Lord Fawn was quite at a loss how to begin, and Andy was by no means prepared to help him. “If I am rightly informed,” said the lord, “you have been for many years employed on the Portray property?”
“A’ my life, — so please your lairdship.”
“Just so; — just so. And, of course, interested in the welfare of the Eustace family?”
“Nae doobt, my laird, — nae doobt; vera interasted indeed.”
“And being an honest man, have felt sorrow that the Portray property should — should — should — ; that anything bad should happen to it.” Andy nodded his head, and Lord Fawn perceived that he was nowhere near the beginning of his matter. “Lady Eustace is at present your mistress?”
“Just in a fawshion, my laird, — as a mon may say. That is she is, — and she is nae. There’s a mony things at Portray as ha’ to be lookit after.”
“She pays you your wages?” said Lord Fawn shortly.
“Eh; — wages! Yes, my laird; she does a’ that.”
“Then she’s your mistress.” Andy again nodded his head, and Lord Fawn again struggled to find some way in which he might approach his subject. “Her cousin, Mr. Greystock, has been staying at Portray lately?”
“More coothie than coosinly,” said Andy, winking his eye.
It was dreadful to Lord Fawn that the man should wink his eye at him. He did not quite understand what Andy had last said, but he did understand that some accusation as to indecent familiarity with her cousin was intended to be brought by this Scotch steward against the woman to whom he had engaged himself. Every feeling of his nature revolted against the task before him, and he found that on trial it became absolutely impracticable. He could not bring himself to inquire minutely as to poor Lizzie’s flirting down among the rocks. He was weak, and foolish, and in many respects ignorant, — but he was a gentleman. As he got nearer to the point which it had been intended that he should reach, the more he hated Andy Gowran, — and the more he hated himself for having submitted to such contact. He paused a moment, and then he declared that the conversation was at an end. “I think that will do, Mr. Gowran,” he said. “I don’t know that you can tell me anything I want to hear. I think you had better go back to Scotland.” So saying, he left Andy alone and stalked up to the drawing-room. When he entered it, both Mr. Hittaway and his sister were there. “Clara,” he said very sternly, “you had better send some one to dismiss that man. I shall not speak to him again.”
Lord Fawn did not speak to Andy Gowran again, but Mrs. Hittaway did. After a faint and futile endeavour made by her to ascertain what had taken place in the parlour down-stairs, she descended and found Andy seated in his chair, still holding his hat in his hand, as stiff as a wax figure. He had been afraid of the lord, but as soon as the lord had left him he was very angry with the lord. He had been brought up all that way to tell his story to the lord, and the lord had gone away without hearing a word of it, — had gone away and had absolutely insulted him, had asked him who paid him his wages, and had then told him that Lady Eustace was his mistress. Andy Gowran felt strongly that this was not that kind of confidential usage which he had had a right to expect. And after his experience of the last hour and a half, he did not at all relish his renewed solitude in that room. “A drap of puir thin liquor, — poored out, too, in a weeny glass nae deeper than an egg-shell, — and twa cookies; that’s what she ca’ed — rafrashment!” It was thus that Andy afterwards spoke to his wife of the hospitalities offered to him in Warwick Square, regarding which his anger was especially hot, in that he had been treated like a child or a common labourer, instead of having the decanter left with him to be used at his own discretion. When, therefore, Mrs. Hittaway returned to him, the awe with which new circumstances and the lord had filled him was fast vanishing, and giving place to that stubborn indignation against people in general which was his normal, condition. “I suppose I’m jist to gang bock again to Portray, Mrs. Heetaway, and that’ll be a’ you’ll want o’ me?” This he said the moment the lady entered the room.
But Mrs. Hittaway did not want to lose his services quite so soon. She expressed regret that her brother should have found himself unable to discuss a subject that was naturally so very distasteful to him, and begged Mr. Gowran to come to her again the next morning. “What I saw wi’ my ain twa e’es, Mrs. Heetaway, I saw, — and nane the less because his lairdship may nae find it jist tastefu’, as your leddyship was saying. There were them twa, a’ colloguing, and a-seetting ilk in ither’s laps a’ o’er, and a-keessing, — yes, my leddy, a-keessing as females, not to say males, ought nae to keess, unless they be mon and wife, — and then not amang the rocks, my leddy; and if his lairdship does nae care to hear tell o’ it, and finds it nae tastefu’, as your leddyship was saying, he should nae ha’ sent for Andy Gowran a’ the way from Portray, jist to tell him what he wanna hear, now I’m come to tell’t to him!”
All this was said with so much unction that even Mrs. Hittaway herself found it to be not “tasteful.” She shrunk and shivered under Mr. Gowran’s eloquence, and almost repented of her zeal. But women, perhaps, feel less repugnance than do men at using ignoble assistance in the achievement of good purposes. Though Mrs. Hittaway shrunk and shivered under the strong action with which Mr. Gowran garnished his strong words, still she was sure of the excellence of her purpose; and, believing that useful aid might still be obtained from Andy Gowran, and, perhaps, prudently anxious to get value in return for the cost of the journey up from Ayrshire, she made the man promise to return to her on the following morning.
CHAPTER LX
“Let It Be As Though It Had Never Been”
Between her son, and her married daughter, and Lucy Morris, poor Lady Fawn’s life had become a burthen to her. Everything was astray, and there was no happiness or tranquillity at Fawn Court. Of all simply human creeds the strongest existing creed for the present in the minds of the Fawn ladies was that which had reference to the general iniquity of Lizzie Eustace. She had been the cause of all these sorrows, and she was hated so much the more because she had not been proved to be iniquitous before all the world. There had been a time when it seemed to be admitted that she was so wicked in keeping the diamonds in opposition to the continued demands made for them by Mr. Camperdown, that all people would be justified in dropping her, and Lord Fawn among the number. But since the two robberies, public opinion had veered round three or four points in Lizzie’s favour, and people were beginning to say that she had been ill-used. Then had come Mrs. Hittaway’s evidence as to Lizzie’s wicked doings down in Scotland, — the wicked doings which Andy Gowran had described with a vehemence so terribly moral; and that which had been at first, as it were, added to the diamonds, as a supplementary weight thrown into the scale, so that Lizzie’s iniquities might bring her absolutely to the ground, had gradually assumed the position of being the first charge against her. Lady Fawn had felt no aversion to discussing the diamonds. When Lizzie was called a “thief,” and a “robber,” and a “swindler” by one or another of the ladies of the family, — who, in using those strong terms, whispered the words as ladies are wont to do when they desire to lessen the impropriety of the strength of their language by the gentleness of the tone in which the words are spoken, — when Lizzie was thus described in Lady Fawn’s hearing in her own house, she had felt no repugnance to it. It was well that the fact should be known, so that everybody might be aware that her son was doing right in refusing to marry so wicked a lady. But when the other thing was added to it; when the story was told of what Mr. Gowran had seen among the rocks, and when gradually that became the special crime which was to justify her son in dropping the lady’s acquaintance, then Lady Fawn became very unhappy, and found the subject to be, as Mrs. Hittaway had described it, very distasteful.
And this trouble hit Lucy Morris as hard as it did Lord Fawn. If Lizzie Eustace was unfit to marry Lord Fawn because of these things, then was Frank Greystock not only unfit to marry Lucy, but most unlikely to do so, wheth
er fit or unfit. For a week or two Lady Fawn had allowed herself to share Lucy’s joy, and to believe that Mr. Greystock would prove himself true to the girl whose heart he had made all his own; — but she had soon learned to distrust the young member of Parliament who was always behaving insolently to her son, who spent his holidays down with Lizzie Eustace, who never visited and rarely wrote to the girl he had promised to marry, and as to whom all the world agreed in saying that he was far too much in debt to marry any woman who had not means to help him. It was all sorrow and vexation together; and yet when her married daughter would press the subject upon her, and demand her co-operation, she had no power of escaping. “Mamma,” Mrs. Hittaway had said, “Lady Glencora Palliser has been with her, and everybody is taking her up, and if her conduct down in Scotland isn’t proved, Frederic will be made to marry her.” “But what can I do, my dear?” Lady Fawn had asked, almost in tears. “Insist that Frederic shall know the whole truth,” replied Mrs. Hittaway with energy. “Of course, it is very disagreeable. Nobody can feel it more than I do. It is horrible to have to talk about such things, — and to think of them.” “Indeed it is, Clara, — very horrible.” “But anything, mamma, is better than that Frederic should be allowed to marry such a woman as that. It must be proved to him — how unfit she is to be his wife.” With the view of carrying out this intention, Mrs. Hittaway had, as we have seen, received Andy Gowran at her own house; and with the same view she took Andy Gowran the following morning down to Richmond.
Mrs. Hittaway, and her mother, and Andy were closeted together for half an hour, and Lady Fawn suffered grievously. Lord Fawn had found that he couldn’t hear the story, and he had not heard it. He had been strong enough to escape, and had, upon the whole, got the best of it in the slight skirmish which had taken place between him and the Scotchman; but poor old Lady Fawn could not escape. Andy was allowed to be eloquent, and the whole story was told to her, though she would almost sooner have been flogged at a cart’s tail than have heard it. Then “rafrashments” were administered to Andy of a nature which made him prefer Fawn Court to Warwick Square, and he was told that he might go back to Portray as soon as he pleased.
When he was gone, Mrs. Hittaway opened her mind to her mother altogether. “The truth is, mamma, that Frederic will marry her.”
“But why? I thought that he had declared that he would give it up. I thought that he had said so to herself.”
“What of that, if he retracts what he said? He is so weak. Lady Glencora Palliser has made him promise to go and see her; and he is to go to-day. He is there now, probably, — at this very moment. If he had been firm, the thing was done. After all that has taken place, nobody would ever have supposed that his engagement need go for anything. But what can he say to her now that he is with her, except just do the mischief all over again? I call it quite wicked in that woman’s interfering. I do, indeed! She’s a nasty, insolent, impertinent creature; — that’s what she is! After all the trouble I’ve taken, she comes and undoes it all with one word.”
“What can we do, Clara?”
“Well; — I do believe that if Frederic could be made to act as he ought to do, just for a while, she would marry her cousin, Mr. Greystock, and then there would be an end of it altogether. I really think that she likes him best, and from all that I can hear, she would take him now, if Frederic would only keep out of the way. As for him, of course he is doing his very best to get her. He has not one shilling to rub against another, and is over head and ears in debt.”
“Poor Lucy!” ejaculated Lady Fawn.
“Well; — yes; but really that is a matter of course. I always thought, mamma, that you and Amelia were a little wrong to coax her up in that belief.”
“But, my dear, the man proposed for her in the plainest possible manner. I saw his letter.”
“No doubt; — men do propose. We all know that. I’m sure I don’t know what they get by it, but I suppose it amuses them. There used to be a sort of feeling that if a man behaved badly something would be done to him; but that’s all over now. A man may propose to whom he likes, and if he chooses to say afterwards that it doesn’t mean anything, there’s nothing in the world to bring him to book.”
“That’s very hard,” said the elder lady, of whom everybody said that she did not understand the world as well as her daughter.
“The girls, — they all know that it is so, and I suppose it comes to the same thing in the long run. The men have to marry, and what one girl loses another girl gets.”
“It will kill Lucy.”
“Girls ain’t killed so easy, mamma; — not now-a-days. Saying that it will kill her won’t change the man’s nature. It wasn’t to be expected that such a man as Frank Greystock, in debt, and in Parliament, and going to all the best houses, should marry your governess. What was he to get by it? That’s what I want to know.”
“I suppose he loved her.”
“Laws, mamma, how antediluvian you are! No doubt he did like her, — after his fashion; though what he saw in her, I never could tell. I think Miss Morris would make a very nice wife for a country clergyman who didn’t care how poor things were. But she has no style; — and as far as I can see, she has no beauty. Why should such a man as Frank Greystock tie himself by the leg for ever to such a girl as that? But, mamma, he doesn’t mean to marry Lucy Morris. Would he have been going on in that way with his cousin down in Scotland had he meant it? He means nothing of the kind. He means to marry Lady Eustace’s income if he can get it; — and she would marry him before the summer if only we could keep Frederic away from her.”
Mrs. Hittaway demanded from her mother that in season and out of season she should be urgent with Lord Fawn, impressing upon him the necessity of waiting, in order that he might see how false Lady Eustace was to him; and also that she should teach Lucy Morris how vain were all her hopes. If Lucy Morris would withdraw her claims altogether the thing might probably be more quickly and more surely managed. If Lucy could be induced to tell Frank that she withdrew her claim, and that she saw how impossible it was that they should ever be man and wife, then, — so argued Mrs. Hittaway, — Frank would at once throw himself at his cousin’s feet, and all the difficulty would be over. The abominable, unjustifiable, and insolent interference of Lady Glencora just at the present moment would be the means of undoing all the good that had been done, unless it could be neutralised by some such activity as this. The necklace had absolutely faded away into nothing. The sly creature was almost becoming a heroine on the strength of the necklace. The very mystery with which the robberies were pervaded was acting in her favour. Lord Fawn would absolutely be made to marry her, — forced into it by Lady Glencora and that set, — unless the love affair between her and her cousin, of which Andy Gowran was able to give such sufficient testimony, could in some way be made available to prevent it.
The theory of life and system on which social matters should be managed, as displayed by her married daughter, was very painful to poor old Lady Fawn. When she was told that under the new order of things promises from gentlemen were not to be looked upon as binding, that love was to go for nothing, that girls were to be made contented by being told that when one lover was lost another could be found, she was very unhappy. She could not disbelieve it all, and throw herself back upon her faith in virtue, constancy, and honesty. She rather thought that things had changed for the worse since she was young, and that promises were not now as binding as they used to be. She herself had married into a Liberal family, had a Liberal son, and would have called herself a Liberal; but she could not fail to hear from others, her neighbours, that the English manners, and English principles, and English society were all going to destruction in consequence of the so-called liberality of the age. Gentlemen, she thought, certainly did do things which gentlemen would not have done forty years ago; and as for ladies, — they, doubtless, were changed altogether. Most assuredly she could not have brought an Andy Gowran to her mother to tell such tales in their joint presence as this man
had told!
Mrs. Hittaway had ridiculed her for saying that poor Lucy would die when forced to give up her lover. Mrs. Hittaway had spoken of the necessity of breaking up that engagement without a word of anger against Frank Greystock. According to Mrs. Hittaway’s views Frank Greystock had amused himself in the most natural way in the world when he asked Lucy to be his wife. A governess like Lucy had been quite foolish to expect that such a man as Greystock was in earnest. Of course she must give up her lover; and if there must be blame, she must blame herself for her folly! Nevertheless, Lady Fawn was so soft-hearted that she believed that the sorrow would crush Lucy, even if it did not kill her.
But not the less was it her duty to tell Lucy what she thought to be the truth. The story of what had occurred among the rocks at Portray was very disagreeable, but she believed it to be true. The man had been making love to his cousin after his engagement to Lucy. And then, was it not quite manifest that he was neglecting poor Lucy in every way? He had not seen her for nearly six months. Had he intended to marry her, would he not have found a home for her at the deanery? Did he in any respect treat her as he would treat the girl whom he intended to marry? Putting all these things together, Lady Fawn thought that she saw that Lucy’s case was hopeless; — and, so thinking, wrote to her the following letter: —
Fawn Court, 3rd March, 18––.
Dearest Lucy,
I have so much to say to you that I did think of getting Lady Linlithgow to let you come to us here for a day, but I believe it will perhaps be better that I should write. I think you leave Lady Linlithgow after the first week in April, and it is quite necessary that you should come to some fixed arrangement as to the future. If that were all, there need not be any trouble, as you will come here, of course. Indeed, this is your natural home, as we all feel; and I must say that we have missed you most terribly since you went, — not only for Cecilia and Nina, but for all of us. And I don’t know that I should write at all if it wasn’t for something else, that must be said sooner or later; — because, as to your coming here in April, that is so much a matter of course. The only mistake was, that you should ever have gone away. So we shall expect you here on whatever day you may arrange with Lady Linlithgow as to leaving her.
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