It was nearly six weeks after this before all Miss Marjoribanks's arrangements were completed, and she was able with satisfaction to herself to begin her campaign. It was just before Christmas, at the time above all others when society has need of a ruling spirit. For example, Mrs Chiley expected the Colonel's niece, Mary Chiley, who had been married about six months before, and who was not fond of her husband's friends, and at the same time had no home of her own to go to, being an orphan. The Colonel had invited the young couple by way of doing a kind thing, but he grumbled a little at the necessity, and had never liked the fellow, he said—and then what were two old people to do to amuse them? Then Mrs Centum had her two eldest boys home from school, and was driven out of her senses by the noise and the racket, as she confided to her visitors. "It is all very well to make pretty pictures about Christmas," said the exasperated mother, "but I should like to know how one can enjoy anything with such a commotion going on. I get up every morning with a headache, I assure you; and then Mr Centum expects me to be cheerful when he comes in to dinner; men are so unreasonable. I should like to know what they would do if they had what we have to go through: to look after all the servants—and they are always out of their senses at Christmas—and to see that the children don't have too much pudding, and to support all the noise. The holidays are the hardest work a poor woman can have," she concluded, with a sigh; and when it is taken into consideration that this particular Christmas was a wet Christmas, without any frost or possibility of amusement out of doors, English matrons in general will not refuse their sympathy to Mrs Centum. Mrs Woodburn perhaps was equally to be pitied in a different way. She had to receive several members of her husband's family, who were, like Miss Marjoribanks, without any sense of humour, and who stared, and did not in the least understand her when she "took off" any of her neighbours; not to say that some of them were Low-Church, and thought the practice sinful. Under these circumstances it will be readily believed that the commencement of Lucilla's operations was looked upon with great interest in Carlingford. It was so opportune that society forgot its usual instincts of criticism, and forgave Miss Marjoribanks for being more enlightened and enterprising than her neighbours; and then most people were very anxious to see the drawing-room, now it had been restored.
This was a privilege, however, not accorded to the crowd. Mrs Chiley had seen it under a vow of secrecy, and Mr Cavendish owned to having made a run upstairs one evening after one of Dr Marjoribanks's little dinners, when the other convives were in the library, where Lucilla had erected her temporary throne. But this clandestine inspection met with the failure it deserved, for there was no light in the room except the moonlight, which made three white blotches on the carpet where the windows were, burying everything else in the profoundest darkness; and the spy knocked his foot against something which reduced him to sudden and well-merited agony. As for Mrs Chiley, she was discretion itself, and would say nothing even to her niece. "I mean to work her a footstool in water-lilies, my dear, like the one I did for you when you were married," the old lady said; and that was the only light she would throw on the subject. "My opinion is that it must be in crimson," Mrs Woodburn said, when she heard this, "for I know your aunt's water-lilies. When I see them growing, I always think of you. It would be quite like Lucilla Marjoribanks to have it in crimson—for it is a cheerful colour, you know, and quite different from the old furniture; and that would always be a comfort to her dear papa." From this it will be seen that the curiosity of Carlingford was excited to a lively extent. Many people even went so far as to give the Browns a sitting in their glass-house, with the hope of having a peep at the colour of the hangings at least. But Miss Marjoribanks was too sensible a woman to leave her virgin drawing-room exposed to the sun when there was any, and to the photographers, who were perhaps more dangerous. "I think it is blue, for my part," said Miss Brown, who had got into the habit of rising early in hopes of finding the Doctor's household off its guard. "Lucilla was always a great one for blue; she thinks it is becoming to her complexion;" which, indeed, as the readers of this history are aware, was a matter of fact. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she did her best to keep up this agreeable mystery. "For my part, I am fond of neutral tints," she herself said, when she was questioned on the subject; "anybody who knows me can easily guess my taste. I should have been born a Quaker, you know, I do so like the drabs and grays, and all those soft colours. You can have as much red and green as you like abroad, where the sun is strong, but here it would be bad style," said Lucilla; from which the most simple-minded of her auditors drew the natural conclusion. Thus all the world contemplated with excitement the first Thursday which was to open this enchanted chamber to their admiring eyes. "Don't expect any regular invitation," Miss Marjoribanks said. "I hope you will all come, or as many of you as can. Papa has always some men to dinner with him that day, you know, and it is so dreadfully slow for me with a heap of men. That is why I fixed on Thursday. I want you to come every week, so it would be absurd to send an invitation; and remember it is not a party, only an Evening," said Lucilla. "I shall wear a white frock high, as I always do. Now be sure you come."
"But we can't all go in high white frocks," said Mrs Chiley's niece, Mary, who, if her trousseau had been subtracted from the joys of marriage, would not, poor soul! have found very much left. This intimation dismayed the bride a little; for, to be sure, she had decided which dress she was to wear before Lucilla spoke.
"But, my dear, you are married," said Miss Marjoribanks; "that makes it quite different: come in that pretty pink that is so becoming. I don't want to have any dowdies, for my part; and don't forget that I shall expect you all at nine o'clock."
When she had said this, Miss Marjoribanks proceeded on her way, sowing invitations and gratification round her. She asked the youngest Miss Brown to bring her music, in recognition of her ancient claims as the songstress of society in Carlingford; for Lucilla had all that regard for constituted rights which is so necessary to a revolutionary of the highest class. She had no desire to shock anybody's prejudices or wound anybody's feelings. "And she has a nice little voice," Lucilla said to herself, with the most friendly and tolerant feelings. Thus Miss Marjoribanks prepared to establish her kingdom with a benevolence which was almost Utopian, not upon the ruins of other thrones, but with the goodwill and co-operation of the lesser powers, who were, to be sure, too feeble to resist her advance, but whose rights she was quite ready to recognise, and even to promote, in her own way.
At the same time it is necessary here to indicate a certain vague and not disagreeable danger, which appeared to some experienced persons to shadow Lucilla's conquering way. Mr Cavendish, who was a young man of refinement, not to say that he had a very nice property, had begun to pay attention to Miss Marjoribanks in what Mrs Chiley thought quite a marked manner. To be sure, he could not pretend to the honour of taking her in to dinner, which was not his place, being a young man; but he did what was next best, and manœuvred to get the place on her left hand, which, in a party composed chiefly of men, was not difficult to manage. For, to tell the truth, most of the gentlemen present were at that special moment more interested in the dinner than in Lucilla. And after dinner it was Mr Cavendish who was the first to leave the room; and to hear the two talking about all the places they had been to, and all the people they had met, was as good as a play, Mrs Chiley said. Mr Cavendish confided to Lucilla his opinions upon things in general, and accepted the reproofs which she administered (for Miss Marjoribanks was quite unquestionable in her orthodoxy, and thought it a duty, as she said, always to speak with respect of religion) when his sentiments were too speculative, and said, "How charming is divine philosophy!" so as, for the moment, to dazzle Lucilla herself, who thought it a very pretty compliment. He came to her assistance when she made tea, and generally fulfilled all the duties which are expected of a man who is paying attention to a young lady. Old Mrs Chiley watched the nascent regard with her kind old grandmotherly eyes. She calculated over in her own mind the details of his possessions, so far as the public was aware of them, and found them on the whole satisfactory. He had a nice property, and then he was a very nice, indeed an unexceptionable young man; and to add to this, it had been agreed to between Colonel Chiley and Mr Centum, and several other of the leading people in Carlingford, that he was the most likely man to represent the borough when old Mr Chiltern, who was always threatening to retire, fulfilled his promise. Mr Cavendish had a very handsome house a little out of town, where a lady would be next thing to a county lady—indeed, quite a county lady, if her husband was the Member for Carlingford.
All these thoughts passed through Mrs Chiley's mind, and, as was natural, in the precious moments after dinner, were suggested in occasional words of meaning to the understanding ear of Miss Marjoribanks. "My dear Lucilla, it is just the position that would suit you—with your talents!" the old lady said; and Lucilla did not say No. To be sure, she had not at the present moment the least inclination to get married, as she truly said; it would, indeed, to tell the truth, disturb her plans considerably; but still, if such was the intention of Providence, and if it was to the Member for Carlingford, Lucilla felt that it was still credible that everything might be for the best.
"But it is a great deal too soon to think of anything of that sort," Miss Marjoribanks would reply. "If I had thought of that, I need never have come home at all; and especially when papa has been so good about everything." Yet for all that she was not ungracious to Mr Cavendish when he came in first as usual. To marry a man in his position would not, after all, be deranging her plans to any serious extent. Indeed, it would, if his hopes were realised, constitute Lucilla a kind of queen in Carlingford, and she could not but feel that, under these circumstances, it might be a kind of duty to reconsider her resolution. And thus the time passed while the drawing-room was undergoing renovation. Mr Cavendish had been much tantalised, she said, by the absence of the piano, which prevented them from having any music, and Lucilla had even been tempted into a few snatches of song, which, to tell the truth, some of the gentlemen present, especially the Doctor himself and Colonel Chiley, being old-fashioned, preferred without the accompaniment. And thus it was, under the most brilliant auspices, and with the full confidence of all her future constituency, that Miss Marjoribanks superintended the arrangement of the drawing-room on that momentous Thursday, which was to be the real beginning of her great work in Carlingford.
"My dear, you must leave yourself entirely in my hands," Lucilla said to Barbara Lake on the morning of that eventful day. "Don't get impatient. I dare say you don't know many people, and it may be a little slow for you at first; but everybody has to put up with that, you know, for a beginning. And, by the bye, what are you going to wear?"
"I have not thought about it," said Barbara, who had the painful pride of poverty, aggravated much by a sense that the comforts of other people were an injury to her. Poor soul! she had been thinking of little else for at least a week past; and then she had not very much choice in her wardrobe; but her disposition was one which rejected sympathy, and she thought it would look best to pretend to be indifferent. At the same time, she said this with a dull colour on her cheeks, the colour of irritation; and she could not help asking herself why Lucilla, who was not so handsome as she was, had the power to array herself in gorgeous apparel, while she, Barbara, had nothing but a white frock. There are differences even in white frocks, though the masculine mind may be unaware of them. Barbara's muslin had been washed six times, and had a very different air from the vestal robes of her patroness. To be sure, Lucilla was not taken in, in the least, by her companion's look of indifference, and would even have been delighted to bestow a pretty dress upon Barbara, if that had been a possible thing to do.
"There will be no dress," said Miss Marjoribanks, with solemnity. "I have insisted upon that. You know it is not a party, it is only an Evening. A white frock, high—that is all I mean to wear; and mind you don't lose patience. I shall keep my eye on you; and after the first, I feel sure you will enjoy yourself. Good-bye for the present." When she had uttered these encouraging words. Miss Marjoribanks went away to pursue her preparations, and Barbara proceeded to get out her dress and examine it. It was as important to her as all the complicated paraphernalia of the evening's arrangements were to Lucilla. It is true that there were greater interests involved in the case of the leader; but then Barbara was the soldier of fortune who had to open the oyster with her sword, and she was feeling the point of it metaphorically while she pulled out the breadths of her white dress, and tried to think that they would not look limp at night; and what her sentiments lost in breadth, as compared with Lucilla's, they gained in intensity, for—for anything she could tell—her life might change colour by means of this Thursday Evening; and such, indeed, was her hope. Barbara prepared for her first appearance in Grange Lane, with a mind wound up to any degree of daring. It did not occur to her that she required to keep faith with Miss Marjoribanks in anything except the duet. As regarded other matters, Barbara was quite unscrupulous, for at the bottom she could not but feel that any one who was kind to her was taking an unwarrantable liberty. What right had Lucilla Marjoribanks to be kind to her? as if she was not as good as Lucilla any day! and though it might be worth her while to take advantage of it for the moment, it was still an insult, in its way, to be avenged if an opportunity ever should arise.
The evening came, as evenings do come, quite indifferently whether people are glad or sorry; and it was with a calmness which the other ladies regarded as next to miraculous, that Miss Marjoribanks took Colonel Chiley's arm to go to the dining-room. We say the other ladies, for on this great occasion Mrs Centum and Mrs Woodburn were both among the dinner-guests. "To see her eat her dinner as if she had nothing on her mind!" Mrs Centum said in amazement: "as for me, though nobody can blame me if anything goes wrong, I could enjoy nothing for thinking of it. And I must say I was disappointed with the dinner," she added, with a certain air of satisfaction, in Mrs Woodburn's ear. It was when they were going upstairs, and Lucilla was behind with Mrs Chiley. "The fuss the men have always made about these dinners! and except for a few made dishes that were really nothing, you know, I can't say I saw anything particular in it. And as for Lucilla, I can't think she has any feeling," said the banker's wife.
"Oh, my dear, it is because you don't understand," said Mrs Woodburn. "She is kept up, you know, by a sense of duty. It is all because she has set her heart on being a comfort to her dear papa!"
Such, it is true, were the comments that were made upon the public-spirited young woman who was doing so much for Carlingford; but then Lucilla only shared the fate of all the great benefactors of the world. An hour later the glories of the furniture were veiled and hidden by the robes of a radiant flood of society, embracing all that was most fair and all that was most distinguished in Carlingford. No doubt there was a world of heterogeneous elements; but then if there had not been difficulties where would have been the use of Miss Marjoribanks's genius? Mr Bury and his sister, who had been unconsciously mollified by the admirable dinner provided for them downstairs, found some stray lambs in the assembly who were in need of them, and thus had the double satisfaction of combining pleasure with duty; and though there were several people in the room whose lives were a burden to them in consequence of Mrs Woodburn's remarkable gift, even they found it impossible not to be amused by an occasional representation of an absent individual, or by the dashing sketch of Lucilla, which she gave at intervals in her corner, amid the smothered laughter of the audience, who were half ashamed of themselves. "She is never ill-tempered, you know," the persons who felt themselves threatened in their turn said to each other with a certain piteous resignation; and oddly enough it was in general the most insignificant people about who were afraid of Mrs Woodburn. It is needless to say that such a dread never entered the serene intelligence of Miss Marjoribanks, who believed in herself with a reasonable and steady faith. As for old Mrs Chiley, who had so many funny little ways, and whom the mimic executed to perfection, she also was quite calm on the subject. "You know there is nothing to take off in me," the old lady would say; "I always was a simple body: and then I am old enough to be all your grandmothers, my dear;" which was a saying calculated, as Miss Marjoribanks justly observed, to melt a heart of stone.
Then the Miss Browns had brought their photographs, in which most people in Grange Lane were caricatured hideously, but with such a charming equality that the most exigeant forgave the wrong to himself in laughing at his neighbours. Miss Brown had brought her music too, and sang her feeble little strain to the applause of her immediate neighbours, and to the delight of those who were at a distance, and who could talk louder and flirt more openly under cover of the music; and there were other young ladies who had also come prepared with a little roll of songs or "pieces." Lucilla, with her finger as it were upon the pulse of the company, let them all exhibit their powers with that enlightened impartiality which we have already remarked in her. When Mr Cavendish came to her in his ingratiating way, and asked her how she could possibly let all the sparrows chirp like that when the nightingale was present, Miss Marjoribanks proved herself proof to the flattery. She said, "Do go away, like a good man, and make yourself agreeable. There are so few men, you know, who can flirt in Carlingford. I have always reckoned upon you as such a valuable assistant. It is always an advantage to have a man who flirts," said Miss Marjoribanks. This was a sentiment perhaps too large and enlightened, in the truest sense of the word, to meet, as it ought to have done, with the applause of her audience. Most of the persons immediately surrounding her thought, indeed, that it was a mere bon-mot to which Lucilla had given utterance, and laughed accordingly; but it is needless to explain that these were persons quite unable to understand her genius.
All this time she was keeping her eyes upon a figure in the corner of a sofa, which looked as if it was glued there, and kept staring defiance at the world in general from under black and level brows. Lucilla, it is true, had introduced Barbara Lake in the most flattering way to Mrs Chiley, and to some of the young ladies present; but then she was a stranger, and an intruder into those regions of the blest, and she could not help feeling so. If her present companions had not whispered among themselves, "Miss Lake! what Miss Lake? Good gracious! Lake the drawing-master's daughter!" she herself would still have reminded herself of her humble paternity. Barbara sat as if she could not move from that corner, looking out upon everybody with scared eyes, which expressed nothing but defiance, and in her own mind making the reflections of bitter poverty upon the airy pretty figures round her, in all the variations of that costume which Miss Marjoribanks had announced as the standard of dress for the evening. Barbara's muslin, six times washed, was not more different from the spotless lightness of all the draperies round her, than was her air of fright, and at the same time of defiance, 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 been applauded before, flushed into splendid crimson, and shone out from under her straight eyebrows, intoxicated into absolute beauty. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she took it more calmly. Lucilla had the advantage of knowing what she could do, and accordingly she was not surprised when people found it remarkable. She consented, on urgent persuasion, to repeat the last verse of the duet, but when that was over, was smilingly obdurate. "Almost everybody can sing," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a magnificent depreciation of her own gift. "Perhaps Miss Brown will sing us something; but as for me, you know, I am the mistress of the house."
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 by-play 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.