Cynthia was always the same with Molly: kind, sweet-tempered, 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 depth of affection and intimacy in the first few weeks of Cynthia’s residence in her father’s house; and if she had been of a 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 as 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 desire 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 Mrs. Gibson. 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.
During much of this time Mr. Preston had been at Ashcombe; for Lord Cumnor had not been able to find an agent whom he liked to replace Mr. Preston; and while the inferior situation remained vacant Mr Preston had undertaken to do the duties of both. Mrs. Goodenough had had a serious illness; and the little society at Hollingford did not care to meet while one of their habitual set was scarcely out of danger. So there had been very little visiting; and though Miss Browning said that the absence of the temptations of society was very agreeable to cultivated minds, after the dissipations of the previous autumn, when there were parties every week to welcome Mr Preston, yet Miss Phoebe let out in confidence that she and her sister had fallen into the habit of going to bed at nine o’clock, for they found cribbage night after night, from five o’clock till ten, rather too much of a good thing. To tell the truth, that winter, if peaceful, was monotonous in Hollingford; and the whole circle of gentility there was delighted to be stirred up in March by the intelligence that Mr. Kirkpatrick, the newly-made Q.C., was coming on a visit of a couple of days to his sister-inlaw Mrs Gibson. Mrs. Goodenough’s room was the very centre of gossip; gossip had been her daily bread through her life, gossip was meat and wine to her now.
‘Dear-ah-me!’ said the old lady, rousing herself so as to sit upright in her easy chair, and propping herself with her hands on the arms; ‘who would ha’ thought she’d such grand relations! Why, Mr Ashton told me once that a Queen’s counsel was as like to be a judge as a kitten is like to be a cat. And to think of her being as good as a sister to a judge! I saw one oncst; and I know I thought as I should not wish for a better winter-cloak than his old robes would make me, if I could only find out where I could get them second-hand. And I know she’d her silk gowns turned and dyed and cleaned, and, for aught I know, turned again, while she lived at Ashcombe. Keeping a school, too, and so near akin to this Queen’s counsel all the time! Well, to be sure, it was not much of a school — only ten young ladies at the best o’ times; so perhaps he never heard of it.’
‘I’ve been wondering what they’ll give him to dinner,’ said Miss Browning. ‘It is an unlucky time for visitors; no game to be had, and lamb so late this year, and chicken hardly to be had for love or money.’
‘He’ll have to put up with calves-head, that he will,’ said Mrs Goodenough, solemnly. ‘If I’d ha’ got my usual health I’d copy out a receipt of my grandmother’s for a rolled calves-head,’ and send it to Mrs. Gibson — the doctor has been very kind to me all through this illness — I wish my daughter in Combermere would send me some autumn chickens — I’d pass ’em on to the doctor, that I would; but she’s been a-killing of ’em all, and a-sending of them to me, and the last she sent she wrote me word was the last.’
‘I wonder if they’ll give a party for him!’ suggested Miss Phoebe. ‘I should like to see a Queen’s counsel for once in my life. I have seen javelin-men, but that’s the greatest thing in the legal line I ever came across.’
‘They’ll ask Mr. Ashton, of course,’ said Miss Browning. ‘The three black graces, Law, Physic, and Divinity, as the song calls them.’ Whenever there’s a second course, there’s always the clergyman of the parish invited in any family of gentility.’
‘I wonder if he’s married!’ said Mrs. Goodenough. Miss Phoebe had been feeling the same wonder, but had not thought it maidenly to express it, even to her sister, who was the source of knowledge, having met Mrs. Gibson in the street on her way to Mrs. Goodenough’s.
‘Yes, he’s married, and must have several children, for Mrs. Gibson said that Cynthia Kirkpatrick had paid them a visit in London, to have lessons with her cousins. And she said that his wife was a most accomplished woman, and of good family, though she brought him no fortune.’
‘It’s a very creditable connection, I’m sure; it’s only a wonder to me as how we’ve heard so little talk of it before,’ said Mrs Goodenough. ‘At the first look of the thing, I should not ha’ thought Mrs. Gibson was one to hide away her fine relations under a bushel; indeed for that matter we’re all of us fond o’ turning the best breadth o’ the gown to the front. I remember, speaking o’ breadths, how I’ve undone my skirts many a time and oft to put a stain or a grease-spot next to poor Mr. Goodenough. He’d a soft kind of heart when first we was married, and he said, says he, “Patty, link thy right arm into my left one, then thou’lt be nearer to my heart;” and so we kept up the habit, when, poor man, he’d a deal more to think on than romancing on which side his heart lay; so as I said I always put my damaged breadths on the right hand, and when we walked arm in arm, as we always did, no one was never the wiser.’
‘I should not be surprised if he invited Cynthia to pay him another visit in London,’ said Miss Browning. ‘If he did it when he was poor, he’s twenty times more likely to do it now he’s a Queen’s counsel.’
‘Ay, work it by the rule o’ three, and she stands a good chance. I only hope it won’t turn her head; going up visiting in London at her age. Why, I was fifty before ever I went!’
‘But she has been in France, she’s quite a travelled young lady,’ said Miss Phoebe.
Mrs. Goodenough shook her head, for a whole minute before she gave vent to her opinion.
‘It’s a risk,’ said she, ‘a great risk. I don’t like saying so to the doctor, but I should not like having my daughter, if I was him, so cheek-by-jowl with a girl as was brought up in the country where Robespierre and Bonyparte was born.’
‘But Buonaparte was a Corsican,’ said Miss Browning, who was much farther advanced both in knowledge and in liberality of opinions than Mrs. Goodenough. ‘And there’s a great opportunity for cultivation of the mind afforded by intercourse with foreign countries. I always admire Cynthia’s grace of manner, never too shy to speak, yet never putting herself forwards; she’s quite a help to a party; and if she has a few airs and graces, why they’re natural at her age! Now as for dear Molly, there’s a kind of awkwardness about her — she broke one of our best china cups last time she was at a party at our house, and spilt the coffee on the new carpet; and then she got so confused that she hardly did anything but sit in a corner and hold her tongue all the rest of the evening.’
‘She was so sorry for what she’d done, sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, in a gentle tone of reproach; she was always faithful to Molly.
‘Well, and did I say she wasn’t? but was there any need for her to be stupid all the evening after?’
‘But you were rather sharp — rather displeased —’
‘And I think it my duty to be sharp, ay, and cross too, when I see young folks careless. And when I see my duty clear I do it; I’m not one to shrink from it, and they ought to be grateful to me. It’s not every one that will take the trouble of reproving them, as Mrs Goodenough knows. I’m very fond of Molly Gibson, very, for her own sake and for her mother’s too; I’m not sure if I don’t think she’s worth half-a-dozen Cynthias, but for all that she should not break my best china tea-cup, and then sit doing nothing for her livelihood all the rest of the evening.’
By this time Mrs. Goodenough gave evident signs of being tired; Molly’s misdemeanors 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 connections, 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 at............