The Eustace Diamonds. Anthony Trollope
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all this as romance. Poor Lady Fawn, had she known it all, would have called it diabolical wickedness and inhuman cruelty.
"Well, Lucy;—what do you think of it?" Frank Greystock said to her.
"Think of what, Mr. Greystock?"
"You know what I mean;—this marriage?"
"How should I be able to think? I have never seen them together. I suppose Lord Fawn isn't very rich. She is rich. And then she is very beautiful. Don't you think her very beautiful?"
"Sometimes exquisitely lovely."
"Everybody says so;—and I am sure it is the fact. Do you know;—but perhaps you'll think I am envious."
"If I thought you envious of Lizzie, I should have to think you very foolish at the same time."
"I don't know what that means;"—she did know well enough what it meant;—"but sometimes to me she is almost frightful to look at."
"In what way?"
"Oh, I can't tell you. She looks like a beautiful animal that you are afraid to caress for fear it should bite you;—an animal that would be beautiful if its eyes were not so restless, and its teeth so sharp and so white."
"How very odd."
"Why odd, Mr. Greystock?"
"Because I feel exactly in the same way about her. I am not in the least afraid that she'll bite me; and as for caressing the animal—that kind of caressing which you mean—it seems to me to be just what she's made for. But, I do feel sometimes, that she is like a cat."
"Something not quite so tame as a cat," said Lucy.
"Nevertheless she is very lovely—and very clever. Sometimes I think her the most beautiful woman I ever saw in the world."
"Do you, indeed?"
"She will be immensely run after as Lady Fawn. When she pleases she can make her own house quite charming. I never knew a woman who could say pretty things to so many people at once."
"You are making her out to be a paragon of perfection, Mr. Greystock."
"And when you add to all the rest that she has four thousand a year, you must admit that Lord Fawn is a lucky man."
"I have said nothing against it."
"Four thousand a year is a very great consideration, Lucy." Lucy for a while said nothing. She was making up her mind that she would say nothing;—that she would make no reply indicative of any feeling on her part. But she was not sufficiently strong to keep her resolution. "I wonder, Mr. Greystock," she said, "that you did not attempt to win the great prize yourself. Cousins do marry."
He had thought of attempting it, and at this moment he would not lie to her. "The cousinship had nothing to do with it," he said.
"Perhaps you did think of it."
"I did, Lucy. Yes, I did. Thank God, I only thought of it." She could not refrain herself from looking up into his face and clasping her hands together. A woman never so dearly loves a man as when he confesses that he has been on the brink of a great crime—but has refrained, and has not committed it. "I did think of it. I am not telling you that she would have taken me. I have no reason whatever for thinking so."
"I am sure she would," said Lucy, who did not in the least know what words she was uttering.
"It would have been simply for her money—her money and her beauty. It would not have been because I love her."
"Never—never ask a girl to marry you, unless you love her, Mr. Greystock."
"Then there is only one that I can ever ask," said he. There was nothing of course that she could say to this. If he did not choose to go further, she was not bound to understand him. But would he go further? She felt at the moment that an open declaration of his love to herself would make her happy for ever, even though it should be accompanied by an assurance that he could not marry her. If they only knew each other—that it was so between them—that, she thought, would be enough for her. And as for him—if a woman could bear such a position, surely he might bear it. "Do you know who that one is?" he asked.
"No," she said—shaking her head.
"Lucy, is that true?"
"What does it matter?"
"Lucy;—look at me, Lucy," and he put his hand upon her arm.
"No—no—no!" she said.
"I love you so well, Lucy, that I never can love another. I have thought of many women, but could never even think of one, as a woman to love, except you. I have sometimes fancied I could marry for money and position—to help myself on in the world by means of a wife—but when my mind has run away with me, to revel amidst ideas of feminine sweetness, you have always—always been the heroine of the tale, as the mistress of the happy castle in the air."
"Have I?" she asked.
"Always—always. As regards this,"—and he struck himself on the breast—"no man was ever more constant. Though I don't think much of myself as a man, I know a woman when I see her." But he did not ask her to be his wife;—nor did he wait at Fawn Court till Lady Fawn had come back with the carriage.
CHAPTER XIII
Showing What Frank Greystock Did
Frank Greystock escaped from the dovecote before Lady Fawn had returned. He had not made his visit to Richmond with any purpose of seeing Lucy Morris, or of saying to her when he did see her anything special—of saying anything that should, or anything that should not, have been said. He had gone there, in truth, simply because his cousin had asked him, and because it was almost a duty on his part to see his cousin on the momentous occasion of this new engagement. But he had declared to himself that old Lady Fawn was a fool, and that to see Lucy again would be very pleasant. "See her;—of course I'll see her," he had said. "Why should I be prevented from seeing her?" Now he had seen her, and as he returned by the train to London, he acknowledged to himself that it was no longer in his power to promote his fortune by marriage. He had at last said that to Lucy which made it impossible for him to offer his hand to any other woman. He had not, in truth, asked her to be his wife; but he had told her that he loved her, and could never love any other woman. He had asked for no answer to this assurance, and then he had left her.
In the course of that afternoon he did question himself as to his conduct to this girl, and subjected himself to some of the rigours of a cross-examination. He was not a man who could think of a girl as the one human being whom he loved above all others, and yet look forward with equanimity to the idea of doing her an injury. He could understand that a man unable to marry should be reticent as to his feelings—supposing him to have been weak enough to have succumbed to a passion which could only mar his own prospects. He was frank enough in owning to himself that he had been thus weak. The weakness had come upon himself early in life—and was there, an established fact. The girl was to him unlike any other girl;—or any man. There was to him a sweetness in her companionship which he could not analyse. She was not beautiful. She had none of the charms of fashion. He had never seen her well-dressed—according to the ideas of dress which he found to be prevailing in the world. She was a little thing, who, as a man's wife, could attract no attention by figure, form, or outward manner—one who had quietly submitted herself to the position of a governess, and who did not seem to think that in doing so she obtained less than her due. But yet he knew her to be better than all the rest. For him, at any rate, she was better than all the rest. Her little hand was cool and sweet to him. Sometimes when he was heated and hard at work, he would fancy how it would be with him if she