Miss Marjoribanks · Chapter 51 (1/3)

LI

When Miss Marjoribanks had time to consider the prospect which had thus so suddenly opened before her, it also had its difficulties, like everything else in the world. Her marriage now could not be the straightforward business it might have been had it been Mr. Ashburton instead of Tom. In that case she would have gone to an established house and life⁠—to take her place in the one and her share in the other, and to find the greater part of her surroundings and duties already fixed for her, which was a thing that would have very greatly simplified the matter. But Tom, who had dashed home from India at full speed as soon as he heard of his uncle’s death, had left his profession behind him at Calcutta, and had nothing to do in England, and was probably too old to resume his (non) practice at the bar, even if he had been in the least disposed to do so; while, at the same time, an idle man⁠—a man to be found everlastingly at home⁠—would have been insupportable to Lucilla. Miss Marjoribanks might feel disposed (for everybody’s good) to assume the sovereign authority in her own house, but to marry anybody that would be merely an appendage to her was a thing not to be thought of; and as soon as the first preliminaries were arranged her active mind sprang up with redoubled vigour from the maze in which it had been. Her intelligence had suspended, so to speak, all its ordinary operations for twenty-four hours at least, while it was busy investigating the purely personal question: from the moment when the Member for Carlingford was finally elected until Tom Marjoribanks rang the night-bell at the old Doctor’s door, Lucilla’s thoughts had been in that state of over-stimulation and absorption which is almost as bad as having no power of thought at all. But as soon as the pressure was removed⁠—as soon as it was all over, and the decision made, and no further question was possible⁠—then Miss Marjoribanks’s active mind sprang up with renewed energy. For it was not only a new beginning, but everything had to be settled and arranged.

Her mind was full of it while her hands were busy putting away all the Indian presents which Tom had brought⁠—presents which were chronological in their character, and which he had begun to accumulate from the very beginning of his exile. It could not but be touching to Lucilla to see how he had thought of her for all these years; but her mind being, as everybody is aware, of a nobly practical kind, her thoughts, instead of dallying with these tokens of the past, went forward with serious solicitude into the future. The marriage could not take place until the year was out; and there was, accordingly, time to arrange everything, and to settle all the necessary preliminaries to a point as near perfection as is possible to merely human details. Tom, no doubt, was very urgent and pressing, and would have precipitated everything, and had the whole business concluded tomorrow, if he could have had his way. But the fact was that, having once given in to him in the memorable way which we have already recorded, Lucilla did not now, so far as the final arrangements were concerned, make much account of Tom’s wishes. Heaven be praised, there was one of the two who knew what was right and proper, and was not to be moved from the correct path by any absurd representations. Miss Marjoribanks was revolving all these important questions when she laid her hand by chance, as people say, upon the Carlingford Gazette, all damp and inky, which had just been laid upon the library table. It contained, of course, all the news of the election, but Lucilla was too well acquainted with that beforehand to think of condescending to derive her information from a newspaper. She looked at the advertisements with an eye which saw all that was there without pausing upon anything in particular. She saw the usual notice about marmalade oranges, and the announcement that young Mr. Vincent, who after that made himself so well known in Carlingford, was to preach the next Sunday in Salem Chapel, and all the other important novelties in the place; but naturally she took but a moderate amount of interest in such details as these.

Suddenly, however, Lucilla’s eye, which, if it could ever be said to be vacant, had been regarding vacantly the list of advertisements, kindled up, and all its usual energy and intelligence came back to it. Her thoughtful face woke up as from a dream. Her head, which had been drooping in pensive meditation, grew erect⁠—her whole figure expanded. She clasped her hands together, as if in the fervour of the moment, nobody else being present, she could not refrain from shaking hands with herself, and giving vent to a self-congratulation. “It is a special providence,” said Lucilla to herself, with her usual piety; and then she folded up the paper in a little square, with the announcement in the middle which had struck her so much, and placed it where Tom could not fail to see it when he came in, and went upstairs with a new and definite direction given to her thoughts. That was how it must be! Lucilla, for her part, felt no difficulty in discerning the leadings of Providence, and she could not but appreciate the readiness with which her desires were attended to, and the prompt clearing-up of her difficulties. There are people whose inclinations Providence does not seem to superintend with such painstaking watchfulness; but then, no doubt, that must be their own fault.

And when Tom came in, they had what Aunt Jemima called “one of their discussions” about their future life, although the only thing in it worthy consideration, so far as Tom was concerned, seemed to be the time when they should be married, which occupied at present all that hero’s faculties. “Everything else will arrange itself after, you know,” he said, with calm confidence. “Time enough for all the rest. The thing is, Lucilla, to decide when you will leave off those formalities, and let It be. Why shouldn’t it be now? Do you think my uncle would wish to keep us unhappy all for an idea?”

“My dear Tom, I am not in the least unhappy,” said Lucilla, interrupting him sweetly, “nor you either, unless you tell dreadful stories; and as for poor dear papa,” Miss Marjoribanks added, with a sigh, “if we were to do exactly as he wished, I don’t think It would ever be. If you were not so foolish, you would not oblige me to say such things. Tom, let us leave off talking nonsense⁠—the thing that we both want is something to do.”

“That is what I want,” said Tom quickly, “but as for you, Lucilla, you shall do nothing but enjoy yourself and take care of yourself. The idea of you wanting something to do!”

Miss Marjoribanks regarded her betrothed with mild and affectionate contempt as he thus delivered himself of his foolish sentiments. “It is of no use trying to make him understand,” she said, with an air of resignation. “Do you know that I have always been doing something, and responsible for something, all my life?”

“Yes, my poor darling,” said Tom, “I know; but now you are in my hands I mean to take care of you, Lucilla; you shall have no more anxiety or trouble. What is the good of a man if he can’t save the woman he is fond of from all that?” cried the honest fellow⁠—and Lucilla could not but cast a despairing glance round her, as if appealing to heaven and earth. What was to be done with a man who had so little understanding of her, and of himself, and of the eternal fitness of things?

“My dear Tom,” she said once more, mildly, “we may have lost some money, but we are very well off, and Providence has been very kind to us. And there are a great many poor people in the world who are not so well off. I have always tried to be of some use to my fellow-creatures,” said Lucilla, “and I don’t mean, whatever you may say, to give it up now.”

“My dearest Lucilla, if it was the poor you were thinking of⁠—! I might have known it was something different from my stupid notions,” cried Tom. This kind of adoration was new to Lucilla, notwithstanding her many experiences. And he thought it so good of her to condescend to be good, that she could not help thinking a little better of herself than ordinary, though that, perhaps, was not absolutely needful; and then she proceeded with the elucidation of her views.

“I have been of some use to my fellow-creatures in my way,” said Miss Marjoribanks modestly, “but it has been hard work, and people are not always grateful, you know. And then things are a good deal changed in Carlingford. A woman may devote herself to putting some life into society, and give up years of her time, and⁠—and even her opportunities and all that, and do a great deal of good; but yet if she is put aside for a moment, there is an end of it. I have been doing the best I could for Carlingford for ten years,” said Lucilla, with a little natural sadness, “and if anyone were to examine into it, where is it all now? They have only got into the way of looking to me; and I do believe if you were to go up and down from Elsworthy’s to St. Roque’s, though you might find people at dinner here and there, you would not find a shadow of what could really be called society in all Grange Lane!”

Lucilla paused, for naturally her feelings were moved, and while Tom bent over her with tender and respectful devotion, it was not to be wondered at if Miss Marjoribanks, in the emotion of her heart, should wipe away a tear.

“After working at it for ten years!” said Lucilla; “and now, since poor papa died, who was always full of discrimination⁠—This is what will come of it, Tom,” she added solemnly⁠—“they will go back to their old ridiculous parties, as if they had never seen anything better; and they will all break up into little cliques, and make their awful morning calls and freeze one another to death. That will be the end of it all, after one has slaved like a⁠—like a woman in a mill,” said the disappointed reformer, “and given up ten years.”

“My poor darling!” cried Tom, who would have liked to go and challenge Carlingford for being so insensible to his Lucilla’s devotion and cherishing maternal care.

“But if it had been the poor,” said Miss Marjoribanks, recovering her spirits a little, “they could not help being the better for what one did for them. They might continue to be as stupid as ever, and ungrateful, and all that; but if they were warm and comfortable, instead of cold and hungry, it would always make a difference. Tom, I will tell you what you will do if you want to please me. You will take all our money and realise it, you know, whatever that means, and go off directly, as fast as the train can carry you, and buy an Estate.”

“An estate!” cried Tom, in consternation; and the magnitude of the word was such, and Lucilla was so entirely in earnest, that he jumped from his chair and gazed at her as if constrained, notwithstanding his amazement, to rush off instantly and obey.

“I did not mean just this moment,” said Lucilla; “sit down and we can talk it all over, Tom. You know it would be something for you to do; you cannot just go living on like this at your age; you could improve the land, you know, and do all that sort of thing, and the people you could leave to me.”

“But Lucilla,” said Tom, recovering a little from his consternation, “it is not so easy buying an estate. I mean all that I have to be settled upon you, in case of anything happening. Land may be a safe enough investment; but you know, very often, Lucilla⁠—the fact is, it doesn’t pay.”

“We could make it pay,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with a benevolent smile, “and besides there are estates and estates. I don’t want you to go and throw away your money. It was in the Carlingford Gazette this morning, and I can’t help feeling it was a special providence. Of course you never looked at it in the paper, though I marked it for you. Tom, it is Marchbank that I want you to buy. You know how papa used to talk of it. He used to say it was just a nice little property that a gentleman could manage. If he had been spared,” said Lucilla, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, “and these wicked dreadful people had not failed, nor nothing happened, I know he would have bought it himself. Dear papa! and he would have given it to me; and most likely, so far as one can tell, it would have come to you at the last, and you would have been Marjoribanks of Marchbank, like our great-great-grandpapa; and that is what I want you to do.”

Lucilla’s proposition, as it thus unfolded itself, took away Tom Marjoribanks’s breath, for notwithstanding that it came from a (young) lady, and was confused by some slightly unintelligible conditions about doing good to one’s fellow-creatures, it was not a trifling or romantic suggestion. Tom, too, could remember Marchbank, and his uncle’s interest in it, and the careful way in which he explained to the ignorant that this was the correct pronunciation of his own name. While Lucilla made her concluding address, Tom seemed to see himself a little fellow, with his eyes and his ears very wide open, trotting about with small steps after the Doctor, as he went over the redbrick house and neglected gardens at Marchbank: it was only to be let then, and had passed through many hands, and was in miserable case, both lands and house. But neither the lands nor the house were bad of themselves, and Tom was, like Lucilla, perfectly well aware that something might be made of them.