Miss Marjoribanks
by Mrs. Oliphant · English · Gutenberg #41286 · 1,152,165 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Miss Marjoribanks
Author: Mrs. Oliphant
Release date: November 4, 2012 [eBook #41286]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS MARJORIBANKS ***
Chronicles of Carlingford
MISS MARJORIBANKS
_By_ MRS OLIPHANT
The Zodiac Press
LONDON
Contents
Chapter I 25
Chapter II 34
Chapter III 41
Chapter IV 45
Chapter V 55
Chapter VI 63
Chapter VII 72
Chapter VIII 80
Chapter IX 90
Chapter X 98
Chapter XI 110
Chapter XII 118
Chapter XIII 125
Chapter XIV 133
Chapter XV 141
Chapter XVI 149
Chapter XVII 157
Chapter XVIII 167
Chapter XIX 179
Chapter XX 188
Chapter XXI 199
Chapter XXII 204
Chapter XXIII 213
Chapter XXIV 229
Chapter XXV 240
Chapter XXVI 248
Chapter XXVII 258
Chapter XXVIII 267
Chapter XXIX 279
Chapter XXX 289
Chapter XXXI 296
Chapter XXXII 304
Chapter XXXIII 312
Chapter XXXIV 321
Chapter XXXV 333
Chapter XXXVI 338
Chapter XXXVII 341
Chapter XXXVIII 352
Chapter XXXIX 363
Chapter XL 377
Chapter XLI 387
Chapter XLII 394
Chapter XLIII 402
Chapter XLIV 409
Chapter XLV 420
Chapter XLVI 430
Chapter XLVII 439
Chapter XLVIII 449
Chapter XLIX 461
Chapter L 471
Chapter LI 481
Chapter the last 494
_Chapter I_
Miss Marjoribanks lost her mother when she was only fifteen, and when,
to add to the misfortune, she was absent at school, and could not have
it in her power to soothe her dear mamma's last moments, as she herself
said. Words are sometimes very poor exponents of such an event: but it
happens now and then, on the other hand, that a plain intimation
expresses too much, and suggests emotion and suffering which, in
reality, have but little, if any, existence. Mrs Marjoribanks, poor
lady, had been an invalid for many years; she had grown a little peevish
in her loneliness, not feeling herself of much account in this world.
There are some rare natures that are content to acquiesce in the general
neglect, and forget themselves when they find themselves forgotten; but
it is unfortunately much more usual to take the plan adopted by Mrs
Marjoribanks, who devoted all her powers, during the last ten years of
her life, to the solacement and care of that poor self which other
people neglected. The consequence was, that when she disappeared from
her sofa--except for the mere physical fact that she was no longer
there--no one, except her maid, whose occupation was gone, could have
found out much difference. Her husband, it is true, who had, somewhere,
hidden deep in some secret corner of his physical organisation, the
remains of a heart, experienced a certain sentiment of sadness when he
re-entered the house from which she had gone away for ever. But Dr
Marjoribanks was too busy a man to waste his feelings on a mere
sentiment. His daughter, however, was only fifteen, and had floods of
tears at her command, as was natural at that age. All the way home she
revolved the situation in her mind, which was considerably enlightened
by novels and popular philosophy--for the lady at the head of Miss
Marjoribanks school was a devoted admirer of _Friends in Council_, and
was fond of bestowing that work as a prize, with pencil-marks on the
margin--so that Lucilla's mind had been cultivated, and was brimful of
the best of sentiments. She made up her mind on her journey to a great
many virtuous resolutions; for, in such a case as hers, it was
evidently the duty of an only child to devote herself to her father's
comfort, and become the sunshine of his life, as so many young persons
of her age have been known to become in literature. Miss Marjoribanks
had a lively mind, and was capable of grasping all the circumstances of
the situation at a glance. Thus, between the outbreaks of her tears for
her mother, it became apparent to her that she must sacrifice her own
feelings, and make a cheerful home for papa, and that a great many
changes would be necessary in the household--changes which went so far
as even to extend to the furniture. Miss Marjoribanks sketched to
herself, as she lay back in the corner of the railway carriage, with her
veil down, how she would wind herself up to the duty of presiding at her
papa's dinner-parties, and charming everybody by her good humour, and
brightness, and devotion to his comfort; and how, when it was all over,
she would withdraw and cry her eyes out in her own room, and be found in
the morning languid and worn-out, but always heroical, ready to go
downstairs and assist at dear papa's breakfast, and keep up her smiles
for him till he had gone out to his patients. Altogether the picture was
a very pretty one; and, considering that a great many young ladies in
deep mourning put force upon their feelings in novels, and maintain a
smile for the benefit of the unobservant male creatures of whom they
have the charge, the idea was not at all extravagant, considering that
Miss Marjoribanks was but fifteen. She was not, however, exactly the
kind of figure for this _mise en scène_. When her schoolfellows talked
of her to their friends--for Lucilla was already an important personage
at Mount Pleasant--the most common description they gave her was, that
she was "a large girl"; and there was great truth in the adjective. She
was not to be described as a tall girl--which conveys an altogether
different idea--but she was large in all particulars, full and
well-developed, with somewhat large features, not at all pretty as yet,
though it was known in Mount Pleasant that somebody had said that such a
face might ripen into beauty, and become "grandiose," for anything
anybody could tell. Miss Marjoribanks was not vain; but the word had
taken possession of her imagination, as was natural, and solaced her
much when she made the painful discovery that her gloves were half a
number larger, and her shoes a hair-breadth broader, than those of any
of her companions; but the hands and feet were both perfectly well
shaped; and being at the same time well clothed and plump, were much
more presentable and pleasant to look upon than the lean rudimentary
schoolgirl hands with which they were surrounded. To add to these
excellences, Lucilla had a mass of hair which, if it could but have been
cleared a little in its tint, would have been golden, though at present
it was nothing more than tawny, and curly to exasperation. She wore it
in large thick curls, which did not, however, float or wave, or do any
of the graceful things which curls ought to do; for it had this
aggravating quality, that it would not grow long, but would grow
ridiculously, unmanageably thick, to the admiration of her companions,
but to her own despair, for there was no knowing what to do with those
short but ponderous locks. These were the external characteristics of
the girl who was going home to be a comfort to her widowed father, and
meant to sacrifice herself to his happiness. In the course of her rapid
journey she had already settled upon everything that had to be done; or
rather, to speak truly, had rehearsed everything, according to the habit
already acquired by a quick mind, a good deal occupied with itself.
First, she meant to fall into her father's arms--forgetting, with that
singular facility for overlooking the peculiarities of others which
belongs to such a character, that Dr Marjoribanks was very little given
to embracing, and that a hasty kiss on her forehead was the warmest
caress he had ever given his daughter--and then to rush up to the
chamber of death and weep over dear mamma. "And to think I was not there
to soothe her last moments!" Lucilla said to herself, with a sob, and
with feelings sufficiently real in their way. After this, the devoted
daughter made up her mind to come downstairs again, pale as death, but
self-controlled, and devote herself to papa. Perhaps, if great emotion
should make him tearless, as such cases had been known, Miss
Marjoribanks would steal into his arms unawares, and so surprise him
into weeping. All this went briskly through her mind, undeterred by the
reflection that tears were as much out of the Doctor's way as embraces;
and in this mood she sped swiftly along in the inspiration of her first
sorrow, as she imagined, but in reality to suffer her first
disappointment, which was of a less soothing character than that mild
and manageable grief.
When Miss Marjoribanks reached home her mother had been dead for
twenty-four hours; and her father was not at the door to receive her as
she had expected, but by the bedside of a patient in extremity, who
could not consent to go out of the world without the Doctor. This was a
sad reversal of her intentions, but Lucilla was not the woman to be
disconcerted. She carried out the second part of her programme without
either interference or sympathy, except from Mrs Marjoribanks's maid,
who had some hopes from the moment of her arrival. "I can't abear to
think as I'm to be parted from you all, miss," sobbed the faithful
attendant. "I've lost the best missus as ever was, and I shouldn't mind
going after her. Whenever any one gets a good friend in this world,
they're the first to be took away," said the weeping handmaiden, who
naturally saw her own loss in the most vivid light. "Ah, Ellis," cried
Miss Marjoribanks, reposing her sorrow in the arms of this anxious
attendant, "we must try to be a comfort to poor papa!"
With this end Lucilla made herself very troublesome to the sober-minded
Doctor during those few dim days before the faint and daily lessening
shadow of poor Mrs Marjoribanks was removed altogether from the house.
When that sad ceremony had taken place, and the Doctor returned, serious
enough, Heaven knows, to the great house, where the faded helpless
woman, who had notwithstanding been his love and his bride in other
days, lay no longer on the familiar sofa, the crisis arrived which Miss
Marjoribanks had rehearsed so often, but after quite a different
fashion. The widower was tearless, indeed, but not from excess of
emotion. On the contrary, a painful heaviness possessed him when he
became aware how little real sorrow was in his mind, and how small an
actual loss was this loss of his wife, which bulked before the world as
an event of just as much magnitude as the loss, for example, which poor
Mr Lake, the drawing-master, was at the same moment suffering. It was
even sad, in another point of view, to think of a human creature passing
out of the world, and leaving so little trace that she had ever been
there. As for the pretty creature whom Dr Marjoribanks had married, she
had vanished into thin air years and years ago. These thoughts were
heavy enough--perhaps even more overwhelming than that grief which
develops love to its highest point of intensity. But such were not
precisely the kind of reflections which could be solaced by paternal
_attendrissement_ over a weeping and devoted daughter. It was May, and
the weather was warm for the season; but Lucilla had caused the fire to
be lighted in the large gloomy library where Dr Marjoribanks always sat
in the evenings, with the idea that it would be "a comfort" to him;
and, for the same reason, she had ordered tea to be served there,
instead of the dinner, for which her father, as she imagined, could have
little appetite. When the Doctor went in to his favourite seclusion,
tired and heated and sad--for even on the day of his wife's funeral the
favourite doctor of Carlingford had patients to think of--the very
heaviness of his thoughts gave warmth to his indignation. He had longed
for the quiet and the coolness and the solitude of his library, apart
from everybody; and when he found it radiant with firelight, tea set on
the table, and Lucilla crying by the fire, in her new crape, the effect
upon a temper by no means perfect may be imagined. The unfortunate man
threw both the windows wide open and rang the bell violently, and gave
instant orders for the removal of the unnecessary fire and the
tea-service. "Let me know when dinner is ready," he said, in a voice
like thunder; "and if Miss Marjoribanks wants a fire, let it be lighted
in the drawing-room." Lucilla was so much taken by surprise by this
sudden overthrow of her programme, that she submitted, as a girl of much
less spirit might have done, and suffered herself and her fire and her
tea-things to be dismissed upstairs, where she wept still more at sight
of dear mamma's sofa, and where Ellis came to mingle her tears with
those of her young mistress, and to beg dear Miss Lucilla, for the sake
of her precious 'elth and her dear papa, to be persuaded to take some
tea. On the whole, master stood lessened in the eyes of all the
household by his ability to eat his dinner, and his resentment at having
his habitudes disturbed. "Them men would eat and drink if we was all in
our graves," said the indignant cook, who indeed had a real grievance;
and the outraged sentiment of the kitchen was avenged by a bad and hasty
dinner, which the Doctor, though generally "very particular," swallowed
without remark. About an hour afterwards he went upstairs to the
drawing-room, where Miss Marjoribanks was waiting for him, much less at
ease than she had expected to be. Though he gave a little sigh at the
sight of his wife's sofa, he did not hesitate to sit down upon it, and
even to draw it a little out of its position, which, as Lucilla
described afterwards, was like a knife going into her heart. Though,
indeed, she had herself decided already, in the intervals of her tears,
that the drawing-room furniture had got very faded and shabby, and that
it would be very expedient to have it renewed for the new reign of
youth and energy which was about to commence. As for the Doctor, though
Miss Marjoribanks thought him insensible, his heart was heavy enough.
His wife had gone out of the world without leaving the least mark of her
existence, except in that large girl, whose spirits and forces were
unbounded, but whose discretion at the present moment did not seem much
greater than her mother's. Instead of thinking of her as a comfort, the
Doctor felt himself called upon to face a new and unexpected
embarrassment. It would have been a satisfaction to him just then to
have been left to himself, and permitted to work on quietly at his
profession, and to write his papers for the _Lancet_, and to see his
friends now and then when he chose; for Dr Marjoribanks was not a man
who had any great need of sympathy by nature, or who was at all addicted
to demonstrations of feeling; consequently, he drew his wife's sofa a
little farther from the fire, and took his seat on it soberly, quite
unaware that, by so doing, he was putting a knife into his daughter's
heart.
"I hope you have had something to eat, Lucilla," he said; "don't get
into that foolish habit of flying to tea as a man flies to a dram. It's
a more innocent stimulant, but it's the same kind of intention. I am not
so much against a fire; it has always a kind of cheerful look."
"Oh, papa," cried his daughter, with a flood of indignant tears, "you
can't suppose I want anything to look cheerful this dreadful day."
"I am far from blaming you, my dear," said the Doctor; "it is natural
you should cry. I am sorry I did not write for my sister to come, who
would have taken care of you; but I dislike strangers in the house at
such a time. However, I hope, Lucilla, you will soon feel yourself able
to return to school; occupation is always the best remedy, and you will
have your friends and companions----"
"Papa!" cried Miss Marjoribanks; and then she summoned courage, and
rushed up to him, and threw herself and her clouds of crape on the
carpet at his side (and it may here be mentioned that Lucilla had seized
the opportunity to have her mourning made _long_, which had been the
desire of her heart, baffled by mamma and governess for at least a
year). "Papa!" she exclaimed with fervour, raising to him her
tear-stained face, and clasping her fair plump hands, "oh, don't send me
away! I was only a silly girl the other day, but _this_ has made me a
woman. Though I can never, never hope to take dear mamma's place, and
be--all--that she was to you, still I feel I can be a comfort to you if
you will let me. You shall not see me cry any more," cried Lucilla with
energy, rubbing away her tears. "I will never give way to my feelings. I
will ask for no companions--nor--nor anything. As for pleasure, that is
all over. Oh, papa, you shall never see me regret anything, or wish for
anything. I will give up everything in the world to be a comfort to
you!"
This address, which was utterly unexpected, drove Dr Marjoribanks to
despair. He said, "Get up, Lucilla;" but the devoted daughter knew
better than to get up. She hid her face in her hands, and rested her
hands upon her mother's sofa, where the Doctor was sitting; and the sobs
of that emotion which she meant to control henceforward, echoed through
the room. "It is only for this once--I can--cannot help it," she cried.
When her father found that he could neither soothe her, nor succeed in
raising her, he got up himself, which was the only thing left to him,
and began to walk about the room with hasty steps. Her mother, too, had
possessed this dangerous faculty of tears; and it was not wonderful if
the sober-minded Doctor, roused for the first time to consider his
little girl as a creature possessed of individual character, should
recognise, with a thrill of dismay, the appearance of the same qualities
which had wearied his life out, and brought his youthful affections to
an untimely end. Lucilla was, it is true, as different from her mother
as summer from winter; but Dr Marjoribanks had no means of knowing that
his daughter was only doing her duty by him in his widowhood, according
to a programme of filial devotion resolved upon, in accordance with the
best models, some days before.
Accordingly, when her sobs had ceased, her father returned and raised
her up not unkindly, and placed her in her chair. In doing so, the
Doctor put his finger by instinct upon Lucilla's pulse, which was
sufficiently calm and regulated to reassure the most anxious parent. And
then a furtive momentary smile gleamed for a single instant round the
corners of his mouth.
"It is very good of you to propose sacrificing yourself for me," he
said; "and if you would sacrifice your excitement in the meantime, and
listen to me quietly, it would really be something--but you are only
fifteen, Lucilla, and I have no wish to take you from school just now;
wait till I have done. Your poor mother is gone, and it is very natural
you should cry; but you were a good child to her on the whole, which
will be a comfort to you. We did everything that could be thought of to
prolong her days, and, when that was impossible, to lessen what she had
to suffer; and we have every reason to hope," said the Doctor, as indeed
he was accustomed to say in the exercise of his profession to mourning
relatives, "that she's far better off now than if she had been with us.
When that is said, I don't know that there is anything more to add. I am
not fond of sacrifices, either one way or another; and I've a great
objection to any one making a sacrifice for me----"
"But, oh, papa, it would be no sacrifice," said Lucilla, "if you would
only let me be a comfort to you!"
"That is just where it is, my dear," said the steady Doctor; "I have
been used to be left a great deal to myself; and I am not prepared to
say that the responsibility of having you here without a mother to take
care of you, and all your lessons interrupted, would not neutralise any
comfort you might be. You see," said Dr Marjoribanks, trying to soften
matters a little, "a man is what his habits make him; and I have been
used to be left a great deal to myself. It answers in some cases, but I
doubt if it would answer with me."
And then there was a pause, in which Lucilla wept and stifled her tears
in her handkerchief, with a warmer flood of vexation and disappointment
than even her natural grief had produced. "Of course, papa, if I can't
be any comfort--I will--go back to school," she sobbed, with a touch of
sullenness which did not escape the Doctor's ear.
"Yes, my dear, you will certainly go back to school," said the
peremptory father; "I never had any doubt on that subject. You can stay
over Sunday and rest yourself. Monday or Tuesday will be time enough to
go back to Mount Pleasant; and now you had better ring the bell, and get
somebody to bring you something--or I'll see to that when I go
downstairs. It's getting late, and this has been a fatiguing day. I'll
send you up some negus, and I think you had better go to bed."
And with these commonplace words, Dr Marjoribanks withdrew in calm
possession of the field. As for Lucilla, she obeyed him, and betook
herself to her own room, and swallowed her negus with a sense, not only
of defeat, but of disappointment and mortification which was very
unpleasant. To go back again and be an ordinary schoolgirl, after the
pomp and woe in which she had come away, was naturally a painful
thought; she who had ordered her mourning to be made long, and
contemplated new furniture in the drawing-room, and expected to be
mistress of her father's house, not to speak of the still dearer
privilege of being a comfort to him; and now, after all, her active mind
was to be condemned over again to verbs and chromatic scales, though she
felt within herself capacities so much more extended. Miss Marjoribanks
did not by any means learn by this defeat to take the characters of the
other personæ in her little drama into consideration, when she rehearsed
her pet scenes hereafter--for that is a knowledge slowly acquired--but
she was wise enough to know when resistance was futile; and like most
people of lively imagination, she had a power of submitting to
circumstances when it became impossible to change them. Thus she
consented to postpone her reign, if not with a good grace, yet still
without foolish resistance, and retired with the full honours of war.
She had already rearranged all the details, and settled upon all the
means possible of preparing herself for what she called the charge of
the establishment when her final emancipation took place, before she
returned to school. "Papa thought me too young," she said, when she
reached Mount Pleasant, "though it was dreadful to come away and leave
him alone with only the servants; but, dear Miss Martha, you will let me
learn all about political economy and things, to help me manage
everything; for now that dear mamma is gone, there is nobody but me to
be a comfort to papa."
And by this means Miss Marjoribanks managed to influence the excellent
woman who believed in _Friends in Council_, and to direct the future
tenor of her own education; while, at least, in that one moment of
opportunity, she had achieved long dresses, which was a visible mark of
womanhood, and a step which could not be retraced.
_Chapter II_
Dr Marjoribanks was so far from feeling the lack of his daughter's
powers of consolation, that he kept her at Mount Pleasant for three
years longer, during which time it is to be supposed he managed to be
comfortable after a benighted fashion--good enough for a man of fifty,
who had come to an end of his illusions. To be sure, there were in the
world, and even in Carlingford, kind women, who would not have objected
to take charge of the Doctor and his "establishment," and be a comfort
to him; but, on the whole, it was undeniable that he managed tolerably
well in external matters, and gave very good men's dinners, and kept
everything in perfect order, so far as it went. Naturally the fairer
part of existence was left out altogether in that grim, though
well-ordered house; but then he was only a man and a doctor, and knew no
better; and while the feminine part of Grange Lane regarded him with
natural pity, not only for what he lacked, but for a still more sad
defect, his total want of perception on the subject, their husbands and
fathers rather liked to dine with the Doctor, and brought home accounts
of sauces which were enough to drive any woman to despair. Some of the
ladies of Grange Lane--Mrs Chiley, for example, who was fond of good
living herself, and liked, as she said, "a little variety"--laid siege
to the Doctor, and did their best to coax his receipts out of him; but
Dr Marjoribanks knew better than that. He gave all the credit to his
cook, like a man of sense; and as that functionary was known in
Carlingford to be utterly regardless and unprincipled in respect to
gravy-beef, and the materials for "stock," or "consommé," as some people
called it, society was disinclined to exert its ordinary arts to seduce
so great an artiste from the kitchen of her indulgent master. And then
there were other ladies who took a different tone. "Dr Marjoribanks,
poor man, has nothing but his table to take up his mind," said Mrs
Centum, who had six children; "I never heard that the heart could be
nourished upon sauces, for my part; and for a man who has his children's
future to think of, I must say I am surprised at you, Mr Centum." As
for young Mrs Woodburn, her reply was still more decisive, though milder
in its tone. "Poor cook! I am so sorry for her," said the gentle young
matron. "You know you always like something for breakfast, Charles; and
then there is the children's dinner, and our lunch, and the servants'
dinner, so that the poor thing is worn out before she comes to what
_you_ call the great event of the day; and you know how angry you were
when I asked for a kitchen-maid for her, poor soul." The consequence of
all this was, that Dr Marjoribanks remained unrivalled in Grange Lane in
this respect at least. When rumours arose in Carlingford of a possible
second marriage for the Doctor--and such rumours naturally arose three
or four times in the course of the three years--the men of Grange Lane
said, "Heaven forbid!" "No wife in the world could replace Nancy," said
Colonel Chiley, after that fervent aspiration, "and none could put up
with her;" while, on the other side, there were curious speculations
afloat as to the effect upon the house, and especially the table, of the
daughter's return. When a young woman comes to be eighteen it is
difficult to keep her at school; and though the Doctor had staved off
the danger for the moment, by sending Lucilla off along with one of her
schoolfellows, whose family was going abroad, to make orthodox
acquaintance with all the Swiss mountains, and all the Italian capitals,
still that was plainly an expedient for the moment; and a new mistress
to the house, which had got along so well without any mistress, was
inevitable. So that it cannot be denied Miss Marjoribanks's advent was
regarded in Carlingford with as much interest and curiosity as she could
have wished. For it was already known that the Doctor's daughter was not
a mild young lady, easy to be controlled; but, on the contrary, had all
the energy and determination to have her own way, which naturally
belonged to a girl who possessed a considerable chin, and a mouth which
could shut, and tightly curling tawny tresses, which were still more
determined than she was to be arranged only according to their
inclination. It was even vaguely reported that some passages-of-arms had
occurred between Miss Marjoribanks and the redoubtable Nancy during the
short and uncertain opportunities which were afforded by holidays; and
the community, accordingly, regarded as an affair of almost municipal
importance Lucilla's final return home.
As for the young lady herself, though she was at school, she was
conscious of having had a career not without importance, even during
these three years of pupilage. Since the day when she began to read
political economy with Miss Martha Blount, who, though the second
sister, was the directing spirit of the establishment, Lucilla had
exercised a certain influence upon the school itself which was very
satisfactory. Perhaps her course might be a little deficient in grace,
but grace, after all, is but a secondary quality; and, at all events,
Miss Marjoribanks went straight forward, leaving an unquestionable wake
behind her, and running down with indifference the little skiffs in her
way. She was possessed by nature of that kind of egotism, or rather
egoism, which is predestined to impress itself, by its perfect reality
and good faith, upon the surrounding world. There are people who talk of
themselves, and think of themselves, as it were, under protest, and with
depreciation, not actually able to convince themselves that anybody
cares; but Lucilla, for her part, had the calmest and most profound
conviction that, when she discussed her own doings and plans and
clevernesses, she was bringing forward the subject most interesting to
her audience as well as to herself. Such a conviction is never without
its fruits. To be sure, there were always one or two independent spirits
who revolted; but for the crowd, it soon became impressed with a
profound belief in the creed which Miss Marjoribanks supported so
firmly. This conviction of the importance and value of her own
proceedings made Lucilla, as she grew older, a copious and amusing
conversationalist--a rank which few people who are indifferent to, or do
not believe in, themselves can attain to. One thing she had made up her
mind to as soon as she should return home, and that was to revolutionise
society in Carlingford. On the whole, she was pleased with the success
of the Doctor's dinners, though a little piqued to think that they owed
nothing to herself; but Lucilla, whose instinct of government was of the
true despotic order, and who had no objection to stoop, if by that means
she could conquer, had no such designs against Nancy as were attributed
to her by the expectant audience in Carlingford. On the contrary, she
was quite as much disposed as her father was to take Nancy for
prime-minister; for Miss Marjoribanks, though too much occupied with
herself to divine the characteristic points of other people, had a
sensible and thorough belief in those superficial general truths which
most minds acquiesce in, without taking the trouble to believe. She
knew, for example, that there was a great difference between the
brilliant society of London, or of Paris, which appears in books, where
women have generally the best of it, and can rule in their own right;
and even the very best society of a country town, where husbands are
very commonly unmanageable, and have a great deal more of their own way
in respect to the houses they will or will not go to, than is good for
that inferior branch of the human family. Miss Marjoribanks had the good
sense to see and appreciate these details; and she knew that a good
dinner was a great attraction to a man, and that, in Carlingford at
least, when these refractory mortals were secured, the wives and
daughters would necessarily follow. Besides, as is not uncommon with
women who are clever women, and aware of the fact, Miss Marjoribanks
preferred the society of men, and rather liked to say so. With all these
intentions in her mind, it may be imagined that she received coolly
enough the invitation of her friend to join in the grand tour, and the
ready consent given by her father when he heard of it. But even the
grand tour was a tool which Lucilla saw how to make use of. Nowadays,
when people go everywhere, an untravelled woman would find it so much
the harder to keep up the _rôle_ of a leader of society to which she had
devoted herself; and she felt to the depth of her heart the endless
advantage to her future conversation of the experiences to be acquired
in Switzerland and Italy. But she rejected with scorn the insinuation of
other accidents that might occur on the way.
"You will never come back again, Lucilla," said one of her companions;
"you will marry some enchanting Italian with a beautiful black beard,
and a voice like an angel; and he'll sing serenades to you, and do all
sorts of things: oh, how I wish I was you!"
"That may be," said Miss Marjoribanks, "but I shall never marry an
Italian, my dear. I don't think I shall marry anybody for a long time. I
want to amuse myself. I wonder, by the way, if it would improve my voice
to take lessons in Italy. Did I ever tell you of the Italian nobleman
that was so very attentive to me that Christmas I spent at Sissy
Vernon's? He was very handsome. I suppose they really are all very
handsome--except, of course, the Italian masters; but I did not pay any
attention to him. My object, dear, and you know it, is to return home as
well educated as possible, to be a comfort to dear papa."
"Yes, dear Lucilla," said the sympathetic girl, "and it is so good of
you; but do tell me about the Italian nobleman--what did he look
like--and what did he say?"
"Oh, as for what he said, that is quite a different matter," said
Lucilla; "but it is not what they say, but the way they say it, that is
the fun. I did not give him the least encouragement. As for that, I
think a girl can always stop a man when she does not care for him. It
depends on whether you intend him to commit himself or not," Miss
Marjoribanks continued, and fixed her eyes meditatively, but intently,
upon her friend's face.
"Whether I intend?--oh, goodness, Lucilla! how can you speak so? as if I
ever intended anything," said her companion, confused, yet flattered, by
the possibility; to which the elder sage answered calmly, with all the
composure in the world.
"No, I never supposed you did; I was thinking of myself," said Lucilla,
as if, indeed that was the only reasonable subject of thought. "You know
I have seen a good deal of the world, one way and another, with going to
spend the holidays, and I could tell you quantities of things. It is
quite astonishing how much experience one gets. When I was at Midhurst,
at Easter, there was my cousin Tom, who was quite ridiculous; I declare
he nearly brought things to an explanation, Fanny--which, of course, of
all things in the world I most wanted to avoid."
"Oh, but why, Lucilla?" cried Fanny, full of delight and wonder; "I do
so want to know what they say when they make--explanations, as you call
them. Oh, do tell me, Lucilla, why?"
"My dear," said Miss Marjoribanks, "a cousin of my own! and only
twenty-one, and reading for the bar! In the first place, my aunt would
never have forgiven me, and I am very fond of my aunt. It's so nice to
like all one's relations. I know some girls who can't bear theirs. And
then a boy not much older than myself, with nothing but what his mother
pleases! Fortunately he did not just say the words, so I escaped that
time; but, of course, I could understand perfectly what he meant."
"But, oh, Lucilla, tell me the words," cried the persistent questioner;
"do, there's a darling! I am quite sure you have heard them--and I
should so like to know exactly what they say;--do they go down on their
knees?--or do they try to take your hand as they always do in
novels?--or what do they do?--Oh, Lucilla, tell me, there's a dear!"
"Nonsense," said Lucilla; "I only want you to understand that I am not
likely to fall into any danger of that sort. My only ambition, Fanny, as
I have told you often, is to go home to Carlingford and be a comfort to
dear papa."
"Yes," said Fanny, kissing her devoted companion, "and it is so good of
you, dear; but then you cannot go on all your life being a comfort to
dear papa," said the intelligent girl, bethinking herself, and looking
again with some curiosity in Lucilla's face.
"We must leave that to Providence," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a sense
of paying a compliment to Providence in entrusting it with such a
responsibility. "I have always been guided for the best hitherto," she
continued, with an innocent and unintentional profanity, which sounded
solemn to her equally innocent companion, "and I don't doubt I shall be
so till the end."
From which it will be perceived that Miss Marjoribanks was of the
numerous class of religionists who keep up civilities with heaven, and
pay all the proper attentions, and show their respect for the divine
government in a manner befitting persons who know the value of their own
approbation. The conversation dropped at this point; for Lucilla was too
important a person to be left to the undivided possession of an
inquisitive innocent like Fanny Middleton, who was only sixteen, and had
never had even a flirtation in her own person. There were no Carlingford
girls at Mount Pleasant, except poor little Rose Lake, the
drawing-master's second daughter, who had been received on Dr
Marjoribanks's recommendation, and who heard the little children their
geography and reading, and gave them little lessons in drawing, by way
of paying for her own education; but then Rose was entirely out of Miss
Marjoribanks's way, and could never count for anything in her designs
for the future. The girls at Mount Pleasant were good girls on the
whole, and were rather improved by the influence of Lucilla, who was
extremely good-natured, and, so long as her superiority was duly
acknowledged, was ready to do anything for anybody--so that Rose Lake
was not at all badly off in her inferior position. She could be made
useful too, which was a great point in her favour; and Miss
Marjoribanks, who possessed by nature some of the finest qualities of a
ruler, instinctively understood and appreciated the instruments that
came to her hand. As for Rose, she had been brought up at the School of
Design in Carlingford, of which, under the supervision of the
authorities who, in those days, inhabited Marlborough House, Mr Lake was
the master. Rose was the pride of the school in the peaceable days
before her mother died; she did not know much else, poor child, except
novels, but her copies "from the round" filled her father with
admiration, and her design for a Honiton-lace flounce, a spirited
composition of dragons' tails and the striking plant called teazle,
which flourishes in the neighbourhood of Carlingford (for Mr Lake had
leanings towards Preraphaelitism), was thought by the best judges to
show a wonderful amount of feeling for art, and just missed being
selected for the prize. A girl with such a talent was naturally much
appreciated in Mount Pleasant. She made the most charming design for
Miss Marjoribanks's handkerchief--"Lucilla," in Gothic characters,
enclosed in a wreath of forget-me-nots, skilfully combined with
thistle-leaves, which Rose took great pains to explain were so much
better adapted to ornamentation than foliage of a less distinct
character; and the young draftswoman was so charmed by Lucilla's
enthusiastic admiration, that she volunteered to work the design in the
cambric, which was a much more serious matter. This was on the eve of
Miss Marjoribanks's final departure from school. She was to spend a year
abroad, to the envy of all whom she left behind; but for herself Lucilla
was not elated. She thought it very probable that she would ascend Mont
Blanc as far as the Grands Mulets at least, and, of course, in spring,
go up Vesuvius, having got through the Carnival and Miserere and all the
balls in Rome; but none of these things moved her out of her usual
composure. She took it all in the way of business, as she had taken her
French and her German and her singing and her political economy. As she
stepped into the steamboat at Dover which was to convey her to scenes so
new, Lucilla felt more and more that she who held the reorganisation of
society in Carlingford in her hands was a woman with a mission. She was
going abroad as the heir-apparent went to America and the Holy Land, to
complete her education, and fit herself, by an examination of the
peculiarities of other nations, for an illustrious and glorious reign at
home.
_Chapter III_
It may be well to seize the opportunity of Miss Marjoribanks's travels,
through which it is unnecessary to follow her, as they have nothing
particular to do with the legitimate history of her great undertaking,
to explain a little the state of affairs in Carlingford before this
distinguished revolutionary began her labours. It is something like
going back into the prehistoric period--those ages of the flint, which
only ingenious quarrymen and learned geologists can elucidate--to recall
the social condition of the town before Miss Marjoribanks began her
Thursday evenings, before St Roque's Chapel was built or thought of,
while Mr Bury, the Evangelical Rector, was still in full activity, and
before old Mr Tufton, at Salem Chapel (who sometimes drank tea at the
Rectory, and thus had a kind of clandestine entrance into the dim
outskirts of that chaos which was then called society), had his first
"stroke." From this latter circumstance alone the entirely disorganised
condition of affairs will be visible at a glance. It is true, Mr
Vincent, who succeeded Mr Tufton, was received by Lady Western, in days
when public opinion had made great advances; but then Lady Western was
the most good-natured creature in the world, and gave an invitation,
when it happened to come into her head, without the least regard for the
consequences; and, after all, Mr Vincent was very nice-looking and
clever, and quite presentable. Fortunately, however, the period to which
we allude was prior to the entrance of Lady Western into Grange Lane.
She was a very pretty woman, and knew how to look like a lady of
fashion, which is always of importance; but she was terribly
inconsequent, as Miss Marjoribanks said, and her introductions were not
in the least to be depended upon. She was indeed quite capable of
inviting a family of retired drapers to meet the best people in Grange
Lane, for no better reason than to gratify her protégés, which, of
course, was a proceeding calculated to strike at the roots of all
society. Fortunately for Carlingford, its reorganisation was in abler
hands. Affairs were in an utterly chaotic state at the period when this
record commences. There was nothing which could be properly called a
centre in the entire town. To be sure, Grange Lane was inhabited, as at
present, by the best families in Carlingford; but then, without
organisation, what good does it do to have a number of people together?
For example, Mr Bury was utterly unqualified to take any lead. Mrs Bury
had been dead a long time, and the daughters were married, and the
Rector's maiden sister, who lived with him, was entirely of his own way
of thinking, and asked people to tea-parties, which were like
Methodists' class-meetings, and where Mr Tufton was to be met with, and
sometimes other Dissenters, to whom the Rector gave what he called the
right hand of fellowship. But he never gave anything else to society,
except weak tea and thin bread-and-butter, which was fare, the ladies
said, which the gentlemen did not relish. "I never can induce Charles to
go out to tea," said young Mrs Woodburn piteously; "he won't, and there
is an end of it. After dinner he thinks of nothing but an easy-chair and
the papers; and, my dear Miss Bury, what can I do?" "It is a great pity,
my dear, that your husband's carelessness should deprive you of the
benefit of Christian conversation; but, to be sure, it is your duty to
stay with him, and I hope it will be made up to you at home," Miss Bury
would say. As for the Rector, his favourites were devoted to him; and as
he always saw enough of familiar faces at his sister's tea-parties, he
took no account of the defaulters. Then there was Dr Marjoribanks, who
gave only dinners, to which naturally, as there was no lady in the
house, ladies could not be invited, and who, besides, was rather a
drawback than a benefit to society, since he made the men quite
intolerable, and filled them with such expectations, in the way of
cookery, that they never were properly content with a good family dinner
after. Then the ladies, from whom something might justly have been
expected in the way of making society pleasant--such as Mrs Centum and
Mrs Woodburn, for example, who had everything they could desire, and the
most liberal housekeeping allowances--were either incapacitated by
circumstances (which was a polite term in use at Carlingford, and meant
babies) or by character. Mrs Woodburn liked nothing so well as to sit by
the fire and read novels, and "take off" her neighbours, when any one
called on her; and, of course, the lady who was her audience on one
occasion, left with the comfortable conviction that next time she would
be the victim; a circumstance which, indeed, did not make the offender
unpopular--for there were very few people in Carlingford who could be
amusing, even at the expense of their neighbours--but made it quite
impossible that she should ever do anything in the way of knitting
people together, and making a harmonious whole out of the scraps and
fragments of society. As for Mrs Chiley, she was old, and had not energy
enough for such an undertaking; and, besides, she had no children, and
disliked bustle and trouble, and was of opinion that the Colonel never
enjoyed his dinner if he had more than four people to help him to eat
it; and, in short, you might have gone over Grange Lane, house by house,
finding a great deal of capital material, but without encountering a
single individual capable of making anything out of it. Such was the
lamentable condition, at the moment this history commences, of society
in Carlingford.
And yet nobody could say that there were not very good elements to make
society with. When you add to a man capable of giving excellent dinners,
like Dr Marjoribanks, another man like young Mr Cavendish, Mrs
Woodburn's brother, who was a wit and a man of fashion, and belonged to
one of the best clubs in town, and brought down gossip with the bloom on
it to Grange Lane; and when you join to Mrs Centum, who was always so
good and so much out of temper that it was safe to calculate on
something amusing from her, the languid but trenchant humour of Mrs
Woodburn--not to speak of their husbands, who were perfectly available
for the background, and all the nephews and cousins and grand-children,
who constantly paid visits to old Mr Western and Colonel Chiley; and the
Browns, when they were at home, with their floating suite of admirers;
and the young ladies who sang, and the young ladies who sketched, and
the men who went out with the hounds, when business permitted them; and
the people who came about the town when there was an election; and the
barristers who made the circuit; and the gay people who came to the
races; not to speak of the varying chances of curates, who could talk or
play the piano, with which Mr Bury favoured his parishioners--for he
changed his curates very often; and the occasional visits of the lesser
county people, and the country clergymen;--it will be plainly apparent
that all that was wanting to Carlingford was a master-hand to blend
these different elements. There had even been a few feeble preliminary
attempts at this great work, which had failed, as such attempts always
fail when they are premature, and when the real agent of the change is
already on the way; but preparations and presentiments had taken vague
possession of the mind of the town, as has always been observed to be
the case before a great revolution, or when a man destined to put his
mark on his generation, as the newspapers say, is about to appear. To be
sure, it was not a man this time, but Miss Marjoribanks; but the
atmosphere thrilled and trembled to the advent of the new luminary all
the same.
Yet, at the same time, the world of Carlingford had not the least idea
of the real quarter from which the sovereign intelligence which was to
develop it from chaos into order and harmony was, _effectivement_, to
come. Some people had hoped in Mrs Woodburn before she fell into her
present languor of appearance and expression; and a great many people
hoped in Mr Cavendish's wife, if he married, as he was said to intend to
do; for this gentleman, who was in the habit of describing himself, no
doubt, very truthfully, as one of the Cavendishes, was a person of great
consideration in Grange Lane; and some hoped in a new Rector, for it was
apparent that Mr Bury could not last very long. Thus, with the ordinary
short-sightedness of the human species, Carlingford blinded itself, and
turned its eyes in every direction in the world rather than in that of
the Swiss mountains, which were being climbed at that moment by a large
and blooming young woman, with tawny short curls and alert decided
movements; so little do we know what momentous issues may hang upon the
most possible accident! Had that energetic traveller slipped but an inch
farther upon the _mer de glace_--had she taken that other step which she
was with difficulty persuaded not to take on the Wengern Alp--there
would have been an end of all the hopes of social importance for
Carlingford. But the good fairies took care of Lucilla and her mission,
and saved her from the precipice and the crevasses; and instinctively
the air at home got note of what was coming, and whispered the news
mysteriously through the keyholes. "Miss Marjoribanks is coming home,"
the unsuspecting male public said to itself as it returned from Dr
Marjoribanks's dinners, with a certain distressing, but mistaken
presentiment, that these delights were to come to an end; and the ladies
repeated the same piece of news, conjoining with it benevolent
intimations of their intention to call upon her, and make the poor thing
feel herself at home. "Perhaps she may be amusing," Mrs Woodburn was
good enough to add; but these words meant only that perhaps Lucilla, who
was coming to set them all right, was worthy of being placed in the
satirist's collection along with Mrs Centum and Mrs Chiley. Thus, while
the town ripened more and more for her great mission, and the ignorant
human creatures, who were to be her subjects, showed their usual
blindness and ignorance, the time drew nearer and nearer for Miss
Marjoribanks's return.
_Chapter IV_
"My daughter is coming home, Nancy," said Dr Marjoribanks. "You will
have to make preparations for her immediately. So far as I can make out
from this letter, she will arrive to-morrow by the half-past five
train."
"Well, sir," said Nancy, with the tone of a woman who makes the best of
a misfortune, "it ain't every young lady as would have the sense to fix
an hour like that. Ladies is terrible tiresome in that way; they'll come
in the middle o' the day, when a body don't know in the world what to
have for them; or they'll come at night, when a body's tired, and ain't
got the heart to go into a supper. There was always a deal of sense in
Miss Lucilla, when she hadn't got nothing in her head."
"Just so," said Dr Marjoribanks, who was rather relieved to have got
through the announcement so easily. "You will see that her room is
ready, and everything comfortable; and, of course, to-morrow she and I
will dine alone."
"Yes, sir," said Nancy; but this assent was not given in the decisive
tone of a woman whose audience was over; and then she was seized with a
desire to arrange in a more satisfactory manner the cold beef on the
sideboard. When she had secured this little interval for thought, she
returned again to the table, where her master ate his breakfast, with a
presentiment. "If you please, sir," said Nancy, "not to give you no
vexation nor trouble, which every one knows as it has been the aim o' my
life to spare you, as has so much on your mind. But it's best to settle
afore commencing, and then we needn't have no heartburning. If you
please, am I to take my orders of Miss Lucilla, or of you, as I've
always been used to? In the missus's time," said Nancy, with modest
confidence, "as was a good missus, and never gave no trouble as long as
she had her soup and her jelly comfortable, it was always you as said
what there was to be for dinner. I don't make no objection to doing up a
nice little luncheon for Miss Lucilla, and giving a little more thought
now and again to the sweets; but it ain't my part to tell you, sir, as a
lady's taste, and more special a young lady's, ain't to be expected to
be the same as yours and mine as has been cultivated like. I'm not one
as likes contention," continued the domestic oracle, "but I couldn't
abear to see a good master put upon; and if it should be as Miss Lucilla
sets her mind upon messes as ain't got no taste in them, and
milk-puddings and stuff, like the most of the ladies, I'd just like to
know out of your own mouth, afore the commencement, what I'm to do?"
Dr Marjoribanks was so moved by this appeal that he laid down his knife
and contemplated the alarming future with some dismay. "It is to be
hoped Miss Lucilla will know better," he said. "She has a great deal of
good sense, and it is to be hoped that she will be wise enough to
consult the tastes of the house."
But the Doctor was not to be let off so easily. "As you say, sir,
everything's to be hoped," said Nancy steadily; "but there's a-many
ladies as don't seem to me to have got no taste to their mouths; and it
ain't as if it was a thing that could be left to hopes. Supposin' as it
comes to that, sir, what am I to do?"
"Well," said the Doctor, who was himself a little puzzled, "you know
Miss Lucilla is nineteen, Nancy, and my only child, and the natural
mistress of the house."
"Sir," said Nancy austerely, "them is things as it ain't needful to
name; that ain't the question as I was asking. Supposin' as things come
to such a point, what am I to do?"
"Bless me! it's half-past nine," said the Doctor, "and I have an
appointment. You can come just as usual when we are at breakfast, that
will be the best way," he said as he went out at the door, and chuckled
a little to himself when he felt he had escaped. "Lucilla is her
mother's daughter, it is true," he said to himself when he had got into
the safe seclusion of his brougham, with a degree of doubt in his tone
which was startling, to say the least of it, from the lips of a medical
man; "but she is my child all the same," he added briskly, with
returning confidence; and in this conviction there was something which
reassured the Doctor. He rubbed his hands as he bowled along to his
appointment, and thought within himself that if she turned out a girl of
spirit, as he expected, it would be good fun to see Lucilla's struggle
with Nancy for the veritable reins of government. If Dr Marjoribanks had
entertained any positive apprehensions that his dinners would be spoiled
in consequence, his amusement would have come to an abrupt conclusion;
but he trusted entirely in Nancy and a little in Lucilla, and suffered
his long upper-lip to relax at the thought without much fear.
Her father had not returned from the labours of his long day when
Lucilla arrived, but he made his last visits on foot in order to be able
to send the brougham for her, which was a great thing for the Doctor to
do. There was, indeed, a mutual respect between the two, who were not
necessary to each other's comfort, it is true, as such near relations
sometimes are; but who, at the same time, except on the sole occasion of
Mrs Marjoribanks's death, had never misunderstood each other, as
sometimes happens. This time Miss Marjoribanks was rather pleased, on
the whole, that the Doctor did not come to meet her. At other times she
had been a visitor; now she had come into her kingdom, and had no desire
to be received like a guest. A sense of coming home, warmer than she
remembered to have felt before, came into Lucilla's active mind as she
stepped into the brougham. Not that the words bore any special tender
meaning, notwithstanding that it was the desire of her heart, well known
to all her friends, to live henceforward as a comfort to dear papa, but
that now at last she was coming into her kingdom, and entering the
domain in which she intended her will to be law. After living for a year
with friends whose arrangements (much inferior to those which she could
have made had she had the power) she had to acquiesce in, and whose
domestic economy could only be criticised up to a certain point, it was
naturally a pleasure to Miss Marjoribanks to feel that now at length she
was emancipated, and at liberty to exercise her faculty. There were
times during the past year when Lucilla had with difficulty restrained
herself from snatching the reins out of the hands of her hosts, and
showing them how to manage. But, impatient as she was, she had to
restrain herself, and make the best of it. Now all that bondage was
over. She felt like a young king entering in secret a capital which
awaits him with acclamations. Before she presented herself to the
rejoicing public, there were arrangements to be made and things to be
done; and Miss Marjoribanks gave a rapid glance at the shops in George
Street as she drove past, and decided which of them she meant to honour
with her patronage. When she entered the garden it was with the same
rapid glance of reorganising genius that she cast her eyes around it;
and still more decided was the look with which she regarded her own
room, where she was guided by the new housemaid, who did not know Miss
Lucilla. Nancy, who knew no better (being, like most gifted persons, a
woman of one idea), had established her young mistress in the little
chamber which had been Lucilla's when she was a child; but Miss
Marjoribanks, who had no sentimental notions about white dimity, shook
her head at the frigid little apartment, where, however, she was not at
all sorry to be placed at present; for if Dr Marjoribanks had been a man
of the _prevenant_ class, disposed to make all the preparations possible
for his daughter, and arrange elegant surprises for her, he would have
thoroughly disgusted Lucilla, who was bent on making all the necessary
improvements in her own person. When she went down to the drawing-room
to await her father, Miss Marjoribanks's look of disapprobation was
mingled with so much satisfaction and content in herself that it was
pleasant to behold. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as she
paused in the centre of the large faded room, where there was no light
but that of the fire, which burned brightly, and kept up a lively play
of glimmer and shadow in the tall glass over the fireplace, and even
twinkled dimly in the three long windows, where the curtains hung stiff
and solemn in their daylight form. It was not an uncomfortable sort of
big, dull, faded, respectable drawing-room; and if there had been a
family in it, with recollections attached to every old ottoman and
easy-chair, no doubt it would have been charming; but it was only a
waste and howling wilderness to Lucilla. When she had walked from one
end to the other, and verified all the plans she had already long ago
conceived for the embellishment of this inner court and centre of her
kingdom, Lucilla walked with her unhesitating step to the fire, and took
a match and lighted all the candles in the large old-fashioned
candlesticks, which had been flickering in grotesque shadows all over
the roof. This proceeding threw a flood of light on the subject of her
considerations, and gave Miss Marjoribanks an idea, in passing, about
the best mode of lighting, which she afterwards acted upon with great
success. She was standing in this flood of light, regarding everything
around her with the eye of an enlightened critic and reformer, when Dr
Marjoribanks came in. Perhaps there arose in the soul of the Doctor a
momentary thought that the startling amount of _éclairage_ which he
witnessed was scarcely necessary, for it is certain that he gave a
momentary glance at the candles as he went up to greet his daughter; but
he was far too well-bred a man to suggest such an idea at the moment. On
the contrary, he kissed her with a sentiment of real pleasure, and owned
to himself that, if she was not a fool, and could keep to her own
department, it might be rather agreeable on the whole to have a woman in
the house. The sentiment was not enthusiastic, and neither were the
words of his salutation: "Well, Lucilla; so this is you!" said the
moderate and unexcited father. "Yes, papa, it is me," said Miss
Marjoribanks, "and very glad to get home;" and so the two sat down and
discussed the journey--whether she had been cold, and what state the
railway was in--till the Doctor bethought himself that he had to prepare
for dinner. "Nancy is always very punctual, and I am sure you are
hungry," he said; "so I'll go upstairs, with your permission, Lucilla,
and change my coat;" and with this the actual arrival terminated, and
the new reign began.
But it was only next morning that the young sovereign gave any
intimation of her future policy. She had naturally a great deal to tell
that first night; and though it was exclusively herself, and her own
adventures and achievements, which Miss Marjoribanks related, the
occasion of her return made that sufficiently natural; and the Doctor
was not altogether superior to the natural prejudice which makes a man
interested, even when they are not in themselves particularly
interesting, in the doings of his children. She succeeded in doing what
is certainly one of the first duties of a woman--she amused her father.
He followed her to the drawing-room for a marvel, and took a cup of tea,
though it was against his principles; and, on the whole, Lucilla had the
satisfaction of feeling that she had made a conquest of the Doctor,
which, of course, was the grand and most essential preliminary. In the
little interval which he spent over his claret, Miss Marjoribanks had
succeeded in effecting another fundamental duty of woman--she had, as
she herself expressed it, harmonised the rooms, by the simple method of
rearranging half the chairs and covering the tables with trifles of her
own--a proceeding which converted the apartment from an abstract English
drawing-room of the old school into Miss Marjoribanks's drawing-room, an
individual spot of ground revealing something of the character of its
mistress. The Doctor himself was so moved by this, that he looked
vaguely round when he came in, as if a little doubtful where he was--but
that might only be the effect of the sparkling mass of candles on the
mantelpiece, which he was too well-bred to remark upon the first night.
But it was only in the morning that Lucilla unfolded her standard. She
was down to breakfast, ready to pour out the coffee, before the Doctor
had left his room. He found her, to his intense amazement, seated at the
foot of the table, in the place which he usually occupied himself,
before the urn and the coffee-pot. Dr Marjoribanks hesitated for one
momentous instant, stricken dumb by this unparalleled audacity; but so
great was the effect of his daughter's courage and steadiness, that
after that moment of fate he accepted the seat by the side where
everything was arranged for him, and to which Lucilla invited him
sweetly, though not without a touch of mental perturbation. The moment
he had seated himself, the Doctor's eyes were opened to the importance
of the step he had taken. "I am afraid I have taken your seat, papa,"
said Miss Marjoribanks, with ingenuous sweetness. "But then I should
have had to move the urn, and all the things, and I thought you would
not mind." The Doctor said nothing but "Humph!" and even that in an
undertone; but he became aware all the same that he had abdicated,
without knowing it, and that the reins of state had been smilingly
withdrawn from his unconscious hands.
When Nancy made her appearance the fact became still more apparent,
though still in the sweetest way. "It is so dreadful to think papa
should have been bothered with all these things so long," said Miss
Marjoribanks. "After this I am sure you and I, Nancy, can arrange it all
without giving him the trouble. Perhaps this morning, papa, as I am a
stranger, you will say if there is anything you would like, and then I
shall have time to talk it all over with Nancy, and find out what is
best,"--and Lucilla smiled so sweetly upon her two amazed subjects that
the humour of the situation caught the fancy of the Doctor, who had a
keen perception of the ridiculous.
He laughed out, much to Nancy's consternation, who was standing by in
open-eyed dismay. "Very well, Lucilla," he said; "you shall try what you
can do. I daresay Nancy will be glad to have me back again before long;
but in the meantime I am quite content that you should try," and he went
off laughing to his brougham, but came back again before Lucilla could
take Nancy in hand, who was an antagonist more formidable. "I forgot to
tell you," said the Doctor, "that Tom Marjoribanks is coming on Circuit,
and that I have asked him to stay here, as a matter of course. I suppose
he'll arrive to-morrow. Good-bye till the evening."
This, though Dr Marjoribanks did not in the least intend it, struck
Lucilla like a Parthian arrow, and brought her down for the moment. "Tom
Marjoribanks!" she ejaculated in a kind of horror. "Of all people in the
world, and at this moment!" but when she saw the open eyes and rising
colour of Nancy the young dictator recovered herself--for a conqueror in
the first moment of his victory has need to be wary. She called Nancy to
her in her most affectionate tones as she finished her breakfast. "I
sent papa away," said Miss Marjoribanks, "because I wanted to have a
good talk with you, Nancy. I want to tell you my object in life. It is
to be a comfort to papa. Ever since poor mamma died that is what I have
been thinking of; and now I have come home, and I have made up my mind
that he is not to be troubled about anything. I know what a good,
faithful, valuable woman you are, I assure you. You need not think me a
foolish girl who is not able to appreciate you. The dinner was charming
last night, Nancy," said Lucilla, with much feeling; "and I never saw
anything more beautifully cooked than papa's cutlets to-day."
"Miss Lucilla, I may say as I am very glad I have pleased you," said
Nancy, who was not quite conquered as yet. She stood very stiffly
upright by the table, and maintained her integrity. "Master _is_
particular, I don't deny," continued the prime minister, who felt
herself dethroned. "I've always done my best to go in with his little
fancies, and I don't mean to say as it isn't right and natural as you
should be the missis. But I ain't used to have ado with ladies, and
that's the truth. Ladies is stingy in a-many things as is the soul of a
good dinner to them as knows. I may be valleyable or not, it ain't for
me to say; but I'm not one as can always be kept to a set figger in my
gravy-beef, and my bacon, and them sorts of things. As for the butter, I
don't know as I could give nobody an idea. I ain't one as likes changes,
but I can't abide to be kept to a set figger; and that's the chief
thing, Miss Lucilla, as I've got to say."
"And quite reasonable too," said Miss Marjoribanks; "you and I will work
perfectly well together, Nancy. I am sure we have both the same meaning;
and I hope you don't think I am less concerned about dear papa than
about the gravy-beef. He must have been very desolate, with no one to
talk to, though he has been so good and kind and self-sacrificing in
leaving me to get every advantage; but I mean to make it up to him, now
I've come home."
"Yes, miss," said Nancy, somewhat mystified; "not but what master has
had his little parties now and again, to cheer him up a bit; and I make
bold to say, miss, as I have heard compliments, which it was Thomas that
brought 'em downstairs, as might go nigh to turn a body's head, if it
was vanity as I was thinking of; but I ain't one as thinks of anything
but the comfort of the family," said Nancy, yielding in spite of herself
to follow the leadings of the higher will in presence of which she found
herself, "and I'm always one as does my best, Miss Lucilla, if I ain't
worried nor kept to a set figger with my gravy-beef."
"I have heard of papa's dinners," said Lucilla graciously, "and I don't
mean to let down your reputation, Nancy. Now we are two women to manage
everything, we ought to do still better. I have two or three things in
my head that I will tell you after; but in the meantime I want you to
know that the object of my life is to be a comfort to poor papa; and now
let us think what we had better have for dinner," said the new
sovereign. Nancy was so totally unprepared for this manner of
dethronement, that she gave in like her master. She followed Miss
Marjoribanks humbly into those details in which Lucilla speedily proved
herself a woman of original mind, and powers quite equal to her
undertaking. The Doctor's formidable housekeeper conducted her young
mistress downstairs afterwards, and showed her everything with the
meekness of a saint. Lucilla had won a second victory still more
exhilarating and satisfactory than the first; for, to be sure, it is no
great credit to a woman of nineteen to make a man of any age throw down
his arms; but to conquer a woman is a different matter, and Lucilla was
thoroughly sensible of the difference. Now, indeed, she could feel with
a sense of reality that her foundations were laid.
Miss Marjoribanks had enough of occupation for that day, and for many
days. But her mind was a little distracted by her father's parting
intelligence, and she had, besides, a natural desire to view the country
she had come to conquer. When she had made a careful supervision of the
house, and shifted her own quarters into the pleasantest of the two best
bedrooms, and concluded that the little bare dimity chamber she had
occupied the previous night was quite good enough for Tom Marjoribanks,
Lucilla put on her hat and went out to make a little reconnaissance. She
walked down to the spot where St Roque's now stands, on her own side of
Grange Lane, and up on the other side into George Street, surveying all
the capabilities of the place with a rapid but penetrating glance. Dr
Marjoribanks's house could not have been better placed as a strategic
position, commanding as it did all Grange Lane, of which it was, so to
speak, the key, and yet affording a base of communication with the
profaner public, which Miss Marjoribanks was wise enough to know a
leader of society should never ignore completely; for, indeed, one of
the great advantages of that brilliant position is, that it gives a
woman a right to be arbitrary, and to select her materials according to
her judgment. It was more from a disinclination to repeat herself than
any other motive that Lucilla, when she had concluded this preliminary
survey, went up into Grove Street, meaning to return home that way. At
that hour in the morning the sun was shining on the little gardens on
the north side of the street, which was the plebeian side; and as it was
the end of October, and by no means warm, Lucilla was glad to cross over
and continue her walk by the side of those little enclosures where the
straggling chrysanthemums propped each other up, and the cheerful
Michaelmas daisies made the best of it in the sunshine that remained to
them. Miss Marjoribanks had nearly reached Salem Chapel, which pushed
itself forward amid the cosy little line of houses, pondering in her
mind the unexpected hindrance which was about to be placed in her
triumphant path, in the shape of Tom Marjoribanks, when that singular
piece of good fortune occurred to her which had so much effect upon her
career in Carlingford. Such happy accidents rarely happen, except to
great generals or heroes of romance; and it would have been, perhaps, a
presumption on the part of Lucilla to place herself conspicuously in
either of these categories. The fact is, however, that at this eventful
moment she was walking along under the shade of her pretty parasol, not
expecting anything, but absorbed in many thoughts, and a little cast
down in her expectations of success by a consciousness that this unlucky
cousin would insist upon making love to her, and perhaps even, as she
herself expressed it, _saying the words_ which it had taken all her
skill to prevent him from saying before. Not that we would have any one
believe that love-making in the abstract was disagreeable to Miss
Marjoribanks; but she was only nineteen, well off and good-looking, and
with plenty of time for all that; and at the present moment she had
other matters of more importance in hand. It was while occupied with
these reflections, and within three doors of Salem Chapel, in front of a
little garden where a great deal of mignonette had run to seed, and
where the Michaelmas daisies had taken full possession, that Lucilla was
roused suddenly out of her musings. The surprise was so great that she
stopped short and stood still before the house in the extremity of her
astonishment and delight. Who could it be that possessed that voice
which Miss Marjoribanks felt by instinct was the very one thing
wanting--a round, full, delicious contralto, precisely adapted to
supplement without supplanting her own high-pitched and much-cultivated
organ? She stopped short before the door and made a rapid observation
even in the first moment of her surprise. The house was not exactly like
the other humble houses in Grove Street. Two little blank squares hung
in the centre of each of the lower windows, revealed to Lucilla's
educated eye the existence of so much "feeling" for art as can be
satisfied with a transparent porcelain version of a famous Madonna; and
she could even catch a glimpse, through the curtains of the best
room--which, contrary to the wont of humble gentility in Carlingford,
were well drawn back, and allowed the light to enter fully--of the
glimmer of gilt picture-frames. And in the little garden in front, half
buried among the mignonette, were some remains of plaster-casts,
originally placed there for ornament, but long since cast down by rain
and neglect. Lucilla made her observations with the promptitude of an
accomplished warrior, and before the second bar of the melody indoors
was finished, had knocked very energetically. "Is Miss Lake at home?"
she asked, with confidence, of the little maid-servant who opened the
door to her. And it was thus that Lucilla made her first bold step out
of the limits of Grange Lane for the good of society, and secured at
once several important personal advantages, and the great charm of those
Thursday evenings which made so entire a revolution in the taste and
ideas of Carlingford.
_Chapter V_
Miss Marjoribanks did not leave the contralto any time to recover from
her surprise; she went up to her direct where she stood, with her song
arrested on her lips, as she had risen hastily from the piano. "Is it
Rose?" said Lucilla, going forward with the most eager cordiality, and
holding out both her hands; though, to be sure, she knew very well it
was not Rose, who was about half the height of the singer, and was known
to everybody in Mount Pleasant to be utterly innocent of a voice.
"No," said Miss Lake, who was much astonished and startled and offended,
as was unfortunately rather her custom. She was a young woman without
any of those instincts of politeness, which make some people pleasant in
spite of themselves; and she added nothing to soften this abrupt
negative, but drew her hands away from the stranger and stood bolt
upright, looking at her, with a burning blush, caused by temper much
more than by embarrassment, on her face.
"Then," said Lucilla, dropping lightly into the most comfortable chair
she could get sight of in the bare little parlour, "it is Barbara--and
that is a great deal better; Rose is a good little thing, but--she is
different, you know. It is so odd you should not remember me; I thought
everybody knew me in Carlingford. You know I have been a long time away,
and now I have come home for good. Your voice is just the very thing to
go with mine: was it not a lucky thing that I should have passed just at
the right moment? I don't know how it is, but somehow these lucky
chances _always_ happen to me. I am Lucilla Marjoribanks, you know."
"Indeed!" said Barbara, who had not the least intention of being civil,
"I did not recognise you in the least."
"Yes, I remember you were always shortsighted a little," said Miss
Marjoribanks calmly. "I should so like if we could try a duet. I have
been having lessons in Italy, you know, and I am sure I could give you a
few hints. I always like, when I can, to be of use. Tell me what songs
you have that we could sing together. You know, my dear, it is not as if
I was asking you for mere amusement to myself; my grand object in life
is to be a comfort to papa----"
"Do you mean Dr Marjoribanks?" said the uncivil Barbara. "I am sure he
does not care in the least for music. I think you must be making a
mistake----"
"Oh, no," said Lucilla, "I never make mistakes. I don't mean to sing
_to_ him, you know; but you are just the very person I wanted. As for
the ridiculous idea some people have that nobody can be called on who
does not live in Grange Lane, I assure you I mean to make an end of
that. Of course I cannot commence just all in a moment. But it would
always be an advantage to practise a little together. I like to know
exactly how far one can calculate upon everybody; then one can tell,
without fear of breaking down, just what one may venture to do."
"I don't understand in the least," said Barbara, whose pride was up in
arms. "Perhaps you think I am a professional singer?"
"My dear, a professional singer spoils everything," said Miss
Marjoribanks; "it changes the character of an evening altogether. There
are so few people who understand that. When you have professional
singers, you have to give yourself up to music; and that is not my view
in the least. My great aim, as all my friends are aware, is to be a
comfort to dear papa."
"I wish you would not talk in riddles," said Lucilla's amazed and
indignant companion, in her round rich contralto. "I suppose you really
are Miss Marjoribanks. I have always heard that Miss Marjoribanks was a
little----"
"There!" said Lucilla triumphantly; "really it is almost like a
recitativo to hear you speak. I am so glad. What have you got there? Oh,
to be sure, it's _that_ duet out of the Trovatore. Do let us try it;
there is nobody here, and everything is so convenient--and you know it
would never do to risk a breakdown. Will you play the accompaniment, or
shall I?" said Miss Marjoribanks, taking off her gloves. As for the
drawing-master's daughter, she stood aghast, lost in such sudden
bewilderment and perplexity that she could find no words to reply. She
was not in the least amiable or yielding by nature; but Lucilla took it
so much as a matter of course that Barbara could not find a word to
say; and before she could be sure that it was real, Miss Marjoribanks
had seated herself at the piano. Barbara was so obstinate that she would
not sing the first part, which ought to have been hers; but she was not
clever enough for her antagonist. Lucilla sang her part by herself
gallantly; and when it came to Barbara's turn the second time, Miss
Marjoribanks essayed the second in a false voice, which drove the
contralto off her guard; and then the magnificent volume of sound flowed
forth, grand enough to have filled Lucilla with envy if she had not been
sustained by that sublime confidence in herself which is the first
necessity to a woman with a mission. She paused a moment in the
accompaniment to clap her hands after that strophe was accomplished, and
then resumed with energy. For, to be sure, she knew by instinct what
sort of clay the people were made of by whom she had to work, and gave
them their reward with that liberality and discrimination which is the
glory of enlightened despotism. Miss Marjoribanks was naturally elated
when she had performed this important and successful _tour_. She got up
from the piano, and closed it in her open, imperial way. "I do not want
to tire you, you know," she said; "that will do for to-day. I told you
your voice was the very thing to go with mine. Give my love to Rose when
she comes in, but don't bring her with you when you come to me. She is a
good little thing--but then she is different, you know," said the bland
Lucilla; and she held out her hand to her captive graciously, and
gathered up her parasol, which she had left on her chair. Barbara Lake
let her visitor go after this, with a sense that she had fallen asleep,
and had dreamt it all; but, after all, there was something in the visit
which was not disagreeable when she came to think it over. The
drawing-master was poor, and he had a quantity of children, as was
natural, and Barbara had never forgiven her mother for dying just at the
moment when she had a chance of seeing a little of what she called the
world. At that time Mr Lake and his portfolio of drawings were asked out
frequently to tea; and when he had pupils in the family, some kind
people asked him to bring one of his daughters with him--so that
Barbara, who was ambitious, had beheld herself for a month or two almost
on the threshold of Grange Lane. And it was at this moment of all
others, just at the same time as Mrs Marjoribanks finished her pale
career, that poor Mrs Lake thought fit to die, to the injury of her
daughter's prospects and the destruction of her hopes. Naturally
Barbara had never quite forgiven that injury. It was this sense of
having been ill-used which made her so resolute about sending Rose to
Mount Pleasant, though the poor little girl did not in the least want to
go, and was very happy helping her papa at the School of Design. But
Barbara saw no reason why Rose should be happy, while she herself had to
resign her inclinations and look after a set of odious children. To be
sure, it was a little hard upon a young woman of a proper ambition, who
knew she was handsome, to fall back into housekeeping, and consent to
remain unseen and unheard; for Barbara was also aware that she had a
remarkable voice. In these circumstances, it may be imagined that, after
the first movement of a passionate temper was over, when she had taken
breath, and had time to consider this sudden and extraordinary visit, a
glimmer of hope and interest penetrated into the bosom of the gloomy
girl. She was two years older than Miss Marjoribanks, and as different
in "style" as she was in voice. She was not stout as yet, though it is
the nature of a contralto to be stout; but she was tall, with all due
opportunity for that development which might come later. And then
Barbara possessed a kind of beauty, the beauty of a passionate and
somewhat sullen brunette, dark and glowing, with straight black
eyebrows, very dark and very straight, which gave, oddly enough, a
suggestion of oblique vision to her eyes; but her eyes were not in the
least oblique, and looked at you straight from under that black line of
shadow with no doubtful expression. She was shy in a kind of way, as was
natural to a young woman who had never seen any society, and felt
herself, on the whole, injured and unappreciated. But no two things
could be more different than this shyness which made Barbara look you
straight in the face with a kind of scared defiance, and the sweet
shyness that pleaded for kind treatment in the soft eyes of little Rose,
who was plain, and had the oddest longing to make people comfortable,
and please them in her way, which, to be sure, was not always
successful. Barbara sat down on the stool before the piano, which Miss
Marjoribanks had been so obliging as to close, and thought it all over
with growing excitement. No doubt it was a little puzzling to make out
how the discovery of a fine contralto, and the possibility of getting up
unlimited duets, could further Lucilla in the great aim of her life,
which was to be a comfort to her dear papa. But Barbara was like a young
soldier of fortune, ready to take a great deal for granted, and swallow
much that was mysterious in the programme of the adventurous general who
might lead her on to glory. In half an hour her dreams had gone so far
that she saw herself receiving in Miss Marjoribanks's drawing-room the
homage, not only of Grange Lane, but even of the county families, who
would be attracted by rumours of her wonderful performance; and Barbara
was, to her own consciousness, walking up the middle aisle of
Carlingford Church in a veil of real Brussels, before little Mr Lake
came in, hungry and good-tempered, from his round. To be sure, she had
not concluded who was to be the bridegroom; but that was one of those
matters of detail which could not be precisely concluded on till the
time.
Such was the immediate result, so far as this secondary personage was
concerned, of Lucilla's masterly impromptu; and it is needless to say
that the accomplished warrior, who had her wits always about her, and
had made, while engaged in a simple reconnaissance, so brilliant and
successful a capture, withdrew from the scene still more entirely
satisfied with herself. Nothing, indeed, could have come more
opportunely for Lucilla, who possessed in perfection that faculty of
throwing herself into the future, and anticipating the difficulties of a
position, which is so valuable to all who aspire to be leaders of
mankind. With a prudence which Dr Marjoribanks himself would have
acknowledged to be remarkable "in a person of her age and sex," Lucilla
had already foreseen that to amuse her guests entirely in her own
person, would be at once impracticable and "bad style." The first
objection might have been got over, for Miss Marjoribanks had a soul
above the ordinary limits of possibility, but the second unanswerable.
This discovery, however, satisfied all the necessities of the position.
Lucilla, who was liberal, as genius ought always to be, was perfectly
willing that all the young ladies in Carlingford should sing their
little songs while she was entertaining her guests; and then at the
right moment, when her ruling mind saw it was necessary, would occur the
duet--the one duet which would be the great feature of the evening. Thus
it will be seen that another quality of the highest order developed
itself during Miss Marjoribanks's deliberations; for, to tell the truth,
she set a good deal of store by her voice, and had been used to
applause, and had tasted the sweetness of individual success. This,
however, she was willing to sacrifice for the enhanced and magnificent
effect which she felt could be produced by the combination of the two
voices; and the sacrifice was one which a weaker woman would have been
incapable of making. She went home past Salem Chapel by the little lane
which makes a line of communication between the end of Grove Street and
the beginning of Grange Lane, with a sentiment of satisfaction worthy
the greatness of her mission. Dr Marjoribanks never came home to lunch,
and indeed had a contempt for that feminine indulgence; which, to be
sure, might be accounted for by the fact that about that time in the day
the Doctor very often found himself to be passing close by one or other
of the houses in the neighbourhood which had a reputation for good
sherry or madeira, such as exists no more. Lucilla, accordingly, had her
lunch alone, served to her with respectful care by Nancy, who was still
under the impression of the interview of the morning; and it occurred to
Miss Marjoribanks, as she sat at table alone, that this was an
opportunity too valuable to be left unimproved; for, to be sure, there
are few things more pleasant than a little impromptu luncheon-party,
where everybody comes without being expected, fresh from the outside
world, and ready to tell all that is going on; though, on the other
hand, it was a little doubtful how it might work in Carlingford, where
the men had generally something to do, and where the married ladies took
their luncheon when the children had their dinner, and presided at the
nursery meal. And as for a party of young ladies, even supposing they
had the courage to come, with no more solid admixture of the more
important members of society, Lucilla, to tell the truth, had no
particular taste for that. Miss Marjoribanks reflected as she ate--and
indeed, thanks to her perfect health and her agreeable morning walk,
Lucilla had a very pretty appetite, and enjoyed her meal in a way that
would have been most satisfactory to her many friends--that it must be
by way of making his visit, which was aggravating under all
circumstances, more aggravating still, that Tom Marjoribanks had decided
to come now, of all times in the world. "If he had waited till things
were organised, he might have been of a little use," Lucilla said to
herself; "for at least he could have brought some of the men that come
on circuit, and that would have made a little novelty; but, of course,
just now it would never do to make a rush at people, and invite them all
at once." After a moment's consideration, however. Miss Marjoribanks,
with her usual candour, reflected that it was not in Tom Marjoribanks's
power to change the time of the Carlingford assizes, and that,
accordingly, he was not to be blamed in this particular at least. "Of
course _it_ is not his fault," she added, to herself, "but it is
astonishing how things happen with some men always at the wrong moment;
and it is _so_ like Tom." These reflections were interrupted by the
arrival of visitors, whom Miss Marjoribanks received with her usual
grace. The first was old Mrs Chiley, who kissed Lucilla, and wanted to
know how she had enjoyed herself on the Continent, and if she had
brought many pretty things home. "My dear, you have grown ever so much
since the last time I saw you," the old lady said in her grandmotherly
way, "and stout with it, which is such a comfort with a tall girl; and
then your poor dear mamma was so delicate. I have always been a little
anxious about you on that account, Lucilla; and I am so glad, my dear,
to see you looking so strong."
"Dear Mrs Chiley," said Miss Marjoribanks, who perhaps in her heart was
not quite so gratified by this compliment as the old lady intended, "the
great aim of my life is to be a comfort to dear papa."
Mrs Chiley was very much moved by this filial piety, and she told
Lucilla that story about the Colonel's niece, Susan, who was such a good
daughter, and had refused three excellent offers, to devote herself to
her father and mother, with which the public in Grange Lane were
tolerably acquainted. "And one of them was a baronet, my dear," said Mrs
Chiley. Miss Marjoribanks did not make any decided response, for she
felt that it would be dangerous to commit herself to such a height of
self-abnegation as that; but the old lady was quite pleased to hear of
her travels and adventures instead; and stayed so long that Mrs Centum
and Mrs Woodburn, who happened to arrive at the same moment, found her
still there. Mrs Chiley was a little afraid of Mrs Woodburn, and she
took her leave hastily, with another kiss; and Lucilla found herself
face to face with the only two women who could attempt a rival
enterprise to her own in Carlingford. As for Mrs Woodburn, she had
settled herself in an easy-chair by the fire, and was fully prepared to
take notes. To be sure, Lucilla was the very person to fall victim to
her arts; for that confidence in herself which, in one point of view,
gave grandeur to the character of Miss Marjoribanks, gave her also a
certain naïveté and openness which the most simple rustic could not have
surpassed.
"I am sure by her face she has been telling you about my niece Susan,"
said the mimic, assuming Mrs Chiley's tone, and almost her appearance,
for the moment, "and that one of them was a baronet, my dear. I always
know from her looks what she has been saying; and 'the Colonel was much
as usual, but suffering a little from the cold, as he always does in
this climate.' She must be a good soul, for she always has her favourite
little speeches written in her face."
"I am sure I don't know," said Miss Marjoribanks, who felt it was her
duty to make an example; "there has always been one thing remarked of me
all my life, that I never have had a great sense of humour. I know it is
singular, but when one has a defect, it is always so much better to
confess it. I always get on very well with anything else, but I never
had any sense of humour, you know; and I am very fond of Mrs Chiley. She
has always had a fancy for me from the time I was born; and she has such
nice manners. But then, it is so odd I should have no sense of humour,"
said Lucilla, addressing herself to Mrs Centum, who was sitting on the
sofa by her. "Don't you think it is very odd?"
"I am sure it is very nice," said Mrs Centum. "I hate people that laugh
at everything. I don't see much to laugh at myself, I am sure, in this
distracting world; any one who has a lot of children and servants like
me to look after, finds very little to laugh at." And she seized the
opportunity to enter upon domestic circumstances. Mrs Woodburn did not
answer a word. She made a most dashing murderous sketch of Lucilla, but
that did the future ruler of Carlingford very little harm; and then, by
the evening, it was known through all Grange Lane that Miss Marjoribanks
had snubbed the caricaturist who kept all the good people in terror of
their lives. Snubbed her absolutely, and took the words out of her very
mouth, was the report that flew through Grange Lane; and it may be
imagined how Lucilla's prestige rose in consequence, and how much people
began to expect of Miss Marjoribanks, who had performed such a feat
almost on the first day of her return home.
_Chapter VI_
Tom Marjoribanks arrived that night, according to the Doctor's
expectation. He arrived, with that curious want of adaptation to the
circumstances which characterised the young man, at an hour which put
Nancy entirely out, and upset the equanimity of the kitchen for
twenty-four hours at least. He came, if any one can conceive of such an
instance of carelessness, by the nine o'clock train, just as they had
finished putting to rights downstairs. After this, Miss Marjoribanks's
conclusion that the fact of the Carlingford assizes occurring a day or
two after her arrival, when as yet she was not fully prepared to take
advantage of them, was _so_ like Tom, may be partially understood. And
of course he was furiously hungry, and could have managed perfectly to
be in time for dinner if he had not missed the train at Didcot Junction,
by some wonderful blunder of the railway people, which never could have
occurred but for his unlucky presence among the passengers. Lucilla took
Thomas apart, and sent him downstairs with the most conciliatory
message. "Tell Nancy not to put herself about, but to send up something
cold--the cold pie, or anything she can find handy. Tell her I am _so_
vexed, but it is just like Mr Tom; and he never knows what he is
eating," said Miss Marjoribanks. As for Nancy, this sweetness did not
subdue her in the least. She said, "I'll thank Miss Lucilla to mind her
own business. The cold pie is for master's breakfast. I ain't such a
goose as not to know what to send upstairs, and that Tummas can tell her
if he likes." In the meantime the Doctor was in the drawing-room, much
against his will, with the two young people, spinning about the room,
and looking at Lucilla's books and knick-knacks on the tables by way of
covering his impatience. He wanted to carry off Tom, who was rather a
favourite, to his own den downstairs, where the young man's supper was
to be served; but, at the same time, Dr Marjoribanks could not deny that
Lucilla had a right to the greetings and homage of her cousin. He could
not help thinking, on the whole, as he looked at the two, what a much
more sensible arrangement it would have been if he had had the boy,
instead of his sister, who had been a widow for ever so long, and no
doubt had spoiled her son, as women always do; and then Lucilla might
have passed under the sway of Mrs Marjoribanks, who no doubt would have
known how to manage her. Thus the Doctor mused, with that sense of mild
amazement at the blunders of Providence, which so many people
experience, and without any idea that Mrs Marjoribanks would have found
a task a great deal beyond her powers in the management of Lucilla. As
for Tom, he was horribly hungry, having found, as was to be expected, no
possible means of lunching at Didcot; but, at the same time, he was
exhilarated by Lucilla's smile, and delighted to think of having a week
at least to spend in her society. "I don't think I ever saw you looking
so well," he was saying; "and you know my opinion generally on that
subject." To which Lucilla responded in a way to wither all the germs of
sentiment in the bud.
"What subject?" she said; "my looks? I am sure they can't be interesting
to you. You are as hungry as ever you can be, and I can see it in your
eyes. Papa, he is famishing, and I don't think he can contain himself
any longer. Do take him downstairs, and let him have something to eat.
For myself," Lucilla continued, in a lower tone, "it is my duty that
keeps me up. You know it has always been the object of my life to be a
comfort to papa."
"Come along, Tom," said the Doctor. "Don't waste your time philandering
when your supper is ready." And Dr Marjoribanks led the way downstairs,
leaving Tom, who followed him, in a state of great curiosity to know
what secret oppression it might be under which his cousin was supported
by her duty. Naturally his thoughts reverted to a possible rival--some
one whom the sensible Doctor would have nothing to say to; and his very
ears grew red with excitement at this idea. But, notwithstanding, he ate
a very satisfactory meal in the library, where he had to answer all
sorts of questions. Tom had his tray at the end of the table, and the
Doctor, who had, according to his hospitable old-fashioned habit, taken
a glass of claret to "keep him company," sat in his easy-chair between
the fire and the table, and sipped his wine, and admired its colour and
purity in the light, and watched with satisfaction the excellent meal
his nephew was making. He asked him all about his prospects, and what he
was doing, which Tom replied to with the frankest confidence. He was not
very fond of work, nor were his abilities anything out of the common;
but at the present moment Tom saw no reason why he should not gain the
Woolsack in time; and Dr Marjoribanks gave something like a sigh as he
listened, and wondered much what Providence could be thinking of not to
give _him_ the boy.
Lucilla meantime was very much occupied upstairs. She had the new
housemaid up nominally to give her instructions about Mr Tom's room, but
really to take the covers off the chairs, and see how they looked when
the room was lighted up; but the progress of decay had gone too far to
stand that trial. After all, the chintz, though none of the freshest,
was the best. When the gentlemen came upstairs, which Tom, to the
Doctor's disgust, insisted on doing, Lucilla was found in the act of
pacing the room--pacing, not in the sentimental sense of making a little
promenade up and down, but in the homely practical signification, with a
view of measuring, that she might form an idea how much carpet was
required. Lucilla was tall enough to go through this process without any
great drawback in point of grace--the long step giving rather a
tragedy-queen effect to her handsome but substantial person and long,
sweeping dress. She stopped short, however, when she saw them, and
withdrew to the sofa, on which she had established her throne; and there
was a little air of conscious pathos on her face as she sat down, which
impressed her companions. As for Tom, he instinctively felt that it must
have something to do with that mystery under which Lucilla was supported
by her duty; and the irrelevant young man conceived immediately a
violent desire to knock the fellow down; whereas there was no fellow at
all in the case, unless it might be Mr Holden, the upholsterer, whose
visits Miss Marjoribanks would have received with greater enthusiasm at
this moment than those of the most eligible eldest son in England. And
then she gave a little pathetic sigh.
"What were you doing, Lucilla?" said her father,--"rehearsing Lady
Macbeth, I suppose. At least you looked exactly like it when we came
into the room."
"No, papa," said Lucilla sweetly; "I was only measuring to see how much
carpet we should want; and that, you know, and Tom's coming, made me
think of old times. You are so much downstairs in the library that you
don't feel it; but a lady has to spend her life in the drawing-room--and
then I always was so domestic. It does not matter what is outside, I
always find my pleasure at home. I cannot help if it has a little effect
on my spirits now and then," said Miss Marjoribanks, looking down upon
her handkerchief, "to be always surrounded with things that have such
associations----"
"What associations?" said the amazed Doctor. To be sure, he had
forgotten his wife; but it was four years ago, and he had got used to
her absence from her favourite sofa; and, on the whole, in that
particular, had acquiesced in the arrangements of Providence. "Really,
Lucilla, I don't know what you mean."
"No, papa," said Miss Marjoribanks, with resignation. "I know you don't,
and that is what makes it so sad. But talking of new carpets, you know,
I had such an adventure to-day that I must tell you--quite one of _my_
adventures--the very luckiest thing. It happened when I was out walking;
I heard a voice out of a house in Grove Street, just the _very_ thing to
go with my voice. That is not a thing that happens every day," said
Lucilla, "for all the masters have always told me that my voice was
something quite by itself. When I heard it, though it was in Grove
Street, and all the people about, I could have danced for joy."
"It was a man's voice, I suppose," suggested Tom Marjoribanks, in gloomy
tones; and the Doctor added, in his cynical way:
"It's a wonderful advantage to be so pleased about trifles. What number
was it? For my part, I have not many patients in Grove Street," said Dr
Marjoribanks. "I would find a voice to suit you in another quarter, if I
were you."
"Dear papa, it's such a pity that you don't understand," said Lucilla
compassionately. "It turned out to be Barbara Lake; for, of course, I
went in directly, and found out. I never heard a voice that went so well
with mine." If Miss Marjoribanks did not go into raptures over the
contralto on its own merits, it was not from any jealousy, of which,
indeed, she was incapable, but simply because its adaptation to her own
seemed to her by far its most interesting quality, and indeed almost the
sole claim it had to consideration from the world.
"Barbara Lake?" said the Doctor. "There's something in that. If you can
do her any good or get her teaching or anything--I have a regard for
poor Lake, poor little fellow! He's kept up wonderfully since his wife
died; and nobody expected it of him," Dr Marjoribanks continued, with a
momentary dreary recollection of the time when the poor woman took
farewell of her children, which indeed was the next day after that on
which his own wife, who had nobody in particular to take farewell of,
faded out of her useless life.
"Yes," said Lucilla, "I mean her to come here and sing with me; but,
then, one needs to organise a little first. I am nineteen--how long is
it since you were married, papa?"
"Two-and-twenty years," said the Doctor abruptly. He did not observe the
strangeness of the question, because he had been thinking for the moment
of his wife, and perhaps his face was a trifle graver than usual, though
neither of his young companions thought of remarking it. To be sure he
was not a young man even when he married; but, on the whole, perhaps
something more than this perfect comfort and respectability, and those
nice little dinners, had seemed to shine on his horizon when he brought
home his incapable bride.
"Two-and-twenty years!" exclaimed Lucilla. "I don't mind talking before
Tom, for he is one of the family. The things are all the same as they
were when mamma came home, though, I am sure, nobody would believe it. I
think it is going against Providence, for my part. Nothing was ever
intended to last so long, except the things the Jews, poor souls! wore
in the desert, perhaps. Papa, if you have no objection, I should like to
choose the colours myself. There is a great deal in choosing colours
that go well with one's complexion. People think of that for their
dresses, but not for their rooms, which are of so much more importance.
I should have liked blue, but blue gets so soon tawdry. I think," said
Miss Marjoribanks, rising and looking at herself seriously in the glass,
"that I have enough complexion at present to venture upon a pale spring
green."
This little calculation, which a timid young woman would have taken care
to do by herself, Lucilla did publicly, with her usual discrimination.
The Doctor, who had looked a little grim at first, could not but laugh
when he saw the sober look of care and thought with which Miss
Marjoribanks examined her capabilities in the glass. It was not so much
the action itself that amused her father, as the consummate ability of
the young revolutionary. Dr Marjoribanks was Scotch, and had a respect
for "talent" in every development, as is natural to his nation. He did
not even give his daughter that credit for sincerity which she deserved,
but set it all to the score of her genius, which was complimentary,
certainly, in one point of view; but the fact was that Lucilla was
perfectly sincere, and that she did what was natural to her under
guidance of her genius, so as always to be in good fortune, just as Tom
Marjoribanks, under the guidance of his, brought discredit even upon
those eternal ordinances of English government which fixed the time of
the Carlingford assizes. Lucilla was quite in earnest in thinking that
the colour of the drawing-room was an important matter, and that a woman
of sense had very good reason for suiting it to her complexion--an idea
which accordingly she proceeded to develop and explain.
"For one can change one's dress," said Miss Marjoribanks, "as often as
one likes--at least as often, you know, as one has dresses to change;
but the furniture remains the same. I am always a perfect guy, whatever
I wear, when I sit against a red curtain. You men say that a woman
always knows when she's good-looking, but I am happy to say _I_ know
when I look a guy. What I mean is a delicate pale green, papa. For my
part, I think it wears just as well as any other colour; and all the
painters say it is the very thing for pictures. The carpet, of course,
would be a darker shade; and as for the chairs, it is not at all
necessary to keep to one colour. Both red and violet go beautifully with
green, you know. I am sure Mr Holden and I could settle all about it
without giving you any trouble."
"Who told you, Lucilla," said the Doctor, "that I meant to refurnish the
house?" He was even a little angry at her boldness, but at the same time
he was so much amused and pleased in his heart to have so clever a
daughter, that all the tones that could produce terror were softened out
of his voice. "I never heard that was a sort of thing a man had to do
for his daughter," said Dr Marjoribanks; "and I would like to know what
I should do with all that finery when you get married--as I suppose you
will by and by--and leave me alone in the house?"
"Ah, that is the important question," said Tom. As usual, it was Tom's
luck; but then, when there did happen to be a moment when he ought to be
silent, the unfortunate fellow could not help but speak.
"Perhaps I may marry some time," said Miss Marjoribanks, with composure;
"it would be foolish, you know, to make any engagements; but that will
depend greatly upon how you behave, and how Carlingford behaves, papa.
I give myself ten years here, if you should be very good. By twenty-nine
I shall be going off a little, and perhaps it may be tiring, for
anything I can tell. Ten years is a long time, and naturally, in the
meantime, I want to look as well as possible. Stop a minute; I forgot to
put down the number of paces for the length. Tom, please to do it over
again for me; of course, your steps are a great deal longer than mine."
"Tom is tired," said the Doctor; "and there are no new carpets coming
out of my pockets. Besides, he's going to bed, and I'm going downstairs
to the library. We may as well bid you good-night."
These words, however, were addressed to deaf ears. Tom, as was natural,
had started immediately to obey Lucilla, as he was in duty bound; and
the old Doctor looked on with a little amazement and a little amusement,
recognising, with something of the surprise which that discovery always
gives to fathers and mothers, that his visitor cared twenty times more
for what Lucilla said than for anything that his superior wisdom could
suggest. He would have gone off and left them as a couple of young
fools, if it had not occurred to him all at once that since this sort of
thing had begun, the last person in the world that he would choose to
see dancing attendance on his daughter was Tom Marjoribanks. Oddly
enough, though he had just been finding fault with Providence for not
giving him a son instead of a daughter, he was not at all delighted nor
grateful when Providence put before him this simple method of providing
himself with the son he wanted. He took a great deal too much interest
in Tom Marjoribanks to let him do anything so foolish; and as for
Lucilla, the idea that, after all her accomplishments, and her expensive
education, and her year on the Continent, she should marry a man who had
nothing, disgusted the Doctor. He kept his seat accordingly, though he
was horribly bored by the drawing-room and its claims, and wanted very
much to return to the library, and get into his slippers and his
dressing-gown. It was rather a pretty picture, on the whole, which he
was regarding. Lucilla, perhaps, with a view to this discussion, had put
on green ribbons on the white dress which she always wore in the
evening, and her tawny curls and fresh complexion carried off
triumphantly that difficult colour. Perhaps a critical observer might
have said that her figure was a little too developed and substantial
for these vestal robes; but then Miss Marjoribanks was young, and could
bear it. She was standing by, not far from the fire, on the other side
from the Doctor, looking on anxiously, while Tom measured the room with
his long steps. "I never said you were to stride," said Lucilla; "take
moderate steps, and don't be so silly. I was doing it myself famously if
you had not come in and interrupted me. It is frightful to belong to a
family where the men are so stupid," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a sigh
of real distress; for, to be sure, the unlucky Tom immediately bethought
himself to take small steps like those of a lady, which all but threw
him on his well-formed though meaningless nose. Lucilla shook her head
with an exasperated look, and contracted her lips with disdain, as he
passed her on his ill-omened career. Of course he came right up against
the little table on which she had with her own hand arranged a bouquet
of geraniums and mignonette. "It is what he always does," she said to
the Doctor calmly, as Tom arrived at that climax of his fate; and the
look with which she accompanied these words, as she rang the bell
smartly and promptly, mollified the Doctor's heart.
"I can tell you the size of the room, if that is all you want," said Dr
Marjoribanks. "I suppose you mean to give parties, and drive me out of
my senses with dancing and singing.--No, Lucilla, you must wait till you
get married--that will never do for me."
"Dear papa," said Lucilla sweetly, "it is so dreadful to hear you say
_parties_. Everybody knows that the only thing I care for in life is to
be a comfort to you; and as for dancing, I saw at once that was out of
the question. Dancing is all very well," said Miss Marjoribanks
thoughtfully; "but it implies quantities of young people--and young
people can never make what _I_ call society. It is _Evenings_ I mean to
have, papa. I am sure you want to go downstairs, and I suppose Tom would
think it civil to sit with me, though he is tired; so I will show you a
good example, and Thomas can pick up the table and the flowers at his
leisure. Good-night, papa," said Lucilla, giving him her round fresh
cheek to kiss. She went out of the room with a certain triumph, feeling
that she had fully signified her intentions, which is always an
important matter; and shook hands in a condescending way with Tom, who
had broken his shins in a headlong rush to open the door. She looked at
him with an expression of mild despair, and shook her head again as she
accorded him that sign of amity. "If you only would look a little where
you are going," said Miss Marjoribanks;--perhaps she meant the words to
convey an allegorical as well as a positive meaning, as so many people
have been found out to do--and then she pursued her peaceful way
upstairs. As for the Doctor, he went off to his library rubbing his
hands, glad to be released, and laughing softly at his nephew's abashed
looks. "She knows how to put _him_ down at least," the Doctor said to
himself, well pleased; and he was so much amused by his daughter's
superiority to the vulgar festivity of parties, that he almost gave in
to the idea of refurnishing the drawing-room to suit Lucilla's
complexion. He rubbed his hands once more over the fire, and indulged in
a little laugh all by himself over that original idea. "So it is
Evenings she means to have?" said the Doctor; and, to be sure, nothing
could be more faded than the curtains, and there were bits of the carpet
in which the pattern was scarcely discernible. So that, on the whole, up
to this point there seemed to be a reasonable prospect that Lucilla
would have everything her own way.
_Chapter VII_
Miss Marjoribanks had so many things to think of next morning that she
found her cousin, who was rather difficult to get rid of, much in her
way: naturally the young man was briefless, and came on circuit for the
name of the thing, and was quite disposed to dawdle the first morning,
and attach himself to the active footsteps of Lucilla; and for her part,
she had things to occupy her so very much more important. For one thing,
one of Dr Marjoribanks's little dinner-parties was to take place that
evening, which would be the first under the new régime, and was
naturally a matter of some anxiety to all parties. "I shall go down and
ask Mrs Chiley to come with the Colonel," said Lucilla. "I have always
meant to do that. We can't have a full dinner-party, you know, as long
as the house is so shabby; but I am sure Mrs Chiley will come to take
care of me."
"To take care of you!--in your father's house! Do you think they'll
bite?" said the Doctor grimly; but as for Lucilla, she was quite
prepared for that.
"I must have a chaperone, you know," she said. "I don't say it is not
quite absurd; but then, at first, I always make it a point to give in to
the prejudices of society. That is how I have always been so
successful," said the experienced Lucilla. "I never went in the face of
anybody's prejudices. Afterwards, you know, when one is known----"
The Doctor laughed, but at the same time he sighed. There was nothing to
be said against Mrs Chiley, who had, on the whole, as women go, a very
superior training, and knew what a good dinner was; but it was the
beginning of the revolution of which Dr Marjoribanks, vaguely oppressed
with the idea of new paper, new curtains, and all that was involved in
the entrance of Mr Holden the upholsterer into the house, did not see
the end. He acquiesced, of course, since there was nothing else for it:
but it must be confessed that the spectre of Mrs Chiley sitting at his
right hand clouded over for the Doctor the pleasant anticipation of the
evening. If it had been possible to put her at the head of the table
beside Lucilla, whom she was to come to take care of, he could have
borne it better--and to be sure it would have been a great deal more
reasonable; but then that was absolutely out of the question, and the
Doctor gave in with a sigh. Thus it was that he began to realise the
more serious result of that semi-abdication into which he had been
beguiled. The female element, so long peacefully ignored and kept at a
distance, had come in again in triumph and taken possession, and the
Doctor knew too well by the experience of a long life what a restless
and troublesome element it was. He had begun to feel that it had ceased
to be precisely amusing as he took his place in his brougham. It was
good sport to see Lucilla make an end of Tom, and put her bridle upon
the stiff neck of Nancy; but when it came to changing the character of
the Doctor's dinners, his intellect naturally got more obtuse, and he
did not see the joke.
As for Tom, he had to be disposed of summarily. "Do go away," Miss
Marjoribanks said, in her straightforward way. "You can come back to
luncheon if you like;--that is to say, if you can pick up anybody that
is very amusing, you may bring him here about half-past one, and if any
of my friends have come to call by that time, I will give you lunch; but
it must be somebody very amusing, or I will have nothing to say to you,"
said Lucilla. And with this dismissal Tom Marjoribanks departed, not
more content than the Doctor; for, to be sure, the last thing in the
world which the poor fellow thought of was to bring somebody who was
amusing, to injure his chances with Lucilla. Tom, like most other
people, was utterly incapable of fathoming the grand conception which
inspired Miss Marjoribanks. When she told him that it was the object of
her life to be a comfort to papa, he believed it to a certain extent,
but it never occurred to him that filial devotion, though beautiful to
contemplate, would preserve Lucilla's heart from the ordinary dangers of
youth, or that she was at all in earnest in postponing all matrimonial
intentions until she was nine-and-twenty, and had begun to "go off" a
little. So he went away disconsolate enough, wavering between his
instinct of obedience and his desire of being in Lucilla's company, and
a desperate determination never to be the means of injuring himself by
presenting to her anybody who was very amusing. All Miss Marjoribanks's
_monde_, as it happened, was a little out of humour that day. She had
gone on so far triumphantly that it had now come to be necessary that
she should receive a little check in her victorious career.
When Tom was disposed of, Miss Marjoribanks put on her hat and went down
Grange Lane to carry her invitation to Mrs Chiley, who naturally was
very much pleased to come. "But, my dear, you must tell me what to put
on," the old lady said. "I don't think I have had anything new since you
were home last. I have heard so much about Dr Marjoribanks's dinners
that I feel a little excited, as if I was going to be made a freemason
or something. There is my brown, you know, that I wear at home when we
have anybody--and my black velvet; and then there is my French gray that
I got for Mary Chiley's marriage."
"Dear Mrs Chiley," said Lucilla, "it doesn't matter in the least what
you wear; there are only to be gentlemen, you know, and one never
dresses for gentlemen. You must keep that beautiful black velvet for
another time."
"Well, my dear," said Mrs Chiley, "_I_ am long past that sort of
thing--but the men think, you know, that it is always for them we
dress."
"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, "their vanity is something dreadful--but
it is one of my principles _never_ to dress unless there are ladies. A
white frock, high in the neck," said Lucilla, with sweet simplicity--"as
for anything else, it would be bad style."
Mrs Chiley gave her young visitor a very cordial kiss when she went
away. "The sense she has!" said the old lady; but at the same time the
Colonel's wife was so old-fashioned that this contemptuous way of
treating "The Gentlemen" puzzled her unprogressive intelligence. She
thought it was superhuman virtue on Lucilla's part, nearly incredible,
and yet established by proofs so incontestable that it would be a shame
to doubt it; and she felt ashamed of herself--she who might have been a
grandmother, had such been the will of Providence--for lingering five
minutes undecided between her two best caps. "I dare say Lucilla does
not spend so much time on such vanity, and she only nineteen," said the
penitent old lady. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she returned up Grange Lane
with a mind at ease, and that consciousness of superior endowments
which gives amiability and expansion even to the countenance. She did
not give any money to the beggar who at that period infested Grange Lane
with her six children, for that was contrary to those principles of
political economy which she had studied with such success at Mount
Pleasant; but she stopped and asked her name, and where she lived, and
promised to inquire into her case. "If you are honest and want to work,
I will try to find you something to do," said Miss Marjoribanks; which,
to be sure, was a threat appalling enough to keep her free from any
further molestation on the part of that interesting family. But Lucilla,
to do her justice, felt it equally natural that beneficence should issue
from her in this manner as in that other mode of feeding the hungry
which she was willing to adopt at half-past one, and had solemnly
engaged herself to fulfil at seven o'clock. She went up after that to Mr
Holden's, and had a most interesting conversation, and found among his
stores a delicious damask, softly, spiritually green, of which, to his
great astonishment, she tried the effect in one of the great mirrors
which ornamented the shop. "It is just the tint I want," Lucilla said,
when she had applied that unusual test; and she left the fashionable
upholsterer of Carlingford in a state of some uncertainty whether it was
curtains or dresses that Miss Marjoribanks meant to have made.
Perhaps this confusion arose from the fact that Lucilla's mind was
occupied in discussing the question whether she should not go round by
Grove Street, and try that duet again with Barbara, and invite her to
Grange Lane in the evening to electrify the little company; or whether,
in case this latter idea might not be practicable, she should bring
Barbara with her to lunch by way of occupying Tom Marjoribanks. Lucilla
stood at Mr Holden's door for five seconds at least balancing the
matter; but finally she gave her curls a little shake, and took a quick
step forward, and without any more deliberation returned towards Grange
Lane; for, on the whole, it was better not to burst in full triumph all
at once upon her constituency, and exhaust her forces at the beginning.
If she condescended to sing something herself, it would indeed be a
greater honour than her father's dinner-party, in strict justice, was
entitled to; and as for the second question, though Miss Marjoribanks
was too happy in the confidence of her own powers to fear any rivals,
and though her cousin's devotion bored her, still she felt doubtful how
far it was good policy to produce Barbara at luncheon for the purpose of
occupying Tom. Other people might see her besides Tom, and her own grand
_coup_ might be forestalled for anything she could tell; and then Tom
had some title to consideration on his own merits, though he was the
unlucky member of the family. He might even, if he were so far left to
himself (though Miss Marjoribanks smiled at the idea), fall in love with
Barbara; or, what was more likely, driven to despair by Lucilla's
indifference, he might _pretend_ to fall in love; and Lucilla reflected,
that if anything happened she could never forgive herself. This was the
point she had arrived at when she shook her tawny curls and set out
suddenly on her return home.
It was now nearly one o'clock, and it was quite possible that Tom, as
well as herself, might be on the way to Grange Lane; but Lucilla, who,
as she said, made a point of never going against the prejudices of
society, made up her mind to remain sweetly unconscious of the hour of
luncheon, unless some lady came to keep her company. But then Miss
Marjoribanks was always lucky, as she said. A quarter of an hour before
Tom applied for admission, Miss Bury came to pay Lucilla a visit. She
had been visiting in her district all the morning, and was very easily
persuaded to repose herself a little; and then, naturally, she was
anxious about her young friend's spiritual condition, and the effect
upon her mind of a year's residence abroad. She was asking whether
Lucilla had not seen something soul-degrading and dishonouring to
religion in all the mummeries of Popery; and Miss Marjoribanks, who was
perfectly orthodox, had replied to the question in the most satisfactory
manner; when Tom made his appearance, looking rather sheepish and
reluctant, and followed by the "somebody amusing" whom Lucilla had
commissioned him to bring. He had struggled against his fate, poor
fellow! but when it happens to be a man's instinct to do what he is
told, he can no more resist it than if it was a criminal impulse. Tom
entered with his amusing companion, who had been chosen with care, and
was very uninviting to look at; and by and by Miss Bury, with the most
puzzled looks, found herself listening to gossip about the theatres and
all kinds of profane subjects. "I think they are going to hang that
fellow that killed the tailor," said the amusing man; "that will stir
you up a little in Carlingford, I should suppose. It is as good as a
play for a country town. Of course, there will be a party that will get
up a memorial, and prove that a man so kind-hearted never existed out of
paradise; and there will be another party who will prove him to be
insane; and then at the end all the blackguards within a hundred miles
will crowd into Carlingford, and the fellow will be hanged, as he
deserves to be; but I assure you it's a famous amusement for a country
town."
"Sir," said Miss Bury, with a tremulous voice, for her feelings had
overcome her, "when you speak of amusement, does it ever occur to you
what will become of his miserable soul?"
"I assure you, wretches of that description have no souls," said the
young barrister, "or else, of course, I would not permit myself to speak
so freely. It is a conclusion I have come to not rashly, but after many
opportunities of observing," the young man went on with solemnity; "on
the whole, my opinion is, that this is the great difference between one
portion of mankind and the other: that description of being, you may
take my word for it, has no soul."
"I never take anybody's word for what is so plainly stated in the Holy
Scriptures," said Miss Bury; "I never heard any one utter such a
terrible idea. I am sure I don't want to defend a--a murderer," cried
the Rector's sister, with agitation; "but I have heard of persons in
that unfortunate position coming to a heavenly frame of mind, and giving
every evidence of being truly converted. The law may take their lives,
but it is an awful thing--a truly dreadful thing," said Miss Bury,
trembling all over, "to try to take away their soul."
"Oh, nonsense, Lucilla. By Jove! he does not mean that, you know," said
Tom, interposing to relieve his friend.
"Do you believe in Jove, Mr Thomas Marjoribanks," said Miss Bury,
looking him in an alarming manner full in the face.
The unfortunate Tom grew red and then he grew green under this question
and that awful look. "No, Miss Bury, I can't say I do," he answered
humbly; and the amusing man was so much less brotherly than Tom that he
burst into unsympathetic laughter. As for Lucilla, it was the first real
check she had sustained in the beginning of her career. There could not
have been a more unfortunate _contretemps_, and there is no telling how
disastrous the effect might have been, had not her courage and
coolness, not to say her orthodoxy, been equal to the occasion. She gave
her cousin a look which was still more terrible than Miss Bury's, and
then she took affairs into her own hands.
"It is dreadful sometimes to see what straits people are put to, to keep
up the conversation," said Lucilla; "Tom in particular, for I think he
has a pleasure in talking nonsense. But you must not suppose I am of
that opinion. I remember quite well there was a dreadful man once here
in jail for something, and Mr Bury made him the most beautiful
character! Every creature has a soul. I am sure we say so in the Creed
every day of our lives, and especially in that long creed where so many
people perish everlastingly. So far from laughing, it is quite dreadful
to think of it," said Lucilla. "It is one of my principles never to
laugh about anything that has to do with religion. I always think it my
duty to speak with respect. It has such a bad effect upon some minds.
Miss Bury, if you will not take anything more, I think we had better go
upstairs."
To think that Tom, whose luck, as usual, had betrayed him to such an
unlooked-for extent, should have been on the point of following to the
drawing-room, was more than Miss Marjoribanks could comprehend; but
fortunately his companion had more sense, and took his leave, taking his
conductor with him. Miss Bury went upstairs in silence, sighing heavily
from time to time. The good woman was troubled in her spirit at the
evident depravity of the young men with whom circumstances had
constrained her to sit down at table, and she was sadly afraid that such
companionship must have a debasing effect upon the mind of that lamb of
the flock now standing before her. Miss Bury bethought herself of Dr
Marjoribanks's profane jokes, and the indifference he had shown to many
things in which it was his duty to have interested himself, and she
could not but look with tender pity in her young friend's face.
"Poor dear," said Miss Bury, "it is dreadful indeed if this is the sort
of society you are subjected to. I could recommend to Dr Marjoribanks a
most admirable woman, a true Christian, who would take charge of things
and be your companion, Lucilla. It is not at all nice for you, at your
age, to be obliged to receive young men like these alone."
"I had you!" said Lucilla, taking both Miss Bury's hands. "I felt it was
such a blessing. I would not have let Tom stay for luncheon if you had
not been there; and now I am so glad, because it has shown me the danger
of letting him bring people. I am quite sure it was a special providence
that made you think of coming here to-day."
"Well, my dear," said Miss Bury, who was naturally mollified by this
statement of the question, "I am very glad to have been of use to you.
If there is anything I desire in this life, it is to be useful to my
fellow-creatures, and to do my work while it is called day. I should not
think the time lost, my dear Lucilla, if I could only hope that I had
impressed upon your mind that an account must be given of every careless
word----"
"Oh, yes," said Lucilla, "that is _so_ true; and besides, it is quite
against my principles. I make it a point never to speak of anything
about religion except with the greatest respect; and I am quite sure it
was a special providence that I had _you_."
Miss Bury took her farewell very affectionately, not to say effusively,
after this, with her heart melting over the ingenuous young creature who
was so thankful for her protection; but at the same time she left Miss
Marjoribanks a prey to the horrible sensation of having made a failure.
To be sure, there was time to recover herself in the evening, which was,
so to speak, her first formal appearance before the public of
Carlingford. Tom was so ill-advised as to come in when she was having
her cup of tea before dinner to fortify her for her exertions; and the
reception he met with may be left to the imagination. But, after all,
there was little satisfaction in demolishing Tom; and then Lucilla had
known from the beginning that the success of her undertaking depended
entirely on herself.
_Chapter VIII_
The evening passed off in a way which, if Miss Marjoribanks had been an
ordinary woman, would have altogether obliterated from her mind all
recollection of the failure at lunch. To speak first of the most
important particular, the dinner was perfect. As for the benighted men
who had doubted Lucilla, they were covered with shame, and, at the same
time, with delight. If there had been a fault in Dr Marjoribanks's table
under the ancient régime, it lay in a certain want of variety, and
occasional over-abundance, which wounded the feelings of young Mr
Cavendish, who was a person of refinement. To-night, as that
accomplished critic remarked, there was a certain air of feminine grace
diffused over everything--and an amount of doubt and expectation,
unknown to the composed feastings of old, gave interest to the meal. As
for the Doctor, he found Mrs Chiley, at his right hand, not so great a
bore as he expected. She was a woman capable of appreciating the
triumphs of art that were set before her; and had indeed been trained to
as high a pitch of culture in this respect as perhaps is possible to the
female intelligence; and then her pride and delight in being admitted to
a participation in those sacred mysteries was beyond expression. "My
dear Lucilla, I feel exactly as if I was going to be made a freemason;
and as if your dear good papa had to blindfold me, and make me swear all
sorts of things before he took me downstairs," she said, as they sat
together waiting for the commencement of the ceremony; and when the two
ladies returned to the drawing-room, Mrs Chiley took Lucilla in her arms
and gave her a kiss, as the only way of expressing adequately her
enthusiasm. "My love," said the Colonel's wife, "I never realised before
what it was to have a genius. You should be very thankful to Providence
for giving you such a gift. I have given dinners all my life--that is,
all my married life, my dear, which comes to almost the same thing, for
I was only a baby--but I never could come up to anything like that,"
said Mrs Chiley, with tears in her eyes. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she
was so satisfied with her success that she felt at liberty to
tranquillise her old friend.
"I am sure you always give very nice dinners," she said; "and then, you
know, the Colonel has his favourite dishes--whereas, I must say for
papa, he is very reasonable for a man. I am so glad you are pleased. It
is very kind of you to say it is genius, but I don't pretend to anything
but paying great attention and studying the combinations. There is
nothing one cannot manage if one only takes the trouble. Come here to
this nice easy-chair--it is so comfortable. It is so nice to have a
little moment to ourselves before they come upstairs."
"That is what I always say," said Mrs Chiley; "but there are not many
girls so sensible as you, Lucilla. I hear them all saying it is so much
better French fashion. Of course, I am an old woman, and like things in
the old style."
"I don't think it is because I am more sensible," said Miss
Marjoribanks, with modesty. "I don't pretend to be better than other
people. It is because I have thought it all over, you know--and then I
went through a course of political economy when I was at Mount
Pleasant," Lucilla said tranquilly, with an air of having explained the
whole matter, which much impressed her hearer. "But for all that,
something dreadful happened to-day. Tom brought in one of his friends
with him, you know, and Miss Bury was here, and they talked--I want to
tell you, in case she should say something, and then you will know what
to believe. I never felt so dreadfully ashamed in my life--they
talked----"
"My dear! not anything improper, I hope," cried the old lady, in dismay.
"Oh, no," said Lucilla; "but they began laughing about some people
having no souls, you know--as if there could be anybody without a
soul--and poor Miss Bury nearly fainted. You may think what a dreadful
thing it was for me."
"My dear child, if that was all," said Mrs Chiley, reassured--"as for
everybody having a soul, I am sure I cannot say. You never were in
India, to be sure; but Miss Bury should have known better than to faint
at a young man's talk, and frighten you, my poor dear. She ought to be
ashamed of herself, at her age. Do you think Tom has turned out clever?"
the old lady continued, not without a little finesse, and watching
Lucilla with a curious eye.
"Not in the very least," said Miss Marjoribanks calmly; "he is just as
awkward as he used to be. It is dreadful to have him here just now, when
I have so many things to do--and then he would follow me about
everywhere if I would let him. A cousin of that sort is always in the
way."
"I am always afraid of a cousin, for my part," said Mrs Chiley; "and
talking of that, what do you think of Mr Cavendish, Lucilla? He is very
nice in himself, and he has a nice property; and some people say he has
a very good chance to be member for Carlingford when there is an
election. I think that is just what would suit you."
"I could not see him for the lamp," said Lucilla; "it was right between
us, you know--but it is no use talking of that sort of thing just now.
Of course, if I had liked, I never need have come home at all," Miss
Marjoribanks added, with composure; "and, now I have come home, I have
got other things to think of. If papa is good, I will not think of
leaving him for ten years."
"Oh, yes; I have heard girls say that before," said Mrs Chiley; "but
they always changed their minds. You would not like to be an old maid,
Lucilla; and in ten years----"
"I should have begun to go off a little, no doubt," said Miss
Marjoribanks. "No, I can't say I wish to be an old maid. Can they be
coming upstairs already, do you think? Oh, it is Tom, I suppose," said
Lucilla, with a little indignation. But when _They_ did make their
appearance, which was at a tolerably early period--for a return to the
drawing-room was quite a novelty for Dr Marjoribanks's friends, and
tempted them accordingly--Miss Marjoribanks was quite ready to receive
them. And just before ten o'clock, when Mrs Chiley began to think of
going home, Lucilla, without being asked, and without indeed a word of
preface, suddenly went to the piano, and before anybody knew, had
commenced to sing. She was a great deal too sensible to go into high art
on this occasion, or to electrify her father's friends with her
newly-acquired Italian, or even with German, as some young ladies do.
She sang them a ballad out of one of those treasures of resuscitated
ballads which the new generation had then begun to dig out of the bowels
of the earth. There was not, to tell the truth, a great deal of music
in it, which proved Lucilla's disinterestedness. "I only sang it to
amuse you," she said, when all the world crowded to the piano; and for
that night she was not to be persuaded to further exertions. Thus Miss
Marjoribanks proved to her little public that power of subordinating her
personal tastes and even her vanity to her great object, which more than
anything else demonstrates a mind made to rule. "I hope next time you
will be more charitable, and not tantalise us in this way," Mr Cavendish
said, as he took his leave; and Lucilla retired from the scene of her
triumph, conscious of having achieved entire success in her first
appearance in Carlingford. She laid her head upon her pillow with that
sweet sense of an approving conscience which accompanies the footsteps
of the benefactors of their kind. But even Miss Marjoribanks's
satisfaction was not without its drawbacks. She could not get out of her
mind that unhappy abortive luncheon and all its horrors; not to speak of
the possibility of her religious principles being impugned, which was
dreadful in itself ("for people can stand a man being sceptical, you
know," Miss Marjoribanks justly observed, "but everybody knows how
unbecoming it is in a woman--and me who have such a respect for
religion!"); there remained the still more alarming chance that Miss
Bury, who was so narrow-minded, might see something improper in the
presence of the two young men at Lucilla's maidenly table; for, to be
sure, the Rector's sister was altogether incapable of grasping the idea
that young men, like old men and the other less interesting members of
the human family, were simple material for Miss Marjoribanks's genius,
out of which she had a great result to produce. This was the dread that
overshadowed the mind of Lucilla as she composed herself to rest after
her fatigues. When she slept the sleep of the innocent, it still pursued
her into her dreams. She dreamed that she stood at the altar by the side
of the member for Carlingford, and that Mr Bury, with inflexible
cruelty, insisted upon marrying her to Tom Marjoribanks instead; and
then the scene changed, and instead of receiving the salutations of Mr
Cavendish as M.P. for the borough, it was the amusing man, in the
character of the defeated candidate, who grinned and nodded at her, and
said from the hustings that he would never forget the luncheon that had
been his first introduction to Carlingford. Such was the nightmare that
pursued Lucilla even into the sphere of dreams.
When such a presentiment takes possession of a well-balanced mind like
that of Miss Marjoribanks, it may be accepted as certain that something
is likely to follow. Lucilla did her best to disarm fate, not only by
the sweetest submission and dutifulness to the Doctor and his wishes,
but by a severe disregard of Tom, which drove that unhappy young man
nearly desperate. Far from saying anything about luncheon, she even
ignored his presence at breakfast, and remained calmly unconscious of
his empty cup, until he had to ask for some coffee in an injured and
pathetic voice, which amused Dr Marjoribanks beyond description. But
even this did not prove sufficient to propitiate the Fates. When They
were gone--and it may be well to say that Lucilla used this pronoun to
signify _the gentlemen_, in greater or smaller number as it might
happen--and she had finished all her arrangements, Miss Marjoribanks
decided upon going to Grove Street to pay Barbara Lake a visit, and
practise some duets, which was certainly as innocent an occupation for
her leisure as could be desired. She was putting on her hat with this
object when the bell in the garden rang solemnly, and Lucilla, whose
curiosity conquered her good manners for the moment, hastening to the
window, saw Mr Bury himself enter the garden, accompanied by a black
figure in deep and shabby mourning. All the tremors of the night rushed
back upon her mind at the sight. She felt that the moment had arrived
for a trial of her courage very different from the exertions which had
hitherto sufficed her. Nothing but the most solemn intentions could have
supported the Rector in that severe pose of his figure and features,
every line in which revealed an intention of being "faithful"; and the
accompanying mute in black, whose office the culprit could not divine,
had a veil over her face, and wore a widow's dress. Miss Marjoribanks,
it is true, was not a woman to be discouraged by appearances, but she
felt her heart beat as she collected all her powers to meet this
mysterious assault. She took off her hat with an instinctive certainty
that, for this morning at least, the duet was impracticable, when she
heard Mr Bury's steady step ascending the stairs; but, notwithstanding,
it was with a perfectly cheerful politeness that she bade him welcome
when he came into the room. "It is so good of you to come," Lucilla
said; "you that have so much to do. I scarcely could believe it when I
saw you come in: I thought it must be for papa."
"I did hope to find Dr Marjoribanks," said the Rector, "but as he is not
at home, I thought it best to come to you. This is Mrs Mortimer," said
Mr Bury, taking the chair Lucilla had indicated with a certain want of
observance of his companion which betrayed to the keen perceptions of
Miss Marjoribanks that she was a dependant of some kind or other. The
Rector was a very good man, but was Evangelical, and had a large female
circle who admired and swore by him; and, consequently, he felt it in a
manner natural that he should take his seat first, and the place that
belonged to him as the principal person present; and then, to be sure,
his mission here was for Mrs Mortimer's as well as Miss Marjoribanks's
"good." After this introduction, the figure in black put up its veil,
and revealed a deprecating woman, with a faint sort of pleading smile on
her face. Probably she was making believe to smile at the position in
which she found herself; but anyhow she took her seat humbly on another
chair at a little distance, and waited, as Lucilla did, for the next
golden words that it might please the Rector to say.
"My sister told me what happened yesterday," said Mr Bury. "She is very
sorry for you, Miss Marjoribanks. It is sad for you to be left alone so
young, and without a mother, and exposed to--to temptations which it is
difficult to withstand at your age. Indeed, at all ages, we have great
occasion to pray not to be led into temptation; for the heart of man is
terribly deceitful. After hearing what she had to say, I thought it best
to come up at once this morning and talk to Dr Marjoribanks. I am sure
his natural good sense will teach him that you ought not to be left
alone in the house."
"I do not see how papa can help it," said Lucilla. "I am sure it is very
sad for him as well; but since dear mamma died there has been nobody but
me to be a comfort to him. I think he begins to look a little cheerful
now," Miss Marjoribanks continued, with beautiful simplicity, looking
her adversary in the face. "Everybody knows that to be a comfort to him
is the object of my life."
"That is a very good feeling," said the Rector, "but it does not do to
depend too much upon our feelings. You are too young to be placed in a
position of so much responsibility, and open to so much temptation. I
was deeply grieved for Dr Marjoribanks when his partner in life was
taken from him; but my dear Miss Lucilla, now you have come home, who
stand so much in need of a mother's care, we must try to find some one
to fill her place."
Lucilla uttered a scream of genuine alarm and dismay; and then she came
to herself, and saw the force of her position. She had it in her power
to turn the tables on the Rector, and she did not hesitate, as a weaker
woman might have done, out of consideration for anybody's feelings. "Do
you mean you have found some one for him to marry?" she asked, with a
look of artless surprise, bending her earnest gaze on Mr Bury's face.
As for the Rector, he looked at Lucilla aghast, like a man caught in a
trap. "Of course not, of course not," he stammered, after his first
pause of consternation; and then he had to stop again to take breath.
Lucilla kept up the air of amazement and consternation which had come
naturally at the first, and had her eyes fixed on him, leaning forward
with all the eager anxiety natural to the circumstances, and the
unfortunate clergyman reddened from the edge of his white cravat to the
roots of his gray hair. He was almost as sensitive to the idea of having
proposed something improper as his sister could have been, though
indeed, at the worst, there would have been nothing improper in it had
Dr Marjoribanks made up his mind to another wife.
"It is very dreadful for me that am so young to go against _you_" said
Lucilla; "but if it is _that_, I cannot be expected to take any part in
it--it would not be natural. It is the great object of my life to be a
comfort to papa; but if that is what you mean, I could not give in to
it. I am sure Miss Bury would understand me," said Miss Marjoribanks;
and she looked so nearly on the point of tears, that the Rector's
anxious disclaimer found words for itself.
"Nothing of the kind, my dear Miss Lucilla--nothing of the kind," cried
Mr Bury; "such an idea never came into my mind. I cannot imagine how I
could have said anything--I can't fancy what put such an idea----Mrs
Mortimer, you are not going away?"
Lucilla had already seen with the corner of her eye that the victim had
started violently, and that her heavy veil had fallen over her face--but
she had not taken any notice, for there are cases in which it is
absolutely necessary to have a victim. By this time, however, the poor
woman had risen in her nervous, undecided way.
"I had better go--I am sure I had better go," she said hurriedly,
clasping together a pair of helpless hands, as if they could find a
little strength in union. "Miss Marjoribanks will understand you better,
and you will perhaps understand Miss Marjoribanks----"
"Oh, sit down, sit down," said Mr Bury, who was not tolerant of
feelings. "Perhaps I expressed myself badly. What I meant to say was,
that Mrs Mortimer, who has been a little unfortunate in
circumstances--sit down, pray--had by a singular providence just applied
to me when my sister returned home yesterday. These things do not happen
by chance, Lucilla. We are taken care of when we are not thinking of it.
Mrs Mortimer is a Christian lady for whom I have the greatest respect. A
situation to take the superintendence of the domestic affairs, and to
have charge of you, would be just what would suit her. It must be a
great anxiety to the Doctor to leave you alone, and without any control,
at your age. You may think the liberty is pleasant at first, but if you
had a Christian friend to watch over and take care of you----What is the
matter?" said the Rector, in great alarm. It was only that the poor
widow who was to have charge of Lucilla, according to his benevolent
intention, looked so like fainting, that Miss Marjoribanks jumped up
from her chair and rang the bell hastily. It was not Lucilla's way to
lose time about anything; she took the poor woman by the shoulders and
all but lifted her to the sofa, where she was lying down with her bonnet
off when the Rector came to his senses. To describe the feelings with
which Mr Bury contemplated this little _entr'acte_, which was not in his
programme, would be beyond our powers. He went off humbly and opened the
window when he was told to do so, and tried to find the eau-de-Cologne
on the table; while Thomas rushed downstairs for water at a pace very
unlike his usual steady rate of progress. As for Lucilla, she stood by
the side of her patient quite self-possessed, while the Rector looked so
foolish. "She will be all right directly," Miss Marjoribanks was saying;
"luckily she never went right off. When you don't go right off, lying
down is everything. If there had been any one to run and get some water
she would have got over it; but luckily I saw it in time." What possible
answer Mr Bury could make to this, or how he could go on with his
address in sight of the strange turn things had taken, it would have
been hard to say. Fortunately for the moment he did not attempt it, but
walked about in dismay, and put himself in the draught (with his
rheumatism), and felt dreadfully vexed and angry with Mrs Mortimer, who,
for her part, now she had done with fainting, manifested an inclination
to cry, for which Mr Bury in his heart could have whipped her, had that
mode of discipline been permitted in the Church of England. Lucilla was
merciful, but she could not help taking a little advantage of her
victory. She gave the sufferer a glass of water, and the eau-de-Cologne
to keep her from a relapse, and whispered to her to lie quiet; and then
she came back and took her seat, and begged the Rector not to stand in
the draught.
"I don't think she is strong," said Miss Marjoribanks confidentially,
when she had wiled the disconcerted clergyman back to her side, "her
colour changes so; she never would be able for what there is to do here,
even if papa would consent to think of it. For my part I am sure I
should be glad of a little assistance," said Lucilla, "but I never like
to give false hopes, and I don't think papa would consent;--she looks
nice if she was not so weak, poor thing!--and there are such quantities
of things to be done here: but if you wish it, Mr Bury, I will speak to
papa," said Miss Marjoribanks, lifting her eyes, which were so open and
straightforward, to the Rector's face.
To tell the truth, he did not in the least know what to say, and the
chances are he would not have been half so vexed and angry, nor felt in
so unchristian a disposition with the poor woman on the sofa, had he
meant to do her harm instead of good. "Yes, I should be glad if you
would mention it to Dr Marjoribanks," he said, without very well knowing
what he said; and got up to shake hands with Lucilla, and then
recollected that he could not leave his protégée behind him, and
hesitated, and did not know what to do. He was really grateful, without
being aware of it, to Miss Marjoribanks, when once again she came to his
aid.
"Please, leave her a little," said Lucilla, "and I can make acquaintance
with her, you know, in case papa should be disposed to think of it;--she
must lie still till it quite wears off. I would ask you to stay to lunch
if I was not afraid of wasting your precious time----"
Mr Bury gave a little gasp of indignation, but he did not say anything.
On the whole, even though smarting under the indignity of being asked to
lunch, as his sister had been, when probably there might be a repetition
of the scene of yesterday, he was glad to get safely out of the house,
even at the risk of abandoning his enterprise. As for a woman in want of
a situation, who had so little common sense as to faint at such a
critical moment, the Rector was disposed to wash his hands of her; for
Mr Bury, "like them all," as Lucilla said, was horribly frightened by a
faint when he saw one, and afterwards pretended to disbelieve it, and
called it one of the things which a little self-command could always
prevent. When he was gone Miss Marjoribanks felt the full importance of
her victory; and then, though she had not hesitated to sacrifice this
poor woman when it was necessary to have a victim, that moment was over,
and she had no pleasure in being cruel; on the contrary, she went and
sat by her patient, and talked, and was very kind to her; and after a
while heard all her story, and was more comforting than the Rector could
have been for his life.
"I knew it would hurt your feelings," Miss Marjoribanks said candidly,
"but I could not do anything else--and you know it was Mr Bury's fault;
but I am sure if I can be of any use to you----" It was thus that
Lucilla added, without knowing it, another complication to her fortunes;
but then, to be sure, clear-sighted as she was, she could not see into
the future, nor know what was to follow. She told the Doctor in the
evening with the greatest faithfulness, and described how Mr Bury
looked, and that she had said she did not think papa would be disposed
to think of it; and Dr Marjoribanks was so much entertained that he came
upstairs to hear the end, and took a cup of tea. It was the third night
in succession that the Doctor had taken this step, though it was against
his principles; and thus it will be seen that good came out of evil in a
beautifully distinct and appropriate way.
_Chapter IX_
It was not till Miss Marjoribanks had surmounted to a certain extent the
vexation caused her by her unlucky confidence in Tom, that that unhappy
young man took the step which Lucilla had so long dreaded, but which she
trusted to her own genius to hinder him from carrying into execution.
Miss Marjoribanks had extricated herself so triumphantly from the
consequences of that unhappy commencement of her very charming
luncheon-parties, that she had begun to forget the culpability of her
cousin. She had defeated the Rector in his benevolent intentions, and
she had taken up his protégée just at the moment when Mr Bury was most
disgusted with the unfortunate woman's weakness. Poor Mrs Mortimer, to
be sure, had fainted, or had been near fainting, at the most inopportune
moment, and it was only natural that the Rector should be annoyed; but
as for Lucilla, who was always prompt in her actions, and whose good
nature and liberality were undoubted, she found her opportunity in the
failure of Mr Bury's scheme. After the Rector had gone away, Miss
Marjoribanks herself conducted the widow home; and by this time Mrs
Mortimer's prospects were beginning to brighten under the active and
efficient patronage of her new friend. This being the case, Lucilla's
good humour was perfectly restored, and she had forgiven Tom his
maladroitness. "He cannot help it, you know," she said privately to old
Mrs Chiley: "I suppose some people are born to do ridiculous things."
And it was indeed as if he had intended to give a practical illustration
of the truth of this conclusion that Tom chose the particular moment he
did for driving Miss Marjoribanks to the extremity of her patience. The
upholsterers were in the house, and indeed had just finished putting up
the pictures on the new paper in the drawing-room (which was green, as
Lucilla had determined it should be, of the most delicate tint, and
looked, as she flattered herself, exactly like silk hangings); and Mr
Holden himself waited with a certain complaisance for Miss
Marjoribanks's opinion of the effect. He had no doubt on the subject
himself; but he was naturally impressed, as most people were, with that
confidence in Lucilla's judgment which so much facilitates the
operations of those persons who are born to greatness. It was precisely
at this moment that his evil genius persuaded Tom Marjoribanks to
interrupt Thomas, who was carrying Mr Holden's message to his young
mistress, and to shut the library door upon the external world. Lucilla
had taken refuge in the library during the renovation of the
drawing-room; and she was aware that this was Tom's last day at
Carlingford, and had no intention of being unkind to him. To tell the
truth, she had at the bottom of her heart a certain regard and impulse
of protection and patronage towards Tom, of which something might have
come had the unlucky fellow known how to manage. But, at the same time,
Miss Marjoribanks was aware that things must be approaching a crisis
upstairs, and was listening intently to the movements overhead, and
wondering why she was not sent for. This was the moment of all others at
which Tom thought fit to claim a hearing; and the state of Lucilla's
feelings may be easily imagined when she saw him plant himself by her
side, with his face alternately red and white, and all the signs of a
desperate resolution in his countenance. For the first time in her life
a certain despair took possession of Miss Marjoribanks's mind. The
sounds had suddenly ceased upstairs, as if the artists were making a
pause to contemplate the effect of their completed work--which indeed
was precisely the case--and at the same time nobody came to call her,
important though the occasion was. She made a last effort to emancipate
herself before it was too late.
"Ring, please, Tom," she said; "I want to know if they have finished
upstairs. I am so sorry you are going away; but you know it is one of my
principles never to neglect my duty. I am sure they must be waiting for
me--if you would only be kind enough to ring."
"Lucilla," said Tom, "you know I would do anything in the world you
liked to tell me; but don't ask me to ring just now: I am going to leave
you, and there is something I must say to you, Lucilla," said the young
man, with agitation. Miss Marjoribanks was seated near the window, and
she had a moral certainty that if any of the Browns happened to be in
that ridiculous glass-house where they did their photography, they must
have a perfectly good view of her, with Tom in the background, who had
placed himself so as to shut her into the recess of the window. This,
coupled with the evidence of her senses that the workmen up stairs had
ceased their work, and that a slow footstep traversing the floor now and
then was all that was audible, drove Lucilla to despair.
"Yes," she said, temporising a little, which was the only thing she
could do, "I am sure I am very sorry; but then, you know, with the house
in such a condition! Next time you come I shall be able to enjoy your
society," said the designing young woman; "but at present I am _so_
busy. It is one of my principles, you know, that things are never
rightly done if the lady of the house does not pay proper attention.
They are sure to make some dreadful mistake upstairs if I don't look
after them. I shall see you again before you go."
"Lucilla, don't be so cruel!" cried the unlucky Tom, and he caught her
hand though they were at the window; "do stop a moment and listen to me.
Lucilla! what does it matter about furniture and things when a man's
heart is bursting?" cried the unfortunate lover; and just at that moment
Miss Marjoribanks could see that the curtain was drawn aside a
little--ever so little--in the glass-house. She sat down again with a
sigh, and drew her hand away, and prepared herself to meet her fate with
heroism at least.
"What in the world can you have been doing?" said Lucilla innocently;
"you used always to tell me, you know, when you got into any difficulty,
and I am sure if I can be of any use to you, Tom----But as for furniture
and things, they matter a great deal, I assure you, to people's
happiness; and then, you know, it is the object of my life to be a
comfort to dear papa."
When she said this, Miss Marjoribanks settled herself again in the
recess of the window, so that the Miss Browns could command a full view
if they chose; for Lucilla's courage was of the highest order, and
nothing, except, perhaps, a strategical necessity of profound
importance, would have moved her to retreat before an enemy. As for Tom,
he was bewildered, to start with, by this solemn repetition of her great
purpose.
"I know how good you are, Lucilla," he said, with humility; "but then my
uncle, you know--I don't think he is a man to appreciate----Oh,
Lucilla! why should you go and sacrifice to him the happiness of your
life?"
"Tom," said Miss Marjoribanks, with some solemnity, "I wish you would
not talk to me of happiness. I have always been brought up to believe
that duty was happiness; and everybody has known for a long time what
was the object of my life. As for poor papa, it is the worse for him if
he does not understand; but that does not make any difference to my
duty," said the devoted daughter. She gave a little sigh as she spoke,
the sigh of a great soul, whose motives must always remain to some
extent unappreciated; and the sight of her resignation and beautiful
perseverance overwhelmed her unlucky suitor; for indeed, up to this
moment, Lucilla still entertained the hope of preventing Tom from, as
she herself described it, "saying the very words," which, to be sure,
are awkward words to hear and to say.
"Lucilla, when you are so good to my uncle, you ought to have a little
pity on me," said Tom, driven to the deepest despondency. "How do you
think I can bear it, to see you getting everything done here, as if you
meant to stay all your life--when you know I love you?" said the
unfortunate young man; "when you know I have always been so fond of you,
Lucilla, and always looked forward to the time----; and now it is very
hard to see you care so little for me."
"Tom," said Miss Marjoribanks, with indignant surprise, "how _can_ you
say I care little for you? you know I was always very fond of you, on
the contrary. I am sure I always stood your friend at home, whatever
happened, and never said a word when you broke that pretty little pearl
ring I was so fond of, and tore the scarf that my aunt gave me. I
wonder, for my part, how you can be so unkind as so say so. We have
always been the very best friends in the world," said Lucilla, with an
air of injury. "I always said at school I liked you the best of all my
cousins; and I am very fond of all my cousins." Miss Marjoribanks
concluded, after a little pause, "It is so unkind to tell me that I
don't care for _you_."
Poor Tom groaned within himself as he listened. He did not know what to
answer to Lucilla's aggrieved yet frank confession. Naturally it would
have been much less displeasing to Tom to understand that she hated him,
and never desired to see him any more. But Miss Marjoribanks was far
from entertaining any such unchristian sentiments. She even began to
forget her anxiety about what was going on upstairs in that delightful
sense of power and abundant resources with which she was mastering the
present difficulty. She reflected in herself that though it was
excessively annoying to be thus occupied at such a moment, still it was
nearly as important to make an end of Tom as to see that the pictures
were hung rightly; for, to be sure, it was always easy to return to the
latter subject. Accordingly, she drew her chair a little nearer to the
window, and regarded Tom with a calm gaze of benevolent interest which
was in perfect accordance with the sentiments she had just expressed; a
look in which a gentle reproach was mingled. "I have always been like a
sister to you," said Lucilla; "how can you be so unkind as to say I
don't care?"
As for the unhappy Tom, he got up, as was natural, and took a little
walk in front of the table, as a young man in trouble is apt to do. "You
know very well that is not what I mean, Lucilla," he said
disconsolately. "It is you who are unkind. I don't know why it is that
ladies are so cruel; I am not such a snob as to persecute anybody. But
what is the good of pretending not to know what I mean?"
"Tom, listen!" cried Miss Marjoribanks, rising in her turn; "I feel sure
they must have finished. There is Mr Holden going through the garden.
And everybody knows that hanging pictures is just the thing of all
others that requires a person of taste. If they have spoiled the room,
it will be all your fault."
"Oh, for Heaven's sake never mind the room!" said Tom. "I never thought
you would have trifled with a man, Lucilla. You know quite well what I
mean; you know it isn't a--a new thing," said the lover, beginning to
stammer and get confused. "You know that is what I have been thinking of
all along, as soon as ever I had anything to live on. I love you,
Lucilla; you know I love you! how can you trifle with me so?"
"It is you who are trifling," said Miss Marjoribanks, "especially when
you know I have really something of importance to do. You can come
upstairs with me if you like. Of course we all love each other. What is
the good of being relations otherwise?" said Lucilla calmly; "it is such
a natural thing, you know. I suppose it is because you are going away
that you are so affectionate to-day. It is very nice of you, I am sure;
but, Tom, I feel quite certain you have not packed your things," Miss
Marjoribanks added, in an admonitory tone. "Come along with me
upstairs."
And by this time Lucilla's curiosity was beginning again to get the
upper hand. If she only could have escaped, it would have been
impossible for her cousin to have renewed the conversation; and luckily
he was to leave Carlingford the same evening; but then a man is always
an inconsequent creature, and not to be calculated on. This time,
instead of obeying as usual, Tom--having, as Miss Marjoribanks
afterwards described (but only in the strictest confidence), "worked
himself up to it"--set himself directly in her way, and seized upon both
her hands.
"Lucilla," cried the unlucky fellow, "is it possible that you really
have misunderstood me all this time? Do you mean to say that you don't
know? Oh, Lucilla, listen just five minutes. It isn't because I am your
cousin. I wish to Heaven I was not your cousin, but some one you had
never seen before. I mean I want you to consent to--to--to--marry me,
Lucilla. That is what I mean. I am called to the bar, and I can work for
you, and make a reputation. Lucilla, listen to what I have to say."
Miss Marjoribanks left her hands in his with a calmness which froze poor
Tom's heart in his breast. She did not even take the trouble to draw
them away. "Have you gone out of your senses, Tom?" she asked, in her
sensible way; and she lifted her eyes to the face of the poor young
fellow who was in love, with an inquiring look, as if she felt a little
anxious about him. "If you have any feeling as if fever was coming on,"
said Lucilla, "I think you should go upstairs and lie down a little till
papa comes in. I heard there had been some cases down about the canal. I
hope it is not the assizes that have been too much for you." When Miss
Marjoribanks said this, she herself took fast hold of Tom's hands with a
motherly grasp to feel if they were hot, and looked into his eyes with a
certain serious inspection, which, under the circumstances, poor fellow!
was enough to drive him out of the little rationality he had left.
Tom was so far carried away by his frenzy, that he gave her a little
shake in his impatience. "You are trying to drive me mad, Lucilla!"
cried the young man. "I have got no fever. It is only you who are
driving me out of my senses. This time you must hear me. I will not let
you go till you have given me an answer. I am called to the bar, and I
have begun my Career," said Tom, making a pause for breath. "I knew you
would have laughed at me when I was depending on my mother; but now all
that is over, Lucilla. I have loved you as long as I can remember; and I
always thought--that you--cared for me a little. If you will have me,
there is nothing I could not do," said Tom, who thoroughly believed what
he was saying; "and if you will not have me, I will not answer for the
consequences. If I go off to India, or if I go to the bad----"
"Tom," said Lucilla solemnly, and this time she drew away her hands, "if
you ever want to get married, I think the very best thing you can do is
to go to India. As for marrying just now at your age, you know you might
as well jump into the sea. You need not be vexed," said Miss
Marjoribanks, in her motherly way. "I would not speak so if I was not
your best friend. As for marrying me, you know it is ridiculous. I have
not the least intention of marrying anybody. If I had thought of that, I
need never have come home at all. As for your going to the bad, I am not
afraid of that. If I were to let you carry on with such a ridiculous
idea, I should never forgive myself. It would be just as sensible to go
into a lunatic asylum at once. It is very lucky for you that you said
this to _me_," Lucilla went on, "and not to one of the girls that think
it great fun to be married. And if I were you, Tom, I would go and pack
my things. You know you are always too late; and don't jump on your
portmanteau and make such a dreadful noise if it won't shut, but ring
the bell for Thomas. You know we are to dine at half-past five to-day,
to give you time for the train."
These were the last words Tom Marjoribanks heard as Lucilla left the
room. She ran up to the drawing-room without losing a minute, and burst
in upon the vacant place where Mr Holden had stood so long waiting for
her. To be sure, Miss Marjoribanks's forebodings were so far fulfilled
that the St Cecilia, which she meant to have over the piano, was hung
quite in the other corner of the room, by reason of being just the same
size as another picture at the opposite angle, which the workmen,
sternly symmetrical, thought it necessary to "match." But, after all,
that was a trifling defect. She stood in the middle of the room, and
surveyed the walls, well pleased, with a heart which kept beating very
steadily in her bosom. On the whole, perhaps, she was not sorry to have
had it out with Tom. So far as he was personally concerned, Miss
Marjoribanks, being a physician's daughter, had great faith in the _vis
medicatrix_, and was not afraid for her cousin's health or his morals,
as a less experienced woman might have been. If she was angry with
anybody, it was with herself, who had not taken sufficient precautions
to avoid the explanation. "But, after all, everything is for the best,"
Lucilla said to herself, with that beautiful confidence which is common
to people who have things their own way; and she devoted her mind to the
St Cecilia, and paid no more attention to Tom. It was not till more than
an hour after that a succession of dreadful thumps was not only heard
but felt throughout the house. It was Tom, but he was not doing any harm
to himself. He was not blowing out his brains or knocking his head
against the wall. He was only jumping on his portmanteau,
notwithstanding that Lucilla had warned him against such a
proceeding--and in his state of mind the jumps were naturally more
frantic than usual. When Lucilla heard it, she rang the bell, and told
Thomas to go and help Mr Tom with his packing; from which it will be
seen that Miss Marjoribanks bore no grudge against her cousin but was
disposed to send him forth in friendship and peace.
_Chapter X_
It was nearly six weeks after this before all Miss Marjoribanks's
arrangements were completed, and she was able with satisfaction to
herself to begin her campaign. It was just before Christmas, at the time
above all others when society has need of a ruling spirit. For example,
Mrs Chiley expected the Colonel's niece, Mary Chiley, who had been
married about six months before, and who was not fond of her husband's
friends, and at the same time had no home of her own to go to, being an
orphan. The Colonel had invited the young couple by way of doing a kind
thing, but he grumbled a little at the necessity, and had never liked
the fellow, he said--and then what were two old people to do to amuse
them? Then Mrs Centum had her two eldest boys home from school, and was
driven out of her senses by the noise and the racket, as she confided to
her visitors. "It is all very well to make pretty pictures about
Christmas," said the exasperated mother, "but I should like to know how
one can enjoy anything with such a commotion going on. I get up every
morning with a headache, I assure you; and then Mr Centum expects me to
be cheerful when he comes in to dinner; men are so unreasonable. I
should like to know what _they_ would do if they had what we have to go
through: to look after all the servants--and they are always out of
their senses at Christmas--and to see that the children don't have too
much pudding, and to support all the noise. The holidays are the hardest
work a poor woman can have," she concluded, with a sigh; and when it is
taken into consideration that this particular Christmas was a wet
Christmas, without any frost or possibility of amusement out of doors,
English matrons in general will not refuse their sympathy to Mrs Centum.
Mrs Woodburn perhaps was equally to be pitied in a different way. She
had to receive several members of her husband's family, who were, like
Miss Marjoribanks, without any sense of humour, and who stared, and did
not in the least understand her when she "took off" any of her
neighbours; not to say that some of them were Low-Church, and thought
the practice sinful. Under these circumstances it will be readily
believed that the commencement of Lucilla's operations was looked upon
with great interest in Carlingford. It was so opportune that society
forgot its usual instincts of criticism, and forgave Miss Marjoribanks
for being more enlightened and enterprising than her neighbours; and
then most people were very anxious to see the drawing-room, now it had
been restored.
This was a privilege, however, not accorded to the crowd. Mrs Chiley had
seen it under a vow of secrecy, and Mr Cavendish owned to having made a
run upstairs one evening after one of Dr Marjoribanks's little dinners,
when the other _convives_ were in the library, where Lucilla had erected
her temporary throne. But this clandestine inspection met with the
failure it deserved, for there was no light in the room except the
moonlight, which made three white blotches on the carpet where the
windows were, burying everything else in the profoundest darkness; and
the spy knocked his foot against something which reduced him to sudden
and well-merited agony. As for Mrs Chiley, she was discretion itself,
and would say nothing even to her niece. "I mean to work her a footstool
in water-lilies, my dear, like the one I did for you when you were
married," the old lady said; and that was the only light she would throw
on the subject. "My opinion is that it must be in crimson," Mrs Woodburn
said, when she heard this, "for I know your aunt's water-lilies. When I
see them growing, I always think of you. It would be quite like Lucilla
Marjoribanks to have it in crimson--for it is a cheerful colour, you
know, and quite different from the old furniture; and that would always
be a comfort to her dear papa." From this it will be seen that the
curiosity of Carlingford was excited to a lively extent. Many people
even went so far as to give the Browns a sitting in their glass-house,
with the hope of having a peep at the colour of the hangings at least.
But Miss Marjoribanks was too sensible a woman to leave her virgin
drawing-room exposed to the sun when there was any, and to the
photographers, who were perhaps more dangerous. "I think it is blue, for
my part," said Miss Brown, who had got into the habit of rising early in
hopes of finding the Doctor's household off its guard. "Lucilla was
always a great one for blue; she thinks it is becoming to her
complexion;" which, indeed, as the readers of this history are aware,
was a matter of fact. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she did her best to
keep up this agreeable mystery. "For my part, I am fond of neutral
tints," she herself said, when she was questioned on the subject;
"anybody who knows me can easily guess my taste. I should have been born
a Quaker, you know, I do so like the drabs and grays, and all those soft
colours. You can have as much red and green as you like abroad, where
the sun is strong, but here it would be bad style," said Lucilla; from
which the most simple-minded of her auditors drew the natural
conclusion. Thus all the world contemplated with excitement the first
Thursday which was to open this enchanted chamber to their admiring
eyes. "Don't expect any regular invitation," Miss Marjoribanks said. "I
hope you will all come, or as many of you as can. Papa has always some
men to dinner with him that day, you know, and it is so dreadfully slow
for me with a heap of men. That is why I fixed on Thursday. I want you
to come every week, so it would be absurd to send an invitation; and
remember it is not a party, only an Evening," said Lucilla. "I shall
wear a white frock high, as I always do. Now be sure you come."
"But we can't all go in high white frocks," said Mrs Chiley's niece,
Mary, who, if her trousseau had been subtracted from the joys of
marriage, would not, poor soul! have found very much left. This
intimation dismayed the bride a little; for, to be sure, she had decided
which dress she was to wear before Lucilla spoke.
"But, my dear, you are married," said Miss Marjoribanks; "that makes it
quite different: come in that pretty pink that is so becoming. I don't
want to have any dowdies, for my part; and don't forget that I shall
expect you all at nine o'clock."
When she had said this, Miss Marjoribanks proceeded on her way, sowing
invitations and gratification round her. She asked the youngest Miss
Brown to bring her music, in recognition of her ancient claims as the
songstress of society in Carlingford; for Lucilla had all that regard
for constituted rights which is so necessary to a revolutionary of the
highest class. She had no desire to shock anybody's prejudices or wound
anybody's feelings. "And she has a nice little voice," Lucilla said to
herself, with the most friendly and tolerant feelings. Thus Miss
Marjoribanks prepared to establish her kingdom with a benevolence which
was almost Utopian, not upon the ruins of other thrones, but with the
goodwill and co-operation of the lesser powers, who were, to be sure,
too feeble to resist her advance, but whose rights she was quite ready
to recognise, and even to promote, in her own way.
At the same time it is necessary here to indicate a certain vague and
not disagreeable danger, which appeared to some experienced persons to
shadow Lucilla's conquering way. Mr Cavendish, who was a young man of
refinement, not to say that he had a very nice property, had begun to
pay attention to Miss Marjoribanks in what Mrs Chiley thought quite a
marked manner. To be sure, he could not pretend to the honour of taking
her in to dinner, which was not his place, being a young man; but he did
what was next best, and manoeuvred to get the place on her left hand,
which, in a party composed chiefly of men, was not difficult to manage.
For, to tell the truth, most of the gentlemen present were at that
special moment more interested in the dinner than in Lucilla. And after
dinner it was Mr Cavendish who was the first to leave the room; and to
hear the two talking about all the places they had been to, and all the
people they had met, was as good as a play, Mrs Chiley said. Mr
Cavendish confided to Lucilla his opinions upon things in general, and
accepted the reproofs which she administered (for Miss Marjoribanks was
quite unquestionable in her orthodoxy, and thought it a duty, as she
said, always to speak with respect of religion) when his sentiments were
too speculative, and said, "How charming is divine philosophy!" so as,
for the moment, to dazzle Lucilla herself, who thought it a very pretty
compliment. He came to her assistance when she made tea, and generally
fulfilled all the duties which are expected of a man who is paying
attention to a young lady. Old Mrs Chiley watched the nascent regard
with her kind old grandmotherly eyes. She calculated over in her own
mind the details of his possessions, so far as the public was aware of
them, and found them on the whole satisfactory. He had a nice property,
and then he was a very nice, indeed an unexceptionable young man; and to
add to this, it had been agreed to between Colonel Chiley and Mr Centum,
and several other of the leading people in Carlingford, that he was the
most likely man to represent the borough when old Mr Chiltern, who was
always threatening to retire, fulfilled his promise. Mr Cavendish had a
very handsome house a little out of town, where a lady would be next
thing to a county lady--indeed, quite a county lady, if her husband was
the Member for Carlingford.
All these thoughts passed through Mrs Chiley's mind, and, as was
natural, in the precious moments after dinner, were suggested in
occasional words of meaning to the understanding ear of Miss
Marjoribanks. "My dear Lucilla, it is just the position that would suit
you--with your talents!" the old lady said; and Lucilla did not say No.
To be sure, she had not at the present moment the least inclination to
get married, as she truly said; it would, indeed, to tell the truth,
disturb her plans considerably; but still, if such was the intention of
Providence, and if it was to the Member for Carlingford, Lucilla felt
that it was still credible that everything might be for the best.
"But it is a great deal too soon to think of anything of that sort,"
Miss Marjoribanks would reply. "If I had thought of that, I need never
have come home at all; and especially when papa has been so good about
everything." Yet for all that she was not ungracious to Mr Cavendish
when he came in first as usual. To marry a man in his position would
not, after all, be deranging her plans to any serious extent. Indeed, it
would, if his hopes were realised, constitute Lucilla a kind of queen in
Carlingford, and she could not but feel that, under these circumstances,
it might be a kind of duty to reconsider her resolution. And thus the
time passed while the drawing-room was undergoing renovation. Mr
Cavendish had been much tantalised, she said, by the absence of the
piano, which prevented them from having any music, and Lucilla had even
been tempted into a few snatches of song, which, to tell the truth, some
of the gentlemen present, especially the Doctor himself and Colonel
Chiley, being old-fashioned, preferred without the accompaniment. And
thus it was, under the most brilliant auspices, and with the full
confidence of all her future constituency, that Miss Marjoribanks
superintended the arrangement of the drawing-room on that momentous
Thursday, which was to be the real beginning of her great work in
Carlingford.
"My dear, you must leave yourself entirely in my hands," Lucilla said to
Barbara Lake on the morning of that eventful day. "Don't get impatient.
I dare say you don't know many people, and it may be a little slow for
you at first; but everybody has to put up with that, you know, for a
beginning. And, by the bye, what are you going to wear?"
"I have not thought about it," said Barbara, who had the painful pride
of poverty, aggravated much by a sense that the comforts of other people
were an injury to her. Poor soul! she had been thinking of little else
for at least a week past; and then she had not very much choice in her
wardrobe; but her disposition was one which rejected sympathy, and she
thought it would look best to pretend to be indifferent. At the same
time, she said this with a dull colour on her cheeks, the colour of
irritation; and she could not help asking herself why Lucilla, who was
not so handsome as she was, had the power to array herself in gorgeous
apparel, while she, Barbara, had nothing but a white frock. There are
differences even in white frocks, though the masculine mind may be
unaware of them. Barbara's muslin had been washed six times, and had a
very different air from the vestal robes of her patroness. To be sure,
Lucilla was not taken in, in the least, by her companion's look of
indifference, and would even have been delighted to bestow a pretty
dress upon Barbara, if that had been a possible thing to do.
"There will be no dress," said Miss Marjoribanks, with solemnity. "I
have insisted upon that. You know it is not a party, it is only an
Evening. A white frock, _high_--that is all I mean to wear; and mind you
don't lose patience. I shall keep my eye on you; and after the first, I
feel sure you will enjoy yourself. Good-bye for the present." When she
had uttered these encouraging words. Miss Marjoribanks went away to
pursue her preparations, and Barbara proceeded to get out her dress and
examine it. It was as important to her as all the complicated
paraphernalia of the evening's arrangements were to Lucilla. It is true
that there were greater interests involved in the case of the leader;
but then Barbara was the soldier of fortune who had to open the oyster
with her sword, and she was feeling the point of it metaphorically while
she pulled out the breadths of her white dress, and tried to think that
they would not look limp at night; and what her sentiments lost in
breadth, as compared with Lucilla's, they gained in intensity, for--for
anything she could tell--her life might change colour by means of this
Thursday Evening; and such, indeed, was her hope. Barbara prepared for
her first appearance in Grange Lane, with a mind wound up to any degree
of daring. It did not occur to her that she required to keep faith with
Miss Marjoribanks in anything except the duet. As regarded other
matters, Barbara was quite unscrupulous, for at the bottom she could not
but feel that any one who was kind to her was taking an unwarrantable
liberty. What right had Lucilla Marjoribanks to be kind to her? as if
she was not as good as Lucilla any day! and though it might be worth her
while to take advantage of it for the moment, it was still an insult, in
its way, to be avenged if an opportunity ever should arise.
The evening came, as evenings do come, quite indifferently whether
people are glad or sorry; and it was with a calmness which the other
ladies regarded as next to miraculous, that Miss Marjoribanks took
Colonel Chiley's arm to go to the dining-room. We say the other ladies,
for on this great occasion Mrs Centum and Mrs Woodburn were both among
the dinner-guests. "To see her eat her dinner as if she had nothing on
her mind!" Mrs Centum said in amazement: "as for me, though nobody can
blame me if anything goes wrong, I could enjoy nothing for thinking of
it. And I must say I was disappointed with the dinner," she added, with
a certain air of satisfaction, in Mrs Woodburn's ear. It was when they
were going upstairs, and Lucilla was behind with Mrs Chiley. "The fuss
the men have always made about these dinners! and except for a few made
dishes that were really nothing, you know, I can't say _I_ saw anything
particular in it. And as for Lucilla, I can't think she has any
feeling," said the banker's wife.
"Oh, my dear, it is because you don't understand," said Mrs Woodburn.
"She is kept up, you know, by a sense of duty. It is all because she has
set her heart on being a comfort to her dear papa!"
Such, it is true, were the comments that were made upon the
public-spirited young woman who was doing so much for Carlingford; but
then Lucilla only shared the fate of all the great benefactors of the
world. An hour later the glories of the furniture were veiled and hidden
by the robes of a radiant flood of society, embracing all that was most
fair and all that was most distinguished in Carlingford. No doubt there
was a world of heterogeneous elements; but then if there had not been
difficulties where would have been the use of Miss Marjoribanks's
genius? Mr Bury and his sister, who had been unconsciously mollified by
the admirable dinner provided for them downstairs, found some stray
lambs in the assembly who were in need of them, and thus had the double
satisfaction of combining pleasure with duty; and though there were
several people in the room whose lives were a burden to them in
consequence of Mrs Woodburn's remarkable gift, even they found it
impossible not to be amused by an occasional representation of an
absent individual, or by the dashing sketch of Lucilla, which she gave
at intervals in her corner, amid the smothered laughter of the audience,
who were half ashamed of themselves. "She is never ill-tempered, you
know," the persons who felt themselves threatened in their turn said to
each other with a certain piteous resignation; and oddly enough it was
in general the most insignificant people about who were afraid of Mrs
Woodburn. It is needless to say that such a dread never entered the
serene intelligence of Miss Marjoribanks, who believed in herself with a
reasonable and steady faith. As for old Mrs Chiley, who had so many
funny little ways, and whom the mimic executed to perfection, she also
was quite calm on the subject. "You know there is nothing to take off in
me," the old lady would say; "I always was a simple body: and then I am
old enough to be all your grandmothers, my dear;" which was a saying
calculated, as Miss Marjoribanks justly observed, to melt a heart of
stone.
Then the Miss Browns had brought their photographs, in which most people
in Grange Lane were caricatured hideously, but with such a charming
equality that the most _exigeant_ forgave the wrong to himself in
laughing at his neighbours. Miss Brown had brought her music too, and
sang her feeble little strain to the applause of her immediate
neighbours, and to the delight of those who were at a distance, and who
could talk louder and flirt more openly under cover of the music; and
there were other young ladies who had also come prepared with a little
roll of songs or "pieces." Lucilla, with her finger as it were upon the
pulse of the company, let them all exhibit their powers with that
enlightened impartiality which we have already remarked in her. When Mr
Cavendish came to her in his ingratiating way, and asked her how she
could possibly let all the sparrows chirp like that when the nightingale
was present, Miss Marjoribanks proved herself proof to the flattery. She
said, "Do go away, like a good man, and make yourself agreeable. There
are so few men, you know, who can flirt in Carlingford. I have always
reckoned upon you as such a valuable assistant. It is always an
advantage to have a man who flirts," said Miss Marjoribanks. This was a
sentiment perhaps too large and enlightened, in the truest sense of the
word, to meet, as it ought to have done, with the applause of her
audience. Most of the persons immediately surrounding her thought,
indeed, that it was a mere _bon-mot_ to which Lucilla had given
utterance, and laughed accordingly; but it is needless to explain that
these were persons quite unable to understand her genius.
All this time she was keeping her eyes upon a figure in the corner of a
sofa, which looked as if it was glued there, and kept staring defiance
at the world in general from under black and level brows. Lucilla, it is
true, had introduced Barbara Lake in the most flattering way to Mrs
Chiley, and to some of the young ladies present; but then she was a
stranger, and an intruder into those regions of the blest, and she could
not help feeling so. If her present companions had not whispered among
themselves, "Miss Lake! what Miss Lake? Good gracious! Lake the
drawing-master's daughter!" she herself would still have reminded
herself of her humble paternity. Barbara sat as if she could not move
from that corner, looking out upon everybody with scared eyes, which
expressed nothing but defiance, and in her own mind making the
reflections of bitter poverty upon the airy pretty figures round her, in
all the variations of that costume which Miss Marjoribanks had announced
as the standard of dress for the evening. Barbara's muslin, six times
washed, was not more different from the spotless lightness of all the
draperies round her, than was her air of fright, and at the same time of
defiance, from the gay babble and pleasant looks of the group which, by
a chance combination, she seemed to form part of. She began to say to
herself that she had much better go away, and that there never could be
anything in common between those frivolous creatures and herself, a poor
man's daughter; and she began to get dreadfully exasperated with
Lucilla, who had beguiled her into this scene, to make game of her, as
poor Barbara said; though, so far from making game of her, nobody took
much notice, after the first unsuccessful attempt at conversation, of
the unfortunate young woman. It was when she was in this unhappy humour
that her eye fell upon Mr Cavendish, who was in the act of making the
appeal to Lucilla which we have already recorded. Barbara had never as
yet had a lover, but she had read an unlimited number of novels, which
came to nearly the same thing, and she saw at a glance that this was
somebody who resembled the indispensable hero. She looked at him with a
certain fierce interest, and remembered at that instant how often in
books it is the humble heroine, behind backs, whom all the young ladies
snub, who wins the hero at the last. And then Miss Marjoribanks, though
she sent him away, smiled benignantly upon him. The colour flushed to
Barbara's cheeks, and her eyes, which had grown dull and fixed between
fright and spite, took sudden expression under her straight brows. An
intention, which was not so much an intention as an instinct, suddenly
sprang into life within her, and, without knowing, she drew a long
breath of eagerness and impotence. He was standing quite near by this
time, doing his duty according to Miss Marjoribanks's orders, and
flirting with all his might; and Barbara looked at him as a hungry
schoolboy might be supposed to look at a tempting apple just out of his
reach. How was she to get at this suitor of Lucilla's? It would have
given her so pure a delight to tear down the golden apple, and tread on
it, and trample it to nothing; and then it came into her head that it
might be good to eat as well.
It was at this moment that Miss Marjoribanks, who was in six places at
once, suddenly touched Barbara's shoulder. "Come with me a minute; I
want to show you something," she said loud out. Barbara, on her side,
looked round with a crimson countenance, feeling that her secret
thoughts must be written in her guilty eyes. But then these were eyes
which could be utterly destitute of expression when they pleased, though
their owner, at present just at the beginning of her experience, was not
quite aware of the fact. She stumbled to her feet with the awkward
motion natural to that form of shyness which her temper and her
temperament united to produce in her. She did all but put her foot
through Miss Brown's delicate skirt, and she had neither the natural
disposition nor the acquired grace which can carry off one of those
trifling offences against society. Nevertheless, as she stood beside
Lucilla at the piano, the company in general owned a little thrill of
curiosity. Who was she? A girl with splendid black hair, with brows as
level as if they had been made with a line, with intense eyes which
looked a little oblique under that straight bar of shadow. Her dress was
limp, but she was not such a figure as could be passed over even at an
evening party; and then her face was a little flushed, and her eyes lit
up with excitement. She seemed to survey everybody with that defiant
look which w
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