So there was nothing for it but for them to return to the library;
Mrs. Kirkpatrick pouting a little, and Mr. Gibson feeling more like
his own cool, sarcastic self, by many degrees, than he had done when
last in that room.
She began, half crying,--
"I cannot tell what poor Kirkpatrick would say if he knew what I have
done. He did so dislike the notion of second marriages, poor fellow!"
"Let us hope that he doesn't know, then; or that, if he does, he
is wiser--I mean, that he sees how second marriages may be most
desirable and expedient in some cases."
Altogether, this second tête-à-tête, done to command, was not so
satisfactory as the first; and Mr. Gibson was quite alive to the
necessity of proceeding on his round to see his patients before very
much time had elapsed.
"We shall shake down into uniformity before long, I've no doubt,"
said he to himself, as he rode away. "It's hardly to be expected that
our thoughts should run in the same groove all at once. Nor should I
like it," he added. "It would be very flat and stagnant to have only
an echo of one's own opinions from one's wife. Heigho! I must tell
Molly about it: dear little woman, I wonder how she'll take it? It's
done, in a great measure, for her good." And then he lost himself in
recapitulating Mrs. Kirkpatrick's good qualities, and the advantages
to be gained to his daughter from the step he had just taken.
It was too late to go round by Hamley that afternoon. The Towers and
the Towers' round lay just in the opposite direction to Hamley. So it
was the next morning before Mr. Gibson arrived at the Hall, timing
his visit as well as he could so as to have half-an-hour's private
talk with Molly before Mrs. Hamley came down into the drawing-room.
He thought that his daughter would require sympathy after receiving
the intelligence he had to communicate; and he knew there was no one
more fit to give it than Mrs. Hamley.
It was a brilliantly hot summer's morning; men in their shirtsleeves
were in the fields getting in the early harvest of oats; as Mr.
Gibson rode slowly along, he could see them over the tall hedge-rows,
and even hear the soothing measured sound of the fall of the long
swathes, as they were mown. The labourers seemed too hot to talk; the
dog, guarding their coats and cans, lay panting loudly on the other
side of the elm, under which Mr. Gibson stopped for an instant to
survey the scene, and gain a little delay before the interview that
he wished was well over. In another minute he had snapped at himself
for his weakness, and put spurs to his horse. He came up to the Hall
at a good sharp trot; it was earlier than the usual time of his
visits, and no one was expecting him; all the stable-men were in
the fields, but that signified little to Mr. Gibson; he walked his
horse about for five minutes or so before taking him into the stable,
and loosened his girths, examining him with perhaps unnecessary
exactitude. He went into the house by a private door, and made his
way into the drawing-room, half expecting, however, that Molly would
be in the garden. She had been there, but it was too hot and dazzling
now for her to remain out of doors, and she had come in by the open
window of the drawing-room. Oppressed with the heat, she had fallen
asleep in an easy-chair, her bonnet and open book upon her knee, one
arm hanging listlessly down. She looked very soft, and young, and
childlike; and a gush of love sprang into her father's heart as he
gazed at her.