Adam Smith - "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"

G. A. Henty - "Colonel Thorndyke's Secret"

K. (Katie) Langloh Parker (1856 1940) - "Australian Legendary Tales "

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of Macbeth"

Wives and Daughters

E >> Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell >> Wives and Daughters




It is possible that Osborne might have been induced to tell his
father of his marriage during their long ~tete-a-tete~ intercourse,
if the squire, in an unlucky moment, had not given him his
confidence about Roger's engagement with Cynthia. It was on one wet
Sunday afternoon, when the father and son were sitting together in
the large empty drawing-room. Osborne had not been to church in the
morning; the squire had, and he was now trying hard to read one of
Blair's sermons. They had dined early; they always did on Sundays;
and either that, or the sermon, or the hopeless wetness of the day,
made the afternoon seem interminably long to the squire. He had
certain unwritten rules for the regulation of his conduct on
Sundays. Cold meat, sermon-reading, no smoking till after evening
prayers, as little thought as possible as to the state of the land
and the condition of the crops, and as much respectable
sitting-indoors in his best clothes as was consistent with going to
church twice a day, and saying the responses louder than the clerk.
To-day it had rained so unceasingly that he had remitted the
afternoon church; but oh, even with the luxury of a nap, how long it
seemed before he saw the Hall servants trudging homewards, along the
field-path, a covey of umbrellas! He had been standing at the window
for the last half-hour, his hands in his pockets, and his mouth
often contracting itself into the traditional sin of a whistle, but
as often checked into sudden gravity--ending, nine times out of ten,
in a yawn. He looked askance at Osborne, who was sitting near the
fire absorbed in a book. The poor squire was something like the
little boy in the child's story, who asks all sorts of birds and
beasts to come and play with him; and, in every case, receives the
sober answer, that they are too busy to have leisure for trivial
amusements. The father wanted the son to put down his book, and talk
to him: it was so wet, so dull, and a little conversation would so
wile away the time! But Osborne, with his back to the window where
his father was standing, saw nothing of all this, and went on
reading. He had assented to his father's remark that it was a very
wet afternoon, but had not carried on the subject into all the
varieties of truisms of which it was susceptible. Something more
rousing must be started, and this the squire felt. The recollection
of the affair between Roger and Cynthia came into his head, and,
without giving it a moment's consideration, he began,--

'Osborne! Do you know anything about this--this attachment of
Roger's?'

Quite successful. Osborne laid down his book in a moment, and turned
round to his father.

'Roger! an attachment! No! I never heard of it--I can hardly believe
it--that is to say, I suppose it is to---'

And then he stopped; for he thought he had no right to betray his
own conjecture that the object was Cynthia Kirkpatrick.

'Yes. He is though. Can you guess who to? Nobody that I particularly
like--not a connection to my mind--yet she's a very pretty girl; and
I suppose I was to blame in the first instance.'

'Is it--'

'It's no use beating about the bush. I've gone so far, I may as well
tell you all. It's Miss Kirkpatrick, Gibson's stepdaughter. But it's
not an engagement, mind you--'

'I'm very glad--I hope she likes Roger back again--'

'Like--it's only too good a connection for her not to like it: if
Roger is of the same mind when he comes home, I'll be bound she'll
be only too happy!'

'I wonder Roger never told me,' said Osborne, a little hurt, now he
began to consider himself.

'He never told me either,' said the squire. 'It was Gibson, who came
here, and made a clean breast of it like a man of honour. I'd been
saying to him, I could not have either of you two lads taking up
with his lasses. I'll own it was you I was afraid of--it's bad
enough with Roger, and maybe will come to nothing after all; but if
it had been you, I'd ha' broken with Gibson and every mother's son
of 'em, sooner than have let it go on; and so I told Gibson.'

'I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but, once for all, I claim
the right of choosing my wife for myself, subject to no man's
interference,' said Osborne, hotly.

'Then you'll keep your wife with no man's interference, that's all;
for ne'er a penny will you get from me, my lad, unless you marry to
please me a little, as well as yourself a great deal. That's all I
ask of you. I'm not particular as to beauty, or as to cleverness,
and piano-playing, and that sort of thing; if Roger marries this
girl, we shall have enough of that in the family. I should not much
mind her being a bit older than you, but she must be well-born, and
the more money she brings the better for the old place.'

'I say again, father, I choose my wife for myself, and I don't admit
any man's right of dictation.'

'Well, well!' said the squire, getting a little angry in his turn.
'If I'm not to be father in this matter, thou shan't be son. Go
against me in what I've set my heart on, and you'll find there's the
devil to pay, that's all. But don't let us get angry, it's Sunday
afternoon for one thing, and it's a sin; and besides that, I've not
finished my story.'

For Osborne had taken up his book again, and under pretence of
reading, was fuming to himself, He hardly put it away even at his
father's request.

'As I was saying, Gibson said, when first we spoke about it, that
there was nothing on foot between any of you four, and that if there
was, he would let me know; so by-and-by he comes and tells me of
this.'

'Of what--I don't understand how far it has gone?'

There was a tone in Osborne's voice the squire did not quite like;
and he began answering rather angrily.

'Of this to be sure--of what I'm telling you--of Roger going and
making love to this girl, that day he left, after he had gone away
from here, and was waiting for the "Umpire" in Hollingford. One
would think you quite stupid at times, Osborne.'

'I can only say that these details are quite new to me; you never
mentioned them before, I assure you.'

'Well; never mind whether I did or not. I'm sure I said Roger was
attached to Miss Kirkpatrick, and be hanged to her; and you might
have understood all the rest, as a matter of course.'

'Possibly,' said Osborne, politely. 'May I ask if Miss Kirkpatrick,
who appeared to me to be a very nice girl, responds to Roger's
affection?'

'Fast enough, I'll be bound,' said the squire, sulkily. 'A Hamley of
Hamley is not to be had every day. Now, I'll tell you what, Osborne,
you're the only marriageable one left in the market, and I want to
hoist the old family up again. Don't go against me in this; it
really will break my heart if you do.'

'Father, don't talk so,' said Osborne. 'I will do anything I can to
oblige you, except--'

'Except the only thing I've set my heart on your doing.'

'Well, well, let it alone for the present. There's no question of my
marrying just at this moment. I'm out of health, and I'm not up to
going into society, and meeting young ladies and all that sort of
thing, even if I had an opening into fitting society.'

'You should have an opening fast enough. There'll be more money
coming in, in a year or two, please God. And as for your health,
why, what's to make you well, if you cower over the fire all day,
and shudder away from a good honest tankard as if it were poison?'

'So it is to me,' said Osborne, languidly, playing with his book as
if he wanted to end the conversation and take it up again. The
squire saw the movements, and understood them.

'Well,' said he, 'I'll go and have a talk with Will about poor old
Black Bess. It's Sunday work enough, asking after a dumb animal's
aches and pains.'

But after his father had left the room Osborne did not take up his
book again. He laid it down on the table by him, leant back in his
chair, and covered his eyes with his hand. He was in a state of
health which made him despondent about many things, though, least of
all, about what was most in danger. The long concealment of his
marriage from his father made the disclosure of it far far more
difficult than it would have been at first. Unsupported by Roger,
how could he explain it all to one so passionate as the squire? how
tell of the temptation, the stolen marriage, the consequent
happiness, and alas! the consequent suffering?--for Osborne had
suffered, and did suffer, greatly in the untoward circumstances in
which he had placed himself. He saw no way out of it all, excepting
by the one strong stroke of which he felt himself incapable. So with
a heavy heart he addressed himself to his book again. Everything
seemed to come in his way, and he was not strong enough in character
to overcome obstacles. The only overt step he took in consequence of
what he had heard from his father, was to ride over to Hollingford
the first fine day after he had received the news, and go to see
Cynthia and the Gibsons. He had not been there for a long time; bad
weather and languor combined had prevented him. He found them full
of preparations and discussions about Cynthia's visit to London; and
she herself not at all in the sentimental mood proper to respond to
his delicate intimations of how glad he was in his brother's joy.
Indeed, it was so long after the time, that Cynthia scarcely
perceived that to him the intelligence was recent, and that the
first bloom of his emotions had not yet passed away. With her head a
little on one side, she was contemplating the effect of a knot of
ribbons, when he began, in a low whisper, and leaning forward
towards her as he spoke,--'Cynthia--I may call you Cynthia now,
mayn't I?--I am so glad of this news; I've only just heard of it,
but I'm so glad!'

'What news do you mean?' She had her suspicions; but she was annoyed
to think that from one person her secret was passing to another, and
another, till, in fact, it was becoming no secret at all. Still,
Cynthia could always conceal her annoyance when she chose. 'Why are
you to begin calling me Cynthia now?' she went on, smiling. 'The
terrible word has slipped out from between your lips before, do you
know?'

This light way of taking his tender congratulations did not quite
please Osborne, who was in a sentimental mood, and for a minute or
so he remained silent. Then, having finished making her bow of
ribbon, she turned to him, and continued, in a quick low voice,
anxious to take advantage of a ~tete-a-tete~ between
her mother and Molly,--

'I think I can guess why you made me that pretty little speech just
now. But do you know you ought not to have been told? And, moreover,
things are not quite arrived at the solemnity of--of--well--an
engagement. He would not have it so. Now, I shan't say any more; and
you must not. Pray remember you ought not to have known; it is my
own secret, and I particularly wished it not to be spoken about; and
I don't like it's being so talked about. Oh, the leaking of water
through one small hole!'

And then she plunged into the ~tete-a-tete~ of the
other two, making the conversation general. Osborne was rather
discomfited at the non-success of his congratulations; he had
pictured to himself the unbosoming of a love-sick girl, full of
rapture, and glad of a sympathizing confidant. He little knew
Cynthia's nature. The more she suspected that she was called upon
for a display of emotion, the less would she show; and her emotions
were generally under the control of her will. He had made an effort
to come and see her; and now he leant back in his chair, weary and a
little dispirited.

'You poor dear young man,' said Mrs. Gibson, coming up to him with
her soft, soothing manner; 'how tired you look! Do take some of that
eau-de-Cologne and bathe your forehead. This spring weather
overcomes me too. '~Primavera~' I think the Italians call it. But it
is very trying for delicate constitutions, as much from its
associations as from its variableness of temperature. It makes me
sigh perpetually; but then I am so sensitive. Dear Lady Cumnor
always used to say I was like a thermometer. You've heard how ill
she has been?'

'No,' said Osborne, not very much caring either.

'Oh, yes, she is better now; but the anxiety about her has tried me
so: detained here by what are, of course, my duties, but far away
from all intelligence, and not knowing what the next post might
bring.'

'Where was she then?' asked Osborne, becoming a little more
sympathetic.

'At Spa. Such a distance off! Three days' post! Can't you conceive
the trial? Living with her as I did for years; bound up in the
family as I was.'

'But Lady Harriet said, in her last letter, that they hoped that she
would be stronger than she had been for years,' said Molly,
innocently.

'Yes--Lady Harriet--of course--every one who knows Lady Harriet
knows that she is of too sanguine a temperament for her statements
to be perfectly relied on. Altogether--strangers are often deluded
by Lady Harriet--she has an off--hand manner which takes them in;
but she does not mean half she says.'

'We will hope she does in this instance,' said Cynthia, shortly.
'They are in London now, and Lady Cumnor has not suffered from the
journey.'

'They say so,' said Mrs. Gibson, shaking her head, and laying an
emphasis on the word 'say.' 'I am perhaps over-anxious, but I
wish--I wish I could see and judge for myself. It would be the only
way of calming my anxiety. I almost think I shall go up with you,
Cynthia, for a day or two, just to see her with my own eyes. I don't
quite like your travelling alone either. We will think about it, and
you shall write to Mr. Kirkpatrick, and propose it, if we determine
upon it. You can tell him of my anxiety; and it will be only sharing
your bed for a couple of nights.'


CHAPTER XL


MOLLY GIBSON BREATHES FREELY


That was the way in which Mrs. Gibson first broached her intention of
accompanying Cynthia up to London for a few days' visit. She had a
trick of producing the first sketch of any new plan before an
outsider to the family circle; so that the first emotions of others,
if they disapproved of her projects, had to be repressed, until the
idea had become familiar to them. To Molly it seemed too charming a
proposal ever to come to pass. She had never allowed herself to
recognize the restraint she was under in her stepmother's presence;
but all at once she found it out when her heart danced at the idea
of three whole days--for that it would be at the least--of perfect
freedom of intercourse with her father; of old times come back
again; of meals without perpetual fidgetiness after details of
ceremony and correctness of attendance.

'We'll have bread and cheese for dinner, and eat it on our knees;
we'll make up for having had to eat sloppy puddings with a fork
instead of a spoon all this time, by putting our knives in our
mouths till we cut ourselves. Papa shall pour his tea into his
saucer if he is in a hurry; and if I'm thirsty, I'll take the
slop-basin. And oh, if I could but get, buy, borrow, or steal any
kind of an old horse; my grey skirt is not new, but it will
do;--that would be too delightful. After all, I think I can be happy
again; for months and months it has seemed as if I had got too old
ever to feel pleasure, much less happiness again.'

So thought Molly. Yet she blushed, as if with guilt, when Cynthia,
reading her thought, said to her one day,--

'Molly, you are very glad to get rid of us, are not you?'

'Not of you, Cynthia; at least, I don't think I am. Only, if you
only knew how I love papa, and how I used to see a great deal more
of him than I ever do now---'

'Ah! I often think what interlopers we must seem, and are in fact--'

'I don't feel you as such. You, at any rate, have been a new delight
to me, a sister; and I never knew how charming such a relationship
could be.'

'But mamma?' said Cynthia, half-suspiciously, half-sorrowfully.

'She is papa's wife,' said Molly, quietly. 'I don't mean to say I am
not often very sorry to feel I am no longer first with him; but it
was'--the violent colour flushed into her face till even her eyes
burnt, and she suddenly found herself on the point of crying; the
weeping ash-tree, the misery, the slow dropping comfort;' and the
comforters came all so vividly before her;--'it was Roger!'--she
went on looking up at Cynthia, as she overcame her slight hesitation
at mentioning his name--'Roger, who told me how I ought to take
papa's marriage, when I was first startled and grieved at the news.
Oh, Cynthia, what a great thing it is to be loved by him!'

Cynthia blushed, and looked fluttered and pleased.

'Yes, I suppose it is. At the same time, Molly, I'm afraid he'll
expect me to be always as good as he fancies me now, and I shall
have to walk on tip-toe all the rest of my life.'

'But you are good, Cynthia,' put in Molly.

'No, I'm not. You're just as much mistaken as he is; and some day I
shall go down in your opinions with a run, just like the hall clock
the other day when the spring broke.'

'I think he'll love you just as much,' said Molly.

'Could you? Would you be my friend if--if it turned out ever that I
had done very wrong things? Would you remember how very difficult it
has sometimes been to me to act rightly' (she took hold of Molly's
hand as she spoke). 'We won't speak of mamma, for your sake as much
as mine or hers; but you must see she is not one to help a girl with
much good advice, or good---Oh, Molly, you don't know how I was
neglected just at a time when I wanted friends most. Mamma does not
know it; it is not in her to know what I might have been if I had
only fallen into wise, good hands. But I know it; and what's more,'
continued she, suddenly ashamed of her unusual exhibition of
feeling, 'I try not to care, which I daresay is really the worst of
all; but I could worry myself to death if I once took to serious
thinking.'

'I wish I could help you, or even understand you,' said Molly, after
a moment or two of sad perplexity.

'You can help me,' said Cynthia, changing her manner abruptly. 'I
can trim bonnets, and make head-dresses; but somehow my hands can't
fold up gowns and collars, like your deft little fingers. Please
will you help me to pack? That's a real, tangible piece of kindness,
and not sentimental consolation for sentimental distresses, which
are, perhaps, imaginary after all.'

In general, it is the people who are left behind stationary, who
give way to low spirits at any parting; the travellers, however
bitterly they may feel the separation, find something in the change
of scene to soften regret in the very first hour of separation. But
as Molly walked home with her father from seeing Mrs. Gibson and
Cynthia off to London by the 'Umpire' coach, she almost danced along
the street.

'Now, papa!' said she, 'I'm going to have you all to myself for a
whole week. You must be very obedient.'

'Don't be tyrannical, then. You are walking me out of breath, and we
are cutting Mrs. Goodenough, in our hurry.'

So they crossed over the street to speak to Mrs. Goodenough.

'We've just been seeing my wife and her daughter off to London. Mrs
Gibson has gone up for a week!'

'Deary, deary, to London, and only for a week! Why, I can remember
its being a three days' journey! It will be very lonesome for you,
Miss Molly, without your young companion!'

'Yes!' said Molly, suddenly feeling as if she ought to have taken
this view of the case. 'I shall miss Cynthia very much.'

'And you, Mr. Gibson; why, it will be like being a widower over
again! You must come and drink tea with me some evening. We must try
and cheer you up a bit amongst us. Shall it be Tuesday?'

In spite of the sharp pinch which Molly gave to his arm, Mr. Gibson
accepted the invitation, much to the gratification of the old lady.

'Papa, how could you go and waste one of our evenings. We have but
six in all, and now but five; and I had so reckoned on our doing all
sorts of things together.'

'What sort of things?'

'Oh, I don't know: everything that is unrefined and ungenteel,'
added she, slyly looking up into her father's face.

His eyes twinkled, but the rest of his face was perfectly grave.
'I'm not going to be corrupted. With toil and labour I have reached
a very fair height of refinement. I won't be pulled down again.'

'Yes, you will, papa. We'll have bread and cheese for lunch this
very day. And you shall wear your slippers in the drawing-room every
evening you'll stay quietly at home; and oh, papa, don't you think I
could ride Nora Creina. I've been looking out the old grey skirt,
and I think I could make myself tidy.'

'Where is the side-saddle to come from?'

'To be sure the old one won't fit that great Irish mare. But I'm not
particular, papa. I think I could manage somehow.'

'Thank you. But I'm not quite going to return into barbarism. It may
he a depraved taste, but I should like to see my daughter properly
mounted.'

'Think of riding together down the lanes--why, the dog-roses must be
all out in flower, and the honeysuckles, and the hay--how I should
like to see Merriman's farm again! Papa, do let me have one ride
with you! Please do. I am sure we can manage it somehow.'

And 'somehow' it was managed. 'Somehow' all Molly's wishes came to
pass; there was only one little drawback to this week of holiday and
happy intercourse with her father. Everybody would ask them out to
tea. They were quite like bride and bridegroom; for the fact was,
that the late dinners which Mrs. Gibson had introduced into her own
house, were a great inconvenience in the calculations of the small
tea-drinkings at Hollingford. How ask people to tea at six, who
dined at that hour? How, when they refused cake and sandwiches at
half-past eight, how induce other people who were really hungry to
commit a vulgarity before those calm and scornful eyes? So there had
been a great lull of invitations for the Gibsons to Hollingford
tea-parties. Mrs. Gibson, whose object was to squeeze herself into
'county society,' had taken this being left out of the smaller
festivities with great equanimity; but Molly missed the kind
homeliness of the parties to which she had gone from time to time as
long as she could remember; and though, as each three-cornered note
was brought in, she grumbled a little over the loss of another
charming tete-a-tete with her father, she really was
glad to go again in the old way among old friends. Miss Browning and
Miss Phoebe were especially compassionate towards her in her
loneliness. If they had had their will she would have dined there
every day; and she had to call upon them very frequently in order to
prevent their being hurt at her declining the dinners. Mrs. Gibson
wrote twice during her week's absence to her husband. That piece of
news was quite satisfactory to the Miss Brownings, who had of late
months held themselves a great deal aloof from a house where they
chose to suppose that their presence was not wanted. In their winter
evenings they had often talked over Mr. Gibson's household, and
having little besides conjectures to go upon, they found the subject
interminable, as they could vary the possibilities every day. One of
their wonders was how Mr. and Mrs. Gibson really got on together;
another was whether Mrs. Gibson was extravagant or not. Now two
letters during the week of her absence showed what was in those days
considered a very proper amount of conjugal affection. Yet not too
much--at elevenpence halfpenny postage. A third letter would have
been extravagant. Sister looked to sister with an approving nod as
Molly named the second letter, which arrived in Hollingford the very
day before Mrs. Gibson was to return. They had settled between
themselves that two letters would show the right amount of good
feeling and proper understanding in the Gibson family: more would
have been extravagant; only one would have been a mere matter of
duty. There had been rather a question between Miss Browning and
Miss Phoebe as to which person the second letter (supposing it came)
was to be addressed. It would be very conjugal to write twice to Mr
Gibson; and yet it would be very pretty if Molly came in for her
share.

'You've had another letter, you say, my dear,' asked Miss Browning,
'I daresay Mrs. Gibson has written to you this time?'

'It is a large sheet, and Cynthia has written on one half to me, and
all the rest is to papa.'

'A very nice arrangement, I'm sure. And what does Cynthia say? Is
she enjoying herself?'

'Oh, yes, I think so. They have had a dinner-party, and one night
when mamma was at Lady Cumnor's, Cynthia went to the play with her
cousins.'

'Upon my word! and all in one week? I do call that dissipation. Why,
Thursday would be taken up with the journey, and Friday with
resting, and Sunday is Sunday all the world over; and they must have
written on Tuesday. Well! I hope Cynthia won't find Hollingford
dull, that's all, when she comes back.'

'I don't think it's likely,' said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper
and a knowing look, which sate oddly on her kindly innocent face.
'You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, don't you, Molly!'

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.