"Did any one call me?" he said; and there was a little pause, and the company in general fixed its regard upon those three people with a sense that something remarkable was going on among them, though it could not tell what or why.
"The Archdeacon wants to make your acquaintance," said Miss Marjoribanks. "Mr Cavendish—Mr Beverley. There, you know each other; and when we are gone you can talk to each other if you like," Lucilla added; "but in the meantimeyouare too far off, andIwant the Archdeacon. He issomuch liked in Carlingford," she continued, lowering her voice. "You can't think how glad we are to have him back again. I am sure if you only knew him better——" said Miss Marjoribanks. As for the Archdeacon, words could not give any idea of the state of his mind. He ate his dinner sternly after that, and did not look at anything but his plate. He consumed the most exquisiteplats, the tenderest wings of chicken and morsels ofpaté, as if they had been his personal enemies. For, to tell the truth, he felt the tables altogether turned upon him, and was confounded, and did not know what it could mean.
It was the General who took up Mr Beverley's abandoned place in the conversation. The gallant soldier talked for two with the best will in the world. He talked of Cavendish, and all the pleasant hours they had spent together, and what a good fellow he was, and how much the men in the club would be amused to hear of his domesticity. It was a kind of talk very natural to a man who found himself placed at table between his friend's sister, and, as he supposed, his friend's future bride. And naturally the Archdeacon got all the benefit. As for Lucilla, she received it with the most perfect grace in the world and saw all the delicate points of the General's wit, and appreciated him so thoroughly, that he felt half inclined to envy Cavendish. "By Jove! he is the luckiest fellow I know," General Travers said; and probably it was the charms of his intelligent and animated conversation that kept the ladies so long at table. Mrs Chiley, for her part, did not know what to make of it. She said afterwards that she kept looking at Lucilla until she was really quite ashamed; and though she was at the other end of the table, she could see that the poor dear did not enjoy her dinner. It happened, too, that when they did move at last, the drawing-room was fuller than usual. Everybody had come that evening—Sir John, and some others of the county people, who only came now and then, and without any exceptioneverybodyin Carlingford. And Lucilla certainly was not herself for the first half-hour. She kept close to the door, and regarded the staircase with an anxious countenance. When she was herself at the helm of affairs, there was a certain security that everything would go on tolerably—but nobody could tell what a set of men left to themselves might or might not do. This was the most dreadful moment of the evening. Mrs Mortimer was in the drawing-room, hidden away under the curtains of a window, knowing nobody, speaking to nobody, and in a state of mind to commit suicide with pleasure; but Miss Marjoribanks, though she had cajoled her into that martyrdom, took no notice of Mrs Mortimer. She was civil, it is true, to her other guests, but there could not be a doubt that Lucilla was horribly preoccupied, and in a state of mind quite unusual to her. "I am sure she is not well," Mrs Chiley said, who was watching her from afar. "I saw that she did not eat any dinner"—and the kind old lady got up slowly and extricated herself from the crowd, and put herself in motion as best she could, to go to her young friend's aid.
It was at this moment that Lucilla turned round radiant upon the observant assembly. The change occurred in less than a moment, so suddenly that nobody saw the actual point of revolution. Miss Marjoribanks turned round upon the company and took Mr Cavendish's arm, who had just come upstairs. "There is a very, very old friend of yours in the corner who wants to see you," said Lucilla; and she led him across the room as a conqueror might have led a captive. She took him through the crowd, to whom she dispensed on every side her most gracious glances. "I am coming directly," Miss Marjoribanks said—for naturally she was called on all sides. What most people remarked at this moment was, that the Archdeacon, who had also come in with the other gentlemen, was standing very sullen and lowering at the door, watching that triumphal progress. And it certainly was not Lucilla's fault if Mrs Chiley and Lady Richmond, and a few other ladies, were thus led to form a false idea of the state of affairs. "I suppose it is all right between them at last," Lady Richmond said, not thinking that Barbara Lake was standing by and heard her. According to appearances, it was all perfectly right between them. Miss Marjoribanks, triumphant, led Mr Cavendish all the length of the room to the corner where the widow sat among the curtains, and the Archdeacon looked on with a visible passion, and jealous rage, which were highly improper in a clergyman, but yet which were exciting to see. And this was how the little drama was to conclude, according to Lady Richmond and Mrs Chiley, who, on the whole, were satisfied with the conclusion. But, naturally, there were other people to be consulted. There was Mr Beverley, whom Miss Marjoribanks held in leash, but who was not yet subdued; and there was Dr Marjoribanks, who began to feel a little curiosity about his daughter's movements, and did not make them out; and there was Barbara Lake, who had begun to blaze like a tempest with her crimson cheeks and black bold eyes. But by this time Lucilla was herself again, and felt the reins in her hands. When she had deposited Mr Cavendish in safety, she faced round upon the malcontents and upon the observers, and on the world in general. Now that her mind was at rest, and everything under her own inspection, she felt herself ready and able for all.
The Archdeacon stood before the fireplace with Dr Marjoribanks and a host of other gentlemen. Mr Beverley's countenance was covered with clouds and darkness. He stood, not with the careless ease of a man amusing himself, but drawn up to his full height and breadth, a formidably muscular Christian, in a state of repression and restraint, which it was painful, and at the same time pleasing to see. The Berserker madness was upon him; and yet such are the restraints of society, that a young woman's eye was enough to keep him down—Lucilla's eye, and the presence of a certain number of other frivolous creatures in white muslin, and of some old women, as he irreverently called them, who were less pleasant, but not more imposing. He was an Archdeacon, and a leading man of his party, whose name alone would have conferred importance upon any "movement," and whom his bishop himself—not to speak of the clergy whom he charged in his visitation addresses like a regiment of cavalry—stood a little in awe of. Yet such are the beneficial restraints of society, that he dared not follow his natural impulses, nor even do what he felt to be his duty, for fear of Miss Marjoribanks, which was about the highest testimony to the value of social influence that could be given. At the same time, it was but natural that under such circumstances the Archdeacon should feel a certain savage wrath at the bond that confined him, and be more indignant than usual at the false and tyrannical conventionalism called society. And it was at this moment, of all times in the world, that General Travers, like a half-educated brute as (according to Mr Beverley's ideas) he was, took the liberty of calling his attention to what the soldier called "a lot of pretty girls." "And everything admirably got up, by Jove!" he added; not having the remotest idea what effect so simple an observation might produce.
"Yes, it is admirably got up," said the Archdeacon, with a snarl of concealed ferocity. "You never said anything more profoundly true. It is all got up, the women, and the decorations, and the gaiety, and all this specious seeming. And these are creatures made in the image of God!" said the Broad-Churchman—"the future wives and mothers of England. It is enough to make the devils laugh and the angels weep!"
It may be supposed that everybody was stricken with utter amazement by this unlooked-for remark. Dr Marjoribanks, for his part, took a pinch of snuff, which, as a general rule, he only did at consultations, or in the face of a difficulty; and as for the unlucky soldier who had called it forth, there can be no doubt that a certain terror filled his manly bosom; for he naturally felt as if he must have said something extraordinary to call forth such a response.
"I never was accused before of saying anything profoundly true," the General said, and he grew pale. "I didn't mean it, I'm sure, if that is any justification. Where has Cavendish vanished to, I wonder?" the soldier added, looking round him, scared and nervous—for it was evident that his only policy was to escape from society in which he was thus liable to commit himself without knowing how.
"Female education is a monstrous mistake," said Mr Beverley—"always has been, and, so far as I can see, always will be. Why should we do our best to make our women idiots? They are bad enough by nature. Instead of counterbalancing their native frivolity by some real instruction——good heavens!" The critic paused. It was not that his emotions were too much for him; it was because the crowd opened a moment, and afforded him a glimpse of a figure in black silk, with the lace for which Miss Marjoribanks had stipulated falling softly over a head which had not quite lost its youthful grace. He gave a glance round him to see if the coast was clear. Lucilla was out of the way at the other end of the room, and he was free. He made but one stride through the unconscious assembly which he had been criticising so severely, and all but knocked down little Rose Lake, who was not looking at the Archdeacon, though she stood straight in his way. He might have stepped over her head without knowing it, so much was he moved. All the gay crowd gave way before him with a cry and flutter; and Lucilla, for her part, was out of the way!
But there are moments when to be out of the way is the highest proof of genius. Miss Marjoribanks had just had a cup of tea brought her, of which she had great need, and her face was turned in the other direction, but yet she was aware that the Archdeacon had passed like a Berserker through those ranks which were not the ranks of his enemies. She felt without seeing it that the "wind of his going" agitated his own large coat tails and heavy locks, and made a perfect hurricane among the white muslin. Lucilla's heart beat quicker, and she put down her tea, though she had so much need of it. She could not swallow the cordial at such a moment of excitement. But she never once turned her head, nor left off her conversation, nor betrayed the anxiety she felt. Up to this time she had managed everything herself, which was comparatively easy; but she felt by instinct that now was the moment to make a high effort and leave things alone. And it may be added that nothing but an inherent sense of doing the right thing under the circumstances could have inspired Miss Marjoribanks to the crowning achievement of keeping out of the way.
When Mr Beverley arrived in front of the two people who were seated together in the recess of the window, he made no assault upon them, as his manner might have suggested. On the contrary, he placed himself in front of them, with his back to the company, creating thus a most effectual moral and physical barrier between the little nook where his own private vengeance and fate were about to be enacted, and the conventional world which he had just been denouncing. The Archdeacon shut the two culprits off from all succour, and looked down upon them, casting them into profound shade. "I don't know what combination of circumstances has produced this meeting," he said, "but the time was ripe for it, and I am glad it has happened," and it was with dry lips and the calmness of passion that he spoke.
Mrs Mortimer gave a little cry of terror, but her companion, for his part, sat quite dumb and immovable. The moment had arrived at last, and perhaps he too was glad it had come. He sat still, expecting to see the earth crumble under his feet, expecting to hear the humble name he had once borne proclaimed aloud, and to hear ridicule and shame poured upon the impostor who had called himself one of the Cavendishes. But it was no use struggling any longer. He did not even raise his eyes, but sat still, waiting for the thunderbolt to fall.
But to tell the truth, the Archdeacon, though a torrent of words came rushing to his lips, felt at a difficulty how to begin. "I don't understand how it is that I find you here with the man who has ruined your prospects," he said, with a slight incoherence; and then he changed the direction of his attack. "But it is you with whom I have to do," he said; "you, sir, who venture to introduce yourself into society with—with your victim by your side. Do you not understand that compassion is impossible in such a case, and that it is my duty to expose you? You have told some plausible story here, I suppose, but nothing can stand against the facts. It is my duty to inform Dr Marjoribanks that it is a criminal who has stolen into his house and his confidence—that it is a conspirator who has ventured to approach his daughter—that it is——"
"A criminal? a conspirator?" said Mr Cavendish, and he looked in his accuser's face with an amazement which, notwithstanding his rage, struck the Archdeacon. If he had called him an impostor, the culprit would have quailed and made no reply. But the exaggeration saved him. After that first look of surprise, he rose to his feet and confronted the avenger, who saw he had made a blunder without knowing what it was. "You must be under some strange mistake," he said. "What do you accuse me of? I know nothing about crime or conspiracy. Either you are strangely mistaken, or you have forgotten what the words mean."
"They are words which I mean to prove," said the Archdeacon; but there can be no doubt that his certainty was diminished by the surprise with which his accusation was received. It checked his first heat, and it was with a slightly artificial excitement that he went on, trying to work himself up again to the same point. "You who worked yourself into a wretched old man's confidence, and robbed an unoffending woman," said Mr Beverley; and then in spite of himself he stopped short; for it was easier to say such things to a woman, who contradicted without giving much reason, than to a man who, with an air of the utmost astonishment, stood regarding his accuser in the face.
"These are very extraordinary accusations," said Mr Cavendish. "Have you ever considered whether you had any proof to support them?" He was not angry to speak of, because he had been entirely taken by surprise, and because at the same time he was unspeakably relieved, and felt that the real danger, the danger which he had so much dreaded, was past and over. He recovered all his coolness from the moment he found out that it was not a venial imposition practised upon society, but a social crime of the ugliest character, of which he was accused. He was innocent, and he could be tranquil on that score. "As for robbing Mrs Mortimer," he added with a little impatience, "she knows, on the contrary, that I have always been most anxious and ready to befriend her——"
"To befriend——Her!" cried the Archdeacon, restored to all his first impetuosity. He could not swear, because it was against his cloth and his principles; but he said, "Good heavens!" in a tone which would have perfectly become a much less mild expletive. "It is better we should understand each other thoroughly," he said. "I am not in a humour for trifling. I consider it isherfortune which enables you to make an appearance here. It ishermoney you are living upon, and which gives you position, and makes you presume as—as you are doing—upon my forbearance. Do you think it possible that I can pass over all this and let you keep what is not yours? If you choose to give up everything, and retire from Carlingford, and withdraw all your pretensions——It is not for my part," said Mr Beverley, with solemnity, taking breath, "to deal harshly with a penitent sinner. It is my duty, as a clergyman, to offer you at least a place of repentance. Afterthat——"
But he was interrupted once more. Mrs Mortimer made her faint voice heard in a remonstrance. "Oh, Charles, I always told you—I had no right to anything!" cried the terrified widow; but that was not what stopped the Archdeacon. It was because his adversary laughed that he stopped short. No doubt it was the metallic laugh of a man in great agitation, but still Mr Beverley's ear was not fine enough at that moment to discriminate. He paused as a man naturally pauses at the sound of ridicule, still furious, yet abashed, and half conscious of a ludicrous aspect to his passion—and turned his full face to his antagonist, and stood at bay.
"It is a modest request, certainly," Mr Cavendish said. "Give up all I have and all I am, and perhaps you will forgive me! You must think me a fool to make such a proposal; but look here," said the accused energetically; "I will tell you the true state of affairs, if for once you will listen. I do it, not for my sake, nor for your sake, but for the sake of—of the women involved," he added hastily; and it was well for him that, instead of looking at the shrinking widow beside him as he said so, his eye had been caught by the eager eye of his sister, who was watching from her corner. With that stimulus he went on, calming himself down, and somehow subduing and imposing upon the angry man by the mere act of encountering him fairly and openly. "I will tell you what are the actual circumstances, and you can see the will itself if you will take the trouble," said the defendant, with a nervous moderation and self-restraint, in which there was also a certain thrill of indignation. "The old man you speak of might have left his money to a more worthy person than myself, but he never meant to leave it to his grand-niece; and she knew that. She was neither his companion nor his nurse. There was nothing between them but a few drops of blood. For my part, I gave him——but, to be sure, it would not interest you to know how I spent my youth. You came upon the scene like—a man in a passion," Mr Cavendish said, with an abrupt laugh, which this time was more feeble, and proved that his composure was giving way, "and misjudged everything, as was natural. You are doing the same again, or trying to do it. But you are a clergyman, and when you insult a man——"
"I am ready to give him satisfaction," said the Broad-Churchman hotly; and then he made a pause, and that sense of ridicule which is latent in every Englishman's mind, came to the Archdeacon's aid. He began to feel ashamed of himself, and at the same time his eye caught his own reflection in a mirror, and the clerical coat which contrasted so grotesquely with his offer of "satisfaction." Mr Beverley started a little, and changed his tone. "This has lasted long enough," he said, in his abrupt imperious way. "Thisis not the place nor the time for such a discussion. We shall meet elsewhere," the Archdeacon added austerely, with a significance which it is impossible to describe. His air and his words were full of severe and hostile meaning, and yet he did not know what he meant any more than Mr Cavendish did, who took him at his word, and retired, and made an end of the interview. Whatever the Archdeacon meant, it was his adversary who was the victor.Hewent off, threading his way through the curious spectators with a sense of relief that almost went the length of ecstasy. He might have been walking on his head for anything he knew. His senses were all lost and swallowed up in the overwhelming and incredible consciousness of safety. Where were they to meet elsewhere? With pistols in a corner of Carlingford Common, or perhaps with their fists alone, as Mr Beverley was Broad-Church? When a man has been near ruin and has escaped by a hair-breadth, he may be permitted to be out of his wits for a few minutes afterwards. And the idea of fighting a duel with a dignitary of the Church so tickled Mr Cavendish, that he had not the prudence to keep it to himself. "You will stand by me if he calls me out?" he said to General Travers as he passed; and the air of utter consternation with which the warrior regarded him, drove Mr Cavendish into such agonies of laughter, that he had to retire to the landing-place and suffocate himself to subdue it. If any man had said to him that he was hysterical, the chances are that it was he who would have called that man out, or at least knocked him down. But he had to steal downstairs afterwards and apply to Thomas for a cordial more potent than tea; for naturally, when a man has been hanging over an abyss for ever so long, it is no great wonder if he loses his head and balance when he suddenly finds himself standing on firm ground, and feels that he has escaped.
As for the Archdeacon, when the other was gone, he sat down silently on his abandoned chair. He was one of the men who take pride in seeing both sides of a question; and to tell the truth, he was always very candid about disputed points in theology, and ready to entertain everybody's objection; but it was a different thing when the matter was a matter of fact. He put down his face into his hands, and tried to think whether it was possible that what he had just heard might be the true state of the case. To be sure, the widow who was seated half fainting by his side had given him the same account often enough, but somehow it was more effective from the lips of a man who confronted him than from the mild and weeping woman whom he loved better than anything else in the world, but whose opinion on any earthly (or heavenly) subject had not the weight of a straw upon him. He tried to take that view of it; and then it occurred to him that nothing was more ludicrous and miserable than the position of a man who goes to law without adequate reason, or without proof to maintain his cause. Such a horrible divergence from everything that was just and right might be, as that the well-known and highly-esteemed Archdeacon Beverley might be held up for the amusement and edification of the country in aTimesleader, which was a martyrdom the Archdeacon would have rather liked than otherwise in a worthy cause, but not for a wretched private business connected with money. He sighed as he pondered, feeling, as so many have felt, the difficulties which attend a good man's progress in this life—how that which is just is not always that which is expedient, and how the righteous have to submit to many inconveniences in order that the adversary may have no occasion to blaspheme. In this state of mind a man naturally softens towards a tender and wistful sympathiser close at hand. He sighed once more heavily, and lifted his head, and took into his own a soft pale hand which was visible near him among the folds of black silk.
"So you too have been brought into it, Helen," the Archdeacon said pathetically; "I did not expect to see you here."
"It was Lucilla," said Mrs Mortimer timidly; "it was not any wish of mine. Oh, Charles! if you would let me speak. If you will but forget all this, and think no more about it; and I will do my best to make you a——" Here the poor woman stopped short all at once. What she meant to have said was, that she would make him a good wife, which nature and truth and the circumstances all prompted her to say—as the only possible solution to the puzzle. But when she had got so far, the poor widow stopped, blushing and tingling all over, with a sense of shame, more overwhelming than if she had done a wicked action. It was nothing but pure honesty and affection that prompted her to speak; and yet, if it had been the vilest sentiment in human nature, she would not have been so utterly ashamed. "That was not what I meant to say!" she cried, with sharp and sudden wretchedness; and was not the least ashamed of telling a downright lie instead.
But, to tell the truth, the Archdeacon was paying no particular attention. He had never loved any other woman; but he was a little indifferent as to what innocent nonsense she might please to say. So that her confusion and misery, and even the half offer of herself which occasioned these feelings, were lost upon him. He kept her hand and caressed it in the midst of his own thoughts, as if it was a child's head he was patting. "My poor Helen," he said, coming back to her when he found she had stopped speaking, "I don't see why you should not come, if this sort of thing is any pleasure to you; but afterwards——" he said reflectively. He went to that sort of thing often himself, and rather liked it, and did not think of any afterwards; but perhaps the case of a weak woman was different, or perhaps it was only that he happened to be after his downfall in a pathetic and reflective state of mind.
"Afterwards?" said Mrs Mortimer. She did not take the word in any religious or philosophical, but in its merest matter-of-fact meaning, and she was sadly hurt and wounded to see that he had not even noticed what she said, much as she had been ashamed of saying it. She drew away her hand with a quick movement of despite and mortification, which filled Mr Beverley with surprise. "Afterwards I shall go back to my little house and my school, and shut myself in, and never, never come back again, you may be sure," said the widow, with a rush of tears to her eyes. Why they did not fall, or how she kept herself from fainting—she who fainted so easily—she never, on reviewing the circumstances, could tell; and Miss Marjoribanks always attributed it to the fact thatshewas absent, and there was no eau-de-Cologne on the table. But whatever the cause might be, Mrs Mortimer did not faint; and perhaps there never was anything so like despair and bitterness as at that moment in her mild little feminine soul.
"Never come back again?" said the Archdeacon, rousing up a little; and then he put out his large hand and took back the other, as if it had been a pencil or a book that he had lost. All this, let it be known, was well in the shadow, and could not be seen by the world in general to teach the young people a bad lesson. "Why should not you come back? I am going away too," said Mr Beverley; and he stopped short, and resisted the effort his prisoner made to withdraw. Oddly enough at that moment his Rectory rose suddenly before him as in a vision—his Rectory, all handsome and sombre, without a soul in it, room after room uninhabited, and not a sound to be heard, except that of his own foot or his servant's. It was curious what connection there could be between that and the garden, with its four walls, and the tiny cottage covered with wistaria. Such as it was, it moved the Archdeacon to a singular, and, considering the place and moment, rather indecorous proceeding. Instead of contenting himself with the resisting hand, he drew the widow's arm within his as they sat together. "I'll tell you what we must do, Helen," he said confidentially—"we must go back to Basing together, you and I. I don't see the good of leaving you by yourself here. You can make what alterations you like when you get to the Rectory; and I shall let that—that person alone, if you wish it, with his ill-gotten gear. He will never come to any good," said the Archdeacon, with some satisfaction; and then he added in a parenthesis, as if she had expressed some ridiculous doubt on the subject, "Of course I mean that we should be married before we go away." It was in this rapid and summary manner that the whole business was settled. Naturally his companion had nothing to say against such a reasonable arrangement. She had never contradicted him in her life about anything but one thing; and that being set aside, there was no possible reason why she should begin now.
This was how the crisis came to an end, which had been of so much interest to the parties immediately affected. Mrs Woodburn had one of her nervous attacks next morning, and was very ill, and alarmed Dr Marjoribanks; but at her very worst moment the incorrigible mimic convulsed her anxious medical adviser and all her attendants by a sudden adoption of the character of Mrs Mortimer, whom she must have made a careful study of the previous night. "Tell him to tell him to go downstairs," cried the half-dead patient; "I want to speak to him, and he is not to hear;—if he were not so thoughtless, he would offer him some lunch at least," Mrs Woodburn said pathetically, with closed eyes and a face as pale as death. "She never did anything better in her life," Dr Marjoribanks said afterwards; and Mr Woodburn, who was fond of his wife in his way, and had been crying over her, burst into such an explosion of laughter that all the servants were scandalised. And the patient improved from that moment. She was perfectly well and in the fullest force a week afterwards, when she came to see Lucilla, who had also been slightly indisposed for a day or two. When Thomas had shut the door, and the two were quite alone, Mrs Woodburn hugged Miss Marjoribanks with a fervour which up to that moment she had never exhibited. "It was only necessary that we should get into full sympathy with each other as human creatures," she said, lifting her finger like the Archdeacon; and for all the rest of that autumn and winter Mrs Woodburn kept society in Carlingford in a state of inextinguishable laughter. The odd thing was that Miss Marjoribanks, who had been one of her favourite characters, disappeared almost entirely from her repertory. Not quite altogether, because there were moments of supreme temptation which the mimic could not resist; but as a general rule Lucilla was the only woman in Carlingford who escaped the universal critic. No sort of acknowledgment passed between them of the obligations one had to the other, and, what was still more remarkable, no discussion of the terrible evening when Lucilla had held the Archdeacon with her eye, and prevented the volcano from exploding. Perhaps Mrs Woodburn, for her part, would have been pleased to have had such an explanation, but Miss Marjoribanks knew better. She knew it was best not to enter upon confidences which neither could ever forget, and which might prevent them meeting with ease in the midst of the little world which knew nothing about it. What Lucilla knew, she knew, and could keep to herself; but she felt at the same time that it was best to have no expansions on the subject. She kept it all to herself, and made the arrangements for Mrs Mortimer's marriage, and took charge of everything. Everybody said that nothing could be more perfect than the bride's toilette, which was as nice as could be, and yet not like arealbride after all; a difference which was only proper under the circumstances; for she was married in lavender, poor soul, as was to be expected. "You have not gone off the least bit in the world, and it is quite a pleasure to see you," Lucilla said, as she kissed herthatmorning—and naturally all Carlingford knew that it was owing to her goodness that the widow had been taken care of and provided for, and saved up for the Archdeacon. Miss Marjoribanks, in short, presided over the ceremony as if she had been Mrs Mortimer's mother, and superintended the wedding breakfast, and made herself agreeable to everybody. And in the meantime, before the marriage took place, most people in Carlingford availed themselves of the opportunity of calling on Mrs Mortimer. "If she should happen to be the future bishop's lady, and none of us ever to have taken any notice of her," somebody said, with natural dismay. Lucilla did not discourage the practical result of this suggestion, but she felt an instinctive certainty in her mind thatnowMr Beverley would never be bishop of Carlingford, and indeed that the chances were Carlingford would never be elevated into a bishopric at all.
It was not until after the marriage that Mr Cavendish went away. To be sure, he was not absolutely present at the ceremony, but there can be no doubt that the magnificentparurewhich Mrs Mortimer received the evening before her marriage, "from an old friend," which made everybody's mouth water, and which she herself contemplated with mingled admiration and dismay, was sent by Mr Cavendish. "Do you think it could be fromhim; or only from him?" the bride said, bewildered and bewildering. "I am sure he might have known I never should require anything so splendid." But Lucilla, for her part, had no doubt whatever on the subject; and the perfect good taste of the offering made Miss Marjoribanks sigh, thinking once more how much that was admirable was wasted by the fatal obstacle which prevented Mr Cavendish from aspiring to anybody higher than Barbara Lake. As for the Archdeacon, he too found it very easy to satisfy his mind as to the donor of the emeralds. He put them away from him severely, and did not condescend to throw a second glance at their deceitful splendour. "Women are curiously constituted," said Mr Beverley, who was still at the height of superiority, though he was a bridegroom. "I suppose those sort of things give them pleasure—things which neither satisfy the body nor delight the soul."
"If it had been something to eat, would it have pleased you better?" said Lucilla, moved for once in her life to be impertinent, like an ordinary girl. For really when a man showed himself so idiotic as to despise a beautiful set of emeralds, it went beyond even the well-known tolerance and compassionate good-humour with which Miss Marjoribanks regarded the vagaries of "the gentlemen." There is a limit in all things, and this was going too far.
"I said, to satisfy the body, Miss Marjoribanks," said the Archdeacon, "which is an office very temporarily and inadequately performed by something to eat. I prefer the welfare of my fellow-creatures to a few glittering stones—even when they are round Her neck," Mr Beverley added, with a little concession to the circumstances. "Jewellery is robbery in a great town where there is always so much to be done, and so little means of doing it; to secure health to the people, and education——"
"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, who knew in her heart that the Archdeacon was afraid of her. "It is so nice of you not to say any of those dreadful sanitary words—and I am sure you could make something very nasty and disagreeable with that diamond of yours. It is a beautiful diamond; if I were Helen I should make you give it me," said Lucilla sweetly; and the Archdeacon was so much frightened by the threat that he turned his ring instinctively, and quenched the glitter of the diamond in his closed hand.
"It was a present," he said hastily, and went away to seek some better occupation than tilting with the womankind, who naturally had possession of the bride's little house and everything in it at that interesting moment. It was the last evening of Lucilla's reign, and she was disposed to take the full good of it. And though Mrs Mortimer's trousseau was modest, and not, as Lydia Brown repeated, like that of arealbride, it was still voluminous enough to fill the room to overflowing, where it was all being sorted and packed under Miss Marjoribanks's eye.
"It is a very nice diamond indeed," said Lucilla; "if I were you I would certainly make him give it to me—rings are no good to a gentleman. They never have nice hands, you know—though indeed when they have nice hands," said Miss Marjoribanks reflectively, "it is a great deal worse, for they keep always thrusting them under your very eyes. It is curious why They should be so vain. They talk of women!" Lucilla added, with natural derision; "but, my dear, if I were you I would make him give it me; a nice diamond is always a nice thing to have."
"Lucilla," said the widow, "I am sure I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for me; but, dear, if you please, I would not talk like that! The gentlemen laugh, but I am sure they don't like it all the same;" for indeed the bride thought it her duty, having won the prize in her own person, to point out to her young friend how, to attain the same end, she ought to behave.
Miss Marjoribanks did not laugh, for her sense of humour, as has been said, was not strong, but she kissed her friend with protecting tenderness. "My dear, if that had been what I was thinking of I need never have come home," said Lucilla; and her superiority was so calm and serene, that Mrs Mortimer felt entirely ashamed of herself for making the suggestion. The widow was simple-minded, and, like most other women, it gratified her to believe that here and there, as in Miss Marjoribanks's case, there existed one who was utterly indifferent to the gentlemen, and did not care whether they were pleased or not; which restored a little the balance of the world to the widow-bride, who felt with shame that she cared a great deal, and was quite incapable of such virtue. As for Lucilla herself, she was not at that moment in conscious enjoyment of the strength of mind for which her friend gave her credit. On the contrary, she could not help a certain sense of surprised depression as she superintended the packing of the boxes. The man had had it in his power to propose to her, and he was going to be married to Mrs Mortimer! It was not that Lucilla was wounded or disappointed, but that she felt it as a wonderful proof of the imperfection and weakness of human nature. Even in the nineteenth century, which has learnt so much, such a thing was possible! It filled her with a gentle sadness as she had the things put in, and saw the emeralds safely deposited in their resting-place. Not that she cared for the Archdeacon, who had thus disposed of himself; but still it was a curious fact that such a thing could be.
Altogether it must be admitted that at this special moment Miss Marjoribanks occupied a difficult position. She had given the Archdeacon to understand that Mr Cavendish was a "veryparticular friend"; and even when the danger was past, Lucilla scorned to acknowledge her pious prevarications. During all this interval she continued so gracious to him that everybody was puzzled, and Mrs Woodburn even insisted on her brother, after all, making his proposal, which would be better late than never.
"I am sure she is fond of you," said the softened mimic, "and that sort of thing doesn't matter to a woman as it does to a man;" for it has been already said that Mrs Woodburn, notwithstanding her knack of external discrimination, had very little real knowledge of character. And even at moments, Mr Cavendish himself, who ought to have known better, was half tempted to believe that Lucilla meant it. The effect upon Dr Marjoribanks was still more decided. He thought he saw in his daughter the indications of that weakness which is sometimes so surprising in women, and it disturbed the Doctor's serenity; and he actually tried to snub Lucilla on sundry occasions, with that wonderful fatuity which is common to men.
"I hope when this marriage is over people will recover their senses. I hear of nothing else," Dr Marjoribanks said one day at dessert, when they were alone. He took some chestnuts as he spoke, and burned his fingers, which did not improve his temper. "That sort of rubbish, I suppose, is much more interesting than attending to your natural duties," the Doctor added morosely, which was not a kind of address which Miss Marjoribanks was used to hear.
"Dear papa," said Lucilla, "if I attended to my duties ever so much I could not keep you from burning your fingers. There are some things that peoplemustdo for themselves," the dutiful daughter added, with a sigh. Nobody could doubt who knew Lucilla that she would have gladly taken the world on her shoulders, and saved everybody from those little misadventures; but how could she help it if people absolutely would not take care of themselves?
The Doctor smiled grimly, but he was not satisfied. He was, on the contrary, furious in a quiet way. "I don't need at this time of day to be told how clever you are, Lucilla," said her father; "and I thought you had been superior to the ordinary folly of women——"
"Papa, for Heaven's sake!" cried Miss Marjoribanks. She was really alarmed this time, and she did not hesitate to let it be apparent. "I do not mean to say that I always do precisely what I ought to do," said Lucilla; "nobody does that I know of; but I am sure I never did anything to deservethat. I never was superior, and I hope I never shall be; and I know I never pretended to it," she said, with natural horror; for the accusation, as everybody will perceive, was hard to bear.
The Doctor laughed again, but with increased severity. "We understand all that," he said. "I am not in the secret of your actions, Lucilla. I don't know what you intend, or how far you mean to go. The only thing I know is that I see that young fellow Cavendish a great deal oftener in the house and about it than I care to see him; and I have had occasion to say the same thing before. I know nothing about his means," said Dr Marjoribanks; "his property may be in the Funds, but I think it a great deal more likely that he speculates. I have worked hard for my money, and I don't mean it to go in that way, Lucilla. I repeat, I am not in the secret of your proceedings——"
"Dear papa! as if there was any secret," said Lucilla, fixing her candid eyes upon her father's face. "I might pretend I did not understand you if there was anything in what you say, but I never go upon false pretences when I can help it. I am very fond of Mr Cavendish," she continued regretfully, after a pause. "There is nobody in Carlingford that is so nice; but I don't see whom he can marry except Barbara Lake." Miss Marjoribanks would have scorned to conceal the unfeigned regret which filled her mind when she uttered these words. "I am dreadfully sorry, but I don't see anything that can be done for him," she said, and sighed once more. As for the Doctor, he forgot all about his chestnuts, and sat and stared at her, thinking in his ignorance that it was a piece of acting, and not knowing whether to be angry or to yield to the amusement which began to rise in his breast.
"He may marry half a dozen Barbara Lakes," said Dr Marjoribanks, "and I don't see what reason we should have to interfere: so long as he doesn't want to marry you——"
"That would be impossible, papa," said Lucilla, with pensive gravity. "I am sure I am very, very sorry. She has a very nice voice, but a man can't marry a voice, you know; and if there was anything that I could do——I am not sure that he ever wished forthateither," Miss Marjoribanks added, with her usual candour. "It is odd, but for all that it is true." For it was a moment of emotion, and she could not help giving utterance to the surprise with which this consideration naturally filled her mind.
"What is odd, and what is true?" said Dr Marjoribanks, growing more and more bewildered. But Lucilla only put aside her plate and got up from her chair.
"Not any more wine, thank you," she said. "I know you don't want me any more, and I have so much to do. I hope you will let me invite Barbara here when they are married, and pay her a little attention; for nobody likes her in Grange Lane, and it would be so hard uponhim. The more I think of it, the more sorry I am," said Lucilla; "he deserved better, papa; but as for me, everybody knows what is my object in life."
Thus Miss Marjoribanks left the table, leaving her father in a singular state of satisfaction and surprise. He did not believe a word of what she had been saying, with that curious perversity common to the people who surrounded Lucilla, and which arose not so much from doubt of her veracity as from sheer excess of confidence in her powers. He thought she had foiled him in a masterly manner, and that she was only, as people say, amusing herself, and had no serious intentions; and he laughed quietly to himself when she left him, in the satisfaction of finding there was nothing in it. Miss Marjoribanks, for her part, went on tranquilly with the arrangements for the marriage; one by one she was disembarrassing herself from the complications which had grown round her during the first year of her reign in Carlingford; and now only the last links of the difficulty remained to be unrolled.
The explanation she had with Mr Cavendish himself was in every way more interesting. It happened pretty late one evening, when Lucilla was returning with her maid from the widow's little cottage, which was so soon to be deserted. She was just at that moment thinking of the wistaria which had grown so nicely, and of all the trouble she had taken with the garden. Nobody could tell who might come into it now, after she had done so much for it; and Miss Marjoribanks could not but have a momentary sense that, on the whole, it was a little ungrateful on the part of Mrs Mortimer, when everybody had taken such pains to make her comfortable. At this moment, indeed, Lucilla was slightly given to moralising, though with her usual wisdom she kept her meditations to herself. She was thinking with a momentary vexation of all the plants that had been put into the beds, and of so much time and trouble lost—when Mr Cavendish came up to her. It was a cold evening, and there was nothing in common between this walk and the walk they had taken together from Grove Street to Grange Lane on an earlier occasion. But this time, so far from being reluctant to accompany her, Mr Cavendish came to her side eagerly. The maid retired a little behind, and then the two found themselves in that most perfect of all positions for mutual confidence—a street not too crowded and noisy, all shrouded in the darkness, and yet twinkling with the friendly lights of an autumn evening. Nothing could have been more perfect than their isolation from the surrounding world, if they thought proper to isolate themselves; and yet it was always there to be taken refuge in if the confidence should receive a check, or the mind of the chance companions change.
"I have been trying to catch a glimpse of you for a long time," said Mr Cavendish, after they had talked a little in the ordinary way, as everybody was doing in Grange Lane, about the two people henceforward to be known in Carlingford as "the Beverleys." "But you are always so busy serving everybody. And I have a great deal to say to you that I don't know how to say."
"Then don't say it, please," said Lucilla. "It is a great deal better not. It might be funny, you know; but I am not disposed to be funny to-night. I am very glad about Mrs Mortimer, to be sure, that she is to be settled so nicely, and that they are going to be married at last. But, after all, when one thinks of it, it is a little vexatious. Just when her house was all put to rights, and the garden looking so pretty, and the school promising so well," said Lucilla; and there was a certain aggrieved tone in her voice.
"And it is you who have done everything for her, as for all the rest of us," said Mr Cavendish, though he could not help laughing a little; and then he paused, and his voice softened in the darkness by Lucilla's side. "Do not let us talk of Mrs Mortimer," he said. "I sometimes have something just on my lips to say, and I do not know whether I dare say it. Miss Marjoribanks——"
And here he came to a pause. He was fluttered and frightened, which was what she, and not he, ought to have been. And at the bottom of his heart he did not wish to say it, which gave far more force to his hesitation than simply a doubt whether he might dare. Perhaps Lucilla's heart fluttered too, with a sense that the moment which once would not have been an unwelcome moment, had at last arrived. Her heart, it is true, was notveryparticularly engaged; but still she was sensible of all Mr Cavendish's capacities, and was "very fond" of him, as she said; and her exertions on his behalf had produced their natural effect, and moved her affections a little. She made an involuntary pause for the hundredth part of a minute, and reckoned it all up again, and asked herself whether it were possible. There was something, in the first place, becoming and suitable in the idea that she, who was the only person who knew his secret, should take him and it together and make the best of them. And Lucilla had the consciousness that she could indeed make a great deal of Mr Cavendish. Nobody had ever crossed her path of whom so much could be made; and as for any further danger of his real origin and position being found out and exposed to the world, Miss Marjoribanks was capable of smiling at that when the defence would be in her own hands. She might yet accept him, and have him elected member for Carlingford, and carry him triumphantly through all his difficulties. For a small part—nay, even for the half of a minute—Lucilla paused, and made a rapid review of the circumstances, and reconsidered her decision. Perhaps if Mr Cavendish had been really in earnest, that which was only a vague possibility might have become, in another minute, a fact and real. It was about the first time that her heart had found anything to say in the matter; and the fact was that it actually fluttered in her reasonable bosom, and experienced a certainmalaisewhich was quite new to her. Was it possible that she could be in love with Mr Cavendish? or was it merely the excitement of a final decision which made that unusual commotion far away down at the bottom of Lucilla's heart?
However that might be, Miss Marjoribanks triumphed over her momentary weakness. She saw the possibility, and at the same moment she saw that it could not be; and while Mr Cavendish hesitated, she, who was always prompt and ready, made up her mind.
"I don't know what I have done in particular, either for her or the rest of you," she said, ignoring the other part of her companion's faltering address, "except to help to amuse you; but I am going to do something very serious, and I hope you will show you are grateful, as you say—though I don't know what you have to be grateful about—by paying great attention to me. Mr Cavendish, I am going to give you good advice," said Lucilla; and, notwithstanding her courage, she too faltered a little, and felt that it was rather a serious piece of business that she had taken in hand.
"Advice?" Mr Cavendish said, like an echo of her voice; but that was all he found time to say.
"We are such old friends, that I know you won't be vexed," said Lucilla; "and then we understand each other. It is so nice when two people understand each other; they can say quantities of things that strangers cannot say. Mr Cavendish, you and Barbara are in love," said Lucilla, making a slight pause, and looking in his face.
"Miss Marjoribanks!" cried the assaulted man, in the extremity of his amazement and horror. As for Lucilla, she came a little closer to him, and shook her head in a maternal, semi-reproving way.
"Don't say you are not," said Miss Marjoribanks; "you never could deceiveme—not in anything like that. I saw it almost as soon as you met. They are not rich, you know, but they are very nice. Mr Lake and Rose," said Lucilla, with admirable prudence, keeping off the difficult subject of Barbara herself, "are the two very nicest people I know; and everybody says that Willie is dreadfully clever. I hope you will soon be married, and that you will be very happy," she continued, with an effort. It was a bold thing to say, and Lucilla's throat even contracted a little, as if to prevent the words from getting utterance; but then she was not a person, when she knew a thing was right, to hesitate about doing it; and in Miss Marjoribanks's mind duty went before all, as has already been on several occasions said.
After this a horrible silence fell upon the two—a silence which, like darkness, could be felt. The thunderbolt fell upon the victim's unprotected head without any warning. The idea that Lucilla would talk to him about Barbara Lake was the very last that could have entered Mr Cavendish's mind. He was speechless with rage and mortification. He took it for an insult inflicted upon him in cold blood, doing Lucilla much injustice as the other people who took the candid expression of her sentiments for a piece of acting. He was a gentleman, notwithstanding his doubtful origin, and civilised down to his very finger-tips; but he would have liked to have knocked Miss Marjoribanks down, though she was a woman. And yet, as she was a woman, he dared not for his life make any demonstration of his fury. He walked along by her side down into the respectable solitude of Grange Lane, passing through a bright bit of George Street, and seeing askance, by the light from the shop windows, his adviser walking beside him, with the satisfaction of a good conscience in her face. This awful silence lasted until they reached Dr Marjoribanks's door.
"Thank you for coming with me so far," said Lucilla, holding out her hand. "I suppose I must not ask you to come in, though papa would be delighted to see you. I am afraid you are very angry with me," Miss Marjoribanks added, with a touch of pathos; "but you may be sure I would always stand byyou; and I said it because I thought it was for the best."
"On the contrary, I am much obliged to you," said Mr Cavendish, with quiet fury, "and deeply touched by the interest you take in my happiness. You may be sure I shall always be grateful for it; and for the offer of your support," said the ungrateful man, with the most truculent meaning. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she pressed quite kindly the hurried hand with which he touched hers, and went in, still saying, "Good-night." She had done her duty, whatever might come of it. He rushed home furious; but she went to a little worsted-work with a mind at peace with itself and all men. She was gentler than usual even to the maids, who always found Miss Marjoribanks a good mistress—but she felt a little sad in the solitude of her genius. For it is true that to be wiser and more enlightened than one's neighbours is in most cases a weariness to the flesh. She had made a sacrifice, and nobody appreciated it. Instead of choosing a position which pleased her imagination, and suited her energies, and did not go against her heart, Lucilla, moved by the wisest discretion, had decided, not without regret, to give it up. She had sacrificed her own inclination, and a sphere in which her abilities would have had the fullest scope, to what she believed to be the general good; and instead of having the heroism acknowledged, she was misunderstood and rewarded with ingratitude. When Miss Marjoribanks found herself alone in the solitude of her drawing-room, and in the still greater solitude, as we have said, of her genius, she felt a little sad, as was natural. But at the same moment there came into Lucilla's mind a name, a humble name, which has been often pronounced in the pages of this history, and it gave her once more a certain consolation. A sympathetic presence seemed to diffuse itself about her in her loneliness. There are moments when the faith of a very humble individual may save a great soul from discouragement; and the consciousness of being believed in once more came with the sweetest and most salutary effect upon Lucilla's heart.
It was the very day after the marriage, and two or three days after this conversation, that Mr Cavendish left Carlingford. He went to spend the winter in Italy, which had long been "a dream" of his, as he explained to some of the young ladies—most of whom had the same "dream," without the enviable power of carrying it out. He made very brief and formal adieux to Lucilla, to the extreme amazement of all the surrounding world, and then disappeared, leaving—just at that moment after the excitement of the marriage was over, when Grange Lane stood most in need of somebody to rouse its drooping spirits—a wonderful blank behind him. Lucilla said much less about her feelings on this occasion than she was in the habit of doing, but there could be no doubt that she felt it, and felt it acutely. And the worst of it was, that it was she who was universally blamed for the sudden and unexplained departure of the most popular man in Carlingford. Some people thought he had gone away to escape from the necessity of proposing to her; and some of more friendly and charitable disposition believed with Mrs Chiley that Lucilla had refused him; and some, who were mostly outsiders and of a humble class, were of opinion that Miss Marjoribanks had exercised all her influence to send Mr Cavendish out of the way of Barbara Lake. It was with this impression that Rose made her way one of those foggy autumn mornings through the fallen leaves with which the garden was carpeted, to see if any explanation was to be got from Lucilla. The art-inspectors from Marlborough House had just paid their annual visit to Carlingford, and had found the Female School of Design in a condition which, as they said in their report, "warranted the warmest encomiums," and Rose had also won a prize for her veil in the exhibition at Kensington of ornamental art. These were triumphs which would have made the little artist overwhelmingly happy, if they had not been neutralised by other circumstances; but as it was, they only aggravated the difficulties of the position in which she found herself. She came to Lucilla in a bonnet—a circumstance which of itself was solemn and ominous; for generally that portentous article of dress, which was home-made, and did not consist with cheerful dispositions, was reserved by Rose for going to church; and her soft cheeks were pale, and the hazel eyes more dewy than usual, though it was rain, and not dew, that had been falling from them during those last painful days.
"I am ashamed to ask you such a question," said Rose; "but I want you to tell me, Lucilla, if you know why Mr Cavendish has gone away. She will not come and ask you herself, or rather I would not let her come; for she is so passionate, one does not know what she might do. You have behaved a little strange, Lucilla," said the straightforward Rose. "If he cared for her, and she cared for him, you had no right to come and take him away."
"My dear, I did not take him away," said Miss Marjoribanks. "I had to talk to him about some—business; that was all. It is disgraceful of Barbara to bother you about it, who are only a baby and oughtn't to know anything——"
"Lucilla!" cried Rose, with flashing eyes, "I am seventeen, and I will not put up with it any longer. It is all your fault. What right had you to come and drag us to your great parties? We are not as rich as you, nor as fine, but we have a rank of our own," cried the little artist. "You have a great deal more money, but we have some things that money cannot buy. You made Barbara come and sing, and put things into her head; and you made me come, though I did not want to. Why did you askusto your parties, Lucilla? It is all your fault!"
Lucilla was in a subdued state of mind, as may have been perceived, and answered quite meekly. "I don't know why you should all turn against me like this," she said, more sadly than surprised. "It is unkind of you to say it was my fault. I did not expect it from you; and when I have so many vexations——" Miss Marjoribanks added. She sat down as she spoke, after being repulsed by Rose, with an air of depression which was quite unusual to her; for to be blamed and misunderstood on all sides was hard for one who was always working in the service of her fellow-creatures, and doing everything for the best.
As for Rose, her heart smote her on the instant. "Haveyouvexations, Lucilla?" she said, in her innocence. It was the first time such an idea had entered into her mind.
"I don't think I have anything else," said Lucilla; though even as she said it she began to recover her spirits. "I do all I can for my friends, and they are never pleased; and when anything goes wrong it is always my fault."
"Perhaps if you were not to do so much——" Rose began to say, for she was in her way a wise little woman; but her heart smote her again, and she restrained the truism, and then after a little pause she resumed her actual business. "I am ashamed to ask you, but do you know where Mr Cavendish is, Lucilla?" said Rose. "She is breaking her heart because he has gone away."
"Did he never go to say good-bye nor anything?" asked Miss Marjoribanks. She was sorry, for it was quite the contrary of the advice she had given, but still it would be wrong to deny that Mr Cavendish rose higher in Lucilla's opinion when she heard it. "I don't know any more than everybody knows. He has gone to Italy, but he will come back, and I suppose she can wait," Miss Marjoribanks added, with perhaps a touch of contempt. "For my part, I don't think she will break her heart."
"It is because you do not know her," said Rose, with some indignation—for at seventeen a broken heart comes natural. "Oh, Lucilla, it is dreadful, and I don't know what to do!" cried the little artist, changing her tone. "I am a selfish wretch, but I cannot help it. It is as good as putting an end to my Career; and just after my design has been so successful—and when papa was so proud—and when I thought I might have been a help. It is dreadful to think of oneself when her heart is breaking; but I shall have to give up everything; and I—I can't help feeling it, Lucilla," cried Rose, with a sudden outburst of tears.
All this was sufficiently unintelligible to Miss Marjoribanks, who was not the least in anxiety about Barbara's breaking heart. "Tell me what is the matter, and perhaps we can do something," said Lucilla, forgetting how little her past exertions had been appreciated; and Rose, with equal inconsistency, dried her tears at the sound of Miss Marjoribanks's reassuring voice.
"I know I am a wretch to be thinking of myself," she said. "She cannot be expected to stay and sacrifice herself for us, after all she has suffered. She has made up her mind and advertised in theTimes, and nothing can change it now. She is going out for a governess, Lucilla."
"Going for a—what?" said Miss Marjoribanks, who could not believe her ears.
"For a governess," said Rose calmly; for though she had been partly brought up at Mount Pleasant, she had not the elevated idea of an instructress of youth which might have been expected from a pupil of that establishment. "She has advertised in theTimes," Rose added, with quiet despair, "with no objections to travel. I would do anything in the world for Barbara, but one can't help thinking of oneself sometimes, and there is an end of my Career." When she had said this she brushed the last tear off her eyelashes, and sat straight up, a little martyr and heroic victim to duty. "Her eye, though fixed on empty space, beamed keen with honour"; but still there was a certain desperation in the composure with which Rose regarded, after the first outburst, the abandonment of all her hopes.
"She is a selfish thing," said Lucilla indignantly; "she always was a selfish thing. I should like to know what she can teach anybody? If I were you and your papa, I certainly would not let her go away. I don't see any reason in the world why you should give in to her and let her stop your—your Career, you know; why should you? I would not give in to her for one moment, if I were your papa and you."
"Why should I?" said Rose; "because there is nobody else to do anything, Lucilla. Fleda and Dreda are such two little things; and there are all the boys to think of, and poor papa. It is of no use asking why. If I don't do it, there will be nobody to do it," said Rose, with big tears coming to her eyes. Her Career was dear to her heart, and those two tears welled up from the depths; but then there would be nobody else to do it—a consideration which continually filters out the people who are good for anything out of the muddy current of the ordinary world.
"And your pretty drawings, and the veil, and the School of Design!" cried Lucilla. "You dear little Rose, don't cry. It never can be permitted, you know. She cannot teach anything, and nobody will have her. She is a selfish thing, though she is your sister; and if I were your papa and you——"
"It would be no good," said Rose. "She will go, whatever anybody may say.Shedoes not care," said the little martyr, and the two big tears fell, making two big round blotches upon the strings of that bonnet which Lucilla had difficulty in keeping her hands off. But when she had thus expressed her feelings, Rose relented over her sister. "She has suffered so much here; how can any one ask her to sacrifice herself to us?" said the young artist mournfully. "And I am quite happy," said Rose—"quite happy; it makes all the difference. It is herheart, you know, Lucilla; and it is only my Career."
And this time the tears were dashed away by an indignant little hand. Barbara's heart, if she had such an organ, had never in its existence cost such bitter drops. But as for Lucilla, what could she do? She could only repeat, "If I was your papa and you," with a melancholy sense that she was here balked and could do no more. For even the aid of Miss Marjoribanks was as nothing against dead selfishness and folly, the two most invincible forces in the world. Instead of taking the business into her own hands, and carrying it through triumphantly as she had hitherto been in the habit of doing, Lucilla could only minister to the sufferer, and keep up her courage, and mourn over the Career thus put in danger. Barbara's advertisement was in the newspapers, and her foolish mind was made up; and the hope that nobody would have her was a forlorn hope, for somebody always does have the incapable people, as Miss Marjoribanks was well aware. And the contralto had been of some use in Grange Lane and a little in Grove Street, and it would be difficult, either in the one sphere or the other, to find any one to fill her place. It was thus amid universal demolition that Christmas approached, and Miss Marjoribanks ended the first portion of her eventful career.
One fytte of Lucilla's history is here ended, and another is to be told. We have recorded her beginning in all the fulness of youthful confidence and undaunted trust in her own resources; and have done our best to show that in the course of organising society Miss Marjoribanks, like all other benefactors of their kind, had many sacrifices to make, and had to undergo the mortification of finding out that many of her most able efforts turned to other people's profit and went directly against herself. She began the second period of her career with, to some certain extent, that sense of failure which is inevitable to every high intelligence after a little intercourse with the world. She had succeeded in a great many things, but yet she had not succeeded in all; and she had found out that the most powerful exertions in behalf of friends not only fail to procure their gratitude, but sometimes convert them into enemies, and do actual harm; which is a discovery which can only be made by those who devote themselves, as Miss Marjoribanks had done, to the good of the human species. She had done everything for the best, and yet it had not always turned out for the best; and even the people who had been most ready to appeal to her for assistance in their need, had proved the readiest to accuse her when something disagreeable happened, and to say "It was your fault." In the second stage of her progress Miss Marjoribanks found herself, with a great responsibility upon her shoulders, with nearly the entire social organisation of Carlingford depending upon her; and, at the same time, with her means of providing for the wants of her subjects sensibly diminished, and her confidence in the resources of the future impaired to an equal degree. One thing was sure, that she had taken the work upon her shoulders, and that she was not the woman to draw back, whatever the difficulties might be. She did not bate a jot of her courage, though the early buoyancy of hope had departed, never to return. It is true that she was not so joyful and triumphant a figure as when she conquered Nancy, and won over Dr Marjoribanks, and electrified Mr Holden by choosing curtains which suited her complexion; but with her diminished hopes and increased experience and unabated courage, no doubt Miss Marjoribanks presented a still nobler and more imposing aspect to everybody who had an eye for moral grandeur, though it would be difficult to tell how many of such worthy spectators existed in Grange Lane.
There was, as our readers are aware, another subject also on which Lucilla had found her position altered. It was quite true that, had she been thinking ofthat, she never need have come home at all; and that, in accepting new furniture for the drawing-room, she had to a certain extent pledged herself not to marry immediately, but to stay at home and be a comfort to her dear papa. This is so delicate a question that it is difficult to treat it with the freedom necessary for a full development of a not unusual state of mind. Most people are capable of falling in love only once or twice, or at the most a very few times, in their life; and disappointed and heartbroken suitors are not so commonly to be met with as perhaps could be wished. But at the same time, there can be little doubt that the chief way in which society is supposed to signify its approval and admiration and enthusiasm for a lady, is by making dozens of proposals to her, as may be ascertained from all the best-informed sources. When a woman is a great beauty, or is very brilliant and graceful, or even is only agreeable and amusing, the ordinary idea is that the floating men of society, in number less or more according to the lady's merits, propose to her, though she may not perhaps accept any of them. In proportion as her qualities rise towards the sublime, these victims are supposed to increase; and perhaps, to tell the truth, no woman feels herself set at her true value until some poor man, or set of men, have put, as people say, their happiness into her hands. It is, as we have said, a delicate subject to discuss; for the truth is, that this well-known and thoroughly established reward of female excellence had not fallen to Miss Marjoribanks's lot. There was Tom, to be sure, but Tom did not count. And as for the other men who had been presented to Lucilla as eligible candidates for her regard, none of them had given her this proof of their admiration. The year had passed away, and society had laid no tribute of this description upon Lucilla's shrine. The Archdeacon had married Mrs Mortimer instead, and Mr Cavendish had been led away by Barbara Lake! After such an experience nothing but the inherent sweetness and wholesome tone of Miss Marjoribanks's character could have kept her from that cynicism and disbelief in humanity which is so often the result of knowledge of the world. As for Lucilla, she smiled as she thought of it, not cynically, but with a sweetly melancholy smile. What she said to herself was, Poor men! they had had the two ways set before them, and they had not chosen the best. It made her sad to have this proof of the imperfection of human nature thrust upon her, but it did not turn her sweet into bitter, as might have been the case with a more ordinary mind. Notwithstanding that this universal reward, which in other cases is, as everybody knows, given so indiscriminately, and with such liberality, had altogether failed in her case, Lucilla still resumed her way with a beautiful constancy, and went forward in the face of fate undaunted and with a smile.
It was thus that she began the second period of her career. Up to this moment there had never been a time in which it was not said in Carlingford that some one was paying attention to Miss Marjoribanks; but at present no one was paying attention to her. There were other marriages going on around her, and other preliminaries of marriage, but nobody had proposed to Lucilla. Affairs were in this state when she took up her burden again boldly, and set out anew upon her way. It was a proof of magnanimity and philanthropy which nobody could have asked from her, if Lucilla had not been actuated by higher motives than those that sway the common crowd. Without any assistance but that of her own genius—without the stimulating applause of admirers, such as a woman in such circumstances has a right to calculate upon—with no sympathising soul to fall back upon, and nothing but a dull level of ordinary people before her,—Miss Marjoribanks, undaunted, put on her harness and resumed her course. The difficulties she had met only made her more friendly, more tender, to those who were weaker than herself, and whom evil fortune had disabled in the way. When Barbara Lake got her situation, and went out for a governess, and Rose's fears were realised, and she had with bitter tears to relinquish her Career, Lucilla went and sat whole afternoons with the little artist, and gave her the handiest assistance, and taught her a great many things which she never could have learned at the School of Design. And the effect of this self-abnegation was, that Lucilla bore General Travers's decision, and gave up all hope of the officers, with a stout-heartedness which nobody could have looked for, and did not hesitate to face her position boldly, and to erect her standard, and to begin her new campaign, unaided and unappreciated as she was. People who know no better may go away upon marriage tours, or they may fly off to foreign travel, or go out as governesses, when all things do not go just as they wish. But as for Miss Marjoribanks, she stood bravely at her post, and scorned to flinch or run away. Thus commenced, amid mists of discouragement, and in an entire absence of all that was calculated to stimulate and exhilarate, the second grand period of Lucilla's life.