But the fact was, that not more than ten minutes after he had passed her door with this reflection, Lucilla, sitting with her good book on the table and her work in her hand, in the room which was not so well lighted as it used to be, heard that Mr. Cavendish had been met with coming out of Mr. Lake’s, and that Barbara had been singing to him, and that there was no telling what might have happened. “A man ain’t the man for Carlingford as takes up with that sort,” Thomas said indignantly, who had come to pay his former mistress a visit, and to assure her of his brother-in-law’s vote. He was a little more free-spoken than of old, being now set up, and an independent householder, and calling no man master; and he was naturally indignant at an occurrence which, regarded in the light of past events, was an insult not only to Carlingford, but to Lucilla. Miss Marjoribanks was evidently startled by the news. She looked up quickly as if she had been about to speak, and then stopped herself and turned her back upon Thomas, and poked the fire in a most energetic way. She had even taken the hearth-brush in her hand to make all tidy after this onslaught, but that was a thing that went to Thomas’s heart.
“I couldn’t stand by and see it, Miss Lucilla,” said Thomas; “it don’t feel natural;” and there was actually a kind of moisture in his eye as he took that domestic implement out of her hand. Mr. Cavendish pitied Lucilla for having less light than of old, and Thomas for being reduced so low as to sweep her own hearth. But Lucilla was very far from pitying her own case. She had been making an effort over herself, and she had come out of it triumphant; after reading so many good books, it is not to be wondered at if she felt herself a changed and softened and elevated character. She had the means in her hands of doing her candidate’s rival a deadly mischief, and yet, for old friendship’s sake, Lucilla made up her mind to forbear.
“I will give it you, Thomas,” she said, with dignity, holding the hearth-brush, which was in such circumstances elevated into something sublime, “if you will promise, never, until after the election—never to say a word about Mr. Cavendish and Miss Lake. It was quite right to tell me, and you are very kind about the hearth; but you must promise never to say a syllable about it, not even to Nancy, until the election is over; or I will never give it you, nor ask you to do a single thing for me again.”
Thomas was so much struck with this address that he said “Good Lord!” in sheer amazement; and then he made the necessary vow, and took the hearth-brush out of Lucilla’s hand.
“No doubt he was asking for Mr. Lake’s vote,” said Miss Marjoribanks. “They say everybody is making great exertions, and you know they are both my friends. I ought to be pleased whoever wins. But it is impressed on my mind that Mr. Ashburton will be the man,” Lucilla added, with a little solemnity, “and, Thomas, we must give them fair-play.”
It would be vain to assert that Thomas understood this romantic generosity, but he was taken by surprise, and had relinquished his own liberty in the matter, and had nothing further to say. Indeed he had so little to say downstairs, that Nancy, who was longing for a little gossip, insulted and reviled him, and declared that since he took up with that Betsy there never was a sensible word to be got out of him. And all the time the poor man was burning with this bit of news. Many a man has bartered his free will before under the influence of female wiles, or so at least history would have us believe; but few have done it for so poor a compensation as that hearth-brush. Thomas withdrew sore at heart, longing for the election to be over, and kept his word like an honest man; but notwithstanding, before the evening was over, the fatal news was spreading like fire to every house in Grange Lane.
XLVIII
It is probable that Mr. Cavendish considered the indulgence above recorded all the more excusable in that it was Saturday night. The nomination was to take place on Monday, and if a man was not to be supposed to be done with his work on the Saturday evening, when could he be expected to have a moment of repose? He had thought as he went home—for naturally, while putting himself so skilfully in the way of temptation, such questions had not entered into his mind—that the fact of tomorrow being Sunday would effectually neutralise any harm he could have been supposed to have done by a visit so simple and natural, and that neither his sister nor his committee, the two powers of which he stood in a certain awe, could so much as hear of it until the election was over, and all decided for good or for evil. This had been a comfort to his mind, but it was the very falsest and most deceitful consolation. That intervening Sunday was a severer calamity for Mr. Cavendish than half a dozen ordinary days. The general excitement had risen so high, and all the chances on both sides had been so often discussed and debated, that something new was as water in the desert to the thirsting constituency. The story was all through Grange Lane that very night, but Carlingford itself, from St. Roque’s to
