Lucilla

“ With the guilty trepidation of a pair of burglars, they opened the glass door and stole into the kitchen. Lucilla set the lamp on the stationary wash-tub, and by its pale light gazed about. In the small bare room, smelling of soap-suds, and with lines of pewter dish covers resting against the whitewashed walls, Mr. Judkins, in his neatly creased clothes, presented an incongruous appearance. His rigid face, lightened by an embarrassed smile, when his roving eyes encountered Lucilla's alarmed glance, proclaimed him uneasy and yet determined. ”

“ Lucilla appeared to unite the simplicity of nature to the refinement of good breeding. It was thus she struck me at first sight. I forbore to form a decided opinion till I had leisure to observe whether her mind fulfilled all that her looks promised.
Lucilla Stanley is rather perfectly elegant than perfectly beautiful. I have seen women as striking, but I never saw one so interesting. Her beauty is countenance: it is the stamp of mind intelligibly printed on the face. It is not so much the symmetry of features as the joint triumph of intellect and sweet temper. ”

“ When all was settled, doubt over, and the routine life begun, Lucilla evidently felt the blank of her vanished hopes, and became fretful and captious, weary of things in general, and without sufficient motive to control her natural taste for the variety of naughtiness! Honor had not undertaken the easiest of tasks, but she neither shrank from her enterprise nor ceased to love the fiery little flighty sprite, the pleasing torment of her life—she loved her only less than that model of childish sweetness, her little Owen. ”

“ With a sweep of memory, Lucilla remembered her lesson in tubes and electric buttons, and, cowering under the clothes, murmured fearfully, "Some one at the front door."
Wondering what possible reason could bring any one out at such an hour, she bravely rose, slipped on her blue wrapper, thrust her feet into slippers, and, sleepy-eyed and shivering, with her shoulders drawn up to her ears, crept kitchen ward. She noiselessly opened the glass door, and, holding to the knob, peeped in apprehensively. It seemed to Lucilla that there was something public about a flat. ”

“ Lucilla and the Canon looked at one another, each seeming momentarily to despair of the other.
At last Lucilla said:
“A little time ago, you thought she was ill, too.”
“Mind and body react upon one another, no doubt, and our little Flora is highly strung. I do not recognize it as being in any way incumbent upon me to explain to you my treatment of any soul in my charge, Lucilla, but I may say that I have now come to the conclusion that Flora’s malady was of the soul. With that, you must rest content.” ”

“ So," continued Lucilla, with fervid and insane enthusiasm, "so is this, my creative spirit, my imaginary world, my inspiration, what poetry may be to others. I may be mistaken in the truth of my belief. There are times when my brain is cool, and my frame at rest, and I sit alone and think over the real past—when I feel my trust shaken, and my ardour damped: but that thought does not console but torture me, and I hasten to plunge once more among the charms, and spells, and mighty dreams, that wrap me from my living self. ”

“ In the intervals of her legislative cares Lucilla had run about all over Carlingford searching for pupils, and at the same moment had cut and stitched and arranged, and papered walls, and planted flower-beds, for the feeble creature thus thrown upon her. This was a side of Lucilla's character which certainly she did nothing to hide from the public, but which, at the same time, she never made any fuss about; and it was an endless pleasure to her to find a protégée so perfectly content to be "done for," and do as she was told to do. ”

“ My poor Lucilla was never to meet her lover in the light. She had grown up with the passions of a woman—and yet, she had never advanced beyond the fearless and primitive innocence of a child. Ah, if ever there was a sacred charge confided to any mortal creature, here surely was a sacred charge confided to Me! ”

“ Lucilla told her husband, running down to him, her own eyes wet with tears. "Isn't it a mercy he loves her so?"
"There's nothing whatever the matter with her, you know," Everard said. "The doctor's just been telling me. Nothing whatever."
"I knew that all along," Lucilla told him.
He took her hand and looked in her face, and his own grew red. "Confession is good for the soul, and you and I should have no secrets, Luce," he said. "That little woman upstairs—you'll think me an awful ass. ”

“ He held a great, loose bunch of long-stalked violets in his hand; and he was, of course, Lucilla's partner at the heavenly dance, Captain Finch.
Lucilla's heart beat tumultuously, her face turned white. "Bounce it," said the practical Miss Dawson's voice in her ears. She kept her head up, therefore did not notice the proffered hand, would have passed the gentleman by.
"Miss Mavis, I have brought you some violets," he said.
"You are mistaken. My name is Miss Browne," said Lucilla. "I do not accept flowers from men I do not know." ”

“ The slow sinking sun streaked its red warning through the clerestory slits.
“Lucilla!” He laid his hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, Basil,” she looked up at him, “say you think it won’t be altogether bad for them! They will never know anything of their father now but what was good. And their mother will simply have vanished into the skies. They will think she has flown away to heaven—and who knows but it may be true? There may be something beyond this hell.”
“We shall soon know, Lucilla,” he answered gently. ”

“ Lucilla had known it for years; observant, clear-eyed, badly sensitive where those who were hers were concerned, she had watched the sag and the bloat come and gain almost day by day. But as she stood and looked at him now, it struck her anew, and more sharply than it had done before, sickened her even more than it had done in those two bitter hours of her fresh wifehood’s disillusion when she had realized shudderingly the twin rotten fissures in a husband’s being.
Women and wine! ”

“ Lucilla accepted my excuses, and took my place.
Half an hour passed, without news from Browndown.
Calculated by reference to itself, half an hour is no doubt a short space of time. Calculated by reference to your own suspense, while your own interests are at stake, half an hour is an eternity. Every minute that passed, leaving Lucilla still undisturbed in her delusion, was a minute that pricked me in the conscience. The longer we left her in ignorance, the more painful to all of us the hard duty of enlightening her would become. ”

“ Every conscientious interference on her part was regarded as duenna-like harshness, and her restrictions as a grievous yoke, and Lucilla made no secret that it was so, treating her to almost unvaried ill-humour and murmurs.
Little did Lucilla know, nor even Horatia, how much of the charms that produced so much effect were due to these very restraints, nor how the droll sauciness and womanly airs were enhanced by the simplicity of appearance, which embellished her far more than the most fashionable air set off her companions. ”

“ Cold, nervous, and wakeful, she now retired. As she dropped off her slippers, the whistle shrieked again with startling suddenness. For a moment Lucilla stood irresolute, nervously pinching her underlip with a chill thumb and forefinger. Then, brave in her newly acquired knowledge of the janitor, the dumb-waiter, and the tubes, she stole, cautious and soft-footed, back to the kitchen. ”

“ You have forgotten that Lucilla believes the brother with the discolored face to be You, and the brother with the fair complexion to be Oscar. You have forgotten that the surgeon has expressly forbidden us to agitate her by entering into any explanations before he allows her to use her eyes. You have forgotten that the very deception which you have just positively refused to go on with, will be nevertheless a deception continued, if you are present when Lucilla sees. Your own resolution pledges you not to enter the rectory doors until Lucilla has discovered the truth. ”

“ At first the Canon was pleased, assuring Lucilla that the pleasant home-life at St. Gwenllian, even if robbed of its old-time joyousness, would best restore Flora to herself. But after a time, he, too, watched her with anxiety.
“Little Flora is not herself,” he began to say.
“Let me send for the doctor, Father,” Lucilla urged.
“We will see, my dear, later on. The unsettled weather is trying to us all just now—no doubt things will right themselves in a day or two, and we shall smile at our own foolish, faithless fears.” ”

“ What could any one want at such an hour? She ought to open the door; but if any one did come, she could never, in her present attire, let him in to No. 15. It was a trying moment, but the blood of warriors, somewhat vitiated by time, to be sure, flowed in Lucilla's veins. Gathering her gown about her, as though surrounded by beetles, she stepped gingerly toward the dumb-waiter door, beside which the buttons and tubes gleamed in the cold, eerie light. ”

“ There is no limit. The man who loves Lucilla and the brother who has saved my life are one. I am bound to leave him free—I do leave him free—to win Lucilla by open and loyal means, if he can. As soon as Herr Grosse considers that she is fit to bear the disclosure, let her be told of the error into which she has fallen (through my fault) —let her read these lines, purposely written to meet her eye as well as yours—and let my brother tell her afterwards what has passed to-night in this house between himself and me. She loves him now, believing him to be Oscar. ”

“ But the case of Lucilla was not the case of girls in general.
The minds of the blind are, by cruel necessity, forced inward on themselves. They live apart from us—ah, how hopelessly far apart!—in their own dark sphere, of which we know nothing. What relief could come to Lucilla from the world outside? ”

“ Neither Lucilla nor Flora prepared for the Admastons’ party with any feelings save those of profound apprehension, and Adrian, meeting them in the hall, drew Lucilla aside in order to ask indignantly:
“Couldn’t you have stopped Father from coming tonight? I don’t want to be a beast, but really, it’s quite out of his line, and he won’t enjoy himself. In fact, he’ll probably be sick.” ”

“ Phœbe was sorry to leave the brilliant scene, and no longer to be able to watch Lucilla, but she wanted to shake Owen off, and readily consented. She shut her door after one good night. She was too much grieved and disappointed to converse, and could not bear to discuss whether the last hope were indeed gone, and whether Lucilla had decided her lot without choosing to know it. Alas! how many turning-points may be missed by those who never watch! ”

“ Miss Grimston, half lowering her eyes, looked at her visitor with slumberous suspension of expression, and made no reply.
"If a man isn't good—" Miss Lucilla began again, tremblingly.
"No man is perfect."
"True, dear; and yet are there not certain qualities which we ought to consider as essentials—?"
"Monsieur de Bienville has those qualities for me."
"But surely, dear, you can't mean—?"
"Yes, I do mean."
The avowal was made quietly, with the still bearing of one who gives a few drops of confession out of deep oceans of reserve. Miss Lucilla gazed at her in astonishment. ”

“ And what do we do then, Luce?"
"Well," said Lucilla, calmly surveying herself in the glass, and turning her long neck to get a view of her elegant back, "in that case you will have to carry her up to bed, and I shall have to undress her and send for the doctor."
"I carry her!" he said to himself, doubtfully, again and again as he dressed. "She's something of a lump for any man to carry." ”

“ Lucilla was one of those young people who love God and all their fellow-creatures, and desire to do them good. She had always loved Bernard, and she loved him still, though she saw him getting more and more naughty from day to day. She believed, however, that he still loved her as well as he could love any person besides himself, and she thought a long time of some way which she might take to make him sensible of his faults. ”

“ I am persuaded that the best-intended formation of character, if founded on ignorance or deceit, will never answer. As to Lucilla, we have never attempted to blind her judgment. We have never thought it necessary to leave her understanding out of the question, while we were forming her heart. We have never told her that the world is a scene absolutely destitute of pleasure: we have never assured her that there is no amusement in the diversions which we disapprove. ”

“ Lucilla asked.
"No, I have been out since seven, on business."
Then Lucilla perceived that the gods did not intend this particular piece of work to be for Jane's doing.
"Look here," she said, fumbling with the flowers, "I want to talk to you."
"Yes?" said Miss Antrobus.
"About the aunt," said Lucilla, teasing the wet blossoms.
"Yes? Was there some mistake in the address you gave me last night?"
"No," said Lucilla, "there isn't any mistake; there isn't any address; there isn't any aunt. It was all a silly trick. I was the aunt, dressed up. ”

“ I have learned to love and honor him myself as if I were his own son."
"Oh, Chester, how glad I am to hear you say that!" exclaimed Lucilla.
But that ended the talk, for they were at the foot of the porch steps, and the captain spoke, addressing them. "Ah, so here you are at last, my dears. I was beginning to feel a trifle anxious lest something had befallen you."
"Oh, no, father! we are all right," exclaimed Lucilla, in lively tones, "but the bewitching moonlight and pleasant breeze tempted us to linger longer than usual. I hope you are not vexed with us?" ”