Miss Marjoribanks · Chapter 9 (2/2)

These were the last words Tom Marjoribanks heard as Lucilla left the room. She ran up to the drawing-room without losing a minute, and burst in upon the vacant place where Mr. Holden had stood so long waiting for her. To be sure, Miss Marjoribanks’s forebodings were so far fulfilled that the St. Cecilia, which she meant to have over the piano, was hung quite in the other corner of the room, by reason of being just the same size as another picture at the opposite angle, which the workmen, sternly symmetrical, thought it necessary to “match.” But, after all, that was a trifling defect. She stood in the middle of the room, and surveyed the walls, well pleased, with a heart which kept beating very steadily in her bosom. On the whole, perhaps, she was not sorry to have had it out with Tom. So far as he was personally concerned, Miss Marjoribanks, being a physician’s daughter, had great faith in the vis medicatrix, and was not afraid for her cousin’s health or his morals, as a less experienced woman might have been. If she was angry with anybody, it was with herself, who had not taken sufficient precautions to avoid the explanation. “But, after all, everything is for the best,” Lucilla said to herself, with that beautiful confidence which is common to people who have things their own way; and she devoted her mind to the St. Cecilia, and paid no more attention to Tom. It was not till more than an hour after that a succession of dreadful thumps was not only heard but felt throughout the house. It was Tom, but he was not doing any harm to himself. He was not blowing out his brains or knocking his head against the wall. He was only jumping on his portmanteau, notwithstanding that Lucilla had warned him against such a proceeding⁠—and in his state of mind the jumps were naturally more frantic than usual. When Lucilla heard it, she rang the bell, and told Thomas to go and help Mr. Tom with his packing; from which it will be seen that Miss Marjoribanks bore no grudge against her cousin but was disposed to send him forth in friendship and peace.