Such was not the case with Cynthia, however. She sometimes said such things as these, when she had been particularly inert and desponding:--

"Ah, Molly, you must let my goodness lie fallow for a while!

It has borne such a wonderful crop this year. I have been so pretty-behaved--if you knew all!" Or, "Really, Molly, my virtue must come down from the clouds! It was strained to the utmost in London--and I find it is like a kite--after soaring aloft for some time, it suddenly comes down, and gets tangled in all sorts of briars and brambles; which things are an allegory, unless you can bring yourself to believe in my extraordinary goodness while I was away--giving me a sort of right to fall foul of all mamma's briars and brambles now."

But Molly had had some experience of Cynthia's whim of perpetually hinting at a mystery which she did not mean to reveal in the Mr.

Preston days, and, although she was occasionally piqued into curiosity, Cynthia's allusions at something more in the background fell in general on rather deaf ears. One day the mystery burst its sh.e.l.l, and came out in the shape of an offer made to Cynthia by Mr.

Henderson--and refused. Under all the circ.u.mstances, Molly could not appreciate the heroic goodness so often alluded to. The revelation of the secret at last took place in this way. Mrs. Gibson breakfasted in bed: she had done so ever since she had had the influenza; and, consequently, her own private letters always went up on her breakfast-tray. One morning she came into the drawing-room earlier than usual, with an open letter in her hand.

"I've had a letter from aunt Kirkpatrick, Cynthia. She sends me my dividends,--your uncle is so busy. But what does she mean by this, Cynthia?" (holding out the letter to her, with a certain paragraph indicated by her finger). Cynthia put her netting on one side, and looked at the writing. Suddenly her face turned scarlet, and then became of a deadly white. She looked at Molly, as if to gain courage from the strong serene countenance.

"It means--mamma, I may as well tell you at once--Mr. Henderson offered to me while I was in London, and I refused him."

"Refused him--and you never told me, but let me hear it by chance!

Really, Cynthia, I think you're very unkind. And pray what made you refuse Mr. Henderson? Such a fine young man,--and such a gentleman!

Your uncle told me he had a very good private fortune besides."

"Mamma, do you forget that I have promised to marry Roger Hamley?"

said Cynthia quietly.

"No! of course I don't--how can I, with Molly always dinning the word 'engagement' into my ears? But really, when one considers all the uncertainties,--and after all it was not a distinct promise,--he seemed almost as if he might have looked forward to something of this sort."

"Of what sort, mamma?" said Cynthia, sharply.

"Why, of a more eligible offer. He must have known you might change your mind, and meet with some one you liked better: so little as you had seen of the world." Cynthia made an impatient movement, as if to stop her mother.

"I never said I liked him better,--how can you talk so, mamma? I'm going to marry Roger, and there's an end of it. I will not be spoken to about it again." She got up and left the room.

"Going to marry Roger! That's all very fine. But who is to guarantee his coming back alive? And if he does, what have they to marry upon, I should like to know? I don't wish her to have accepted Mr.

Henderson, though I am sure she liked him; and true love ought to have its course, and not be thwarted; but she need not have quite finally refused him until--well, until we had seen how matters turn out. Such an invalid as I am too! It has given me quite a palpitation at the heart. I do call it quite unfeeling of Cynthia."

"Certainly,--" began Molly; but then she remembered that her stepmother was far from strong, and unable to bear a protest in favour of the right course without irritation. So she changed her speech into a suggestion of remedies for palpitation; and curbed her impatience to speak out her indignation at the contemplated falsehood to Roger. But when they were alone, and Cynthia began upon the subject, Molly was less merciful. Cynthia said,--

"Well, Molly, and now you know all! I've been longing to tell you--and yet somehow I could not."

"I suppose it was a repet.i.tion of Mr. c.o.xe," said Molly, gravely.

"You were agreeable,--and he took it for something more."

"I don't know," sighed Cynthia. "I mean I don't know if I was agreeable or not. He was very kind--very pleasant--but I did not expect it all to end as it did. However, it's of no use thinking of it."

"No!" said Molly, simply; for to her mind the pleasantest and kindest person in the world put in comparison with Roger was as nothing; he stood by himself. Cynthia's next words,--and they did not come very soon,--were on quite a different subject, and spoken in rather a pettish tone. Nor did she allude again in jesting sadness to her late efforts at virtue.

In a little while Mrs. Gibson was able to accept the often-repeated invitation from the Towers to go and stay there for a day or two.

Lady Harriet told her that it would be a kindness to Lady c.u.mnor to come and bear her company in the life of seclusion the latter was still compelled to lead; and Mrs. Gibson was flattered and gratified with a dim unconscious sense of being really wanted, not merely deluding herself into a pleasing fiction. Lady c.u.mnor was in that state of convalescence common to many invalids. The spring of life had begun again to flow, and with the flow returned the old desires and projects and plans, which had all become mere matters of indifference during the worst part of her illness. But as yet her bodily strength was not sufficient to be an agent to her energetic mind, and the difficulty of driving the ill-matched pair of body and will--the one weak and languid, the other strong and stern,--made her ladyship often very irritable. Mrs. Gibson herself was not quite strong enough for a "_souffre-douleur_;" and the visit to the Towers was not, on the whole, quite so happy a one as she had antic.i.p.ated.

Lady Cuxhaven and Lady Harriet, each aware of their mother's state of health and temper, but only alluding to it as slightly as was absolutely necessary in their conversations with each other, took care not to leave "Clare" too long with Lady c.u.mnor; but several times when one or the other went to relieve guard they found Clare in tears, and Lady c.u.mnor holding forth on some point on which she had been meditating during the silent hours of her illness, and on which she seemed to consider herself born to set the world to rights. Mrs.

Gibson was always apt to consider these remarks as addressed with a personal direction at some error of her own, and defended the fault in question with a sense of property in it, whatever it might happen to be. The second and the last day of her stay at the Towers, Lady Harriet came in, and found her mother haranguing in an excited tone of voice, and Clare looking submissive and miserable and oppressed.

"What's the matter, dear mamma? Are not you tiring yourself with talking?"

"No, not at all! I was only speaking of the folly of people dressing above their station. I began by telling Clare of the fashions of my grandmother's days, when every cla.s.s had a sort of costume of its own,--and servants did not ape tradespeople, nor tradespeople professional men, and so on,--and what must the foolish woman do but begin to justify her own dress, as if I had been accusing her, or even thinking about her at all. Such nonsense! Really, Clare, your husband has spoilt you sadly, if you can't listen to any one without thinking they are alluding to you. People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues."

"I was told, Lady c.u.mnor, that this silk was reduced in price. I bought it at Waterloo House after the season was over," said Mrs.

Gibson, touching the very handsome gown she wore in deprecation of Lady c.u.mnor's angry voice, and blundering on to the very source of irritation.

"Again, Clare! How often must I tell you I had no thought of you or your gowns, or whether they cost much or little; your husband has to pay for them, and it is his concern if you spend more on your dress than you ought to do."

"It was only five guineas for the whole dress," pleaded Mrs. Gibson.

"And very pretty it is," said Lady Harriet, stooping to examine it, and so hoping to soothe the poor aggrieved woman. But Lady c.u.mnor went on,--

"No! you ought to have known me better by this time. When I think a thing I say it out. I don't beat about the bush. I use straightforward language. I will tell you where I think you have been in fault, Clare, if you like to know." Like it or not, the plain-speaking was coming now. "You have spoilt that girl of yours till she does not know her own mind. She has behaved abominably to Mr. Preston; and it is all in consequence of the faults in her education. You have much to answer for."

"Mamma, mamma!" said Lady Harriet, "Mr. Preston did not wish it spoken about." And at the same moment Mrs. Gibson exclaimed, "Cynthia--Mr. Preston!" in such a tone of surprise, that if Lady c.u.mnor had been in the habit of observing the revelations made by other people's tones and voices, she would have found out that Mrs.

Gibson was ignorant of the affair to which she was alluding.

"As for Mr. Preston's wishes, I do not suppose I am bound to regard them when I feel it my duty to reprove error," said Lady c.u.mnor loftily to Lady Harriet. "And, Clare, do you mean to say that you are not aware that your daughter has been engaged to Mr. Preston for some time--years, I believe,--and has at last chosen to break it off,--and has used the Gibson girl--I forget her name--as a cat's-paw, and made both her and herself the town's talk--the b.u.t.t for all the gossip of Hollingford? I remember when I was young there was a girl called Jilting Jessy. You'll have to watch over your young lady, or she will get some such name. I speak to you like a friend, Clare, when I tell you it's my opinion that girl of yours will get herself into some more mischief yet before she's safely married. Not that I care one straw for Mr. Preston's feelings. I don't even know if he's got feelings or not; but I know what is becoming in a young woman, and jilting is not. And now you may both go away, and send Bradley to me, for I'm tired, and want to have a little sleep."

"Indeed, Lady c.u.mnor--will you believe me?--I do not think Cynthia was ever engaged to Mr. Preston. There was an old flirtation. I was afraid--"

"Ring the bell for Bradley," said Lady c.u.mnor, wearily: her eyes closed. Lady Harriet had too much experience of her mother's moods not to lead Mrs. Gibson away almost by main force, she protesting all the while that she did not think there was any truth in the statement, though it was dear Lady c.u.mnor that said it.

Once in her own room, Lady Harriet said, "Now, Clare, I'll tell you all about it; and I think you'll have to believe it, for it was Mr. Preston himself who told me. I heard of a great commotion in Hollingford about Mr. Preston; and I met him riding out, and asked him what it was all about; he didn't want to speak about it, evidently. No man does, I suppose, when he's been jilted; and he made both papa and me promise not to tell; but papa did--and that's what mamma has for a foundation; you see, a really good one."

"But Cynthia is engaged to another man--she really is. And another--a very good match indeed--has just been offering to her in London. Mr.

Preston is always at the root of mischief."

"Nay! I do think in this case it must be that pretty Miss Cynthia of yours who has drawn on one man to be engaged to her,--not to say two,--and another to make her an offer. I can't endure Mr. Preston, but I think it's rather hard to accuse him of having called up the rivals, who are, I suppose, the occasion of his being jilted."

"I don't know; I always feel as if he owed me a grudge, and men have so many ways of being spiteful. You must acknowledge that if he had not met you I should not have had dear Lady c.u.mnor so angry with me."

"She only wanted to warn you about Cynthia. Mamma has always been very particular about her own daughters. She has been very severe on the least approach to flirting, and Mary will be like her!"

"But Cynthia will flirt, and I can't help it. She is not noisy, or giggling; she is always a lady--that everybody must own. But she has a way of attracting men, she must have inherited from me, I think." And here she smiled faintly, and would not have rejected a confirmatory compliment, but none came. "However, I will speak to her; I will get to the bottom of the whole affair. Pray tell Lady c.u.mnor that it has so fluttered me the way she spoke, about my dress and all. And it only cost five guineas after all, reduced from eight!"

"Well, never mind now. You are looking very much flushed; quite feverish! I left you too long in mamma's hot room. But do you know she is so much pleased to have you here?" And so Lady c.u.mnor really was, in spite of the continual lectures which she gave "Clare," and which poor Mrs. Gibson turned under as helplessly as the typical worm. Still it was something to have a countess to scold her; and that pleasure would endure when the worry was past. And then Lady Harriet petted her more than usual to make up for what she had to go through in the convalescent's room; and Lady Cuxhaven talked sense to her, with dashes of science and deep thought intermixed, which was very flattering, although generally unintelligible; and Lord c.u.mnor, good-natured, good-tempered, kind, and liberal, was full of grat.i.tude to her for her kindness in coming to see Lady c.u.mnor, and his grat.i.tude took the tangible shape of a haunch of venison, to say nothing of lesser game. When she looked back upon her visit, as she drove home in the solitary grandeur of the Towers' carriage, there had been but one great enduring rub--Lady c.u.mnor's crossness--and she chose to consider Cynthia as the cause of that, instead of seeing the truth, which had been so often set before her by the members of her ladyship's family, that it took its origin in her state of health.

Mrs. Gibson did not exactly mean to visit this one discomfort upon Cynthia, nor did she quite mean to upbraid her daughter for conduct as yet unexplained, and which might have some justification; but, finding her quietly sitting in the drawing-room, she sate down despondingly in her own little easy chair, and in reply to Cynthia's quick pleasant greeting of--

"Well, mamma, how are you? We didn't expect you so early! Let me take off your bonnet and shawl!" she replied dolefully,--

"It has not been such a happy visit that I should wish to prolong it." Her eyes were fixed on the carpet, and her face was as irresponsive to the welcome offered as she could make it.

"What has been the matter?" asked Cynthia, in all good faith.

"You! Cynthia--you! I little thought when you were born how I should have to bear to hear you spoken about."

Cynthia threw back her head, and angry light came into her eyes.

"What business have they with me? How came they to talk about me in any way?"

"Everybody is talking about you; it is no wonder they are. Lord c.u.mnor is sure to hear about everything always. You should take more care about what you do, Cynthia, if you don't like being talked about."