_Chapter XXVIII_
Lucilla prepared her toilette the next evening, to take tea with theLakes, with greater care than she would have spent upon a party of muchgreater pretensions. She was, to be sure, dressed as usual in the whitedress, _high_, which she had brought into fashion in Carlingford; butthen that simple evening toilette required many adjuncts which were notnecessary on other occasions, seeing that this time she was going towalk to her destination, and had in her mind the four distinct aims ofpleasing Rose, of dazzling Barbara, of imposing upon Mr Cavendish, and,finally, of being, as always, in harmony with _herself_. She was aspunctual to the hour and minute of her engagement as if she had been aqueen; and, indeed, it was with a demeanour as gracious that she enteredthe little house in Grove Street, where, naturally, there had been alsosundry preparations made for her visit. Mr Lake himself, who hadpostponed his usual walk, and was taking his tea an hour later thanusual, received his young visitor with all the suavity natural to him;and as for Barbara, she did the honours with a certain suppressedexultation and air of triumph, which proved to Lucilla that her plan wasindeed an inspiration of genius. As for Rose, it would be impossible todescribe what were her sensations. Her faith still failed her at thatmomentous hour. She was sceptical of Lucilla, and naturally of all theworld, and regarded everybody with jealous scrutiny and expectation anddistrust, as was natural to a young conspirator. She was profoundlyexcited and curious to know what Miss Marjoribanks meant to do; and atthe same time she did not believe in Miss Marjoribanks, and was almostdisposed to betray and interfere with her, if such treachery had beenpossible. It was Rose Lucilla specially came to visit, and yet Rose wasthe only one who was cool to her, and did not seem fully to appreciateher condescension; but then, happily, Miss Marjoribanks was magnanimous,and at the same time had a purpose to support her, which was much morecomprehensive and of larger application than anything that had enteredinto the mind of Rose Lake.
"I am proud to see you in my house, Miss Marjoribanks," said Mr Lake. "Ihave always considered your excellent father one of my best friends. Iam not able to give my children the same advantages, but I have alwaysbrought them up not to have any false pride. We have no wealth; but wehave some things which cannot be purchased by wealth," said thedrawing-master, with mild grandeur; and he looked round upon the wallsof his parlour, which were hung with his own drawings, and where one ofWillie's held the place of honour. In all Carlingford there was no otherhouse that enjoyed a similar distinction; and, consequently, it was witha delicious sense of chivalrous deference yet equality that theexceptional man of Grove Street received the young sovereign of GrangeLane.
"I am so glad to come, Mr Lake," said Lucilla. "It is so nice to beamong such old friends; and, besides that, you know there never was anyvoice that suited mine like Barbara's; and that dear old Rose was alwaysmy pet at Mount Pleasant. I should have come long ago if anybody hadever asked me," said Miss Marjoribanks. And as for Mr Lake, he was sooverpowered by this implied reproach upon his hospitality that hescarcely knew how to reply.
"My dear Miss Marjoribanks, if you have not been asked it has been fromno want of--of goodwill," said Mr Lake anxiously. "I do not know whatthe girls can have been thinking of. You see Rose's genius takes anotherline; and Barbara, naturally, has a great many things to think of; butin the future, I hope----"
"Oh, yes; I shall come without being asked," said Lucilla. And when thetea came it was all she could do to keep herself quiet, and rememberthat she was a visitor, and not take it out of the incapable hands ofBarbara, who never gave her father the right amount of sugar in his tea.To tell the truth, Barbara's thoughts were occupied by a very differentsubject; and even Rose had but little attention to spare for her papa'scomforts at that special moment. But Lucilla's larger mind embracedeverything. She sat with her very fingers itching to cut thebread-and-butter for him, and give him a cup of tea as he liked it; andasked herself, with indignation, what was the use of that greatcreature, with her level eyebrows and her crimson bloom, who could nottake the trouble to remember that three lumps was what Mr Lake liked.Miss Marjoribanks had never taken tea with him before; but his secondcup, had she dispensed it, would have been exactly to his taste--whichwas a thing Barbara had not learned to make it in all these years. Nowonder that a certain sense of contemptuous indignation arose for onemoment, even in the calm and impartial bosom of genius. Perhaps Rosewould not have done much better; but then Rose was good for somethingelse, which was always a set-off on the other side. Thus it will be seenthat Lucilla had a respect for use, even of a kind which in her ownperson she did not much appreciate, as became a person of a trulyenlightened mind; but a creature who was of no earthly good irritatedher well-regulated spirit; for, to be sure, the possession of a finecontralto (which is, at the same time, not fine enough to be made use ofprofessionally) is not a matter of sufficient moment in this world toexcuse a young woman for not knowing how to give her father acomfortable cup of tea.
It was nearly nine o'clock before Mr Lake went out for his walk, and bythat time it was almost dark, and the lamp outside was lighted, whichwas not far from the door. Lucilla had taken a seat near the window,with the view of witnessing everything; and it cannot be denied that shefelt a little excited when Barbara went out of the room after herfather, leaving Rose alone with her guest. Miss Marjoribanks's heartgave a beat or two the more in the first minute, though before the nexthad passed it had fallen into its usual measure. There were no candlesas yet in the parlour, and Grove Street--or at least the bit of itwhich lay before the window, lighted by the lamp outside, and relievedagainst a little square of bluish-green sky which intervened betweenMiss Hemmings's house and that of old Mr Wrangle on the oppositeside--was very clear to the interested spectator. There was nobodyvisible but an organ-man, who was grinding a popular melody verydolorously out of his box, in what Rose would have called the middledistance; and beyond, Miss Jane Hemmings looking out of the longstaircase window, and three little boys in different attitudesbelow,--that is, if one did not count a tall figure which, perhaps withthe view of listening to the music of the organ, was coming and going ina limited circuit round the light of the lamp.
"How convenient it is to have the lamp so near," said Lucilla. "Oh,don't light any candles, please; it is so nice to sit in the dark. Whereis Barbara, I wonder? Let us have some music, and put down that dreadfulorgan. I hope she has not gone out. And where are you, you sulky littleRose?"
"She has gone upstairs," said Rose, who began to feel all the enormityof her conduct in thus betraying her sister. "I hate sitting in thedark. I hate being a spy; come in from the window, Lucilla, now you arehere----"
"My dear Rose," said Miss Marjoribanks, "I think you forget a little.For my part I do not understand what being a spy means. Barbara knowsvery well I am here. I should scorn to take an advantage of anybody, formy part. If she does not bring him past the very window, and under myeyes--Ah, yes, that is just what I thought," said Lucilla, with gentlesatisfaction. But by this time poor little Rose had roused herself intoan innocent fury.
"What is just as you thought?" said Rose, laying an impatient grasp onMiss Marjoribanks's arm. "Come in from the window, Lucilla, thismoment--this moment! Oh, me, to think it should be my doing! Oh,Lucilla, don't be so mean and shabby and wretched. I tell you to comein--come in directly! If you do not shut the window, and come and sithere in the corner, I will never, never speak to you again!"
Miss Marjoribanks, as was natural, took no notice of this childish fury.She was sitting just where she had been sitting all the evening, withinsight of the street lamp and the organ-grinder, and Miss Jane Hemmingsat the staircase window;--just where Barbara had placed her, and wherethat young woman calculated on finding her, when she made a promenade oftriumph up the partially lighted street by the side of her clandestinesuitor. Perhaps Barbara had seen Miss Jane as well, and knew that publicopinion was thus watching over her; but at all events she was not at allashamed of herself, or indignant at being spied upon. On the contrary,i
t was a kind of apotheosis for Barbara, only second to the grand andcrowning triumph which would be accomplished in Carlingford Church underthe shadow of that veil of real Brussels, which grew more and more realevery day. Thus neither the actors in the drama, nor the principalspectator, were in the smallest degree disturbed by horror or shame orsense of guilt, excepting always the fanciful little Rose, who sufferedfor everybody; who could have wished that the earth would open andswallow up Barbara and her lover; who could have slaughtered Lucilla onthe spot, and given herself over to any kind of torture for hertreachery. Naturally nobody paid any sort of attention to Rose. Barbara,for her part, took her admirer's arm in the twilight with a swelling ofexultation, which the gaining of the very highest prize in thedepartment of ornamental art could scarcely have conveyed to the bosomof the little artist; and Lucilla put back her small assailant softlywith her hand, and smoothed down her ruffled plumes.
"My dear, it is Miss Hemmings that is spying," said Lucilla; "and poorBarbara would be so disappointed if I were to go away from the window.Have patience just a little longer--there's a dear. It is all exactly asI thought."
And then there followed a pause, which was a terrible pause for Rose.The organ-grinder stopped his doleful ditty, and there was scarcely anysound to be heard in the street except the footsteps approaching andretiring, the measured tread of two people occupied with each other,going now more slowly, now more quickly, as the humour seized them, oras their conversation grew in interest; even the sound of their voicescame by times to the auditors--Barbara's with an occasional laugh ortone of triumph, and the other deeper, with which Rose had but littleacquaintance, but which was perfectly known to Lucilla. All this time,while her companion sat panting in the dark corner, Miss Marjoribankswas looking to the joints of her harness, and feeling the edge of herweapons. For, after all, it was no small enterprise upon which she wasgoing forth. She was going to denounce the faithless knight to his face,and take him out of the hands of the enchantress; but then she herselfmeant to take him in hand, and show him his true dangers, and vindicatehis honour. A more disinterested enterprise was never undertaken by anyknight-errant. Yet, at the same time, Lucilla could not helpentertaining a certain involuntary contempt for the man who had desertedher own standard to put himself under that of Barbara Lake, and who wasbeing paraded up and down here without knowing it, to gratify the vanityof his new sovereign, and make an exhibition of his weakness. Lucillawould have been more than mortal if she had not felt the differencebetween her own rule, which would have been all to his good, and thepurely egotistical sway of Barbara; and even in her magnanimous mind, itwas impossible that pity itself should not be mingled with a certaindisdain.
She sat quite still for so long that Barbara grew intoxicated with hertriumph. "It is perhaps the last time," Lucilla said to herself, with amovement of compassion; and the breadth of her human sympathy was suchthat she waited till the very latest moment, and let the deluded youngwoman have the full enjoyment of her imaginary victory. Then MissMarjoribanks rose with a certain solemnity, and put on her hat, and gavean unappreciated kiss to Rose, who kept in her corner. "Good-night; I amgoing," said Lucilla. The words were simple enough, but yet they rang inRose's ears like the signal of a conspiracy. When the calm leader of theexpedition went forth, sensible of the importance of her mission, buttranquil as great minds always are in a moment of danger, Rose got uptoo and followed, trembling in every limb. She was capable of havingthrown herself upon the spears in her own person in a sudden _elan_ ofindignation and passion; but she was not capable of waiting till theright moment, and meeting her antagonists in reasonable combat. MissMarjoribanks went out deliberately, without any unnecessary haste,sweeping into the dusky twilight with her virginal white draperies. Itwas a very ordinary scene, and yet, even in the midst of her excitement,Rose could not help observing involuntarily its pictorial qualities--ifonly any painter could have transferred to his canvas the subduedmusical hum of surrounding life, the fragrance of the mignonette, andthe peaceful stillness of the summer night. The sky shone outgreen-blue, lambent and wistful, from the vacant space between MissHemmings's and Mr Wrangle's, and there were the dusky twilight shadowsbelow, and the yellow gleam of the lamp, and Barbara's exulting,triumphant figure, and the white robes of the avenging angel. Rose couldnot have observed all this if she had not been stilled into a kind ofbreathless awe by the solemn character of the situation, which struckher as being somehow like one of Millais's pictures. As for the lovers,they had just turned at the moment that Miss Marjoribanks came out, andconsequently met her straight in the face, as she stood suave andsmiling at the little garden door.
"It _is_ Mr Cavendish," said Lucilla; "I am so glad; I have been hopingand trying to see you for ever so long; and as soon as ever I heard youtalking I felt sure it was your voice."
This was the greeting she addressed to Barbara Lake's lover. For hispart he stood before her, growing red and growing pale, struck dumb bythe unlooked-for meeting, and with such a sense of being ashamed ofhimself as never before had entered his mind, though, no doubt, he haddone worse actions in his day. Even Barbara had not calculated upon thisopen encounter; and instead of giving him any assistance, as was awoman's duty in such a case, she only tossed her head, and giggled withan embarrassment which was more pride than shame. As for Mr Cavendish,he would have liked to disappear under the pavement, if it had beenpossible. For once he and Rose were agreed. If a gulf had opened beforehim, he would have jumped into it without ever pausing to ask himselfwhy. And yet all the time Miss Marjoribanks was looking as placid as ifshe had been in her own drawing-room, and expecting his reply to herfriendly observations. When he realised that he ought to say something,Mr Cavendish felt that he had as much need to wipe his forehead as everthe Archdeacon had. He turned hot and cold, and felt his mind and histongue frozen, and could not find a word to say. With a sudden horror hewoke up, like one of Comus's revellers, and found himself changed intothe likeness of the creature he consorted with. If he had found an ass'shead on his shoulders, he could not have felt more startled andhorrified than when he heard himself, in the imbecility of the moment,giggle like Barbara, and answer to Lucilla's remark, "Oh! yes, it was myvoice."
"I am very sorry to separate you from Barbara," said Miss Marjoribanks;"but she is at home, you know, and I want so much to talk to you.Barbara, good-night; I want Mr Cavendish to walk home with me. Rose,don't stand in the garden and catch cold; thank you, dear, for such apleasant evening," said Lucilla, pressing another kiss upon her littlefriend's unwilling cheek. When she had done this, she put out her handto Barbara, and passed her, sweeping her white garments through thenarrow gateway. She took Mr Cavendish's arm as if he had been a youngbrother come to fetch her. "Let us go round by the chapel," said MissMarjoribanks, "I have so much to say to you. Be sure to practise forThursday, Barbara, and bid your papa good-night for me." This was howshe carried off Mr Cavendish finally out of Barbara's very fingers, andunder her very eyes.
When the two sisters were left standing together at the door, they coulddo nothing but stare at each other in the extremity of their amazement.Rose, for her part, remained but a moment, and then, feeling by far theguiltiest and most miserable of the whole party, ran upstairs to her ownroom and cried as if her heart would break. Barbara, on the contrary,who was past crying, stood still at the door, and watched Lucilla'swhite dress disappearing on the way to Grange Lane with indescribableemotions. A young woman cannot call the police, or appeal to the crier,when it is her lover whom she has lost: but to see him carried off bythe strong hand--to watch him gradually going away and disappearing fromher eyes--to hear his steps withdrawing into the distance--was such atrial as few are called upon to bear. She stood and looked after him,and could not believe her eyes. And then it was all so sudden--an affairof a moment. Barbara could not realise how the world had turned round,and this revolution had been effected;--one minute she had been leaningon his arm triumphant, making a show and exhibition of him in the prideof her heart, though
he did not know it; and the next was not shestanding here watching him with a blank countenance and a despairingheart, while Lucilla had pounced upon him and carried him off in hercruel grasp? The blow was so sudden, that Barbara stood speechless andmotionless till the two departing figures had vanished in the darkness.Would he come back again to-morrow, or was he gone for ever and ever?Such were the thoughts of the forsaken maiden, as she stood paralysedunder this sudden change of fortune, at her father's door. If some cruelspectator had thrown into the fire that Brussels veil with which herimagination had so long played, and Barbara had stood heart-struck,watching the filmy tissue dissolve into ashes before her eyes, her senseof sudden anguish could not have been more acute. Yet, after all,Barbara's pangs were nothing to those of Mr Cavendish, as he felt MissMarjoribanks's light touch on his arm, and felt his doomed feet turn inspite of himself in the most dangerous direction, and became consciousthat he was being led beyond all possibility of resistance, back toGrange Lane and to his fate.
To be sure it was dark, which was one consolation; but it was not darkenough to conceal Lucilla's white dress, nor the well-known form andlineaments of the young monarch of Grange Lane, in whose company nobodycould pass unobserved. Mr Cavendish could have faced danger by sea andland with the average amount of courage; but the danger of the walk downthe little street, which afterwards led to St Roque's, and up theembowered stillness of Grange Lane, was more than he was equal to. Hecould not be sure of making a single step by these garden-walls withoutmeeting somebody who knew him--somebody whose curiosity might ruin himin Carlingford; or even without the risk of encountering in the face ofthat arch-enemy, who would not go away, and whose presence had banishedhim from the place. It may be supposed that, under these terriblecircumstances, Mr Cavendish's thoughts of Barbara, who had got him intothis scrape, were far from lover-like. He was a man universally popularamong ladies, and who owed a great deal of the social considerationwhich he prized so highly to this fact; and yet the most gentlesentiment in his mind at that moment, was a "Confound these women!"which he breathed to himself, all low and deep, as he went slowly alongby Lucilla's side. As for Miss Marjoribanks, her thoughts were of a verymuch more serious description than anything her unlucky escort wasthinking of, and a minute or two passed in silence before she could makeup her mind to speak.
"I have been thinking a great deal about you lately, and wishing verymuch to see you," said Lucilla. "Did not Mrs Woodburn tell you?--I thinkI should have written to you had I known your address."
"And I am sure you would have made me the happiest of men," said thevictim, with rueful politeness. "What had I done to deserve such aprivilege? But my sister did not tell me; she left me to hear it fromyour own----"
"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a certain solemnity, interruptinghim; "I have been thinking a great deal--and _hearing_ a great dealabout you, Mr Cavendish." When she had said this Lucilla sighed, and hersigh found a terrible echo in her hearer's bosom. She knew that heturned green in the darkness as he gave an anxious look at her. But hewas too much alarmed to give her an opportunity of studying his face.
"_Hearing_ of me," he said, and tried to laugh; "what have my kindfriends been saying?" and for one moment the sufferer tried to deludehimself that it was some innocent gossip about Barbara which might becirculating in Grange Lane.
"Hush," said Lucilla, "don't laugh, please; for I want to have a veryserious talk. I have been hearing about you from some very, very oldfriends, Mr Cavendish--not anything about _this_, you know," MissMarjoribanks added, waving her hand in the direction of Grove Street.And then Barbara Lake and everything connected with her vanished like ashadow from the unfortunate man's mind. It was horribly ungrateful onhis part, but it was, as Miss Marjoribanks would have said, just whatmight have been expected, and how They always behave. He had no longerany time or patience for the object which had been giving occupation andinterest to his solitude. He woke up in a moment, and gave a passingcurse to his folly, and faced the real danger as he best could.
"You must be making a mistake, Miss Marjoribanks," he said, with somebitterness; "it should have been, very, very old enemy. I know who itis. It is that Archdeacon you ladies make such a fuss about. It is hewho has been telling lies about me," said Mr Cavendish. He breathed adeep hard breath as he spoke, and the blood came back to his face.Perhaps for the first moment he felt satisfied, and breathed freer afterit was over; but at the same time it was very dreadful to him to feelthat he was found out, and that henceforth Grange Lane would shut itsdoors and avert its countenance. "If you take his word for it, I maygive in at once," he continued, bitterly. "A parson will say anything;they are as bad as--as women." This the poor man said in his despair,because he did not know what he was saying; for in reality he knew thatwomen had been his best friends, and that he had still a chance, if thejudgment was to rest with them.
"You are very ungrateful to say so," said Miss Marjoribanks, "but it isonly because you are excited, I suppose. No, Mr Cavendish, it was notthe Archdeacon; on the contrary, it was a lady, and she said nothing butgood of you," said Lucilla; and then there was a pause. As for MrCavendish, it would be altogether impossible to describe the state ofhis mind. He was like a man suddenly reprieved, but giddy with theshock, and feeling the halter still round his neck, and knowing that hehad himself undermined the ground on which he was standing. It wasLucilla who supported him in the shock of the moment, for all hisself-command could not keep him from a momentary shiver and stagger whenhe found that things were not so bad as he thought.
"A lady, and she said nothing but good!" he muttered, under his breath;and then he made an effort to recover himself. "Pardon me, I cannotguess who my unknown friend may be. It is very soothing to one'sfeelings to be spoken well of by a lady," said Mr Cavendish, and helaughed again in a discordant unsteady way. Lucilla regarded him throughall these fluctuations with natural pity, and at the same time with thecalmness of a knowledge which was aware of all and had nothing more todiscover; and at the end Mr Cavendish perceived her calm, and theabsence of wonder and curiosity in her face, and began to perceive thathe had something very serious to deal with--more serious even than hehad at first supposed.
"I am going to tell you all about it," said Miss Marjoribanks, "but inthe meantime wait a minute and let me speak to you. I have somethingvery serious to say."
It was for this they stopped short at the foot of Grange Lane just wherethe land was already parcelled out for St Roque's. What Lucilla wasgoing to say was too important to be spoken while walking, and shewithdrew her hand from Mr Cavendish's arm. They were both so muchabsorbed that they did not see anybody coming, nor indeed had anyattention to spare for external affairs. The blood had deserted MrCavendish's face, and he was once more green with anxiety andinquietude. He stood facing her, feeling that the crisis of his fatehad come, and not knowing whether it was absolute despair or a faintdawning of hope that possessed him. If he had been the most passionateof lovers, and if she had held in her hands the dreadful alternativebetween rapture and misery, there could not have been a more rapt andabsorbing attention in Mr Cavendish's face.
"I want to tell you, first of all, that you must have confidence in me,"said Lucilla; "you--must--have confidence in me. We can do nothingwithout that. I know everything, Mr Cavendish," Miss Marjoribanks addedcompassionately--"_everything_; but nobody else knows it. I hope I canarrange everything if it is left in my hands. This is what I wanted totell you first of all. Before everything, you must have confidence inme."
What Mr Cavendish might have answered to this solemn appeal it would bevain to imagine; for the truth was, he was stopped before he could uttera word. He was stopped and seized by the hand, and greeted with afrankness which was, perhaps, all the more loud and cordial from whatappeared to the new-comer the comic character of the situation. "It _is_Cavendish, by Jove!" the intruder exclaimed, waving his hand to somepeople who were coming on behind him. "I beg a thousand pardons fordisturbing you, my dear fellow; but they all talk about
you so, that Iwas determined to make sure it was you. Good heavens, MissMarjoribanks!" General Travers added, taking off his hat. It was Mr andMrs Centum who were coming down behind him--she with a light shawlthrown over her head, tempted out by the beauty of the evening; andLucilla saw in a moment the consequences of this encounter, and how itwould be over all Carlingford before to-morrow morning that she and MrCavendish were betrothed at the very least. Miss Marjoribanks had allher wits about her, as ever, fortunately for both.
"Yes, it is me," she said calmly; "I have been taking tea with theLakes, and I made Mr Cavendish give me his arm home. He did not likebeing found out, to be sure, but he could not help himself; and we allknow about that," Lucilla added, with a smile, taking once more theunfortunate man's arm. "Oh, yes, we all know," said Mrs Centum, with alaugh; but yet, notwithstanding, everybody felt sure that it was allLucilla's cleverness, and that Barbara Lake was a myth and fiction. Andit was thus, with Miss Marjoribanks leaning on his arm, and GeneralTravers, in all the warmth of renewed friendship, guarding him on theother side, that Mr Cavendish, whose head was in a whirl of excitement,and who did not know what he was doing, was led back in triumph pastColonel Chiley's very door, where the Archdeacon was lying in wait tocrunch his bones, back from all his aberrations into the very heart ofGrange Lane.
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