"Poor Mr Cavendish!" said the old lady. "I will never blame him, poor fellow. It was all that deceitful thing laying her snares for him. For my part I never like to have anything to do with those artist kind of people—they are all adventurers," said the Colonel's wife; and she went to bed with this unchristian persuasion in her mind.
While every one else regarded the matter with, to some extent, a personal bias, the only person who looked at it abstractly, and contemplated not the accidents of an evening, but the work itself, which was progressing in the face of all kinds of social difficulties, was the master-mind which first conceived the grand design of turning the chaotic elements of society in Carlingford into one grand unity. Lucilla was not blind to the dangers that surrounded her, nor indifferent to the partial disappointment she had undergone; but she saw that, in spite of all, her great work was making progress. And when we announce that Miss Marjoribanks herself was satisfied, there remains little more to say.
As for the Archdeacon, he, as was natural, knew nothing about the matter. He said again, with the natural obtuseness which is so general among the gentlemen, that it had been a very pleasant party. "She has a fine clear candid nature," said Mr Beverley, which certainly was better than pronouncing solemnly that she was a good woman, which was what he said of Mrs Chiley and Lady Richmond, in the lump, as it were, without considering how unlike they were to each other. That was all he, being only a man, knew about it. But though Lucilla was satisfied with the events of the evening, it would be vain to deny that there were perturbations in her mind as she laid her head upon her maiden pillow. She said to herself again with profounder fervour, that fortunately her affections had not been engaged; but there were more things than affections to be taken into consideration. Could it be possible that mystery, and perhaps imposture, of one kind or another, had crossed the sacred threshold of Grange Lane; and that people might find out and cast in Lucilla's face the dreadful discovery that a man had been received in her house who was not what he appeared to be? When such an idea crossed her mind, Miss Marjoribanks shivered under her satin quilt. Of course she could not change the nature of the fact one way or another; but, at least, it was her duty to act with great circumspection, so that if possible it might not be found out—for Lucilla appreciated fully the difference that exists between wrong and discovery. If any man was imposing upon his neighbours and telling lies about himself, it was his own fault; but if a leader of society were to betray the fact of having received and petted such a person, then the responsibility was on her shoulders. And softer thoughts mingled with these prudential considerations—that sweet yet stern resolution to stand by her friends which Miss Marjoribanks had this evening expressed, and that sense of pity for everybody who is unfortunate which asserts itself even in the strongest of female intelligences. On the whole, it was clear that prudence was the great thing required, and a determination not to give too hasty heed to anything, nor to put herself in the wrong by any alarmist policy. Fortunately the respectability of Dr Marjoribanks's house was enough to cover its guests with a shining buckler. Thus Lucilla calmed down her own apprehensions, and succeeded in convincing herself that if the impostor whom the Archdeacon had seen had been really received in Grange Lane, it was so much the worse for the impostor; but that, in the meantime, in the lack of evidence it was much the best thing to take no notice. If there was any one else in Carlingford who regarded that past danger with a livelier horror and a more distinct fear, certainly Miss Marjoribanks had no way of knowing of it; and nobody had been remarked as being in a despondent condition, or, indeed, in anything but the highest spirits, in the course of this Thursday, except the ungrateful creature who had begun all the mischief; and tolerant as Lucilla was, it would have been going beyond the limits of nature to have expected that she could have been profoundly sorry for Barbara Lake.
At the same time, poor Barbara, though she was not an elevated character, had gone home in a very sad state of mind. She had taken courage to ask Mrs Woodburn about her brother, and Mrs Woodburn had made the very briefest and rudest response to her question, and had "taken off" her woe-begone looks almost to her very face. And no one had shown the least sympathy for the forsaken one. She had not even been called from her solitude to sing, which might have been something, and it was Rose, as she said to herself, who had attracted all the attention; for, like most selfish people, Barbara, though keenly aware of her own wrongs, had no eyes to perceive that Rose, who had a proud little spirit, was anything but satisfied with the evening's entertainment, to which she had herself so largely contributed. "I feel as if I should never see him more," Barbara said, quite subdued and broken down, with a burst of tears, as the two went home; and poor little Rose, who was soft-hearted, forgot all her disapprobation in sympathy. "Never mind them, dear; they have no feeling. We must cling together all the closer, and try to be everything to each other," Rose said, with eyes which were full, but which would not shed any tears. What was passing through her own mind was, that it was not for herself, but for her portfolio and the talk that arose over it, that Lucilla had asked her; but, at the same time, she said to herself, that all that was nothing in comparison to the wound of the heart under which Barbara was suffering. "Dear, never mind, we will be everything to each other," said poor little romantic Rose; and the elder sister, even in the depths of her dejection, could have given her a good shake for uttering such an absurd sentiment; for a great deal of good it would do to be everything to each other—as if that could ever replace the orange blossoms and the wedding tour, and the carriage and handsome house, which were included in the name of Cavendish! "And he was such a dear!" she said to herself in her own mind, and wept, and made her eyes redder and redder. If Mr Cavendish had known all that was going on in Carlingford that night, the chances are that he would have been most flattered by those tears which Barbara shed for him under the lamps in Grove Street; but then it is to be hoped he would not have been insensible either to the just reticence and self-restraint which, mingling with Miss Marjoribanks's suspicions, prevented her, as she herself said, even in the deepest seclusion of her own thoughts, from naming any name.
Chapter XIX
But Lucilla's good luck and powers of persuasion were such that after a while she even succeeded in convincing little Rose Lake of the perfect reasonableness, and indeed necessity, of sacrificing herself to the public interests of the community. "As for enjoying it," Miss Marjoribanks said, "that is quite a different matter. Now and then perhaps for a minute one enjoys it; but that is not what I am thinking of. One owes something to one's fellow-creatures, you know; and if it made the evening go off well, I should not mind in the least to be hustled up in a corner and contradicted. To be sure, I don't remember that it ever happened to me; but then I have such luck; and I am sure I give you full leave to box the Archdeacon's ears next Thursday; or to tell him he does not know anything in the world about art," said Miss Marjoribanks thoughtfully, with a new combination rising in her mind.
"Thank you, Lucilla," said Rose, "but I shall not come back again. I am much obliged to you. It does not do for people who have work to do. My time is all I have, and I cannot afford to waste it, especially——"
"Rose," said Miss Marjoribanks, "how are you ever to be an artist if you do not know life? That is just the very reason why you ought to go out into the world; and I don't see, for my part, that it matters whether it is pleasant or not. To practise scales all day long is anything but pleasant, but then one has to do it, you know. I don't blame you," said Lucilla, with tender condescension. "You are a dear little thing, and you don't know any better; but I went through Political Economy, and learnt all about that;—you don't think I choose it for the pleasure? But you all know what is the object of my life, and I hope I am not one to shrink from my duty," Miss Marjoribanks added. And it was difficult to reply to such a sublime declaration. Little Rose left her friend with the conviction that it was her duty, too, to sacrifice herself for the benefit of society and the advancement of art. Such were the lofty sentiments elicited naturally, as enthusiasm responds to enthusiasm, by Lucilla's self-devotion. Already, although she was not much more than twenty, she had the consoling consciousness that she had wrought a great work in Carlingford; and if Miss Marjoribanks required a little sacrifice from her assistants, she did not shrink from making the same in her own person, as has been shadowed forth in the case of Mr Cavendish, and as will yet, in the course of this history, be still more seriously and even sadly evolved.
Three weeks had passed in this way, making it still more and more visible to Lucilla how much she had lost in losing Mr Cavendish, of whom nothing as yet had been heard, when suddenly, one day, about luncheon-time, at the hour when Miss Marjoribanks was known to be at home, the drawing-room door opened without any warning, and the missing man walked in. It was thus that Lucilla herself described the unexpected apparition, which appeared to her to have dropped from the clouds. She avowed afterwards to Mrs Chiley that his entrance was so utterly unexpected, so noiseless, and without warning, that she felt quite silly, and could not tell in the least how she behaved; though the friends of Miss Marjoribanks, it is to be hoped, are too well acquainted with her promptitude of mind and action to imagine that she in any way compromised herself even under the surprise of the moment. As for Mr Cavendish, he exhibited a certain mixture of timidity and excitement which it was remarkable, and indeed rather flattering for any lady to see, in such an accomplished man of the world. Lucilla was not a person to deceive herself, nor did she want experience in such matters, as has been already shown; but it would be vain to deny that the conviction forced upon her mind by the demeanour of her visitor was that it was a man about to propose who thus made his unlooked-for appearance before her. She confessed afterwards to her confidential friend that he had all the signs of it in his looks and manners. "He gave that little nervous cough," Lucilla said, "and pulled his cravat just so, and stared into his hat as if he had it all written down there; and looked as They always look," Miss Marjoribanks added, with a touch of natural contempt. Nor was this all the change in Mr Cavendish's appearance. He had managed miraculously in his month's absence to grow the most charming little moustache and beard, which were, to be sure, slightly red, like most people's. It gleamed into Miss Marjoribanks's mind in a moment that people did such things sometimes by way of disguising themselves; but if such had been Mr Cavendish's intention, it had utterly failed, since he seemed rather more like himself than before, in Lucilla's opinion, and certainly was more likely to attract attention, since beards were not so usual in these days. They met on the very spot where Lucilla had seen him last, with that look of insane terror on his handsome face. And the Archdeacon was still in Carlingford, if it was he who had occasioned such a panic. Mr Cavendish came in as if he had never been absent, as if he had seen Miss Marjoribanks on the previous night, and had no fear of anything in the world but of failing to please her; and Lucilla fortunately saw the nature of the position, and was not to be put out even by such an emergency. Of course, under the circumstances, to accept him was utterly out of the question; but, at the same time, Lucilla did not feel it expedient, without much more distinct information, to put a definitive and cruel negative on Mr Cavendish's hopes. As for Barbara Lake, that was a trifle not worth thinking of; and, notwithstanding that there was something rather unaccountable in his conduct, he was still the probable member for Carlingford, just, as Mrs Chiley so often said, the position which, of all others, she would have chosen for Lucilla; so that Miss Marjoribanks was not prepared, without due consideration, to bring the matter to a final end.