Lady Fawn has seen your letter to me—the dearest letter that ever was written—and she says that you may call upon her. But you mustn’t go away without seeing me too.
Then there was great difficulty as to the words to be used by her for the actual rendering herself up to him as his future wife. At last the somewhat too Spartan simplicity of her nature prevailed, and the words were written, very plain and very short.
I love you better than all the world, and I will be your wife. It shall be the happiness of my life to try to deserve you.
When it was written it did not content her. But the hour was over, and the letters must go. “I suppose it’ll do,” she said to herself. “He’ll know what it means.” And so the letter was sent.
XVI
Certainly an Heirloom
The burden of his position was so heavy on Lord Fawn’s mind that, on the Monday morning after leaving Fawn Court, he was hardly as true to the affairs of India as he himself would have wished. He was resolved to do what was right—if only he could find out what would be the right thing in his present difficulty. Not to break his word, not to be unjust, not to deviate by a hair’s breadth from that line of conduct which would be described as “honourable” in the circle to which he belonged; not to give his political enemies an opportunity for calumny—this was all in all to him. The young widow was very lovely and very rich, and it would have suited him well to marry her. It would still suit him well to do so, if she would make herself amenable to reason and the laws. He had assured himself that he was very much in love with her, and had already, in his imagination, received the distinguished heads of his party at Portray Castle. But he would give all this up—love, income, beauty, and castle—without a doubt, rather than find himself in the mess of having married a wife who had stolen a necklace, and who would not make restitution. He might marry her, and insist on giving it up afterwards; but he foresaw terrible difficulties in the way of such an arrangement. Lady Eustace was self-willed, and had already told him that she did not intend to keep the jewels in his house—but in her own! What should he do, so that no human being—not the most bigoted Tory that ever expressed scorn for a Whig lord—should be able to say that he had done wrong? He was engaged to the lady, and could not simply change his mind and give no reason. He believed in Mr. Camperdown; but he could hardly plead that belief, should he hereafter be accused of heartless misconduct. For aught he knew, Lady Eustace might bring an action against him for breach of promise, and obtain a verdict and damages, and annihilate him as an Undersecretary. How should he keep his hands quite clean?
Frank Greystock was, as far as he knew, Lizzie’s nearest relative in London. The dean was her uncle, but then the dean was down at Bobsborough. It might be necessary for him to go down to Bobsborough;—but in the meantime he would see Frank Greystock. Greystock was as bitter a Tory as any in England. Greystock was the very man who had attacked him, Lord Fawn, in the House of Commons respecting the Sawab—making the attack quite personal—and that without a shadow of a cause! Within the short straight grooves of Lord Fawn’s intellect the remembrance of this supposed wrong was always running up and down, renewing its own soreness. He regarded Greystock as an enemy who would lose no opportunity of injuring him. In his weakness and littleness he was quite unable to judge of other men by himself. He would not go a hair’s breadth astray, if he knew it; but because Greystock had, in debate, called him timid and tyrannical, he believed that Greystock would stop short of nothing that might injure him. And yet he must appeal to Greystock. He did appeal, and in answer to his appeal Frank came to him at the India House. But Frank, before he saw Lord Fawn, had, as was fitting, been with his cousin.
Nothing was decided at this interview. Lord Fawn became more than ever convinced that the member for Bobsborough was his determined enemy, and Frank was more convinced than ever that Lord Fawn was an empty, stiff-necked, self-sufficient prig.
Greystock, of course, took his cousin’s part. He was there to do so; and he himself really did not know whether Lizzie was or was not entitled to the diamonds. The lie which she had first fabricated for the benefit of Mr. Benjamin when she had the jewels valued, and which she had since told with different degrees of precision to various people—to Lady Linlithgow, to Mr. Camperdown, to Lucy, and to Lord Fawn—she now repeated with increased precision to her cousin. Sir Florian, in putting the trinket into her hands, had explained to her that it was very valuable, and that she was to regard it as her own peculiar property. “If it was an heirloom he couldn’t do it,” Frank had said, with all the confidence of a practising barrister.
“He made it over as an heirloom to me,” said Lizzie, with plaintive tenderness.
“That’s nonsense, dear Lizzie.” Then she smiled sweetly on him, and patted the back of his hand with hers. She was
