Miss Marjoribanks

"My dear Rose," said Miss Marjoribanks, "I think you forget a little. For my part I do not understand what being a spy means. Barbara knows very well I am here. I should scorn to take an advantage of anybody, for my part. If she does not bring him past the very window, and under my eyes – Ah, yes, that is just what I thought," said Lucilla, with gentle satisfaction. But by this time poor little Rose had roused herself into an innocent fury.

"What is just as you thought?" said Rose, laying an impatient grasp on Miss Marjoribanks's arm. "Come in from the window, Lucilla, this moment – this moment! Oh, me, to think it should be my doing! Oh, Lucilla, don't be so mean and shabby and wretched. I tell you to come in – come in directly! If you do not shut the window, and come and sit here in the corner, I will never, never speak to you again!"

Miss Marjoribanks, as was natural, took no notice of this childish fury. She was sitting just where she had been sitting all the evening, within sight of the street lamp and the organ-grinder, and Miss Jane Hemmings at the staircase window; – just where Barbara had placed her, and where that young woman calculated on finding her, when she made a promenade of triumph up the partially lighted street by the side of her clandestine suitor. Perhaps Barbara had seen Miss Jane as well, and knew that public opinion was thus watching over her; but at all events she was not at all ashamed of herself, or indignant at being spied upon. On the contrary, it was a kind of apotheosis for Barbara, only second to the grand and crowning triumph which would be accomplished in Carlingford Church under the shadow of that veil of real Brussels, which grew more and more real every day. Thus neither the actors in the drama, nor the principal spectator, were in the smallest degree disturbed by horror or shame or sense of guilt, excepting always the fanciful little Rose, who suffered for everybody; who could have wished that the earth would open and swallow up Barbara and her lover; who could have slaughtered Lucilla on the spot, and given herself over to any kind of torture for her treachery. Naturally nobody paid any sort of attention to Rose. Barbara, for her part, took her admirer's arm in the twilight with a swelling of exultation, which the gaining of the very highest prize in the department of ornamental art could scarcely have conveyed to the bosom of the little artist; and Lucilla put back her small assailant softly with her hand, and smoothed down her ruffled plumes.

"My dear, it is Miss Hemmings that is spying," said Lucilla; "and poor Barbara would be so disappointed if I were to go away from the window. Have patience just a little longer – there's a dear. It is all exactly as I thought."

And then there followed a pause, which was a terrible pause for Rose. The organ-grinder stopped his doleful ditty, and there was scarcely any sound to be heard in the street except the footsteps approaching and retiring, the measured tread of two people occupied with each other, going now more slowly, now more quickly, as the humour seized them, or as their conversation grew in interest; even the sound of their voices came by times to the auditors – Barbara's with an occasional laugh or tone of triumph, and the other deeper, with which Rose had but little acquaintance, but which was perfectly known to Lucilla. All this time, while her companion sat panting in the dark corner, Miss Marjoribanks was looking to the joints of her harness, and feeling the edge of her weapons. For, after all, it was no small enterprise upon which she was going forth. She was going to denounce the faithless knight to his face, and take him out of the hands of the enchantress; but then she herself meant to take him in hand, and show him his true dangers, and vindicate his honour. A more disinterested enterprise was never undertaken by any knight-errant. Yet, at the same time, Lucilla could not help entertaining a certain involuntary contempt for the man who had deserted her own standard to put himself under that of Barbara Lake, and who was being paraded up and down here without knowing it, to gratify the vanity of his new sovereign, and make an exhibition of his weakness. Lucilla would have been more than mortal if she had not felt the difference between her own rule, which would have been all to his good, and the purely egotistical sway of Barbara; and even in her magnanimous mind, it was impossible that pity itself should not be mingled with a certain disdain.

She sat quite still for so long that Barbara grew intoxicated with her triumph. "It is perhaps the last time," Lucilla said to herself, with a movement of compassion; and the breadth of her human sympathy was such that she waited till the very latest moment, and let the deluded young woman have the full enjoyment of her imaginary victory. Then Miss Marjoribanks rose with a certain solemnity, and put on her hat, and gave an unappreciated kiss to Rose, who kept in her corner. "Good-night; I am going," said Lucilla. The words were simple enough, but yet they rang in Rose's ears like the signal of a conspiracy. When the calm leader of the expedition went forth, sensible of the importance of her mission, but tranquil as great minds always are in a moment of danger, Rose got up too and followed, trembling in every limb. She was capable of having thrown herself upon the spears in her own person in a sudden élan of indignation and passion; but she was not capable of waiting till the right moment, and meeting her antagonists in reasonable combat. Miss Marjoribanks went out deliberately, without any unnecessary haste, sweeping into the dusky twilight with her virginal white draperies. It was a very ordinary scene, and yet, even in the midst of her excitement, Rose could not help observing involuntarily its pictorial qualities – if only any painter could have transferred to his canvas the subdued musical hum of surrounding life, the fragrance of the mignonette, and the peaceful stillness of the summer night. The sky shone out green-blue, lambent and wistful, from the vacant space between Miss Hemmings's and Mr Wrangle's, and there were the dusky twilight shadows below, and the yellow gleam of the lamp, and Barbara's exulting, triumphant figure, and the white robes of the avenging angel. Rose could not have observed all this if she had not been stilled into a kind of breathless awe by the solemn character of the situation, which struck her as being somehow like one of Millais's pictures. As for the lovers, they had just turned at the moment that Miss Marjoribanks came out, and consequently met her straight in the face, as she stood suave and smiling at the little garden door.

"It is Mr Cavendish," said Lucilla; "I am so glad; I have been hoping and trying to see you for ever so long; and as soon as ever I heard you talking I felt sure it was your voice."

This was the greeting she addressed to Barbara Lake's lover. For his part he stood before her, growing red and growing pale, struck dumb by the unlooked-for meeting, and with such a sense of being ashamed of himself as never before had entered his mind, though, no doubt, he had done worse actions in his day. Even Barbara had not calculated upon this open encounter; and instead of giving him any assistance, as was a woman's duty in such a case, she only tossed her head, and giggled with an embarrassment which was more pride than shame. As for Mr Cavendish, he would have liked to disappear under the pavement, if it had been possible. For once he and Rose were agreed. If a gulf had opened before him, he would have jumped into it without ever pausing to ask himself why. And yet all the time Miss Marjoribanks was looking as placid as if she had been in her own drawing-room, and expecting his reply to her friendly observations. When he realised that he ought to say something, Mr Cavendish felt that he had as much need to wipe his forehead as ever the Archdeacon had. He turned hot and cold, and felt his mind and his tongue frozen, and could not find a word to say. With a sudden horror he woke up, like one of Comus's revellers, and found himself changed into the likeness of the creature he consorted with. If he had found an ass's head on his shoulders, he could not have felt more startled and horrified than when he heard himself, in the imbecility of the moment, giggle like Barbara, and answer to Lucilla's remark, "Oh! yes, it was my voice."

"I am very sorry to separate you from Barbara," said Miss Marjoribanks; "but she is at home, you know, and I want so much to talk to you. Barbara, good-night; I want Mr Cavendish to walk home with me. Rose, don't stand in the garden and catch cold; thank you, dear, for such a pleasant evening," said Lucilla, pressing another kiss upon her little friend's unwilling cheek. When she had done this, she put out her hand to Barbara, and passed her, sweeping her white garments through the narrow gateway. She took Mr Cavendish's arm as if he had been a young brother come to fetch her. "Let us go round by the chapel," said Miss Marjoribanks, "I have so much to say to you. Be sure to practise for Thursday, Barbara, and bid your papa good-night for me." This was how she carried off Mr Cavendish finally out of Barbara's very fingers, and under her very eyes.

When the two sisters were left standing together at the door, they could do nothing but stare at each other in the extremity of their amazement. Rose, for her part, remained but a moment, and then, feeling by far the guiltiest and most miserable of the whole party, ran upstairs to her own room and cried as if her heart would break. Barbara, on the contrary, who was past crying, stood still at the door, and watched Lucilla's white dress disappearing on the way to Grange Lane with indescribable emotions. A young woman cannot call the police, or appeal to the crier, when it is her lover whom she has lost: but to see him carried off by the strong hand – to watch him gradually going away and disappearing from her eyes – to hear his steps withdrawing into the distance – was such a trial as few are called upon to bear. She stood and looked after him, and could not believe her eyes. And then it was all so sudden – an affair of a moment. Barbara could not realise how the world had turned round, and this revolution had been effected; – one minute she had been leaning on his arm triumphant, making a show and exhibition of him in the pride of her heart, though he did not know it; and the next was not she standing here watching him with a blank countenance and a despairing heart, while Lucilla had pounced upon him and carried him off in her cruel grasp? The blow was so sudden, that Barbara stood speechless and motionless till the two departing figures had vanished in the darkness. Would he come back again to-morrow, or was he gone for ever and ever? Such were the thoughts of the forsaken maiden, as she stood paralysed under this sudden change of fortune, at her father's door. If some cruel spectator had thrown into the fire that Brussels veil with which her imagination had so long played, and Barbara had stood heart-struck, watching the filmy tissue dissolve into ashes before her eyes, her sense of sudden anguish could not have been more acute. Yet, after all, Barbara's pangs were nothing to those of Mr Cavendish, as he felt Miss Marjoribanks's light touch on his arm, and felt his doomed feet turn in spite of himself in the most dangerous direction, and became conscious that he was being led beyond all possibility of resistance, back to Grange Lane and to his fate.

To be sure it was dark, which was one consolation; but it was not dark enough to conceal Lucilla's white dress, nor the well-known form and lineaments of the young monarch of Grange Lane, in whose company nobody could pass unobserved. Mr Cavendish could have faced danger by sea and land with the average amount of courage; but the danger of the walk down the little street, which afterwards led to St Roque's, and up the embowered stillness of Grange Lane, was more than he was equal to. He could not be sure of making a single step by these garden-walls without meeting somebody who knew him – somebody whose curiosity might ruin him in Carlingford; or even without the risk of encountering in the face of that arch-enemy, who would not go away, and whose presence had banished him from the place. It may be supposed that, under these terrible circumstances, Mr Cavendish's thoughts of Barbara, who had got him into this scrape, were far from lover-like. He was a man universally popular among ladies, and who owed a great deal of the social consideration which he prized so highly to this fact; and yet the most gentle sentiment in his mind at that moment, was a "Confound these women!" which he breathed to himself, all low and deep, as he went slowly along by Lucilla's side. As for Miss Marjoribanks, her thoughts were of a very much more serious description than anything her unlucky escort was thinking of, and a minute or two passed in silence before she could make up her mind to speak.

"I have been thinking a great deal about you lately, and wishing very much to see you," said Lucilla. "Did not Mrs Woodburn tell you? – I think I should have written to you had I known your address."

"And I am sure you would have made me the happiest of men," said the victim, with rueful politeness. "What had I done to deserve such a privilege? But my sister did not tell me; she left me to hear it from your own – "

"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a certain solemnity, interrupting him; "I have been thinking a great deal – and hearing a great deal about you, Mr Cavendish." When she had said this Lucilla sighed, and her sigh found a terrible echo in her hearer's bosom. She knew that he turned green in the darkness as he gave an anxious look at her. But he was too much alarmed to give her an opportunity of studying his face.

"Hearing of me," he said, and tried to laugh; "what have my kind friends been saying?" and for one moment the sufferer tried to delude himself that it was some innocent gossip about Barbara which might be circulating in Grange Lane.

"Hush," said Lucilla, "don't laugh, please; for I want to have a very serious talk. I have been hearing about you from some very, very old friends, Mr Cavendish – not anything about this, you know," Miss Marjoribanks added, waving her hand in the direction of Grove Street. And then Barbara Lake and everything connected with her vanished like a shadow from the unfortunate man's mind. It was horribly ungrateful on his part, but it was, as Miss Marjoribanks would have said, just what might have been expected, and how They always behave. He had no longer any time or patience for the object which had been giving occupation and interest to his solitude. He woke up in a moment, and gave a passing curse to his folly, and faced the real danger as he best could.

"You must be making a mistake, Miss Marjoribanks," he said, with some bitterness; "it should have been, very, very old enemy. I know who it is. It is that Archdeacon you ladies make such a fuss about. It is he who has been telling lies about me," said Mr Cavendish. He breathed a deep hard breath as he spoke, and the blood came back to his face. Perhaps for the first moment he felt satisfied, and breathed freer after it was over; but at the same time it was very dreadful to him to feel that he was found out, and that henceforth Grange Lane would shut its doors and avert its countenance. "If you take his word for it, I may give in at once," he continued, bitterly. "A parson will say anything; they are as bad as – as women." This the poor man said in his despair, because he did not know what he was saying; for in reality he knew that women had been his best friends, and that he had still a chance, if the judgment was to rest with them.

"You are very ungrateful to say so," said Miss Marjoribanks, "but it is only because you are excited, I suppose. No, Mr Cavendish, it was not the Archdeacon; on the contrary, it was a lady, and she said nothing but good of you," said Lucilla; and then there was a pause. As for Mr Cavendish, it would be altogether impossible to describe the state of his mind. He was like a man suddenly reprieved, but giddy with the shock, and feeling the halter still round his neck, and knowing that he had himself undermined the ground on which he was standing. It was Lucilla who supported him in the shock of the moment, for all his self-command could not keep him from a momentary shiver and stagger when he found that things were not so bad as he thought.

"A lady, and she said nothing but good!" he muttered, under his breath; and then he made an effort to recover himself. "Pardon me, I cannot guess who my unknown friend may be. It is very soothing to one's feelings to be spoken well of by a lady," said Mr Cavendish, and he laughed again in a discordant unsteady way. Lucilla regarded him through all these fluctuations with natural pity, and at the same time with the calmness of a knowledge which was aware of all and had nothing more to discover; and at the end Mr Cavendish perceived her calm, and the absence of wonder and curiosity in her face, and began to perceive that he had something very serious to deal with – more serious even than he had at first supposed.

"I am going to tell you all about it," said Miss Marjoribanks, "but in the meantime wait a minute and let me speak to you. I have something very serious to say."

It was for this they stopped short at the foot of Grange Lane just where the land was already parcelled out for St Roque's. What Lucilla was going to say was too important to be spoken while walking, and she withdrew her hand from Mr Cavendish's arm. They were both so much absorbed that they did not see anybody coming, nor indeed had any attention to spare for external affairs. The blood had deserted Mr Cavendish's face, and he was once more green with anxiety and inquietude. He stood facing her, feeling that the crisis of his fate had come, and not knowing whether it was absolute despair or a faint dawning of hope that possessed him. If he had been the most passionate of lovers, and if she had held in her hands the dreadful alternative between rapture and misery, there could not have been a more rapt and absorbing attention in Mr Cavendish's face.

"I want to tell you, first of all, that you must have confidence in me," said Lucilla; "you – must – have confidence in me. We can do nothing without that. I know everything, Mr Cavendish," Miss Marjoribanks added compassionately – "everything; but nobody else knows it. I hope I can arrange everything if it is left in my hands. This is what I wanted to tell you first of all. Before everything, you must have confidence in me."

What Mr Cavendish might have answered to this solemn appeal it would be vain to imagine; for the truth was, he was stopped before he could utter a word. He was stopped and seized by the hand, and greeted with a frankness which was, perhaps, all the more loud and cordial from what appeared to the new-comer the comic character of the situation. "It is Cavendish, by Jove!" the intruder exclaimed, waving his hand to some people who were coming on behind him. "I beg a thousand pardons for disturbing you, my dear fellow; but they all talk about you so, that I was determined to make sure it was you. Good heavens, Miss Marjoribanks!" General Travers added, taking off his hat. It was Mr and Mrs Centum who were coming down behind him – she with a light shawl thrown over her head, tempted out by the beauty of the evening; and Lucilla saw in a moment the consequences of this encounter, and how it would be over all Carlingford before to-morrow morning that she and Mr Cavendish were betrothed at the very least. Miss Marjoribanks had all her wits about her, as ever, fortunately for both.

"Yes, it is me," she said calmly; "I have been taking tea with the Lakes, and I made Mr Cavendish give me his arm home. He did not like being found out, to be sure, but he could not help himself; and we all know about that," Lucilla added, with a smile, taking once more the unfortunate man's arm. "Oh, yes, we all know," said Mrs Centum, with a laugh; but yet, notwithstanding, everybody felt sure that it was all Lucilla's cleverness, and that Barbara Lake was a myth and fiction. And it was thus, with Miss Marjoribanks leaning on his arm, and General Travers, in all the warmth of renewed friendship, guarding him on the other side, that Mr Cavendish, whose head was in a whirl of excitement, and who did not know what he was doing, was led back in triumph past Colonel Chiley's very door, where the Archdeacon was lying in wait to crunch his bones, back from all his aberrations into the very heart of Grange Lane.

Chapter XXIX

Mr Cavendish was led back to his own house that evening by General Travers, whose claim of acquaintance was too decided to be rejected. He never knew very well what passed between the moment when Miss Marjoribanks began to expound to him the urgent necessity that he should confide in her, and the moment in which he found himself in his own house, admitted eagerly by the surprised and anxious servants, and conducted by the energetic soldier. That he had taken leave of Lucilla at her own door, that he had watched her white dress sweep away into the dark garden with a faint sense that it was his only remaining protector who thus left him, and that after that he had smoked a horrible cigar with Mr Centum, and been accompanied home by the old acquaintance, who had turned up at so unlucky a moment, – was all that the poor man was aware of. And yet it is to be supposed that on the whole he behaved himself very much like other people, since General Travers had no distinct idea that his company was undesirable, or that his cordial recognition was anything but welcome. The General, indeed, took it as quite natural, under the circumstances, that Cavendish should be a little confused. A man who is no longer a very young man, and has a character to support, does not care to be found mooning with the object of his affections on a summer evening, like a boy of twenty; and General Travers was perfectly aware that he had thus a very good joke against Cavendish. "It is worth a man's while to set up a bachelor establishment in the country," the General said. "By Jove! I wish I could do it. It makes a fellow feel Arcadian, and ready for anything;" and for his own part he was very ready to seize upon his former acquaintance, a man who belonged to his club, and had a chance to know what he was talking about. "As for Charlie Centum," the soldier said, "what between business and matrimony, he has grown the greatest guy imaginable; and I can't go off directly, you know; and then there's always this business about the depot. It's immense luck to find you here, Cavendish," General Travers added, with flattering cordiality; and if poor Mr Cavendish was not grateful, it certainly was not his friend's fault. He led the way into his house with a glum countenance and a sinking heart, though fortunately the latter was not visible. It was a very nice house, fitted up with all that luxury of comfort which a man who has, as Mrs Centum said, "only himself to look to," can afford to collect around him. Mr Cavendish had only himself, and he had made his habitation perfect, though, on the whole, he did not pass a very great deal of his time at home. He had some nice pictures and a good library, though he was not particularly given to the arts; and he had an admirable cellar, as all the gentlemen owned in Carlingford, though, for his own part, he was very moderate in that point, and did not give himself any airs on the subject. Mr Centum, on the contrary, was one of the men who talk about vintages, and raise expectations never to be carried out. And General Travers could not but feel the force of the contrast as he sat deep into the night, and "talked over everything," with the man who by that time he felt convinced was one of his best friends.

As for Mr Cavendish, it would be very difficult to describe his feelings. He had been knocking about in all sorts of poor places, making clandestine visits to his sister, and hovering round the more than suburban simplicity of Grove Street, and the sense of being once more enveloped and surrounded by all that was pleasant to the eye and comfortable to the outer man was wonderfully consolatory and agreeable. But his mind was in a dreadfully harassed condition all the same. He was preoccupied to the last degree, wondering what Miss Marjoribanks really knew, and how far he had betrayed himself, and to what extent it would be safe, as she herself said, to confide in Lucilla; and at the same time he was obliged to listen to and show a certain interest in the General's stories, and to make now and then a painful effort of mind to recall some of the mutual friends referred to, whose names and persons had in the meantime slipped out of his memory. All the babble of the club, which General Travers felt must be so refreshing to the ears of a rusticated member, fell as flat upon Mr Cavendish, whose mind was full of other matters, as if it had been the merest old woman's gossip, which, to be sure, it slightly resembled in some points. The gallant General made himself so agreeable that he nearly drove the unfortunate man out of his senses, and, when he had exhausted all other means of aggravation, returned with fresh zest to the sentimental circumstances in which, as he supposed, he had found his companion out.

"Very sensible I call it," said General Travers. "To be candid, I don't call her strictly handsome, you know; she's too big for that – and I don't suppose she's of any family to speak of; though perhaps you don't mind that trifling circumstance; but a woman that will dress well and light up well, and knows how to give a man a capital dinner, by Jove! and no doubt has a pretty little bit of money into the bargain – I respect your taste, Cavendish," said the friendly critic, with effusion; and somehow this applause irritated its recipient more than all that had gone before.

"I am sure I am much obliged to you," said Mr Cavendish, "though, unfortunately, I don't merit your approbation. Miss Marjoribanks is a great friend of mine, but she wouldn't have me, and I don't mean to ask her. At the same time, she has very good connections; and that is not the way to talk of a girl of twenty. She is worth a dozen of your fast young ladies," said the sufferer, with some heat. He was not in the least in love with Lucilla, and indeed had a certain dread of her at this present moment; but he could not forget that she had once stood by him in his need – and, besides, he was glad of any subject on which he could contradict his visitor. "I dare say her family is better than either yours or mine. Scotch, you know," said Mr Cavendish, trying to laugh. As for the General, he leaned back on his chair with an indulgent air, and stroked his mustache.

"Beg your pardon – meant no offence," he said. "For my part, I don't see that it matters, if a woman is good-looking and has something, you know. For instance, there was a pretty little thing – a charming little thing – Lake, or something like that – "

"Ah!" said Mr Cavendish. It was a frightful want of self-control; but he had been a long time at full strain, and he could not help it. It did not occur to him, for the moment, that nobody in his senses would have applied the term "little thing" to Barbara; and, after all the slow aggravation that he had been submitting to, the idea of this insolent soldier interfering in Grove Street was beyond his power of endurance. As for the General, the tone of this exclamation was such that he too turned round on his chair, and said, "Yes?" with equally unmistakable meaning, startled, but ready for the emergency, whatever it might be.

Thus the two looked at each other for a second, friends in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and yet, perhaps, on the eve of becoming enemies. Mr Cavendish had, up to that moment, pretty nearly forgotten Barbara Lake. It was a piquant sort of occupation when he had nothing else to do, and when the world, according to his morbid fancy, was on the eve of turning its back upon him – but from the moment when he had said between his teeth "Confound these women!" and had felt the excitement of the approaching crisis, Barbara, and her crimson cheeks, and her level eyebrows, and her contralto, had gone altogether out of his mind. At the same time, it is quite true that a man may feel himself at liberty to forget a woman when other matters of more immediate interest are absorbing his attention, and yet be driven furious by the idea suddenly presented to him that somebody else, who has nothing earthly to do with it, is about to interfere. Mr Cavendish, however, recovered himself while the General sat staring at him, and began to see how ridiculous his defiance was.

"Well? – go on. I did not say anything," he said, and lighted another cigar. Yet he did not face his companion as a friendly listener should, but began to beat measure to an irritating imaginary air on the table, with a certain savage energy by moments, as if he were beating time on the General's head.

"Then why do you stop a fellow short like that?" said General Travers; "I was going to tell you of some one I saw the other day in the house of your – your friend, you know. She was under Miss Marjoribanks's wing, that was how I saw her – and I hope you are not playing the gay deceiver, my friend; – a little thing, round-faced, hazel-eyed – a little soft rosebud sort of creature," said the General, growing eloquent. "By Jove! Cavendish, I hope you don't mean to make yourself disagreeable. These sort of looks, you know – "

"It was Rose, I suppose," said Mr Cavendish, relieved in a moment; and, to tell the truth, he could not help laughing. The more eloquent and angry the General grew, the more amused and contemptuous grew his entertainer. He was so tickled by the position of affairs, that he actually forgot his anxieties for the moment. "No doubt it was Rose," he repeated, and laughed; Rose! what anybody could see in that little dragon! And then the contrast between the soldier, who prided himself on his knowledge of the world, and liked to talk of his family and position, to the annoyance of those who had none, and the amusement of those who happen to possess these valuable qualifications – and the mistress of the Female School of Design, filled Mr Cavendish with amusement: perhaps all the more because he himself was in a similar scrape. As for General Travers, he was as much disposed to be angry as, a moment before, Mr Cavendish had been.

"It might be Rose," he said, "or Lily either, for anything I can tell; but there is nothing laughable in it that I can see. You seem to be perfectly au courant, at all events – which I hope is quite satisfactory to Miss Marjoribanks," said the soldier; and then he resumed, after a disagreeable little pause, "they tell me that everybody meets at the Doctor's on Thursdays. I suppose I shall see you there. Thursday, ain't it? to-morrow?" He looked as he spoke, with what seemed to his victim an insulting consciousness, in poor Cavendish's face. But, in reality, the General did not mean to be insulting, and knew nothing whatever of the horrible internal pang which rent his companion when it was thus recalled to him that it was to-morrow – a fact which, up to this moment, had not occurred to the unfortunate. To-morrow; and not even to-morrow – to-day – for by this time it was two o'clock in the morning, and the unwelcome intruder was wasting the little time he had for deciding what he should do. Once more his own personal anxieties, which he had put aside for a moment at the sudden dictate of jealousy, surged over everything, and swallowed up all lesser sensations. To-morrow! – and by this time everybody knew that he was in Carlingford, and he could not stay away from the weekly assembly without attracting general attention to himself, and throwing open the flood-gates of suspicion. What was he to do? should he turn his back on the enemy once for all, and run away and break off his connection with Carlingford? or should he dare everything and face the Archdeacon, and put his trust in Lucilla, as that high-minded young woman had invited him to do? With these thoughts in his mind, it may be supposed that Mr Cavendish gave but a very mingled attention to the babble of his visitor, who found the wine and the cigars so good, and perhaps had begun to be a little moved out of his ordinary lucidity by their effect.

"You've got a nice little house, Cavendish," said the General, "but it's too small for a married man, my boy. These women are the very deuce for turning a man out of his comfortable quarters. You'll have to go in for boudoirs and those sort of things; and, by George! you'll be an ass if you do, with a snug little box like this to retire into," said the philosophical warrior; and poor Cavendish smiled a ghastly smile, with the strongest inclination all the time to take him by the collar and turn him out of doors. But then he was a warrior and a general officer, and a member of the same club, and six feet high – all which particulars, not to speak of the sacred rights of hospitality, made it somewhat difficult to carry this idea out.

"Don't you think Centum will be sitting up for you?" he said mildly; "it's past two o'clock; and it's Thursday morning," the victim added, with a sigh. The last words were an involuntary utterance of his own despair, but fortunately they struck General Travers's vein of humour, which happened to be lively at the moment, and worked the desired but unexpected result. The General laughed loud and long, and declared that he respected a man who was above-board, and meant to look respectable for Miss Marjoribanks's sake; and then he poured a mighty libation to Lucilla, and took an affectionate leave of her supposed lover. The General made a great commotion in the decorous quiet of Grange Lane when he knocked at Mr Centum's door. Though it was nearly three o'clock in the morning, nothing but his inherent dread of a woman would have prevented him from knocking up the banker to share his hilarity; but Mrs Centum, in her nightcap, peaceably asleep as she was at the moment, daunted the soul of the gallant soldier; and naturally his recollection was not very perfect next day. "I had something very funny to tell you; but, by Jove! I forget what it was!" General Travers said next morning when he met his host at breakfast; and thus one bad joke at least was spared. But Mr Cavendish shut his door upon his departing guest, without any sense, poor fellow, of having done or said anything in the least funny. He said, "Thank Heaven!" with a kind of groan of relief when his troublesome visitor was gone. And then he went back again into his library, where they had been sitting. Perhaps he had never fully appreciated before the comfort of everything, the handsome house which he had enjoyed so long without thinking anything of it, and all the pleasant luxurious accessories of life. He had been doing without them for a week or two, and he had not liked it; and yet at that moment it seemed to Mr Cavendish that he could rather be content to lose them all at a stroke, to make it known in Carlingford that he was ruined and had lost his fortune, than that Carlingford should find out that he was not, after all, one of the Cavendishes, nor the person it took him for. But, alas! all his fortune could not bring reality to these pretensions, nor hinder the exposure to which he looked forward with such horror. It is true that he was an adventurer, but he was not a base one; nor had he done anything dishonourable either to gain his fortune or to captivate the good opinion of society, which had become so important to him. But there are actual crimes that would be sooner forgiven to a man than the folly of having permitted himself to be considered one of the Cavendishes, and having set his heart on making a figure in that mild provincial world. Mr Cavendish knew enough of human nature to know that a duchess or a lord-chamberlain would forgive more readily than Mr and Mrs Centum any such imposition upon them, and intrusion into their exclusive circle. And then his sister, who could not run away! For her sake it seemed to him that he had better rush off at once, and sell his house and furniture and horses, and give up Carlingford. As he thought of that, all the advantages of Carlingford came upon him stronger than ever. Perhaps a man who has always been used to be recognised as one of the members of a local aristocracy, would not have seen anything half so precious as Mr Cavendish saw in the fact of being everywhere known and acknowledged as a constituent part of Grange Lane; – recognised by the county people, and by the poor people, and pointed out as he passed by one and another to any stranger who might happen to be so ignorant as not to know Mr Cavendish. To people who are not used to it, there is a charm in this universal acknowledgment. And then he had more need of it than most men have; and, when Carlingford signed his patent of gentility, and acknowledged and prized him, it did an infinite deal more than it had any intention of doing. To keep its regard and recognition he would have done anything, given up the half or three parts, or even, on emergency, all he had. Perhaps he had an undue confidence in the magnanimity of society, and was too sure that in such a case it would behave with a grandeur worthy of the occasion; but still he was quite right in thinking that it could forgive the loss of his fortune sooner than his real offence. And now it was Thursday morning, the day upon which he must either fight or flee. He too had laughed at Miss Marjoribanks's evenings in his time, and thought of Thursday lightly as Lucilla's day; but there was nothing in the least amusing in the prospect of that assembly now.

When a man has thoughts like these to entertain him, nothing can be more useless than to go to bed, although in ordinary circumstances, at three o'clock in the morning, that is about the only thing one can do. Poor Mr Cavendish, however, was not quite free to act as he thought proper. He had been a long time away from home, and he did not feel himself in a position to shock his servants' feelings with impunity. He went to his room, accordingly, like a martyr, carrying all his difficulties with him, and these unpleasant companions naturally made a night of it when they had him all to themselves. When sheer fatigue and exhaustion procured him a moment's sleep, it was only getting deeper and deeper into trouble: for then it was the Archdeacon who had planted a heavy foot on his neck, or General Travers, who, with still more fatal force, had found out the way to Grove Street. When Mr Cavendish awoke, he said to himself, "Confound these women!" with more fervour than ever; but, at the same time, he swore a mighty oath to himself that he would horsewhip the fellow who ventured to come in his way. Barbara Lake might be no great things, but at least it was to him, and no one else, that she belonged. Such was the complication that afforded him a little outlet for his temper in the midst of the dreadful difficulties of his position, and the question which was constantly renewing itself in his thoughts, as to whether he should go or stay. The idea of presenting himself in the centre of society in Miss Marjoribanks's drawing-room, and being met by the Archdeacon, and held up to public contempt there and then, with all the world looking on, and even Travers, who would carry the narrative out of Carlingford, was something too horrible to be contemplated; and yet how was he to escape? He was still in this state of mind, driven backwards and forwards by every new wind, when the morning came, and when Miss Marjoribanks's note was put into his hand.

For the truth was, that, after long consideration, Lucilla had determined that the matter was one which could not be permitted to stand over. She was of too energetic a temperament to let things linger on in an uncertain way when they could be made an end of, and brought to a conclusion; and then, as nobody can predict what sudden and unexpected turn human affairs may take, it was always possible that, if Miss Marjoribanks did not make an end of the business dramatically, and to the satisfaction of everybody concerned, it might be found some fine day to have resolved itself by means of some one of those illegitimate and incomplete expedients which abound in ordinary life. It was with this view that Miss Marjoribanks took the step of writing to Mr Cavendish. She had written in the sacred retirement of her own maiden chamber, when all the world was still; perhaps at the moment when General Travers was, as he would himself have vulgarly called it, "chaffing" Cavendish about the beautiful and disinterested friendship which united him to the young sovereign of Grange Lane. But naturally such poor raillery was far from the virginal thoughts of Lucilla at that retired and sacred hour; and we may venture to add that the elevating influence of the maiden's bower in which she composed it, and of that tranquil moment of meditation and solitude, breathed in every line, and gave force to every sentiment of the letter which Mr Cavendish tore open with an excited hand. Perhaps he was too anxious and curious to give it the solemn perusal which it ought to have received.

"My dear Mr Cavendish, – It was very unlucky that we should have been interrupted this evening at such an important moment, when I had so much to say to you. But I think the best thing I can do is to write, feeling quite sure that when you know all, you cannot possibly mistake my motives. Everybody has retired, and I am quite alone, and the silence[2 - It is only justice to Miss Marjoribanks to say that she was not addicted to fine writing; but then she was a person who liked to have everything in keeping, and naturally an emergency such as the present does not come every day, and requires to be treated accordingly.] seems to me full of meaning when I think that the fate of a person for whom I have so great a regard may be hanging upon it. I might be afraid of writing to you so frankly, if I did not feel quite sure that you would appreciate my intention.

"Dear Mr Cavendish, it is not the Archdeacon who has said anything. He does not know it is you; therefore, of course, he could not say anything directly bearing upon you. But then, you know, if he were to meet you by hazard, as he is sure to do some day – and for my part I rather think he is fond of Grove Street – you would be exposed at once, and everything would be lost, for we all know the prejudices that exist in Carlingford. I have another plan of operations to propose to you, which I feel quite sure is for your good, and also naturally for the good of anybody to whom you may intend to unite your fortunes. I feel quite sure that it is far safer to adopt a bold resolution, and to have it over at once. Come to dinner to-morrow. If you may happen to find an enemy, you will find also an unlooked-for friend; and, so far as I am concerned, you know that you may calculate on my support. I do not wonder at your being anxious about it; but if you will only have full confidence in me and a little in yourself, believe me it will be all over in a night. If there had ever been anything between you and me, as these stupid people suppose, I might have felt hesitation in writing to you like this; but when I know a thing to be right, I hope I will never be afraid to do it. I have been called upon to do many things that are not common for girls of my age, and perhaps that is why I made up my mind at once to set this all straight for you. Once more I repeat, dear Mr Cavendish, have confidence in me. Come to-morrow evening as if nothing had happened; and take my word for it that all will go well. – Your friend,

    "Lucilla Marjoribanks.

"P.S.– If you would like to come and talk it over with me to-morrow, I shall be at home till twelve o'clock; but unless it will be a satisfaction to your own mind, it is not necessary for me, for I have all my plans laid."

It would be quite out of the question to attempt any explanation of Mr Cavendish's feelings when he read this letter. His utter bewilderment, his terror, his rage, his final helpless sense that it would be utterly hopeless for him, or half a dozen men, to enter the field against this curious complication of unknown friends and open enemies and generous protectors, took away from him the last remnant of courage. He did not know what to do or to think. He swallowed his coffee with a sense of despair, and sent the rest of his breakfast away untasted; thus betraying, without intending it, his emotions to his kitchen. "It stands to reason as there's a cause for it," Mr Cavendish's domestics concluded in committee of the whole house; and surely, if ever man had good reason for not eating his breakfast, it was he. When he had gone over it all again till his head had grown utterly confused and his thoughts were all topsy-turvy, Mr Cavendish took a sudden resolution. He went upstairs and changed his dress with a certain solemnity. He made a toilette more careful than if he were going, as he once had gone, to propose. It was like Nelson going into gala uniform for a battle. And then he went out to discover, if possible, what was coming to him. The difference was, that in this battle no honour, but only a possible salvage of reputation and fortunate escape, was to be gained.

Chapter XXX

It is possible that some people may think Mr Cavendish's emotions too acute for all the danger to which he was exposed; but no doubt every alarm gets intensified when a man broods on it, and thinks of nothing else for weeks at a time. All that he had to do at the present moment was to walk into Carlingford by the most frequented way, and to go up Grange Lane, where every house was open to him, and where nobody was so great a favourite as he. There were as many chances in his favour that he would not in that friendly neighbourhood encounter his one enemy, as there is for every man who goes into action that the bullet which is predestined to strike somebody will not be directed to him; but then Mr Cavendish had not the excitement of personal conflict, nor the kind of security which is given by sharing a risk with a great many other people. And to see everything smiling and serene around, and yet to know that the most deadly danger may arrive to you at any innocent opening, or round the first street-corner, is a kind of risk which naturally tells upon the nerves more than a more open peril. Mr Cavendish met Dr Marjoribanks, and the Doctor was good enough to stop his brougham and keep him in conversation for five minutes with his back to the foe, if foe there was approaching; and then he met Mrs Chiley, who all but kissed him, and was so glad to see him again, and so pleased that he was in time to make acquaintance with the Archdeacon, and so sure that Lucilla would be quite happy now he had come back. "Perhaps I ought not to say so, but I know she has missed you," said the injudicious old lady; and she took both his hands and held the miserable man in a kind of pillory, from whence he gazed with despairing eyes over her shoulder, feeling sure that now was the fatal moment, and that his enemy must be coming. But fortune still favoured him, as it happened. He had the presence of mind to say, "I am going to call on Miss Marjoribanks;" and Mrs Chiley dropped his hands on the instant as if they burned her, and patted him on the arm and sent him away. "She is sure to be in just now, and I am so glad; and, my dear, you need not mind me, for I am both your friends," Mrs Chiley said. But when he was delivered from that danger, something still more formidable awaited the unfortunate man. He could not believe his eyes at first, nor conceive it possible that Fate would have such a spite against him; but there was no mistaking the crumpled dress, any more than the straight eyebrows and flashing oblique glances that had already found him out. Of all the horrible chances in the world, it was Barbara – Barbara, who had a right to think he had deserted her on the previous night, and with whom his next interview could not be otherwise than stormy – who thus appeared like a lion in his way. When he saw what awaited him, Mr Cavendish lost courage. His heart sank down into unfathomable depths. He did not know what he could say to her to shorten the inevitable interview, nor how he could escape, nor how hinder her from discovering that it was Lucilla he was going to see; and he had no longer any doubt in his mind that while he was thus engaged the Archdeacon must inevitably appear. If he had had time to think of ordinary subjects, he would have been sufficiently annoyed at the idea of an interview with Barbara in broad daylight on the sacred soil of Grange Lane, where all the world could or might be spectators; but such a merely prudential sentiment was entirely swallowed up to-day in much more urgent considerations. He would have been content just now, in the horror of the moment, to plight his troth to Barbara by way of getting rid of her, and leaving his path clear; but he could not stop her or himself from advancing, and dared not give any vent to the panic which was consuming his soul.

"Oh, I am sure I never thought of seeing you here, Mr Cavendish," said Barbara, with a toss of her head. She would have done a great deal to secure her wavering lover, but she could not be amiable at a moment when she had him at a disadvantage. "Perhaps you are going to see Miss Marjoribanks," said the foolish young woman. To tell the truth, she did not suspect him of any such treachery; but her heart was beating louder than usual, and she had the best position of the two, or thought she had, and chose what she supposed the most aggravating thing to say.

But it is always hard to tell what a man may do when he is in a state of despair. Mr Cavendish looked her in the face with the composure of desperation, though she did not know that. All that he was able to think of was how to get rid of her soonest, and to be able to continue his way. "Yes, I am going to see Miss Marjoribanks," he said, with a face which extremity rendered stolid and impassible. As for poor Barbara, her colour changed in a moment. The very least that she had a right to expect was that he should have asked her pardon, put himself at her feet; and her mingled spite and humiliation and mortification at this response were beyond telling. Her cheeks blazed with sudden rage, her passion was so furious that she actually did what he wanted and stood out of his way, and made him an imperious sign to pass on and leave her. But even then she did not expect to be taken at her word. When Mr Cavendish took off his hat in that heartless way and passed on, Barbara stood aghast, not able to believe her senses. Had he really passed and left her, she who had done so much for him? Had he actually gone over to her adversary before her very eyes? She stood stock-still when he left her, gazing after him, blazing with rage and despite, and scarcely able to keep herself from shrieking out the torrent of reproaches and vituperations that were in her mind. She made no attempt whatever to hide her wrath or jealous curiosity from any eyes that might be there to see; but to be sure she had, as her sister said, no proper pride. If Mr Cavendish had carried out his intentions, the chances are that Barbara, driven desperate, would have rushed after him, and found some means of breaking in upon his interview with Lucilla; but after all this badgering, he had not the courage to carry out his intentions. He looked down the long sunshiny line of Grange Lane with a sickening sense that any of these doors might open at any moment, and his fate rush out upon him. There was not a soul to be seen, but that only made it all the more likely to poor Mr Cavendish's distempered fancy that somebody was coming. He had not even a single thought at leisure to give to Barbara, and never asked himself whether or not she was standing watching him. All his senses and faculties were engaged forecasting what might happen to him before he could reach Dr Marjoribanks's house. He was approaching it from the lower end of Grange Lane, and consequently had everything to risk; and when Mr Centum's door opened, and all the nurses and all the children poured out, the unfortunate man felt his heart jump, and drop again, if possible, lower than ever. It was this that drove him, instead of going on to Lucilla, to take refuge in his sister's house, where the door happened to be open. He rushed in there, and took breath, and was safe for the instant. But Barbara, for her part, watching him, divined none of Mr Cavendish's reasons. Her heart too gave a jump, and her wrath cooled down miraculously. No doubt it was a little impatience at being questioned which had made him answer as he did. He had not gone to Lucilla – he had not deserted her standard, who had always met him half-way, and done so much for him. Barbara calmed down as she saw him enter at Mrs Woodburn's door. After having thus witnessed his safe exit, she felt at liberty to go back and return to her own affairs, and prepare her toilette for the evening; for it moved her very little less than Mr Cavendish to know that it was Thursday, and that there was no telling what might happen that night.

As for the hero of all this commotion, he went and buried himself in Mrs Woodburn's back drawing-room, and threw himself on the sofa in the dark corner, and wiped his forehead like the Archdeacon. It was not his fault if events had overwhelmed him. If he had not met in succession Dr Marjoribanks and Mrs Chiley and Barbara, he would have gone right to Lucilla without stopping to question himself further – but he could not bear all this accumulation. Panic had seized upon him, and this panic wrought more effectually than all argument. It was so terrible to live under such a shadow, that he felt it must be put an end to. If only he were left at rest for this moment, he felt that he could make up his mind to take the perilous leap at night, and dare everything. "It can't be worse than ruin," he said to himself, and tried not to think that for his sister it might be something even worse than ruin. But the first thing of all was to get a little rest in the meantime, and hide himself, and forget the nightmare that was seated on his shoulders. When Mrs Woodburn came to him in haste, and saw his careful dress and pale looks, she was frightened for the moment. She thought it possible for one second that despair had driven him out of his wits, and that there might be, for anything she could tell, a little bottle of prussic acid in his waistcoat pocket. That was her first idea, and her second was that he was going to carry out at last his most wise and laudable resolution of proposing to Miss Marjoribanks, and that it was this – naturally a serious and hazardous enterprise – which made him look so pale.