Anthony Trollope - The Eustace Diamonds

"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 to 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.

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 own 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?