"I am sure all these people to-day have been too much for you," she said. "I wonder what they could all be thinking of, for my part, flocking in upon you like that, so soon after——I thought it was very indelicate of Lady Richmond. And Lucilla, my dear, your nerves are quite affected, and I am sure you ought to go to bed."
Upon which Miss Marjoribanks recovered herself in a moment, and folded up her worsted-work. "I do feel tired," she said sweetly, "and perhaps itwastoo much. I think I will take your advice, Aunt Jemima. The excitement keeps one up for the moment, and then it tells after. I suppose the best thing is to go to bed."
"Much the best, my dear," Aunt Jemima said, giving Lucilla a kiss; but she did not take her own advice. She took a long time to think it all over, and sat up by the side of the decaying fire until it was midnight—an hour at which a female establishment like this should surely have been all shut up and at rest. And Lucilla did very much the same thing, wondering greatly what her aunt could tell her if she had a mind, and having the greatest inclination in the world to break into her chamber, and see, at any risk, what was in Tom's last letter. If she could have seen that, it might have thrown some light on the problem Lucilla was discussing, or given her some guidance through her difficulties. It was just then that Mr Ashburton was inviting her image into the fossil drawing-room, and finding nothing but the grim shades of the Miss Penrhyns answer to his call. Perhaps this was because Lucilla's image at that moment was called upon more potently from another quarter in a more familiar voice.
But after this exhausting day and late sitting-up, everybody was late in the morning, at least in Grange Lane. Miss Marjoribanks had slept little all night, and she was not in a more settled state of mind when the day returned which probably would bring the matter to a speedy decision. Her mind was like a country held by two armies, one of which by turns swept the other into a corner, but only to be driven back in its turn. After the unaccountable stupidity of the general public—after all the Cavendishes, Beverleys, and Riders who had once had it in their power to distinguish themselves by at least making her an offer, and who had not done it—here at last, in all good faith, honesty, and promptitude, had appeared a man superior to them all—a man whom she would have no reason to be ashamed of in any particular, sensible like herself, public-spirited like herself—a man whose pursuits she could enter into fully, who had a perfectly ideal position to offer her, and in whose person, indeed, all sorts of desirable qualities seemed to meet. Miss Marjoribanks, when she considered all this, and thought over all their recent intercourse, and the terms of friendship into which the election had brought them, felt, as any other sensible person would have felt, that there was only one answer which could be given to such a man. If she neglected or played with his devotion, then certainly she never would deserve to have another such possibility afforded to her, and merited nothing better than to live and die a single woman on two hundred a year. But then, on the other hand, there would rush forth a crowd of quick-coming and fantastic suggestions which took away Lucilla's breath, and made her heart beat loud. What if there might be "other people" who had been fond of her before she ever heard of Mr Ashburton's name? What if there might be some one in the world who was ready, not to offer her his hand and fortune in a reasonable way, as Mr Ashburton no doubt would, but to throw himself all in a heap at her feet, and make the greatest fool of himself possible for her sake? Miss Marjoribanks had been the very soul of good sense all her days, but now her ruling quality seemed to forsake her. And yet she could not consent to yield herself up to pure unreason without a struggle. She fought manfully, womanfully against the weakness which hitherto must have been lying hidden in some out-of-the-way corner in her heart. Probably if Mr Ashburton had asked her all at once amid the excitement of the election, or at any other unpremeditated moment, Lucilla would have been saved all this self-torment; but it is hard upon a woman to have a proposal hanging over her head by a hair, as it were, and to look forward to it without any uncertainty or mystery, and have full time to make up her mind. And there was no accounting for the curious force and vividness with which that strange idea about "other people," upon which Aunt Jemima would throw no light, had come into Lucilla's head.
She was still in the same frightful chaos of uncertainty when Mr Ashburton was shown into the drawing-room. She had not even heard him ring, and was thus deprived of the one possible moment of coming to a decision before she faced and confronted her fate. Miss Marjoribanks's heart gave a great jump, and then she recovered herself, and rose up without faltering, and shook hands with him. She was all alone, for Aunt Jemima had not found herself equal to facing the emergency; and there was not the least possibility of evading or postponing, or in any way running away from it now. Lucilla sat down again upon her sofa where she had been sitting, and composed herself with a certain despairing tranquillity, and trusted in Providence. She had thrown herself on other occasions, though never at an equally important crisis, upon the inspiration of the moment, and she felt it would not forsake her now.
"I should be sorry the election was over," said Mr Ashburton, who was naturally a little agitated too, "if I thought its privileges were over, and you would not let me come——I shall always think I owe my success to you; and I would thank you for being so kind—so very kind to me, if——"
"Oh, dear, no; pray don't say so," cried Lucilla. "I only felt sure that you were the best man—the only man—for Carlingford."
"I wish I might but prove the best man for something else," said the candidate nervously; and then he cleared his throat. "I would say you had been kind if I did not hope—if I was not so very anxious that you should be something more than kind. It may be vain of me, but I think we could get on together. I think I could understand you, and do you justice——Lucilla! what is the matter? Good heavens! is it possible that I have taken you quite by surprise?"
What caused this question was that Miss Marjoribanks had all at once changed colour, and given a great start, and put her hand to her breast, where her heart had taken such a leap that she felt it in her throat. But it was not because of what Mr Ashburton was saying; it was because of one of the very commonest sounds of everyday existence—a cab driving down Grange Lane; but then it was a cab driving in such a way that you could have sworn there was somebody in it in a terrible hurry, and who had just arrived by the twelve o'clock train.
"Oh, no, no," said Miss Marjoribanks; "I know you have always done me more than justice, Mr Ashburton, and so have all my friends; and I am sure we always will get on well together. I wish you joy with all my heart, and I wish you every happiness; and I always thought, up to this very last moment——"
Lucilla stopped again, and once more put her hand to her breast. Her heart gave another jump, and, if such a thing were possible to a heart, went off from its mistress altogether, and rushed downstairs bodily to see who was coming. Yet, with all her agitation, she had still enough self-control to lift an appealing look—a look which threw herself upon his mercy, and implored his forbearance—to Mr Ashburton's face.
As for the Member for Carlingford, he was confounded, and could not tell what to make of it. What was it she had thought up to the very last moment? Was this a refusal, or was she only putting off his claim, or was it something altogether independent of him and his intentions that agitated Lucilla to such an unusual extent? While he sat in his confusion trying to make it out, the most startling sound interrupted the interview. The old disused bell that had so often called Dr Marjoribanks up at night, and which hung near the door of the old Doctor's room, just over the drawing-room, began to peal through the silence, as if rung by a hand too impatient to notice what it was with which it made its summons.
"Papa's bell!" Miss Marjoribanks cried, with a little shriek; and she got up trembling, and then dropped upon her seat again, and in her agitated state burst into tears. And Mr Ashburton felt that, under these most extraordinary circumstances, even so sensible a woman as Lucilla might be justified in fainting, embarrassing and uncomfortable as that would be.
"I will go and see what it means," he said, with still half the air of a man who had a right to go and see, and was, as it were, almost in his own house. As he turned round, the door bell pealed wildly below in correction of the mistake. It was evident that somebody wanted admission who had not a moment to lose, and who was in the habit of pulling wildly at whatever came in his way. Mr Ashburton went out of the room to see who it was, a little amused and a little alarmed, but much annoyed at bottom, as was only natural, at such an interruption. He did not very well know whether he was accepted or rejected; but it was equally his duty in either case to put a stop to the ringing of that ghostly bell. He went away, meaning to return immediately and have it out and know his fate. And Lucilla, whose heart had come back, having fully ascertained who it was, and was now choking her with its beating, was left to await the new event and the new-comer alone.
Mr Ashburton went away from Lucilla's side, thinking to come back again, and clear everything up: but he did not come back. Though he heard nothing, and saw nothing, that could throw any distinct light on the state of her mind, yet instinct came to his aid, it is to be supposed, in the matter. He did not return: and Lucilla sat on her sofa with her hands clasped together to support her, and her heart leaping in her very mouth. She was in a perfect frenzy of suspense, listening with her whole heart and soul; but that did not prevent the same crowd of thoughts which had been persecuting her for twenty-four hours from keeping up their wild career as before. What reason had she to suppose that "any one" had arrived? Who could arrive in that accidental way, without a word of warning? And what possible excuse had she to offer to herself for sending the new member for Carlingford—a man so excellent and honourable and eligible—away? The minutes, or rather the seconds, passed over Miss Marjoribanks like hours, as she sat thus waiting, not daring to stir lest the slightest movement might keep from her ears some sound from below, till at last the interval seemed so long that her heart began to sink, and her excitement to fail. It could not be any one—if it had been any one, something more must have come of it before now. It must have been Lydia Richmond coming to see her sister next door, or somebody connected with the election, or——
When she got as far as this, Lucilla's heart suddenly mounted up again with a spring into her ears. She heard neither words nor voice, but she heard something which had as great an effect upon her as either could have had. On the landing half-way up the stairs, there had stood in Dr Marjoribanks's house from time immemorial a little old-fashioned table, with a large china bowl upon it, in which the cards of visitors were placed. It was a great bowl, and it was always full, and anybody rushing upstairs in a reckless way might easily upset table and cards and all in their progress. This was what happened while Lucilla sat listening. There was a rumble, a crash, and a sound as of falling leaves, and it made her heart, as we have said, jump into her ears. "It is the table and all the cards," said Lucilla—and in that moment her composure came back to her as by a miracle. She unclasped her hands, which she had been holding pressed painfully together by way of supporting herself, and she gave a long sigh of unutterable relief, and her whirl of thought stopped and cleared up with an instantaneous rapidity. Everything seemed to be explained by that sound; and there never was a greater change upon the looks and feelings of any one in this world than that which passed upon the looks and feelings of Lucilla, in the interval between the drawing up of that cab and the rush of Tom Marjoribanks at the drawing-room door.
For after the commotion on the staircase Lucilla had no further doubt on the subject. She even had the strength to get up to meet him, and hold out her hands to him by way of welcome—but found herself, before she knew how, in the arms of a man with a beard, who was so much changed in his own person that he ventured to kiss her, which was a thing Tom Marjoribanks, though her cousin, had never dared to do before. He kissed her—such was his audacity; and then he held her at arm's length to have a good look at her; and then, according to all appearance, would have repeated his first salutation, but that Lucilla had come to herself, and took the reins at once into her hand.
"Tom!" she said, "of course it is you; nobody else would have been so impertinent. When did you come? Where did you come from? Who could ever have thought of your appearing like this, in such an altogether unexpected——?"
"Unexpected!" said Tom, with an astonished air. "But I suppose you had other things to think of. Ah, Lucilla, I could not write to you. I felt I ought to be beside you, trying if there was not something I could do. My mother told you, of course; but I could not trust myself to write toyou."
Then Lucilla saw it all, and that Aunt Jemima had meant to do Mr Ashburton a good turn. And she was not grateful to her aunt, however kind her intentions might have been. But Tom was holding her hand, and looking into her face while this thought passed through her mind, and Miss Marjoribanks was not the woman, under any circumstances, to make dispeace.
"I am sure I am very glad," said Lucilla. "I would say you were changed, but only of course that would make you think how I am changed; and though one knows one has gone off——"
"I never saw you look so nice all your life," cried Tom energetically; and he took hold of both her hands, and looked into her face more and more. To be sure he had a kind of right, being a cousin, and newly returned after so long an absence; but it was embarrassing all the same.
"Oh, Tom, don't say so," cried Lucilla; "if you but knew how different the house is, and everything so altered—and dear papa!"
It was natural, and indeed it was only proper, that Miss Marjoribanks should cry—which she did abundantly, partly for grief, and partly because of the flutter of agitation, and something like joy, in which she was, and which, considering that she had always frankly owned that she was fond of Tom, was quite natural too. She cried with honest abandonment, and did not take much notice what her cousin was doing to comfort her, though indeed he applied himself to that benevolent office in the most anxious way.
"Don't cry, Lucilla," he said, "I can't bear it. It don't look natural to see you cry. My poor uncle was an old man, and you were always the best daughter in the world——"
"Oh, Tom! sometimes I don't think so," sobbed Lucilla; "sometimes I think if I had sat up that last night——And you don't know how good he was. It was me he was thinking of, and never himself. When he heard the money was lost, all that he said was, Poor Lucilla! You rang his bell though it is the night-bell, and nobody ever touches it now; I knew it could be nobody but you; and to see you again brings up everything so distinctly. Oh, Tom! he was always very fond of you."
"Lucilla," said Tom Marjoribanks, "you know I always had a great regard for my uncle. But it was not for him I came back. He was never half so fond of me as I am of you. You know that as well as I do. There never was a time that I would not have gone to the other end of the world if you had told me; and I have done it as near as possible. I went to India because you sent me away. And I have come back——"
"You have not come back only for an hour, I hope?" said Miss Marjoribanks, with momentary impatience; "you are not obliged to talk of everything all in a moment—and when one has not even got over one's surprise at seeing you. Whendidyou come back? When did you have anything to eat? You want your breakfast or your lunch or something; and, Tom! the idea of sitting here talking to me, and talking nonsense, when you have not seen your mother. She is in her own room, you unnatural boy—the blue room, next to what used to be yours. To think Aunt Jemima should be in the house, and you should sit here talking nonsense to me!"
"This minute," said Tom apologetically; but he drew his chair in front of Miss Marjoribanks, so that she could not get away. "I have come back to stay as long as you will let me," he said; "don't go away yet. Look here, Lucilla—if you had married, I would have tried to bear it; but as long as you are not married, I can't help feeling as if there might be a chance for me yet. And that is why I have come home. I met somebody coming downstairs."
"Tom," said Miss Marjoribanks, "it is dreadful to see that you have come back just as tiresome as ever. I always said I would not marry for ten years. If you mean to think I have never had any opportunities——"
"Lucilla," said Tom, and there was decision in his eye, "somebody came downstairs as I came in. I want to know whether it is to be him or me!"
"Him—or you!" said Lucilla, in dismay. Blunderer as he was, he had gone direct to the very heart of the question, and it was impossible not to tremble a little in the presence of such straightforward clear-sightedness. Miss Marjoribanks had risen up to make her escape as soon as it should be possible, but she was so much struck by Tom's unlooked-for perspicuity, that she sat down again in her consternation. "I think you are going out of your mind," she said. "What do you know about the gentleman who went downstairs? I am not such a wonderful beauty, nor such a witch, that everybody who sees me should want to—to marry me. Don't talk any more nonsense, but let me go and get you something to eat."
"They would if they were of my way of thinking," said the persistent Tom. "Lucilla, you shan't go. This is what I have come home for. You may as well know at once, and then there can be no mistake about it. My poor uncle is gone, and you can't be left by yourself in the world. Will you have him or me?"
"I am not going to be tyrannised over like this," said Lucilla, with indignation, again rising, though he still held her hands. "You talk as if you had just come for a call, and had everything to say in a moment. When a man comes off a long journey it is his breakfast he wants, and not a—not anything else that I know of. Go up to your mother, and let me go."
"Will you have him or me?" repeated Tom. It was not wisdom, is was instinct, that made him thus hold fast by his text; and as for Lucilla, nothing but the softened state in which she was, nothing but the fact that it was Tom Marjoribanks who had been ten years away, and was always ridiculous, could have kept her from putting down at once such an attempt to coerce her. But the truth was, that Miss Marjoribanks did not feel her own mistress at that moment, and perhaps that was why he had the audacity to repeat, "Will you have him or me?"
Then Lucilla found herself fairly driven to bay. "Tom!" she said, with a solemnity that overwhelmed him for the moment, for he thought at first, with natural panic, that it was himself who was being rejected, "I would not havehimif he were to go down on his knees. I know he is very nice and very agreeable, and the best man——And I am sure I ought to do it," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a mournful sense of her own weakness; "and everybody will expect it of me; but I am not going to have him, and I never meant it, whatever you or anybody may say."
When Lucilla had made this decisive utterance she turned away with a certain melancholy majesty to go and see after lunch—for he had loosed her hand and fallen back in consternation, thinking for the moment that it was all over. Miss Marjoribanks sighed, and turned round, not thinking of Tom, who was safe enough, but with a natural regret for the member for Carlingford, who now, poor man, was as much out of the question as if he had been dead and buried. But before she reached the door Tom had recovered himself. He went up to her in his ridiculous way without the slightest regard either for the repast she was so anxious to prepare for him, or for his mother's feelings, or indeed for anything else in the world, except the one thing which had brought him, as he said, home.
"Then, Lucilla, after all, it is to be me," he said, taking her to him, and arresting her progress as if she had been a baby; and though he had such a beard, and was twice as big and strong as he used to be, there were big tears in the great fellow's eyes. "It is to be me after all," said Tom, looking at her in a way that startled Lucilla. "Say it is to be me!"
Miss Marjoribanks had come through many a social crisis with dignity and composure. She had never yet been known to fail in an emergency. She had managed Mr Cavendish, and, up to the last moment, Mr Ashburton, and all the intervening candidates for her favour, with perfect self-control and command of the situation. Perhaps it was because, as she had herself said, her feelings had never been engaged. But now, when it was only Tom—he whom, once upon a time, she had dismissed with affectionate composure, and given such excellent advice to, and regarded in so motherly a way—all Lucilla's powers seemed to fail her. It is hard to have to wind up with such a confession after having so long entertained a confidence in Lucilla which nothing seemed likely to impair. She broke down just at the moment when she had most need to have all her wits about her. Perhaps it was her past agitation which had been too much for her. Perhaps it was the tears in Tom Marjoribanks's eyes. But the fact was that Lucilla relinquished her superior position for the time being, and suffered him to make any assertion he pleased, and was so weak as to cry, for the second time, too—which, of all things in the world, was surely the last thing to have been expected of Miss Marjoribanks at the moment which decided her fate.
Lucilla cried, and acquiesced, and thought of her father and of the Member for Carlingford, and gave to each a tear and a regret; and she did not even take the trouble to answer any question, or to think who it was she was leaning on. It was to be Tom after all—after all the archdeacons, doctors, generals, members of Parliament—after the ten years and more in which she had not gone off—after the poor old Doctor's grudge against the nephew whom he did not wish to inherit his wealth, and Aunt Jemima's quiet wiles, and attempt to disappoint her boy. Fate and honest love had been waiting all the time till their moment came; and now it was not even necessary to say anything about it. The fact was so clear that it did not require stating. It was to be Tom after all.
To do him justice, Tom behaved at this moment, in which affairs were left in his hands, as if he had been training for it all his life. Perhaps it was the first time in which he had done anything absolutely without a blunder. He had wasted no time, and no words, and left no room for consideration, or for that natural relenting towards his rival which was inevitable as soon as Mr Ashburton was off the field. He had insisted, and he had perceived that there was but one alternative for Lucilla. Now that all was over, he took her back to her seat, and comforted her, and made no offensive demonstrations of triumph. "It is to be me after all!" he repeated; and it was utterly impossible to add anything to the eloquent brevity of this succinct statement of the case.
"Tom," said Miss Marjoribanks, when she had a little recovered, "if it is to be you, that is no reason why you should be so unnatural. Go up directly and see your mother. What will Aunt Jemima think of me if she knows I have let you stay talking nonsense here?"
"Yes, Lucilla—this moment," said Tom; but all the same he showed not the slightest inclination to go away. He did not quite believe in it as yet, and could not help feeling as if, should he venture to leave her, the whole fabric of his incredible good fortune must dissolve and melt away. As for Lucilla, her self-possession gradually came back to her when the crisis was over, and she felt that her involuntary abdication had lasted long enough, and that it was full time to take the management of affairs back into her own hands.
"You shall gonow," she said, drying her eyes, "or else you cannot stay here. I thought of letting you stay in the house, as Aunt Jemima is with me; but if you do not mean to go and tell your mother, I will tell Nancy to send your things up to the Blue Boar. Ring the bell, please; if you will not ring the bell, I will do it myself, Tom. You may say what you like, but I know you are famishing; and Aunt Jemima is in the blue room, next door to——Oh, here is Nancy. It is Mr Tom, who has come home," said Lucilla hastily, not without a rising colour; for it was hard to explain why, when his mother was in the blue room all this time, he should have stayed here.
"Yes, Miss Lucilla—so I heard," said Nancy, dropping a doubtful curtsey. And then only Tom was persuaded, and bethought himself of his natural duty, and rushed upstairs. He seized Nancy's hand, and shook it violently, as he passed her, to her great consternation. The moment of his supremacy was over. It was to be Tom after all; but Lucilla had recovered her self-possession, and taken the helm in her hand again, and Tom was master of the situation no more.
"Yes, it is Mr Tom," said Lucilla, shaking her head with something between a smile and a sigh. "It could be nobody but him that would ringthatbell, and upset all the cards. I hope he has not broken dear papa's punch-bowl that he used to be so fond of. He must have something to eat, Nancy, though he is such an awkward boy."
"I don't see nothing like a boy in him," said Nancy; "he's big and stout, and one o' them awful beards. There's been a deal of changes since he went away; but if he's new comed off that terrible long journey, it is but natural, as you say, Miss Lucilla, that he should want something to eat."
And then Miss Marjoribanks made various suggestions, which were received still doubtfully by her prime minister. Nancy, to tell the truth, did not like the turn things were taking. Lucilla's maiden household had been on the whole getting along very comfortably, and there was no telling how long it might have lasted without any new revolution. To be sure, Mr Ashburton had looked dangerous, but Nancy had seen a great many dangers of that kind blow over, and was not easily alarmed. Mr Tom, however, was a very different person; and Nancy was sufficiently penetrating to see that something had happened. Therefore, she received very coldly Lucilla's suggestions about lunch. "It ain't like the old times," she said at last, "when there was always something as one could put to the fire in a hurry;" and Nancy stood turning round the handle of the door in her hand, and contemplating the changed state of affairs with a sigh.
"That would be all very true if you were like anybody else," said Lucilla; "but I hope you would not like to send Mr Tom off to the Blue Boar. After all, perhaps it is better to have a—a gentleman in the house. I know you always used to think so. They are a great deal of trouble; but—for some things, you know——" said Lucilla; "and then Mr Tom is not just like other people; and whatever happens, Nancy, you are an old dear, and it shall never make any difference between you and me."
When she had said these words, Lucilla gave her faithful servant a hug, and sent her off to look after Tom Marjoribanks's meal; and then she herself went half-way downstairs and picked up the cards that were still scattered about the landing, and found with satisfaction that the Doctor's old punch-bowl was not broken. All Tom's things were lying below in the hall—heaps of queer Indian-looking baggage—tossed down anyhow in a corner, as if the owner had been in much too great a hurry to think of any secondary circumstances. "And it was there he met poor Mr Ashburton," said Lucilla to herself, with a certain pathos. There it was indeed that the encounter had taken place. They had seen each other but for a moment, but that moment had been enough to send the Member for Carlingford away dejected, and to impress upon Tom's mind the alternative that it was either to be "him or me." Miss Marjoribanks contemplated the spot with a certain tender sentimental interest, as any gentle moralist might look at a field of battle. What feelings must have been in the minds of the two as they met and looked at each other! What a dread sense of disappointment on the one side; what sharp stimulation on the other! Thus Lucilla stood and looked down from her own landing upon the scene of that encounter, full of pensive interest. And now it was all over, and Mr Ashburton had passed away as completely as Mr Chiltern, who was in his grave, poor man; or Mr Cavendish, who was going to marry Barbara Lake. The thought of so sudden a revolution made Lucilla giddy as she went thoughtfully upstairs. Poor Mr Ashburton! It hardly seemed real even to Miss Marjoribanks when she sat down again in the drawing-room, and confessed to herself that, after all, it was to be Tom.
But when he came downstairs again with his mother, Lucilla was quite herself, and had got over all her weakness. Aunt Jemima, for her part, was in a very agitated state of mind. Tom had come too soon or Mr Ashburton too late, and all the fruits of her little bit of treachery were accordingly lost, and at the same time, the treachery itself remained, revealed at least to one person in the very clearest light. It did not seem possible to Aunt Jemima that Lucilla would not tell. If she had not done it now, in the excitement of the moment, at least it would come out some time when she was least expecting it, and her son's esteem and confidence would be lost. Therefore it was with a very blank countenance that Mrs John Marjoribanks came downstairs. She dared not say a word, and she had to kiss her niece, and take her to her maternal bosom, Tom looking on all the while; but she gave Lucilla a look that was pitiful to see. And when Tom finally was dismissed to his room, to open his trunks, and show the things he had brought home, Aunt Jemima drew near her future daughter with wistful guiltiness. There was no comfort to her in the thought of the India shawl, which her son had gone to find. Any day, any hour, Lucilla might tell; and if the unlucky mother were put on her defence, what could she say?
"Lucilla," said the guilty woman, under her breath, "I am sure you think it very strange. I don't attempt to deceiveyou. I can't tell you how thankful and glad I am that it has all ended so well; but you know, Lucilla, in the first place, I did not know what your feelings were; and I thought, perhaps, that if anything would tell, it would be a surprise, and then——"
"Did you, Aunt Jemima?" said Miss Marjoribanks, with gentle wonder. "I thought you had been thinking of Mr Ashburton, for my part."
"And so I was, Lucilla," said the poor lady, with great relief and eagerness. "I thought he was coming forward, and of course he would have been a far better match than my Tom. I had to think for you both, my dear. And then I never knew what your feelings were, nor if you would care; and then it was not as if there had been a day fixed——"
"Dear Aunt Jemima," said Miss Marjoribanks, "if you are pleased now, what does it matter? but I do hope you are pleased now?"
And Mrs John took her niece into her arms again this time with better will, and cried. "I am as happy as ever I can be," said the inconsistent mother. "I always knew you were fond of each other, Lucilla; before you knew it yourselves, I saw what would come of it. But my poor brother-in-law——And you will make my boy happy, and never turn him against his mother," cried the repentant sinner. Lucilla was not the woman to resist such an appeal. Mrs John had meant truly enough towards her in other ways, if not in this way; and Miss Marjoribanks was fond of her aunt, and it ended in a kiss of peace freely bestowed, and a vow of protection and guidance from the strong to the weak, though the last was only uttered in the protectress's liberal heart.
When Miss Marjoribanks had time to consider the prospect which had thus so suddenly opened before her, it also had its difficulties, like everything else in the world. Her marriage now could not be the straightforward business it might have been had it been Mr Ashburton instead of Tom. In that case she would have gone to an established house and life—to take her place in the one and her share in the other, and to find the greater part of her surroundings and duties already fixed for her, which was a thing that would have very greatly simplified the matter. But Tom, who had dashed home from India at full speed as soon as he heard of his uncle's death, had left his profession behind him at Calcutta, and had nothing to do in England, and was probably too old to resume his (non) practice at the bar, even if he had been in the least disposed to do so; while, at the same time, an idle man—a man to be found everlastingly at home—would have been insupportable to Lucilla. Miss Marjoribanks might feel disposed (for everybody's good) to assume the sovereign authority in her own house, but to marry anybody that would be merely an appendage to her was a thing not to be thought of; and as soon as the first preliminaries were arranged her active mind sprang up with redoubled vigour from the maze in which it had been. Her intelligence had suspended, so to speak, all its ordinary operations for twenty-four hours at least, while it was busy investigating the purely personal question: from the moment when the Member for Carlingford was finally elected until Tom Marjoribanks rang the night-bell at the old Doctor's door, Lucilla's thoughts had been in that state of over-stimulation and absorption which is almost as bad as having no power of thought at all. But as soon as the pressure was removed—as soon as it was all over, and the decision made, and no further question was possible—then Miss Marjoribanks's active mind sprang up with renewed energy. For it was not only a new beginning, but everything had to be settled and arranged.
Her mind was full of it while her hands were busy putting away all the Indian presents which Tom had brought—presents which were chronological in their character, and which he had begun to accumulate from the very beginning of his exile. It could not but be touching to Lucilla to see how he had thought of her for all these years; but her mind being, as everybody is aware, of a nobly practical kind, her thoughts, instead of dallying with these tokens of the past, went forward with serious solicitude into the future. The marriage could not take place until the year was out; and there was, accordingly, time to arrange everything, and to settle all the necessary preliminaries to a point as near perfection as is possible to merely human details. Tom, no doubt, was very urgent and pressing, and would have precipitated everything, and had the whole business concluded to-morrow, if he could have had his way. But the fact was that, having once given in to him in the memorable way which we have already recorded, Lucilla did not now, so far as the final arrangements were concerned, make much account of Tom's wishes. Heaven be praised, there was one of the two who knew what was right and proper, and was not to be moved from the correct path by any absurd representations. Miss Marjoribanks was revolving all these important questions when she laid her hand by chance, as people say, upon theCarlingford Gazette, all damp and inky, which had just been laid upon the library table. It contained, of course, all the news of the election, but Lucilla was too well acquainted with that beforehand to think of condescending to derive her information from a newspaper. She looked at the advertisements with an eye which saw all that was there without pausing upon anything in particular. She saw the usual notice about marmalade oranges, and the announcement that young Mr Vincent, who after that made himself so well known in Carlingford, was to preach the next Sunday in Salem Chapel, and all the other important novelties in the place; but naturally she took but a moderate amount of interest in such details as these.
Suddenly, however, Lucilla's eye, which, if it could ever be said to be vacant, had been regarding vacantly the list of advertisements, kindled up, and all its usual energy and intelligence came back to it. Her thoughtful face woke up as from a dream. Her head, which had been drooping in pensive meditation, grew erect—her whole figure expanded. She clasped her hands together, as if in the fervour of the moment, nobody else being present, she could not refrain from shaking hands with herself, and giving vent to a self-congratulation. "It is a special providence," said Lucilla to herself, with her usual piety; and then she folded up the paper in a little square, with the announcement in the middle which had struck her so much, and placed it where Tom could not fail to see it when he came in, and went upstairs with a new and definite direction given to her thoughts. That was how it must be! Lucilla, for her part, felt no difficulty in discerning the leadings of Providence, and she could not but appreciate the readiness with which her desires were attended to, and the prompt clearing-up of her difficulties. There are people whose inclinations Providence does not seem to superintend with such painstaking watchfulness; but then, no doubt, that must be their own fault.
And when Tom came in, they had what Aunt Jemima called "one of their discussions" about their future life, although the only thing in it worthy consideration, so far as Tom was concerned, seemed to be the time when they should be married, which occupied at present all that hero's faculties. "Everything else will arrange itself after, you know," he said, with calm confidence. "Time enough for all the rest. The thing is, Lucilla, to decide when you will leave off those formalities, and let It be. Why shouldn't it be now? Do you think my uncle would wish to keep us unhappy all for an idea?"
"My dear Tom, I am not in the least unhappy," said Lucilla, interrupting him sweetly, "nor you either, unless you tell dreadful stories; and as for poor dear papa," Miss Marjoribanks added, with a sigh, "if we were to do exactly ashewished, I don't think It would ever be. If you were not so foolish, you would not oblige me to say such things. Tom, let us leave off talking nonsense—the thing that we both want is something to do."
"That is whatIwant," said Tom quickly, "but as for you, Lucilla, you shall do nothing but enjoy yourself and take care of yourself. The idea ofyouwanting something to do!"
Miss Marjoribanks regarded her betrothed with mild and affectionate contempt as he thus delivered himself of his foolish sentiments. "It is of no use trying to make him understand," she said, with an air of resignation. "Do you know that I have always been doing something, and responsible for something, all my life?"
"Yes, my poor darling," said Tom, "I know; but now you are in my hands I mean to take care of you, Lucilla; you shall have no more anxiety or trouble. What is the good of a man if he can't save the woman he is fond of from all that?" cried the honest fellow—and Lucilla could not but cast a despairing glance round her, as if appealing to heaven and earth. What was to be done with a man who had so little understanding of her, and of himself, and of the eternal fitness of things?
"My dear Tom," she said once more, mildly, "we may have lost some money, but we are very well off, and Providence has been very kind to us. And there are a great many poor people in the world who are not so well off. I have always tried to be of some use to my fellow-creatures," said Lucilla, "and I don't mean, whatever you may say, to give it up now."
"My dearest Lucilla, if it was the poor you were thinking of——! I might have known it was something different from my stupid notions," cried Tom. This kind of adoration was new to Lucilla, notwithstanding her many experiences. And he thought it so good of her to condescend to be good, that she could not help thinking a little better of herself than ordinary, though that, perhaps, was not absolutely needful; and then she proceeded with the elucidation of her views.
"I have been of some use to my fellow-creatures in my way," said Miss Marjoribanks modestly, "but it has been hard work, and people are not always grateful, you know. And then things are a good deal changed in Carlingford. A woman may devote herself to putting some life into society, and give up years of her time, and—and even her opportunities and all that, and do a great deal of good; but yet if she is put aside for a moment, there is an end of it. I have been doing the best I could for Carlingford for ten years," said Lucilla, with a little natural sadness, "and if any one were to examine into it, where is it all now? They have only got into the way of looking to me; and I do believe if you were to go up and down from Elsworthy's to St Roque's, though you might find people at dinner here and there, you would not find a shadow of what could really be called society in all Grange Lane!"
Lucilla paused, for naturally her feelings were moved, and while Tom bent over her with tender and respectful devotion, it was not to be wondered at if Miss Marjoribanks, in the emotion of her heart, should wipe away a tear.
"After working at it for ten years!" said Lucilla; "and now, since poor papa died, who was always full of discrimination——This is what will come of it, Tom," she added solemnly—"they will go back to their old ridiculous parties, as if they had never seen anything better; and they will all break up into little cliques, and make their awful morning calls and freeze one another to death. That will be the end of it all, after one has slaved like a—like a woman in a mill," said the disappointed reformer, "and given up ten years."
"My poor darling!" cried Tom, who would have liked to go and challenge Carlingford for being so insensible to his Lucilla's devotion and cherishing maternal care.
"But if it had been the poor," said Miss Marjoribanks, recovering her spirits a little, "they could not help being the better for what one did for them. They might continue to be as stupid as ever, and ungrateful, and all that; but if they were warm and comfortable, instead of cold and hungry, it would always make a difference. Tom, I will tell you what you will do if you want to please me. You will take all our money and realise it, you know, whatever that means, and go off directly, as fast as the train can carry you, and buy an Estate."
"An estate!" cried Tom, in consternation; and the magnitude of the word was such, and Lucilla was so entirely in earnest, that he jumped from his chair and gazed at her as if constrained, notwithstanding his amazement, to rush off instantly and obey.
"I did not mean just this moment," said Lucilla; "sit down and we can talk it all over, Tom. You know it would be something for you to do; you cannot just go living on like this at your age; you could improve the land, you know, and do all that sort of thing, and the people you could leave to me."
"But Lucilla," said Tom, recovering a little from his consternation, "it is not so easy buying an estate. I mean all that I have to be settled upon you, in case of anything happening. Land may be a safe enough investment; but you know, very often, Lucilla—the fact is, it doesn't pay."
"Wecould make it pay," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a benevolent smile, "and besides there are estates and estates. I don't want you to go and throw away your money. It was in theCarlingford Gazettethis morning, and I can't help feeling it was a special providence. Of course you never looked at it in the paper, though I marked it for you. Tom, it is Marchbank that I want you to buy. You know how papa used to talk of it. He used to say it was just a nice little property that a gentleman could manage. If he had been spared," said Lucilla, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, "and these wicked dreadful people had not failed, nor nothing happened, I know he would have bought it himself. Dear papa! and he would have given it to me; and most likely, so far as one can tell, it would have come to you at the last, and you would have been Marjoribanks of Marchbank, like our great-great-grandpapa; and that is what I want you to do."
Lucilla's proposition, as it thus unfolded itself, took away Tom Marjoribanks's breath, for notwithstanding that it came from a (young) lady, and was confused by some slightly unintelligible conditions about doing good to one's fellow-creatures, it was not a trifling or romantic suggestion. Tom, too, could remember Marchbank, and his uncle's interest in it, and the careful way in which he explained to the ignorant that this was the correct pronunciation of his own name. While Lucilla made her concluding address, Tom seemed to see himself a little fellow, with his eyes and his ears very wide open, trotting about with small steps after the Doctor, as he went over the red-brick house and neglected gardens at Marchbank: it was only to be let then, and had passed through many hands, and was in miserable case, both lands and house. But neither the lands nor the house were bad of themselves, and Tom was, like Lucilla, perfectly well aware that something might be made of them.
This idea gave a new direction to his thoughts. Though he had been brought up to the bar, he had never been a lover of town, and was in reality, like so many young Englishmen, better qualified to be something in the shape of a country gentleman than for any other profession in the world; and he had left his profession behind, and was in most urgent want of something to do. He did not give in at once with a lover's abject submission, but thought it over for twenty-four hours at all his spare moments,—when he was smoking his evening cigar in the garden, and studying the light in his lady's window, and when he ought to have been asleep, and again in the morning when he sallied forth, before Miss Marjoribanks's blinds were drawn up or the house had fairly awoke. He was not a man of brilliant ability, but he had that sure and steady eye for the real secret of a position which must have been revealed to every competent critic by the wonderful clear-sightedness with which he saw, and the wise persistence with which he held to the necessity of an immediate choice between himself and Mr Ashburton. He had seen that there was but one alternative, and he had suffered no delay nor divergence from the question in hand. And it was this same quality which had helped him to the very pretty addition to his small patrimony which he had meant to settle on Lucilla, and which would now make the acquisition of Marchbank an easy thing enough. And though Tom had looked wise on the subject of investment in land, it was a kind of investment in every way agreeable to him. Thus Lucilla's arrow went straight to the mark—straighter even than she had expected; for besides all the other and more substantial considerations, there was to Tom's mind a sweet sense of poetic justice in the thought that, after his poor uncle's failure, who had never thought him good enough for Lucilla, it should be he and no other who would give this coveted possession to his cousin. Had Marchbank been in the market in Dr Marjoribanks's time, it was, as Lucilla herself said, his money that would have bought it; but in such a case, so far as the Doctor was concerned, there would have been little chance for Tom. Now all that was changed, and it was in Tom's hands that the wealth of the family lay. It was he who was the head, and could alone carry out what Lucilla's more original genius suggested. If the Doctor could but have seen it, he who had formed plans so very different—but perhaps by that time Dr Marjoribanks had found out that Providence after all had not been so ill-advised as he once thought in committing to his care such a creative intelligence as that of Lucilla, and withholding from him "the boy."
As for Miss Marjoribanks, after she had made up her mind and stated her conviction, she gave herself no further trouble on the subject, but took it for granted, with that true wisdom which is unfortunately so rare among women. She did not talk about it overmuch, or display any feverish anxiety about Marchbank, but left her suggestion to work, and had faith in Tom. At the same time, the tranquillising sense of now knowing, to a certain extent, what lay before her came into Lucilla's mind. It would be a new sphere, but a sphere in which she would find herself at home. Still near enough to Carlingford to keep a watchful eye upon society and give it the benefit of her experience, and yet at the same time translated into a new world, where her influence might be of untold advantage, as Lucilla modestly said, to her fellow-creatures. There was a village not far from the gates at Marchbank, where every kind of village nuisance was to be found. There are people who are very tragical about village nuisances, and there are other people who assail them with loathing, as a duty forced upon their consciences; but Lucilla was neither of the one way of thinking nor of the other. It gave her the liveliest satisfaction to think of all the disorder and disarray of the Marchbank village. Her fingers itched to be at it—to set all the crooked things straight, and clean away the rubbish, and set everything, as she said, on a sound foundation. If it had been a model village, with prize flower-gardens and clean as Arcadia, the thought of it would not have given Miss Marjoribanks half so much pleasure. The recollection of all the wretched hovels and miserable cottages exhilarated her heart.
"They may be as stupid and ungrateful as they like," she said to herself, "but to be warm and comfortable instead of cold and hungry always makes a difference." Perhaps it was not the highest motive possible, and it might be more satisfactory to some people to think of Lucilla as actuated by lofty sentiments of philanthropy; but to persons acquainted with Miss Marjoribanks's character, her biographer would scorn to make any pretence. What would be the good of a spirit full of boundless activity and benevolent impulses if there was nobody to help?—what would be the use of self-devotion if the race in general stood in no need of charitable ministrations? Lucilla had been of use to her fellow-creatures all her life; and though she was about to relinquish one branch of usefulness, that was not to say that she should be prevented from entering into another. The state of the Marchbank village did her good to the very bottom of her soul. It justified her to herself for her choice of Tom, which, but for this chance of doing good, might perhaps have had the air of a merely selfish personal preference. Now she could regard it in a loftier light, and the thought was sweet to Lucilla; for such a beautiful way of helping her neighbour would no doubt have been to a certain extent impracticable amid the many occupations of the Member's wife.
Perhaps the most difficult thing in Miss Marjoribanks's way at this otherwise satisfactory moment was the difficulty she found in persuading society, first of the reality, and then of the justice, of the step she had taken. Most of them, to tell the truth, had forgotten all about Tom Marjoribanks. It is true that when Lucilla's intentions and prospects were discussed in Grange Lane, as they had been so often, it was not uncommon for people to say, "There was once a cousin, you know"; but nobody had ever given very much heed to the suggestion. When Lucilla went to tell Mrs Chiley of what had happened, she was but inadequately prepared for the surprise with which her intelligence was received. For it all seemed natural enough to Miss Marjoribanks. She had gone on very steadily for a long time, without thinking particularly about anybody, and disposed to accept the most eligible and satisfactory person who happened to present himself; but all the time there had been a warm corner in her heart for Tom. And then the eligible person had not come, and she had been worried and wearied, and had had her losses, like most other people. And it had always been pleasant to remember that there was one man in the world who, if she but held out a finger to him——But then the people in Grange Lane were not capable of discrimination on such a delicate subject, and had never, as was to be expected, had the smallest insight into Lucilla's heart.
"You have something to tell me, Lucilla?" said old Mrs Chiley. "You need not say no, for I can see it in your eyes. And how lucky it is the Colonel is out, and we can have it all to ourselves! Come here and sit by me, and tell me all—every word."
"Dear Mrs Chiley," said Lucilla, "you can always see what one means before one says a word. And it has all happened so suddenly; but the very first thing I thought of doing was to come and tell you."
Mrs Chiley gave her young friend, who was leaning over her, a hug, which was the only answer which could be made to so touching a speech, and drew Lucilla down upon a low chair that had been placed by the side of her sofa. She kept Miss Marjoribanks's hand in her own, and caressed it, and looked at her with satisfaction in every line of her face. After waiting so long, and having so many disappointments, everything was going to turn out so entirely as it ought to do at last.
"I think I know what you are going to tell me, my dear," said Mrs Chiley; "and I am so pleased, Lucilla. I only wonder you did not give me a hint from the very first. You remember I asked you when you came here that snowy evening. I was a hard-hearted old woman, and I dare say you were very vexed; but I am so glad to think that the Colonel never stood out against him, but gave his consent that very day."
This was the moment, if there ever was such a moment, when Lucilla lost courage. Mrs Chiley was so entirely confident as to what was coming, and it was something so different that was really coming; and it was hard upon Miss Marjoribanks to feel that she was about to disappoint everybody's expectations. She had to clear her throat before she spoke—she who was generally so ready for every emergency; and she could not help feeling for the moment as if she was a young girl who had run away with somebody, and deceived all her anxious friends.
"Dear Mrs Chiley, I am afraid I am not going to say what you expected," said Lucilla. "I am very comfortable and happy, and I think it's for the best; and I am so anxious that you should like him; but it is not the person you are thinking of. It is——"
Here the old lady, to Lucilla's surprise, rose up upon her pillows and threw her arms round her, and kissed her over again, and fell a-crying. "I always said how generous you were, Lucilla," cried Mrs Chiley. "I knew it from the first. I was always fond of him, you know; and now that he has been beaten, poor dear, and disappointed, you've gone and made it up to him! Lucilla, other people may say what they like, but it is just what I always expected of you!"
This unlooked-for burst of enthusiasm took Lucilla entirely by surprise. She could not say in reply that Mr Cavendish did not want her to make it up to him; but the fact that this was the only alternative which occurred to Mrs Chiley filled Miss Marjoribanks with a sense of something like positive guilt. She had deceived everybody, and raised false expectations, and how was she to explain herself? It was with humility and embarrassment that she spoke.
"I don't know what you will say when you hear who it really is," she said. "He has been fond of me all this time, though he has been so far away. He went to India because I sent him, and he came back as soon as ever he heard about—what had happened. And what could I do? I could not be so ungrateful or so hard-heartedagain, as to send him away?"
"Lucilla, who is it?" said Mrs Chiley, growing pale—for she generally had a little wintry bloom on her cheek like the China roses she was so fond of. "Don't keep me like this in suspense."
"Dear Mrs Chiley," said Lucilla, with the brevity of excitement, "I don't see what other person in the world it could be but my cousin Tom."
Poor Mrs Chiley started, so that the sofa and Lucilla's chair and the very room shook. She said herself afterwards that she felt as if somebody had discharged a pistol into her breast. She was so shocked and startled that she threw off all her coverings and the Afghanistan blanket Mrs Beverley had sent, and put her tottering old feet to the floor; and then she took her young friend solemnly by both her hands.
"Oh, Lucilla, my poor dear!" she cried, "you have gone and done it without thinking what you were doing. You have taken it into your head that it was all over, and that there was nothing more to look for. And you are only nine-and-twenty, Lucilla; and many a girl marries very well—better than common—long after she's nine-and-twenty; and I know for a fact—oh! my poor dear child, I know for acertainfact!—that Mr Ashburton was coming forward. He as good as said it to Lady Richmond, Lucilla. He as good as said, as soon as the election was over—and now you have gone and got impatient, and thrown yourself away!"
Miss Marjoribanks was quite carried away for the moment by this flood of sorrowful eloquence. She was silenced, and had nothing to answer, and accepted it as in some respect the just penalty for the disappointment she was causing everybody. She let Mrs Chiley say out her say, and then she restored the old lady to her sofa, and made her comfortable, and covered her up with all her wraps and blankets. Though she ran on in a feeble strain all the time weeping and lamenting, Lucilla took no notice. She wrapped her old friend up, and put her pillows just as she liked them, and sat down again on the low chair; and by that time the poor old lady had sunk into a faint sob of vexation and disappointment, and had given her remonstrances up.
"Now, I will tell you all about it," said Miss Marjoribanks. "I knew you would be surprised; and if it would be any comfort to you, dear Mrs Chiley, to know that Mr Ashburtondid——"
"And you refused him, Lucilla?" Mrs Chiley asked, with horror in her face.
"Ought I to have accepted him when there was somebody I liked better?" said Lucilla, with the force of conscious virtue, "and you used always to say just the contrary. One great thing that supported me was, thatyouwould be sure to understand. I did not know it at the time," said Miss Marjoribanks, with sweet confidence and simplicity, "but I see it all now. Why it never came to anything before, you know, was that I never could in my heart have accepted anybody but Tom."
Mrs Chiley turned round with unaffected surprise, which was not unmingled with awe. Up to this moment she had been under the impression that it was the blindness, and folly, and stupidity of the gentlemen which had kept it from ever coming to anything. It was altogether a new light that broke upon her now, confusing, though on the whole satisfactory; but for the moment she was struck dumb, and had no answer to make.
"I never knew it myself until—quite lately," said Miss Marjoribanks, with confidential tenderness, "and I don't think I could tell it to any one but you. Dear Mrs Chiley, you have always taken such an interest in me! I sent him away, you know, and thought I was only fond of him because he was my cousin. And then there were all the others, and some of them were very nice; but always when it came to the point—And it never came into my head that Tom was at the bottom of it all—never till the other day."
Mrs Chiley was still so much confounded by this unexpected revelation that it was some time before she could find her voice; and even now the light penetrated slowly into her mind, and it was only by degrees that she accepted the new fact thus presented to her faith—that it was not the gentlemen who were to blame—that it was all Lucilla's or rather Tom Marjoribanks's fault.
"And Mr Ashburton, Lucilla?" she asked faintly.
"I am very sorry," said Miss Marjoribanks, "very, very sorry; but I don't think I can blame myself that I gave him encouragement, you know. I may have been foolish at other times, but I am sure I was very careful with him. It was all the election that was to blame. I spoke very frankly to him," Lucilla added, "for I knew he was a man to do me justice; and it will always be a comfort to me to think that we had our—our explanation, you know, before I knew it was Tom."
"Well, Lucilla, it is a great change," said Mrs Chiley, who could not reconcile herself to the new condition of affairs. "I don't mean to pretend that I can make up my mind to it all at once. It seems so strange that you should have been setting your heart on some one all these ten years, and never saying a word; I wonder how you could do it. And when people were always in the hopes that you would marry at home, as it were, and settle in Carlingford. I am sure your poor dear papa would be as much astonished as anybody. And I suppose now he will take you away to Devonshire, where his mother lives, and we shall never see you any more." And once more Mrs Chiley gave a little sob. "The Firs would almost have been as good as Grange Lane," she said, "and the Member for Carlingford, Lucilla!"
As for Miss Marjoribanks, she knelt down by the side of the sofa and took her old friend, as well as the blankets and pillows would permit, into her arms.
"Dear Mrs Chiley, we are going to buy Marchbank and settle," said Lucilla, weeping a little for company. "You could not think I would ever go far away from you. And as for being Member for Carlingford, there are Members for counties too," Miss Marjoribanks said in her excitement. It was a revelation which came out unawares, and which she never intended to utter; but it threw a gleam of light over the new world of ambition and progress which was opened to Lucilla's far-seeing vision; and Mrs Chiley could not but yield to the spell of mingled awe and sympathy which thrilled through her as she listened. It was not to be supposed that what Lucilla did was done upon mere unthinking impulse; and when she thought of Marchbank, there arose in Mrs Chiley's mind "the slow beginnings of content."
"But, Lucilla," the old lady said with solemnity, as she gave her a last kiss of reconciliation and peace, "if all Grange Lane had taken their oaths to it, I never could have believed, had you not told me, that, after all, it was to be Tom!"
This was the hardest personal encounter which Miss Marjoribanks was subjected to; but when the news circulated in Grange Lane there was first a dead pause of incredulity and amazement, and then such a commotion as could be compared to nothing except a sudden squall at sea. People who had been going peaceably on their way at one moment, thinking of nothing, were to be seen the next buffeted by the wind of Rumour and tossed about on the waves of Astonishment. To speak less metaphorically (but there are moments of emotion so overwhelming and unprecedented that they can be dealt with only in the language of metaphor), every household in Grange Lane, and at least half of the humbler houses in Grove Street, and a large proportion of the other dwellings in Carlingford, were nearly as much agitated about Lucilla's marriage as if it had been a daughter of their own. Now that he was recalled to their minds in such a startling way, people began to recollect with greater and greater distinctness that "there was once a cousin, you know," and to remember him in his youth, and even in his boyhood, when he had been much in Carlingford. And by degrees the Grange Lane people came to see that they knew a great deal about Tom, and to remind each other of the abrupt end of his last visit, and of his going to India immediately after, and of many a little circumstance in Lucilla's looks and general demeanour which thisdénouementseemed to make plain.
Lady Richmond, though she was a little annoyed about Mr Ashburton's disappointment, decided at once that it was best to ignore that altogether, and was quite glad to think that she had always said there must be somebody. "She bore up a great deal too well against all her little disappointments," she said, when discussing the matter. "When a girl does that one may be always sure there is somebody behind—and you know I always said, when she was not just talking or busy, that there was a preoccupation in Lucilla's eye." This was a speech which Mrs Woodburn, as might have been expected, made a great deal of—but, notwithstanding, it had its effect in Grange Lane. Going back upon their recollections, most people were able to verify the fact that Miss Marjoribanks had borne her little disappointments very well, and that there was sometimes a preoccupation in her eye. The first was beyond dispute; and as for the second, it was a thing which did not require a very great stretch of imagination to suppose—and the unexpected sensation of finding at last a distinct bit of romance to round off Lucilla's history, was pleasant to most people. If she had married Mr Ashburton, it would have been (so far as anything connected with Miss Marjoribanks could be) a commonplace conclusion. But now she had upset everybody's theories, and made an altogether original and unlooked-for ending for herself, which was a thing to have been expected from Lucilla, though nobody could have foreseen the special turn which her originality would take.
And nothing could have come in more appropriately after the election, when people felt the blank of ordinary existence just beginning to settle down upon them again. It kept all Carlingford in conversation for a longer time than might be supposed in these busy days; for there was not only the fact itself, but whattheywere to do, and where they were to go, to be discussed. And then Tom himself began to be visible about Grange Lane; and he had heaps of Indian things among his baggage, and recollected so affectionately the people he used to know, and dispensed his curiosities with such a liberal hand, that the heart of Carlingford was touched. He had a way of miscalculating distances, as has been said, and exercised some kind of magnetic influence upon all the little tables and unsteady articles of furniture, which somehow seemed to fall if he but looked at them. But, on the other hand, John Brown, who had in hand the sale of Marchbank, found him the most straightforward and clear-headed of clients. The two had all the preliminaries arranged before any other intending purchaser had time to turn the matter over in his mind. And Tom had the old brick house full of workmen before anybody knew it was his. When the summer had fairly commenced he went over and lived there, and saw to everything, and went so far as to fit up the drawing-room with the same well-remembered tint of pale green which had been found ten years ago to suit so well with Lucilla's complexion. It was perhaps a little hazardous to repeat the experiment, for green, as everybody knows, is a very trying colour; but it was a most touching and triumphant proof that to Tom, at least, Lucilla was as young as ever, and had not even begun to go off. It was Mr Holden who supplied everything, and he was naturally proud of the trust thus reposed in him, and formed the very highest opinion of his customer; and it was probably from his enthusiasm on this subject that might be traced the commencement of that singular revolution of sentiment in Grange Lane, which suddenly woke up all in an instant without knowing how, to recognise the existence of Mr Marjoribanks, and to forget the undue familiarity which had ventured upon the name of Tom.
When Lucilla went over in the most proper and decorous way, under the charge of Aunt Jemima, to see her future home, the sight of the village at Marchbank was sweet to her eyes. That it was not by any means sweet to any other sense did but enhance Miss Marjoribanks's satisfaction. "A year after this!" she said to herself, and her bosom swelled; for to realise clearly how much she had it in her power to do for her fellow-creatures was indeed a pleasure. It occupied her a great deal more than the gardens did, which Tom was arranging so carefully, or even than the kitchen, which she inspected for the information of Nancy; for at that time the drawing-room was not fitted up. Lucilla's eyes went over the moral wilderness with the practical glance of a statesman, and, at the same time, the sanguine enthusiasm of a philanthropist. She saw of what it was capable, and already, in imagination, the desert blossomed like a rose before her beneficent steps, and the sweet sense of well-doing rose in her breast. And then to see Tom at Marchbank was to see his qualities. He was not a man of original mind, nor one who would be likely to take a bold initiative. Considering all the circumstances, that was a gift which was scarcely to be wished for; but he had a perfect genius for carrying out a suggestion, which, it need scarcely be added, was a faculty that, considering the good fortune which Providence had so long reserved for him, made his character as near perfect as humanity permits. Lucilla felt, indeed, as she drove away, that approbation of Providence which a well-regulated mind, in possession of most things which it desires, might be expected to feel. Other delusive fancieshadone time and another swept across her horizon; but after all there could be no doubt that only thus could she have been fitly mated, and full development afforded to all the resources of her spirit. As the carriage passed the Firs she sighed and put down her veil with a natural sentiment; but still she felt it was for the best. The Member for Carlingford must be a busy man, occupied about his own affairs, and with little leisure for doing good to his fellow-creatures except in a parliamentary way. "And there are members for counties as well," Lucilla, in the depths of her soul, said to herself. Then there rose up before her a vision of a parish saved, a village reformed, a county reorganised, and a triumphant election at the end, the recompense and crown of all, which should put the government of the country itself, to a certain extent, into competent hands. This was the celestial vision which floated before Miss Marjoribanks's eyes as she drove into Carlingford, and recollected, notwithstanding occasional moments of discouragement, the successful work she had done, and the good she had achieved in her native town. It was but the natural culmination of her career that transferred her from the town to the county, and held out to her the glorious task of serving her generation in a twofold way, among the poor and among the rich. If a momentary sigh for Grange Lane, which was about to lose her, breathed from her lips, it was sweetened by a smile of satisfaction for the county which was about to gain her. The lighter preface of life was past, and Lucilla had the comfort of feeling that its course had been full of benefit to her fellow-creatures; and now a larger sphere opened before her feet, and Miss Marjoribanks felt that the arrangements of Providence were on the whole full of discrimination, and that all was for the best, and she had not lived in vain.
This being the case, perhaps it is not necessary to go much further into detail. Mr Ashburton never said anything about his disappointment, as might have been expected. When he did mention that eventful day at all, he said that he had happened accidentally to be calling on Miss Marjoribanks the day her cousin came home, and saw at once the state of affairs; and he sent her a very nice present when she was married. After all, it was not her fault. If Providence had ordained that it was to be Tom, how could Lucilla fly in the face of such an ordinance? and, at the same time, there was to both parties the consoling reflection, that whatever might happen to them as individuals, the best man had been chosen for Carlingford, which was an abiding benefit to all concerned.
Under all the circumstances, it was to be looked for that Miss Marjoribanks's spirits should improve even in her mourning, and that the tenacity with which she clung to her father's house should yield to the changed state of affairs. This was so much the case, that Lucilla took heart to show Mrs Rider all over it, and to point out all the conveniences to her, and even, with a sigh, to call her attention to the bell which hung over the Doctor's bedroom door. "It breaks my heart to hear it," Miss Marjoribanks said; "but still Dr Rider will find it a great convenience." It was a very nice house; and so the new Doctor's wife, who had not been used to anything so spacious, was very willing to say; and instead of feeling any grudge against the man who was thus in every respect to take her father's place, so sweet are the softening influences of time and personal well-being, that Lucilla, who was always so good-natured, made many little arrangements for their comfort, and evenleft the carpets, which was a thing nobody could have expected of her, and which Aunt Jemima did not scruple to condemn. "They are all fitted," Lucilla said, "and if they were taken up they would be spoiled; and besides, we could have no use for them at Marchbank." It was a very kind thing to do, and simplified matters very much for the Riders, who were not rich. But Aunt Jemima, in the background, could not but pull Lucilla's sleeve, and mutter indistinct remarks about a valuation, which nobody paid any particular attention to at the moment, as there were so many things much more important to think of and to do.
And the presents that came pouring in from every quarter were enough to have made up for twenty carpets. Lucilla got testimonials, so to speak, from every side, and all Carlingford interested itself, as has been said, in all the details of the marriage, as if it had been a daughter of its own. "And yet it is odd to think that, after all, I shall never be anything but Lucilla Marjoribanks!" she said, in the midst of all her triumphs, with a certain pensiveness. If there could be any name that would have suited her better, or is surrounded by more touching associations, we leave it to her other friends to find out; for at the moment of taking leave of her, there is something consoling to our own mind in the thought that Lucilla can now suffer no change of name. As she was in the first freshness of her youthful daring, when she rose like the sun upon the chaos of society in Carlingford, so is she now as she goes forth into the County to carry light and progress there. And in this reflection there is surely comfort for the few remaining malcontents, whom not even his own excellent qualities, and Lucilla's happiness, can reconcile to the fact that after all it was Tom.