So that poor Molly had not passed a cheerful winter, independently of any private sorrows that she might have in her own heart. She did not look well, either: she was gradually falling into low health, rather than bad health. Her heart beat more feebly and slower, the vivifying stimulant of hope—even unacknowledged hope—was gone out of her life. It seemed as if there was not, and never could be in this world, any help for the dumb discordancy between her father and his wife. Day after day, month after month, year after year, would Molly have to sympathize with her father, and pity her stepmother, feeling acutely for both, and certainly more than Mrs. Gibson felt for herself Molly could not imagine how she had at one time wished for her father’s eyes to be opened, and how she could ever have fancied that, if they were, he would be able to change things in Mrs. Gibson’s character. It was all hopeless, and the only attempt at a remedy was to think about it as little as possible. Then Cynthia’s ways and manners about Roger gave Molly a great deal of uneasiness. She did not believe that Cynthia cared enough for him; at any rate, not with the sort of love that she herself would have bestowed, if she had been so happy—no, that was not it—if she had been in Cynthia’s place. She felt as if she would have gone to him both hands held out, full and brimming over with tenderness, and been grateful for every word of precious confidence bestowed on her. Yet Cynthia received his letters with a kind of carelessness, and read them with a strange indifference, while Molly sat at her feet, so to speak, looking up with eyes as wistful as a dog’s waiting for crumbs, and such chance beneficences.
She tried to be patient on these occasions, but at last she must ask—‘Where is he, Cynthia? What does he say?’ By this time Cynthia had put down the letter on the table by her, smiling a little from time to time, as she remembered the loving compliments it contained.
‘Where? Oh, I did not look exactly—somewhere in Abyssinia—Huon. I can’t read the word, and it doesn’t much signify, for it would give me no idea.’
‘Is he well?’ asked greedy Molly.
‘Yes, now. He has had a slight touch of fever, he says; but it’s all over now, and he hopes he is getting acclimatized.’
‘Of fever!—and who took care of him? he would want nursing—and so far from home. Oh, Cynthia!’
‘Oh, I don’t fancy he had any nursing, poor fellow. One doesn’t expect nursing, and hospitals, and doctors in Abyssinia;dg but he had plenty of quinine with him, and I suppose that is the best specific. At any rate he says he is quite well now!’
Molly sat silent for a minute or two.
‘What is the date of the letter, Cynthia?’
‘I didn’t look. December the—December the 10th.’
‘That’s nearly two months ago,’ said Molly.
‘Yes; but I determined I would not worry myself with useless anxiety, when he went away. If anything did—go wrong, you know,’ said Cynthia, using a euphemism for death, as most people do (it is an ugly word to speak plain out in the midst of life), ‘it would be all over before I even heard of his illness, and I could be of no use to him—could I, Molly?’
‘No. I dare say it is all very true; only I should think the squire could not take it so easily.’
‘I always write him a little note when I hear from Roger, but I don’t think I’ll name this touch of fever—shall I, Molly?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Molly. ‘People say one ought, but I almost wish I hadn’t heard it. Please, does he say anything else that I may hear?’
‘Oh, lovers’ letters are so silly, and I think this is sillier than usual,’ said Cynthia, looking over her letter again. ‘Here’s a piece you may read, from that line to that,’ indicating two places. ‘I haven’t read it myself, for it looked dullish—all about Aristotle and Plinydh and I want to get this bonnet-cap made up before we go out to pay our calls.’
Molly took the letter, the thought crossing her mind that he had touched it, had had his hands upon it, in those far distant desert lands, where he might be lost to sight and to any human knowledge of his fate; even now her pretty brown fingers almost caressed the flimsy paper with their delicacy of touch as she read. She saw references made to books, which, with a little trouble, would be accessible to her here in Hollingford. Perhaps the details and the references would make the letter dull and dry to some people, but not to her, thanks to his former teaching and the interest he had excited in her for his pursuits. But, as he said in apology, what had he to write about in that savage land, but his love, and his researches, and travels? There was no society, no gaiety, no new books to write about, no gossip in Abyssinian wilds.
Molly was not in strong health, and perhaps this made her a little fanciful; but certain it is that her thoughts by day and her dreams by night were haunted by the idea of Roger lying ill and untended in those savage lands. Her constant prayer, ‘O my Lord! give her the living child, and in no wise slay it,’1 came from a heart as true as that of the real mother in King Solomon’s judgment. ‘Let him live, let him live, even though I may never set eyes upon him again. Have pity upon his father! Grant that he may come home safe, and live happily with her whom he loves so tenderly—so tenderly, O God.’ And then she would burst into tears, and drop asleep at last, sobbing.
CHAPTER 38
Mr. Kirkpatrick, Q.C.
Cynthia was always the same with Molly: kind, sweettempered, ready to help, professing a great deal of love for her, and probably feeling as much as she did for any one in the world. But Molly had reached to this superficial residence in her father’s house; and if she had been of a depth of affection and intimacy in the first few weeks of Cynthia’s nature prone to analyse the character of one whom she loved dearly, she might have perceived that, with all Cynthia’s apparent frankness, there were certain limits beyond which her confidence did not go; where her reserve began, and her real self was shrouded in mystery For instance, her relations with Mr. Preston were often very puzzling to Molly. She was sure that there had been a much greater intimacy between them formerly at Ashcombe, and that the remembrance of this was often very galling and irritating to Cynthia, who was evidently desirous of forgetting it as he was anxious to make her remember it. But why this intimacy had ceased, why Cynthia disliked him so extremely now, and many other unexplained circumstances connected with these two facts, were Cynthia’s secrets; and she effectually baffled all Molly’s innocent attempts during the first glow of her friendship for Cynthia, to learn the girlish antecedents of her companion’s life. Every now and then Molly came to a dead wall, beyond which she could not pass—at least with the delicate instruments which were all she chose to use. Perhaps Cynthia might have told all there was to tell to a more forcible curiosity, which knew how to improve every slip of the tongue and every fit of temper to its own gratification. But Molly’s was the interest of affection, not the coarser of knowing everything for a little excitement; and as soon as she saw that Cynthia did not wish to tell her anything about that period of her life, Molly left off referring to it. But if Cynthia had preserved a sweet tranquillity of manner and an unvarying kindness for Molly during the winter of which there is question, at present she was the only person to whom the beauty’s ways were unchanged. Mr. Gibson’s influence had been good for her as long as she saw that he liked her; she had tried to keep as high a place in his good opinion as she could, and had curbed many a little sarcasm against her mother, and many a twisting of the absolute truth when he was by. Now there was a constant uneasiness about her which made her more cowardly than before; and even her partisan, Molly, could not help being aware of the distinct equivocations she occasionally used when anything in Mr. Gibson’s words or behaviour pressed her too hard. Her repartees to her mother were less frequent than they had been, but there was often the unusual phenomenon of pettishness in her behaviour to her. These changes in humour and disposition, here described all at once, were in themselves a series of delicate alterations of relative conduct spread over many months—many winter months of long evenings and bad weather, which bring out discords of character, as a dash of cold water brings out the fading colours of an old fresco.