Miss Marjoribanks. Mrs. Oliphant
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on the very lips of the talkers; Mrs. Woodburn paused in the midst of doing Lucilla, and, as we have before said, Mr. Cavendish broke a flirtation clean off at its most interesting moment. It is impossible to record what they sang, for those events, as everybody is aware, happened a good many years ago, and the chances are that the present generation has altogether forgotten the duet which made so extraordinary an impression on the inhabitants of Grange Lane. The applause with which the performance was received reached the length of a perfect ovation. Barbara, for her part, who was not conscious of having ever been applauded before, flushed into splendid crimson, and shone out from under her straight eyebrows, intoxicated into absolute beauty. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she took it more calmly. Lucilla had the advantage of knowing what she could do, and accordingly she was not surprised when people found it remarkable. She consented, on urgent persuasion, to repeat the last verse of the duet, but when that was over, was smilingly obdurate. "Almost everybody can sing," said Miss Marjoribanks, with a magnificent depreciation of her own gift. "Perhaps Miss Brown will sing us something; but as for me, you know, I am the mistress of the house."
Lucilla went away as she spoke to attend to her guests, but she left Barbara still crimson and splendid, triumphing over her limp dress and all her disadvantages, by the piano. Fortunately, for that evening Barbara's pride and her shyness prevented her from yielding to the repeated demands addressed to her by the admiring audience. She said to Mr. Cavendish, with a disloyalty which that gentleman thought piquant, that "Miss Marjoribanks would not be pleased"; and the future Member for Carlingford thought he could not do better than obey the injunctions of the mistress of the feast by a little flirtation with the gifted unknown. To be sure, Barbara was not gifted in talk, and she was still defiant and contradictory; but then her eyes were blazing with excitement under her level eyebrows, and she was as willing to be flirted with as if she had known a great deal better. And then Mr. Cavendish had a weakness for a contralto. While this little by-play was going on, Lucilla was moving about, the centre of a perfect tumult of applause. No more complete success could be imagined than that of this first Thursday Evening, which was remarkable in the records of Carlingford; and yet perhaps Miss Marjoribanks, like other conquerors, was destined to build her victory upon sacrifice. She did not feel any alarm at the present moment; but even if she had, that would have made no difference to Lucilla's proceedings. She was not the woman to shrink from a sacrifice when it was for the promotion of the great object of her life; and that, as everybody knew who knew Miss Marjoribanks, was to be a comfort to her dear papa.
Chapter XI
"You have never told us who your unknown was," said Mr. Cavendish. "I suppose she is professional. Carlingford could not possibly possess two such voices in private life."
"Oh, I don't know about two such voices," said Miss Marjoribanks; "her voice suits mine, you know. It is always a great thing to find two voices that suit. I never would choose to have professional singers, for my part. You have to give yourself up to music when you do such a thing; and that is not my idea of society. I am very fond of music," said Lucilla—"excessively fond of it; but then everybody is not of my opinion—and one has to take so many things into consideration. For people who give one party in the year it does very well—but then I hate parties: the only pleasure in society is when one's friends come to see one without any ado."
"In white frocks, high," said Mrs. Woodburn, who could not help assuming Lucilla's manner for the moment, even while addressing herself; but as the possibility of such a lèse-majesté did not even occur to Miss Marjoribanks, she accepted the observation in good faith.
"Yes; I hate a grand toilette when it is only a meeting of friends," she said—"for the girls, you know; of course you married ladies can always do what you like. You have your husbands to please," said Lucilla. And this was a little hard upon her satirist, for, to tell the truth, that was a particular of domestic duty to which Mrs. Woodburn did not much devote herself, according to the opinion of Grange Lane.
"But about the contralto," said Mr. Cavendish, who had come to call on Miss Marjoribanks under his sister's wing, and desired above all things to keep the peace between the two ladies, as indeed is a man's duty under such circumstances. "You are always statesmanlike in your views; but I cannot understand why you let poor little Molly Brown carry on her chirping when you had such an astonishing force in reserve. She must have been covered with confusion, the poor little soul."
"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Woodburn, pursuing her favourite occupation as usual. "She only said, 'Goodness me! how high Lucilla goes! Do you like that dreadfully high music?' and made little eyebrows." To be sure, the mimic made Miss Brown's eyebrows, and spoke in her voice, so that even Lucilla found it a little difficult to keep her gravity. But then Miss Marjoribanks was defended by her mission, and she felt in her heart that, representing public interest as she did, it was her duty to avoid all complicity in any attack upon an individual; and consequently, to a certain extent, it was her duty also to put Mrs. Woodburn down.
"Molly Brown has a very nice little voice," said Lucilla, with most disheartening gravity. "I like to hear her sing, for my part—the only thing is that she wants cultivation a little. It doesn't matter much you know, whether or not you have a voice to begin with. It is cultivation that is the thing," said Miss Marjoribanks deliberately. "I hope you really thought it was a pleasant evening. Of course everybody said so to me; but then one can never put any faith in that. I have said it myself ever so many times when I am sure I did not mean it. For myself, I don't give any importance to the first evening. Anybody can do a thing once, you know; the second and the third, and so on—that is the real test. But I hope you thought it pleasant so far as it went."
"It was a great deal more than pleasant," said Mr. Cavendish; "and as for your conception of social politics, it is masterly," the future M.P. added, in a tone which struck Lucilla as very significant; not that she cared particularly about Mr. Cavendish's meaning, but still, when a young man who intends to go into Parliament congratulates a young lady upon her statesmanlike views, and her conception of politics, it must be confessed that it looks a little particular; and then, if that was what he meant, it was no doubt Lucilla's duty to make up her mind.
"Oh, you know, I went through a course of political economy at Mount Pleasant," she said, with a laugh. "One of the Miss Blounts was dreadfully strong-minded. I wonder, for my part, that she did not make me literary; but fortunately I escaped that."
"Heaven be praised!" said Mr. Cavendish. "I think you ought to be Prime Minister. That contralto of yours is charming raw material; but if I were you I would put her through an elementary course. She knows how to sing, but she does not know how to move; and as for talking, she seems to expect to be insulted. If you make a pretty-behaved young lady out of that, you will beat Adam Smith."
"Oh, I don't know much about Adam Smith," said Miss Marjoribanks. "I think Miss Martha thought him rather old-fashioned. As for poor Barbara, she is only a little shy, but that will soon wear off. I don't see what need she has to talk—or to move either, for that matter. I thought she did very well indeed for a girl who never goes into society. Was it not clever of me to find her out the very first day I was in Carlingford? It has always been so difficult to find a voice that went perfectly with mine."
"For my part, I think it was a great deal more than clever," said Mr. Cavendish; for Mrs. Woodburn, finding herself unappreciated, was silent and making notes. "It was a stroke of genius. So her name is Barbara? I wonder if it would be indiscreet to ask where Mademoiselle Barbara comes from, or if she belongs to anybody, or lives anywhere. My own impression is that you mean to keep her shut up in a box all the week through, and produce her only on the Thursday evenings. I have a weakness for a fine contralto. If she had been existing in an ordinary habitation like other people in Carlingford, I should have heard her, or heard of her. It is clear to me that you keep her shut up in a box."
"Exactly," said Lucilla. "I don't mean to tell you anything about her. You may be sure, now I have found her out, I mean to keep her for myself. Her box is quite a pretty one, like what Gulliver had somewhere. It is just time for lunch, and