Miss Marjoribanks · Chapter 46 (1/2)

XLVI

Lucilla’s calculations were fully justified by the result. Twenty times in a day she recognised the wisdom of her own early decision, which was made while she was still by herself, and before anybody had come in to advise her. If she had left it over until the time when, though much shaken, she was understood to be able to see her friends, it is just possible that the whirlwind of popular opinion which raged about her might have exercised a distracting influence even upon Miss Marjoribanks’s clear head and steady judgment. For even now, though they saw her in her own house, in her mourning, people would not believe that it was true, and that Lucilla actually intended to make “no change”; and all that tide of good advice which had been flowing through Carlingford ever since the Doctor’s death in the form of opinion, now rushed in upon her, notwithstanding that all the world knew that she had made up her mind. “Everybody says you are going to stay on, but we do hope it is not true, Lucilla,” her friends said, in many voices. “It is dreadful for us to lose you, but you never could bear it, dear.” And this was repeated so often that if Miss Marjoribanks had been weak-minded, she must have ended by believing not only that it was more than she was equal to, but more than she ought to be equal to⁠—which was a more touching argument still.

“You are excited now,” Miss Brown said, who had a great deal of experience in family troubles; “one always is at such a time; but when things have settled down in their ordinary way, then you will find it is more than you can bear. I think it is always best to make a change. If you were to travel a little, you know⁠—”

“But, my dear, I am poor,” said Lucilla.

“It doesn’t require so much money when you know how to set about it,” said her adviser; “and there are so many people who would be glad to have you, Lucilla! And then you might settle a little at Caen or Tours, or some of those nice places, where there is such capital English society, and everything so cheap; or, if you thought your health required it, at Pau or Nice, you know. You are looking quite pale, and I don’t think you were ever very strong in the chest, Lucilla; and everything is so different on the Continent⁠—one feels it the moment one crosses the Channel; there is something different in the very air.”

“It smells different, I know,” said Lucilla meekly; and then the conversation was interrupted by that afternoon cup of tea, which Nancy could not be got to think was an extravagance, and around which, to tell the truth, the Grange Lane ladies began to resume their habit of gathering⁠—though Miss Marjoribanks, of course, was still quite unequal to society⁠—as in the old times.

“And unless it is for a very short time, Lucilla,” Mrs. Centum said, who had joined them, “you never can keep it up, you know. I could not pretend to afford Nancy, for my part; and when a cook is extravagant she may promise as faithfully as you please, and make good resolutions, and all that; but when it is in her, Lucilla⁠—I am sure one or two receipts she has given me have been quite ridiculous. You don’t like to give in, I know, but you’ll be driven to give in; and if she does not get you into debt as well, you will be very lucky. I know what it is. With my family, you know, a week of Nancy would make an end of me.”

“And the worst of all is,” said Lady Richmond, who had driven in expressly to add her mite to the treasure of precious counsel, of which Miss Marjoribanks was making so little use, “that I am sure Lucilla is overestimating her strength. She will find after that she is not equal to it, you know; all the associations⁠—and the people coming at night to ask for the Doctor⁠—and⁠—and all that. I know it would kill me.”

“Dear Lady Richmond,” said Lucilla, making a desperate stand, and setting, as it were, her back against a rock, “don’t you think I can bear it best here where you are all so kind to me; and where everybody was so fond of⁠—of him? You can’t think what a comfort it is to me,” said Lucilla, with a sob, “to see all the hatbands upon the gentlemen’s hats.”

And then there was a pause, for this was an argument against which nobody could find anything to say.

“For my part, I think the only thing she can do is to take Inmates,” said Aunt Jemima. “If I were obliged to leave she would be so very lonely. I have known ladies do it who were in a very good position, and it made no difference; people visited them all the same. She could say, ‘In consequence of changes in the family,’ or ‘A lady who has a larger house than she requires’; which I am sure is quite true. It goes to one’s heart to think of all these bedrooms, and only one lady to sleep in them all⁠—when so many people are so hampered for want of room. Or she might say, ‘For the sake of society’; for, I am sure, if I should have to go away⁠—”

“But I hope you are not going away. It would be so sad for Lucilla to be left alone,” said Lady Richmond, who took a serious view of everything, “at such a time.”

“Oh, no!” Aunt Jemima said, faltering a little; and then a pink blush, which seemed strangely uncalled for in such a mild little tea-party, came over her mature countenance; “but then one can never tell what may happen. I might have other duties⁠—my son might make a call upon my time. Not that I know of anything at present,” she added hurriedly, “but I never can bind myself on account of Tom⁠—”

And then she caught Lucilla’s eye, and grew more confused than ever. What could she have to be confused about? If Tom did make a call upon her time, whatever that might mean, there was nothing in it to call a blush upon his mother’s face. And the fact was, that a letter had come from Tom a day or two before, of which, contrary to all her usual habits, Aunt Jemima had taken no notice to Lucilla. These were things which would have roused Miss Marjoribanks’s curiosity if she had been able to think about anything, as she said. But her visitors were taking their cup of tea all the time, in a melancholy, half-sympathetic, half-disapproving way, and they could not be expected to see anything particularly interesting in Aunt Jemima’s blush.

And then Rose Lake came in from Grove Street, who was rather an unusual visitor, and whose appearance, though they were all very kind and gracious to her, rather put the others to flight; for nobody had ever quite forgotten or forgiven Barbara’s brief entrance into society and flirtation with Mr. Cavendish, which might be said to have been the beginning of all that happened to him in Grange Lane. As for Mrs. Centum, she took her leave directly, and pressed Lucilla’s hand, and could not help saying in her ear that she hoped the other was not coming back to Carlingford to throw herself in poor Mr. Cavendish’s way. “It would do him so much harm,” Mrs. Centum said anxiously; “but oh! I forgot, Lucilla, you are on the other side.”

“I am on no side now,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with plaintive meaning; “and Barbara was as old as I am, you know, and she must have gone off.”

“I have no doubt she has gone off,” said Mrs. Centum, with righteous indignation. “As old as you, Lucilla! She must be ten years older at least; and such a shocking style of looks⁠—if men were not so infatuated! And you have not gone off at all, my poor dear,” she added, with all the warmth of friendship! And then they were joined at the door by the county lady, who was the next to go away.

“My dear, I hope you will be guided for the best,” Lady Richmond said as she went away; but she gave a deep sigh as she kissed Lucilla, and looked as if she had very little faith in the efficacy of her own wish. Maria Brown had withdrawn to another part of the drawing-room with Aunt Jemima, so that Lucilla was, so to speak, left alone with Rose. And Rose, too, had come with the intention of giving advice.

“I hear you are going to stay, Lucilla,” she said, “and I did not think I would be doing my duty if I did not tell you what was in my mind. I can’t do any good to anybody, you know; but you who are so clever, and have so much in your power⁠—”

“I am poor now,” said Miss Marjoribanks; “and as for being clever, I don’t know about that. I never was clever about drawing or Art, like you.”

“Oh, like me!” said poor little Rose, whose Career had been sacrificed ten years ago, and who was a little misanthropical now, and did not believe even in Schools of Design; “I am not so sure about the moral influence of Art as I used to be⁠—except High Art, to be sure; but we never have any High Art down here. And oh, Lucilla! the poor people do want something done for them. If I was as clever as you, and with a great house all to myself like this, and well off, and with plenty of influence, and no ties⁠—” said Rose, with energetic emphasis. She made a pause there, and she was so much in earnest that the tears came into her eyes. “I would make it a House of Mercy, Lucilla! I would show all these poor creatures how to live and how to manage, if I was as clever as you; and teach them and their children, and look after them, and be a mother to them!” said Rose; and here she stopped short, altogether overcome by her own magnificent conception of what her friend could or might do.

Aunt Jemima and Miss Brown, who had drawn near out of curiosity, stared at Rose as if they thought she had gone mad; but Lucilla, who was of a larger mind and more enlightened ideas, neither laughed nor looked horrified. She did not make a very distinct answer, it is true, but she was very kind to her new adviser, and made her a fresh cup of tea, and even consented, though in an ambiguous way, to the principle she had just enunciated, “If you won’t be affronted, my dear,” Lucilla said, “I do not think that Art could do very much in Carlingford; and I am sure any little thing that I may be of use for⁠—” But she did not commit herself any further, and Rose too found the result of her visit unsatisfactory, and went home disappointed in Lucilla. This was how the afternoon passed; and at the end of such a day, it may well be imagined how Miss Marjoribanks congratulated herself on having made up her mind before the public, so to speak, were admitted. For Rose was followed by the Rector, who, though he did not propose in so many words a House of Mercy, made no secret of his conviction that parish-work was the only thing that could be of any service to Lucilla; and that, in short, such was the inevitable and providential destination of a woman who had “no ties.” Indeed, to hear Mr. Bury, a stranger would have been disposed to believe that Dr. Marjoribanks had been, as he said, “removed,” and his fortune swept away, all in order to indicate to Lucilla the proper sphere for her energies. In the face of all this it will be seen how entirely Miss Marjoribanks’s wisdom in making her decision by herself before her advisers broke in upon her, was justified. She could now set her back against her rock, and face her assailants, as Fitz-James did.

Come one, come all, this rock shall fly

From its firm base as soon as I,

might have been her utterance; but she was not in a defiant mood. She kissed all her counsellors that day (except, of course, the Rector), and heard them out with the sweetest patience; and then she thought to herself how much better it was that she had made up her mind to take her own way.

Notwithstanding, all this commotion of public opinion about her made a certain impression upon Miss Marjoribanks’s mind. It was not unpleasant to feel that, for this moment at least, she was the centre of the thoughts of the community, and that almost everybody in Carlingford had taken the trouble to frame an ideal existence for her, according as he or she regarded life. It is so seldom that anyone has it in his power, consciously and evidently, to regulate his life for himself, and make it whatever he wants it to be. And then, at the same time, the best that she could make of it would, after all, be something very limited and unsatisfactory. In her musings on this subject, Lucilla could not but go back a great many times to that last conversation she had with her father, when she walked up Grange Lane with him that night over the thawed and muddy snow. The Doctor had said she was not cut out for a single woman; and Lucilla, with candour, yet a certain philosophical speculativeness, had allowed that she was not⁠—unless, indeed, she could be very rich. If she had been very rich, the prospect would no doubt have been, to a certain extent, different. And then, oddly enough, it was Rose Lake’s suggestion which came after this to Lucilla’s mind. She did not smile at it as some people might expect she would. One thing was quite sure, that she had no intention of sinking into a nobody, and giving up all power of acting upon her fellow-creatures; and she could not help being conscious of the fact that she was able to be of much use to her fellow-creatures. If it had been Maria Brown, for instance, who had been concerned, the whole question would have been one of utter unimportance, except to the heroine itself; but it was different in Miss Marjoribanks’s case. The House of Mercy was not a thing to be taken into any serious consideration; but still there was something in the idea which Lucilla could not dismiss carelessly as her friends could. She had no vocation, such as the foundress of such an establishment ought to have, nor did she see her way to the abandonment of all projects for herself, and that utter devotion to the cause of humanity which would be involved in it; but yet, when a woman happens to be full of energy and spirit, and determined that whatever she may be she shall certainly not be a nonentity, her position is one that demands thought. She was very capable of serving her fellow-creatures, and very willing and well disposed to serve them; and yet she was not inclined to give herself up entirely to them, nor to relinquish her personal prospects⁠—vague though these might be. It was a tough problem, and one which might have caused a most unusual disturbance in Lucilla’s well-regulated mind, had not she remembered all at once what deep mourning she was in, and that at present no sort of action, either of one kind or another, could be expected of her. There was no need for making a final decision, either about the parish-work, or about taking Inmates, as Aunt Jemima proposed, or about any other single suggestion which had been offered to her; no more than there was any necessity for asking what her cousin Tom’s last letter had been about, or why his mother looked so guilty and embarrassed when she spoke of him. Grief has its privileges and exemptions, like other great principles of life; and the recollection that she could not at present be expected to be able to think about anything, filled Lucilla’s mind with the most soothing sense of consolation and refreshing calm.