Miss Marjoribanks Part 24

"_I_ entertain such a profane idea!" said Mr Cavendish; but he was considerably embarra.s.sed, and he was a great deal stouter, and altogether different from what he used to be, and he had not the light hand of his youth for a compliment. And then he sat down on the chair Thomas had given him; and he looked uncomfortable, to say the least of it; and he was getting large in dimensions and a little red in the face, and had by no means the air of thinking that it didn't matter for a gentleman. As for Miss Marjoribanks, it would be impossible to say what mists of illusion dropped away from her mind at the sight of him. Even while she smiled upon the new-comer, she could not but ask herself, with momentary dismay--Had _she_ really gone off as much in the same time?

"I have been looking for you," Miss Marjoribanks resumed; "I waited in for you Tuesday and Wednesday, and it is so odd you should have come just at this minute. Aunt Jemima, this is Mr Cavendish, whom you have heard so much about--and don't go, please, Mr Ashburton--you two must know each other. You will be hearing of each other constantly; and I suppose you will have to shake hands or something on the hustings--so it will be much the best to begin it here."

But the two candidates did not shake hands: they bowed to each other in an alarming way, which did not promise much for their future brotherliness, and then they both stood bolt upright and stared at Miss Marjoribanks, who had relapsed, in the pleasantest way in the world, into her easy-chair.

"Now, please sit down and talk a little," said Lucilla; "I am so proud of having you both together. There never has been anybody in the world that I have missed so much as _you_--you knew that when you went away, but you didn't mind. Mr Ashburton is very nice, but he is of no use to speak of in an evening," said Miss Marjoribanks, turning a reflective glance upon her own candidate with a certain sadness; and then they both laughed as if it was a joke; but it was no joke, as one of them at least must have known.

"Lucilla," said Mrs John, with consternation, "I never heard anybody talk as you do; I am sure Mr Ashburton is the very best of society, and as for Mr Cavendish----"

"Dear Aunt Jemima," said Lucilla, "would you mind ringing the bell? I have been sitting to Maria Brown, and I am almost fainting. I wish you gentlemen would sit to her; it would please her, and it would not do _you_ much harm; and then for your const.i.tuents, you know----"

"I hope you don't wish me to look like one of Maria Brown's photographs to my const.i.tuents," said Mr Cavendish; "but then I am happy to say they all know me pretty well." This was said with a slight touch of gentlemanly spite, if there is such a thing; for, after all, he _was_ an old power in Carlingford, though he had been so long away.

"Yes," said Lucilla reflectively, "but you are a little changed since then; a little perhaps--just a little--stouter, and----"

"Gone off?" said Mr Cavendish, with a laugh; but he felt horribly disconcerted all the same, and savage with Miss Marjoribanks, and could not think why "that fellow" did not go away. What had _he_ to do in Lucilla's drawing-room? what did he mean by sitting down again and talking in that measured way to the old lady, as if all the ordinary rules of good breeding did not point out to him that he should have gone away and left the field clear?

"Oh, you know it does not matter for a gentleman," said Lucilla; and then she turned to Mr Ashburton--"I am sure the Major wants to see you, and he thinks that it was he who put it into your head to stand. He was here that day at lunch, you know, and it was something he said----"

"Quite true," said Mr Ashburton in his business way. "I shall go to see him at once. Thank you for telling me of it, Miss Marjoribanks; I shall go as soon as I leave here."

And then Mr Cavendish laughed. "This is what I call interesting," he said. "I hope Mr Ashburton sees the fun; but it is trying to an old friend to hear of _that_ day at lunch, you know. I remember when these sort of allusions used to be pleasant enough; but when one has been banished for a thousand years----"

"Yes," said Lucilla, "one leaves all that behind, you know--one leaves ever so many things behind. I wish we could always be twenty, for my part. I always said, you know, that I should be gone off in ten years."

"Was it the only fib you ever told that you repeat it so?" said Mr Cavendish; and it was with this pretty speech that he took her downstairs to the well-remembered luncheon. "But you _have_ gone off in some things when you have to do with a prig like that," he said in her ear, as they went down together, "and cast off old friends. It was a thing a fellow did not expect of _you_."

"I never cast off old friends," said Miss Marjoribanks. "We shall look for you on Thursday, you know, all the same. Must you go, Mr Ashburton, when lunch is on the table? But then, to be sure, you will be in time at the Browns'," said Lucilla sweetly, and she gave the one rival her hand while she held the arm of the other, at the door of the dining-room, in which Mr Ashburton had gallantly deposited Aunt Jemima before saying good-bye. They were both looking a little black, though the gloom was moderate in Mr Ashburton's case; but as for Lucilla, she stood between them a picture of angelic sweetness and goodness, giving a certain measure of her sympathy to both--Woman the Reconciler, by the side of those other characters of Inspirer and Consoler, of which the world has heard. The two inferior creatures scowled with politeness at each other, but Miss Marjoribanks smiled upon them both. Such was the way in which she overcame the difficulties of the meeting. Mr Ashburton went away a little annoyed, but still understanding his instructions, and ready to act upon them in that businesslike way he had, and Mr Cavendish remained, faintly rea.s.sured in the midst of his soreness and mortification, by at least having the field to himself and seeing the last (for the present) of his antagonist--which was a kind of victory in its way.

"I thought I knew you better than to think you ever would have anything to do with _that_ sort of thing," said Mr Cavendish. "There are people, you know, whom I could have imagined--but a prig like that." He became indeed quite violent, as Aunt Jemima said afterwards, and met with that lady's decided disapproval, as may be supposed.

"Mr Ashburton is very well-bred and agreeable," Mrs John said, with emphasis. "I wish all the young men I see nowadays were as nice."

"Young men!" said Mr Cavendish. "Is that what people call young nowadays? And he must be insane, you know, or he would never dream of representing a town without saying a single word about his principles.

I dare say he thinks it is original," said the unhappy man. He thought he was pointing out his rival's weakness to Lucilla, and he went on with energy--"I know you better than to think you can like that milk-and-water sort of thing."

"Oh, I don't pretend to know anything about politics," said Lucilla. "I hear you gentlemen talk, but I never pretend to understand. If we were not to leave you _that_ all to yourselves, I don't know what you could find to do," Miss Marjoribanks added compa.s.sionately; and as she spoke she looked so like the Lucilla of old, who had schemed and plotted for Mr Cavendish, that he could not believe in her desertion in his heart.

"That is a delusion like the going off," he said. "I can't believe you have gone over to the enemy. When I remember how I have been roving about all those ten years, and how different it might have been, and whose fault it all was----"

This Mr Cavendish said in a low voice, but it did not the less horrify Aunt Jemima, who felt prepared for any atrocity after it. She would have withdrawn, in justice to her own sense of propriety; but then she thought it was not impossible that he might propose to Lucilla on the spot, or take her hand or something, and for propriety's sake she stayed.

"Yes," said Lucilla--and her heart did for one little moment give a faint thump against her breast. She could not help thinking what a difference it might have made to him, poor fellow, had he been under her lawful and righteous sway these ten years. But as she looked at him it became more and more apparent to Miss Marjoribanks that Mr Cavendish _had_ gone off, whatever she herself might have done. The outlines of his fine figure had changed considerably, and his face was a little red, and he had the look of a man whose circ.u.mstances, spiritual and temporal, would not quite bear a rigid examination. As she looked at him her pity became tinged by a certain shade of resentment to think that after all it was his own fault. She could not, notwithstanding her natural frankness of expression, say to him, "You foolish soul, why didn't you marry me somehow, and make a man of yourself?" Lucilla carried honesty very far, but she could not go as far as that. "Yes,"

she said, turning her eyes upon him with a sort of abstract sympathy, and then she added softly, "Have you ever seen Her again?" with a lowering of her voice.

This interesting question, which utterly bewildered Aunt Jemima, drove Mr Cavendish wild with rage. Mrs John said afterwards that she felt a shiver go through her as he took up the carving-knife, though it was only to cut some cold beef. He grew white all at once, and pressed his lips tightly together, and fixed his eyes on the wall straight before him. "I did not think, after what I once said to you, Miss Marjoribanks, that you would continue to insult my judgment in that way," he said, with a chill which fell upon the whole table, and took the life out of everything, and dimmed the very fire in the chimney. And after that the conversation was of a sufficiently ordinary description until they went back again into the drawing-room, by which time Mr Cavendish seemed to have concluded that it was best to pocket the affront.

"I am going to begin my canva.s.s to-morrow," he said. "I have not seen anybody yet. I have n.o.body but my sister to take _me_ in hand, you know.

There was once a time when it might have been different"--and he gave Lucilla a look which she thought on the whole it was best to meet.

"Yes," said Miss Marjoribanks, with cruel distinctness, "there was a time when you were the most popular man in Grange Lane--everybody was fond of you. I remember it as if it had been yesterday," said Lucilla, with a sigh.

"You don't give a man much encouragement, by Jove!" said the unlucky candidate. "You remember it like yesterday? It may be vanity, but I flatter myself I shall still be found the most popular man in Grange Lane."

Miss Marjoribanks sighed again, but she did not say anything. On the contrary she turned to Aunt Jemima, who kept in the background an alarmed and alert spectator, to consult her about a shade of wool; and just then Mr Cavendish, looking out of the window, saw Major Brown conducting his rival through his garden, and shaking hands with him cordially at the door. This was more than the patience of the other candidate could bear. A sudden resolution, hot and angry, as are the resolutions of men who feel themselves to have a failing cause, came into his mind. He had been badgered and baited to such an extent (as he thought) that he had not time to consider if it was wise or not. He, too, had sat to Maria Brown, and commanded once the warmest admiration of the household. He thought he would put it to the test, and see if after all his popularity was only a thing to be remembered like yesterday;--and it was with this intention that he bade a hurried good-bye to Lucilla, and, rushing out, threw himself at once upon the troubled waves of society, which had once been as smooth as gla.s.s to the most popular man in Grange Lane.

_Chapter XLI_

Mr Cavendish thought he had been an object of admiration to Maria Brown, as we have said. He thought of it with a little middle-aged complacency, and a confidence that this vague sentiment would stand the test he was about to apply to it, which did honour to the freshness of his heart.

With this idea it was Miss Brown he asked for as he knocked at the Major's door; and he found them both in the drawing-room, Maria with gloves on to hide the honourable stains of her photography, which made her comparatively useless when she was out of her "studio"--and her father walking about in a state of excitement, which was, indeed, what Mr Cavendish expected. The two exchanged a guilty look when they saw who their visitor was. They looked as people might well look who had been caught in the fact and did not know how to get over it. They came forward, both of them, with a cowardly cordiality and eagerness to welcome him--"How very good of you to come to see us so soon!" Miss Brown said, and fluttered and looked at her father, and could not tell what more to say. And then a dead pause fell upon them--such a pause as not unfrequently falls upon people who have got through their mutual greetings almost with an excess of cordiality. They stopped short all at once, and looked at each other, and smiled, and made a fatal conscious effort to talk of something. "It is so good of you to come so soon,"

Miss Brown repeated; "perhaps you have been to see Lucilla," and then she stopped again, slightly tremulous, and turned an appealing gaze to her papa.

"I have come to see _you_," said Mr Cavendish, plucking up all his courage. "I have been a long time gone, you know, but I have not forgotten Carlingford; and you must forgive me for saying that I was very glad to hear I might still come to see--Miss Brown. As for Lydia?"

said the candidate, looking about him with a smile.

"Ah, Lydia," said her sister, with a sigh--"her eldest is eight, Mr Cavendish. We don't see her as often as we should like--marriage makes such a difference. Of course it is quite natural she should be all for her own family now."

"Quite natural," said Mr Cavendish, and then he turned to the Major. "I don't think there are quite so many public changes as I expected to see.

The old Rector always holds out, and the old Colonel; and you have not done much that I can see about the new paving. You know what I have come home about, Major; and I am sure I can count upon you to support me,"

the candidate said, with a great deal more confidence than he felt in his voice.

Major Brown cleared his throat; his heart was moved by the familiar voice, and he could not conceal his embarra.s.sment. "I hope nothing will ever occur," he said, "to make any difference in the friendly feelings--I am sure I shall be very glad to welcome you back permanently to Carlingford. You may always rest a.s.sured of that," and he held out his hand. But he grew red as he thought of his treachery, and Maria, who was quaking over it, did not even try to say a word to help him--and as for Mr Cavendish, he took up his position on the arm of the sofa, as he used to do. But he had a slim youthful figure when he used to do it, and now the att.i.tude was one which revealed a certain dawning rotundity, very different, as Maria afterwards said, from one's idea of Mr Cavendish. He was not aware of it himself, but as these two people looked, their simultaneous thought was how much he had changed.

"Thank you, you are very kind," said Mr Cavendish. "I have been a little lazy, I am afraid, since I came here; but I expect my agent down to-night, and then, I hope, you'll come over to my place and have a talk with Woodburn and Centum and the rest about it. I am a poor tactician, for my part. You shall contrive what is best to be done, and I'll carry it out. I suppose I may expect almost to walk over," he said. It was the confidence of despair that moved him. The more he saw that his cause was lost, the more he would make it out that he was sure to win--which is not an unusual state of mind.

"I--I don't know, I am sure," said poor Major Brown. "To tell the truth, I--though I can safely say my sympathies are always with you, Cavendish--I--have been so unfortunate as to commit myself, you know. It was quite involuntary, I am sure, for I never thought my casual expression of opinion likely to have any weight----"

"Papa never will perceive the weight that is attached to his opinion,"

said Miss Brown.

"I was not thinking of it in the least, Maria," said the modest Major; "but the fact is, it seems to have been _that_ that decided Ashburton to stand; and after drawing a man in to such a thing, the least one can do is to back him out in it. n.o.body had an idea then, you know, that you were coming back, my dear fellow. I a.s.sure you, if I had known----"

"But even if you had known, you know you never meant it, papa," said Maria. And Mr Cavendish sat on the arm of the sofa, and put his hands deep into his pockets, and dropped his upper lip, and knit his eyebrows a little, and listened to the anxious people excusing themselves. He did not make any answer one way or another. He was terribly mortified and disappointed, and it went against his pride to make further remonstrances. When they had done, he got down off his seat and took his right hand out of his pocket and offered it to Miss Brown, who, putting her own into it, poor soul! with the remembrance of her ancient allegiance, was like to cry.

"Well," he said, "if that is the case, I suppose I need not bother you any longer. You'll give me your good wishes all the same. I used to hear of Ashburton sometimes, but I never had the least idea he was so popular. And to tell the truth, I don't think he's any great things to brag of--though I suppose it's not to be expected _I_ should appreciate his qualities," Mr Cavendish added, with a laugh. As for Miss Brown, it was all she could do to keep from crying as he went away. She said she could see, by the way he left the drawing-room, that he was a stricken deer; and yet, notwithstanding this sympathetic feeling, she could not but acknowledge, when Miss Marjoribanks mentioned it, that, to have been such a handsome man, he was inconceivably gone off.

Mr Cavendish went up Grange Lane with his hands in his pockets, and tried to think that he did not care; but he did care all the same, and was very bitter in his mind over the failure of friends and the vanity of expectations. The last time he had walked past those garden walls he had thought himself sure of the support of Carlingford, and the personal esteem of all the people in all the houses he was pa.s.sing. It was after the Archdeacon had broken down in his case against the man whom he called an adventurer, and when Mr Cavendish felt all the sweetness of being a member of an oligarchy, and ent.i.tled to the sympathy and support of his order. Now he went along the same path with his hat over his ears and his hands in his pockets, and rage and pain in his heart. Whose fault was it that his friends had deserted him and Carlingford knew him no more? He might as well have asked whose fault it was that he was getting stout and red in the face, and had not the same grace of figure nor ease of mind as he used to have? He had come very near to settling down and becoming a man of domestic respectability in this quiet place, and he had just escaped in time, and had laughed over it since, and imagined himself, with much glee, an old fogy looking after a lot of children. But the fact is that men do become old fogies even when they have no children to look after, and lose their figure and their elasticity just as soon and perhaps a little sooner in the midst of what is called life than in any milder scene of enjoyment. And it would have been very handy just now to have been sure of his election without paying much for it. He had been living fast, and spending a great deal of money, and this, after all, was the only real ambition he had ever had; and he had thought within himself that if he won he would change his mode of life, and turn over a new leaf, and become all at once a different man. When a man has made such a resolution, and feels not only that a mere success but a moral reformation depends upon his victory, he may be permitted to consider that he has a right to win; and it may be divined what his state of mind was when he had made the discovery that even his old friends did not see his election to be of any such importance as he did, and could think of a miserable little bit of self-importance or gratified vanity more than of his interests--even the women who had once been so kind to him! He had just got so far in his thoughts when he met Mr Centum, who stared for a moment, and then burst into one of his great laughs as he greeted him. "Good Lord!

Cavendish, is this you? I never expected to see you like that!" the banker said, in his coa.r.s.e way. "You're stouter than I am, old fellow; and such an Adonis as you used to be!" Mr Cavendish had to bear all this without giving way to his feelings, or even showing them any more than he could help it. n.o.body would spare him that imbecile suggestion as to how things used to be. To be growing stouter than Centum without Centum's excuse of being a well-to-do householder and father of a family, and respectable man from whom stoutness was expected, was very bitter to him: but he had to gulp it down, and recollect that Centum was as yet the only influential supporter, except his brother-in-law, whom he had in Carlingford.

"What have you been doing with yourself since you came that n.o.body has seen you?" said Mr Centum. "If you are to do any good here, you know, we shall have to look alive."

"I have been ill," said the unfortunate candidate, with a little natural loss of temper. "You would not have a man to trudge about at this time of year in all weathers when he is ill."

"I would not be ill again, if I were you, till it's all over," said Mr Centum. "We shall have to fight every inch of our ground; and I tell you that fellow Ashburton knows what he's about--he goes at everything in a steady sort of way. He's not brilliant, you know, but he's sure----"