CALF-LOVE.
One day, for some or other, Mr. Gibson came home unexpectedly. He was the hall, having come in by the garden-door—the garden with the stable-yard, where he had left his horse—when the door opened, and the girl who was in the establishment, came into the with a note in her hand, and as if she was taking it upstairs; but on her master she gave a little start, and as if to herself in the kitchen. If she had not this movement, so of guilt, Mr. Gibson, who was anything but suspicious, would have taken any notice of her. As it was, he forwards, opened the door, and called out "Bethia" so that she not forwards.
"Give me that note," he said. She a little.
"It's for Miss Molly," she out.
"Give it to me!" he more than before. She looked as if she would cry; but still she the note tight her back.
"He said as I was to give it into her own hands; and I promised as I would, faithful."
"Cook, go and Miss Molly. Tell her to come here at once."
He Bethia with his eyes. It was of no use trying to escape: she might have it into the fire, but she had not presence of mind enough. She immovable, only her looked any way than her master's gaze. "Molly, my dear!"
"Papa! I did not know you were at home," said innocent, Molly.
"Bethia, keep your word. Here is Miss Molly; give her the note."
"Indeed, miss, I couldn't help it!"
Molly took the note, but she open it, her father said,—"That's all, my dear; you needn't read it. Give it to me. Tell those who sent you, Bethia, that all for Miss Molly must pass through my hands. Now be off with you, goosey, and go to where you came from."
A Love Letter.
A Love Letter.
Click to ENLARGE
"Papa, I shall make you tell me who my is."
"We'll see about that, by-and-by."
She a little reluctantly, with curiosity, to Miss Eyre, who was still her daily companion, if not her governess. He into the empty dining-room, the door, the seal of the note, and to read it. It was a love-letter from Mr. Coxe; who himself unable to go on her day after day without speaking to her of the she had inspired—an "eternal passion," he called it; on reading which Mr. Gibson laughed a little. Would she not look at him? would she not think of him only was of her? and so on, with a very proper of to her beauty. She was fair, not pale; her were loadstars, her marks of Cupid's finger, &c.
Mr. Gibson reading it; and to think about it in his own mind. "Who would have the had been so poetical? but, to be sure, there's a 'Shakspeare' in the library: I'll take it away and put 'Johnson's Dictionary' instead. One is the of her perfect innocence—ignorance, I should say—for it's easy to see it's the 'confession of his love,' as he calls it. But it's an worry—to with lovers so early. Why, she's only just seventeen,—not seventeen, indeed, till July; not for six yet. Sixteen and three-quarters! Why, she's a baby. To be sure—poor Jeanie was not so old, and how I did love her!" (Mrs. Gibson's name was Mary, so he must have been to some one else.) Then his to other days, though he still the open note in his hand. By-and-by his upon it again, and his mind came to upon the present time. "I'll not be hard upon him. I'll give him a hint; he's to take it. Poor laddie! if I send him away, which would be the course, I do he's got no home to go to."
After a little more in the same strain, Mr. Gibson and sat at the writing-table and the formula:—
Master Coxe.
("That 'master' will touch him to the quick," said Mr. Gibson to himself as he the word.)
Recipe Verecundiæ ouncei.
Fidelitatis Domesticæ ouncei.
Reticentiæ gr. iij.
M. Capiat die in aquâ purâ.
R. Gibson, Ch.
Mr. Gibson a little sadly as he re-read his words. "Poor Jeanie," he said aloud. And then he out an envelope, the love-letter, and the above prescription; sealed it with his own sharply-cut seal-ring, R. G., in old English letters, and then paused over the address.
"He'll not like Master Coxe outside; no need to put him to shame." So the direction on the was—
Edward Coxe, Esq.
Then Mr. Gibson himself to the professional which had him home so and unexpectedly, and he through the garden to the stables; and just as he had his horse, he said to the stable-man,—"Oh! by the way, here's a for Mr. Coxe. Don't send it through the women; take it to the surgery-door, and do it at once."
The upon his face, as he out of the gates, died away as soon as he himself in the of the lanes. He his speed, and to think. It was very awkward, he considered, to have a girl up into in the same house with two men, if she only met them at meal-times; and all the they had with each other was the of such as, "May I help you to potatoes?" or, as Mr. Wynne would in saying, "May I you to potatoes?"—a of speech which daily more and more upon Mr. Gibson's ears. Yet Mr. Coxe, the in this which had just occurred, had to for three years more as a in Mr. Gibson's family. He should be the very last of the race. Still there were three years to be got over; and if this calf-love of his lasted, what was to be done? Sooner or later Molly would aware of it. The of the were so to contemplate, that Mr. Gibson to the from his mind by a good effort. He put his to a gallop, and that the over the lanes—paved as they were with stones, which had been by the wear and tear of a hundred years—was the very best thing for the spirits, if not for the bones. He a long that afternoon, and came to his home that the was over, and that Mr. Coxe would have taken the hint in the prescription. All that would be needed was to a safe place for the Bethia, who had such a for intrigue. But Mr. Gibson without his host. It was the of the men to come in to tea with the family in the dining-room, to two cups, their or toast, and then disappear. This night Mr. Gibson their from under his long eye-lashes, while he against his to keep up a dégagé manner, and a on subjects. He saw that Mr. Wynne was on the point of out into laughter, and that red-haired, red-faced Mr. Coxe was and than ever, while his whole and and anger.
"He will have it, will he?" Mr. Gibson to himself; and he up his for the battle. He did not Molly and Miss Eyre into the drawing-room as he did. He where he was, to read the newspaper, while Bethia, her up with crying, and with an and aspect, the tea-things. Not five minutes after the room was cleared, came the at the door. "May I speak to you, sir?" said the Mr. Coxe, from outside.
"To be sure. Come in, Mr. Coxe. I was wanting to talk to you about that bill of Corbyn's. Pray down."
"It is about nothing of that kind, sir, that I wanted—that I wished—No, thank you—I would not down." He, accordingly, in dignity. "It is about that letter, sir—that with the prescription, sir."
"Insulting prescription! I am at such a word being to any of mine—though, to be sure, are sometimes at being told the nature of their illnesses; and, I daresay, they may take at the which their cases require."
"I did not ask you to for me."
"Oh, ho! Then you were the Master Coxe who sent the note through Bethia! Let me tell you it has cost her her place, and was a very into the bargain."
"It was not the of a gentleman, sir, to it, and to open it, and to read to you, sir."
"No!" said Mr. Gibson, with a in his and a on his lips, not by the Mr. Coxe. "I I was once good-looking, and I I was as great a as any one at twenty; but I don't think that then I should have that all those were to myself."
"It was not the of a gentleman, sir," Mr. Coxe, over his words—he was going on to say something more, when Mr. Gibson in,—
"And let me tell you, man," Mr. Gibson, with a in his voice, "that what you have done is only in of your and of what are the laws of honour. I you into my house as a of my family—you one of my servants—corrupting her with a bribe, I have no doubt—"
"Indeed, sir! I gave her a penny."
"Then you ought to have done. You should always pay those who do your dirty work."
"Just now, sir, you called it with a bribe," Mr. Coxe.
Mr. Gibson took no notice of this speech, but on—"Inducing one of my to her place, without her the equivalent, by her to a to my daughter—a child."
"Miss Gibson, sir, is nearly seventeen! I you say so only the other day," said Mr. Coxe, twenty. Again Mr. Gibson the remark.
"A which you were to have by her father, who had to your honour, by you as an of his house. Your father's son—I know Major Coxe well—ought to have come to me, and have said out openly, 'Mr. Gibson, I love—or I that I love—your daughter; I do not think it right to this from you, although unable to earn a penny; and with no of an livelihood, for myself, for years, I shall not say a word about my feelings—or feelings—to the very lady herself.' That is what your father's son ought to have said; if, indeed, a of of wouldn't have been still."
"And if I had said it, sir—perhaps I ought to have said it," said Mr. Coxe, in a of anxiety, "what would have been your answer? Would you have my passion, sir?"
"I would have said, most probably—I will not be of my exact in a case—that you were a fool, but not a fool, and I should have told you not to let your upon a calf-love until you had it into a passion. And I daresay, to make up for the I should have you, I might have your joining the Hollingford Cricket Club, and set you at as often as I on the Saturday afternoons. As it is, I must to your father's agent in London, and ask him to remove you out of my household, the premium, of course, which will you to start in some other doctor's surgery."
"It will so my father," said Mr. Coxe, into dismay, if not repentance.
"I see no other open. It will give Major Coxe some trouble (I shall take that he is at no expense), but what I think will him the most is the of confidence; for I you, Edward, like a son of my own!" There was something in Mr. Gibson's voice when he spoke seriously, when he to any of his own—he who so what was in his heart—that was to most people: the from joking and to gravity.
Mr. Coxe his a little, and meditated.
"I do love Miss Gibson," said he, at length. "Who help it?"
"Mr. Wynne, I hope!" said Mr. Gibson.
"His is pre-engaged," Mr. Coxe. "Mine was free as air till I saw her."
"Would it to your—well! passion, we'll say—if she at meal-times? I you much on the of her eyes."
"You are my feelings, Mr. Gibson. Do you that you were once?"
"Poor Jeanie" rose Mr. Gibson's eyes; and he a little rebuked.
"Come, Mr. Coxe, let us see if we can't make a bargain," said he, after a minute or so of silence. "You have done a thing, and I you are of it in your heart, or that you will be when the of this is over, and you come to think a little about it. But I won't all respect for your father's son. If you will give me your word that, as long as you a of my family—pupil, apprentice, what you will—you won't again try to your passion—you see I am to take your view of what I should call a fancy—by word or writing, looks or acts, in any manner whatever, to my daughter, or to talk about your to any one else, you shall here. If you cannot give me your word, I must out the I named, and to your father's agent."
Mr. Coxe irresolute.
"Mr. Wynne all I for Miss Gibson, sir. He and I have no from each other."
"Well, I he must the reeds. You know the of King Midas's barber, who out that his master had the ears of an his curls. So the barber, in of a Mr. Wynne, to the that on the of a lake, and to them, 'King Midas has the ears of an ass.' But he it so often that the learnt the words, and on saying them all day long, till at last the was no at all. If you keep on telling your to Mr. Wynne, are you sure he won't repeat it in his turn?"
"If I my word as a gentleman, sir, I it for Mr. Wynne as well."
"I I must the risk. But how soon a girl's name may be upon, and sullied. Molly has no mother, and for that very she ought to move among you all, as as Una herself."
"Mr. Gibson, if you wish it, I'll it on the Bible," the man.
"Nonsense. As if your word, if it's anything, wasn't enough! We'll shake hands upon it, if you like."
Mr. Coxe came eagerly, and almost Mr. Gibson's ring into his finger.
As he was the room, he said, a little uneasily, "May I give Bethia a crown-piece?"
"No, indeed! Leave Bethia to me. I you won't say another word to her while she's here. I shall see that she a place when she goes away."
Then Mr. Gibson for his horse, and out on the last visits of the day. He used to that he the world around in the of the year. There were not many in the who had so wide a range of as he; he to on the borders of great commons; to farm-houses at the end of narrow country that to else, and were by the and overhead. He all the a circle of fifteen miles Hollingford; and was the doctor to the still families who up to London every February—as the fashion then was—and returned to their in the early of July. He was, of necessity, a great from home, and on this soft and he the as a great evil. He was at that his little one was fast into a woman, and already the object of some of the that affect a woman's life; and he—her mother as well as her father—so much away that he not her as he would have wished. The end of his was that to Hamley the next morning, when he to allow his to accept Mrs. Hamley's last invitation—an that had been at the time.
"You may against me the proverb, 'He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.' And I shall have no to complain," he had said.
But Mrs. Hamley was only too much with the of having a girl for a visitor; one it would not be a trouble to entertain; who might be sent out to in the gardens, or told to read when the was too much for conversation; and yet one and would a charm, like a of sweet air, into her shut-up life. Nothing be pleasanter, and so Molly's visit to Hamley was easily settled.
"I only wish Osborne and Roger had been at home," said Mrs. Hamley, in her low soft voice. "She may it dull, being with old people, like the and me, from till night. When can she come? the darling—I am to love her already!"
Mr. Gibson was very in his that the men of the house were out of the way; he did not want his little Molly to be from Scylla to Charybdis; and, as he at himself for thinking, he had got an idea that all men were in of his one ewe-lamb.
"She nothing of the in store for her," he replied; "and I'm sure I don't know what she may think necessary, or how long they may take. You'll she is a little ignoramus, and has had no … in etiquette; our at home are for a girl, I'm afraid. But I know I not send her into a than this."
When the Squire from his wife of Mr. Gibson's proposal, he was as much pleased as she at the of their visitor; for he was a man of a hospitality, when his did not with its gratification; and he was to think of his wife's having such an in her hours of loneliness. After a while he said,—"It's as well the are at Cambridge; we might have been having a love-affair if they had been at home."
"Well—and if we had?" asked his more wife.
"It wouldn't have done," said the Squire, decidedly. "Osborne will have had a first-rate education—as good as any man in the county—he'll have this property, and he's a Hamley of Hamley; not a family in the is as old as we are, or settled on their ground so well. Osborne may where he likes. If Lord Hollingford had a daughter, Osborne would have been as good a match as she have required. It would do for him to in love with Gibson's daughter—I shouldn't allow it. So it's as well he's out of the way."
"Well! Osborne had look higher."
"Perhaps! I say he must." The Squire his hand with a on the table, near him, which his wife's hard for some minutes. "And as for Roger," he continued, of the he had put her into, "he'll have to make his own way, and earn his own bread; and, I'm afraid, he's not on very at Cambridge. He mustn't think of in love for these ten years."
"Unless he marries a fortune," said Mrs. Hamley, more by way of her than anything else; for she was and to a fault.
"No son of mine shall a wife who is than himself with my good will," said the Squire again, with emphasis, but without a thump.
"I don't say but what if Roger is five hundred a year by the time he's thirty, he shall not choose a wife with ten thousand down; but I do say, if a boy of mine, with only two hundred a year—which is all Roger will have from us, and that not for a long time—goes and marries a woman with fifty thousand to her portion, I'll him—it would be just disgusting."
"Not if they loved each other, and their whole upon their marrying each other," put in Mrs. Hamley, mildly.
"Pooh! away with love! Nay, my dear, we loved each other so we should have been happy with any one else; but that's a different thing. People aren't like what they were when we were young. All the love is just fancy, and romance, as as I can see."
Mr. Gibson that he had settled about Molly's going to Hamley he spoke to her about it, which he did not do, until the of the day on which Mrs. Hamley her. Then he said,—"By the way, Molly! you're to go to Hamley this afternoon; Mrs. Hamley wants you to go to her for a week or two, and it me that you should accept her just now."
"Go to Hamley! This afternoon! Papa, you've got some odd at the of your head—some mystery, or something. Please, tell me what it is. Go to Hamley for a week or two! Why, I was from home this without you in all my life."
"Perhaps not. I don't think you walked you put your to the ground. Everything must have a beginning."
"It has something to do with that that was to me, but that you took out of my hands I see the of the direction." She her on her father's face, as if she meant to out his secret.
He only and said,—"You're a witch, goosey!"
"Then it had! But if it was a note from Mrs. Hamley, why might I not see it? I have been if you had some plan in your since that day.—Thursday, wasn't it? You've gone about in a of thoughtful, way, just like a conspirator. Tell me, papa"—coming up to him, and on a manner—"why mightn't I see that note? and why am I to go to Hamley all on a sudden?"
"Don't you like to go? Would you not?" If she had said that she did not want to go he would have been pleased than otherwise, although it would have put him into a great perplexity; but he was to the from her for so a time. However, she directly,—
"I don't know—I I shall like it when I have a little more about it. Just now I'm so by the of the affair, I haven't I shall like it or not. I shan't like going away from you, I know. Why am I to go, papa?"
"There are three old ladies somewhere, and about you just at this very minute; one has a in her hands, and is a thread; she has come to a in it, and is puzzled what to do with it. Her sister has a great pair of scissors in her hands, and wants—as she always does, when any in the of the thread—to cut it off short; but the third, who has the most of the three, plans how to the knot; and she it is who has that you are to go to Hamley. The others are by her arguments; so, as the Fates have that this visit is to be paid, there is nothing left for you and me but to submit."
"That's all nonsense, papa, and you're only making me more to out this reason."
Mr. Gibson his tone, and spoke now. "There is a reason, Molly, and one which I do not wish to give. When I tell you this much, I you to be an girl, and to try and not what the may be,—much less to put little together till very likely you may out what I want to conceal."
"Papa, I won't think about your again. But then I shall have to you with another question. I've had no new this year, and I've all my last frocks. I've only three that I can wear at all. Betty was saying only yesterday that I ought to have some more."
"That'll do that you have got on, won't it? It's a very colour."
"Yes; but, papa" (holding it out as if she was going to dance), "it's of woollen, and so and heavy; and every day it will be warmer."
"I wish girls dress like boys," said Mr. Gibson, with a little impatience. "How is a man to know when his wants clothes? and how is he to her out when he it out, just when she needs them most and hasn't got them?"
"Ah, that's the question!" said Molly, in some despair.
"Can't you go to Miss Rose's? Doesn't she keep ready-made for girls of your age?"
"Miss Rose! I had anything from her in my life," Molly, in some surprise; for Miss Rose was the great and of the little town, and Betty had the girl's frocks.
"Well, but it people you as a woman now, and so I you must up milliners' like the of your kind. Not that you're to anything that you can't pay for in money. Here's a ten-pound note; go to Miss Rose's, or Miss anybody's, and what you want at once. The Hamley is to come for you at two, and anything that isn't ready, can easily be sent by their on Saturday, when some of their people always come to market. Nay, don't thank me! I don't want to have the money spent, and I don't want you to go and me: I shall miss you, I know; it's only hard that me to send you a-visiting, and to away ten on your clothes. There, go away; you're a plague, and I to off you as fast as I can."
"Papa!" up her as in warning, "you're again; and though my is very strong, I won't promise that it shall not to my if you go on at secrets."
"Go away and your ten pounds. What did I give it you for but to keep you quiet?"
Miss Rose's ready-made and Molly's taste combined, did not arrive at a very great success. She a print, it would wash, and would be and for the mornings; and this Betty make at home Saturday. And for high-days and holidays—by which was afternoons and Sundays—Miss Rose her to order a gay-coloured silk, which she her was the latest fashion in London, and which Molly would her father's Scotch blood. But when he saw the which she had home as a pattern, he out that the to no in existence, and that Molly ought to have this by instinct. It was too late to it, however, for Miss Rose had promised to cut the dress out as soon as Molly left her shop.
Mr. Gibson had about the town all the of going away on his rides. He passed his once or twice in the street, but he did not over when he was on the opposite side—only gave her a look or a nod, and on his way, himself for his in so much pain at the of her for a or so.
"And, after all," he, "I'm only where I was when she comes back; at least, if that goes on with his fancy. She'll have to come some time, and if he to himself constant, there's still the to pay." Presently he to the air out of the "Beggar's Opera"—
I wonder any man alive
Should a daughter.
