Part 27 (1/2)
And then Lucilla unfolded John Brown's further particulars to her surprised hearer. Mrs John lived upon a smallish income herself, and she was not so contemptuous of the two hundred a year. ”And the house,” she said--”the house would bring you in another hundred, Lucilla. The Riders, I am sure, would take it directly, and perhaps a great part of the furniture too. Three hundred would not be so bad for a single woman.
Did you say anything about the furniture, my dear?” Aunt Jemima added, half regretfully, for she did feel that she would be sorry to lose that chiffonier.
”I think I shall stay in the house,” said Lucilla; ”you may think it silly, Aunt Jemima, but I was born in it, and----”
”Stay in the house!” Mrs John said, with a gasp. She did not think it silly, but simple madness, and so she told her niece. If Lucilla could not make up her mind to Elsworthy's, there was Brighton and Bath and Cheltenham, and a hundred other places where a single woman might be very comfortable on three hundred a year. And to lose a third part of her income for a piece of sentiment was so utterly unlike any conception Aunt Jemima had ever formed of her niece. It _was_ unlike Miss Marjoribanks; but there are times of life when even the most reasonable people are inconsistent. Lucilla, though she felt it was open to grave criticism, felt only more confirmed in her resolution by her aunt's remarks. She heard a voice Aunt Jemima could not hear, and that voice said, Stay!
_Chapter XLV_
It must be allowed that Lucilla's decision caused very general surprise in Carlingford, where people had been disposed to think that she would be rather glad, now that things were so changed, to get away. To be sure it was not known for some time; but everybody's idea was that, being thus left alone in the world, and in circ.u.mstances so reduced, Miss Marjoribanks naturally would go to live with somebody. Perhaps with her aunt, who had something, though she was not rich; perhaps, after a little, to visit about among her friends, of whom she had so many.
n.o.body doubted that Lucilla would abdicate at once, and a certain uneasy, yet delicious, sense of freedom had already stolen into the hearts of some of the ladies in Grange Lane. They lamented, it is true, the state of chaos into which everything would fall, and the dreadful loss Miss Marjoribanks would be to society; but still, freedom is a n.o.ble thing, and Lucilla's subjects contemplated their emanc.i.p.ation with a certain guilty delight. It was, at the same time, a most fertile subject of discussion in Carlingford, and gave rise to all those lively speculations and consultations, and oft-renewed comparing of notes, which take the place of bets in the feminine community. The Carlingford ladies as good as betted upon Lucilla, whether she would go with her aunt, or pay Mrs Beverley a visit at the Deanery, or retire to Mount Pleasant for a little, where those good old Miss Blounts were so fond of her. Each of these opinions had its backers, if it is not profane to say so; and the discussion which of them Miss Marjoribanks would choose waxed very warm. It almost put the election out of people's heads; and indeed the election had been sadly damaged in interest and social importance by the sad and most unexpected event which had just happened in Grange Lane.
But when the fact was really known, it would be difficult to describe the sense of guilt and horror which filled many innocent bosoms. The bound of freedom had been premature--liberty and equality had not come yet, notwithstanding that too early unwise _elan_ of republican satisfaction. It was true that she was in deep mourning, and that for a year, at least, society must be left to its own devices; and it was true, also, that she was poor--which might naturally be supposed a damper upon her energies--but, at the same time, Carlingford knew its Lucilla. As long as she remained in Grange Lane, even though retired and in c.r.a.pe, the const.i.tutional monarch was still present among her subjects; and n.o.body could usurp her place or show that utter indifference to her regulations which some revolutionaries had dreamed of. Such an idea would have gone direct in the face of the British Const.i.tution, and the sense of the community would have been dead against it. But everybody who had speculated upon her proceedings disapproved of Lucilla in her most unlooked-for resolution. Some could not think how she could bear it, staying on there when everything was so changed; and some said it was a weakness they could never have believed to exist in her; and some--for there are spiteful people everywhere--breathed the names of Cavendish and Ashburton, the rival candidates, and hinted that Miss Marjoribanks had something in her mind to justify her lingering. If Lucilla had not been supported by a conscious sense of rect.i.tude, she must have broken down before this universal disapprobation. Not a soul in the world except one supported her in her resolution, and that was perhaps, of all others, the one least likely to be able to judge.
And it was not for want of opportunity to go elsewhere. Aunt Jemima, as has been seen, did not lose an instant in offering the shelter of her house to her niece; and Mrs Beverley wrote the longest, kindest, most incoherent letter begging her dear Lucilla to come to her immediately for a long visit, and adding, that though she had to go out a good deal into society, she needn't mind, for that everything she could think of would be done to make her comfortable; to which Dr Beverley himself, who was now a dean, added an equally kind postscript, begging Miss Marjoribanks to make her home at the Deanery ”until she saw how things were to be.” ”He would have found me a place, perhaps,” Lucilla said, when she folded up the letter--and this was a terrible mode of expression to the genteel ears of Mrs John.
”I wish you would not use such words, my dear,” said Aunt Jemima; ”even if you had been as poor as you thought, my house would always have been a home for you. Thank Heaven I have enough for both; you never needed to have thought, under any circ.u.mstances, of taking a--a situation. It is a thing I could never have consented to,”--which was a very handsome thing of Aunt Jemima to say.
”Thank you, aunt,” said Lucilla, but she sighed; for, though it was very kind, what was Miss Marjoribanks to have done with herself in such a dowager establishment? And then Colonel Chiley came in, who had also his proposal to make.
”_She_ sent me,” the Colonel said; ”it's been a sad business for us all, Lucilla; I don't know when I have felt anything more; and as for her, you know, she has never held up her head since----”
”Dear Mrs Chiley!” Miss Marjoribanks said, unable to resist the old affection; ”and yet I heard she had sent for Dr Rider directly,” Lucilla added. She knew it was quite natural, and perhaps quite necessary, but then it did seem hard that his own friends should be the first to replace her dear papa.
”It was I did that,” said the Colonel. ”What was a man to do? I was horribly cut up, but I could not stand and see her making herself worse; and I said you had too much sense to mind----”
”So I ought,” said Lucilla, with penitence, ”but when I remembered where he was last, the very last place----”
It was hard upon the Colonel to stand by and see a woman cry. It was a thing he could never stand, as he had always said to his wife. He took the poker, which was his favourite resource, and made one of his tremendous dashes at the fire, to give Lucilla time to recover herself, and then he turned to Aunt Jemima, who sat pensively by:
”_She_ sent me,” said the Colonel, who did not think his wife needed any other name--”not that I would not have come of my own accord; we want Lucilla to go to us, you see. I don't know what plans she may have been making, but we're both very fond of her--she knows that. I think, if you have not settled upon anything, the best that Lucilla can do is to come to us. She'll be the same as at home, and always somebody to look after her----”
The old Colonel was standing before the fire, wavering a little on his long unsteady old legs, and looking wonderfully well preserved, and old and feeble; and Lucilla, though she was in mourning, was so full of life and force in her way. It was a curious sort of protection to offer her, and yet it was real protection, and love and succour, though, Heaven knows! it might not perhaps last out the year.
”I am sure, Colonel Chiley, it is a very kind offer,” said Aunt Jemima, ”and I would have been thankful if she could have made up her mind to go with me. But I must say she has taken a very queer notion into her head--a thing I should never have expected from Lucilla--she says she will stay here.”
”Here?--ah--eh--what does she mean by here?” said the Colonel.
”_Here_, Colonel Chiley, in this great big melancholy house. I have been thinking about it, and talking about it till my head goes round and round. Unless she were to take Inmates,” said Aunt Jemima, in a resigned and doleful voice. As for the Colonel, he was petrified, and for a long time had not a word to say.
”_Here!_--By Jove, I think she must have lost her senses,” said the old soldier. ”Why, Lucilla, I--I thought--wasn't there something about the money being lost? You couldn't keep up this house under a--fifteen hundred a year at least; the Doctor spent a mint of money;--you must be going out of your senses. And to have all the sick people coming, and the bell ringing of nights. Bless my soul! it would kill anybody,” said Colonel Chiley. ”Put on your bonnet, and come out with me; shutting her up here, and letting her cry, and so forth--I don't say it ain't natural--I'm terribly cut up myself whenever I think of it; but it's been too much for her head,” said the Colonel, with anxiety and consternation mingling in his face.
”Unless she were to take Inmates, you know,” said Aunt Jemima, in a sepulchral voice. There was something in the word that seemed to carry out to a point of reality much beyond anything he had dreamt of, the suggestion Colonel Chiley had just made.
”Inmates! Lord bless my soul! what do you mean, ma'am?” said the old soldier. ”Lucilla, put on your bonnet directly, and come and have a little fresh air. She'll soon be an inmate herself if we leave her here,” the Colonel said. They were all very sad and grave, and yet it was a droll scene; and then the old hero offered Lucilla his arm, and led her to the door. ”You'll find me in the hall as soon as you are ready,” he said, in tones half gruff, half tender, and was glad to go downstairs, though it was cold, and put on his greatcoat with the aid of Thomas, and stand warming the tips of his boots at the hall fire. As for Lucilla, she obeyed him without a word; and it was with his unsteady but kind old arm to lean upon that she first saw how the familiar world looked through the mist of this strange change that had come over it, and through the blackness of her c.r.a.pe veil.
But though she succeeded in satisfying her friends that she had made up her mind, she did not secure their approval. There were so many objections to her plan. ”If you had been rich even, I don't think I should have approved of it, Lucilla,” Mrs Chiley said, with tears; ”and I think we could have made you happy here.” So the good old lady spoke, looking round her pretty room, which was so warm and cheery and bright, and where the Colonel, neat and precise as if he had come out of a box, was standing poking the fire. It looked all very solid and substantial, and yet it was as unstable as any gossamer that the careless pa.s.senger might brush away. The two good people were so old that they had forgotten to remember they were old. But neither did Lucilla think of that. This was really what she thought and partly said:
”I am in my own house, that wants no expense nor changing, and Nancy is getting old, and does not mind standing by me. And it is not so much trouble after all keeping everything nice when there is no gentleman coming in, and nothing else to do. And, besides, I don't mean to be Lucilla Marjoribanks for ever and ever.” This was the general scope, without going into all the details, of what Lucilla said.