“When I can get a place.”
“I’ll tell you what, my dear. If I were Frank Greystock, I’d stick to my bargain.” Lucy at once fell a-crying, but she smiled upon the old woman through her tears. “Of course he’s going to marry that little limb of the devil.”
“Oh, Lady Linlithgow—if you can, prevent that!”
“How am I to prevent it, my dear? I’ve nothing to say to either of them.”
“It isn’t for myself I’m speaking. If I can’t—if I can’t—can’t have things go as I thought they would by myself, I will never ask anyone to help me. It is not that I mean. I have given all that up.”
“You have given it up?”
“Yes;—I have. But nevertheless I think of him. She is bad, and he will never be happy if he marries her. When he asked me to be his wife, he was mistaken as to what would be good for him. He ought not to have made such a mistake. For my sake he ought not.”
“That’s quite true, my dear.”
“But I do not wish him to be unhappy all his life. He is not bad, but she is very bad. I would not for worlds that anybody should tell him that he owed me anything; but if he could be saved from her—oh, I should be so-glad.”
“You won’t have my money, then?”
“No—Lady Linlithgow.”
“You’d better. It is honestly your own.”
“I will not take it, thank you.”
“Then I may as well put it up again.” And the countess replaced the notes in her pocketbook. When this conversation took place, Frank Greystock was travelling back alone from Portray to London. On the same day the Fawn carriage came to fetch Lucy away. As Lucy was in peculiar distress, Lady Fawn would not allow her to come by any other conveyance. She did not exactly think that the carriage would console her poor favourite; but she did it as she would have ordered something specially nice to eat for anyone who had broken his leg. Her soft heart had compassion for misery, though she would sometimes show her sympathy by strange expressions. Lady Linlithgow was almost angry about the carriage. “How many carriages and how many horses does Lady Fawn keep?” she asked.
“One carriage and two horses.”
“She’s very fond of sending them up into the streets of London, I think.” Lucy said nothing more, knowing that it would be impossible to soften the heart of this dowager in regard to the other. But she kissed the old woman at parting, and then was taken down to Richmond in state.
She had made up her mind to have one discussion with Lady Fawn about her engagement—the engagement which was no longer an engagement—and then to have done with it. She would ask Lady Fawn to ask the girls never to mention Mr. Greystock’s name in her hearing. Lady Fawn had also made up her mind to the same effect. She felt that the subject should be mentioned once—and once only. Of course Lucy must have another place, but there need be no hurry about that. She fully recognised her young friend’s feeling of independence, and was herself aware that she would be wrong to offer to the girl a permanent home among her own daughters, and therefore she could not abandon the idea of a future place; but Lucy would, of course, remain till a situation should have been found for her that would be in every sense unexceptionable. There need, however, be no haste—and, in the meantime, the few words about Frank Greystock must be spoken. They need not, however, be spoken quite immediately. Let there be smiles, and joy, and a merry ring of laughter on this the first day of the return of their old friend. As Lucy had the same feelings on that afternoon, they did talk pleasantly and were merry. The girls asked questions about the Vulturess—as they had heard her called by Lizzie Eustace—and laughed at Lucy to her face when she swore that, after a fashion, she liked the old woman.
“You’d like anybody, then,” said Nina.
“Indeed I don’t,” said Lucy, thinking at once of Lizzie Eustace.
Lady Fawn planned out the next day with great precision. After breakfast, Lucy and the girls were to spend the morning in the old schoolroom, so that there might be a general explanation as to the doings of the last six months. They were to dine at three, and after dinner there should be the discussion. “Will you come up to my room at four o’clock, my dear?” said Lady Fawn, patting Lucy’s shoulder, in the breakfast-parlour. Lucy knew well why her presence was required. Of course she would come. It would be wise to get it over and have done with it.
At noon Lady Fawn, with her three eldest daughters, went out in the carriage, and Lucy was busy among the others with books and maps and sheets of scribbled music. Nothing was done on that day in the way of instruction; but there was much of half-jocose acknowledgement of past idleness, and a profusion of resolutions of future diligence. One or two of the girls were going to commence a course of reading that would have broken the back of any professor, and suggestions were made as to very rigid rules as to the talking of French and German. “But as we can’t talk German,” said Nina, “we should simply be dumb.” “You’d talk High Dutch, Nina, sooner than submit to that,” said one of the sisters.
The conclave was still sitting in full deliberation, when one of the maids entered the room with a very long face. There was a gentleman in the drawing-room asking for Miss Morris! Lucy, who
