Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"Ah!" said Cynthia, sighing. "How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly! I was only a young girl, hardly more than a child, and he was a friend to us then—excepting mamma, the only friend I knew; the Donaldsons were only kind and good-natured acquaintances."

"I am sorry," said Molly, humbly, "I have been so happy with papa. I hardly can understand how different it must have been with you."

"Different! I should think so. The worry about money made me sick of my life. We might not say we were poor, it would have injured the school; but I would have stinted and starved if mamma and I had got on as happily together as we might have done—as you and Mr. Gibson do. It was not the poverty; it was that she never seemed to care to have me with her. As soon as the holidays came round she was off to some great house or another; and I daresay I was at a very awkward age to have me lounging about in the drawing-room when callers came. Girls at the age I was then are so terribly keen at scenting out motives, and putting in their disagreeable questions as to the little twistings and twirlings and vanishings of conversation; they've no distinct notion of what are the truths and falsehoods of polite life. At any rate, I was very much in mamma's way, and I felt it. Mr. Preston seemed to feel it too for me; and I was very grateful to him for kind words and sympathetic looks—crumbs of kindness which would have dropped under your table unnoticed. So this day, when he came to see how the workmen were getting on, he found me in the deserted schoolroom, looking at my faded summer bonnet and some old ribbons I had been sponging, and half-worn-out gloves—a sort of rag-fair spread out on the deal table. I was in a regular passion with only looking at that shabbiness. He said he was so glad to hear I was going to this festival with the Donaldsons; old Betty, our servant, had told him the news, I believe. But I was so perplexed about money, and my vanity was so put out about my shabby dress, that I was in a pet, and said I shouldn't go. He sate down on the table, and little by little he made me tell him all my troubles. I do sometimes think he was very nice in those days. Somehow I never felt as if it was wrong or foolish or anything to accept his offer of money at the time. He had twenty pounds in his pocket, he said, and really didn't know what to do with it,—shouldn't want it for months; I could repay it, or rather mamma could, when it suited her. She must have known I should want money, and most likely thought I should apply to him. Twenty pounds wouldn't be too much, I must take it all, and so on. I knew—at least I thought I knew—that I should never spend twenty pounds; but I thought I could give him back what I didn't want, and so—well, that was the beginning! It doesn't sound so very wrong, does it, Molly?"

"No," said Molly, hesitatingly. She did not wish to make herself into a hard judge, and yet she did so dislike Mr. Preston. Cynthia went on,—

"Well, what with boots and gloves, and a bonnet and a mantle, and a white muslin gown, which was made for me before I left on Tuesday, and a silk gown that followed to the Donaldsons', and my journeys, and all, there was very little left of the twenty pounds, especially when I found I must get a ball-dress in Worcester, for we were all to go to the Ball. Mrs. Donaldson gave me my ticket, but she rather looked grave at my idea of going to the Ball in my white muslin, which I had already worn two evenings at their house. Oh dear! how pleasant it must be to be rich! You know," continued Cynthia, smiling a very little, "I can't help being aware that I'm pretty, and that people admire me very much. I found it out first at the Donaldsons'. I began to think I did look pretty in my fine new clothes, and I saw that other people thought so too. I was certainly the belle of the house, and it was very pleasant to feel my power. The last day or two of that gay week Mr. Preston joined our party. The last time he had seen me was when I was dressed in shabby clothes too small for me, half-crying in my solitude, neglected and penniless. At the Donaldsons' I was a little queen; and as I said, fine feathers make fine birds, and all the people were making much of me; and at that Ball, which was the first night he came, I had more partners than I knew what to do with. I suppose he really did fall in love with me then. I don't think he had done so before. And then I began to feel how awkward it was to be in his debt. I couldn't give myself airs to him as I did to others. Oh! it was so awkward and uncomfortable! But I liked him, and felt him as a friend all the time. The last day I was walking in the garden along with the others, and I thought I would tell him how much I had enjoyed myself, and how happy I had been, all thanks to his twenty pounds (I was beginning to feel like Cinderella when the clock was striking twelve), and to tell him it should be repaid to him as soon as possible, though I turned sick at the thought of telling mamma, and knew enough of our affairs to understand how very difficult it would be to muster up the money. The end of our talk came very soon; for, almost to my terror, he began to talk violent love to me, and to beg me to promise to marry him. I was so frightened, that I ran away to the others. But that night I got a letter from him, apologizing for startling me, renewing his offer, his entreaties for a promise of marriage, to be fulfilled at any date I would please to name—in fact, a most urgent love-letter, and in it a reference to my unlucky debt, which was to be a debt no longer, only an advance of the money to be hereafter mine if only— You can fancy it all, Molly, better than I can remember it to tell it you."

"And what did you say?" asked Molly, breathless.

"I did not answer it at all until another letter came, entreating for a reply. By that time mamma had come home, and the old daily pressure and plaint of poverty had come on. Mary Donaldson wrote to me often, singing the praises of Mr. Preston as enthusiastically as if she had been bribed to do it. I had seen him a very popular man in their set, and I liked him well enough, and felt grateful to him. So I wrote and gave him my promise to marry him when I was twenty, but it was to be a secret till then. And I tried to forget I had ever borrowed money of him, but somehow as soon as I felt pledged to him I began to hate him. I couldn't endure his eagerness of greeting if ever he found me alone; and mamma began to suspect, I think. I cannot tell you all the ins and outs; in fact, I didn't understand them at the time, and I don't remember clearly how it all happened now. But I know that Lady Cuxhaven sent mamma some money to be applied to my education, as she called it; and mamma seemed very much put out and in very low spirits, and she and I didn't get on at all together. So, of course, I never ventured to name the hateful twenty pounds to her, but went on trying to think that if I was to marry Mr. Preston, it need never be paid—very mean and wicked, I daresay; but oh, Molly, I've been punished for it, for how I abhor that man."

"But why? When did you begin to dislike him? You seem to have taken it very passively all this time."

"I don't know. It was growing upon me before I went to that school at Boulogne. He made me feel as if I was in his power; and by too often reminding me of my engagement to him, he made me critical of his words and ways. There was an insolence in his manner to mamma, too. Ah! you're thinking that I'm not too respectful a daughter—and perhaps not; but I couldn't bear his covert sneers at her faults, and I hated his way of showing what he called his 'love' for me. Then, after I had been a semestre at Mdme. Lefevre's, a new English girl came—a cousin of his, who knew but little of me. Now, Molly, you must forget as soon as I've told you what I'm going to say; and she used to talk so much and perpetually about her cousin Robert—he was the great man of the family, evidently—and how he was so handsome, and every lady of the land in love with him,—a lady of title into the bargain."

"Lady Harriet! I daresay," said Molly, indignantly.