William Shakespeare - "Twelfe Night, Or what you will"

Honore de Balzac - "REPERTORY OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE, PART II, L Z"

Thomas Hardy - "Two on a Tower"

Thomas Carlyle - "History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 11"

Wives and Daughters

E >> Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell >> Wives and Daughters




'You are sure I may not see her to-night?' he asked Molly, for the
third or fourth time. 'No, indeed. I will go up again if you like
it. But Mrs. Jones, the nurse Dr Nicholls sent, is a very decided
person. I went up while you were at dinner, and Mrs. Hamley had just
taken her drops, and was on no account to be disturbed by seeing any
one, much less by any excitement.'

Osborne kept walking up and down the long drawing-room, half talking
to himself, half to Molly.

'I wish Roger would come. He seems to be the only one to give me a
welcome. Does my father always live upstairs in my mother's rooms,
Miss Gibson?'

'He has done since her last attack. I believe he reproaches himself
for not having been enough alarmed before.'

'You heard all the words he said to me: they were not much of a
welcome, were they? And my dear mother, who always--whether I was to
blame or not--I suppose Roger is sure to come home to-night?'

'Quite sure.'

'You are staying here, are you not? Do you often see my mother, or
does this omnipotent nurse keep you out too?'

'Mrs. Hamley hasn't asked for me for three days now, and I don't go
into her room unless she asks. I'm leaving on Friday, I believe.'

'My mother was very fond of you, I know.'

After a while he said, in a voice that had a great deal of sensitive
pain in its tone,--

'I suppose--do you know whether she is quite conscious--quite
herself?'

'Not always conscious,' said Molly, tenderly. 'She has to take so
many opiates. But she never wanders, only forgets, and sleeps.'

'Oh, mother, mother!' said he, stopping suddenly, and hanging over
the fire, his hands on the chimney-piece.

When Roger came home, Molly thought it time to retire. Poor girl! it
was getting to be time for her to leave this scene of distress in
which she could be of no use. She sobbed herself to sleep this
Tuesday night. Two days more, and it would be Friday; and she would
have to wrench up the roots she had shot down into this ground. The
weather was bright the next morning; and morning and sunny weather
cheer up young hearts. Molly sate in the dining-room making tea for
the gentlemen as they came down. She could not help hoping that the
squire and Osborne might come to a better understanding before she
left; for after all, in the discussion between father and son, lay a
bitterer sting than in the illness sent by God. But though they met
at the breakfast-table, they purposely avoided addressing each
other. Perhaps the natural subject of conversation between the two,
at such a time, would have been Osborne's long journey the night
before; but he had never spoken of the place he had come from,
whether north, south, east, or west, and the squire did not choose
to allude to anything that might bring out what his son wished to
conceal. Again, there was an unexpressed idea in both their minds
that Mrs. Hamley's present illness was much aggravated, if not
entirely brought on, by the discovery of Osborne's debts; so, many
inquiries and answers on that head were tabooed. In fact, their
attempts at easy conversation were limited to local subjects, and
principally addressed to Molly or Roger. Such intercourse was not
productive of pleasure, or even of friendly feeling, though there
was a thin outward surface of politeness and peace. Long before the
day was over, Molly wished that she had acceded to her father's
proposal, and gone home with him. No one seemed to want her. Mrs
Jones, the nurse, assured her time after time that Mrs. Hamley had
never named her name; and her small services in the sickroom were
not required since there was a regular nurse. Osborne and Roger
seemed all in all to each other; and Molly now felt how much the
short conversations she had had with Roger had served to give her
something to think about, all during the remainder of her solitary
days. Osborne was extremely polite, and even expressed his gratitude
to her for her attentions to his mother in a very pleasant manner;
but he appeared to be unwilling to show her any of the deeper
feelings of his heart, and almost ashamed of his exhibition of
emotion the night before. He spoke to her as any agreeable young man
speaks to any pleasant young lady; but Molly almost resented this.
It was only the squire who seemed to make her of any account. He
gave her letters to write, small bills to reckon up; and she could
have kissed his hands for thankfulness.

The last afternoon of her stay at the Hall came. Roger had gone out
on the squire's business. Molly went into the garden, thinking over
the last summer, when Mrs. Hamley's sofa used to be placed under the
old cedar-tree on the lawn, and when the warm air seemed to be
scented with roses and sweetbrier. Now, the trees were
leafless,--there was no sweet odour in the keen frosty air; and
looking up at the house, there were the white sheets of blinds,
shutting out the pale winter sky from the invalid's room. Then she
thought of the day her father had brought her the news of his second
marriage: the thicket was tangled with dead weeds and rime and
hoarfrost; and the beautiful fine articulation of branches and
boughs and delicate twigs were all intertwined in leafless
distinctness against the sky. Could she ever be so passionately
unhappy again? Was it goodness, or was it numbness, that made her
feel as though life was too short to be troubled much about
anything? death seemed the only reality. She had neither energy nor
heart to walk far or briskly; and turned back towards the house. The
afternoon sun was shining brightly on the windows; and, stirred up
to unusual activity by some unknown cause, the housemaids had opened
the shutters and windows of the generally unused library. The middle
window was also a door; the white-painted wood went half-way up.
Molly turned along the little flag-paved path that led past the
library windows to the gate in the white railings at the front of
the house, and went in at the opened doors. She had had leave given
to choose out any books she wished to read, and to take them home
with her; and it was just the sort of half-dawdling employment
suited to her taste this afternoon. She mounted on the ladder to get
to a particular shelf high up in dark corner of the room; and
finding there some volume that looked interesting, she sate down on
the step to read part of it. There she sate, in her bonnet and
cloak, when Osborne suddenly came in. He did not see her at first;
indeed, he seemed in such a hurry that he probably might not have
noticed her at all, if she had not spoken.

'Am I in your way? I only came here for a minute to look for some
books.' She came down the steps as she spoke, still holding the book
in her hand.

'Not at all. It is I who am disturbing you. I must just write a
letter for the post, and then I shall be gone. Is not this open door
too cold for you?'

'Oh, no. It is so fresh and pleasant.'

She began to read again, sitting on the lowest step of the ladder;
he to write at the large old-fashioned writing-table close to the
window. There was a minute or two of profound silence, in which the
rapid scratching of Osborne's pen upon the paper was the only sound.
Then came a click of the gate, and Roger stood at the open door. His
face was towards Osborne, sitting in the light; his back to Molly,
crouched up in her corner. He held out a letter, and said in hoarse
breathlessness,--

'Here's a letter from your wife, Osborne. I went past the
post-office and thought--'

Osborne stood up, angry dismay upon his face.

'Roger! what have you done! Don't you see her?'

Roger looked round, and Molly stood up in her corner, red,
trembling, miserable, as though she were a guilty person. Roger
entered the room. All three seemed to be equally dismayed. Molly was
the first to speak; she came forwards and said,--

'I am so sorry! You didn't wish me to hear it, but I couldn't help
it. You will trust me, won't you?' and turning to Roger she said to
him with tears in her eyes,--'Please say you know I shall not tell.'

'We can't help it,' said Osborne, gloomily. 'Only Roger, who knew of
what importance it was, ought to have looked round him before
speaking.'

'So I should,' said Roger. 'I'm more vexed with myself than you can
conceive. Not but what I'm sure of you as of myself,' continued he,
turning to Molly.

'Yes; but,' said Osborne, 'you see how many chances there are that
even the best-meaning persons may let out what it is of such
consequence to me to keep secret.'

'I know you think it so,' said Roger.

'Well, don't let us begin that old discussion again--at any rate,
not before a third person.'

Molly had had hard work all this time to keep from crying. Now that
she was alluded to as the third person before whom conversation was
to be restrained, she said,--

'I'm going away. Perhaps I ought not to have been here. I'm very
sorry--very. But I will try and forget what I've heard.'

'You can't do that,' said Osborne, still ungraciously. 'But will you
promise me never to speak about it to any one--not even to me, or to
Roger? Will you try to act and speak as if you had never heard it?
I'm sure, from what Roger has told me about you, that if you give me
this promise I may rely upon it.'

'Yes; I will promise,' said Molly, putting out her hand as a kind of
pledge. Osborne took it, but rather as if the action was
superfluous. She added, 'I think I should have done so, even without
a promise. But it is, perhaps, better to bind oneself. I will go
away now. I wish I'd never come into this room.'

She put down her book on the table very softly, and turned to leave
the room, choking down her tears until she was in the solitude of
her own chamber. But Roger was at the door before her, holding it
open for her, and reading--she felt that he was reading--her face.
He held out his band for hers, and his firm grasp expressed both
sympathy and regret for what had occurred.

She could hardly keep back her sobs till she reached her bedroom.
Her feelings had been overwrought for some time past, without
finding the natural vent in action. The leaving Hamley Hall had
seemed so sad before; and now she was troubled with having to bear
away a secret which she ought never to have known, and the knowledge
of which had brought out a very uncomfortable responsibility. Then
there would arise a very natural wonder as to who was Osborne's
wife. Molly had not stayed so long and so intimately in the Hamley
family without being well aware of the manner in which the future
lady of Hamley was planned for. The squire, for instance, partly in
order to show that Osborne, his heir, was above the reach of Molly
Gibson, the doctor's daughter, in the early days before he knew
Molly well, had often alluded to the grand, the high, and the
wealthy marriage which Hamley of Hamley, as represented by his
clever, brilliant, handsome son Osborne, might be expected to make.
Mrs. Hamley, too, unconsciously on her part, showed the projects that
she was constantly devising for the reception of the unknown
daughter-in-law that was to be.

'The drawing-room must be refurnished when Osborne marries'--or
'Osborne's wife will like to have the west suite of rooms to
herself; it will perhaps be a trial to her to live with the old
couple; but we must arrange it so that she will feel it as little as
possible'--'Of course, when Mrs. Osborne comes we must try and give
her a new carriage; the old one does well enough for us'--these, and
similar speeches had given Molly the impression of the future Mrs
Osborne as of some beautiful grand young lady, whose very presence
would make the old Hall into a stately, formal mansion, instead of
the pleasant, unceremonious home that it was at present. Osborne,
too, who had spoken with such languid criticism to Mrs. Gibson about
various country belles, and even in his own home was apt to give
himself airs--only at home his airs were poetically fastidious,
while with Mrs. Gibson they had been socially fastidious--what
unspeakably elegant beauty had he chosen for his wife? Who had
satisfied him; and yet satisfying him, had to have her, marriage
kept in concealment from his parents? At length Molly tore herself
up from her wanderings. It was of no use: she could not find out;
she might not even try. The blank wall of her promise blocked up the
way. Perhaps it was not even right to wonder, and endeavour to
remember slight speeches, casual mentions of a name, so as to piece
them together into something coherent. Molly dreaded seeing either
of the brothers again; but they all met at dinner-time as if nothing
had happened. The squire was taciturn, either from melancholy or
displeasure. He had never spoken to Osborne since his return,
excepting about the commonest trifles, when intercourse could not be
avoided; and his wife's state oppressed him like a heavy cloud
coming over the light of his day. Osborne put on an indifferent
manner to his father, which Molly felt sure was assumed; but it was
not conciliatory, for all that. Roger, quiet, steady, and natural,
talked more than all the others; but he too was uneasy, and in
distress on many accounts. To-day he principally addressed himself
to Molly; entering into rather long narrations of late discoveries
in natural history, which kept up the current of talk without
requiring much reply from any one, Molly had expected Osborne to
look something different from usual--conscious, or ashamed, or
resentful, or even 'married'--but he was exactly the Osborne of the
morning--handsome, elegant, languid in manner and in look; cordial
with his brother, polite towards her, secretly uneasy at the state
of things between his father and himself. She would never have
guessed the concealed romance which lay ~perdu~ under that every-day
behaviour. She had always wished to come into direct contact with a
love-story: here she was, and she only found it very uncomfortable;
there was a sense of concealment and uncertainty about it all; and
her honest straightforward father, her quiet life at Hollingford,
which, even with all its drawbacks, was above-board, and where
everybody knew what everybody was doing, seemed secure and pleasant
in comparison. Of course she felt great pain at quitting the Hall,
and at the mute farewell she had taken of her sleeping and
unconscious friend. But leaving Mrs. Hamley now was a different thing
to what it had been a fortnight ago. Then she was wanted at any
moment, and felt herself to be of comfort. Now her very existence
seemed forgotten by the poor lady whose body appeared to be living
so long after her soul.

She was sent home in the carriage, loaded with true thanks from
every one of the family. Osborne ransacked the houses for flowers
for her; Roger had chosen her out books of every kind. The squire
himself kept shaking her hand, without being able to speak his
gratitude, till at last he had taken her in his arms, and kissed her
as he would have done a daughter.


CHAPTER XIX


CYNTHIA'S ARRIVAL


Molly's father was not at home when she returned; and there was no
one to give her a welcome. Mrs. Gibson was out paying calls, the
servants told Molly. She went upstairs to her own room, meaning to
unpack and arrange her borrowed books, Rather to her surprise she
saw the chamber, corresponding to her own, being dusted; water and
towels too were being carried in.

'Is any one coming?' she asked of the housemaid.

'Missus's daughter from France. Miss Kirkpatrick is coming
to-morrow.'

Was Cynthia coming at last? Oh, what a pleasure it would be to have
a companion, a girl, a sister of her own age! Molly's depressed
spirits sprang up again with bright elasticity. She longed for Mrs
Gibson's return, to ask her all about it: it must be very sudden,
for Mr. Gibson had said nothing of it at the Hall the day before. No
quiet reading now; the books were hardly put away with Molly's usual
neatness. She went down into the drawing-room, and could not settle
to anything. At last Mrs. Gibson came home, tired out with her walk
and her heavy velvet cloak. Until that was taken off, and she had
rested herself for a few minutes, she seemed quite unable to attend
to Molly's questions.

'Oh, yes! Cynthia is coming home to-morrow, by the "Umpire," which
passes through at ten o'clock. What an oppressive day it is for the
time of the year! I really am almost ready to faint. Cynthia heard
of some opportunity, I believe, and was only too glad to leave
school a fortnight earlier than we planned. She never gave me the
chance of writing to say I did, or did not, like her coming so much
before the time; and I shall have to pay for her just the same as if
she had stopped. And I meant to have asked her to bring me a French
bonnet; and then you could have had one made after mine. But I'm
very glad she's coming, poor dear.'

'Is anything the matter with her?' asked Molly.

'Oh, no! Why should there be?'

'You called her "poor dear," and it made me afraid lest she might be
ill.'

'Oh, no! It's only a way I got into, when Mr. Kirkpatrick died. A
fatherless girl--you know one always does call them "poor dears."
Oh, no! Cynthia never is ill. She's as strong as a horse. She never
would have felt to-day as I have done. Could you get me a glass of
wine and a biscuit, my dear? I'm. really quite faint.'

Mr. Gibson was much more excited about Cynthia's arrival than her own
mother was. He anticipated her coming as a great pleasure to Molly,
on whom, in spite of his recent marriage and his new wife, his
interests principally centred. He even found time to run upstairs
and see the bedrooms of the two girls; for the furniture of which he
had paid a pretty round sum.

'Well, I suppose young ladies like their bedrooms decked out in this
way! It's very pretty certainly, but--'

'I liked my own old room better, papa; but perhaps Cynthia is
accustomed to such decking up.'

'Perhaps; at any rate, she'll see we've tried to make it pretty.
Yours is like hers. That's right. It might have hurt her, if hers
had been smarter than yours. Now, good-night in your fine flimsy
bed.'

Molly was up betimes--almost before it was light--arranging her
pretty Hamley flowers in Cynthia's room. She could hardly eat her
breakfast that morning. She ran upstairs and put on her things,
thinking that Mrs. Gibson was quite sure to go down to the 'George'
Inn, where the 'Umpire' stopped, to meet her daughter after a two
years' absence. But to her surprise Mrs. Gibson had arranged herself
at her great worsted-work frame, just as usual; and she, in her
turn, was astonished at Molly's bonnet and cloak.

'Where are you going so early, child? The fog hasn't cleared away
yet.'

'I thought you would go and meet Cynthia; and I wanted to go with
you.'

'She will be here in half an hour; and dear papa has told the
gardener to take the wheelbarrow down for her luggage. I'm not sure
if he is not gone himself.'

'Then are not you going?' asked Molly, with a good deal of
disappointment.

'No, certainly not. She will be here almost directly. And, besides,
I don't like to expose my feelings to every passer-by in High
Street. You forget I have not seen her for two years, and I hate
scenes in the market-place.'

She settled herself to her work again; and Molly, after some
consideration, gave up her own going, and employed herself in
looking out of the downstairs window which commanded the approach
from the town.

'Here she is--here she is!' she cried out at last. Her father was
walking by the side of a tall young lady; William the gardener was
wheeling along a great cargo of luggage. Molly flew to the
front-door, and had it wide open to admit the new corner some time
before she arrived.

'Well! here she is. Molly, this is Cynthia. Cynthia, Molly. You're
to be sisters, you know.'

Molly saw the beautiful, tall, swaying figure, against the light of
the open door, but could not see any of the features that were, for
the moment, in shadow. A sudden gush of shyness had come over her
just at the instant, and quenched the embrace she would have given a
moment before. But Cynthia took her in her arms, and kissed her on
both cheeks.

'Here's mamma,' she said, looking beyond Molly on to the stairs
where Mrs. Gibson stood, wrapped up in a shawl, and shivering in the
cold. She ran past Molly and Mr. Gibson, who rather averted their
eyes from this first greeting between mother and child.

Mrs. Gibson said,--

'Why, how you are grown, darling! You look quite a woman.'

'And so I am,' said Cynthia. 'I was before I went away; I've hardly
grown since,--except, it is always to be hoped, in wisdom.'

'Yes! That we will hope,' said Mrs. Gibson, in rather a meaning way.
Indeed there were evidently hidden allusions in their seeming
commonplace speeches. When they all came into the full light and
repose of the drawing-room, Molly was absorbed in the contemplation
of Cynthia's beauty. Perhaps her features were not regular; but the
changes in her expressive countenance gave one no time to think of
that. Her smile was perfect; her pouting charming; the play of the
face was in the mouth. Her eyes were beautifully shaped, but their
expression hardly seemed to vary. In colouring she was not unlike
her mother; only she had not so much of the red-haired tints in her
complexion; and her long-shaped, serious grey eyes were fringed with
dark lashes, instead of her mother's insipid flaxen ones. Molly fell
in love with her, so to speak, on the instant. She sate there
warming her feet and hands, as much at her ease as if she had been
there all her life; not particularly attending to her mother--who,
all the time, was studying either her or her dress--measuring Molly
and Mr. Gibson with grave observant looks, as if guessing how she
should like them.

'There's hot breakfast ready for you in the dining-room, when you
are ready for it,' said Mr. Gibson. 'I'm sure you must want it after
your night journey.' He looked round at his wife, at Cynthia's
mother, but she did not seem inclined to leave the warm room again.

'Molly will take you to your room, darling,' said she; 'it is near
hers, and she has got her things to take off. I'll come down and sit
in the dining-room while you are having your breakfast, but I really
am afraid of the cold now.'

Cynthia rose and followed Molly upstairs.

'I'm so sorry there isn't a fire for you,' said Molly, 'but--I
suppose it wasn't ordered; and, of course, I don't give any orders.
Here is some hot water, though.'

'Stop a minute,' said Cynthia, getting hold of both Molly's hands,
and looking steadily into her face, but in such a manner that she
did not dislike the inspection.

'I think I shall like you. I am go glad! I was afraid I should not.
We're all in a very awkward position together, aren't we? I like
your father's looks, though.'

Molly could not help smiling at the way this was said. Cynthia
replied to her smile.

'Ah, you may laugh. But I don't know that I am easy to get on with;
mamma and I didn't suit when we were last together. But perhaps we
are each of us wiser now. Now, please leave me for a quarter of an
hour. I don't want anything more.'

Molly went into her own room, waiting to show Cynthia down to the
dining-room. Not that, in the moderate-sized house, there was any
difficulty in finding the way. A very little trouble in conjecturing
would enable a stranger to discover any room. But Cynthia had so
captivated Molly, that she wanted to devote herself to the new
comer's service. Ever since she had heard of the probability of her
having a sister--(she called her a sister, but whether it was a
Scotch sister, or a sister ~a la mode de Bretagne~, would
have puzzled most people)--Molly had allowed her fancy to dwell much
on the idea of Cynthia's coming; and in the short time since they
had met, Cynthia's unconscious power of fascination had been
exercised upon her. Some people have this power. Of course, its
effects are only manifested in the susceptible. A school-girl may be
found in every school who attracts and influences all the others,
not by her virtues, nor her beauty, nor her sweetness, nor her
cleverness, but by something that can neither be described nor
reasoned upon. It is the something alluded to in the old lines:--

Love me not for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye and face;
No, nor for my constant heart,--
For these may change, and turn to ill,
And thus true love may sever.
But love me on, and know not why,
So hast thou the same reason still
To dote upon me ever.'

A woman will have this charm, not only over men but over her own
sex; it cannot be defined, or rather it is so delicate a mixture of
many gifts and qualities that it is impossible to decide on the
proportions of each. Perhaps it is incompatible with very high
principle; as its essence seems to consist in the most exquisite
power of adaptation to varying people and still more various moods;
'being all things to all men.' At any rate, Molly might soon have
been aware that Cynthia was not remarkable for unflinching morality;
but the glamour thrown over her would have prevented Molly from any
attempt at penetrating into and judging her companion's character,
even had such processes been the least in accordance with her own
disposition.

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