Fortunately by this time the year was declining, and that happy season had returned in which people once more begin to dine by artificial light; and at the same time it was not absolutely dark in the drawing-room, so that Lucilla had not, as she said, thought it necessary to have the candles lighted. “If there should happen to be a mistake as to who is to take down who, it will only be all the more amusing,” said Miss Marjoribanks, “so long as you do not go off and leave me.” This was addressed to the Archdeacon, to whom Lucilla was very particular in her attentions at that moment. Mrs. Chiley, who was looking on with a great sense of depression, could not help wondering why—“When she knows he is engaged and everything settled,” the old lady said to herself, with natural indignation. For her part, she did not see what right a man had to introduce himself thus under false pretences into the confiding bosom of society—when he was as bad as married, or even indeed worse. She was ruffled, and she did not think it worth while to conceal that she was so; for there are limits to human patience, and a visitor who stays six weeks ought at least to have confidence in his entertainers. Mrs. Chiley for once in her life could have boxed Lucilla’s ears for her uncalled-for civility. “I think it very strange that it is not the General who takes her downstairs,” she said to Mrs. Centum. “It is all very well to have a respect for clergymen; but after being here so often, and the General quite a stranger—I am surprised at Lucilla,” said the indiscreet old lady. As for Mrs. Centum, she felt the neglect, but she had too much proper pride to own that her man was not receiving due attention. “It is not the first time General Travers has been here,” she said, reserving the question; and so in the uncertain light, when nobody was sure who was his neighbour, the procession filed downstairs.
To enter the dining-room, all brilliant and shining as it was, radiant with light and flowers and crystal and silver, and everything that makes a dinner-table pretty to look upon, was, as Mrs. Centum said, “quite a contrast.” A close observer might have remarked, as Mrs. Woodburn and Lucilla took their places, that both of them, instead of that flush which had been so noticeable a short time before, had become quite pale. It was the moment of trial. Poor Mr. Cavendish, in his excitement, had taken just the place he ought not to have taken, immediately under the lamp at the centre of the table. During the moment when the unsuspecting Archdeacon said grace with his eyes decorously cast down, Miss Marjoribanks owned the ordinary weakness of humanity so much as to drop her fan and her handkerchief, and even the napkin which was arranged in a symmetrical pyramid on her plate. Such a sign of human feebleness could but endear her to everybody who was aware of the momentous character of the crisis. When these were all happily recovered and everybody seated, Lucilla kept her eyes fixed upon the Archdeacon’s face. It was, as we have said, a terrible moment. When he raised his head and looked round him, naturally Mr. Beverley’s eyes went direct to the mark like an arrow; he looked, and he saw at the centre of the table, surrounded by every kind of regard and consideration, full in the light of the lamp, his favourite adventurer, the impostor whom he had denounced the first time he took his place by Miss Marjoribanks’s side. The Archdeacon rose to his feet in the excitement of the discovery; he put his hand over his eyes as if to clear them. He said, “Good God!” loud out, with an accent of horror which paralysed the two people lower down than himself. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she was not paralysed—she who had not lost a single glance of his eyes or movement of his large person. Lucilla rose to the height of the position. She put her hand upon his arm sharply, and with a certain energy. “Mr. Beverley, Thomas is behind you with the soup,” said Miss Marjoribanks. The Archdeacon turned round to see what it was, conscious that somebody had spoken to him, but as indifferent to his companion and to civility as he was to Thomas and the soup. “What?” he said hoarsely, interrupting his scrutiny for the moment. But when he had met Miss Marjoribanks’s eye the Archdeacon sat down. Lucilla did not liberate him for a moment from that gaze. She fixed her eyes upon his eyes, and looked at him as people only look when they mean something. “If you tell me what surprised you so much, perhaps I can explain,” said Miss Marjoribanks. She spoke so that nobody could hear but himself; and in the meantime General Travers at her left hand was making himself excessively agreeable to Mrs. Woodburn, and no doubt occupying all her attention; and Lucilla never turned
