Miss Marjoribanks · Chapter 31 (2/2)

“Lucilla!” cried Mrs. Chiley, almost with a shriek of horror. She thought, as was perhaps natural, that there was some pique in what her young companion said; not doing Miss Marjoribanks justice⁠—as indeed few people did⁠—for that perfect truthfulness which it was Lucilla’s luck always to be able to maintain. Mrs. Chiley thought it was her young friend’s maidenly pride and determination not to take up the part of a woman slighted or jilted. “You may refuse him, my dear, if your heart is not with him,” said the old lady; “but I would not be so hard upon him as that, poor fellow. You may say what you please, but I always will think him nice, Lucilla. I know I ought to be on the Archdeacon’s side,” said Mrs. Chiley, putting her handkerchief to her eyes; “but I am an old woman, and I like my old friends best. Oh, Lucilla, it is not kind of you to keep up appearances with me. I wish you would give way a little. It would do you good, my darling; and you know I might be both your grandmothers, Lucilla,” she cried, putting her arm round her favourite. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she gave her old friend a close embrace, which was the only thing that even her genius could suggest to do.

“I have always you,” said Lucilla, with touching eloquence; and then she freed herself a little from Mrs. Chiley’s arms. “I don’t say, perhaps, that everybody will receive her; but I mean to make an effort, for my part; and I shall certainly tell Mr. Cavendish so if he ever speaks of it to me. As for Mr. Beverley, he is going to be married too. Did not you hear? He told me all about it himself one day,” said Miss Marjoribanks; “and I will ask him tonight if I may not tell you who the lady is. It is quite a little romance, and I hope we shall have two marriages, and it will make it quite gay for the winter. When you know all about it,” Lucilla added tenderly, by way of breaking the shock, “I am sure you will be pleased.”

But instead of being pleased, Mrs. Chiley was speechless for the moment. Her fresh old cheeks grew ashy with dismay and horror. “The Archdeacon too!” she cried, gasping for breath. “Oh, Lucilla, my dear?⁠—and you?” Then the kind old lady held Miss Marjoribanks fast, and sobbed over her in the despair of the moment. To think, after all the pains that had been taken, and all the hopes and all the speculations, that neither the one nor the other was coming to anything! “If it should be that General, after all⁠—and I cannot abide him,” sobbed Lucilla’s anxious friend. But Miss Marjoribanks’s genius carried her through this trial, as well as through all the others which she had yet encountered on her way.

“Dear Mrs. Chiley!” said Lucilla, “it is so good of you to care; but if it had been that I was thinking of, I need never have come home at all, you know; and my object in life is just what it has always been, to be a comfort to papa.”

Upon which Mrs. Chiley kissed her young friend once more with lingering meaning. “My dear, I don’t know what They mean,” she said, with indignation; “everybody knows men are great fools where women are concerned⁠—but I never knew what idiots they were till now; and you are too good for them, my darling!” said Mrs. Chiley, with indignant tenderness. Perhaps Miss Marjoribanks was in some respects of the same way of thinking. She conducted her sympathetic friend to the garden door, when it came to be time for everybody to go and dress, with a certain pathetic elevation in her own person, which was not out of accord with Mrs. Chiley’s virtuous wrath. To have Mrs. Mortimer and Barbara Lake preferred to her did not wound Lucilla’s pride⁠—one can be wounded in that way only by one’s equals. She thought of it with a certain mild pity and charitable contempt. Both these two men had had the chance of having her, and this was how they had chosen! And there can be little wonder if Miss Marjoribanks’s compassion for them was mingled with a little friendly and condescending disdain.

It was, however, an ease to Lucilla’s mind that she had let Mrs. Chiley know, and was so far free to work out her plans without any fear of misconception. And on the whole, her old friend’s tender indignation was not disagreeable to her. Thus it was, without any interval of repose to speak of, that her lofty energies went on unwearied to overrule and guide the crisis which was to decide so many people’s fate.