It was thus that Miss Marjoribanks went through all the preliminary stages, and succeeded finally in making a triumph out of what would certainly have been a defeat, and a humbling defeat, for anybody else. She was much too sensible to deceive herself on the subject, or not to be aware that to have a gentleman who was paying attention to her withdrawn from her side in this open manner in the sight of all the world, was as trying an accident as can happen to a woman. Fortunately, as Lucilla said, her affections were not engaged; but then, apart from the affections, there are other sentiments which demand consideration. Everybody in Carlingford knew that Mr Cavendish had been paying her a great deal of attention, and the situation was one which required the most delicate skill to get through it successfully. Besides, Miss Marjoribanks's circumstances were all the more difficult, since up to this moment she had been perfectly sincere and natural in all her proceedings. Policy had been constantly inspired and backed by nature in the measures Lucilla had taken for the organisation and welfare of her kingdom, and even what people took for the cleverest calculation was in reality a succession of happy instincts, by means of which, with the sovereignty of true genius, Miss Marjoribanks managed to please everybody by having her own way. A little victory is almost necessary to begin with, and it is a poor nature that does not expand under the stimulus of victory; but now the young reformer had come to the second stage. For, to be sure, that sort of thing cannot last for ever; and this Lucilla, with the natural prevision of a ruling mind, had foreseen from the beginning. The shape in which she had feared defeat, if a nature so full of resources could ever be said to fear, was that of a breakdown, when all the world was looking to her for amusement, or the sudden appearance of a rival entertainer in Carlingford with superior powers: though the last was but a dim and improbable danger, the first was quite possible, and might have arrived at any moment. Miss Marjoribanks was much too sensible not to have foreseen this danger in all its shapes, and even in a kind of way to have provided against it. But Providence, which had always taken care of her, as Lucilla piously concluded, had spared her the trial in that form. Up to this moment it had always providentially happened that all the principal people in Carlingford were quite well and disengaged on the "evening." To be sure, the ladies had headaches, and the married gentlemen now and then were out of temper in Grange Lane as in other less favoured places; but these social accidents had been mercifully averted on Thursdays, perhaps by means of some special celestial agency, perhaps only through that good-luck which had been born with Lucilla. Not in this vulgar and likely manner was the trial of her strength to come.
But when she was at the height of her success, and full in the eye of the world, and knew that everybody was remarking her, and that from the sauces for which the Doctor's table was once so famed, but which even Colonel Chiley no longer thought of identifying as Dr Marjoribanks's, to the fashion of the high white frock in which Lucilla had taught the young ladies of Carlingford to appear of an evening, she was being imitated on every hand,—at that moment, when an ordinary person would have had her head turned, and gone wild with too much success, Miss Marjoribanks suddenly saw her dragon approaching her. Just then, when she could not put on a new ribbon, or do her hair in a different style, without all Carlingford knowing of it—at that epoch of intoxication and triumph the danger came, sudden, appalling, and unlooked for. If Lucilla was staggered by the encounter, she never showed it, but met the difficulty like a woman of mettle, and scorned to flinch. It had come to be summer weather when the final day arrived upon which Mr Cavendish forgot himself altogether, and went over to the insidious enemy whom Miss Marjoribanks had been nourishing in her bosom. Fifty eyes were upon Lucilla watching her conduct at that critical moment—fifty ears were on the strain to divine her sentiments in her voice, and to catch some intonation at least which should betray her consciousness of what was going on.
But if Miss Marjoribanks's biographer has fitly discharged his duty, the readers of this history will have no difficulty in divining that the curiosity of the spectators got no satisfaction from Lucilla. Many people even supposed she had not remarked anything, her composure was so perfect. No growing red or growing pale, no harsh notes in her voice, nor evidence of distracted attention, betrayed that her mind was elsewhere while she was attending to her guests; and yet, to be sure, she saw, just as other people did, that Barbara, all flushed and crimson, with her eyes blazing under their sullen brows, stood in a glow of triumph at the open window, with Mr Cavendish in devoted attendance—a captive at her chariot-wheels. Matters had been progressing to this point for some time; but yet the two culprits had never before showed themselves so lost to all sense of propriety. Instead of fainting or getting pale, or showing any other symptoms of violent despite, Lucilla went upon her airy way, indirectly approaching this point of interest. She went up and chatted with them, and ordered Mr Cavendish to find a chair for Barbara. "What can you be thinking of to let her stand so near the window? If she were to catch cold and lose her voice, what should we all do?" said Lucilla; and she established the two in the most commodious corner before she left them. "Take care she does not go back again into the draught," were her parting words, and even the culprits themselves could do nothing but stare at each other with consternation and shame.
This was all the notice Lucilla took of what was going on. If she was affronted, or if she was wounded, nobody found it out; and when Mrs Chiley offered the tribute of her indignation and sympathy, it has already been recorded how her young friend responded to her. "Fortunately my affections never were engaged," Lucilla said, and no doubt that was a great advantage; but then, as we have said, there are other things besides affections to be taken into account when the woman whom you have been kind to snaps up the man who has been paying attention to you, not only before your eyes, but before the eyes of all the world. The result of her masterly conduct on this occasion was that her defeat became, as we have said, a triumph for Miss Marjoribanks. To be sure, it is to be hoped that, in the sweets of their mutual regard, the two criminals found compensation for the disapproval of the spectators; but nothing could be more marked than the way in which Carlingford turned its cold shoulder on its early favourite. "I never imagined Cavendish was such a fool," Mr Centum said, who was a man of few words; "if he likes that style of philandering, it is nothing to me, but he need not make an idiot of himself." As for Mr Woodburn, he, as was natural, inflicted vicarious punishment upon his wife. "It must be all your fault," he growled, when he was taking her home, and had her at his mercy, with that logic peculiar to a married man; "you ought to tell him he's making an ass of himself. Why the deuce do you let him go on with that tomfoolery? He'll lose all his chances in life, and then, I hope, you'll be satisfied. You women can never see an inch before your own noses!" cried the uncivil husband; which, it must be confessed, was rather hard upon poor Mrs Woodburn, who had nothing to do with it, and had indeed calculated upon perfecting her sketch of Barbara in the quietness of the walk home; for as everybody lived in Grange Lane, carriages were not necessary for Miss Marjoribanks's guests. They flitted out and in, in the moonlight, with pretty scarfs thrown over their heads and laced handkerchiefs tied under their chins, and made Grange Lane between the two straight lines of garden-wall like a scene in a masquerade.
While Mr Cavendish was thus suffering by deputy the contempt of his former admirers, Lucilla, by herself in the abandoned drawing-room, was thinking over the evening with a severe but on the whole satisfactory self-examination. After the first shock, which she had encountered with so much courage, Miss Marjoribanks was rather grateful than otherwise to Providence, which had brought the necessary trial upon her in this form. If it had been a breakdown and humiliating failure instead, how different would her sensations have been! and Lucilla was quite conscious that such a thing might have occurred. It might have occurred to her, as it had done to so many people, to see Thursday come round with a failure of all that made Thursday agreeable. Lady Richmond might have had her influenza that day, and little Henry Centum his sudden attack, which had kept his mother in conversation ever since, and Mrs Woodburn one of her bad headaches; and as for the Miss Browns, there was nothing in the world but Lucilla's habitual good fortune which prevented them from having blacked their fingers with their photography to such an extent as to make them perfectly unpresentable. Or, to turn to another chapter of accidents, the last duet, which Barbara had insisted upon singing without proper practice, might have broken down utterly. None of these things had happened, and Lucilla drew a long breath of gratitude as she thought how fortunate she had been in all these particulars. To be sure, it was necessary to have a trial of one kind or other; and the modest but intense gratification of having stood the test, diffused itself like a balm through her bosom. No doubt she would have felt, like most people, a certain pleasure in snubbing Barbara; but then there is, on the other hand, a sweetness in sacrificing such impulses to the sacred sense of duty and the high aims of genius which is still more attractive to a well-regulated mind. Miss Marjoribanks herself put out the candles, and went to her own room with that feeling of having acquitted herself satisfactorily which many people think to be the highest gratification of which the mind is capable. After all, it was by no means certain that Mr Cavendish would be M.P. for Carlingford. Mr Chiltern might live for twenty years, or he even might get better, which was more unlikely; or supposing him to be comfortably disposed of, nobody could say with any certainty that some man unknown at present in Carlingford might not start up all of a sudden and gain the most sweet voices of the shopkeepers, who were the majority of the community, and quite outnumbered Grange Lane. It was thus that Lucilla consoled herself as she went meditative but undaunted to her maiden rest.
While all this was going on, Dr Marjoribanks remained an amused spectator, and chuckled a little quietly, without saying anything to anybody, over the turn affairs had taken. The Doctor knew all about everybody in Carlingford, and he had never been an enthusiast in favour of Mrs Woodburn's brother, notwithstanding that the young man had been received so warmly into society as one of the Cavendishes. Perhaps Dr Marjoribanks being Scotch, and having a turn for genealogy, found the description a little vague; but at all events there can be no doubt that he laughed to himself as he retired from the scene of his daughter's trial. The Doctor possibly thought, in a professional point of view, that a little discipline of this description would be useful to Lucilla. Perhaps he thought it would be good for her to find out that—though she had managed to slip the reins out of his hands, and get the control of affairs with a skill which amused the Doctor, and made him a little proud of her abilities, even though he was himself the victim—she could not go on always unchecked in her triumphant career, but must endure like other people an occasional defeat. No doubt, had Lucilla been really worsted, paternal feeling would have interposed, and Dr Marjoribanks would to some extent have suffered in her suffering; but then the case was different, and nobody required, as it turned out, to suffer for Lucilla. The Doctor was pleased she had shown so much spirit, and pleased to see how entirely she had discomfited her antagonists, and turned the tables upon the "young puppy," in whom he had no confidence; and withal Dr Marjoribanks chuckled a little in his secret heart over the event itself, and concluded that it would do Lucilla good. She had vanquished Nancy, and by a skilful jerk taken the reins out of his own experienced hands. He was aware that he had been on the whole very wisely governed since his abdication, but yet he was not sorry that the young conqueror should feel herself human; so that nobody except Mrs Chiley felt that mingled rage and disappointment with which Barbara Lake had hoped to inspire Lucilla's bosom; and Mrs Chiley, so to speak, had nothing to do with it. As for Barbara herself, she returned home in a state of mingled spite and exultation and disgust, which filled her sister with amazement.
"She is such an actor, you know," Barbara said; "she never will give in to let you know how she is feeling—not if she can help it; but for all that she must have felt it. Nobody could help feeling it, though she carried it off so well. I knew how it would be, as soon as I had on a dress that was fit to be seen."
"What is it that she could not help feeling?" said Rose. "I suppose it is Lucilla you mean?"
"I should like to know what right she had to be kind to me," cried Barbara, all glowing in her sullen but excited beauty; "and invite me there, and introduce me in her grand way, as if she was any better than I am! And then to look at all her India muslins; but I knew it would be different as soon as I had a decent dress," said the contralto, rising up to contemplate herself in the little mirror over the mantelpiece.
This conversation took place in Mr Lake's little parlour, where Rose had been waiting for her sister, and where Barbara's white dress made an unusual radiance in the dim and partially-lighted room. Rose herself was all shrouded up in her morning dress, with her pretty round arms and shoulders lost to the common view. She had been amusing herself as she waited by working at a corner of that great design which was to win the prize on a later occasion. Readers of this history who have studied the earlier chapters will remember that Rose's tastes in ornamentation were very clearly defined for so young a person. Instead of losing herself in vague garlands of impossible flowers, the young artist clung with the tenacity of first love to the thistle leaf, which had been the foundation of her early triumphs. Her mind was full of it even while she received and listened to Barbara; whether to treat it in a national point of view, bringing in the rose and shamrock, which was a perfectly allowable proceeding, though perhaps not original—or whether she should yield to the "sweet feeling" which had been so conspicuous in her flounce, in the opinion of the Marlborough House gentlemen—or whether, on the contrary, she should handle the subject in a boldly naturalistic way, and use her spikes with freedom,—was a question which occupied at that moment all Rose's faculties. Even while she asked Barbara what the subject was on which Lucilla might be supposed to be excited, she was within herself thinking out this difficult idea—all the more difficult, perhaps, considering the nature of the subject, since the design in this case was not for a flounce, in which broad handling is practicable, but for a veil.
"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 any one 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 any one 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.