Frank Greystock stayed the Sunday in London and went down to Bobsborough on the Monday. His father and mother and sister all knew of his engagement to Lucy, and they had heard also that Lady Eustace was to become Lady Fawn. Of the necklace they had hitherto heard very little, and of the quarrel between the two lovers they had heard nothing. There had been many misgivings at the deanery, and some regrets, about these marriages. Mrs. Greystock, Frank’s mother, was, as we are so wont to say of many women, the best woman in the world. She was unselfish, affectionate, charitable, and thoroughly feminine. But she did think that her son Frank, with all his advantages, good looks, cleverness, general popularity, and seat in Parliament, might just as well marry an heiress as a little girl without twopence in the world. As for herself, who had been born a Jackson, she could do with very little; but the Greystocks were all people who wanted money. For them there was never more than ninepence in a shilling, if so much. They were a race who could not pay their way with moderate incomes. Even the dear dean, who really had a conscience about money, and who hardly ever left Bobsborough, could not be kept quite clear of debt, let her do what she would. As for the admiral, the dean’s elder brother, he had been notorious for insolvency; and Frank was a Greystock all over. He was the very man to whom money with a wife was almost a necessity of existence.
And his pretty cousin, the widow, who was devoted to him, and would have married him at a word, had ever so many thousands a year! Of course Lizzie Eustace was not just all that she should be; but then who is? In one respect, at any rate, her conduct had always been proper. There was no rumour against her as to lovers or flirtations. She was very young, and Frank might have moulded her as he pleased. Of course there were regrets. Poor dear little Lucy Morris was as good as gold. Mrs. Greystock was quite willing to admit that. She was not good-looking; so at least Mrs. Greystock said. She never would allow that Lucy was good-looking. And she didn’t see much in Lucy, who, according to her idea, was a little chit of a thing. Her position was simply that of a governess. Mrs. Greystock declared to her daughter that no one in the whole world had a higher respect for governesses than had she. But a governess is a governess; and for a man in Frank’s position such a marriage would be simply suicide.
“You shouldn’t say that, mamma, now; for it’s fixed,” said Ellinor Greystock.
“But I do say it, my dear. Things sometimes are fixed which must be unfixed. You know your brother.”
“Frank is earning a large income, mamma.”
“Did you ever know a Greystock who didn’t want more than his income?”
“I hope I don’t, mamma, and mine is very small.”
“You’re a Jackson. Frank is Greystock to the very backbone. If he marries Lucy Morris he must give up Parliament. That’s all.”
The dean himself was more reticent and less given to interference than his wife; but he felt it also. He would not for the world have hinted to his son that it might be well to marry money; but he thought that it was a good thing that his son should go where money was. He knew that Frank was apt to spend his guineas faster than he got them. All his life long the dean had seen what came of such spending. Frank had gone out into the world and had prospered, but he could hardly continue to prosper unless he married money. Of course there had been regrets when the news came of that fatal engagement with Lucy Morris. “It can’t be for the next ten years, at any rate,” said Mrs. Greystock.
“I thought at one time that he would have made a match with his cousin,” said the dean.
“Of course; so did everybody,” replied Mrs. Dean.
Then Frank came among them. He had intended staying some weeks, perhaps for a month, and great preparations were made for him; but immediately on his arrival he announced the necessity that was incumbent on him of going down again to Scotland in ten days. “You’ve heard about Lizzie, of course,” he said. They had heard that Lizzie was to become Lady Fawn, but beyond that they had heard nothing. “You know about the necklace?” asked Frank. Something of a tale of a necklace had made its way even down to quiet Bobsborough. They had been informed that there was a dispute between the widow and the executors of the late Sir Florian about some diamonds. “Lord Fawn is behaving about it in the most atrocious manner,” continued Frank, “and the long and the short of it is that there will be no marriage!”
“No marriage!” exclaimed Mrs. Greystock.
“And what is the truth about the diamonds?” asked the dean.
“Ah; it will give the lawyers a job before they decide that. They’re very valuable; worth about ten thousand pounds, I’m told; but the most of it will go among some of my friends at the Chancery bar. It’s a pity that I should be out of the scramble myself.”
“But why should you be out?” asked his mother with tender regrets, not thinking of the matter as her son was thinking of it, but feeling that when there was so much wealth so very near him, he ought not to let it all go past him.
“As far as I can see,” continued Frank, “she has a fair claim to them. I suppose they’ll file a bill in Chancery, and then it will be out of my line altogether. She says her husband gave them to her, absolutely put them on her neck himself, and told her that they were hers. As to their being an heirloom, that turns out to be impossible. I didn’t know it, but it seems you can’t make diamonds an heirloom. What astonishes me is, that Fawn should object to the necklace. However, he has objected, and has simply told her that he won’t marry her unless she gives them up.”
“And what does she say?”
“Storms and raves, as of course any woman would. I don’t think she is behaving badly. What she wants is, to reduce him to obedience, and then to dismiss him. I think that is no more than fair. Nothing on earth would make her marry him now.”
“Did she ever care for him?”
“I don’t think she ever did. She found her position to be troublesome, and she thought she had better marry. And then he’s a lord, which always goes for something.”
“I am sorry you should have so much trouble,” said Mrs. Greystock. But in truth the mother was not sorry. She did not declare to herself that it would be a good thing that her son should be false to Lucy Morris in order that he might marry his rich cousin; but she did feel it to be an advantage that he should be on terms of intimacy with so large an income as that belonging to Lady Eustace. “Doan’t thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is.” Mrs. Greystock would have repudiated the idea of mercenary marriages in any ordinary conversation, and would have been severe on any gentleman who was false to a young lady. But it is so hard to bring one’s general principles to bear on one’s own conduct or in one’s own family; and then the Greystocks were so peculiar a people! When her son told her that he must go down to Scotland again very shortly, she reconciled herself to his loss. Had he left Bobsborough for the sake of being near Lucy at Richmond, she would have felt it very keenly.
Days passed by, and nothing was said about poor Lucy. Mrs. Greystock had made up her mind that she would say nothing on the subject. Lucy had behaved badly in allowing herself to be loved by a man who ought to have loved money, and Mrs. Greystock had resolved that she would show her feelings by silence. The dean had formed no fixed determination, but he had thought that it might be, perhaps, as well to drop the subject. Frank himself was unhappy about it; but from morning to evening, and from day to day, he allowed it to pass by without a word. He knew that it should not be so, that silence was in truth treachery to Lucy; but he was silent. What had he meant when, as he left Lizzie Eustace among the rocks at Portray, in that last moment, he had assured her that he would be true to her? And what had been Lizzie’s meaning? He was more sure of Lizzie’s meaning than he was of his own. “It’s a very rough world to live in,” he said to himself in these days, as he thought of his difficulties.
But when he had been nearly a week at the deanery, and when the day of his going was so near as to be a matter of concern, his sister did at last venture to say a word about Lucy. “I suppose there is nothing settled about your own marriage, Frank?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Nor will be for some while?”
“Nor will be for some while.” This he said in a tone which he himself felt to be ill-humoured and almost petulant. And he felt also that such ill-humour on such a subject was unkind, not to his sister, but to Lucy. It seemed to imply that the matter of his marriage was distasteful to him. “The truth is,” he said, “that nothing can be fixed. Lucy understands that as well as I do. I am not in a position at once to marry a girl who has nothing. It’s a pity, perhaps, that one can’t train one’s self to like some girl best that has got money; but as I haven’t, there must be some delay. She is to stay where she is, at any rate for a twelvemonth.”
“But you mean to see her?”
“Well, yes; I hardly know how I can see her, as I have quarrelled to the knife with Lord Fawn; and Lord Fawn is recognised by his mother and sister a............