William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra"

Mary Parmele - "The Evolution of an Empire"

Francis Leggett & Co. - "Tea Leaves"

T.S. Arthur - "Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper"

Wives and Daughters

E >> Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell >> Wives and Daughters




'I dare say she'll be happier at home, Mr. Gibson,' as they rode
away.

Once out into the park Molly struck her pony, and urged him on as
hard as he would go, Mr. Gibson called out at last,--

'Molly! we're coming to the rabbit-holes; it's not safe to go at
such a pace. Stop.' And as she drew rein he rode up alongside of
her.

'We're getting into the shadow of the trees, and it's not safe
riding fast here.'

'Oh! papa, I never was so glad in all my life. I felt like a lighted
candle when they're putting the extinguisher on it.'

'Did you? How d'ye know what the candle feels?'

'Oh, I don't know, but I did.' And again, after a pause, she
said,--'Oh, I am so glad to be here! It is so pleasant riding here
in the open free, fresh air, crushing out such a good smell from the
dewy grass. Papa! are you there? I can't see you.'

He rode close up alongside of her: he was not sure but what she
might be afraid of riding in the dark shadows, so he laid his hand
upon hers.

'Oh! I am so glad to feel you,' squeezing his hand hard. 'Papa, I
should like to get a chain like Ponto's,' just as long as your
longest round, and then I could fasten us two to each end of it, and
when I wanted you I could pull, and if you did not want to come, you
could pull back again; but I should know you knew I wanted you, and
we could never lose each other.'

'I'm rather lost in that plan of yours; the details, as you state
them, are a little puzzling; but if I make them out rightly, I am to
go about the country, like the donkeys on the common, with a clog
fastened to my hind leg.'

'I don't mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened
together.'

'But I do mind your calling me a donkey,' he replied.

'I never did. At least I did not mean to. But it is such a comfort
to know that I may be as rude as I like.'

'Is that what you've learnt from the grand company you've been
keeping to-day? I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious,
that I read a few chapters of ~Sir Charles Grandison~, in order to
bring myself up to concert pitch.'

'Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady.'

'Well, to comfort you, I'll tell you this. I am sure you'll never be
a lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your
ever being the other, in the sense in which you mean.'

'I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else
get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could
go out walking.'

'But you'd have your lady's-maid, you know.'

'Do you know, papa, I think lady's-maids are worse than ladies. I
should not mind being a housekeeper so much.'

'No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to
one's hand,' replied her father, meditatively. 'But Mrs. Brown tells
me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping;
there's that anxiety to be taken into consideration. Still, in every
condition of life there are heavy cares and responsibilities.'

'Well! I suppose so,' said Molly, gravely. 'I know Betty says I wear
her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting
in the cherry-tree.'

'And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache with
thinking how they had left you behind. I am afraid you'll be as bad
as a bill of fare to them to-night. How did it all happen, goosey?'

'Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and
I lost myself, and sate down to rest under a great tree; and Lady
Cuxhaven and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick brought
me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed,--and I thought
she would waken me in time, and she did not; and so they'd all gone
away; and when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn't
like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home,--but I kept
thinking how you would wonder where I was.'

'Then it was rather a dismal day of pleasure, goosey, eh?'

'Not in the morning. I shall never forget the morning in that
garden. But I was never so unhappy in all my life, as I have been
all this long afternoon.'

Mr. Gibson thought it his duty to ride round by the Towers, and pay a
visit of apology and thanks to the family, before they left for
London. He found them all on the wing, and no one was sufficiently
at liberty to listen to his grateful civilities but Mrs. Kirkpatrick,
who, although she was to accompany Lady Cuxhaven, and pay a visit to
her former pupil, made leisure enough to receive Mr. Gibson, on
behalf of the family; and assured him of her faithful remembrance of
his great professional attention to her in former days in the most
winning manner.


CHAPTER III


MOLLY GIBSON'S CHILDHOOD


Sixteen years before this time, all Hollingford had been disturbed
to its foundations by the intelligence that Mr. Hall, the skilful
doctor, who had attended them all their days, was going to take a
partner. It was no use reasoning to them on the subject; so Mr
Browning the vicar, Mr. Sheepshanks (Lord Cumnor's agent), and Mr
Hall himself, the masculine reasoners of the little society, left
off the attempt, feeling that the ~Che sara sara~ would prove more
silencing to the murmurs than many arguments. Mr. Hall had told his
faithful patients that, even with the strongest spectacles, his
sight was not to be depended upon; and they might have found out for
themselves that his hearing was very defective, although, on this
point, he obstinately adhered to his own opinion, and was frequently
heard to regret the carelessness of people's communication nowadays,
'like writing on blotting-paper, all the words running into each
other,' he would say. And more than once Mr. Hall had had attacks of
a suspicious nature,--'rheumatism' he used to call them; but he
prescribed for himself as if they had been gout,--which had
prevented his immediate attention to imperative summonses. But,
blind and deaf, and rheumatic as he might be, he was still Mr. Hall,
the doctor who could heal all their ailments--unless they died
meanwhile--and he had no right to speak of growing old, and taking a
partner.

He went very steadily to work all the same; advertising in medical
journals, reading testimonials, sifting character and
qualifications; and just when the elderly maiden ladies of
Hollingford thought that they had convinced their contemporary that
he was as young as ever, he startled them by bringing his new
partner, Mr. Gibson, to call upon them, and began 'slyly,' as these
ladies said, to introduce him into practice. And 'who was this Mr
Gibson?' they asked, and echo might answer the question, if she
liked, for no one else did. No one ever in all his life knew
anything more of his antecedents than the Hollingford people might
have found out the first day they saw him: that he was tall, grave,
rather handsome than otherwise; thin enough to be called 'a very
genteel figure,' in those days, before muscular Christianity had
come into vogue; speaking with a slight Scotch accent; and, as one
good lady observed, 'so very trite in his conversation,' by which
she meant sarcastic. As to his birth, parentage, and education,--the
favourite conjecture of Hollingford society was, that he was the
illegitimate son of a Scotch duke, by a Frenchwoman; and the grounds
for this conjecture were these:--He spoke with a Scotch accent;
therefore, he must be Scotch. He had a very genteel appearance, an
elegant figure, and was apt--so his ill-wishers said--to give
himself airs. Therefore, his father must have been some person of
quality; and, that granted, nothing was easier than to run this
supposition up all the notes of the scale of the peerage,--baronet,
baron, viscount, earl, marquis, duke. Higher they dared not go,
though one old lady, acquainted with English history, hazarded the
remark, that 'she believed that one or two of the Stuarts--hem--had
not always been,--ahem--quite correct in their--conduct; and she
fancied such--ahem--things ran in families.' But, in popular
opinion, Mr. Gibson's father always remained a duke; nothing more.

Then his mother must have been a Frenchwoman, because his hair was
so black; and he was so sallow; and because he had been in Paris.
All this might be true, or might not; nobody ever knew, or found out
anything more about him than what Mr. Hall told them, namely, that
his professional qualifications were as high as his moral character,
and that both were far above the average, as Mr. Hall had taken pains
to ascertain before introducing him to his patients. The popularity
of this world is as transient as its glory, as Mr. Hall found out
before the first year of his partnership was over. He had plenty of
leisure left to him now to nurse his gout and cherish his eyesight.
The younger doctor had carried the day; nearly every one sent for Mr
Gibson now; even at the great houses--even at the Towers, that
greatest of all, where Mr. Hall had introduced his new partner with
fear and trembling, with untold anxiety as to his behaviour, and the
impression he might make on my lord the Earl, and MY lady the
Countess. Mr. Gibson was received at the end of a twelvemonth with as
much welcome respect for his professional skill as Mr. Hall himself
had ever been. Nay--and this was a little too much for even the kind
old doctor's good temper--Mr. Gibson had even been invited once to
dinner at the Towers, to dine with the great Sir Astley, the head of
the profession! To be sure, Mr. Hall had been asked as well; but he
was laid up just then with his gout, since he had had a partner the
rheumatism had been allowed to develop itself, and he had not been
able to go. Poor Mr. Hall never quite got over this mortification;
after it he allowed himself to become dim of sight and hard of
hearing, and kept pretty closely to the house during the two winters
that remained of his life. He sent for an orphan grand-niece to keep
him company in his old age; he, the woman-contemning old bachelor,
became thankful for the cheerful presence of the pretty, bonny Mary
Preston, who was good and sensible, and nothing more. She formed a
close friendship with the daughters of the vicar, Mr. Browning, and
Mr. Gibson found time to become very intimate with all three.
Hollingford speculated much on which young lady would become Mrs
Gibson, and was rather sorry when the talk about possibilities, and
the gossip about probabilities with regard to the handsome young
surgeon's marriage, ended in the most natural manner in the world,
by his marrying his predecessor's niece. The two Miss Brownings
showed no signs of going into a consumption on the occasion,
although their looks and manners were carefully watched. On the
contrary, they were rather boisterously merry at the wedding, and
poor Mrs. Gibson it was that died of consumption, four or five years
after her marriage--three years after the death of her great-uncle,
and when her only child, Molly, was just three years old.

Mr. Gibson did not speak much about the grief at the loss of his
wife, which it is to be supposed that he felt. Indeed, he avoided
all demonstration of sympathy, and got up hastily and left the room
when Miss Phoebe Browning first saw him after his loss, and burst
into an uncontrollable flood of tears, which threatened to end in
hysterics. Miss Browning afterwards said she never could forgive him
for his hard-heartedness on that occasion; but a fortnight
afterwards she came to very high words with old Mrs. Goodenough, for
gasping out her doubts whether Mr. Gibson was a man of deep feeling;
judging by the narrowness of his crape hat-band, which ought to have
covered his hat, whereas there was at least three inches of beaver
to be seen. And, in spite of it all, Miss Browning and Miss Phoebe
considered themselves as Mr. Gibson's most intimate friends, in right
of their regard for his dead wife, and would fain have taken a
quasi-motherly interest in his little girl, had she not been guarded
by a watchful dragon in the shape of Betty, her nurse, who was
jealous of any interference between her and her charge; and
especially resentful and disagreeable towards all those ladies who,
by suitable age, rank, or propinquity, she thought capable of
'casting sheep's eyes at master.'

Several years before the opening of this story, Mr. Gibson's position
seemed settled for life, both socially and professionally. He was a
widower, and likely to remain so; his domestic affections were
centred on little Molly, but even to her, in their most private
moments, he did not give way to much expression of his feelings; his
most caressing appellation for her was 'Goosey,' and he took a
pleasure in bewildering her infant mind with his badinage. He had
rather a contempt for demonstrative people, arising from his medical
insight into the consequences to health of uncontrolled feeling. He
deceived himself into believing that still his reason was lord of
all, because he had never fallen into the habit of expression on any
other than purely intellectual subjects. Molly, however, had her own
intuitions to guide her. Though her papa laughed at her, quizzed
her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called 'really
cruel' to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her
little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears,
sooner even than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The
child grew to understand her father well, and the two had the most
delightful intercourse together--half banter, half seriousness, but
altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants;
Betty, a cook, and a girl who was supposed to be housemaid, but who
was under both the elder two, and had a pretty life of it in
consequence. Three servants would not have been required if it had
not been Mr. Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to
take two 'pupils,' as they were called in the genteel language of
Hollingford, 'apprentices,' as they were in fact--being bound by
indentures, and paying a handsome premium' to learn their business.
They lived in the house, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous,
or, as Miss Browning called it with some truth, 'amphibious'
position. They had their meals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were
felt to be terribly in the way; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could
make conversation, and hating the duty of talking under restraint.
Yet something within him made him wince, as if his duties were not
rightly performed, when, as the cloth was drawn, the two awkward
lads rose up with joyful alacrity, gave him a nod, which was to be
interpreted as a bow, knocked against each other in their endeavours
to get out of the dining-room quickly; and then might be heard
dashing along a passage which led to the surgery, choking with
half-suppressed laughter. Yet the annoyance he felt at this dull
sense of imperfectly fulfilled duties only made his sarcasms on
their inefficiency, or stupidity, or ill manners, more bitter than
before.

Beyond direct professional instruction, he did not know what to do
with the succession of pairs of young men, whose mission seemed to
be to plague their master consciously, and to plague him
unconsciously. Once or twice Mr. Gibson had declined taking a fresh
pupil, in the hopes of shaking himself free from the incubus, but
his reputation as a clever surgeon had spread so rapidly that fees
which he had thought prohibitory, were willingly paid, in order that
the young man might make a start in life, with the prestige of
having been a pupil of Gibson of Hollingford. But as Molly grew to
be a little girl instead of a child, when she was about eight years
old, her father perceived the awkwardness of her having her
breakfasts and dinners so often alone with the pupils, without his
uncertain presence. To do away with this evil, more than for the
actual instruction she could give, he engaged a respectable woman,
the daughter of a shopkeeper in the town, who had left a destitute
family, to come every morning before breakfast, and to stay with
Molly till he came home at night; or, if he was detained, until the
child's bedtime.

'Now, Miss Eyre,' said he, summing up his instructions the day
before she entered upon her office, 'remember this: you are to make
good tea for the young men, and see that they have their meals
comfortably, and--you are five-and-thirty, I think you said?--try
and make them talk,--rationally, I am afraid is beyond your or
anybody's power; but make them talk without stammering or giggling.
Don't teach Molly too much: she must sew, and read, and write, and
do her sums; but I want to keep her a child, and if I find more
learning desirable for her, I'll see about giving it to her myself.
After all, I am not sure that reading or writing is necessary. Many
a good woman gets married with only a cross instead of her name;
it's rather a diluting of mother-wit, to my fancy; but, however we
must yield to the prejudices of society, Miss Eyre, and so you may
teach the child to read.'

Miss Eyre listened in silence, perplexed but determined to be
obedient to the directions of the doctor, whose kindness she and her
family had good cause to know. She made strong tea; she helped the
young men liberally in Mr. Gibson's absence, as well as in his
presence, and she found the way to unloosen their tongues, whenever
their master was away, by talking to them on trivial subjects in her
pleasant homely way. She taught Molly to read and write, but tried
honestly to keep her back in every other branch of education. It was
only by fighting and struggling hard, that bit by bit Molly
persuaded her father to let her have French and drawing lessons. He
was always afraid of her becoming too much educated, though he need
not have been alarmed; the masters who visited such small country
towns as Hollingford forty years ago, were no such great proficients
in their arts. Once a week she joined a dancing class in the
assembly-room at the principal inn in the town: the 'George;' and,
being daunted by her father in every intellectual attempt, she read
every book that came in her way, almost with as much delight as if
it had been forbidden. For his station in life, Mr. Gibson had an
unusually good library; the medical portion of it was inaccessible
to Molly, being kept in the surgery, but every other book she had
either read, or tried to read. Her summer place of study was that
seat in the cherry-tree, where she got the green stains on her
frock, that have already been mentioned as likely to wear Betty's
life out. In spite of this 'hidden worm i' th' bud,' Betty was to
all appearance strong, alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook
in Miss Eyre's lot, who was otherwise so happy in having met with a
suitable well-paid employment just when she needed it most. But
Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of
the necessity of having a governess for his little daughter, was
vehemently opposed to any division of her authority and influence
over the child who had been her charge, her plague, and her delight
ever since Mrs. Gibson's death. She took up her position as censor of
all Miss Eyre's sayings and doings from the very first, and did not
for a moment condescend to conceal her disapprobation. In her heart,
she could not help respecting the patience and painstaking of the
good lady,--for a 'lady' Miss Eyre was in the best sense of the
word, though in Hollingford she only took rank as a shopkeeper's
daughter. Yet Berry buzzed about her with the teasing pertinacity of
a gnat, always ready to find fault, if not to bite. Miss Eyre's only
defence came from the quarter whence it might least have been
expected--from her pupil; on whose fancied behalf, as an oppressed
little personage, Betty always based her attacks. But very early in
the day Molly perceived their injustice, and soon afterwards she
began to respect Miss Eyre for her silent endurance of what
evidently gave her far more pain than Betty imagined. Mr. Gibson had
been a friend in need to her family, so Miss Eyre restrained her
complaints, sooner than annoy him. And she had her reward. Betty
would offer Molly all sorts of small temptations to neglect Miss
Eyre's wishes; Molly steadily resisted, and plodded away at her task
of sewing or her difficult sum. Betty made cumbrous jokes at Miss
Eyre's expense. Molly looked up with the utmost gravity, as if
requesting the explanation of an unintelligible speech; and there is
nothing so quenching to a wag as to be asked to translate his jest
into plain matter-of-fact English, and to show wherein the point
lies. Occasionally Berry lost her temper entirely, and spoke
impertinently to Miss Eyre; but when this had been done in Molly's
presence, the girl flew out into such a violent passion of words in
defence of her silent trembling governess, that even Berry herself
was daunted, though she chose to take the child's anger as a good
joke, and tried to persuade Miss Eyre herself to join in her
amusement.

'Bless the child! one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she
a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes
aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to
look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a
nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they
is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, it's thy
look-out, not mine. She's a little vixen, isn't she?' smiling at
Miss Eyre, as she finished her speech. But the poor governess saw no
humour in the affair; the comparison of Molly to a hen-sparrow was
lost upon her. She was sensitive and conscientious, and knew, from
home experience, the evils of an ungovernable temper. So she began
to reprove Molly for giving way to her passion, and the child
thought it hard to be blamed for what she considered her just anger
against Betty. But, after all, these were the small grievances of a
very happy childhood.


CHAPTER IV


MR GIBSON'S NEIGHBOURS


Molly grew up among these quiet people in calm monotony of life,
without any greater event than that which has been recorded,--the
being left behind at the Towers, until she was nearly seventeen. She
had become a visitor at the school, but she had never gone again to
the annual festival at the great house; it was easy to find some
excuse for keeping away, and the recollection of that day was not a
pleasant one on the whole, though she often thought how much she
should like to see the gardens again.

Lady Agnes was married; there was only Lady Harriet remaining at
home; Lord Hollingford, the eldest son, had lost his wife, and was a
good deal more at the Towers since he had become a widower. He was a
tall ungainly man, considered to be as proud as his mother, the
countess; but, in fact, he was only shy, and slow at making
commonplace speeches. He did not know what to say to people whose
daily habits and interests were not the same as his; he would have
been very thankful for a handbook of small-talk, and would have
learnt off his sentences with good-humoured diligence. He often
envied the fluency of his garrulous father, who delighted in talking
to everybody, and was perfectly unconscious of the incoherence of
his conversation. But, owing to his constitutional reserve and
shyness, Lord Hollingford was not a popular man, although his
kindness of heart was very great, his simplicity of character
extreme, and his scientific acquirements considerable enough to
entitle him to much reputation in the European republic of learned
men. In this respect Hollingford was proud of him. The inhabitants
knew that the great, grave, clumsy heir to its fealty was highly
esteemed for his wisdom; and that he had made one or two
discoveries, though in what direction they were not quite sure. But
it was safe to point him out to strangers visiting the little town,
as 'That's Lord Hollingford--the famous Lord Hollingford, you know;
you must have heard of him, he is so scientific.' If the strangers
knew his name, they also knew his claims to fame; if they did not,
ten to one but they would make as if they did, and so conceal not
only their own ignorance, but that of their companions, is to the
exact nature of the sources of his reputation.

He was left a widower, with two or three boys. They were at a public
school; so that their companionship could make the house in which he
had passed his married life but little of a home to him, and he
consequently spent much of his time at the Towers; where his mother
was proud of him, and his father very fond, but ever so little
afraid of him. His friends were always welcomed by Lord and Lady
Cumnor; the former, indeed, was in the habit of welcoming everybody
everywhere; but it was a proof of Lady Cumnor's real affection for
her distinguished son, that she allowed him to ask what she called
'all sorts of people' to the Towers. 'All sorts of people' meant
really those who were distinguished for science and learning,
without regard to rank; and, it must be confessed, without much
regard to polished manners likewise.

Mr. Hall, Mr. Gibson's predecessor, had always been received with
friendly condescension by my lady, who had found him established as
the family medical man, when first she came to the Towers on her
marriage; but she never thought of interfering with his custom of
taking his meals, if he needed refreshment, in the housekeeper's
room, not ~with~ the housekeeper, ~bien entendu~. The comfortable,
clever, stout, and red-faced doctor would very much have preferred
this, even if he had had the choice given him (which he never had)
of taking his 'snack,' as he called it, with my lord and my lady, in
the grand dining-room. Of course, if some great surgical gun (like
Sir Astley) was brought down from London to bear on the family's
health, it was due to him, as well as to the local medical
attendant, to ask Mr. Hall to dinner, in a formal and ceremonious
manner, on which occasions Mr. Hall buried his chin in voluminous
folds of white muslin, put on his black knee-breeches, with bunches
of ribbon at the sides, his silk stockings and buckled shoes, and
otherwise made himself excessively uncomfortable in his attire, and
went forth in state in a post-chaise from the 'George,' consoling
himself in the private corner of his heart for the discomfort he was
enduring with the idea of how well it would sound the next day in
the ears of the squires whom he was in the habit of attending.
'Yesterday at dinner the earl said,' or 'the countess remarked,' or
'I was surprised to hear when I was dining at the Towers yesterday.'
But somehow things had changed since Mr. Gibson had become 'the
doctor' ~par excellence~ at Hollingford. The Miss Brownings thought
that it was because he had such an elegant figure, and 'such a
distinguished manner;' Mrs. Goodenough, 'because of his aristocratic
connections'--'the son of a Scotch duke, my dear, never mind on
which side of the blanket'--but the fact was certain; although he
might frequently ask Mrs. Brown to give him something to eat in the
housekeeper's room--he had no time for all the fuss and ceremony of
luncheon with my lady--he was always welcome to the grandest circle
of visitors in the house. He might lunch with a duke any day that he
chose; given that a duke was forthcoming at the Towers. His accent
was Scotch, not provincial. He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh
on his bones; and leanness goes a great way to gentility. His
complexion was sallow, and his hair black; in those days, the decade
after the conclusion of the great continental war, to be sallow and
black-a-vised was of itself a distinction;' he was not jovial (as my
lord remarked with a sigh, but it was my lady who endorsed the
invitations), sparing of his words, intelligent, and slightly
sarcastic. Therefore he was perfectly presentable.

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