Charles burst into a laugh. Eloïsa remonstrated—‘My dear, consider the disgrace to the whole family—a village schoolmistress!’
‘Our ideas differ as to disgrace,’ said Lucilla. ‘Let me go, Ratia; I must pack for the diligence.’
The brother and sister threw themselves between her and the door. ‘Are you insane, Cilly? What do you mean should become of you? Are you going to join the ménage, and teach the A B C?’
‘I am going to own my sister while yet there is time,’ said Lucilla. ‘While you are meditating how to make her a deserted outcast, death is more merciful. Pining under the miseries of an unowned marriage, she is fast dying of pressure on the brain. I am going in the hope of hearing her call me sister. I am going to take charge of her child, and stand by my brother.’
‘Dying, poor thing! Why did you not tell us before?’ said Horatia, sobered.
‘I did not know it was to save Charles so much kind trouble,’ said Lucilla. ‘Let me go, Rashe; you cannot detain me.’
‘I do believe she is delighted,’ said Horatia, releasing her.
In truth, she was inspirited by perceiving any door of escape. Any vivid sensation was welcome in the irksome vacancy that pursued her in the absence of immediate excitement. Devoid of the interest of opposition, and of the bracing changes to the Holt, her intercourse with the Charterises had become a
weariness and vexation of spirit. Idle foreign life deteriorated them, and her principle and delicacy suffered frequent offences; but like all living wilfully in temptation, she seemed under a spell, only to be broken by an act of self-humiliation to which she would not bend. Longing for the wholesome atmosphere of Hiltonbury, she could not brook to purchase her entrance there by permitting herself to be pardoned. There was one whom she fully intended should come and entreat her return, and the terms of her capitulation had many a time been arranged with herself; but when he came not, though her heart ached after him, pride still forbade one homeward step, lest it should seem to be in quest of him, or in compliance with his wishes.
Here, then, was a summons to England—nay, into his very parish—without compromising her pride or forcing her to show deference to rejected counsel. Nay, in contrast with her cousins, she felt her sentiments so lofty and generous that she was filled with the gladness of conscious goodness, so like the days of her early childhood, that a happy dew suffused her eyes, and she seemed to hear the voice of old Thames. Her loathing for the views of her cousins had borne down all resentment at her brother’s folly and Edna’s presumption; and relieved that it was not worse, and full of pity for the girl she had really loved, Honor’s grieved displeasure and Charles’s kind project together made her the ardent partisan of the young wife. Because Honor intimated that the girl had been artful, and had forced herself on Owen, Lucilla was resolved that her favourite had been the most perfect of heroines; and that circumstance alone should bear such blame as could not be thrown on Honor herself and the Wrapworth gossipry. Poor circumstances!