Margaret Oliphant - Miss Marjoribanks

"I am sure it is very nice," said Mrs Centum. "I hate people that laugh at everything. I don't see much to laugh at myself, I am sure, in this distracting world; any one who has a lot of children and servants like me to look after, finds very little to laugh at." And she seized the opportunity to enter upon domestic circumstances. Mrs Woodburn did not answer a word. She made a most dashing murderous sketch of Lucilla, but that did the future ruler of Carlingford very little harm; and then, by the evening, it was known through all Grange Lane that Miss Marjoribanks had snubbed the caricaturist who kept all the good people in terror of their lives. Snubbed her absolutely, and took the words out of her very mouth, was the report that flew through Grange Lane; and it may be imagined how Lucilla's prestige rose in consequence, and how much people began to expect of Miss Marjoribanks, who had performed such a feat almost on the first day of her return home.

Tom Marjoribanks arrived that night, according to the Doctor's expectation. He arrived, with that curious want of adaptation to the circumstances which characterised the young man, at an hour which put Nancy entirely out, and upset the equanimity of the kitchen for twenty-four hours at least. He came, if any one can conceive of such an instance of carelessness, by the nine o'clock train, just as they had finished putting to rights downstairs. After this, Miss Marjoribanks's conclusion that the fact of the Carlingford assizes occurring a day or two after her arrival, when as yet she was not fully prepared to take advantage of them, was so like Tom, may be partially understood. And of course he was furiously hungry, and could have managed perfectly to be in time for dinner if he had not missed the train at Didcot Junction, by some wonderful blunder of the railway people, which never could have occurred but for his unlucky presence among the passengers. Lucilla took Thomas apart, and sent him downstairs with the most conciliatory message. "Tell Nancy not to put herself about, but to send up something cold—the cold pie, or anything she can find handy. Tell her I am so vexed, but it is just like Mr Tom; and he never knows what he is eating," said Miss Marjoribanks. As for Nancy, this sweetness did not subdue her in the least. She said, "I'll thank Miss Lucilla to mind her own business. The cold pie is for master's breakfast. I ain't such a goose as not to know what to send upstairs, and that Tummas can tell her if he likes." In the meantime the Doctor was in the drawing-room, much against his will, with the two young people, spinning about the room, and looking at Lucilla's books and knick-knacks on the tables by way of covering his impatience. He wanted to carry off Tom, who was rather a favourite, to his own den downstairs, where the young man's supper was to be served; but, at the same time, Dr Marjoribanks could not deny that Lucilla had a right to the greetings and homage of her cousin. He could not help thinking, on the whole, as he looked at the two, what a much more sensible arrangement it would have been if he had had the boy, instead of his sister, who had been a widow for ever so long, and no doubt had spoiled her son, as women always do; and then Lucilla might have passed under the sway of Mrs Marjoribanks, who no doubt would have known how to manage her. Thus the Doctor mused, with that sense of mild amazement at the blunders of Providence, which so many people experience, and without any idea that Mrs Marjoribanks would have found a task a great deal beyond her powers in the management of Lucilla. As for Tom, he was horribly hungry, having found, as was to be expected, no possible means of lunching at Didcot; but, at the same time, he was exhilarated by Lucilla's smile, and delighted to think of having a week at least to spend in her society. "I don't think I ever saw you looking so well," he was saying; "and you know my opinion generally on that subject." To which Lucilla responded in a way to wither all the germs of sentiment in the bud.

"What subject?" she said; "my looks? I am sure they can't be interesting to you. You are as hungry as ever you can be, and I can see it in your eyes. Papa, he is famishing, and I don't think he can contain himself any longer. Do take him downstairs, and let him have something to eat. For myself," Lucilla continued, in a lower tone, "it is my duty that keeps me up. You know it has always been the object of my life to be a comfort to papa."

"Come along, Tom," said the Doctor. "Don't waste your time philandering when your supper is ready." And Dr Marjoribanks led the way downstairs, leaving Tom, who followed him, in a state of great curiosity to know what secret oppression it might be under which his cousin was supported by her duty. Naturally his thoughts reverted to a possible rival—some one whom the sensible Doctor would have nothing to say to; and his very ears grew red with excitement at this idea. But, notwithstanding, he ate a very satisfactory meal in the library, where he had to answer all sorts of questions. Tom had his tray at the end of the table, and the Doctor, who had, according to his hospitable old-fashioned habit, taken a glass of claret to "keep him company," sat in his easy-chair between the fire and the table, and sipped his wine, and admired its colour and purity in the light, and watched with satisfaction the excellent meal his nephew was making. He asked him all about his prospects, and what he was doing, which Tom replied to with the frankest confidence. He was not very fond of work, nor were his abilities anything out of the common; but at the present moment Tom saw no reason why he should not gain the Woolsack in time; and Dr Marjoribanks gave something like a sigh as he listened, and wondered much what Providence could be thinking of not to give him the boy.

Lucilla meantime was very much occupied upstairs. She had the new housemaid up nominally to give her instructions about Mr Tom's room, but really to take the covers off the chairs, and see how they looked when the room was lighted up; but the progress of decay had gone too far to stand that trial. After all, the chintz, though none of the freshest, was the best. When the gentlemen came upstairs, which Tom, to the Doctor's disgust, insisted on doing, Lucilla was found in the act of pacing the room—pacing, not in the sentimental sense of making a little promenade up and down, but in the homely practical signification, with a view of measuring, that she might form an idea how much carpet was required. Lucilla was tall enough to go through this process without any great drawback in point of grace—the long step giving rather a tragedy-queen effect to her handsome but substantial person and long, sweeping dress. She stopped short, however, when she saw them, and withdrew to the sofa, on which she had established her throne; and there was a little air of conscious pathos on her face as she sat down, which impressed her companions. As for Tom, he instinctively felt that it must have something to do with that mystery under which Lucilla was supported by her duty; and the irrelevant young man conceived immediately a violent desire to knock the fellow down; whereas there was no fellow at all in the case, unless it might be Mr Holden, the upholsterer, whose visits Miss Marjoribanks would have received with greater enthusiasm at this moment than those of the most eligible eldest son in England. And then she gave a little pathetic sigh.

"What were you doing, Lucilla?" said her father,—"rehearsing Lady Macbeth, I suppose. At least you looked exactly like it when we came into the room."

"No, papa," said Lucilla sweetly; "I was only measuring to see how much carpet we should want; and that, you know, and Tom's coming, made me think of old times. You are so much downstairs in the library that you don't feel it; but a lady has to spend her life in the drawing-room—and then I always was so domestic. It does not matter what is outside, I always find my pleasure at home. I cannot help if it has a little effect on my spirits now and then," said Miss Marjoribanks, looking down upon her handkerchief, "to be always surrounded with things that have such associations——"