Miss Marjoribanks · Chapter 45 (2/2)

“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.