“Oh, Lucilla! don’t say so,” said Mrs. Mortimer; “and besides, he has been again, and I could see you had been saying something to him. He spoke as if I understood it all when I did not understand a word of it; and he spoke of him, you know, and was quite solemn, and warned me to think well of it, and not do anything rash—as if I had anything to think about, or was going to do anything! Tell me what you said to him, Lucilla; for I am sure, by the way he spoke, he must have taken him for himself, and perhaps you for me.”
“Who did he take for himself, I wonder?” said Lucilla. “As for you and me, dear Mrs. Mortimer, we are so different that he could never take us for each other, whatever the circumstances might be.”
“Ah, yes, Lucilla! we are different,” said the poor widow. “You have all your own people to take care of you, and you are not afraid of anybody; but as for me, I have not a creature in the world who cares what becomes of me.” As she made this forlorn statement it was only natural that the poor woman should cry a little. This was no doubt the result of the four garden-walls that closed in so tightly, and the aggravating little pupils; but Miss Marjoribanks felt it was not a state of feeling that could be allowed to go on.
“You ought not to speak like that; I am sure there are a great many people who are interested in you; and you have always Me,” said Lucilla, with a certain reproachful tenderness. As for Mrs. Mortimer, she raised her head and dried her eyes when Miss Marjoribanks began to speak, and looked at her in a somewhat eager, inquiring way; but when Lucilla uttered those last reassuring words, it is undeniable that the widow’s countenance fell a little. She faltered and grew pale again, and only cried the more—perhaps with gratitude, perhaps with disappointment. And when she said, “I am sure you are very kind, Lucilla,” which was all the poor soul could utter, it was in a very tremulous undecided voice. The fact that she had always the sympathy and cooperation of such a friend as Miss Marjoribanks, did not seem to have the exhilarating effect upon her that it ought to have had. It did not apparently do any more for her than the similar reassurance that Lucilla was coming to tea did for Rose Lake. But then, like every other benefactor of the human race, Miss Marjoribanks was aware that the human mind has its moments of unbelief. It was a discouraging experience to meet with; but she never permitted it seriously to interrupt her exertions for the good of her kind.
“You should not have so poor an opinion of your friends,” said Lucilla, who after all was giving only a stone when her suppliant asked for bread. “You know how much interested we all are in you; and for me, anything I can do—”
“Oh, Lucilla, you are very kind; nobody could be kinder,” cried Mrs. Mortimer, with compunction. “It is very nice to have friends. I do not know what I should do without you, I am sure; but then one cannot live upon one’s friends; and then one knows, when they go away,” said the widow, with more feeling than distinctness of expression, “that they all go away to something of their own, and pity you or forget you; but you always stay there, and have nothing of your own to go away to. I am not grumbling, but it is hard, Lucilla; and then you are young, and happy, and at home, and I don’t think it is possible you can understand.”
“My dear,” said Miss Marjoribanks, “it is quite easy to understand, and I know exactly what you mean. You want me to tell you all about Mr. Beverley, and what I said to him, and what he has in his mind. If he is the something of your own you would like to go away to, I think it is a pity. I am sure he has a temper, and I would not marry him for my part. But if you mean me, I have nothing to go away to,” said Lucilla, with a little scorn. “I should be ashamed not to be enough for myself. When I leave you it is not to enjoy myself, but to think about you and to plan for you; and all that you want to know is about him!” said Miss Marjoribanks, piercing through and through the thin armour of her incapable assailant. Naturally all the widow’s defences fell before this ruthless response. She cried with a mingled sensation of shame at being found out, and penitence for being so ungrateful, and a certain desolate distress with her own incapacity and want of power to defend herself. It was an acute variety of feminine anguish on the whole. The idea that she, a mature woman, a married woman and widow, who ought to have been done with all these vanities, should have been found out by a young girl to be thinking about a gentleman, struck poor Mrs. Mortimer with a sharp sense of shame as if her wistful preoccupation had been a crime. Indeed the chances are, if it had been a crime, she would not have been nearly so much ashamed of it. She hid her face in her hands and blushed down to the very edge of her black dress and up into the glooms of her widow’s veil; and all the self-defence she was capable of was a faint “Oh, Lucilla!” a mere appeal of weakness without reason—a virtual throwing of herself in acknowledged guilt at her judge’s feet.
“Thomas is coming with the tea,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “Come into my
