And the tête-à-tête was merged in a trio. Mrs. Hamley lay down; she had not been well all day—she had missed Molly, she said—and now she wanted to hear of all the adventures that had occurred to the girl at the Towers. Molly sat on a stool close to the head of the sofa, and Roger, though at first he took up a book and tried to read that he might be no restraint, soon found his reading all a pretence: it was so interesting to listen to Molly’s little narrative, and, besides, if he could give her any help in her time of need, was it not his duty to make himself acquainted with all the circumstances of her case?
And so they went on during all the remaining time of Molly’s stay at Hamley. Mrs. Hamley sympathized, and liked to hear details; as the French say, her sympathy was given en detail, the squire’s en gros. He was very sorry for her evident grief, and almost felt guilty, as if he had had a share in bringing it about, by the mention he had made of the possibility of Mr. Gibson’s marrying again, when first Molly came on her visit to them. He said to his wife more than once:
“Pon my word now, I wish I’d never spoken those unlucky words that first day at dinner. Do you remember how she took them up? It was like a prophecy of what was to come, now, wasn’t it? And she looked pale from that day, and I don’t think she has ever fairly enjoyed her food since. I must take more care what I say for the future. Not but what Gibson is doing the very best thing, both for himself and her, that he can do. I told him so only yesterday. But I’m very sorry for the little girl, though. I wish I’d never spoken about it, that I do! but it was like a prophecy, wasn’t it?’
Roger tried hard to find out a reasonable and right method of comfort; for he, too, in his way, was sorry for the girl, who bravely struggled to be cheerful, in spite of her own private grief, for his mother’s sake. He felt as if high principle and noble precept ought to perform an immediate work. But they do not, for there is always the unknown quantity of individual experience and feeling, which offer a tacit resistance, the amount incalculable by another, to all good counsel and high decree. But the bond between the Mentor and his Telemachusal strengthened every day. He endeavoured to lead her out of morbid thought into interest in other than personal things; and, naturally enough, his own objects of interests came readiest to hand. She felt that he did her good, she did not know why or how; but after a talk with him she always fancied that she had got the clue to goodness and peace, whatever befell.
CHAPTER 12
Preparing for the Wedding
Meanwhile the love-affairs between the middle-aged couple were prospering well, after a fashion; after the fashion that they liked best, although it might probably have appeared dull and prosaic to younger people. Lord Cumnor had come down in great glee at the news he had heard from his wife at the Towers. He, too, seemed to think he had taken an active part in bringing about the match by only speaking about it. His first words on the subject to Lady Cumnor were—
‘I told you so. Now didn’t I say what a good, suitable affair this affair between Gibson and Clare would be! I don’t know when I have been so much pleased. You may despise the trade of match-maker, my lady, but I am very proud of it. After this, I shall go on looking out for suitable cases among the middle-aged people of my acquaintance. I shan’t meddle with young folks, they are so apt to be fanciful;but I have been so successful in this, that I do think it is good encouragement to go on.’
‘Go on—with what?’ asked Lady Cumnor, dryly. ‘Oh planning!’
‘You can’t deny that I planned this match.’
‘I don’t think you are likely to do either much good or harm by planning,’ she replied, with cool, good sense.
‘It puts it into people’s heads, my dear.’
‘Yes, if you speak about your plans to them, of course it does. But in this case you never spoke to either Mr. Gibson or Clare, did you?’
All at once the recollection of how Clare had come upon the passage in Lord Cumnor’s letter flashed on his lady, but she did not say anything about it, but left her husband to flounder about as best he might.
‘No! I never spoke to them; of course not.’
‘Then you must be strongly mesmeric, and your will acted upon theirs, if you are to take credit for any part in the affair,’ continued his pitiless wife.
‘I really can’t say. It’s no use looking back to what I said or did. I’m very well satisfied with it, and that’s enough, and I mean to show them how much I’m pleased. I shall give Clare something towards her rigging-out, and they shall have a breakfast at Ashcombe Manor-house. I’ll write to Preston about it. When did you say they were to be married?’
‘I think they’d better wait till Christmas, and I have told them so. It would amuse the children, going over to Ashcombe for the wedding; and if it’s bad weather during the holidays I’m always afraid of their finding it dull at the Towers. It’s very different if it’s a good frost, and they can go out skating and sledging in the park. But these last two years it has been so wet for them, poor dears!’
‘And will the other poor dears be content to wait to make a holiday for your grandchildren? “To make a Roman holiday.” Pope, or somebody else, has a line of poetry like that. “To make a Roman holiday,” ’—he repeated, pleased with his unusual aptitude at quotation.
‘It’s Byron, and it’s nothing to do with the subject in hand. I’m surprised at your lordship’s quoting Byron—he was a very immoral poet.’
‘I saw him take his oaths in the House of Lords,’ said Lord Cumnor, apologetically.
‘Well! the less said about him the better,’ said Lady Cumnor. ‘I have told Clare that she had better not think of being married before Christmas: and it won’t do for her to give up her school in a hurry either.’
But Clare did not intend to wait till Christmas; and for this once she carried her point against the will of the countess, and without many words, or any open opposition. She had a harder task in setting aside Mr. Gibson’s desire to have Cynthia over for the wedding, even if she went back to her school at Boulogne directly after the ceremony. At first she had said that it would be delightful, a charming plan; only she feared that she must give up her own wishes to have her child near her at such a time, on account of the expense of the double journey.
But Mr. Gibson, economical as he was in his habitual expenditure, had a really generous heart. He had already shown it in entirely relinquishing his future wife’s life-interest in the very small property the late Mr. Kirkpatrick had left in favour of Cynthia; while he arranged that she should come to his home as a daughter as soon as she left the school she was at. The life-interest was about £30 a year. Now he gave Mrs. Kirkpatrick three £5 notes, saying that he hoped they would do away with the objections to Cynthia’s coming over to the wedding; and at the time Mrs. Kirkpatrick felt as if they would, and caught the reflection of his strong wish, and fancied it was her own. If the letter could have been written and the money sent off that day, while the reflected glow of affection lasted, Cynthia would have been bridesmaid to her mother. But a hundred little interruptions came in the way of letter-writing, and the value affixed to the money increased: money had been so much needed, so hardly earned in Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s life; while the perhaps necessary separation of mother and child had lessened the amount of affection the former had to bestow. So she persuaded herself, afresh, that it would be unwise to disturb Cynthia at her studies; to interrupt the fulfilment of her duties just after the semestre had begun afresh; and she wrote a letter to Madame Lefevre so well imbued with this persuasion, that an answer which was almost an echo of her words was returned, the sense of which being conveyed to Mr. Gibson, who was no great French scholar, settled the vexed question, to his moderate but unfeigned regret. But the £15 were not returned. Indeed, not merely that sum, but a great part of the hundred which Lord Cumnor had given her for her trousseau, was required to pay off debts at Ashcombe; for the school had been anything but flourishing since Mrs. Kirkpatrick had had it. It was very much to her credit that she preferred clearing herself from debt to purchasing wedding finery. But it was one of the few points to be respected in Mrs. Kirkpatrick that she had always been careful in payment to the shops where she dealt; it was a little sense of duty cropping out. Whatever other faults might arise from her superficial and flimsy character, she was always uneasy till she was out of debt. Yet she had no scruple in appropriating her future husband’s money to her own use, when it was decided that it was not to be employed as he intended. What new articles she bought for herself were all such as would make a show, and an impression upon the ladies of Hollingford. She argued with herself that linen, and all underclothing, would never be seen; while she knew that every gown she had would give rise to much discussion, and would be counted up in the little town.