‘I don’t think it is likely,’ said Molly, stoutly. ‘Roger is too sensible for anything of the kind.’
‘That’s just the fault I always found with him; sensible and cold-hearted! Now, that’s a kind of character which may be very valuable, but which revolts me. Give me warmth of heart, even with a little of that extravagance of feeling which misleads the judgment, and conducts into romance. Poor Mr. Kirkpatrick! That was just his character. I used to tell him that his love for me was quite romantic. I think I have told you about his walking five miles in the rain to get me a muffin once when I was ill?’
‘Yes!’ said Molly. ‘It was very kind of him.’
‘So imprudent, too! Just what one of your sensible, cold-hearted, commonplace people would never have thought of doing. With his cough and all.’
‘I hope he didn’t suffer for it?’ replied Molly, anxious at any cost to keep off the subject of the Hamleys, upon which she and her stepmother always disagreed, and on which she found it difficult to keep her temper.
‘Yes, indeed, he did! I don’t think he ever got over the cold he caught that day. I wish you had known him, Molly. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if you had been my real daughter, and Cynthia dear papa’s, and Mr. Kirkpatrick and your own dear mother had all lived. People talk a good deal about natural affinities. It would have been a question for a philosopher.’ She began to think on the impossibilities she had suggested.
‘I wonder how the poor little boy is?’ said Molly, after a pause, speaking out her thought.
‘Poor little child! When one thinks how little his prolonged existence is to be desired, one feels that his death would be a boon.’
‘Mamma! what do you mean?’ asked Molly, much shocked. ‘Why, every one cares for his life as the most precious thing! You have never seen him! He is the bonniest, sweetest little fellow that can be! What do you mean?’
‘I should have thought that the squire would have desired a better-born heir than the offspring of a servant,—with all his ideas about descent and blood and family. And I should have thought that it was a little mortifying to Roger-who must naturally have looked upon himself as his brother’s heir-to find a little interloping child, half French, half English, stepping into his shoes!’
‘You don’t know how fond they are of him,—the squire looks upon him as the apple of his eye.’
‘Molly! Molly! pray don’t let me hear you using such vulgar expressions. When shall I teach you true refinement—that refinement which consists in never even thinking a vulgar, commonplace thing! Proverbs and idioms are never used by people of education. “Apple of his eye!” I am really shocked.’
‘Well, mamma, I’m very sorry; but after all, what I wanted to say as strongly as I could was, that the squire loves the little boy as much as his own child; and that Roger-oh! what a shame to think that Roger-’ And she stopped suddenly short, as if she were choked.
‘I don’t wonder at your indignation, my dear!’ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘It is just what I should have felt at your age. But one learns the baseness of human nature with advancing years. I was wrong, though, to undeceive you so early—but depend upon it, the thought I alluded to has crossed Roger Hamley’s mind!’
‘All sorts of thoughts cross one’s mind—it depends upon whether one gives them harbour and encouragement,’ said Molly
‘My dear, if you must have the last word, don’t let it be a truism. But let us talk on some more interesting subject. I asked Cynthia to buy me a silk gown in Paris, and I said I would send her word what colour I fixed upon—I think dark blue is the most becoming to my complexion; what do you say?’
Molly agreed, sooner than take the trouble of thinking about the thing at all; she was far too full of her silent review of all the traits in Roger’s character which had lately come under her notice, and that gave the lie direct to her stepmother’s supposition. Just then they heard Mr. Gibson’s step downstairs. But it was some time before he made his entrance into the room where they were sitting.
‘How is little Roger?’ said Molly, eagerly.
‘Beginning with scarlet fever, I’m afraid. It’s well you left when you did, Molly. You’ve never had it. We must stop up all intercourse with the Hall for a time. If there’s one illness I dread, it is this.’
‘But you go and come back to us, papa.’
‘Yes. But I always take plenty of precautions. However, no need to talk about risks that lie in the way of one’s duty. It is unnecessary risks that we must avoid.’
‘Will he have it badly?’ asked Molly
‘I can’t tell. I shall do my best for the wee laddie.’
Whenever Mr. Gibson’s feelings were touched, he was apt to recur to the language of his youth. Molly knew now that he was much interested in the case.
For some days there was imminent danger to the little boy; for some weeks there was a more chronic form of illness to contend with; but when the immediate danger was over and the warm daily interest was past, Molly began to realize that, from the strict quarantine her father evidently thought it necessary to establish between the two houses, she was not likely to see Roger again before his departure for Africa. Oh! if she had but made more of the uncared-for days that she had passed with him at the Hall! Worse than uncared for; days on which she had avoided him; refused to converse freely with him; given him pain by her change of manner; for she had read in his eyes, heard in his voice, that he had been perplexed and pained, and now her imagination dwelt on and exaggerated the expression of his tones and looks.
One evening after dinner, her father said,—
‘As the country-people say, I’ve done a stroke of work to-day Roger Hamley and I have laid our heads together and we’ve made a plan by which Mrs. Osborne and her boy will leave the Hall.’
‘What did I say the other day, Molly?’ said Mrs. Gibson, interrupting, and giving Molly a look of extreme intelligence.
‘And go into lodgings at Jennings’ farm; not four hundred yards from the Park-field gate,’ continued Mr. Gibson.‘The squire and his daughter-in-law have got to be much better friends over the little fellow’s sick-bed; and I think he sees now how impossible it would be for the mother to leave her child, and go and be happy in France, which has been the notion running in his head all this time. To buy her off, in fact. But that one night, when I was very uncertain whether I could bring him through, they took to crying together, and condoling with each other; and it was just like tearing down a curtain that had been between them; they have been rather friends than otherwise ever since. Still, Roger’-(Molly’s cheeks grew warm and her eyes soft and bright; it was such a pleasure to hear his name)-‘and I both agree that his mother knows much better how to manage the boy than his grandfather does. I suppose that was the one good thing she got from that hard-hearted mistress of hers. She certainly has been well trained in the management of children. And it makes her impatient, and annoyed, and unhappy, when she sees the squire giving the child nuts and ale, and all sorts of silly indulgences, and spoiling him in every possible way. Yet she’s a coward, and doesn’t speak out her mind. Now by being in lodgings, and having her own servants—nice pretty rooms they are, too; we went to see them, and Mrs. Jennings promises to attend well to Mrs. Osborne Hamley, and is very much honoured, and all that sort of thing-not ten minutes’ walk from the Hall, too, so that she and the little chap may easily go backwards and forwards as often as they like, and yet she may keep the control over the child’s discipline and diet. In short, I think I’ve done a good day’s work,’ he continued, stretching himself a little; and then with a shake rousing himself, and making ready to go out again, to see a patient who had sent for him in his absence.