‘May I go back, out into the garden? I can’t breathe here!’
‘Oh, yes, to be sure, love; I dare say it’s hard understanding for you, love; but it’s very fine and instructive, and a deal of Latin in it too.’
She turned hastily round not to lose another word of Lady Agnes’s lecture on orchids, and Molly turned back and passed out of the heated atmosphere. She felt better in fresh air; and unobserved, and at liberty, went from one lovely spot to another, now in the open park, now in some shut-in flower-garden, where the song of the birds, and the drip of the central fountain, were the only sounds, and the tree-tops made an enclosing circle in the blue June sky; she went along without more thought as to her whereabouts than a butterfly has, as it skims from flower to flower, till at length she grew very weary, and wished to return to the house, but did not know how, and felt afraid of encountering all the strangers who would be there, unprotected by either of the Miss Brownings. The hot sun told upon her head, and it began to ache. She saw a great wide-spreading cedar-tree upon a burst of lawn towards which she was advancing, and the black repose beneath its branches lured her thither. There was a rustic seat in the shadow, and weary Molly sat down there, and presently fell asleep.
She was startled from her slumbers after a time, and jumped to her feet. Two ladies were standing by her, talking about her. They were perfect strangers to her, and with a vague conviction that she had done something wrong, and also because she was worn-out with hunger, fatigue, and the morning’s excitement, she began to cry.
‘Poor little woman! She has lost herself; she belongs to some of the people from Hollingford, I have no doubt,’ said the oldest-looking of the two ladies; she who appeared to be about forty, though she did not really number more than thirty years. She was plain-featured, and had rather a severe expression on her face; her dress was as rich as any morning dress could be; her voice deep and unmodulated,—what in a lower rank of life would have been called gruff; but that was not a word to apply to Lady Cuxhaven, the eldest daughter of the earl and countess. The other lady looked much younger, but she was in fact some years the elder; at first sight Molly thought she was the most beautiful person she had ever seen, and she was certainly a very lovely woman. Her voice, too, was soft and plaintive, as she replied to Lady Cuxhaven—
‘Poor little darling! she is overcome by the heat, I have no doubt—such a heavy straw bonnet, too. Let me untie it for you, my dear.’
Molly now found voice to say—‘I am Molly Gibson, please. I came here with the Miss Brownings;’ for her great fear was that she should be taken for an unauthorized intruder.
‘Miss Brownings?’ said Lady Cuxhaven to her companion, as if inquiringly.
‘I think they were the two tall large young women that Lady Agnes was talking about.’
‘Oh, I dare say. I saw she had a number of people in tow;’ then, looking again at Molly, she said, ‘Have you had anything to eat, child, since you came? You look a very white little thing; or is it the heat?’
‘I have had nothing to eat,’ said Molly, rather piteously; for, indeed, before she fell asleep she had been very hungry.
The two ladies spoke to each other in a low voice; then the elder said in a voice of authority, which, indeed, she had always used in speaking to the other, ‘Sit still here, my dear; we are going to the house, and Clare shall bring you something to eat before you try to walk back; it must be a quarter of a mile at least.’ So they went away, and Molly sat upright, waiting for the promised messenger. She did not know who Clare might be, and she did not care much for food now; but she felt as if she could not walk without some help. At length she saw the pretty lady coming back, followed by a footman with a small tray.
‘Look how kind Lady Cuxhaven is,’ said she who was called Clare. ‘She chose you out this little lunch herself; and now you must try and eat it, and you’ll be quite right when you’ve had some food, darling—You need not stop, Edwards; I will bring the tray back with me.’
There was some bread, and some cold chicken, and some jelly, and a glass of wine, and a bottle of sparkling water, and a bunch of grapes. Molly put out her trembling little hand for the water; but she was too faint to hold it. Clare put it to her mouth, and she took a long draught and was refreshed. But she could not eat; she tried, but she could not; her headache was too bad. Clare looked bewildered. ‘Take some grapes, they will be the best for you; you must try and eat something, or I don’t know how I shall get you to the house.’
‘My head aches so,’ said Molly, lifting her heavy eyes wistfully.
‘Oh, dear, how tiresome!’ said Clare, still in her sweet gentle voice, not at all as if she was angry, only expressing an obvious truth. Molly felt very guilty and very unhappy. Clare went on, with a shade of asperity in her tone: ‘You see, I don’t know what to do with you here if you don’t eat enough to enable you to walk home. And I’ve been out for these three hours trapesing about the grounds till I’m as tired as can be, and missed my lunch and all.’ Then, as if a new idea had struck her, she said,—‘You lie back in that seat for a few minutes, and try to eat the bunch of grapes, and I’ll wait for you, and just be eating a mouthful meanwhile. You are sure you don’t want this chicken?’
Molly did as she was bid, and leant back, picking languidly at the grapes, and watching the good appetite with which the lady ate up the chicken and jelly, and drank the glass of wine. She was so pretty and so graceful in her deep mourning, that even her hurry in eating, as if she was afraid of some one coming to surprise her in the act, did not keep her little observer from admiring her in all she did.
‘And now, darling, are you ready to go?’ said she, when she had eaten
up
everything on the tray. ‘Oh, come; you have nearly finished your grapes; that’s a good girl. Now, if you will come with me to the side entrance, I will take you up to my own room, and you shall lie down on the bed for an hour or two; and if you have a good nap your headache will be quite gone.’
So they set off, Clare carrying the empty tray, rather to Molly’s shame; but the child had enough work to drag herself along, and was afraid of offering to do anything more. The ‘side entrance’ was a flight of steps leading up from a private flower-garden into a private matted hall, or ante-room, out of which many doors opened, and in which were deposited the light garden-tools and the bows and arrows of the young ladies of the house. Lady Cuxhaven must have seen their approach, for she met them in this hall as soon as they came in.
‘How is she now?’ she asked; then, glancing at the plates and glasses, she added, ‘Come, I think there can’t be much amiss! You’re a good old Clare, but you should have let one of the men fetch that tray in; life in such weather as this is trouble enough of itself.’
Molly could not help wishing that her pretty companion would have told Lady Cuxhaven that she herself had helped to finish up the ample luncheon; but no such idea seemed to come into her mind. She only said,—‘Poor dear! she is not quite the thing yet; has got a headache, she says. I am going to put her down on my bed, to see if she can get a little sleep.’
Molly saw Lady Cuxhaven say something in a half-laughing manner to ‘Clare,’ as she passed her; and the child could not keep from tormenting herself by fancying that the words spoken sounded wonderfully like ‘Over-eaten herself, I suspect.’ However, she felt too poorly to worry herself long; the little white bed in the cool and pretty room had too many attractions for her aching head. The muslin curtains flapped softly from time to time in the scented air that came through the open windows. Clare covered her up with a light shawl, and darkened the room. As she was going away, Molly roused herself to say, ‘Please, ma’am, don’t let them go away without me. Please ask somebody to waken me if I go to sleep. I am to go back with Miss Brownings.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself about it, dear; I’ll take care,’ said Clare, turning round at the door, and kissing her hand to little anxious Molly. And then she went away, and thought no more about it. The carriages came round at half-past four, hurried a little by Lady Cumnor, who had suddenly become tired of the business of entertaining, and annoyed at the repetition of indiscriminating admiration.
‘Why not have both carriages out, mamma, and get rid of them all at once?’ said Lady Cuxhaven. ‘This going by instalments is the most tiresome thing that could be imagined.’ So at last there had been a great hurry and an unmethodical way of packing off every one at once. Miss Browning had gone in the chariot (or ‘chawyot,’ as Lady Cumnor called it;—it rhymed to her daughter, Lady Hawyot—or Harriet, as the name was spelt in the Peerage), and Miss Phoebe had been speeded, along with several other guests, away in a great roomy family conveyance, of the kind which we should now call an ‘omnibus.’ Each thought that Molly Gibson was with the other, and the truth was, that she lay fast asleep on Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s bed—Mrs. Kirkpatrick, nee Clare.
The housemaids came in to arrange the room. Their talking aroused Molly, who sat up on the bed, and tried to push back the hair from her hot forehead, and to remember where she was. She dropped down on her feet by the side of the bed, to the astonishment of the women, and said,—‘Please, how soon are we going away?’
‘Bless us and save us! who’d ha’ thought of any one being in the bed? Are you one of the Hollingford ladies, my dear? They are all gone this hour or more!’
‘Oh, dear, what shall I do? That lady they call Clare promised to waken me in time. Papa will so wonder where I am, and I don’t know what Betty will say.’
The child began to cry, and the housemaids looked at each other in some dismay and much sympathy. Just then, they heard Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s step along the passages, approaching. She was singing some little Italian air in a low musical voice coming to her bedroom to dress for dinner. One housemaid said to the other, with a knowing look, ‘Best leave it to her;’ and they passed on to their work in the other rooms.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick opened the door, and stood aghast at the sight of Molly.
‘Why, I quite forgot you!’ she said at length. ‘Nay, don’t cry; you’ll make yourself not fit to be seen. Of course I must take the consequences of your over-sleeping yourself, and if I can’t manage to get you back to Hollingford to-night, you shall sleep with me, and we’ll do our best to send you home to-morrow morning.’
‘But papa!’ sobbed out Molly. ‘He always wants me to make tea for him; and I have no night-things.’
‘Well, don’t go and make a piece of work about what can’t be helped now. I’ll lend you night-things, and your papa must do without your making tea for him to-night. And another time don’t oversleep yourself in a strange house; you may not always find yourself amongst such hospitable people as they are here. Why now, if you don’t cry and make a figure of yourself, I’ll ask if you may come in to dessert with Master Smythe and the little ladies. You shall go into the nursery, and have some tea with them; and then you must come back here and brush your hair and make yourself tidy. I think it is a very fine thing for you to be stopping in such a grand house as this; many a little girl would like nothing better.’
During this speech she was arranging her toilette for dinner—taking off her black morning gown; putting on her dressing-gown; shaking her long soft auburn hair over her shoulders, and glancing about the room in search of various articles of her dress,—a running flow of easy talk came babbling out all the time.
‘I have a little girl of my own, dear! I don’t know what she would not give to be staying here at Lord Cumnor’s with me; but, instead of that, she has to spend her holidays at school; and yet you are looking as miserable as can be at the thought of stopping for just one night. I really have been as busy as can be with those tiresome—those good ladies, I mean, from Hollingford—and one can’t think of everything at a time.’
Molly—only child as she was—had stopped her tears at the mention of that little girl of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s, and now she ventured to say,—
‘Are you married, ma’am; I thought she called you Clare?’
In high good-humour Mrs. Kirkpatrick made reply: ‘I don’t look as if I was married, do I? Every one is surprised. And yet I have been a widow for seven months now: and not a grey hair on my head, though Lady Cuxhaven, who is younger than I, has ever so many.’
‘Why do they call you “Clare”?’ continued Molly, finding her so affable and communicative.
‘Because I lived with them when I was Miss Clare. It is a pretty name, isn’t it? I married a Mr. Kirkpatrick; he was only a curate, poor fellow; but he was of a very good family, and if three of his relations had died without children I should have been a baronet’s wife. But Providence did not see fit to permit it; and we must always resign ourselves to what is decreed. Two of his cousins married, and had large families; and poor dear Kirkpatrick died, leaving me a widow.’
‘You have a little girl?’ asked Molly.
‘Yes: darling Cynthia! I wish you could see her; she is my only comfort now. If I have time I will show you her picture when we come up to bed; but I must go now. It does not do to keep Lady Cumnor waiting a moment, and she asked me to be down early, to help with some of the people in the house. Now I shall ring this bell, and when the housemaid comes, ask her to take you into the nursery, and to tell Lady Cuxhaven’s nurse who you are. And then you’ll have tea with the little ladies, and come in with them to dessert. There! I’m sorry you’ve overslept yourself, and are left here; but give me a kiss, and don’t cry—you really are rather a pretty child, though you’ve not got Cynthia’s colouring! Oh, Nanny, would you be so very kind as to take this young lady—(what’s your name, my dear? Gibson?),—Miss Gibson, to Mrs. Dyson, in the nursery, and ask her to allow her to drink tea with the young ladies there; and to send her in with them to dessert. I’ll explain it all to my lady.’
Nanny’s face brightened out of its gloom when she heard the name Gibson; and, having ascertained from Molly that she was ‘the doctor’s child,’ she showed more willingness to comply with Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s request than was usual with her.