The Eustace Diamonds Part 14

"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 n.o.ble 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-c.u.m-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 pa.s.s 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sion 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, Sat.u.r.day, 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 subst.i.tute for a spoken a.s.surance 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 G.o.d'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-c.u.m-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 Sat.u.r.day 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."