Miss Marjoribanks

from the gay babble and pleasant looks of the group which, by a chance combination, she seemed to form part of. She began to say to herself that she had much better go away, and that there never could be anything in common between those frivolous creatures and herself, a poor man’s daughter; and she began to get dreadfully exasperated with Lucilla, who had beguiled her into this scene, to make game of her, as poor Barbara said; though, so far from making game of her, nobody took much notice, after the first unsuccessful attempt at conversation, of the unfortunate young woman. It was when she was in this unhappy humour that her eye fell upon Mr. Cavendish, who was in the act of making the appeal to Lucilla which we have already recorded. Barbara had never as yet had a lover, but she had read an unlimited number of novels, which came to nearly the same thing, and she saw at a glance that this was somebody who resembled the indispensable hero. She looked at him with a certain fierce interest, and remembered at that instant how often in books it is the humble heroine, behind backs, whom all the young ladies snub, who wins the hero at the last. And then Miss Marjoribanks, though she sent him away, smiled benignantly upon him. The colour flushed to Barbara’s cheeks, and her eyes, which had grown dull and fixed between fright and spite, took sudden expression under her straight brows. An intention, which was not so much an intention as an instinct, suddenly sprang into life within her, and, without knowing, she drew a long breath of eagerness and impotence. He was standing quite near by this time, doing his duty according to Miss Marjoribanks’s orders, and flirting with all his might; and Barbara looked at him as a hungry schoolboy might be supposed to look at a tempting apple just out of his reach. How was she to get at this suitor of Lucilla’s? It would have given her so pure a delight to tear down the golden apple, and tread on it, and trample it to nothing; and then it came into her head that it might be good to eat as well.

It was at this moment that Miss Marjoribanks, who was in six places at once, suddenly touched Barbara’s shoulder. “Come with me a minute; I want to show you something,” she said loud out. Barbara, on her side, looked round with a crimson countenance, feeling that her secret thoughts must be written in her guilty eyes. But then these were eyes which could be utterly destitute of expression when they pleased, though their owner, at present just at the beginning of her experience, was not quite aware of the fact. She stumbled to her feet with the awkward motion natural to that form of shyness which her temper and her temperament united to produce in her. She did all but put her foot through Miss Brown’s delicate skirt, and she had neither the natural disposition nor the acquired grace which can carry off one of those trifling offences against society. Nevertheless, as she stood beside Lucilla at the piano, the company in general owned a little thrill of curiosity. Who was she? A girl with splendid black hair, with brows as level as if they had been made with a line, with intense eyes which looked a little oblique under that straight bar of shadow. Her dress was limp, but she was not such a figure as could be passed over even at an evening party; and then her face was a little flushed, and her eyes lit up with excitement. She seemed to survey everybody with that defiant look which was chiefly awkwardness and temper, but which looked like pride when she was standing up at her full height, and in a conspicuous position, where everybody could see her. Most people concluded she was an Italian whom Lucilla had picked up somewhere in her travels. As for Mr. Cavendish, he stopped short altogether in the occupation which Miss Marjoribanks had allotted to him, and drew close to the piano. He thought he had seen the face somewhere under a shabby bonnet in some by-street of Carlingford, and he was even sufficiently learned in female apparel to observe the limpness of her dress.

This preface of curiosity had all been foreseen by Miss Marjoribanks, and she paused a moment, under pretence of selecting her music, to take the full advantage of it: for Lucilla, like most persons of elevated aims, was content to sacrifice herself to the success of her work; and then all at once, before the Carlingford people knew what they were doing, the two voices rose, bursting upon the astonished community like a sudden revelation. For it must be remembered that nobody in Carlingford, except the members of Dr. Marjoribanks’s dinner-party, had ever heard Lucilla sing, much less her companion; and the account which these gentlemen had carried home to their wives had been generally pooh-poohed and put down. “Mr. Centum never listens to a note if he can help it,” said the banker’s wife, “and how could he know whether she had a nice voice or not?” which, indeed, was a powerful argument. But this evening there could be no mistake about it. The words were arrested on the very lips of the talkers; Mrs. Woodburn paused in the midst of doing Lucilla, and, as we have before said, Mr. Cavendish broke a flirtation clean off at its most interesting moment. It is impossible to record what they sang, for those events, as everybody is aware, happened a good many years ago, and the chances are that the present generation has altogether forgotten the duet which made so extraordinary an impression on the inhabitants of Grange Lane. The applause with which the performance was received reached the length of a perfect ovation. Barbara, for her part, who was not conscious of having ever