Writing of _Wives and Daughters_, Madame Mohl said: “The
Hamleys are delightful, and Mrs. Gibson! oh, the tricks are
delicious; but I am not up to Cynthia yet. Molly is the best
heroine you have had yet. Everyone says it is the best thing
you ever did.”
On Tuesday afternoon Molly returned home—to the home which was already
strange, and what Warwickshire people would call “unked,” to her. New
paper, new colours; grim servants dressed in their best, and objecting
to every change—from their master’s marriage to the new oilcloth in the
hall, “which tripped ’em up, and threw ’em down, and was cold to the
feet, and smelt just abominable.” All these complaints Molly had to
listen to, and it was not a cheerful preparation for the reception which
she already felt to be so formidable.
The sound of their carriage-wheels was heard at last, and Molly went
to the front door to meet them. Her father got out first, and took her
hand and held it while he helped his bride to alight. Then he kissed her
fondly, and passed her on to his wife; but her veil was so securely (and
becomingly) fastened down, that it was some time before Mrs. Gibson
could get her lips clear to greet her new daughter. Then there was
luggage to be seen about; and both the travellers were occupied in this,
while Molly stood by trembling with excitement, unable to help, and only
conscious of Betty’s rather cross looks, as heavy box after heavy box
jammed up the passage.
“Molly, my dear, show—your mamma to her room!”
Mr. Gibson had hesitated, because the question of the name by which Molly
was to call her new relation had never occurred to him before. The colour
flashed into Molly’s face. Was she to call her “mamma”?—the name long
appropriated in her mind to someone else—to her own dead mother. The
rebellious heart rose against it, but she said nothing. She led the way
upstairs, Mrs. Gibson turning round from time to time with some fresh
direction as to which bag or trunk she needed most. She hardly spoke to
Molly till they were both in the newly-furnished bedroom, where a small
fire had been lighted by Molly’s orders.
“Now, my love, we can embrace each other in peace. O dear, how tired I
am!”—(after the embrace had been accomplished). “My spirits are so easily
affected with fatigue; but your dear papa has been kindness itself. Dear!
what an old-fashioned bed! And what a—But it doesn’t signify. By and by
we’ll renovate the house—won’t we, my dear? And you’ll be my little maid
to-night, and help me to arrange a few things, for I’m just worn out with
the day’s journey.”
“I’ve ordered a sort of tea-dinner to be ready for you,” said Molly.
“Shall I go and tell them to send it in?”
“I’m not sure if I can go down again to-night. It would be very
comfortable to have a little table brought in here, and sit in my
dressing-gown by this cheerful fire. But, to be sure, there’s your dear
papa! I really don’t think he would eat anything if I were not there. One
must not think about oneself, you know. Yes, I’ll come down in a quarter
of an hour.”
But Mr. Gibson had found a note awaiting him, with an immediate summons
to an old patient, dangerously ill; and, snatching a mouthful of food
while his horse was being saddled, he had to resume at once his old
habits of attention to his profession above everything.
As soon as Mrs. Gibson found that he was not likely to miss her
presence—he had eaten a very tolerable lunch of bread and cold meat
in solitude, so her fears about his appetite in her absence were not
well founded—she desired to have her meal upstairs in her own room;
and poor Molly, not daring to tell the servants of this whim, had to
carry up first a table, which, however small, was too heavy for her;
and afterwards all the choice portions of the meal, which she had taken
great pains to arrange on the table, as she had seen such things done at
Hamley, intermixed with fruit and flowers that had that morning been sent
in from various great houses where Mr. Gibson was respected and valued.
How pretty Molly had thought her handiwork an hour or two before! How
dreary it seemed as, at last released from Mrs. Gibson’s conversation,
she sat down in solitude to cold tea and the drumsticks of the chicken!
No one to look at her preparations and admire her deft-handedness and
taste! She had thought that her father would be gratified by it, and then
he had never seen it. She had meant her cares as an offering of goodwill
to her stepmother, who even now was ringing her bell to have the tray
taken away and Miss Gibson summoned to her bedroom.
Molly hastily finished her meal, and went upstairs again.
“I feel so lonely, darling, in this strange house; do come and be with
me, and help me to unpack. I think your dear papa might have put off his
visit to Mr. Craven Smith for just this one evening.”
“Mr. Craven Smith couldn’t put off his dying,” said Molly, bluntly.
“You droll girl!” said Mrs. Gibson, with a faint laugh. “But if this Mr.
Smith is dying, as you say, what’s the use of your father’s going off to
him in such a hurry? Does he expect any legacy, or anything of that kind?”
Molly bit her lips to prevent herself from saying something disagreeable.
She only answered:
“I don’t quite know that he is dying. The man said so; and papa can
sometimes do something to make the last struggle easier. At any rate,
it’s always a comfort to the family to have him.”
“What dreary knowledge of death you have learned for a girl of your age!
Really, if I had heard all these details of your father’s profession, I
doubt if I could have brought myself to have him!”
“He doesn’t make the illness or the death; he does his best against them.
I call it a very fine thing to think of what he does or tries to do.
And you will think so, too, when you see how he is watched for, and how
people welcome him!”
“Well, don’t let us talk any more of such gloomy things, to-night! I
think I shall go to bed at once, I am so tired, if you will only sit by
me till I get sleepy, darling. If you will talk to me, the sound of your
voice will soon send me off.”
Molly got a book and read her stepmother to sleep, preferring that to the
harder task of keeping up a continual murmur of speech.
Then she stole down and went into the dining-room, where the fire was
gone out; purposely neglected by the servants, to mark their displeasure
at their new mistress’s having had her tea in her own room. Molly managed
to light it, however, before her father came home, and collected and
rearranged some comfortable food for him. Then she knelt down again on
the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire in a dreamy reverie, which had
enough of sadness about it to cause the tear to drop unnoticed from her
eyes. But she jumped up, and shook herself into brightness at the sound
of her father’s step.
“How is Mr. Craven Smith?” said she.
“Dead. He just recognised me. He was one of my first patients on coming
to Hollingford.”
Mr. Gibson sat down in the arm-chair made ready for him, and warmed his
hands at the fire, seeming neither to need food nor talk, as he went over
a train of recollections. Then he roused himself from his sadness, and
looking round the room, he said, briskly enough:
“And where’s the new mamma?”
“She was tired, and went to bed early. Oh, papa! must I call her ‘mamma’?”
“I should like it,” replied he, with a slight contraction of the brows.
Molly was silent. She put a cup of tea near him; he stirred it, and
sipped it, and then he recurred to the subject.
“Why shouldn’t you call her ‘mamma’? I’m sure she means to do the duty of
a mother to you. We all may make mistakes, and her ways may not be quite
all at once our ways; but at any rate let us start with a family bond
between us.”
What would Roger say was right?—that was the question that rose to
Molly’s mind. She had always spoken of her father’s new wife as Mrs.
Gibson, and had once burst out at Miss Brownings’ with a protestation
that she would never call her “mamma.” She did not feel drawn to her new
relation by their intercourse that evening. She kept silence, though
she knew her father was expecting an answer. At last he gave up his
expectation and turned to another subject; told about their journey,
questioned her as to the Hamleys, the Brownings, Lady Harriet, and the
afternoon they had passed together at the Manor-house. But there was a
certain hardness and constraint in his manner, and in hers a heaviness
and absence of mind. All at once she said:
“Papa, I will call her ‘mamma’!”
He took her hand and grasped it tight; but for an instant or two he did
not speak. Then he said:
“You won’t be sorry for it, Molly, when you come to lie as poor Craven
Smith did to-night.”