Miss Marjoribanks. Oliphant Margaret
everything done here, as if you meant to stay all your life – when you know I love you?" said the unfortunate young man; "when you know I have always been so fond of you, Lucilla, and always looked forward to the time – ; and now it is very hard to see you care so little for me."
"Tom," said Miss Marjoribanks, with indignant surprise, "how can you say I care little for you? you know I was always very fond of you, on the contrary. I am sure I always stood your friend at home, whatever happened, and never said a word when you broke that pretty little pearl ring I was so fond of, and tore the scarf that my aunt gave me. I wonder, for my part, how you can be so unkind as so say so. We have always been the very best friends in the world," said Lucilla, with an air of injury. "I always said at school I liked you the best of all my cousins; and I am very fond of all my cousins." Miss Marjoribanks concluded, after a little pause, "It is so unkind to tell me that I don't care for you."
Poor Tom groaned within himself as he listened. He did not know what to answer to Lucilla's aggrieved yet frank confession. Naturally it would have been much less displeasing to Tom to understand that she hated him, and never desired to see him any more. But Miss Marjoribanks was far from entertaining any such unchristian sentiments. She even began to forget her anxiety about what was going on upstairs in that delightful sense of power and abundant resources with which she was mastering the present difficulty. She reflected in herself that though it was excessively annoying to be thus occupied at such a moment, still it was nearly as important to make an end of Tom as to see that the pictures were hung rightly; for, to be sure, it was always easy to return to the latter subject. Accordingly, she drew her chair a little nearer to the window, and regarded Tom with a calm gaze of benevolent interest which was in perfect accordance with the sentiments she had just expressed; a look in which a gentle reproach was mingled. "I have always been like a sister to you," said Lucilla; "how can you be so unkind as to say I don't care?"
As for the unhappy Tom, he got up, as was natural, and took a little walk in front of the table, as a young man in trouble is apt to do. "You know very well that is not what I mean, Lucilla," he said disconsolately. "It is you who are unkind. I don't know why it is that ladies are so cruel; I am not such a snob as to persecute anybody. But what is the good of pretending not to know what I mean?"
"Tom, listen!" cried Miss Marjoribanks, rising in her turn; "I feel sure they must have finished. There is Mr Holden going through the garden. And everybody knows that hanging pictures is just the thing of all others that requires a person of taste. If they have spoiled the room, it will be all your fault."
"Oh, for Heaven's sake never mind the room!" said Tom. "I never thought you would have trifled with a man, Lucilla. You know quite well what I mean; you know it isn't a – a new thing," said the lover, beginning to stammer and get confused. "You know that is what I have been thinking of all along, as soon as ever I had anything to live on. I love you, Lucilla; you know I love you! how can you trifle with me so?"
"It is you who are trifling," said Miss Marjoribanks, "especially when you know I have really something of importance to do. You can come upstairs with me if you like. Of course we all love each other. What is the good of being relations otherwise?" said Lucilla calmly; "it is such a natural thing, you know. I suppose it is because you are going away that you are so affectionate to-day. It is very nice of you, I am sure; but, Tom, I feel quite certain you have not packed your things," Miss Marjoribanks added, in an admonitory tone. "Come along with me upstairs."
And by this time Lucilla's curiosity was beginning again to get the upper hand. If she only could have escaped, it would have been impossible for her cousin to have renewed the conversation; and luckily he was to leave Carlingford the same evening; but then a man is always an inconsequent creature, and not to be calculated on. This time, instead of obeying as usual, Tom – having, as Miss Marjoribanks afterwards described (but only in the strictest confidence), "worked himself up to it" – set himself directly in her way, and seized upon both her hands.
"Lucilla," cried the unlucky fellow, "is it possible that you really have misunderstood me all this time? Do you mean to say that you don't know? Oh, Lucilla, listen just five minutes. It isn't because I am your cousin. I wish to Heaven I was not your cousin, but some one you had never seen before. I mean I want you to consent to – to – to – marry me, Lucilla. That is what I mean. I am called to the bar, and I can work for you, and make a reputation. Lucilla, listen to what I have to say."
Miss Marjoribanks left her hands in his with a calmness which froze poor Tom's heart in his breast. She did not even take the trouble to draw them away. "Have you gone out of your senses, Tom?" she asked, in her sensible way; and she lifted her eyes to the face of the poor young fellow who was in love, with an inquiring look, as if she felt a little anxious about him. "If you have any feeling as if fever was coming on," said Lucilla, "I think you should go upstairs and lie down a little till papa comes in. I heard there had been some cases down about the canal. I hope it is not the assizes that have been too much for you." When Miss Marjoribanks said this, she herself took fast hold of Tom's hands with a motherly grasp to feel if they were hot, and looked into his eyes with a certain serious inspection, which, under the circumstances, poor fellow! was enough to drive him out of the little rationality he had left.
Tom was so far carried away by his frenzy, that he gave her a little shake in his impatience. "You are trying to drive me mad, Lucilla!" cried the young man. "I have got no fever. It is only you who are driving me out of my senses. This time you must hear me. I will not let you go till you have given me an answer. I am called to the bar, and I have begun my Career," said Tom, making a pause for breath. "I knew you would have laughed at me when I was depending on my mother; but now all that is over, Lucilla. I have loved you as long as I can remember; and I always thought – that you – cared for me a little. If you will have me, there is nothing I could not do," said Tom, who thoroughly believed what he was saying; "and if you will not have me, I will not answer for the consequences. If I go off to India, or if I go to the bad – "
"Tom," said Lucilla solemnly, and this time she drew away her hands, "if you ever want to get married, I think the very best thing you can do is to go to India. As for marrying just now at your age, you know you might as well jump into the sea. You need not be vexed," said Miss Marjoribanks, in her motherly way. "I would not speak so if I was not your best friend. As for marrying me, you know it is ridiculous. I have not the least intention of marrying anybody. If I had thought of that, I need never have come home at all. As for your going to the bad, I am not afraid of that. If I were to let you carry on with such a ridiculous idea, I should never forgive myself. It would be just as sensible to go into a lunatic asylum at once. It is very lucky for you that you said this to me," Lucilla went on, "and not to one of the girls that think it great fun to be married. And if I were you, Tom, I would go and pack my things. You know you are always too late; and don't jump on your portmanteau and make such a dreadful noise if it won't shut, but ring the bell for Thomas. You know we are to dine at half-past five to-day, to give you time for the train."
These were the last words Tom Marjoribanks heard as Lucilla left the room. She ran up to the drawing-room without losing a minute, and burst in upon the vacant place where Mr Holden had stood so long waiting for her. To be sure, Miss Marjoribanks's forebodings were so far fulfilled that the St Cecilia, which she meant to have over the piano, was hung quite in the other corner of the room, by reason of being just the same size as another picture at the opposite angle, which the workmen, sternly symmetrical, thought it necessary to "match." But, after all, that was a trifling defect. She stood in the middle of the room, and surveyed the walls, well pleased, with a heart which kept beating very steadily in her bosom. On the whole, perhaps, she was not sorry to have had it out with Tom. So far as he was personally concerned, Miss Marjoribanks, being a physician's daughter, had great faith in the vis medicatrix, and was not afraid for her cousin's health or his morals, as a less experienced woman might have been. If she was angry with anybody, it was with herself, who had not taken sufficient precautions to avoid the explanation. "But, after all, everything is for the best," Lucilla said to herself, with that beautiful confidence which is common to people who have things their own way; and she devoted her mind to the St Cecilia, and paid no more attention to Tom. It was not till more than an hour after that a succession of dreadful thumps was not only heard but felt throughout the house. It was Tom, but he was not doing any harm to himself. He was not blowing out his brains or knocking