Miss Marjoribanks

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 compassion 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 nobody knew better than Lucilla that, under the circumstances, 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—nobody 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 sunshine, 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