Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"And you'll never say any more—never—promise me," said Cynthia, taking her hand eagerly.

"Never till you give me leave. Now do let me see if I cannot help you. Lie down on the bed, and I'll sit by you, and let us talk it over."

But Cynthia sat down again in the chair by the dressing-table.

"When did it all begin?" said Molly, after a long pause of silence.

"Long ago—four or five years. I was such a child to be left all to myself. It was the holidays, and mamma was away visiting, and the Donaldsons asked me to go with them to the Worcester Festival. You can't fancy how pleasant it all sounded, especially to me. I had been shut up in that great dreary house at Ashcombe, where mamma had her school; it belonged to Lord Cumnor, and Mr. Preston as his agent had to see it all painted and papered; but, besides that, he was very intimate with us; I believe mamma thought—no, I'm not sure about that, and I have enough blame to lay at her door, to prevent my telling you anything that may be only fancy—"

Then she paused and sate still for a minute or two, recalling the past. Molly was struck by the aged and careworn expression which had taken temporary hold of the brilliant and beautiful face; she could see from that how much Cynthia must have suffered from this hidden trouble of hers.

"Well! at any rate we were intimate with him, and he came a great deal about the house, and knew as much as any one of mamma's affairs, and all the ins and outs of her life. I'm telling you this in order that you may understand how natural it was for me to answer his questions when he came one day and found me, not crying, for you know I'm not much given to that, in spite of to-day's exposure of myself; but fretting and fuming because, though mamma had written word I might go with the Donaldsons, she had never said how I was to get any money for the journey, much less for anything of dress, and I had outgrown all my last year's frocks, and as for gloves and boots—in short, I really had hardly clothes decent enough for church—"

"Why didn't you write to her and tell her all this?" said Molly, half afraid of appearing to cast blame by her very natural question.

"I wish I had her letter to show you; you must have seen some of mamma's letters, though; don't you know how she always seems to leave out just the important point of every fact? In this case she descanted largely on the enjoyment she was having, and the kindness she was receiving, and her wish that I could have been with her, and her gladness that I too was going to have some pleasure; but the only thing that would have been of real use to me she left out, and that was where she was going to next. She mentioned that she was leaving the house she was stopping at the day after she wrote, and that she should be at home by a certain date; but I got the letter on a Saturday, and the festival began the next Tuesday—"

"Poor Cynthia!" said Molly. "Still, if you had written, your letter might have been forwarded. I don't mean to be hard, only I do so dislike the thought of your ever having made a friend of that man."