keep her from all worry and care,--but I
won't answer for it that she'll not have an illness, for all that!"
"Poor thing! she does look worn out. She is something like me, her
feelings are too much for her. But now she is come home she shall
find us as cheerful as possible. I can answer for myself; and you
really must brighten up your doleful face, my dear--nothing so
bad for invalids as the appearance of depression in those around
them. I have had such a pleasant letter from Cynthia to-day. Uncle
Kirkpatrick really seems to make so much of her, he treats her just
like a daughter; he has given her a ticket to the Concerts of Ancient
Music; and Mr. Henderson has been to call on her, in spite of all
that has gone before."
For an instant, Mr. Gibson thought that it was easy enough for
his wife to be cheerful, with the pleasant thoughts and evident
anticipations she had in her mind, but a little more difficult for
him to put off his doleful looks while his own child lay in a state
of suffering and illness which might be the precursor of a still
worse malady. But he was always a man for immediate action as soon
as he had resolved on the course to be taken; and he knew that "some
must watch, while some must sleep; so runs the world away."
The illness which he apprehended came upon Molly; not violently or
acutely, so that there was any immediate danger to be dreaded; but
making a long pull upon her strength, which seemed to lessen day
by day, until at last her father feared that she might become a
permanent invalid. There was nothing very decided or alarming to tell
Cynthia, and Mrs. Gibson kept the dark side from her in her letters.
"Molly was feeling the spring weather;" or "Molly had been a good
deal overdone with her stay at the Hall, and was resting;" such
little sentences told nothing of Molly's real state. But then, as
Mrs. Gibson said to herself, it would be a pity to disturb Cynthia's
pleasure by telling her much about Molly; indeed, there was not much
to tell, one day was so like another. But it so happened that Lady
Harriet,--who came whenever she could to sit awhile with Molly,
at first against Mrs. Gibson's will, and afterwards with her full
consent,--for reasons of her own, Lady Harriet wrote a letter to
Cynthia, to which she was urged by Mrs. Gibson. It fell out in this
manner:--One day, when Lady Harriet was sitting in the drawing-room
for a few minutes after she had been with Molly, she said,--
"Really, Clare, I spend so much time in your house that I'm going
to establish a work-basket here. Mary has infected me with her
notability, and I'm going to work mamma a footstool. It is to be
a surprise; and so if I do it here she will know nothing about it.
Only I cannot match the gold beads I want for the pansies in this
dear little town; and Hollingford, who could send me down stars and
planets if I asked him, I make no doubt, could no more match beads
than--"
"My dear Lady Harriet! you forget Cynthia! Think what a pleasure it
would be to her to do anything for you."
"Would it? Then she shall have plenty of it; but mind, it is you who
have answered for her. She shall get me some wool too; how good I am
to confer so much pleasure on a fellow-creature! But seriously, do
you think I might write and give her a few commissions? Neither Agnes
nor Mary are in town--"
"I am sure she would be delighted," said Mrs. Gibson, who also took
into consideration the reflection of aristocratic honour that would
fall upon Cynthia if she had a letter from Lady Harriet while at
Mr. Kirkpatrick's. So she gave the address, and Lady Harriet wrote.
All the first part of the letter was taken up with apology and
commissions; but then, never doubting but that Cynthia was aware of
Molly's state, she went on to say--
"I saw Molly this morning. Twice I have been forbidden admittance, as
she was too ill to see any one out of her own family. I wish we could
begin to perceive a change for the better; but she looks more fading
every time, and I fear Mr. Gibson considers it a very anxious case."
The day but one after this letter was despatched, Cynthia walked into
the drawing-room at home with as much apparent composure as if she
had left it not an hour before. Mrs. Gibson was dozing, but believing
herself to be reading; she had been with Molly the greater part of
the morning, and now after her lunch, and the invalid's pretence of
early dinner, she considered herself entitled to some repose. She
started up as Cynthia came in:
"Cynthia! Dear child, where have you come from? Why in the world have
you come? My poor nerves! My heart is quite fluttering; but, to be
sure, it's no wonder with all this anxiety I have to undergo. Why
have you come back?"
"Because of the anxiety you speak of, mamma. I never knew,--you never
told me how ill Molly was."
"Nonsense! I beg your pardon, my dear, but it's really nonsense.
Molly's illness is only nervous, Mr. Gibson says. A nervous fever;
but you must remember nerves are mere fancy, and she's getting
better. Such a pity for you to have left your uncle's. Who told you
about Molly?"
"Lady Harriet. She wrote about some wool--"
"I know,--I know. But you might have known she always exaggerates
things. Not but what I have been almost worn out with nursing.
Perhaps, after all, it is a very good thing you have come, my dear;
and now you shall come down into the dining-room and have some lunch,
and tell me all the Hyde Park Street news--into my room,--don't go
into yours yet--Molly is so sensitive to noise!"
While Cynthia ate her lunch, Mrs. Gibson went on questioning. "And
your aunt, how is her cold? And Helen, quite strong again? Margaretta
as pretty as ever? The boys are at Harrow, I suppose? And my old
favourite, Mr. Henderson?" She could not manage to slip in this last
inquiry naturally; in spite of herself there was a change of tone, an
accent of eagerness. Cynthia did not reply on the instant; she poured
herself out some water with great deliberation, and then said,--
"My aunt is quite well; Helen is as strong as she ever is, and
Margaretta very pretty. The boys are at Harrow, and I conclude that
Mr. Henderson is enjoying his usual health, for he was to dine at my
uncle's to-day."
"Take care, Cynthia. Look how you are cutting that gooseberry tart,"
said Mrs. Gibson, with sharp annoyance; not provoked by Cynthia's
present action, although it gave excuse for a little vent of temper.
"I can't think how you could come off in this sudden kind of way; I
am sure it must have annoyed your uncle and aunt. I daresay they'll
never ask you again."
"On the contrary, I am to go back there as soon as ever I can be easy
to leave Molly."
"'Easy to leave Molly.' Now that really is nonsense, and rather
uncomplimentary to me, I must say: nursing her as I have been doing,
daily, and almost nightly; for I have been wakened times out of
number by Mr. Gibson getting up, and going to see if she had had her
medicine properly."
"I'm afraid she has been very ill?" asked Cynthia.
"Yes, she has, in one way; but not in another. It was what I call
more a tedious, than an interesting illness. There was no immediate
danger, but she lay much in the same state from day to day."
"I wish I had known!" sighed Cynthia. "Do you think I might go and
see her now?"
"I'll go and prepare her. You'll find her a good deal better than
she has been. Ah; here's Mr. Gibson!" He came into the dining-room,
hearing voices. Cynthia thought that he looked much older.
"You here!" said he, coming forward to shake hands. "Why, how did you
come?"
"By the 'Umpire.' I never knew Molly had been so ill, or I would have
come directly." Her eyes were full of tears. Mr. Gibson was touched;
he shook her hand again, and murmured, "You're a good girl, Cynthia."
"She's heard one of dear Lady Harriet's exaggerated accounts," said
Mrs. Gibson, "and come straight off. I tell her it's very foolish,
for Molly is a great deal better now."
"Very foolish," said Mr. Gibson, echoing his wife's words, but
smiling at Cynthia. "But sometimes one likes foolish people for their
folly, better than wise people for their wisdom."
"I am afraid folly always annoys me," said his wife. "However,
Cynthia is here, and what is done, is done."
"Very true, my dear. And now I'll run up and see my little girl,
and tell her the good news. You'd better follow me in a couple of
minutes." This to Cynthia.
Molly's delight at seeing her showed itself first in a few happy
tears; and then in soft caresses and inarticulate sounds of love.
Once or twice she began, "It is such a pleasure," and there she
stopped short. But the eloquence of these five words sank deep into
Cynthia's heart. She had returned just at the right time, when Molly
wanted the gentle fillip of the society of a fresh and yet a familiar
person. Cynthia's tact made her talkative or silent, gay or grave,
as the varying humour of Molly required. She listened, too, with the
semblance, if not the reality, of unwearied interest, to Molly's
continual recurrence to all the time of distress and sorrow at Hamley
Hall, and to the scenes which had then so deeply impressed themselves
upon her susceptible nature. Cynthia instinctively knew that the
repetition of all these painful recollections would ease the
oppressed memory, which refused to dwell on anything but what had
occurred at a time of feverish disturbance of health. So she never
interrupted Molly, as Mrs. Gibson had so frequently done, with--"You
told me all that before, my dear. Let us talk of something else;" or,
"Really I cannot allow you to be always dwelling on painful thoughts.
Try and be a little more cheerful. Youth is gay. You are young,
and therefore you ought to be gay. That is put in a famous form of
speech; I forget exactly what it is called."
So Molly's health and spirits improved rapidly after Cynthia's
return: and although she was likely to retain many of her invalid
habits during the summer, she was able to take drives, and enjoy the
fine weather; it was only her as yet tender spirits that required a
little management. All the Hollingford people forgot that they had
ever thought of her except as a darling of the town; and each in his
or her way showed kind interest in her father's child. Miss Browning
and Miss Phoebe considered it quite a privilege that they were
allowed to see her a fortnight or three weeks before any one else;
Mrs. Goodenough, spectacles on nose, stirred dainty messes in a
silver saucepan for Molly's benefit; the Towers sent books, and
forced fruit, and new caricatures, and strange and delicate poultry;
humble patients of "the doctor," as Mr. Gibson was usually termed,
left the earliest cauliflowers they could grow in their cottage
gardens, with "their duty for Miss."
And last of all, though strongest in regard, most piteously eager in
interest, came Squire Hamley himself. When she was at the worst, he
rode over every day to hear the smallest detail, facing even Mrs.
Gibson (his abomination) if her husband was not at home, to ask and
hear, and ask and hear, till the tears were unconsciously stealing
down his cheeks. Every resource of his heart, or his house, or his
lands was searched and tried, if it could bring a moment's pleasure
to her; and whatever it might be that came from him, at her very
worst time, it brought out a dim smile upon her face.