“I wish you would not talk in that foolish way,” said Rose; “nobody need be any better than you, as you say. To be sure, we don’t live in Grange Lane, nor keep a carriage; but I wish you would recollect that these are only accidental circumstances. As for dress, I don’t see that you require it; our position is so clearly defined; we are a family of—”
“Oh, for goodness gracious sake, do be quiet with your family of artists!” cried Barbara. “Speak for yourself, if you please. I am not an artist, and never will be, I can tell you. There are better places to live in than Grange Lane; and as for keeping a carriage, I would never call a little bit of a brougham a carriage, if it was me. Lucilla made believe to take no notice, but she did not deceive me with that. She was as disappointed as ever she could be—I dare say now she’s sitting crying over it. I never would have cared one straw if I had not wanted to serve Lucilla out!” cried the contralto, with energy. She was still standing before the glass pulling her black hair about into new combinations, and studying the effect; and as for Rose, she too looked up, and, seeing her sister’s face reflected in the glass, made the discovery that there was something like grimace in the countenance, and paused in the midst of her meditations with her pencil in her hand.
“Don’t put yourself out of drawing,” said Rose; “I wish you would not do that so often. When the facial angle is disturbed to that extent—But about Lucilla, I think you are excessively ungrateful. Gratitude is not a servile sentiment,” said the little Preraphaelite, with a rising colour. “It is a slavish sort of idea to think anyone has done you an injury by being kind to you. If that is the sort of thing you are going to talk of, I think you had better go to bed.”
“Then I will, and I shan’t tell you anything,” said Barbara angrily—“you are so poor-spirited. For my part, do you think I’d ever have gone to help Lucilla and sing for her, and all that sort of thing, if it had not been to better myself? Nor I wouldn’t have thought of him just at first, if it hadn’t been to spite her. And I’ve done it too. I’d just like to look in at her room window and see what she’s about. I dare say she is crying her eyes out, for all her looking as if she took no notice. I know better than to think she doesn’t care. And, Rose, he’s such a dear,” said Barbara, with a laugh of excitement. To be sure, what she wanted was to be Mrs. Cavendish, and to have a handsome house and a great many nice dresses; but at the same time she was young, and Mr. Cavendish was good-looking, and she was a little in love, in her way, as well.
“I don’t want to hear any more about it,” said Rose, who was so much moved as to forget even her design. “I can’t think how it is you have no sense of honour, and you one of the Lakes. I would not be a traitor for a dozen Mr. Cavendishes!” cried Rose, in the force of her indignation. “He must be a cheat, since you are a traitor. If he was a true man he would have found you out.”
“You had better be quiet, Rose,” said Barbara; “you may be sure I shall never do anything for you after we are married, if you talk like that; and then you’ll be sorry enough.”
“After you are married! has he asked you to marry him?” cried Rose. She pushed away her design with both her hands in the vehemence of her feelings, and regarded her sister with eyes which blazed, but which were totally different in their blazing from those which burned under Barbara’s level eyebrows. It was too plain a question to have a plain answer. Barbara only lighted her candle in reply, and smiled and shook her head.
“You don’t suppose I am going to answer after your insulting ways,” she said, taking up her candle; and she swept out of the room in her white dress with a sense of pleasure in leaving this grand point unsettled. To be sure, Mr. Cavendish had not yet asked that important question; but then the future was all before them, and the way clear. As for Rose, she clenched her little fists with a gesture that would have been too forcible for anyone who was not an artist, and a member of a family of artists. “To think she should be one of us, and not to know what honour means,” said Rose; “and as for this man, he must be a cheat himself, or he would find her out.”
This was how Mr. Cavendish’s defection from Lucilla took place; and at the same time it is a satisfaction to know that the event was received by everybody very much as little Rose Lake received it. And as for Miss Marjoribanks, if Barbara could have had the malicious satisfaction of looking in at the window, she would have been mortified to find that right-minded young woman sleeping the sleep of the just and innocent, and enjoying repose as profound and agreeable as if there had been no Mr. Cavendish in the world, not to speak of Carlingford;—which, to be sure, was a result to be greatly attributed to Lucilla’s perfect health, and entire satisfaction with herself.
XV
This event was of far too much importance in the limited world of Grange Lane to pass over without some of the many commentaries which were going on upon the subject coming to the ears of Miss Marjoribanks, who was the person principally concerned. As for
