CHAPTER XV.
THE NEW MAMMA.
[Illustration (untitled)]
On Tuesday afternoon Molly returned home--to the home which wasalready strange, and what Warwickshire people would call "unked,"to her. New paint, new paper, new colours; grim servants dressedin their best, and objecting to every change--from their master'smarriage to the new oilcloth in the hall, "which tripped 'em up, andthrew 'em down, and was cold to the feet, and smelt just abominable."All these complaints Molly had to listen to, and it was not acheerful preparation for the reception which she already felt to beso formidable.
The sound of their carriage-wheels was heard at last, and Molly wentto the front door to meet them. Her father got out first, and tookher hand and held it while he helped his bride to alight. Then hekissed her fondly, and passed her on to his wife; but her veil was sosecurely (and becomingly) fastened down, that it was some time beforeMrs. Gibson could get her lips clear to greet her new daughter. Thenthere was luggage to be seen about; and both the travellers wereoccupied in this, while Molly stood by trembling with excitement,unable to help, and only conscious of Betty's rather cross looks, asheavy box after heavy box jammed up the passage.
"Molly, my dear, show--your mamma to her room!"
Mr. Gibson had hesitated, because the question of the name bywhich Molly was to call her new relation had never occurred to himbefore. The colour flashed into Molly's face. Was she to call her"mamma?"--the name long appropriated in her mind to some one else--toher own dead mother. The rebellious heart rose against it, but shesaid nothing. She led the way upstairs, Mrs. Gibson turning round,from time to time, with some fresh direction as to which bag or trunkshe needed most. She hardly spoke to Molly till they were both inthe newly-furnished bedroom, where a small fire had been lighted byMolly's orders.
"Now, my love, we can embrace each other in peace. O dear, how tiredI am!"--(after the embrace had been accomplished). "My spirits are soeasily affected with fatigue; but your dear papa has been kindnessitself. Dear! what an old-fashioned bed! And what a-- But it doesn'tsignify. By-and-by we'll renovate the house--won't we, my dear? Andyou'll be my little maid to-night, and help me to arrange a fewthings, for I'm just worn out with the day's journey."
"I've ordered a sort of tea-dinner to be ready for you," said Molly."Shall I go and tell them to send it in?"
"I'm not sure if I can go down again to-night. It would be verycomfortable to have a little table brought in here, and sit in mydressing-gown by this cheerful fire. But, to be sure, there's yourdear papa? I really don't think he would eat anything if I were notthere. One must not think about oneself, you know. Yes, I'll comedown in a quarter of an hour."
But Mr. Gibson had found a note awaiting him, with an immediatesummons to an old patient, dangerously ill; and, snatching a mouthfulof food while his horse was being saddled, he had to resume at oncehis old habits of attention to his profession above everything.
As soon as Mrs. Gibson found that he was not likely to miss herpresence--he had eaten a very tolerable lunch of bread and cold meatin solitude, so her fears about his appetite in her absence were notwell founded--she desired to have her meal upstairs in her own room;and poor Molly, not daring to tell the servants of this whim, had tocarry up first a table, which, however small, was too heavy for her;and afterwards all the choice portions of the meal, which she hadtaken great pains to arrange on the table, as she had seen suchthings done at Hamley, intermixed with fruit and flowers that hadthat morning been sent in from various great houses where Mr. Gibsonwas respected and valued. How pretty Molly had thought her handiworkan hour or two before! How dreary it seemed as, at last released fromMrs. Gibson's conversation, she sate down in solitude to cold tea andthe drumsticks of the chicken! No one to look at her preparations,and admire her deft-handedness and taste! She had thought that herfather would be gratified by it, and then he had never seen it. Shehad meant her cares as an offering of good-will to her stepmother,who even now was ringing her bell to have the tray taken away, andMiss Gibson summoned to her bedroom.
Molly hastily finished her meal, and went upstairs again.
"I feel so lonely, darling, in this strange house; do come and bewith me, and help me to unpack. I think your dear papa might have putoff his visit to Mr. Craven Smith for just this one evening."
"Mr. Craven Smith couldn't put off his dying," said Molly, bluntly.
"You droll girl!" said Mrs. Gibson, with a faint laugh. "But if thisMr. Smith is dying, as you say, what's the use of your father's goingoff to him in such a hurry? Does he expect any legacy, or anything ofthat kind?"
Molly bit her lips to prevent herself from saying somethingdisagreeable. She only answered,--
"I don't quite know that he is dying. The man said so; and papa cansometimes do something to make the last struggle easier. At any rate,it's always a comfort to the family to have him."
"What dreary knowledge of death you have learned for a girl of yourage! Really, if I had heard all these details of your father'sprofession, I doubt if I could have brought myself to have him!"
"He doesn't make the illness or the death; he does his best againstthem. I call it a very fine thing to think of what he does or triesto do. And you will think so, too, when you see how he is watchedfor, and how people welcome him!"
"Well, don't let us talk any more of such gloomy things, to-night! Ithink I shall go to bed at once, I am so tired, if you will only sitby me till I get sleepy, darling. If you will talk to me, the soundof your voice will soon send me off."
Molly got a book, and read her stepmother to sleep, preferring thatto the harder task of keeping up a continual murmur of speech.
Then she stole down and went into the dining-room, where the firewas gone out; purposely neglected by the servants, to mark theirdispleasure at their new mistress's having had her tea in her ownroom. Molly managed to light it, however, before her father camehome, and collected and re-arranged some comfortable food for him.Then she knelt down again on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire ina dreamy reverie, which had enough of sadness about it to cause thetears to drop unnoticed from her eyes. But she jumped up, and shookherself into brightness at the sound of her father's step.
"How is Mr. Craven Smith?" said she.
"Dead. He just recognized me. He was one of my first patients oncoming to Hollingford."
Mr. Gibson sate down in the arm-chair made ready for him, and warmedhis hands at the fire, seeming neither to need food nor talk, as hewent over a train of recollections. Then he roused himself from hissadness, and looking round the room, he said briskly enough,--
"And where's the new mamma?"
"She was tired, and went to bed early. Oh, papa! must I call her'mamma?'"
"I should like it," replied he, with a slight contraction of thebrows.
Molly was silent. She put a cup of tea near him; he stirred it, andsipped it, and then he recurred to the subject.
"Why shouldn't you call her 'mamma?' I'm sure she means to do theduty of a mother to you. We all may make mistakes, and her ways maynot be quite all at once our ways; but at any rate let us start witha family bond between us."
What would Roger say was right?--that was the question that rose toMolly's mind. She had always spoken of her father's new wife as Mrs.Gibson, and had once burst out at Miss Brownings with a protestationthat she never would call her "mamma." She did not feel drawn to hernew relation by their intercourse that evening. She kept silence,though she knew her father was expecting an answer. At last hegave up his expectation, and turned to another subject; told abouttheir journey, questioned her as to the Hamleys, the Brownings,Lady Harriet, and the afternoon they had passed together at theManor-house. But there was a certain hardness and constraint in hismanner, and in hers a heaviness and absence of mind. All at once shesaid,--
"Papa, I will call her 'mamma!'"
He took her hand, and grasped it tight; but for an instant or two hedid not speak. Then he said,--
"You won't be sorry for it, Molly, wh
en you come to lie as poorCraven Smith did to-night."
For some time the murmurs and grumblings of the two elder servantswere confined to Molly's ears, then they spread to her father's, who,to Molly's dismay, made summary work with them.
"You don't like Mrs. Gibson's ringing her bell so often, don't you?You've been spoilt, I'm afraid; but if you don't conform to my wife'sdesires, you have the remedy in your own hands, you know."
What servant ever resisted the temptation to give warning after sucha speech as that? Betty told Molly she was going to leave, in asindifferent a manner as she could possibly assume towards the girlwhom she had tended and been about for the last sixteen years. Mollyhad hitherto considered her former nurse as a fixture in the house;she would almost as soon have thought of her father's proposingto sever the relationship between them; and here was Betty coollytalking over whether her next place should be in town or country. Buta great deal of this was assumed hardness. In a week or two Betty wasin floods of tears at the prospect of leaving her nursling, and wouldfain have stayed and answered all the bells in the house once everyquarter of an hour. Even Mr. Gibson's masculine heart was touched bythe sorrow of the old servant, which made itself obvious to him everytime he came across her by her broken voice and her swollen eyes.
One day he said to Molly, "I wish you'd ask your mamma if Betty mightnot stay, if she made a proper apology, and all that sort of thing."
"I don't much think it will be of any use," said Molly, in a mournfulvoice. "I know she is writing, or has written, about someunder-housemaid at the Towers."
"Well!--all I want is peace and a decent quantity of cheerfulnesswhen I come home. I see enough of tears at other people's houses.After all, Betty has been with us sixteen years--a sort of serviceof the antique world. But the woman may be happier elsewhere. Do asyou like about asking mamma; only if she agrees, I shall be quitewilling."
So Molly tried her hand at making a request to that effect to Mrs.Gibson. Her instinct told her she would be unsuccessful; but surelyfavour was never refused in so soft a tone.
"My dear girl, I should never have thought of sending an old servantaway,--one who has had the charge of you from your birth, or nearlyso. I could not have had the heart to do it. She might have stayedfor ever for me, if she had only attended to all my wishes; and I amnot unreasonable, am I? But, you see, she complained; and when yourdear papa spoke to her, she gave warning; and it is quite againstmy principles ever to take an apology from a servant who has givenwarning."
"She is so sorry," pleaded Molly; "she says she will do anything youwish, and attend to all your orders, if she may only stay."
"But, sweet one, you seem to forget that I cannot go against myprinciples, however much I may be sorry for Betty. She should nothave given way to ill-temper. As I said before, although I neverliked her, and considered her a most inefficient servant, thoroughlyspoilt by having had no mistress for so long, I should have bornewith her--at least, I think I should--as long as I could. Now I haveall but engaged Maria, who was under-housemaid at the Towers, sodon't let me hear any more of Betty's sorrow, or anybody else'ssorrow, for I'm sure, what with your dear papa's sad stories andother things, I'm getting quite low."
Molly was silent for a moment or two.
"Have you quite engaged Maria?" asked she.
"No--I said 'all but engaged.' Sometimes one would think you did nothear things, dear Molly!" replied Mrs. Gibson, petulantly. "Mariais living in a place where they don't give her as much wages as shedeserves. Perhaps they can't afford it, poor things! I'm always sorryfor poverty, and would never speak hardly of those who are not rich;but I have offered her two pounds more than she gets at present, so Ithink she'll leave. At any rate, if they increase her wages, I shallincrease my offer in proportion so I think I'm sure to get her. Sucha genteel girl!--always brings in a letter on a salver!"
"Poor Betty!" said Molly, softly.
"Poor old soul! I hope she'll profit by the lesson, I'm sure," sighedout Mrs. Gibson "but it's a pity we hadn't Maria before the countyfamilies began to call."
Mrs. Gibson had been highly gratified by the circumstance of so manycalls "from county families." Her husband was much respected; andmany ladies from various halls, courts, and houses, who had profitedby his services towards themselves and their families, thought itright to pay his new wife the attention of a call when they droveinto Hollingford to shop. The state of expectation into which thesecalls threw Mrs. Gibson rather diminished Mr. Gibson's domesticcomfort. It was awkward to be carrying hot, savoury-smelling dishesfrom the kitchen to the dining-room at the very time when high-bornladies, with noses of aristocratic refinement, might be calling.Still more awkward was the accident which happened in consequenceof clumsy Betty's haste to open the front door to a lofty footman'sran-tan, which caused her to set down the basket containing the dirtyplates right in his mistress's way, as she stepped gingerly throughthe comparative darkness of the hall; and then the young men, leavingthe dining-room quietly enough, but bursting with long-repressedgiggle, or no longer restraining their tendency to practical joking,no matter who might be in the passage when they made their exit. Theremedy proposed by Mrs. Gibson for all these distressing grievanceswas a late dinner. The luncheon for the young men, as she observedto her husband, might be sent into the surgery. A few elegant coldtrifles for herself and Molly would not scent the house, and shewould always take care to have some little dainty ready for him. Heacceded, but unwillingly, for it was an innovation on the habits ofa lifetime, and he felt as if he should never be able to arrange hisrounds aright with this new-fangled notion of a six o'clock dinner.
"Don't get any dainties for me, my dear; bread-and-cheese is thechief of my diet, like it was that of the old woman's."
"I know nothing of your old woman," replied his wife; "but really Icannot allow cheese to come beyond the kitchen."
"Then I'll eat it there," said he. "It's close to the stable-yard,and if I come in in a hurry I can get it in a moment."
"Really, Mr. Gibson, it is astonishing to compare your appearance andmanners with your tastes. You look such a gentleman, as dear LadyCumnor used to say."
Then the cook left; also an old servant, though not so old a one asBetty. The cook did not like the trouble of late dinners; and, beinga Methodist, she objected on religious grounds to trying any ofMrs. Gibson's new receipts for French dishes. It was not scriptural,she said. There was a deal of mention of food in the Bible; but itwas of sheep ready dressed, which meant mutton, and of wine, andof bread-and-milk, and figs and raisins, of fatted calves, a goodwell-browned fillet of veal, and such like; but it had always goneagainst her conscience to cook swine-flesh and make raised pork-pies,and now if she was to be set to cook heathen dishes after the fashionof the Papists, she'd sooner give it all up together. So the cookfollowed in Betty's track, and Mr. Gibson had to satisfy his healthyEnglish appetite on badly-made omelettes, rissoles, vol-au-vents,croquets, and timbales; never being exactly sure what he was eating.
He had made up his mind before his marriage to yield in trifles,and be firm in greater things. But the differences of opinion abouttrifles arose every day, and were perhaps more annoying than if theyhad related to things of more consequence. Molly knew her father'slooks as well as she knew her alphabet; his wife did not; and beingan unperceptive person, except when her own interests were dependentupon another person's humour, never found out how he was worried byall the small daily concessions which he made to her will or herwhims. He never allowed himself to put any regret into shape, evenin his own mind; he repeatedly reminded himself of his wife's goodqualities, and comforted himself by thinking they should worktogether better as time rolled on but he was very angry at abachelor great-uncle of Mr. Coxe's, who, after taking no notice ofhis red-headed nephew for years, suddenly sent for him, after the oldman had partially recovered from a serious attack of illness, andappointed him his heir, on condition that his great-nephew remainedwith him during the rest of his life. This had happened almostdirectly after
Mr. and Mrs. Gibson's return from their weddingjourney, and once or twice since that time Mr. Gibson had foundhimself wondering why the deuce old Benson could not have madeup his mind sooner, and so have rid his house of the unwelcomepresence of the young lover. To do Mr. Coxe justice, in the verylast conversation he had as a pupil with Mr. Gibson he said, withhesitating awkwardness, that perhaps the new circumstances in whichhe should be placed might make some difference with regard to Mr.Gibson's opinion on--
"Not at all," said Mr. Gibson, quickly. "You are both of you tooyoung to know your own minds; and if my daughter was silly enough tobe in love, she should never have to calculate her happiness on thechances of an old man's death. I dare say he'll disinherit you afterall. He may do, and then you'd be worse off than ever. No! go away,and forget all this nonsense; and when you've done, come back and seeus!"
So Mr. Coxe went away, with an oath of unalterable faithfulness inhis heart; and Mr. Gibson had unwillingly to fulfil an old promisemade to a gentleman farmer in the neighbourhood a year or two before,and to take the second son of Mr. Browne in young Coxe's place. Hewas to be the last of the race of pupils, and as he was rather morethan a year younger than Molly, Mr. Gibson trusted that there wouldbe no repetition of the Coxe romance.
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