Miss Marjoribanks

by Mrs. Oliphant

  _Chapter XXXVI_

  One fytte of Lucilla's history is here ended, and another is to be told.We have recorded her beginning in all the fulness of youthful confidenceand undaunted trust in her own resources; and have done our best to showthat in the course of organising society Miss Marjoribanks, like allother benefactors of their kind, had many sacrifices to make, and had toundergo the mortification of finding out that many of her most ableefforts turned to other people's profit and went directly againstherself. She began the second period of her career with, to some certainextent, that sense of failure which is inevitable to every highintelligence after a little intercourse with the world. She hadsucceeded in a great many things, but yet she had not succeeded in all;and she had found out that the most powerful exertions in behalf offriends not only fail to procure their gratitude, but sometimes convertthem into enemies, and do actual harm; which is a discovery which canonly be made by those who devote themselves, as Miss Marjoribanks haddone, to the good of the human species. She had done everything for thebest, and yet it had not always turned out for the best; and even thepeople who had been most ready to appeal to her for assistance in theirneed, had proved the readiest to accuse her when something disagreeablehappened, and to say "It was your fault." In the second stage of herprogress Miss Marjoribanks found herself, with a great responsibilityupon her shoulders, with nearly the entire social organisation ofCarlingford depending upon her; and, at the same time, with her means ofproviding for the wants of her subjects sensibly diminished, and herconfidence in the resources of the future impaired to an equal degree.One thing was sure, that she had taken the work upon her shoulders, andthat she was not the woman to draw back, whatever the difficulties mightbe. She did not bate a jot of her courage, though the early buoyancy ofhope had departed, never to return. It is true that she was not sojoyful and triumphant a figure as when she conquered Nancy, and won overDr Marjoribanks, and electrified Mr Holden by choosing curtains whichsuited her complexion; but with her diminished hopes and increasedexperience and unabated courage, no doubt Miss Marjoribanks presented astill nobler and more imposing aspect to everybody who had an eye formoral grandeur, though it would be difficult to tell how many of suchworthy spectators existed in Grange Lane.

  There was, as our readers are aware, another subject also on whichLucilla had found her position altered. It was quite true that, had shebeen thinking of _that_, she never need have come home at all; and that,in accepting new furniture for the drawing-room, she had to a certainextent pledged herself not to marry immediately, but to stay at home andbe a comfort to her dear papa. This is so delicate a question that it isdifficult to treat it with the freedom necessary for a full developmentof a not unusual state of mind. Most people are capable of falling inlove only once or twice, or at the most a very few times, in their life;and disappointed and heartbroken suitors are not so commonly to be metwith as perhaps could be wished. But at the same time, there can belittle doubt that the chief way in which society is supposed to signifyits approval and admiration and enthusiasm for a lady, is by makingdozens of proposals to her, as may be ascertained from all thebest-informed sources. When a woman is a great beauty, or is verybrilliant and graceful, or even is only agreeable and amusing, theordinary idea is that the floating men of society, in number less ormore according to the lady's merits, propose to her, though she may notperhaps accept any of them. In proportion as her qualities rise towardsthe sublime, these victims are supposed to increase; and perhaps, totell the truth, no woman feels herself set at her true value until somepoor man, or set of men, have put, as people say, their happiness intoher hands. It is, as we have said, a delicate subject to discuss; forthe truth is, that this well-known and thoroughly established reward offemale excellence had not fallen to Miss Marjoribanks's lot. There wasTom, to be sure, but Tom did not count. And as for the other men who hadbeen presented to Lucilla as eligible candidates for her regard, none ofthem had given her this proof of their admiration. The year had passedaway, and society had laid no tribute of this description upon Lucilla'sshrine. The Archdeacon had married Mrs Mortimer instead, and MrCavendish had been led away by Barbara Lake! After such an experiencenothing but the inherent sweetness and wholesome tone of MissMarjoribanks's character could have kept her from that cynicism anddisbelief in humanity which is so often the result of knowledge of theworld. As for Lucilla, she smiled as she thought of it, not cynically,but with a sweetly melancholy smile. What she said to herself was, Poormen! they had had the two ways set before them, and they had not chosenthe best. It made her sad to have this proof of the imperfection ofhuman nature thrust upon her, but it did not turn her sweet into bitter,as might have been the case with a more ordinary mind. Notwithstandingthat this universal reward, which in other cases is, as everybody knows,given so indiscriminately, and with such liberality, had altogetherfailed in her case, Lucilla still resumed her way with a beautifulconstancy, and went forward in the face of fate undaunted and with asmile.

  It was thus that she began the second period of her career. Up to thismoment there had never been a time in which it was not said inCarlingford that some one was paying attention to Miss Marjoribanks; butat present no one was paying attention to her. There were othermarriages going on around her, and other preliminaries of marriage, butnobody had proposed to Lucilla. Affairs were in this state when she tookup her burden again boldly, and set out anew upon her way. It was aproof of magnanimity and philanthropy which nobody could have asked fromher, if Lucilla had not been actuated by higher motives than those thatsway the common crowd. Without any assistance but that of her owngenius--without the stimulating applause of admirers, such as a woman insuch circumstances has a right to calculate upon--with no sympathisingsoul to fall back upon, and nothing but a dull level of ordinary peoplebefore her,--Miss Marjoribanks, undaunted, put on her harness andresumed her course. The difficulties she had met only made her morefriendly, more tender, to those who were weaker than herself, and whomevil fortune had disabled in the way. When Barbara Lake got hersituation, and went out for a governess, and Rose's fears were realised,and she had with bitter tears to relinquish her Career, Lucilla went andsat whole afternoons with the little artist, and gave her the handiestassistance, and taught her a great many things which she never couldhave learned at the School of Design. And the effect of thisself-abnegation was, that Lucilla bore General Travers's decision, andgave up all hope of the officers, with a stout-heartedness which nobodycould have looked for, and did not hesitate to face her positionboldly, and to erect her standard, and to begin her new campaign,unaided and unappreciated as she was. People who know no better may goaway upon marriage tours, or they may fly off to foreign travel, or goout as governesses, when all things do not go just as they wish. But asfor Miss Marjoribanks, she stood bravely at her post, and scorned toflinch or run away. Thus commenced, amid mists of discouragement, and inan entire absence of all that was calculated to stimulate andexhilarate, the second grand period of Lucilla's life.