Wives and Daughters Part 84

"It rather depends upon what people say," said Cynthia, affecting a lightness which she did not feel; for she had a prevision of what was coming.

"Well! I don't like it, at any rate. It is not pleasant to me to hear first of my daughter's misdoings from Lady c.u.mnor, and then to be lectured about her, and her flirting, and her jilting, as if I had had anything to do with it. I can a.s.sure you it has quite spoilt my visit. No! don't touch my shawl. When I go to my room I can take it myself."

Cynthia was brought to bay, and sate down; remaining with her mother, who kept sighing ostentatiously from time to time.

"Would you mind telling me what they said? If there are accusations abroad against me, it is as well I should know what they are. Here's Molly" (as the girl entered the room, fresh from a morning's walk).

"Molly, mamma has come back from the Towers, and my lord and my lady have been doing me the honour to talk over my crimes and misdemeanors, and I am asking mamma what they have said. I don't set up for more virtue than other people, but I can't make out what an earl and a countess have to do with poor little me."

"It was not for your sake!" said Mrs. Gibson. "It was for mine. They felt for me, for it is not pleasant to have one's child's name in everybody's mouth."

"As I said before, that depends upon how it is in everybody's mouth.

If I were going to marry Lord Hollingford, I make no doubt every one would be talking about me, and neither you nor I should mind it in the least."

"But this is no marriage with Lord Hollingford, so it is nonsense to talk as if it was. They say you've gone and engaged yourself to Mr.

Preston, and now refuse to marry him; and they call that jilting."

"Do you wish me to marry him, mamma?" asked Cynthia, her face in a flame, her eyes cast down. Molly stood by, very hot, not fully understanding it; and only kept where she was by the hope of coming in as sweetener or peacemaker, or helper of some kind.

"No," said Mrs. Gibson, evidently discomfited by the question. "Of course I don't; you have gone and entangled yourself with Roger Hamley, a very worthy young man; but n.o.body knows where he is, and if he's dead or alive; and he has not a penny if he is alive."

"I beg your pardon. I know that he has some fortune from his mother; it may not be much, but he is not penniless; and he is sure to earn fame and great reputation, and with it money will come," said Cynthia.

"You've entangled yourself with him, and you've done something of the sort with Mr. Preston, and got yourself into such an imbroglio" (Mrs.

Gibson could not have said "mess" for the world, although the word was present to her mind), "that when a really eligible person comes forward--handsome, agreeable, and quite the gentleman--and a good private fortune into the bargain, you have to refuse him. You'll end as an old maid, Cynthia, and it will break my heart."

"I daresay I shall," said Cynthia, quietly. "I sometimes think I'm the kind of person of which old maids are made!" She spoke seriously, and a little sadly.

Mrs. Gibson began again. "I don't want to know your secrets as long as they are secrets; but when all the town is talking about you, I think I ought to be told."

"But, mamma, I didn't know I was such a subject of conversation; and even now I can't make out how it has come about."

"No more can I. I only know that they say you've been engaged to Mr.

Preston, and ought to have married him, and that I can't help it, if you did not choose, any more than I could have helped your refusing Mr. Henderson; and yet I am constantly blamed for your misconduct.

I think it's very hard." Mrs. Gibson began to cry. Just then her husband came in.

"You here, my dear! Welcome back," said he, coming up to her courteously, and kissing her cheek. "Why, what's the matter? Tears?"

and he heartily wished himself away again.

"Yes!" said she, raising herself up, and clutching after sympathy of any kind, at any price. "I'm come home again, and I'm telling Cynthia how Lady c.u.mnor has been so cross to me, and all through her. Did you know she had gone and engaged herself to Mr. Preston, and then broken it off? Everybody is talking about it, and they know it up at the Towers."

For one moment his eyes met Molly's, and he comprehended it all. He made his lips up into a whistle, but no sound came. Cynthia had quite lost her defiant manner since her mother had spoken to Mr. Gibson.

Molly sate down by her.

"Cynthia," said he, very seriously.

"Yes!" she answered, softly.

"Is this true? I had heard something of it before--not much; but there is scandal enough about to make it desirable that you should have some protector--some friend who knows the whole truth."

No answer. At last she said, "Molly knows it all."

Mrs. Gibson, too, had been awed into silence by her husband's grave manner, and she did not like to give vent to the jealous thought in her mind that Molly had known the secret of which she was ignorant.

Mr. Gibson replied to Cynthia with some sternness:

"Yes! I know that Molly knows it all, and that she has had to bear slander and ill words for your sake, Cynthia. But she refused to tell me more."

"She told you that much, did she?" said Cynthia, aggrieved.

"I could not help it," said Molly.

"She didn't name your name," said Mr. Gibson. "At the time I believe she thought she had concealed it--but there was no mistaking who it was."

"Why did she speak about it at all?" said Cynthia, with some bitterness. Her tone--her question stirred up Mr. Gibson's pa.s.sion.

"It was necessary for her to justify herself to me--I heard my daughter's reputation attacked for the private meetings she had given to Mr. Preston--I came to her for an explanation. There's no need to be ungenerous, Cynthia, because you've been a flirt and a jilt, even to the degree of dragging Molly's name down into the same mire."

Cynthia lifted her bowed-down head, and looked at him.

"You say that of me, Mr. Gibson? Not knowing what the circ.u.mstances are, you say that?"

He had spoken too strongly: he knew it. But he could not bring himself to own it just at that moment. The thought of his sweet innocent Molly, who had borne so much patiently, prevented any retractation of his words at the time.

"Yes!" he said, "I do say it. You cannot tell what evil constructions are put upon actions ever so slightly beyond the bounds of maidenly propriety. I do say that Molly has had a great deal to bear, in consequence of this clandestine engagement of yours, Cynthia--there may be extenuating circ.u.mstances, I acknowledge--but you will need to remember them all to excuse your conduct to Roger Hamley, when he comes home. I asked you to tell me the full truth, in order that until he comes, and has a legal right to protect you, I may do so."

No answer. "It certainly requires explanation," continued he. "Here are you,--engaged to two men at once to all appearances!" Still no answer. "To be sure, the gossips of the town haven't yet picked out the fact of Roger Hamley's being your accepted lover; but scandal has been resting on Molly, and ought to have rested on you, Cynthia--for a concealed engagement to Mr. Preston--necessitating meetings in all sorts of places unknown to your friends."

"Papa," said Molly, "if you knew all you wouldn't speak so to Cynthia. I wish she would tell you herself all that she has told me."

"I am ready to hear whatever she has to say," said he. But Cynthia said,--

"No! you have prejudged me; you have spoken to me as you had no right to speak. I refuse to give you my confidence, or accept your help.

People are very cruel to me"--her voice trembled for a moment--"I did not think you would have been. But I can bear it."

And then, in spite of Molly, who would have detained her by force, she tore herself away, and hastily left the room.

"Oh, papa!" said Molly, crying, and clinging to him, "do let me tell you all." And then she suddenly recollected the awkwardness of telling some of the details of the story before Mrs. Gibson, and stopped short.

"I think, Mr. Gibson, you have been very very unkind to my poor fatherless child," said Mrs. Gibson, emerging from behind her pocket-handkerchief. "I only wish her poor father had been alive, and all this would never have happened."

"Very probably. Still I cannot see of what either she or you have to complain. Inasmuch as we could, I and mine have sheltered her! I have loved her; I do love her almost as if she were my own child--as well as Molly, I do not pretend to do."

"That's it, Mr. Gibson! you do not treat her like your own child."

But in the midst of this wrangle Molly stole out, and went in search of Cynthia. She thought she bore an olive-branch of healing in the sound of her father's just spoken words: "I do love her almost as if she were my own child." But Cynthia was locked into her room, and refused to open the door.

"Open to me, please," pleaded Molly. "I have something to say to you--I want to see you--do open!"

"No!" said Cynthia. "Not now. I am busy. Leave me alone. I don't want to hear what you have got to say. I don't want to see you. By-and-by we shall meet, and then--" Molly stood quite quietly, wondering what new words of more persuasion she could use. In a minute or two Cynthia called out, "Are you there still, Molly?" and when Molly answered "Yes," and hoped for a relenting, the same hard metallic voice, telling of resolution and repression, spoke out, "Go away. I cannot bear the feeling of your being there--waiting and listening.

Go downstairs--out of the house--anywhere away. It is the most you can do for me now."