"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.