“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Beverley. “I was confounded by what I saw. Good heavens! it is not possible I can deceive myself. I understand your alarm. I am not going to make a disturbance and break up your party. I can wait,” the Archdeacon said, drawing a rapid forcible breath. “Miss Marjoribanks, do you know who that man is?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucilla, softening into a smile. “Perfectly, I assure you. He is one of papa’s guests, and very much respected in Carlingford; and he is one of my—very particular friends,” Miss Marjoribanks added. She laughed as she spoke, a kind of laugh which is only appropriate to one subject, and which is as good, any day, as a confession; and the flush was so obliging as to return at that moment to her ingenuous countenance. “We have known each other a long time,” Lucilla went on after that pretty pause; and then she raised her confiding eyes, which had been cast down, once more to the Archdeacon’s face. “You can’t think how nice he is, Mr. Beverley,” said Miss Marjoribanks. She clasped her hands together, just for a moment, as she did so, with an eloquent meaning which it was impossible to mistake. The Archdeacon, for his part, gazed at her like a man in a dream. Whether it was true—or whether he was being made a fool of more completely than ever man before was—or whether he was the victim of an optical or some other kind of delusion—the poor man could not tell. He was utterly stricken dumb, and did not know what to say. He accepted the soup humbly, which Thomas set before him, though it was a white soup, an effeminate dish, which went utterly in the face of his principles. And then he looked at the innocent young creature at his side in that flutter of happy confusion. It was a terrible position for the Broad-Churchman. After such a tacit confession he could not spring from his seat and hurl the impostor out of the room, as in the first place he had a mind to do. On the contrary, it was with a voice trembling with emotion that he spoke.
“My dear Miss Marjoribanks,” said the Archdeacon, “I am struck dumb by what you tell me. Good heavens! that it should have come to this; and yet I should be neglecting my duty if I kept silent. You do not—you cannot know who he is.”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucilla, with another little laugh—“everything—and how he used to know Mrs. Mortimer, and all about it. He has no secrets from me,” said Miss Marjoribanks. She caught Mr. Cavendish’s eye at the moment, who was casting a stealthy glance in her direction, and who looked cowed and silenced and unquiet to the most miserable degree; and she gave him a little reassuring nod, which the Archdeacon watched with an inward groan. What was he to do? He could not publicly expose the man who had just received this mark of confidence from his young hostess, who knew everything. Perhaps it was one of the greatest trials of Christian patience and fortitude which the Archdeacon, who was not great, as he himself would have said, in the passive virtues, had undergone in all the course of his life. He was so utterly subdued and confounded that he ate his soup, and never found out what kind of soup it was. That is, he consumed it in large spoonfuls without being aware, by way of occupying his energies and filling up the time.
“You cannot mean it,” he said, after a pause. “You must be imperfectly informed. At least let me talk to your father. You must hear all the rights of the story. If you will let me speak half a dozen words to—to that person, Miss Marjoribanks, I am sure he will leave the place; he will give up any claim—”
“Oh, yes, please talk to him,” said Miss Marjoribanks, “it will be so nice to see you friends. Nothing would make me so happy. You know I have heard all about it from you and from Mrs. Mortimer already, so I am sure there cannot be much more to tell; and as for papa, he is very fond of Mr. Cavendish,” said Lucilla, with an imperceptible elevation of her voice.
“Is it he whom you call Mr. Cavendish?” said the Archdeacon. He too had raised his voice without knowing it, and several people looked up, who were not at the moment engaged in active conversation of their own. The owner of that name, for his part, also turned his face towards the upper end of the table. He was sick of the suspense and continued endurance, and by this time was ready to rush upon his fate.
“Did anyone call me?” he said; and there was a little pause, and the company in general fixed its regard upon those three people with a sense that something remarkable was going on among them, though it could not tell what or why.
“The Archdeacon wants to make your acquaintance,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “Mr. Cavendish—Mr. Beverley. There, you know each other; and when we are gone you can talk to each other if you like,” Lucilla added; “but in the meantime you are too far off, and I want the Archdeacon. He is so much liked in Carlingford,” she continued, lowering her voice. “You can’t think how glad we are to have him back again. I am sure if you only knew him better—” said Miss Marjoribanks. As for the Archdeacon, words could not give any idea of the state of his mind. He ate his dinner sternly after that, and did not look at anything but his plate. He consumed the most exquisite plats, the tenderest wings of chicken and morsels of paté, as if they had been his personal enemies. For, to tell the truth, he felt the tables altogether turned
