‘No! I’m sure you would not mean it; but you see there’s a child coming, and this estate is entailed on ‘heirs-male.’ Now, I want to know if the marriage is legal or not? and it seems to me it’s a ticklish question.’
‘Oh!’ said Osborne, falling back into repose, ‘if that’s all, I suppose you’re next heir-male, and I can trust you as I can myself. You know my marriage is bona fide in intention, and I believe it to be legal in fact. We went over to Strasbourg; Aimée picked up a friend—a good middle-aged Frenchwoman—who served half as bridesmaid, half as chaperon, and then we went before the mayor—prefet—what do you call them? I think Morrison rather enjoyed the spree. I signed all manner of papers in the prefecture; I did not read them over, for fear lest I could not sign them conscientiously. It was the safest plan. Aimée kept trembling so I thought she would faint; and then we went off to the nearest English chaplaincy, Carlsruhe, and the chaplain was away, so Morrison easily got the loan of the chapel, and we were married the next day.’
‘But surely some registration or certificate was necessary?’
‘Morrison said he would undertake all those forms; and he ought to know his own business. I know I tipped him pretty well for the job.’
‘You must be married again,’ said Roger, after a pause, ‘and that before the child is born. Have you got a certificate of the marriage?’
‘I dare say Morrison has got it somewhere. But I believe I’m legally married according to the laws both of England and France; I really do, old fellow. I’ve got the préfet’s papers somewhere.’
‘Never mind! you shall be married again in England.1 Aimée goes to the Roman Catholic chapel at Prestham, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes. She is so good I wouldn’t disturb her in her religion for the world.’
‘Then you shall be married both there and at the church of the parish in which she lives as well,’ said Roger, decidedly.
‘It’s a great deal of trouble, unnecessary trouble, and unnecessary expense, I should say,’ said Osborne. ‘Why can’t you leave well alone? Neither Aimée nor I are of the sort of stuff to turn scoundrels and deny the legality of our marriage; and if the child is a boy and my father dies, and I die, why I’m sure you’ll do him justice, as sure as I am of myself, old fellow!’
‘But if I die into the bargain? Make a hecatomb of the present Hamleys all at once, while you are about it. Who succeeds as heir-male?’
Osborne thought for a moment. ‘One of the Irish Hamleys, I suppose. I fancy they are needy chaps. Perhaps you’re right. But what need to have such gloomy forebodings?’
‘The law makes one have foresight in such affairs,’ said Roger. ‘So I’ll go down to Aimée next week when I’m in town, and I’ll make all necessary arrangements before you come. I think you’ll be happier if it is all done.’
‘I shall be happier if I’ve a chance of seeing the little woman, that I grant you. But what is taking you up to town? I wish I’d money to run about like you, instead of being shut up for ever in this dull old house.’
Osborne was apt occasionally to contrast his position with Roger’s in a tone of complaint, forgetting that both were the results of character, and also that out of his income Roger gave up so large a portion for the maintenance of his brother’s wife. But if this ungenerous thought of Osborne’s had been set clearly before his conscience, he would have smote his breast and cried ‘Mea culpa’ with the best of them; it was only that he was too indolent to keep an unassisted conscience.
‘I shouldn’t have thought of going up,’ said Roger, reddening as if he had been accused of spending another’s money instead of his own, ‘if I hadn’t had to go up on business. Lord Hollingford has written for me; he knows my great wish for employment, and has heard of something which he considers suitable; there’s his letter if you care to read it. But it does not tell anything definitely.’
Osborne read the letter and returned it to Roger. After a moment or two of silence he said,—‘Why do you want money? Are we taking too much from you? It’s a great shame of me; but what can I do? Only suggest a career for me, and I’ll follow it to-morrow.’ He spoke as if Roger had been reproaching him.
‘My dear fellow, don’t get those notions into your head! I must do something for myself some time, and I’ve been on the look-out. Besides, I want my father to go on with his drainage; it would do good both to his health and his spirits. If I can advance any part of the money requisite, he and you shall pay me interest until you can return the capital.’
‘Roger, you’re the providence of the family,’ exclaimed Osborne, suddenly struck by admiration at his brother’s conduct, and forgetting to contrast it with his own.
So Roger went up to London and Osborne followed him, and for two or three weeks the Gibsons saw nothing of the brothers. But as wave succeeds to wave, so interest succeeds to interest. ‘The family,’ as they were called, came down for their autumn sojourn at the Towers, and again the house was full of visitors, and the Towers’ servants, and carriages, and liveries were seen in the two streets of Hollingford, just as they might have been seen for scores of autumns past.
So runs the round of life from day to day. Mrs. Gibson found the chances of intercourse with the Towers rather more personally exciting than Roger’s visits, or the rarer calls of Osborne Hamley. Cynthia had an old antipathy to the great family who had made so much of her mother and so little of her; and whom she considered as in some measure the cause why she had seen so little of her mother in the days when the little girl had craved for love and found none. Moreover, Cynthia missed her slave, although she did not care for Roger one thousandth part of what he did for her; yet she had found it not unpleasant to have a man whom she thoroughly respected, and whom men in general respected, the subject of her eye, the glad ministrant to each scarce spoken wish, a person in whose sight all her words were pearls or diamonds, all her actions heavenly graciousness, and in whose thoughts she reigned supreme. She had no modest unconsciousness about her; and yet she was not vain. She knew of all this worship; and when from circumstances she no longer received it she missed it. The Earl and the Countess, Lord Hollingford and Lady Harriet, lords and ladies in general, liveries, dresses, bags of game, and rumours of riding parties were as nothing to her compared to Roger’s absence. And yet she did not love him. No, she did not love him. Molly knew that Cynthia did not love him. Molly grew angry with her many and many a time as the conviction of this fact was forced upon her. Molly did not know her own feelings; Roger had no overwhelming interest in what they might be; while his very life-breath seemed to depend on what Cynthia felt and thought. Therefore Molly had keen insight into her ‘sister’s’ heart; and she knew that Cynthia did not love Roger. Molly could have cried with passionate regret at the thought of the unvalued treasure lying at Cynthia’s feet, and it would have been a merely unselfish regret. It was the old fervid tenderness: ‘do not wish for the moon, O my darling, for I cannot give it thee.’ Cynthia’s love was the moon Roger yearned for; and Molly saw that it was far away and out of reach, else would she have strained her heart-cords to give it to Roger.
‘I am his sister,’ she would say to herself. ‘That old bond is not done away with, though he is too much absorbed by Cynthia to speak about it just now. His mother called me “Fanny”; it was almost like an adoption. I must wait and watch, and see if I can do anything for my brother.’
One day Lady Harriet came to call on the Gibsons, or rather on Mrs. Gibson, for the latter retained her old jealousy if any one else in Holhngford was supposed to be on intimate terms at the great house, or in the least acquainted with their plans. Mr. Gibson might possibly know as much, but then he was professionally bound to secrecy. Out of the house she considered Mr. Preston as her rival, and he was aware that she did so, and delighted in teasing her by affecting a knowledge of family plans and details of affairs of which she was ignorant. Indoors she was jealous of the fancy Lady Harriet had evidently taken for her stepdaughter, and she contrived to place quiet obstacles in the way of a too frequent intercourse between them. These obstacles were not unlike the shield of the knight in the old story; only instead of the two sides presented to the two travellers approaching it from opposite quarters, one of which was silver, and one of which was gold, Lady Harriet saw the smooth and shining yellow radiance, while poor Molly only perceived a dull and heavy lead. To Lady Harriet it was ‘Molly is gone out; she will be sorry to miss you, but she was obliged to go to see some old friends of her mother’s whom she ought not to neglect; as I said to her, constancy is everything. It is Sterne, I think, who says, “Thine own and thy mother’s friends forsake not.” But, dear Lady Harriet, you’ll stop till she comes home, won’t you? I know how fond you are of her; in fact’ (with a little surface playfulness) ‘I sometimes say you come more to see her than your poor old Clare.’