"Then it's his character that is weak. I'm sure there's weakness somewhere; but he's very agreeable. It must have been very pleasant, staying at the Hall."

"Yes; but it's all over now."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Mrs. Gibson, wakening up from counting the st.i.tches in her pattern. "We shall have the young men coming to dinner pretty often, you'll see. Your father likes them, and I shall always make a point of welcoming his friends. They can't go on mourning for a mother for ever. I expect we shall see a great deal of them; and that the two families will become very intimate. After all, these good Hollingford people are terribly behindhand, and I should say, rather commonplace."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE HALF-SISTERS.

[Ill.u.s.tration (unt.i.tled)]

It appeared as if Mrs. Gibson's predictions were likely to be verified; for Osborne Hamley found his way to her drawing-room pretty frequently. To be sure, sometimes prophets can help on the fulfilment of their own prophecies; and Mrs. Gibson was not pa.s.sive.

Molly was altogether puzzled by his manners and ways. He spoke of occasional absences from the Hall, without exactly saying where he had been. But that was not her idea of the conduct of a married man; who, she imagined, ought to have a house and servants, and pay rent and taxes, and live with his wife. Who this mysterious wife might be faded into insignificance before the wonder of where she was. London, Cambridge, Dover, nay, even France, were mentioned by him as places to which he had been on these different little journeys. These facts came out quite casually, almost as if he was unaware of what he was betraying. Sometimes he dropped out such sentences as these:--"Ah, that would be the day I was crossing! It was stormy indeed! Instead of our being only two hours, we were nearly five." Or, "I met Lord Hollingford at Dover last week, and he said," &c. "The cold now is nothing to what it was in London on Thursday--the thermometer was down at 15 ." Perhaps, in the rapid flow of conversation, these small revelations were noticed by no one but Molly; whose interest and curiosity were always hovering over the secret she had become possessed of, in spite of all her self-reproach for allowing her thoughts to dwell on what was still to be kept as a mystery.

It was also evident to her that Osborne was not too happy at home.

He had lost the slight touch of cynicism which he had affected when he was expected to do wonders at college; and that was one good result of his failure. If he did not give himself the trouble of appreciating other people, and their performances, at any rate his conversation was not so amply sprinkled with critical pepper. He was more absent, not so agreeable, Mrs. Gibson thought, but did not say.

He looked ill in health; but that might be the consequence of the real depression of spirits which Molly occasionally saw peeping out through all his pleasant surface-talk. Now and then, when he was talking directly to her, he referred to "the happy days that are gone," or, "to the time when my mother was alive;" and then his voice sank, and a gloom came over his countenance, and Molly longed to express her own deep sympathy. He did not often mention his father; and Molly thought she could read in his manner, when he did, that something of the painful restraint she had noticed when she was last at the Hall still existed between them. Nearly every particular she knew of the family interior she had heard from Mrs. Hamley, and she was uncertain how far her father was acquainted with them; so she did not like to question him too closely; nor was he a man to be so questioned as to the domestic affairs of his patients. Sometimes she wondered if it was a dream--that short half-hour in the library at Hamley Hall--when she had learnt a fact which seemed so all-important to Osborne, yet which made so little difference in his way of life--either in speech or action. During the twelve or fourteen hours that she had remained at the Hall afterwards, no further allusion had been made to his marriage, either by himself or by Roger. It was, indeed, very like a dream. Probably Molly would have been rendered much more uncomfortable in the possession of her secret if Osborne had struck her as particularly attentive in his devotion to Cynthia.

She evidently amused and attracted him, but not in any lively or pa.s.sionate kind of way. He admired her beauty, and seemed to feel her charm; but he would leave her side, and come to sit near Molly, if anything reminded him of his mother, about which he could talk to her, and to her alone. Yet he came so often to the Gibsons, that Mrs. Gibson might be excused for the fancy she had taken into her head, that it was for Cynthia's sake. He liked the lounge, the friendliness, the company of two intelligent girls of beauty and manners above the average; one of whom stood in a peculiar relation to him, as having been especially beloved by the mother whose memory he cherished so fondly. Knowing himself to be out of the category of bachelors, he was, perhaps, too indifferent as to other people's ignorance, and its possible consequences.

Somehow, Molly did not like to be the first to introduce Roger's name into the conversation, so she lost many an opportunity of hearing intelligence about him. Osborne was often so languid or so absent that he only followed the lead of talk; and as an awkward fellow, who had paid her no particular attention, and as a second son, Roger was not pre-eminent in Mrs. Gibson's thoughts; Cynthia had never seen him, and the freak did not take her often to speak about him.

He had not come home since he had obtained his high place in the mathematical lists: that Molly knew; and she knew, too, that he was working hard for something--she supposed a fellowship--and that was all. Osborne's tone in speaking of him was always the same: every word, every inflection of the voice breathed out affection and respect--nay, even admiration! And this from the _nil admirari_ brother, who seldom carried his exertions so far.

"Ah, Roger!" he said one day. Molly caught the name in an instant, though she had not heard what had gone before. "He is a fellow in a thousand--in a thousand, indeed! I don't believe there is his match anywhere for goodness and real solid power combined."

"Molly," said Cynthia, after Mr. Osborne Hamley had gone, "what sort of a man is this Roger Hamley? One can't tell how much to believe of his brother's praises; for it is the one subject on which Osborne Hamley becomes enthusiastic. I've noticed it once or twice before."

While Molly hesitated on which point of the large round to begin her description, Mrs. Gibson struck in,--

"It just shows what a sweet disposition Osborne Hamley is of--that he should praise his brother as he does. I daresay he is a senior wrangler, and much good may it do him! I don't deny that; but as for conversation, he's as heavy as heavy can be. A great awkward fellow to boot, who looks as if he did not know two and two made four, for all he is such a mathematical genius. You would hardly believe he was...o...b..rne Hamley's brother to see him! I should not think he has a profile at all."

"What do you think of him, Molly?" said the persevering Cynthia.

"I like him," said Molly. "He has been very kind to me. I know he isn't handsome like Osborne."

It was rather difficult to say all this quietly, but Molly managed to do it, quite aware that Cynthia would not rest till she had extracted some kind of an opinion out of her.

"I suppose he will come home at Easter," said Cynthia, "and then I shall see him for myself."

"It's a great pity that their being in mourning will prevent their going to the Easter charity ball," said Mrs. Gibson, plaintively.

"I shan't like to take you two girls, if you are not to have any partners. It will put me in such an awkward position. I wish we could join on to the Towers party. That would secure you partners, for they always bring a number of dancing men, who might dance with you after they had done their duty by the ladies of the house. But really everything is so changed since dear Lady c.u.mnor has been an invalid that, perhaps, they won't go at all."

This Easter ball was a great subject of conversation with Mrs.

Gibson. She sometimes spoke of it as her first appearance in society as a bride, though she had been visiting once or twice a week all winter long. Then she shifted her ground, and said she felt so much interest in it, because she would then have the responsibility of introducing both her own and Mr. Gibson's daughter to public notice, though the fact was that pretty nearly every one who was going to this ball had seen the two young ladies--though not their ball dresses--before. But, aping the manners of the aristocracy as far as she knew them, she intended to "bring out" Molly and Cynthia on this occasion, which she regarded in something of the light of a presentation at Court. "They are not out yet," was her favourite excuse when either of them was invited to any house to which she did not wish them to go, or they were invited without her. She even made a difficulty about their "not being out" when Miss Browning--that old friend of the Gibson family--came in one morning to ask the two girls to come to a friendly tea and a round game afterwards; this mild piece of gaiety being designed as an attention to three of Mrs.

Goodenough's grandchildren--two young ladies and their schoolboy brother--who were staying on a visit to their grand-mamma.

"You are very kind, Miss Browning, but, you see, I hardly like to let them go--they are not out, you know, till after the Easter ball."

"Till when we are invisible," said Cynthia, always ready with her mockery to exaggerate any pretension of her mother's. "We are so high in rank that our sovereign must give us her sanction before we can play a round game at your house."

Cynthia enjoyed the idea of her own full-grown size and stately gait, as contrasted with that of a meek, half-fledged girl in the nursery; but Miss Browning was half puzzled and half affronted.

"I don't understand it at all. In my days girls went wherever it pleased people to ask them, without this farce of bursting out in all their new fine clothes at some public place. I don't mean but what the gentry took their daughters to York, or Matlock, or Bath, to give them a taste of gay society when they were growing up; and the quality went up to London, and their young ladies were presented to Queen Charlotte, and went to a birthday ball, perhaps. But for us little Hollingford people--why, we knew every child amongst us from the day of its birth; and many a girl of twelve or fourteen have I seen go out to a card-party, and sit quiet at her work, and know how to behave as well as any lady there. There was no talk of 'coming out' in those days for any one under the daughter of a Squire."

"After Easter, Molly and I shall know how to behave at a card-party, but not before," said Cynthia, demurely.

"You're always fond of your quips and your cranks, my dear," said Miss Browning, "and I wouldn't quite answer for your behaviour: you sometimes let your spirits carry you away. But I'm quite sure Molly will be a little lady as she always is, and always was, and I have known her from a babe."

Mrs. Gibson took up arms on behalf of her own daughter, or, rather, she took up arms against Molly's praises.

"I don't think you would have called Molly a lady the other day, Miss Browning, if you had found her where I did: sitting up in a cherry-tree, six feet from the ground at least, I do a.s.sure you."

"Oh! but that wasn't pretty," said Miss Browning, shaking her head at Molly. "I thought you'd left off those tom-boy ways."

"She wants the refinement which good society gives in several ways,"

said Mrs. Gibson, returning to the attack on poor Molly. "She's very apt to come upstairs two steps at a time."

"Only two, Molly!" said Cynthia. "Why, to-day I found I could manage four of these broad shallow steps."

"My dear child, what are you saying?"

"Only confessing that I, like Molly, want the refinements which good society gives; therefore, please do let us go to Miss Brownings'

this evening. I will pledge myself for Molly that she shan't sit in a cherry-tree; and Molly shall see that I don't go upstairs in an unladylike way. I will go upstairs as meekly as if I were a come-out young lady, and had been to the Easter ball."

So it was agreed that they should go. If Mr. Osborne Hamley had been named as one of the probable visitors, there would have been none of this difficulty about the affair.

But though he was not there, his brother Roger was. Molly saw him in a minute when she entered the little drawing-room; but Cynthia did not.

"And see, my dears," said Miss Phoebe Browning, turning them round to the side where Roger stood waiting for his turn of speaking to Molly, "we've got a gentleman for you after all! Wasn't it fortunate?--just as sister said that you might find it dull--you, Cynthia, she meant, because you know you come from France--then, just as if he had been sent from heaven, Mr. Roger came in to call; and I won't say we laid violent hands on him, because he was too good for that; but really we should have been near it, if he had not stayed of his own accord."

The moment Roger had done his cordial greeting to Molly, he asked her to introduce him to Cynthia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROGER IS INTRODUCED AND ENSLAVED.]

"I want to know her--your new sister," he added, with the kind smile Molly remembered so well since the very first day she had seen it directed towards her, as she sate crying under the weeping ash.

Cynthia was standing a little behind Molly when Roger asked for this introduction. She was generally dressed with careless grace. Molly, who was delicate neatness itself, used sometimes to wonder how Cynthia's tumbled gowns, tossed away so untidily, had the art of looking so well, and falling in such graceful folds. For instance, the pale lilac muslin gown she wore this evening had been worn many times before, and had looked unfit to wear again till Cynthia put it on. Then the limpness became softness, and the very creases took the lines of beauty. Molly, in a daintily clean pink muslin, did not look half so elegantly dressed as Cynthia. The grave eyes that the latter raised when she had to be presented to Roger had a sort of child-like innocence and wonder about them, which did not quite belong to Cynthia's character. She put on her armour of magic that evening--involuntarily as she always did; but, on the other side, she could not help trying her power on strangers. Molly had always felt that she should have a right to a good long talk with Roger when she next saw him; and that he would tell her, or she should gather from him all the details she so longed to hear about the Squire--about the Hall--about Osborne--about himself. He was just as cordial and friendly as ever with her. If Cynthia had not been there, all would have gone on as she had antic.i.p.ated; but of all the victims to Cynthia's charms he fell most p.r.o.ne and abject. Molly saw it all, as she was sitting next to Miss Phoebe at the tea-table, acting right-hand, and pa.s.sing cake, cream, sugar, with such busy a.s.siduity that every one besides herself thought that her mind, as well as her hands, was fully occupied. She tried to talk to the two shy girls, as in virtue of her two years' seniority she thought herself bound to do; and the consequence was, she went upstairs with the twain clinging to her arms, and willing to swear an eternal friendship.

Nothing would satisfy them but that she must sit between them at vingt-un; and they were so desirous of her advice in the important point of fixing the price of the counters that she could not ever have joined in the animated conversation going on between Roger and Cynthia. Or, rather, it would be more correct to say that Roger was talking in a most animated manner to Cynthia, whose sweet eyes were fixed upon his face with a look of great interest in all he was saying, while it was only now and then she made her low replies.

Molly caught a few words occasionally in intervals of business.

"At my uncle's, we always give a silver threepence for three dozen.

You know what a silver threepence is, don't you, dear Miss Gibson?"