Aristotle - "Politics"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): Ruth"

William Shakespeare - "King Richard III"

Horatio Alger - "Try and Trust"

The Eustace Diamonds

A >> Anthony Trollope >> The Eustace Diamonds




Lord Fawn had some slight idea of waiting to see the cousin go; but as
Greystock had a similar idea, and as he was the stronger of the two, of
course Lord Fawn went. He perhaps remembered that the hansom cab was at
the door, costing sixpence every fifteen minutes, and that he wished to
show himself in the House of Lords before the peers rose. Miss Macnulty
also left the room, and Frank was alone with the widow.

"Lizzie," said he, "you must be very solitary here."

"I am solitary."

"And hardly happy."

"Anything but happy, Frank. I have things that make me very unhappy; one
thing that I will tell you if you will let me."

Frank had almost made up his mind to ask her on the spot to give him
permission to console all her sorrows when there came a clattering double
knock at the door.

"They know I shall be at home to nobody else now," said Lady Eustace.

But Frank Greystock had hardly regained his self-possession when Miss
Macnulty hurried into the room, and, with a look almost of horror,
declared that Lady Linlithgow was in the parlour.




CHAPTER VI

LADY LINLITHGOW'S MISSION


"Lady Linlithgow," said Frank Greystock, holding up both his hands.

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Macnulty. "I did not speak to her, but I saw her.
She has sent her ---- love to Lady Eustace, and begs that she will see
her."

Lady Eustace had been so surprised by the announcement that hitherto she
had not spoken a word. The quarrel between her and her aunt had been of
such a nature that it had seemed to be impossible that the old countess
should come to Mount Street. Lizzie had certainly behaved very badly to
her aunt--about as badly as a young woman could behave to an old woman.
She had accepted bread, and shelter, and the very clothes on her back from
her aunt's bounty, and had rejected even the hand of her benefactress the
first moment that she had bread, and shelter, and clothes of her own. And
here was Lady Linlithgow down-stairs in the parlour, and sending up her
love to her niece! "I won't see her," said Lizzie.

"You had better see her," said Frank.

"I can't see her," said Lizzie. "Good gracious, my dear, what has she come
for?"

"She says it's very important," said Miss Macnulty.

"Of course you must see her," said Frank. "Let me get out of the house,
and then tell the servant to show her up at once. Don't be weak now,
Lizzie, and I'll come and find out all about it to-morrow."

"Mind you do," said Lizzie. Then Frank took his departure, and Lizzie did
as she was bidden. "You remain in here, Julia," she said, "so as to be
near if I want you. She shall come into the front room." Then, absolutely
shaking with fear of the approaching evil, she took her seat in the
largest drawing-room. There was still a little delay. Time was given to
Frank Greystock to get away, and to do so without meeting Lady Linlithgow
in the passage. The message was conveyed by Miss Macnulty to the servant,
and the same servant opened the front door for Frank before he delivered
it. Lady Linlithgow, too, though very strong, was old. She was slow, or
perhaps it might more properly be said she was stately in her movements.
She was one of those old women who are undoubtedly old women--who in the
remembrance of younger people seem always to have been old women--but on
whom old age appears to have no debilitating effects. If the hand of Lady
Linlithgow ever trembled, it trembled from anger. If her foot ever
faltered, it faltered for effect. In her way Lady Linlithgow was a very
powerful human being. She knew nothing of fear, nothing of charity,
nothing of mercy, and nothing of the softness of love. She had no
imagination. She was worldly, covetous, and not unfrequently cruel. But
she meant to be true and honest, though she often failed in her meaning,
and she had an idea of her duty in life. She was not self-indulgent. She
was as hard as an oak post, but then she was also as trustworthy. No human
being liked her; but she had the good word of a great many human beings.
At great cost to her own comfort, she had endeavoured to do her duty to
her niece, Lizzie Greystock, when Lizzie was homeless. Undoubtedly
Lizzie's bed, while it had been spread under her aunt's roof, had not been
one of roses; but such as it had been, she had endured to occupy it while
it served her needs. She had constrained herself to bear her aunt; but
from the moment of her escape she had chosen to reject her aunt
altogether. Now her aunt's heavy step was heard upon the stairs! Lizzie
also was a brave woman after a certain fashion. She could dare to incur a
great danger for an adequate object. But she was too young as yet to have
become mistress of that persistent courage which was Lady Linlithgow's
peculiar possession.

When the countess entered the drawing-room Lizzie rose upon her legs, but
did not come forward from her chair. The old woman was not tall; but her
face was long, and at the same time large, square at the chin and square
at the forehead, and gave her almost an appearance of height. Her nose was
very prominent, not beaked, but straight and strong, and broad at the
bridge, and of a dark-red colour. Her eyes were sharp and grey. Her mouth
was large, and over it there was almost beard enough for a young man's
moustache. Her chin was firm, and large, and solid. Her hair was still
brown, and was only just grizzled in parts. Nothing becomes an old woman
like gray hair, but Lady Linlithgow's hair would never be gray. Her
appearance, on the whole, was not prepossessing, but it gave one an idea
of honest, real strength. What one saw was not buckram, whalebone, paint,
and false hair. It was all human--hardly feminine, certainly not angelic,
with perhaps a hint in the other direction--but a human body, and not a
thing of pads and patches. Lizzie, as she saw her aunt, made up her mind
for the combat. Who is there that has lived to be a man or woman, and has
not experienced a moment in which a combat has impended, and a call for
such sudden courage has been necessary? Alas! sometimes the combat comes,
and the courage is not there. Lady Eustace was not at her ease as she saw
her aunt enter the room. "Oh, come ye in peace, or come ye in war?" she
would have said had she dared. Her aunt had sent up her love, if the
message had been delivered aright; but what of love could there be between
those two? The countess dashed at once to the matter in hand, making no
allusion to Lizzie's ungrateful conduct to herself. "Lizzie," she said,
"I've been asked to come to you by Mr. Camperdown. I'll sit down, if you
please."

"Oh, certainly, Aunt Penelope. Mr. Camperdown!"

"Yes; Mr. Camperdown. You know who he is. He has been to me because I am
your nearest relation. So I am, and therefore I have come. I don't like
it, I can tell you."

"As for that, Aunt Penelope, you've done it to please yourself," said
Lizzie in a tone of insolence with which Lady Linlithgow had been familiar
in former days.

"No, I haven't, Miss. I haven't come for my own pleasure at all. I have
come for the credit of the family, if any good can be done towards saving
it. You've got your husband's diamonds locked up somewhere, and you must
give them back."

"My husband's diamonds were my diamonds," said Lizzie stoutly.

"They were family diamonds, Eustace diamonds, heirlooms--old property
belonging to the Eustaces, just like their estates. Sir Florian didn't
give 'em away, and couldn't, and wouldn't if he could. Such things ain't
given away in that fashion. It's all nonsense, and you must give them up."

"Who says so?"

"I say so."

"That's nothing, Aunt Penelope."

"Nothing, is it? You'll see. Mr. Camperdown says so. All the world will
say so. If you don't take care, you'll find yourself brought into a court
of law, my dear, and a jury will say so. That's what it will come to. What
good will they do you? You can't sell them; and, as a widow, you can't
wear 'em. If you marry again, you wouldn't disgrace your husband by going
about showing off the Eustace diamonds. But you don't know anything about
'proper feelings.'"

"I know every bit as much as you do, Aunt Penelope, and I don't want you
to teach me."

"Will you give up the jewels to Mr. Camperdown?"

"No, I won't."

"Or to the jewellers?"

"No, I won't. I mean to--keep them--for--my child." Then there came forth
a sob and a tear, and Lizzie's handkerchief was held to her eyes.

"Your child! Wouldn't they be kept properly for him, and for the family,
if the jewellers had them? I don't believe you care about your child."

"Aunt Penelope, you had better take care."

"I shall say just what I think, Lizzie. You can't frighten me. The fact
is, you are disgracing the family you have married into, and as you are my
niece----"

"I'm not disgracing anybody. You are disgracing everybody."

"As you are my niece, I have undertaken to come to you and to tell you
that if you don't give 'em up within a week from this time they'll proceed
against you for--stealing 'em." Lady Linlithgow, as she uttered this
terrible threat, bobbed her head at her niece in a manner calculated to
add very much to the force of her words. The words, and tone, and gesture
combined were, in truth, awful.

"I didn't steal them. My husband gave them to me with his own hands."

"You wouldn't answer Mr. Camperdown's letters, you know. That alone will
condemn you. After that there isn't a word to be said about it--not a
word. Mr. Camperdown is the family lawyer, and when he writes to you
letter after letter you take no more notice of him than a--dog." The old
woman was certainly very powerful. The way in which she pronounced that
last word did make Lady Eustace ashamed of herself. "Why didn't you answer
his letters, unless you knew you were in the wrong? Of course you knew you
were in the wrong."

"No, I didn't. A woman isn't obliged to answer everything that is written
to her."

"Very well! You just say that before the Judge! for you'll have to go
before a judge. I tell you, Lizzie Greystock, or Eustace, or whatever your
name is, it's downright picking and stealing. I suppose you want to sell
them."

"I won't stand this, Aunt Penelope," said Lizzie, rising from her seat.

"You must stand it, and you'll have to stand worse than that. You don't
suppose Mr. Camperdown got me to come here for nothing. If you don't want
to be made out to be a thief before all the world----"

"I won't stand it," shrieked Lizzie. "You have no business to come here
and say such things to me. It's my house."

"I shall say just what I please."

"Miss Macnulty, come in." And Lizzie threw open the door, hardly knowing
how the very weak ally whom she now invoked could help her, but driven by
the stress of the combat to seek assistance somewhere. Miss Macnulty, who
was seated near the door, and who had necessarily heard every word of the
conversation, had no alternative but to appear. Of all human beings Lady
Linlithgow was to her the most terrible, and yet, after a fashion, she
loved the old woman. Miss Macnulty was humble, cowardly, and subservient;
but she was not a fool, and she understood the difference between truth
and falsehood.

She had endured fearful things from Lady Linlithgow; but she knew that
there might be more of sound protection in Lady Linlithgow's real wrath
than in Lizzie's pretended affection,

"So you are there, are you?" said the countess.

"Yes, I am here, Lady Linlithgow."

"Listening, I suppose. Well, so much the better. You know well enough, and
you can tell her. You ain't a fool, though I suppose you'll be afraid to
open your mouth."

"Julia," said Lady Eustace, "will you have the kindness to see that my
aunt is shown to her carriage? I cannot stand her violence, and I will go
up-stairs." So saying she made her way very gracefully into the back
drawing-room, whence she could escape to her bedroom.

But her aunt fired a last shot at her. "Unless you do as you're bid,
Lizzie, you'll find yourself in prison as sure as eggs." Then, when her
niece was beyond hearing, she turned to Miss Macnulty. "I suppose you've
heard about these diamonds, Macnulty?"

"I know she's got them, Lady Linlithgow."

"She has no more right to them than you have. I suppose you're afraid to
tell her so, lest she should turn you out; but it's well she should know
it. I've done my duty. Never mind about the servant. I'll find my way out
of the house." Nevertheless the bell was rung, and the countess was shown
to her carriage with proper consideration.

The two ladies went to the opera, and it was not till after their return,
and just as they were going to bed, that anything further was said about
either the necklace or the visit. Miss Macnulty would not begin the
subject, and Lizzie purposely postponed it. But not for a moment had it
been off Lady Eustace's mind. She did not care much for music, though she
professed to do so, and thought that she did. But on this night, had she
at other times been a slave to Saint Cecilia, she would have been free
from that thraldom. The old woman's threats had gone into her very heart's
blood. Theft, and prison, and juries, and judges had been thrown at her
head so violently that she was almost stunned. Could it really be the case
that they would prosecute her for stealing? She was Lady Eustace, and who
but Lady Eustace should have those diamonds or be allowed to wear them?
Nobody could say that Sir Florian had not given them to her. It could not,
surely, be brought against her as an actual crime that she had not
answered Mr. Camperdown's letters? And yet she was not sure. Her ideas
about law and judicial proceedings were very vague. Of what was wrong and
what was right she had a distinct notion. She knew well enough that she
was endeavouring to steal the Eustace diamonds; but she did not in the
least know what power there might be in the law to prevent or to punish
her for the intended theft. She knew well that the thing was not really
her own; but there were, as she thought, so many points in her favour,
that she felt it to be a cruelty that any one should grudge her the
plunder. Was not she the only Lady Eustace living? As to these threats
from Mr. Camperdown and Lady Linlithgow, she felt certain they would be
used against her whether they were true or false. She would break her
heart should she abandon her prey and afterwards find that Mr. Camperdown
would have been wholly powerless against her had she held on to it. But
then who would tell her the truth? She was sharp enough to understand, or
at any rate suspicious enough to believe, that Mr. Mopus would be actuated
by no other desire in the matter than that of running up a bill against
her. "My dear," she said to Miss Macnulty, as they went upstairs after the
opera, "come into my room a moment. You heard all that my aunt said."

"I could not help hearing. You told me to stay there, and the door was
ajar."

"I wanted you to hear. Of course what she said was the greatest nonsense
in the world."

"I don't know."

"When she talked about my being taken to prison for not answering a
lawyer's letter, that must be nonsense."

"I suppose that was."

"And then she is such a ferocious old termagant--such an old vulturess.
Now isn't she a ferocious old termagant?" Lizzie paused for an answer,
desirous that her companion should join her in her enmity against her
aunt; but Miss Macnulty was unwilling to say anything against one who had
been her protectress, and might, perhaps, be her protectress again. "You
don't mean to say you don't hate her?" said Lizzie. "If you didn't hate
her after all she has done to you, I should despise you. Don't you hate
her?"

"I think she's a very upsetting old woman," said Miss Macnulty.

"Oh, you poor creature! Is that all you dare say about her?"

"I'm obliged to be a poor creature," said Miss Macnulty, with a red spot
on each of her cheeks.

Lady Eustace understood this, and relented. "But you needn't be afraid,"
she said, "to tell me what you think."

"About the diamonds, you mean."

"Yes, about the diamonds."

"You have enough without them. I'd give 'em up for peace and quiet." That
was Miss Macnulty's advice.

"No, I haven't enough, or nearly enough. I've had to buy ever so many
things since my husband died. They've done all they could to be hard to
me. They made me pay for the very furniture at Portray." This wasn't true;
but it was true that Lizzie had endeavoured to palm off on the Eustace
estate bills for new things which she had ordered for her own country-
house. "I haven't near enough. I am in debt already. People talked as
though I were the richest woman in the world; but when it comes to be
spent, I ain't rich. Why should I give them up if they're my own?"

"Not if they're your own."

"If I give you a present and then die, people can't come and take it away
afterwards because I didn't put it into my will. There'd be no making
presents like that at all." This Lizzie said with an evident conviction in
the strength of her argument.

"But this necklace is so very valuable."

"That can't make a difference. If a thing is a man's own he can give it
away; not a house, or a farm, or a wood, or anything like that, but a
thing that he can carry about with him--of course he can give it away."

"But perhaps Sir Florian didn't mean to give it for always," suggested
Miss Macnulty.

"But perhaps he did. He told me that they were mine, and I shall keep
them. So that's the end of it. You can go to bed now." And Miss Macnulty
went to bed.

Lizzie, as she sat thinking of it, owned to herself that no help was to be
expected in that quarter. She was not angry with Miss Macnulty, who was,
almost of necessity, a poor creature. But she was convinced more strongly
than ever that some friend was necessary to her who should not be a poor
creature. Lord Fawn, though a peer, was a poor creature. Frank Greystock
she believed to be as strong as a house.




CHAPTER VII

MR. BURKE'S SPEECHES


Lucy Morris had been told by Lady Fawn that--in point of fact, that, being
a governess, she ought to give over falling in love with Frank Greystock,
and she had not liked it. Lady Fawn, no doubt, had used words less abrupt
--had probably used but few words, and had expressed her meaning chiefly
by little winks, and shakings of her head, and small gestures of her
hands, and had ended by a kiss--in all of which she had intended to mingle
mercy with justice, and had, in truth, been full of love. Nevertheless,
Lucy had not liked it. No girl likes to be warned against falling in love,
whether the warning be needed or not needed. In this case Lucy knew very
well that the caution was too late. It might be all very well for Lady
Fawn to decide that her governess should not receive visits from a lover
in her house; and then the governess might decide whether, in those
circumstances, she would remain or go away; but Lady Fawn could have no
right to tell her governess not to be in love. All this Lucy said to
herself over and over again, and yet she knew that Lady Fawn had treated
her well. The old woman had kissed her, and purred over her, and praised
her, and had really loved her. As a matter of course, Lucy was not
entitled to have a lover. Lucy knew that well enough. As she walked alone
among the shrubs she made arguments in defence of Lady Fawn as against
herself. And yet at every other minute she would blaze up into a grand
wrath, and picture to herself a scene in which she would tell Lady Fawn
boldly that as her lover had been banished from Fawn Court, she, Lucy,
would remain there no longer. There were but two objections to this
course. The first was that Frank Greystock was not her lover; and the
second, that on leaving Fawn Court she would not know whither to betake
herself. It was understood by everybody that she was never to leave Fawn
Court till an unexceptionable home should be found for her, either with
the Hittaways or elsewhere. Lady Fawn would no more allow her to go away,
depending for her future on the mere chance of some promiscuous
engagement, than she would have turned one of her own daughters out of the
house in the same forlorn condition. Lady Fawn was a tower of strength to
Lucy. But then a tower of strength may at any moment become a dungeon.

Frank Greystock was not her lover. Ah, there was the worst of it all! She
had given her heart and had got nothing in return. She conned it all over
in her own mind, striving to ascertain whether there was any real cause
for shame to her in her conduct. Had she been unmaidenly? Had she been too
forward with her heart? Had it been extracted from her, as women's hearts
are extracted, by efforts on the man's part; or had she simply chucked it
away from her to the first comer? Then she remembered certain scenes at
the deanery, words that had been spoken, looks that had been turned upon
her, a pressure of the hand late at night, a little whisper, a ribbon that
had been begged, a flower that had been given; and once, once----; then
there came a burning blush upon her cheek that there should have been so
much, and yet so little that was of avail. She had no right to say to any
one that the man was her lover. She had no right to assure herself that he
was her lover. But she knew that some wrong was done her in that he was
not her lover.

Of the importance of her own self as a living thing with a heart to suffer
and a soul to endure, she thought enough. She believed in herself,
thinking of herself, that should it ever be her lot to be a man's wife,
she would be to him a true, loving friend and companion, living in his
joys, and fighting, if it were necessary, down to the stumps of her nails
in his interests. But of what she had to give over and above her heart and
intellect she never thought at all. Of personal beauty she had very little
appreciation even in others. The form and face of Lady Eustace, which
indeed were very lovely, were distasteful to her; whereas she delighted to
look upon the broad, plain, colourless countenance of Lydia Fawn, who was
endeared to her by frank good-humour and an unselfish disposition. In
regard to men, she had never asked herself the question whether this man
was handsome or that man ugly. Of Frank Greystock she knew that his face
was full of quick intellect; and of Lord Fawn she knew that he bore no
outward index of mind. One man she not only loved, but could not help
loving. The other man, as regarded that sort of sympathy which marriage
should recognise, must always have been worlds asunder from her. She knew
that men demand that women shall possess beauty, and she certainly had
never thought of herself as beautiful; but it did not occur to her that on
that account she was doomed to fail. She was too strong-hearted for any
such fear. She did not think much of these things, but felt herself to be
so far endowed as to be fit to be the wife of such a man as Frank
Greystock. She was a proud, stout, self-confident, but still modest little
woman, too fond of truth to tell lies of herself even to herself. She was
possessed of a great power of sympathy, genial, very social, greatly given
to the mirth of conversation--though in talking she would listen much and
say but little. She was keenly alive to humour, and had at her command a
great fund of laughter, which would illumine her whole face without
producing a sound from her mouth. She knew herself to be too good to be a
governess for life; and yet how could it be otherwise with her?

Lady Linlithgow's visit to her niece had been made on a Thursday, and on
that same evening Frank Greystock had asked his question in the House of
Commons--or rather had made his speech about the Sawab of Mygawb. We all
know the meaning of such speeches. Had not Frank belonged to the party
that was out, and had not the resistance to the Sawab's claim come from
the party that was in, Frank would not probably have cared much about the
prince. We may be sure that he would not have troubled himself to read a
line of that very dull and long pamphlet of which he had to make himself
master before he could venture to stir in the matter, had not the road of
Opposition been open to him in that direction. But what exertion will not
a politician make with the view of getting the point of his lance within
the joints of his enemies' harness? Frank made his speech, and made it
very well. It was just the case for a lawyer, admitting that kind of
advocacy which it is a lawyer's business to practise. The Indian minister
of the day, Lord Fawn's chief, had determined, after much anxious
consideration, that it was his duty to resist the claim; and then, for
resisting it, he was attacked. Had he yielded to the claim, the attack
would have been as venomous, and very probably would have come from the
same quarter. No blame by such an assertion is cast upon the young
Conservative aspirant for party honours. It is thus the war is waged.
Frank Greystock took up the Sawab's case, and would have drawn mingled
tears and indignation from his hearers, had not his hearers all known the
conditions of the contest. On neither side did the hearers care much for
the Sawab's claims, but they felt that Greystock was making good his own
claims to some future reward from his party. He was very hard upon the
minister, and he was hard also upon Lord Fawn, stating that the cruelty of
Government ascendancy had never been put forward as a doctrine in plainer
terms than those which had been used in "another place" in reference to
the wrongs of this poor ill-used native chieftain. This was very grievous
to Lord Fawn, who had personally desired to favour the ill-used chieftain;
and harder again because he and Greystock were intimate with each other.
He felt the thing keenly, and was full of his grievance when, in
accordance with his custom, he came down to Fawn Court on the Saturday
evening.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.