On this occasion Frank Greystock went down to Portray Castle with the intention of staying at the house during the very short time that he would remain in Scotland. He was going there solely on his cousin’s business, with no view to grouse-shooting or other pleasure, and he purposed remaining but a very short time — perhaps only one night. His cousin, moreover, had spoken of having guests with her, in which case there could be no tinge of impropriety in his doing so. And whether she had guests, or whether she had not, what difference could it really make? Mr. Andrew Gowran had already seen what there was to see, and could do all the evil that could be done. He could, if he were so minded, spread reports in the neighbourhood, and might, perhaps, have the power of communicating what he had discovered to the Eustace faction, John Eustace, Mr. Camperdown, and Lord Fawn. That evil, if it were an evil, must be encountered with absolute indifference. So he went direct to the castle, and was received quietly, but very graciously, by his cousin Lizzie.
There were no guests then staying at Portray; but that very distinguished lady, Mrs. Carbuncle, with her niece, Miss Roanoke, had been there; as had also that very well-known nobleman, Lord George de Bruce Carruthers. Lord George and Mrs. Carbuncle were in the habit of seeing a good deal of each other, though, as all the world knew, there was nothing between them but the simplest friendship. And Sir Griffin Tewett had also been there, a young baronet who was supposed to be enamoured of that most gorgeous of beauties, Lucinda Roanoke. Of all these grand friends — friends with whom Lizzie had become acquainted in London — nothing further need be said here, as they were not at the castle when Frank arrived. When he came, whether by premeditated plan or by the chance of circumstances, Lizzie had no one with her at Portray except the faithful Macnulty.
“I thought to have found you with all the world here,” said Frank, the faithful Macnulty being then present.
“Well, we have had people, but only for a couple of days. They are all coming again, but not till November. You hunt, don’t you, Frank?”
“I have no time for hunting. Why do you ask?”
“I’m going to hunt. It’s a long way to go — ten or twelve miles generally; but almost everybody hunts here. Mrs. Carbuncle is coming again, and she is about the best lady in England after hounds; so they tell me. And Lord George is coming again.”
“Who is Lord George?”
“You remember Lord George Carruthers, whom we all knew in London?”
“What, the tall man with the hollow eyes and the big whiskers, whose life is a mystery to every one? Is he coming?”
“I like him just because he isn’t a ditto to every man one meets. And Sir Griffin Tewett is coming.”
“Who is a ditto to everybody.”
“Well, yes; poor Sir Griffin! The truth is, he is awfully smitten with Mrs. Carbuncle’s niece.”
“Don’t you go match-making, Lizzie,” said Frank. “That Sir Griffin is a fool, we will all allow; but it’s my belief he has wit enough to make himself pass off as a man of fortune, with very little to back it. He’s at law with his mother, at law with his sisters, and at law with his younger brother.”
“If he were at law with his great-grandmother, it would be nothing to me, Frank. She has her aunt to take care of her, and Sir Griffin is coming with Lord George.”
“You don’t mean to put up all their horses, Lizzie?”
“Well, not all. Lord George and Sir Griffin are to keep theirs at Troon, or Kilmarnock, or somewhere. The ladies will bring two apiece, and I shall have two of my own.”
“And carriage horses and hacks?”
“The carriage horses are here, of course.”
“It will cost you a great deal of money, Lizzie.”
“That’s just what I tell her,” said Miss Macnulty.
“I’ve been living here, not spending one shilling, for the last two months,” said Lizzie, “and all for the sake of economy; yet people think that no woman was ever left so rich. Surely I can afford to see a few friends for one month in the year. If I can’t afford so much as that, I shall let the place and go and live abroad somewhere. It’s too much to suppose that a woman should shut herself up here for six or eight months and see nobody all the time.”
On that, the day of Frank’s arrival, not a word was said about the necklace, nor of Lord Fawn, nor of that mutual pledge which had been taken and given, down among the rocks. Frank, before dinner, went out about the place that he might see how things were going on, and observe whether the widow was being ill-treated and unfairly eaten up by her dependents. He was, too, a little curious as to a matter as to which his curiosity was soon relieved. He had hardly reached the outbuildings which lay behind the kitchen gardens on his way to the Portray woods, before he encountered Andy Gowran. That faithful adherent of the family raised his hand to his cap and bobbed his head, and then silently, and with renewed diligence, applied himself to the job which he had in hand. The gate of the little yard in which the cow-shed stood was off its hinges, and Andy was resetting the post and making the fence tight and tidy. Frank stood a moment watching him, and then asked after his health. “‘Deed am I nae that to boost about in the way of bodily heelth, Muster Greystock. I’ve just o’er mony things to tent to, to tent to my ain sell as a prudent mon ought. It’s airly an’ late wi’ me, Muster Greystock; and the lumbagy just a’ o’er a mon isn’t the pleasantest freend in the warld.” Frank said that he was sorry to hear so bad an account of Mr. Gowran’s health, and passed on. It was not for him to refer to the little scene in which Mr. Gowran had behaved so badly and had shaken his head. If the misbehaviour had been condoned by Lady Eustace, the less that he said about it, the better. Then he went on through the woods, and was well aware that Mr. Gowran’s fostering care had not been abated by his disapproval of his mistress. The fences had been repaired since Frank was there, and stones had been laid on the road or track over which was to be carried away the underwood which it would be Lady Eustace’s privilege to cut during the coming winter.
Frank was not alone for one moment with his cousin during that evening, but in the presence of Miss Macnulty all the circumstances of the necklace were discussed. “Of course it is my own,” said Lady Eustace, standing up, “my own to do just what I please with. If they go on like this with me, they will almost tempt me to sell it for what it will fetch, just to prove to them that I can do so. I have half a mind to sell it and then send them the money and tell them to put it by for my little Flory. Would not that serve them right, Frank?”
“I don’t think I’d do that, Lizzie.”
“Why not? You always tell me what not to do, but you never say what I ought!”
“That is because I am so wise and prudent. If you were to attempt to sell the diamonds they would stop you, and would not give you credit for the generous purpose afterward.”
“They wouldn’t stop you if you sold the ring you wear.” The ring had been given to him by Lucy after their engagement, and was the only present she had ever made him. It had been purchased out of her own earnings, and had been put on his finger by her own hand. Either from accident or craft he had not worn it when he had been before at Portray, and Lizzie had at once observed it as a thing she had never seen before. She knew well that he would not buy such a ring. Who had given him the ring? Frank almost blushed as he looked down at the trinket, and Lizzie was sure that it had been given by that sly little creeping thing, Lucy. “Let me look at the ring,” she said. “Nobody could stop you if you chose to sell this to me.”
“Little things are always less troublesome than big things,” he said.
“What is the price?” she asked.
“It is not in the market, Lizzie. Nor should your diamonds be there. You must be content to let them take what legal steps they may think fit, and defend your property. After that you can do as you please; but keep them safe till the thing is settled. If I were you I would have them at the bankers.”
“Yes; and then when I asked for them be told that they couldn’t be given up to me because of Mr. Camperdown or the Lord Chancellor. And what’s the good of a thing locked up? You wear your ring; why shouldn’t I wear my necklace?”
“I have nothing to say against it.”
“It isn’t that I care for such things. Do I, Julia?”
“All ladies like them, I suppose,” said that stupidest and most stubborn of all humble friends, Miss Macnulty.
“I don’t like them at all, and you know I don’t. I hate them. They have been the misery of my life. Oh, how they have tormented me! Even when I am asleep I dream about them, and think that people steal them. They have never given me one moment’s happiness. When I have them on I am always fearing that Camperdown & Son are behind me and are going to clutch them. And I think too well of myself to believe that anybody will care more for me because of a necklace. The only good they have ever done me has been to save me from a man who I now know never cared for me. But they are mine; and therefore I choose to keep them. Though I am only a woman, I have an idea of my own rights, and will defend them as far as they go. If you say I ought not to sell them, Frank, I’ll keep them; but I’ll wear them as commonly as you do that gage d’amour which you carry on your finger. Nobody shall ever see me without them. I won’t go to any old dowager’s tea-party without them. Mr. John Eustace has chosen to accuse me of stealing them.”
“I don’t think John Eustace has ever said a word about them,” said Frank.
“Mr. Camperdown, then; the people who choose to call themselves the guardians and protectors of my boy, as if I were not his best guardian and protector. I’ll show them at any rate that I’m not ashamed of my booty. I don’t see why I should lock them up in a musty old bank. Why don’t you send your ring to the bank?”
Frank could not but feel that she did it all very well. In the first place, she was very pretty in the display of her half-mock indignation. Though she used some strong words, she used them with an air that carried them off and left no impression that she had been either vulgar or violent. And then, though the indignation was half mock, it was also half real, and her courage and spirit were attractive. Greystock had at last taught himself to think that Mr. Camperdown was not justified in the claim which he made, and that in consequence of that unjust claim Lizzie Eustace had been subjected to ill-usage. “Did you ever see this bone of contention,” she asked; “this fair Helen for which Greeks and Romans are to fight?”
“I never saw the necklace, if you mean that.”
“I’ll fetch it. You ought to see it, as you have to talk about it so often.”
“Can I get it?” asked Miss Macnulty.
“Heaven and earth! To suppose that I should ever keep them under less than seven keys, and that there should be any of the locks that anybody should be able to open except myself!”
“And where are the seven keys?” asked Frank.
“Next to my heart,” said Lizzie, putting her hand on her left side. “And when I sleep they are always tied round my neck in a bag, and the bag never escapes from my grasp. And I have such a knife under my pillow, ready for Mr. Camperdown should he come to seize them!” Then she ran out of the room, and in a couple of minutes returned with the necklace hanging loose in her hand. It was part of her little play to show by her speed that the close locking of the jewels was a joke, and that the ornament, precious as it was, received at her hands no other treatment than might any indifferent feminine bauble. Nevertheless within those two minutes she had contrived to unlock the heavy iron case which always stood beneath the foot of her bed. “There,” she said, chucking the necklace across the table to Frank, so that he was barely able to catch it. “There is ten thousand pounds’ worth, as they tell me. Perhaps you will not believe me when I say that I should have the greatest satisfaction in the world in throwing them out among those blue waves yonder, did I not think that Camperdown & Son would fish them up again.”
Frank spread the necklace on the table and stood up to look at it, while Miss Macnulty came and gazed at the jewels over his shoulder. “And that is worth ten thousand pounds,” said he.
“So people say.”
“And your husband gave it you just as another man gives a trinket that costs ten shillings!”
“Just as Lucy Morris gave you that ring.”
He smiled, but took no other notice of the accusation. “I am so poor a man,” said he, “that this string of stones, which you throw about the room like a child’s toy, would be the making of me.”
“Take it and be made,” said Lizzie.
“It seems an awful thing to me to have so much value in my hands,” said Miss Macnulty, who had lifted the necklace off the table. “It would buy an estate; wouldn’t it?”
“It would buy the honourable estate of matrimony if it belonged to many women,” said Lizzie, “but it hasn’t had just that effect with me; has it, Frank?”
“You haven’t used it with that view yet.”
“Will you have it, Frank?” she said. “Take it with all its encumbrances and weight of cares. Take it with all the burden of Messrs. Camperdown’s law-suits upon it. You shall be as welcome to it as flowers were ever welcomed in May.”
“The encumbrances are too heavy,” said Frank.
“You prefer a little ring.”
“Very much.”
“I don’t doubt but you’re right,” said Lizzie. “Who fears to rise will hardly get a fall. But there they are for you to look at, and there they shall remain for the rest of the evening.” So saying, she clasped the string round Miss Macnulty’s throat. “How do you feel, Julia, with an estate upon your neck? Five hundred acres at a pound an acre. That’s about it.” Miss Macnulty looked as though she did not like it, but she stood for a time bearing the precious burden, while Frank explained to his cousin that she could hardly buy land to pay her five per cent. They were then taken off and left lying on the table till Lady Eustace took them with her as she went to bed. “I do feel so like some naughty person in the ‘Arabian Nights,’” she said, “who has got some great treasure that always brings him into trouble; but he can’t get rid of it, because some spirit has given it to him. At last some morning it turns to slate stones, and then he has to be a water-carrier, and is happy ever afterwards, and marries the king’s daughter. What sort of a king’s son will there be for me when this turns into slate stones? Good night, Frank.” Then she went off with her diamonds and her bed-candle.
On the following day Frank suggested that there should be a business conversation. “That means that I am to sit silent and obedient while you lecture me,” she said. But she submitted, and they went together into the little sitting-room which looked out over the sea, the room where she kept her Shelley and her Byron, and practised her music and did water-colours, and sat, sometimes, dreaming of a Corsair. “And now, my gravest of Mentors, what must a poor ignorant female Telemachus do, so that the world may not trample on her too heavily?” He began by telling her what had happened between himself and Lord Fawn, and recommended her to write to that unhappy nobleman, returning any present that she might have received from him, and expressing, with some mild but intelligible sarcasm, her regret that their paths should have crossed each other. “I’ve worse in store for his lordship than that,” said Lizzie.
“Do you mean by any personal interview?”
“Certainly.”
“I think you are wrong, Lizzie.”
“Of course you do. Men have become so soft themselves, that they no longer dare to think even of punishing those who behave badly, and they expect women to be softer and more fainéant than themselves. I have been ill-used.”
“Certainly you have.”
“And I will be revenged. Look here, Frank; if your view of these things is altogether different from mine, let us drop the subject. Of all living human beings you are the one that is most to me now. Perhaps you are more than any other ever was. But, even for you, I cannot alter my nature. Even for you I would not alter it if I could. That man has injured me, and all the world knows it. I will have my revenge, and all the world shall know that. I did wrong; I am sensible enough of that.”
“What wrong do you mean?”
“I told a man whom I never loved that I would marry him. God knows that I have been punished.”
“Perhaps, Lizzie, it is better as it is.”
“A great deal better. I will tell you now that I could never have induced myself to go into church with that man as his bride. With a man I didn’t love I might have done so, but not with a man I despised.”
“You have been saved, then, from a greater evil.”
“Yes; but not the less is his injury to me. It is not because he despises me that he rejects me; nor is it because he thought that I had taken property that was not my own.”
“Why then?”
“Because he was afraid the world would say that I had done so. Poor shallow creature! But he shall be punished.”
“I do not know how you can punish him.”
“Leave that to me. I have another thing to do much more difficult.” She paused, looking for a moment up into his face, and then turning her eyes upon the ground. As he said nothing, she went on. “I have to excuse myself to you for having accepted him.”
“I have never blamed you.”
“Not in words. How should you? But if you have not blamed me in your heart, I despise you. I know you have. I have seen it in your eyes when you have counselled me either to take the poor creature or to leave him. Speak out, now, like a man. Is it not so?”
“I never thought you loved him.”
“Loved him! Is there anything in him or about him that a woman could love? Is he not a poor social stick; a bit of half-dead wood, good to make a post of if one wants a post? I did want a post so sorely then!”
“I don’t see why.”
“No, indeed. It was natural that you should be inclined to marry again.”
“Natural that I should be inclined to marry again! And is that all? It is hard sometimes to see whether men are thick-witted, or hypocrites so perfect that they seem to be so. I cannot bring myself to think you thick-witted, Frank.”
“Then I must be the perfect hypocrite, of course.”
“You believed I accepted Lord Fawn because it was natural that I should wish to marry again! Frank, you believed nothing of the kind. I accepted him in my anger, in my misery, in my despair, because I had expected you to come to me, and you had not come.” She had thrown herself now into a chair, and sat looking at him. “You had told me you would come, and you had stayed away. It was you, Frank, that I wanted to punish then; but there was no punishment in it for you. When is it to be, Frank?”
“When is what to be?” he asked, in a low voice, all but dumbfounded. How was he to put an end to this conversation, and what was he to say to her?
“Your marriage with that little wizened thing who gave you the ring, that prim morsel of feminine propriety who has been clever enough to make you believe that her morality would suffice to make you happy.”
“I will not hear Lucy Morris abused, Lizzie.”
“Is that abuse? Is it abuse to say that she is moral and proper? But, sir, I shall abuse her. I know her for what she is, while your eyes are sealed. She is wise and moral, and decorous and prim; but she is a hypocrite, and has no touch of real heart in her composition. Not abuse her when she has robbed me of all, all, all that I have in the world! Go to her. You had better go at once. I did not mean to say all this, but it has been said, and you must leave me. I, at any rate, cannot play the hypocrite. I wish I could.” He rose and came to her, and attempted to take her hand, but she flung away from him. “No,” she said, “never again; never, unless you will tell me that the promise you made me when we were down on the seashore was a true promise. Was that truth, sir, or was it a — lie?”
“Lizzie, do not use such a word as that to me.”
“I cannot stand picking my words when the whole world is going round with me, and my very brain is on fire. What is it to me what my words are? Say one syllable to me, and every word I utter again while breath is mine shall be spoken to do you pleasure. If you cannot say it, it is nothing to me what you or any one may think of my words. You know my secret, and I care not who else knows it. At any rate, I can die.” Then she paused a moment, and after that stalked steadily out of the room.
That afternoon Frank took a long walk by himself over the mountains, nearly to the cottage and back again; and on his return was informed that Lady Eustace was ill, and had gone to bed. At any rate, she was too unwell to come down to dinner. He, therefore, and Miss Macnulty sat down to dine, and passed the evening together without other companionship. Frank had resolved during his walk that he would leave Portray the next day; but had hardly resolved upon anything else. One thing, however, seemed certain to him. He was engaged to marry Lucy Morris, and to that engagement he must be true. His cousin was very charming, and had never looked so lovely in his eyes as when she had been confessing her love for him. And he had wondered at and admired her courage, her power of language, and her force. He could not quite forget how useful would be her income to him. And, added to this, there was present to him an unwholesome feeling, ideas absolutely at variance with those better ideas which had prompted him when he was writing his offer to Lucy Morris in his chambers, that a woman such as was his cousin Lizzie was fitter to be the wife of a man thrown, as he must be, into the world, than a dear, quiet, domestic little girl such as Lucy Morris. But to Lucy Morris he was engaged, and therefore there was an end of it.
The next morning he sent his love to his cousin, asking whether he should see her before he went. It was still necessary that he should know what attorneys to employ on her behalf if the threatened bill were filed by Messrs. Camperdown. Then he suggested a firm in his note. Might he put the case into the hands of Mr. Townsend, who was a friend of his own? There came back to him a scrap of paper, an old envelope, on which were written the names of Mowbray & Mopus: Mowbray & Mopus in a large scrawling hand, and with pencil. He put the scrap of paper into his pocket, feeling that he could not remonstrate with her at this moment, and was prepared to depart, when there came a message to him. Lady Eustace was still unwell, but had risen; and if it were not giving him too much trouble, would see him before he went. He followed the messenger to the same little room, looking out upon the sea, and then found her, dressed indeed, but with a white morning wrapper on, and with hair loose over her shoulders. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face was pale, and thin, and woebegone. “I am so sorry that you are ill, Lizzie,” he said.
“Yes, I am ill; sometimes very ill; but what does it matter? I did not send for you, Frank, to speak of aught so trivial as that. I have a favour to ask.”
“Of course I will grant it.”
“It is your forgiveness for my conduct yesterday.”
“Oh, Lizzie!”
“Say that you forgive me. Say it!”
“How can I forgive where there has been no fault?”
“There has been fault. Say that you forgive me.” And she stamped her foot as she demanded his pardon.
“I do forgive you,” he said.
“And now, one farewell.” She then threw herself upon his breast and kissed him. “Now go,” she said; “go, and come no more to me, unless you would see me mad. May God Almighty bless you, and make you happy.” As she uttered this prayer she held the door in her hand, and there was nothing for him but to leave her.
A great many people go to Scotland in the autumn. When you have your autumn holiday in hand to dispose of it, there is nothing more aristocratic that you can do than go to Scotland. Dukes are more plentiful there than in Pall Mall, and you will meet an earl or at least a lord on every mountain. Of course, if you merely travel about from inn to inn, and neither have a moor of your own nor stay with any great friend, you don’t quite enjoy the cream of it; but to go to Scotland in August and stay there, perhaps, till the end of September, is about the most certain step you can take towards autumnal fashion. Switzerland and the Tyrol, and even Italy, are all redolent of Mr. Cook, and in those beautiful lands you become subject at least to suspicion.
By no person was the duty of adhering to the best side of society more clearly appreciated than by Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway of Warwick Square. Mr. Hittaway was Chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals, and was a man who quite understood that there are chairmen and — chairmen. He could name to you three or four men holding responsible permanent official positions, quite as good as that he filled in regard to salary — which, as he often said of his own, was a mere nothing, just a poor two thousand pounds a year, not as much as a grocer would make in a decent business — but they were simply head clerks and nothing more. Nobody knew anything of them. They had no names. You did not meet them anywhere. Cabinet ministers never heard of them; and nobody out of their own offices ever consulted them. But there are others, and Mr. Hittaway felt greatly conscious that he was one of them, who move altogether in a different sphere. One minister of State would ask another whether Hittaway had been consulted on this or on that measure — so at least the Hittawayites were in the habit of reporting. The names of Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway were constantly in the papers. They were invited to evening gatherings at the houses of both the alternate Prime Ministers. They were to be seen at fashionable gatherings up the river. They attended concerts at Buckingham Palace. Once a year they gave a dinner-party which was inserted in the “Morning Post.” On such occasions at least one Cabinet Minister always graced the board. In fact, Mr. Hittaway, as Chairman of the Board of Civil Appeals, was somebody; and Mrs. Hittaway, as his wife, and as sister to a peer, was somebody also. The reader will remember that Mrs. Hittaway had been a Fawn before she married.
There is this drawback upon the happy condition which Mr. Hittaway had achieved, that it demands a certain expenditure. Let nobody dream that he can be somebody without having to pay for that honour; unless, indeed, he be a clergyman. When you go to a concert at Buckingham Palace you pay nothing, it is true, for your ticket; and a Cabinet Minister dining with you does not eat or drink more than your old friend Jones the attorney. But in some insidious, unforeseen manner, in a way that can only be understood after much experience, these luxuries of fashion do make a heavy pull on a modest income. Mrs. Hittaway knew this thoroughly, having much experience, and did make her fight bravely. For Mr. Hittaway’s income was no more than modest. A few thousand pounds he had of his own when he married, and his Clara had brought to him the unpretending sum of fifteen hundred. But, beyond that, the poor official salary — which was less than what a decent grocer would make — was their all. The house in Warwick Square they had prudently purchased on their marriage — when houses in Warwick Square were cheaper than they are now — and there they carried on their battle, certainly with success. But two thousand a year does not go very far in Warwick Square, even though you sit rent free, if you have a family and absolutely must keep a carriage. It therefore resulted that when Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway went to Scotland, which they would endeavour to do every year, it was very important that they should accomplish their aristocratic holiday as visitors at the house of some aristocratic friend. So well had they played their cards in this respect that they seldom failed altogether. In one year they had been the guests of a great marquis quite in the north, and that had been a very glorious year. To talk of Stackallan was indeed a thing of beauty. But in that year Mr. Hittaway had made himself very useful in London. Since that they had been at delicious shooting lodges in Ross and Inverness-shire, had visited a millionaire at his palace amid the Argyle mountains, had been fêted in a western island, had been bored by a Dundee dowager, and put up with a Lothian laird. But the thing had been almost always done, and the Hittaways were known as people that went to Scotland. He could handle a gun, and was clever enough never to shoot a keeper. She could read aloud, could act a little, could talk or hold her tongue; and let her hosts be who they would, and as mighty as you please, never caused them trouble by seeming to be out of their circle and on that account requiring peculiar attention.
On this occasion Mr. and Mrs. Hittaway were the guests of old Lady Pierrepoint in Dumfries. There was nothing special to recommend Lady Pierrepoint except that she had a large house and a good income, and that she liked to have people with her of whom everybody knew something. So far was Lady Pierrepoint from being high in the Hittaway world, that Mrs. Hittaway felt herself called upon to explain to her friends that she was forced to go to Dumdum House by the duties of old friendship. Dear old Lady Pierrepoint had been insisting on it for the last ten years. And there was this advantage, that Dumfriesshire is next to Ayrshire, that Dumdum was not very far — some twenty or thirty miles — from Portray, and that she might learn something about Lizzie Eustace in her country house.
It was nearly the end of August when the Hittaways left London to stay an entire month with Lady Pierrepoint. Mr. Hittaway had very frequently explained his defalcation as to fashion — in that he was remaining in London for three weeks after Parliament had broken up — by the peculiar exigencies of the Board of Appeals in that year. To one or two very intimate friends Mrs. Hittaway had hinted that everything must be made to give way to this horrid business of Fawn’s marriage. “Whatever happens, and at whatever cost, that must be stopped,” she had ventured to say to Lady Glencora Palliser, who, however, could hardly be called one of her very intimate friends.
“I don’t see it at all,” said Lady Glencora. “I think Lady Eustace is very nice. And why shouldn’t she marry Lord Fawn if she’s engaged to him?”
“But you have heard of the necklace, Lady Glencora?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it. I wish anybody would come to me and try and get my diamonds! They should hear what I would say.”
Mrs. Hittaway greatly admired Lady Glencora, but not the less was she determined to persevere.
Had Lord Fawn been altogether candid and open with his family at this time, some trouble might have been saved; for he had almost altogether resolved that let the consequences be what they might, he would not marry Lizzie Eustace. But he was afraid to say this even to his own sister. He had promised to marry the woman, and he must walk very warily or the objurgations of the world would be too many for him. “It must depend altogether on her conduct, Clara,” he had said when last his sister had persecuted him on the subject. She was not, however, sorry to have an opportunity of learning something of the lady’s doings. Mr. Hittaway had more than once called on Mr. Camperdown.
“Yes,” Mr. Camperdown had said in answer to a question from Lord Fawn’s brother-inlaw, “she would play old gooseberry with the property if we hadn’t some one to look after it. There’s a fellow named Gowran who has lived there all his life, and we depend very much upon him.”
It is certainly true that as to many points of conduct women are less nice than men. Mr. Hittaway would not probably have condescended himself to employ espionage, but Mrs. Hittaway was less scrupulous. She actually went down to Troon and had an interview with Mr. Gowran, using freely the names of Mr. Camperdown and Lord Fawn; and some ten days afterwards Mr. Gowran travelled as far as Dumfries and Dumdum, and had an interview with Mrs. Hittaway. The result of all this, and of further inquiries, will be shown by the following letter from Mrs. Hittaway to her sister Amelia:
“DUMDUM, September 9, 18 —.
“MY DEAR AMELIA: Here we are, and here we have to remain to the end of the month. Of course it suits, and all that; but it is awfully dull. Richmond for this time of the year is a paradise to it; and as for coming to Scotland every autumn, I am sick of it. Only what is one to do if one lives in London? If it wasn’t for Orlando and the children I’d brazen it out, and let people say what they pleased. As for health, I’m never so well as at home, and I do like having my own things about me. Orlando has literally nothing to do here. There is no shooting except pheasants, and that doesn’t begin till October.
“But I’m very glad I’ve come as to Frederic, and the more so, as I have learned the truth as to that Mr. Greystock. She, Lady Eustace, is a bad creature in every way. She still pretends that she is engaged to Frederic, and tells everybody that the marriage is not broken off, and yet she has her cousin with her, making love to him in the most indecent way. People used to say in her favour that at any rate she never flirted. I never quite know what people mean when they talk of flirting. But you may take my word for it that she allows her cousin to embrace her, and embraces him. I would not say it if I could not prove it. It is horrible to think of it, when one remembers that she is almost justified in saying that Frederic is engaged to her.
“No doubt he was engaged to her. It was a great misfortune, but, thank God, is not yet past remedy. He has some foolish feeling of what he calls honour; as if a man can be bound in honour to marry a woman who has deceived him in every point! She still sticks to the diamonds, if she has not sold them, as I believe she has; and Mr. Camperdown is going to bring an action against her in the High Court of Chancery. But still Frederic will not absolutely declare the thing off. I feel, therefore, that it is my duty to let him know what I have learned. I should be the last to stir in such a matter unless I was sure I could prove it. But I don’t quite like to write to Frederic. Will mamma see him, and tell him what I say? Of course you will show this letter to mamma. If not, I must postpone it till I am in town; but I think it would come better from mamma. Mamma may be sure that she is a bad woman.
“And now what do you think of your Mr. Greystock? As sure as I am here he was seen with his arm round his cousin’s waist, sitting out of doors, kissing her. I was never taken in by that story of his marrying Lucy Morris. He is the last man in the world to marry a governess. He is over head and ears in debt, and if he marries at all, he must marry some one with money. I really think that mamma and you, and all of you, have been soft about that girl. I believe she has been a good governess, that is, good after mamma’s easy fashion; and I don’t for a moment suppose that she is doing anything underhand. But a governess with a lover never does suit, and I’m sure it won’t suit in this case. If I were you I would tell her. I think it would be the best charity. Whether they mean to marry I can’t tell; Mr. Greystock, that is, and this woman; but they ought to mean it; that’s all.
“Let me know at once whether mamma will see Frederic, and speak to him openly. She is quite at liberty to use my name; only nobody but mamma should see this letter.
“Love to them all.
“Your most affectionate sister,
“CLARA HITTAWAY.”
In writing to Amelia instead of to her mother, Mrs. Hittaway was sure that she was communicating her ideas to at least two persons at Fawn Court, and that therefore there would be discussion. Had she written to her mother, her mother might probably have held her peace, and done nothing.
Mrs. Greystock, in making her proposition respecting Lady Linlithgow, wrote to Lady Fawn, and by the same post Frank wrote to Lucy. But before those letters reached Fawn Court there had come that other dreadful letter from Mrs. Hittaway. The consternation caused at Fawn Court in respect to Mr. Greystock’s treachery almost robbed of its importance the suggestion made as to Lord Fawn. Could it be possible that this man, who had so openly and in so manly a manner engaged himself to Lucy Morris, should now be proposing to himself a marriage with his rich cousin? Lady Fawn did not believe that it was possible. Clara had not seen those horrid things with her own eyes, and other people might be liars. But Amelia shook her head. Amelia evidently believed that all manner of iniquities were possible to man.
“You see, mamma, the sacrifice he was making was so very great!”
“But he made it!” pleaded Lady Fawn.
“No, mamma, he said he would make it. Men do these things. It is very horrid, but I think they do them more now than they used to. It seems to me that nobody cares now what he does, if he’s not to be put into prison.” It was resolved between these two wise ones that nothing at the present should be said to Lucy or to any one of the family. They would wait awhile, and in the meantime they attempted, as far as it was possible to make the attempt without express words, to let Lucy understand that she might remain at Fawn Court if she pleased. While this was going on, Lord Fawn did come down once again, and on that occasion Lucy simply absented herself from the dinner-table and from the family circle for that evening.
“He’s coming in, and you’ve got to go to prison again,” Nina said to her, with a kiss.
The matter to which Mrs. Hittaway’s letter more specially alluded was debated between the mother and daughter at great length. They, indeed, were less brave and less energetic than was the married daughter of the family; but as they saw Lord Fawn more frequently, they knew better than Mrs. Hittaway the real state of the case. They felt sure that he was already sufficiently embittered against Lady Eustace, and thought that therefore the peculiarly unpleasant task assigned to Lady Fawn need not be performed. Lady Fawn had not the advantage of living so much in the world as her daughter, and was oppressed by, perhaps, a squeamish delicacy.
“I really could not tell him about her sitting and — and kissing the man. Could I, my dear?”
“I couldn’t,” said Amelia; “but Clara would.”
“And to tell the truth,” continued Lady Fawn, “I shouldn’t care a bit about it if it was not for poor Lucy. What will become of her if that man is untrue to her?”
“Nothing on earth would make her believe it, unless it came from himself,” said Amelia, who really did know something of Lucy’s character. “Till he tells her, or till she knows that he’s married, she’ll never believe it.”
Then, after a few days, there came those other letters from Bobsborough, one from the dean’s wife and the other from Frank. The matter there proposed it was necessary that they should discuss with Lucy, as the suggestion had reached Lucy as well as themselves. She at once came to Lady Fawn with her lover’s letter, and with a gentle merry laughing face declared that the thing would do very well. “I am sure I should get on with her, and I should know that it wouldn’t be for long,” said Lucy.
“The truth is, we don’t want you to go at all,” said Lady Fawn.
“Oh, but I must,” said Lucy in her sharp, decided tone. “I must go. I was bound to wait till I heard from Mr. Greystock, because it is my first duty to obey him. But of course I can’t stay here after what has passed. As Nina says, it is simply going to prison when Lord Fawn comes here.”
“Nina is an impertinent little chit,” said Amelia.
“She is the dearest little friend in all the world,” said Lucy, “and always tells the exact truth. I do go to prison, and when he comes I feel that I ought to go to prison. Of course I must go away. What does it matter? Lady Linlithgow won’t be exactly like you,” and she put her little hand upon Lady Fawn’s fat arm caressingly, “and I sha’n’t have you all to spoil me; but I shall be simply waiting till he comes. Everything now must be no more than waiting till he comes.”
If it was to be that he would never come — this was very dreadful. Amelia clearly thought that “he” would never come, and Lady Fawn was apt to think her daughter wiser than herself. And if Mr. Greystock were such as Mrs. Hittaway had described him to be — if there were to be no such coming as that for which Lucy fondly waited — then there would be reason tenfold strong why she should not leave Fawn Court and go to Lady Linlithgow. In such case, when that blow should fall, Lucy would require very different treatment than might be expected for her from the hands of Lady Linlithgow. She would fade and fall to the earth like a flower with an insect at its root. She would be like a wounded branch into which no sap would run. With such misfortune and wretchedness possibly before her, Lady Fawn could not endure the idea that Lucy should be turned out to encounter it all beneath the cold shade of Lady Linlithgow’s indifference. “My dear,” she said, “let bygones be bygones. Come down and meet Lord Fawn. Nobody will say anything. After all, you were provoked very much, and there has been quite enough about it.”
This, from Lady Fawn, was almost miraculous — from Lady Fawn, to whom her son had ever been the highest of human beings! But Lucy had told the tale to her lover, and her lover approved of her going. Perhaps there was acting upon her mind some feeling, of which she was hardly conscious, that as long as she remained at Fawn Court she would not see her lover. She had told him that she could make herself supremely happy in the simple knowledge that he loved her. But we all know how few such declarations should be taken as true. Of course she was longing to see him. “If he would only pass by the road,” she would say to herself, “so that I might peep at him through the gate!” She had no formed idea in her own mind that she would be able to see him should she go to Lady Linlithgow, but still there would be the chances of her altered life! She would tell Lady Linlithgow the truth, and why should Lady Linlithgow refuse her so rational a pleasure? There was, of course, a reason why Frank should not come to Fawn Court; but the house in Bruton Street need not be closed to him. “I hardly know how to love you enough,” she said to Lady Fawn, “but indeed I must go. I do so hope the time may come when you and Mr. Greystock may be friends. Of course it will come. Shall it not?”
“Who can look into the future?” said the wise Amelia.
“Of course if he is your husband we shall love him,” said the less wise Lady Fawn.
“He is to be my husband,” said Lucy, springing up. “What do you mean? Do you mean anything?” Lady Fawn, who was not at all wise, protested that she meant nothing.
What were they to do? On that special day they merely stipulated that there should be a day’s delay before Lady Fawn answered Mrs. Greystock’s letter, so that she might sleep upon it. The sleeping on it meant that further discussion which was to take place between Lady Fawn and her second daughter in her ladyship’s bedroom that night. During all this period the general discomfort of Fawn Court was increased by a certain sullenness on the part of Augusta, the elder daughter, who knew that letters had come and that consultations were being held, but who was not admitted to those consultations. Since the day on which poor Augusta had been handed over to Lizzie Eustace as her peculiar friend in the family, there had always existed a feeling that she by her position was debarred from sympathising in the general desire to be quit of Lizzie; and then, too, poor Augusta was never thoroughly trusted by that great guide of the family, Mrs. Hittaway. “She couldn’t keep it to herself if you’d give her gold to do it,” Mrs. Hittaway would say. Consequently Augusta was sullen and conscious of ill-usage.
“Have you fixed upon anything?” she said to Lucy that evening.
“Not quite; only I am to go away.”
“I don’t see why you should go away at all. Frederic doesn’t Come here so very often, and when he does come he doesn’t say much to any one. I suppose it’s all Amelia’s doing.”
“Nobody wants me to go, only I feel that I ought. Mr. Greystock thinks it best.”
“I suppose he’s going to quarrel with us all.”
“No, dear. I don’t think he wants to quarrel with any one; but above all he must not quarrel with me. Lord Fawn has quarrelled with him, and that’s a misfortune — just for the present.”
“And where are you going?”
“Nothing has been settled yet; but we are talking of Lady Linlithgow — if she will take me.”
“Lady Linlithgow! Oh dear!”
“Won’t it do?”
“They say she’s the most dreadful old woman in London. Lady Eustace told such stories about her.”
“Do you know, I think I shall rather like it.”
But things were very different with Lucy the next morning. That discussion in Lady Fawn’s room was protracted till midnight, and then it was decided that just a word should be said to Lucy, so that, if possible, she might be induced to remain at Fawn Court. Lady Fawn was to say the word, and on the following morning she was closeted with Lucy.
“My dear,” she began, “we all want you to do us a particular favour.” As she said this, she held Lucy by the hand, and no one looking at them would have thought that Lucy was a governess and that Lady Fawn was her employer.
“Dear Lady Fawn, indeed it is better that I should go.”
“Stay just one month.”
“I couldn’t do that, because then this chance of a home would be gone. Of course we can’t wait a month before we let Mrs. Greystock know.”
“We must write to her, of course.”
“And then, you see, Mr. Greystock wishes it.” Lady Fawn knew that Lucy could be very firm, and had hardly hoped that anything could be done by simple persuasion. They had long been accustomed among themselves to call her obstinate, and knew that even in her acts of obedience she had a way of obeying after her own fashion. It was as well, therefore, that the thing to be said should be said at once.
“My dear Lucy, has it ever occurred to you that there may be a slip between the cup and the lip?”
“What do you mean, Lady Fawn?”
“That sometimes engagements take place which never become more than engagements. Look at Lord Fawn and Lady Eustace.”
“Mr. Greystock and I are not like that,” said Lucy, proudly.
“Such things are very dreadful, Lucy, but they do happen.”
“Do you mean anything — anything real, Lady Fawn?”
“I have so strong a reliance on your good sense, that I will tell you just what I do mean. A rumour has reached me that Mr. Greystock is — paying more attention than he ought to do to Lady Eustace.”
“His own cousin!”
“But people marry their cousins, Lucy.”
“To whom he has always been just like a brother! I do think that is the cruellest thing. Because he sacrifices his time and his money and all his holidays to go and look after her affairs, this is to be said of him! She hasn’t another human being to took after her, and therefore he is obliged to do it. Of course he has told me all about it. I do think, Lady Fawn, I do think that is the greatest shame I ever heard.”
“But if it should be true ——”
“It isn’t true.”
“But just for the sake of showing you, Lucy ——; if it was lo be true.”
“It won’t be true.”
“Surely I may speak to you as your friend, Lucy. You needn’t be so abrupt with me. Will you listen to me, Lucy?”
“Of course I will listen; only nothing that anybody on earth could say about that would make me believe a word of it.”
“Very well! Now just let me go on. If it were to be so ——”
“Oh-h, Lady Fawn!”
“Don’t be foolish, Lucy. I will say what I’ve got to say. If — if —. Let me see. Where was I? I mean just this: You had better remain here till things are a little more settled. Even if it be only a rumour — and I’m sure I don’t believe it’s anything more — you had better hear about it with us, with friends round you, than with a perfect stranger like Lady Linlithgow. If anything were to go wrong there, you wouldn’t know where to come for comfort. If anything were wrong with you here, you could come to me as though I were your mother. Couldn’t you now?”
“Indeed, indeed I could. And I will. I always will. Lady Fawn, I love you and the dear darling girls better than all the world — except Mr. Greystock. If anything like that were to happen, I think I should creep here and ask to die in your house. But it won’t. And just now it will be better that I should go away.”
It was found at last that Lucy must have her way, and letters were written both to Mrs. Greystock and to Frank, requesting that the suggested overtures might at once be made to Lady Linlithgow. Lucy, in her letter to her lover, was more than ordinarily cheerful and jocose. She had a good deal to say about Lady Linlithgow that was really droll, and not a word to say indicative of the slightest fear in the direction of Lady Eustace. She spoke of poor Lizzie, and declared her conviction that that marriage never could come off now. “You mustn’t be angry when I say that I can’t break my heart for them, for I never did think that they were very much in love. As for Lord Fawn, of course he is my — ENEMY.” And she wrote the word in big letters. “And as for Lizzie, she’s your cousin, and all that. And she’s ever so pretty, and all that. And she’s as rich as Croesus, and all that. But I don’t think she’ll break her own heart. I would break mine; only — only — only —. You will understand the rest. If it should come to pass, I wonder whether ‘the duchess’ would ever let a poor creature see a friend of hers in Bruton Street.” Frank had once called Lady Linlithgow the duchess after a certain popular picture in a certain popular book, and Lucy never forgot anything that Frank had said.
It did come to pass. Mrs. Greystock at once corresponded with Lady Linlithgow, and Lady Linlithgow, who was at Ramsgate for her autumn vacation, requested that Lucy Morris might be brought to see her at her house in London on the second of October. Lady Linlithgow’s autumn holiday always ended on the last day of September. On the second of October Lady Fawn herself took Lucy up to Bruton Street, and Lady Linlithgow appeared. “Miss Morris,” said Lady Fawn, “thinks it right that you should be told that she’s engaged to be married.”
“Who to?” demanded the Countess.
Lucy was as red as fire, although she had especially made up her mind that she would not blush when the communication was made. “I don’t know that she wishes me to mention the gentleman’s name, just at present; but I can assure you that he is all that he ought to be.”
“I hate mysteries,” said the Countess.
“If Lady Linlithgow ——” began Lucy.
“Oh, it’s nothing to me,” continued the old woman. “It won’t come off for six months, I suppose?” Lucy gave a mute assurance that there would be no such difficulty as that. “And he can’t come here, Miss Morris.” To this Lucy said nothing. Perhaps she might win over even the Countess, and if not, she must bear her six months of prolonged exclusion from the light of day. And so the matter was settled. Lucy was to be taken back to Richmond, and to come again on the following Monday.
“I don’t like this parting at all, Lucy,” Lady Fawn said on her way home.
“It is better so, Lady Fawn.”
“I hate people going away; but, somehow, you don’t feel it as we do.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you really knew what I do feel.”
“There was no reason why you should go. Frederic was getting not to care for it at all. What’s Nina to do now? I can’t get another governess after you. I hate all these sudden breaks up. And all for such a trumpery thing. If Frederic hasn’t forgotten all about it, he ought.”
“It hasn’t come altogether from him, Lady Fawn.”
“How has it come, then?”
“I suppose it is because of Mr. Greystock. I suppose when a girl has engaged herself to marry a man, she must think more of him than of anything else.”
“Why couldn’t you think of him at Fawn Court?”
“Because — because things have been unfortunate. He isn’t your friend, not as yet. Can’t you understand, Lady Fawn, that, dear as you all must be to me, I must live in his friendships, and take his part when there is a part?”
“Then I suppose that you mean to hate all of us.” Lucy could only cry at hearing this; whereupon Lady Fawn also burst into tears.
On the Sunday before Lucy took her departure, Lord Fawn was again at Richmond. “Of course you’ll come down, just as if nothing had happened,” said Lydia.
“We’ll see,” said Lucy.
“Mamma will be very angry, if you don’t,” said Lydia.
But Lucy had a little plot in her head, and her appearance at the dinner-table on that Sunday must depend on the manner in which her plot was executed. After church, Lord Fawn would always hang about the grounds for a while before going into the house; and on this morning Lucy also remained outside. She soon found her opportunity, and walked straight up to him, following him on the path. “Lord Fawn,” she said, “I have come to beg your pardon.”
He had turned round hearing footsteps behind him, but still was startled and unready. “It does not matter at all,” he said.
“It matters to me, because I behaved badly.”
“What I said about Mr. Greystock wasn’t intended to be said to you, you know.”
“Even if it was, it would make no matter. I don’t mean to think of that now. I beg your pardon because I said what I ought not to have said.”
“You see, Miss Morris, that as the head of this family ——”
“If I had said it to Juniper, I would have begged his pardon.” Now Juniper was the gardener, and Lord Fawn did not quite like the way in which the thing was put to him. The cloud came across his brow, and he began to fear that she would again insult him. “I oughtn’t to accuse anybody of an untruth — not in that way; and I am very sorry for what I did, and I beg your pardon.” Then she turned as though she were going back to the house.
But he stopped her. “Miss Morris, if it will suit you to stay with my mother, I will never say a word against it.”
“It is quite settled that I am to go tomorrow, Lord Fawn. Only for that I would not have troubled you again.”
Then she did turn towards the house, but he recalled her. “We will shake hands, at any rate,” he said, “and not part as enemies.” So they shook hands, and Lucy came down and sat in his company at the dinner-table.
Lucy, in her letter to her lover, had distinctly asked whether she might tell Lady Linlithgow the name of her future husband, but had received no reply when she was taken to Bruton Street. The parting at Richmond was very painful, and Lady Fawn had declared herself quite unable to make another journey up to London with the ungrateful runagate. Though there was no diminution of affection among the Fawns, there was a general feeling that Lucy was behaving badly. That obstinacy of hers was getting the better of her. Why should she have gone? Even Lord Fawn had expressed his desire that she should remain. And then, in the breasts of the wise ones, all faith in the Greystock engagement had nearly vanished. Another letter had come from Mrs. Hittaway, who now declared that it was already understood about Portray that Lady Eustace intended to marry her cousin. This was described as a terrible crime on the part of Lizzie, though the antagonistic crime of a remaining desire to marry Lord Fawn was still imputed to her. And, of course, the one crime heightened the other. So that words from the eloquent pen of Mrs. Hittaway failed to make dark enough the blackness of poor Lizzie’s character. As for Mr. Greystock, he was simply a heartless man of the world, wishing to feather his nest. Mrs. Hittaway did not for a moment believe that he had ever dreamed of marrying Lucy Morris. Men always have three or four little excitements of that kind going on for the amusement of their leisure hours; so, at least, said Mrs. Hittaway. “The girl had better be told at once.” Such was her decision about poor Lucy.
“I can’t do more than I have done,” said Lady Fawn to Augusta.
“She’ll never get over it, mamma; never,” said Augusta.
Nothing more was said, and Lucy was sent off in the family carriage. Lydia and Nina were sent with her, and though there was some weeping on the journey, there was also much laughing. The character of the “duchess” was discussed very much at large, and many promises were made as to long letters. Lucy, in truth, was not unhappy. She would be nearer to Frank; and then it had been almost promised her that she should go to the deanery, after a residence of six months with Lady Linlithgow. At the deanery of course she would see Frank; and she also understood that a long visit to the deanery would be the surest prelude to that home of her own of which she was always dreaming.
“Dear me; sent you up in a carriage, has she? Why shouldn’t you have come by the railway?”
“Lady Fawn thought the carriage best. She is so very kind.”
“It’s what I call twaddle, you know. I hope you ain’t afraid of going in a cab.”
“Not in the least, Lady Linlithgow.”
“You can’t have the carriage to go about here. Indeed, I never have a pair of horses till after Christmas. I hope you know that I’m as poor as Job.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I am, then. You’ll get nothing beyond wholesome food with me. And I’m not sure it is wholesome always. The butchers are scoundrels and the bakers are worse. What used you to do at Lady Fawn’s?”
“I still did lessons with the two youngest girls.”
“You won’t have any lessons to do here unless you do ’em with me. You had a salary there?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Fifty pounds a year, I suppose.”
“I had eighty.”
“Had you, indeed. Eighty pounds, and a coach to ride in!”
“I had a great deal more than that, Lady Linlithgow.”
“How do you mean?”
“I had downright love and affection. They were just so many dear friends. I don’t suppose any governess was ever so treated before. It was just like being at home. The more I laughed the better every one liked it.”
“You won’t find anything to laugh at here; at least I don’t. If you want to laugh, you can laugh up-stairs or down in the parlour.”
“I can do without laughing for a while.”
“That’s lucky, Miss Morris. If they were all so good to you, what made you come away? They sent you away, didn’t they?”
“Well, I don’t know that I can explain it just all. There were a great many things together. No; they didn’t send me away. I came away because it suited.”
“It was something to do with your having a lover, I suppose.” To this Lucy thought it best to make no answer, and the conversation for a while was dropped.
Lucy had arrived at about half-past three, and Lady Linlithgow was then sitting in the drawing-room. After the first series of questions and answers Lucy was allowed to go up to her room, and on her return to the drawing-room found the Countess still sitting upright in her chair. She was now busy with accounts, and at first took no notice of Lucy’s return. What were to be the companion’s duties? What tasks in the house were to be assigned to her? What hours were to be her own; and what was to be done in those of which the Countess would demand the use? Up to the present moment nothing had been said of all this. She had simply been told that she was to be Lady Linlithgow’s companion, without salary, indeed, but receiving shelter, guardianship, and bread and meat in return for her services. She took up a book from the table and sat with it for ten minutes. It was Tupper’s great poem, and she attempted to read it. Lady Linlithgow sat totting up her figures, but said nothing. She had not spoken a word since Lucy’s return to the room; and as the great poem did not at first fascinate the new companion — whose mind not unnaturally was somewhat disturbed — Lucy ventured upon a question. “Is there anything I can do for you, Lady Linlithgow?”
“Do you know about figures?”
“Oh, yes. I consider myself quite a ready-reckoner.”
“Can you make two and two come to five on one side of the sheet and only come to three on the other?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that and prove it afterwards.”
“Then you ain’t worth anything to me.” Having so declared, Lady Linlithgow went on with her accounts and Lucy relapsed into her great poem.
“No, my dear,” said the Countess, when she had completed her work, “there isn’t anything for you to do. I hope you haven’t come here with that mistaken idea. There won’t be any sort of work of any kind expected from you. I poke my own fires and I carve my own bit of mutton. And I haven’t got a nasty little dog to be washed. And I don’t care twopence about worsted work. I have a maid to darn my stockings, and because she has to work I pay her wages. I don’t like being alone, so I get you to come and live with me. I breakfast at nine, and if you don’t manage to be down by that time I shall be cross.”
“I am always up long before that.”
“There’s lunch at two, just bread and butter 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 Fifeshire 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 whizling 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 dare say.”
“No, they don’t,” ejaculated 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 are quite right about that, Lady Linlithgow.”
“I hate beauties. My niece, Lizzie Eustace, is a beauty; and I think that, of all 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 bedroom. 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 dare say 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 northeast, 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 ladyship.
“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 mean time 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, but 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 titles, 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.
“And why not?”
“What I mean is that Mr. Greystock is, at least I should think so from what I hear, the very last man in the world to marry for money.”
“What do you know of what a man would do?”
“It would be a very mean thing; particularly if he does not love her.”
“Bother!” said the Countess. “They were very near it in town last year before Lord Fawn came up at all. I knew as much as that. And it’s what they’ll come to before they’ve done.”
“They’ll never come to it,” said Lucy.
Then a sudden light flashed across the astute mind of the Countess. She turned round in her chair, and sat for a while silent, looking at Lucy. Then she slowly asked another question. “He isn’t your young man, is he?” To this Lucy made no reply. “So that’s it, is it?” said the dowager. “You’ve done me the honour of making my house your home till my own sister’s nephew shall be ready to marry you?”
“And why not?” asked Lucy, rather roughly.
“And Dame Greystock, from Bobsborough, has sent you here to keep you out of her son’s way. I see it all. And that old frump at Richmond has passed you over to me because she did not choose to have such goings on under her own eye.”
“There have been no goings on,” said Lucy.
“And he’s to come here, I suppose, when my back’s turned?”
“He is not thinking of coming here. I don’t know what you mean. Nobody has done anything wrong to you. I don’t know why you say such cruel things.”
“He can’t afford to marry you, you know.”
“I don’t know anything about it. Perhaps we must wait ever so long; five years. That’s nobody’s business but my own.”
“I found it all out, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you found it out.”
“I’m thinking of that sly old Dame Greystock at Bobsborough sending you here.” Neither on that nor on the two following days did Lady Linlithgow say a word further to Lucy about her engagement.
When Frank Greystock left Bobsborough to go to Scotland, he had not said that he would return, nor had he at that time made up his mind whether he would do so or no. He had promised to go and shoot in Norfolk, and had half undertaken to be up in London with Herriot, working. Though it was holiday-time, still there was plenty of work for him to do, various heavy cases to get up and papers to be read, if only he could settle himself down to the doing of it. But the scenes down in Scotland had been of a nature to make him unfit for steady labour. How was he to sail his bark through the rocks by which his present voyage was rendered so dangerous? Of course, to the reader, the way to do so seems to be clear enough. To work hard at his profession, to explain to his cousin that she had altogether mistaken his feelings, and to be true to Lucy Morris, was so manifestly his duty, that to no reader will it appear possible that to any gentleman there could be a doubt. Instead of the existence of a difficulty, there was a flood of light upon his path, so the reader will think; a flood so clear that not to see his way was impossible. A man carried away by abnormal appetites, and wickedness, and the devil, may of course commit murder, or forge bills, or become a fraudulent director of a bankrupt company. And so may a man be untrue to his troth, and leave true love in pursuit of tinsel, and beauty, and false words, and a large income. But why should one tell the story of creatures so base? One does not willingly grovel in gutters, or breathe fetid atmospheres, or live upon garbage. If we are to deal with heroes and heroines, let us, at any rate, have heroes and heroines who are above such meanness as falsehood in love. This Frank Greystock must be little better than a mean villain if he allows himself to be turned from his allegiance to Lucy Morris for an hour by the seductions and money of such a one as Lizzie Eustace.
We know the dear old rhyme:
It is good to be merry and wise,
It is good to be honest and true;
It is good to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.
There was never better truth spoken than this, and if all men and women could follow the advice here given, there would be very little sorrow in the world. But men and women do not follow it. They are no more able to do so than they are to use a spear, the staff of which is like a weaver’s beam, or to fight with the sword Excalibar. The more they exercise their arms, the nearer will they get to using the giant’s weapon, or even the weapon that is divine. But as things are at present, their limbs are limp and their muscles soft, and overfeeding impedes their breath. They attempt to be merry without being wise, and have themes about truth and honesty with which they desire to shackle others, thinking that freedom from such trammels may be good for themselves. And in that matter of love, though love is very potent, treachery will sometimes seem to be prudence, and a hankering after new delights will often interfere with real devotion.
It is very easy to depict a hero, a man absolutely stainless, perfect as an Arthur, a man honest in all his dealings, equal to all trials, true in all his speech, indifferent to his own prosperity, struggling for the general good, and, above all, faithful in love. At any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly but fails in practice, who sees the higher but too often follows the lower course. There arose at one time a school of art which delighted to paint the human face as perfect in beauty; and from that time to this we are discontented unless every woman is drawn for us as a Venus, or at least a Madonna. I do not know that we have gained much by this untrue portraiture, either in beauty or in art. There may be made for us a pretty thing to look at, no doubt; but we know that that pretty thing is not really visaged as the mistress whom we serve, and whose lineaments we desire to perpetuate on the canvas. The winds of heaven, or the flesh-pots of Egypt, or the midnight gas, passions, pains, and perhaps rouge and powder, have made her something different. But still there is the fire of her eye and the eager eloquence of her mouth, and something too, perhaps, left of the departing innocence of youth, which the painter might give us without the Venus or the Madonna touches. But the painter does not dare do it. Indeed, he has painted so long after the other fashion that he would hate the canvas before him were he to give way to the rouge-begotten roughness or to the flesh-pots, or even to the winds. And how, my lord, would you, who are giving hundreds, more than hundreds, for this portrait of your dear one, like to see it in print from the art critic of the day, that she is a brazen-faced hoyden who seems to have had a glass of wine too much, or to have been making hay?
And so also has the reading world taught itself to like best the characters of all but divine men and women. Let the man who paints with pen and ink give the gas-light and the flesh-pots, the passions and pains, the prurient prudence and the rouge-pots and pounce-boxes of the world as it is, and he will be told that no one can care a straw for his creations. With whom are we to sympathise? says the reader, who not unnaturally imagines that a hero should be heroic. Oh, thou, my reader, whose sympathies are in truth the great and only aim of my work, when you have called the dearest of your friends round you to your hospitable table, how many heroes are there sitting at the board? Your bosom friend, even if he be a knight without fear, he is a knight without reproach? The Ivanhoe that you know, did he not press Rebecca’s hand? Your Lord Evandale, did he not bring his coronet into play when he strove to win his Edith Bellenden? Was your Tresilian still true and still forbearing when truth and forbearance could avail him nothing? And those sweet girls whom you know, do they never doubt between the poor man they think they love and the rich man whose riches they know they covet?
Go into the market, either to buy or sell, and name the thing you desire to part with or to get, as it is, and the market is closed against you. Middling oats are the sweepings of the granaries. A useful horse is a jade gone at every point. Good sound port is sloe juice. No assurance short of A 1 betokens even a pretence to merit. And yet in real life we are content with oats that are really middling, are very glad to have a useful horse, and know that if we drink port at all we must drink some that is neither good nor sound. In those delineations of life and character which we call novels, a similarly superlative vein is desired. Our own friends around us are not always merry and wise, nor, alas, always honest and true. They are often cross and foolish, and sometimes treacherous and false. They are so, and we are angry. Then we forgive them, not without a consciousness of imperfection on our own part. And we know, or at least believe, that though they be sometimes treacherous and false, there is a balance of good. We cannot have heroes to dine with us. There are none. And were these heroes to be had, we should not like them. But neither are our friends villains, whose every aspiration is for evil, and whose every moment is a struggle for some achievement worthy of the devil.
The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life because they are so good. To make them and ourselves somewhat better, not by one spring heavenward to perfection, because we cannot so use our legs, but by slow climbing, is, we may presume, the object of all teachers, leaders, legislators, spiritual pastors, and masters. He who writes tales such as this probably also has, very humbly, some such object distantly before him. A picture of surpassing godlike nobleness, a picture of a King Arthur among men, may perhaps do much. But such pictures cannot do all. When such a picture is painted, as intending to show what a man should be, it is true. If painted to show what men are, it is false. The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are and how they might rise, not indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another, on the ladder.
Our hero, Frank Greystock, falling lamentably short in his heroism, was not in a happy state of mind when he reached Bobsborough. It may be that he returned to his own borough and to his mother’s arms because he felt that were he to determine to be false to Lucy he would there receive sympathy in his treachery. His mother would, at any rate, think that it was well, and his father would acknowledge that the fault committed was in the original engagement with poor Lucy, and not in the treachery. He had written that letter to her in his chambers one night in a fit of ecstasy; and could it be right that the ruin of a whole life should be the consequence?
It can hardly be too strongly asserted that Lizzie Greystock did not appear to Frank as she has been made to appear to the reader. In all this affair of the necklace he was beginning to believe that she was really an ill-used woman; and as to other traits in Lizzie’s character, traits which he had seen, and which were not of a nature to attract, it must be remembered that beauty reclining in a man’s arms does go far toward washing white the lovely blackamoor. Lady Linlithgow, upon whom Lizzie’s beauty could have no effect of that kind, had nevertheless declared her to be very beautiful. And this loveliness was of a nature that was altogether pleasing, if once the beholder of it could get over the idea of falseness which certainly Lizzie’s eye was apt to convey to the beholder. There was no unclean horse’s tail. There was no get-up of flounces, and padding, and paint, and hair, with a dorsal excrescence appended, with the object surely of showing in triumph how much absurd ugliness women can force men to endure. She was lithe, and active, and bright, and was at this moment of her life at her best. Her growing charms had as yet hardly reached the limits of full feminine loveliness, which, when reached, have been surpassed. Luxuriant beauty had with her not as yet become comeliness; nor had age or the good things of the world added a pound to the fairy lightness of her footstep. All this had been tendered to Frank, and with it that worldly wealth which was so absolutely necessary to his career. For though Greystock would not have said to any man or woman that nature had intended him to be a spender of much money and a consumer of many good things, he did undoubtedly so think of himself. He was a Greystock, and to what miseries would he not reduce his Lucy if, burdened by such propensities, he were to marry her and then become an aristocratic pauper!
The offer of herself by a woman to a man is, to us all, a thing so distasteful that we at once declare that the woman must be abominable. There shall be no whitewashing of Lizzie Eustace. She was abominable. But the man to whom the offer is made hardly sees the thing in the same light. He is disposed to believe that, in his peculiar case, there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin’s love for himself. He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn’s offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised that he would come. It did seem natural to him that she should have desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to depart from it. And then her jealousy about Lucy’s ring, and her abuse of Lucy, were proofs to him of her love. Unless she loved him, why should she care to marry him? What was his position that she should desire to share it, unless she so desired because he was dearer to her than aught beside? He had not eyes clear enough to perceive that his cousin was a witch whistling for a wind, and ready to take the first blast that would carry her and her broomstick somewhere into the sky. And then, in that matter of the offer, which in ordinary circumstances certainly should not have come from her to him, did not the fact of her wealth and of his comparative poverty cleanse her from such stain as would, in usual circumstances, attach to a woman who is so forward? He had not acceded to her proposition. He had not denied his engagement to Lucy. He had left her presence without a word of encouragement, because of that engagement. But he believed that Lizzie was sincere. He believed, now, that she was genuine; though he had previously been all but sure that falsehood and artifice were second nature to her.
At Bobsborough he met his constituents, and made them the normal autumn speech. The men of Bobsborough were well pleased and gave him a vote of confidence. As none but those of his own party attended the meeting, it was not wonderful that the vote was unanimous. His father, mother, and sister all heard his speech, and there was a strong family feeling that Frank was born to set the Greystocks once more upon their legs. When a man can say what he likes with the certainty that every word will be reported, and can speak to those around him as one manifestly their superior, he always looms large. When the Conservatives should return to their proper place at the head of affairs, there could be no doubt that Frank Greystock would be made Solicitor-General. There were not wanting even ardent admirers who conceived that, with such claims and such talents as his, the ordinary steps in political promotion would not be needed, and that he would become Attorney-General at once. All men began to say all good things to the dean, and to Mrs. Greystock it seemed that the woolsack, or at least the Queen’s Bench with a peerage, was hardly an uncertainty. But then, there must be no marriage with a penniless governess. If he would only marry his cousin, one might say that the woolsack was won.
Then came Lucy’s letter; the pretty, dear, joking letter about the “duchess” and broken hearts. “I would break my heart, only — only — only —.” Yes, he knew very well what she meant. I shall never be called upon to break my heart, because you are not a false scoundrel. If you were a false scoundrel — instead of being, as you are, a pearl among men — then I should break my heart. That was what Lucy meant. She could not have been much clearer, and he understood it perfectly. It is very nice to walk about one’s own borough and be voted unanimously worthy of confidence, and be a great man; but if you are a scoundrel, and not used to being a scoundrel, black care is apt to sit very close behind you as you go caracoling along the streets.
Lucy’s letter required an answer, and how should he answer it? He certainly did not wish her to tell Lady Linlithgow of her engagement, but Lucy clearly wished to be allowed to tell, and on what ground could he enjoin her to be silent? He knew, or he thought he knew, that till he answered the letter, she would not tell his secret; and therefore from day to day he put off the answer. A man does not write a love-letter usually when he is in doubt himself whether he does or does not mean to be a scoundrel.
Then there came a letter to “Dame” Greystock, from Lady Linlithgow, which filled them all with amazement.
“MY DEAR MADAM,” began the letter:
“Seeing that your son is engaged to many Miss Morris — at least she says so — you ought not to have sent her here without telling me all about it. She says you know of the match, and she says that I can write to you if I please. Of course I can do that without her leave. But it seems to me that if you know all about it, and approve the marriage, your house and not mine would be the proper place for her.
“I’m told that Mr. Greystock is a great man. Any lady being with me as my companion can’t be a great woman. But perhaps you wanted to break it off; else you would have told me. She shall stay here six months, but then she must go.
“Yours truly,
“SUSANNA LINLITHGOW.”
It was considered absolutely necessary that this letter should be shown to Frank. “You see,” said his mother, “she told the old lady at once.”
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t.” Nevertheless Frank was annoyed. Having asked for permission, Lucy should at least have waited for a reply.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Greystock. “It is generally considered that young ladies are more reticent about such things. She has blurted it out and boasted about it at once.”
“I thought girls always told of their engagements,” said Frank, “and I can’t for the life of me see that there was any boasting in it.” Then he was silent for a moment. “The truth is, we are all of us treating Lucy very badly.”
“I cannot say that I see it,” said his mother.
“We ought to have had her here.”
“For how long, Frank?”
“For as long as a home was needed by her.”
“Had you demanded it, Frank, she should have come, of course. But neither I nor your father could have had pleasure in receiving her as your future wife. You yourself say that it cannot be for two years at least.”
“I said one year.”
“I think, Frank, you said two. And we all know that such a marriage would be ruinous to you. How could we make her welcome? Can you see your way to having a house for her to live in within twelve months?”
“Why not a house? I could have a house tomorrow.”
“Such a house as would suit you in your position? And, Frank, would it be a kindness to marry her and then let her find that you were in debt?”
“I don’t believe she’d care if she had nothing but a crust to eat.”
“She ought to care, Frank.”
“I think,” said the dean to his son on the next day, “that in our class of life an imprudent marriage is the one thing that should be avoided. My marriage has been very happy, God knows; but I have always been a poor man, and feel it now when I am quite unable to help you. And yet your mother had some fortune. Nobody, I think, cares less for wealth than I do. I am content almost with nothing.”— The nothing with which the dean had hitherto been contented had always included every comfort of life, a well-kept table, good wine, new books, and canonical habiliments with the gloss still on; but as the Bobsborough tradesmen had, through the agency of Mrs. Greystock, always supplied him with these things as though they came from the clouds, he really did believe that he had never asked for anything.— “I am content almost with nothing. But I do feel that marriage cannot be adopted as the ordinary form of life by men in our class as it can be by the rich or by the poor. You, for instance, are called upon to live with the rich, but are not rich. That can only be done by wary walking, and is hardly consistent with a wife and children.”
“But men in my position do marry, sir.”
“After a certain age; or else they marry ladies with money. You see, Frank, there are not many men who go into Parliament with means so moderate as yours; and they who do, perhaps have stricter ideas of economy.” The dean did not say a word about Lucy Morris, and dealt entirely with generalities.
In compliance with her son’s advice — or almost command — Mrs. Greystock did not answer Lady Linlithgow’s letter. He was going back to London, and would give personally, or by letter written there, what answer might be necessary.
“You will then see Miss Morris?” asked his mother.
“I shall certainly see Lucy. Something must be settled.” There was a tone in his voice as he said this which gave some comfort to his mother.
True to their words, at the end of October, Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke, and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers and Sir Griffin Tewett, arrived at Portray Castle. And for a couple of days there was a visitor whom Lizzie was very glad to welcome, but of whose good nature on the occasion Mr. Camperdown thought very ill indeed. This was John Eustace. His sister-inlaw wrote to him in very pressing language; and as — so he said to Mr. Camperdown — he did not wish to seem to quarrel with his brother’s widow as long as such seeming might be avoided, he accepted the invitation. If there was to be a lawsuit about the diamonds, that must be Mr. Camperdown’s affair. Lizzie had never entertained her friends in style before. She had had a few people to dine with her in London and once or twice had received company on an evening. But in all her London doings there had been the trepidation of fear, to be accounted for by her youth and widowhood; and it was at Portray — her own house at Portray — that it would best become her to exercise hospitality. She had bided her time even there, but now she meant to show her friends that she had got a house of her own.
She wrote even to her husband’s uncle, the bishop, asking him down to Portray. He could not come, but sent an affectionate answer, and thanked her for thinking of him. Many people she asked who, she felt sure, would not come, and one or two of them accepted her invitation. John Eustace promised to be with her for two days. When Frank had left her, going out of her presence in the manner that has been described, she actually wrote to him, begging him to join her party. This was her note:
“Come to me, just for a week,” she said, “when my people are here, so that I may not seem to be deserted. Sit at the bottom of my table, and be to me as a brother might. I shall expect you to do so much for me.” To this he replied that he would come during the first week in November.
And she got a clergyman down from London — the Rev. Joseph Emilius, of whom it was said that he was born a Jew in Hungary, and that his name in his own country had been Mealyus. At the present time he was among the most eloquent of London preachers, and was reputed by some to have reached such a standard of pulpit oratory as to have had no equal within the memory of living hearers. In regard to his reading it was acknowledged that no one since Mrs. Siddons had touched him. But he did not get on very well with any particular bishop, and there was doubt in the minds of some people whether there was or was not any — Mrs. Emilius. He had come up quite suddenly within the last season, and had made church-going quite a pleasant occupation to Lizzie Eustace.
On the last day of October Mr. Emilius and Mr. John Eustace came, each alone. Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke came over with post-horses from Ayr, as also did Lord George and Sir Griffin about an hour after them. Frank was not yet expected. He had promised to name a day, and had not yet named it.
“Varra weel, varra weel,” Gowran had said when he was told of what was about to occur, and was desired to make preparations necessary in regard to the outside plenishing of the house; “nae doot she’ll do with her ain what pleases her ainself. The mair ye poor out, the less there’ll be left in. Mr. Jo-ohn coming? I’ll be glad then to see Mr. Jo-ohn. Oo, ay; aits; there’ll be aits eneuch. And anither coo! You’ll want twa ither coos. I’ll see to the coos.” And Andy Gowran, in spite of the internecine warfare which existed between him and his mistress, did see to the hay, and the cows, and the oats, and the extra servants that were wanted inside and outside the house. There was enmity between him and Lady Eustace, and he didn’t care who knew it; but he took her wages and he did her work.
Mrs. Carbuncle was a wonderful woman. She was the wife of a man with whom she was very rarely seen, whom nobody knew, who was something in the City, but somebody who never succeeded in making money; and yet she went everywhere. She had at least the reputation of going everywhere, and did go to a great many places. Carbuncle had no money — so it was said; and she had none. She was the daughter of a man who had gone to New York and had failed there. Of her own parentage no more was known. She had a small house in one of the very small May Fair streets, to which she was wont to invite her friends for five o’clock tea. Other receptions she never attempted. During the London seasons she always kept a carriage, and during the winters she always had hunters. Who paid for them no one knew or cared. Her dress was always perfect, as far as fit and performance went. As to approving Mrs. Carbuncle’s manner of dress — that was a question of taste. Audacity may, perhaps, be said to have been the ruling principle of her toilet; not the audacity of indecency, which, let the satirists say what they may, is not efficacious in England, but audacity in colour, audacity in design, and audacity in construction. She would ride in the park in a black and yellow habit, and appear at the opera in white velvet without a speck of colour. Though certainly turned thirty, and probably nearer to forty, she would wear her jet-black hair streaming down her back, and when June came would drive about London in a straw hat. But yet it was always admitted that she was well dressed. And then would arise that question, Who paid the bills?
Mrs. Carbuncle was certainly a handsome woman. She was full-faced, with bold eyes, rather far apart, perfect black eyebrows, a well-formed broad nose, thick lips, and regular teeth. Her chin was round and short, with perhaps a little bearing towards a double chin. But though her face was plump and round, there was a power in it, and a look of command, of which it was perhaps difficult to say in what features was the seat. But in truth the mind will lend a tone to every feature, and it was the desire of Mrs. Carbuncle’s heart to command. But perhaps the wonder of her face was its complexion. People said, before they knew her, that, as a matter of course, she had been made beautiful forever. But, though that too brilliant colour was almost always there, covering the cheeks but never touching the forehead or the neck, it would at certain moments shift, change, and even depart. When she was angry, it would vanish for a moment and then return intensified. There was no chemistry on Mrs. Carbuncle’s cheek; and yet it was a tint so brilliant and so little transparent as almost to justify a conviction that it could not be genuine. There were those who declared that nothing in the way of complexion so beautiful as that of Mrs. Carbuncle’s had been seen on the face of any other woman in this age, and there were others who called her an exaggerated milkmaid. She was tall, too, and had learned so to walk as though half the world belonged to her.
Her niece, Miss Roanoke, was a lady of the same stamp, and of similar beauty, with those additions and also with those drawbacks which belong to youth. She looked as though she were four-and-twenty, but in truth she was no more than eighteen. When seen beside her aunt, she seemed to be no more than half the elder lady’s size; and yet her proportions were not insignificant. She, too, was tall, and was as one used to command, and walked as though she were a young Juno. Her hair was very dark — almost black — and very plentiful. Her eyes were large and bright, though too bold for a girl so young. Her nose and mouth were exactly as her aunt’s, but her chin was somewhat longer, so as to divest her face of that plump roundness which perhaps took something from the majesty of Mrs. Carbuncle’s appearance. Miss Roanoke’s complexion was certainly marvellous. No one thought that she had been made beautiful forever, for the colour would go and come and shift and change with every word and every thought; but still it was there, as deep on her cheeks as on her aunt’s, though somewhat more transparent, and with more delicacy of tint as the bright hues faded away and became merged in the almost marble whiteness of her skin. With Mrs. Carbuncle there was no merging and fading. The red and white bordered one another on her cheek without any merging, as they do on a flag.
Lucinda Roanoke was undoubtedly a very handsome woman. It probably never occurred to man or woman to say that she was lovely. She had sat for her portrait during the last winter, and her picture had caused much remark in the Exhibition. Some said that she might be a Brinvilliers, others a Cleopatra, and others again a Queen of Sheba. In her eyes as they were limned there had been nothing certainly of love, but they who likened her to the Egyptian queen believed that Cleopatra’s love had always been used simply to assist her ambition. They who took the Brinvilliers side of the controversy were men so used to softness and flattery from women as to have learned to think that a woman silent, arrogant, and hard of approach, must be always meditating murder. The disciples of the Queen of Sheba school, who formed perhaps the more numerous party, were led to their opinion by the majesty of Lucinda’s demeanour rather than by any clear idea in their own minds of the lady who visited Solomon. All men, however, agreed in this, that Lucinda Roanoke was very handsome, but that she was not the sort of girl with whom a man would wish to stray away through the distant beech-trees at a picnic.
In truth she was silent, grave, and, if not really haughty, subject to all the signs of haughtiness. She went everywhere with her aunt, and allowed herself to be walked out at dances, and to be accosted when on horseback, and to be spoken to at parties; but she seemed hardly to trouble herself to talk; and as for laughing, flirting, or giggling, one might as well expect such levity from a marble Minerva. During the last winter she had taken to hunting with her aunt, and already could ride well to hounds. If assistance were wanted at a gate, or in the management of a fence, and the servant who attended the two ladies were not near enough to give it, she would accept it as her due from the man nearest to her; but she rarely did more than bow her thanks, and, even by young lords, or hard-riding handsome colonels, or squires of undoubted thousands, she could hardly ever be brought to what might be called a proper hunting-field conversation. All of which things were noted, and spoken of, and admired. It must be presumed that Lucinda Roanoke was in want of a husband, and yet no girl seemed to take less pains to get one. A girl ought not to be always busying herself to bring down a man, but a girl ought to give herself some charms. A girl so handsome as Lucinda Roanoke, with pluck enough to ride like a bird, dignity enough for a duchess, and who was undoubtedly clever, ought to put herself in the way of taking such good things as her charms and merits would bring her; but Lucinda Roanoke stood aloof and despised everybody. So it was that Lucinda was spoken of when her name was mentioned; and her name was mentioned a good deal after the opening of the exhibition of pictures.
There was some difficulty about her — as to who she was. That she was an American was the received opinion. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Carbuncle, had certainly been in New York. Carbuncle was a London man; but it was supposed that Mr. Roanoke was, or had been, an American. The received opinion was correct. Lucinda had been born in New York, had been educated there till she was sixteen, and then been taken to Paris for nine months, and from Paris had been brought to London by her aunt. Mrs. Carbuncle always spoke of Lucinda’s education as having been thoroughly Parisian. Of her own education and antecedents, Lucinda never spoke at all. “I’ll tell you what it is,” said a young scamp from Eton to his elder sister, when her character and position were once being discussed, “she’s a heroine, and would shoot a fellow as soon as look at him.” In that scamp’s family Lucinda was ever afterwards called the heroine.
The manner in which Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had attached himself to these ladies was a mystery; but then Lord George was always mysterious. He was a young man — so considered — about forty-five years of age, who had never done anything in the manner of other people. He hunted a great deal, but he did not fraternise with hunting men, and would appear now in this county and now in that, with an utter disregard of grass, fences, friendships, or foxes. Leicester, Essex, Ayrshire, or the Baron had equal delights for him; and in all counties he was quite at home. He had never owned a fortune, and had never been known to earn a shilling. It was said that early in life he had been apprenticed to an attorney at Aberdeen as George Carruthers. His third cousin, the Marquis of Killiecrankie, had been killed out hunting; the second scion of the noble family had fallen at Balaclava; a third had perished in the Indian Mutiny; and a fourth, who did reign for a few months, died suddenly, leaving a large family of daughters. Within three years the four brothers vanished, leaving among them no male heir, and George’s elder brother, who was then in a West India regiment, was called home from Demerara to be Marquis of Killiecrankie. By a usual exercise of the courtesy of the Crown, all the brothers were made lords, and some twelve years before the date of our story George Carruthers, who had long since left the attorney’s office at Aberdeen, became Lord George de Carruthers. How he lived no one knew. That his brother did much for him was presumed to be impossible, as the property entailed on the Killiecrankie title certainly was not large. He sometimes went into the City, and was supposed to know something about shares. Perhaps he played a little, and made a few bets. He generally lived with men of means, or perhaps with one man of means at a time; but they who knew him well declared that he never borrowed a shilling from a friend, and never owed a guinea to a tradesman. He always had horses, but never had a home. When in London he lodged in a single room, and dined at his club. He was a Colonel of Volunteers, having got up the regiment known as the Long Shore Riflemen — the roughest regiment of volunteers in all England — and was reputed to be a bitter Radical. He was suspected even of republican sentiments, and ignorant young men about London hinted that he was the grand centre of the British Fenians. He had been invited to stand for the Tower Hamlets, but had told the deputation which waited upon him that he knew a thing worth two of that. Would they guarantee his expenses, and then give him a salary? The deputation doubted its ability to promise so much. “I more than doubt it,” said Lord George; and then the deputation went away.
In person he was a long-legged, long-bodied, long-faced man, with rough whiskers and a rough beard on his upper lip but with a shorn chin. His eyes were very deep set in his head, and his cheeks were hollow and sallow; and yet he looked to be and was a powerful, healthy man. He had large hands, which seemed to be all bone, and long arms, and a neck which looked to be long, because he so wore his shirt that much of his throat was always bare. It was manifest enough that he liked to have good-looking women about him, and yet nobody presumed it probable that he would marry. For the last two or three years there had been friendship between him and Mrs. Carbuncle; and during the last season he had become almost intimate with our Lizzie. Lizzie thought that perhaps he might be the Corsair whom, sooner or later in her life, she must certainly encounter.
Sir Griffin Tewett, who at the present period of his existence was being led about by Lord George, was not exactly an amiable young baronet. Nor were his circumstances such as make a man amiable. He was nominally not only the heir to, but actually the possessor of a large property; but he could not touch the principal, and of the income only so much as certain legal curmudgeons would allow him. As Greystock had said, everybody was at law with him, so successful had been his father in mismanaging, and miscontrolling, and misappropriating the property. Tewett Hall had gone to rack and ruin for four years, and was now let almost for nothing. He was a fair, frail young man, with a bad eye, and a weak mouth, and a thin hand, who was fond of liqueurs, and hated to the death any acquaintance who won a five-pound note of him, or any tradesman who wished to have his bill paid. But he had this redeeming quality — that having found Lucinda Roanoke to be the handsomest woman he had ever seen, he did desire to make her his wife.
Such were the friends whom Lizzie Eustace received at Portray Castle on the first day of her grand hospitality — together with John Eustace and Mr. Joseph Emilius, the fashionable preacher from May Fair.
The coming of John Eustace was certainly a great thing for Lizzie, though it was only for two days. It saved her from that feeling of desertion before her friends — desertion by those who might naturally belong to her — which would otherwise have afflicted her. His presence there for two days gave her a start. She could call him John, and bring down her boy to him, and remind him, with the sweetest smile — with almost a tear in her eye — that he was the boy’s guardian. “Little fellow! So much depends on that little life, does it not, John?” she said, whispering the words into his ear.
“Lucky little dog!” said John, patting the boy’s head. “Let me see! of course he’ll go to Eton.”
“Not yet,” said Lizzie with a shudder.
“Well, no, hardly; when he’s twelve.” And then the boy was done with and was carried away. She had played that card and had turned her trick. John Eustace was a thoroughly good-natured man of the world, who could forgive many faults, not expecting people to be perfect. He did not like Mrs. Carbuncle; was indifferent to Lucinda’s beauty; was afraid of that Tartar, Lord George; and thoroughly despised Sir Griffin. In his heart he believed Mr. Emilius to be an impostor, who might, for aught he knew, pick his pocket: and Miss Macnulty had no attraction for him. But he smiled, and was gay, and called Lady Eustace by her Christian name, and was content to be of use to her in showing her friends that she had not been altogether dropped by the Eustace people.
“I got such a nice affectionate letter from the dear bishop,” said Lizzie, “but he couldn’t come. He could not escape a previous engagement.”
“It’s a long way,” said John, “and he’s not so young as he was once; and then there are the Bobsborough parsons to look after.”
“I don’t suppose anything of that kind stops him,” said Lizzie, who did not think it possible that a bishop’s bliss should be alloyed by work. John was so very nice that she almost made up her mind to talk to him about the necklace; but she was cautious, and thought of it, and found that it would be better that she should abstain. John Eustace was certainly very good-natured, but perhaps he might say an ugly word to her if she were rash. She refrained, therefore, and after breakfast on the second day he took his departure with out an allusion to things that were unpleasant.
“I call my brother-inlaw a perfect gentleman,” said Lizzie with enthusiasm, when his back was turned.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. “He seems to me to be very quiet.”
“He didn’t quite like his party,” said Lord George.
“I am sure he did,” said Lizzie.
“I mean as to politics. To him we are all turbulent demagogues and Bohemians. Eustace is an old-world Tory, if there’s one left anywhere. But you’re right, Lady Eustace; he is a gentleman.”
“He knows on which side his bread is buttered as well as any man,” said Sir Griffin.
“Am I a demagogue,” said Lizzie, appealing to the Corsair, “or a Bohemian? I didn’t know it.”
“A little in that way, I think, Lady Eustace; not a demagogue, but demagogical; not Bohemian, but that way given.”
“And is Miss Roanoke demagogical?”
“Certainly,” said Lord George. “I hardly wrong you there, Miss Roanoke?”
“Lucinda is a democrat, but hardly a demagogue, Lord George,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Those are distinctions which we hardly understand on this thick-headed side of the water. But demagogues, democrats, demonstrations, and Demosthenic oratory are all equally odious to John Eustace. For a young man he’s about the best Tory I know.”
“He is true to his colours,” said Mr. Emilius, who had been endeavouring to awake the attention of Miss Roanoke on the subject of Shakespeare’s dramatic action, “and I like men who are true to their colours.” Mr. Mealyus spoke with the slightest possible tone of foreign accent — a tone so slight that it simply served to attract attention to him.
While Eustace was still in the house, there had come a letter from Frank Greystock, saying that he would reach Portray, by way of Glasgow, on Wednesday, the 5th of November. He must sleep in Glasgow on that night, having business, or friends, or pleasure demanding his attention in that prosperous mart of commerce. It had been impressed upon him that he should hunt, and he had consented. There was to be a meet out on the Kilmarnock side of the county on that Wednesday, and he would bring a horse with him from Glasgow. Even in Glasgow a hunter was to be hired, and could be sent forty or fifty miles out of the town in the morning and brought back in the evening. Lizzie had learned all about that, and had told him. If he would call at MacFarlane’s stables in Buchanan Street, or even write to Mr. MacFarlane, he would be sure to get a horse that would carry him. MacFarlane was sending horses down into the Ayrshire country every day of his life. It was simply an affair of money. Three guineas for the horse, and then just the expense of the railway. Frank, who knew quite as much about it as did his cousin, and who never thought much of guineas or of railway tickets, promised to meet the party at the meet ready equipped. His things would go on by train, and Lizzie must send for them to Troon. He presumed a beneficent Providence would take the horse back to the bosom of Mr. MacFarlane. Such was the tenor of his letter. “If he don’t mind, he’ll find himself astray,” said Sir Griffin. “He’ll have to go one way by rail and his horse another.”
“We can manage better for our cousin than that,” said Lizzie, with a rebuking nod.
But there was hunting from Portray before Frank Greystock came. It was specially a hunting party, and Lizzie was to be introduced to the glories of the field. In giving her her due, it must be acknowledged that she was fit for the work. She rode well, though she had not ridden to hounds, and her courage was cool. She looked well on horseback, and had that presence of mind which should never desert a lady when she is hunting. A couple of horses had been purchased for her, under Lord George’s superintendence — his conjointly with Mrs. Carbuncle’s — and had been at the castle for the last ten days, “eating their varra heeds off,” as Andy Gowran had said in sorrow. There had been practising even while John Eustace was there, and before her preceptors had slept three nights at the castle she had ridden backward and forward half a dozen times over a stone wall.
“Oh, yes,” Lucinda had said, in answer to a remark from Sir Griffin, “it’s easy enough — till you come across something difficult.”
“Nothing difficult stops you,” said Sir Griffin; to which compliment Lucinda vouchsafed no reply.
On the Monday Lizzie went out hunting for the first time in her life. It must be owned that, as she put her habit on, and afterwards breakfasted with all her guests in hunting gear around her, and then was driven with them in her own carriage to the meet, there was something of trepidation at her heart. And her feeling of cautious fear in regard to money had received a shock. Mrs. Carbuncle had told her that a couple of horses fit to carry her might perhaps cost her about ￡180. Lord George had received the commission, and the check required from her had been for ￡320. Of course she had written the check without a word, but it did begin to occur to her that hunting was an expensive amusement. Gowran had informed her that he had bought a rick of hay from a neighbour for ￡75 15_s. 9_d. “God forgie me,” said Andy, “but I b’lieve I’ve been o’er hard on the puir man in your leddyship’s service.” ￡75 15_s. 9_d. did seem a great deal of money to pay; and could it be necessary that she should buy a whole rick? There were to be eight horses in the stable. To what friend could she apply to learn how much of a rick of hay one horse ought to eat in a month of hunting? In such a matter she might have trusted Andy Gowran implicitly; but how was she to know that? And then, what if at some desperate fence she were to be thrown off and break her nose and knock out her front teeth! Was the game worth the candle? She was by no means sure that she liked Mrs. Carbuncle very much. And though she liked Lord George very well, could it be possible that he bought the horses for ￡90 each and charged her ￡160? Corsairs do do these sort of things. The horses themselves were two sweet dears, with stars on their foreheads, and shining coats, and a delicious aptitude for jumping over everything at a moment’s notice. Lord George had not, in truth, made a penny by them, and they were good hunters, worth the money; but how was Lizzie to know that? But though she doubted, and was full of fears, she could smile and look as though she liked it. If the worst should come she could certainly get money for the diamonds.
On that Monday the meet was comparatively near to them — distant only twelve miles. On the following Wednesday it would be sixteen, and they would use the railway, having the carriage sent to meet them in the evening. The three ladies and Lord George filled the carriage, and Sir Griffin was perched upon the box. The ladies’ horses had gone on with two grooms, and those for Lord George and Sir Griffin were to come to the meet. Lizzie felt somewhat proud of her establishment and her equipage, but at the same time somewhat fearful. Hitherto she knew but very little of the country people, and was not sure how she might be received; and then how would it be with her if the fox should at once start away across country, and she should lack either the pluck or the power to follow? There was Sir Griffin to look after Miss Roanoke, and Lord George to attend to Mrs. Carbuncle. At last an idea so horrible struck her that she could not keep it down. “What am I to do,” she said, “if I find myself all alone in a field, and everybody else gone away?”
“We won’t treat you quite in that fashion,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“The only possible way in which you can be alone in a field is that you will have cut everybody else down,” said Lord George.
“I suppose it will all come right,” said Lizzie, plucking up her courage, and telling herself that a woman can die but once.
Everything was right — as it usually is. The horses were there — quite a throng of horses, as the two gentlemen had two each; and there was, moreover, a mounted groom to look after the three ladies. Lizzie had desired to have a groom to herself, but had been told that the expenditure in horseflesh was more than the stable could stand. “All I ever want of a man is to carry for me my flask, and waterproof, and luncheon,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. “I don’t care if I never see a groom, except for that.”
“It’s convenient to have a gate opened sometimes,” said Lucinda, slowly.
“Will no one but a groom do that for you?” asked Sir Griffin.
“Gentlemen can’t open gates,” said Lucinda. Now, as Sir Griffin thought that he had opened many gates during the last season for Miss Roanoke, he felt this to be hard.
But there were eight horses, and eight horses with three servants and a carriage made quite a throng. Among the crowd of Ayrshire hunting men — a lord or two, a dozen lairds, two dozen farmers, and as many men of business out of Ayr, Kilmarnock, and away from Glasgow — it was soon told that Lady Eustace and her party were among them. A good deal had been already heard of Lizzie, and it was at least known of her that she had, for her life, the Portray estate in her hands. So there was an undercurrent of whispering, and that sort of commotion which the appearance of newcomers does produce at a hunt-meet. Lord George knew one or two men, who were surprised to find him in Ayrshire, and Mrs. Carbuncle was soon quite at home with a young nobleman whom she had met in the Vale with the Baron. Sir Griffin did not leave Lucinda’s side, and for a while poor Lizzie felt herself alone in a crowd.
Who does not know that terrible feeling, and the all but necessity that exists for the sufferer to pretend that he is not suffering — which again is aggravated by the conviction that the pretence is utterly vain? This may be bad with a man, but with a woman, who never looks to be alone in a crowd, it is terrible. For five minutes, during which everybody else was speaking to everybody — for five minutes, which seemed to her to be an hour, Lizzie spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her. Was it for such misery as this that she was spending hundreds upon hundreds, and running herself into debt? For she was sure that there would be debt before she parted with Mrs. Carbuncle. There are people, very many people, to whom an act of hospitality is in itself a good thing; but there are others who are always making calculations, and endeavouring to count up the thing purchased against the cost. Lizzie had been told that she was a rich woman — as women go, very rich. Surely she was entitled to entertain a few friends; and if Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke could hunt, it could not be that hunting was beyond her own means. And yet she was spending a great deal of money. She had seen a large wagon loaded with sacks of corn coming up the hill to the Portray stables, and she knew that there would be a long bill at the corn-chandler’s. There had been found a supply of wine in the cellars at Portray, which at her request had been inspected by her cousin Frank; but it had been necessary, so he had told her, to have much more sent down from London — champagne, and liqueurs, and other nice things that cost money.
“You won’t like not to have them if these people are coming?”
“Oh, no; certainly not,” said Lizzie, with enthusiasm. What other rich people did, she would do. But now, in her five minutes of misery, she counted it all up, and was at a loss to find what was to be her return for her expenditure. And then, if on this, her first day, she should have a fall, with no tender hand to help her, and then find that she had knocked out her front teeth!
But the cavalcade began to move, and then Lord George was by her side. “You mustn’t be angry if I seem to stick too close to you,” he said. She gave him her sweetest smile as she told him that that would be impossible. “Because, you know, though it’s the easiest thing in the world to get along out hunting, and women never come to grief, a person is a little astray at first.”
“I shall be so much astray,” said Lizzie. “I don’t at all know how we are going to begin. Are we hunting a fox now?” At this moment they were trotting across a field or two, through a run of gates up to the first covert.
“Not quite yet. The hounds haven’t been put in yet. You see that wood there? I suppose they’ll draw that.”
“What is drawing, Lord George? I want to know all about it, and I am so ignorant. Nobody else will tell me.” Then Lord George gave his lesson, and explained the theory and system of foxhunting.
“We’re to wait here, then, till the fox runs away? But it’s ever so large, and if he runs away, and nobody sees him? I hope he will, because it will be nice to go on easily.”
“A great many people hope that, and a great many think it nice to go on easily. Only you must not confess to it.” Then he went on with his lecture, and explained the meaning of scent; was great on the difficulty of getting away; described the iniquity of heading the fox; spoke of up wind and down wind; got as far as the trouble of “carrying,” and told her that a good ear was everything in a big wood — when there came upon them the thrice-repeated note of an old hound’s voice, and the quick scampering, and low, timid, anxious, trustful whinnying, of a dozen comrade younger hounds, who recognised the sagacity of their well-known and highly-appreciated elder.
“That’s a fox,” said Lord George.
“What shall I do now?” said Lizzie, all in a twitter.
“Sit just where you are, and light a cigar, if you’re given to smoking.”
“Pray don’t joke with me. You know I want to do it properly.”
“And therefore you must sit just where you are, and not gallop about. There’s a matter of a hundred and twenty acres here, I should say, and a fox doesn’t always choose to be evicted at the first notice. It’s a chance whether he goes at all from a wood like this. I like woods myself, because, as you say, we can take it easy; but if you want to ride, you should — By George, they’ve killed him.”
“Killed the fox?”
“Yes; he’s dead. Didn’t you hear?”
“And is that a hunt?”
“Well — as far as it goes, it is.”
“Why didn’t he run away? What a stupid beast! I don’t see so very much in that. Who killed him? That man that was blowing the horn?”
“The hounds chopped him.”
“Chopped him!” Lord George was very patient, and explained to Lizzie, who was now indignant and disappointed, the misfortune of chopping. “And are we to go home now? Is it all over?”
“They say the country is full of foxes,” said Lord George. “Perhaps we shall chop half a dozen.”
“Dear me! Chop half a dozen foxes! Do they like to be chopped? I thought they always ran away.”
Lord George was constant and patient, and rode at Lizzie’s side from covert to covert. A second fox they did kill in the same fashion as the first; a third they couldn’t hunt a yard; a fourth got to ground after five minutes, and was dug out ingloriously, during which process a drizzling rain commenced.
“Where is the man with my waterproof?” demanded Mrs. Carbuncle. Lord George had sent the man to see whether there was shelter to be had in a neighbouring yard. And Mrs. Carbuncle was angry. “It’s my own fault,” she said, “for not having my own man. Lucinda, you’ll be wet.”
“I don’t mind the wet,” said Lucinda. Lucinda never did mind anything.
“If you’ll come with me, we’ll get into a barn,” said Sir Griffin.
“I like the wet,” said Lucinda. All the while seven men were at work with picks and shovels, and the master and four or five of the more ardent sportsmen were deeply engaged in what seemed to be a mining operation on a small scale. The huntsman stood over giving his orders. One enthusiastic man, who had been lying on his belly, grovelling in the mud for five minutes, with a long stick in his hand, was now applying the point of it scientifically to his nose. An ordinary observer with a magnifying glass might have seen a hair at the end of the stick.
“He’s there,” said the enthusiastic man, covered with mud, after a long-drawn eager sniff at the stick. The huntsman deigned to give one glance.
“That’s rabbit,” said the huntsman. A conclave was immediately formed over the one visible hair that stuck to the stick, and three experienced farmers decided that it was rabbit. The muddy, enthusiastic man, silenced but not convinced, retired from the crowd, leaving his stick behind him, and comforted himself with his brandy-flask.
“He’s here, my lord,” said the huntsman to his noble master, “only we ain’t got nigh him yet.” He spoke almost in a whisper, so that the ignorant crowd should not hear the words of wisdom, which they wouldn’t understand, or perhaps believe. “It’s that full of rabbits that the holes is all hairs. They ain’t got no terrier here, I suppose. They never has aught that is wanted in these parts. Work round to the right, there — that’s his line.” The men did work round to the right, and in something under an hour the fox was dragged out by his brush and hind legs, while the experienced whip who dragged him held the poor brute tight by the back of his neck. “An old dog, my lord. There’s such a many of ’em here, that they’ll be a deal better for a little killing.” Then the hounds ate their third fox for that day.
Lady Eustace, in the mean time, and Mrs. Carbuncle, with Lord George, had found their way to the shelter of a cattle-shed. Lucinda had slowly followed, and Sir Griffin had followed her. The gentlemen smoked cigars, and the ladies, when they had eaten their luncheons and drunk their sherry, were cold and cross.
“If this is hunting,” said Lizzie, “I really don’t think so much about it.”
“It’s Scotch hunting,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“I have seen foxes dug out south of the Tweed,” suggested Lord George.
“I suppose everything is slow after the Baron,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, who had distinguished herself with the Baron’s stag-hounds last March.
“Are we to go home now?” asked Lizzie, who would have been well pleased to have received an answer in the affirmative.
“I presume they’ll draw again,” exclaimed Mrs. Carbuncle, with an angry frown on her brow. “It’s hardly two o’clock.”
“They always draw till seven in Scotland,” said Lord George.
“That’s nonsense,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. “It’s dark at four.”
“They have torches in Scotland,” said Lord George.
“They have a great many things in Scotland that are very far from agreeable,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. “Lucinda, did you ever see three foxes killed without five minutes’ running, before? I never did.”
“I’ve been out all day without finding at all,” said Lucinda, who loved the truth.
“And so have I,” said Sir Griffin; “often. Don’t you remember that day when we went down from London to Bringher Wood, and they pretended to find at half-past four? That’s what I call a sell!”
“They’re going on, Lady Eustace,” said Lord George. “If you’re not tired, we might as well see it out.” Lizzie was tired, but said that she was not, and she did see it out. They found a fifth fox, but again there was no scent. “Who the —— is to hunt a fox with people scurrying about like that?” said the huntsman very angrily, dashing forward at a couple of riders. “The hounds is behind you, only you ain’t a-looking. Some people never do look.” The two peccant riders, unfortunately, were Sir Griffin and Lucinda.
The day was one of those from which all the men and woman return home cross, and which induce some half-hearted folk to declare to themselves that they never will hunt again. When the master decided a little after three that he would draw no more, because there wasn’t a yard of scent, our party had nine or ten miles to ride back to their carriages. Lizzie was very tired, and when Lord George took her from her horse could almost have cried from fatigue. Mrs. Carbuncle was never fatigued, but she had become damp — soaking wet through, as she herself said — during the four minutes that the man was absent with her waterproof jacket, and could not bring herself to forget the ill-usage she had suffered. Lucinda had become absolutely dumb, and any observer would have fancied that the two gentlemen had quarrelled with each other.
“You ought to go on the box now,” said Sir Griffin, grumbling.
“When you’re my age and I’m yours, I will,” said Lord George, taking his seat in the carriage. Then he appealed to Lizzie. “You’ll let me smoke, won’t you?” She simply bowed her head. And so they went home — Lord George smoking, and the ladies dumb. Lizzie, as she dressed for dinner, almost cried with vexation and disappointment.
There was a little conversation up-stairs between Mrs. Carbuncle and Lucinda, when they were free from the attendance of their joint maid. “It seems to me,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, “that you won’t make up your mind about anything.”
“There is nothing to make up my mind about.”
“I think there is — a great deal. Do you mean to take this man who is dangling after you?”
“He isn’t worth taking.”
“Carruthers says that the property must come right, sooner or later. You might do better, perhaps, but you won’t trouble yourself. We can’t go on like this forever, you know.”
“If you hated it as much as I do, you wouldn’t want to go on.”
“Why don’t you talk to him? I don’t think he’s at all a bad fellow.”
“I’ve nothing to say.”
“He’ll offer tomorrow, if you’ll accept him.”
“Don’t let him do that, Aunt Jane. I couldn’t say Yes. As for loving him — oh, laws!”
“It won’t do to go on like this, you know.”
“I’m only eighteen; and it’s my money, aunt.”
“And how long will it last? If you can’t accept him, refuse him, and let somebody else come.”
“It seems to me,” said Lucinda, “that one is as bad as another. I’d a deal sooner marry a shoemaker and help him to make him shoes.”
“That’s downright wickedness,” said Mrs. Carbuncle. And then they went down to dinner.
During the leisure of Tuesday our friends regained their good humour, and on the Wednesday morning they again started for the hunting-field. Mrs. Carbuncle, who probably felt that she had behaved ill about the groom and in regard to Scotland, almost made an apology, and explained that a cold shower always did make her cross. “My dear Lady Eustace, I hope I wasn’t very savage.”
“My dear Mrs. Carbuncle, I hope I wasn’t very stupid,” said Lizzie with a smile.
“My dear Lady Eustace, and my dear Mrs. Carbuncle, and my dear Miss Roanoke, I hope I wasn’t very selfish,” said Lord George.
“I thought you were,” said Sir Griffin.
“Yes, Griff; and so were you; but I succeeded.”
“I am almost glad that I wasn’t of the party,” said Mr. Emilius, with that musical foreign tone of his. “Miss Macnulty and I did not quarrel; did we?”
“No, indeed,” said Miss Macnulty, who had liked the society of Mr. Emilius.
But on this morning there was an attraction for Lizzie which the Monday had wanted. She was to meet her cousin, Frank Greystock. The journey was long, and the horses had gone on over night. They went by railway to Kilmarnock, and there a carriage from the inn had been ordered to meet them. Lizzie, as she heard the order given, wondered whether she would have to pay for that, or whether Lord George and Sir Griffin would take so much off her shoulders. Young women generally pay for nothing; and it was very hard that she, who was quite a young woman, should have to pay for all. But she smiled, and accepted the proposition. “Oh, yes; of course a carriage at the station. It is so nice to have some one to think of things, like Lord George.” The carriage met them, and everything went prosperously. Almost the first person they saw was Frank Greystock, in a black coat indeed, but riding a superb gray horse, and looking quite as though he knew what he was about. He was introduced to Mrs. Carbuncle and Miss Roanoke and Sir Griffin. With Lord George he had some slight previous acquaintance.
“You’ve had no difficulty about a horse?” said Lizzie.
“Not the slightest. But I was in an awful fright this morning. I wrote to MacFarlane from London, and absolutely hadn’t a moment to go to his place yesterday or this morning. I was staying over at Glenshiels, and had not a moment to spare in catching the train. But I found a horse-box on, and a lad from MacFarlane’s just leaving as I came up.”
“Didn’t he send a boy down with the horse?” asked Lord George.
“I believe there is a boy, and the boy’ll be awfully bothered. I told them to book the horse for Kilmarnock.”
“They always do book for Kilmarnock for this meet,” said a gentleman who had made acquaintance with some of Lizzie’s party on the previous hunting-day; “but Stewarton is ever so much nearer.”
“So somebody told me in the carriage,” continued Frank, “and I contrived to get my box off at Stewarton. The guard was uncommon civil, and so was the porter. But I hadn’t a moment to look for the boy.”
“I always make my fellow stick to his horses,” said Sir Griffin.
“But you see, Sir Griffin, I haven’t got a fellow, and I’ve only hired a horse. But I shall hire a good many horses from Mr. MacFarlane if he’ll always put me up like this.”
“I’m so glad you’re here!” said Lizzie.
“So am I. I hunt about twice in three years, and no man likes it so much. I’ve still got to find out whether the beast can jump.”
“Any mortal thing alive, sir,” said one of those horsey-looking men who are to be found in all hunting-fields, who wear old brown breeches, old black coats, old hunting-caps, who ride screws, and never get thrown out.
“You know him, do you?” said Frank.
“I know him. I didn’t know as Muster MacFarlane owned him. No more he don’t,” said the horsey man, turning aside to one of his friends. “That’s Nappie’s horse, from Jamaica Street.”
“Not possible,” said the friend.
“You’ll tell me I don’t know my own horse next.”
“I don’t believe you ever owned one,” said the friend.
Lizzie was in truth delighted to have her cousin beside her. He had, at any rate, forgiven what she had said to him at his last visit, or he would not have been there. And then, too, there was a feeling of reality in her connection with him, which was sadly wanting to her, unreal as she was herself, in her acquaintance with the other people around her. And on this occasion three or four people spoke or bowed to her, who had only stared at her before; and the huntsman took off his cap, and hoped that he would do something better for her than on the previous Monday. And the huntsman was very courteous also to Miss Roanoke, expressing the same hope, cap in hand, and smiling graciously. A huntsman at the beginning of any day or at the end of a good day is so different from a huntsman at the end of a bad day! A huntsman often has a very bad time out hunting, and it is sometimes a marvel that he does not take the advice which Job got from his wife. But now all things were smiling, and it was soon known that his lordship intended to draw Craigattan Gorse. Now in those parts there is no surer find, and no better chance of a run, than Craigattan Gorse affords.
“There is one thing I want to ask, Mr. Greystock,” said Lord George, in Lizzie’s hearing.”
“You shall ask two,” said Frank.
“Who is to coach Lady Eustace today, you or I?”
“Oh, do let me have somebody to coach me,” said Lizzie.
“For devotion in coachmanship,” said Frank —“devotion, that is, to my cousin — I defy the world. In point of skill I yield to Lord George.”
“My pretensions are precisely the same,” said Lord George. “I glow with devotion; my skill is naught.”
“I like you best, Lord George,” said Lizzie, laughing.
“That settles the question,” said Lord George.
“Altogether,” said Frank, taking off his hat.
“I mean as a coach,” said Lizzie.
“I quite understand the extent of the preference,” said Lord George. Lizzie was delighted, and thought the game was worth the candle. The noble master had told her that they were sure of a run from Craigattan, and she wasn’t in the least tired, and they were not called upon to stand still in a big wood, and it didn’t rain, and, in every respect, the day was very different from Monday. Mounted on a bright-skinned, lively steed, with her cousin on one side and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers on the other, with all the hunting world of her own county civil around her, and a fox just found in Craigattan Gorse, what could the heart of woman desire more? This was to live. There was, however, just enough of fear to make the blood run quickly to her heart.
“We’ll be away at once now,” said Lord George with utmost earnestness; “follow me close, but not too close. When the men see that I am giving you a lead, they won’t come between. If you hang back, I’ll not go ahead. Just check your horse as he comes to his fences, and, if you can, see me over before you go at them. Now then, down the hill; there’s a gate at the corner, and a bridge over the water. We couldn’t be better. By George! there they are, all together. If they don’t pull him down in the first two minutes, we shall have a run.”
Lizzie understood most of it, more at least than would nine out of ten young women who had never ridden a hunt before. She was to go wherever Lord George led her, and she was to ride upon his heels. So much at least she understood, and so much she was resolved to do. That dread about her front teeth which had perplexed her on Monday was altogether gone now. She would ride as fast as Lucinda Roanoke. That was her prevailing idea. Lucinda, with Mrs. Carbuncle, Sir Griffin, and the ladies’ groom, was at the other side of the covert. Frank had been with his cousin and Lord George, but had crept down the hill while the hounds were in the gorse. A man who likes hunting, but hunts only once a year, is desirous of doing the best he can with his day. When the hounds came out and crossed the brook at the end of the gorse, perhaps he was a little too forward. But, indeed, the state of affairs did not leave much time for waiting, or for the etiquette of the hunting-field. Along the opposite margin of the brook there ran a low paling, which made the water a rather nasty thing to face. A circuit of thirty or forty yards gave the easy riding of a little bridge, and to that all the crowd hurried. But one or two men with good eyes, and hearts as good, had seen the leading hounds across the brook turning up the hill away from the bridge, and knew that two most necessary minutes might be lost in the crowd. Frank did as they did, having seen nothing of any hounds, but with instinctive knowledge that they were men likely to be right in a hunting-field. “If that ain’t Nappie’s horse, I’ll eat him,” said one of the leading men to the other, as all the three were breasting the hill together. Frank only knew that he had been carried over water and timber without a mistake, and felt a glow of gratitude toward Mr. MacFarlane. Up the hill they went, and, not waiting to inquire into the circumstances of a little gate, jumped a four-foot wall and were away. “How the mischief did he get atop of Nappie’s horse?” said the horsey man to his friend.
“We’re about right for it now,” said the huntsman, as he came up alongside of Frank. He had crossed the bridge, but had been the first across it, and knew how to get over his ground quickly. On they went, the horsey man leading on his thoroughbred screw, the huntsman second, and Frank third. The pace had already been too good for the other horsey man.
When Lord George and Lizzie had mounted the hill, there was a rush of horses at the little gate. As they topped the hill Lucinda and Mrs. Carbuncle were jumping the wall. Lord George looked back and asked a question without a word. Lizzie answered it as mutely, Jump it! She was already a little short of breath, but she was ready to jump anything that Lucinda Roanoke had jumped. Over went Lord George, and she followed him almost without losing the stride of her horse. Surely in all the world there was nothing equal to this. There was a large grass field before them, and for a moment she came up alongside of Lord George. “Just steady him before he leaps,” said Lord George. She nodded her assent, and smiled her gratitude. She had plenty of breath for riding, but none for speaking. They were now very near to Lucinda, and Sir Griffin, and Mrs. Carbuncle. “The pace is too good for Mrs. Carbuncle’s horse,” said Lord George. Oh, if she could only pass them, and get up to those men whom she saw before her! She knew that one of them was her cousin Frank. She had no wish to pass them, but she did wish that he should see her. In the next fence Lord George spied a rail, which he thought safer than a blind hedge, and he made for it. His horse took it well, and so did Lizzie’s; but Lizzie jumped it a little too near him, as he had paused an instant to look at the ground.
“Indeed, I won’t do it again,” she said, collecting all her breath for an apology.
“You are going admirably,” he said, “and your horse is worth double the money.” She was so glad now that he had not spared for price in mounting her! Looking to the right, she could see that Mrs. Carbuncle had only just floundered through the hedge. Lucinda was still ahead, but Sir Griffin was falling behind, as though divided in duty between the niece and the aunt. Then they passed through a gate, and Lord George stayed his horse to hold it for her. She tried to thank him but he stopped her. “Don’t mind talking, but come along, and take it easy.” She smiled again, and he told himself that she was wondrous pretty. And then her pluck was so good! And then she had four thousand a year! “Now for the gap; don’t be in a hurry. You first, and I’ll follow you to keep off these two men. Keep to the left, where the other horses have been.” On they went, and Lizzie was in heaven. She could not quite understand her feelings, because it had come to that with her that to save her life she could not have spoken a word. And yet she was not only happy but comfortable. The leaping was delightful, and her horse galloped with her as though his pleasure was as great as her own. She thought that she was getting nearer to Lucinda. For her, in her heart, Lucinda was the quarry. If she could only pass Lucinda! That there were any hounds she had altogether forgotten. She only knew that two or three men were leading the way, of whom her cousin Frank was one, that Lucinda Roanoke was following them closely, and that she was gaining upon Lucinda Roanoke. She knew she was gaining a little, because she could see now how well and squarely Lucinda sat upon her horse. As for herself, she feared that she was rolling; but she need not have feared. She was so small, and lithe, and light, that her body adapted itself naturally to the pace of her horse. Lucinda was of a different build, and it behooved her to make for herself a perfect seat. “We must have the wall,” said Lord George, who was again at her side for a moment. She would have “had” a castle wall, moat included, turrets and all, if he would only have shown her the way. The huntsman and Frank had taken the wall. The horsey man’s bit of blood, knowing his own powers to an inch, had declined — not roughly, with a sudden stop and a jerk, but with a swerve to the left which the horsey man at once understood. What the brute lacked in jumping he could make up in pace, and the horsey man was along the wall and over a broken bank at the head of it, with the loss of not more than a minute. Lucinda’s horse, following the ill example, balked the jump. She turned him round with a savage gleam in her eye which Lizzie was just near enough to see, struck him rapidly over the shoulders with her whip, and the animal flew with her into the next field. “Oh, if I could do it like that,” thought Lizzie. But in that very minute she was doing it, not only as well but better. Not following Lord George, but close at his side, the little animal changed his pace, trotted for a yard or two, hopped up as though the wall were nothing, knocked off a top stone with his hind feet, and dropped on the ground so softly that Lizzie hardly believed that she had gone over the big obstruction that had cost Lucinda such an effort. Lucinda’s horse came down on all four legs, with a grunt and a groan, and she knew that she had bustled him. At that moment Lucinda was very full of wrath against the horsey man with the screw who had been in her way. “He touched it,” gasped Lizzie, thinking that her horse had disgraced himself.
“He’s worth his weight in gold,” said Lord George. “Come along. There’s a brook with a ford. Morgan is in it.” Morgan was the huntsman. “Don’t let them get before you.” Oh, no. She would let no one get before her. She did her very best, and just got her horse’s nose on the broken track leading down into the brook before Lucinda.
“Pretty good, isn’t it?” said Lucinda. Lizzie smiled sweetly. She could smile, though she could not speak.
“Only they do balk one so at one’s fences,” said Lucinda. The horsey man had all but regained his place, and was immediately behind Lucinda, within hearing, as Lucinda knew.
On the further side of the field, beyond the brook, there was a little spinny, and for half a minute the hounds came to a check. “Give ’em time, sir, give ’em time,” said Morgan to Frank, speaking in full good humour, with no touch of Monday’s savagery. “Wind him, Bolton; Beaver’s got it. Very good thing, my lady, isn’t it? Now, Carstairs, if you’re a — going to ‘unt the fox you’d better ‘unt him.” Carstairs was the horsey man, and one with whom Morgan very often quarrelled. “That’s it, my hearties,” and Morgan was across a broken wall in a moment, after the leading hounds.
“Are we to go on?” said Lizzie, who feared much that Lucinda would get ahead of her. There was a matter of three dozen horsemen up now, and, as far as Lizzie saw, the whole thing might have to be done again. In hunting, to have ridden is the pleasure; and not simply to have ridden well, but to have ridden better than others.
“I call it very awkward ground,” said Mrs. Carbuncle, coming up. “It can’t be compared to the Baron’s country.”
“Stone walls four feet and a half high, and well built, are awkward,” said the noble master.
But the hounds were away again, and Lizzie had got across the gap before Lucinda, who, indeed, made way for her hostess with a haughty politeness which was not lost upon Lizzie. Lizzie could not stop to beg pardon, but she would remember to do it in her prettiest way on their journey home. They were now on a track of open country, and the pace was quicker even than before. The same three men were still leading, Morgan, Greystock, and Carstairs. Carstairs had slightly the best of it; and of course Morgan swore afterwards that he was among the hounds the whole run. “The scent was that good there wasn’t no putting of ’em off; no thanks to him,” said Morgan. “I ‘ate to see ’em galloping, galloping, galloping, with no more eye to the ‘ounds than a pig. Any idiot can gallop if he’s got it under ’im.” All which only signified that Jack Morgan didn’t like to see any of his field before him. There was need, indeed, now for galloping, and it may be doubted whether Morgan himself was not doing his best. There were about five or six in the second fight, and among these Lord George and Lizzie were well placed. But Lucinda had pressed again ahead.
“Miss Roanoke had better have a care or she’ll blow her horse,” Lord George said. Lizzie didn’t mind what happened to Miss Roanoke’s horse so that it could be made to go a little slower and fall behind. But Lucinda still pressed on, and her animal went with a longer stride than Lizzie’s horse.
They now crossed a road, descending a hill, and were again in a close country. A few low hedges seemed as nothing to Lizzie. She could see her cousin gallop over them ahead of her, as though they were nothing; and her own horse, as he came to them, seemed to do exactly the same. On a sudden they found themselves abreast with the huntsman.
“There’s a biggish brook below there, my lord,” said he. Lizzie was charmed to hear it. Hitherto she had jumped all the big things so easily, that it was a pleasure to hear of them.
“How are we to manage it?” asked Lord George.
“It is ridable, my lord; but there’s a place about half a mile down. Let’s see how’ll they head. Drat it, my lord, they’ve turned up, and we must have it or go back to the road.” Morgan hurried on, showing that he meant to “have” it, as did also Lucinda.
“Shall we go to the road?” said Lord George.
“No, no!” said Lizzie.
Lord George looked at her and at her horse, and then galloped after the huntsman and Lucinda. The horsey man with the well-bred screw was first over the brook. The little animal could take almost any amount of water, and his rider knew the spot. “He’ll do it like a bird,” he had said to Greystock, and Greystock had followed him. Mr. MacFarlane’s hired horse did do it like a bird.
“I know him, sir,” said Carstairs. “Mr. Nappie gave ￡250 for him down in Northamptonshire last February; bought him of Mr. Percival. You know Mr. Percival, sir?” Frank knew neither Mr. Percival nor Mr. Nappie, and at this moment cared nothing for either of them. To him, at this moment, Mr. MacFarlane, of Buchanan Street, Glasgow, was the best friend he ever had.
Morgan, knowing well the horse he rode, dropped him into the brook, floundered and half swam through the mud and water, and scrambled out safely on the other side. “He wouldn’t have jumped it with me, if I’d asked him ever so,” he said afterwards. Lucinda rode at it, straight as an arrow, but her brute came to a dead balk, and, but that she sat well, would have thrown her into the stream. Lord George let Lizzie take the leap before he took it, knowing that, if there were misfortune, he might so best render help. To Lizzie it seemed as though the river were the blackest, and the deepest, and the broadest that ever ran. For a moment her heart quailed; but it was but for a moment. She shut her eyes, and gave the little horse his head. For a moment she thought that she was in the water. Her horse was almost upright on the bank, with his hind feet down among the broken ground, and she was clinging to his neck. But she was light, and the beast made good his footing, and then she knew that she had done it. In that moment of the scramble her heart had been so near her mouth that she was almost choked. When she looked round Lord George was already by her side.
“You hardly gave him powder enough,” he said, “but still he did it beautifully. Good heavens! Miss Roanoke is in the river.” Lizzie looked back, and there, in truth, was Lucinda struggling with her horse in the water. They paused a moment, and then there were three or four men assisting her. “Come on,” said Lord George. “There are plenty to take her out, and we couldn’t get to her if we stayed.”
“I ought to stop,” said Lizzie.
“You couldn’t get back if you gave your eyes for it,” said Lord George. “She’s all right.” So instigated, Lizzie followed her leader up the hill, and in a minute was close upon Morgan’s heels.
The worst of doing a big thing out hunting is the fact that in nine cases out of ten they who don’t do it are as well off as they who do. If there were any penalty for riding round, or any mark given to those who had ridden straight, so that justice might in some sort be done, it would perhaps be better. When you have nearly broken your neck to get to hounds, or made your horse exert himself beyond his proper power, and then find yourself, within three minutes, overtaking the hindmost ruck of horsemen on a road because of some iniquitous turn that the fox had taken, the feeling is not pleasant. And some man who has not ridden at all, who never did ride at all, will ask you where you have been; and his smile will give you the lie in your teeth, if you make any attempt to explain the facts. Let it be sufficient for you at such a moment to feel that you are not ashamed of yourself. Self-respect will support a man even in such misery as this.
The fox on this occasion, having crossed the river, had not left its bank, but had turned from his course up the stream, so that the leading spirits who had followed the hounds over the water came upon a crowd of riders on the road in a space something short of a mile. Mrs. Carbuncle, among others, was there, and had heard of Lucinda’s mishap. She said a word to Lord George in anger, and Lord George answered her. “We were over the river before it happened, and if we had given our eyes we couldn’t have got to her. Don’t you make a fool of yourself!” The last words were spoken in a whisper, but Lizzie’s sharp ears caught them.
“I was obliged to do what I was told,” said Lizzie apologetically.
“It will be all right, dear Lady Eustace. Sir Griffin is with her. I am so glad you are going so well.”
They were off again now, and the stupid fox absolutely went back across the river. But, whether on one side or on the other, his struggle for life was now in vain. Two years of happy, free existence amid the wilds of Craigattan had been allowed him. Twice previously had he been “found,” and the kindly storm or not less beneficent brightness of the sun had enabled him to baffle his pursuers. Now there had come one glorious day, and the common lot of mortals must be his. A little spurt there was, back towards his own home, just enough to give something of selectness to the few who saw him fall, and then he fell. Among the few were Frank and Lord George and our Lizzie. Morgan was there, of course, and one of his whips. Of Ayrshire folk, perhaps five or six, and among them our friend Mr. Carstairs. They had run him down close to the outbuildings of a farmyard, and they broke him up in the home paddock.
“What do you think of hunting?” said Frank to his cousin.
“It’s divine.”
“My cousin went pretty well, I think,” he said to Lord George.
“Like a celestial bird of paradise. No one ever went better — or I believe so well. You’ve been carried rather nicely yourself.”
“Indeed I have,” said Frank, patting his still palpitating horse, “and he’s not to say tired now.”
“You’ve taken it pretty well out of him, sir,” said Carstairs. “There was a little bit of hill that told when we got over the brook. I know’d you’d find he’d jump a bit.”
“I wonder whether he’s to be bought?” asked Frank in his enthusiasm.
“I don’t know the horse that isn’t,” said Mr. Carstairs, “so long as you don’t stand at the figure.”
They were collected on the farm road, and now, as they were speaking, there was a commotion among the horses. A man driving a little buggy was forcing his way along the road, and there was a sound of voices, as though the man in the buggy were angry. And he was angry. Frank, who was on foot by his horse’s head, could see that the man was dressed for hunting, with a bright red coat and a flat hat, and that he was driving the pony with a hunting-whip. The man was talking as he approached, but what he said did not much matter to Frank, till his new friend, Mr. Carstairs, whispered a word in his ear. “It’s Nappie, by Gum!” Then there crept across Frank’s mind an idea that there might be trouble coming.
“There he is,” said Nappie, bringing his pony to a dead stop with a chuck, and jumping out of the buggy. “I say you, sir; you’ve stole my ‘orse.” Frank said not a word, but stood his ground with his hand on the nag’s bridle. “You’ve stole my ‘orse; you’ve stole him off the rail. And you’ve been a-riding him all day. Yes, you ‘ave. Did ever anybody see the like of this? Why, the poor beast can a’most stand.”
“I got him from Mr. MacFarlane.”
“MacFarlane be blowed. You didn’t do nothing of the kind. You stole him off the rail at Stewarton. Yes, you did; and him booked to Kilmarnock. Where’s a police? Who’s to stand the like o’ this? I say, my lord, just look at this.” A crowd had now been formed round poor Frank, and the master had come up. Mr. Nappie was a Huddersfield man, who had come to Glasgow in the course of the last winter, and whose popularity in the hunting-field was not as yet quite so great as perhaps it might have been.
“There’s been a mistake, I suppose,” said the master.
“Mistake, my lord! Take a man’s ‘orse off the rail at Stewarton, and him booked for Kilmarnock, and ride him to a standstill! It’s no mistake at all. It’s ‘orse-nobbling; that’s what it is. Is there any police here, sir?” This he said, turning round to a farmer. The farmer didn’t deign any reply. “Perhaps you’ll tell me your name, sir? if you’ve got a name. No gen’leman ever took a gen’leman’s ‘orse off the rail like that.”
“Oh, Frank, do come away,” said Lizzie who was standing by.
“We shall be all right in two minutes,” said Frank.
“No we sha’n’t,” said Mr. Nappie, “nor yet in two hours. I’ve asked what’s your name?”
“My name is — Greystock.”
“Greystockings,” said Mr. Nappie more angrily than ever. “I don’t believe in no such name. Where do you live?” Then somebody whispered a word to him. “Member of Parliament — is he? I don’t care a ——. A member of Parliament isn’t to steal my ‘orse off the rail, and him booked to Kilmarnock. Now, my lord, what’d you do if you was served like that?” This was another appeal to the noble master.
“I should express a hope that my horse had carried the gentleman as he liked to be carried,” said the master.
“And he has — carried me remarkably well,” said Frank; whereupon there was a loud laugh among the crowd.
“I wish he’d broken the infernal neck of you, you scoundrel, you; that’s what I do,” said Mr. Nappie. “There was my man, and my ‘orse, and myself, all booked from Glasgow to Kilmarnock; and when I got there what did the guard say to me? why, just that a man in a black coat had taken my horse off at Stewarton; and now I’ve been driving all about the country in that gig there for three hours!” When Mr. Nappie had got so far as this in his explanation he was almost in tears. “I’ll make ’im pay, that I will. Take your hand off my horse’s bridle, sir. Is there any gentleman here as would like to give two hundred and eighty guineas for a horse, and then have him rid to a standstill by a fellow like that down from London? If you’re in Parliament, why don’t you stick to Parliament? I don’t suppose he’s worth fifty pound this moment.”
Frank had all the while been endeavouring to explain the accident; how he had ordered a horse from Mr. MacFarlane, and the rest of it — as the reader will understand; but quite in vain. Mr. Nappie in his wrath would not hear a word. But now that he spoke about money Frank thought that he saw an opening.
“Mr. Nappie,” he said, “I’ll buy the horse for the price you gave for him.”
“I’ll see you — extremely well — first,” said Mr. Nappie.
The horse had now been surrendered to Mr. Nappie, and Frank suggested that he might as well return to Kilmarnock in the gig, and pay for the hire of it. But Mr. Nappie would not allow him to set a foot upon the gig. “It’s my gig for the day,” said he, “and you don’t touch it. You shall foot it all the way back to Kilmarnock, Mr. Greystockings.” But Mr. Nappie, in making this threat, forgot that there were gentlemen there with second horses. Frank was soon mounted on one belonging to Lord George, and Lord George’s servant, at the corner of the farm-yard, got into the buggy, and was driven back to Kilmarnock by the man who had accompanied poor Mr. Nappie in their morning’s hunt on wheels after the hounds.
“Upon my word, I was very sorry,” said Frank as he rode back with his friends to Kilmarnock; “and when I first really understood what had happened, I would have done anything. But what could I say? It was impossible not to laugh, he was so unreasonable.”
“I should have put my whip over his shoulder,” said a stout farmer, meaning to be civil to Frank Greystock.
“Not after using it so often over his horse,” said Lord George.
“I never had to touch him once,” said Frank.
“And are you to have it all for nothing?” asked the thoughtful Lizzie.
“He’ll send a bill in, you’ll find,” said a bystander.
“Not he,” said Lord George. “His grievance is worth more to him than his money.”
No bill did come to Frank, and he got his mount for nothing. When Mr. MacFarlane was applied to, he declared that no letter ordering a horse had been delivered in his establishment. From that day to this Mr. Nappie’s gray horse has had a great character in Ayrshire; but all the world there says that its owner never rides him as Frank Greystock rode him that day.
We must return to the unfortunate Lucinda, whom we last saw struggling with her steed in the black waters of the brook which she attempted to jump. A couple of men were soon in after her, and she was rescued and brought back to the side from which she had been taken off without any great difficulty. She was neither hurt nor frightened, but she was wet through; and for a while she was very unhappy, because it was not found quite easy to extricate her horse. During the ten minutes of her agony, while the poor brute was floundering in the mud, she had been quite disregardful of herself, and had almost seemed to think that Sir Griffin, who was with her, should go into the water after her steed. But there were already two men in the water and three on the bank, and Sir Griffin thought that duty required him to stay by the young lady’s side. “I don’t care a bit about myself,” said Lucinda, “but if anything can be done for poor Warrior?” Sir Griffin assured her that “poor Warrior” was receiving the very best attention; and then he pressed upon her the dangerous condition in which she herself was standing, quite wet through, covered as to her feet and legs with mud, growing colder and colder every minute. She touched her lips with a little brandy that somebody gave her, and then declared again that she cared for nothing but poor Warrior. At last poor Warrior was on his legs, with the water dripping from his black flanks, with his nose stained with mud, with one of his legs a little cut, and alas! with the saddle wet through. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be done better than to ride into Kilmarnock. The whole party must return to Kilmarnock, and, perhaps, if they hurried, she might be able to get her clothes dry before they would start by the train. Sir Griffin, of course, accompanied her, and they two rode into the town alone. Mrs. Carbuncle did hear of the accident soon after the occurrence, but had not seen her niece; nor when she heard of it, could she have joined Lucinda.
If anything would make a girl talk to a man, such a ducking as Lucinda had had would do so. Such sudden events, when they come in the shape of misfortune, or the reverse, generally have the effect of abolishing shyness for the time. Let a girl be upset with you in a railway train, and she will talk like a Rosalind, though before the accident she was as mute as death. But with Lucinda Roanoke the accustomed change did not seem to take place. When Sir Griffin had placed her on her sad lie, she would have trotted all — the way into Kilmarnock without a word if he would have allowed her. But he, at least, understood that such a joint misfortune should create confidence, for he, too, had lost the run, and he did not intend to lose his opportunity also. “I am so glad that I was near you,” he said.
“Oh, thank you, yes; it would have been bad to be alone.”
“I mean that I am glad that it was I,” said Sir Griffin. “It’s very hard even to get a moment to speak to you.” They were now trotting along on the road, and there was still three miles before them.
“I don’t know,” said she. “I’m always with the other people.”
“Just so.” And then he paused. “But I want to find you when you’re not with the other people. Perhaps, however, you don’t like me.”
As he paused for a reply, she felt herself bound to say something. “Oh, yes, I do,” she said, “as well as anybody else.”
“And is that all?”
“I suppose so.”
After that he rode on for the best part of another mile before he spoke to her again. He had made up his mind that he would do it. He hardly knew why it was that he wanted her. He had not determined that he was desirous of the charms or comfort of domestic life. He had not even thought where he would live were he married. He had not suggested to himself that Lucinda was a desirable companion, that her temper would suit his, that her ways and his were sympathetic, or that she would be a good mother to the future Sir Griffin Tewett. He had seen that she was a very handsome girl, and therefore he had thought that he would like to possess her. Had she fallen like a ripe plum into his mouth, or shown herself ready so to fall, he would probably have closed his lips and backed out of the affair. But the difficulty no doubt added something to the desire. “I had hoped,” he said, “that after knowing each other so long there might have been more than that.”
She was again driven to speak because he paused. “I don’t know that that makes much difference.”
“Miss Roanoke, you can’t but understand what I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” said she.
“Then I’ll speak plainer.”
“Not now, Sir Griffin, because I’m so wet.”
“You can listen to me even if you will not answer me. I am sure that you know that I love you better than all the world. Will you be mine?” Then he moved on a little forward so that he might look back into her face. “Will you allow me to think of you as my future wife?”
Miss Roanoke was able to ride at a stone wall or at a river, and to ride at either the second time when her horse balked the first. Her heart was big enough to enable her to give Sir Griffin an answer. Perhaps it was that, in regard to the river and the stone wall, she knew what she wanted; but that, as to Sir Griffin, she did not. “I don’t think this is a proper time to ask,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because I am wet through and cold. It is taking an unfair advantage.”
“I didn’t mean to take any unfair advantage,” said Sir Griffin scowling; “I thought we were alone ——”
“Oh, Sir Griffin, I am so tired!” As they were now entering Kilmarnock, it was quite clear that he could press her no further. They clattered up, therefore, to the hotel, and he busied himself in getting a bedroom fire lighted, and in obtaining the services of the landlady. A cup of tea was ordered, and toast, and in two minutes Lucinda Roanoke was relieved from the presence of the baronet.
“It’s a kind of thing a fellow doesn’t quite understand,” said Sir Griffin to himself. “Of course she means it, and why the devil can’t she say so?” He had no idea of giving up the chase, but he thought that perhaps he would take it out of her when she became Lady Tewett.
They were an hour at the inn before Mrs. Carbuncle and Lady Eustace arrived, and during that hour Sir Griffin did not see Miss Roanoke. For this there was, of course, ample reason. Under the custody of the landlady, Miss Roanoke was being made dry and clean, and was by no means in a condition to receive a lover’s vows. The baronet sent up half a dozen messages as he sauntered about the yard of the inn, but he got no message in return. Lucinda, as she sat drinking her tea and drying her clothes, did no doubt think about him, but she thought about him as little as she could. Of course he would come again, and she could make up her mind then. It was no doubt necessary that she should do something. Her fortune, such as it was, would soon be spent in the adventure of finding a husband. She also had her ideas about love, and had enough of sincerity about her to love a man thoroughly; but it had seemed to her that all the men who came near her were men whom she could not fail to dislike. She was hurried here and hurried there, and knew nothing of real social intimacies. As she told her aunt in her wickedness, she would almost have preferred a shoemaker, if she could have become acquainted with a shoemaker in a manner that should be unforced and genuine. There was a savageness of antipathy in her to the mode of life which her circumstances had produced for her. It was that very savageness which made her ride so hard, and which forbade her to smile and be pleasant to people whom she could not like. And yet she knew that something must be done. She could not afford to wait as other girls might do. Why not Sir Griffin as well as any other fool? It may be doubted whether she knew how obstinate, how hard, how cruel to a woman a fool can be.
Her stockings had been washed and dried, and her boots and trousers were nearly dry, when Mrs. Carbuncle, followed by Lizzie, rushed into the room. “Oh, my darling, how are you?” said the aunt, seizing her niece in her arms.
“I’m only dirty now,” said Lucinda.
“We’ve got off the biggest of the muck, my lady,” said the landlady.
“Oh, Miss Roanoke,” said Lizzie, “I hope you don’t think I behaved badly in going on.”
“Everybody always goes on, of course,” said Lucinda.
“I did so pray Lord George to let me try and jump back to you. We were over, you know, before it happened. But he said it was quite impossible. We did wait till we saw you were out.”
“It didn’t signify at all, Lady Eustace.”
“And I was so sorry when I went through the wall at the corner of the wood before you. But I was so excited I hardly knew what I was doing.” Lucinda, who was quite used to these affairs in the hunting-field, simply nodded her acceptance of this apology. “But it was a glorious run, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty well,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Oh, it was glorious; but then I got over the river. And, oh, if you had been there afterwards. There was such an adventure between a man in a gig and my cousin Frank.” Then they all went to the train, and were carried home to Portray.
On their journey back to Portray, the ladies were almost too tired for talking, and Sir Griffin was sulky. Sir Griffin had as yet heard nothing about Greystock’s adventure, and did not care to be told. But when once they were at the castle, and had taken warm baths and glasses of sherry, and got themselves dressed and had come down to dinner, they were all very happy. To Lizzie it had certainly been the most triumphant day of her life. Her marriage with Sir Florian had been triumphant, but that was only a step to something good that was to come after. She then had at her own disposal her little wits and her prettiness, and a world before her in which, as it then seemed to her, there was a deal of pleasure if she could only reach it. Up to this period of her career she had hardly reached any pleasure; but this day had been very pleasant. Lord George de Bruce Carruthers had in truth been her Corsair, and she had found the thing which she liked to do, and would soon know how to do. How glorious it was to jump over that black, yawning stream, and then to see Lucinda fall into it! And she could remember every jump, and her feeling of ecstasy as she landed on the right side. And she had by heart every kind word that Lord George had said to her — and she loved the sweet, pleasant, Corsair — like intimacy that had sprung up between them. She wondered whether Frank was at all jealous. It wouldn’t be amiss that he should be a little jealous. And then somebody had brought home in his pocket the fox’s brush, which the master of the hounds had told the huntsman to give her. It was all delightful; and so much more delightful because Mrs. Carbuncle had not gone quite so well as she liked to go, and because Lucinda had fallen into the water.
They did not dine till past eight, and the ladies and gentlemen all left the room together. Coffee and liqueurs were to be brought into the drawing-room, and they were all to be intimate, comfortable, and at their ease; all except Sir Griffin Tewett, who was still very sulky.
“Did he say anything?” Mrs. Carbuncle had asked.
“Yes.”
“Well.”
“He proposed; but of course I could not answer him when I was wet through.” There had been but a moment, and in that moment this was all that Lucinda would say.
“Now I don’t mean to stir again,” said Lizzie, throwing herself into a corner of a sofa, “till somebody carries me to bed. I never was so tired in all my life.” She was tired, but there is a fatigue which is delightful as long as all the surroundings are pleasant and comfortable.
“I didn’t call it a very hard day,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“You only killed one fox,” said Mr. Mealyus, pretending a delightfully clerical ignorance, “and on Monday you killed four. Why should you be tired?”
“I suppose it was nearly twenty miles,” said Frank, who was also ignorant.
“About ten, perhaps,” said Lord George. “It was an hour and forty minutes, and there was a good bit of slow hunting after we had come back over the river.”
“I’m sure it was thirty,” said Lizzie, forgetting her fatigue in her energy.
“Ten is always better than twenty,” said Lord George, “and five generally better than ten.”
“It was just whatever is best,” said Lizzie. “I know Frank’s friend, Mr. Nappie, said it was twenty. By-the-by, oughtn’t we to have asked Mr. Nappie home to dinner?”
“I thought so,” said Frank; “but I couldn’t take the liberty myself.”
“I really think poor Mr. Nappie was very badly used,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“Of course he was,” said Lord George; “no man ever worse since hunting was invented. He was entitled to a dozen dinners and no end of patronage; but you see he took it out in calling your cousin Mr. Greystockings.”
“I felt that blow,” said Frank.
“I shall always call you Cousin Greystockings,” said Lizzie.
“It was hard,” continued Lord George, “and I understood it all so well when he got into a mess in his wrath about booking the horse to Kilmarnock. If the horse had been on the roadside, he or his men could have protected him. He is put under the protection of a whole railway company, and the company gives him up to the first fellow that comes and asks for him.”
“It was cruel,” said Frank.
“If it had happened to me, I should have been very angry,” said Mrs. Carbuncle.
“But Frank wouldn’t have had a horse at all,” said Lizzie, “unless he had taken Mr. Nappie’s.”
Lord George still continued his plea for Mr. Nappie. “There’s something in that certainly; but, still, I agree with Mrs. Carbuncle. If it had happened to me, I should — just have committed murder and suicide. I can’t conceive anything so terrible. It’s all very well for your noble master to talk of being civil, and hoping that the horse had carried him well, and all that. There are circumstances in which a man can’t be civil. And then everybody laughed at him! It’s the way of the world. The lower you fall, the more you’re kicked.”
“What can I do for him?” asked Frank.
“Put him down at your club and order thirty dozen of gray shirtings from Nappie & Co., without naming the price.”
“He’d send you gray stockings instead,” said Lizzie.
But though Lizzie was in heaven, it behooved her to be careful. The Corsair was a very fine specimen of the Corsair breed, about the best Corsair she had ever seen, and had been devoted to her for the day. But these Corsairs are known to be dangerous, and it would not be wise that she should sacrifice any future prospect of importance on behalf of a feeling, which, no doubt, was founded on poetry, but which might too probably have no possible beneficial result. As far as she knew, the Corsair had not even an island of his own in the Aegean Sea. And, if he had, might not the island too probably have a Medora or two of its own? In a ride across the country the Corsair was all that a Corsair should be; but knowing, as she did, but very little of the Corsair, she could not afford to throw over her cousin for his sake. As she was leaving the drawing-room she managed to say one word to her cousin. “You were not angry with me because I got Lord George to ride with me instead of you?”
“Angry with you?”
“I knew I should only be a hindrance to you.”
“It was a matter of course. He knows all about it, and I know nothing. I am very glad that you liked it so much.”
“I did like it; and so did you. I was so glad you got that poor man’s horse. You were not angry then?” They had now passed across the hall, and were on the bottom stair.
“Certainly not.”
“And you are not angry for what happened before?” She did not look into his face as she asked this question, but stood with her eyes fixed on the stair-carpet.
“Indeed no.”
“Good night, Frank.”
“Good night, Lizzie.” Then she went, and he returned to a room below which had been prepared for purposes of tobacco and soda-water and brandy.
“Why, Griff, you’re rather out of sorts to-night,” said Lord George to his friend, before Frank had joined them.
“So would you be out of sorts if you’d lost your run and had to pick a young woman out of the water. I don’t like young women when they’re damp and smell of mud.”
“You mean to marry her, I suppose.”
“How would you like me to ask you questions? Do you mean to marry the widow? And, if you do, what’ll Mrs. Carbuncle say? And if you don’t, what do you mean to do; and all the rest of it?”
“As for marrying the widow, I should like to know the facts first. As to Mrs. C., she wouldn’t object in the least. I generally have my horses so bitted that they can’t very well object. And as to the other question, I mean to stay here for the next fortnight, and I advise you to make it square with Miss Roanoke. Here’s my lady’s cousin; for a man who doesn’t ride often, he went very well today.”
“I wonder if he’d take a twenty-pound note if I sent it to him,” said Frank, when they broke up for the night. “I don’t like the idea of riding such a fellow’s horse for nothing.”
“He’ll bring an action against the railway, and then you can offer to pay if you like.” Mr. Nappie did bring an action against the railway, claiming exorbitant damages; but with what result, we need not trouble ourselves to inquire.