Mr. Gibson had told his wife of Roger's desire to have a personal
interview with Cynthia, rather with a view to her repeating what he
said to her daughter. He did not see any exact necessity for this, it
is true; but he thought it might be advisable that she should know
all the truth in which she was concerned, and he told his wife this.
But she took the affair into her own management, and, although she
apparently agreed with Mr. Gibson, she never named the affair to
Cynthia; all that she said to her was--
"Your old admirer, Roger Hamley, has come home in a great hurry,
in consequence of poor dear Osborne's unexpected decease. He must
have been rather surprised to find the widow and her little boy
established at the Hall. He came to call here the other day, and
made himself really rather agreeable, although his manners are not
improved by the society he has kept on his travels. Still I prophesy
he will be considered as a fashionable 'lion,' and perhaps the very
uncouthness which jars against my sense of refinement, may even
become admired in a scientific traveller, who has been into more
desert places, and eaten more extraordinary food, than any other
Englishman of the day. I suppose he has given up all chance of
inheriting the estate, for I hear he talks of returning to Africa,
and becoming a regular wanderer. Your name was not mentioned, but I
believe he inquired about you from Mr. Gibson."
"There!" said she to herself, as she folded up and directed her
letter; "that can't disturb her, or make her uncomfortable. And it's
all the truth too, or very near it. Of course he'll want to see her
when she comes back; but by that time I do hope Mr. Henderson will
have proposed again, and that that affair will be all settled."
But Cynthia returned to Hollingford one Tuesday morning, and in
answer to her mother's anxious inquiries on the subject, would only
say that Mr. Henderson had not offered again. "Why should he? She had
refused him once, and he did not know the reason of her refusal, at
least one of the reasons. She did not know if she should have taken
him if there had been no such person as Roger Hamley in the world.
No! Uncle and aunt Kirkpatrick had never heard anything about Roger's
offer,--nor had her cousins. She had always declared her wish to
keep it a secret, and she had not mentioned it to any one, whatever
other people might have done." Underneath this light and careless
vein there were other feelings; but Mrs. Gibson was not one to
probe beneath the surface. She had set her heart on Mr. Henderson's
marrying Cynthia very early in their acquaintance; and to know,
firstly, that the same wish had entered into his head, and that
Roger's attachment to Cynthia, with its consequences, had been
the obstacle; and secondly, that Cynthia herself with all the
opportunities of propinquity which she had lately had, had failed to
provoke a repetition of the offer,--was, as Mrs. Gibson said, "enough
to provoke a saint." All the rest of the day she alluded to Cynthia
as a disappointing and ungrateful daughter; Molly could not make out
why, and resented it for Cynthia, until the latter said, bitterly,
"Never mind, Molly. Mamma is only vexed because Mr.--because I have
not come back an engaged young lady."