Wives and Daughters: An Every-Day Story - Page 412/572

"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 tête-à-tête

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

Coxe 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-àpropos

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.