As for Dr. Marjoribanks, his triumph was taken out of him by that spectacle. He closed the door after the ladies had gone, and came back to his easy-chair by the side of the fire, and could not but feel that he had had the worst of it. It was actually Mr. Cavendish who had come home, and whose address to the electors of Carlingford, dated from Dover on his return to England, the Doctor had just put into his daughter’s hand. But wonderful and unlooked-for as was the event, Lucilla, though taken unawares, had not given in, nor shown any signs of weakness. And the effect upon her father of her last utterance and confession was such that he took up the paper again and read both addresses, which were printed side by side. In other days Mr. Cavendish had been the chosen candidate of Grange Lane; and the views which he expressed (and he expressed his views very freely) were precisely those of Dr. Marjoribanks. Yet when the Doctor turned to Mr. Ashburton’s expression of his conviction that he was the right man for Carlingford, it cannot be denied that the force of that simple statement had a wonderful effect upon his mind—an effect all the greater, perhaps, in comparison with the political exposition made by the other unexpected candidate. The Doctor’s meditations possibly took a slumbrous tone from the place and the moment at which he pursued them; for the fact was that the words he had just been hearing ran in his head all through the reading of the two addresses. Mr. Cavendish would think Lucilla had gone off; but yet she had not gone off so much as might have been expected, and Mr. Ashburton was the man for Carlingford. Dr. Marjoribanks laughed quietly by himself in his easy-chair, and then went back to Mr. Cavendish’s opinions; and ended again, without knowing it, in a kind of odd incipient agreement with Lucilla. The new candidate was right in politics; but, after all, Mr. Ashburton was a more satisfactory sort of person. He was a man whom people knew everything about, and a descendant of old Penrhyn, and had the Firs, and lived in it, and spent about so much money every year honestly in the face of the world. When a man conducts himself in this way, his neighbours can afford to be less exacting as to his political opinions. This comparison went on in the Doctor’s thoughts until the distinction between the two grew confused and faint in that ruddy and genial glow of firelight and lamplight and personal well-being which is apt to engross a man’s mind after he has come in out of the air, as people say, and has eaten a good dinner, and feels himself comfortable; and at last all that remained in Dr. Marjoribanks’s mind was that Mr. Cavendish would think Lucilla had gone off, though she had not gone off nearly so much as might have been expected; at which he laughed with an odd sound, which roused him, and might have induced some people to think he had been sleeping—if, indeed, anybody had been near to hear.
But this news was naturally much more serious to Miss Marjoribanks when she got upstairs, and had time to think of it. She would not have been human if she had heard without emotion of the return of the man whom she had once dreamed of as member for Carlingford, with the addition of other dreams which had not been altogether without their sweetness. He had returned now and then for a few days, but Lucilla knew that he had never held up his head in Grange Lane since the day when she advised him to marry Barbara Lake. And now when he had bethought himself of his old ambition, had he possibly bethought himself of other hopes as well? And the horrible thing was, that she had pledged herself to another, and put her seal upon it that Mr. Ashburton was the man for Carlingford! It may be supposed that, with such a complication in her mind, Miss Marjoribanks was very little capable of supporting Aunt Jemima’s questions as to what it was about, and who was Mr. Cavendish, and why was his return of consequence to Lucilla? Mrs. John was considerably alarmed and startled, and began to think in earnest that Tom was fond of his cousin, and would never forgive his mother for letting Lucilla perhaps marry someone else, and settle down before her very eyes.
“If it is a very particular friend, I can understand it,” Mrs. John said, with a little asperity; but that was after she had made a great many attempts, which were only partially successful, to find it all out.
“Dear Aunt Jemima,” said Lucilla, “we are all particular friends in Carlingford—society is so limited, you know;—and Mr. Cavendish has been a very long time away. He used to be of such use to me, and I am so fond of him,” Miss Marjoribanks said, with a sigh; and it may be supposed that Mrs. John’s curiosity was not lessened by such a response.
“If you are engaged to anyone, Lucilla, I must say I think I ought to have been told,” said Tom’s mother, with natural indignation. “Though I ought not to blame you for it, perhaps. It is a sad thing when a girl is deprived of a mother’s care; but still I am your nearest relation—”
“My dear aunt, it is something about the election,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “How could I be engaged to a man who has been away ten years?”
“Tom has been away ten years,” said Mrs. John impetuously; and then she blushed, though she was past the age of
