It was true that they had not seen anything of Osborne Hamley for a long time; but, as it often happens, just after they had been speaking about him he appeared. It was on the day following Mr.

Gibson's departure that Mrs. Gibson received one of the notes, not so common now as formerly, from the family in town, asking her to go over to the Towers, and find a book, or a ma.n.u.script, or something or other that Lady c.u.mnor wanted with all an invalid's impatience. It was just the kind of employment she required for an amus.e.m.e.nt on a gloomy day, and it put her into a good humour immediately. There was a certain confidential importance about it, and it was a variety, and it gave her the pleasant drive in a fly up the n.o.ble avenue, and the sense of being the temporary mistress of all the grand rooms once so familiar to her. She asked Molly to accompany her, out of an access of kindness, but was not at all sorry when Molly excused herself and preferred stopping at home. At eleven o'clock Mrs. Gibson was off, all in her Sunday best (to use the servant's expression, which she herself would so have contemned), well-dressed in order to impose on the servants at the Towers, for there was no one else to see or to be seen by.

"I shall not be at home until the afternoon, my dear! But I hope you will not find it dull. I don't think you will, for you are something like me, my love--never less alone than when alone, as one of the great authors has justly expressed it."

Molly enjoyed the house to herself fully as much as Mrs. Gibson would enjoy having the Towers to herself. She ventured on having her lunch brought upon a tray into the drawing-room, so that she might eat her sandwiches while she went on with her book. In the middle, Mr.

Osborne Hamley was announced. He came in, looking wretchedly ill in spite of purblind Mrs. Goodenough's report of his healthy appearance.

"This call is not on you, Molly," said he, after the first greetings were over. "I was in hopes I might have found your father at home; I thought lunch-time was the best hour." He had sate down, as if thoroughly glad of the rest, and fallen into a languid stooping position, as if it had become so natural to him that no sense of what were considered good manners sufficed to restrain him now.

"I hope you did not want to see him professionally?" said Molly, wondering if she was wise in alluding to his health, yet urged to it by her real anxiety.

"Yes, I did. I suppose I may help myself to a biscuit and a gla.s.s of wine? No, don't ring for more. I could not eat it if it was here. But I just want a mouthful; this is quite enough, thank you. When will your father be back?"

"He was summoned up to London. Lady c.u.mnor is worse. I fancy there is some operation going on; but I don't know. He will be back to-morrow night."

"Very well. Then I must wait. Perhaps I shall be better by that time.

I think it's half fancy; but I should like your father to tell me so.

He will laugh at me, I daresay; but I don't think I shall mind that.

He always is severe on fanciful patients, isn't he, Molly?"

Molly thought that if he saw Osborne's looks just then he would hardly think him fanciful, or be inclined to be severe. But she only said,--"Papa enjoys a joke at everything, you know. It is a relief after all the sorrow he sees."

"Very true. There is a great deal of sorrow in the world. I don't think it's a very happy place after all. So Cynthia is gone to London?" he added, after a pause. "I think I should like to have seen her again. Poor old Roger! He loves her very dearly, Molly," he said.

Molly hardly knew how to answer him in all this; she was so struck by the change in both voice and manner.

"Mamma has gone to the Towers," she began, at length. "Lady c.u.mnor wanted several things that mamma only can find. She will be sorry to miss you. We were speaking of you only yesterday, and she said how long it was since we had seen you."

"I think I've grown careless; I've often felt so weary and ill that it was all I could do to keep up a brave face before my father."

"Why did you not come and see papa?" said Molly; "or write to him?"

"I cannot tell. I drifted on, sometimes better, and sometimes worse, till to-day I mustered up pluck, and came to hear what your father has got to tell me: and all for no use it seems."

"I am very sorry. But it is only for two days. He shall go and see you as soon as ever he returns."

"He must not alarm my father, remember, Molly," said Osborne, lifting himself by the arms of his chair into an upright position and speaking eagerly for the moment. "I wish to G.o.d Roger was at home!"

said he, falling back into the old posture.

"I can't help understanding you," said Molly. "You think yourself very ill; but isn't it that you are tired just now?" She was not sure if she ought to have understood what was pa.s.sing in his mind; but as she did, she could not help speaking a true reply.

"Well, sometimes I do think I'm very ill; and then, again, I think it's only the moping life sets me fancying and exaggerating." He was silent for some time. Then, as if he had taken a sudden resolution, he spoke again. "You see, there are others depending upon me--upon my health. You haven't forgotten what you heard that day in the library at home? No, I know you haven't. I have seen the thought of it in your eyes often since then. I didn't know you at that time. I think I do now."

"Don't go on talking so fast," said Molly. "Rest. No one will interrupt us; I will go on with my sewing; when you want to say anything more I shall be listening." For she was alarmed at the strange pallor that had come over his face.

"Thank you." After a time he roused himself, and began to speak very quietly, as if on an indifferent matter of fact.

"The name of my wife is Aimee. Aimee Hamley, of course. She lives at Bishopsfield, a village near Winchester. Write it down, but keep it to yourself. She is a Frenchwoman, a Roman Catholic, and was a servant. She is a thoroughly good woman. I must not say how dear she is to me. I dare not. I meant once to have told Cynthia, but she didn't seem quite to consider me as a brother. Perhaps she was shy of a new relation; but you'll give my love to her, all the same. It is a relief to think that some one else has my secret; and you are like one of us, Molly. I can trust you almost as I can trust Roger. I feel better already, now I feel that some one else knows the whereabouts of my wife and child."

"Child!" said Molly, surprised. But before he could reply, Maria had announced, "Miss Phoebe Browning."

"Fold up that paper," said he, quickly, putting something into her hands. "It is only for yourself."

CHAPTER XLVI.

HOLLINGFORD GOSSIPS.

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

"My dear Molly, why didn't you come and dine with us? I said to sister I would come and scold you well. Oh, Mr. Osborne Hamley, is that you?" and a look of mistaken intelligence at the tete-a-tete she had disturbed came so perceptibly over Miss Phoebe's face that Molly caught Osborne's sympathetic eye, and both smiled at the notion.

"I'm sure I--well! one must sometimes--I see our dinner would have been--" Then she recovered herself into a connected sentence. "We only just heard of Mrs. Gibson's having a fly from the 'George,'

because sister sent our Nancy to pay for a couple of rabbits Tom Ostler had snared, (I hope we shan't be taken up for poachers, Mr.

Osborne--snaring doesn't require a licence, I believe?) and she heard he was gone off with the fly to the Towers with your dear mamma; for c.o.xe who drives the fly in general has sprained his ankle. We had just finished dinner, but when Nancy said Tom Ostler would not be back till night, I said, 'Why, there's that poor dear girl left all alone by herself, and her mother such a friend of ours,'--when she was alive, I mean. But I'm sure I'm glad I'm mistaken."

Osborne said,--"I came to speak to Mr. Gibson, not knowing he had gone to London, and Miss Gibson kindly gave me some of her lunch.

I must go now."

"Oh dear! I am so sorry," fluttered out Miss Phoebe, "I disturbed you; but it was with the best intentions. I always was mal-apropos from a child." But Osborne was gone before she had finished her apologies. As he left, his eyes met Molly's with a strange look of yearning farewell that struck her at the time, and that she remembered strongly afterwards. "Such a nice suitable thing, and I came in the midst, and spoilt it all. I am sure you're very kind, my dear, considering--"

"Considering what, my dear Miss Phoebe? If you are conjecturing a love affair between Mr. Osborne Hamley and me, you never were more mistaken in your life. I think I told you so once before. Please do believe me."

"Oh, yes! I remember. And somehow sister got it into her head it was Mr. Preston. I recollect."

"One guess is just as wrong as the other," said Molly, smiling, and trying to look perfectly indifferent, but going extremely red at the mention of Mr. Preston's name. It was very difficult for her to keep up any conversation, for her heart was full of Osborne--his changed appearance, his melancholy words of foreboding, and his confidences about his wife--French, Catholic, servant. Molly could not help trying to piece these strange facts together by imaginations of her own, and found it very hard work to attend to kind Miss Phoebe's unceasing patter. She came up to the point, however, when the voice ceased; and could recall, in a mechanical manner, the echo of the last words, which both from Miss Phoebe's look, and the dying accent that lingered in Molly's ear, she perceived to be a question.

Miss Phoebe was asking her if she would go out with her. She was going to Grinstead's, the bookseller of Hollingford; who, in addition to his regular business, was the agent for the Hollingford Book Society, received their subscriptions, kept their accounts, ordered their books from London, and, on payment of a small salary, allowed the Society to keep their volumes on shelves in his shop. It was the centre of news, and the club, as it were, of the little town.

Everybody who pretended to gentility in the place belonged to it. It was a test of gentility, indeed, rather than of education or a love of literature. No shopkeeper would have thought of offering himself as a member, however great his general intelligence and love of reading; while it boasted on its list of subscribers most of the county families in the neighbourhood, some of whom subscribed to it as a sort of duty belonging to their station, without often using their privilege of reading the books: while there were residents in the little town, such as Mrs. Goodenough, who privately thought reading a great waste of time, that might be much better employed in sewing, and knitting, and pastry-making, but who nevertheless belonged to it as a mark of station, just as these good, motherly women would have thought it a terrible come-down in the world if they had not had a pretty young servant-maid to fetch them home from the tea-parties at night. At any rate, Grinstead's was a very convenient place for a lounge. In that view of the Book Society every one agreed.

Molly went upstairs to get ready to accompany Miss Phoebe; and on opening one of her drawers she saw Cynthia's envelope, containing the money she owed to Mr. Preston, carefully sealed up like a letter.

This was what Molly had so unwillingly promised to deliver--the last final stroke to the affair. Molly took it up, hating it. For a time she had forgotten it; and now it was here, facing her, and she must try and get rid of it. She put it into her pocket for the chances of the walk and the day, and fortune for once seemed to befriend her; for, on their entering Grinstead's shop, in which two or three people were now, as always, congregated, making play of examining the books, or business of writing down the t.i.tles of new works in the order-book, there was Mr. Preston. He bowed as they came in. He could not help that; but, at the sight of Molly, he looked as ill-tempered and out of humour as a man well could do. She was connected in his mind with defeat and mortification; and besides, the sight of her called up what he desired now, above all things, to forget; namely, the deep conviction, received through Molly's simple earnestness, of Cynthia's dislike to him. If Miss Phoebe had seen the scowl upon his handsome face, she might have undeceived her sister in her suppositions about him and Molly. But Miss Phoebe, who did not consider it quite maidenly to go and stand close to Mr. Preston, and survey the shelves of books in such close proximity to a gentleman, found herself an errand at the other end of the shop, and occupied herself in buying writing-paper. Molly fingered her valuable letter, as it lay in her pocket; did she dare to cross over to Mr. Preston, and give it to him, or not? While she was still undecided, shrinking always just at the moment when she thought she had got her courage up for action, Miss Phoebe, having finished her purchase, turned round, and after looking a little pathetically at Mr. Preston's back, said to Molly in a whisper--"I think we'll go to Johnson's now, and come back for the books in a little while." So across the street to Johnson's they went; but no sooner had they entered the draper's shop, than Molly's conscience smote her for her cowardice, and loss of a good opportunity. "I'll be back directly," said she, as soon as Miss Phoebe was engaged with her purchases; and Molly ran across to Grinstead's, without looking either to the right or the left; she had been watching the door, and she knew that no Mr. Preston had issued forth. She ran in; he was at the counter now, talking to Grinstead himself; Molly put the letter into his hand, to his surprise, and almost against his will, and turned round to go back to Miss Phoebe. At the door of the shop stood Mrs. Goodenough, arrested in the act of entering, staring, with her round eyes, made still rounder and more owl-like by spectacles, to see Molly Gibson giving Mr.

Preston a letter, which he, conscious of being watched, and favouring underhand practices habitually, put quickly into his pocket, unopened. Perhaps, if he had had time for reflection he would not have scrupled to put Molly to open shame, by rejecting what she so eagerly forced upon him.

There was another long evening to be got through with Mrs. Gibson; but on this occasion there was the pleasant occupation of dinner, which took up at least an hour; for it was one of Mrs. Gibson's fancies--one which Molly chafed against--to have every ceremonial gone through in the same stately manner for two as for twenty. So, although Molly knew full well, and her stepmother knew full well, and Maria knew full well, that neither Mrs. Gibson nor Molly touched dessert, it was set on the table with as much form as if Cynthia had been at home, who delighted in almonds and raisins; or Mr. Gibson been there, who never could resist dates, though he always protested against "persons in their station of life having a formal dessert set out before them every day."

And Mrs. Gibson herself apologized, as it were, to Molly to-day, in the same words she had often used to Mr. Gibson,--"It's no extravagance, for we need not eat it--I never do. But it looks well, and makes Maria understand what is required in the daily life of every family of position."

All through the evening Molly's thoughts wandered far and wide, though she managed to keep up a show of attention to what Mrs.

Gibson was saying. She was thinking of Osborne, and his abrupt, half-finished confidence, and his ill-looks; she was wondering when Roger would come home, and longing for his return, as much (she said to herself) for Osborne's sake as for her own. And then she checked herself. What had she to do with Roger? Why should she long for his return? It was Cynthia who was doing this; only somehow he was such a true friend to Molly, that she could not help thinking of him as a staff and a stay in the troublous times which appeared to lie not far ahead--this evening. Then Mr. Preston and her little adventure with him came uppermost. How angry he looked! How could Cynthia have liked him even enough to get into this abominable sc.r.a.pe, which was, however, all over now! And so she ran on in her fancies and imaginations, little dreaming that that very night much talk was going on not half-a-mile from where she sate sewing, that would prove that the "sc.r.a.pe" (as she called it, in her girlish phraseology) was not all over.

Scandal sleeps in the summer, comparatively speaking. Its nature is the reverse of that of the dormouse. Warm ambient air, loiterings abroad, gardenings, flowers to talk about, and preserves to make, soothed the wicked imp to slumber in the parish of Hollingford in summer-time. But when evenings grew short, and people gathered round the fires, and put their feet in a circle--not on the fenders, that was not allowed--then was the time for confidential conversation!

Or in the pauses allowed for the tea-trays to circulate among the card-tables--when those who were peaceably inclined tried to stop the warm discussions about "the odd trick," and the rather wearisome feminine way of "shouldering the crutch, and showing how fields were won"--small crumbs and sc.r.a.ps of daily news came up to the surface, such as "Martindale has raised the price of his best joints a halfpenny in the pound;" or, "It's a shame of Sir Harry to order in another book on farriery into the Book Society; Phoebe and I tried to read it, but really there is no general interest in it;" or, "I wonder what Mr. Ashton will do, now Nancy is going to be married!

Why, she's been with him these seventeen years! It's a very foolish thing for a woman of her age to be thinking of matrimony; and so I told her, when I met her in the market-place this morning!"

So said Miss Browning on the night in question; her hand of cards lying by her on the puce baize-covered table, while she munched the rich pound-cake of a certain Mrs. Dawes, lately come to inhabit Hollingford.