‘I’m sure, Miss Browning, you are very much mistaken if you think that any mother could take more care of Molly than I do. I don’t—I can’t think there is any need for any one to interfere to protect her, and I have not an idea why you have been talking in this way, just as if we were all wrong, and you were all right. It hurts my feelings, indeed it does; for Molly can tell you there is not a thing or a favour that Cynthia has, that she has not. And as for not taking care of her, why, if she were to go up to London to-morrow, I should make a point of going with her to see after her; and I never did it for Cynthia when she was at school in France; and her bedroom is furnished just like Cynthia‘s, and I let her wear my red shawl whenever she likes; she might have it oftener if she would. I can’t think what you mean, Miss Browning.’
‘I did not mean to offend you, but I meant just to give Molly a hint. She understands what I mean.’
‘I’m sure I do not,’ said Molly, boldly. ‘I haven’t a notion what you meant, if you were alluding to anything more than you said straight out—that you do not wish me to marry any one who hasn’t a good character, and that, as you were a friend of mamma’s, you would prevent my marrying a man with a bad character, by every means in your power. I’m not thinking of marrying; I don’t want to marry anybody at all; but if I did, and he were not a good man, I should thank you for coming and warning me of it.’
‘I shall not stand on warning you, Molly. I shall forbid the banns in church, if need be,’ said Miss Browning, half convinced of the dear transparent truth of what Molly had said; blushing all over, it is true, but with her steady eyes fixed on Miss Browning’s face while she spoke.
‘Do!’ said Molly.
‘Well, well, I won’t say any more. Perhaps I was mistaken. We won’t say any more about it. But remember what I have said, Molly; there’s no harm in that, at any rate. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Mrs. Gibson. As stepmothers go, I think you try and do your duty. Good morning. Good-bye to you both, and God bless you.’
If Miss Browning thought that her final blessing would secure peace in the room she was leaving, she was very much mistaken; Mrs. Gibson burst out with—
‘Try and do my duty, indeed! I should be much obliged to you, Molly, if you would take care not to behave in such a manner as to bring down upon me such impertinence as I have just been receiving from Miss Browning.’
‘But I don’t know what made her talk as she did, mamma,’ said Molly.
‘I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t care either. But I know that I never was spoken to as if I was trying to do my duty before—“trying” indeed! everybody always knew that I did it, without talking about it before my face in that rude manner. I’ve that deep feeling about duty that I think it ought only to be talked about in church, and in such sacred places as that; not to have a common caller startling one with it, even though she was an early friend of your mother’s. And as if I didn’t look after you quite as much as I look after Cynthia! Why, it was only yesterday I went up into Cynthia’s room and found her reading a letter that she put away in a hurry as soon as I came in, and I didn’t even ask her who it was from, and I’m sure I should have made you tell me.’
Very likely. Mrs. Gibson shrank from any conflicts with Cynthia, pretty sure that she would be worsted in the end; while Molly generally submitted sooner than have any struggle for her own will.
Just then Cynthia came in.
‘What’s the matter?’ said she quickly, seeing that something was wrong.
‘Why, Molly has been doing something which has set that impertinent Miss Browning off into lecturing me on trying to do my duty! If your poor father had but lived, Cynthia, I should never have been spoken to as I have been. “A stepmother trying to do her duty, indeed!” That was Miss Browning’s expression.’
Any allusion to her father took from Cynthia all desire of irony. She came forward, and again asked Molly what was the matter.
Molly, herself ruffled, made answer—
‘Miss Browning seemed to think I was likely to marry some one whose character was objectionable—’
‘You, Molly?’ said Cynthia.
‘Yes-she once before spoke to me—I suspect she has got some notion about Mr. Preston in her head—’
Cynthia sat down quite suddenly. Molly went on: ‘And she spoke as if mamma did not look enough after me—I think she was rather provoking—’
‘Not rather, but very—very impertinent,’ said Mrs. Gibson, a little soothed by Molly’s recognition of her grievance.
‘What could have put it into her head?’ said Cynthia, very quietly, taking her sewing as she spoke.
‘I don’t know,’ said her mother, replying to the question after her own fashion. ‘I’m sure I don’t always approve of Mr. Preston; but even if it was him she was thinking about, he’s far more agreeable than she is; and I had much rather have him coming to call than an old maid like her, any day.’
‘I don’t know that it was Mr. Preston she was thinking about,’ said Molly. ‘It was only a guess. When you were both in London she spoke about him—I thought she had heard something about you and him, Cynthia.’ Unseen by her mother, Cynthia looked up at Molly, her eyes full of prohibition, her cheeks full of angry colour. Molly stopped short suddenly. After that look she was surprised at the quietness with which Cynthia said, almost immediately—
‘Well, after all, it is only your fancy that she was alluding to Mr. Preston, so perhaps we had better not say any more about him; and as for her advice to mamma to look after you better, Miss Molly, I’ll stand bail for your good behaviour; for both mamma and I know you’re the last person to do any foolish things in that way. And now don’t let us talk any more about it. I was coming to tell you that Hannah Brand’s little boy has been badly burnt, and his sister is downstairs asking for old linen.’
Mrs. Gibson was always kind to poor people, and she immediately got up and went to her stores to search for the article wanted.
Cynthia turned quietly round to Molly.
‘Molly, pray don’t ever allude to anything between me and Mr. Preston—not to mamma, nor to any one. Never do! I’ve a reason for it—don’t say anything more about it, ever.’
Mrs. Gibson came back at this moment, and Molly had to stop short again on the brink of Cynthia’s confidence; uncertain indeed this time whether she would have been told anything more, and only sure that she had annoyed Cynthia a good deal.
But the time was approaching when she would know all.
CHAPTER 42
The Storm Bursts
The autumn drifted away through all its seasons. The golden corn-harvest, the walks through the stubble fields, and rambles into hazel-copses in search of nuts; the stripping of the apple-orchards of their ruddy fruit, amid the joyous cries and shouts of watching children; and the gorgeous tulip-like colouring of the later time had now come on with the shortening days. There was comparative silence in the land, excepting for the distant shots, and the whirr of the partridges as they rose up from the field.
Ever since Miss Browning’s unlucky conversation things had been ajar in the Gibsons’ house. Cynthia seemed to keep every one out at (mental) arm‘s-length; and particularly avoided any private talks with Molly. Mrs. Gibson, still cherishing a grudge against Miss Browning for her implied accusation of not looking enough after Molly, chose to exercise a most wearying supervision over the poor girl. It was, ‘Where have you been, child?‘ ‘Who did you see?‘ ‘Who was that letter from?‘ ‘Why were you so long out when you had only to go to so-and-so?’ just as if Molly had really been detected in carrying on some underhand intercourse. She answered every question asked of her with the simple truthfulness of perfect innocence; but the inquiries (although she read their motive, and knew that they arose from no especial suspicion of her conduct, but only that Mrs. Gibson might be able to say that she looked well after her stepdaughter), chafed her inexpressibly. Very often she did not go out at all, sooner than have to give a plan of her intended proceedings, when perhaps she had no plan whatever—only thought of wandering out at her own sweet will, and of taking pleasure in the bright solemn fading of the year. It was a very heavy time for Molly—zest and life had fled, and left so many of the old delights mere shells of seeming. She thought it was that her youth had fled; at nineteen! Cynthia was no longer the same, somehow: and perhaps Cynthia’s change would injure her in the distant Roger’s opinion. Her stepmother seemed almost kind in comparison with Cynthia’s withdrawal of her heart; Mrs. Gibson worried her, to be sure, with all these forms of watching over her; but in every other way, she, at any rate, was the same. Yet Cynthia herself seemed anxious and careworn, though she would not speak of her anxieties to Molly. And then the poor girl in her goodness would blame herself for feeling Cynthia’s change of manner; for as Molly said to herself, ‘If it is hard work for me to help always fretting after Roger, and wondering where he is, and how he is, what must it be for her?’