Lucilla went away as she spoke to attend to her guests, but she left Barbara still crimson and splendid, triumphing over her limp dress and all her disadvantages, by the piano. Fortunately, for that evening Barbara’s pride and her shyness prevented her from yielding to the repeated demands addressed to her by the admiring audience. She said to Mr. Cavendish, with a disloyalty which that gentleman thought piquant, that “Miss Marjoribanks would not be pleased”; and the future Member for Carlingford thought he could not do better than obey the injunctions of the mistress of the feast by a little flirtation with the gifted unknown. To be sure, Barbara was not gifted in talk, and she was still defiant and contradictory; but then her eyes were blazing with excitement under her level eyebrows, and she was as willing to be flirted with as if she had known a great deal better. And then Mr. Cavendish had a weakness for a contralto. While this little byplay was going on, Lucilla was moving about, the centre of a perfect tumult of applause. No more complete success could be imagined than that of this first Thursday Evening, which was remarkable in the records of Carlingford; and yet perhaps Miss Marjoribanks, like other conquerors, was destined to build her victory upon sacrifice. She did not feel any alarm at the present moment; but even if she had, that would have made no difference to Lucilla’s proceedings. She was not the woman to shrink from a sacrifice when it was for the promotion of the great object of her life; and that, as everybody knew who knew Miss Marjoribanks, was to be a comfort to her dear papa.
XI
“You have never told us who your unknown was,” said Mr. Cavendish. “I suppose she is professional. Carlingford could not possibly possess two such voices in private life.”
“Oh, I don’t know about two such voices,” said Miss Marjoribanks; “her voice suits mine, you know. It is always a great thing to find two voices that suit. I never would choose to have professional singers, for my part. You have to give yourself up to music when you do such a thing; and that is not my idea of society. I am very fond of music,” said Lucilla—“excessively fond of it; but then everybody is not of my opinion—and one has to take so many things into consideration. For people who give one party in the year it does very well—but then I hate parties: the only pleasure in society is when one’s friends come to see one without any ado.”
“In white frocks, high,” said Mrs. Woodburn, who could not help assuming Lucilla’s manner for the moment, even while addressing herself; but as the possibility of such a lèse-majesté did not even occur to Miss Marjoribanks, she accepted the observation in good faith.
“Yes; I hate a grand toilette when it is only a meeting of friends,” she said—“for the girls, you know; of course you married ladies can always do what you like. You have your husbands to please,” said Lucilla. And this was a little hard upon her satirist, for, to tell the truth, that was a particular of domestic duty to which Mrs. Woodburn did not much devote herself, according to the opinion of Grange Lane.
“But about the contralto,” said Mr. Cavendish, who had come to call on Miss Marjoribanks under his sister’s wing, and desired above all things to keep the peace between the two ladies, as indeed is a man’s duty under such circumstances. “You are always statesmanlike in your views; but I cannot understand why you let poor little Molly Brown carry on her chirping when you had such an astonishing force in reserve. She must have been covered with confusion, the poor little soul.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Woodburn, pursuing her favourite occupation as usual. “She only said, ‘Goodness me! how high Lucilla goes! Do you like that dreadfully high music?’ and made little eyebrows.” To be sure, the mimic made Miss Brown’s eyebrows, and spoke in her voice, so that even Lucilla found it a little difficult to keep her gravity. But then Miss Marjoribanks was defended by her mission, and she felt in her heart that, representing public interest as she did, it was her duty to avoid all complicity in any attack upon an individual; and consequently, to a certain extent, it was her duty also to put Mrs. Woodburn down.
“Molly Brown has a very nice little voice,” said Lucilla, with most disheartening gravity. “I like to hear her sing, for my part—the only thing is that she wants cultivation a little. It doesn’t matter much you know, whether or not you have a voice to begin with. It is cultivation that is the thing,” said Miss Marjoribanks deliberately. “I hope you really thought it was a pleasant evening. Of course everybody said so to me; but then one can never put any faith in that. I have said it myself ever so many times when I am sure I did not mean it. For myself, I don’t give any importance to the first evening. Anybody can do a thing once, you know; the second and the third, and so on—that is the real test. But I hope you thought it pleasant so far as it went.”
“It was a
