“My dear Barbara,” she said, putting her hands on the singer’s shoulders as she finished her strain, “that is enough for tonight. Mr. Cavendish will take you downstairs and get you a cup of tea; for you know there is no room tonight to serve it upstairs.” Thus Miss Marjoribanks proved herself capable of preferring her great work to her personal sentiments, which is generally considered next to impossible for a woman. She did what perhaps nobody else in the room was capable of doing: she sent away the gentleman who was paying attention to her, in company with the girl who was paying attention to him; and at that moment, as was usual when she was excited, Barbara was splendid, with her crimson cheeks, and the eyes blazing out from under her level eyebrows. This Miss Marjoribanks did, not in ignorance, but with a perfect sense of what she was about. It was the only way of preventing her Evening from losing its distinctive character. It was the Lamp of sacrifice which Lucilla had now to employ, and she proved herself capable of the exertion. But it would be hopeless to attempt to describe the indignation of old Mrs. Chiley, or the unmitigated amazement of the company in general, which was conscious at the same time that Mr. Cavendish was paying attention to Miss Marjoribanks, and that he had been flirting in an inexcusable manner with Miss Lake. “My dear, I would have nothing to do with that bold girl,” Mrs. Chiley said in Lucilla’s ear. “I will go down and look after them if you like. A girl like that always leads the gentlemen astray, you know. I never liked the looks of her. Let me go downstairs and look after them, my dear. I am sure I want a cup of tea.”
“You shall have a cup of tea, dear Mrs. Chiley,” said Miss Marjoribanks—“some of them will bring you one; but I can’t let you take any trouble about Barbara. She had to be stopped, you know, or she would have turned us into a musical party; and as for Mr. Cavendish, he is the best assistant I have. There are so few men in Carlingford who can flirt,” said Lucilla regretfully. Her eyes fell as she spoke upon young Osmond Brown, who was actually at that moment talking to Mr. Bury’s curate, with a disregard of his social duties painful to contemplate. Poor Osmond started when he met Miss Marjoribanks’s reproachful eye.
“But then I don’t know how,” said the disconcerted youth—and he flushed, poor boy, being only eighteen, and not much more than a schoolboy. As for Lucilla, who had no intention of putting up with that sort of thing, she sent off the curate summarily for Mrs. Chiley’s cup of tea.
“I did not mean you, my dear Osy,” she said, in her motherly tone. “When you are a little older we shall see what you can do; but you are not at all disagreeable for a boy,” she added encouragingly, and took Osmond’s arm as she made her progress down the room with an indulgence worthy of her maturer years; and even Mrs. Centum and Mrs. Woodburn and the Miss Browns, who were, in a manner, Lucilla’s natural rivals, could not but be impressed with this evidence of her powers. They were like the Tuscan chivalry in the ballad, who could scarce forbear a cheer at the sight of their opponent’s prowess. Perhaps nothing that she could have done would have so clearly demonstrated the superiority of her genius to her female audience as that bold step of stopping the music, which began to be too much, by sending off the singer downstairs under charge of Mr. Cavendish. To be sure the men did not even find out what it was that awoke the ladies’ attention; but then, in delicate matters of social politics, one never expects to be understood by them.
Barbara Lake, as was to be expected, took a very long time over her cup of tea; and even when she returned upstairs she made another pause on the landing, which was still kept possession of by a lively stream of young people coming and going. Barbara had very little experience, and she was weak enough to believe that Mr. Cavendish lingered there to have a little more of her society all to himself; but to tell the truth, his sentiments were of a very different description. For by this time it must be owned that Barbara’s admirer began to feel a little ashamed of himself. He could not but be conscious of Lucilla’s magnanimity; and, at the same time, he was very well aware that his return with his present companion would be watched and noted and made the subject of comment a great deal more amusing than agreeable. When he did take Barbara in at last, it was with a discomfited air which tickled the spectators beyond measure. And as his evil luck would have it, notwithstanding the long pause he had made on the landing, to watch his opportunity of entering unobserved, Miss Marjoribanks was the first to encounter the returning couple. They met full in the face, a few paces from the door—exactly, as Mrs. Chiley said, as if it had been Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish on their wedding visit, and the lady of the house had gone to meet them. As for the unfortunate gentleman, he could not have looked more utterly disconcerted and guilty if he had been convicted of putting the spoons in his pocket, or of having designs upon the silver tea-service. He found a seat for his companion with all the haste possible; and instead of lingering by her side, as she had anticipated, made off on the instant, and hid himself like a criminal in the dark depths of a group
