Inside the house, naturally, the state of affairs was sad enough.

Lucilla, notwithstanding the many other things she had had to occupy her

mind, was fond of her father, and the shock overwhelmed her for the

moment. Though she was not the kind of woman to torture herself with

thinking of things that she might have done, still at the first moment

the idea that she ought not to have left him alone--that she should have

sat up and watched or taken some extraordinary, unusual precaution--was

not to be driven away from her mind. The reign of reason was eclipsed in

her as it often is in such an emergency. She said it was her fault in

the first horror. "When I saw how he was looking, and how he was

talking, I should never have left him," said Lucilla, which indeed was a

very natural thing to say, but would have been an utterly impossible one

to carry out, as she saw when she came to think of it. But she could not

think of it just then. She did not think at all that first long snowy,

troubled day, but went about the house, on the bedroom floor, wringing

her hands like a creature distracted. "If I had only sat up," she said;

and then she would recall the touch of his hand on her shoulder, which

she seemed still to be feeling, and cry out, like all the rest of the

world, that it could not be true. But, to be sure, that was a state of

feeling that could not last long. There are events for which something

higher than accident must be held accountable, were one ever so ready to

take the burden of affairs on one's own shoulders; and Lucilla knew,

when she came to herself, that if she had watched ever so long or so

closely, that could have had no effect upon the matter. After a while,

the bewildering sense of her own changed position began to come upon

her, and roused her up into that feverish and unnatural activity of

thought which, in some minds, is the inevitable reaction after the

unaccustomed curb and shock of grief. When she had got used to that

dreadful certainty about her father, and had suddenly come with a leap

to the knowledge that she was not to blame, and could not help it, and

that though _he_ was gone, _she_ remained, it is no censure upon

Lucilla to say that her head became immediately full of a horror and

confusion of thoughts, an involuntary stir and bustle of plans and

projects which she did all she could to put down, but which would return

and overwhelm her whether she chose it or not. She could not help asking

herself what her new position was, thinking it over, so strangely free

and new and unlimited as it seemed. And it must be recollected that Miss

Marjoribanks was a woman of very active mind and great energies, too old

to take up a girl's fancy that all was over because she had encountered

a natural grief on her passage, and too young not to see a long future

still before her. She kept her room, as was to be expected, and saw

nobody, and only moved the household and superintended the arrangements

in a muffled way through Thomas, who was an old servant, and knew "the

ways" of the house; but notwithstanding her seclusion and her honest

sorrow, and her perfect observance of all the ordinary restraints of the

moment, it would be wrong to omit all mention of this feverish bustle of

thinking which came into Lucilla's mind in her solitude. Of all that she

had to bear, it was the thing that vexed and irritated and distressed

her the most--as if, she said to herself indignantly, she ought to have

been able to think of anything! And the chances are that Lucilla, for

sheer duty's sake, would have said, if anybody had asked, that of course

she had not thought of anything as yet; without being aware that the

mere shock, and horror, and profound commotion had a great deal more to

do than anything else in producing that fluttering crowd of busy,

vexatious speculations which had come, without any will of hers, into

her heart.

It looked a dreadful change in one way as she looked at it, without

wishing to look at it, in the solitude of her own room, where the blinds

were all down, and the snow sometimes came with a little thump against

the window, and where it was so dark that it was a comfort when night

came, and the lamp could be lighted. So far as Carlingford was

concerned, it would be almost as bad for Miss Marjoribanks as if she

were her father's widow instead of his daughter. To keep up a position

of social importance in a single woman's house, unless, as she had

herself lightly said so short a time since, she were awfully rich, would

be next to impossible. All that gave importance to the centre of

society--the hospitable table, the open house--had come to an end with

the Doctor. Things could no more be as they had once been, in that

respect at least. She might stay in the house, and keep up to the

furthest extent possible to her its old traditions; but even to the

utmost limit to which Lucilla could think it right to go it could never

be the same. This consciousness kept gleaming upon her as she sat in the

dull daylight behind the closed blinds, with articles of mourning piled

about everywhere, and the gray dimness getting into her very eyes, and

her mind distressed by the consciousness that she ought to have been

unable to think; and the sadness of the prospect altogether was enough

to stir up a reaction, in spite of herself, in Miss Marjoribanks's mind.

And on the other side she would no doubt be very well off, and could go

wherever she liked, and had no limit, except what was right and proper

and becoming, to what she might please to do. She might go abroad if she

liked, which perhaps is the first idea of the modern English mind when

anything happens to it, and settle wherever she pleased, and arrange her

mode of existence as seemed good in her own eyes. She would be an

heiress in a moderate way, and Aunt Jemima was by this time absolutely

at her disposal, and could be taken anywhere; and at Lucilla's age it

was quite impossible to predict what might not happen to a woman in such

a position. When these fairer possibilities gleamed into Lucilla's mind,

it would be difficult to describe the anger and self-disgust with which

she reproached herself--for perhaps it was the first time that she had

consciously failed in maintaining a state of mind becoming the occasion;

and though nobody but herself knew of it, the pain of the accusation was

acute and bitter. But how could Miss Marjoribanks help it?--the mind

travels so much quicker than anything else, and goes so far, and makes

its expeditions in such subtle, stealthy ways. She might begin by

thinking of her dear papa, and yet, before she could dry her eyes, might

be off in the midst of one of these bewildering speculations. For

everything was certain now so far as he was concerned; and everything

was so uncertain, and full of such unknown issues for herself. Thus the

dark days before the funeral passed by--and everybody was very kind. Dr

Marjoribanks was one of the props of the place, and all Carlingford

bestirred itself to do him the final honours; and all her friends

conspired how to save Lucilla from all possible trouble, and help her

over the trial; and to see how much he was respected was the greatest of

all possible comforts to her, as she said.

Thus it was that among the changes that everybody looked for, there

occurred all at once this change which was entirely unexpected, and put

everything else out of mind for the moment. For to tell the truth, Dr

Marjoribanks was one of the men who, according to external appearance,

need never have died. There was nothing about him that wanted to be set

right, no sort of loss, or failure, or misunderstanding, so far as

anybody could see. An existence in which he could have his friends to

dinner every week, and a good house, and good wine, and a very good

table, and nothing particular to put him out of his way, seemed in fact

the very ideal of the best life for the Doctor. There was nothing in him

that seemed to demand anything better, and it was confusing to try to

follow him into that which, no doubt, must be in all its fundamentals a

very different kind of world. He was a just man and a good man in his

way, and had been kind to many people in his lifetime--but still he did

not seem to have that need of another rectifying, completer existence

which most men have. There seemed no reason why he should die--a man who

was so well contented with this lower region in which many of us fare

badly, and where so few of us are contented. This was a fact which

exercised a very confusing influence, even when they themselves were not

aware of it, on many people's minds. It was hard to think of him under

any other circumstances, or identify him with angels and spirits--which

feeling on the whole made the regret for him a more poignant sort of

regret.

And they buried him with the greatest signs of respect. People from

twenty miles off sent their carriages, and all the George Street people

shut their shops, and there was very little business done all day. Mr

Cavendish and Mr Ashburton walked side by side at the funeral, which was

an affecting sight to see; and if anything more could have been done to

show their respect which was not done, the corporation of Carlingford

would have been sorry for it. And the snow still lay deep in all the

corners, though it had been trampled down all about the Doctor's house,

where the lamp was not lighted now of nights; for what was the use of

lighting the lamp, which was a kind of lighthouse in its way, and meant

to point out succour and safety for the neighbours, when the physician

himself was lying beyond all hope of succour or aid? And all the Grange

Lane people retired in a sympathetic, awe-stricken way, and decided, or

at least the ladies did, to see Lucilla next day, if she was able to see

them, and to find out whether she was going to make an effort, or what

she meant to do. And Mrs Chiley was so much better that she was able to

be up a little in the evening, though she scarcely could forgive

herself, and still could not help thinking that it was she who had

really been sent for, and that the Doctor had been taken in mistake. And

as for Lucilla, she sat in her room and cried, and thought of her

father's hand upon her shoulder--that last unusual caress which was more

touching to think of than a world of words. He had been fond of her and

proud of her, and at the last moment he had showed it. And by times she

seemed to feel again that lingering touch, and cried as if her heart

would break: and yet, for all that, she could not keep her thoughts

steady, nor prevent them from wandering to all kinds of profane

out-of-door matters, and to considerations of the future, and estimates

of her own position. It wounded her sadly to feel herself in such an

inappropriate state of mind, but she could not help it; and then the

want of natural light and air oppressed her sorely, and she longed for

the evening, which felt a little more natural, and thought that at last

she might have a long talk with Aunt Jemima, who was a kind of refuge in

her present loneliness, and gave her a means of escape at the same time

from all this bustle and commotion of unbecoming thoughts.

This was enough surely for any one to have to encounter at one time; but

that very night another rumour began to murmur through Carlingford--a

rumour more bewildering, more incredible still, than that of the

Doctor's death, which the town had been obliged to confirm and

acknowledge, and put its seal to. When the thing was first mentioned,

everybody (who could find it in their heart to laugh) laughed loud in

the face of the first narrator with mingled scepticism and indignation.

They asked him what he meant by it, and ridiculed and scoffed at him to

his face. "Lucilla will be the richest woman in Grange Lane," people

said; "everybody in Carlingford knows that." But after this statement

had been made, the town began to listen. It was obliged to listen, for

other witnesses came in to confirm the story. It never might have been

found out while the Doctor lived, for he had a great practice, and made

a great deal of money; but now that he was dead, nothing could be hid.

He was dead, and he had made an elaborate will, which was all as just

and righteous as a will could be; but after the will was read, it was

found out that everything named in it had disappeared like a bubble.

Instead of being the richest, Dr Marjoribanks was one of the poorest

men in Carlingford when he shut his door behind him on that snowy night.

It was a revelation which took the town perfectly by storm, and startled

everybody out of their senses. Lucilla's plans, which she thought so

wicked, went out all of a sudden, in a certain dull amaze and dismay, to

which no words could give any expression. Such was the second

inconceivable reverse of fortune which happened to Miss Marjoribanks,

more unexpected, more incomprehensible still than the other, in the very

midst of her most important activities and hopes.

_Chapter XLIV_

When the first whisper of the way in which she was--as people

say--"left" reached Lucilla, her first feeling was incredulity. It was

conveyed to her by Aunt Jemima, who came to her in her room after the

funeral with a face blanched with dismay. Miss Marjoribanks took it for

grief; and, though she did not look for so much feeling from Mrs John,

was pleased and comforted that her aunt should really lament her poor

papa. It was a compliment which, in the softened and sorrowful state of

Lucilla's mind, went to her heart. Aunt Jemima came up and kissed her in

a hasty excited way, which showed genuine and spontaneous emotion, and

was not like the solemn pomp with which sympathising friends generally

embrace a mourner; and then she made Lucilla sit down by the fire and

held her hands. "My poor child," said Aunt Jemima--"my poor, dear,

sacrificed child! you know, Lucilla, how fond I am of you, and you can

always come to me----"

"Thank you, dear Aunt Jemima," said Miss Marjoribanks, though she was a

little puzzled. "You are the only relative I have, and I knew you would

not forsake me. What should I do without you at such a time? I am sure

it is what dear papa would have wished----"

"Lucilla," cried Mrs John impulsively, "I know it is natural you should

cry for your father; but when you know all,--you that never knew what it

was to be without money--that never were straitened even, or obliged to

give up things, like most other young women. Oh, my dear, they said I

was to prepare you, but how can I prepare you? I feel as if I never

could forgive my brother-in-law; that he should bring you up like this,

and then----"

"What is it?" said Miss Marjoribanks, drying her tears. "If it is

anything new, tell me, but don't speak so of--of----What is it? say it

right out."

"Lucilla," said Aunt Jemima solemnly, "you think you have a great deal

of courage, and now is your time to show it. He has left you without a

farthing--he that was always thought to be so rich. It is quite true

what I am saying. He has gone and died and left nothing, Lucilla. Now I

have told you; and oh, my poor, dear, injured child," cried Mrs John,

with fervour, "as long as I have a home there will be room in it for

you."

But Lucilla put her aunt away softly when she was about to fall upon her

neck. Miss Marjoribanks was struck dumb; her heart seemed to stop

beating for the moment. "It is quite impossible--it cannot be true," she

said, and gave a gasp to recover her breath. Then Mrs John came down

upon her with facts, proving it to be true--showing how Dr

Marjoribanks's money was invested, and how it had been lost. She made a

terrible muddle of it, no doubt, but Lucilla was not very clear about

business details any more than her aunt, and she did not move nor say a

word while the long, involved, endless narrative went on. She kept

saying it was impossible in her heart for half of the time, and then she

crept nearer the fire and shivered, and said nothing even to herself,

and did not even seem to listen, but knew that it must be true. It would

be vain to attempt to say that it was not a terrible blow to Lucilla;

her strength was weakened already by grief and solitude and want of

food, for she could not find it in her heart to go on eating her

ordinary meals as if nothing had happened; and all of a sudden she felt

the cold seize her, and drew closer and closer to the fire. The thoughts

which she had been thinking in spite of herself, and for which she had

so greatly condemned herself, went out with a sudden distinctness, as if

it had been a lamp going out and leaving the room in darkness, and a

sudden sense of utter gloom and cold and bewildering uncertainty came

over Lucilla. When she lifted her eyes from the fire, into which she had

been gazing, it almost surprised her to find herself still in this warm

room where there was every appliance for comfort, and where her entire

wardrobe of new mourning--everything, as Aunt Jemima said, that a woman

could desire--was piled up on the bed. It was impossible that she could

be a penniless creature, left on her own resources, without father or

supporter or revenue; and yet--good heavens! could it be true?

"If it is true, Aunt Jemima," said Lucilla, "I must try to bear it; but

my poor head feels all queer. I'd rather not think any more about it

to-night."

"How can you help thinking about it, Lucilla?" cried Mrs John. "I can

think of nothing else; and I am not so much concerned as you."

Upon which Lucilla rose and kissed Aunt Jemima, though her head was all

confused and she had noises in her ears. "I don't think we are much like

each other, you know," she said. "Did you hear how Mrs Chiley was? I am

sure she will be very sorry;" and with that Miss Marjoribanks softened,

and felt a little comforted, and cried again--not for the money, but for

her father. "If you are going downstairs, I think I will come down to

tea, Aunt Jemima," she said. But after Mrs John had gone away full of

wonder at her philosophy, Lucilla drew close to the fire again and took

her head between her hands and tried to think what it meant. Could it be

true? Instead of the heiress, in a good position, who could go abroad or

anywhere, and do anything she liked, was it possible that she was only a

penniless single woman with nobody to look to, and nothing to live on?

Such an extraordinary incomprehensible revolution might well make any

one feel giddy. The solid house and the comfortable room, and her own

sober brain, which was not in the way of being put off its balance,

seemed to turn round and round as she looked into the fire. Lucilla was

not one to throw the blame upon her father, as Mrs John had done. On the

contrary she was sorry, profoundly sorry for him, and made such a

picture to herself of what his feelings must have been, when he went

into his room that night and knew that all his hard-earned fortune was

gone, that it made her weep the deepest tears for him that she had yet

shed. "Poor papa!" she said to herself; and as she was not much given to

employing her imagination in this way, and realising the feeling of

others, the effect was all the greater now. If he had but told her, and

put off a share of the burden from his own shoulders on to hers who

could have borne it! but the Doctor had never done justice to Lucilla's

qualities. This, amid her general sense of confusion and dizziness and

insecurity, was the only clear thought that struck Miss Marjoribanks;

and that it was very cold and must be freezing outside; and how did the

poor people manage who had not all her present advantages? She tried to

put away this revelation from her, as she had said to Aunt Jemima, and

keep it for a little at arm's length, and get a night's rest in the

meantime, and so be able to bring a clear head to the contemplation of

it to-morrow, which was the most judicious thing to do. But when the

mind has been stimulated by such a shock, Solomon himself, one would

suppose, could scarcely, however clearly he might perceive what was

best, take the judicious passive way. When Lucilla got up from where she

was crouching before the fire, she felt so giddy that she could scarcely

stand. Her head was all queer, as she had said, and she had a singing in

her ears. She herself seemed to have changed along with her position. An

hour or two before, she could have answered for her own steadiness and

self-possession in almost any circumstances, but now the blood seemed to

be running a race in her veins, and the strangest noises hummed in her

ears. She felt ashamed of her weakness, but she could not help it; and

then she was weak with grief and excitement and comparative fasting,

which told for something, probably, in her inability to bear so

unlooked-for a blow.

But Miss Marjoribanks thought it was best to go down to the drawing-room

for tea, as she had said. To see everything just as it had been, utterly

indifferent and unconscious of what had happened, made her cry, and

relieved her giddiness by reviving her grief; and then the next minute a

bewildering wonder seized her as to what would become of this

drawing-room, the scene of her triumphs--who would live in it, and whom

the things would go to--which made her sick, and brought back the

singing in her ears. But on the whole she took tea very quietly with

Aunt Jemima, who kept breaking into continual snatches of lamentation,

but was always checked by Lucilla's composed looks. If she had not heard

this extraordinary news, which made the world turn round with her, Miss

Marjoribanks would have felt that soft hush of exhaustion and grief

subdued which, when the grief is not too urgent, comes after all is

over; and even now she felt a certain comfort in the warm firelight and

the change out of her own room--where she had been living shut up, with

the blinds down, and the black dresses everywhere about, for so many

dreary days.

John Brown, who had charge of Dr Marjoribanks's affairs, came next day

and explained everything to Lucilla. The lawyer had had one short

interview with his client after the news came, and Dr Marjoribanks had

borne it like a man. His face had changed a little, and he had sat down,

which he was not in the habit of doing, and drawn a kind of shivering

long breath; and then he had said, "Poor Lucilla!" to himself. This was

all Mr Brown could say about the effect the shock had on the Doctor. And

there was something in this very scanty information which gave Lucilla a

new pang of sorrow and consolation. "And he patted me on the shoulder

that last night," she said, with tender tears; and felt she had never

loved her father so well in all her life--which is one of the sweeter

uses of death which many must have experienced, but which belonged to a

more exquisite and penetrating kind of emotion than was common to

Lucilla.

"I thought he looked a little broken when he went out," said Mr Brown,

"but full of pluck and spirit, as he always was. 'I am making a good

deal of money, and I _may_ live long enough to lay by a little still,'

were the last words he said to me. I remember he put a kind of emphasis

on the _may_. Perhaps he knew he was not so strong as he looked. He was

a good man, Miss Marjoribanks, and there is nobody that has not some

kind thing to tell of him," said the lawyer, with a certain moisture in

his eyes; for there was nobody in Carlingford who did not miss the old

Doctor, and John Brown was very tender-hearted in his way.

"But nobody can know what a good father he was," said Lucilla, with a

sob; and she meant it with all her heart, thinking chiefly of his hand

on her shoulder that last night, and of the "Poor Lucilla!" in John

Brown's office; though, after all, perhaps, it was not chiefly as a

tender father that Dr Marjoribanks shone, though he gave his daughter

all she wanted or asked for. Her grief was so true, and so little

tinctured by any of that indignation over the unexpected loss, which

Aunt Jemima had not been able to conceal, that John Brown was quite

touched, and felt his heart warm to Lucilla. He explained it all very

fully to her when she was composed enough to understand him; and as he

went through all the details the giddiness came back, and once more Miss

Marjoribanks felt the world running round, and heard his statement

through the noises in her ears. All this settled down, however, into a

certain distinctness as John Brown, who was very clear-headed and good

at making a concise statement, went on; and gradually the gyrations

became slower and slower, and the great universe became solid once more,

and held to its moorings under Lucilla's feet, and she ceased to hear

that supernatural hum and buzz. The vague shadows of chaos and ruin

dispersed, and through them she saw once more the real aspect of things.

She was not quite penniless. There was the house, which was a very good

house, and some little corners and scraps of money in the Funds, which

were Lucilla's very own, and could not be lost; and last of all there

was the business--the best practice in Carlingford, and entire command

of Grange Lane.

"But what does that matter?" said Lucilla; "if poor papa had retired

indeed, as I used to beg him to do, and parted with it----But everybody

has begun to send for Dr Rider already," she said, in an aggrieved

voice; and then for the first time John Brown remembered, to his

confusion, that there was once said to be "something between" Miss

Marjoribanks and Dr Rider; which complicated the affair in the most

uncomfortable way.

"Yes," he said, "and of course that would make it much more difficult to

bring in another man; but Rider is a very honourable young fellow, Miss

Marjoribanks----"

"He is not so very young," said Lucilla. "He is quite as old as I am,

though no one ever would think so. I am sure he is honourable, but what

has that to do with it? And I do think Mrs Chiley might have done

without--anybody else: for a day or two, considering when it was----"

And here she stopped to cry, unreasonably, but yet very naturally; for

it did feel hard that in the house to which Dr Marjoribanks's last visit

had been paid, another doctor should have been called in next day.

"What I meant to say," said John Brown, "was, that Dr Rider, though he

is not rich, and could not pay a large sum of money down, would be very

glad to make some arrangement. He is very anxious about it, and he

seemed himself to think that if you knew his circumstances you would not

be disinclined to----But as I did not at all know----"

Lucilla caught, as it were, and met, and forced to face her, her

informant's embarrassed, hesitating look. "You say this," said Miss

Marjoribanks, "because people used to say there was something between

us, and you think I may have some feeling about it. But there never was

anything between us. Anybody with a quarter of an eye could have seen

that he was going out of his senses about that little Australian girl.

And I am rather fond of men that are in love--it shows they have some

good in them. But it is dreadful to talk of such things now," said

Lucilla, with a sigh of self-reproach. "If Dr Rider has any arrangement

to propose, I should like to give him the preference, please. You see

they have begun to send for him already in Grange Lane."

"I will do whatever you think proper," said John Brown, who was rather

scared, and very much impressed by Miss Marjoribanks's candour. Dr Rider

had been the first love of Mr Brown's own wife, and the lawyer had a

curious kind of satisfaction in thinking that this silly young fellow

had thus lost two admirable women, and that probably the little

Australian was equally inferior to Miss Marjoribanks and Mrs Brown. He

ought to have been grateful that Dr Rider had left the latter lady to

his own superior discrimination--and so he was; and yet it gave him a

certain odd satisfaction to think that the Doctor was not so happy as he

might have been. He went away fully warranted to receive Dr Rider's

proposition, and even, to a certain extent, to decide upon it--and

Lucilla threw herself back in her chair in the silent drawing-room, from

which Aunt Jemima had discreetly withdrawn, and began to think over the

reality of her position as she now saw it for the first time.

The sense of bewildering revolution and change was over; for, strangely

enough, the greater a change is the more easily the mind, after the

first shock, accepts and gets accustomed to it. It was over, and the

world felt steady once more under Lucilla's feet, and she sat down, not

precisely amid the ruins of her happiness, but still in the presence of

many an imagination overthrown, to look at her real position. It was

not, after all, utter poverty, misery, and destitution, as at the first

glance she had believed. According to what John Brown had said, and a

rapid calculation which Lucilla had herself made in passing, something

approaching two hundred a year would be left to her--just a small single

woman's revenue, as she thought to herself. Two hundred a year! All at

once there came into Miss Marjoribanks's mind a sudden vision of the two

Miss Ravenswoods, who had lived in that pretty set of rooms over

Elsworthy's shop, facing into Grange Lane, and who had kept a lady's

maid, and asked the best people in the place to tea, upon a very

similar income, and how their achievements had been held up to everybody

as a model of what genteel economy could do. She thought of them, and

her heart sank within her; for it was not in Lucilla's nature to live

without a sphere, nor to disjoin herself from her fellow-creatures, nor

to give up entirely the sovereign position she had held for so many

years. Whatever she might ultimately do, it was clear that, in the

meantime, she could not make up her mind to any such giving up of the

battle as that. And then there was the house. She might let it to the

Riders, and add probably another hundred a year to her income; for

though it was an excellent house, and worth more than a hundred a year,

still there was no competition for houses in Grange Lane, and the new

Doctor was the only probable tenant. And, to tell the truth, though

Lucilla was very reasonable, it went to her heart at the present moment

to think of letting the house to the new Doctor, and having the patients

come as usual, and the lamp lighted as of old, and nothing changed

except the central figure of all. She ought to have been above such

sentimental ideas when a whole hundred pounds a year was in question;

but she was not, which of itself was a strange phenomenon. If she could

have made up her mind to that, there were a great many things that she

might have done. She might still have gone abroad, and to some extent

taken a limited share in what was going on in some section of English

society on the Continent. Or she might have gone to one of the mild

centres of a similar kind of life in England. But such a prospect did

not offer many attractions to Miss Marjoribanks. If she had been rich,

it would have been different. Thus there gradually dawned upon her the

germ of the plan she ultimately adopted, and which was the only one that

commended itself to her feelings. Going away was expensive and

troublesome at the best; and even at Elsworthy's, if she could have made

up her mind to such an expedient, she would have been charged a pound a

week for the rooms alone, not to speak of all kinds of extras, and never

having the satisfaction of feeling yourself in your own place. Under all

the circumstances, it was impressed upon Lucilla's mind that her natural

course was to stay still where she was, and make no change. Why should

she make any change? The house was her own, and did not cost anything,

and if Nancy would but stand by her and one good maid----It was a

venture; but still Lucilla felt as if she might be equal to it. Though

she was no mathematician, Miss Marjoribanks was very clever at mental

arithmetic in a practical sort of way. She put down lines upon lines of

figures in her head while she sat musing in her chair, and worked them

out with wonderful skill and speed and accuracy. And the more she

thought of it, the more it seemed to her that this was the thing to do.

Why should she retreat and leave her native soil and the neighbourhood

of all her friends because she was poor and in trouble? Lucilla was not

ashamed of being poor--nor even frightened by it, now that she

understood what it was--any more than she would have been frightened,

after the first shock, had her poverty even been much more absolute. She

was standing alone at this moment as upon a little island of as yet

undisturbed seclusion and calm, and she knew very well that outside a

perfect sea of good advice would surge round her as soon as she was

visible. In these circumstances Lucilla took by instinct the only wise

course: she made up her mind there and then with a perfect unanimity

which is seldom to be gained when counsellors are admitted. And what she

decided upon, as was to be expected from her character, was not to fly

from her misfortune and the scene of it, but to confront fate and take

up her lawful burden and stay still in her own house. It was the wisest

and the easiest, and at the same time the most heroic course to adopt,

and she knew beforehand that it was one which would be approved of by

nobody. All this Lucilla steadily faced and considered and made up her

mind to while she sat alone; although silence and solitude and

desolation seemed to have suddenly come in and taken possession all

around her of the once gay and brilliant room.

She had just made her final decision when she was rejoined by her aunt,

who, everybody said, was at this trying moment like a mother to Lucilla.

Yet Aunt Jemima, too, had changed a little since her brother-in-law's

death. She was very fond of Miss Marjoribanks, and meant every word she

had said about giving her a home, and still meant it. But she did not

feel so certain now as she had done about Tom's love for his cousin, nor

at all anxious to have him come home just at this moment; and for

another thing, she had got a way of prowling about the house and looking

at the furniture in a speculative, auctioneering sort of way. "It must

be all sold, of course," Aunt Jemima had said to herself, "and I may as

well look what things would suit me; there is a little chiffonier that I

have always wanted for my drawing-room, and Lucilla would like to see a

few of the old things about her, poor dear." With this idea Mrs John

gave herself a great deal of unnecessary fatigue, and gave much offence

to the servants by making pilgrimages all over the house, turning up at

the most unlikely places and poking about in the least frequented rooms.

It was a perfectly virtuous and even amiable thing to do, for it was

better, as she reasoned, that they should go to her than to a stranger,

and it would be nice for Lucilla to feel that she had some of the old

things about her; but then such delicate motives are seldom appreciated

by the homely critics downstairs.

It was with something of this same air that she came into the

drawing-room, where Lucilla was. She could not help laying her hand in a

suggestive sort of way on a small table which she had to pass, as if she

were saying to herself (as indeed she was saying), "The veneer has been

broken off at that side, and the foot is mended; it will bring very

little; and yet it looks well when you don't look too close." Such were

the ideas with which Aunt Jemima's mind was filled. But yet she came

forward with a great deal of sympathy and curiosity, and forgot about

the furniture in presence of her afflicted niece.

"Did he tell you anything, Lucilla?" said Mrs John; "of course he must

have told you something--but anything satisfactory, I mean."

"I don't know if you can call it satisfactory," said Lucilla, with a

sudden rush of softer thoughts; "but it was a comfort to hear it. He

told me something about dear papa, Aunt Jemima. After he had heard of

_that_, you know--all that he said was, Poor Lucilla! And don't you

remember how he put his hand on my shoulder that last night? I am

so--so--glad he did it," sobbed Miss Marjoribanks. It may be supposed it

was an abrupt transition from her calculations; but after all it was

only a different branch of the same subject; and Lucilla in all her life

had never before shed such poignant and tender tears.

"He might well say, Poor Lucilla!" said Mrs John--"brought up as you

have been, my dear; and did not you hear anything more important?--I

mean, more important in a worldly point of view," Aunt Jemima added,

correcting herself, "of course, it must be the greatest comfort to hear

something about your poor papa."

And then Lucilla unfolded John Brown's further particulars to her

surprised hearer. Mrs John lived upon a smallish income herself, and she

was not so contemptuous of the two hundred a year. "And the house," she

said--"the house would bring you in another hundred, Lucilla. The

Riders, I am sure, would take it directly, and perhaps a great part of

the furniture too. Three hundred would not be so bad for a single woman.

Did you say anything about the furniture, my dear?" Aunt Jemima added,

half regretfully, for she did feel that she would be sorry to lose that

chiffonier.

"I think I shall stay in the house," said Lucilla; "you may think it

silly, Aunt Jemima, but I was born in it, and----"

"Stay in the house!" Mrs John said, with a gasp. She did not think it

silly, but simple madness, and so she told her niece. If Lucilla could

not make up her mind to Elsworthy's, there was Brighton and Bath and

Cheltenham, and a hundred other places where a single woman might be

very comfortable on three hundred a year. And to lose a third part of

her income for a piece of sentiment was so utterly unlike any conception

Aunt Jemima had ever formed of her niece. It _was_ unlike Miss

Marjoribanks; but there are times of life when even the most reasonable

people are inconsistent. Lucilla, though she felt it was open to grave

criticism, felt only more confirmed in her resolution by her aunt's

remarks. She heard a voice Aunt Jemima could not hear, and that voice

said, Stay!

_Chapter XLV_

It must be allowed that Lucilla's decision caused very general surprise

in Carlingford, where people had been disposed to think that she would

be rather glad, now that things were so changed, to get away. To be sure

it was not known for some time; but everybody's idea was that, being

thus left alone in the world, and in circumstances so reduced, Miss

Marjoribanks naturally would go to live with somebody. Perhaps with her

aunt, who had something, though she was not rich; perhaps, after a

little, to visit about among her friends, of whom she had so many.

Nobody doubted that Lucilla would abdicate at once, and a certain

uneasy, yet delicious, sense of freedom had already stolen into the

hearts of some of the ladies in Grange Lane. They lamented, it is true,

the state of chaos into which everything would fall, and the dreadful

loss Miss Marjoribanks would be to society; but still, freedom is a

noble thing, and Lucilla's subjects contemplated their emancipation with

a certain guilty delight. It was, at the same time, a most fertile

subject of discussion in Carlingford, and gave rise to all those lively

speculations and consultations, and oft-renewed comparing of notes,

which take the place of bets in the feminine community. The Carlingford

ladies as good as betted upon Lucilla, whether she would go with her

aunt, or pay Mrs Beverley a visit at the Deanery, or retire to Mount

Pleasant for a little, where those good old Miss Blounts were so fond of

her. Each of these opinions had its backers, if it is not profane to say

so; and the discussion which of them Miss Marjoribanks would choose

waxed very warm. It almost put the election out of people's heads; and

indeed the election had been sadly damaged in interest and social

importance by the sad and most unexpected event which had just happened

in Grange Lane.

But when the fact was really known, it would be difficult to describe

the sense of guilt and horror which filled many innocent bosoms. The

bound of freedom had been premature--liberty and equality had not come

yet, notwithstanding that too early unwise _élan_ of republican

satisfaction. It was true that she was in deep mourning, and that for a

year, at least, society must be left to its own devices; and it was

true, also, that she was poor--which might naturally be supposed a

damper upon her energies--but, at the same time, Carlingford knew its

Lucilla. As long as she remained in Grange Lane, even though retired and

in crape, the constitutional monarch was still present among her

subjects; and nobody could usurp her place or show that utter

indifference to her regulations which some revolutionaries had dreamed

of. Such an idea would have gone direct in the face of the British

Constitution, and the sense of the community would have been dead

against it. But everybody who had speculated upon her proceedings

disapproved of Lucilla in her most unlooked-for resolution. Some could

not think how she could bear it, staying on there when everything was so

changed; and some said it was a weakness they could never have believed

to exist in her; and some--for there are spiteful people

everywhere--breathed the names of Cavendish and Ashburton, the rival

candidates, and hinted that Miss Marjoribanks had something in her mind

to justify her lingering. If Lucilla had not been supported by a

conscious sense of rectitude, she must have broken down before this

universal disapprobation. Not a soul in the world except one supported

her in her resolution, and that was perhaps, of all others, the one

least likely to be able to judge.

And it was not for want of opportunity to go elsewhere. Aunt Jemima, as

has been seen, did not lose an instant in offering the shelter of her

house to her niece; and Mrs Beverley wrote the longest, kindest, most

incoherent letter begging her dear Lucilla to come to her immediately

for a long visit, and adding, that though she had to go out a good deal

into society, she needn't mind, for that everything she could think of

would be done to make her comfortable; to which Dr Beverley himself, who

was now a dean, added an equally kind postscript, begging Miss

Marjoribanks to make her home at the Deanery "until she saw how things

were to be." "He would have found me a place, perhaps," Lucilla said,

when she folded up the letter--and this was a terrible mode of

expression to the genteel ears of Mrs John.

"I wish you would not use such words, my dear," said Aunt Jemima; "even

if you had been as poor as you thought, my house would always have been

a home for you. Thank Heaven I have enough for both; you never needed to

have thought, under any circumstances, of taking a--a situation. It is a

thing I could never have consented to,"--which was a very handsome thing

of Aunt Jemima to say.

"Thank you, aunt," said Lucilla, but she sighed; for, though it was very

kind, what was Miss Marjoribanks to have done with herself in such a

dowager establishment? And then Colonel Chiley came in, who had also his

proposal to make.

"_She_ sent me," the Colonel said; "it's been a sad business for us all,

Lucilla; I don't know when I have felt anything more; and as for her,

you know, she has never held up her head since----"

"Dear Mrs Chiley!" Miss Marjoribanks said, unable to resist the old

affection; "and yet I heard she had sent for Dr Rider directly," Lucilla

added. She knew it was quite natural, and perhaps quite necessary, but

then it did seem hard that his own friends should be the first to

replace her dear papa.

"It was I did that," said the Colonel. "What was a man to do? I was

horribly cut up, but I could not stand and see her making herself worse;

and I said you had too much sense to mind----"

"So I ought," said Lucilla, with penitence, "but when I remembered where

he was last, the very last place----"

It was hard upon the Colonel to stand by and see a woman cry. It was a

thing he could never stand, as he had always said to his wife. He took

the poker, which was his favourite resource, and made one of his

tremendous dashes at the fire, to give Lucilla time to recover herself,

and then he turned to Aunt Jemima, who sat pensively by:

"_She_ sent me," said the Colonel, who did not think his wife needed any

other name--"not that I would not have come of my own accord; we want

Lucilla to go to us, you see. I don't know what plans she may have been

making, but we're both very fond of her--she knows that. I think, if you

have not settled upon anything, the best that Lucilla can do is to come

to us. She'll be the same as at home, and always somebody to look after

her----"

The old Colonel was standing before the fire, wavering a little on his

long unsteady old legs, and looking wonderfully well preserved, and old

and feeble; and Lucilla, though she was in mourning, was so full of life

and force in her way. It was a curious sort of protection to offer her,

and yet it was real protection, and love and succour, though, Heaven

knows! it might not perhaps last out the year.

"I am sure, Colonel Chiley, it is a very kind offer," said Aunt Jemima,

"and I would have been thankful if she could have made up her mind to go

with me. But I must say she has taken a very queer notion into her

head--a thing I should never have expected from Lucilla--she says she

will stay here."

"Here?--ah--eh--what does she mean by here?" said the Colonel.

"_Here_, Colonel Chiley, in this great big melancholy house. I have been

thinking about it, and talking about it till my head goes round and

round. Unless she were to take Inmates," said Aunt Jemima, in a resigned

and doleful voice. As for the Colonel, he was petrified, and for a long

time had not a word to say.

"_Here!_--By Jove, I think she must have lost her senses," said the old

soldier. "Why, Lucilla, I--I thought--wasn't there something about the

money being lost? You couldn't keep up this house under a--fifteen

hundred a year at least; the Doctor spent a mint of money;--you must be

going out of your senses. And to have all the sick people coming, and

the bell ringing of nights. Bless my soul! it would kill anybody," said

Colonel Chiley. "Put on your bonnet, and come out with me; shutting her

up here, and letting her cry, and so forth--I don't say it ain't

natural--I'm terribly cut up myself whenever I think of it; but it's

been too much for her head," said the Colonel, with anxiety and

consternation mingling in his face.

"Unless she were to take Inmates, you know," said Aunt Jemima, in a

sepulchral voice. There was something in the word that seemed to carry

out to a point of reality much beyond anything he had dreamt of, the

suggestion Colonel Chiley had just made.

"Inmates! Lord bless my soul! what do you mean, ma'am?" said the old

soldier. "Lucilla, put on your bonnet directly, and come and have a

little fresh air. She'll soon be an inmate herself if we leave her

here," the Colonel said. They were all very sad and grave, and yet it

was a droll scene; and then the old hero offered Lucilla his arm, and

led her to the door. "You'll find me in the hall as soon as you are

ready," he said, in tones half gruff, half tender, and was glad to go

downstairs, though it was cold, and put on his greatcoat with the aid of

Thomas, and stand warming the tips of his boots at the hall fire. As

for Lucilla, she obeyed him without a word; and it was with his unsteady

but kind old arm to lean upon that she first saw how the familiar world

looked through the mist of this strange change that had come over it,

and through the blackness of her crape veil.

But though she succeeded in satisfying her friends that she had made up

her mind, she did not secure their approval. There were so many

objections to her plan. "If you had been rich even, I don't think I

should have approved of it, Lucilla," Mrs Chiley said, with tears; "and

I think we could have made you happy here." So the good old lady spoke,

looking round her pretty room, which was so warm and cheery and bright,

and where the Colonel, neat and precise as if he had come out of a box,

was standing poking the fire. It looked all very solid and substantial,

and yet it was as unstable as any gossamer that the careless passenger

might brush away. The two good people were so old that they had

forgotten to remember they were old. But neither did Lucilla think of

that. This was really what she thought and partly said:

"I am in my own house, that wants no expense nor changing, and Nancy is

getting old, and does not mind standing by me. And it is not so much

trouble after all keeping everything nice when there is no gentleman

coming in, and nothing else to do. And, besides, I don't mean to be

Lucilla Marjoribanks for ever and ever." This was the general scope,

without going into all the details, of what Lucilla said.

But, at the same time, though she was so happy as not to be disturbed in

her decision, or made uncomfortable, either by lamentation or

remonstrance, and had no doubt in her mind that she was doing right, it

was disagreeable to Miss Marjoribanks to go thus in the face of all her

friends. She went home by herself, and the house did look dreary from

the outside. It was just as it had always been, for none of the servants

were dismissed as yet, nor any external change made; but still a look as

if it had fallen asleep--a look as if it too had died somehow, and only

pretended to be a house and home--was apparent, in the aspect of the

place; and when the servants were gone, and nobody remained except

Lucilla and her faithful Nancy, and a young maid--which must be the

furthest limit of Miss Marjoribanks's household, and difficult enough to

maintain upon two hundred a year--what would it look like? This thought

was more discouraging than any remonstrances; and it was with a heavy

heart that Lucilla re-entered her solitary house. She told Thomas to

follow her upstairs; and when she sank, tired, into a chair, and put up

her veil before commencing to speak to him, it was all she could do to

keep from crying. The depressing influences of this sad week had told so

much on her, that she was quite fatigued by her walk to see Mrs Chiley;

and Thomas, too, knew why he had been called, and stood in a formal

manner before her, with his hands crossed, against the closed door. When

she put back her thick black veil, the last climax of painful change

came upon Miss Marjoribanks. She did not feel as if she were Lucilla; so

discouraged and depressed and pale, and tired with her walk as she was,

with all sorts of projects and plans so quenched out of her; almost if

she had been charged with being somebody else, the imputation was one

which she could not have denied.

"Thomas," she said faintly, "I think I ought to speak to you myself

about all that has happened--we are such old friends, and you have been

such a good kind servant. You know I shan't be able to keep up----"

"And sorry we all was, Miss, to hear it," said Thomas, when Lucilla's

utterance failed. "I am sure there never was a better master, though

particular; and for a comfortabler house----"

"If I had been as poor papa expected to leave me," said Miss

Marjoribanks, after a little pause, "everything would have gone on as

usual: but after your long service here, and so many people as know you,

Thomas, you will have no difficulty in getting as good a place: and you

know that anything I can say----"

"Thank you, Miss," said Thomas; and then he made a pause. "It was not

exactly that as I was thinking of; I've set my heart, this many a day,

on a little business. If you would be so kind as to speak a word for me

to the gentlemen as has the licensing. There ain't nobody as knows

better how----"

"What kind of a business, Thomas?" said Lucilla, who cheered up a little

in ready interest, and would have been very glad if she could have taken

a little business too.

"Well, Miss, a kind of a quiet--public-house, if I don't make too bold

to name it," said Thomas, with a deprecating air--"not one of them

drinking-places, Miss, as, I know, ladies can't abide; but many a man,

as is a very decent man, wants his pint o' beer now and again, and their

little sort of clubs of a night as well as the gentlefolks; and it's my

opinion, Miss, as it's a man's dooty to see as that sort of thing don't

go too far, and yet as his fellow-creatures has their bit of pleasure,"

said Thomas, who naturally took the defensive side.

"I am sure you are quite right," said Lucilla, cheering up more and

more, and instinctively, with her old statesmanlike breadth of view,

throwing a rapid glance upon the subject to see what capabilities there

might be in it; "and I hope you will try always to exercise a good

influence--What is all that noise and shouting out of doors?"

"It's one of the candidates, Miss," said Thomas, "as is addressing of

the bargemen at the top o' Prickett's Lane."

"Ah!" said Lucilla; and a deep sigh escaped from her bosom. "But you

cannot do anything of that kind, you know, Thomas, without a wife."

"Yes, Miss," said Thomas, with great confusion and embarrassment; "that

was just what I was going to say. Me and Betsy----"

"Betsy!" said Lucilla, with dismay; for it had been Betsy she had

specially fixed upon as the handy, willing, cheerful maid who, when

there was no gentleman coming in, and little else to do, might keep even

this big house in order. She sighed; but it was not in her power, even

if she had desired it, to put any restriction upon Betsy's wishes. And

it was not without a momentary envy that she received the intelligence.

It was life the housemaid was about to enter on--active life of her own,

with an object and meaning--clogged by Thomas, no doubt, who did not

appear to Lucilla as the bright spot in the picture--but still

independent life; whereas her mistress knew of nothing particularly

interesting in her own uncertain future. She was roused from her

momentary meditation by the distant shouts which came from the top of

Prickett's Lane, and sighed again, without knowing it, as she spoke.

"It's a pity you had not got your--little inn," said Lucilla, for the

sake of euphony, "six months or a year ago, for then you might have

voted for Mr Ashburton, Thomas. I had forgotten about the election until

now."

"Not as that needn't stand in the way, Miss," said Thomas eagerly;

"there's Betsy's brother as has it now, and he ain't made up his mind

about his vote; and if he knowed as it would be any comfort to you----"

"Of course it will be a comfort to me!" said Miss Marjoribanks; and she

got up from her chair with a sense that she was still not altogether

useless in the world. "Go and speak to him directly, Thomas; and here's

one of Mr Ashburton's colours that I made up myself; and tell him that

there can be no doubt _he_ is the man for Carlingford; and send up Nancy

to me. And I hope Betsy and you will be very happy," said Lucilla. She

had been dreadfully down, but the rebound was all the more grateful. "I

am not done with yet, and, thank Heaven! there must always be something

to do," she said to herself when she was alone. And she threw off her

shawl, and began to make the drawing-room look like itself; not that it

was not perfectly in order, and as neat as a room could be; but still

the neatness savoured of Betsy, and not of Lucilla. Miss Marjoribanks,

in five minutes, made it look like that cosy empire of hospitality and

kindness and talk and wit, and everything pleasant, that it used to be;

and then, when she had finished, she sat down and had a good cry, which

did not do her any harm.

Then Nancy appeared, disturbed in her preparations for dinner, and with

her arms wrapped in her apron, looking glum and defiant. Hers was not

the resigned and resourceful preparation for her fate which had appeared

in Thomas. She came in, and put the door ajar, and leant her back

against the sharp edge. She might be sent off like the rest, if that was

Miss Lucilla's meaning--her that had been in the house off and on for

more than thirty years; but if it was so, at least she would not give up

without unfolding a bit of her mind.

"Come in," said Lucilla, drying her eyes--"come in and shut the door;

you had better come and sit down here, Nancy, for I have a great deal to

say, and I want to speak to you as a friend."

Nancy shut the door, but she thought to herself that she knew what all

this meant, and made but a very little movement into the room, looking

more forbidding than ever. "Thank you all the same, Miss Lucilla, but I

ain't too old to stand," she said; and stood firm to meet the shock,

with her arms folded under her apron, thinking in her heart that it was

about one of the almshouses, her horror and hope, that her young

mistress was going to speak.

"Nancy," said Lucilla, "I want to tell you what I am going to do. I

have to make up my mind for myself now. They all go against me, and one

says I should do this and another says I should do that; but I don't

think anybody knows me so well as you do. Don't stand at the door. I

want to consult you as a friend. I want to ask you a question, and you

must answer as if you were before a judge--I have such confidence in

_you_."

Nancy's distrust and defiance gave way a little before this appeal. She

came a step nearer, and let the apron drop from her folded arms. "What

is it, Miss Lucilla?--though I ain't pretending to be one to advise,"

she said, building a kind of intrenchment round her with the nearest

chairs.

"You know how things are changed," said Lucilla, "and that I can't stay

here as I used to do. People think I should go and live with somebody;

but _I_ think, you know--if I was one of those ladies that have a

faithful old servant to stand by them, and never to grumble nor make a

fuss, nor go back on the past, nor go in for expensive dishes--one that

wouldn't mind cooking a chop or making a cup of tea, if that was all we

could afford--why, I think, Nancy----"

But Nancy could not hear any more. She made a little rush forward, with

a kind of convulsive chuckling that was half sobbing and half laughter.

"And me here!" cried Dr Marjoribanks's famous cook, who had spent a

fortune on her gravy-beef alone, and was one of the most expensive

people in Carlingford--"me as has done for you all your days! me as

would--if it was but a roast potato!" cried the devoted woman. She was

in such a state of hysterical flutter and excitement that Lucilla had to

take her almost into her arms and put the old woman into a chair and

bring her to, which was an occupation quite in Miss Marjoribanks's way.

"But I shall only have two hundred a year," said Lucilla. "Now don't be

rash; there will have to be a maid to keep things tidy, and that is

every farthing I shall have. You used to spend as much in gravy-beef,"

said Miss Marjoribanks, with a sigh.

"Oh, Miss Lucilla, let bygones be bygones," said Nancy, with tears. "If

I did, it wasn't without many a little something for them as was too

poor to buy it for themselves--for I never was one as boiled the senses

out of a bit of meat; and when a gentleman is well-to-do, and hasn't got

no occasion to count every penny----The Doctor, I will say for him, was

never one as asked too many questions. Give him a good dinner on his

own table, and he wasn't the gentleman as grudged a bit of broken meat

for the poor folks. He did a deal of good as you nor no one never know'd

of, Miss Lucilla," said Nancy, with a sob.

And then his daughter and his faithful old servant cried a little in

company over Dr Marjoribanks's vacant place. What could a man have more?

Nobody was made altogether desolate by his death, nor was any heart

broken, but they wept for him honestly, though the old woman felt happy

in her sorrow. And Lucilla, on her knees before the fire, told Nancy of

that exclamation the Doctor had made in John Brown's office, and how he

had put his hand on her shoulder that last night. "All he said was, Poor

Lucilla!" sobbed Miss Marjoribanks; "he never thought of himself nor all

his money that he had worked so hard for;" and once more that touch of

something more exquisite than was usual to her went sharply down into

Lucilla's heart and brought up tenderer and deeper tears.

She felt all the better for it after, and was even a little cheerful in

the evening, and like herself; and thus it will be seen that one person

in Carlingford--not, it is true, a popular oracle, but of powerful

influence and first-rate importance in a practical point of view--gave

the heartiest approbation to Miss Marjoribanks's scheme for her new

life.

_Chapter XLVI_

Lucilla's calculations were fully justified by the result. Twenty times

in a day she recognised the wisdom of her own early decision, which was

made while she was still by herself, and before anybody had come in to

advise her. If she had left it over until the time when, though much

shaken, she was understood to be able to see her friends, it is just

possible that the whirlwind of popular opinion which raged about her

might have exercised a distracting influence even upon Miss

Marjoribanks's clear head and steady judgment. For even now, though they

saw her in her own house, in her mourning, people would not believe that

it was true, and that Lucilla actually intended to make "no change"; and

all that tide of good advice which had been flowing through Carlingford

ever since the Doctor's death in the form of opinion, now rushed in upon

her, notwithstanding that all the world knew that she had made up her

mind. "Everybody says you are going to stay on, but we do hope it is not

true, Lucilla," her friends said, in many voices. "It is dreadful for us

to lose you, but you never _could_ bear it, dear." And this was repeated

so often that if Miss Marjoribanks had been weak-minded, she must have

ended by believing not only that it was more than she was equal to, but

more than she ought to be equal to--which was a more touching argument

still.

"You are excited now," Miss Brown said, who had a great deal of

experience in family troubles; "one always is at such a time; but when

things have settled down in their ordinary way, then you will find it is

more than you can bear. I think it is always best to make a change. If

you were to travel a little, you know----"

"But, my dear, I am poor," said Lucilla.

"It doesn't require so much money when you know how to set about it,"

said her adviser; "and there are so many people who would be glad to

have you, Lucilla! And then you might settle a little at Caen or Tours,

or some of those nice places, where there is such capital English

society, and everything so cheap; or, if you thought your health

required it, at Pau or Nice, you know. You are looking quite pale, and

I don't think you were ever very strong in the chest, Lucilla; and

everything is _so_ different on the Continent--one feels it the moment

one crosses the Channel; there is something different in the very air."

"It smells different, I know," said Lucilla meekly; and then the

conversation was interrupted by that afternoon cup of tea, which Nancy

could not be got to think was an extravagance, and around which, to tell

the truth, the Grange Lane ladies began to resume their habit of

gathering--though Miss Marjoribanks, of course, was still quite unequal

to society--as in the old times.

"And unless it is for a very short time, Lucilla," Mrs Centum said, who

had joined them, "you never can keep it up, you know. _I_ could not

pretend to afford Nancy, for my part; and when a cook is extravagant she

may promise as faithfully as you please, and make good resolutions, and

all that; but when it is in her, Lucilla--I am sure one or two receipts

she has given me have been quite ridiculous. You don't like to give in,

I know, but you'll be driven to give in; and if she does not get you

into debt as well, you will be very lucky. I know what it is. With my

family, you know, a week of Nancy would make an end of me."

"And the worst of all is," said Lady Richmond, who had driven in

expressly to add her mite to the treasure of precious counsel, of which

Miss Marjoribanks was making so little use, "that I am sure Lucilla is

overestimating her strength. She will find after that she is not equal

to it, you know; all the associations--and the people coming at night to

ask for the Doctor--and--and all that. I know it would kill _me_."

"Dear Lady Richmond," said Lucilla, making a desperate stand, and

setting, as it were, her back against a rock, "don't you think I can

bear it best here where you are all so kind to me; and where everybody

was so fond of--of _him_? You can't think what a comfort it is to me,"

said Lucilla, with a sob, "to see all the hatbands upon the gentlemen's

hats."

And then there was a pause, for this was an argument against which

nobody could find anything to say.

"For my part, I think the only thing she can do is to take Inmates,"

said Aunt Jemima. "If I were obliged to leave she would be so very

lonely. I have known ladies do it who were in a very good position, and

it made no difference; people visited them all the same. She could say,

'In consequence of changes in the family,' or 'A lady who has a larger

house than she requires'; which I am sure is quite true. It goes to

one's heart to think of all these bedrooms, and only one lady to sleep

in them all--when so many people are so hampered for want of room. Or

she might say, 'For the sake of society'; for, I am sure, if I should

have to go away----"

"But I hope you are not going away. It would be so sad for Lucilla to be

left alone," said Lady Richmond, who took a serious view of everything,

"at such a time."

"Oh, no!" Aunt Jemima said, faltering a little; and then a pink blush,

which seemed strangely uncalled for in such a mild little tea-party,

came over her mature countenance; "but then one can never tell what may

happen. I might have other duties--my son might make a call upon my

time. Not that I know of anything at present," she added hurriedly, "but

I never can bind myself on account of Tom----"

And then she caught Lucilla's eye, and grew more confused than ever.

What could she have to be confused about? If Tom did make a call upon

her time, whatever that might mean, there was nothing in it to call a

blush upon his mother's face. And the fact was, that a letter had come

from Tom a day or two before, of which, contrary to all her usual

habits, Aunt Jemima had taken no notice to Lucilla. These were things

which would have roused Miss Marjoribanks's curiosity if she had been

able to think about anything, as she said. But her visitors were taking

their cup of tea all the time, in a melancholy, half-sympathetic,

half-disapproving way, and they could not be expected to see anything

particularly interesting in Aunt Jemima's blush.

And then Rose Lake came in from Grove Street, who was rather an unusual

visitor, and whose appearance, though they were all very kind and

gracious to her, rather put the others to flight; for nobody had ever

quite forgotten or forgiven Barbara's brief entrance into society and

flirtation with Mr Cavendish, which might be said to have been the

beginning of all that happened to him in Grange Lane. As for Mrs Centum,

she took her leave directly, and pressed Lucilla's hand, and could not

help saying in her ear that she hoped _the other_ was not coming back to

Carlingford to throw herself in poor Mr Cavendish's way. "It would do

him so much harm," Mrs Centum said anxiously; "but oh! I forgot,

Lucilla, you are on the other side."

"I am on no side _now_," said Miss Marjoribanks, with plaintive meaning;

"and Barbara was as old as I am, you know, and she must have gone off."

"I have no doubt she has gone off," said Mrs Centum, with righteous

indignation. "As old as you, Lucilla! She must be ten years older at

least; and such a shocking style of looks--if men were not so

infatuated! And you have not gone off at all, my poor dear," she added,

with all the warmth of friendship! And then they were joined at the door

by the county lady, who was the next to go away.

"My dear, I hope you will be guided for the best," Lady Richmond said as

she went away; but she gave a deep sigh as she kissed Lucilla, and

looked as if she had very little faith in the efficacy of her own wish.

Maria Brown had withdrawn to another part of the drawing-room with Aunt

Jemima, so that Lucilla was, so to speak, left alone with Rose. And

Rose, too, had come with the intention of giving advice.

"I hear you are going to stay, Lucilla," she said, "and I did not think

I would be doing my duty if I did not tell you what was in my mind. _I_

can't do any good to anybody, you know; but you who are so clever, and

have so much in your power----"

"I am poor now," said Miss Marjoribanks; "and as for being clever, I

don't know about that. I never was clever about drawing or Art, like

you."

"Oh, like me!" said poor little Rose, whose Career had been sacrificed

ten years ago, and who was a little misanthropical now, and did not

believe even in Schools of Design; "I am not so sure about the moral

influence of Art as I used to be--except High Art, to be sure; but we

never have any High Art down here. And oh, Lucilla! the poor people _do_

want something done for them. If I was as clever as you, and with a

great house all to myself like this, and well off, and with plenty of

influence, and no ties----" said Rose, with energetic emphasis. She made

a pause there, and she was so much in earnest that the tears came into

her eyes. "I would make it a House of Mercy, Lucilla! I would show all

these poor creatures how to live and how to manage, if I was as clever

as you; and teach them and their children, and look after them, and be

a mother to them!" said Rose; and here she stopped short, altogether

overcome by her own magnificent conception of what her friend could or

might do.

Aunt Jemima and Miss Brown, who had drawn near out of curiosity, stared

at Rose as if they thought she had gone mad; but Lucilla, who was of a

larger mind and more enlightened ideas, neither laughed nor looked

horrified. She did not make a very distinct answer, it is true, but she

was very kind to her new adviser, and made her a fresh cup of tea, and

even consented, though in an ambiguous way, to the principle she had

just enunciated, "If you won't be affronted, my dear," Lucilla said, "I

do not think that Art could do very much in Carlingford; and I am sure

any little thing that I may be of use for----" But she did not commit

herself any further, and Rose too found the result of her visit

unsatisfactory, and went home disappointed in Lucilla. This was how the

afternoon passed; and at the end of such a day, it may well be imagined

how Miss Marjoribanks congratulated herself on having made up her mind

before the public, so to speak, were admitted. For Rose was followed by

the Rector, who, though he did not propose in so many words a House of

Mercy, made no secret of his conviction that parish-work was the only

thing that could be of any service to Lucilla; and that, in short, such

was the inevitable and providential destination of a woman who had "no

ties." Indeed, to hear Mr Bury, a stranger would have been disposed to

believe that Dr Marjoribanks had been, as he said, "removed," and his

fortune swept away, all in order to indicate to Lucilla the proper

sphere for her energies. In the face of all this it will be seen how

entirely Miss Marjoribanks's wisdom in making her decision by herself

before her advisers broke in upon her, was justified. She could now set

her back against her rock, and face her assailants, as Fitz-James did.

Come one, come all, this rock shall fly

From its firm base as soon as I,

might have been her utterance; but she was not in a defiant mood. She

kissed all her counsellors that day (except, of course, the Rector), and

heard them out with the sweetest patience; and then she thought to

herself how much better it was that she had made up her mind to take her

own way.

Notwithstanding, all this commotion of public opinion about her made a

certain impression upon Miss Marjoribanks's mind. It was not unpleasant

to feel that, for this moment at least, she was the centre of the

thoughts of the community, and that almost everybody in Carlingford had

taken the trouble to frame an ideal existence for her, according as he

or she regarded life. It is so seldom that any one has it in his power,

consciously and evidently, to regulate his life for himself, and make it

whatever he wants it to be. And then, at the same time, the best that

she could make of it would, after all, be something very limited and

unsatisfactory. In her musings on this subject, Lucilla could not but go

back a great many times to that last conversation she had with her

father, when she walked up Grange Lane with him that night over the

thawed and muddy snow. The Doctor had said she was not cut out for a

single woman; and Lucilla, with candour, yet a certain philosophical

speculativeness, had allowed that she was not--unless, indeed, she could

be very rich. If she had been very rich, the prospect would no doubt

have been, to a certain extent, different. And then, oddly enough, it

was Rose Lake's suggestion which came after this to Lucilla's mind. She

did not smile at it as some people might expect she would. One thing was

quite sure, that she had no intention of sinking into a nobody, and

giving up all power of acting upon her fellow-creatures; and she could

not help being conscious of the fact that she was able to be of much use

to her fellow-creatures. If it had been Maria Brown, for instance, who

had been concerned, the whole question would have been one of utter

unimportance, except to the heroine itself; but it was different in Miss

Marjoribanks's case. The House of Mercy was not a thing to be taken into

any serious consideration; but still there was something in the idea

which Lucilla could not dismiss carelessly as her friends could. She had

no vocation, such as the foundress of such an establishment ought to

have, nor did she see her way to the abandonment of all projects for

herself, and that utter devotion to the cause of humanity which would be

involved in it; but yet, when a woman happens to be full of energy and

spirit, and determined that whatever she may be she shall certainly not

be a nonentity, her position is one that demands thought. She was very

capable of serving her fellow-creatures, and very willing and well

disposed to serve them; and yet she was not inclined to give herself up

entirely to them, nor to relinquish her personal prospects--vague

though these might be. It was a tough problem, and one which might have

caused a most unusual disturbance in Lucilla's well-regulated mind, had

not she remembered all at once what deep mourning she was in, and that

at present no sort of action, either of one kind or another, could be

expected of her. There was no need for making a final decision, either

about the parish-work, or about taking Inmates, as Aunt Jemima proposed,

or about any other single suggestion which had been offered to her; no

more than there was any necessity for asking what her cousin Tom's last

letter had been about, or why his mother looked so guilty and

embarrassed when she spoke of him. Grief has its privileges and

exemptions, like other great principles of life; and the recollection

that she could not at present be expected to be able to think about

anything, filled Lucilla's mind with the most soothing sense of

consolation and refreshing calm.

And then other events occurred to occupy her friends; the election for

one thing began to grow a little exciting, and took away some of the

superfluous energy of Grange Lane. Mr Ashburton had carried all before

him at first; but since the Rector had come into the field, the balance

had changed a little. Mr Bury was very Low-Church; and from the moment

at which he was persuaded that Mr Cavendish was a great penitent, the

question as to which was the Man for Carlingford had been solved in his

mind in the most satisfactory way. A man who intrenched himself in mere

respectability, and trusted in his own good character, and considered

himself to have a clear conscience, and to have done his duty, had no

chance against a repentant sinner. Mr Cavendish, perhaps, had not done

his duty quite so well; but then he was penitent, and everything was

expressed in that word. The Rector was by no means contemptible, either

as an adversary or a supporter--and the worst of it was that, in

embracing Mr Cavendish's claims, he could scarcely help speaking of Mr

Ashburton as if he was in a very bad way. And feeling began to rise

rather high in Carlingford. If anything could have deepened the

intensity of Miss Marjoribanks's grief, it would have been to know that

all this was going on, and that affairs might go badly with her

candidate, while she was shut up, and could give no aid. It was hard

upon her, and it was hard upon the candidates themselves--one of whom

had thus become generally disapproved of, without, so far as he knew,

doing anything to deserve it; while the other occupied the still more

painful character of being on his promotion--a repentant man, with a

character to keep up. It was no wonder that Mrs Centum grew pale at the

very idea of such a creature as Barbara Lake throwing herself in poor Mr

Cavendish's way. A wrong step one way or other--a relapse into the ways

of wickedness--might undo in a moment all that it had cost so much

trouble to do. And the advantage of the Rector's support was thus

grievously counterbalanced by what might be called the uncertainty of

it--especially as Mr Cavendish was not, as his committee lamented

secretly among themselves, a man of strong will or business habits, in

whom implicit confidence could be placed. He might get restive, and

throw the Rector over just at the critical moment; or he might relapse

into his lazy Continental habits, and give up church-going and other

good practices. But still, up to this moment, he had shown very

tolerable perseverance; and Mr Bury's influence thrown into his scale

had equalised matters very much, and made the contest very exciting. All

this Lucilla heard, not from Mr Cavendish, but from her own candidate,

who had taken to calling in a steady sort of way. He never went into any

effusions of sympathy, for he was not that kind of man; but he would

shake hands with her, and say that people must submit to the decrees of

Providence; and then he would speak of the election and of his chances.

Sometimes Mr Ashburton was despondent, and then Lucilla cheered him up;

and sometimes he had very good hopes.

"I am very glad you are to be here," he said on one of these occasions.

"It would have been a great loss to me if you had gone away. I shall

never forget our talk about it here _that_ day, and how you were the

first person that found me out."

"It was not any cleverness of mine," said Lucilla. "It came into my mind

in a moment, like spirit-rapping, you know. It seems so strange to talk

of that _now_; there have been such changes since then--it looks like

years."

"Yes," said Mr Ashburton, in his steady way. "There is nothing that

really makes time look so long; but we must all bow to these

dispensations, my dear Miss Marjoribanks. I would not speak of the

election, but that I thought it might amuse you. The writs are out now,

you know, and it takes place on Monday week."

Upon which Miss Marjoribanks smiled upon Mr Ashburton, and held out her

hands to him with a gesture and look which said more than words. "You

know you will have _all_ my best wishes," she said; and the candidate

was much moved--more moved than at such a moment he had thought it

possible to be.

"If I succeed, I know whom I shall thank the most," he said fervently;

and then, as this was a climax, and it would have been a kind of bathos

to plunge into ordinary details after it, Mr Ashburton got up, still

holding Lucilla's hand, and clasped it almost tenderly as he said

good-bye. She looked very well in her mourning, though she had not

expected to do so; for black was not Lucilla's style. And the fact was,

that instead of having gone off, as she herself said, Miss Marjoribanks

looked better than ever she did, and was even embellished by the natural

tears which still shone by times in her eyes. Mr Ashburton went out in a

kind of bewilderment after this interview, and forgot his overcoat in

the hall, and had to come back for it, which was a confusing

circumstance; and then he went on his way with a gentle excitement which

was not unpleasant. "Would she, I wonder?" he said to himself, as he

went up Grange Lane. Perhaps he was only asking himself whether Lucilla

would or could be present along with Lady Richmond and her family at the

window of the Blue Boar on the great day; but if that was it, the idea

had a certain brightening and quickening influence upon his face and his

movements. The doubt he had on the subject, whatever it was, was not a

discouraging, but a piquant, stimulating, exciting doubt. He had all but

proposed the question to his committee when he went in among them, which

would have filled these gentlemen with wonder and dismay. But though he

did not do that, he carried it home with him, as he trotted back to the

Firs to dinner. Mr Ashburton took a walk through his own house that

evening, and examined all its capabilities--with no particular motive,

as he was at pains to explain to his housekeeper; and again he said to

himself, "Would she, I wonder?" before he retired for the night; which

was no doubt an unusual sort of iteration for so sensible a man, and one

so fully occupied with the most important affairs, to make.

As for Lucilla, she was not in the way of asking herself any questions

at that moment. She was letting things take their course, and not

interfering; and consequently, nothing that happened could be said to be

her fault. She carried this principle so far, that even when Aunt Jemima

was herself led to open the subject, in a hesitating way, Miss

Marjoribanks never even asked a single question about Tom's last letter.

She was in mourning, and that was enough for her. As for appearing at

the window of the Blue Boar with Lady Richmond, if that was what Mr

Ashburton was curious about, he might have saved himself the trouble of

any speculations on the subject. For though Miss Marjoribanks would be

very anxious about the election, she would indeed have been ashamed of

herself could her feelings have permitted her to appear anywhere in

public so soon. Thus, while Mr Ashburton occupied himself much with the

question which had taken possession of his mind, Lucilla took a good

book, which seemed the best reading for her in her circumstances, and

when she had looked after all her straitened affairs in the morning, sat

down sweetly in the afternoon quiet of her retirement and seclusion, and

let things take their way.

_Chapter XLVII_

As the election approached, it became gradually the one absorbing object

of interest in Carlingford. The contest was so equal that everybody took

a certain share in it, and became excited as the decisive moment drew

nigh. Most of the people in Grange Lane were for Mr Ashburton, but then

the Rector, who was a host in himself, was for Mr Cavendish; and the

coquetting of the Dissenting interest, which was sometimes drawn towards

the liberal sentiments of the former candidate, but sometimes could not

help reflecting that Mr Ashburton "dealt" in George Street; and the

fluctuations of the bargemen, who were, many of them, freemen, and a

very difficult part of the population, excited the most vivid interest.

Young Mr Wentworth, who had but lately come to Carlingford, had already

begun to acquire a great influence at Wharfside, where most of the

bargees lived, and the steady ones would no doubt have been largely

swayed by him had his inclinations been the same as the Rector's; but Mr

Wentworth, perversely enough, had conceived that intuitive repugnance

for Mr Cavendish which a high-principled and not very tolerant young man

often feels for the middle-aged individual who still conceives himself

to have some right to be called young, and whose antecedents are not

entirely beyond suspicion. Mr Wentworth's disinclination (and he was a

man rather apt to take his own way) lay like a great boulder across the

stream of the Rector's enthusiasm, and unquestionably interrupted it a

little. Both the candidates and both the committees had accordingly work

enough to do up to the last moment. Mr Cavendish all at once became a

connoisseur in hams, and gave a magnificent order in the most

complimentary way to Tozer, who received it with a broad smile, and

"booked" it, as he said. "It ain't ham he's a wanting," the butterman

said, not without amusement; for Tozer was well-to-do, and, except that

he felt the honour of a mark of confidence, was not to be moved one way

or another by one order. "If he dealt regular, it might be different.

Them's the sort of folks as a man feels drawn to," said the true

philosopher. Mr Ashburton, on the other side, did not make the

impression which his friends thought he ought to have made in Prickett's

Lane; but at least nobody could say that he did not stick very close to

his work. He went at it like a man night and day, and neglected no means

of carrying it to a successful issue; whereas, as Mr Centum and Mr

Woodburn mourned in secret to each other, Cavendish required perpetual

egging on. He did not like to get up in the morning, and get early to

his work. It went against all his habits--as if his habits mattered in

the face of so great an emergency; and in the afternoon it was hard to

prevent him from lounging into some of his haunts, which were utterly

out of the way of business. He would stay in Masters's for an hour at a

time, though he knew Mr Wentworth, who was Masters's great patron, did

not care for him, and that his favour for such a Tractarian sort of

place was bitter to the Rector. Anything for a little idleness and waste

of time, poor Mr Centum said, who was two stone lighter on the eve of

the election than when the canvass began. Such a contrast would make any

man angry. Mr Cavendish was goaded into more activity as the decisive

moment approached, and performed what seemed to himself unparalleled

feats. But it was only two days before the moment of fate when the

accident happened to him which brought such dismay to all his

supporters. Our own opinion is, that it did not materially affect the

issue of the contest one way or other; but that was the reverse of the

feeling which prevailed in Grange Lane.

It was just two days before the election, and all seemed going on

sufficiently well. Mr Cavendish had been meeting a Dissenting committee,

and it was on leaving them that he found himself at the corner of Grove

Street, where, under ordinary circumstances, he had no occasion to be.

At a later period he was rather fond of saying that it was not of his

own motion that he was there at all, but only in obedience to the

committee, which ordered him about like a nigger. The spring afternoon

was darkening, and the Dissenters (almost wholly unimpressed by his

arguments, and remarking more strongly than ever where Mr Ashburton

"dealt," and how thoroughly everybody knew all about him) had all

dispersed. It was but natural, when Mr Cavendish came to the corner of

Grove Street, where, in other days, he had played a very different part,

that certain softening influences should take possession of his soul.

"What a voice she had, by Jove!" he said to himself; "very different

from that shrill pipe of Lucilla's." To tell the truth, if there was one

person in Carlingford whom he felt a resentment against, it was Lucilla.

She had never done him any harm to speak of, and once she had

unquestionably done him a great deal of good. But, on the other hand, it

was she who first showed herself candidly conscious that he had grown

stout, and who all along had supported and encouraged his rival. It was

possible, no doubt, that this might be pique; and, mixed with his anger

for her sins against him, Mr Cavendish had, at the same time, a

counterbalancing sense that there still remained to him in his life one

supereminently wise thing that he still could do--and that was, to go

down Grange Lane instantly to the Doctor's silenced house, and go down

on his knees, or do any other absurdity that might be necessary to make

Lucilla marry him; after which act he would henceforward be, pecuniarily

and otherwise (notwithstanding that she was poor), a saved man. It did

not occur to him that Lucilla would never have married him, even had he

gone down on his knees; but perhaps that would be too much to ask any

man to believe of any woman; and his feeling that this was the right

thing to do, rather strengthened than otherwise the revolt of his heart

against Lucilla. It was twilight, as we have said, and he had done a

hard day's work, and there was still an hour before dinner which he

seemed to have a right to dispose of in his own way; and he did

hesitate at the corner of Grove Street, laying himself open, as it were,

to any temptation that might offer itself. Temptations come, as a

general rule, when they are sought; and thus, on the very eve of the

election, a grievous accident happened to Mr Cavendish. It might have

happened at any time, to be sure, but this was the most inopportune

moment possible, and it came accordingly now.

For, as he made that pause, some one passed him whom he could not but

look after with a certain interest. She went past him with a whisk, as

if she too was not without reminiscences. It was not such a figure as a

romantic young man would be attracted by on such a sudden meeting, and

it was not attraction but recollection that moved Mr Cavendish. It was

the figure of a large woman in a large shawl, not very gracefully put

on, and making her look very square about the shoulders and bunchy at

the neck; and the robe that was whisked past him was that peculiar kind

of faded silk gown which looks and rustles like tin, or some other thin

metallic substance. He made that momentary pause at the street corner,

and then he went on, slowly, not following her, to be sure, but merely,

as he said to himself, pursuing his own course; for it was just as easy

to get into Grange Lane by the farther end as by this end. He went along

very slowly, and the lady before him walked quickly, even with something

like a bounce of excitement, and went in at Mr Lake's door long before

Mr Cavendish reached it. When he came up on a level with the parlour

window, which was partially open though the evening was so cold, Mr

Cavendish positively started, notwithstanding the old associations which

had been rising in his mind; for there was pouring forth from the

half-open window such a volume of melody as had not been heard for years

in Grove Street. Perhaps the voice had lost some of its freshness, but

in the surprise of the moment the hearer was not critical; and its

volume and force seemed even greater than before.

It has been already mentioned in this history that a contralto had a

special charm for Mr Cavendish. He was so struck that he stood

stock-still for the moment, not knowing what to make of it; and then he

wavered for another moment, with a sudden sense that the old allegorical

crisis had occurred to him, and that Pleasure, in a magnificent gush of

song, wooed him on one side, while Duty, with still small voice, called

him at the other. He stood still, he wavered--for fifty seconds perhaps

the issue was uncertain, and the victim was still within reach of

salvation; but the result in such a case depends very much upon whether

a man really likes doing his duty, which is by no means an invariable

necessity. Mr Cavendish had in the abstract no sort of desire to do his

unless when he could not help it, and consequently his resistance to

temptation was very feeble. He was standing knocking at Mr Lake's door

before half the thoughts appropriate to the occasion had got through his

mind, and found himself sitting on the little sofa in Mr Lake's parlour

as he used to do ten years ago, before he could explain to himself how

he came there. It was all, surely, a kind of enchantment altogether. He

was there--he who had been so long away from Carlingford--he who had

been so deeply offended by hearing his name seriously coupled with that

of Barbara Lake--he who ought to have been anywhere in the world rather

than here upon the eve of his election, when all the world was keeping

watch over his conduct. And it was Barbara who sat at the piano

singing--singing one of the same songs, as if she had spent the entire

interval in that occupation, and never had done anything else all these

years. The sensation was so strange that Mr Cavendish may be excused for

feeling a little uncertainty as to whether or not he was dreaming, which

made him unable to answer himself the graver question whether or not he

was doing what he ought to do. He did not seem to be able to make out

whether it was now or ten years ago--whether he was a young man free to

amuse himself, or a man who was getting stout, and upon whom the eyes of

an anxious constituency were fixed. And then, after being so virtuous

for a length of time, a forbidden pleasure was sweet.

Mr Cavendish's ideas, however, gradually arranged themselves as he sat

in the corner of the little haircloth sofa, and began to take in the

differences as well as the bewildering resemblances of the present and

past. Barbara, like himself, had changed. She did not insult him, as

Lucilla had done, by fresh looks and mischievous candour about "going

off." Barbara _had_ gone off, like himself, and, like himself, did not

mean to acknowledge it. She had expanded all over, as was natural to a

contralto. Her eyes were blacker and more brilliant in a way, but they

were eyes which owned an indescribable amount of usage; and her cheeks,

too, wore the deep roses of old, deepened and fixed by wear and tear.

Instead of feeling ashamed of himself in her presence, as he had done in

Lucilla's, Mr Cavendish felt somehow consoled and justified and

sympathetic. "Poor soul!" he said to himself, as he sat by while she was

singing. She, too, had been in the wars, and had not come out

scatheless. She did not reproach him, nor commiserate him, nor look at

him with that mixture of wonder and tolerance and pity which other

people had manifested. She did not even remark that he had grown stout.

He was not a man fallen, fallen, fallen from his high estate, to

Barbara. She herself had fallen from the pinnacles of youth, and Mr

Cavendish was still a great man in her eyes. She sang for him as she had

sung ten years ago, and received him with a flutter of suppressed

delight, and in her satisfaction was full of excitement. The hardworked

candidate sank deeper and deeper into the corner of the sofa and

listened to the music, and felt it very soothing and pleasant, for

everybody had united in goading him on rather than petting him for the

last month or two of his life.

"Now tell me something about yourself," he said, when the song was over,

and Barbara had turned round, as she used to do in old times, on her

music-stool; "I hear you have been away, like me."

"Not like you," said Barbara, "for you went because you pleased, and I

went----"

"Why did you go?" asked Mr Cavendish.

"Because I could not stay here any longer," said Barbara, with her

old vehemence; "because I was talked about, and looked down upon,

and----Well, never mind, that's all over now; and I am sure I am very

glad to see you, Mr Cavendish, as a _friend_."

And with that something like a tear came into her eye. She had been

knocked about a good deal in the world, and though she had not learned

much, still she had learned that she was young no longer, and could not

indulge in the caprices of that past condition of existence. Mr

Cavendish, for his part, could not but smile at this intimation that he

was to be received as a friend, and consequently need not have any fear

of Barbara's fascinations,--as if a woman of her age, worn and gone off

as she was, could be supposed dangerous; but still he was touched by her

tone.

"We were once very good friends, Barbara," said the inconsistent man;

"we have lost sight of each other for a long time, as people do in this

world; but we were once very good friends."

"Yes," she said, with a slight touch of annoyance in her voice; "but

since we have lost sight of each other for so long, I don't see why you

should call me Barbara. It would be much more becoming to say Miss

Lake."

Mr Cavendish was amused, and he was touched and flattered. Most people

had been rather forbearing to him since he came back, putting up with

him for old friendship's sake, or supporting his cause as that of a

reformed man, and giving him, on the whole, a sort of patronising

humiliating countenance; and to find somebody in whose eyes he was still

the paladin of old times, _the_ Mr Cavendish whom people in Grange Lane

were proud of, was balm to his wounded soul.

"I don't know how I am to learn to say Miss Lake--when you are just as

good to me as ever, and sing as you have just been doing," he said. "I

suppose you say so because you find me so changed?"

Upon which Barbara lifted her black eyes and looked at him as she had

scarcely done before. The eyes were as bright as ever, and they were

softened a little for the moment out of the stare that seemed to have

grown habitual to them; and her crimson cheeks glowed as of old; and

though she was untidy, and looked worn, and like a creature much

buffeted about by wind and waves, she was still what connoisseurs in

that article call a fine woman. She looked full at Mr Cavendish, and

then she cast down her eyes, as if the sight was too much for her. "I

don't see any difference," she said, with a certain tremor in her voice;

for he was a man of whom, in the days of her youth, she had been fond in

her way.

And naturally Mr Cavendish was more touched than ever. He took her hand,

and called her Barbara again without any reproof; and he saw that she

trembled, and that his presence here made to the full as great an

impression as he had ever done in his palmiest days. Perhaps a greater

impression; for their old commerce had been stormy, and interrupted by

many a hurricane; and Barbara then had, or thought she might have, many

strings to her bow, and did not believe that there was only one Mr

Cavendish in the world. Now all that was changed: and if this old hope

should revive again, it would not be allowed to die away for any

gratification of temper. Mr Cavendish did not remember ever to have seen

her tremble before, and he too was fond of her in his way.

This curious revival did not come to anything of deeper importance, for

of course just then Rose came in from her household affairs, and Mr Lake

to tea; and the candidate recollected that it was time for dinner. But

father and sister also gave him, in their different ways, a rather

flattering reception. Mr Lake had already pledged him his vote, and was

full of interest as to how things were going on, and enthusiastic for

his success; and Rose scowled upon him as of old, as on a dangerous

character, whose comings and goings could not be seen without

apprehension; which was an unexpected pleasure to a man who had been

startled to find how very little commotion his presence made in Grange

Lane. He pressed Barbara's hand as he went away, and went to his dinner

with a heart which certainly beat lighter, and a more pleasant sense of

returning self-confidence, than he had felt for a long time. When he was

coming out of the house, as a matter of course, he met with the chief of

his Dissenting supporters, accompanied (for Mr Bury, as has been said,

was very Low-Church, and loved, wherever he could do it, to work in

unison with his Dissenting brethren) by the Rector's churchwarden, both

of whom stopped with a curiously critical air to speak to the Candidate,

who had to be every man's friend for the time being. The look in their

eyes sent an icy chill through him, but still the forbidden pleasure had

been sweet. As he walked home, he could not help thinking it over, and

going back ten years, and feeling a little doubtful about it, whether it

was then or now. And as he mused Miss Marjoribanks, whom he could not

help continually connecting and contrasting with the other, appeared to

him as a kind of jealous Queen Eleanor, who had a right to him, and

could take possession at any time, should she choose to make the effort;

while Barbara was a Rosamond, dilapidated indeed, but always ready to

receive and console him in her bower. This was the kind of unconscious

sentiment he had in his mind, feeling sure, as he mused, that Lucilla

would be very glad to marry him, and that it would be very wise on his

part to ask her, and was a thing which might still probably come to

pass. Of course he could not see into Miss Marjoribanks's mind, which

had travelled such a long way beyond him. He gave a glance up at the

windows as he passed her door, and felt a kind of disagreeable

satisfaction in seeing how diminished the lights were in the once

radiant house. And Lucilla was so fond of a great deal of light! but

she could not afford now to spend as much money upon wax as a

Continental church might do. Mr Cavendish had so odd a sense of

Lucilla's power over him, that it gave him a certain pleasure to think

of the coming down of her pride and diminution of her lights.

But the fact was, that not more than ten minutes after he had passed her

door with this reflection, Lucilla, sitting with her good book on the

table and her work in her hand, in the room which was not so well

lighted as it used to be, heard that Mr Cavendish had been met with

coming out of Mr Lake's, and that Barbara had been singing to him, and

that there was no telling what might have happened. "A man ain't the man

for Carlingford as takes up with that sort," Thomas said indignantly,

who had come to pay his former mistress a visit, and to assure her of

his brother-in-law's vote. He was a little more free-spoken than of old,

being now set up, and an independent householder, and calling no man

master; and he was naturally indignant at an occurrence which, regarded

in the light of past events, was an insult not only to Carlingford, but

to Lucilla. Miss Marjoribanks was evidently startled by the news. She

looked up quickly as if she had been about to speak, and then stopped

herself and turned her back upon Thomas, and poked the fire in a most

energetic way. She had even taken the hearth-brush in her hand to make

all tidy after this onslaught, but that was a thing that went to

Thomas's heart.

"I couldn't stand by and see it, Miss Lucilla," said Thomas; "it don't

feel natural;" and there was actually a kind of moisture in his eye as

he took that domestic implement out of her hand. Mr Cavendish pitied

Lucilla for having less light than of old, and Thomas for being reduced

so low as to sweep her own hearth. But Lucilla was very far from pitying

her own case. She had been making an effort over herself, and she had

come out of it triumphant; after reading so many good books, it is not

to be wondered at if she felt herself a changed and softened and

elevated character. She had the means in her hands of doing her

candidate's rival a deadly mischief, and yet, for old friendship's sake,

Lucilla made up her mind to forbear.

"I will give it you, Thomas," she said, with dignity, holding the

hearth-brush, which was in such circumstances elevated into something

sublime, "if you will promise, never, until after the election--never

to say a word about Mr Cavendish and Miss Lake. It was quite right to

tell me, and you are very kind about the hearth; but you must promise

never to say a syllable about it, not even to Nancy, until the election

is over; or I will never give it you, nor ask you to do a single thing

for me again."

Thomas was so much struck with this address that he said "Good Lord!" in

sheer amazement; and then he made the necessary vow, and took the

hearth-brush out of Lucilla's hand.

"No doubt he was asking for Mr Lake's vote," said Miss Marjoribanks.

"They say everybody is making great exertions, and you know they are

both my friends. I ought to be pleased whoever wins. But it is impressed

on my mind that Mr Ashburton will be the man," Lucilla added, with a

little solemnity, "and, Thomas, we must give them fair-play."

It would be vain to assert that Thomas understood this romantic

generosity, but he was taken by surprise, and had relinquished his own

liberty in the matter, and had nothing further to say. Indeed he had so

little to say downstairs, that Nancy, who was longing for a little

gossip, insulted and reviled him, and declared that since he took up

with _that_ Betsy there never was a sensible word to be got out of him.

And all the time the poor man was burning with this bit of news. Many a

man has bartered his free-will before under the influence of female

wiles, or so at least history would have us believe; but few have done

it for so poor a compensation as that hearth-brush. Thomas withdrew sore

at heart, longing for the election to be over, and kept his word like an

honest man; but notwithstanding, before the evening was over, the fatal

news was spreading like fire to every house in Grange Lane.

_Chapter XLVIII_

It is probable that Mr Cavendish considered the indulgence above

recorded all the more excusable in that it was Saturday night. The

nomination was to take place on Monday, and if a man was not to be

supposed to be done with his work on the Saturday evening, when could he

be expected to have a moment of repose? He had thought as he went

home--for naturally, while putting himself so skilfully in the way of

temptation, such questions had not entered into his mind--that the fact

of to-morrow being Sunday would effectually neutralise any harm he could

have been supposed to have done by a visit so simple and natural, and

that neither his sister nor his committee, the two powers of which he

stood in a certain awe, could so much as hear of it until the election

was over, and all decided for good or for evil. This had been a comfort

to his mind, but it was the very falsest and most deceitful consolation.

That intervening Sunday was a severer calamity for Mr Cavendish than

half a dozen ordinary days. The general excitement had risen so high,

and all the chances on both sides had been so often discussed and

debated, that something new was as water in the desert to the thirsting

constituency. The story was all through Grange Lane that very night, but

Carlingford itself, from St Roque's to the wilderness of the North End,

tingled with it next morning. It is true, the Rector made no special

allusion to it in his sermon, though the tone of all his services was so

sad, and his own fine countenance looked so melancholy, that Mr Bury's

devoted followers could all see that he had something on his mind. But

Mr Tufton at Salem Chapel was not so reticent. He was a man quite famous

for his extempore gifts, and who rather liked to preach about any very

recent public event, which it was evident to all his hearers could not

have found place in a "prepared" discourse; and his sermon that morning

was upon wickedness in high places, upon men who sought the confidence

of their fellows only to betray it, and offered to the poor man a hand

red with his sister's (metaphorical) blood.

But it would be wrong to say that this was the general tone of public

opinion in Grove Street; most people, on the contrary, thought of Mr

Cavendish not as a wolf thirsting for the lamb's blood, but rather

himself as a kind of lamb caught in the thicket, and about to be offered

up in sacrifice. Such was the impression of a great many influential

persons who had been wavering hitherto, and inclining on the whole to Mr

Cavendish's liberal principles and supposed Low-Church views. A man

whose hand is red metaphorically with your sister's blood is no doubt a

highly objectionable personage; but it is doubtful whether, under the

circumstances, an enlightened constituency might not consider the man

who had given a perfectly unstained hand to so thoroughly unsatisfactory

a sister as more objectionable still; and the indignation of Grange Lane

at Barbara's reappearance was nothing to the fury of George Street, and

even of Wharfside, where the bargees began to scoff openly. Society had

nothing worse to say than to quote Mrs Chiley, and assert that "these

artist people were all adventurers"; and then Grange Lane in general

could not forget that it "had met" Barbara, nor dismiss from its

consideration her black eyes, her level brows, and her magnificent

contralto; whereas in the other region the idea of the Member for

Carlingford marrying "that sort!" cast all the world into temporary

delirium. It was a still more deadly offence to the small people than to

the great. And the exceptional standing which poor Mr Lake and his

daughter Rose used to lay claim to--the "rank of their own" which they

possessed as artists--was a pretension much more disagreeable to the

shopkeepers than to society in general. Thus in every sense Mr Cavendish

had done the very worst for himself by his ill-timed indulgence; and his

guilt was about the same with most of his critics whether he meant

perfectly well and innocently, or entertained the most guilty intentions

ever conceived by man.

And all his misfortunes were increased by the fact that the intervening

day was a Sunday. Barbara Lake herself, who did not know what people

were saying, and who, if she had known, would not have cared, came to

church, as was natural, in the morning; and under pretence that the

family pew was full, had the assurance, as people remarked, to come to

the middle aisle, in that same silk dress which rustled like tin, and

made more demonstration than the richest draperies. The pew-opener

disapproved of her as much as everybody else did, but she could not turn

the intruder out; and though Barbara had a long time to wait, and was

curiously inspected by all the eyes near her while she did so, the end

was that she got a seat in her rustling silk not very far from where

Lucilla sat in deep mourning, a model of every righteous observance. As

for poor Barbara, she too was very exemplary in church. She meant nobody

any harm, poor soul. She could not help the flashing of those big black

eyes, to which the level line above them gave such a curious appearance

of obliqueness--nor was it to be expected that she should deny herself

the use of her advantages, or omit to "take the second" in all the

canticles with such melodious liquid tones as made everybody stop and

look round. She had a perfect right to do it; indeed it was her duty, as

it is everybody's duty, to aid to the best of their ability in the

church-music of their parish, which was what Lucilla Marjoribanks

persisted in saying in answer to all objections. But the effect was

great in the congregation, and even the Rector himself was seen to

change colour as his eye fell upon the unlucky young woman. Mr

Cavendish, for his part, knew her voice the moment he heard it, and gave

a little start, and received such a look from his sister, who was

standing by him, as turned him to stone. Mrs Woodburn looked at him, and

so did her husband, and Mr Centum turned a solemnly inquiring

reproachful gaze upon him from the other side of the aisle. "Oh, Harry,

you will kill me with vexation! why, for goodness' sake, did you let her

come?" his sister whispered when they had all sat down again. "Good

heavens! how could I help it?" cried poor Mr Cavendish, almost loud

enough to be heard. And then by the slight, almost imperceptible, hum

around him, he felt that not only his sister and his committee, but the

Rector and all Carlingford, had their eyes upon him, and was thankful to

look up the lesson, poor man, and bury his face in it. It was a hard

punishment for the indiscretion of an hour.

But perhaps of all the people concerned it was the Rector who was the

most to be pitied. He had staked his honour upon Mr Cavendish's

repentance, and here was he going back, publicly to wallow in the

mire--and it was Sunday when such a worldly subject ought not to be

permitted to enter a good man's mind, much less to be discussed and

acted upon as it ought to be if anything was to be done; for there was

little more than this sacred day remaining in which to undo the mischief

which a too great confidence in human nature had wrought. And then, to

tell the truth, the Rector did not know how to turn back. It would have

been hard, very hard, to have told all the people who confided in him

that he had never had any stronger evidence for Mr Cavendish's

repentance than he now had for his backsliding; and to give in, and let

the other side have it all their own way, and throw over the candidate

with whom he had identified himself, was as painful to Mr Bury as if,

instead of being very Low-Church, he had been the most muscular of

Christians. Being in this state of mind, it may be supposed that his

sister's mild wonder and trembling speculations at lunch, when they were

alone together, were well qualified to raise some sparks of that old

Adam, who, though well kept under, still existed in the Rector's, as in

most other human breasts.

"But, dear Edward, I would not quite condemn him," Miss Bury said. "He

has been the cause of a good deal of remark, you know, and the poor girl

has been talked about. He may think it is his duty to make her amends.

For anything we can tell, he may have the most honourable

intentions----"