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 tonight.”
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 identity, 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 reassuring to her in his composure. This was how things ought to be; and it was astonishing 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 assured 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 nobody 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.
XXXI
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 circumstances, 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
