Wives and Daughters Page #8

The daughter of a country doctor copes with an unwanted stepmother, an impetuous stepsister, burdensome secrets, the town gossips, and the tug on her own heartstrings for a man who thinks of her only as a friend. Wives and Daughters was first published serially in the Cornhill Magazine from August, 1864, to January, 1866. Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly in November, 1865. She had completed all but the last chapter, and in that sense the book, which many consider her masterpiece, is unfinished. The editor of the Cornhill Magazine Frederick Greenwood, appended his comments about Gaskell's intentions for the story's ending.

• Novel

								

they were given that morning on the road to the Towers.

She got out of the saloon somehow; she believed afterwards, on
thinking about it, that she had never bidden good-by to Lady
Cuxhaven, or Mrs. Kirkpatrick, or "all the rest of them," as she
irreverently styled them in her thoughts.

Mr. Gibson was in the housekeeper's room, when Molly ran in, rather
to the stately Mrs. Brown's discomfiture. She threw her arms round
her father's neck. "Oh, papa, papa, papa! I am so glad you have
come;" and then she burst out crying, stroking his face almost
hysterically as if to make sure he was there.

"Why, what a noodle you are, Molly! Did you think I was going to give
up my little girl to live at the Towers all the rest of her life? You
make as much work about my coming for you, as if you thought I had.
Make haste, now, and get on your bonnet. Mrs. Brown, may I ask you
for a shawl, or a plaid, or a wrap of some kind to pin about her for
a petticoat?"

He did not mention that he had come home from a long round not half
an hour before, a round from which he had returned dinnerless and
hungry; but, on finding that Molly had not come back from the Towers,
he had ridden his tired horse round by Miss Brownings', and found
them in self-reproachful, helpless dismay. He would not wait to
listen to their tearful apologies; he galloped home, had a fresh
horse and Molly's pony saddled, and though Betty called after him
with a riding-skirt for the child, when he was not ten yards from his
own stable-door, he refused to turn back for it, but went off, as
Dick the stableman said, "muttering to himself awful."

Mrs. Brown had her bottle of wine out, and her plate of cake, before
Molly came back from her long expedition to Mrs. Kirkpatrick's room,
"pretty nigh on to a quarter of a mile off," as the housekeeper
informed the impatient father, as he waited for his child to come
down arrayed in her morning's finery with the gloss of newness worn
off. Mr. Gibson was a favourite in all the Towers' household, as
family doctors generally are; bringing hopes of relief at times
of anxiety and distress; and Mrs. Brown, who was subject to gout,
especially delighted in petting him whenever he would allow her. She
even went out into the stable-yard to pin Molly up in the shawl, as
she sate upon the rough-coated pony, and hazarded the somewhat safe
conjecture,--

"I daresay she'll be happier at home, Mr. Gibson," as they rode away.

Once out into the park Molly struck her pony, and urged him on as
hard as he would go. Mr. Gibson called out at last:

"Molly! we're coming to the rabbit-holes; it's not safe to go at such
a pace. Stop." And as she drew rein he rode up alongside of her.

"We're getting into the shadow of the trees, and it's not safe riding
fast here."

"Oh! papa, I never was so glad in all my life. I felt like a lighted
candle when they're putting the extinguisher on it."

"Did you? How d'ye know what the candle feels?"

"Oh, I don't know, but I did." And again, after a pause she
said,--"Oh, I am so glad to be here! It is so pleasant riding here in
the open, free, fresh air, crushing out such a good smell from the
dewy grass. Papa! are you there? I can't see you."

He rode close up alongside of her: he was not sure but what she might
be afraid of riding in the dark shadows, so he laid his hand upon
hers.

"Oh! I am so glad to feel you," squeezing his hand hard. "Papa, I
should like to get a chain like Ponto's, just as long as your longest
round, and then I could fasten us two to each end of it, and when I
wanted you I could pull, and if you didn't want to come, you could
pull back again; but I should know you knew I wanted you, and we
could never lose each other."

"I'm rather lost in that plan of yours; the details, as you state
them, are a little puzzling; but if I make them out rightly, I am to
go about the country, like the donkeys on the common, with a clog
fastened to my hind leg."

"I don't mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened
together."

"But I do mind you calling me a donkey," he replied.

"I never did. At least I didn't mean to. But it is such a comfort to
know that I may be as rude as I like."

"Is that what you've learnt from the grand company you've been
keeping to-day? I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious,
that I read a few chapters of Sir Charles Grandison, in order to
bring myself up to concert pitch."

"Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady."

"Well, to comfort you, I'll tell you this: I'm sure you'll never be a
lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your ever
being the other, in the sense in which you mean."

"I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else
get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could
go out walking."

"But you'd have your lady's-maid, you know."

"Do you know, papa, I think lady's-maids are worse than ladies. I
should not mind being a housekeeper so much."

"No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to
one's hand," replied her father, meditatively. "But Mrs. Brown tells
me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping;
there's that anxiety to be taken into consideration. Still, in every
condition of life, there are heavy cares and responsibilities."

"Well! I suppose so," said Molly, gravely. "I know Betty says I wear
her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting in
the cherry-tree."

"And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache with
thinking how they had left you behind. I'm afraid you'll be as bad as
a bill of fare to them to-night. How did it all happen, goosey?"

"Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and
I lost myself, and sat down to rest under a great tree; and Lady
Cuxhaven and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick brought
me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed,--and I thought
she would waken me in time, and she didn't; and so they'd all gone
away; and when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn't
like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home,--but I kept
thinking how you would wonder where I was."

"Then it was rather a dismal day of pleasure, goosey, eh?"

"Not in the morning. I shall never forget the morning in that garden.
But I was never so unhappy in all my life, as I have been all this
long afternoon."

Mr. Gibson thought it his duty to ride round by the Towers, and pay
a visit of apology and thanks to the family, before they left for
London. He found them all on the wing, and no one was sufficiently
at liberty to listen to his grateful civilities but Mrs. Kirkpatrick,
who, although she was to accompany Lady Cuxhaven, and pay a visit
to her former pupil, made leisure enough to receive Mr. Gibson, on
behalf of the family; and assured him of her faithful remembrance of
his great professional attention to her in former days in the most
winning manner.




CHAPTER III.
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