She pulled her hand away, and used both it and the other to turn her father's head, so that he should exactly see the very bit she meant. She was rather struck by his unusual silence.
"Have you heard from Miss Eyre, papa? How are they all? And this fever that is about? Do you know, papa, I don't think you are looking well? You want me at home to take care of you. How soon may I come home?"
"Don't I look well? That must be all your fancy, goosey. I feel uncommonly well; and I ought to look well, for— I have a piece of news for you, little woman." (He felt that he was doing his business very awkwardly, but he was determined to plunge on.) "Can you guess it?"
"How should I?" said she; but her tone was changed, and she was evidently uneasy, as with the presage of an instinct.
"Why, you see, my love," said he, again taking her hand, "that you are in a very awkward position—a girl growing up in such a family as mine—young men—which was a piece of confounded stupidity on my part. And I am obliged to be away so much."
"But there is Miss Eyre," said she, sick with the strengthening indefinite presage of what was to come. "Dear Miss Eyre, I want nothing but her and you."
"Still there are times like the present when Miss Eyre cannot be with you; her home is not with us; she has other duties. I've been in great perplexity for some time; but at last I've taken a step which will, I hope, make us both happier."
"You're going to be married again," said she, helping him out, with a quiet dry voice, and gently drawing her hand out of his.
"Yes. To Mrs. Kirkpatrick—you remember her? They call her Clare at the Towers. You recollect how kind she was to you that day you were left there?"
She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike, indignation—whatever it was that was boiling up in her breast—should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was drifting out to the infinite sea alone.
Mr. Gibson saw that her silence was unnatural, and half-guessed at the cause of it. But he knew that she must have time to reconcile herself to the idea, and still believed that it would be for her eventual happiness. He had, besides, the relief of feeling that the secret was told, the confidence made, which he had been dreading for the last twenty-four hours. He went on recapitulating all the advantages of the marriage; he knew them off by heart now.
"She's a very suitable age for me. I don't know how old she is exactly, but she must be nearly forty. I shouldn't have wished to marry any one younger. She's highly respected by Lord and Lady Cumnor and their family, which is of itself a character. She has very agreeable and polished manners—of course, from the circles she has been thrown into—and you and I, goosey, are apt to be a little brusque, or so; we must brush up our manners now."
No remark from her on this little bit of playfulness. He went on—
"She has been accustomed to housekeeping—economical housekeeping, too—for of late years she has had a school at Ashcombe, and has had, of course, to arrange all things for a large family. And last, but not least, she has a daughter—about your age, Molly—who, of course, will come and live with us, and be a nice companion—a sister—for you."
Still she was silent. At length she said—
"So I was sent out of the house that all this might be quietly arranged in my absence?"
Out of the bitterness of her heart she spoke, but she was roused out of her assumed impassiveness by the effect produced. Her father started up, and quickly left the room, saying something to himself—what, she could not hear, though she ran after him, followed him through dark stone passages, into the glare of the stable-yard, into the stables—
"Oh, papa, papa—I'm not myself—I don't know what to say about this hateful—detestable—"
He led his horse out. She did not know if he heard her words. Just as he mounted, he turned round upon her with a grey grim face—
"I think it's better for both of us, for me to go away now. We may say things difficult to forget. We are both much agitated. By to-morrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over, and have seen that the principal—one great motive, I mean—was your good. You may tell Mrs. Hamley—I meant to have told her myself. I will come again to-morrow. Good-by, Molly."
For many minutes after he had ridden away—long after the sound of his horse's hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the home-meadows, had died away—Molly stood there, shading her eyes, and looking at the empty space of air in which his form had last appeared. Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three times, after long intervals, she drew a miserable sigh, which was caught up into a sob. She turned away at last, but could not go into the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her father had looked and spoken—and left her.
She went out through a side-door—it was the way by which the gardeners passed when they took the manure into the garden—and the walk to which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs and evergreens and over-arching trees. No one would know what became of her—and, with the ingratitude of misery, she added to herself, no one would care. Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children, her close home interests—she was very good and kind, but there was a bitter grief in Molly's heart, with which the stranger could not intermeddle. She went quickly on to the bourne which she had fixed for herself—a seat almost surrounded by the drooping leaves of a weeping-ash—a seat on the long broad terrace walk on the other side of the wood, that overlooked the pleasant slope of the meadows beyond. The walk had probably been made to command this sunny, peaceful landscape, with trees, and a church spire, two or three red-tiled roofs of old cottages, and a purple bit of rising ground in the distance; and at some previous date, when there might have been a large family of Hamleys residing at the Hall, ladies in hoops, and gentlemen in bag-wigs with swords by their sides, might have filled up the breadth of the terrace, as they sauntered, smiling, along. But no one ever cared to saunter there now. It was a deserted walk. The squire or his sons might cross it in passing to a little gate that led to the meadow beyond; but no one loitered there. Molly almost thought that no one knew of the hidden seat under the ash-tree but herself; for there were not more gardeners employed upon the grounds than were necessary to keep the kitchen-gardens and such of the ornamental part as was frequented by the family, or in sight of the house, in good order.
When she had once got to the seat she broke out with suppressed passion of grief. She did not care to analyze the sources of her tears and sobs—her father was going to be married again—her father was angry with her; she had done very wrong—he had gone away displeased; she had lost his love; he was going to be married—away from her—away from his child—his little daughter—forgetting her own dear, dear mother. So she thought in a tumultuous kind of way, sobbing till she was wearied out, and had to gain strength by being quiet for a time, to break forth into her passion of tears afresh. She had cast herself on the ground—that natural throne for violent sorrow—and leant up against the old moss-grown seat; sometimes burying her face in her hands; sometimes clasping them together, as if by the tight painful grasp of her fingers she could deaden mental suffering.
She did not see Roger Hamley returning from the meadows, nor hear the click of the little white gate. He had been out dredging in ponds and ditches, and had his wet sling-net, with its imprisoned treasures of nastiness, over his shoulder. He was coming home to lunch, having always a fine midday appetite, though he pretended to despise the meal in theory. But he knew that his mother liked his companionship then; she depended much upon her luncheon, and was seldom downstairs and visible to her family much before the time. So he overcame his theory, for the sake of his mother, and had his reward in the hearty relish with which he kept her company in