“I hear you are going to stay, Lucilla,” she said, “and I did not think I would be doing my duty if I did not tell you what was in my mind. I can’t do any good to anybody, you know; but you who are so clever, and have so much in your power—”
“I am poor now,” said Miss Marjoribanks; “and as for being clever, I don’t know about that. I never was clever about drawing or Art, like you.”
“Oh, like me!” said poor little Rose, whose Career had been sacrificed ten years ago, and who was a little misanthropical now, and did not believe even in Schools of Design; “I am not so sure about the moral influence of Art as I used to be—except High Art, to be sure; but we never have any High Art down here. And oh, Lucilla! the poor people do want something done for them. If I was as clever as you, and with a great house all to myself like this, and well off, and with plenty of influence, and no ties—” said Rose, with energetic emphasis. She made a pause there, and she was so much in earnest that the tears came into her eyes. “I would make it a House of Mercy, Lucilla! I would show all these poor creatures how to live and how to manage, if I was as clever as you; and teach them and their children, and look after them, and be a mother to them!” said Rose; and here she stopped short, altogether overcome by her own magnificent conception of what her friend could or might do.
Aunt Jemima and Miss Brown, who had drawn near out of curiosity, stared at Rose as if they thought she had gone mad; but Lucilla, who was of a larger mind and more enlightened ideas, neither laughed nor looked horrified. She did not make a very distinct answer, it is true, but she was very kind to her new adviser, and made her a fresh cup of tea, and even consented, though in an ambiguous way, to the principle she had just enunciated, “If you won’t be affronted, my dear,” Lucilla said, “I do not think that Art could do very much in Carlingford; and I am sure any little thing that I may be of use for—” But she did not commit herself any further, and Rose too found the result of her visit unsatisfactory, and went home disappointed in Lucilla. This was how the afternoon passed; and at the end of such a day, it may well be imagined how Miss Marjoribanks congratulated herself on having made up her mind before the public, so to speak, were admitted. For Rose was followed by the Rector, who, though he did not propose in so many words a House of Mercy, made no secret of his conviction that parish-work was the only thing that could be of any service to Lucilla; and that, in short, such was the inevitable and providential destination of a woman who had “no ties.” Indeed, to hear Mr. Bury, a stranger would have been disposed to believe that Dr. Marjoribanks had been, as he said, “removed,” and his fortune swept away, all in order to indicate to Lucilla the proper sphere for her energies. In the face of all this it will be seen how entirely Miss Marjoribanks’s wisdom in making her decision by herself before her advisers broke in upon her, was justified. She could now set her back against her rock, and face her assailants, as Fitz-James did.
Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I,
might have been her utterance; but she was not in a defiant mood. She kissed all her counsellors that day (except, of course, the Rector), and heard them out with the sweetest patience; and then she thought to herself how much better it was that she had made up her mind to take her own way.
Notwithstanding, all this commotion of public opinion about her made a certain impression upon Miss Marjoribanks’s mind. It was not unpleasant to feel that, for this moment at least, she was the centre of the thoughts of the community, and that almost everybody in Carlingford had taken the trouble to frame an ideal existence for her, according as he or she regarded life. It is so seldom that anyone has it in his power, consciously and evidently, to regulate his life for himself, and make it whatever he wants it to be. And then, at the same time, the best that she could make of it would, after all, be something very limited and unsatisfactory. In her musings on this subject, Lucilla could not but go back a great many times to that last conversation she had with her father, when she walked up Grange Lane with him that night over the thawed and muddy snow. The Doctor had said she was not cut out for a single woman; and Lucilla, with candour, yet a certain philosophical speculativeness, had allowed that she was not—unless, indeed, she could be very rich. If she had been very rich, the prospect would no doubt have been, to a certain extent, different. And then, oddly enough, it was Rose Lake’s suggestion which came after this to Lucilla’s mind. She did not smile at it as some people might expect she would. One thing was quite sure, that she had no intention of sinking into a nobody, and giving up all power of acting upon her fellow-creatures; and she could not help being conscious of the fact that she was able to be of much use to her fellow-creatures. If it had been Maria Brown, for instance, who had been concerned, the whole question would have been one of utter unimportance, except to the heroine itself; but it was different in
