Miss Marjoribanks quotes

Miss Marjoribanks lost her mother when she was only fifteen, and when, to add to the misfortune, she was absent at school, and could not have it in her power to soothe her dear mamma’s last moments, as she herself said.

Words are sometimes very poor exponents of such an event: but it happens now and then, on the other hand, that a plain intimation expresses too much, and suggests emotion and suffering which, in reality, have but little, if any, existence.

Mrs. Marjoribanks, poor lady, had been an invalid for many years; she had grown a little peevish in her loneliness, not feeling herself of much account in this world.

… was large in all particulars, full and well-developed, with somewhat large features, not at all pretty as yet, though it was known in Mount Pleasant that somebody had said that such a face might ripen into beauty, and become “grandiose,” for anything anybody could tell.

Miss Marjoribanks was not vain; but the word had taken possession of her imagination, as was natural, and solaced her much when she made the painful discovery that her gloves were half a number larger, and her shoes a hair-breadth broader, than those of any of her companions;

but the hands and feet were both perfectly well shaped; and being at the same time well clothed and plump, were much more presentable and pleasant to look upon than the lean rudimentary schoolgirl hands with which they were surrounded.

Mrs. Marjoribanks, poor lady, had been an invalid for many years; she had grown a little peevish in her loneliness, not feeling herself of much account in this world.

There are some rare natures that are content to acquiesce in the general neglect, and forget themselves when they find themselves forgotten; but it is unfortunately much more usual to take the plan adopted by Mrs. Marjoribanks, who devoted all her powers, during the last ten years of her life, to the solacement and care of that poor self which other people neglected.

The consequence was, that when she disappeared from her sofa—except for the mere physical fact that she was no longer there—no one, except her maid, whose occupation was gone, could have found out much difference.

On the whole, master stood lessened in the eyes of all the household by his ability to eat his dinner, and his resentment at having his habitudes disturbed.

“Them men would eat and drink if we was all in our graves,” said the indignant cook, who indeed had a real grievance;

and the outraged sentiment of the kitchen was avenged by a bad and hasty dinner, which the Doctor, though generally “very particular,” swallowed without remark.

The moment he had seated himself, the Doctor’s eyes were opened to the importance of the step he had taken.

“I am afraid I have taken your seat, papa,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with ingenuous sweetness.

“But then I should have had to move the urn, and all the things, and I thought you would not mind.” The Doctor said nothing but “Humph!” and even that in an undertone;

“I am afraid I have taken your seat, papa,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with ingenuous sweetness. “But then I should have had to move the urn, and all the things, and I thought you would not mind.”

The Doctor said nothing but “Humph!” and even that in an undertone; but he became aware all the same that he had abdicated, without knowing it, and that the reins of state had been smilingly withdrawn from his unconscious hands.

When Nancy made her appearance the fact became still more apparent, though still in the sweetest way. “It is so dreadful to think papa should have been bothered with all these things so long,” said Miss Marjoribanks.

“I never said you were to stride,” said Lucilla; “take moderate steps, and don’t be so silly. I was doing it myself famously if you had not come in and interrupted me.

It is frightful to belong to a family where the men are so stupid,

” said Miss Marjoribanks, with a sigh of real distress; for, to be sure, the unlucky Tom immediately bethought himself to take small steps like those of a lady, which all but threw him on his well-formed though meaningless nose.

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.

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 his head against the wall. He was only jumping on his portmanteau

, notwithstanding that Lucilla had warned him against such a proceeding—and in his state of mind the jumps were naturally more frantic than usual. When Lucilla heard it, she rang the bell, and told Thomas to go and help Mr. Tom with his packing;

as if she was not as good as Lucilla any day! and though it might be worth her while to take advantage of it for the moment, it was still an insult, in its way, to be avenged if an opportunity ever should arise.

The evening came, as evenings do come, quite indifferently whether people are glad or sorry;

and it was with a calmness which the other ladies regarded as next to miraculous, that Miss Marjoribanks took Colonel Chiley’s arm to go to the dining-room. We say the other ladies, for on this great occasion Mrs. Centum and Mrs.

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.”

And naturally Lucilla, who was at this moment thinking it all over under the soft green shadows from her new hangings, was deprived of the light which might have been thrown on her reflections, had she seen what was going on in Grove Street.

The conditions of humanity are such that even a woman of genius cannot altogether overstep them.

And Lucilla still continued to think that Mr. Cavendish was paying her attention, which, indeed, was also the general opinion in Grange Lane.

The charm of the first novelty was gone, and Lucilla did not feel quite sure that her subjects had the good sense to recognise all the benefits which she was going to confer upon them.

“It is the second time that counts,” she said in confidence to Mrs. Chiley.

“Last Thursday they wanted to see the drawing-room, and they wanted to know what sort of thing it was to be. Dear Mrs. Chiley, it is tonight that is the test,” said Lucilla, giving a nervous pressure to her old friend’s hand;

Before anyone knew how it was done, Miss Marjoribanks had reestablished order, and, what was still more important, made room. She said, “You girls have no business to get into corners. The corners are for the people that can talk.

It is one of my principles always to flirt in the middle of the company,

” said Lucilla; and again, as happened so often, ignorant people laughed and thought it a bon mot.

but I can’t let you take any trouble about Barbara. She had to be stopped, you know, or she would have turned us into a musical party; and as for Mr. Cavendish, he is the best assistant I have.

There are so few men in Carlingford who can flirt,

” said Lucilla regretfully. Her eyes fell as she spoke upon young Osmond Brown, who was actually at that moment talking to Mr. Bury’s curate, with a disregard of his social duties painful to contemplate. Poor Osmond started when he met Miss Marjoribanks’s reproachful eye.

But then Lucilla had, as all the ladies admitted, an influence over “the gentlemen,” of which, as was natural, they were slightly contemptuous, even if perhaps envious, to some extent, of the gift.

For everybody knows that it requires very little to satisfy the gentlemen, if a woman will only give her mind to it.

As for Miss Marjoribanks herself, she confessed frankly that she did her best to please Them. “For you know, after all, in Carlingford, one is obliged to take them into consideration,” she said, with a natural apology.

Bury’s extreme Low-Churchism—as if it were profane, as it certainly was not respectable, to differ from the Rector—and to give him as wide a field as possible for his missionary operations by keeping out of the way. But

Mr. Beverley had not the least regard for respectability, nor that respect for religion which consists in keeping as clear of it as possible

; and the way in which he spoke of Mr. Bury’s views wounded some people’s feelings. Altogether, he was, as Mrs. Chiley said, an anxious person to have in the house;

As for Miss Marjoribanks, who had supplied one of the mimic’s most effective studies, she was much disturbed by the failure of this element of entertainment. “

I have always thought it very strange that I never had any sense of humour,

” Lucilla said; “but it would not do, you know, if all the world was like me; and society would be nothing if everybody did not exert themselves to the best of their abilities.”

Of course she could not change the nature of the fact one way or another; but, at least, it was her duty to act with great circumspection, so that if possible it might not be found out—for

Lucilla appreciated fully the difference that exists between wrong and discovery.

If any man was imposing upon his neighbours and telling lies about himself, it was his own fault; but if a leader of society were to betray the fact of having received and petted such a person, then the responsibility was on her shoulders.

She walked along the garden path very briskly under the influence of these thoughts, and it was not in nature to do otherwise than snub the children when she joined them.

Lucilla was a woman of genius, but she was not faultless

; and when she found Ethelinda and Ethelfreda Lake, the two twins, the one with her clean frock all muddy and stained, the other with the front breadth torn right up the middle, it is scarcely to be wondered at if she lost her patience.

She regained bit by bit that serene self-consciousness which places the spirit above the passing vexations of the world. What did it matter what other people might be doing or saying?

Was not she still Lucilla Marjoribanks? and when one had said that, one had said all.

“It is time you were all going home to your dinners,” said Lucilla; “and I have asked Mrs. Mortimer to give you a half-holiday. As for you, you little Linda, you are not fit to be seen;

A few tears came to her eyes as she reflected upon this great problem.

Without such trials genius would not fully know itself nor be justly aware of its own strength.

For no temptation to give up her disinterested exertions had any effect upon the mind of Miss Marjoribanks; and even her sense of pain at the unbelief of her followers was mingled with that pity for their weakness which involves pardon.

Barbara, on the contrary, who was past crying, stood still at the door, and watched Lucilla’s white dress disappearing on the way to Grange Lane with indescribable emotions.

A young woman cannot call the police, or appeal to the crier, when it is her lover whom she has lost

: but to see him carried off by the strong hand—to watch him gradually going away and disappearing from her eyes—to hear his steps withdrawing into the distance—was such a trial as few are called upon to bear.

Cavendish took a sudden resolution. He went upstairs and changed his dress with a certain solemnity. He made a toilette more careful than if he were going, as he once had gone, to propose.

It was like Nelson going into gala uniform for a battle.

And then he went out to discover, if possible, what was coming to him. The difference was, that in this battle no honour, but only a possible salvage of reputation and fortunate escape, was to be gained.

But fortune still favoured him, as it happened. He had the presence of mind to say, “I am going to call on Miss Marjoribanks;” and

Mrs. Chiley dropped his hands on the instant as if they burned her

, and patted him on the arm and sent him away. “She is sure to be in just now, and I am so glad; and, my dear, you need not mind me, for I am both your friends,” Mrs. Chiley said.

He said, “Good God!” loud out, with an accent of horror which paralysed the two people lower down than himself. As for Miss Marjoribanks, she was not paralysed—she who had not lost a single glance of his eyes or movement of his large person.

Lucilla rose to the height of the position.

She put her hand upon his arm sharply, and with a certain energy. “Mr. Beverley, Thomas is behind you with the soup,” said Miss Marjoribanks.

As for Miss Marjoribanks, she was not paralysed—she who had not lost a single glance of his eyes or movement of his large person. Lucilla rose to the height of the position. She put her hand upon his arm sharply, and with a certain energy.

“Mr. Beverley, Thomas is behind you with the soup,” said Miss Marjoribanks.

The Archdeacon turned round to see what it was, conscious that somebody had spoken to him, but as indifferent to his companion and to civility as he was to Thomas and the soup. “What?” he said hoarsely, interrupting his scrutiny for the moment.

“Women are curiously constituted,” said Mr. Beverley, who was still at the height of superiority, though he was a bridegroom. “I suppose those sort of things give them pleasure—things which neither satisfy the body nor delight the soul.”

“If it had been something to eat, would it have pleased you better?”

said Lucilla, moved for once in her life to be impertinent, like an ordinary girl.

but she went to a little worsted-work with a mind at peace with itself and all men. She was gentler than usual even to the maids, who always found Miss Marjoribanks a good mistress—but she felt a little sad in the solitude of her genius.

For it is true that to be wiser and more enlightened than one’s neighbours is in most cases a weariness to the flesh.

She had made a sacrifice, and nobody appreciated it. Instead of choosing a position which pleased her imagination, and suited her energies, and did not go against her heart, Lucilla, moved by the wisest discretion, had decided, not without regret, to give it up.

Life with most people is little more than a succession of high and low tides.

There are times when the stream runs low, and when there is nothing to be seen but the dull sandbanks, or even mud-banks, for months, or even years together;

“Don’t call yourself old, my dear,” said Aunt Jemima, with a passing gleam of worldly wisdom—“one gets old quite soon enough. Are you subject to headaches, Lucilla, or pains in the limbs? Your poor mamma—”

“Dear Aunt Jemima, I am as well as ever I can be,” said Miss Marjoribanks.

“Tell me when you heard from Tom, and what he is doing. Let me see, it is ten years since he went away. I used to write to him, but he did not answer my letters—not as he ought, you know.

She had taken off her hat before she came in, and dropped into her chair with an air of languor and fatigue which was quite unusual to her.

“It makes such a difference in life when one has something on one’s mind,”

said Lucilla, and she sighed, as was but natural; for though that did not affect the energy of her proceedings, she knew and remembered at moments of discouragement how seldom one’s most disinterested exertions are appreciated at the end.

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.

“Oh, yes, she is better,” he said. “I knew she would do this time. People at our time of life don’t go off in that accidental kind of way.

When a woman has been so long used to living, it takes her a time to get into the way of dying.

She might be a long time thinking about it yet, if all goes well—”

… 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.

She will find after that she is not equal to it, you know; all the associations—and the people coming at night to ask for the Doctor—and—and all that. I know it would kill me.”

“Dear Lady Richmond,” said Lucilla, making a desperate stand, and setting, as it were, her back against a rock, “don’t you think I can bear it best here where you are all so kind to me; and where everybody was so fond of⁠—of him? You can’t think what a comfort it is to me,” said Lucilla, with a sob, “to see all the hatbands upon the gentlemen’s hats.”

And then there was a pause, for this was an argument against which nobody could find anything to say.

Cavendish’s way. “It would do him so much harm,” Mrs. Centum said anxiously; “but oh! I forgot, Lucilla, you are on the other side.”

“I am on no side now,” said Miss Marjoribanks, with plaintive meaning; “and Barbara was as old as I am, you know, and she must have gone off.”

“I have no doubt she has gone off,” said Mrs. Centum, with righteous indignation. “As old as you, Lucilla! She must be ten years older at least; and such a shocking style of looks—if men were not so infatuated!

no more than there was any necessity for asking what her cousin Tom’s last letter had been about, or why his mother looked so guilty and embarrassed when she spoke of him.

Grief has its privileges and exemptions, like other great principles of life

; and the recollection that she could not at present be expected to be able to think about anything, filled Lucilla’s mind with the most soothing sense of consolation and refreshing calm.

and he did hesitate at the corner of Grove Street, laying himself open, as it were, to any temptation that might offer itself.

Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought

; and thus, on the very eve of the election, a grievous accident happened to Mr. Cavendish. It might have happened at any time, to be sure, but this was the most inopportune moment possible, and it came accordingly now.

When a man comes off a long journey it is his breakfast he wants, and not a—not anything else that I know of. Go up to your mother, and let me go.”

“Will you have him or me?” repeated Tom.

It was not wisdom, is was instinct, that made him thus hold fast by his text;