One day, to Molly’s infinite surprise, Mr. Preston was announced as a caller. Mrs. Gibson and she were sitting together in the drawing-room; Cynthia was out — gone into the town a-shopping — when the door was opened, the name given, and in walked the young man. His entrance seemed to cause more confusion than Molly could well account for. He came in with the same air of easy assurance with which he had received them at Ashcombe Manor-house. He looked remarkably handsome in his riding-dress, and with the open-air exercise he had just had. But Mrs. Gibson’s smooth brows contracted a little at the sight of him, and her reception of him was much cooler than that which she usually gave to visitors. Yet there was a degree of agitation in it, which surprised Molly a little. Mrs. Gibson was at her everlasting worsted-work frame when Mr. Preston entered the room; but somehow in rising to receive him, she threw down her basket of crewels, and, declining Molly’s offer to help her, she would pick up all the reels herself, before she asked her visitor to sit down. He stood there, hat in hand, affecting an interest in the recovery of the worsted which Molly was sure he did not feel; for all the time his eyes were glancing round the room, and taking note of the details in the arrangement.
At length they were seated, and conversation began.
‘It is the first time I have been in Hollingford since your marriage, Mrs. Gibson, or I should certainly have called to pay my respects sooner.’
‘I know you are very busy at Ashcombe. I did not expect you to call. Is Lord Cumnor at the Towers? I have not heard from her ladyship for more than a week!’
‘No! he seemed still detained at Bath. But I had a letter from him giving me certain messages for Mr. Sheepshanks. Mr. Gibson is not at home, I’m afraid?’
‘No. He is a great deal out — almost constantly, I may say. I had no idea that I should see so little of him. A doctor’s wife leads a very solitary life, Mr. Preston!’
‘You can hardly call it solitary, I should think, when you have such a companion as Miss Gibson always at hand,’ said he, bowing to Molly.
‘Oh, but I call it solitude for a wife when her husband is away. Poor Mr. Kirkpatrick was never happy unless I always went with him — all his walks, all his visits, he liked me to be with him. But somehow Mr. Gibson feels as if I should be rather in his way.’
‘I don’t think you could ride pillion behind him on Black Bess, mamma,’ said Molly. ‘And unless you could go in that way you could hardly go with him in his rounds up and down all the rough lanes.’
‘Oh! but he might keep a brougham! I’ve often said so. And then I could use it for visiting in the evenings. Really it was one reason why I didn’t go to the Hollingford Charity Ball. I couldn’t bring myself to use the dirty fly from the “George.” We really must stir papa up against next winter, Molly; it will never do for you and —’
She pulled herself up suddenly, and looked furtively at Mr. Preston to see if he had taken any notice of her abruptness. Of course he had, but he was not going to show it. He turned to Molly, and said —
‘Have you ever been to a public ball yet, Miss Gibson?’
‘No!’ said Molly.
‘It will be a great pleasure to you when the time comes.’
‘I’m not sure. I shall like it if I have plenty of partners; but I’m afraid I shan’t know many people.’
‘And you suppose that young men haven’t their own ways and means of being introduced to pretty girls?’
It was exactly one of the speeches Molly had disliked him for before; and delivered, too, in that kind of underbred manner which showed that it was meant to convey a personal compliment. Molly took great credit to herself for the unconcerned manner with which she went on with her tatting exactly as if she had never heard it.
‘I only hope I may be one of your partners at the first ball you go to. Pray, remember my early application for that honour, when you are overwhelmed with requests for dances.’
‘I don’t choose to engage myself beforehand,’ said Molly, perceiving, from under her dropped eyelids, that he was leaning forwards and looking at her as though he was determined to have an answer.
‘Young ladies are always very cautious in fact, however modest they may be in profession,’ he replied, addressing himself in a nonchalant manner to Mrs. Gibson. ‘In spite of Miss Gibson’s apprehension of not having many partners she declines the certainty of having one. I suppose Miss Kirkpatrick will have returned from France before then?’
He said these last words exactly in the same tone as he had used before; but Molly’s instinct told her that he was making an effort to do so. She looked up. He was playing with his hat, almost as if he did not care to have any answer to his question. Yet he was listening acutely, and with a half smile on his face.
Mrs. Gibson reddened a little, and hesitated —
‘Yes; certainly. My daughter will be with us next winter, I believe; and I daresay she will go out with us.’
‘Why can’t she say at once that Cynthia is here now?’ asked Molly to herself, yet glad that Mr. Preston’s curiosity was baffled.
He still smiled; but this time he looked up at Mrs. Gibson, as he asked — ‘You have good news from her, I hope?’
‘Yes; very. By the way, how are our old friends the Robinsons? How often I think of their kindness to me at Ashcombe! Dear good people, I wish I could see them again.’
‘I will certainly tell them of your kind inquiries. They are very well, I believe.’
Just at this moment, Molly heard the familiar sound of the click and opening of the front door. She knew it must be Cynthia; and, conscious of some mysterious reason which made Mrs. Gibson wish to conceal her daughter’s whereabouts from Mr. Preston, and maliciously desirous to baffle him, she rose to leave the room, and meet Cynthia on the stairs; but one of the lost crewels of worsted had entangled itself in her gown and feet, and before she had freed herself of the encumbrance, Cynthia had opened the drawing-room door, and stood in it, looking at her mother, at Molly, at Mr. Preston, but not advancing one step. Her colour, which had been brilliant the first moment of her entrance, faded away as she gazed; but her eyes — her beautiful eyes — usually so soft and grave, seemed to fill with fire, and her brows to contract, as she took the resolution to come forwards and take her place among the three, who were all looking at her with different emotions. She moved calmly and slowly forwards; Mr. Preston went a step or two to meet her, his hand held out, and the whole expression of his face that of eager delight.
But she took no notice of the outstretched hand, nor of the chair that he offered her. She sate down on a little sofa in one of the windows, and called Molly to her.
‘Look at my purchases,’ said she. ‘This green ribbon was fourteen-pence a yard, this silk three shillings,’ and so she went on, forcing herself to speak about these trifles as if they were all the world to her, and she had no attention to throw away on her mother and her mother’s visitor.
Mr. Preston took his cue from her. He, too, talked of the news of the day, the local gossip — but Molly, who glanced up at him from time to time, was almost alarmed by the bad expression of suppressed anger, almost amounting to vindictiveness, which entirely marred his handsome looks. She did not wish to look again; and tried rather to back up Cynthia’s efforts at maintaining a separate conversation. Yet she could not help overhearing Mrs. Gibson’s strain after increased civility, as if to make up for Cynthia’s rudeness, and, if possible, to deprecate his anger. She talked perpetually, as though her object were to detain him; whereas previous to Cynthia’s return she had allowed frequent pauses in the conversation, as though to give him the opportunity to take his leave.
In the course of the conversation between them the Hamleys came up. Mrs. Gibson was never unwilling to dwell upon Molly’s intimacy with this county family; and when the latter caught the sound of her own name, her stepmother was saying —
‘Poor Mrs. Hamley could hardly do without Molly; she quite looked upon her as a daughter, especially towards the last, when, I am afraid, she had a good deal of anxiety. Mr. Osborne Hamley — I daresay you have heard — he did not do so well at college, and they had expected so much — parents will, you know; but what did it signify? for he had not to earn his living! I call it a very foolish kind of ambition when a young man has not to go into a profession.’
‘Well, at any rate, the squire must be satisfied now. I saw this morning’s Times, with the Cambridge examination lists in it. Isn’t the second son called after his father, Roger?’
‘Yes,’ said Molly, starting up, and coming nearer.
‘He’s senior wrangler, that’s all,’ said Mr. Preston, almost as though he were vexed with himself for having anything to say that could give her pleasure. Molly went back to her seat by Cynthia.
‘Poor Mrs. Hamley,’ said she very softly, as if to herself. Cynthia took her hand, in sympathy with Molly’s sad and tender look, rather than because she understood all that was passing in her mind, nor did she quite understand it herself. A death that had come out of time; a wonder if the dead knew what passed upon the earth they had left — the brilliant Osborne’s failure, Roger’s success; the vanity of human wishes; all these thoughts, and what they suggested, were inextricably mingled up in her mind. She came to herself in a few minutes. Mr. Preston was saying all the unpleasant things he could think of about the Hamleys in a tone of false sympathy.
‘The poor old squire — not the wisest of men — has woefully mismanaged his estate. And Osborne Hamley is too fine a gentleman to understand the means by which to improve the value of the land — even if he had the capital. A man who had practical knowledge of agriculture, ............