By this time Mrs. Goodenough gave evident signs of being tired; Molly’s misdemeanours and Miss Browning’s broken teacup were not as exciting subjects of conversation as Mrs. Gibson’s newly-discovered good luck in having a successful London lawyer for a relation.
Mr. Kirkpatrick had been like many other men, struggling on in his profession, and encumbered with a large family of his own; he was ready to do a good turn for his connexions, if it occasioned him no loss of time, and if (which was, perhaps, a primary condition) he remembered their existence. Cynthia’s visit to Doughty Street nine or ten years ago had not made much impression upon him after he had once suggested its feasibility to his good-natured wife. He was even rather startled every now and then by the appearance of a pretty little girl amongst his own children, as they trooped in to dessert and had to remind himself who she was. But as it was his custom to leave the table almost immediately and to retreat into a small back room called his study, to immerse himself in papers for the rest of the evening, the child had not made much impression upon him; and probably the next time he remembered her existence was when Mrs. Kirkpatrick wrote to him to beg him to receive Cynthia for a night on her way to school at Boulogne. The same request was repeated on her return; but it so happened that he had not seen her either time; and only dimly remembered some remarks which his wife had made on one of these occasions, that it seemed to her rather hazardous to send so young a girl so long a journey without making more provision for her safety than Mrs. Kirkpatrick had done. He knew that his wife would fill up all deficiencies in this respect as if Cynthia had been her own daughter; and thought no more about her until he received an invitation to attend Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s wedding with Mr. Gibson, the highly esteemed surgeon of Hollingford, &c. &c.—an attention which irritated instead of pleasing him. ‘Does the woman think I have nothing to do but run about the country in search of brides and bridegrooms, when this great case of Houghton v. Houghton is coming on, and I haven’t a moment to spare?’ he asked of his wife.
‘Perhaps she never heard of it,’ suggested Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
‘Nonsense! the case has been in the paper for days.’
‘But she mayn’t know you are engaged in it.’
‘She mayn’t,’ said he, meditatively—such ignorance was possible.
But now the great case of Houghton v. Houghton was a thing of the past; the hard struggle was over, the comparative tableland of Q.C.-dom gained, and Mr. Kirkpatrick had leisure for family feeling and recollection. One day in the Easter vacation he found himself near Hollingford; he had a Sunday to spare, and he wrote to offer himself as a visitor to the Gibsons from Friday to Monday, expressing strongly (what he really felt, in a less degree) his wish to make Mr. Gibson’s acquaintance. Mr. Gibson, though often overwhelmed with professional business, was always hospitable; and moreover, it was always a pleasure to him to get out of the somewhat confined mental atmosphere which he had breathed over and over again, and have a whiff of fresh air: a glimpse of what was passing in the great world beyond his daily limits of thought and action. So he was ready to give a cordial welcome to his unknown relation. Mrs. Gibson was in a flutter of sentimental delight, which she fancied was family action, but which might not have been quite so effervescent if Mr. Kirkpatrick had remained in his former position of struggling lawyer, with seven children, living in Doughty Street.
When the two gentlemen met they were attracted towards each other by a similarity of character, with just enough difference in their opinions to make the experience of each, on which such opinions were based, valuable to the other. To Mrs. Gibson, although the bond between them counted for very little in their intercourse, Mr. Kirkpatrick paid very polite attention; and was, in fact, very glad that she had done so well for herself as to marry a sensible and agreeable man, who was able to keep her in comfort, and to behave to her daughter in so liberal a manner. Molly struck him as a delicate-looking girl, who might be very pretty if she had a greater look of health and animation; indeed, looking at her critically, there were beautiful points about her face—long soft grey eyes, black curling eyelashes, rarely-showing dimples, perfect teeth; but there was a languor over all, a slow depression of manner, which contrasted unfavourably with the brightly-coloured Cynthia, sparkling, quick, graceful, and witty. As Mr. Kirkpatrick expressed it afterwards to his wife, he was quite in love with that girl; and Cynthia, as ready to captivate strangers as any little girl of three or four, rose to the occasion, forgot all her cares and despondencies, remembered no longer her regret at having lost something of Mr. Gibson’s good opinion, and listened eagerly and made soft replies, intermixed with naive sallies of droll humour, till Mr. Kirkpatrick was quite captivated. He left Hollingford, almost surprised to have performed a duty and found it a pleasure. For Mrs. Gibson and Molly he had a general friendly feeling; but he did not care if he never saw them again. But for Mr. Gibson he had a warm respect, a strong personal liking, which he should be glad to have ripen into a friendship, if there was time for it in this bustling world. And he fully resolved to see more of Cynthia; his wife must know her; they must have her up to stay with them in London, and show her something of the world. But, on returning home, Mr. Kirkpatrick found so much work awaiting him that he had to lock up embryo friendships and kindly plans in some safe closet of his mind, and gave himself up, body and soul, to the immediate work of his profession. But, in May, he found time to take his wife to the Academy Exhibition,dk and some portrait there striking him as being like Cynthia, he told his wife more about her and his visit to Hollingford than he had ever had leisure to do before; and the result was that on the next day a letter was sent off to Mrs. Gibson, inviting Cynthia to pay a visit to her cousins in London, and reminding her of many little circumstances that had occurred when she was with them as a child, so as to carry on the clue of friendship from that time to the present.
On its receipt this letter was greeted in various ways by the four people who sat round the breakfast-table. Mrs. Gibson read it to herself first. Then without telling what its contents were, so that her auditors were quite in the dark as to what her remarks applied, she said—
‘I think they might have remembered that I am a generation nearer to them than she is, but nobody thinks of family affection nowadays; and I liked him so much, and bought a new cookery-book, all to make it pleasant and agreeable and what he was used to.’ She said all this in a plaintive, aggrieved tone of voice; but as no one knew to what she was referring, it was difficult to offer her consolation. Her husband was the first to speak.
‘If you want us to sympathize with you, tell us what is the nature of your woe.’
‘Why, I dare say it’s what he means as a very kind attention, only I think I ought to have been asked before Cynthia,’ said she, reading the letter over again.
‘Who’s he? and what’s meant for a “kind attention”?’
‘Mr. Kirkpatrick, to be sure. This letter is from him; and he wants Cynthia to go and pay them a visit, and never says anything about you or me, my dear. And I’m sure we did our best to make it pleasant; and he should have asked us first, I think.’
‘As I could not possibly have gone, it makes very little difference to me.’
‘But I could have gone; and, at any rate, he should have paid us the compliment: it’s only a proper mark of respect, you know. So ungrateful, too, when I gave up my dressing-room on purpose for him!’
‘And I dressed for dinner every day he was here, if we are each to recapitulate all our sacrifices on his behalf. But for all that I didn’t expect to be invited to his house. I shall be only too glad if he will come again to mine.’