Part 5 (1/2)
”Oh, I don't know about two such voices,” said Miss Marjoribanks; ”her voice suits mine, you know. It is always a great thing to find two voices that suit. I never would choose to have professional singers, for my part. You have to give yourself up to music when you do such a thing; and that is not my idea of society. I am very fond of music,” said Lucilla--”excessively fond of it; but then everybody is not of my opinion--and one has to take so many things into consideration. For people who give one party in the year it does very well--but then I hate parties: the only pleasure in society is when one's friends come to see one without any ado.”
”In white frocks, _high_,” said Mrs Woodburn, who could not help a.s.suming Lucilla's manner for the moment, even while addressing herself; but as the possibility of such a _lese-majeste_ did not even occur to Miss Marjoribanks, she accepted the observation in good faith.
”Yes; I hate a grand toilette when it is only a meeting of friends,” she said--”for the girls, you know; of course you married ladies can always do what you like. You have your husbands to please,” said Lucilla. And this was a little hard upon her satirist, for, to tell the truth, that was a particular of domestic duty to which Mrs Woodburn did not much devote herself, according to the opinion of Grange Lane.
”But about the contralto,” said Mr Cavendish, who had come to call on Miss Marjoribanks under his sister's wing, and desired above all things to keep the peace between the two ladies, as indeed is a man's duty under such circ.u.mstances. ”You are always statesmanlike in your views; but I cannot understand why you let poor little Molly Brown carry on her chirping when you had such an astonis.h.i.+ng force in reserve. She must have been covered with confusion, the poor little soul.”
”Nothing of the sort,” said Mrs Woodburn, pursuing her favourite occupation as usual. ”She only said, 'Goodness me! how high Lucilla goes! Do you like that dreadfully high music?' and made little eyebrows.” To be sure, the mimic made Miss Brown's eyebrows, and spoke in her voice, so that even Lucilla found it a little difficult to keep her gravity. But then Miss Marjoribanks was defended by her mission, and she felt in her heart that, representing public interest as she did, it was her duty to avoid all complicity in any attack upon an individual; and consequently, to a certain extent, it was her duty also to put Mrs Woodburn down.
”Molly Brown has a very nice little voice,” said Lucilla, with most disheartening gravity. ”I like to hear her sing, for my part--the only thing is that she wants cultivation a little. It doesn't matter much you know, whether or not you have a voice to begin with. It is cultivation that is the thing,” said Miss Marjoribanks deliberately. ”I hope you _really_ thought it was a pleasant evening. Of course everybody said so to me; but then one can never put any faith in that. I have said it myself ever so many times when I am sure I did not mean it. For myself, I don't give any importance to the first evening. Anybody can do a thing once, you know; the second and the third, and so on--that is the real test. But I hope you thought it pleasant so far as it went.”
”It was a great deal more than pleasant,” said Mr Cavendish; ”and as for your conception of social politics, it is masterly,” the future M.P.
added, in a tone which struck Lucilla as very significant; not that she cared particularly about Mr Cavendish's meaning, but still, when a young man who intends to go into Parliament congratulates a young lady upon her statesmanlike views, and her conception of politics, it must be confessed that it looks a little particular; and then, if that was what he meant, it was no doubt Lucilla's duty to make up her mind.
”Oh, you know, I went through a course of political economy at Mount Pleasant,” she said, with a laugh. ”One of the Miss Blounts was dreadfully strong-minded. I wonder, for my part, that she did not make me literary; but fortunately I escaped that.”
”Heaven be praised!” said Mr Cavendish. ”I think you ought to be Prime Minister. That contralto of yours is charming raw material; but if I were you I would put her through an elementary course. She knows how to sing, but she does not know how to move; and as for talking, she seems to expect to be insulted. If you make a pretty-behaved young lady out of that, you will beat Adam Smith.”
”Oh, I don't know much about Adam Smith,” said Miss Marjoribanks. ”I think Miss Martha thought him rather old-fas.h.i.+oned. As for poor Barbara, she is only a little shy, but that will soon wear off. I don't see what need she has to talk--or to move either, for that matter. I thought she did very well indeed for a girl who never goes into society. Was it not clever of me to find her out the very first day I was in Carlingford? It has always been so difficult to find a voice that went perfectly with mine.”
”For my part, I think it was a great deal more than clever,” said Mr Cavendish; for Mrs Woodburn, finding herself unappreciated, was silent and making notes. ”It was a stroke of genius. So her name is Barbara? I wonder if it would be indiscreet to ask where Mademoiselle Barbara comes from, or if she belongs to anybody, or lives anywhere. My own impression is that you mean to keep her shut up in a box all the week through, and produce her only on the Thursday evenings. I have a weakness for a fine contralto. If she had been existing in an ordinary habitation like other people in Carlingford, I should have heard her, or heard of her. It is clear to me that you keep her shut up in a box.”
”Exactly,” said Lucilla. ”I don't mean to tell you anything about her.
You may be sure, now I have found her out, I mean to keep her for myself. Her box is quite a pretty one, like what Gulliver had somewhere.
It is just time for lunch, and you are both going to stay, I hope; and there is poor Mary Chiley and her husband coming through the garden.
What a pity it is he is such a goose!”
”Yes; but you know she never would take her uncle's advice, my dear,”
said the incorrigible mimic, putting on Mrs Chiley's face; ”and being an orphan, what could anybody do? And then she does not get on with _his_ family. By the way,” Mrs Woodburn said, falling into her natural tone--”I wonder if anybody ever does get on with her husband's family?”
The question was one which was a little grave to herself at the moment; and this was the reason why she returned to her ident.i.ty--for there was no telling how long the Woodburns, who had come for Christmas, meant to stay. ”I shall be quite interested to watch _you_, Lucilla, when it comes to be your turn, and see how you manage,” she went on, with a keen look at Miss Marjoribanks; and Mr Cavendish laughed. He too looked at her, and Lucilla felt herself in rather a delicate position: not that she was agitated, as might have been the case had the future M.P. for Carlingford ”engaged her affections,” as she herself would have said.
Fortunately these young affections were quite free as yet; but nevertheless Miss Marjoribanks felt that the question was a serious one, as coming from the sister of a gentleman who was undeniably paying her attention. She did not in the least wish to alarm a leading member of a family into which it was possible she might enter; and then at the same time she intended to reserve fully all her individual rights.
”I always make it a point never to shock anybody's prejudices,” said Miss Marjoribanks. ”I should do just the same with _them_ as with other people; all you have to do is to show from the first that you mean to be good friends with everybody. But then I am so lucky: I can _always_ get on with people,” said Lucilla, rising to greet the two unfortunates who had come to Colonel Chiley's to spend a merry Christmas, and who did not know what to do with themselves. And then they all went downstairs and lunched together very pleasantly. As for Mr Cavendish, he was ”quite devoted,” as poor Mary Chiley said, with a touch of envy. To be sure, her trousseau was still in its full glory; but yet life under the conditions of marriage was not nearly such fun as it had been when she was a young lady, and had some one paying attention to her: and she rather grudged Lucilla that climax of existence, notwithstanding her own superior standing and dignity as a married lady. And Mrs Woodburn too awoke from her study of the stupid young husband to remark upon her brother's behaviour: she had not seen the two together so often as Mrs Chiley had done, and consequently this was the first time that the thought had occurred to her. She too had been born ”one of the Cavendishes,” as it was common to say in Carlingford, with a certain imposing yet vague grandeur--and she was a little shocked, like any good sister, at the first idea. She watched Lucilla's movements and looks with a quite different kind of attention after this idea struck her, and made a rapid private calculation as to who Dr Marjoribanks's connections were, and what he would be likely to give his daughter; so that it is evident that Lucilla did not deceive herself, but that Mr Cavendish's attentions must have been marked indeed.
This was the little cloud which arose, as we have said, no bigger than a man's hand, over Miss Marjoribanks's prosperous way. When the luncheon was over and they had all gone, Lucilla took a few minutes to think it over before she went out. It was not that she was unduly flattered by Mr Cavendish's attentions, as might have happened to an inexperienced young woman; for Lucilla, with her attractions and genius, had not reached the mature age of nineteen without receiving the natural homage of mankind on several clearly-defined occasions. But then the present case had various features peculiar to itself, which prevented Lucilla from crus.h.i.+ng it in the bud, as she had meant to do with her cousin's ill-fated pa.s.sion. She had to consider, in the first place, her mission in Carlingford, which was more important than anything else; but though Miss Marjoribanks had vowed herself to the reorganisation of society in her native town, she had not by any means vowed that it was absolutely as Miss Marjoribanks that she was to accomplish that renovation. And then there was something in the very idea of being M.P. for Carlingford which moved the mind of Lucilla. It was a perfectly ideal position for a woman of her views, and seemed to offer the very field that was necessary for her ambition. This was the reason, of all others, which made her less careful to prevent Mr Cavendish from ”saying the words”
than she had been with Tom. To be sure, it would be a trial to leave the drawing-room after it had just been furnished so entirely to her liking--not to say to her complexion; but still it was a sacrifice which might be made. It was in this way that Miss Marjoribanks prepared herself for the possible modifications which circ.u.mstances might impose.
She did not make any rash resolution to resist a change which, on the whole, might possibly be ”for the best,” but prepared herself to take everything into consideration, and possibly to draw from it a superior good: in short, she looked upon the matter as a superior mind, trained in sound principles of political economy, might be expected to look upon the possible vicissitudes of fortune, with an enlightened regard to the uses of all things, and to the comparative values on either side.
Barbara Lake, as it happened, was out walking at the very moment when Miss Marjoribanks sat down to consider this question. She had gone to the School of Design to meet Rose, with an amiability very unusual in her. Rose had made such progress, after leaving Mount Pleasant, under her father's care, and by the help of that fine feeling for art which has been mentioned in the earlier part of this history, that the charge of the female pupils in the School of Design had been confided to her, with a tiny little salary, which served Mr Lake as an excuse for keeping his favourite little daughter with him. Nothing could be supposed more unlike Barbara than her younger sister, who just came up to her shoulder, and was twice as serviceable and active and ”nice,” according to the testimony of all the children. Barbara had led her father a hard life, poor man! the time that Rose was at Mount Pleasant; but now that his a.s.sistant had come back again, the poor drawing-master had recovered all his old spirits. She was just coming out of the School of Design, with her portfolio under her arm, when Barbara met her. There were not many pupils, it is true, but still there were enough to worry poor Rose, who was not an imposing personage, and who was daily wounded by the discovery that after all there are but a limited number of persons in this world, especially in the poorer cla.s.ses of the community, and under the age of sixteen, who have a feeling for art. It was utterly inconceivable to the young teacher how her girls could be so clever as to find out each a different way of putting the sublime features of the Belveder Apollo out of drawing, and she was still revolving this difficult problem when her sister joined her. Barbara, for her part, was occupied with thoughts of a hero much more interesting than he of Olympus. She was flushed and eager, and looking very handsome under her shabby bonnet; and her anxiety to have a _confidante_ was so great that she made a dart at Rose, and grasped her by the arm under which she was carrying her portfolio, to the great discomposure of the young artist.
She asked, with a little anxiety, ”What is the matter? is there anything wrong at home?” and made a rapid movement to get to the other side.
”Oh, Rose,” said Barbara, panting with haste and agitation, ”only fancy; I have just seen him. I met him right in front of Masters's, and he took off his hat to me. I feel in such a way--I can scarcely speak.”
”Met--who?” said Rose--for she was imperfect in her grammar, like most people in a moment of emergency; and, besides, she shared to some extent Miss Marjoribanks's reluctance to shock the prejudices of society, and was disturbed by the idea that somebody might pa.s.s and see Barbara in her present state of excitement, and perhaps attribute it to its true cause.
”Oh, you stupid little thing!” said Barbara, giving her ”a shake” by her disengaged arm. ”I tell you, _him_!--the gentleman I met at Lucilla Marjoribanks's. He looked as if he was quite delighted to see me again; and I am sure he turned round to see where I was going. He couldn't speak to me, you know, the first time; though indeed I shouldn't be the least surprised if he had followed--at a distance, you know, only to see where I live,” said Barbara, turning round and searching into the distance with her eager eyes. But there was n.o.body to be seen in the street, except some of Rose's pupils lingering along in the suns.h.i.+ne, and very probably exchanging similar confidences. Barbara turned back again with a touch of disappointment. ”I am quite sure he will find out before long; and don't forget I said so,” she added, with a little nod of her head.