Part 6 (2/2)

Perhaps he thought it would be good for her to find out that--though she had managed to slip the reins out of his hands, and get the control of affairs with a skill which amused the Doctor, and made him a little proud of her abilities, even though he was himself the victim--she could not go on always unchecked in her triumphant career, but must endure like other people an occasional defeat. No doubt, had Lucilla been really worsted, paternal feeling would have interposed, and Dr Marjoribanks would to some extent have suffered in her suffering; but then the case was different, and n.o.body required, as it turned out, to suffer for Lucilla. The Doctor was pleased she had shown so much spirit, and pleased to see how entirely she had discomfited her antagonists, and turned the tables upon the ”young puppy,” in whom he had no confidence; and withal Dr Marjoribanks chuckled a little in his secret heart over the event itself, and concluded that it would do Lucilla good. She had vanquished Nancy, and by a skilful jerk taken the reins out of his own experienced hands. He was aware that he had been on the whole very wisely governed since his abdication, but yet he was not sorry that the young conqueror should feel herself human; so that n.o.body except Mrs Chiley felt that mingled rage and disappointment with which Barbara Lake had hoped to inspire Lucilla's bosom; and Mrs Chiley, so to speak, had nothing to do with it. As for Barbara herself, she returned home in a state of mingled spite and exultation and disgust, which filled her sister with amazement.

”She is such an actor, you know,” Barbara said; ”she never will give in to let you know how she is feeling--not if she can help it; but for all that she must have felt it. n.o.body could help feeling it, though she carried it off so well. I knew how it would be, as soon as I had on a dress that was fit to be seen.”

”What is it that she could not help feeling?” said Rose. ”I suppose it is Lucilla you mean?”

”I should like to know what right she had to be kind to me,” cried Barbara, all glowing in her sullen but excited beauty; ”and invite me there, and introduce me in her grand way, as if she was any better than I am! And then to look at all her India muslins; but I knew it would be different as soon as I had a decent dress,” said the contralto, rising up to contemplate herself in the little mirror over the mantelpiece.

This conversation took place in Mr Lake's little parlour, where Rose had been waiting for her sister, and where Barbara's white dress made an unusual radiance in the dim and partially-lighted room. Rose herself was all shrouded up in her morning dress, with her pretty round arms and shoulders lost to the common view. She had been amusing herself as she waited by working at a corner of that great design which was to win the prize on a later occasion. Readers of this history who have studied the earlier chapters will remember that Rose's tastes in ornamentation were very clearly defined for so young a person. Instead of losing herself in vague garlands of impossible flowers, the young artist clung with the tenacity of first love to the thistle leaf, which had been the foundation of her early triumphs. Her mind was full of it even while she received and listened to Barbara; whether to treat it in a national point of view, bringing in the rose and shamrock, which was a perfectly allowable proceeding, though perhaps not original--or whether she should yield to the ”sweet feeling” which had been so conspicuous in her flounce, in the opinion of the Marlborough House gentlemen--or whether, on the contrary, she should handle the subject in a boldly naturalistic way, and use her spikes with freedom,--was a question which occupied at that moment all Rose's faculties. Even while she asked Barbara what the subject was on which Lucilla might be supposed to be excited, she was within herself thinking out this difficult idea--all the more difficult, perhaps, considering the nature of the subject, since the design in this case was not for a flounce, in which broad handling is practicable, but for a veil.

”I wish you would not talk in that foolish way,” said Rose; ”n.o.body need be any better than you, as you say. To be sure, we don't live in Grange Lane, nor keep a carriage; but I wish you would recollect that these are only accidental circ.u.mstances. As for dress, I don't see that you require it; our position is so clearly defined; we are a family of----”

”Oh, for goodness gracious sake, do be quiet with your family of artists!” cried Barbara. ”Speak for yourself, if you please. I am not an artist, and never will be, I can tell you. There are better places to live in than Grange Lane; and as for keeping a carriage, I would never call a little bit of a brougham a carriage, if it was me. Lucilla made believe to take no notice, but she did not deceive me with that. She was as disappointed as ever she could be--I dare say now she's sitting crying over it. I never would have cared one straw if I had not wanted to serve Lucilla out!” cried the contralto, with energy. She was still standing before the gla.s.s pulling her black hair about into new combinations, and studying the effect; and as for Rose, she too looked up, and, seeing her sister's face reflected in the gla.s.s, made the discovery that there was something like grimace in the countenance, and paused in the midst of her meditations with her pencil in her hand.

”Don't put yourself out of drawing,” said Rose; ”I wish you would not do that so often. When the facial angle is disturbed to that extent----But about Lucilla, I think you are excessively ungrateful. Grat.i.tude is not a servile sentiment,” said the little Preraphaelite, with a rising colour. ”It is a slavish sort of idea to think any one has done you an injury by being kind to you. If that is the sort of thing you are going to talk of, I think you had better go to bed.”

”Then I will, and I shan't tell you anything,” said Barbara angrily--”you are so poor-spirited. For my part, do you think I'd ever have gone to help Lucilla and sing for her, and all that sort of thing, if it had not been to better myself? Nor I wouldn't have thought of _him_ just at first, if it hadn't been to spite _her_. And I've done it too. I'd just like to look in at her room window and see what she's about. I dare say she is crying her eyes out, for all her looking as if she took no notice. I know better than to think she doesn't care. And, Rose, he's such a dear,” said Barbara, with a laugh of excitement. To be sure, what she wanted was to be Mrs Cavendish, and to have a handsome house and a great many nice dresses; but at the same time she was young, and Mr Cavendish was good-looking, and she was a little in love, in her way, as well.

”I don't want to hear any more about it,” said Rose, who was so much moved as to forget even her design. ”I can't think how it is you have no sense of honour, and you one of the Lakes. I would not be a traitor for a dozen Mr Cavendishes!” cried Rose, in the force of her indignation.

”He must be a cheat, since you are a traitor. If he was a true man he would have found you out.”

”You had better be quiet, Rose,” said Barbara; ”you may be sure I shall never do anything for you after we are married, if you talk like that; and then you'll be sorry enough.”

”After you are married! has he asked you to marry him?” cried Rose. She pushed away her design with both her hands in the vehemence of her feelings, and regarded her sister with eyes which blazed, but which were totally different in their blazing from those which burned under Barbara's level eyebrows. It was too plain a question to have a plain answer. Barbara only lighted her candle in reply, and smiled and shook her head.

”You don't suppose I am going to answer after your insulting ways,” she said, taking up her candle; and she swept out of the room in her white dress with a sense of pleasure in leaving this grand point unsettled. To be sure, Mr Cavendish had not yet asked that important question; but then the future was all before them, and the way clear. As for Rose, she clenched her little fists with a gesture that would have been too forcible for any one who was not an artist, and a member of a family of artists. ”To think she should be one of us, and not to know what honour means,” said Rose; ”and as for this man, he must be a cheat himself, or he would find her out.”

This was how Mr Cavendish's defection from Lucilla took place; and at the same time it is a satisfaction to know that the event was received by everybody very much as little Rose Lake received it. And as for Miss Marjoribanks, if Barbara could have had the malicious satisfaction of looking in at the window, she would have been mortified to find that right-minded young woman sleeping the sleep of the just and innocent, and enjoying repose as profound and agreeable as if there had been no Mr Cavendish in the world, not to speak of Carlingford;--which, to be sure, was a result to be greatly attributed to Lucilla's perfect health, and entire satisfaction with herself.

_Chapter XV_

This event was of far too much importance in the limited world of Grange Lane to pa.s.s over without some of the many commentaries which were going on upon the subject coming to the ears of Miss Marjoribanks, who was the person princ.i.p.ally concerned. As for the Doctor, as we have already said, he was so far lost to a sense of his paternal duties as to chuckle a little within himself over the accident that had happened to Lucilla.

It had done her no harm, and Dr Marjoribanks permitted himself to regard the occurrence in a professional point of view, as supplying a little alterative which he could scarcely administer himself; for it is well known that physicians are seldom successful in the treatment of their own families. He was more jocose than usual at breakfast for some days following, and, on the morning of the next Thursday, asked if everybody was to come as usual, with a significance which did not escape the young mistress of the house.

”You know best, papa,” she said cheerfully, as she poured him out his coffee: ”if there is anybody who is ill and can't come, it must be your fault--but I did not hear that any one was ill.”

”Nor I,” said the Doctor, with a quiet laugh; and he could not help thinking it would be good sport to see Cavendish come into the drawing-room all by himself without any support, and make his appearance before Miss Marjoribanks, and do his best to be agreeable, with an awful consciousness of his bad behaviour, and n.o.body sufficiently benevolent to help him out. The Doctor thought it would serve him right, but yet he was not sufficiently irritated nor sufficiently sympathetic to lose any of the humour of the situation; and it was with a little zest, as for something especially piquant, that he looked forward to the evening. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she too recognised the importance of the occasion. She resolved to produce that evening a new _plat_, which had occupied a corner of her busy mind for some time past. It was a crisis which called for a new step in advance. She sat down by the window after breakfast with various novel combinations floating in her creative brain; and while she was revolving these ideas in her mind, Nancy came in with more than her usual briskness. It is true that Lucilla had her household well in hand, and possessed the faculty of government to a remarkable extent; but still, under the best of circ.u.mstances, it was a serious business to propose a new dish to Nancy. Dr Marjoribanks's factotum was a woman of genius in her way, and by no means unenlightened or an enemy of progress; but then she had a weakness common to many persons of superior intelligence and decided character. When there was anything new to be introduced, Nancy liked to be herself the G.o.dmother of the interesting novelty; for, to be sure, it was her place, and Miss Lucilla, though she was very clever, was not to be expected to understand what came in best with the other dishes for a dinner. ”I ain't one as goes just upon fish and flesh and fowl, like some as call themselves cooks,” Nancy said. ”If I have a failing, it's for things as suits. When it's brown, make it brown, and don't be mean about the gravy-beef--that's my principle; and when it ain't brown, mind what you're a-doing of--and don't go and throw a heap of entrys and things at a gentleman's head without no 'armony. I always says to Miss Lucilla as 'armony's the thing; and when I've set it all straight in my mind, I ain't one as likes to be put out,” Nancy would add, with a gleam in her eye which betokened mischief. Miss Marjoribanks was much too sensible not to be aware of this peculiarity; and accordingly she cleared her throat with something as near nervousness as was possible to Lucilla before she opened her lips to propose the innovation. Miss Marjoribanks, as a general rule, did not show much nervousness in her dealings with her prime minister, any more than in her demeanour towards the less important members of society; and consequently Nancy remarked the momentary timidity, and a flash of sympathy and indignation took the place of her usual impulse of defiance.

”I heard as master said, there was some gentleman as wasn't a-coming,”

said Nancy. ”Not as one makes no difference in a dinner; but I allays likes to know. I don't like no waste, for my part. I ain't one as calk'lates too close, but if there's one thing as I hates like poison, it's waste. I said as I would ask, for Thomas ain't as correct as could be wished. Is it one less than usual, Miss Lucilla?” said Nancy; and it was Lucilla's fault if she did not understand the profound and indignant sympathy in Nancy's voice.

”Oh, no; it is just the usual number,” said Miss Marjoribanks. ”It was only a joke of papa's--they are all just as usual----” And here Lucilla paused. She was thinking of the dish she wanted, but Nancy thought she was thinking of Mr Cavendish, who had treated her so badly. She studied the countenance of her young mistress with the interest of a woman who has had her experiences, and knows how little _They_ are to be depended upon. Nancy murmured ”Poor dear!” under her breath, almost without knowing it, and then a brilliant inspiration came to her mind. Few people have the gift of interfering successfully in such cases, but then to offer consolation is a Christian duty, especially when one has the confidence that to give consolation is in one's power.

”Miss Lucilla, I would say as you've been doing too much, if anybody was to ask me,” said Nancy, moved by this generous impulse--”all them practisings and things. They're well enough for young ladies as ain't got nothing else to do; but you as has such a deal in your hands----If there was any little thing as you could fancy for dinner,” said Nancy, in her most bland accents; ”I've set it all down as I thought would be nicest, allays if you approves, Miss Lucilla; but if there was any little thing as you could fancy----” ”Poor dear, it's all as we can do,”

she murmured to herself. The faithless could not be brought back again; but Ariadne might at least have any little thing she could fancy for dinner, which, indeed, is a very general treatment of such a case on the part of perplexed sympathisers who do not know what to say.

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