all her attendants by a sudden adoption of the character of
Mrs. Mortimer, whom she must have made a careful study of the previous night. “Tell him to tell him to go downstairs,” cried the half-dead patient; “I want to speak to him, and he is not to hear;—if he were not so thoughtless, he would offer him some lunch at least,”
Mrs. Woodburn said pathetically, with closed eyes and a face as pale as death. “She never did anything better in her life,”
Dr. Marjoribanks said afterwards; and
Mr. Woodburn, who was fond of his wife in his way, and had been crying over her, burst into such an explosion of laughter that all the servants were scandalised. And the patient improved from that moment. She was perfectly well and in the fullest force a week afterwards, when she came to see Lucilla, who had also been slightly indisposed for a day or two. When Thomas had shut the door, and the two were quite alone,
Mrs. Woodburn hugged Miss Marjoribanks with a fervour which up to that moment she had never exhibited. “It was only necessary that we should get into full sympathy with each other as human creatures,” she said, lifting her finger like the Archdeacon; and for all the rest of that autumn and winter
Mrs. Woodburn kept society in Carlingford in a state of inextinguishable laughter. The odd thing was that Miss Marjoribanks, who had been one of her favourite characters, disappeared almost entirely from her repertory. Not quite altogether, because there were moments of supreme temptation which the mimic could not resist; but as a general rule Lucilla was the only woman in Carlingford who escaped the universal critic. No sort of acknowledgment passed between them of the obligations one had to the other, and, what was still more remarkable, no discussion of the terrible evening when Lucilla had held the Archdeacon with her eye, and prevented the volcano from exploding. Perhaps
Mrs. Woodburn, for her part, would have been pleased to have had such an explanation, but Miss Marjoribanks knew better. She knew it was best not to enter upon confidences which neither could ever forget, and which might prevent them meeting with ease in the midst of the little world which knew nothing about it. What Lucilla knew, she knew, and could keep to herself; but she felt at the same time that it was best to have no expansions on the subject. She kept it all to herself, and made the arrangements for
Mrs. Mortimer’s marriage, and took charge of everything. Everybody said that nothing could be more perfect than the bride’s toilette, which was as nice as could be, and yet not like a
real bride after all; a difference which was only proper under the circumstances; for she was married in lavender, poor soul, as was to be expected. “You have not gone off the least bit in the world, and it is quite a pleasure to see you,” Lucilla said, as she kissed her
that morning—and naturally all Carlingford knew that it was owing to her goodness that the widow had been taken care of and provided for, and saved up for the Archdeacon. Miss Marjoribanks, in short, presided over the ceremony as if she had been
Mrs. Mortimer’s mother, and superintended the wedding breakfast, and made herself agreeable to everybody. And in the meantime, before the marriage took place, most people in Carlingford availed themselves of the opportunity of calling on
Mrs. Mortimer. “If she should happen to be the future bishop’s lady, and none of us ever to have taken any notice of her,” somebody said, with natural dismay. Lucilla did not discourage the practical result of this suggestion, but she felt an instinctive certainty in her mind that
now Mr. Beverley would never be bishop of Carlingford, and indeed that the chances were Carlingford would never be elevated into a bishopric at all.
It was not until after the marriage that Mr. Cavendish went away. To be sure, he was not absolutely present at the ceremony, but there can be no doubt that the magnificent parure which Mrs. Mortimer received the evening before her marriage, “from an old friend,” which made everybody’s mouth water, and which she herself contemplated with mingled admiration and dismay, was sent by Mr. Cavendish. “Do you think it could be from him; or only from him?” the bride said, bewildered and bewildering. “I am sure he might have known I never should require anything so splendid.” But Lucilla, for her part, had no doubt whatever on the subject; and the perfect good taste of the offering made Miss Marjoribanks sigh, thinking once more how much that was admirable was wasted by the fatal obstacle which prevented Mr. Cavendish from aspiring to anybody higher than Barbara Lake. As for the Archdeacon, he too found it very easy to satisfy his mind as to the donor of the emeralds. He put them away from him severely, and did not condescend to throw a second glance at their deceitful splendour. “Women are curiously constituted,” said Mr. Beverley, who was still at the height of superiority, though he was a bridegroom. “I suppose those sort of things give them pleasure—things which neither satisfy the body nor delight the soul.”
“If it had been something to eat, would it have pleased you better?” said Lucilla, moved for once in her life to be impertinent, like an ordinary girl. For really when a man showed himself so idiotic as to despise a beautiful set of emeralds, it went beyond even the well-known tolerance and compassionate good-humour with which Miss Marjoribanks regarded the vagaries of “the gentlemen.” There is a limit in all things, and this was going too far.
“I said, to satisfy the body, Miss Marjoribanks,” said the Archdeacon, “which is an office very temporarily and inadequately performed by something to eat. I prefer the welfare of my fellow-creatures to a few glittering stones—even when they are round
