The Eustace Diamonds Part 32

"Was ever lady so interrogated? I do not know yet that I shall go back to London. Why am I asked such questions? As to you, Frank, I would tell you everything,--my whole heart, if only you cared to know it. But why is John Eustace to make inquiry as to personal ornaments which are my own property? If I go to London, I will take them there, and wear them at every house I enter. I will do so in defiance of Mr.

Camperdown and Lord Fawn. I think, Frank, that no woman was ever so ill-treated as I am."

He himself thought that she was ill-treated. She had so pleaded her case, and had been so lovely in her tears and her indignation, that he began to feel something like true sympathy for her cause. What right had he, or had Mr. Camperdown, or any one, to say that the jewels did not belong to her? And if her claim to them was just, why should she be persuaded to give up the possession of them? He knew well that were she to surrender them with the idea that they should be restored to her if her claim were found to be just, she would not get them back very soon. If once the jewels were safe, locked up in Mr. Garnett's strong box, Mr. Camperdown would not care how long it might be before a jury or a judge should have decided on the case.

The burthen of proof would then be thrown upon Lady Eustace. In order that she might recover her own property she would have to thrust herself forward as a witness, and appear before the world a claimant, greedy for rich ornaments. Why should he advise her to give them up?

"I am only thinking," said he, "what may be the best for your own peace."

"Peace!"--she exclaimed. "How am I to have peace? Remember the condition in which I find myself! Remember the manner in which that man is treating me, when all the world has been told of my engagement to him! When I think of it my heart is so bitter that I am inclined to throw, not the diamonds, but myself from off the rocks. All that remains to me is the triumph of getting the better of my enemies. Mr.

Camperdown shall never have the diamonds. Even if they could prove that they did not belong to me, they should find them--gone."

"I don't think they can prove it."

"I'll flaunt them in the eyes of all of them till they do; and then--they shall be gone. And I'll have such revenge on Lord Fawn before I have done with him, that he shall know that it may be worse to have to fight a woman than a man. Oh, Frank, I do not think that I am hard by nature, but these things make a woman hard." As she spoke she took his hand in hers, and looked up into his eyes through her tears. "I know that you do not care for me, and you know how much I care for you."

"Not care for you, Lizzie?"

"No;--that little thing at Richmond is everything to you. She is tame and quiet,--a cat that will sleep on the rug before the fire, and you think that she will never scratch. Do not suppose that I mean to abuse her. She was my dear friend before you had ever seen her. And men, I know, have tastes which we women do not understand. You want what you call--repose."

"We seldom know what we want, I fancy. We take what the G.o.ds send us." Frank's words were perhaps more true than wise. At the present moment the G.o.ds had clearly sent Lizzie Eustace to him, and unless he could call up some increased strength of his own, quite independent of the G.o.ds,--or of what we may perhaps call chance,--he would have to put up with the article sent.

Lizzie had declared that she would not touch Lord Fawn with a pair of tongs, and in saying so had resolved that she could not and would not now marry his lords.h.i.+p even were his lords.h.i.+p in her power. It had been decided by her as quickly as thoughts flash, but it was decided.

She would torture the unfortunate lord, but not torture him by becoming his wife. And, so much being fixed as the stars in heaven, might it be possible that she should even yet induce her cousin to take the place that had been intended for Lord Fawn? After all that had pa.s.sed between them she need hardly hesitate to tell him of her love. And with the same flas.h.i.+ng thoughts she declared to herself that she did love him, and that therefore this arrangement would be so much better than that other one which she had proposed to herself.

The reader, perhaps, by this time, has not a high opinion of Lady Eustace, and may believe that among other drawbacks on her character there is especially this,--that she was heartless. But that was by no means her own opinion of herself. She would have described herself,--and would have meant to do so with truth,--as being all heart. She probably thought that an over-amount of heart was the malady under which she specially suffered. Her heart was overflowing now towards the man who was sitting by her side. And then it would be so pleasant to punish that little chit who had spurned her gift and had dared to call her mean! This man, too, was needy, and she was wealthy. Surely, were she to offer herself to him, the generosity of the thing would make it n.o.ble. She was still dissolved in tears and was still hysteric. "Oh, Frank!" she said, and threw herself upon his breast.

Frank Greystock felt his position to be one of intense difficulty, but whether his difficulty was increased or diminished by the appearance of Mr. Andy Gowran's head over a rock at the entrance of the little cave in which they were sitting, it might be difficult to determine. But there was the head. And it was not a head that just popped itself up and then retreated, as a head would do that was discovered doing that which made it ashamed of itself. The head, with its eyes wide open, held its own, and seemed to say,--"Ay,--I've caught you, have I?" And the head did speak, though not exactly in those words. "Coosins!" said the head; and then the head was wagged.

In the meantime Lizzie Eustace, whose back was turned to the head, raised her own, and looked up into Greystock's eyes for love. She perceived at once that something was amiss, and, starting to her feet, turned quickly round. "How dare you intrude here?" she said to the head. "Coosins!" replied the head, wagging itself.

It was clearly necessary that Greystock should take some steps, if only with the object of proving to the impudent factotum that he was not altogether overcome by the awkwardness of his position. That he was a good deal annoyed, and that he felt not altogether quite equal to the occasion, must be acknowledged. "What is it that the man wants?" he said, glaring at the head. "Coosins!" said the head, wagging itself again. "If you don't take yourself off, I shall have to thrash you," said Frank. "Coosins!" said Andy Gowran, stepping from behind the rock and showing his full figure. Andy was a man on the wrong side of fifty, and therefore, on the score of age, hardly fit for thras.h.i.+ng. And he was compact, short, broad, and as hard as flint;--a man bad to thrash, look at it from what side you would.

"Coosins!" he said yet again. "Ye're mair couthie than coosinly, I'm thinking."

"Andy Gowran, I dismiss you from my service for your impertinence,"

said Lady Eustace.

"It's ae ane to Andy Gowran for that, my leddie. There's timber and a warld o' things aboot the place as wants proteection on behalf o' the heir. If your leddies.h.i.+p is minded to be quit o' my sarvices, I'll find a maister in Mr. Camperdoon, as'll nae alloo me to be thrown out o' employ. Coosins!"

"Walk off from this!" said Frank Greystock, coming forward and putting his hand upon the man's breast. Mr. Gowran repeated the objectionable word yet once again, and then retired.

Frank Greystock immediately felt how very bad for him was his position. For the lady, if only she could succeed in her object, the annoyance of the interruption would not matter much after its first absurdity had been endured. When she had become the wife of Frank Greystock there would be nothing remarkable in the fact that she had been found sitting with him in a cavern by the sea-sh.o.r.e. But for Frank the difficulty of extricating himself from his dilemma was great, not in regard to Mr. Gowran, but in reference to his cousin Lizzie. He might, it was true, tell her that he was engaged to Lucy Morris;--but then why had he not told her so before? He had not told her so;--nor did he tell her on this occasion. When he attempted to lead her away up the cliff, she insisted on being left where she was.

"I can find my way alone," she said, endeavouring to smile through her tears. "The man has annoyed me by his impudence,--that is all.

Go,--if you are going."

Of course he was going; but he could not go without a word of tenderness. "Dear, dear Lizzie," he said, embracing her.

"Frank, you'll be true to me?"

"I will be true to you."

"Then go now," she said. And he went his way up the cliff, and got his pony, and rode back to the cottage, very uneasy in his mind.

CHAPTER XXVII

Lucy Morris Misbehaves

Lucy Morris got her letter and was contented. She wanted some demonstration of love from her lover, but very little sufficed for her comfort. With her it was almost impossible that a man should be loved and suspected at the same time. She could not have loved the man, or at any rate confessed her love, without thinking well of him; and she could not think good and evil at the same time. She had longed for some word from him since she last saw him; and now she had got a word. She had known that he was close to his fair cousin,--the cousin whom she despised, and whom, with womanly instinct, she had almost regarded as a rival. But to her the man had spoken out; and though he was far away from her, living close to the fair cousin, she would not allow a thought of trouble on that score to annoy her. He was her own, and let Lizzie Eustace do her worst, he would remain her own. But she had longed to be told that he was thinking of her, and at last the letter had come. She answered it that same night with the sweetest, prettiest little letter, very short, full of love and full of confidence. Lady Fawn, she said, was the dearest of women;--but what was Lady Fawn to her, or all the Fawns, compared with her lover?

If he could come to Richmond without disturbance to himself, let him come; but if he felt that, in the present unhappy condition of affairs between him and Lord Fawn, it was better that he should stay away, she had not a word to say in the way of urging him. To see him would be a great delight. But had she not the greater delight of knowing that he loved her? That was quite enough to make her happy.

Then there was a little prayer that G.o.d might bless him, and an a.s.surance that she was in all things his own, own Lucy. When she was writing her letter she was in all respects a happy girl.

But on the very next day there came a cloud upon her happiness,--not in the least, however, affecting her full confidence in her lover. It was a Sat.u.r.day, and Lord Fawn came down to Richmond. Lord Fawn had seen Mr. Greystock in London on that day, and the interview had been by no means pleasant to him. The Under-Secretary of State for India was as dark as a November day when he reached his mother's house, and there fell upon every one the unintermittent cold drizzling shower of his displeasure from the moment in which he entered the house. There was never much reticence among the ladies at Richmond in Lucy's presence, and since the completion of Lizzie's unfortunate visit to Fawn Court, they had not hesitated to express open opinions adverse to the prospects of the proposed bride. Lucy herself could say but little in defence of her old friend, who had lost all claim upon that friends.h.i.+p since the offer of the bribe had been made,--so that it was understood among them all that Lizzie was to be regarded as a black sheep;--but hitherto Lord Fawn himself had concealed his feelings before Lucy. Now unfortunately he spoke out, and in speaking was especially bitter against Frank. "Mr. Greystock has been most insolent," he said as they were all sitting together in the library after dinner. Lady Fawn made a sign to him and shook her head. Lucy felt the hot blood fly into both her cheeks, but at the moment she did not speak. Lydia Fawn put out her hand beneath the table and took hold of Lucy's. "We must all remember that he is her cousin," said Augusta.

"His relations.h.i.+p to Lady Eustace cannot justify ungentlemanlike impertinence to me," said Lord Fawn. "He has dared to use words to me which would make it necessary that I should call him out, only--"

"Frederic, you shall do nothing of the kind!" said Lady Fawn, jumping up from her chair.

"Oh, Frederic, pray, pray don't!" said Augusta, springing on to her brother's shoulder.

"I am sure Frederic does not mean that," said Amelia.

"Only that n.o.body does call any body out now," added the pacific lord. "But nothing on earth shall ever induce me to speak again to a man who is so little like a gentleman." Lydia now held Lucy's hand still tighter, as though to prevent her rising. "He has never forgiven me," continued Lord Fawn, "because he was so ridiculously wrong about the Sawab."

"I am sure that had nothing to do with it," said Lucy.

"Miss Morris, I shall venture to hold my own opinion," said Lord Fawn.

"And I shall hold mine," said Lucy bravely. "The Sawab of Mygawb had nothing to do with what Mr. Greystock may have said or done about his cousin. I am quite sure of it."

"Lucy, you are forgetting yourself," said Lady Fawn.

"Lucy, dear, you shouldn't contradict my brother," said Augusta.

"Take my advice, Lucy, and let it pa.s.s by," said Amelia.

"How can I hear such things said and not notice them?" demanded Lucy.

"Why does Lord Fawn say them when I am by?"

Lord Fawn had now condescended to be full of wrath against his mother's governess. "I suppose I may express my own opinion, Miss Morris, in my mother's house."

"And I shall express mine," said Lucy. "Mr. Greystock is a gentleman.

If you say that he is not a gentleman, it is not true." Upon hearing these terrible words spoken, Lord Fawn rose from his seat and slowly left the room. Augusta followed him with both her arms stretched out. Lady Fawn covered her face with her hands, and even Amelia was dismayed.

"Oh, Lucy! why could you not hold your tongue?" said Lydia.

"I won't hold my tongue!" said Lucy, bursting out into tears. "He is a gentleman."

Then there was great commotion at Fawn Court. After a few moments Lady Fawn followed her son without having said a word to Lucy, and Amelia went with her. Poor Lucy was left with the younger girls, and was no doubt very unhappy. But she was still indignant, and would yield nothing. When Georgina, the fourth daughter, pointed out to her that, in accordance with all rules of good breeding, she should have abstained from a.s.serting that her brother had spoken an untruth, she blazed up again. "It was untrue," she said.