Part 17 (2/2)

But it is always hard to tell what a man may do when he is in a state of despair. Mr Cavendish looked her in the face with the composure of desperation, though she did not know that. All that he was able to think of was how to get rid of her soonest, and to be able to continue his way. ”Yes, I am going to see Miss Marjoribanks,” he said, with a face which extremity rendered stolid and impa.s.sible. As for poor Barbara, her colour changed in a moment. The very least that she had a right to expect was that he should have asked her pardon, put himself at her feet; and her mingled spite and humiliation and mortification at this response were beyond telling. Her cheeks blazed with sudden rage, her pa.s.sion was so furious that she actually did what he wanted and stood out of his way, and made him an imperious sign to pa.s.s on and leave her.

But even then she did not expect to be taken at her word. When Mr Cavendish took off his hat in that heartless way and pa.s.sed on, Barbara stood aghast, not able to believe her senses. Had he really pa.s.sed and left her, she who had done so much for him? Had he actually gone over to her adversary before her very eyes? She stood stock-still when he left her, gazing after him, blazing with rage and despite, and scarcely able to keep herself from shrieking out the torrent of reproaches and vituperations that were in her mind. She made no attempt whatever to hide her wrath or jealous curiosity from any eyes that might be there to see; but to be sure she had, as her sister said, no proper pride. If Mr Cavendish had carried out his intentions, the chances are that Barbara, driven desperate, would have rushed after him, and found some means of breaking in upon his interview with Lucilla; but after all this badgering, he had not the courage to carry out his intentions. He looked down the long suns.h.i.+ny line of Grange Lane with a sickening sense that any of these doors might open at any moment, and his fate rush out upon him. There was not a soul to be seen, but that only made it all the more likely to poor Mr Cavendish's distempered fancy that somebody was coming. He had not even a single thought at leisure to give to Barbara, and never asked himself whether or not she was standing watching him.

All his senses and faculties were engaged forecasting what might happen to him before he could reach Dr Marjoribanks's house. He was approaching it from the lower end of Grange Lane, and consequently had everything to risk; and when Mr Centum's door opened, and all the nurses and all the children poured out, the unfortunate man felt his heart jump, and drop again, if possible, lower than ever. It was this that drove him, instead of going on to Lucilla, to take refuge in his sister's house, where the door happened to be open. He rushed in there, and took breath, and was safe for the instant. But Barbara, for her part, watching him, divined none of Mr Cavendish's reasons. Her heart too gave a jump, and her wrath cooled down miraculously. No doubt it was a little impatience at being questioned which had made him answer as he did. He had not gone to Lucilla--he had not deserted her standard, who had always met him half-way, and done so much for him. Barbara calmed down as she saw him enter at Mrs Woodburn's door. After having thus witnessed his safe exit, she felt at liberty to go back and return to her own affairs, and prepare her toilette for the evening; for it moved her very little less than Mr Cavendish to know that it was Thursday, and that there was no telling what might happen that night.

As for the hero of all this commotion, he went and buried himself in Mrs Woodburn's back drawing-room, and threw himself on the sofa in the dark corner, and wiped his forehead like the Archdeacon. It was not his fault if events had overwhelmed him. If he had not met in succession Dr Marjoribanks and Mrs Chiley and Barbara, he would have gone right to Lucilla without stopping to question himself further--but he could not bear all this acc.u.mulation. Panic had seized upon him, and this panic wrought more effectually than all argument. It was so terrible to live under such a shadow, that he felt it must be put an end to. If only he were left at rest for this moment, he felt that he could make up his mind to take the perilous leap at night, and dare everything. ”It can't be worse than ruin,” he said to himself, and tried not to think that for his sister it might be something even worse than ruin. But the first thing of all was to get a little rest in the meantime, and hide himself, and forget the nightmare that was seated on his shoulders. When Mrs Woodburn came to him in haste, and saw his careful dress and pale looks, she was frightened for the moment. She thought it possible for one second that despair had driven him out of his wits, and that there might be, for anything she could tell, a little bottle of prussic acid in his waistcoat pocket. That was her first idea, and her second was that he was going to carry out at last his most wise and laudable resolution of proposing to Miss Marjoribanks, and that it was this--naturally a serious and hazardous enterprise--which made him look so pale.

”Harry, if you are going to Lucilla----!” said Mrs Woodburn; ”wait and rest yourself a little, and I will get you a gla.s.s of wine. Keep still; there's some Tokay,” said the anxious sister. ”Don't you go and worry yourself. You shall see n.o.body. I'll bring it you with my own hand.”

”Oh, confound the Tokay!” said Mr Cavendish. ”I know what Woodburn's Tokay is--if that mattered. Look here, I want to speak to you. I _was_ going to Lucilla, but I'm not up to it. Oh, not in the way you think!

Don't be a fool like everybody. I tell you she wouldn't have me, and I won't ask her. Read this, which is much more to the purpose,” Mr Cavendish added, taking out Miss Marjoribanks's letter. He watched her, while she read it, with that sense of contempt and superiority which a man naturally feels who has advanced much beyond the point in any special matter at which his interlocutor is still stationary. He even smiled at her cry of horror and amazement, and found the agitation she showed ridiculous. ”Don't make a row about it,” he said, regaining his colour as his sister lost hers. ”It's all right. I can't ask Lucilla Marjoribanks to have me after that, but I mean to put my trust in her, as she says. I was going to ask her to explain; but after all, on thinking of it, I don't see the good of explanations,” said Mr Cavendish, with lofty tranquillity. ”The fact is, she is right, Nelly, and, stand or fall, we'll have it out to-night.”

But Mrs Woodburn was scarcely in a condition to reply, much less to give any advice. ”Oh, good heavens! what does she know?” cried the trembling woman. ”What do you suppose she can know? She gave me a dreadful fright, coming and asking about you and your name. And then she never was a great friend of mine--and if she should say anything to Woodburn!

Oh, Harry, go away, go away, and don't face her. You know you slighted her, and she is laying a snare for us. Oh, Harry, go away! She can't do you much harm, but she could ruin me, and any little peace I have!

Woodburn would never--never forgive--he would be frantic, you know. It has always been he that made a fuss about the Cavendishes--and, good heavens! to be in a girl's power, and she one that you have slighted, Harry! Oh, for Heaven's sake, for pity's sake, if you care anything for me----”

”Hold your tongue, Nelly,” said Mr Cavendish. ”Don't make a row. What on earth is the use of Heaven's-saking? I tell you I am going to make an end of it. If I were to run away now, it would turn up again at some other corner, and some other moment. Give me a pen and a bit of paper. I will write a note, and say I am coming. I don't want any explanations.

If it's all a mistake, so much the better; but I'm going to face it out to-night.”

It was some time before Mrs Woodburn recovered her senses; but in the meantime her brother wrote Lucilla his note, and in sight of his sister's agitation felt himself perfectly composed and serene and manful. It even made him complaisant to feel the difference that there was, when the emergency really arrived at last, between his own manly calm and her womanish panic. But then it was for herself that she was afraid, lest her husband should find out that she was not one of the Cavendishes. ”You must have been giving yourself airs on the subject,”

Mr Cavendish said, as he fastened up his note. ”I never was so foolish as that, for my part;” and naturally the more he admired his own steadiness and courage, the steadier and more courageous he grew--or at least so he felt for the moment, with her terror before his eyes.

”If you do go,” said Mrs Woodburn at last, ”oh, Harry, for goodness'

sake, mind that you deny _everything_. If you confess to anything, it will all be proved against you; don't allow a single thing that's said to you. It is a mistaken ident.i.ty, you know--that is what it is; there was a case in the papers just the other day. Oh, Harry, for Heaven's sake don't be weak!--deny everything; you don't know anything about it--you don't know what they mean--you can't understand----”

”It is I that have to do it, Nelly,” said Mr Cavendish, more and more tranquil and superior. ”You must let me do it my way;” and he was very kind and rea.s.suring to her in his composure. This was how things ought to be; and it was astonis.h.i.+ng how much he gained in his own mind and estimation by Mrs Woodburn's panic. Being the stronger vessel, he was of course superior to all that. But somehow when he had got back to his own house again, and had no longer the spectacle of his sister's terror before him, the courage began to ooze out of Mr Cavendish's finger-points; he tried hard to stimulate himself up to the same point, and to regain that lofty and a.s.sured position; but as the evening approached, matters grew rather worse than better. He did not turn and flee, because flight, in the present alarmed and touchy state of public opinion, would have equally been destruction; and n.o.body could answer for it how far, if he failed to obey her, Miss Marjoribanks's discretion might go. And thus the eventful evening fell, and the sun went down, which was to Mr Cavendish as if it might be the last sun he should ever (metaphorically) see--while, in the meantime, all the other people dressed for dinner as if nothing was going to happen, and as if it was merely a Thursday like other Thursdays, which was coming to Grange Lane.

_Chapter x.x.xI_

Lucilla waited till twelve o'clock, as she had said, for Mr Cavendish's visit; and so mingled are human sentiments, even in the mind of a person of genius, that there is no doubt she was at once a little disappointed, and that Mr Cavendish gained largely in her estimation by not coming.

Her pity began to be mingled by a certain respect, of which, to tell the truth, he was not worthy; but then Miss Marjoribanks did not know that it was circ.u.mstances, and not self-regard, or any sense of dignity, that had kept him back. With the truest consideration, it was in the dining-room that Lucilla had placed herself to await his visit; for she had made up her mind that he should not be disturbed _this time_ by any untimely morning caller. But as she sat at the window and looked out upon the garden, and was tantalised by fifty successive ringings of the bell, none of which heralded her expected visitor, a gentler sentiment gradually grew in Lucilla's mind. Perhaps it would not be just to call it positively regret; but yet she could not help a kind of impression that if the Archdeacon had never come to Carlingford, and if Mr Cavendish had never been so weak as to be drawn aside by Barbara Lake, and if everything had gone as might have been expected from first appearances--that, on the whole, it might have been well. After all, he had a great many good qualities. He had yielded to panic for the moment, but (so far as Lucilla knew) he was now girding up his loins to meet the emergency in a creditable way; and if, as has been just said, nothing had come in the way--if there had been no Archdeacon, no Mrs Mortimer, no Barbara--if Mr Chiltern had died, as was to have been expected, and Mr Cavendish been elected for Carlingford--then Lucilla could not help a momentary sense that the arrangement altogether might have been a not undesirable one. Now, of course, all that was at an end. By dexterous management the crisis might be tided over, and the worst avoided; but Lucilla became regretfully conscious that now no fate higher than Barbara was possible for the unfortunate man who might once, and with hope, have aspired to herself. It was very sad, but there was no help for it. A certain tenderness of compa.s.sion entered Miss Marjoribanks's bosom as she realised this change. It would be hard if a woman did not pity a man thus shut out by hard fate from any possibility of ever becoming the companion of her existence--a man who, on the whole, had many capabilities, yet whose highest fortune in life could not mount above Barbara Lake!

This thought filled Lucilla's heart with gentle regret. It was sad, but it was inevitable; and when Mr Cavendish's note was brought to her, in which he said simply, and very briefly, that though not sure whether he understood the meaning of her letter, he should certainly do himself the pleasure of accepting as usual her kind invitation, Miss Marjoribanks's regret grew more and more profound. Such a man, who had been capable of appreciating herself, to think that, having known her, he should decline upon Barbara! The pity was entirely disinterested, for n.o.body knew better than Lucilla that, under the circ.u.mstances, no other arrangement was possible. He might marry the drawing-master's daughter, but Miss Marjoribanks was too well aware of her duty to her friends, and to her position in society, to have given her consent to his marriage with anybody's daughter in Grange Lane. But still it was a pity--n.o.body could say that it was not a pity--a man so visibly capable of better things.

Lucilla, however, could not afford to waste her morning in unprofitable regrets. An evening so critical and conclusive had to be provided for in many different ways. Among other things, she had to invite, or rather command, the presence of a guest whom, to tell the truth, she had no particular desire to see. The Archdeacon was only a man when all was said, and might change his mind like other men; and to bring Mrs Mortimer to Grange Lane in the evening, looking interesting, as, to be sure, she could look by times, after that unpleasant exhibition of Dr Marjoribanks's feelings, was naturally a trial to Lucilla. Mr Beverley had drawn back once before, and that when Mrs Mortimer was young, and no doubt a great deal more attractive than at present; and now that she was a widow, forlorn and faded, it would be no wonder if he were to draw back, especially, as Lucilla acknowledged to herself, when he saw the ancient object of his affections in her own society, and among all the fresh young faces of Grange Lane: and if the Archdeacon should draw back, and leave the field open, and perhaps the Doctor, who ought to know better, should step in--when she had got so far, Lucilla rose up and shook out her draperies, as if by way of shaking off the disagreeable idea. ”At all events I have to do my duty,” she said to herself. And thus it was with that last and most exquisite refinement of well-doing, the thought that she might possibly be going to harm herself in benefiting others, that Miss Marjoribanks heroically put on her hat, and issued forth in the dinner-hour of the little pupils, to invite her last and most important guest.

This period of suspense had not been by any means a happy or comfortable period for Mrs Mortimer. The poor widow was living in a constant expectation of something happening, whereas her only true policy was to have made up her mind that nothing would ever happen, and shaped herself accordingly to her life. Instead of eating her dinner as she ought to have done at that hour of leisure, and fortifying herself for the weary afternoon's work, she was sitting as usual at the window when Miss Marjoribanks came to the door. And if it was a tedious business looking out of the window when the rain was drenching the four walls of the garden and breaking down the flowers, and reducing all the poor little shrubs to abject misery, it could not be said to be much more cheerful in the suns.h.i.+ne, when pleasant sounds came in over that enclosure--voices and footsteps of people who might be called alive, while this solitary woman was buried, and had nothing to do with life.

Such a fate may be accepted when people make up their minds to it; but when, so far from making up one's mind, one fixes one's thoughts upon the life outside, and fancies that every moment the call may come, and one may find one's place again in the active world, the tedium grows more and more insupportable. As for Lucilla, naturally she could not see any reason why Mrs Mortimer should sit at the window--why she could not content herself, and eat her dinner instead.

”There are a great many people in Carlingford who have not nearly such a pleasant lookout,” Lucilla said; ”for my part, I think it is a very pretty garden. The wistaria has grown quite nice, and there is a little of everything,” said Miss Marjoribanks; and, so far as that went, she was no doubt the best judge, having done it all herself.

”Oh, yes, it is very pretty; and I am sure I am very grateful to Providence for giving me such a home,” said the widow; but she sighed, poor soul, as she said it: for, to tell the truth, though she was not so young as she once was, it takes some people a long time to find out that they themselves are growing old, and have done with life. And then outside, in that existence which she could hear but could not see, there was one figure which was wonderfully interesting to poor Mrs Mortimer; which is a complication which has a remarkable effect on the question of content or discontent.

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