The Eustace Diamonds Part 44

"There's lunch at two,--just bread and b.u.t.ter and cheese, and perhaps a bit of cold meat. There's dinner at seven;--and very bad it is, because they don't have any good meat in London. Down in Fifes.h.i.+re the meat's a deal better than it is here, only I never go there now.

At half-past ten I go to bed. It's a pity you're so young, because I don't know what you'll do about going out. Perhaps, as you ain't pretty, it won't signify."

"Not at all, I should think," said Lucy.

"Perhaps you consider yourself pretty. It's all altered now since I was young. Girls make monsters of themselves, and I'm told the men like it;--going about with unclean, frowsy structures on their heads, enough to make a dog sick. They used to be clean and sweet and nice,--what one would like to kiss. How a man can like to kiss a face with a dirty horse's tail all whizzing about it, is what I can't at all understand. I don't think they do like it, but they have to do it."

"I haven't even a pony's tail," said Lucy.

"They do like to kiss you, I daresay."

"No, they don't," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lucy, not knowing what answer to make.

"I haven't hardly looked at you, but you didn't seem to me to be a beauty."

"You're quite right about that, Lady Linlithgow."

"I hate beauties. My niece, Lizzie Eustace, is a beauty; and I think that, of all the heartless creatures in the world, she is the most heartless."

"I know Lady Eustace very well."

"Of course you do. She was a Greystock, and you know the Greystocks.

And she was down staying with old Lady Fawn at Richmond. I should think old Lady Fawn had a time with her;--hadn't she?"

"It didn't go off very well."

"Lizzie would be too much for the Fawns, I should think. She was too much for me, I know. She's about as bad as anybody ever was. She's false, dishonest, heartless, cruel, irreligious, ungrateful, mean, ignorant, greedy, and vile!"

"Good gracious, Lady Linlithgow!"

"She's all that, and a great deal worse. But she is handsome. I don't know that I ever saw a prettier woman. I generally go out in a cab at three o'clock, but I sha'n't want you to go with me. I don't know what you can do. Macnulty used to walk round Grosvenor Square and think that people mistook her for a lady of quality. You mustn't go and walk round Grosvenor Square by yourself, you know. Not that I care."

"I'm not a bit afraid of anybody," said Lucy.

"Now you know all about it. There isn't anything for you to do. There are Miss Edgeworth's novels down-stairs, and 'Pride and Prejudice' in my bed-room. I don't subscribe to Mudie's, because when I asked for 'Adam Bede,' they always sent me the 'Bandit Chief.' Perhaps you can borrow books from your friends at Richmond. I daresay Mrs. Greystock has told you that I'm very cross."

"I haven't seen Mrs. Greystock for ever so long."

"Then Lady Fawn has told you,--or somebody. When the wind is east, or north-east, or even north, I am cross, for I have the lumbago.

It's all very well talking about being good-humoured. You can't be good-humoured with the lumbago. And I have the gout sometimes in my knee. I'm cross enough then, and so you'd be. And, among 'em all, I don't get much above half what I ought to have out of my jointure.

That makes me very cross. My teeth are bad, and I like to have the meat tender. But it's always tough, and that makes me cross. And when people go against the grain with me, as Lizzie Eustace always did, then I'm very cross."

"I hope you won't be very bad with me," said Lucy.

"I don't bite, if you mean that," said her ladys.h.i.+p.

"I'd sooner be bitten than barked at,--sometimes," said Lucy.

"Humph!" said the old woman, and then she went back to her accounts.

Lucy had a few books of her own, and she determined to ask Frank to send her some. Books are cheap things, and she would not mind asking him for magazines, and numbers, and perhaps for the loan of a few volumes. In the meantime she did read Tupper's poem, and "Pride and Prejudice," and one of Miss Edgeworth's novels,--probably for the third time. During the first week in Bruton Street she would have been comfortable enough, only that she had not received a line from Frank. That Frank was not specially good at writing letters she had already taught herself to understand. She was inclined to believe that but few men of business do write letters willingly, and that, of all men, lawyers are the least willing to do so. How reasonable it was that a man who had to perform a great part of his daily work with a pen in his hand, should loathe a pen when not at work. To her the writing of letters was perhaps the most delightful occupation of her life, and the writing of letters to her lover was a foretaste of heaven; but then men, as she knew, are very different from women. And she knew this also,--that of all her immediate duties, no duty could be clearer than that of abstaining from all jealousy, petulance, and impatient expectation of little attentions. He loved her, and had told her so, and had promised her that she should be his wife, and that ought to be enough for her. She was longing for a letter, because she was very anxious to know whether she might mention his name to Lady Linlithgow;--but she would abstain from any idea of blaming him because the letter did not come.

On various occasions the countess showed some little curiosity about the lover; and at last, after about ten days, when she found herself beginning to be intimate with her new companion, she put the question point-blank. "I hate mysteries," she said. "Who is the young man you are to marry?"

"He is a gentleman I've known a long time."

"That's no answer."

"I don't want to tell his name quite yet, Lady Linlithgow."

"Why shouldn't you tell his name, unless it's something improper? Is he a gentleman?"

"Yes;--he is a gentleman."

"And how old?"

"Oh, I don't know;--perhaps thirty-two."

"And has he any money?"

"He has his profession."

"I don't like these kind of secrets, Miss Morris. If you won't say who he is, what was the good of telling me that you were engaged at all? How is a person to believe it?"

"I don't want you to believe it."

"Highty, tighty!"

"I told you my own part of the affair, because I thought you ought to know it as I was coming into your house. But I don't see that you ought to know his part of it. As for not believing, I suppose you believed Lady Fawn?"

"Not a bit better than I believe you. People don't always tell truth because they have t.i.tles, nor yet because they've grown old. He don't live in London;--does he?"

"He generally lives in London. He is a barrister."

"Oh,--oh; a barrister is he. They're always making a heap of money, or else none at all. Which is it with him?"

"He makes something."

"As much as you could put in your eye and see none the worse." To see the old lady, as she made this suggestion, turn sharp round upon Lucy, was as good as a play. "My sister's nephew, the dean's son, is one of the best of the rising ones, I'm told." Lucy blushed up to her hair, but the dowager's back was turned, and she did not see the blushes. "But he's in Parliament, and they tell me he spends his money faster than he makes it. I suppose you know him?"

"Yes;--I knew him at Bobsborough."

"It's my belief that after all this fuss about Lord Fawn, he'll marry his cousin, Lizzie Eustace. If he's a lawyer, and as sharp as they say, I suppose he could manage her. I wish he would."

"And she so bad as you say she is!"

"She'll be sure to get somebody, and why shouldn't he have her money as well as another? There never was a Greystock who didn't want money. That's what it will come to;--you'll see."

"Never," said Lucy decidedly.