CHAPTER 49
Molly Gibson Finds a Champion
Lady Cumnor had so far recovered from the
violence of her attack, and from the consequent operation, as to be
able to be removed to the Towers for change of air; and accordingly
she was brought thither by her whole family with all the pomp and
state becoming an invalid peeress. There was every probability that
‘the family’ would make a longer residence at the Towers than they
had done for several years, during which time they had been
wanderers hither and thither in search of health. Somehow, after
all, it was very pleasant and restful to come to the old ancestral
home, and every member of the family enjoyed it in his or her own
way; Lord Cumnor most especially. His talent for gossip and his
love of small details had scarcely fair play in the hurry of a
London life, and were much nipped in the bud during his Continental
sojournings, as he neither spoke French fluently, nor understood it
easily when spoken. Besides, he was a great proprietor, and liked
to know how his land was going on; how his tenants were faring in
the world. He liked to hear of their births, marriages, and deaths,
and had something of a royal memory for faces. In short, if ever a
peer was an old woman, Lord Cumnor was that peer; but he was a very
good-natured old woman, and rode about on his stout old cob with
his pockets full of half-pence for the children, and little packets
of snuff for the old people. Like an old woman, too, he enjoyed an
afternoon cup of tea in his wife’s sitting-room, and over his
gossip’s beverage he would repeat all that he had learnt in the
day. Lady Cumnor was exactly in that state of convalescence when
such talk as her lord’s was extremely agreeable to her, but she had
contemned the habit of listening to gossip so severely all her
life, that she thought it due to consistency to listen first, and
enter a supercilious protest afterwards. It had, however, come to
be a family habit for all of them to gather together in Lady
Cumnor’s room on their return from their daily walks or drives, or
rides, and over the fire, sipping their tea at her early meal, to
recount the morsels of local intelligence they had heard during the
morning. When they had said all that they had to say (and not
before), they had always to listen to a short homily from her
ladyship on the well-worn texts,—the poorness of conversation about
persons,—the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and the
degradation of character implied by its repetition. On one of these
November evenings they were all assembled in Lady Cumnor’s room.
She was lying,—all draped in white and covered up with an Indian
shawl,—on a sofa near the fire. Lady Harriet sat on the rug, close
before the wood-fire, picking up fallen embers with a pair of dwarf
tongs, and piling them on the red and odorous heap in the centre of
the hearth. Lady Cuxhaven, notable from girlhood, was using the
blind man’s holidaydt to
net fruit-nets for the walls at Cuxhaven Park. Lady Cumnor’s woman
was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one small
wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear much
light to her weakened eyes); and the great leafless branches of the
trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by
the wind that was gathering.
It was always Lady Cumnor’s habit to snub those she
loved best. Her husband was perpetually snubbed by her, yet she
missed him now that he was later than usual, and professed not to
want her tea; but they all knew that it was only because he was not
there to hand it to her, and be found fault with for his invariable
stupidity in forgetting that she liked to put sugar in before she
took any cream. At length he burst in:—
‘I beg your pardon, my lady,—I’m later than I
should have been, I know. Why haven’t you had your tea yet?’ he
exclaimed, bustling about to get the cup for his wife.
‘You know I never take cream before I’ve sweetened
it,’ said she, with even more emphasis on the ‘never’ than
usual.
‘To be sure! What a simpleton I am! I think I might
have remembered it by this time. You see I met old Sheepshanks, and
that’s the reason of it.’
‘Of your handing me the cream before the sugar?’
asked his wife. It was one of her grim jokes.
‘No, no! ha, ha! You’re better this evening, I
think, my dear. But, as I was saying, Sheepshanks is such an
eternal talker, there’s no getting away from him, and I had no idea
it was so late!’
‘Well, I think the least you can do is to tell us
something of Mr. Sheepshanks’ conversation now you have torn
yourself away from him.’
‘Conversation! did I call it conversation? I don’t
think I said much. I listened. He really has always a great deal to
say. More than Preston, for instance. And, by the way, he was
telling me something about Preston;—old Sheepshanks thinks he’ll be
married before long,—he says there’s a great deal of gossip going
on about him and Gibson’s daughter. They’ve been caught meeting in
the park, and corresponding, and all that kind of thing that is
likely to end in a marriage.’
‘I shall be very sorry,’ said Lady Harriet. ‘I
always liked that girl; and I can’t bear papa’s model
land-agent.’
‘I dare say it’s not true,’ said Lady Cumnor, in a
very audible aside to Lady Harriet. ‘Papa picks up stories one day
to contradict them the next.’
‘Ah, but this did sound like truth. Sheepshanks
said all the old ladies in the town had got hold of it, and were
making a great scandal out of it.’
‘I don’t think it does sound quite a nice story. I
wonder what Clare could be doing to allow such goings on,’ said
Lady Cuxhaven.
‘I think it’s much more likely that Clare’s own
daughter—that pretty pawky Miss Kirkpatrick—is the real heroine of
this story,’ said Lady Harriet. ‘She always looks like a heroine of
genteel comedy; and those young ladies were capable of a good deal
of innocent intriguing, if I remember rightly. Now little Molly
Gibson has a certain gaucheriedu
about her which would disqualify her at once from any clandestine
proceedings. Besides, “clandestine”! why, the child is truth
itself. Papa, are you sure Mr. Sheepshanks said it was Miss Gibson
that was exciting Hollingford scandal? Wasn’t it Miss Kirkpatrick?
The notion of her and Mr. Preston making a match of it doesn’t
sound so incongruous; but if it’s my little friend Molly, I’ll go
to church and forbid the banns.’1
‘Really, Harriet, I can’t think what always makes
you take such an interest in all these petty Hollingford
affairs.’
‘Mamma, it’s only tit for tat. They take the most
lively interest in all our sayings and doings. If I were going to
be married, they would want to know every possible particular,—when
we first met, what we first said to each other, what I wore, and
whether he offered by letter or in person. I’m sure those good Miss
Brownings were wonderfully well-informed as to Mary’s methods of
managing her nursery, and educating her girls; so it’s only a
proper return of the compliment to want to know on our side how
they are going on. I’m quite of papa’s faction. I like to hear all
the local gossip.’
‘Especially when it is flavoured with a spice of
scandal and impropriety, as in this case,’ said Lady Cumnor, with
the momentary bitterness of a convalescent invalid. Lady Harriet
coloured with annoyance. But then she rallied her courage, and said
with more gravity than before;—
‘I am really interested in this story about Molly
Gibson, I own. I both like and respect her; and I do not like to
hear her name coupled with that of Mr. Preston. I can’t help
fancying papa has made some mistake.’
‘No, my dear. I’m sure I’m repeating what I heard.
I’m sorry I said anything about it, if it annoys you or my lady
there. Sheepshanks did say Miss Gibson, though, and he went on to
say it was a pity the girl had got herself so talked about; for it
was the way they had carried on that gave rise to all the chatter.
Preston himself was a very fair match for her, and nobody could
have objected to it. But I’ll try and find a more agreeable piece
of news. Old Margery at the lodge is dead; and they don’t know
where to find some one to teach clear-starching at your school; and
Robert Hall made forty pounds last year by his apples.’ So they
drifted away from Molly and her affairs; only Lady Harriet kept
turning what she had heard over in her own mind with interest and
wonder.
‘I warned her against him the day of her father’s
wedding. And what a straightforward, outspoken topic it was then! I
don’t believe it; it’s only one of old Sheepshanks’ stories, half
invention and half deafness.’
The next day Lady Harriet rode over to Hollingford,
and for the settling of her curiosity she called on the Miss
Brownings, and introduced the subject. She would not have spoken
about the rumour she had heard to any who were not warm friends of
Molly’s. If Mr. Sheepshanks had chosen to allude to it when she had
been riding with her father, she could very soon have silenced him
by one of the haughty looks she knew full well how to assume. But
she felt as if she must know the truth, and accordingly she began
thus abruptly to Miss Browning.
‘What is all this I hear about my little friend
Molly Gibson and Mr. Preston?’
‘Oh, Lady Harriet! have you heard of it? We are so
sorry!’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘I think, begging your ladyship’s pardon, we had
better not say any more till we know how much you know,’ said Miss
Browning.
‘Nay,’ replied Lady Harriet, laughing a little, ‘I
shan’t tell what I know till I am sure you know more. Then we’ll
make an exchange if you like.’
‘I’m afraid it’s no laughing matter for poor
Molly,’ said Miss Browning, shaking her head. ‘People do say such
things!’
‘But I don’t believe them; indeed I don’t,’ burst
in Miss Phoebe, half crying.
‘No more will I then,’ said Lady Harriet, taking
the good lady’s hand.
‘It’s all very fine, Phoebe, saying you don’t
believe them, but I should like to know who it was that convinced
me, sadly against my will, I am sure.’
‘I only told you the facts as Mrs. Goodenough told
them me, sister; but I’m sure if you had seen poor patient Molly as
I have done, sitting up in a corner of a room, looking at the
Beauties of England and Wales till she must have been sick
of them, and no one speaking to her; and she as gentle and sweet as
ever at the end of the evening, though maybe a bit pale—facts or no
facts, I won’t believe anything against her.’
So there sat Miss Phoebe, in tearful defiance of
facts.
‘And, as I said before, I’m quite of your opinion,’
said Lady Harriet.
‘But how does your ladyship explain away her
meetings with Mr. Preston in all sorts of unlikely and open-air
places?’ asked Miss Browning,—who, to do her justice, would have
been only too glad to join Molly’s partisans, if she could have
preserved her character for logical deduction at the same time. ‘I
went so far as to send for her father and tell him all about it. I
thought at least he would have horsewhipped Mr. Preston; but he
seems to have taken no notice of it.’
‘Then we may be quite sure he knows some way of
explaining matters that we don’t,’ said Lady Harriet, decisively.
‘After all, there may be a hundred and fifty perfectly natural and
justifiable explanations.’
‘Mr. Gibson knew of none when I thought it my duty
to speak to him,’ said Miss Browning.
‘Why, suppose that Mr. Preston is engaged to Miss
Kirkpatrick, and Molly is confidante and messenger?’
‘I don’t see that your ladyship’s supposition much
alters the blame. Why, if he is honourably engaged to Cynthia
Kirkpatrick, does he not visit her openly at her home in Mr.
Gibson’s house? Why does Molly lend herself to clandestine
proceedings?’
‘One can’t account for everything,’ said Lady
Harriet, a little impatiently, for reason was going hard against
her. ‘But I choose to have faith in Molly Gibson. I’m sure she’s
not done anything very wrong. I’ve a great mind to go and call on
her—Mrs. Gibson is confined to her room with this horrid
influenza—and take her with me on a round of calls through the
little gossiping town,—on Mrs. Goodenough, or Badenough, who seems
to have been propagating all these stories. But I’ve not time
to-day. I’ve to meet papa at three, and it’s three now. Only
remember, Miss Phoebe, it’s you and I against the world, in defence
of a distressed damsel.’
‘Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!’dv
said she to herself, as she ran lightly down Miss Browning’s
old-fashioned staircase.
‘Now, I don’t think that’s pretty of you, Phoebe,’
said Miss Browning, in some displeasure, as soon as she was alone
with her sister. ‘First, you convince me against my will, and make
me very unhappy; and I have to do unpleasant things, all because
you’ve made me believe that certain statements are true; and then
you turn round and cry, and say you don’t believe a word of it all,
making me out a regular ogre and backbiter. No! it’s of no use. I
shan’t listen to you.’ So she left Miss Phoebe in tears, and locked
herself up in her own room.
Lady Harriet, meanwhile, was riding homewards by
her father’s side, apparently listening to all he chose to say, but
in reality turning over the probabilities and possibilities that
might account for these strange interviews between Molly and Mr.
Preston. It was a case of parler de l‘âne et l’on en voit les
oreilles.dw At a
turn in the road they saw Mr. Preston a little way before them,
coming towards them on his good horse, point device,dx in
his riding attire.
The earl, in his threadbare coat, and on his old
brown cob, called out cheerfully,—
‘Aha! here’s Preston. Good day to you. I was just
wanting to ask you about that slip of pasture-land on the Home
Farm. John Brick-kill wants to plough it up and crop it. It’s not
two acres at the best.’
While they were talking over this bit of land, Lady
Harriet came to her resolution. As soon as her father had finished,
she said,—
‘Mr. Preston, perhaps you will allow me to ask you
one or two questions to relieve my mind, for I am in some little
perplexity at present.’
‘Certainly; I shall only be too happy to give you
any information in my power.’ But the moment after he had made this
polite speech, he recollected Molly’s speech—that she would refer
her case to Lady Harriet. But the letters had been returned, and
the affair was now wound up. She had come off conqueror, he the
vanquished. Surely she would never have been so ungenerous as to
appeal after that.
‘There are reports about Miss Gibson and you
current among the gossips of Hollingford. Are we to congratulate
you on your engagement to that young lady?’
‘Ah! by the way, Preston, we ought to have done it
before,’ interrupted Lord Cumnor, in hasty goodwill. But his
daughter said quietly, ‘Mr. Preston has not yet told us if the
reports are well founded, papa.’
She looked at him with the air of a person
expecting an answer, and expecting a truthful answer.
‘I am not so fortunate,’ replied he, trying to make
his horse appear fidgety, without incurring observation.
‘Then I may contradict that report?’ asked Lady
Harriet, quickly. ‘Or is there any reason for believing that in
time it may come true? I ask because such reports, if unfounded, do
harm to young ladies.’
‘Keep other sweethearts off,’ put in Lord Cumnor,
looking a good deal pleased at his own discernment. Lady Harriet
went on:—
‘And I take a great interest in Miss Gibson.’
Mr. Preston saw from her manner that he was ‘in for
it,’ as he expressed it to himself. The question was, how much or
how little did she know?
‘I have no expectation or hope of ever having a
nearer interest in Miss Gibson than I have at present. I shall be
glad if this straightforward answer relieves your ladyship from
your perplexity.’
He could not help the touch of insolence that
accompanied these last words. It was not in the words themselves,
nor in the tone in which they were spoken, nor in the look which
accompanied them, it was in all; it implied a doubt of Lady
Harriet’s right to question him as she did; and there was something
of defiance in it as well. But this touch of insolence put Lady
Harriet’s mettle up; and she was not one to check herself, in any
course, for the opinion of an inferior.
‘Then, sir! are you aware of the injury you may do
to a young lady’s reputation if you meet her, and detain her in
long conversations, when she is walking by herself, unaccompanied
by any one? You give rise—you have given rise to reports.’
‘My dear Harriet, are you not going too far? You
don’t know—Mr. Preston may have intentions—acknowledged
intentions.’
‘No, my lord. I have no intentions with regard to
Miss Gibson. She may be a very worthy young lady—I have no doubt
she is. Lady Harriet seems determined to push me into such a
position that I cannot but acknowledge myself to be—it is not
enviable—not pleasant to own—but I am, in fact, a jilted man;
jilted by Miss Kirkpatrick, after a tolerably long engagement. My
interviews with Miss Gibson were not of the most agreeable kind—as
you may conclude when I tell you she was, I believe, the
instigator—certainly, she was the agent in this last step of Miss
Kirkpatrick’s. Is your ladyship’s curiosity’ (with an emphasis on
this last word) ‘satisfied with this rather mortifying confession
of mine?’
‘Harriet, my dear, you’ve gone too far—we had no
right to pry into Mr. Preston’s private affairs.’
‘No more I had,’ said Lady Harriet, with a smile of
winning frankness: the first smile she had accorded to Mr. Preston
for many a long day; ever since the time, years ago, when,
presuming on his handsomeness, he had assumed a tone of gallant
familiarity with Lady Harriet, and paid her personal compliments as
he would have done to an equal.
‘But he will excuse me, I hope,’ continued she,
still in that gracious manner which made him feel that he now held
a much higher place in her esteem than he had had at the beginning
of their interview, ‘when he learns that the busy tongues of the
Hollingford ladies have been speaking of my friend, Miss Gibson, in
the most unwarrantable manner; drawing unjustifiable inferences
from the facts of that intercourse with Mr. Preston, the nature of
which he has just conferred such a real obligation on me by
explaining.’
‘I think I need hardly request Lady Harriet to
consider this explanation of mine as confidential,’ said Mr.
Preston.
‘Of course, of course!’ said the earl; ‘every one
will understand that.’ And he rode home, and told his wife and Lady
Cuxhaven the whole conversation between Lady Harriet and Mr.
Preston; in the strictest confidence, of course. Lady Harriet had
to stand a good many strictures on manners and proper dignity for a
few days after this. However, she consoled herself by calling on
the Gibsons; and, finding that Mrs. Gibson (who was still an
invalid) was asleep at the time, she experienced no difficulty in
carrying off the unconscious Molly for a walk, which Lady Harriet
so contrived that they twice passed through all the length of the
principal street of the town, loitered at Grinstead’s for half an
hour, and wound up by Lady Harriet’s calling on the Miss Brownings,
who, to her regret, were not at home.
‘Perhaps it’s as well,’ said she, after a minute’s
consideration. ‘I’ll leave my card, and put your name down
underneath it, Molly’
Molly was a little puzzled by the manner in which
she had been taken possession of, like an inanimate chattel, for
all the afternoon, and exclaimed—
‘Please, Lady Harriet—I never leave cards; I have
not got any, and on the Miss Brownings, of all people; why, I am in
and out whenever I like.’
‘Never mind, little one. To-day you shall do
everything properly, and according to full etiquette.’
‘And now tell Mrs. Gibson to come out to the Towers
for a long day; we will send the carriage for her whenever she will
let us know that she is strong enough to come. Indeed, she had
better come for a few days; at this time of the year it doesn’t do
for an invalid to be out in the evenings, even in a carriage.’ So
spoke Lady Harriet, standing on the white doorsteps at Miss
Brownings‘, and holding Molly’s hand while she wished her good-bye.
‘You’ll tell her, dear, that I came partly to see her—but that
finding her asleep, I ran off with you, and don’t forget about her
coming to stay with us for change of air—mamma will like it, I’m
sure—and the carriage, and all that. And now good-bye, we’ve done a
good day’s work! And better than you’re aware of,’ continued she,
still addressing Molly, though the latter was quite out of
hearing.
‘Hollingford is not the place I take it to be, if
it doesn’t veer round in Miss Gibson’s favour after my to-day’s
trotting of that child about.’