‘I’ve come here to-day to ask for a favour,’ he began.
‘Granted before you name it. Am not I a bold woman?’
He smiled and bowed, but went straight on with his speech.
‘Miss Eyre, who has been Molly’s governess, I suppose I must call her, for many years, writes to-day to say that one of the little nephews she took with her to Newport while Molly was staying here, has caught the scarlet fever.’
‘I guess your request. I make it before you do. I beg for dear little Molly to stay on here. Of course Miss Eyre can’t come back to you; and of course Molly must stay here!’
‘Thank you; thank you very much. That was my request.’
Molly’s hand stole down to his, and nestled in that firm compact grasp.
‘Papa!—Mrs. Hamley!—I know you’ll both understand me—but mayn’t I go home? I am very happy here; but—oh papa! I think I should like to be at home with you best.’
An uncomfortable suspicion flashed across his mind. He pulled her round, and looked straight and piercingly into her innocent face. Her colour came at his unwonted scrutiny, but her sweet eyes were filled with wonder rather than with any feeling which he dreaded to find. For an instant he had doubted whether young red-headed Mr. Coxe’s love might not have called out a response in his daughter’s breast; but he was quite clear now.
‘Molly, you’re rude to begin with. I don’t know how you’re to make your peace with Mrs. Hamley, I’m sure. And in the next place, do you think you’re wiser than I am; or that I don’t want you at home, if all other things were conformable? Stay where you are and be thankful.’
Molly knew him well enough to be certain that the prolongation of her visit at Hamley was quite a decided affair in his mind; and then she was smitten with a sense of ingratitude. She left her father, and went to Mrs. Hamley, and bent over her and kissed her; but she did not speak. Mrs. Hamley took hold of her hand, and made room on the sofa for her.
‘I was going to have asked for a longer visit the next time you came, Mr. Gibson. We are such happy friends, are not we, Molly? and now that this good little nephew of Miss Eyre’s———’
‘I wish he was whipped,’ said Mr. Gibson.
‘—has given us such a capital reason, I shall keep Molly for a real long visitation. You must come over and see us very often. There’s a room here for you always, you know; and I don’t see why you should not start on your rounds from Hamley every morning, just as well as from Hollingford.’
‘Thank you. If you hadn’t been so kind to my little girl, I might be tempted to say something rude in answer to your last speech.’
‘Pray say it. You won’t be easy till you have given it out, I know.’
‘Mrs. Hamley has found out from whom I get my rudeness,’ said Molly, triumphantly. ‘It’s an hereditary quality.’
‘I was going to say, that proposal of yours that I should sleep at Hamley was just like a woman’s idea—all kindness, and no common sense. How in the world would my patients find me out, seven miles from my accustomed place? They’d be sure to send for some other doctor, and I should be ruined in a month.’
‘Could not they send on here? A messenger costs very little.’
‘Fancy old Goody Henbury struggling up to my surgery, groaning at every step, and then being told to just step on seven miles farther! Or take the other end of society:—I don’t think my Lady Cumnor’s smart groom would thank me for having to ride on to Hamley every time his mistress wants me.’
‘Well, well, I submit. I am a woman. Molly, thou art a woman! Go and order some strawberries and cream for this father of yours. Such humble offices fall within the province of women. Strawberries and cream are all kindness and no common sense, for they’ll give him a horrid fit of indigestion.’
‘Please speak for yourself, Mrs. Hamley,’ said Molly, merrily. ‘I ate—oh, such a great basketful yesterday, and the squire went himself to the dairy and brought out a great bowl of cream, when he found me at my busy work. And I’m as well as ever I was, to-day, and never had a touch of indigestion near me.’
‘She’s a good girl,’ said her father, when she had danced out of hearing. The words were not quite an inquiry, he was so certain of his answer. There was a mixture of tenderness and trust in his eyes, as he awaited the reply, which came in a moment.
‘She’s a darling. I cannot tell you how fond the squire and I are of her; both of us. I am so delighted to think she is not to go away for a long time. The first thing I thought of this morning when I wakened up, was that she would soon have to return to you, unless I could persuade you into leaving her with me a little longer. And now she must stay—oh, two months at least.’
It was quite truth that the squire had become very fond of Molly. The chance of having a young girl dancing and singing inarticulate ditties about the house and garden, was indescribable in its novelty to him. And then Molly was so willing and so wise; ready both to talk and to listen at the right times. Mrs. Hamley was quite right in speaking of her husband’s fondness for Molly. But either she herself chose a wrong time for telling him of the prolongation of the girl’s visit, or one of the fits of temper to which he was liable, but which he generally strove to check in the presence of his wife, was upon him; at any rate, he received the news in anything but a gracious frame of mind.
‘Stay longer! Did Gibson ask for it?’
‘Yes! I don’t see what else is to become of her; Miss Eyre away and all. It’s a very awkward position for a motherless girl like her to be at the head of a household with two young men in it.’
‘That’s Gibson’s look-out; he should have thought of it before taking pupils, or apprentices, or whatever he calls them.’
‘My dear squire! why, I thought you’d be as glad as I was—as I am, to keep Molly. I asked her to stay for an indefinite time; two months at least.’
‘And to be in the house with Osborne! Roger, too, will be at home.’
By the cloud in the squire’s eyes, Mrs. Hamley read his mind.
‘Oh, she’s not at all the sort of girl young men of their age would take to. We like her because we see what she really is, but lads of one and two-and-twenty want all the accessories of a young woman.’
‘Want what?’ growled the squire.
‘Such things as becoming dress, style of manner. They should not at their age even see that she is pretty; their ideas of beauty would include colour.’
‘I suppose all that’s very clever; but I don’t understand it. All I know is, that it’s a very dangerous thing to shut two young men of one and three-and-twenty up in a country-house like this with a girl of seventeen—choose what her gowns may be like, or her hair, or her eyes. And I told you particularly I didn’t want Osborne, or either of them, indeed, to be falling in love with her. I’m very much annoyed.’
Mrs. Hamley’s face fell; she became a little pale.
‘Shall we make arrangements for their stopping away while she is here; staying up at Cambridge, or reading with some one? going abroad for a month or two?’
‘No; you’ve been reckoning this ever so long on their coming home. I’ve seen the marks of the weeks on your almanack. I’d sooner speak to Gibson, and tell him he must take his daughter away, for it’s not convenient to us——’
‘My dear Roger! I beg you will do no such thing. It will be so unkind; it will give the lie to all I said yesterday. Don’t, please, do that. For my sake, don’t speak to Mr. Gibson!’
‘Well, well, don’t put yourself in a flutter,’ for he was afraid of her becoming hysterical; ‘I’ll speak to Osborne when he comes home, and tell him how much I should dislike anything of the kind.’