Thus it was that among the changes that everybody looked for, there occurred all at once this change which was entirely unexpected, and put everything else out of mind for the moment. For to tell the truth, Dr Marjoribanks was one of the men who, according to external appearance, need never have died. There was nothing about him that wanted to be set right, no sort of loss, or failure, or misunderstanding, so far as anybody could see. An existence in which he could have his friends to dinner every week, and a good house, and good wine, and a very good table, and nothing particular to put him out of his way, seemed in fact the very ideal of the best life for the Doctor. There was nothing in him that seemed to demand anything better, and it was confusing to try to follow him into that which, no doubt, must be in all its fundamentals a very different kind of world. He was a just man and a good man in his way, and had been kind to many people in his lifetime – but still he did not seem to have that need of another rectifying, completer existence which most men have. There seemed no reason why he should die – a man who was so well contented with this lower region in which many of us fare badly, and where so few of us are contented. This was a fact which exercised a very confusing influence, even when they themselves were not aware of it, on many people's minds. It was hard to think of him under any other circumstances, or identify him with angels and spirits – which feeling on the whole made the regret for him a more poignant sort of regret.
And they buried him with the greatest signs of respect. People from twenty miles off sent their carriages, and all the George Street people shut their shops, and there was very little business done all day. Mr Cavendish and Mr Ashburton walked side by side at the funeral, which was an affecting sight to see; and if anything more could have been done to show their respect which was not done, the corporation of Carlingford would have been sorry for it. And the snow still lay deep in all the corners, though it had been trampled down all about the Doctor's house, where the lamp was not lighted now of nights; for what was the use of lighting the lamp, which was a kind of lighthouse in its way, and meant to point out succour and safety for the neighbours, when the physician himself was lying beyond all hope of succour or aid? And all the Grange Lane people retired in a sympathetic, awe-stricken way, and decided, or at least the ladies did, to see Lucilla next day, if she was able to see them, and to find out whether she was going to make an effort, or what she meant to do. And Mrs Chiley was so much better that she was able to be up a little in the evening, though she scarcely could forgive herself, and still could not help thinking that it was she who had really been sent for, and that the Doctor had been taken in mistake. And as for Lucilla, she sat in her room and cried, and thought of her father's hand upon her shoulder – that last unusual caress which was more touching to think of than a world of words. He had been fond of her and proud of her, and at the last moment he had showed it. And by times she seemed to feel again that lingering touch, and cried as if her heart would break: and yet, for all that, she could not keep her thoughts steady, nor prevent them from wandering to all kinds of profane out-of-door matters, and to considerations of the future, and estimates of her own position. It wounded her sadly to feel herself in such an inappropriate state of mind, but she could not help it; and then the want of natural light and air oppressed her sorely, and she longed for the evening, which felt a little more natural, and thought that at last she might have a long talk with Aunt Jemima, who was a kind of refuge in her present loneliness, and gave her a means of escape at the same time from all this bustle and commotion of unbecoming thoughts.
This was enough surely for any one to have to encounter at one time; but that very night another rumour began to murmur through Carlingford – a rumour more bewildering, more incredible still, than that of the Doctor's death, which the town had been obliged to confirm and acknowledge, and put its seal to. When the thing was first mentioned, everybody (who could find it in their heart to laugh) laughed loud in the face of the first narrator with mingled scepticism and indignation. They asked him what he meant by it, and ridiculed and scoffed at him to his face. "Lucilla will be the richest woman in Grange Lane," people said; "everybody in Carlingford knows that." But after this statement had been made, the town began to listen. It was obliged to listen, for other witnesses came in to confirm the story. It never might have been found out while the Doctor lived, for he had a great practice, and made a great deal of money; but now that he was dead, nothing could be hid. He was dead, and he had made an elaborate will, which was all as just and righteous as a will could be; but after the will was read, it was found out that everything named in it had disappeared like a bubble. Instead of being the richest, Dr Marjoribanks was one of the poorest men in Carlingford when he shut his door behind him on that snowy night. It was a revelation which took the town perfectly by storm, and startled everybody out of their senses. Lucilla's plans, which she thought so wicked, went out all of a sudden, in a certain dull amaze and dismay, to which no words could give any expression. Such was the second inconceivable reverse of fortune which happened to Miss Marjoribanks, more unexpected, more incomprehensible still than the other, in the very midst of her most important activities and hopes.
Chapter XLIV
When the first whisper of the way in which she was – as people say – "left" reached Lucilla, her first feeling was incredulity. It was conveyed to her by Aunt Jemima, who came to her in her room after the funeral with a face blanched with dismay. Miss Marjoribanks took it for grief; and, though she did not look for so much feeling from Mrs John, was pleased and comforted that her aunt should really lament her poor papa. It was a compliment which, in the softened and sorrowful state of Lucilla's mind, went to her heart. Aunt Jemima came up and kissed her in a hasty excited way, which showed genuine and spontaneous emotion, and was not like the solemn pomp with which sympathising friends generally embrace a mourner; and then she made Lucilla sit down by the fire and held her hands. "My poor child," said Aunt Jemima – "my poor, dear, sacrificed child! you know, Lucilla, how fond I am of you, and you can always come to me – "
"Thank you, dear Aunt Jemima," said Miss Marjoribanks, though she was a little puzzled. "You are the only relative I have, and I knew you would not forsake me. What should I do without you at such a time? I am sure it is what dear papa would have wished – "
"Lucilla," cried Mrs John impulsively, "I know it is natural you should cry for your father; but when you know all, – you that never knew what it was to be without money – that never were straitened even, or obliged to give up things, like most other young women. Oh, my dear, they said I was to prepare you, but how can I prepare you? I feel as if I never could forgive my brother-in-law; that he should bring you up like this, and then – "
"What is it?" said Miss Marjoribanks, drying her tears. "If it is anything new, tell me, but don't speak so of – of – What is it? say it right out."
"Lucilla," said Aunt Jemima solemnly, "you think you have a great deal of courage, and now is your time to show it. He has left you without a farthing – he that was always thought to be so rich. It is quite true what I am saying. He has gone and died and left nothing, Lucilla. Now I have told you; and oh, my poor, dear, injured child," cried Mrs John, with fervour, "as long as I have a home there will be room in it for you."
But Lucilla put her aunt away softly when she was about to fall upon her neck. Miss Marjoribanks was struck dumb; her heart seemed to stop beating for the moment. "It is quite impossible – it cannot be true," she said, and gave a gasp to recover her breath. Then Mrs John came down upon her with facts, proving it to be true – showing how Dr Marjoribanks's money was invested, and how it had been lost. She made a terrible muddle of it, no doubt, but Lucilla was not very clear about business details any more than her aunt, and she did not move nor say a word while the long, involved, endless narrative went on. She kept saying it was impossible in her heart for half of the time, and then she crept nearer the fire and shivered, and said nothing even to herself, and did not even seem to listen, but knew that it must be true. It would be vain to attempt to say that it was not a terrible blow to Lucilla; her strength was weakened already by grief and solitude and want of food, for she could not find it in her heart to go on eating her ordinary meals as if nothing had happened; and all of a sudden she felt the cold seize her, and drew closer and closer to the fire. The thoughts which she had been thinking in spite of herself, and for which she had so greatly condemned herself, went out with a sudden distinctness, as if it had been a lamp going out and leaving the room in darkness, and a sudden sense of utter gloom and cold and bewildering uncertainty came over Lucilla. When she lifted her eyes from the fire, into which she had been gazing, it almost surprised her to find herself still in this warm room where there was every appliance for comfort, and where her entire wardrobe of new mourning – everything, as Aunt Jemima said, that a woman could desire – was piled up on the bed. It was impossible that she could be a penniless creature, left on her own resources, without father or supporter or revenue; and yet – good heavens! could it be true?
"If it is true, Aunt Jemima," said Lucilla, "I must try to bear it; but my poor head feels all queer. I'd rather not think any more about it to-night."
"How can you help thinking about it, Lucilla?" cried Mrs John. "I can think of nothing else; and I am not so much concerned as you."
Upon which Lucilla rose and kissed Aunt Jemima, though her head was all confused and she had noises in her ears. "I don't think we are much like each other, you know," she said. "Did you hear how Mrs Chiley was? I am sure she will be very sorry;" and with that Miss Marjoribanks softened, and felt a little comforted, and cried again – not for the money, but for her father. "If you are going downstairs, I think I will come down to tea, Aunt Jemima," she said. But after Mrs John had gone away full of wonder at her philosophy, Lucilla drew close to the fire again and took her head between her hands and tried to think what it meant. Could it be true? Instead of the heiress, in a good position, who could go abroad or anywhere, and do anything she liked, was it possible that she was only a penniless single woman with nobody to look to, and nothing to live on? Such an extraordinary incomprehensible revolution might well make any one feel giddy. The solid house and the comfortable room, and her own sober brain, which was not in the way of being put off its balance, seemed to turn round and round as she looked into the fire. Lucilla was not one to throw the blame upon her father, as Mrs John had done. On the contrary she was sorry, profoundly sorry for him, and made such a picture to herself of what his feelings must have been, when he went into his room that night and knew that all his hard-earned fortune was gone, that it made her weep the deepest tears for him that she had yet shed. "Poor papa!" she said to herself; and as she was not much given to employing her imagination in this way, and realising the feeling of others, the effect was all the greater now. If he had but told her, and put off a share of the burden from his own shoulders on to hers who could have borne it! but the Doctor had never done justice to Lucilla's qualities. This, amid her general sense of confusion and dizziness and insecurity, was the only clear thought that struck Miss Marjoribanks; and that it was very cold and must be freezing outside; and how did the poor people manage who had not all her present advantages? She tried to put away this revelation from her, as she had said to Aunt Jemima, and keep it for a little at arm's length, and get a night's rest in the meantime, and so be able to bring a clear head to the contemplation of it to-morrow, which was the most judicious thing to do. But when the mind has been stimulated by such a shock, Solomon himself, one would suppose, could scarcely, however clearly he might perceive what was best, take the judicious passive way. When Lucilla got up from where she was crouching before the fire, she felt so giddy that she could scarcely stand. Her head was all queer, as she had said, and she had a singing in her ears. She herself seemed to have changed along with her position. An hour or two before, she could have answered for her own steadiness and self-possession in almost any circumstances, but now the blood seemed to be running a race in her veins, and the strangest noises hummed in her ears. She felt ashamed of her weakness, but she could not help it; and then she was weak with grief and excitement and comparative fasting, which told for something, probably, in her inability to bear so unlooked-for a blow.
But Miss Marjoribanks thought it was best to go down to the drawing-room for tea, as she had said. To see everything just as it had been, utterly indifferent and unconscious of what had happened, made her cry, and relieved her giddiness by reviving her grief; and then the next minute a bewildering wonder seized her as to what would become of this drawing-room, the scene of her triumphs – who would live in it, and whom the things would go to – which made her sick, and brought back the singing in her ears. But on the whole she took tea very quietly with Aunt Jemima, who kept breaking into continual snatches of lamentation, but was always checked by Lucilla's composed looks. If she had not heard this extraordinary news, which made the world turn round with her, Miss Marjoribanks would have felt that soft hush of exhaustion and grief subdued which, when the grief is not too urgent, comes after all is over; and even now she felt a certain comfort in the warm firelight and the change out of her own room – where she had been living shut up, with the blinds down, and the black dresses everywhere about, for so many dreary days.
John Brown, who had charge of Dr Marjoribanks's affairs, came next day and explained everything to Lucilla. The lawyer had had one short interview with his client after the news came, and Dr Marjoribanks had borne it like a man. His face had changed a little, and he had sat down, which he was not in the habit of doing, and drawn a kind of shivering long breath; and then he had said, "Poor Lucilla!" to himself. This was all Mr Brown could say about the effect the shock had on the Doctor. And there was something in this very scanty information which gave Lucilla a new pang of sorrow and consolation. "And he patted me on the shoulder that last night," she said, with tender tears; and felt she had never loved her father so well in all her life – which is one of the sweeter uses of death which many must have experienced, but which belonged to a more exquisite and penetrating kind of emotion than was common to Lucilla.
"I thought he looked a little broken when he went out," said Mr Brown, "but full of pluck and spirit, as he always was. 'I am making a good deal of money, and I may live long enough to lay by a little still,' were the last words he said to me. I remember he put a kind of emphasis on the may. Perhaps he knew he was not so strong as he looked. He was a good man, Miss Marjoribanks, and there is nobody that has not some kind thing to tell of him," said the lawyer, with a certain moisture in his eyes; for there was nobody in Carlingford who did not miss the old Doctor, and John Brown was very tender-hearted in his way.
"But nobody can know what a good father he was," said Lucilla, with a sob; and she meant it with all her heart, thinking chiefly of his hand on her shoulder that last night, and of the "Poor Lucilla!" in John Brown's office; though, after all, perhaps, it was not chiefly as a tender father that Dr Marjoribanks shone, though he gave his daughter all she wanted or asked for. Her grief was so true, and so little tinctured by any of that indignation over the unexpected loss, which Aunt Jemima had not been able to conceal, that John Brown was quite touched, and felt his heart warm to Lucilla. He explained it all very fully to her when she was composed enough to understand him; and as he went through all the details the giddiness came back, and once more Miss Marjoribanks felt the world running round, and heard his statement through the noises in her ears. All this settled down, however, into a certain distinctness as John Brown, who was very clear-headed and good at making a concise statement, went on; and gradually the gyrations became slower and slower, and the great universe became solid once more, and held to its moorings under Lucilla's feet, and she ceased to hear that supernatural hum and buzz. The vague shadows of chaos and ruin dispersed, and through them she saw once more the real aspect of things. She was not quite penniless. There was the house, which was a very good house, and some little corners and scraps of money in the Funds, which were Lucilla's very own, and could not be lost; and last of all there was the business – the best practice in Carlingford, and entire command of Grange Lane.
"But what does that matter?" said Lucilla; "if poor papa had retired indeed, as I used to beg him to do, and parted with it – But everybody has begun to send for Dr Rider already," she said, in an aggrieved voice; and then for the first time John Brown remembered, to his confusion, that there was once said to be "something between" Miss Marjoribanks and Dr Rider; which complicated the affair in the most uncomfortable way.
"Yes," he said, "and of course that would make it much more difficult to bring in another man; but Rider is a very honourable young fellow, Miss Marjoribanks – "
"He is not so very young," said Lucilla. "He is quite as old as I am, though no one ever would think so. I am sure he is honourable, but what has that to do with it? And I do think Mrs Chiley might have done without – anybody else: for a day or two, considering when it was – "
And here she stopped to cry, unreasonably, but yet very naturally; for it did feel hard that in the house to which Dr Marjoribanks's last visit had been paid, another doctor should have been called in next day.
"What I meant to say," said John Brown, "was, that Dr Rider, though he is not rich, and could not pay a large sum of money down, would be very glad to make some arrangement. He is very anxious about it, and he seemed himself to think that if you knew his circumstances you would not be disinclined to – But as I did not at all know – "
Lucilla caught, as it were, and met, and forced to face her, her informant's embarrassed, hesitating look. "You say this," said Miss Marjoribanks, "because people used to say there was something between us, and you think I may have some feeling about it. But there never was anything between us. Anybody with a quarter of an eye could have seen that he was going out of his senses about that little Australian girl. And I am rather fond of men that are in love – it shows they have some good in them. But it is dreadful to talk of such things now," said Lucilla, with a sigh of self-reproach. "If Dr Rider has any arrangement to propose, I should like to give him the preference, please. You see they have begun to send for him already in Grange Lane."
"I will do whatever you think proper," said John Brown, who was rather scared, and very much impressed by Miss Marjoribanks's candour. Dr Rider had been the first love of Mr Brown's own wife, and the lawyer had a curious kind of satisfaction in thinking that this silly young fellow had thus lost two admirable women, and that probably the little Australian was equally inferior to Miss Marjoribanks and Mrs Brown. He ought to have been grateful that Dr Rider had left the latter lady to his own superior discrimination – and so he was; and yet it gave him a certain odd satisfaction to think that the Doctor was not so happy as he might have been. He went away fully warranted to receive Dr Rider's proposition, and even, to a certain extent, to decide upon it – and Lucilla threw herself back in her chair in the silent drawing-room, from which Aunt Jemima had discreetly withdrawn, and began to think over the reality of her position as she now saw it for the first time.
The sense of bewildering revolution and change was over; for, strangely enough, the greater a change is the more easily the mind, after the first shock, accepts and gets accustomed to it. It was over, and the world felt steady once more under Lucilla's feet, and she sat down, not precisely amid the ruins of her happiness, but still in the presence of many an imagination overthrown, to look at her real position. It was not, after all, utter poverty, misery, and destitution, as at the first glance she had believed. According to what John Brown had said, and a rapid calculation which Lucilla had herself made in passing, something approaching two hundred a year would be left to her – just a small single woman's revenue, as she thought to herself. Two hundred a year! All at once there came into Miss Marjoribanks's mind a sudden vision of the two Miss Ravenswoods, who had lived in that pretty set of rooms over Elsworthy's shop, facing into Grange Lane, and who had kept a lady's maid, and asked the best people in the place to tea, upon a very similar income, and how their achievements had been held up to everybody as a model of what genteel economy could do. She thought of them, and her heart sank within her; for it was not in Lucilla's nature to live without a sphere, nor to disjoin herself from her fellow-creatures, nor to give up entirely the sovereign position she had held for so many years. Whatever she might ultimately do, it was clear that, in the meantime, she could not make up her mind to any such giving up of the battle as that. And then there was the house. She might let it to the Riders, and add probably another hundred a year to her income; for though it was an excellent house, and worth more than a hundred a year, still there was no competition for houses in Grange Lane, and the new Doctor was the only probable tenant. And, to tell the truth, though Lucilla was very reasonable, it went to her heart at the present moment to think of letting the house to the new Doctor, and having the patients come as usual, and the lamp lighted as of old, and nothing changed except the central figure of all. She ought to have been above such sentimental ideas when a whole hundred pounds a year was in question; but she was not, which of itself was a strange phenomenon. If she could have made up her mind to that, there were a great many things that she might have done. She might still have gone abroad, and to some extent taken a limited share in what was going on in some section of English society on the Continent. Or she might have gone to one of the mild centres of a similar kind of life in England. But such a prospect did not offer many attractions to Miss Marjoribanks. If she had been rich, it would have been different. Thus there gradually dawned upon her the germ of the plan she ultimately adopted, and which was the only one that commended itself to her feelings. Going away was expensive and troublesome at the best; and even at Elsworthy's, if she could have made up her mind to such an expedient, she would have been charged a pound a week for the rooms alone, not to speak of all kinds of extras, and never having the satisfaction of feeling yourself in your own place. Under all the circumstances, it was impressed upon Lucilla's mind that her natural course was to stay still where she was, and make no change. Why should she make any change? The house was her own, and did not cost anything, and if Nancy would but stand by her and one good maid – It was a venture; but still Lucilla felt as if she might be equal to it. Though she was no mathematician, Miss Marjoribanks was very clever at mental arithmetic in a practical sort of way. She put down lines upon lines of figures in her head while she sat musing in her chair, and worked them out with wonderful skill and speed and accuracy. And the more she thought of it, the more it seemed to her that this was the thing to do. Why should she retreat and leave her native soil and the neighbourhood of all her friends because she was poor and in trouble? Lucilla was not ashamed of being poor – nor even frightened by it, now that she understood what it was – any more than she would have been frightened, after the first shock, had her poverty even been much more absolute. She was standing alone at this moment as upon a little island of as yet undisturbed seclusion and calm, and she knew very well that outside a perfect sea of good advice would surge round her as soon as she was visible. In these circumstances Lucilla took by instinct the only wise course: she made up her mind there and then with a perfect unanimity which is seldom to be gained when counsellors are admitted. And what she decided upon, as was to be expected from her character, was not to fly from her misfortune and the scene of it, but to confront fate and take up her lawful burden and stay still in her own house. It was the wisest and the easiest, and at the same time the most heroic course to adopt, and she knew beforehand that it was one which would be approved of by nobody. All this Lucilla steadily faced and considered and made up her mind to while she sat alone; although silence and solitude and desolation seemed to have suddenly come in and taken possession all around her of the once gay and brilliant room.
She had just made her final decision when she was rejoined by her aunt, who, everybody said, was at this trying moment like a mother to Lucilla. Yet Aunt Jemima, too, had changed a little since her brother-in-law's death. She was very fond of Miss Marjoribanks, and meant every word she had said about giving her a home, and still meant it. But she did not feel so certain now as she had done about Tom's love for his cousin, nor at all anxious to have him come home just at this moment; and for another thing, she had got a way of prowling about the house and looking at the furniture in a speculative, auctioneering sort of way. "It must be all sold, of course," Aunt Jemima had said to herself, "and I may as well look what things would suit me; there is a little chiffonier that I have always wanted for my drawing-room, and Lucilla would like to see a few of the old things about her, poor dear." With this idea Mrs John gave herself a great deal of unnecessary fatigue, and gave much offence to the servants by making pilgrimages all over the house, turning up at the most unlikely places and poking about in the least frequented rooms. It was a perfectly virtuous and even amiable thing to do, for it was better, as she reasoned, that they should go to her than to a stranger, and it would be nice for Lucilla to feel that she had some of the old things about her; but then such delicate motives are seldom appreciated by the homely critics downstairs.
It was with something of this same air that she came into the drawing-room, where Lucilla was. She could not help laying her hand in a suggestive sort of way on a small table which she had to pass, as if she were saying to herself (as indeed she was saying), "The veneer has been broken off at that side, and the foot is mended; it will bring very little; and yet it looks well when you don't look too close." Such were the ideas with which Aunt Jemima's mind was filled. But yet she came forward with a great deal of sympathy and curiosity, and forgot about the furniture in presence of her afflicted niece.
"Did he tell you anything, Lucilla?" said Mrs John; "of course he must have told you something – but anything satisfactory, I mean."
"I don't know if you can call it satisfactory," said Lucilla, with a sudden rush of softer thoughts; "but it was a comfort to hear it. He told me something about dear papa, Aunt Jemima. After he had heard of that, you know – all that he said was, Poor Lucilla! And don't you remember how he put his hand on my shoulder that last night? I am so – so – glad he did it," sobbed Miss Marjoribanks. It may be supposed it was an abrupt transition from her calculations; but after all it was only a different branch of the same subject; and Lucilla in all her life had never before shed such poignant and tender tears.
"He might well say, Poor Lucilla!" said Mrs John – "brought up as you have been, my dear; and did not you hear anything more important? – I mean, more important in a worldly point of view," Aunt Jemima added, correcting herself, "of course, it must be the greatest comfort to hear something about your poor papa."
And then Lucilla unfolded John Brown's further particulars to her surprised hearer. Mrs John lived upon a smallish income herself, and she was not so contemptuous of the two hundred a year. "And the house," she said – "the house would bring you in another hundred, Lucilla. The Riders, I am sure, would take it directly, and perhaps a great part of the furniture too. Three hundred would not be so bad for a single woman. Did you say anything about the furniture, my dear?" Aunt Jemima added, half regretfully, for she did feel that she would be sorry to lose that chiffonier.
"I think I shall stay in the house," said Lucilla; "you may think it silly, Aunt Jemima, but I was born in it, and – "