Robinson opened the door for Molly almost before the carriage had fairly drawn up at the Hall, and told her that the squire had been very anxious for her return, and had more than once sent him to an upstairs window, from which a glimpse of the hill-road between Hollingford and Hamley could be perceived, to know if the carriage was not yet in sight. Molly went into the drawing-room. The squire was standing in the middle of the floor, awaiting her; in fact, longing to go out and meet her, but restrained by a feeling of solemn etiquette, which prevented his moving about as usual in that house of mourning. He held a paper in his hands, which were trembling with excitement and emotion; and four or five open letters were strewed on a table near him.
‘It’s all true,’ he began; ‘she’s his wife, and he’s her husband — was her husband — that’s the word for it — was! Poor lad! poor lad! it’s cost him a deal. Pray God, it was not my fault. Read this, my dear. It’s a certificate. It’s all regular — Osborne Hamley to Marie–Aimee Scherer — parish-church and all, and witnessed. Oh, dear!’ He sate down in the nearest chair and groaned. Molly took a seat by him, and read the legal paper, the perusal of which was not needed to convince her of the fact of the marriage. She held it in her hand after she had finished reading it, waiting for the squire’s next coherent words; for he kept talking to himself in broken sentences. ‘Ay, ay! that comes o’ temper, and crabbedness. She was the only one as could — and I’ve been worse since she was gone. Worse! worse! and see what it has come to. He was afraid of me — ay — afraid. That’s the truth of it — afraid. And it made him keep all to himself, and care killed him. They may call it heart-disease — O my lad, my lad, I know better now; but it’s too late — that’s the sting of it — too late, too late!’ He covered his face, and moved himself backwards and forwards till Molly could bear it no longer.
‘There are some letters,’ said she: ‘may I read any of them?’ At another time she would not have asked; but she was driven to it now by her impatience of the speechless grief of the old man.
‘Ay, read ’em, read ’em,’ said he. ‘Maybe you can. I can only pick out a word here and there. I put ’em there for you to look at; and tell me what is in ’em.’
Molly’s knowledge of written French of the present day was not so great as her knowledge of the French of the Memoires de Sully, and neither the spelling nor the writing of the letters was of the best; but she managed to translate into good enough colloquial English some innocent sentences of love, and submission to Osborne’s will — as if his judgment was infallible — and faith in his purposes; — little sentences in ‘little language’ that went home to the squire’s heart. Perhaps if Molly had read French more easily she might not have translated them into such touching, homely, broken words. Here and there, there were expressions in English; these the hungry-hearted squire had read while waiting for Molly’s return. Every time she stopped, he said, ‘Go on.’ He kept his face shaded, and only repeated those two words at every pause. She got up to find some more of Aimee’s letters. In examining the papers, she came upon one in particular. ‘Have you seen this, sir? This certificate of baptism’ (reading aloud) ‘of Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley, born June 21, 183-, child of Osborne Hamley and Marie–Aimee his wife —’
‘Give it me,’ said the squire, his voice breaking now, and stretching forth his eager hand. ‘“Roger,” that’s me, “Stephen,” that’s my poor old father: he died when he was not so old as I am; but I’ve always thought on him as very old. He was main and fond of Osborne, when he was quite a little one. It’s good of the lad to have thought on my father Stephen. Ay! that was his name. And Osborne — Osborne Hamley! One Osborne Hamley lies dead on his bed — and t’other — t’other I have never seen, and never heard on till today. He must be called Osborne: Molly. There is a Roger — there’s two for that matter; but one is a good-for-nothing old man; and there’s never an Osborne any more, unless this little thing is called Osborne: we’ll take him here, and get a nurse for him; and make his mother comfortable for life in her own country. I’ll keep this, Molly. You’re a good lass for finding it. Osborne Hamley! And if God will give me grace, he shall never hear a cross word from me — never. He shan’t be afeard of me. Oh, my Osborne, my Osborne’ (he burst out), ‘do you know now how bitter and sore is my heart for every hard word as I ever spoke to you? Do you know now how I loved you — my boy — my boy?’
From the general tone of the letters Molly doubted if the mother would consent, so easily as the squire seemed to expect, to be parted from her child; the letters were not very wise, perhaps (though of this Molly never thought), but a heart full of love spoke tender words in every line. Still, it was not for Molly to talk of this doubt of hers just then; rather to dwell on the probable graces and charms of the little Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley. She let the squire exhaust himself in wondering as to the particulars of every event, helping him out in conjectures; and both of them, from their imperfect knowledge of possibilities, made the most curious, fantastic, and improbable guesses at the truth. And so that day passed over, and the night came.
There were not many people who had any right to be invited to the funeral, and of these Mr. Gibson and the squire’s hereditary man of business had taken charge. But when Mr. Gibson came, early on the following morning, Molly referred the question to him, which had suggested itself to her mind, though apparently not to the squire’s. What intimation of her loss should be sent to the widow, living solitary near Winchester, watching and waiting, if not for his coming who lay dead in his distant home, at least for his letters? A letter had already come in her foreign handwriting to the post-office to which all her communications were usually sent, but of course they at the Hall knew nothing of this.
‘She must be told!’ said Mr. Gibson, musing.
‘Yes, she must,’ replied her daughter. ‘But how?’
‘A day or two of waiting will do no harm,’ said he, almost as if he was anxious to delay the solution of the problem. ‘It will make her anxious, poor thing, and all sorts of gloomy possibilities will suggest themselves to her mind — amongst them the truth; it will be a kind of preparation.’
‘For what? Something must be done at last,’ said Molly.
‘Yes; true. Suppose you write, and say he is very ill; write tomorrow. I daresay they have indulged themselves in daily postage, and then she’ll have had three days’ silence. You say how you come to know all how and about it; I think she ought to know he is very ill — in great danger, if you like: and you can follow it up next day with the full truth. I would not worry the squire about it. After the funeral we will have a talk about the child.’
‘She will never part with it,’ said Molly.
‘Whew! Till I see the woman I can’t tell,’ said her father; ‘some women would. It will be well provided for, according to what you say. And she is a foreigner, and may very likely wish to go back to her own people and kindred. There’s much to be said on both sides.’
‘So you always say, papa. But in this case I think you’ll find I’m right. I judge from her letters; but I think I’m right.’
‘So you always say, daughter. Time will show. So the child is a boy? Mrs. Gibson told me particularly to ask. It will go far to reconciling her to Cynthia’s dismissal of Roger. But indeed it is quite as well for both of them, though of course he will be a long time before he thinks so. They were not suited to each other. Poor Roger! It was hard work writing to him yesterday; and who knows what may have become of him! Well, well! one has to get through the world somehow. I’m glad, however, this little lad has turned up to be the heir. I should not have liked the property to go to the Irish Hamleys, who are the next heirs, as Osborne once told me. Now write that letter, Molly, to the poor little Frenchwoman out yonder. It will prepare her for it; and we must think a bit how to spare her the shock, for Osborne’s sake.’
The writing this letter was rather difficult work for Molly, and she tore up two or three copies before she could manage it to her satisfaction; and at last, in despair of ever doing it better, she sent it off without re-reading it. The next day was easier; the fact of Osborne’s death was told briefly and tenderly. But when this second letter was sent off, Molly’s heart began to bleed for the poor creature, bereft of her husband, in a foreign land, and he at a distance from her, dead and buried without her ever having had the chance of printing his dear features on her memory by one last long lingering look. With her thoughts full of the unknown Aimee, Molly talked much about her that day to the squire. He would listen for ever to any conjecture, however wild, about the grandchild, but perpetually winced away from all discourse about ‘the Frenchwoman,’ as he called her; not unkindly, but to his mind she was simply the Frenchwoman — chattering, dark-eyed, demonstrative, and possibly even rouged. He would treat her with respect as his son’s widow, and would try even not to think upon the female inveiglement in which he believed. He would make her an allowance to the extent of his duty; but he hoped and trusted he might never be called upon to see her. His solicitor, Gibson, anybody and everybody, should be called upon to form a phalanx of defence against that danger.
And all this time a little, young, grey-eyed woman was making her way; not towards him, but towards the dead son, whom as yet she believed to be her living husband. She knew she was acting in defiance of his expressed wish; but he had never dismayed her with any expression of his own fears about his health; and she, bright with life, had never contemplated death coming to fetch away one so beloved. He was ill — very ill, the letter from the strange girl said that; but Aimee had nursed her parents, and knew what illness was. The French doctor had praised her skill and neat-handedness as a nurse, and even if she had been the clumsiest of women, was he not her husband — her all? And was she not his wife, whose place was by his pillow? So without even as much reasoning as has been here given, Aimee made her preparations, swallowing down the tears that would overflow her eyes, and drop into the little trunk she was packing so neatly. And by her side, on the ground, sate the child, now nearly two years old; and for him Aimee had always a smile and a cheerful word. Her servant loved her and trusted her; and the woman was of an age to have had experience of humankind. Aimee had told her that her husband was ill, and the servant had known enough of the household history to know that as yet Aimee was not his acknowledged wife. But she sympathized with the prompt decision of her mistress to go to him directly, wherever he was, Caution comes from education of one kind or another, and Aimee was not dismayed by warnings; only the woman pleaded hard for the child to be left. ‘He was such company,’ she said; ‘and he would so tire his mother in her journeying; and maybe his father would be too ill to see him.’ To which Aimee replied, ‘Good company for you, but better for me. A woman is never tired with carrying her own child’ (which was not true; but there was sufficient truth in it to make it be believed by both mistress and servant), ‘and if Monsieur could care for anything, he would rejoice to hear the babble of his little son.’ So Aimee caught the evening coach to London at the nearest cross-road, Martha standing by as chaperon and friend to see her off, and handing her in the large lusty child, already crowing with delight at the sight of the horses. There was a ‘lingerie’ shop, kept by a Frenchwoman, whose acquaintance Aimee had made in the days when she was a London nursemaid, and th............