The Palliser Novels (302 page)

She opened the door very quietly and very slowly, intending to approach him in the same way. But in a moment, before she could remember that she was in the room, he had seized her in his arms, and was showering kisses upon her forehead, her eyes, and her lips. When she thought of it afterwards, she could not call to mind a single word that he had spoken before he held her in his embrace. It was she, surely, who had spoken first, when she begged to be released from his pressure. But she well remembered the first words that struck her ear. “Dearest Lucy, will you forgive me?” She could only answer them through her tears by taking up his hand and kissing it.

When Lady Fawn came back with the carriage, she herself saw the figures of two persons, walking very close together, in the shrubberies. “Is that Lucy?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Augusta, with a tone of horror. “Indeed it is, and — Mr. Greystock.”

Lady Fawn was neither shocked nor displeased; nor was she disappointed; but a certain faint feeling of being ill-used by circumstances came over her. “Dear me; — the very first day!” she said.

“It’s because he wouldn’t go to Lady Linlithgow’s,” said Amelia. “He has only waited, mamma.”

“But the very first day!” exclaimed Lady Fawn. “I hope Lucy will be happy; — that’s all.”

There was a great meeting of all the Fawns, as soon as Lady Fawn and the eldest girls were in the house. Mr. Greystock had been walking about the grounds with Lucy for the last hour and a half. Lucy had come in once to beg that Lady Fawn might be told directly she came in. “She said you were to send for her, mamma,” said Lydia.

“But it’s dinner-time, my dear. What are we to do with Mr. Greystock?”

“Ask him to lunch, of course,” said Amelia.

“I suppose it’s all right,” said Lady Fawn.

“I’m quite sure it’s all right,” said Nina.

“What did she say to you, Lydia?” asked the mother.

“She was as happy as ever she could be,” said Lydia. “There’s no doubt about its being all right, mamma. She looked just as she did when she got the letter from him before.”

“I hope she managed to change her frock,” said Augusta.

“She didn’t then,” said Cecilia.

“I don’t suppose he cares one halfpenny about her frock,” said Nina. “I should never think about a man’s coat if I was in love.”

“Nina, you shouldn’t talk in that way,” said Augusta. Whereupon Nina made a face behind one of her sisters’ backs. Poor Augusta was never allowed to be a prophetess among them.

The consultation was ended by a decision in accordance with which Nina went as an ambassador to the lovers. Lady Fawn sent her compliments to Mr. Greystock, and hoped he would come in to lunch. Lucy must come in to dinner, because dinner was ready. “And mamma wants to see you just for a minute,” added Nina, in a pretended whisper.

“Oh, Nina, you darling girl!” said Lucy, kissing her young friend in an ecstasy of joy.

“It’s all right?” asked Nina in a whisper which was really intended for privacy. Lucy did not answer the question otherwise than by another kiss.

Frank Greystock was, of course, obliged to take his seat at the table, and was entertained with a profusion of civility. Everybody knew that he had behaved badly to Lucy, — everybody, except Lucy herself, who, from this time forward, altogether forgot that she had for some time looked upon him as a traitor, and had made up her mind that she had been deceived and ill-used. All the Fawns had spoken of him, in Lucy’s absence, in the hardest terms of reproach, and declared that he was not fit to be spoken to by any decent person. Lady Fawn had known from the first that such a one as he was not to be trusted. Augusta had never liked him. Amelia had feared that poor Lucy Morris had been unwise, and too ambitious. Georgina had seen that, of course, it would never do. Diana had sworn that it was a great shame. Lydia was sure that Lucy was a great deal too good for him. Cecilia had wondered where he would go to; — a form of anathema which had brought down a rebuke from her mother. And Nina had always hated him like poison. But now nothing was too good for him. An unmarried man who is willing to sacrifice himself is, in feminine eyes, always worthy of ribbons and a chaplet. Among all these Fawns there was as little selfishness as can be found, — even among women. The lover was not the lover of one of themselves, but of their governess. And yet, though he desired neither to eat nor drink at that hour, something special had been cooked for him, and a special bottle of wine had been brought out of the cellar. All his sins were forgiven him. No single question was asked as to his gross misconduct during the last six months. No pledge or guarantee was demanded for the future. There he was, in the guise of a declared lover, and the fatted calf was killed.

After this early dinner it was necessary that he should return to town, and Lucy obtained leave to walk with him to the station. To her thinking now, there was no sin to be forgiven. Everything was, and had been, just as it ought to be. Had any human being hinted that he had sinned, she would have defended him to the death. Something was said between them about Lizzie, but nothing that arose from jealousy. Not till many months had passed did she tell him of Lizzie’s message to herself, and of her visit to Hertford Street. But they spoke of the necklace, and poor Lucy shuddered as she was told the truth about those false oaths. “I really do think that, after that, Lord Fawn is right,” she said, looking round at her lover. “Yes; but what he did, he did before that,” said Frank. “But are they not good and kind?” she said, pleading for her friends. “Was ever anybody so well treated as they have treated me? I’ll tell you what, sir, you mustn’t quarrel with Lord Fawn any more. I won’t allow it.” Then she walked back from the station alone, almost bewildered by her own happiness.

That evening something like an explanation was demanded by Lady Fawn, but no explanation was forthcoming. When questions were asked about his silence, Lucy, half in joke and half in earnest, fired up and declared that everything had been as natural as possible. He could not have come to Lady Linlithgow’s house. Lady Linlithgow would not receive him. No doubt she had been impatient, but then that had been her fault. Had he not come to her the very first day after her return to Richmond? When Augusta said something as to letters which might have been written, Lucy snubbed her. “Who says he didn’t write? He did write. If I am contented, why should you complain?” “Oh, I don’t complain,” said Augusta.

Then questions were asked as to the future, — questions to which Lady Fawn had a right to demand an answer. What did Mr. Greystock propose to do now? Then Lucy broke down, sobbing, crying, triumphing, with mingled love and happiness. She was to go to the deanery. Frank had brought with him a little note to her from his mother, in which she was invited to make the deanery at Bobsborough her home for the present.

“And you are to go away just when you’ve come?” asked Nina.

“Stay with us a month, my dear,” said Lady Fawn, “just to let people know that we are friends, and after that the deanery will be the best home for you.” And so it was arranged.

It need only be further said, in completing the history of Lucy Morris as far as it can be completed in these pages, that she did go to the deanery, and that there she was received with all the affection which Mrs. Greystock could show to an adopted daughter. Her quarrel had never been with Lucy personally, — but with the untoward fact that her son would not marry money. At the deanery she remained for fifteen happy months, and then became Mrs. Greystock, with a bevy of Fawn bridesmaids around her. As the personages of a chronicle such as this should all be made to operate backwards and forwards on each other from the beginning to the end, it would have been desirable that the chronicler should have been able to report that the ceremony was celebrated by Mr. Emilius. But as the wedding did not take place till the end of the summer, and as Mr. Emilius at that time never remained in town, after the season was over, this was impossible. It was the Dean of Bobsborough, assisted by one of the minor canons, who performed the service.

Having told the tale of Lucy Morris to the end, the chronicler must now go back to the more important persons of this history. It was still early in April when Lizzie Eustace was taken down to Scotland by her cousin, and the trial of Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Smiler was fixed to take place at the Central Criminal Court about the middle of May. Early in May the attorneys for the prosecution applied to Greystock, asking him whether he would make arrangements for his cousin’s appearance on the occasion, informing him that she had already been formally summoned. Whereupon he wrote to Lizzie, telling her what she had better do, in the kindest manner, — as though there had been no cessation of their friendly intercourse, offering to go with her into court, — and naming an hotel at which he would advise her to stay during the very short time that she need remain in London. She answered this letter at once. She was sorry to say that she was much too ill to travel, or even to think of travelling. Such was her present condition that she doubted greatly whether she would ever again be able to leave the two rooms to which she was at present confined. All that remained to her in life was to watch her own blue waves from the casement of her dear husband’s castle, — that casement at which he had loved to sit, and to make herself happy in the smiles of her child. A few months would see the last of it all, and then, perhaps, they who had trampled her to death would feel some pangs of remorse as they thought of her early fate. She had given her evidence once and had told all the truth, — though she was now aware that she need not have done so, as she had been defrauded of a vast amount of property through the gross negligence of the police. She was advised now by persons who seemed really to understand the law, that she could recover the value of the diamonds which her dear, dear husband had given her, from the freeholders of the parish in which the robbery had taken place. She feared that her health did not admit of the necessary exertion. Were it otherwise she would leave no stone unturned to recover the value of her property, — not on account of its value, but because she had been so ill-treated by Mr. Camperdown and the police. Then she added a postscript to say that it was quite out of the question that she should take any journey for the next six months.

The reader need hardly be told that Greystock did not believe a word of what she said. He felt sure that she was not ill. There was an energy in the letter hardly compatible with illness. But he could not make her come. He certainly did not intend to go down again to Scotland to fetch her, — and even had he done so he could not have forced her to accompany him. He could only go to the attorneys concerned, and read to them so much of the letter as he thought fit to communicate to them. “That won’t do at all,” said an old gentleman at the head of the firm. “She has been very leniently treated, and she must come.”

“You must manage it, then,” said Frank.

“I hope she won’t give us trouble, because if she does we must expose her,” said the second member.

“She has not even sent a medical certificate,” said the tyro of the firm, who was not quite so sharp as he will probably become when he has been a member of it for ten or twelve years. You should never ask the ostler whether he greases his oats. In this case Frank Greystock was not exactly in the position of the ostler; but he did inform his cousin by letter that she would lay herself open to all manner of pains and penalties if she disobeyed such a summons as she had received, unless she did so by a very strong medical advice, backed by a medical certificate.

Lizzie, when she received this, had two strings to her bow. A writer from Ayr had told her that the summons sent to her was not worth the paper on which it was printed in regard to a resident in Scotland; — and she had also got a doctor from the neighbourhood who was satisfied that she was far too ill to travel up to London. Pulmonary debilitation was the complaint from which she was suffering, which, with depressed vitality in all the organs, and undue languor in all the bodily functions, would be enough to bring her to a speedy end if she so much as thought of making a journey up to London. A certificate to this effect was got in triplicate. One copy she sent to the attorneys, one to Frank, and one she kept herself.

The matter was very pressing indeed. It was considered that the trial could not be postponed till the next sitting at the Criminal Court, because certain witnesses in respect to the diamonds had been procured from Hamburg and Vienna, at a very great cost; they were actually on their way to London when Lizzie’s second letter was received. Mr. Camperdown had resolved to have the diamonds, still with a hope that they might be restored to the keeping of Messrs. Garnett, there to lie hidden and unused at any rate for the next twenty years. The diamonds had been traced first to Hamburg, and then to Vienna; — and it was to be proved that they were now adorning the bosom of a certain enormously rich Russian princess. From the grasp of the Russian princess it was found impossible to rescue them; but the witnesses who, as it was hoped, might have aided Mr. Camperdown in his efforts, were to be examined at the trial.

A confidential clerk was sent down to Portray, but the confidential clerk altogether failed in making his way into Lizzie’s presence. Word was brought to him that nothing but force could take Lady Eustace from her bed-chamber; and that force used to that effect might take her out dead, but certainly not alive. He made inquiry, however, about the doctor, and found that he certainly was a doctor. If a doctor will certify that a lady is dying, what can any judge do, or any jury? There are certain statements which, though they are false as hell, must be treated as though they were true as gospel. The clerk reported, when he got back to London, that, to his belief, Lady Eustace was enjoying an excellent state of health; — but that he was perfectly certain that she would not appear as a witness at the trial.

The anger felt by many persons as to Lizzie’s fraudulent obstinacy was intense. Mr. Camperdown thought that she ought to be dragged up to London by cart ropes. The attorneys engaged for the prosecution were almost beside themselves. They did send down a doctor of their own, but Lizzie would not see the doctor, — would not see the doctor though threats of most frightful consequences were conveyed to her. She would be exposed, fined thousands of pounds, committed to gaol for contempt of court, and prosecuted for perjury into the bargain. But she was firm. She wrote one scrap of a note to the doctor who came from London, “I shall not live to satisfy their rabid vengeance.” Even Frank Greystock felt almost more annoyed than gratified that she should be able thus to escape. People who had heard of the inquiry before the magistrate, had postponed their excitement and interest on the occasion, because they knew that the day of the trial would be the great day; and when they heard that they were to be robbed of the pleasure of Lady Eustace’s cross-examination, there arose almost a public feeling of wrath that justice should be thus outraged. The doctor who had given the certificate was vilified in the newspapers, and long articles were written as to the impotence of the law. But Lizzie was successful, and the trial went on without her.