Mrs. Gibson

“ Gibson was announced. It is odd enough to see how the entrance of a person of the opposite sex into an assemblage of either men or women calms down the little discordances and the disturbance of mood. It was the case now; at Mr. Gibson's entrance my lady took off her glasses, and smoothed her brow; Mrs. Kirkpatrick managed to get up a very becoming blush, and as for Molly, her face glowed with delight, and the white teeth and pretty dimples came out like sunlight on a landscape. ”

“ Gibson, plaintively. 'I shan't like to take you two girls, if you are not to have any partners. It will put me in such an awkward position. I wish we could join on to the Towers party. That would secure you partners, for they always bring a number of dancing men, who might dance with you after they had done their duty by the ladies of the house. But really everything is so changed since dear Lady Cumnor has been an invalid that perhaps they won't go at all.'
This Easter ball was a great subject of conversation with Mrs Gibson. ”

“ While Cynthia ate her lunch, Mrs. Gibson went on questioning. 'And your aunt, how is her cold? And Helen, quite strong again? Margaretta as pretty as ever? The boys are at Harrow, I suppose? And my old favourite, Mr. Henderson?' She could not manage to slip in this last inquiry naturally; in spite of herself there was a change of tone, an accent of eagerness. Cynthia did not reply on the instant; she poured herself out some water with great deliberation, and then said,—
'My aunt is quite well; Helen is as strong as she ever is, and Margaretta very pretty. ”

“ Gibson with a puzzled air, quickly recalling her abstracted thoughts.
“Yes. Nobody ever thought anybody in Sabbath Valley would ever be tried for murder!”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Gibson sharply, drawing back her chair as if she were in a hurry and rolling up her napkin quickly.
“Yes, poor Mark Carter! I remember his sweet little face and his long yellow curls and his baby smile as if it were yesterday!” narrowing her eyes and harrowing her voice, “I wonder if his poor mother knows yet.” ”

“ Carrie noticed the same thing, and spoke her mind on the subject with the freedom of engaged youth.
“Mrs. Gibson’s a horrid woman, Rol, and it’s my opinion she wants you to marry Miss Gibson.”
“Caroline,” I replied, “I applaud your concern, yet cannot blame Mrs. Gibson. She can see virtue where others see but corpulence. Besides, I consider Miss Gibson rather pretty.” ”

“ But, please, don't look so severely at me, even if I am a dunce!'
'I did not know—I did not mean to look severely, I am sure,' replied he, not knowing well what to say.
'Cynthia is not a dunce either,' said Mrs. Gibson, afraid lest her daughter's opinion of herself might be taken seriously. 'But I have always observed that some people have a talent for one thing and some for another. Now Cynthia's talents are not for science and the severer studies. ”

“ In their winter evenings they had often talked over Mr. Gibson's household, and having little besides conjecture to go upon, they found the subject interminable, as they could vary the possibilities every day. One of their wonders was how Mr. and Mrs. Gibson really got on together; another was whether Mrs. Gibson was extravagant or not. Now two letters during the week of her absence showed what was in those days considered a very proper amount of conjugal affection. Yet not too much—at elevenpence-halfpenny postage. ”

“ Gibson. 'Quite a young party—wasn't it?'
'They'd only asked Lizzie and Fanny Osborne, and their brother; but Mr. Roger Hamley had ridden over and called on the Miss Brownings, and they had kept him to tea. No one else.'
'Roger Hamley there!' said Mr. Gibson. 'He's come home then. I must make time to ride over and see him.'
'You'd much better ask him here,' said Mrs. Gibson. 'Suppose you invite him and his brother to dine here on Friday, my dear? It would be a very pretty attention, I think.'
'My dear! these young Cambridge men have a very good taste in wine, and don't spare it. ”

“ Gibson.
"What is the matter?" said Mrs. Gibson. "Can nobody speak and answer a question?"
"Osborne Hamley is dead!" said Cynthia, gravely.
"Dead! Osborne! Poor fellow! I knew it would be so, though,—I was sure of it. But Mr. Gibson can do nothing if he's dead. Poor young man! I wonder where Roger is now? He ought to come home."
Jenny had been blamed for coming into the drawing-room instead of Maria, whose place it was, and so had lost the few wits she had. To Molly's hurried questions her replies had been entirely unsatisfactory. ”

“ Gibson, I wish it was Phœbe, or me either!" said Miss Browning, trembling more and more.
He sate down by her patiently, when he saw her agitation, and took her hand in a kind, friendly manner.
"Don't hurry yourself,—take your time. I daresay it's not so bad as you fancy; but we'll see about it. There's a great deal of help in the world, much as we abuse it."
"Mr. Gibson," said she, "it's your Molly I'm so grieved about. It's out now, and God help us both, and the poor child too, for I'm sure she's been led astray, and not gone wrong by her own free will!" ”

“ 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! ”

“ Gibson's habit, as it had been Mr. Hall's before him, to take two "pupils" as they were called in the genteel language of Hollingford, "apprentices" as they were in fact—being bound by indentures, and paying a handsome premium to learn their business. They lived in the house, and occupied an uncomfortable, ambiguous, or, as Miss Browning called it with some truth, "amphibious" position. They had their meals with Mr. Gibson and Molly, and were felt to be terribly in the way; Mr. Gibson not being a man who could make conversation, and hating the duty of talking under restraint. ”

“ Gibson.'
'Your mother will feel your both going away, won't she? But of course young men will always have to live away from home.'
'Yes,' he replied. 'Still she feels it a good deal; and I am not satisfied about her health either. You will go over and see her sometimes, will you? she is very fond of you.'
'If I may,' said Molly, unconsciously glancing at her stepmother. She had an uncomfortable instinct that, in spite of Mrs. Gibson's own perpetual flow of words, she could, and did, hear everything that fell from Molly's lips. ”

“ Gibson there, and fell into talk with him, until Lady Harriet once more came to stir him up to his duties. Before very long, however, he returned to Mr. Gibson's side, and began telling him of this paper of Roger Hamley's, of which Mr. Gibson had not yet heard. In the midst of their conversation, as they stood close by Mrs. Gibson, Lord Hollingford saw Molly in the distance, and interrupted himself to say, 'What a charming little lady that daughter of yours is! Most girls of her age are so difficult to talk to; but she is intelligent and full of interest in all sorts of sensible things ”

“ Gibson did not like this divided interest, and some of her old jealousy of Molly's intimacy at the Towers had returned.
'Now, Molly,' said Miss Browning, 'let us hear how you behaved among the great folks. You must not be set up with all their attention; remember that they pay it to you for your good father's sake.'
'Molly is, I think, quite aware,' put in Mrs. Gibson, in her most soft and languid tone, 'that she owes her privilege of visiting at such a house to Lady Cumnor's kind desire to set my mind quite at liberty at the time of Cynthia's marriage. ”

“ Gibson.
"The library," for by this name Mrs. Gibson chose to dignify what had formerly been called the book-closet—"why, it would hardly hold a sofa, besides the books and the writing-table; and there are draughts everywhere. No, my dear, we had better not ask her at all, her own home is comfortable at any rate!"
"Well, well!" said Mr. Gibson, seeing that he was to be worsted, and not caring enough about the matter to show fight. "Perhaps you're right. It's a case of luxury versus fresh air. Some people suffer more from want of the one than from want of the other. ”

“ Gibson. "The country at this time of the year is better than London, except when the place is surrounded by trees. Now our house is well drained, high up, gravel-soil, and I'll undertake to doctor her for nothing."
"It would be charming," said Mrs. Gibson, rapidly revolving in her mind the changes necessary in her household economy before receiving a young lady accustomed to such a household as Mr. Kirkpatrick's,—calculating the consequent inconveniences, and weighing them against the probable advantages, even while she spoke. "Should not you like it, Cynthia? and Molly too? ”

“ Gibson was struck with the improvement in her looks, and Mrs. Gibson impressed with her increased grace.
"Ah, Molly," said she, "it's really wonderful to see what a little good society will do for a girl. Even a week of association with such people as one meets with at the Towers is, as somebody said of a lady of rank whose name I have forgotten, 'a polite education in itself.' There is something quite different about you—a je ne sais quoi—that would tell me at once that you have been mingling with the aristocracy. With all her charms, it was what my darling Cynthia wanted ”

“ Gibson's shoulder, and soothe his wife's anxiety, by saying, 'Let us alone, little woman. We understand each other, don't we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better than he gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says a sharp thing, and pretends it's all civility and humility; but I can tell when he's giving me a pill.'
One of Mrs. ”

“ As for Gibson, if he has parents it is fifteen years since they made a sign. Each one of us robbed before we could speak, or think, or remember, of a mother's care and love; and, for compensation, Gibson cheated of love altogether, Susan beloved where she cannot love. Ruddington loving with no love to answer.
I thought of myself. If the Christian's God is one with the Upholder of all things, his was the lightning which struck the old Grange and slew my father and mother as they slept. Where are they to-day? Are they annihilated, body and soul--as dead as stones on the beach? ”

“ Cynthia, too, was extremely quiet; she was always much quieter with men than with women; it was part of the charm of her soft allurement that she was so passive. They were talking of France. Mrs. Gibson herself had passed two or three years of her girlhood there; and Cynthia's late return from Boulogne made it a very natural subject of conversation. But Molly was thrown out of it; and with her heart still unsatisfied as to the details of Roger's success, she had to stand up at last, and receive Osborne's good-by, scarcely longer or more intimate than his farewell to Cynthia. ”

“ I believe Mr. Gibson is very intimate with Mr. Hamley; do you think he could induce him to favour us with his company?'
And this from the proud Lady Cumnor; and the object of it Roger Hamley, whom she had all but turned out of her drawing-room two years ago for calling at an untimely hour; and whom Cynthia had turned out of her heart. Mrs. Gibson was surprised, and could only murmur out that she was sure Mr. Gibson would do all that her ladyship wished.
'Thank you. You know me well enough to be aware that I am not the person, nor is the Towers the house, to go about soliciting guests. ”

“ What do you say to it, Clare?"
"Oh, I could not go," said Molly; "I should only be a trouble to everybody."
"Nobody asked you for your opinion, little one. If we wise elders decide that you are to go, you must submit in silence."
Meanwhile Mrs. Gibson was rapidly balancing advantages and disadvantages. Amongst the latter, jealousy came in predominant. Amongst the former,—it would sound well; Maria could then accompany Cynthia and herself as "their maid;" Mr. Gibson would stay longer with her, and it was always desirable to have a man at her beck and call in such a place as London ”

“ Now, Gibson, don't go and be offended. I'm glad for the boys to have a pleasant house to go to, and I thank you and Mrs. Gibson for making it pleasant. Only keep off love; it can come to no good. That's all. I don't believe Osborne will ever earn a farthing to keep a wife during my life, and if I were to die to-morrow, she would have to bring some money to clear the estate. And if I do speak as I shouldn't have done formerly—a little sharp or so—why, it's because I've been worried by many a care no one knows anything of. ”

“ I perceived that Gibson, like many others of his class, conceives France as a territory about the size of the Isle of Wight, with Paris in the middle.
"But France is a very big country, Gibson," I said. "Far larger than England. Even if I did object to you, we shouldn't be likely to meet. You couldn't learn to be a chauffeur at Saint Véronique. It's the last place in the world. That's why I go there."
Gibson looked at me narrowly.
"I thank you, Ma'am," he said curtly and proudly. And he made room for me to pass.
In his own fashion, Gibson is as good and as likable as Susan. ”

“ Gibson, 'Roger is evidently putting everything to rights in his firm, quiet way.'
'"Things to rights." Why, what's wrong?' asked Mrs. Gibson quickly. 'The squire and the French daughter-in-law don't get on well together, I suppose? I am always so glad Cynthia acted with the promptitude she did; it would have been very awkward for her to have been mixed up with all these complications. Poor Roger! to find himself supplanted by a child when he comes home!'
'You were not in the room, my dear, when I was telling Molly of the reasons for Roger's return ”