Chapter XII…

Chapter XII

"I Only Thought of It"

There was great perturbation down at Fawn Court. On the day fixed, Monday, June 5, Lizzie arrived. Nothing further had been said by Lady Fawn to urge the invitation; but, in accordance with the arrangement already made, Lady Eustace, with her child, her nurse, and her own maid, was at Fawn Court by four o'clock. A very long letter had been received from Mrs. Hittaway that morning,--the writing of which must have seriously interfered with the tranquillity of her Sunday afternoon. Lord Fawn did not make his appearance at Richmond on the Saturday evening,--nor was he seen on the Sunday. That Sunday was, we may presume, chiefly devoted to reflection. He certainly did not call upon his future wife. His omission to do so no doubt increased Lizzie's urgency in the matter of her visit to Richmond. Frank Greystock had written to congratulate her. "Dear Frank," she had said in reply, "a woman situated as I am has so many things to think of. Lord Fawn's position will be of service to my child. Mind you come and see me at Fawn Court. I count so much on your friendship and assistance."

Of course she was expected at Richmond,--although throughout the morning Lady Fawn had entertained almost a hope that she wouldn't come. "He was only lukewarm in defending her," Mrs. Hittaway had said in her letter, "and I still think that there may be an escape." Not even a note had come from Lord Fawn himself,--nor from Lady Eustace. Possibly something violent might have been done, and Lady Eustace would not appear. But Lady Eustace did appear,--and, after a fashion, was made welcome at Fawn Court.

The Fawn ladies were not good hypocrites. Lady Fawn had said almost nothing to her daughters of her visit to Mount Street, but Augusta had heard the discussion in Mrs. Hittaway's drawing-room as to the character of the future bride. The coming visit had been spoken of almost with awe, and there was a general conviction in the dovecote that an evil thing had fallen upon them. Consequently, their affection to the new-comer, though spoken in words, was not made evident by signs and manners. Lizzie herself took care that the position in which she was received should be sufficiently declared. "It seems so odd that I am to come among you as a sister," she said. The girls were forced to assent to the claim, but they assented coldly. "He has told me to attach myself especially to you," she whispered to Augusta. The unfortunate chosen one, who had but little strength of her own, accepted the position, and then, as the only means of escaping the embraces of her newly-found sister, pleaded the violence of a headache. "My mother!" said Lizzie to Lady Fawn. "Yes, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "One of the girls had perhaps better go up and show you your room." "I am very much afraid about it," said Lady Fawn to her daughter Amelia. Amelia replied only by shaking her head.

On the Tuesday morning there came a note from Lord Fawn to his lady-love. Of course the letter was not shown, but Lizzie received it at the breakfast table, and read it with many little smiles and signs of satisfaction. And then she gave out various little statements as having been made in that letter. He says this, and he says that, and he is coming here, and going there, and he will do one thing, and he won't do the other. We have often seen young ladies crowing over their lovers' letters, and it was pleasant to see Lizzie crowing over hers. And yet there was but very little in the letter. Lord Fawn told her that what with the House and what with the Office, he could not get down to Richmond before Saturday; but that on Saturday he would come. Then he signed himself "yours affectionately, Fawn." Lizzie did her crowing very prettily. The outward show of it was there to perfection,--so that the Fawn girls really believed that their brother had written an affectionate lover's letter. Inwardly, Lizzie swore to herself, as she read the cold words with indignation, that the man should not escape her.

The days went by very tediously. On the Wednesday and the Friday Lady Eustace made an excuse of going up to town, and insisted on taking the unfortunate Augusta with her. There was no real reason for these journeys to London,--unless that glance which on each occasion was given to the contents of the iron case was a real reason. The diamonds were safe, and Miss Macnulty was enjoying herself. On the Friday Lizzie proposed to Augusta that they should jointly make a raid upon the member of Her Majesty's Government at his office; but Augusta positively refused to take such a step. "I know he would be angry," pleaded Augusta. "Psha! who cares for his anger?" said Lizzie. But the visit was not made.

On the Saturday,--the Saturday which was to bring Lord Fawn down to dinner,--another most unexpected visitor made his appearance. At about three o'clock Frank Greystock was at Fawn Court. Now it was certainly understood that Mr. Greystock had been told not to come to Fawn Court as long as Lucy Morris was there. "Dear Mr. Greystock, I'm sure you will take what I say as I mean it," Lady Fawn had whispered to him. "You know how attached we all are to our dear little Lucy. Perhaps you know--." There had been more of it; but the meaning of it all was undoubtedly this,--that Frank was not to pay visits to Lucy Morris at Fawn Court. Now he had come to see his cousin Lizzie Eustace.

On this occasion Lady Fawn, with Amelia and two of the other girls, were out in the carriage. The unfortunate Augusta had been left at home with her bosom friend;--while Cecilia and Nina were supposed to be talking French with Lucy Morris. They were all out in the grounds, sitting upon the benches, and rambling among the shrubberies, when of a sudden Frank Greystock was in the midst of them. Lizzie's expression of joy at seeing her cousin was almost as great as though he had been in fact a brother. She ran up to him and grasped his hand, and hung on his arm, and looked up into his face, and then burst into tears. But the tears were not violent tears. There were just three sobs, and two bright eyes full of water, and a lace handkerchief,--and then a smile. "Oh, Frank," she said, "it does make one think so of old times!" Augusta had by this time been almost persuaded to believe in her,--though the belief by no means made the poor young woman happy. Frank thought that his cousin looked very well, and said something as to Lord Fawn being "the happiest fellow going." "I hope I shall make him happy," said Lizzie, clasping her hands together.

Lucy meanwhile was standing in the circle with the others. It never occurred to her that it was her duty to run away from the man she loved. She had shaken hands with him, and felt something of affection in his pressure. She did believe that his visit was made entirely to his cousin, and had no idea at the moment of disobeying Lady Fawn. During the last few days she had been thrown very much with her old friend Lizzie, and had been treated by the future peeress with many signs of almost sisterly affection. "Dear Lucy," Lizzie had said, "you can understand me. These people,--oh, they are so good, but they can't understand me." Lucy had expressed a hope that Lord Fawn understood her. "Oh, Lord Fawn,--well; yes; perhaps;--I don't know. It so often happens that one's husband is the last person to understand one."

"If I thought so, I wouldn't marry him," said Lucy.

"Frank Greystock will understand you," said Lizzie. It was indeed true that Lucy did understand something of her wealthy friend's character, and was almost ashamed of the friendship. With Lizzie Greystock she had never sympathised, and Lizzie Eustace had always been distasteful to her. She already felt that the less she should see of Lizzie Fawn the better she should like it.

Before an hour was over, Frank Greystock was walking round the shrubberies with Lucy,--and was walking with Lucy alone. It was undoubtedly the fact that Lady Eustace had contrived that it should be so. The unfitness of the thing recommended it to her. Frank could hardly marry a wife without a shilling. Lucy would certainly not think at all of shillings. Frank,--as Lizzie knew,--had been almost at her feet within the last fortnight, and might, in some possible emergency, be there again. In the midst of such circumstances nothing could be better than that Frank and Lucy should be thrown together. Lizzie regarded all this as romance. Poor Lady Fawn, had she known it all, would have called it diabolical wickedness and inhuman cruelty.

"Well, Lucy;--what do you think of it?" Frank Greystock said to her.

"Think of what, Mr. Greystock?"

"You know what I mean;--this marriage?"

"How should I be able to think? I have never seen them together. I suppose Lord Fawn isn't very rich. She is rich. And then she is very beautiful. Don't you think her very beautiful?"

"Sometimes exquisitely lovely."

"Everybody says so;--and I am sure it is the fact. Do you know;--but perhaps you'll think I am envious."

"If I thought you envious of Lizzie, I should have to think you very foolish at the same time."

"I don't know what that means;"--she did know well enough what it meant;--"but sometimes to me she is almost frightful to look at."

"In what way?"

"Oh, I can't tell you. She looks like a beautiful animal that you are afraid to caress for fear it should bite you;--an animal that would be beautiful if its eyes were not so restless, and its teeth so sharp and so white."

"How very odd."

"Why odd, Mr. Greystock?"

"Because I feel exactly in the same way about her. I am not in the least afraid that she'll bite me; and as for caressing the animal,--that kind of caressing which you mean,--it seems to me to be just what she's made for. But, I do feel sometimes, that she is like a cat."

"Something not quite so tame as a cat," said Lucy.

"Nevertheless she is very lovely,--and very clever. Sometimes I think her the most beautiful woman I ever saw in the world."

"Do you, indeed?"

"She will be immensely run after as Lady Fawn. When she pleases she can make her own house quite charming. I never knew a woman who could say pretty things to so many people at once."

"You are making her out to be a paragon of perfection, Mr. Greystock."

"And when you add to all the rest that she has four thousand a year, you must admit that Lord Fawn is a lucky man."

"I have said nothing against it."

"Four thousand a year is a very great consideration, Lucy." Lucy for a while said nothing. She was making up her mind that she would say nothing;--that she would make no reply indicative of any feeling on her part. But she was not sufficiently strong to keep her resolution. "I wonder, Mr. Greystock," she said, "that you did not attempt to win the great prize yourself. Cousins do marry."

He had thought of attempting it, and at this moment he would not lie to her. "The cousinship had nothing to do with it," he said.

"Perhaps you did think of it."

"I did, Lucy. Yes, I did. Thank God, I only thought of it." She could not refrain herself from looking up into his face and clasping her hands together. A woman never so dearly loves a man as when he confesses that he has been on the brink of a great crime,--but has refrained, and has not committed it. "I did think of it. I am not telling you that she would have taken me. I have no reason whatever for thinking so."

"I am sure she would," said Lucy, who did not in the least know what words she was uttering.

"It would have been simply for her money,--her money and her beauty. It would not have been because I love her."

"Never--never ask a girl to marry you, unless you love her, Mr. Greystock."

"Then there is only one that I can ever ask," said he. There was nothing of course that she could say to this. If he did not choose to go further, she was not bound to understand him. But would he go further? She felt at the moment that an open declaration of his love to herself would make her happy for ever, even though it should be accompanied by an assurance that he could not marry her. If they only knew each other,--that it was so between them,--that, she thought, would be enough for her. And as for him--if a woman could bear such a position, surely he might bear it. "Do you know who that one is?" he asked.

"No," she said,--shaking her head.

"Lucy, is that true?"

"What does it matter?"

"Lucy;--look at me, Lucy," and he put his hand upon her arm.

"No,--no,--no!" she said.

"I love you so well, Lucy, that I never can love another. I have thought of many women, but could never even think of one, as a woman to love, except you. I have sometimes fancied I could marry for money and position,--to help myself on in the world by means of a wife,--but when my mind has run away with me, to revel amidst ideas of feminine sweetness, you have always--always been the heroine of the tale, as the mistress of the happy castle in the air."

"Have I?" she asked.

"Always,--always. As regards this,"--and he struck himself on the breast,--"no man was ever more constant. Though I don't think much of myself as a man, I know a woman when I see her." But he did not ask her to be his wife;--nor did he wait at Fawn Court till Lady Fawn had come back with the carriage.

XIII. Showing What Frank Greystock Did

Frank Greystock escaped from the dovecote before Lady Fawn had returned. He had not made his visit to Richmond with any purpose of seeing Lucy Morris, or of saying to her when he did see her anything special,--of saying anything that should, or anything that should not, have been said. He had gone there, in truth, simply because his cousin had asked him, and because it was almost a duty on his part to see his cousin on the momentous occasion of this new engagement. But he had declared to himself that old Lady Fawn was a fool, and that to see Lucy again would be very pleasant. "See her;--of course I'll see her," he had said. "Why should I be prevented from seeing her?" Now he had seen her, and as he returned by the train to London, he acknowledged to himself that it was no longer in his power to promote his fortune by marriage. He had at last said that to Lucy which made it impossible for him to offer his hand to any other woman. He had not, in truth, asked her to be his wife; but he had told her that he loved her, and could never love any other woman. He had asked for no answer to this assurance, and then he had left her.

In the course of that afternoon he did question himself as to his conduct to this girl, and subjected himself to some of the rigours of a cross-examination. He was not a man who could think of a girl as the one human being whom he loved above all others, and yet look forward with equanimity to the idea of doing her an injury. He could understand that a man unable to marry should be reticent as to his feelings,--supposing him to have been weak enough to have succumbed to a passion which could only mar his own prospects. He was frank enough in owning to himself that he had been thus weak. The weakness had come upon himself early in life,--and was there, an established fact. The girl was to him unlike any other girl;--or any man. There was to him a sweetness in her companionship which he could not analyse. She was not beautiful. She had none of the charms of fashion. He had never seen her well-dressed,--according to the ideas of dress which he found to be prevailing in the world. She was a little thing, who, as a man's wife, could attract no attention by figure, form, or outward manner,--one who had quietly submitted herself to the position of a governess, and who did not seem to think that in doing so she obtained less than her due. But yet he knew her to be better than all the rest. For him, at any rate, she was better than all the rest. Her little hand was cool and sweet to him. Sometimes when he was heated and hard at work, he would fancy how it would be with him if she were by him, and would lay it on his brow. There was a sparkle in her eye that had to him more of sympathy in it than could be conveyed by all the other eyes in the world. There was an expression in her mouth when she smiled, which was more eloquent to him than any sound. There were a reality and a truth about her which came home to him, and made themselves known to him as firm rocks which could not be shaken. He had never declared to himself that deceit or hypocrisy in a woman was especially abominable. As a rule he looked for it in women, and would say that some amount of affectation was necessary to a woman's character. He knew that his cousin Lizzie was a little liar,--that she was, as Lucy had said, a pretty animal that would turn and bite;--and yet he liked his cousin Lizzie. He did not want women to be perfect,--so he would say. But Lucy Morris, in his eyes, was perfect; and when he told her that she was ever the queen who reigned in those castles in the air which he built,--as others build them, he told her no more than the truth.

He had fallen into these feelings and could not now avoid them, or be quit of them;--but he could have been silent respecting them. He knew that in former days, down at Bobsborough, he had not been altogether silent. When he had first seen her at Fawn Court he had not been altogether silent. But he had been warned away from Fawn Court, and in that very warning there was conveyed, as it were, an absolution from the effect of words hitherto spoken. Though he had called Lady Fawn an old fool, he had known that it was so,--had, after a fashion, perceived her wisdom,--and had regarded himself as a man free to decide, without disgrace, that he might abandon ideas of ecstatic love and look out for a rich wife. Presuming himself to be reticent for the future in reference to his darling Lucy, he might do as he pleased with himself. Thus there had come a moment in which he had determined that he would ask his rich cousin to marry him. In that little project he had been interrupted, and the reader knows what had come of it. Lord Fawn's success had not in the least annoyed him. He had only half resolved in regard to his cousin. She was very beautiful no doubt, and there was her income;--but he also knew that those teeth would bite and that those claws would scratch. But Lord Fawn's success had given a turn to his thoughts, and had made him think, for a moment, that if a man loved, he should be true to his love. The reader also knows what had come of that,--how at last he had not been reticent. He had not asked Lucy to be his wife; but he had said that which made it impossible that he should marry any other woman without dishonour.

As he thought of what he had done himself, he tried to remember whether Lucy had said a word expressive of affection for himself. She had in truth spoken very few words, and he could remember almost every one of them. "Have I?"--she had asked, when he told her that she had ever been the princess reigning in his castles. And there had been a joy in the question which she had not attempted to conceal. She had hesitated not at all. She had not told him that she loved him. But there had been something sweeter than such protestation in the question she had asked him. "Is it indeed true," she had said, "that I have been placed there where all my joy and all my glory lies?" It was not in her to tell a lie to him, even by a tone. She had intended to say nothing of her love, but he knew that it had all been told. "Have I?"--he repeated the words to himself a dozen times, and as he did so, he could hear her voice. Certainly there never was a voice that brought home to the hearer so strong a sense of its own truth!

Why should he not at once make up his mind to marry her? He could do it. There was no doubt of that. It was possible for him to alter the whole manner of his life, to give up his clubs,--to give up even Parliament, if the need to do so was there,--and to live as a married man on the earnings of his profession. There was no need why he should regard himself as a poor man. Two things, no doubt, were against his regarding himself as a rich man. Ever since he had commenced life in London he had been more or less in debt; and then, unfortunately, he had acquired a seat in Parliament at a period of his career in which the dangers of such a position were greater than the advantages. Nevertheless he could earn an income on which he and his wife, were he to marry, could live in all comfort; and as to his debts, if he would set his shoulder to the work they might be paid off in a twelvemonth. There was nothing in the prospect which would frighten Lucy, though there might be a question whether he possessed the courage needed for so violent a change.

He had chambers in the Temple; he lived in rooms which he hired from month to month in one of the big hotels at the West End; and he dined at his club, or at the House, when he was not dining with a friend. It was an expensive and a luxurious mode of life,--and one from the effects of which a man is prone to drift very quickly into selfishness. He was by no means given to drinking,--but he was already learning to like good wine. Small economies in reference to cab-hire, gloves, umbrellas, and railway fares were unknown to him. Sixpences and shillings were things with which, in his mind, it was grievous to have to burden the thoughts. The Greystocks had all lived after that fashion. Even the dean himself was not free from the charge of extravagance. All this Frank knew, and he did not hesitate to tell himself, that he must make a great change if he meant to marry Lucy Morris. And he was wise enough to know that the change would become more difficult every day that it was postponed. Hitherto the question had been an open question with him. Could it now be an open question any longer? As a man of honour, was he not bound to share his lot with Lucy Morris?

That evening,--that Saturday evening,--it so happened that he met John Eustace at a club to which they both belonged, and they dined together. They had long known each other, and had been thrown into closer intimacy by the marriage between Sir Florian and Lizzie. John Eustace had never been fond of Lizzie, and now, in truth, liked her less than ever; but he did like Lizzie's cousin, and felt that possibly Frank might be of use to him in the growing difficulty of managing the heir's property and looking after the heir's interests. "You've let the widow slip through your fingers," he said to Frank, as they sat together at the table.

"I told you Lord Fawn was to be the lucky man," said Frank.

"I know you did. I hadn't seen it. I can only say I wish it had been the other way."

"Why so? Fawn isn't a bad fellow."

"No;--not exactly a bad fellow. He isn't, you know, what I call a good fellow. In the first place, he is marrying her altogether for her money."

"Which is just what you advised me to do."

"I thought you really liked her. And then Fawn will be always afraid of her,--and won't be in the least afraid of us. We shall have to fight him, and he won't fight her. He's a cantankerous fellow,--is Fawn,--when he's not afraid of his adversary."

"But why should there be any fighting?"

Eustace paused a minute, and rubbed his face and considered the matter before he answered. "She is troublesome, you know," he said.

"What; Lizzie?"

"Yes;--and I begin to be afraid she'll give us as much as we know how to do. I was with Camperdown to-day. I'm blessed if she hasn't begun to cut down a whole side of a forest at Portray. She has no more right to touch the timber, except for repairs about the place, than you have."

"And if she lives for fifty years," asked Greystock, "is none to be cut?"

"Yes;--by consent. Of course the regular cutting for the year is done, year by year. That's as regular as the rents, and the produce is sold by the acre. But she is marking the old oaks. What the deuce can she want money for?"

"Fawn will put all that right."

"He'll have to do it," said Eustace. "Since she has been down with the old Lady Fawn, she has written a note to Camperdown,--after leaving all his letters unanswered for the last twelvemonth,--to tell him that Lord Fawn is to have nothing to do with her property, and that certain people, called Mowbray and Mopus, are her lawyers. Camperdown is in an awful way about it."

"Lord Fawn will put it all right," said Frank.

"Camperdown is afraid that he won't. They've met twice since the engagement was made, and Camperdown says that, at the last meeting, Fawn gave himself airs, or was, at any rate, unpleasant. There were words about those diamonds."

"You don't mean to say that Lord Fawn wants to keep your brother's family jewels?"

"Camperdown didn't say that exactly;--but Fawn made no offer of giving them up. I wasn't there, and only heard what Camperdown told me. Camperdown thinks he's afraid of her."

"I shouldn't wonder at that in the least," said Frank.

"I know there'll be trouble," continued Eustace, "and Fawn won't be able to help us through it. She's a strong-willed, cunning, obstinate, clever little creature. Camperdown swears he'll be too many for her, but I almost doubt it."

"And therefore you wish I were going to marry her?"

"Yes, I do. You might manage her. The money comes from the Eustace property, and I'd sooner it should go to you than a half-hearted, numb-fingered, cold-blooded Whig, like Fawn."

"I don't like cunning women," said Frank.

"As bargains go, it wouldn't be a bad one," said Eustace. "She's very young, has a noble jointure, and is as handsome as she can stand. It's too good a thing for Fawn;--too good for any Whig."

When Eustace left him, Greystock lit his cigar and walked with it in his mouth from Pall Mall to the Temple. He often worked there at night when he was not bound to be in the House, or when the House was not sitting,--and he was now intent on mastering the mysteries of some much-complicated legal case which had been confided to him, in order that he might present it to a jury enveloped in increased mystery. But, as he went, he thought rather of matrimony than of law;--and he thought especially of matrimony as it was about to affect Lord Fawn. Could a man be justified in marrying for money, or have rational ground for expecting that he might make himself happy by doing so? He kept muttering to himself as he went, the Quaker's advice to the old farmer, "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is!" But he muttered it as condemning the advice rather than accepting it.

He could look out and see two altogether different kinds of life before him, both of which had their allurements. There was the Belgravia-cum-Pimlico life, the scene of which might extend itself to South Kensington, enveloping the parks and coming round over Park Lane, and through Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square back to Piccadilly. Within this he might live with lords and countesses and rich folk generally, going out to the very best dinner-parties, avoiding stupid people, having everything the world could give, except a wife and family and home of his own. All this he could achieve by the work which would certainly fall in his way, and by means of that position in the world which he had already attained by his wits. And the wife, with the family and house of his own, might be forthcoming, should it ever come in his way to form an attachment with a wealthy woman. He knew how dangerous were the charms of such a life as this to a man growing old among the flesh-pots, without any one to depend upon him. He had seen what becomes of the man who is always dining out at sixty. But he might avoid that. "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is." And then there was that other outlook, the scene of which was laid somewhere north of Oxford Street, and the glory of which consisted in Lucy's smile, and Lucy's hand, and Lucy's kiss, as he returned home weary from his work.

There are many men, and some women, who pass their lives without knowing what it is to be or to have been in love. They not improbably marry,--the men do, at least,--and make good average husbands. Their wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live honest lives, are good Christians, and depart hence with hopes as justifiable as though they had loved as well as Romeo. But yet, as men, they have lacked a something, the want of which has made them small and poor and dry. It has never been felt by such a one that there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master of a human heart. And there are other men,--very many men,--who have felt this love, and have resisted it, feeling it to be unfit that Love should be Lord of all. Frank Greystock had told himself, a score of times, that it would be unbecoming in him to allow a passion to obtain such mastery of him as to interfere with his ambition. Could it be right that he who, as a young man, had already done so much, who might possibly have before him so high and great a career, should miss that, because he could not resist a feeling which a little chit of a girl had created in his bosom,--a girl without money, without position, without even beauty; a girl as to whom, were he to marry her, the world would say, "Oh, heaven!--there has Frank Greystock gone and married a little governess out of old Lady Fawn's nursery!" And yet he loved her with all his heart, and to-day he had told her of his love. What should he do next?

The complicated legal case received neither much ravelling nor unravelling from his brains that night; but before he left his chambers he wrote the following letter:--

Midnight, Saturday, All among my books and papers, 2, Bolt Court, Middle Temple.

DEAR, DEAR LUCY,

I told you to-day that you had ever been the Queen who reigned in those palaces which I have built in Spain. You did not make me much of an answer; but such as it was,--only just one muttered doubtful-sounding word,--it has made me hope that I may be justified in asking you to share with me a home which will not be palatial. If I am wrong--? But no;--I will not think I am wrong, or that I can be wrong. No sound coming from you is really doubtful. You are truth itself, and the muttered word would have been other than it was, if you had not--! may I say,--had you not already learned to love me?

You will feel, perhaps, that I ought to have said all this to you then, and that a letter in such a matter is but a poor substitute for a spoken assurance of affection. You shall have the whole truth. Though I have long loved you, I did not go down to Fawn Court with the purpose of declaring to you my love. What I said to you was God's truth; but it was spoken without thought at the moment. I have thought of it much since;--and now I write to ask you to be my wife. I have lived for the last year or two with this hope before me; and now-- Dear, dear Lucy, I will not write in too great confidence; but I will tell you that all my happiness is in your hands.

If your answer is what I hope it may be, tell Lady Fawn at once. I shall immediately write to Bobsborough, as I hate secrets in such matters. And if it is to be so,--then I shall claim the privilege of going to Fawn Court as soon and as often as I please.

Yours ever and always,--if you will have me,--

F. G.

He sat for an hour at his desk, with his letter lying on the table, before he left his chambers,--looking at it. If he should decide on posting it, then would that life in Belgravia-cum-Pimlico,--of which in truth he was very fond,--be almost closed for him. The lords and countesses, and rich county members, and leading politicians, who were delighted to welcome him, would not care for his wife; nor could he very well take his wife among them. To live with them as a married man, he must live as they lived;--and must have his own house in their precincts. Later in life, he might possibly work up to this;--but for the present he must retire into dim domestic security and the neighbourhood of Regent's Park. He sat looking at the letter, telling himself that he was now, at this moment, deciding his own fate in life. And he again muttered the Quaker's advice, "Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is!" It may be said, however, that no man ever writes such a letter, and then omits to send it. He walked out of the Temple with it in his hand, and dropped it into a pillar letter-box just outside the gate. As the envelope slipped through his fingers, he felt that he had now bound himself to his fate.

Chapter XIV

"Doan't Thou Marry for Munny"

As that Saturday afternoon wore itself away, there was much excitement at Fawn Court. When Lady Fawn returned with the carriage, she heard that Frank Greystock had been at Fawn Court; and she heard also, from Augusta, that he had been rambling about the grounds alone with Lucy Morris. At any exhibition of old ladies, held before a competent jury, Lady Fawn would have taken a prize on the score of good humour. No mother of daughters was ever less addicted to scold and to be fretful. But just now she was a little unhappy. Lizzie's visit had not been a success, and she looked forward to her son's marriage with almost unmixed dismay. Mrs. Hittaway had written daily, and in all Mrs. Hittaway's letters some addition was made to the evil things already known. In her last letter Mrs. Hittaway had expressed her opinion that even yet "Frederic" would escape. All this Lady Fawn had, of course, not told to her daughters generally. To the eldest, Augusta, it was thought expedient to say nothing, because Augusta had been selected as the companion of the, alas! too probable future Lady Fawn. But to Amelia something did leak out, and it became apparent that the household was uneasy. Now,--as an evil added to this,--Frank Greystock had been there in Lady Fawn's absence, walking about the grounds alone with Lucy Morris. Lady Fawn could hardly restrain herself. "How could Lucy be so very wrong?" she said, in the hearing both of Augusta and Amelia.

Lizzie Eustace did not hear this; but knowing very well that a governess should not receive a lover in the absence of the lady of the house, she made her little speech about it. "Dear Lady Fawn," she said, "my cousin Frank came to see me while you were out."

"So I hear," said Lady Fawn.

"Frank and I are more like brother and sister than anything else. I had so much to say to him;--so much to ask him to do! I have no one else, you know, and I had especially told him to come here."

"Of course he was welcome to come."

"Only I was afraid you might think that there was some little lover's trick,--on dear Lucy's part, you know."

"I never suspect anything of that kind," said Lady Fawn, bridling up. "Lucy Morris is above any sort of trick. We don't have any tricks here, Lady Eustace." Lady Fawn herself might say that Lucy was "wrong," but no one else in that house should even suggest evil of Lucy. Lizzie retreated smiling. To have "put Lady Fawn's back up," as she called it, was to her an achievement and a pleasure.

But the great excitement of the evening consisted in the expected coming of Lord Fawn. Of what nature would be the meeting between Lord Fawn and his promised bride? Was there anything of truth in the opinion expressed by Mrs. Hittaway that her brother was beginning to become tired of his bargain? That Lady Fawn was tired of it herself,--that she disliked Lizzie, and was afraid of her, and averse to the idea of regarding her as a daughter-in-law,--she did not now attempt to hide from herself. But there was the engagement, known to all the world, and how could its fulfilment now be avoided? The poor dear old woman began to repeat to herself the first half of the Quaker's advice, "Doan't thou marry for munny."

Lord Fawn was to come down only in time for a late dinner. An ardent lover, one would have thought, might have left his work somewhat earlier on a Saturday, so as to have enjoyed with his sweetheart something of the sweetness of the Saturday summer afternoon;--but it was seven before he reached Fawn Court, and the ladies were at that time in their rooms dressing. Lizzie had affected to understand all his reasons for being so late, and had expressed herself as perfectly satisfied. "He has more to do than any of the others," she had said to Augusta. "Indeed, the whole of our vast Indian empire may be said to hang upon him, just at present;"--which was not complimentary to Lord Fawn's chief, the Right Honourable Legge Wilson, who at the present time represented the interests of India in the Cabinet. "He is terribly overworked, and it is a shame;--but what can one do?"

"I think he likes work," Augusta had replied.

"But I don't like it,--not so much of it; and so I shall make him understand, my dear. But I don't complain. As long as he tells me everything, I will never really complain." Perhaps it might some day be as she desired; perhaps as a husband he would be thoroughly confidential and communicative; perhaps when they two were one flesh he would tell her everything about India;--but as yet he certainly had not told her much.

"How had they better meet?" Amelia asked her mother.

"Oh;--I don't know;--anyhow; just as they like. We can't arrange anything for her. If she had chosen to dress herself early, she might have seen him as he came in; but it was impossible to tell her so." No arrangement was therefore made, and as all the other ladies were in the drawing-room before Lizzie came down, she had to give him his welcome in the midst of the family circle. She did it very well. Perhaps she had thought of it, and made her arrangements. When he came forward to greet her, she put her cheek up, just a little, so that he might see that he was expected to kiss it;--but so little, that should he omit to do so, there might be no visible awkwardness. It must be acknowledged on Lizzie's behalf, that she could always avoid awkwardness. He did touch her cheek with his lips, blushing as he did so. She had her ungloved hand in his, and, still holding him, returned into the circle. She said not a word; and what he said was of no moment;--but they had met as lovers, and any of the family who had allowed themselves to imagine that even yet the match might be broken, now unconsciously abandoned that hope. "Was he always such a truant, Lady Fawn?"--Lizzie asked, when it seemed to her that no one else would speak a word.

"I don't know that there is much difference," said Lady Fawn. "Here is dinner. Frederic, will you give--Lady Eustace your arm?" Poor Lady Fawn! It often came to pass that she was awkward.

There were no less than ten females sitting round the board, at the bottom of which Lord Fawn took his place. Lady Fawn had especially asked Lucy to come in to dinner, and with Lucy had come the two younger girls. At Lord Fawn's right hand sat Lizzie, and Augusta at his left. Lady Fawn had Amelia on one side and Lucy on the other. "So Mr. Greystock was here to-day," Lady Fawn whispered into Lucy's ear.

"Yes; he was here."

"Oh, Lucy!"

"I did not bid him come, Lady Fawn."

"I am sure of that, my dear;--but--but--" Then there was no more to be said on that subject on that occasion.

During the whole of the dinner the conversation was kept up at the other end of the table by Lizzie talking to Augusta across her lover. This was done in such a manner as to seem to include Lord Fawn in every topic discussed. Parliament, India, the Sawab, Ireland, the special privileges of the House of Lords, the ease of a bachelor life, and the delight of having at his elbow just such a rural retreat as Fawn Court,--these were the fruitful themes of Lizzie's eloquence. Augusta did her part at any rate with patience; and as for Lizzie herself, she worked with that superhuman energy which women can so often display in making conversation under unfavourable circumstances. The circumstances were unfavourable, for Lord Fawn himself would hardly open his mouth; but Lizzie persevered, and the hour of dinner passed over without any show of ill-humour, or of sullen silence. When the hour was over, Lord Fawn left the room with the ladies, and was soon closeted with his mother, while the girls strolled out upon the lawn. Would Lizzie play croquet? No; Lizzie would not play croquet. She thought it probable that she might catch her lover and force him to walk with her through the shrubberies; but Lord Fawn was not seen upon the lawn that evening, and Lizzie was forced to content herself with Augusta as a companion. In the course of the evening, however, her lover did say a word to her in private. "Give me ten minutes to-morrow between breakfast and church, Lizzie." Lizzie promised that she would do so, smiling sweetly. Then there was a little music, and then Lord Fawn retired to his studies.

"What is he going to say to me?" Lizzie asked Augusta the next morning. There existed in her bosom a sort of craving after confidential friendship,--but with it there existed something that was altogether incompatible with confidence. She thoroughly despised Augusta Fawn, and yet would have been willing,--in want of a better friend,--to press Augusta to her bosom, and swear that there should ever be between them the tenderest friendship. She desired to be the possessor of the outward shows of all those things of which the inward facts are valued by the good and steadfast ones of the earth. She knew what were the aspirations,--what the ambition, of an honest woman; and she knew, too, how rich were the probable rewards of such honesty. True love, true friendship, true benevolence, true tenderness, were beautiful to her,--qualities on which she could descant almost with eloquence; and therefore she was always shamming love and friendship and benevolence and tenderness. She could tell you, with words most appropriate to the subject, how horrible were all shams, and in saying so would be not altogether insincere;--yet she knew that she herself was ever shamming, and she satisfied herself with shams. "What is he going to say to me?" she asked Augusta, with her hands clasped, when she went up to put her bonnet on after breakfast.

"To fix the day, I suppose," said Augusta.

"If I thought so, I would endeavour to please him. But it isn't that. I know his manner so well! I am sure it is not that. Perhaps it is something about my boy. He will not wish to separate a mother from her child."

"Oh dear, no," said Augusta. "I am sure Frederic will not want to do that."

"In anything else I will obey him," said Lizzie, again clasping her hands. "But I must not keep him waiting,--must I? I fear my future lord is somewhat impatient." Now, if among Lord Fawn's merits one merit was more conspicuous than another, it was that of patience. When Lizzie descended he was waiting for her in the hall without a thought that he was being kept too long. "Now, Frederic! I should have been with you two whole minutes since, if I had not had just a word to say to Augusta. I do so love Augusta."

"She is a very good girl," said Lord Fawn.

"So true and genuine,--and so full of spirit. I will come on the other side because of my parasol and the sun. There, that will do. We have an hour nearly before going to church;--haven't we? I suppose you will go to church."

"I intend it," said Lord Fawn.

"It is so nice to go to church," said Lizzie. Since her widowhood had commenced, she had compromised matters with the world. One Sunday she would go to church, and the next she would have a headache and a French novel and stay in bed. But she was prepared for stricter conduct during at least the first months of her newly-married life.

"My dear Lizzie," began Lord Fawn, "since I last saw you I have been twice with Mr. Camperdown."

"You are not going to talk about Mr. Camperdown to-day?"

"Well;--yes. I could not do so last night, and I shall be back in London either to-night or before you are up to-morrow morning."

"I hate the very name of Mr. Camperdown," said Lizzie.

"I am sorry for that, because I am sure you could not find an honester lawyer to manage your affairs for you. He does everything for me, and so he did for Sir Florian Eustace."

"That is just the reason why I employ some one else," she answered.

"Very well. I am not going to say a word about that. I may regret it, but I am, just at present, the last person in the world to urge you upon that subject. What I want to say is this. You must restore those diamonds."

"To whom shall I restore them?"

"To Mr. Garnett, the silversmith, if you please,--or to Mr. Camperdown;--or, if you like it better, to your brother-in-law, Mr. John Eustace."

"And why am I to give up my own property?"

Lord Fawn paused for some seconds before he replied. "To satisfy my honour," he then said. As she made him no immediate answer, he continued,--"It would not suit my views that my wife should be seen wearing the jewels of the Eustace family."

"I don't want to wear them," said Lizzie.

"Then why should you desire to keep them?"

"Because they are my own. Because I do not choose to be put upon. Because I will not allow such a cunning old snake as Mr. Camperdown to rob me of my property. They are my own, and you should defend my right to them."

"Do you mean to say that you will not oblige me by doing what I ask you?"

"I will not be robbed of what is my own," said Lizzie.

"Then I must declare--" and now Lord Fawn spoke very slowly--"then I must declare that under these circumstances, let the consequences be what they may, I must retreat from the enviable position which your favour has given me." The words were cold and solemn, and were ill-spoken; but they were deliberate, and had been indeed actually learned by heart.

"What do you mean?" said Lizzie, flashing round upon him.

"I mean what I say,--exactly. But perhaps it may be well that I should explain my motives more clearly."

"I don't know anything about motives, and I don't care anything about motives. Do you mean to tell me that you have come here to threaten me with deserting me?"

"You had better hear me."

"I don't choose to hear a word more after what you have said,--unless it be in the way of an apology, or retracting your most injurious accusation."

"I have said nothing to retract," said Lord Fawn solemnly.

"Then I will not hear another word from you. I have friends, and you shall see them."

Lord Fawn, who had thought a great deal upon the subject, and had well understood that this interview would be for him one of great difficulty, was very anxious to induce her to listen to a few further words of explanation. "Dear Lizzie--" he began.

"I will not be addressed, sir, in that way by a man who is treating me as you are doing," she said.

"But I want you to understand me."

"Understand you! You understand nothing yourself that a man ought to understand. I wonder that you have the courage to be so insolent. If you knew what you were doing, you would not have the spirit to do it."

Her words did not quite come home to him, and much of her scorn was lost upon him. He was now chiefly anxious to explain to her that though he must abide by the threat he had made, he was quite willing to go on with his engagement if she would oblige him in the matter of the diamonds. "It was necessary that I should explain to you that I could not allow that necklace to be brought into my house."

"No one thought of taking it to your house."

"What were you to do with it, then?"

"Keep it in my own," said Lizzie stoutly. They were still walking together, and were now altogether out of sight of the house. Lizzie in her excitement had forgotten church, had forgotten the Fawn women,--had forgotten everything except the battle which it was necessary that she should fight for herself. She did not mean to allow the marriage to be broken off,--but she meant to retain the necklace. The manner in which Lord Fawn had demanded its restitution,--in which there had been none of that mock tenderness by which she might have permitted herself to be persuaded,--had made her, at any rate for the moment, as firm as steel on this point. It was inconceivable to her that he should think himself at liberty to go back from his promise, because she would not render up property which was in her possession, and which no one could prove not to be legally her own! She walked on full of fierce courage,--despising him, but determined that she would marry him.

"I am afraid we do not understand each other," he said at last.

"Certainly I do not understand you, sir."

"Will you allow my mother to speak to you on the subject?"

"No. If I told your mother to give up her diamonds, what would she say?"

"But they are not yours, Lady Eustace, unless you will submit that question to an arbitrator."

"I will submit nothing to anybody. You have no right to speak on such a subject till after we are married."

"I must have it settled first, Lady Eustace."

"Then, Lord Fawn, you won't have it settled first. Or rather it is settled already. I shall keep my own necklace, and Mr. Camperdown may do anything he pleases. As for you,--if you ill-treat me, I shall know where to go to." They had now come out from the shrubbery upon the lawn, and there was the carriage at the door, ready to take the elders of the family to church. Of course in such a condition of affairs it would be understood that Lizzie was one of the elders. "I shall not go to church now," she said, as she advanced across the lawn towards the hall door. "You will be pleased, Lord Fawn, to let your mother know that I am detained. I do not suppose that you will dare to tell her why." Then she sailed round at the back of the carriage and entered the hall, in which several of the girls were standing. Among them was Augusta, waiting to take her seat among the elders;--but Lizzie passed on through them all, without a word, and marched up to her bed-room.

"Oh, Frederic, what is the matter?" asked Augusta, as soon as her brother entered the house.

"Never mind. Nothing is the matter. You had better go to church. Where is my mother?"

At this moment Lady Fawn appeared at the bottom of the stairs, having passed Lizzie as she was coming down. Not a syllable had then been spoken, but Lady Fawn at once knew that much was wrong. Her son went up to her and whispered a word in her ear. "Oh, certainly," she said, desisting from the operation of pulling on her gloves. "Augusta, neither your brother nor I will go to church."

"Nor--Lady Eustace?"

"It seems not," said Lady Fawn.

"Lady Eustace will not go to church," said Lord Fawn.

"And where is Lucy?" asked Lydia.

"She will not go to church either," said Lady Fawn. "I have just been with her."

"Nobody is going to church," said Nina. "All the same, I shall go by myself."

"Augusta, my dear, you and the girls had better go. You can take the carriage of course." But Augusta and the girls chose to walk, and the carriage was sent round into the yard.

"There's a rumpus already between my lord and the young missus," said the coachman to the groom;--for the coachman had seen the way in which Lady Eustace had returned to the house. And there certainly was a rumpus. During the whole morning Lord Fawn was closeted with his mother, and then he went away to London without saying a word to any one of the family. But he left this note for Lady Eustace:--

DEAREST LIZZIE,

Think well of what I have said to you. It is not that I desire to break off our engagement; but that I cannot allow my wife to keep the diamonds which belong of right to her late husband's family. You may be sure that I should not be thus urgent had I not taken steps to ascertain that I am right in my judgment. In the meantime you had better consult my mother.

Yours affectionately,

FAWN.

Chapter XV

"I'll Give You a Hundred Guinea Brooch"

There had been another "affair" in the house that morning, though of a nature very different to the "rumpus" which had occurred between Lord Fawn and Lady Eustace. Lady Fawn had been closeted with Lucy, and had expressed her opinion of the impropriety of Frank Greystock's visit. "I suppose he came to see his cousin," said Lady Fawn, anxious to begin with some apology for such conduct.

"I cannot tell," said Lucy. "Perhaps he did. I think he said so. I think he cared more to see me." Then Lady Fawn was obliged to express her opinion, and she did so, uttering many words of wisdom. Frank Greystock, had he intended to sacrifice his prospects by a disinterested marriage, would have spoken out before now. He was old enough to have made up his mind on such a subject, and he had not spoken out. He did not mean marriage. That was quite evident to Lady Fawn;--and her dear Lucy was revelling in hopes which would make her miserable. If Lucy could only have known of the letter, which was already her own property though lying in the pillar letter-box in Fleet Street, and which had not already been sent down and delivered simply because it was Sunday morning! But she was very brave. "He does love me," she said. "He told me so."

"Oh, Lucy;--that is worse and worse. A man to tell you that he loves you, and yet not ask you to be his wife!"

"I am contented," said Lucy. That assertion, however, could hardly have been true.

"Contented! And did you tell him that you returned his love?"

"He knew it without my telling him," said Lucy. It was so hard upon her that she should be so interrogated while that letter was lying in the iron box!

"Dear Lucy, this must not be," said Lady Fawn. "You are preparing for yourself inexpressible misery."

"I have done nothing wrong, Lady Fawn."

"No, my dear;--no. I do not say you have been wrong. But I think he is wrong,--so wrong! I call it wicked. I do indeed. For your own sake you should endeavour to forget him."

"I will never forget him!" said Lucy. "To think of him is everything to me. He told me I was his Queen, and he shall be my King. I will be loyal to him always." To poor Lady Fawn this was very dreadful. The girl persisted in declaring her love for the man, and yet did not even pretend to think that the man meant to marry her! And this, too, was Lucy Morris,--of whom Lady Fawn was accustomed to say to her intimate friends that she had altogether ceased to look upon her as a governess. "Just one of ourselves, Mrs. Winslow,--and almost as dear as one of my own girls!" Thus, in the warmth of her heart, she had described Lucy to a neighbour within the last week. Many more words of wisdom she spoke, and then she left poor Lucy in no mood for church. Would she have been in a better mood for the morning service had she known of the letter in the iron post?

Then Lady Fawn had put on her bonnet and gone down into the hall, and the "rumpus" had come. After that, everybody in the house knew that all things were astray. When the girls came home from church, their brother was gone. Half an hour before dinner Lady Fawn sent the note up to Lizzie, with a message to say that they would dine at three,--it being Sunday. Lizzie sent down word that as she was unwell, she would ask to have just a cup of tea and "something" sent to her own room. If Lady Fawn would allow her, she would remain up-stairs with her child. She always made use of her child when troubles came.

The afternoon was very sad and dreary. Lady Fawn had an interview with Lady Eustace, but Lizzie altogether refused to listen to any advice on the subject of the necklace. "It is an affair," she said haughtily, "in which I must judge for myself,--or with the advice of my own particular friends. Had Lord Fawn waited until we were married; then indeed--!"

"But that would have been too late," said Lady Fawn severely.

"He is, at any rate, premature now in laying his commands upon me," said Lizzie. Lady Fawn, who was perhaps more anxious that the marriage should be broken off than that the jewels should be restored, then withdrew; and as she left the room Lizzie clasped her boy to her bosom. "He, at any rate, is left to me," she said. Lucy and the Fawn girls went to evening church, and afterwards Lizzie came down among them when they were at tea. Before she went to bed Lizzie declared her intention of returning to her own house in Mount Street on the following day. To this Lady Fawn of course made no objection.

On the next morning there came an event which robbed Lizzie's departure of some of the importance which might otherwise have been attached to it. The post-office, with that accuracy in the performance of its duties for which it is conspicuous among all offices, caused Lucy's letter to be delivered to her while the members of the family were sitting round the breakfast table. Lizzie, indeed, was not there. She had expressed her intention of breakfasting in her own room, and had requested that a conveyance might be ready to take her to the 11.30 train. Augusta had been with her, asking whether anything could be done for her. "I care for nothing now, except my child," Lizzie had replied. As the nurse and the lady's maid were both in the room, Augusta, of course, could say nothing further. That occurred after prayers, and while the tea was being made. When Augusta reached the breakfast-room, Lucy was cutting up the loaf of bread, and at the same moment the old butler was placing a letter immediately under her eyes. She saw the handwriting and recognised it, but yet she finished cutting the bread. "Lucy, do give me that hunchy bit," said Nina.

"Hunchy is not in the dictionary," said Cecilia.

"I want it in my plate, and not in the dictionary," said Nina.

Lucy did as she was asked, but her hand trembled as she gave the hunch, and Lady Fawn saw that her face was crimson. She took the letter and broke the envelope, and as she drew out the sheet of paper, she looked up at Lady Fawn. The fate of her whole life was in her hands, and there she was standing with all their eyes fixed upon her. She did not even know how to sit down, but, still standing, she read the first words, and at the last, "Dear, dear Lucy,"--"Yours ever and always, if you will have me, F. G." She did not want to read any more of it then. She sat down slowly, put the precious paper back into its envelope, looked round upon them all, and knew that she was crimson to the roots of her hair, blushing like a guilty thing.

"Lucy, my dear," said Lady Fawn,--and Lucy at once turned her face full upon her old friend,--"you have got a letter that agitates you."

"Yes,--I have," she said.

"Go into the book-room. You can come back to breakfast when you have read it, you know." Thereupon Lucy rose from her seat, and retired with her treasure into the book-room. But even when she was there she could not at once read her letter. When the door was closed and she knew that she was alone she looked at it, and then clasped it tight between her hands. She was almost afraid to read it lest the letter itself should contradict the promise which the last words of it had seemed to convey to her. She went up to the window and stood there gazing out upon the gravel road, with her hand containing the letter pressed upon her heart. Lady Fawn had told her that she was preparing for herself inexpressible misery;--and now there had come to her joy so absolutely inexpressible! "A man to tell you that he loves you, and yet not ask you to be his wife!" She repeated to herself Lady Fawn's words,--and then those other words, "Yours ever and always, if you will have me!" Have him, indeed! She threw from her, at once, as vain and wicked and false, all idea of coying her love. She would leap at his neck if he were there, and tell him that for years he had been almost her god. And of course he knew it. "If I will have him! Traitor!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears. Then she reflected that after all it would be well that she should read the letter. There might be conditions;--though what conditions could he propose with which she would not comply? However, she seated herself in a corner of the room and did read the letter. As she read it, she hardly understood it all;--but she understood what she wanted to understand. He asked her to share with him his home. He had spoken to her that day without forethought;--but mustn't such speech be the truest and the sweetest of all speeches? "And now I write to you to ask you to be my wife." Oh, how wrong some people can be in their judgments! How wrong Lady Fawn had been in hers about Frank Greystock! "For the last year or two I have lived with this hope before me." "And so have I," said Lucy. "And so have I;--with that and no other." "Too great confidence! Traitor," she said again, smiling and weeping, "yes, traitor; when of course you knew it." "Is his happiness in my hands? Oh,--then he shall be happy." "Of course I will tell Lady Fawn at once;--instantly. Dear Lady Fawn! But yet she has been so wrong. I suppose she will let him come here. But what does it matter, now that I know it?" "Yours ever and always,--if you will have me.--F. G." "Traitor, traitor, traitor!" Then she got up and walked about the room, not knowing what she did, holding the letter now between her hands, and then pressing it to her lips.

She was still walking about the room when there came a low tap at the door, and Lady Fawn entered. "There is nothing the matter, Lucy?" Lucy stood stock still, with her treasure still clasped, smiling, almost laughing, while the tears ran down her cheeks. "Won't you eat your breakfast, my dear?" said Lady Fawn.

"Oh, Lady Fawn--oh, Lady Fawn!" said Lucy, rushing into her friend's arms.

"What is it, Lucy? I think our little wise one has lost her wits."

"Oh, Lady Fawn, he has asked me!"

"Is it Mr. Greystock?"

"Yes;--Mr. Greystock. He has asked me. He has asked me to be his wife. I thought he loved me. I hoped he did, at least. Oh dear, I did so hope it! And he does!"

"Has he proposed to you?"

"Yes, Lady Fawn. I told you what he said to me. And then he went and wrote this. Is he not noble and good,--and so kind? You shall read it,--but you'll give it me back, Lady Fawn?"

"Certainly I'll give it you back. You don't think I'd rob you of your lover's letter?"

"Perhaps you might think it right."

"If it is really an offer of marriage--," said Lady Fawn very seriously.

"It couldn't be more of an offer if he had sat writing it for ever," said Lucy as she gave up her letter with confidence. Lady Fawn read it with leisurely attention, and smiled as she put the paper back into the envelope. "All the men in the world couldn't say it more plainly," said Lucy, nodding her head forward.

"I don't think they could," said Lady Fawn. "I never read anything plainer in my life. I wish you joy with all my heart, Lucy. There is not a word to be said against him."

"Against him!" said Lucy, who thought that this was very insufficient praise.

"What I mean is, that when I objected to his coming here I was only afraid that he couldn't afford,--or would think, you know, that in his position he couldn't afford to marry a wife without a fortune."

"He may come now, Lady Fawn?"

"Well,--yes; I think so. I shall be glad just to say a word to him. Of course you are in my hands, and I do love you so dearly, Lucy! I could not bear that anything but good should happen to you."

"This is good," said Lucy.

"It won't be good, and Mr. Greystock won't think you good, if you don't come and eat your breakfast." So Lucy was led back into the parlour, and sipped her tea and crunched her toast, while Lydia came and stood over her.

"Of course it is from him?" whispered Lydia. Lucy again nodded her head while she was crunching her toast.

The fact that Mr. Greystock had proposed in form to Lucy Morris was soon known to all the family, and the news certainly did take away something from the importance which would otherwise have been attached to Lizzie's departure. There was not the same awe of the ceremony, the same dread of some scene, which, but for Frank Greystock's letter, would have existed. Of course, Lord Fawn's future matrimonial prospects were to them all an affair of more moment than those of Lucy; but Lord Fawn himself had gone, and had already quarrelled with the lady before he went. There was at present nothing more to be done by them in regard to Lizzie, than just to get rid of her. But Lucy's good fortune, so unexpected, and by her so frankly owned as the very best fortune in the world that could have befallen her, gave an excitement to them all. There could be no lessons that morning for Nina, and the usual studies of the family were altogether interrupted. Lady Fawn purred, and congratulated, and gave good advice, and declared that any other home for Lucy before her marriage would now be quite out of the question. "Of course it wouldn't do for you to go even to Clara," said Lady Fawn,--who seemed to think that there still might be some delay before Frank Greystock would be ready for his wife. "You know, my dear, that he isn't rich;--not for a member of Parliament. I suppose he makes a good income, but I have always heard that he was a little backward when he began. Of course, you know, nobody need be in a hurry." Then Lucy began to think that if Frank should wish to postpone his marriage,--say for three or four years,--she might even yet become a burthen on her friend. "But don't you be frightened," continued Lady Fawn; "you shall never want a home as long as I have one to give you. We shall soon find out what are Mr. Greystock's ideas; and unless he is very unreasonable we'll make things fit."

Then there came a message to Lucy from Lady Eustace. "If you please, miss, Lady Eustace will be glad to see you for a minute up in her room before she starts." So Lucy was torn away from the thoughts of her own happiness, and taken up-stairs to Lady Eustace. "You have heard that I am going?" said Lizzie.

"Yes;--I heard you were to go this morning."

"And you have heard why? I'm sure you will not deceive me, Lucy. Where am I to look for truth, if not to an old, old friend like you?"

"Why should I deceive you, Lizzie?"

"Why, indeed? only that all people do. The world is so false, so material, so worldly! One gives out one's heart and gets in return nothing but dust and ashes,--nothing but ashes and dust. Oh, I have been so disappointed in Lady Fawn!"

"You know she is my dearest friend," said Lucy.

"Psha! I know that you have worked for her like a slave, and that she gives you but a bare pittance."

"She has been more like a mother to me than anything else," said Lucy angrily.

"Because you have been tame. It does not suit me to be tame. It is not my plan to be tame. Have you heard the cause of the disagreement between Lord Fawn and me?"

"Well,--no."

"Tell the truth, Lucy."

"How dare you tell me to tell the truth? Of course I tell the truth. I believe it is something about some property which he wants you to give back to somebody; but I don't know any more."

"Yes, my dear husband, Sir Florian, who understood me,--whom I idolized,--who seemed to have been made for me,--gave me a present. 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 fashion 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 altitude 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."

"Nobody 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 pronounce, 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.

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 assured 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 restitution. 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 entitled 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 assumed 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."

"But Lord Fawn had no right to dictate."

"Certainly not," said Frank; and then he made a promise, which he knew to be rash, that he would stand by his pretty cousin in this affair. "I don't see why you should assume that Lady Eustace is keeping property that doesn't belong to her," he said to Lord Fawn.

"I go by what Camperdown tells me," said Lord Fawn.

"Mr. Camperdown is a very excellent attorney, and a most respectable man," said Greystock. "I have nothing on earth to say against Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Camperdown isn't the law and the prophets, nor yet can we allow him to be judge and jury in such a case as this."

"Surely, Mr. Greystock, you wouldn't wish it to go before a jury."

"You don't understand me, Lord Fawn. If any claim be really made for these jewels by Mr. John Eustace on the part of the heir, or on behalf of the estate, a statement had better be submitted to counsel. The family deeds must be inspected, and no doubt counsel would agree in telling my cousin, Lady Eustace, what she should, or what she should not do. In the meantime, I understand that you are engaged to marry her?"

"I was engaged to her, certainly," said Lord Fawn.

"You can hardly mean to assert, my lord, that you intend to be untrue to your promise, and to throw over your own engagement because my cousin has expressed her wish to retain property which she believes to be her own!" This was said in a tone which made Lord Fawn surer than ever that Greystock was his enemy to the knife. Personally, he was not a coward; and he knew enough of the world to be quite sure that Greystock would not attempt any personal encounter. But morally, Lord Fawn was a coward, and he did fear that the man before him would work him some bitter injury. "You cannot mean that," continued Frank, "and you will probably allow me to assure my cousin that she misunderstood you in the matter."

"I'd sooner see Mr. Camperdown again before I say anything."

"I cannot understand, Lord Fawn, that a gentleman should require an attorney to tell him what to do in such a case as this." They were standing now, and Lord Fawn's countenance was heavy, troubled, and full of doubt. He said nothing, and was probably altogether unaware how eloquent was his face. "My cousin, Lady Eustace," continued Frank, "must not be kept in this suspense. I agree on her behalf that her title to these trinkets must be made the subject of inquiry by persons adequate to form a judgment. Of course, I, as her relative, shall take no part in that inquiry. But, as her relative, I must demand from you an admission that your engagement with her cannot in any way be allowed to depend on the fate of those jewels. She has chosen to accept you as her future husband, and I am bound to see that she is treated with good faith, honour, and fair observance."

Frank made his demand very well, while Lord Fawn was looking like a whipped dog. "Of course," said his lordship, "all I want is, that the right thing should be done."

"The right thing will be done. My cousin wishes to keep nothing that is not her own. I may tell her, then, that she will receive from you an assurance that you have had no intention of departing from your word?" After this, Lord Fawn made some attempt at a stipulation that this assurance to Lizzie was to be founded on the counter-assurance given to him that the matter of the diamonds should be decided by proper legal authority; but Frank would not submit to this, and at last the Under-Secretary yielded. The engagement was to remain in force. Counsel were to be employed. The two lovers were not to see each other just at present. And when the matter had been decided by the lawyers, Lord Fawn was to express his regret for having suspected his lady-love! That was the verbal agreement, according to Frank Greystock's view of it. Lord Fawn, no doubt, would have declared that he had never consented to the latter stipulation.

About a week after this there was a meeting at Mr. Camperdown's chambers. Greystock, as his cousin's friend, attended to hear what Mr. Camperdown had to say in the presence of Lord Fawn and John Eustace. He, Frank, had, in the meantime, been down to Richmond, had taken Lucy to his arms as his future bride, and had been closeted with Lady Fawn. As a man who was doing his duty by Lucy Morris, he was welcomed and made much of by her ladyship; but it had been impossible to leave Lizzie's name altogether unmentioned, and Frank had spoken as the champion of his cousin. Of course there had arisen something of ill-feeling between the two. Lady Fawn had taught herself to hate Lizzie, and was desirous that the match should be over, diamonds or no diamonds. She could not quite say this to her visitor, but she showed her feeling very plainly. Frank was courteous, cold, and resolute in presuming, or pretending to presume, that as a matter of course the marriage would take place. Lady Fawn intended to be civil, but she could not restrain her feeling; and though she did not dare to say that her son would have nothing more to do with Lizzie Eustace, she showed very plainly that she intended to work with that object. Of course, the two did not part as cordial friends, and of course poor Lucy perceived that it was so.

Before the meeting took place, Mr. Camperdown had been at work, looking over old deeds. It is undoubtedly the case that things often become complicated which, from the greatness of their importance, should have been kept clear as running water. The diamonds in question had been bought, with other jewels, by Sir Florian's grandfather, on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of a certain duke,--on which occasion old family jewels, which were said to have been heirlooms, were sold or given in exchange as part value for those then purchased. This grandfather, who had also been Sir Florian in his time, had expressly stated in his will that these jewels were to be regarded as an heirloom in the family, and had as such left them to his eldest son, and to that son's eldest son, should such a child be born. His eldest son had possessed them, but not that son's son. There was such an Eustace born, but he had died before his father. The younger son of that old Sir Florian had then succeeded, as Sir Thomas, and he was the father of that Florian who had married Lizzie Eustace. That last Sir Florian had therefore been the fourth in succession from the old Sir Florian by whom the will had been made, and who had directed that these jewels should be regarded as heirlooms in the family. The two intermediate baronets had made no allusion to the diamonds in any deeds executed by them. Indeed, Sir Florian's father had died without a will. There were other jewels, larger but much less valuable than the diamonds, still in the hands of the Messrs. Garnett, as to which no question was raised. The late Sir Florian had, by his will, left all the property in his house at Portray to his widow, but all property elsewhere to his heir. This was what Mr. Camperdown had at last learned, but he had been forced to admit to himself, while learning this, that there was confusion.

He was confident enough, however, that there was no difficulty in the matter. The Messrs. Garnett were able to say that the necklace had been in their keeping, with various other jewels still in their possession, from the time of the death of the late Lady Eustace, up to the marriage of the late Sir Florian, her son. They stated the date on which the jewels were given up to be the 24th of September, which was the day after Sir Florian's return from Scotland with his bride. Lizzie's first statement had coincided with this entry in the Messrs. Garnett's books; but latterly she had asserted that the necklace had been given to her in Scotland. When Mr. Camperdown examined the entry himself in the jewellers' book, he found the figures to be so blotted that they might represent either the 4th or 24th September. Now, the 4th September had been the day preceding Sir Florian's marriage. John Eustace only knew that he had seen the necklace worn in Scotland by his mother. The bishop only knew that he had often seen them on the neck of his sister-in-law when, as was very often the case, she appeared in full-blown society. Mr. Camperdown believed that he had traced two stories to Lizzie,--one, repeated more than once, that the diamonds had been given to her in London, and a second, made to himself, that they had been given to her at Portray. He himself believed that they had never been in Scotland since the death of the former Lady Eustace; but he was quite confident that he could trust altogether to the disposition made of them by the old Sir Florian. There could be no doubt as to these being the diamonds there described, although the setting had been altered. Old Mr. Garnett stated that he would swear to them if he saw the necklace.

"You cannot suppose that Lady Eustace wishes to keep anything that is not her own," said Frank Greystock.

"Of course not," said John Eustace.

"Nobody imagines it," said Mr. Camperdown. Lord Fawn, who felt that he ought not to be there, and who did not know whether he might with a better grace take Lizzie's part or a part against her, said nothing. "But," continued Mr. Camperdown, "there is luckily no doubt as to the facts. The diamonds in question formed a part of a set of most valuable ornaments settled in the family by Sir Florian Eustace in 1799. The deed was drawn up by my grandfather, and is now here. I do not know how we are to have further proof. Will you look at the deed, Mr. Greystock, and at the will?" Frank suggested that, as it might probably be expedient to take advice on the subject professionally, he had rather not look at the deed. Anything which he might say, on looking at the document now, could have no weight. "But why should any advice be necessary," said Mr. Camperdown, "when the matter is so clear?"

"My dear sir," said Frank, "my cousin, Lady Eustace, is strong in her confidence that her late husband intended to give them to her as her own, and that he would not have done this without the power of doing so." Now, Mr. Camperdown was quite sure that Lizzie was lying in this, and could therefore make no adequate answer. "Your experience must probably have told you," continued Frank, "that there is considerable difficulty in dealing with the matter of heirlooms."

"I never heard of any such difficulty," said Mr. Camperdown.

"People generally understand it all so clearly," said Lord Fawn.

"The late Sir Florian does not appear to have understood it very clearly," said Frank.

"Let her put them into the hands of any indifferent person or firm till the matter is decided," said Mr. Camperdown. "They will be much safer so than in her keeping."

"I think they are quite safe," said Frank.

And this was all that took place at that meeting. As Mr. Camperdown said to John Eustace, it was manifest enough that she meant "to hang on to them." "I only hope Lord Fawn will not be fool enough to marry her," said Mr. Camperdown. Lord Fawn himself was of the same way of thinking;--but then how was he to clear his character of the charge which would be brought against him; and how was he to stand his ground before Frank Greystock?

XVII. The Diamonds Are Seen in Public

Let it not be supposed that Lady Eustace, during these summer weeks, was living the life of a recluse. The London season was in its full splendour, and she was by no means a recluse. During the first year of her widowhood she had been every inch a widow,--as far as crape would go, and a quiet life either at Bobsborough or Portray Castle. During this year her child was born,--and she was in every way thrown upon her good behaviour, living with bishops' wives and deans' daughters. Two years of retreat from the world is generally thought to be the proper thing for a widow. Lizzie had not quite accomplished her two years before she re-opened the campaign in Mount Street with very small remnants of weeds, and with her crape brought down to a minimum;--but she was young and rich, and the world is aware that a woman of twenty-two can hardly afford to sacrifice two whole years. In the matter of her widowhood Lizzie did not encounter very much reproach. She was not shunned, or so ill spoken of as to have a widely-spread bad name among the streets and squares in which her carriage-wheels rolled. People called her a flirt, held up their hands in surprise at Sir Florian's foolish generosity,--for the accounts of Lizzie's wealth were greatly exaggerated,--and said that of course she would marry again.

The general belief which often seizes upon the world in regard to some special falsehood is very surprising. Everybody on a sudden adopts an idea that some particular man is over head and ears in debt, so that he can hardly leave his house for fear of the bailiffs;--or that some ill-fated woman is cruelly ill-used by her husband;--or that some eldest son has ruined his father; whereas the man doesn't owe a shilling, the woman never hears a harsh word from her lord, and the eldest son in question has never succeeded in obtaining a shilling beyond his allowance. One of the lies about London this season was founded on the extent of Lady Eustace's jointure. Indeed, the lie went on to state that the jointure was more than a jointure. It was believed that the property in Ayrshire was her own, to do what she pleased with it. That the property in Ayrshire was taken at double its value was a matter of course. It had been declared, at the time of his marriage, that Sir Florian had been especially generous to his penniless wife, and the generosity was magnified in the ordinary way. No doubt Lizzie's own diligence had done much to propagate the story as to her positive ownership of Portray. Mr. Camperdown had been very busy denying this. John Eustace had denied it whenever occasion offered. The bishop in his quiet way had denied it. Lady Linlithgow had denied it. But the lie had been set on foot and had thriven, and there was hardly a man about town who didn't know that Lady Eustace had eight or nine thousand a year, altogether at her own disposal, down in Scotland. Of course a woman so endowed, so rich, so beautiful, so clever, so young, would marry again, and would marry well. No doubt, added to this there was a feeling that "Lizzie," as she was not uncommonly called by people who had hardly ever seen her, had something amiss with it all. "I don't know where it is she's lame," said that very clever man, Captain Boodle, who had lately reappeared among his military friends at his club, "but she don't go flat all round."

"She has the devil of a temper, no doubt," said Lieutenant Griggs.

"No mouth, I should say," said Boodle. It was thus that Lizzie was talked about at the clubs; but she was asked to dinners and balls, and gave little dinners herself, and to a certain extent was the fashion. Everybody had declared that of course she would marry again, and now it was known everywhere that she was engaged to Lord Fawn.

"Poor dear Lord Fawn!" said Lady Glencora Palliser to her dear friend Madame Max Goesler; "do you remember how violently he was in love with Violet Effingham two years ago?"

"Two years is a long time, Lady Glencora; and Violet Effingham has chosen another husband."

"But isn't this a fall for him? Violet was the sweetest girl out, and at one time I really thought she meant to take him."

"I thought she meant to take another man whom she did not take," said Madame Goesler, who had her own recollections, who was a widow herself, and who, at the period to which Lady Glencora was referring, had thought that perhaps she might cease to be a widow. Not that she had ever suggested to herself that Lord Fawn might be her second husband.

"Poor Lord Fawn!" continued Lady Glencora. "I suppose he is terribly in want of money."

"But surely Lady Eustace is very pretty."

"Yes;--she is very pretty; nay more, she is quite lovely to look at. And she is clever,--very. And she is rich,--very. But--"

"Well, Lady Glencora. What does your 'but' mean?"

"Who ever explains a 'but'? You're a great deal too clever, Madame Goesler, to want any explanation. And I couldn't explain it. I can only say I'm sorry for poor Lord Fawn,--who is a gentleman, but will never set the Thames on fire."

"No, indeed. All the same, I like Lord Fawn extremely," said Madame Goesler, "and I think he's just the man to marry Lady Eustace. He's always at his office or at the House."

"A man may be a great deal at his office, and a great deal more at the House than Lord Fawn," said Lady Glencora laughing, "and yet think about his wife, my dear." For of all men known, no man spent more hours at the House or in his office than did Lady Glencora's husband, Mr. Palliser, who at this time, and had now for more than two years, filled the high place of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This conversation took place in Madame Goesler's little drawing-room in Park Lane; but, three days after this, the same two ladies met again at the house then occupied by Lady Chiltern in Portman Square,--Lady Chiltern, with whom, as Violet Effingham, poor Lord Fawn had been much in love. "I think it is the nicest match in the world for him," Lady Chiltern had said to Madame Goesler.

"But have you heard of the diamonds?" asked Lady Glencora.

"What diamonds?" "Whose diamonds?" Neither of the others had heard of the diamonds, and Lady Glencora was able to tell her story. Lady Eustace had found all the family jewels belonging to the Eustace family in the strong plate room at Portray Castle, and had taken possession of them as property found in her own house. John Eustace and the bishop had combined in demanding them on behalf of the heir, and a lawsuit had then commenced! The diamonds were the most costly belonging to any Commoner in England, and had been valued at twenty-four thousand pounds! Lord Fawn had retreated from his engagement the moment he heard that any doubt was thrown on Lady Eustace's right to their possession! Lady Eustace had declared her intention of bringing an action against Lord Fawn,--and had also secreted the diamonds! The reader will be aware that this statement was by no means an accurate history of the difficulty as far as it had as yet progressed. It was, indeed, absolutely false in every detail; but it sufficed to show that the matter was becoming public. "You don't mean to say that Lord Fawn is off?" asked Madame Goesler.

"I do," said Lady Glencora.

"Poor Lord Fawn!" exclaimed Lady Chiltern. "It really seems as though he never would be settled."

"I don't think he has courage enough for such conduct as that," said Madame Goesler.

"And besides, Lady Eustace's income is quite certain," said Lady Chiltern, "and poor dear Lord Fawn does want money so badly."

"But it is very disagreeable," said Lady Glencora, "to believe that your wife has got the finest diamonds in England, and then to find that she has only--stolen them. I think Lord Fawn is right. If a man does marry for money he should have the money. I wonder she ever took him. There is no doubt about her beauty, and she might have done better."

"I won't hear Lord Fawn be-littled," said Lady Chiltern.

"Done better!" said Madame Goesler. "How could she have done better? He is a peer, and her son would be a peer. I don't think she could have done better." Lady Glencora in her time had wished to marry a man who had sought her for her money. Lady Chiltern in her time had refused to be Lady Fawn. Madame Goesler in her time had declined to marry an English peer. There was, therefore, something more of interest in the conversation to each of them than was quite expressed in the words spoken. "Is she to be at your party on Friday, Lady Glencora?" asked Madame Goesler.

"She has said she would come,--and so has Lord Fawn; for that matter, Lord Fawn dines with us. She'll find that out, and then she'll stay away."

"Not she," said Lady Chiltern. "She'll come for the sake of the bravado. She's not the woman to show the white feather."

"If he's ill-using her she's quite right," said Madame Goesler.

"And wear the very diamonds in dispute," said Lady Chiltern. It was thus that the matter was discussed among ladies in the town.

"Is Fawn's marriage going on?" This question was asked of Mr. Legge Wilson by Barrington Erle. Mr. Legge Wilson was the Secretary of State for India, and Barrington Erle was in the Government.

"Upon my word I don't know," said Mr. Wilson. "The work goes on at the office;--that's all I know about Fawn. He hasn't told me of his marriage, and therefore I haven't spoken to him about it."

"He hasn't made it official?"

"The papers haven't come before me yet," said Mr. Wilson.

"When they do they'll be very awkward papers, as far as I hear," said Barrington Erle. "There is no doubt they were engaged, and I believe there is no doubt that he has declared off, and refused to give any reason."

"I suppose the money is not all there," suggested Mr. Wilson.

"There's a queer story going about as to some diamonds. No one knows whom they belong to, and they say that Fawn has accused her of stealing them. He wants to get hold of them, and she won't give them up. I believe the lawyers are to have a shy at it. I'm sorry for Fawn. It'll do him a deal of mischief."

"You'll find he won't come out much amiss," said Mr. Legge Wilson. "He's as cautious a man as there is in London. If there is anything wrong--"

"There is a great deal wrong," said Barrington Erle.

"You'll find it will be on her side."

"And you'll find also that she'll contrive that all the blame shall lie upon him. She's clever enough for anything! Who's to be the new bishop?"

"I have not heard Gresham say as yet; Jones, I should think," said Mr. Wilson.

"And who is Jones?"

"A clergyman, I suppose,--of the safe sort. I don't know that anything else is necessary." From which it will be seen that Mr. Wilson had his own opinion about church matters, and also that people very high up in the world were concerning themselves about poor Lizzie's affairs.

Lady Eustace did go to Lady Glencora's evening party, in spite of Mr. Camperdown and all her difficulties. Lady Chiltern had been quite right in saying that Lizzie was not the woman to show the white feather. She went, knowing that she would meet Lord Fawn, and she did wear the diamonds. It was the first time that they had been round her neck since the occasion in respect to which Sir Florian had placed them in her hands, and it had not been without much screwing up of her courage that she had resolved to appear on this occasion with the much-talked-of ornament upon her person. It was now something over a fortnight since she had parted with Lord Fawn at Fawn Court; and, although they were still presumed to be engaged to marry each other, and were both living in London, she had not seen him since. A sort of message had reached her, through Frank Greystock, to the effect that Lord Fawn thought it as well that they should not meet till the matter was settled. Stipulations had been made by Frank on her behalf, and this had been inserted among them. She had received the message with scorn,--with a mixture of scorn and gratitude,--of scorn in regard to the man who had promised to marry her, and of affectionate gratitude to the cousin who had made the arrangement. "Of course I shall not wish to see him while he chooses to entertain such an idea," she had said, "but I shall not keep out of his way. You would not wish me to keep out of his way, Frank?" When she received a card for Lady Glencora's party, very soon after this, she was careful to answer it in such a manner as to impress Lady Glencora with a remembrance of her assent. Lord Fawn would probably be there,--unless he remained away in order to avoid her. Then she had ten days in which to make up her mind as to wearing the diamonds. Her courage was good; but then her ignorance was so great! She did not know whether Mr. Camperdown might not contrive to have them taken by violence from her neck, even on Lady Glencora's stairs. Her best security,--so she thought,--would be in the fact that Mr. Camperdown would not know of her purpose. She told no one,--not even Miss Macnulty; but she appeared before that lady, arrayed in all her glory, just as she was about to descend to her carriage. "You've got the necklace on!" said Miss Macnulty. "Why should I not wear my own necklace?" she asked, with assumed anger.

Lady Glencora's rooms were already very full when Lizzie entered them, but she was without a gentleman, and room was made for her to pass quickly up the stairs. The diamonds had been recognised by many before she had reached the drawing-room;--not that these very diamonds were known, or that there was a special memory for that necklace;--but the subject had been so generally discussed, that the blaze of the stones immediately brought it to the minds of men and women. "There she is, with poor Eustace's twenty thousand pounds round her neck," said Laurence Fitzgibbon to his friend Barrington Erle. "And there is Lord Fawn going to look after them," replied the other.

Lord Fawn thought it right, at any rate, to look after his bride. Lady Glencora had whispered into his ear before they went down to dinner that Lady Eustace would be there in the evening, so that he might have the option of escaping or remaining. Could he have escaped without any one knowing that he had escaped, he would not have gone up-stairs after dinner; but he knew that he was observed; he knew that people were talking about him; and he did not like it to be said that he had run away. He went up, thinking much of it all, and as soon as he saw Lady Eustace he made his way to her and accosted her. Many eyes were upon them, but no ear probably heard how infinitely unimportant were the words which they spoke to each other. Her manner was excellent. She smiled and gave him her hand,--just her hand without the slightest pressure,--and spoke a half-whispered word, looking into his face, but betraying nothing by her look. Then he asked her whether she would dance. Yes;--she would stand up for a quadrille; and they did stand up for a quadrille. As she danced with no one else, it was clear that she treated Lord Fawn as her lover. As soon as the dance was done she took his arm and moved for a few minutes about the room with him. She was very conscious of the diamonds, but she did not show the feeling in her face. He also was conscious of them, and he did show it. He did not recognise the necklace, but he knew well that this was the very bone of contention. They were very beautiful, and seemed to him to outshine all other jewellery in the room. And Lady Eustace was a woman of whom it might almost be said that she ought to wear diamonds. She was made to sparkle, to be bright with outside garniture,--to shine and glitter, and be rich in apparel. The only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her character. But these were not paste, and she did shine and glitter and was very rich. It must not be brought as an accusation against Lady Glencora's guests that they pressed round to look at the necklace. Lady Glencora's guests knew better than to do that. But there was some slight ferment,--slight, but still felt both by Lord Fawn and by Lady Eustace. Eyes were turned upon the diamonds, and there were whispers here and there. Lizzie bore it very well; but Lord Fawn was uncomfortable.

"I like her for wearing them," said Lady Glencora to Lady Chiltern.

"Yes;--if she means to keep them. I don't pretend, however, to know anything about it. You see the match isn't off."

"I suppose not. What do you think I did? He dined here, you know, and, before going down-stairs, I told him that she was coming. I thought it only fair."

"And what did he say?"

"I took care that he shouldn't have to say anything; but, to tell the truth, I didn't expect him to come up."

"There can't be any quarrel at all," said Lady Chiltern.

"I'm not sure of that," said Lady Glencora. "They are not so very loving."

Lady Eustace made the most of her opportunity. Soon after the quadrille was over she asked Lord Fawn to get her carriage for her. Of course he got it, and of course he put her into it, passing up and down-stairs twice in his efforts on her behalf. And of course all the world saw what he was doing. Up to the last moment not a word had been spoken between them that might not have passed between the most ordinary acquaintance, but, as she took her seat, she put her face forward and did say a word. "You had better come to me soon," she said.

"I will," said Lord Fawn.

"Yes; you had better come soon. All this is wearing me,--perhaps more than you think."

"I will come soon," said Lord Fawn, and then he returned among Lady Glencora's guests, very uncomfortable. Lizzie got home in safety and locked up her diamonds in the iron box.

Chapter XVIII

"And I Have Nothing to Give"

It was now the end of June, and Frank Greystock had been as yet but once at Fawn Court since he had written to Lucy Morris asking her to be his wife. That was three weeks since, and as the barrier against him at Fawn Court had been removed by Lady Fawn herself, the Fawn girls thought that as a lover he was very slack; but Lucy was not in the least annoyed. Lucy knew that it was all right; for Frank, as he took his last walk round the shrubbery with her during that visit, had given her to understand that there was a little difference between him and Lady Fawn in regard to Lizzie Eustace. "I am her only relative in London," Frank had said.

"Lady Linlithgow," suggested Lucy.

"They have quarrelled, and the old woman is as bitter as gall. There is no one else to stand up for her, and I must see that she isn't ill-used. Women do hate each other so virulently, and Lady Fawn hates her future daughter-in-law." Lucy did not in the least grudge her lover's assistance to his cousin. There was nothing of jealousy in her feeling. She thought that Lizzie was unworthy of Frank's goodness, but on such an occasion as this she would not say so. She told him nothing of the bribe that had been offered her, nor on that subject had she said a word to any of the Fawns. She understood, too, that as Frank had declared his purpose of supporting Lizzie, it might be as well that he should see just at present as little of Lady Fawn as possible. Not a word, however, had Lady Fawn said to Lucy disparaging her lover for his conduct. It was quite understood now at Fawn Court, by all the girls, and no doubt by the whole establishment, that Lizzie Eustace was to be regarded as an enemy. It was believed by them all that Lord Fawn had broken off the match--or, at least, that he was resolved to break it; but various stratagems were to be used, and terrible engines of war were to be brought up, if necessary, to prevent an alliance which was now thought to be disreputable. Mrs. Hittaway had been hard at work, and had found out something very like truth in regard to the whole transaction with Mr. Benjamin. Perhaps Mrs. Hittaway had found out more than was quite true as to poor Lizzie's former sins; but what she did find out she used with all her skill, communicating her facts to her mother, to Mr. Camperdown, and to her brother. Her brother had almost quarrelled with her, but still she continued to communicate her facts.

At this period Frank Greystock was certainly somewhat unreasonable in regard to his cousin. At one time, as the reader will remember, he had thought of asking her to be his wife;--because she was rich; but even then he had not thought well of her, had hardly believed her to be honest, and had rejoiced when he found that circumstances rather than his own judgment had rescued him from that evil. He had professed to be delighted when Lord Fawn was accepted,--as being happy to think that his somewhat dangerous cousin was provided with so safe a husband; and, when he had first heard of the necklace, he had expressed an opinion that of course it would be given up. In all this then he had shown no strong loyalty to his cousin, no very dear friendship, nothing to make those who knew him feel that he would buckle on armour in her cause. But of late,--and that, too, since his engagement with Lucy,--he had stood up very stoutly as her friend, and the armour was being buckled on. He had not scrupled to say that he meant to see her through this business with Lord Fawn, and had somewhat astonished Mr. Camperdown by raising a doubt on the question of the necklace. "He can't but know that she has no more right to it than I have," Mr. Camperdown had said to his son with indignation. Mr. Camperdown was becoming unhappy about the necklace, not quite knowing how to proceed in the matter.

In the meantime Frank had obeyed his better instincts, and had asked Lucy Morris to be his wife. He had gone to Fawn Court in compliance with a promise to Lizzie Eustace, that he would call upon her there. He had walked with Lucy because he was at Fawn Court. And he had written to Lucy because of the words he had spoken during the walk. In all this the matter had arranged itself as such matters do, and there was nothing, in truth, to be regretted. He really did love the girl with all his heart. It may, perhaps, be said that he had never in truth loved any other woman. In the best humours of his mind he would tell himself,--had from old times told himself often,--that unless he married Lucy Morris he could never marry at all. When his mother, knowing that poor Lucy was penniless, had, as mothers will do, begged him to beware, he had spoken up for his love honestly, declaring to her that in his eyes there was no woman living equal to Lucy Morris. The reader has seen him with the words almost on his tongue with which to offer his hand to his cousin, Lizzie Eustace, knowing as he did so that his heart had been given to Lucy,--knowing also that Lucy's heart had been given to him! But he had not done it, and the better humour had prevailed.

Within the figure and frame and clothes and cuticle, within the bones and flesh of many of us, there is but one person,--a man or woman, with a preponderance either of good or evil, whose conduct in any emergency may be predicted with some assurance of accuracy by any one knowing the man or woman. Such persons are simple, single, and, perhaps, generally, safe. They walk along lines in accordance with certain fixed instincts or principles, and are to-day as they were yesterday, and will be to-morrow as they are to-day. Lady Eustace was such a person, and so was Lucy Morris. Opposite in their characters as the two poles, they were, each of them, a simple entity; and any doubt or error in judging of the future conduct of either of them would come from insufficient knowledge of the woman. But there are human beings who, though of necessity single in body, are dual in character;--in whose breasts not only is evil always fighting against good,--but to whom evil is sometimes horribly, hideously evil, but is sometimes also not hideous at all. Of such men it may be said that Satan obtains an intermittent grasp, from which, when it is released, the rebound carries them high amidst virtuous resolutions and a thorough love of things good and noble. Such men,--or women,--may hardly, perhaps, debase themselves with the more vulgar vices. They will not be rogues, or thieves, or drunkards,--or, perhaps, liars; but ambition, luxury, self-indulgence, pride, and covetousness will get a hold of them, and in various moods will be to them virtues in lieu of vices. Such a man was Frank Greystock, who could walk along the banks of the quiet, trout-giving Bob, at Bobsborough, whipping the river with his rod, telling himself that the world lost for love would be a bad thing well lost for a fine purpose; and who could also stand, with his hands in his trousers pockets, looking down upon the pavement, in the purlieus of the courts at Westminster, and swear to himself that he would win the game, let the cost to his heart be what it might. What must a man be who would allow some undefined feeling,--some inward ache which he calls a passion and cannot analyse, some desire which has come of instinct and not of judgment,--to interfere with all the projects of his intellect, with all the work which he has laid out for his accomplishment? Circumstances had thrown him into a path of life for which, indeed, his means were insufficient, but which he regarded as, of all paths, the noblest and the manliest. If he could be true to himself,--with such truth as at these moments would seem to him to be the truest truth,--there was nothing in rank, nothing in ambition, which might not be within his reach. He might live with the highest, the best-educated, and the most beautiful; he might assist in directing national councils by his intelligence; and might make a name for himself which should be remembered in his country, and of which men would read the records in the histories written in after ages. But to do this, he must walk warily. He, an embarrassed man, a man already in debt, a man with no realised property coming to him in reversion, was called upon to live, and to live as though at his ease, among those who had been born to wealth. And, indeed, he had so cleverly learned the ways of the wealthy, that he hardly knew any longer how to live at his ease among the poor.

But had he walked warily when he went down to Richmond, and afterwards, sitting alone in the obscurity of his chamber, wrote the letter which had made Lucy Morris so happy? It must be acknowledged that he did, in truth, love the girl,--that he was capable of a strong feeling. She was not beautiful,--hardly even pretty, small, in appearance almost insignificant, quite penniless, a governess! He had often asked himself what it was that had so vanquished him. She always wore a pale grey frock,--with, perhaps, a grey ribbon,--never running into any bright form of clothing. She was educated, very well-educated; but she owned no great accomplishment. She had not sung his heart away, or ravished him with the harp. Even of her words she was sparing, seeming to care more to listen than to speak; a humble little thing to look at,--one of whom you might say that she regarded herself as well-placed if left in the background. Yet he had found her out, and knew her. He had recognised the treasure, and had greatly desired to possess it. He had confessed to himself that, could splendour and ambition be laid aside, that little thing would be all the world to him. As he sat in court, or in the House, patient from practice as he half-listened to the ponderous speeches of advocates or politicians, he would think of the sparkle in her eye, of the dimple in her chin, of the lines of the mouth which could plead so eloquently, though with few words. To sit on some high seat among his countrymen, and also to marry Lucy Morris,--that would be a high ambition. He had chosen his way now, and she was engaged to be his wife.

As he thought of it after he had done it, it was not all happiness, all contentment, with him. He did feel that he had crippled himself,--impeded himself in running the race, as it were, with a log round his leg. He had offered to marry her, and he must do so at once, or almost at once, because she could now find no other home but his. He knew, as well as did Lady Fawn, that she could not go into another family as governess; and he knew also that she ought not to remain in Lady Fawn's house an hour longer than she would be wanted there. He must alter his plan of living at once, give up the luxury of his rooms at the Grosvenor, take a small house somewhere, probably near the Swiss Cottage, come up and down to his chambers by the underground railway, and, in all probability, abandon Parliament altogether. He was not sure whether, in good faith, he should not at once give notice of his intended acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds to the electors of Bobsborough. Thus meditating, under the influence of that intermittent evil grasp, almost angry with himself for the open truth which he had spoken,--or rather written, and perhaps thinking more of Lizzie and her beauty than he should have done, in the course of three weeks he had paid but one visit to Fawn Court. Then, of a sudden, finding himself one afternoon relieved from work, he resolved to go there. The days were still almost at their longest, and he did not scruple to present himself before Lady Fawn between eight and nine in the evening. They were all at tea, and he was welcomed kindly. Lucy, when he was announced, at once got up and met him almost at the doorway, sparkling with just a tear of joy in her eye, with a look in her face, and a loving manner, which for the moment made him sure that the little house near the Swiss Cottage would, after all, be the only Elysium upon earth. If she spoke a word he hardly heard it, but her hand was in his, so cool and soft, almost trembling in its grasp, with no attempt to withdraw itself, frank, loving, and honest. There was a perfect satisfaction in her greeting which at once told him that she had no discontented thoughts,--had had no such thought,--because he had been so long without coming. To see him was a great joy. But every hour of her life was a joy to her, knowing, as she did know, that he loved her.

Lady Fawn was gracious, the girls were hospitable, and he found himself made very welcome amidst all the women at the tea-table. Not a word was said about Lizzie Eustace. Lady Fawn talked about Parliament, and professed to pity a poor lover who was so bound to his country that he could not see his mistress above once a fortnight. "But there'll be a good time coming next month," she said;--for it was now July. "Though the girls can't make their claims felt, the grouse can."

"It isn't the House altogether that rules me with a rod of iron, Lady Fawn," said Frank, "but the necessity of earning daily bread by the sweat of my brow. A man who has to sit in court all day must take the night,--or, indeed, any time that he can get,--to read up his cases."

"But the grouse put a stop to all work," said Lady Fawn. "My gardener told me just now that he wanted a day or two in August. I don't doubt but that he is going to the moors. Are you going to the moors, Mr. Greystock?"

As it happened, Frank Greystock did not quite know whether he was going to the moors or not. The Ayrshire grouse-shooting is not the best in Scotland;--but there is grouse-shooting in Ayrshire; and the shooting on the Portray mountains is not the worst shooting in the county. The castle at Portray overhangs the sea, but there is a wild district attached to it stretching far back inland, in regard to which Lizzie Eustace was very proud of talking of "her shooting." Early in the spring of the present year she had asked her cousin Frank to accept the shooting for the coming season,--and he had accepted it. "I shall probably be abroad," she said, "but there is the old castle." She had offered it as though he had been her brother, and he had said that he would go down for a couple of weeks,--not to the castle, but to a little lodge some miles up from the sea, of which she told him when he declined the castle. When this invitation was given there was no engagement between her and Lord Fawn. Since that date, within the last day or two, she had reminded him of it. "Won't his lordship be there?" he had said laughingly. "Certainly not," she had answered with serious earnestness. Then she had explained that her plan of going abroad had been set aside by circumstances. She did mean to go down to Portray. "I couldn't have you at the castle," she said, smiling; "but even an Othello couldn't object to a first cousin at a little cottage ever so many miles off." It wasn't for him to suggest what objections might rise to the brain of a modern Othello; but after some hesitation he said that he would be there. He had promised the trip to a friend, and would like to keep his promise. But, nevertheless, he almost thought that he ought to avoid Portray. He intended to support his cousin as far as he might do so honestly; but he was not quite minded to stand by her through good report and evil report. He did not desire to be specially known as her champion, and yet he felt that that position would be almost forced upon him. He foresaw danger,--and consequently he was doubting about his journey to Scotland.

"I hardly know whether I am or not," said Frank,--and he almost felt that he was blushing.

"I hope you are," said Lucy. "When a man has to work all day and nearly all night he should go where he may get fresh air."

"There's very good air without going to Scotland for it," said Lady Fawn, who kept up an excellent house at Richmond, but who, with all her daughters, could not afford autumn trips. The Fawns lived at Fawn Court all the year round, and consequently Lady Fawn thought that air was to be found in England sufficiently good for all purposes of vitality and recreation.

"It's not quite the same thing," said Lucy;--"at least, not for a man."

After that she was allowed to escape into the grounds with her lover, and was made happy with half-an-hour of unalloyed bliss. To be alone with the girl to whom he is not engaged is a man's delight;--to be alone with the man to whom she is engaged is the woman's. When the thing is settled there is always present to the man something of a feeling of clipped wings; whereas the woman is conscious of a new power of expanding her pinions. The certainty of the thing is to him repressive. He has done his work, and gained his victory,--and by conquering has become a slave. To her the certainty of the thing is the removal of a restraint which has hitherto always been on her. She can tell him everything, and be told everything,--whereas her previous confidences, made with those of her own sex, have been tame, and by comparison valueless. He has no new confidence to make,--unless when he comes to tell her he likes his meat well done, and wants his breakfast to be punctual. Lucy now not only promised herself, but did actually realise a great joy. He seemed to her all that her heart desired. He was a man whose manner was naturally caressing and demonstrative, and she was to him, of all women, the sweetest, the dearest, the most perfect,--and all his own. "But, Frank,"--she had already been taught to call him Frank when they were alone together,--"what will come of all this about Lizzie Eustace?"

"They will be married,--of course."

"Do you think so? I am sure Lady Fawn doesn't think so."

"What Lady Fawn thinks on such a matter cannot be helped. When a man asks a woman to marry him, and she accepts, the natural consequence is that they will be married. Don't you think so?"

"I hope so,--sometimes," said Lucy, with her two hands joined upon his arm, and hanging to it with all her little weight.

"You really do hope it?" he said.

"Oh, I do; you know I do. Hope it! I should die if I didn't hope it."

"Then why shouldn't she?" He asked his question with a quick, sharp voice, and then turned upon her for an answer.

"I don't know," she said, very softly, and still clinging to him. "I sometimes think there is a difference in people."

"There is a difference; but, still, we hardly judge of people sufficiently by our own feelings. As she accepted him, you may be sure that she wishes to marry him. She has more to give than he has."

"And I have nothing to give," she said.

"If I thought so, I'd go back even now," he answered. "It is because you have so much to give,--so much more than most others,--that I have thought of you, dreamed of you as my wife, almost ever since I first knew you."

"I have nothing left to give," she said. "What I ever had is all given. People call it the heart. I think it is heart, and brain, and mind, and body,--and almost soul. But, Frank, though Lizzie Eustace is your cousin, I don't want to be likened to her. She is very clever, and beautiful,--and has a way with her that I know is charming;--but--"

"But what, Lucy?"

"I don't think she cares so much as some people. I dare say she likes Lord Fawn very well, but I do not believe she loves him as I love you."

"They're engaged," said Frank, "and the best thing they can do is to marry each other. I can tell you this, at any rate,"--and his manner again became serious,--"if Lord Fawn behaves ill to her, I, as her cousin, shall take her part."

"You don't mean that you'll--fight him!"

"No, my darling. Men don't fight each other now-a-days;--not often, at least, and Fawn and I are not of the fighting sort. I can make him understand what I mean and what others will mean without fighting him. He is making a paltry excuse."

"But why should he want to excuse himself--without reason?"

"Because he is afraid. People have got hold of him and told him lies, and he thinks there will be a scrape about this necklace, and he hates a scrape. He'll marry her at last, without a doubt, and Lady Fawn is only making trouble for herself by trying to prevent it. You can't do anything."

"Oh no;--I can't do anything. When she was here it became at last quite disagreeable. She hardly spoke to them, and I'm sure that even the servants understood that there was a quarrel." She did not say a word of Lizzie's offer of the brooch to herself, nor of the stories which by degrees were reaching her ears as to the old debts, and the diamonds, and the young bride's conduct to Lady Linlithgow as soon as she married her grand husband, Sir Florian. She did think badly of Lizzie, and could not but regret that her own noble, generous Frank should have to expend his time and labour on a friend unworthy of his friendship; but there was no shade of jealousy in her feeling, and she uttered no word against Lizzie more bitter than that in which she declared that there was a difference between people.

And then there was something said as to their own prospects in life. Lucy at once and with vehemence declared that she did not look for or expect an immediate marriage. She did not scruple to tell him that she knew well how difficult was the task before him, and that it might be essential for his interest that he should remain as he was for a year or two. He was astonished to find how completely she understood his position, and how thoroughly she sympathised with his interests. "There is only one thing I couldn't do for you," she said.

"And what is the one thing?"

"I couldn't give you up. I almost thought that I ought to refuse you because I can do nothing,--nothing to help you. But there will always come a limit to self-denial. I couldn't do that! Could I?"

The reader will know how this question was answered, and will not want to be told of the long, close, clinging, praiseworthy kiss with which the young barrister assured her that would have been on her part an act of self-denial which would to him have been absolutely ruinous. It was agreed, however, between them, that Lady Fawn should be told that they did not propose to marry till some time in the following year, and that she should be formally asked to allow Lucy to have a home at Fawn Court in the interval.

Chapter XIX

"As My Brother"

Lord Fawn had promised, as he put Lizzie into her carriage, that he would come to her soon,--but he did not come soon. A fortnight passed and he did not show himself. Nothing further had been done in the matter of the diamonds, except that Mr. Camperdown had written to Frank Greystock, explaining how impossible it was that the question of their possession should be referred to arbitration. According to him they belonged to the heir, as did the estate; and no one would have the power of accepting an arbitration respecting them,--an arbitration which might separate them from the estate of which an infant was the owner for his life,--any more than such arbitration could be accepted as to the property of the estate itself. "Possession is nine points of the law," said Frank to himself, as he put the letter aside,--thinking at the same time that possession in the hands of Lizzie Eustace included certainly every one of those nine points. Lizzie wore her diamonds again and then again. There may be a question whether the possession of the necklace and the publicity of their history,--which, however, like many other histories, was most inaccurately told,--did not add something to her reputation as a lady of fashion. In the meantime, Lord Fawn did not come to see her. So she wrote to him. "My dear Frederic, had you not better come to me? Yours affectionately,--L. I go to the North at the end of this month."

But Frank Greystock did visit her,--more than once. On the day after the above letter was written he came to her. It was on Sunday afternoon, when July was more than half over, and he found her alone. Miss Macnulty had gone to church, and Lizzie was lying listlessly on a sofa with a volume of poetry in her hand. She had in truth been reading the book, and in her way enjoying it. It told her the story of certain knights of old, who had gone forth in quest of a sign from heaven, which sign, if verily seen by them, might be taken to signify that they themselves were esteemed holy, and fit for heavenly joy. One would have thought that no theme could have been less palatable to such a one as Lizzie Eustace; but the melody of the lines had pleased her ear, and she was always able to arouse for herself a false enthusiasm on things which were utterly outside herself in life. She thought she too could have travelled in search of that holy sign, and have borne all things, and abandoned all things, and have persevered,--and of a certainty have been rewarded. But as for giving up a string of diamonds, in common honesty,--that was beyond her.

"I wonder whether men ever were like that?" she said, as she allowed her cousin to take the book from her hands.

"Let us hope not."

"Oh, Frank!"

"They were, no doubt, as fanatic and foolish as you please. If you will read to the end--"

"I have read it all,--every word of it," said Lizzie, enthusiastically.

"Then you know that Arthur did not go on the search, because he had a job of work to do, by the doing of which the people around him might perhaps be somewhat benefited."

"I like Launcelot better than Arthur," said Lizzie.

"So did the Queen," replied Frank.

"Your useful, practical man, who attends vestries, and sits at Boards, and measures out his gifts to others by the ounce, never has any heart. Has he, Frank?"

"I don't know what heart means. I sometimes fancy that it is a talent for getting into debt, and running away with other men's wives."

"You say that on purpose to make me quarrel with you. You don't run away with other men's wives, and you have heart."

"But I get into debt, unfortunately; and as for other men's wives, I am not sure that I may not do even that some day. Has Lord Fawn been here?" She shook her head. "Or written?" Again she shook her head. As she did so the long curl waved and was very near to him, for he was sitting close to the sofa, and she had raised herself so that she might look into his face and speak to him almost in a whisper. "Something should be settled, Lizzie, before you leave town."

"I wrote to him, yesterday,--one line, and desired him to come. I expected him here to-day, but you have come instead. Shall I say that I am disappointed?"

"No doubt you are so."

"Oh, Frank, how vain you men are! You want me to swear to you that I would sooner have you with me than him. You are not content with--thinking it, unless I tell you that it is so. You know that it is so. Though he is to be my husband,--I suppose he will be my husband,--his spirit is not congenial to mine, as is yours."

"Had you not loved him you would not have accepted him."

"What was I to do, Frank? What am I to do? Think how desolate I am, how unfriended, how much in want of some one whom I can call a protector! I cannot have you always with me. You care more for the little finger of that prim piece of propriety down at the old dowager's than you do for me and all my sorrows." This was true, but Frank did not say that it was true. "Lord Fawn is at any rate respectable. At least, I thought he was so when I accepted his offer."

"He is respectable enough."

"Just that;--isn't it?--and nothing more. You do not blame me for saying that I would be his wife? If you do, I will unsay it, let it cost me what it may. He is treating me so badly that I need not go far for an excuse." Then she looked into his face with all the eagerness of her gaze, clearly implying that she expected a serious answer. "Why do you not answer me, Frank?"

"What am I to say? He is a timid, cautious man. They have frightened him about this trumpery necklace, and he is behaving badly. But he will make a good husband. He is not a spendthrift. He has rank. All his people are respectable. As Lady Fawn, any house in England will be open to you. He is not rich, but together you will be rich."

"What is all that without love?"

"I do not doubt his love. And when you are his own he will love you dearly."

"Ah, yes;--as he would a horse or a picture. Is there anything of the rapture of love in that? Is that your idea of love? Is it so you love your Miss Demure?"

"Don't call names, Lizzie."

"I shall say what I please of her. You and I are to be friends, and I may not speak? No;--I will have no such friendship! She is demure. If you like it, what harm is there in my saying it? I am not demure. I know that. I do not, at least, pretend to be other than I am. When she becomes your wife, I wonder whether you will like her ways?" He had not yet told her that she was to be his wife, nor did he so tell her now. He thought for a moment that he had better tell her, but he did not do so. It would, he said to himself, add an embarrassment to his present position. And as the marriage was to be postponed for a year, it might be better, perhaps, for Lucy that it should not be declared openly. It was thus he argued with himself, but yet, no doubt, he knew well that he did not declare the truth because it would take away something of its sweetness from this friendship with his cousin Lizzie.

"If ever I do marry," he said, "I hope I shall like my wife's ways."

"Of course you will not tell me anything. I do not expect confidence from you. I do not think a man is ever able to work himself up to the mark of true confidence with his friend. Men together, when they like each other, talk of politics, or perhaps of money; but I doubt whether they ever really tell their thoughts and longings to each other."

"Are women more communicative?"

"Yes;--certainly. What is there that I would not tell you if you cared to hear it? Every thought I have is open to you if you choose to read it. I have that feeling regarding you that I would keep nothing back from you. Oh, Frank, if you understood me, you could save me,--I was going to say--from all unhappiness."

She did it so well that he would have been more than man had he not believed some of it. She was sitting almost upright now, though her feet were still on the sofa, and was leaning over towards him, as though imploring him for his aid, and her eyes were full of tears, and her lips were apart as though still eager with the energy of expression, and her hands were clasped together. She was very lovely, very attractive, almost invincible. For such a one as Frank Greystock opposition to her in her present mood was impossible. There are men by whom a woman, if she have wit, beauty, and no conscience, cannot be withstood. Arms may be used against them, and a sort of battle waged, against which they can raise no shield,--from which they can retire into no fortress,--in which they can parry no blow. A man so weak and so attacked may sometimes run; but even the poor chance of running is often cut off from him. How unlike she was to Lucy! He believed her,--in part; and yet that was the idea that occurred to him. When Lucy was much in earnest, in her eye, too, a tear would sparkle, the smallest drop, a bright liquid diamond that never fell; and all her face would be bright and eloquent with feeling;--but how unlike were the two! He knew that the difference was that between truth and falsehood;--and yet he partly believed the falsehood! "If I knew how to save you from an hour's uneasiness, I would do it," he said.

"No;--no;--no;" she murmured.

"Would I not? You do not know me then." He had nothing further to say, and it suited her to remain silent for the moment, while she dried her eyes, and recovered her composure, and prepared herself to carry on the battle with a smile. She would carry on the battle, using every wile she knew, straining every nerve to be victorious, encountering any and all dangers, and yet she had no definite aim before her. She herself did not know what she would be at. At this period of her career she did not want to marry her cousin,--having resolved that she would be Lady Fawn. Nor did she intend that her cousin should be her lover,--in the ordinary sense of love. She was far too wary in the pursuit of the world's goods to sacrifice herself to any such wish as that. She did want him to help her about the diamonds,--but such help as that she might have, as she knew well, on much easier terms. There was probably an anxiety in her bosom to cause him to be untrue to Lucy Morris; but the guiding motive of her conduct was the desire to make things seem to be other than they were. To be always acting a part rather than living her own life was to her everything. "After all we must come to facts," he said, after a while. "I suppose it will be better that you should marry Lord Fawn."

"If you wish it."

"Nay;--I cannot have that said. In this matter you must rule yourself by your own judgment. If you are averse to it--" She shook her head. "Then you will own that it had better be so." Again she shook her head. "Lizzie, for your sake and my own, I must declare, that if you have no opinion in this matter, neither will I have any. You shall never have to say that I pressed you into this marriage or debarred you from marrying. I could not bear such an accusation."

"But you might tell me what I ought to do."

"No;--certainly not."

"Think how young I am, and,--by comparison,--how old you are. You are eight years older than I am. Remember;--after all that I have gone through, I am but twenty-two. At my age other girls have their friends to tell them. I have no one,--unless you will tell me."

"You have accepted him?"

"Yes."

"I suppose he is not altogether indifferent to you?"

She paused, and again shook her head. "Indeed, I do not know. If you mean, do I love him, as I could love some man whose heart was quite congenial to my own, certainly I do not." She continued to shake her head very sadly. "I esteemed him,--when he asked me."

"Say at once that, having made up your mind, you will go through with it."

"You think that I ought?"

"You think so,--yourself."

"So be it, Frank. I will. But, Frank, I will not give up my property. You do not wish me to do that. It would be weak, now;--would it not? I am sure that it is my own."

"His faith to you should not depend on that."

"No, of course not; that is just what I mean. He can have no right to interfere. When he asked me to be his wife, he said nothing about that. But if he does not come to me, what shall I do?"

"I suppose I had better see him," said Frank slowly.

"Will you? That will be so good of you. I feel that I can leave it all so safely in your hands. I shall go out of town, you know, on the thirtieth. I feel that I shall be better away, and I am sick of all the noise, and glitter, and worldliness of London. You will come on the twelfth?"

"Not quite so soon as that," he said, after a pause.

"But you will come?"

"Yes;--about the twentieth."

"And, of course, I shall see you?"

"Oh, yes."

"So that I may have some one to guide me that I can trust. I have no brother, Frank; do you ever think of that?" She put out her hand to him, and he clasped it, and held it tight in his own; and then, after a while, he pulled her towards him. In a moment she was on the ground, kneeling at his feet, and his arm was round her shoulder, and his hand was on her back, and he was embracing her. Her face was turned up to him, and he pressed his lips upon her forehead. "As my brother," she said, stretching back her head and looking up into his face.

"Yes;--as your brother."

They were sitting, or rather acting their little play together, in the back drawing-room, and the ordinary entrance to the two rooms was from the landing-place into the larger apartment;--of which fact Lizzie was probably aware, when she permitted herself to fall into a position as to which a moment or two might be wanted for recovery. When, therefore, the servant in livery opened the door, which he did, as Frank thought somewhat suddenly, she was able to be standing on her legs before she was caught. The quickness with which she sprung from her position, and the facility with which she composed not her face only, but the loose lock of her hair and all her person, for the reception of the coming visitor, was quite marvellous. About her there was none of the look of having been found out, which is so very disagreeable to the wearer of it; whereas Frank, when Lord Fawn was announced, was aware that his manner was awkward, and his general appearance flurried. Lizzie was no more flurried than if she had stepped that moment from out of the hands of her tirewoman. She greeted Lord Fawn very prettily, holding him by the hand long enough to show that she had more claim to do so than could any other woman, and then she just murmured her cousin's name. The two men shook hands--and looked at each other as men do who know that they are not friends, and think that they may live to be enemies. Lord Fawn, who rarely forgot anything, had certainly not forgotten the Sawab; and Frank was aware that he might soon be called on to address his lordship in anything but friendly terms. They said, however, a few words about Parliament and the weather, and the desirability of escaping from London.

"Frank," said Lady Eustace, "is coming down in August to shoot my three annual grouse at Portray. He would keep one for you, my lord, if he thought you would come for it."

"I'll promise Lord Fawn a fair third, at any rate," said Frank.

"I cannot visit Portray this August, I'm afraid," said his lordship, "much as I might wish to do so. One of us must remain at the India Office--"

"Oh, that weary India Office!" exclaimed Lizzie.

"I almost think you official men are worse off than we barristers," said Frank. "Well, Lizzie, good-bye. I dare say I shall see you again before you start."

"Of course you will," said Lizzie. And then the two lovers were left together. They had met once, at Lady Glencora's ball, since the quarrel at Fawn Court, and there, as though by mutual forbearance, had not alluded to their troubles. Now he had come, especially to speak of the matter that concerned them both so deeply. As long as Frank Greystock was in the room, his work was comparatively easy, but he had known beforehand that he would not find it at all easy should he be left alone with her. Lizzie began. "My lord," she said, "considering all that has passed between us, you have been a truant."

"Yes;--I admit it--but--"

"With me, my lord, a fault admitted is a fault forgiven." Then she took her old seat on the sofa, and he placed himself on the chair which Frank Greystock had occupied. He had not intended to own a fault, and certainly not to accept forgiveness; but she had been too quick for him; and now he could not find words by which to express himself. "In truth," she continued, "I would always rather remember one kindness than a dozen omissions on the part of a friend."

"Lady Eustace, I have not willingly omitted anything."

"So be it. I will not give you the slightest excuse for saying that you have heard a reproach from me. You have come at last, and you are welcome. Is that enough for you?"

He had much to say to her about the diamonds, and, when he was entering the room, he had not a word to say to her about anything else. Since that, another subject had sprung up before him. Whether he was, or was not, to regard himself as being at this moment engaged to marry Lady Eustace, was a matter to him of much doubt;--but of this he was sure, that if she were engaged to him as his wife, she ought not to be entertaining her cousin Frank Greystock down at Portray Castle, unless she had some old lady, not only respectable in life, but high in rank also, to see that everything was right. It was almost an insult to him that such a visit should have been arranged without his sanction or cognizance. Of course, if he were bound by no engagement,--and he had been persuaded by his mother and sister to wish that he were not bound,--then the matter would be no affair of his. If, however, the diamonds were abandoned, then the engagement was to be continued;--and in that case it was out of the question that his elected bride should entertain another young man,--even though she was a widow and the young man was her cousin. Of course, he should have spoken of the diamonds first; but the other matter had obtruded itself upon him, and he was puzzled. "Is Mr. Greystock to accompany you into Scotland?" he asked.

"Oh dear no. I go on the thirtieth of this month. I hardly know when he means to be there."

"He follows you to Portray?

"Yes;--he follows me, of course. 'The king himself has followed her, When she has gone before.'" Lord Fawn did not remember the quotation, and was more puzzled than ever. "Frank will follow me, just as the other shooting men will follow me."

"He goes direct to Portray Castle?"

"Neither directly nor indirectly. Just at present, Lord Fawn, I am in no mood to entertain guests,--not even one that I love so well as my cousin Frank. The Portray mountains are somewhat extensive, and at the back of them there is a little shooting-lodge."

"Oh, indeed," said Lord Fawn, feeling that he had better dash at once at the diamonds.

"If you, my lord, could manage to join us for a day, my cousin and his friend would, I am sure, come over to the castle, so that you should not suffer from being left alone with me and Miss Macnulty."

"At present it is impossible," said Lord Fawn;--and then he paused. "Lady Eustace, the position in which you and I stand to each other is one not altogether free from trouble."

"You cannot say that it is of my making," she said, with a smile. "You once asked--what men think a favour from me; and I granted it,--perhaps too easily."

"I know how greatly I am indebted to your goodness, Lady Eustace--" And then again he paused.

"Lord Fawn!"

"I trust you will believe that nothing can be further from me than that you should be harassed by any conduct of mine."

"I am harassed, my lord."

"And so am I. I have learned that you are in possession of certain jewels which I cannot allow to be held by my wife."

"I am not your wife, Lord Fawn." As she said this, she rose from her reclining posture and sat erect.

"That is true. You are not. But you said you would be."

"Go on, sir."

"It was the pride of my life to think that I had attained to so much happiness. Then came this matter of the diamonds."

"What business have you with my diamonds,--more than any other man?"

"Simply that I am told that they are not yours."

"Who tells you so?"

"Various people. Mr. Camperdown."

"If you, my lord, intend to take an attorney's word against mine, and that on a matter as to which no one but myself can know the truth, then you are not fit to be my husband. The diamonds are my own, and should you and I become man and wife, they must remain so by special settlement. While I choose to keep them they will be mine,--to do with them as I please. It will be my pleasure, when my boy marries, to hang them round his bride's neck." She carried herself well, and spoke her words with dignity.

"What I have got to say is this," began Lord Fawn;--"I must consider our engagement as at an end unless you will give them up to Mr. Camperdown."

"I will not give them up to Mr. Camperdown."

"Then,--then,--then,--"

"And I make bold to tell you, Lord Fawn, that you are not behaving to me like a man of honour. I shall now leave the matter in the hands of my cousin, Mr. Greystock." Then she sailed out of the room, and Lord Fawn was driven to escape from the house as he might. He stood about the room for five minutes with his hat in his hand, and then walked down and let himself out of the front door.

XX. The Diamonds Become Troublesome

The thirtieth of July came round, and Lizzie was prepared for her journey down to Scotland. She was to be accompanied by Miss Macnulty and her own maid and her own servants, and to travel, of course, like a grand lady. She had not seen Lord Fawn since the meeting recorded in the last chapter, but had seen her cousin Frank nearly every other day. He, after much consideration, had written a long letter to Lord Fawn, in which he had given that nobleman to understand that some explanation was required as to conduct which Frank described as being to him "at present unintelligible." He then went, at considerable length, into the matter of the diamonds, with the object of proving that Lord Fawn could have no possible right to interfere in the matter. And though he had from the first wished that Lizzie would give up the trinket, he made various points in her favour. Not only had they been given to his cousin by her late husband,--but even had they not been so given, they would have been hers by will. Sir Florian had left her everything that was within the walls of Portray Castle, and the diamonds had been at Portray at the time of Sir Florian's death. Such was Frank's statement,--untrue indeed, but believed by him to be true. This was one of Lizzie's lies, forged as soon as she understood that some subsidiary claim might be made upon them on the ground that they formed a portion of property left by will away from her;--some claim subsidiary to the grand claim, that the necklace was a family heirloom. Lord Fawn was not in the least shaken in his conviction that Lizzie had behaved, and was behaving, badly, and that, therefore, he had better get rid of her; but he knew that he must be very wary in the reasons he would give for jilting her. He wrote, therefore, a very short note to Greystock, promising that any explanation needed should be given as soon as circumstances should admit of his forming a decision. In the meantime, the 30th of July came, and Lady Eustace was ready for her journey.

There is, or there was, a train leaving London for Carlisle at 11 a.m., by which Lizzie proposed to travel, so that she might sleep in that city and go on through Dumfries to Portray the next morning. This was her scheme; but there was another part of her scheme as to which she had felt much doubt. Should she leave the diamonds, or should she take them with her? The iron box in which they were kept was small, and so far portable that a strong man might carry it without much trouble. Indeed, Lizzie could move it from one part of the room to the other, and she had often done so. But it was so heavy that it could not be taken with her without attracting attention. The servant would know what it was, and the porter would know, and Miss Macnulty would know. That her own maid should know was a matter of course; but even to her own maid the journey of the jewels would be remarkable because of the weight of the box, whereas if they went with her other jewels in her dressing-case, there would be nothing remarkable. She might even have taken them in her pocket,--had she dared. But she did not dare. Though she was intelligent and courageous, she was wonderfully ignorant as to what might and what might not be done for the recovery of the necklace by Mr. Camperdown. She did not dare to take them without the iron box, and at last she decided that the box should go. At a little after ten, her own carriage,--the job-carriage, which was now about to perform its last journey in her service,--was at the door, and a cab was there for the servants. The luggage was brought down, and with the larger boxes was brought the iron case with the necklace. The servant, certainly making more of the weight than he need have done, deposited it as a foot-stool for Lizzie, who then seated herself, and was followed by Miss Macnulty. She would have it placed in the same way beneath her feet in the railway carriage, and again brought into her room at the Carlisle hotel. What though the porter did know! There was nothing illegal in travelling about with a heavy iron box full of diamonds, and the risk would be less this way, she thought, than were she to leave them behind her in London. The house in Mount Street, which she had taken for the season, was to be given up; and whom could she trust in London? Her very bankers, she feared, would have betrayed her, and given up her treasure to Mr. Camperdown. As for Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, she felt sure that they would be bribed by Mr. Camperdown. She once thought of asking her cousin to take the charge of them, but she could not bring herself to let them out of her own hands. Ten thousand pounds! If she could only sell them and get the money, from what a world of trouble would she be relieved. And the sale, for another reason, would have been convenient; for Lady Eustace was already a little in debt. But she could not sell them, and therefore when she got into the carriage there was the box under her feet.

At that very moment who should appear on the pavement, standing between the carriage and the house-door, but Mr. Camperdown! And with Mr. Camperdown there was another man,--a very suspicious-looking man,--whom Lizzie at once took to be a detective officer of police. "Lady Eustace!" said Mr. Camperdown, taking off his hat. Lizzie bowed across Miss Macnulty, and endeavoured to restrain the tell-tale blood from flying to her cheeks. "I believe," said Mr. Camperdown, "that you are now starting for Scotland."

"We are, Mr. Camperdown;--and we are very late."

"Could you allow me two minutes' conversation with you in the house?"

"Oh dear, no. We are late, I tell you. What a time you have chosen for coming, Mr. Camperdown!"

"It is an awkward hour, Lady Eustace. I only heard this morning that you were going so soon, and it is imperative that I should see you."

"Had you not better write, Mr. Camperdown?"

"You will never answer my letters, madam."

"I--I--I really cannot see you now. William, the coachman must drive on. We cannot allow ourselves to lose the train. I am really very sorry, Mr. Camperdown, but we must not lose the train."

"Lady Eustace," said Mr. Camperdown, putting his hand on the carriage-door, and so demeaning himself that the coachman did not dare to drive on, "I must ask you a question." He spoke in a low voice, but he was speaking across Miss Macnulty. That lady, therefore, heard him, and so did William, the servant, who was standing close to the door. "I must insist on knowing where are the Eustace diamonds." Lizzie felt the box beneath her feet, and, without showing that she did so, somewhat widened her drapery.

"I can tell you nothing now. William, make the coachman drive on."

"If you will not answer me, I must tell you that I shall be driven in the execution of my duty to obtain a search-warrant, in order that they may be placed in proper custody. They are not your property, and must be taken out of your hands."

Lizzie looked at the suspicious man with a frightened gaze. The suspicious man was, in fact, a very respectable clerk in Mr. Camperdown's employment, but Lizzie for a moment felt that the search was about to begin at once. She had hardly understood the threat, and thought that the attorney was already armed with the powers of which he spoke. She glanced for a moment at Miss Macnulty, and then at the servant. Would they betray her? If they chose to use force to her, the box certainly might be taken from her. "I know I shall lose the train," she said. "I know I shall. I must insist that you let my servant drive on." There was now a little crowd of a dozen persons on the pavement, and there was nothing to cover her diamonds but the skirt of her travelling-dress.

"Are they in this house, Lady Eustace?"

"Why doesn't he go on?" shouted Lizzie. "You have no right, sir, to stop me. I won't be stopped."

"Or have you got them with you?"

"I shall answer no questions. You have no right to treat me in this way."

"Then I shall be forced, on behalf of the family, to obtain a search-warrant, both here and in Ayrshire, and proceedings will be taken also against your ladyship personally." So saying, Mr. Camperdown withdrew, and at last the carriage was driven on.

As it happened, there was time enough for catching the train,--and to spare. The whole affair in Mount Street had taken less than ten minutes. But the effect upon Lizzie was very severe. For a while she could not speak, and at last she burst out into hysteric tears,--not a sham fit,--but a true convulsive agony of sobbing. All the world of Mount Street, including her own servants, had heard the accusation against her. During the whole morning she had been wishing that she had never seen the diamonds; but now it was almost impossible that she should part with them. And yet they were like a load upon her chest, a load as heavy as though she were compelled to sit with the iron box on her lap day and night. In her sobbing she felt the thing under her feet, and knew that she could not get rid of it. She hated the box, and yet she must cling to it now. She was thoroughly ashamed of the box, and yet she must seem to take a pride in it. She was horribly afraid of the box, and yet she must keep it in her own very bed-room. And what should she say about the box now to Miss Macnulty, who sat by her side, stiff and scornful, offering her smelling-bottles, but not offering her sympathy? "My dear," she said at last, "that horrid man has quite upset me."

"I don't wonder that you should be upset," said Miss Macnulty.

"And so unjust, too,--so false,--so--so--so--. They are my own as much as that umbrella is yours, Miss Macnulty."

"I don't know," said Miss Macnulty.

"But I tell you," said Lizzie.

"What I mean is, that it is such a pity there should be a doubt."

"There is no doubt," said Lizzie;--"how dare you say there is a doubt? My cousin, Mr. Greystock, says that there is not the slightest doubt. He is a barrister, and must know better than an attorney like that Mr. Camperdown." By this time they were at the Euston Square station, and then there was more trouble with the box. The footman struggled with it into the waiting-room, and the porter struggled with it from the waiting-room to the carriage. Lizzie could not but look at the porter as he carried it, and she felt sure that the man had been told of its contents and was struggling with the express view of adding to her annoyance. The same thing happened at Carlisle, where the box was carried up into Lizzie's bedroom by the footman, and where she was convinced that her treasure had become the subject of conversation for the whole house. In the morning people looked at her as she walked down the long platform with the box still struggling before her. She almost wished that she had undertaken its carriage herself, as she thought that even she could have managed with less outward show of effort. Her own servants seemed to be in league against her, and Miss Macnulty had never before been so generally unpleasant. Poor Miss Macnulty, who had a conscientious idea of doing her duty, and who always attempted to give an adequate return for the bread she ate, could not so far overcome the effect of Mr. Camperdown's visit as to speak on any subject without being stiff and hard. And she suffered, too, from the box,--to such a degree that she turned over in her mind the thought of leaving Lizzie, if any other possible home might be found for her. Who would willingly live with a woman who always travelled about with a diamond necklace worth ten thousand pounds, locked up in an iron safe,--and that necklace not her own property.

But at last Lady Eustace, and Miss Macnulty, and the servants,--and the iron box,--reached Portray Castle in safety.

Chapter XXI

"Ianthe's Soul"

Lady Eustace had been rather cross on the journey down to Scotland, and had almost driven the unfortunate Macnulty to think that Lady Linlithgow or the workhouse would be better than this young tyrant; but on her arrival at her own house she was for awhile all smiles and kindness. During the journey she had been angry without thought, but was almost entitled to be excused for her anger. Could Miss Macnulty have realised the amount of oppression inflicted on her patroness by the box of diamonds she would have forgiven anything. Hitherto there had been some secrecy, or at any rate some privacy attached to the matter; but now that odious lawyer had discussed the matter aloud, in the very streets, in the presence of the servants, and Lady Eustace had felt that it was discussed also by every porter on the railway from London down to Troon, the station in Scotland at which her own carriage met her to take her to her own castle. The night at Carlisle had been terrible to her, and the diamonds had never been for a moment off her mind. Perhaps the worst of it all was that her own man-servant and maid-servant had heard the claim which had been so violently made by Mr. Camperdown. There are people, in that respect very fortunately circumstanced, whose servants, as a matter of course, know all their affairs, have an interest in their concerns, sympathise with their demands, feel their wants, and are absolutely at one with them. But in such cases the servants are really known, and are almost as completely a part of the family as the sons and daughters. There may be disruptions and quarrels; causes may arise for ending the existing condition of things; but while this condition lasts, the servants in such households are, for the most part, only too well inclined to fight the battles of their employers. Mr. Binns, the butler, would almost foam at the mouth if it were suggested to him that the plate at Silvercup Hall was not the undoubted property of the old squire; and Mrs. Pouncebox could not be made to believe, by any amount of human evidence, that the jewels which her lady has worn for the last fifteen years are not her ladyship's very own. Binns would fight for the plate, and so would Pouncebox for the jewels, almost till they were cut to pieces. The preservation of these treasures on behalf of those who paid them their wages and fed them, who occasionally scolded them, but always succoured them, would be their point of honour. No torture would get the key of the cellar from Binns; no threats extract from Pouncebox a secret of the toilet. But poor Lizzie Eustace had no Binns and no Pouncebox. They are plants that grow slowly. There was still too much of the mushroom about Lady Eustace to permit of her possessing such treasures. Her footman was six feet high, was not bad looking, and was called Thomas. She knew no more about him, and was far too wise to expect sympathy from him, or other aid than the work for which she paid him. Her own maid was somewhat nearer to her; but not much nearer. The girl's name was Patience Crabstick, and she could do hair well. Lizzie knew but little more of her than that.

Lizzie considered herself still to be engaged to be married to Lord Fawn,--but there was no sympathy to be had in that quarter. Frank Greystock might be induced to sympathise with her;--but hardly after the fashion which Lizzie desired. And then sympathy in that direction would be so dangerous should she decide upon going on with the Fawn marriage. For the present she had quarrelled with Lord Fawn;--but the very bitterness of that quarrel, and the decision with which her betrothed had declared his intention of breaking off the match, made her the more resolute that she would marry him. During her journey to Portray she had again determined that he should be her husband; and, if so, advanced sympathy,--sympathy that would be pleasantly tender with her cousin Frank, would be dangerous. She would be quite willing to accept even Miss Macnulty's sympathy, if that humble lady would give it to her of the kind she wanted. She declared to herself that she could pour herself out on Miss Macnulty's bosom, and mingle her tears even with Miss Macnulty's, if only Miss Macnulty would believe in her. If Miss Macnulty would be enthusiastic about the jewels, enthusiastic as to the wickedness of Lord Fawn, enthusiastic in praising Lizzie herself, Lizzie,--so she told herself,--would have showered all the sweets of female friendship even on Miss Macnulty's head. But Miss Macnulty was as hard as a deal board. She did as she was bidden, thereby earning her bread. But there was no tenderness in her;--no delicacy;--no feeling;--no comprehension. It was thus that Lady Eustace judged her humble companion; and in one respect she judged her rightly. Miss Macnulty did not believe in Lady Eustace, and was not sufficiently gifted to act up to a belief which she did not entertain.

Poor Lizzie! The world, in judging of people who are false and bad and selfish and prosperous to outward appearances, is apt to be hard upon them, and to forget the punishments which generally accompany such faults. Lizzie Eustace was very false and bad and selfish,--and, we may say, very prosperous also; but in the midst of all she was thoroughly uncomfortable. She was never at ease. There was no green spot in her life with which she could be contented. And though, after a fashion, she knew herself to be false and bad, she was thoroughly convinced that she was ill-used by everybody about her. She was being very badly treated by Lord Fawn;--but she flattered herself that she would be able to make Lord Fawn know more of her character before she had done with him.

Portray Castle was really a castle,--not simply a country mansion so called, but a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis, and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a low roof, and an excavation called the moat,--but which was now a fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden,--running round two sides of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and probably for the custody of booty,--the battlements, and the round tower, and the awe-inspiring gateway had all been added by one of the late Sir Florians. But the castle looked like a castle, and was interesting. As a house it was not particularly eligible, the castle form of domestic architecture being exigeant in its nature, and demanding that space, which in less ambitious houses can be applied to comfort, shall be surrendered to magnificence. There was a great hall, and a fine dining-room with plate-glass windows looking out upon the sea; but the other sitting-rooms were insignificant, and the bedrooms were here and there, and were for the most part small and dark. That, however, which Lizzie had appropriated to her own use was a grand chamber, looking also out upon the open sea.

The castle stood upon a bluff of land, with a fine prospect of the Firth of Clyde, and with a distant view of the Isle of Arran. When the air was clear, as it often is clear there, the Arran hills could be seen from Lizzie's window, and she was proud of talking of the prospect. In other respects, perhaps, the castle was somewhat desolate. There were a few stunted trees around it, but timber had not prospered there. There was a grand kitchen garden,--or rather a kitchen garden which had been intended to be grand;--but since Lizzie's reign had been commenced, the grandeur had been neglected. Grand kitchen gardens are expensive, and Lizzie had at once been firm in reducing the under-gardeners from five men to one and a boy. The head-gardener had of course left her at once; but that had not broken her heart, and she had hired a modest man at a guinea a week instead of a scientific artist, who was by no means modest, with a hundred and twenty pounds a year and coals, house, milk, and all other horticultural luxuries. Though Lizzie was prosperous and had a fine income, she was already aware that she could not keep up a town and country establishment and be a rich woman on four thousand a year. There was a flower garden and small shrubbery within the so-called moat; but, otherwise, the grounds of Portray Castle were not alluring. The place was sombre, exposed, and, in winter, very cold; and, except that the expanse of sea beneath the hill on which stood the castle was fine and open, it had no great claim to praise on the score of scenery. Behind the castle, and away from the sea, the low mountains belonging to the estate stretched for some eight or ten miles; and towards the further end of them, where stood a shooting-lodge, called always The Cottage, the landscape became rough and grand. It was in this cottage that Frank Greystock was to be sheltered with his friend, when he came down to shoot what Lady Eustace had called her three annual grouse.

She ought to have been happy and comfortable. There will, of course, be some to say that a young widow should not be happy and comfortable,--that she should be weeping her lost lord, and subject to the desolation of bereavement. But as the world goes now, young widows are not miserable; and there is, perhaps, a growing tendency in society to claim from them year by year still less of any misery that may be avoidable. Suttee propensities of all sorts, from burning alive down to bombazine and hideous forms of clothing, are becoming less and less popular among the nations, and women are beginning to learn that, let what misfortunes will come upon them, it is well for them to be as happy as their nature will allow them to be. A woman may thoroughly respect her husband, and mourn him truly, honestly, with her whole heart, and yet enjoy thoroughly the good things which he has left behind for her use. It was not, at any rate, sorrow for the lost Sir Florian that made Lady Eustace uncomfortable. She had her child. She had her income. She had her youth and beauty. She had Portray Castle. She had a new lover,--and, if she chose to be quit of him, not liking him well enough for the purpose, she might undoubtedly have another whom she would like better. She had hitherto been thoroughly successful in her life. And yet she was unhappy. What was it that she wanted?

She had been a very clever child,--a clever, crafty child; and now she was becoming a clever woman. Her craft remained with her; but so keen was her outlook upon the world, that she was beginning to perceive that craft, let it be never so crafty, will in the long run miss its own object. She actually envied the simplicity of Lucy Morris, for whom she delighted to find evil names, calling her demure, a prig, a sly puss, and so on. But she could see,--or half see,--that Lucy with her simplicity was stronger than was she with her craft. She had nearly captivated Frank Greystock with her wiles, but without any wiles Lucy had captivated him altogether. And a man captivated by wiles was only captivated for a time, whereas a man won by simplicity would be won for ever,--if he himself were worth the winning. And this, too, she felt,--that let her success be what it might, she could not be happy unless she could win a man's heart. She had won Sir Florian's, but that had been but for an hour,--for a month or two. And then Sir Florian had never really won hers. Could not she be simple? Could not she act simplicity so well that the thing acted should be as powerful as the thing itself;--perhaps even more powerful? Poor Lizzie Eustace! In thinking over all this, she saw a great deal. It was wonderful that she should see so much and tell herself so many home truths. But there was one truth she could not see, and therefore could not tell it to herself. She had not a heart to give. It had become petrified during those lessons of early craft in which she had taught herself how to get the better of Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, of Sir Florian Eustace, of Lady Linlithgow, and of Mr. Camperdown.

Her ladyship had now come down to her country house, leaving London and all its charms before the end of the season, actuated by various motives. In the first place, the house in Mount Street was taken furnished, by the month, and the servants were hired after the same fashion, and the horses jobbed. Lady Eustace was already sufficiently intimate with her accounts to know that she would save two hundred pounds by not remaining another month or three weeks in London, and sufficiently observant of her own affairs to have perceived that such saving was needed. And then it appeared to her that her battle with Lord Fawn could be better fought from a distance than at close quarters. London, too, was becoming absolutely distasteful to her. There were many things there that tended to make her unhappy, and so few that she could enjoy! She was afraid of Mr. Camperdown, and ever on the rack lest some dreadful thing should come upon her in respect of the necklace,--some horrible paper served upon her from a magistrate, ordering her appearance at Newgate, or perhaps before the Lord Chancellor, or a visit from policemen, who would be empowered to search for and carry off the iron box. And then there was so little in her London life to gratify her! It is pleasant to win in a fight;--but to be always fighting is not pleasant. Except in those moments, few and far between, in which she was alone with her cousin Frank,--and perhaps in those other moments in which she wore her diamonds,--she had but little in London that she enjoyed. She still thought that a time would come when it would be otherwise. Under these influences she had actually made herself believe that she was sighing for the country, and for solitude; for the wide expanse of her own bright waves,--as she had called them,--and for the rocks of dear Portray. She had told Miss Macnulty and Augusta Fawn that she thirsted for the breezes of Ayrshire, so that she might return to her books and her thoughts. Amidst the whirl of London it was impossible either to read or to think. And she believed it too,--herself. She so believed it, that on the first morning of her arrival she took a little volume in her pocket, containing Shelley's "Queen Mab," and essayed to go down upon the rocks. She had actually breakfasted at nine, and was out on the sloping grounds below the castle before ten, having made some boast to Miss Macnulty about the morning air.

She scrambled down,--not very far down, but a little way beneath the garden gate, to a spot on which a knob of rock cropped out from the scanty herbage of the incipient cliff. Fifty yards lower the real rocks began; and, though the real rocks were not very rocky, not precipitous or even bold, and were partially covered with salt-fed mosses down almost to the sea, nevertheless they justified her in talking about her rock-bound shore. The shore was hers,--for her life, and it was rock-bound. This knob she had espied from her windows;--and, indeed, had been thinking of it for the last week, as a place appropriate to solitude and Shelley. She had stood on it before, and had stretched her arms with enthusiasm towards the just-visible mountains of Arran. On that occasion the weather, perhaps, had been cool; but now a blazing sun was overhead, and when she had been seated half a minute, and "Queen Mab" had been withdrawn from her pocket, she found that it would not do. It would not do, even with the canopy she could make for herself with her parasol. So she stood up and looked about herself for shade;--for shade in some spot in which she could still look out upon "her dear wide ocean, with its glittering smile." For it was thus that she would talk about the mouth of the Clyde. Shelter near her there was none. The scrubby trees lay nearly half a mile to the right,--and up the hill, too. She had once clambered down to the actual shore, and might do so again. But she doubted that there would be shelter even there; and the clambering up on that former occasion had been a nuisance, and would be a worse nuisance now. Thinking of all this, and feeling the sun keenly, she gradually retraced her steps to the garden within the moat, and seated herself, Shelley in hand, within the summer-house. The bench was narrow, hard, and broken; and there were some snails which discomposed her;--but, nevertheless, she would make the best of it. Her darling "Queen Mab" must be read without the coarse, inappropriate, every-day surroundings of a drawing-room; and it was now manifest to her that, unless she could get up much earlier in the morning, or come out to her reading after sunset, the knob of rock would not avail her.

She began her reading, resolved that she would enjoy her poetry in spite of the narrow seat. She had often talked of "Queen Mab," and perhaps she thought she had read it. This, however, was in truth her first attempt at that work. "How wonderful is Death! Death and his brother, Sleep!" Then she half-closed the volume, and thought that she enjoyed the idea. Death,--and his brother Sleep! She did not know why they should be more wonderful than Action, or Life, or Thought;--but the words were of a nature which would enable her to remember them, and they would be good for quoting. "Sudden arose Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful in naked purity." The name of Ianthe suited her exactly. And the antithesis conveyed to her mind by naked purity struck her strongly, and she determined to learn the passage by heart. Eight or nine lines were printed separately, like a stanza, and the labour would not be great, and the task, when done, would be complete. "Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin." Which was instinct with beauty,--the stain or the soul, she did not stop to inquire, and may be excused for not understanding. "Ah,"--she exclaimed to herself, "how true it is; how one feels it; how it comes home to one!--'Sudden arose Ianthe's soul!'" And then she walked about the garden, repeating the words to herself, and almost forgetting the heat. "'Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' Ha;--yes. They will pass away, and become instinct with beauty and grace." A dim idea came upon her that when this happy time should arrive, no one would claim her necklace from her, and that the man at the stables would not be so disagreeably punctual in sending in his bill. "'All-beautiful in naked purity!'" What a tawdry world was this, in which clothes and food and houses are necessary! How perfectly that boy-poet had understood it all! "'Immortal amid ruin!'" She liked the idea of the ruin almost as well as that of the immortality, and the stains quite as well as the purity. As immortality must come, and as stains were instinct with grace, why be afraid of ruin? But then, if people go wrong,--at least women,--they are not asked out any where! "'Sudden arose Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful--'" And so the piece was learned, and Lizzie felt that she had devoted her hour to poetry in a quite rapturous manner. At any rate she had a bit to quote; and though in truth she did not understand the exact bearing of the image, she had so studied her gestures, and so modulated her voice, that she knew that she could be effective. She did not then care to carry her reading further, but returned with the volume into the house. Though the passage about Ianthe's soul comes very early in the work, she was now quite familiar with the poem, and when, in after days, she spoke of it as a thing of beauty that she had made her own by long study, she actually did not know that she was lying. As she grew older, however, she quickly became wiser, and was aware that in learning one passage of a poem it is expedient to select one in the middle, or at the end. The world is so cruelly observant now-a-days, that even men and women who have not themselves read their "Queen Mab" will know from what part of the poem a morsel is extracted, and will not give you credit for a page beyond that from which your passage comes.

After lunch Lizzie invited Miss Macnulty to sit at the open window of the drawing-room and look out upon the "glittering waves." In giving Miss Macnulty her due, we must acknowledge that, though she owned no actual cleverness herself, had no cultivated tastes, read but little, and that little of a colourless kind, and thought nothing of her hours but that she might get rid of them and live,--yet she had a certain power of insight, and could see a thing. Lizzie Eustace was utterly powerless to impose upon her. Such as Lizzie was, Miss Macnulty was willing to put up with her and accept her bread. The people whom she had known had been either worthless,--as had been her own father, or cruel,--like Lady Linlithgow, or false,--as was Lady Eustace. Miss Macnulty knew that worthlessness, cruelty, and falseness had to be endured by such as she. And she could bear them without caring much about them;--not condemning them, even within her own heart, very heavily. But she was strangely deficient in this,--that she could not call these qualities by other names, even to the owners of them. She was unable to pretend to believe Lizzie's rhapsodies. It was hardly conscience or a grand spirit of truth that actuated her, as much as a want of the courage needed for lying. She had not had the face to call old Lady Linlithgow kind, and therefore old Lady Linlithgow had turned her out of the house. When Lady Eustace called on her for sympathy, she had not courage enough to dare to attempt the bit of acting which would be necessary for sympathetic expression. She was like a dog or a child, and was unable not to be true. Lizzie was longing for a little mock sympathy,--was longing to show off her Shelley, and was very kind to Miss Macnulty when she got the poor lady into the recess of the window. "This is nice;--is it not?" she said, as she spread her hand out through the open space towards the "wide expanse of glittering waves."

"Very nice,--only it glares so," said Miss Macnulty.

"Ah, I love the full warmth of the real summer. With me it always seems that the sun is needed to bring to true ripeness the fruit of the heart." Nevertheless she had been much troubled both by the heat and by the midges when she tried to sit on the stone. "I always think of those few glorious days which I passed with my darling Florian at Naples;--days too glorious because they were so few." Now Miss Macnulty knew some of the history of those days and of their glory,--and knew also how the widow had borne her loss.

"I suppose the bay of Naples is fine," she said.

"It is not only the bay. There are scenes there which ravish you, only it is necessary that there should be some one with you that can understand you. 'Soul of Ianthe!'" she said, meaning to apostrophise that of the deceased Sir Florian. "You have read 'Queen Mab'?"

"I don't know that I ever did. If I have, I have forgotten it."

"Ah,--you should read it. I know nothing in the English language that brings home to one so often one's own best feelings and aspirations. 'It stands all-beautiful in naked purity,'" she continued, still alluding to poor Sir Florian's soul. "'Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' I can see him now in all his manly beauty, as we used to sit together by the hour, looking over the waters. Oh, Julia, the thing itself has gone,--the earthly reality; but the memory of it will live for ever!"

"He was a very handsome man, certainly," said Miss Macnulty, finding herself forced to say something.

"I see him now," she went on, still gazing out upon the shining water. "'It reassumed its native dignity, and stood Primeval amid ruin.' Is not that a glorious idea, gloriously worded?" She had forgotten one word and used a wrong epithet; but it sounded just as well. Primeval seemed to her to be a very poetical word.

"To tell the truth," said Miss Macnulty, "I never understand poetry when it is quoted unless I happen to know the passage beforehand. I think I'll go away from this, for the light is too much for my poor old eyes." Certainly Miss Macnulty had fallen into a profession for which she was not suited.

Chapter XXII

Lady Eustace Procures a Pony for the Use of Her Cousin

Lady Eustace could make nothing of Miss Macnulty in the way of sympathy, and could not bear her disappointment with patience. It was hardly to be expected that she should do so. She paid a great deal for Miss Macnulty. In a moment of rash generosity, and at a time when she hardly knew what money meant, she had promised Miss Macnulty seventy pounds for the first year, and seventy for the second, should the arrangement last longer than a twelvemonth. The second year had been now commenced, and Lady Eustace was beginning to think that seventy pounds was a great deal of money when so very little was given in return. Lady Linlithgow had paid her dependant no fixed salary. And then there was the lady's "keep," and first-class travelling when they went up and down to Scotland, and cab-fares in London when it was desirable that Miss Macnulty should absent herself. Lizzie, reckoning all up, and thinking that for so much her friend ought to be ready to discuss Ianthe's soul, or any other kindred subject, at a moment's warning, would become angry, and would tell herself that she was being swindled out of her money. She knew how necessary it was that she should have some companion at the present emergency of her life, and therefore could not at once send Miss Macnulty away; but she would sometimes become very cross, and would tell poor Macnulty that she was--a fool. Upon the whole, however, to be called a fool was less objectionable to Miss Macnulty than were demands for sympathy which she did not know how to give.

Those first ten days of August went very slowly with Lady Eustace. "Queen Mab" got itself poked away, and was heard of no more. But there were other books. A huge box full of novels had come down, and Miss Macnulty was a great devourer of novels. If Lady Eustace would talk to her about the sorrows of the poorest heroine that ever saw her lover murdered before her eyes, and then come to life again with ten thousand pounds a year,--for a period of three weeks, or till another heroine, who had herself been murdered, obliterated the former horrors from her plastic mind,--Miss Macnulty could discuss the catastrophe with the keenest interest. And Lizzie, finding herself to be, as she told herself, unstrung, fell also into novel-reading. She had intended during this vacant time to master the "Faery Queen;" but the "Faery Queen" fared even worse than "Queen Mab;"--and the studies of Portray Castle were confined to novels. For poor Macnulty, if she could only be left alone, this was well enough. To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods. But it was not so with Lady Eustace. She asked much more than that, and was now thoroughly discontented with her own idleness. She was sure that she could have read Spenser from sunrise to sundown, with no other break than an hour or two given to Shelley,--if only there had been some one to sympathise with her in her readings. But there was no one, and she was very cross. Then there came a letter to her from her cousin,--which for that morning brought some life back to the castle. "I have seen Lord Fawn," said the letter, "and I have also seen Mr. Camperdown. As it would be very hard to explain what took place at these interviews by letter, and as I shall be at Portray Castle on the 20th,--I will not make the attempt. We shall go down by the night train, and I will get over to you as soon as I have dressed and had my breakfast. I suppose I can find some kind of a pony for the journey. The 'we' consists of myself and my friend, Mr. Herriot,--a man whom I think you will like, if you will condescend to see him, though he is a barrister like myself. You need express no immediate condescension in his favour, as I shall of course come over alone on Wednesday morning. Yours always affectionately, F. G."

The letter she received on the Sunday morning, and as the Wednesday named for Frank's coming was the next Wednesday, and was close at hand, she was in rather a better humour than she had displayed since the poets had failed her. "What a blessing it will be," she said, "to have somebody to speak to!"

This was not complimentary, but Miss Macnulty did not want compliments. "Yes, indeed," she said. "Of course you will be glad to see your cousin."

"I shall be glad to see anything in the shape of a man. I declare that I have felt almost inclined to ask the minister from Craigie to elope with me."

"He has got seven children," said Miss Macnulty.

"Yes, poor man, and a wife, and not more than enough to live upon. I daresay he would have come. By-the-bye, I wonder whether there's a pony about the place."

"A pony!" Miss Macnulty of course supposed that it was needed for the purpose of the suggested elopement.

"Yes;--I suppose you know what a pony is? Of course there ought to be a shooting pony at the cottage for these men. My poor head has so many things to work upon that I had forgotten it; and you're never any good at thinking of things."

"I didn't know that gentlemen wanted ponies for shooting."

"I wonder what you do know? Of course there must be a pony."

"I suppose you'll want two?"

"No, I sha'n't. You don't suppose that men always go riding about. But I want one. What had I better do?" Miss Macnulty suggested that Gowran should be consulted. Now, Gowran was the steward and bailiff and manager and factotum about the place, who bought a cow or sold one if occasion required, and saw that nobody stole anything, and who knew the boundaries of the farms, and all about the tenants, and looked after the pipes when frost came, and was an honest, domineering, hard-working, intelligent Scotchman, who had been brought up to love the Eustaces, and who hated his present mistress with all his heart. He did not leave her service, having an idea in his mind that it was now the great duty of his life to save Portray from her ravages. Lizzie fully returned the compliment of the hatred, and was determined to rid herself of Andy Gowran's services as soon as possible. He had been called Andy by the late Sir Florian, and, though every one else about the place called him Mr. Gowran, Lady Eustace thought it became her, as the man's mistress, to treat him as he had been treated by the late master. So she called him Andy. But she was resolved to get rid of him,--as soon as she should dare. There were things which it was essential that somebody about the place should know, and no one knew them but Mr. Gowran. Every servant in the castle might rob her, were it not for the protection afforded by Mr. Gowran. In that affair of the garden it was Mr. Gowran who had enabled her to conquer the horticultural Leviathan who had oppressed her, and who, in point of wages, had been a much bigger man than Mr. Gowran himself. She trusted Mr. Gowran, and hated him,--whereas Mr. Gowran hated her, and did not trust her. "I believe you think that nothing can be done at Portray except by that man," said Lady Eustace.

"He'll know how much you ought to pay for the pony."

"Yes,--and get some brute not fit for my cousin to ride, on purpose, perhaps, to break his neck."

"Then I should ask Mr. Macallum, the postmaster of Troon, for I have seen three or four very quiet-looking ponies standing in the carts at his door."

"Macnulty, if there ever was an idiot you are one!" said Lady Eustace, throwing up her hands. "To think that I should get a pony for my cousin Frank out of one of the mail carts."

"I daresay I am an idiot," said Miss Macnulty, resuming her novel.

Lady Eustace was, of course, obliged to have recourse to Gowran, to whom she applied on the Monday morning. Not even Lizzie Eustace, on behalf of her cousin Frank, would have dared to disturb Mr. Gowran with considerations respecting a pony on the Sabbath. On the Monday morning she found Mr. Gowran superintending four boys and three old women, who were making a bit of her ladyship's hay on the ground above the castle. The ground about the castle was poor and exposed, and her ladyship's hay was apt to be late. "Andy," she said, "I shall want to get a pony for the gentlemen who are coming to the Cottage. It must be there by Tuesday evening."

"A pownie, my leddie?"

"Yes;--a pony. I suppose a pony may be purchased in Ayrshire,--though of all places in the world it seems to have the fewest of the comforts of life."

"Them as find it like that, my leddie, needn't bide there."

"Never mind. You will have the kindness to have a pony purchased and put into the stables of the Cottage on Tuesday afternoon. There are stables, no doubt."

"Oh, ay,--there's shelter, nae doot, for mair pownies than they'll ride. When the Cottage was biggit, my leddie, there was nae cause for sparing nowt." Andy Gowran was continually throwing her comparative poverty in poor Lizzie's teeth, and there was nothing he could do which displeased her more.

"And I needn't spare my cousin the use of a pony," she said grandiloquently, but feeling as she did so that she was exposing herself before the man. "You'll have the goodness to procure one for him on Tuesday."

"But there ain't aits nor yet fother, nor nowt for bedding down. And wha's to tent the pownie? There's mair in keeping a pownie than your leddyship thinks. It'll be a matter of auchteen and saxpence a week,--will a pownie." Mr. Gowran, as he expressed his prudential scruples, put a very strong emphasis indeed on the sixpence.

"Very well. Let it be so."

"And there'll be the beastie to buy, my leddie. He'll be a lump of money, my leddie. Pownies ain't to be had for nowt in Ayrshire, as was ance, my leddie."

"Of course I must pay for him."

"He'll be a matter of ten pound, my leddie."

"Very well."

"Or may be twal; just as likely." And Mr. Gowran shook his head at his mistress in a most uncomfortable way. It was not surprising that she should hate him.

"You must give the proper price,--of course."

"There ain't no proper prices for pownies,--as there is for jew'ls and sich like." If this was intended for sarcasm upon Lady Eustace in regard to her diamonds, Mr. Gowran ought to have been dismissed on the spot. In such a case no English jury would have given him his current wages. "And he'll be to sell again, my leddie?"

"We shall see about that afterwards."

"Ye'll never let him eat his head off there a' the winter! He'll be to sell. And the gentles'll ride him, may be, ance across the hillside, out and back. As to the grouse, they can't cotch them with the pownie, for there ain't none to cotch." There had been two keepers on the mountains,--men who were paid five or six shillings a week to look after the game in addition to their other callings, and one of these had been sent away, actually in obedience to Gowran's advice;--so that this blow was cruel and unmanly. He made it, too, as severe as he could by another shake of his head.

"Do you mean to tell me that my cousin cannot be supplied with an animal to ride upon?"

"My leddie, I've said nowt o' the kind. There ain't no useful animal as I kens the name and nature of as he can't have in Ayrshire,--for paying for it, my leddie;--horse, pownie, or ass, just whichever you please, my leddie. But there'll be a seddle--"

"A what?"

There can be no doubt that Gowran purposely slurred the word so that his mistress should not understand him. "Seddles don't come for nowt, my leddie, though it be Ayrshire."

"I don't understand what it is that you say, Andy."

"A seddle, my leddie,"--said he, shouting the word at her at the top of his voice,--"and a briddle. I suppose as your leddyship's cousin don't ride bare-back up in Lunnon?"

"Of course there must be the necessary horse-furniture," said Lady Eustace, retiring to the castle. Andy Gowran had certainly ill-used her, and she swore that she would have revenge. Nor when she was informed on the Tuesday that an adequate pony had been hired for eighteen pence a day, saddle, bridle, groom, and all included, was her heart at all softened towards Mr. Gowran.

XXIII. Frank Greystock's First Visit to Portray

Had Frank Greystock known all that his cousin endured for his comfort, would he have been grateful? Women, when they are fond of men, do think much of men's comfort in small matters, and men are apt to take the good things provided almost as a matter of course. When Frank Greystock and Herriot reached the cottage about nine o'clock in the morning, having left London over night by the limited mail train, the pony at once presented itself to them. It was a little shaggy, black beast, with a boy almost as shaggy as itself, but they were both good of their kind. "Oh, you're the laddie with the pownie, are you?" said Frank, in answer to an announcement made to him by the boy. He did at once perceive that Lizzie had taken notice of the word in his note, in which he had suggested that some means of getting over to Portray would be needed, and he learned from the fact that she was thinking of him and anxious to see him.

His friend was a man a couple of years younger than himself, who had hitherto achieved no success at the Bar, but who was nevertheless a clever, diligent, well-instructed man. He was what the world calls penniless, having an income from his father just sufficient to keep him like a gentleman. He was not much known as a sportsman, his opportunities for shooting not having been great; but he dearly loved the hills and fresh air, and the few grouse which were,--or were not,--on Lady Eustace's mountains would go as far with him as they would with any man. Before he had consented to come with Frank, he had especially inquired whether there was a game-keeper, and it was not till he had been assured that there was no officer attached to the estate worthy of such a name, that he had consented to come upon his present expedition. "I don't clearly know what a gillie is," he said, in answer to one of Frank's explanations. "If a gillie means a lad without any breeches on, I don't mind; but I couldn't stand a severe man got up in well-made velveteens, who would see through my ignorance in a moment, and make known by comment the fact that he had done so." Greystock had promised that there should be no severity, and Herriot had come. Greystock brought with him two guns, two fishing-rods, a man-servant, and a huge hamper from Fortnum and Mason's. Arthur Herriot, whom the attorneys had not yet loved, brought some very thick boots, a pair of knickerbockers, together with Stone and Toddy's "Digest of the Common Law." The best of the legal profession consists in this;--that when you get fairly at work you may give over working. An aspirant must learn everything; but a man may make his fortune at it, and know almost nothing. He may examine a witness with judgment, see through a case with precision, address a jury with eloquence,--and yet be altogether ignorant of law. But he must be believed to be a very pundit before he will get a chance of exercising his judgment, his precision, or his eloquence. The men whose names are always in the newspapers never look at their Stone and Toddy,--care for it not at all,--have their Stone and Toddy got up for them by their juniors when cases require that reference shall be made to precedents. But till that blessed time has come, a barrister who means success should carry his Stone and Toddy with him everywhere. Greystock never thought of the law now, unless he had some special case in hand; but Herriot could not afford to go out on his holiday without two volumes of Stone and Toddy's Digest in his portmanteau.

"You won't mind being left alone for the first morning?" said Frank, as soon as they had finished the contents of one of the pots from Fortnum and Mason.

"Not in the least. Stone and Toddy will carry me through."

"I'd go on the mountain if I were you, and get into a habit of steady loading."

"Perhaps I will take a turn,--just to find out how I feel in the knickerbockers. At what time shall I dine if you don't come back?"

"I shall certainly be here to dinner," said Frank, "unless the pony fails me or I get lost on the mountain." Then he started, and Herriot at once went to work on Stone and Toddy, with a pipe in his mouth. He had travelled all night, and it is hardly necessary to say that in five minutes he was fast asleep.

So also had Frank travelled all night, but the pony and the fresh air kept him awake. The boy had offered to go with him, but that he had altogether refused;--and, therefore, to his other cares was added that of finding his way. The sweep of the valleys, however, is long and not abrupt, and he could hardly miss his road if he would only make one judicious turn through a gap in a certain wall which lay half way between the cottage and the castle. He was thinking of the work in hand, and he found the gap without difficulty. When through that he ascended the hill for two miles, and then the sea was before him, and Portray Castle, lying, as it seemed to him at that distance, close upon the sea-shore. "Upon my word, Lizzie has not done badly for herself," he said almost aloud, as he looked down upon the fair sight beneath him, and round upon the mountains, and remembered that, for her life at least, it was all hers, and after her death would belong to her son. What more does any human being desire of such a property than that?

He rode down to the great doorway,--the mountain track which fell on to the road about half a mile from the castle having been plain enough, and there he gave up the pony into the hands of no less a man than Mr. Gowran himself. Gowran had watched the pony coming down the mountain-side, and had desired to see of what like was "her leddyship's" cousin. In telling the whole truth of Mr. Gowran, it must be acknowledged that he thought that his late master had made a very great mistake in the matter of his marriage. He could not imagine bad things enough of Lady Eustace, and almost believed that she was not now, and hadn't been before her marriage, any better than she should be. The name of Admiral Greystock, as having been the father of his mistress, had indeed reached his ears; but Andy Gowran was a suspicious man, and felt no confidence even in an admiral,--in regard to whom he heard nothing of his having, or having had, a wife. "It's my fer-rm opeenion she's jist naebody--and waur," he had said more than once to his own wife, nodding his head with great emphasis at the last word. He was very anxious, therefore, to see "her leddyship's" cousin. Mr. Gowran thought that he knew a gentleman when he saw one. He thought, also, that he knew a lady, and that he didn't see one when he was engaged with his mistress. Cousin, indeed! "For the matter o' that, ony man that comes the way may be ca'ed a coosin." So Mr. Gowran was on the grand sweep before the garden gate, and took the pony from Frank's hand. "Is Lady Eustace at home?" Frank asked. Mr. Gowran perceived that Frank was a gentleman, and was disappointed. And Frank didn't come as a man comes who calls himself by a false name, and pretends to be an honest cousin when in fact he is something,--oh, ever so wicked! Mr. Gowran, who was a stern moralist, was certainly disappointed at Frank's appearance.

Lizzie was in a little sitting-room, reached by a long passage with steps in the middle, at some corner of the castle which seemed a long way from the great door. It was a cheerful little room, with chintz curtains, and a few shelves laden with brightly-bound books, which had been prepared for Lizzie immediately on her marriage. It looked out upon the sea, and she had almost taught herself to think that here she had sat with her adored Florian, gazing in mutual ecstasy upon the "wide expanse of glittering waves." She was lying back in a low arm-chair as her cousin entered, and she did not rise to receive him. Of course she was alone, Miss Macnulty having received a suggestion that it would be well that she should do a little gardening in the moat. "Well, Frank?" she said, with her sweetest smile, as she gave him her hand. She felt and understood the extreme intimacy which would be implied by her not rising to receive him. As she could not rush into his arms there was no device by which she could more clearly show to him how close she regarded his friendship.

"So I am at Portray Castle at last," he said, still holding her hand.

"Yes,--at the dullest, dreariest, deadliest spot in all Christendom, I think,--if Ayrshire be Christendom. But never mind about that now. Perhaps, as you are at the other side of the mountain at the Cottage, we shall find it less dull here at the castle."

"I thought you were to be so happy here."

"Sit down and we'll talk it all over by degrees. What will you have,--breakfast or lunch?"

"Neither, thank you."

"Of course you'll stay to dinner?"

"No, indeed. I've a man there at the Cottage with me who would cut his throat in his solitude."

"Let him cut his throat;--but never mind now. As for being happy, women are never happy without men. I needn't tell any lies to you, you know. What makes me sure that this fuss about making men and women all the same must be wrong, is just the fact that men can get along without women, and women can't without men. My life has been a burthen to me. But never mind. Tell me about my lord;--my lord and master."

"Lord Fawn?"

"Who else? What other lord and master? My bosom's own; my heart's best hope; my spot of terra firma; my cool running brook of fresh water; my rock; my love; my lord; my all! Is he always thinking of his absent Lizzie? Does he still toil at Downing Street? Oh, dear; do you remember, Frank, when he told us that 'one of us must remain in town?'"

"I have seen him."

"So you wrote me word."

"And I have seen a very obstinate, pig-headed, but nevertheless honest and truth-speaking gentleman."

"Frank, I don't care twopence for his honesty and truth. If he ill-treats me--" Then she paused; looking into his face she had seen at once by the manner in which he had taken her badinage, without a smile, that it was necessary that she should be serious as to her matrimonial prospects. "I suppose I had better let you tell your story," she said, "and I will sit still and listen."

"He means to ill-treat you."

"And you will let him?"

"You had better listen, as you promised, Lizzie. He declares that the marriage must be off at once unless you will send those diamonds to Mr. Camperdown or to the jewellers."

"And by what law or rule does he justify himself in a decision so monstrous? Is he prepared to prove that the property is not my own?"

"If you ask me my opinion as a lawyer, I doubt whether any such proof can be shown. But as a man and a friend I do advise you to give them up."

"Never!"

"You must, of course, judge for yourself;--but that is my advice. You had better, however, hear my whole story."

"Certainly," said Lizzie. Her whole manner was now changed. She had extricated herself from the crouching position in which her feet, her curl, her arms, her whole body had been so arranged as to combine the charm of her beauty with the charm of proffered intimacy. Her dress was such as a woman would wear to receive her brother, and yet it had been studied. She had no gems about her but what she might well wear in her ordinary life, and yet the very rings on her fingers had not been put on without reference to her cousin Frank. Her position had been one of lounging ease, such as a woman might adopt when all alone, giving herself all the luxuries of solitude;--but she had adopted it in special reference to cousin Frank. Now she was in earnest, with business before her; and though it may be said of her that she could never forget her appearance in presence of a man whom she desired to please, her curl, and rings, and attitude were for the moment in the background. She had seated herself on a common chair, with her hands upon the table, and was looking into Frank's face with eager, eloquent, and combative eyes. She would take his law, because she believed in it; but, as far as she could see as yet, she would not take his advice unless it were backed by his law.

"Mr. Camperdown," continued Greystock, "has consented to prepare a case for opinion, though he will not agree that the Eustace estate shall be bound by that opinion."

"Then what's the good of it?"

"We shall at least know, all of us, what is the opinion of some lawyer qualified to understand the circumstances of the case."

"Why isn't your opinion as good as that of any lawyer?"

"I couldn't give an opinion;--not otherwise than as a private friend to you, which is worth nothing, unless for your private guidance. Mr. Camperdown--"

"I don't care one straw for Mr. Camperdown."

"Just let me finish."

"Oh, certainly;--and you mustn't be angry with me, Frank. The matter is so much to me; isn't it?"

"I won't be angry. Do I look as if I were angry? Mr. Camperdown is right."

"I daresay he may be--what you call right. But I don't care about Mr. Camperdown a bit."

"He has no power, nor has John Eustace any power, to decide that the property which may belong to a third person shall be jeopardised by any arbitration. The third person could not be made to lose his legal right by any such arbitration, and his claim, if made, would still have to be tried."

"Who is the third person, Frank?"

"Your own child at present."

"And will not he have it any way?"

"Camperdown and John Eustace say that it belongs to him at present. It is a point that, no doubt, should be settled."

"To whom do you say that it belongs?"

"That is a question I am not prepared to answer."

"To whom do you think that it belongs?"

"I have refused to look at a single paper on the subject, and my opinion is worth nothing. From what I have heard in conversation with Mr. Camperdown and John Eustace, I cannot find that they make their case good."

"Nor can I," said Lizzie.

"A case is to be prepared for Mr. Dove."

"Who is Mr. Dove?"

"Mr. Dove is a barrister, and no doubt a very clever fellow. If his opinion be such as Mr. Camperdown expects, he will at once proceed against you at law for the immediate recovery of the necklace."

"I shall be ready for him," said Lizzie, and as she spoke all her little feminine softnesses were for the moment laid aside.

"If Mr. Dove's opinion be in your favour--"

"Well," said Lizzie,--"what then?"

"In that case Mr. Camperdown, acting on behalf of John Eustace and young Florian--"

"How dreadful it is to hear of my bitterest enemy acting on behalf of my own child!" said Lizzie, holding up her hands piteously. "Well?"

"In that case Mr. Camperdown will serve you with some notice that the jewels are not yours,--to part with them as you may please."

"But they will be mine."

"He says not;--but in such case he will content himself with taking steps which may prevent you from selling them."

"Who says that I want to sell them?" demanded Lizzie indignantly.

"Or from giving them away,--say to a second husband."

"How little they know me!"

"Now I have told you all about Mr. Camperdown."

"Yes."

"And the next thing is to tell you about Lord Fawn."

"That is everything. I care nothing for Mr. Camperdown; nor yet for Mr. Dove,--if that is his absurd name. Lord Fawn is of more moment to me,--though, indeed, he has given me but little cause to say so."

"In the first place, I must explain to you that Lord Fawn is very unhappy."

"He may thank himself for it."

"He is pulled this way and that, and is half distraught; but he has stated with as much positive assurance as such a man can assume, that the match must be regarded as broken off unless you will at once restore the necklace."

"He does?"

"He has commissioned me to give you that message;--and it is my duty, Lizzie, as your friend, to tell you my conviction that he repents his engagement."

She now rose from her chair and began to walk about the room. "He shall not go back from it. He shall learn that I am not a creature at his own disposal in that way. He shall find that I have some strength,--if you have none."

"What would you have had me do?"

"Taken him by the throat," said Lizzie.

"Taking by the throat in these days seldom forwards any object,--unless the taken one be known to the police. I think Lord Fawn is behaving very badly, and I have told him so. No doubt he is under the influence of others,--mother and sisters,--who are not friendly to you."

"False-faced idiots!" said Lizzie.

"He himself is somewhat afraid of me,--is much afraid of you;--is afraid of what people will say of him; and,--to give him his due,--is afraid also of doing what is wrong. He is timid, weak, conscientious, and wretched. If you have set your heart upon marrying him--"

"My heart!" said Lizzie scornfully.

"Or your mind,--you can have him by simply sending the diamonds to the jewellers. Whatever may be his wishes, in that case he will redeem his word."

"Not for him or all that belongs to him! It wouldn't be much. He's just a pauper with a name."

"Then your loss will be so much the less."

"But what right has he to treat me so? Did you ever before hear of such a thing? Why is he to be allowed to go back,--without punishment,--more than another?"

"What punishment would you wish?"

"That he should be beaten within an inch of his life;--and if the inch were not there, I should not complain."

"And I am to do it,--to my absolute ruin, and to your great injury?"

"I think I could almost do it myself." And Lizzie raised her hand as though there were some weapon in it. "But, Frank, there must be something. You wouldn't have me sit down and bear it. All the world has been told of the engagement. There must be some punishment."

"You would not wish to have an action brought,--for breach of promise?"

"I would wish to do whatever would hurt him most,--without hurting myself," said Lizzie.

"You won't give up the necklace?" said Frank.

"Certainly not," said Lizzie. "Give it up for his sake,--a man that I have always despised?"

"Then you had better let him go."

"I will not let him go. What,--to be pointed at as the woman that Lord Fawn had jilted? Never! My necklace should be nothing more to him than this ring." And she drew from her finger a little circlet of gold with a stone, for which she had owed Messrs. Harter and Benjamin five-and-thirty pounds till Sir Florian had settled that account for her. "What cause can he give for such treatment?"

"He acknowledges that there is no cause which he can state openly."

"And I am to bear it? And it is you that tell me so? Oh, Frank!"

"Let us understand each other, Lizzie. I will not fight him,--that is, with pistols; nor will I attempt to thrash him. It would be useless to argue whether public opinion is right or wrong; but public opinion is now so much opposed to that kind of thing, that it is out of the question. I should injure your position and destroy my own. If you mean to quarrel with me on that score, you had better say so."

Perhaps at that moment he almost wished that she would quarrel with him, but she was otherwise disposed. "Oh, Frank," she said, "do not desert me."

"I will not desert you."

"You feel that I am ill-used, Frank?"

"I do. I think that his conduct is inexcusable."

"And there is to be no punishment?" she asked, with that strong indignation at injustice which the unjust always feel when they are injured.

"If you carry yourself well,--quietly and with dignity,--the world will punish him."

"I don't believe a bit of it. I am not a Patient Grizel who can content myself with heaping benefits on those who injure me, and then thinking that they are coals of fire. Lucy Morris is one of that sort." Frank ought to have resented the attack, but he did not. "I have no such tame virtues. I'll tell him to his face what he is. I'll lead him such a life that he shall be sick of the very name of necklace."

"You cannot ask him to marry you."

"I will. What, not ask a man to keep his promise when you are engaged to him? I am not going to be such a girl as that."

"Do you love him, then?"

"Love him! I hate him. I always despised him, and now I hate him."

"And yet you would marry him?"

"Not for worlds, Frank. No. Because you advised me, I thought that I would do so. Yes, you did, Frank. But for you I would never have dreamed of taking him. You know, Frank, how it was,--when you told me of him and wouldn't come to me yourself." Now again she was sitting close to him and had her hand upon his arm. "No, Frank; even to please you I could not marry him now. But I'll tell you what I'll do. He shall ask me again. In spite of those idiots at Richmond he shall kneel at my feet,--necklace or no necklace; and then,--then I'll tell him what I think of him. Marry him! I would not touch him with a pair of tongs." As she said this, she was holding her cousin fast by the hand.