Part 12 (1/2)
She was not strong-minded, as has been already proved; nor, indeed, had she the ordinary amount of indifference to other people, or confidence in herself, which stands in the place of self-control with many people.
After she had wrung her hands, and looked out again and again with a vague instinct of perhaps finding some suggestion of comfort outside, Mrs Mortimer relapsed by necessity into the one idea that had been a support to her for so many months past. All that she could do was to consult Lucilla--it might be to wound Lucilla, for anything she could tell; but when a poor creature is helpless and weak, and has but one friend in the world who is strong, what can she do but apply to her sustainer and guardian? When, after beating about wildly from one point to another, she arrived ultimately, as might have been predicted, and as Miss Marjoribanks had expected from the first, at that conclusion, there remained a further difficulty in respect to the means of communication.
Lucilla had settled quite calmly in her own mind that it would be by the medium of a three-cornered note, a matter in which there was no difficulty whatever, for the widow was sufficiently fluent with her pen; but then Lucilla had not thought of Mary Jane, who was the only possible messenger. It was to this point now that Mrs Mortimer's ideas addressed themselves. At that moment the rain poured down fiercer than ever, the bricks of the uncovered wall grew black with the wet, and the wistaria crouched and s.h.i.+vered about the porch as if it wanted to be taken indoors. And then to get wet, and perhaps catch cold, was a thing Mary Jane conscientiously avoided, like the rest of the world; and it was with a sense of alarm even stronger than that excited by the possibility of injuring Lucilla, that Mrs Mortimer very gently and modestly rang her bell.
”I don't think it rains quite so heavily,” said the timid experimentalist, feeling her heart beat as she made this doubtful statement. ”Have you a pair of goloshes, Mary Jane?”
”No,” said the little handmaiden, with precaution; ”and, please, if it's for the post, it rains worse nor ever; and I don't think as mother would like----”
”Oh, it is not for the post,” said Mrs Mortimer; ”it is for Miss Marjoribanks. You can take mine, and then you will not get your feet wet. I go out so very little; you may have them--to keep--Mary Jane. And you can take the big shawl that hangs in the pa.s.sage, and an umbrella. I don't think it is so heavy as it was.”
Mary Jane regarded the rain gloomily from the window; but her reluctance was at an end from the moment she heard that it was to Miss Marjoribanks she was going. To be sure, the distance between the Serenissime Nancy and Thomas, and the other inmates of the Doctor's kitchen, and Mrs Mortimer's little handmaiden, was as great as that which exists between an English Duke and the poorest little cadet of a large family among his attendant gentry; but, correspondingly, the merest entrance into that higher world was as great a privilege for Mary Jane, as the Duke's notice would be to the Squire's youngest son. She kept up a momentary show of resistance, but she accepted the goloshes, and even after a moment agreed in her mistress's trembling a.s.sertion about the rain. And this was how the three-cornered note got conveyed to its destination in the heaviest of the storm, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Mrs Mortimer still sat at her window, wringing her hands from time to time, with her head aching and her heart beating, and a dreadful question in her mind as to what Lucilla would say, or whether perhaps she might reject altogether in her natural indignation the appeal made to her; which was an idea which filled the widow with inexpressible horror. While at the same moment Miss Marjoribanks sat looking for that appeal which she knew was sure to come. The rain had set in by this time with an evident intention of lasting, and even from the windows of Lucilla's drawing-room the prospect of the garden walls and glistening trees was sufficiently doleful. n.o.body was likely to call, nothing was doing; and Lucilla, who never caught cold, had not the least fear of wetting her feet. And besides, her curiosity had been rising every moment since her return; and the widow's pathetic appeal, ”Come to me, my dearest Lucilla. I have n.o.body whom I can talk to in the world but you!” had its natural effect upon a mind so feeling. Miss Marjoribanks got up as soon as she had read the note, and changed her dress, and put on a great waterproof cloak. Instead of thinking it a trouble, she was rather exhilarated by the necessity. ”Be sure you make your mistress a nice cup of tea as soon as we get there,” she said to Mary Jane. ”She must want it, I am sure, if she has not had any dinner;” for the little maid had betrayed the fact that Mrs Mortimer could not eat anything, and had sent away her dinner, which was naturally an alarming and wonderful occurrence to Mary Jane. The widow was still sitting at the window when Lucilla appeared tripping across the wet garden in her waterproof cloak, if not a ministering angel, at least a substantial prop and support to the lonely woman who trusted in her, and yet in the present instance feared her. But anything more unlike a disappointed maiden, whose wooer had been taken away from her under her very eyes, could not have been seen. On the contrary, Miss Marjoribanks was radiant, with raindrops glistening on her hair, and what Mrs Chiley called ”a lovely colour.” If there was one thing in the world more than another which contented Lucilla, it was to be appealed to and called upon for active service. It did her heart good to take the management of incapable people, and arrange all their affairs for them, and solve all their difficulties.
Such an office was more in her way than all the Archdeacons in the world.
”I saw you knew him the moment I looked at you,” said Lucilla. ”I have seen other people look _like that_ when he appeared. Who is he, for goodness' sake? I know quite well, of course, who he is, in the ordinary way; but do tell me what has he done to make people look like that whenever he appears?”
Mrs Mortimer did not directly answer this question--she fixed her mind upon one part of it, like an unreasonable woman, and repeated ”Other people?” with a kind of interrogative gasp.
”Oh, it was only a gentleman,” said Lucilla, with rapid intelligence; and then there was a little pause. ”He has been here for six weeks,”
Miss Marjoribanks continued; ”you must have heard of him; indeed, you would have heard him preach if you had not gone off after these Dissenters. Did you really never know that he was here till to-day?”
”I did not think of him being Archdeacon--he was only a curate when I used to know him,” said poor Mrs Mortimer, with a sigh.
”Tell me all about it,” said Lucilla, with ingenuous sympathy; and she drew her chair close to that of her friend, and took her hand in a protecting, encouraging way. ”You know, whatever you like to say, that it is quite safe with me.”
”If you are sure you do not mind,” said the poor widow. ”Oh, yes, I have heard what people have been saying about him and--and you, Lucilla; and if I had known, I would have shut myself up--I would have gone away for ever and ever--I would----”
”My dear,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with a little severity, ”I thought you knew me better. If I had been thinking of that sort of thing, I never need have come home at all; and when you know how kind papa has been about the drawing-room and everything. Say what you were going to say, and never think of me.”
”Ah, Lucilla, I have had my life,” said the trembling woman, whose agitation was coming to a climax--”I have had it, and done with it; and you have been so good to me; and if, after all, I was to stand between you and--and--and--anybody----” But here Mrs Mortimer broke down, and could say no more. To be sure, she did not faint this time any more than she did on the first occasion when she made Miss Marjoribanks's acquaintance; but Lucilla thought it best, as then, to make her lie down on the sofa, and keep her quite quiet, and hasten Mary Jane with the cup of tea.
”You have been agitated, and you have not eaten anything,” said Lucilla.
”I am going to stay with you till half-past six, when I must run home for dinner, so we have plenty of time; and as for your life, I don't consider you gone off at all yet, and you are a great deal younger-looking than you were six months ago. I am very glad the Archdeacon did not come until you had got back your looks. It makes such a difference to a man,” Miss Marjoribanks added, with that almost imperceptible tone of contempt which she was sometimes known to use when speaking of Their absurd peculiarities. As for Mrs Mortimer, the inference conveyed by these words brought the colour to her pale cheeks.
”It will never come to that,” she said, ”no more than it did in old days; it never can, Lucilla; and I don't know that it is to be wished. I couldn't help being put out a little when I saw him, you know; but there is one thing, that he never, never will persuade me,” said the widow.
Lucilla could not but look on in surprise and even consternation, while Mrs Mortimer thus expressed herself. A warm flush animated the pale and somewhat worn face--and a gleam of something that looked absolutely like resolution shone in the yielding woman's mild eyes. Was it possible that even she had one point upon which she could be firm? Miss Marjoribanks stood still, petrified, in the very act of pouring out the tea.
”If it is only one thing, if I were you, I would give in to him,” said Lucilla, with a vague sense that this sort of self-a.s.sertion must be put a stop to, mingling with her surprise.
”Never,” said Mrs Mortimer again, with a still more distinct gleam of resolution. ”In the first place, I have no right whatever to anything more than my uncle gave me. He told me himself I was to have no more; and _he_ was very, very kind to poor Edward. You don't know all the circ.u.mstances, or you would not say so,” she cried, with a sob. As for Miss Marjoribanks, if it is possible to imagine her clear spirit altogether lost in bewilderment, it would have been at that moment; but she recovered as soon as she had administered her cup of tea.
”Now tell me all about it,” said Lucilla, again sitting down by the sofa; and this time Mrs Mortimer, to whom her excitement had given a little spur and stimulus, did not waste any more time.
”He is my cousin,” she said; ”not my real cousin, but distant; and I will not deny that long, long ago--when we were both quite young, you know, Lucilla----”
”Yes, yes, I understand,” said Miss Marjoribanks, pressing her hand.
”He was very nice in those days,” said Mrs Mortimer, faltering; ”that is, I don't mean to say he was not always nice, you know, but only----I never had either father or mother. I was living with my Uncle Garrett--my uncle on the other side; and he thought he should have made me his heiress; but instead of that, he left his money, you know, to _him_; and then he was dreadfully put out, and wanted me to go to law with him and change the will; but I never blamed him, for my part, Lucilla--he knows I never blamed him--and nothing he said would make me give in to go to the law with him----”
”Stop a minute,” said Lucilla, ”I am not quite sure that I understand.