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Updated: June 24, 2025
'Tell us at once who she is, there's a good man, said straightforward Miss Browning. 'Mrs. Kirkpatrick, said the bridegroom elect. 'What! the governess at the Towers, that the countess makes so much of? 'Yes; she is much valued by them and deservedly so. She keeps a school now at Ashcombe, and is accustomed to housekeeping.
"The vacation begins on the 11th, according to the usual custom of schools in Ashcombe; and I must then try and obtain some change of air and scene, in order to fit myself for the resumption of my duties on the 10th of August." You see, girls, she would be at liberty, if she has not made any other arrangement for spending her holidays. To-day is the 15th.
Kirkpatrick's former life had caused her to look upon as sins to be concealed: the dirty dog's-eared delightful novel from the Ashcombe circulating library, the leaves of which she turned over with a pair of scissors, the lounging-chair which she had for use at her own home, straight and upright as she sate now in Lady Cumnor's presence; the dainty morsel, savoury and small, to which she treated herself for her own solitary supper, all these and many other similarly pleasant things would have to be foregone if Molly came to be her pupil, parlour-boarder, or visitor, as Lady Cumnor was planning.
He came in with the same air of easy assurance with which he had received them at Ashcombe Manor-house. He looked remarkably handsome in his riding-dress, and with the open-air exercise he had just had. But Mrs. Gibson's smooth brows contracted a little at the sight of him, and her reception of him was much cooler than that which she usually gave to visitors.
She might as well go to Ashcombe, or anywhere else, now. Thinking more of others' happiness than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the keen desires, that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; or so it seemed.
But, you know, we are much farther from Ashcombe, at Hamley, than you are here, at Hollingford. 'Oh! but he is coming to take Mr. Sheepshanks' place, and then he will live here altogether, said Molly. 'Molly! who told you that? said Cynthia, in quite a different tone of voice to that in which she had been speaking hitherto. 'Papa, didn't you hear him?
Oh, that she had been in England when the surveyors of the railway between Ashcombe and Hamley had altered their line; she would have entreated, implored, compelled her trustees not to have sold that piece of ground for any sum of money whatever.
She saw no reason for ever going back to Ashcombe, except to wind up her affairs, and to pack up her clothes. She hoped that Mr. Gibson's ardour would be such that he would press on the marriage, and urge her never to resume her school drudgery, but to relinquish it now and for ever.
It would amuse the children, going over to Ashcombe for the wedding; and if it's bad weather during the holidays I'm always afraid of their finding it dull at the Towers. It's very different if it's a good frost, and they can go out skating and sledging in the park. But these last two years it has been so wet for them, poor dears!
Yes; it's a great thing in a household. It's what I've had to enforce with my young ladies at Ashcombe. No wonder poor dear Mr. Gibson has been displeased at his dinner not being ready, and he so hard-worked! 'Papa doesn't care what he has, if it's only ready. He would take bread-and-cheese, if cook would only send it in instead of dinner. 'Bread-and-cheese! Does Mr. Gibson eat cheese?
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