The Eustace Diamonds (44 page)

‘Upon my word, I was very sorry,' said Frank as he rode back with his friends to Kilmarock; ‘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 grey 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.

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, 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,
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though before the acident 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 saddle, 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 were 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 for that. But her heart was not 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 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 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 her 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 seemed to her that all 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.

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 Emilius, 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-bye, Frank, 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 grey shirtings from Nappie and Co., without naming the price.'

‘He'd send you grey stockings instead,' said Lizzie.

But though Lizzie was in heaven, it behoved 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 prospects 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 he 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 tonight,' 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 will 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.

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