‘Well, Gibson, and how goes the patient? Better? I wish we could get her out of doors, such a fine day as it is. It would make her strong as soon as anything. I used to beg my poor lad to come out more. Maybe, I worried him; but the air is the finest thing for strengthening that I know of Though, perhaps, she’ll not thrive in English air as if she’d been born here; and she’ll not be quite right till she gets back to her native place, wherever that is.’
‘I don’t know. I begin to think we shall get her quite round here; and I don’t know that she could be in a better place. But it’s not about her. May I order the carriage for my Molly?’ Mr. Gibson’s voice sounded as if he was choking a little as he said these last words.
‘To be sure,’ said the squire, setting his child down. He had been holding him in his arms the last few minutes: but now he wanted all his eyes to look into Mr. Gibson’s face. ‘I say,’ said he, catching hold of Mr. Gibson’s arm, ‘what’s the matter, man? Don’t twitch up your face like that, but speak!’
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ said Mr. Gibson, hastily. ‘Only I want her at home under my own eye;’ and he turned away to go to the house. But the squire left his field and his weeders, and kept at Mr. Gibson’s side. He wanted to speak, but his heart was so full he did not know what to say. ‘I say, Gibson,’ he got out at last, ‘your Molly is liker a child of mine than a stranger; and I reckon we’ve all on us been coming too hard upon her. You don’t think there’s much amiss, do you?’
‘How can I tell?’ said Mr. Gibson, almost savagely. But any hastiness of temper was instinctively understood by the squire; and he was not offended, though he did not speak again till they reached the house. Then he went to order the carriage, and stood by sorrowful enough while the horses were being put in. He felt as if he should not know what to do without Molly; he had never known her value, he thought, till now. But he kept silence on this view of the case; which was a praiseworthy effort on the part of one who usually let bystanders see and hear as much of his passing feelings as if he had had a window in his breast. He stood by while Mr. Gibson helped the faintly-smiling, tearful Molly into the carriage. Then the squire mounted on the step and kissed her hand; but when he tried to thank her and bless her, he broke down; and as soon as he was once more safely on the ground, Mr. Gibson cried out to the coachman to drive on. And so Molly left Hamley Hall. From time to time her father rode up to the window, and made some little cheerful and apparently careless remark. When they came within two miles of Hollingford, he put spurs to his horse, and rode briskly past the carriage windows, kissing his hand to the occupant as he did so. He went on to prepare her home for Molly: when she arrived Mrs. Gibson was ready to greet her. Mr. Gibson had given one or two of his bright, imperative orders, and Mrs. Gibson was feeling rather lonely ‘without either of her two dear girls at home,’ as she phrased it, to herself as well as to others.
‘Why, my sweet Molly, this is an unexpected pleasure. Only this morning I said to papa, “When do you think we shall see our Molly back?” He did not say much—he never does, you know; but I am sure he thought directly of giving me this surprise, this pleasure. You’re looking a little—what shall I call it? I remember such a pretty line of poetry, “Oh, call her fair, not pale!”ed so we’ll call you fair.’
‘You’d better not call her anything, but let her get to her own room and have a good rest as soon as possible. Haven’t you got a trashy novel or two in the house? That’s the literature to send her to sleep.’
He did not leave her till he had seen her laid on a sofa in a darkened room, with some slight pretence of reading in her hand. Then he came away, leading his wife, who turned round at the door to kiss her hand to Molly, and make a little face of unwillingness to be dragged away.
‘Now, Hyacinth,’ said he, as he took his wife into the drawing-room, ‘she will need much care. She has been overworked, and I’ve been a fool. That’s all. We must keep her from all worry and care,—but I won’t answer for it that she’ll not have an illness, for all that!’
‘Poor thing! she does look worn out. She is something like me, her feelings are too much for her. But now she is come home she shall find us as cheerful as possible. I can answer for myself; and you really must brighten up your doleful face, my dear—nothing so bad for invalids as the appearance of depression in those around them. I have had such a pleasant letter from Cynthia to-day. Uncle Kirkpatrick really seems to make so much of her, he treats her just like a daughter ; he has given her a ticket to the Concerts of Ancient Music; and Mr. Henderson has been to call on her, in spite of all that has gone before.’
For an instant, Mr. Gibson thought that it was easy enough for his wife to be cheerful, with the pleasant thoughts and evident anticipations she had in her mind, but a little more difficult for him to put off his doleful looks while his own child lay in a state of suffering and illness which might be the precursor of a still worse malady. But he was always a man for immediate action as soon as he had resolved on the course to be taken; and he knew that ‘some must watch, while some must sleep, so runs the world away.’
The illness which he apprehended came upon Molly; not violently or acutely, so that there was any immediate danger to be dreaded; but making a long pull upon her strength, which seemed to lessen day by day, until at last her father feared that she might become a permanent invalid. There was nothing very decided or alarming to tell Cynthia, and Mrs. Gibson kept the dark side from her in her letters. ‘Molly was feeling the spring weather’; or ‘Molly had been a good deal overdone with her stay at the Hall, and was resting’; such little sentences told nothing of Molly’s real state. But then, as Mrs. Gibson said to herself, it would be a pity to disturb Cynthia’s pleasure by telling her much about Molly; indeed, there was not much to tell, one day was so like another. But it so happened that Lady Harriet, who came whenever she could to sit awhile with Molly, at first against Mrs. Gibson’s will, and afterwards with her full consent,—for reasons of her own, Lady Harriet wrote a letter to Cynthia, to which she was urged by Mrs. Gibson. It fell out in this manner:—One day, when Lady Harriet was sitting in the drawing-room for a few minutes, after she had been with Molly, she said,—
‘Really, Clare, I spend so much time in your house that I’m going to establish a work-basket here. Mary has infected me with her notability, and I’m going to work mamma a footstool. It is to be a surprise; and so if I do it here she will know nothing about it. Only I cannot match the gold beads I want for the pansies in this dear little town; and Hollingford, who could send me down stars and planets if I asked him, I make no doubt, could no more match beads than—’
‘My dear Lady Harriet! you forget Cynthia! Think what a pleasure it would be to her to do anything for you.’
‘Would it? Then she shall have plenty of it; but mind, it is you who have answered for her. She shall get me some wool too; how good I am to confer so much pleasure on a fellow creature! But seriously, do you think I might write and give her a few commissions? Neither Agnes nor Mary are in town—’
‘I am sure she would be delighted,’ said Mrs. Gibson, who also took into consideration the reflection of aristocratic honour that would fall upon Cynthia if she had a letter from Lady Harriet while at Mr. Kirkpatrick’s. So she gave the address, and Lady Harriet wrote. All the first part of the letter was taken up with apology and commissions; but then, never doubting but that Cynthia was aware of Molly’s state, she went on to say—
‘I saw Molly this morning. Twice I have been forbidden admittance, as she was too ill to see any one out of her own family. I wish we could begin to perceive a change for the better; but she looks more fading every time, and I fear Mr. Gibson considers it a very anxious case.’