AN ABSENT LOVER RETURNS.
[Illustration (untitled)]
And now it was late June; and to Molly's and her father's extreme
urgency in pushing, and Mr. and Mrs. Kirkpatrick's affectionate
persistency in pulling, Cynthia had yielded, and had gone back to
finish her interrupted visit in London, but not before the bruit of
her previous sudden return to nurse Molly had told strongly in her
favour in the fluctuating opinion of the little town. Her affair with
Mr. Preston was thrust into the shade; while every one was speaking
of her warm heart. Under the gleam of Molly's recovery everything
assumed a rosy hue, as indeed became the time when actual roses were
fully in bloom.
One morning Mrs. Gibson brought Molly a great basket of flowers, that
had been sent from the Hall. Molly still breakfasted in bed, but she
had just come down, and was now well enough to arrange the flowers
for the drawing-room, and as she did so with these blossoms, she made
some comments on each.
"Ah! these white pinks! They were Mrs. Hamley's favourite flower;
and so like her! This little bit of sweet briar, it quite scents the
room. It has pricked my fingers, but never mind. Oh, mamma, look
at this rose! I forget its name, but it is very rare, and grows up
in the sheltered corner of the wall, near the mulberry-tree. Roger
bought the tree for his mother with his own money when he was quite a
boy; he showed it me, and made me notice it."
"I daresay it was Roger who got it now. You heard papa say he had
seen him yesterday."
"No! Roger! Roger come home!" said Molly, turning first red, then
very white.
"Yes. Oh, I remember you had gone to bed before papa came in, and he
was called off early to tiresome Mrs. Beale. Yes, Roger turned up at
the Hall the day before yesterday."
But Molly leaned back against her chair, too faint to do more at the
flowers for some time. She had been startled by the suddenness of the
news. "Roger come home!"
It happened that Mr. Gibson was unusually busy on this particular
day, and he did not come home till late in the afternoon. But Molly
kept her place in the drawing-room all the time, not even going to
take her customary siesta, so anxious was she to hear everything
about Roger's return, which as yet appeared to her almost incredible.
But it was quite natural in reality; the long monotony of her illness
had made her lose all count of time. When Roger left England, his
idea was to coast round Africa on the eastern side until he reached
the Cape; and thence to make what further journey or voyage might
seem to him best in pursuit of his scientific objects. To Cape Town
all his letters had been addressed of late; and there, two months
before, he had received the intelligence of Osborne's death, as well
as Cynthia's hasty letter of relinquishment. He did not consider
that he was doing wrong in returning to England immediately, and
reporting himself to the gentlemen who had sent him out, with a
full explanation of the circumstances relating to Osborne's private
marriage and sudden death. He offered, and they accepted his offer,
to go out again for any time that they might think equivalent to the
five months he was yet engaged to them for. They were most of them
gentlemen of property, and saw the full importance of proving the
marriage of an eldest son, and installing his child as the natural
heir to a long-descended estate. This much information, but in a more
condensed form, Mr. Gibson gave to Molly, in a very few minutes. She
sat up on her sofa, looking very pretty with the flush on her cheeks,
and the brightness in her eyes.
"Well!" said she, when her father stopped speaking.
"Well! what?" asked he, playfully.
"Oh! why, such a number of things. I've been waiting all day to ask
you all about everything. How is he looking?"
"If a young man of twenty-four ever does take to growing taller, I
should say that he was taller. As it is, I suppose it's only that he
looks broader, stronger--more muscular."
"Oh! is he changed?" asked Molly, a little disturbed by this account.
"No, not changed; and yet not the same. He's as brown as a berry for
one thing; caught a little of the negro tinge, and a beard as fine
and sweeping as my bay-mare's tail."
"A beard! But go on, papa. Does he talk as he used to do? I should
know his voice amongst ten thousand."
"I didn't catch any Hottentot twang, if that's what you mean. Nor did
he say, 'C¾sar and Pompey berry much alike, 'specially Pompey,' which
is the only specimen of negro language I can remember just at this
moment."
"And which I never could see the wit of," said Mrs. Gibson, who had
come into the room after the conversation had begun; and did not
understand what it was aiming at. Molly fidgeted; she wanted to go on
with her questions and keep her father to definite and matter-of-fact
answers, and she knew that when his wife chimed into a conversation,
Mr. Gibson was very apt to find out that he must go about some
necessary piece of business.
"Tell me, how are they all getting on together?" It was an inquiry
which she did not make in general before Mrs. Gibson, for Molly and
her father had tacitly agreed to keep silence on what they knew or
had observed, respecting the three who formed the present family at
the Hall.
"Oh!" said Mr. Gibson, "Roger is evidently putting everything to
rights in his firm, quiet way."
"'Things to rights.' Why, what's wrong?" asked Mrs. Gibson quickly.
"The Squire and the French daughter-in-law don't get on well
together, I suppose? I am always so glad Cynthia acted with the
promptitude she did; it would have been very awkward for her to have
been mixed up with all these complications. Poor Roger! to find
himself supplanted by a child when he comes home!"
"You were not in the room, my dear, when I was telling Molly of the
reasons for Roger's return; it was to put his brother's child at once
into his rightful and legal place. So now, when he finds the work
partly done to his hands, he is happy and gratified in proportion."
"Then he is not much affected by Cynthia's breaking off her
engagement?" (Mrs. Gibson could afford to call it an "engagement"
now.) "I never did give him credit for very deep feelings."
"On the contrary, he feels it very acutely. He and I had a long talk
about it, yesterday."
Both Molly and Mrs. Gibson would have liked to have heard something
more about this conversation; but Mr. Gibson did not choose to go on
with the subject. The only point which he disclosed was that Roger
had insisted on his right to have a personal interview with Cynthia;
and, on hearing that she was in London at present, had deferred any
further explanation or expostulation by letter, preferring to await
her return.
Molly went on with her questions on other subjects. "And Mrs. Osborne
Hamley? How is she?"
"Wonderfully brightened up by Roger's presence. I don't think I've
ever seen her smile before; but she gives him the sweetest smiles
from time to time. They are evidently good friends; and she loses her
strange startled look when she speaks to him. I suspect she has been
quite aware of the Squire's wish that she should return to France;
and has been hard put to it to decide whether to leave her child or
not. The idea that she would have to make some such decision came
upon her when she was completely shattered by grief and illness, and
she hasn't had any one to consult as to her duty until Roger came,
upon whom she has evidently firm reliance. He told me something of
this himself."
"You seem to have had quite a long conversation with him, papa!"
"Yes. I was going to see old Abraham, when the Squire called to me
over the hedge, as I was jogging along. He told me the news; and
there was no resisting his invitation to come back and lunch with
them. Besides, one gets a great deal of meaning out of Roger's words;
it didn't take so very long a time to hear this much."
"I should think he would come and call upon us soon," said Mrs.
Gibson to Molly, "and then we shall see how much we can manage to
hear."
"Do you think he will, papa?" said Molly, more doubtfully. She
remembered the last time he was in that very room, and the hopes with
which he left it; and she fancied that she could see traces of this
thought in her father's countenance at his wife's speech.
"I can't tell, my dear. Until he's quite convinced of Cynthia's
intentions, it can't be very pleasant for him to come on mere visits
of ceremony to the house in which he has known her; but he's one who
will always do what he thinks right, whether pleasant or not."
Mrs. Gibson could hardly wait till her husband had finished his
sentence before she testified against a part of it.
"'Convinced of Cynthia's intentions!' I should think she had made
them pretty clear! What more does the man want?"
"He's not as yet convinced that the letter wasn't written in a fit
of temporary feeling. I've told him that this was true; although I
didn't feel it my place to explain to him the causes of that feeling.
He believes that he can induce her to resume the former footing.
I don't; and I've told him so; but, of course, he needs the full
conviction that she alone can give him."
"Poor Cynthia! My poor child!" said Mrs. Gibson, plaintively. "What
she has exposed herself to by letting herself be over-persuaded by
that man!"
Mr. Gibson's eyes flashed fire. But he kept his lips tight closed;
and only said, "'That man,' indeed!" quite below his breath.
Molly, too, had been damped by an expression or two in her father's
speech. "Mere visits of ceremony!" Was it so, indeed? A "mere visit
of ceremony!" Whatever it was, the call was paid before many days
were over. That he felt all the awkwardness of his position towards
Mrs. Gibson--that he was in reality suffering pain all the time--was
but too evident to Molly; but, of course, Mrs. Gibson saw nothing
of this in her gratification at the proper respect paid to her by
one whose name was in the newspapers that chronicled his return, and
about whom already Lord Cumnor and the Towers family had been making
inquiry.
Molly was sitting in her pretty white invalid's dress, half reading,
half dreaming, for the June air was so clear and ambient, the garden
so full of bloom, the trees so full of leaf, that reading by the open
window was only a pretence at such a time; besides which, Mrs. Gibson
continually interrupted her with remarks about the pattern of her
worsted work. It was after lunch--orthodox calling time, when Maria
ushered in Mr. Roger Hamley. Molly started up; and then stood shyly
and quietly in her place while a bronzed, bearded, grave man came
into the room, in whom she at first had to seek for the merry boyish
face she knew by heart only two years ago. But months in the climates
in which Roger had been travelling age as much as years in more
temperate regions. And constant thought and anxiety while in daily
peril of life deepen the lines of character upon the face. Moreover,
the circumstances that had of late affected him personally were not
of a nature to make him either buoyant or cheerful. But his voice was
the same; that was the first point of the old friend Molly caught,
when he addressed her in a tone far softer than he used in speaking
conventional politenesses to her stepmother.
"I was so sorry to hear how ill you had been! You are looking but
delicate!" letting his eyes rest upon her face with affectionate
examination. Molly felt herself colour all over with the
consciousness of his regard. To do something to put an end to it,
she looked up, and showed him her beautiful soft grey eyes, which he
never remembered to have noticed before. She smiled at him as she
blushed still deeper, and said,--
"Oh! I am quite strong now to what I was. It would be a shame to be
ill when everything is in its full summer beauty."
"I have heard how deeply we--I am indebted to you--my father can
hardly praise you--"
"Please don't," said Molly, the tears coming into her eyes in spite
of herself. He seemed to understand her at once; he went on as if
speaking to Mrs. Gibson: "Indeed, my little sister-in-law is never
weary of talking about Monsieur le Docteur, as she calls your
husband!"
"I have not had the pleasure of making Mrs. Osborne Hamley's
acquaintance yet," said Mrs. Gibson, suddenly aware of a duty which
might have been expected from her, "and I must beg you to apologize
to her for my remissness. But Molly has been such a care and anxiety
to me--for, you know, I look upon her quite as my own child--that
I really have not gone anywhere; excepting to the Towers, perhaps
I should say, which is just like another home to me. And then I
understood that Mrs. Osborne Hamley was thinking of returning to
France before long? Still it was very remiss."
The little trap thus set for news of what might be going on in the
Hamley family was quite successful. Roger answered her thus:--
"I am sure Mrs. Osborne Hamley will be very glad to see any friends
of the family, as soon as she is a little stronger. I hope she will
not go back to France at all. She is an orphan, and I trust we shall
induce her to remain with my father. But at present nothing is
arranged." Then, as if glad to have got over his "visit of ceremony,"
he got up and took leave. When he was at the door he looked back,
having, as he thought, a word more to say; but he quite forgot what
it was, for he surprised Molly's intent gaze, and sudden confusion at
discovery, and went away as soon as he could.
"Poor Osborne was right!" said he. "She has grown into delicate
fragrant beauty, just as he said she would: or is it the character
which has formed her face? Now the next time I enter these doors, it
will be to learn my fate!"
Mr. Gibson had told his wife of Roger's desire to have a personal
interview with Cynthia, rather with a view to her repeating what he
said to her daughter. He did not see any exact necessity for this, it
is true; but he thought it might be advisable that she should know
all the truth in which she was concerned, and he told his wife this.
But she took the affair into her own management, and, although she
apparently agreed with Mr. Gibson, she never named the affair to
Cynthia; all that she said to her was--
"Your old admirer, Roger Hamley, has come home in a great hurry,
in consequence of poor dear Osborne's unexpected decease. He must
have been rather surprised to find the widow and her little boy
established at the Hall. He came to call here the other day, and
made himself really rather agreeable, although his manners are not
improved by the society he has kept on his travels. Still I prophesy
he will be considered as a fashionable 'lion,' and perhaps the very
uncouthness which jars against my sense of refinement, may even
become admired in a scientific traveller, who has been into more
desert places, and eaten more extraordinary food, than any other
Englishman of the day. I suppose he has given up all chance of
inheriting the estate, for I hear he talks of returning to Africa,
and becoming a regular wanderer. Your name was not mentioned, but I
believe he inquired about you from Mr. Gibson."
"There!" said she to herself, as she folded up and directed her
letter; "that can't disturb her, or make her uncomfortable. And it's
all the truth too, or very near it. Of course he'll want to see her
when she comes back; but by that time I do hope Mr. Henderson will
have proposed again, and that that affair will be all settled."
But Cynthia returned to Hollingford one Tuesday morning, and in
answer to her mother's anxious inquiries on the subject, would only
say that Mr. Henderson had not offered again. "Why should he? She had
refused him once, and he did not know the reason of her refusal, at
least one of the reasons. She did not know if she should have taken
him if there had been no such person as Roger Hamley in the world.
No! Uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick had never heard anything about Roger's
offer,--nor had her cousins. She had always declared her wish to
keep it a secret, and she had not mentioned it to any one, whatever
other people might have done." Underneath this light and careless
vein there were other feelings; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to
probe beneath the surface. She had set her heart on Mr. Henderson's
marrying Cynthia very early in their acquaintance; and to know,
firstly, that the same wish had entered into his head, and that
Roger's attachment to Cynthia, with its consequences, had been
the obstacle; and secondly, that Cynthia herself with all the
opportunities of propinquity which she had lately had, had failed to
provoke a repetition of the offer,--was, as Mrs. Gibson said, "enough
to provoke a saint." All the rest of the day she alluded to Cynthia
as a disappointing and ungrateful daughter; Molly could not make out
why, and resented it for Cynthia, until the latter said, bitterly,
"Never mind, Molly. Mamma is only vexed because Mr.--because I have
not come back an engaged young lady."
"Yes; and I am sure you might have done,--there's the ingratitude! I
am not so unjust as to want you to do what you can't do!" said Mrs.
Gibson, querulously.
"But where's the ingratitude, mamma? I'm very much tired, and perhaps
that makes me stupid; but I cannot see the ingratitude." Cynthia
spoke very wearily, leaning her head back on the sofa-cushions, as if
she did not care to have an answer.
"Why, don't you see we are doing all we can for you; dressing you
well, and sending you to London; and when you might relieve us of the
expense of all this, you don't."
"No! Cynthia, I will speak," said Molly, all crimson with
indignation, and pushing away Cynthia's restraining hand. "I am sure
papa does not feel, and does not mind, any expense he incurs about
his daughters. And I know quite well that he does not wish us to
marry, unless--" She faltered and stopped.
"Unless what?" said Mrs. Gibson, half-mocking.
"Unless we love some one very dearly indeed," said Molly, in a low,
firm tone.
"Well, after this tirade--really rather indelicate, I must say--I
have done. I will neither help nor hinder any love-affairs of you two
young ladies. In my days we were glad of the advice of our elders."
And she left the room to put into fulfilment an idea which had just
struck her: to write a confidential letter to Mrs. Kirkpatrick,
giving her her version of Cynthia's "unfortunate entanglement," and
"delicate sense of honour," and hints of her entire indifference
to all the masculine portion of the world, Mr. Henderson being
dexterously excluded from the category.
"Oh, dear!" said Molly, throwing herself back in a chair, with a sigh
of relief, as Mrs. Gibson left the room; "how cross I do get since
I've been ill! But I couldn't bear her to speak as if papa grudged
you anything."
"I'm sure he doesn't, Molly. You need not defend him on my account.
But I'm sorry mamma still looks upon me as 'an encumbrance,' as the
advertisements in _The Times_ always call us unfortunate children.
But I've been an encumbrance to her all my life. I'm getting very
much into despair about everything, Molly. I shall try my luck in
Russia. I've heard of a situation as English governess at Moscow, in
a family owning whole provinces of land, and serfs by the hundred. I
put off writing my letter till I came home; I shall be as much out
of the way there as if I was married. Oh, dear! travelling all night
isn't good for the spirits. How is Mr. Preston?"
"Oh, he has taken Cumnor Grange, three miles away, and he never comes
in to the Hollingford tea-parties now. I saw him once in the street,
but it's a question which of us tried the hardest to get out of the
other's way."
"You've not said anything about Roger, yet."
"No; I didn't know if you would care to hear. He is very much
older-looking; quite a strong grown-up man. And papa says he is much
graver. Ask me any questions, if you want to know, but I have only
seen him once."
"I was in hopes he would have left the neighbourhood by this time.
Mamma said he was going to travel again."
"I can't tell," said Molly. "I suppose you know," she continued, but
hesitating a little before she spoke, "that he wishes to see you?"
"No! I never heard. I wish he would have been satisfied with my
letter. It was as decided as I could make it. If I say I won't see
him, I wonder if his will or mine will be the strongest?"
"His," said Molly. "But you must see him; you owe it to him. He will
never be satisfied without it."
"Suppose he talks me round into resuming the engagement? I should
only break it off again."
"Surely you can't be 'talked round' if your mind is made up. But
perhaps it is not really, Cynthia?" asked she, with a little wistful
anxiety betraying itself in her face.
"It is quite made up. I am going to teach little Russian girls; and
am never going to marry nobody."
"You are not serious, Cynthia. And yet it is a very serious thing."
But Cynthia went into one of her wild moods, and no more reason or
sensible meaning was to be got out of her at the time.