“But why should there be any fighting?”
Eustace paused a minute, and rubbed his face and considered the matter before he answered. “She is troublesome, you know,” he said.
“What; Lizzie?”
“Yes;—and I begin to be afraid she’ll give us as much as we know how to do. I was with Camperdown today. I’m blessed if she hasn’t begun to cut down a whole side of a forest at Portray. She has no more right to touch the timber, except for repairs about the place, than you have.”
“And if she lives for fifty years,” asked Greystock, “is none to be cut?”
“Yes;—by consent. Of course the regular cutting for the year is done, year by year. That’s as regular as the rents, and the produce is sold by the acre. But she is marking the old oaks. What the deuce can she want money for?”
“Fawn will put all that right.”
“He’ll have to do it,” said Eustace. “Since she has been down with the old Lady Fawn, she has written a note to Camperdown—after leaving all his letters unanswered for the last twelvemonth—to tell him that Lord Fawn is to have nothing to do with her property, and that certain people, called Mowbray and Mopus, are her lawyers. Camperdown is in an awful way about it.”
“Lord Fawn will put it all right,” said Frank.
“Camperdown is afraid that he won’t. They’ve met twice since the engagement was made, and Camperdown says that, at the last meeting, Fawn gave himself airs, or was, at any rate, unpleasant. There were words about those diamonds.”
“You don’t mean to say that Lord Fawn wants to keep your brother’s family jewels?”
“Camperdown didn’t say that exactly;—but Fawn made no offer of giving them up. I wasn’t there, and only heard what Camperdown told me. Camperdown thinks he’s afraid of her.”
“I shouldn’t wonder at that in the least,” said Frank.
“I know there’ll be trouble,” continued Eustace, “and Fawn won’t be able to help us through it. She’s a strong-willed, cunning, obstinate, clever little creature. Camperdown swears he’ll be too many for her, but I almost doubt it.”
“And therefore you wish I were going to marry her?”
“Yes, I do. You might manage her. The money comes from the Eustace property, and I’d sooner it should go to you than a halfhearted, numb-fingered, cold-blooded Whig, like Fawn.”
“I don’t like cunning women,” said Frank.
“As bargains go, it wouldn’t be a bad one,” said Eustace. “She’s very young, has a noble jointure, and is as handsome as she can stand. It’s too good a thing for Fawn;—too good for any Whig.”
When Eustace left him, Greystock lit his cigar and walked with it in his mouth from Pall Mall to the Temple. He often worked there at night when he was not bound to be in the House, or when the House was not sitting—and he was now intent on mastering the mysteries of some much-complicated legal case which had been confided to him, in order that he might present it to a jury enveloped in increased mystery. But, as he went, he thought rather of matrimony than of law;—and he thought especially of matrimony as it was about to affect Lord Fawn. Could a man be justified in marrying for money, or have rational ground for expecting that he might make himself happy by doing so? He kept muttering to himself as he went, the Quaker’s advice to the old farmer, “Doan’t thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is!” But he muttered it as condemning the advice rather than accepting it.
He could look out and see two altogether different kinds of life before him, both of which had their allurements. There was the Belgravia-cum-Pimlico life, the scene of which might extend itself to South Kensington, enveloping the parks and coming round over Park Lane, and through Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square back to Piccadilly. Within this he might live with lords and countesses and rich folk generally, going out to the very best dinner-parties, avoiding stupid people, having everything the world could give, except a wife and family and home of his own. All this he could achieve by the work which would certainly fall in his way, and by means of that position in the world which he had already attained by his wits. And the wife, with the family and house of his own, might be forthcoming, should it ever come in his way to form an attachment with a wealthy woman. He knew how dangerous were the charms of such a life as this to a man growing old among the fleshpots, without anyone to depend upon him. He had seen what becomes of the man who is always dining out at sixty. But he might avoid that. “Doan’t thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is.” And then there was that other outlook, the scene of which was laid somewhere north of Oxford Street, and the glory of which consisted in Lucy’s smile, and Lucy’s hand, and Lucy’s kiss, as he returned home weary from his work.
There are many men, and some women, who pass their lives without knowing what it is to be or to have been in love. They not improbably marry—the men do, at least—and make good average husbands. Their wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live honest lives, are good Christians, and depart hence with hopes as justifiable as though they had loved as well as Romeo. But yet, as men, they have lacked a something, the want of which has made them small and poor and dry. It has never been felt by such a one that there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master
