"He hasn't read Cynthia's letter yet. Oh, do let me bring it home unopened," said Molly. "Send another letter to Roger--now--at once; it will reach him at the same time; he will get both when he arrives at the Cape, and make him understand which is the last--the real one.

Think! he will hear of Osborne's death at the same time--two such sad things! Do, Cynthia!"

"No, my dear," said Mrs. Gibson. "I could not allow that, even if Cynthia felt inclined for it. Asking to be re-engaged to him! At any rate, she must wait now until he proposes again, and we see how things turn out."

But Molly kept her pleading eyes fixed on Cynthia.

"No!" said Cynthia firmly, but not without consideration. "It cannot be. I've felt more content this last night than I've done for weeks past. I'm glad to be free. I dreaded Roger's goodness, and learning, and all that. It was not in my way, and I don't believe I should have ever married him, even without knowing of all these ill-natured stories that are circulating about me, and which he would hear of, and expect me to explain, and be sorry for, and penitent and humble.

I know he could not have made me happy, and I don't believe he would have been happy with me. It must stay as it is. I would rather be a governess than married to him. I should get weary of him every day of my life."

"Weary of Roger!" said Molly to herself. "It is best as it is, I see," she answered aloud. "Only I'm very sorry for him, very. He did love you so. You will never get any one to love you like him!"

"Very well. I must take my chance. And too much love is rather oppressive to me, I believe. I like a great deal, widely spread about; not all confined to one individual lover."

"I don't believe you," said Molly. "But don't let us talk any more about it. It is best as it is. I thought--I almost felt sure you would be sorry this morning. But we will leave it alone now." She sate silently looking out of the window, her heart sorely stirred, she scarcely knew how or why. But she could not have spoken. Most likely she would have begun to cry if she had spoken. Cynthia stole softly up to her after a while.

"You are vexed with me, Molly," she began in a low voice. But Molly turned sharply round:

"I! I have no business at all in the affair. It is for you to judge.

Do what you think right. I believe you have done right. Only I don't want to discuss it, and paw it over with talk. I'm very much tired, dear"--gently now she spoke--"and I hardly know what I say. If I speak crossly, don't mind it." Cynthia did not reply at once. Then she said,--

"Do you think I might go with you, and help you? I might have done yesterday; and you say he hasn't opened my letter, so he has not heard as yet. And I was always fond of poor Osborne, in my way, you know."

"I cannot tell; I have no right to say," replied Molly, scarcely understanding Cynthia's motives, which, after all, were only impulses in this case. "Papa would be able to judge; I think, perhaps, you had better not. But don't go by my opinion; I can only tell what I should wish to do in your place."

"It was as much for your sake as any one's, Molly," said Cynthia.

"Oh, then, don't! I am tired to-day with sitting up; but to-morrow I shall be all right; and I should not like it, if, for my sake, you came into the house at so solemn a time."

"Very well!" said Cynthia, half-glad that her impulsive offer was declined; for, as she said, thinking to herself, "It would have been awkward after all." So Molly went back in the carriage alone, wondering how she should find the Squire; wondering what discoveries he had made among Osborne's papers, and at what conviction he would have arrived.

CHAPTER LIII.

UNLOOKED-FOR ARRIVALS.

Robinson opened the door for Molly almost before the carriage had fairly drawn up at the Hall, and told her that the Squire had been very anxious for her return, and had more than once sent him to an upstairs window, from which a glimpse of the hill-road between Hollingford and Hamley could be caught, to know if the carriage was not yet in sight. Molly went into the drawing-room. The Squire was standing in the middle of the floor awaiting her--in fact, longing to go out and meet her, but restrained by a feeling of solemn etiquette, which prevented his moving about as usual in that house of mourning.

He held a paper in his hands, which were trembling with excitement and emotion; and four or five open letters were strewed on a table near him.

"It's all true," he began; "she's his wife, and he's her husband--was her husband--that's the word for it--was! Poor lad! poor lad! it's cost him a deal. Pray G.o.d, it wasn't my fault. Read this, my dear.

It's a certificate. It's all regular--Osborne Hamley to Marie-Aimee Scherer,--parish-church and all, and witnessed. Oh, dear!" He sate down in the nearest chair and groaned. Molly took a seat by him, and read the legal paper, the perusal of which was not needed to convince her of the fact of the marriage. She held it in her hand after she had finished reading it, waiting for the Squire's next coherent words; for he kept talking to himself in broken sentences. "Ay, ay! that comes o' temper, and crabbedness. She was the only one as could,--and I've been worse since she was gone. Worse! worse! and see what it has come to! He was afraid of me--ay--afraid. That's the truth of it--afraid. And it made him keep all to himself, and care killed him. They may call it heart-disease--O my lad, my lad, I know better now; but it's too late--that's the sting of it--too late, too late!" He covered his face, and moved himself backward and forward till Molly could bear it no longer.

"There are some letters," said she: "may I read any of them?" At another time she would not have asked; but she was driven to it now by her impatience of the speechless grief of the old man.

"Ay, read 'em, read 'em," said he. "Maybe you can. I can only pick out a word here and there. I put 'em there for you to look at; and tell me what is in 'em."

Molly's knowledge of written French of the present day was not so great as her knowledge of the French of the _Memoires de Sully_, and neither the spelling nor the writing of the letters was of the best; but she managed to translate into good enough colloquial English some innocent sentences of love, and submission to Osborne's will--as if his judgment was infallible,--and of faith in his purposes,--little sentences in "little language" that went home to the Squire's heart.

Perhaps if Molly had read French more easily she might not have translated them into such touching, homely, broken words. Here and there, there were expressions in English; these the hungry-hearted Squire had read while waiting for Molly's return. Every time she stopped, he said, "Go on." He kept his face shaded, and only repeated those two words at every pause. She got up to find some more of Aimee's letters. In examining the papers, she came upon one in particular. "Have you seen this, sir? This certificate of baptism"

(reading aloud) "of Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley, born June 21, 183--, child of Osborne Hamley and Marie-Aimee his wife--"

"Give it me," said the Squire, his voice breaking now, and stretching forth his eager hand. "'Roger,' that's me, 'Stephen,' that's my poor old father: he died when he was not so old as I am; but I've always thought on him as very old. He was main and fond of Osborne, when he was quite a little one. It's good of the lad to have thought on my father Stephen. Ay! that was his name. And Osborne--Osborne Hamley!

One Osborne Hamley lies dead on his bed--and t'other--t'other I've never seen, and never heard on till to-day. He must be called Osborne, Molly. There is a Roger--there's two for that matter; but one is a good-for-nothing old man; and there's never an Osborne any more, unless this little thing is called Osborne; we'll have him here, and get a nurse for him; and make his mother comfortable for life in her own country. I'll keep this, Molly. You're a good la.s.s for finding it. Osborne Hamley! And if G.o.d will give me grace, he shall never hear a cross word from me--never! He shan't be afeard of me. Oh, _my_ Osborne, _my_ Osborne" (he burst out), "do you know now how bitter and sore is my heart for every hard word as I ever spoke to you? Do you know now how I loved you--my boy--my boy?"

From the general tone of the letters, Molly doubted if the mother would consent, so easily as the Squire seemed to expect, to be parted from her child; the letters were not very wise, perhaps (though of this Molly never thought), but a heart full of love spoke tender words in every line. Still, it was not for Molly to talk of this doubt of hers just then; but rather to dwell on the probable graces and charms of the little Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley. She let the Squire exhaust himself in wondering as to the particulars of every event, helping him out in conjectures; and both of them, from their imperfect knowledge of possibilities, made the most curious, fantastic, and improbable guesses at the truth. And so that day pa.s.sed over, and the night came.

There were not many people who had any claim to be invited to the funeral, and of these Mr. Gibson and the Squire's hereditary man of business had taken charge. But when Mr. Gibson came, early on the following morning, Molly referred the question to him, which had suggested itself to her mind, though apparently not to the Squire's, what intimation of her loss should be sent to the widow, living solitary near Winchester, watching and waiting, if not for his coming who lay dead in his distant home, at least for his letters. One from her had already come, in her foreign handwriting, to the post-office to which all her communications were usually sent, but of course they at the Hall knew nothing of this.

"She must be told," said Mr. Gibson, musing.

"Yes, she must," replied his daughter. "But how?"

"A day or two of waiting will do no harm," said he, almost as if he was anxious to delay the solution of the problem. "It will make her anxious, poor thing, and all sorts of gloomy possibilities will suggest themselves to her mind--amongst them the truth; it will be a kind of preparation."

"For what? Something must be done at last," said Molly.

"Yes; true. Suppose you write, and say he's very ill; write to-morrow. I daresay they've indulged themselves in daily postage, and then she'll have had three days' silence. You say how you come to know all you do about it; I think she ought to know he is very ill--in great danger, if you like: and you can follow it up next day with the full truth. I wouldn't worry the Squire about it. After the funeral we will have a talk about the child."

"She will never part with it," said Molly.

"Whew! Till I see the woman I can't tell," said her father; "some women would. It will be well provided for, according to what you say.

And she is a foreigner, and may very likely wish to go back to her own people and kindred. There's much to be said on both sides."

"So you always say, papa. But in this case I think you'll find I'm right. I judge from her letters; but I think I'm right."

"So you always say, daughter. Time will show. So the child is a boy? Mrs. Gibson told me particularly to ask. It will go far to reconciling her to Cynthia's dismissal of Roger. But indeed it is quite as well for both of them, though of course he will be a long time before he thinks so. They were not suited to each other. Poor Roger! It was hard work writing to him yesterday; and who knows what may have become of him! Well, well! one has to get through the world somehow. I'm glad, however, this little lad has turned up to be the heir. I shouldn't have liked the property to go to the Irish Hamleys, who are the next heirs, as...o...b..rne once told me. Now write that letter, Molly, to the poor little Frenchwoman out yonder. It will prepare her for it; and we must think a bit how to spare her the shock, for Osborne's sake."

The writing this letter was rather difficult work for Molly, and she tore up two or three copies before she could manage it to her satisfaction; and at last, in despair of ever doing it better, she sent it off without re-reading it. The next day was easier; the fact of Osborne's death was told briefly and tenderly. But when this second letter was sent off, Molly's heart began to bleed for the poor creature, bereft of her husband, in a foreign land, and he at a distance from her, dead and buried without her ever having had the chance of printing his dear features on her memory by one last long lingering look. With her thoughts full of the unknown Aimee, Molly talked much about her that day to the Squire. He would listen for ever to any conjecture, however wild, about the grandchild, but perpetually winced away from all discourse about "the Frenchwoman,"

as he called her; not unkindly, but to his mind she was simply the Frenchwoman--chattering, dark-eyed, demonstrative, and possibly even rouged. He would treat her with respect as his son's widow, and would try even not to think upon the female inveiglement in which he believed. He would make her an allowance to the extent of his duty: but he hoped and trusted he might never be called upon to see her.

His solicitor, Gibson, anybody and everybody, should be called upon to form a phalanx of defence against that danger.

And all this time a little young grey-eyed woman was making her way,--not towards him, but towards the dead son, whom as yet she believed to be her living husband. She knew she was acting in defiance of his expressed wish; but he had never dismayed her with any expression of his own fears about his health; and she, bright with life, had never contemplated death coming to fetch away one so beloved. He was ill--very ill, the letter from the strange girl said that; but Aimee had nursed her parents, and knew what illness was.

The French doctor had praised her skill and neat-handedness as a nurse, and even if she had been the clumsiest of women, was he not her husband--her all? And was she not his wife, whose place was by his pillow? So, without even as much reasoning as has been here given, Aimee made her preparations, swallowing down the tears that would overflow her eyes, and drop into the little trunk she was packing so neatly. And by her side, on the ground, sate the child, now nearly two years old; and for him Aimee had always a smile and a cheerful word. Her servant loved her and trusted her; and the woman was of an age to have had experience of humankind. Aimee had told her that her husband was ill, and the servant had known enough of the household history to be aware that as yet Aimee was not his acknowledged wife. But she sympathized with the prompt decision of her mistress to go to him directly, wherever he was. Caution comes from education of one kind or another, and Aimee was not dismayed by warnings; only the woman pleaded hard for the child to be left. "He was such company," she said; "and he would so tire his mother in her journeyings; and maybe his father would be too ill to see him." To which Aimee replied, "Good company for you, but better for me. A woman is never tired with carrying her own child" (which was not true; but there was sufficient truth in it to make it believed by both mistress and servant), "and if Monsieur could care for anything, he would rejoice to hear the babble of his little son." So Aimee caught the evening coach to London at the nearest cross-road, Martha standing by as chaperon and friend to see her off, and handing her in the large l.u.s.ty child, already crowing with delight at the sight of the horses. There was a "lingerie" shop, kept by a Frenchwoman, whose acquaintance Aimee had made in the days when she was a London nursemaid, and thither she betook herself, rather than to an hotel, to spend the few night-hours that intervened before the Birmingham coach started at early morning. She slept or watched on a sofa in the parlour, for spare-bed there was none; but Madame Pauline came in betimes with a good cup of coffee for the mother, and of "soupe blanche" for the boy; and they went off again into the wide world, only thinking of, only seeking the "him," who was everything human to both. Aimee remembered the sound of the name of the village where Osborne had often told her that he alighted from the coach to walk home; and though she could never have spelt the strange uncouth word, yet she spoke it with pretty slow distinctness to the guard, asking him in her broken English when they should arrive there? Not till four o'clock. Alas! and what might happen before then! Once with him she would have no fear; she was sure that she could bring him round; but what might not happen before he was in her tender care? She was a very capable person in many ways, though so childish and innocent in others. She made up her mind to the course she should pursue when the coach set her down at Feversham. She asked for a man to carry her trunk, and show her the way to Hamley Hall.

"Hamley Hall!" said the innkeeper. "Eh! there's a deal o' trouble there just now."

"I know, I know," said she, hastening off after the wheelbarrow in which her trunk was going, and breathlessly struggling to keep up with it, her heavy child asleep in her arms. Her pulses beat all over her body; she could hardly see out of her eyes. To her, a foreigner, the drawn blinds of the house, when she came in sight of it, had no significance; she hurried, stumbled on.

"Back door or front, missus?" asked the boots from the inn.

"The most nearest," said she. And the front door was "the most nearest." Molly was sitting with the Squire in the darkened drawing-room, reading out her translations of Aimee's letters to her husband. The Squire was never weary of hearing them; the very sound of Molly's voice soothed and comforted him, it was so sweet and low.

And he pulled her up, much as a child does, if on a second reading of the same letter she subst.i.tuted one word for another. The house was very still this afternoon,--still as it had been now for several days; every servant in it, however needlessly, moving about on tiptoe, speaking below the breath, and shutting doors as softly as might be. The nearest noise or stir of active life was that of the rooks in the trees, who were beginning their spring chatter of business. Suddenly, through this quiet, there came a ring at the front-door bell that sounded, and went on sounding, through the house, pulled by an ignorant vigorous hand. Molly stopped reading; she and the Squire looked at each other in surprised dismay. Perhaps a thought of Roger's sudden (and impossible) return was in the mind of each; but neither spoke. They heard Robinson hurrying to answer the unwonted summons. They listened; but they heard no more. There was little more to hear. When the old servant opened the door, a lady with a child in her arms stood there. She gasped out her ready-prepared English sentence,--

"Can I see Mr. Osborne Hamley? He is ill, I know; but I am his wife."

Robinson had been aware that there was some mystery, long suspected by the servants, and come to light at last to the master,--he had guessed that there was a young woman in the case; but when she stood there before him, asking for her dead husband as if he were living, any presence of mind Robinson might have had forsook him; he could not tell her the truth,--he could only leave the door open, and say to her, "Wait awhile, I'll come back," and betake himself to the drawing-room where Molly was, he knew. He went up to her in a flutter and a hurry, and whispered something to her which turned her white with dismay.