The Eustace Diamonds Part 18

Lord Fawn is pleased to say that he does not approve of my keeping any gift from my late lord. Considering that he intends to live upon the wealth which Sir Florian was generous enough to bestow upon me, this does seem to be strange! Of course, I resented such interference. Would not you have resented it?"

"I don't know," said Lucy, who thought that she could bring herself to comply with any request made to her by Frank Greystock.

"Any woman who had a spark of spirit would resent it, and I have resented it. I have told Lord Fawn that I will, on no account, part with the rich presents which my adored Florian showered upon me in his generosity. It is not for their richness that I keep them, but because they are, for his sake, so inexpressibly dear to me. If Lord Fawn chooses to be jealous of a necklace, he must be jealous." Lucy, who had, in truth, heard but a small fragment of the story,--just so much of it as Lydia had learned from the discreet Amelia, who herself had but a very hazy idea of the facts,--did not quite know how much of the tale, as it was now told to her, might be true and how much false. After a certain fas.h.i.+on she and Lizzie Eustace called themselves friends. But she did not believe her friend to be honest, and was aware that in some matters her friend would condescend--to fib. Lizzie's poetry, and romance, and high feelings, had never had the ring of true soundness in Lucy's ears. But her imagination was not strong enough to soar to the alt.i.tude of the lies which Lizzie was now telling. She did believe that the property which Lizzie was called upon to restore was held to be objectionable by Lord Fawn simply because it had reached Lizzie from the hands of her late husband. "What do you think of such conduct as that?" asked Lady Eustace.

"Won't it do if you lock them up instead of wearing them?" asked Lucy.

"I have never dreamed of wearing them."

"I don't understand about such things," said Lucy, determined not to impute any blame to one of the Fawn family.

"It is tyranny, sheer tyranny," continued the other, "and he will find that I am not the woman to yield to it. No. For love I could give up everything;--but nothing from fear. He has told me in so many words that he does not intend to go on with his engagement!"

"Has he indeed?"

"But I intend that he shall. If he thinks that I am going to be thrown over because he takes ideas of that kind into his head, he's mistaken. He shall know that I'm not to be made a plaything of like that. I'll tell you what you can do for me, Lucy."

"What can I do for you?"

"There is no one in the world I trust more thoroughly than I do you,"

said Lizzie,--"and hardly any one that I love so well. Think how long we have known each other! And you may be sure of this;--I always have been, and always will be, your friend with my cousin Frank."

"I don't want anything of that kind," said Lucy,--"and never did."

"n.o.body has so much influence with Frank as I. Just do you write to me to-morrow, and the next day,--and the day after,--a mere line, you know, to tell me how the land lies here."

"There would be nothing to tell."

"Yes, there will; ever so much. They will be talking about me every hour. If you'll be true to me, Lucy, in this business, I'll make you the handsomest present you ever saw in your life. I'll give you a hundred-guinea brooch;--I will, indeed. You shall have the money, and buy it yourself."

"A what!" said Lucy.

"A hundred guineas to do what you please with!"

"You mean thing!" said Lucy. "I didn't think there was a woman so mean as that in the world. I'm not surprised now at Lord Fawn. Pick up what I hear, and send it you in letters,--and then be paid money for it!"

"Why not? It's all to do good."

"How can you have thought to ask me to do such a thing? How can you bring yourself to think so badly of people? I'd sooner cut my hand off; and as for you, Lizzie--I think you are mean and wicked to conceive such a thing. And now good-bye." So saying, she left the room, giving her dear friend no time for further argument.

Lady Eustace got away that morning, not in time, indeed, for the 11.30 train, but at such an hour as to make it unnecessary that she should appear at the early dinner. The saying of farewell was very cold and ceremonious. Of course, there was no word as to any future visit,--no word as to any future events whatever. They all shook hands with her, and special injunctions were given to the coachman to drive her safely to the station. At this ceremony Lucy was not present. Lydia had asked her to come down and say good-bye; but Lucy refused. "I saw her in her own room," said Lucy.

"And was it all very affectionate?" Lydia asked.

"Well--no; it was not affectionate at all." This was all that Lucy said, and thus Lady Eustace completed her visit to Fawn Court.

The letters were taken away for the post at eight o'clock in the evening, and before that time it was necessary that Lucy should write to her lover. "Lady Fawn," she said in a whisper, "may I tell him to come here?"

"Certainly, my dear. You had better tell him to call on me. Of course he'll see you, too, when he comes."

"I think he'd want to see me," said Lucy, "and I'm sure I should want to see him!" Then she wrote her answer to Frank's letter. She allowed herself an hour for the happy task; but though the letter, when written, was short, the hour hardly sufficed for the writing of it.

"DEAR MR. GREYSTOCK;"--there was matter for her of great consideration before she could get even so far as this; but, after biting her pen for ten minutes, during which she pictured to herself how pleasant it would be to call him Frank when he should have told her to do so, and had found, upon repeated whispered trials, that of all names it was the pleasantest to p.r.o.nounce, she decided upon refraining from writing it now--

Lady Fawn has seen your letter to me,--the dearest letter that ever was written,--and she says that you may call upon _her_. But you mustn't go away without seeing _me too_.

Then there was great difficulty as to the words to be used by her for the actual rendering herself up to him as his future wife. At last the somewhat too Spartan simplicity of her nature prevailed, and the words were written, very plain and very short.

I love you better than all the world, and I will be your wife. It shall be the happiness of my life to try to deserve you.

I am, with all my heart, Most affectionately your own

LUCY.

When it was written it did not content her. But the hour was over, and the letters must go. "I suppose it'll do," she said to herself.

"He'll know what it means." And so the letter was sent.

CHAPTER XVI

Certainly an Heirloom

The burden of his position was so heavy on Lord Fawn's mind that, on the Monday morning after leaving Fawn Court, he was hardly as true to the affairs of India as he himself would have wished. He was resolved to do what was right,--if only he could find out what would be the right thing in his present difficulty. Not to break his word, not to be unjust, not to deviate by a hair's breadth from that line of conduct which would be described as "honourable" in the circle to which he belonged; not to give his political enemies an opportunity for calumny,--this was all in all to him. The young widow was very lovely and very rich, and it would have suited him well to marry her.

It would still suit him well to do so, if she would make herself amenable to reason and the laws. He had a.s.sured himself that he was very much in love with her, and had already, in his imagination, received the distinguished heads of his party at Portray Castle.

But he would give all this up,--love, income, beauty, and castle,--without a doubt, rather than find himself in the mess of having married a wife who had stolen a necklace, and who would not make rest.i.tution. He might marry her, and insist on giving it up afterwards; but he foresaw terrible difficulties in the way of such an arrangement. Lady Eustace was self-willed, and had already told him that she did not intend to keep the jewels in his house,--but in her own! What should he do, so that no human being,--not the most bigoted Tory that ever expressed scorn for a Whig lord,--should be able to say that he had done wrong? He was engaged to the lady, and could not simply change his mind and give no reason. He believed in Mr. Camperdown; but he could hardly plead that belief, should he hereafter be accused of heartless misconduct. For aught he knew, Lady Eustace might bring an action against him for breach of promise, and obtain a verdict and damages, and annihilate him as an Under-Secretary. How should he keep his hands quite clean?

Frank Greystock was, as far as he knew, Lizzie's nearest relative in London. The dean was her uncle, but then the dean was down at Bobsborough. It might be necessary for him to go down to Bobsborough;--but in the meantime he would see Frank Greystock.

Greystock was as bitter a Tory as any in England. Greystock was the very man who had attacked him, Lord Fawn, in the House of Commons respecting the Sawab,--making the attack quite personal,--and that without a shadow of a cause! Within the short straight grooves of Lord Fawn's intellect the remembrance of this supposed wrong was always running up and down, renewing its own soreness. He regarded Greystock as an enemy who would lose no opportunity of injuring him.

In his weakness and littleness he was quite unable to judge of other men by himself. He would not go a hair's breadth astray, if he knew it; but because Greystock had, in debate, called him timid and tyrannical, he believed that Greystock would stop short of nothing that might injure him. And yet he must appeal to Greystock. He did appeal, and in answer to his appeal Frank came to him at the India House. But Frank, before he saw Lord Fawn, had, as was fitting, been with his cousin.

Nothing was decided at this interview. Lord Fawn became more than ever convinced that the member for Bobsborough was his determined enemy, and Frank was more convinced than ever that Lord Fawn was an empty, stiff-necked, self-sufficient prig.

Greystock, of course, took his cousin's part. He was there to do so; and he himself really did not know whether Lizzie was or was not ent.i.tled to the diamonds. The lie which she had first fabricated for the benefit of Mr. Benjamin when she had the jewels valued, and which she had since told with different degrees of precision to various people,--to Lady Linlithgow, to Mr. Camperdown, to Lucy, and to Lord Fawn,--she now repeated with increased precision to her cousin. Sir Florian, in putting the trinket into her hands, had explained to her that it was very valuable, and that she was to regard it as her own peculiar property. "If it was an heirloom he couldn't do it," Frank had said, with all the confidence of a practising barrister.

"He made it over as an heirloom to me," said Lizzie, with plaintive tenderness.

"That's nonsense, dear Lizzie." Then she smiled sweetly on him, and patted the back of his hand with hers. She was very gentle with him, and bore his a.s.sumed superiority with pretty meekness. "He could not make it over as an heirloom to you. If it was his to give, he could give it you."

"It was his,--certainly."

"That is just what I cannot tell as yet, and what must be found out.

If the diamonds formed part of an heirloom,--and there is evidence that it is so,--you must give them up. Sir Florian could only give away what was his own to give."