‘Papa, I won’t even think about your reason again. But then I shall have to plague you with another question. I have had no new gown this year, and I have outgrown all my last summer frocks. I have only three that I can wear at all. Betty was saying only yesterday that I ought to have some more.’
‘That’ll do that you have got on, won’t it? It’s a very pretty colour.’
‘Yes; but, papa’ (holding it out as if she was going to dance), ’it’s made of woollen, and so hot and heavy; and every day it will be getting warmer.’
‘I wish girls could dress like boys,’ said Mr. Gibson, with a little impatience. ‘How is a man to know when his daughter wants clothes? and how is he to rig her out when he finds it out, just when she needs them most and hasn’t got them?’
‘Ah, that’s the question!’ said Molly, in some despair.
‘Can’t you go to Miss Rose’s? Doesn’t she keep ready-made frocks for girls of your age?’
‘Miss Rose! I never had anything from her in my life,’ replied Molly, in some surprise; for Miss Rose was the great dressmaker and milliner of the little town, and hitherto Betty had made the girl’s frocks.
‘Well, but it seems people consider you as a young woman now, and so I suppose you must run up milliners’ bills like the rest of your kind. Not that you’re to get anything anywhere that you can’t pay for down in ready money. Here’s a ten-pound note; go to Miss Rose’s, or Miss anybody‘s, and get what you want at once. The Hamley carriage is to come for you at two, and anything that isn’t quite ready can easily be sent by their cart on Saturday, when some of their people always come to market. Nay, don’t thank me! I don’t want to have the money spent, and I don’t want you to go and leave me; I shall miss you, I know; it’s only hard necessity that drives me to send you a-visiting, and to throw away ten pounds on your clothes. There, go away; you’re a plague, and I mean to leave off loving you as fast as I can.’
‘Papa!’ holding up her finger as in warning, ‘you’re getting mysterious again; and though my honourableness is very strong, I won’t promise that it shall not yield to my curiosity if you go on hinting at untold secrets.’
‘Go away and spend your ten pounds. What did I give it you for but to keep you quiet?’
Miss Rose’s ready-made resources and Molly’s taste combined did not arrive at a very great success. She bought a lilac print, because it would wash, and would be cool and pleasant for the mornings; and this Betty could make at home before Saturday. And for high-days and holidays—by which was understood afternoons and Sundays—Miss Rose persuaded her to order a gay-coloured flimsy plaid silk, which she assured her was quite the latest fashion in London, and which Molly thought would please her father’s Scotch blood. But when he saw the scrap which she had brought home as a pattern, he cried out that the plaid belonged to no clan in existence, and that Molly ought to have known this by instinct. It was too late to change it, however, for Miss Rose had promised to cut the dress out as soon as Molly left the shop.
Mr. Gibson had hung about the town all the morning instead of going away on his usual distant rides. He passed his daughter once or twice in the street, but he did not cross over when he was on the opposite side—only gave her a look or a nod, and went on his way, scolding himself for his weakness in feeling so much pain at the thought of her absence for a fortnight or so.
‘And, after all,’ thought he, ‘I’m only where I was when she comes back; at least, if that foolish fellow goes on with his imaginating fancy. She’ll have to come back some time, and if he chooses to imagine himself constant, there’s still the devil to pay.’ Presently he began to hum the air out of the ‘Beggar’s Opera’—I wonder any man alive
Should ever rear a daughter.
CHAPTER 6
A Visit to the Hamleys
Of course the news of Miss Gibson’s approaching departure had spread through the household before the one o’clock dinner-time came; and Mr. Coxe’s dismal countenance was a source of much inward irritation to Mr. Gibson, who kept giving the youth sharp glances of savage reproof for his melancholy face and want of appetite, which he trotted out, with a good deal of sad ostentation; all of which was lost upon Molly, who was too full of her own personal concerns to have any thought or observation to spare from them, excepting once or twice when she thought of the many days that must pass over before she should again sit down to dinner with her father.
When she named this to him after the meal was done, and they were sitting together in the drawing-room, waiting for the sound of the wheels of the Hamley carriage, he laughed, and said,—
‘I’m coming over to-morrow to see Mrs. Hamley; and I dare say I shall dine at their lunch; so you won’t have to wait long before you’ve the treat of seeing the wild beast feed.’
Then they heard the approaching carriage.
‘Oh, papa,’ said Molly, catching at his hand, ‘I do so wish I was not going, now that the time is come.’
‘Nonsense; don’t let us have any sentiment. Have you got your keys? that’s more to the purpose.’
Yes; she had got her keys, and her purse; and her little box was put up on the seat by the coachman: and her father handed her in; the door was shut, and she drove away in solitary grandeur, looking back and kissing her hand to her father, who stood at the gate, in spite of his dislike of sentiment, as long as the carriage could be seen. Then he turned into the surgery, and found Mr. Coxe had had his watching too, and had, indeed, remained at the window gazing, moonstruck, at the empty road, up which the young lady had disappeared. Mr. Gibson startled him from his reverie by a sharp, almost venomous, speech about some small neglect of duty a day or two before. That night Mr. Gibson insisted on passing by the bedside of a poor girl whose parents were worn-out by many wakeful anxious nights succeeding to hard-working days.
Molly cried a little, but checked her tears as soon as she remembered how annoyed her father would have been at the sight of them. It was very pleasant driving along in the luxurious carriage, through the pretty green lanes, with dog-roses and honeysuckles so plentiful and fresh in the hedges, that she once or twice was tempted to ask the coachman to stop till she had gathered a nosegay. She began to dread the end of her little journey of seven miles; the only drawback to which was, that her silk was not a true clan-tartan, and a little uncertainty as to Miss Rose’s punctuality. At length they came to a village; straggling cottages lined the road, an old church stood on a kind of green, with the public-house close by it; there was a great tree, with a bench all round the trunk, midway between the church gates and the little inn. The wooden stocks were close to the gates. Molly had long passed the limit of her rides, but she knew this must be the village of Hamley, and they must be very near to the hall.
They swung in at the gates of the park in a few minutes, and drove up through meadow-grass, ripening for hay,—it was no grand aristocratic deer-park this—to the old red-brick hall, not three hundred yards from the high-road. There had been no footman sent with the carriage, but a respectable servant stood at the door, even before they drew up, ready to receive the expected visitor, and take her into the drawing-room where his mistress lay awaiting her.
Mrs. Hamley rose from her sofa to give Molly a gentle welcome; she kept the girl’s hand in hers after she had finished speaking, looking into her face, as if studying it, and unconscious of the faint blush she called up on the otherwise colourless cheeks.
‘I think we shall be great friends,’ said she, at length. ‘I like your face, and I am always guided by first impressions. Give me a kiss, my dear.’
It was far easier to be active than passive during this process of ‘swearing eternal friendship,’ and Molly willingly kissed the sweet pale face held up to her.